#they're bad but not in a good way like the original trilogy

[stripedtabbycat]

i am also aware that my standards for "bad movies" are perhaps exceedingly generous, such that i could never declare any of the films i have seen as "the worst", and for this reason i can never look at the notes or comments of any "what's the worst movie you've ever seen" post because i know it'll be full of people who do not have my standards and have also not seen very many movies

[nicosaysnope]

i do find it very interesting how different the foxes and the trojans go about caring for and supporting each other. well, actually, i mostly find it interesting how differently people seem to feel about it, especially in regards to kevin's drinking problem.

the way kevin's clearly unhealthy relationship with alcohol doesn't get condemned or fixed in the original trilogy for example is something that many people in the fandom have been pretty upset and critical about for many years and jean's reaction to it seemed to have really moved people (though that in particular, imo, had at least as much to do with jean's very restricted and in itself unhealthy relationship to food and drinks as with him uniquely seeing and caring about kevin's substance abuse issues. like, yeah, he really, really cares about him, but i don't think he'd have been thaaat much less upset if kevin was coping by eating chips or something. but well, whatever).

but to me, that never really read as no one caring about kevin or thinking alcohol is the ideal way for him to regulate his emotions.

the whole premise of how wymack runs the foxes and how they treat each other is just very built around the idea that all these people have been through awful things and that the way they'll cope with that won't always be pretty. but as long as they cope at all, they'll be around for another day, and another, which'll buy them to actually get better.

which is how you get stuff like wymack, in good conscience, not only tolerating but at times even soliciting underage drinking. and looking past the harder drugs some of the team are doing. and it's how him and the team all accept that neil is definitely lying about pretty much everything but mostly just leave him be. and how they all agreed to let andrew get off his legally mandated medication during games even though that could have terrible consequences for all of them. and how matt's mom said "sure random eighteen year old calling me on the phone, do give my addict son speedballs, you seem to have a higher success rate at getting teenagers clean than me 👍" because they all view life less as you're either doing good or you doing bad, and more as you're either surviving whatever it takes to do so, or you don't, so who cares if you aren't coping in healthy or acceptable ways, as long as you are coping. (and then once they're ready to work on getting better, they do have a support system in place to help them get there)

meanwhile the trojans are mostly pretty normal and well adjusted, so they have a pretty clear idea of what a healthy person who's doing well looks like, and that's what they generally want for other people, especially those they care about. so when they see someone who's not doing well and not dealing with it in healthy ways they are very direct about it, sort of a "your behaviour is not healthy, stop doing it" thing. your eating habits are really restrictive? try eating different food anyways, it's really good, i prommy. you hurt yourself when you're upset? here's how to physically stop this from hurting. you get incredibly startled when you're touched unexpectedly? well, just let me try hugging you again. you drink to deal with your feelings? please don't, it's not good for you.

and obviously that's a lot more normal and straight forward than what the foxes are doing, and it's done with love and support. and a lot of fans find it very moving and beautiful and sweet. but i also know that i'm not the only person who was really put off by this and still finds it kinda disconcerting. to me it feels, especially in contrast to the foxes, who would largely find this sooo overbearing and rude and uncomfortable, kinda like strongarming someone into doing well, with (at least in the context of these specific books) shockingly little regard for personal boundaries.

my point isn't that one's better than the other or anything, i think both approaches are going to work differently well for different people and within the books it makes perfect sense why the different teams would act this way, and it's also perfectly understandable why some people really resonate with one approach and find the other irritating or unkind. it's simply some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head. building up to: nothing really. oh well

[opentanie]

Trying to find a way to fix SotR, a short essay by yours truly.

(Mind you, I'm still reading this book but it doesn't matter - we all know how it ends, not only due to reading Catching Fire, but also because this book is almost offensivly predictable in most aspects. So, these are not my final thoughts, but my proposition how the book could be improved in my humble opinion.)

First and foremost, don't make Haymitch a narrator, except for the epilogue. Because Haymitch brings nothing new to the table as POV: he's a boy from the Seam, half-orphan with one sibling who he loves very much or at least we're supposed to believe that because he struggles to find a fuck about anything else than Lenore Dove alas, all we've already seen. We know this perspective. Instead, give us two narrators: Maysilee Donner and Lenore Dove. One for describing the games from the inside, and give us a peek into Capitol 24 years prior to the og trilogy, and one to let us finally take a look into districts when the game is on. Especially since, as someone pointed out, 2nd Quarrel seems like a moment when the anger in districts started to slowly outweight the fear of Capitol - because this time they took almost fifty children, and it's both horrifying and, against Snow's wishes, makes them realize for the first time that the numbers are on their side, not their opressor's. This would also fix the problem of us not knowing much about Haymitch life before the games: because Lenore Dove is part of this life, so what would she do in this scenario? Try to help Abernathys by taking over some of Haymitch's duties in the household? Spent time with their mutual friends, when they're forced to watch the games, so at least they could have emotional support while doing so? Also, having Haymitch as the narrator of the epilogue, outliving both POVs who told the story of the quarrell, matches him being the only survivor of the arena.

Having Lenore Dove as POV could avoid adapting the Covey as some sort of noble savages, who live sort of outside the system, and are so much more aware than others. The Covey we know from TBOSAS are just a bunch of young people who were forced to live in one place, with no adults to take care of them, and by the end of that book they took another blow, losing their unofficial leader. Show us the real Covey, two middle aged, lonely men raising a girl, who clearly romanticizes Lucy Gray - which in itself tells us, how dear her memory is held. Seeing Lucy Gray through Lenore Dove's eyes could even serve as a good commentary on glorification and dehumanization of inspiring figures: something we can currently see with people thirsting over Luigi instead of focusing on his case, and even with the weird woobification some people do to Bisan ("if Bisan die, we riot" etc), as if she isn't reporting on mass genocide for people to focus on the entire situation, not her. It was something only briefly touched upon in the og trilogy, and it was seen from Katniss' perspective, when she was the subject of that, so, unlike what we actually got, it would be something new in SC's commentary.

Don't retcon Haymitch's personality. Let him be cocky and arrogant, it doesn't automatically mean he's a bad person. Hell, he was like that through three books and readers loved him, so it's not like it isn't even a safe option (and SotR chooses safe options for itsplot through and through). Moreover, it's a possibility for another commentary: sexism. Because Maysilee is rude and confident too, but she's treated like a bitch, while Haymitch is a loveable rascal. By keeping Haymitch's original personality, the book would allow them to be each other narrative mirrors - different backgrounds, different lives, but similar personalities. Show us both how differently they're treated back in D12, and how differently Capitol approaches them because of their gender, when they say similar things.

Bring Chaff in. If you don't remember, who Chaff is, don't worry - Suzanne Collins seems to forget as well! Anyways, Chaff is the victor of 45th Hunger Games, and Haymitch's friend, who lives in D11. He could be very easily vowed into the plot by assuming that usually every tribute has their own mentor, so D12 this year gets three: Mags, Wiress and Chaff (and none for Louella, as she still dies in this version before they arrive in the apartament). Not only for the development of his and Haymitch's relationship, but also to give his character some depth. I think Mags and Wiress' relationship with Loose Cannons was actually one of the bright points for the book, so Chaff having interactions with both LC and the other two mentors could work well.

Don't shy away from romance. Not because of fanservice reasons, but because it can compell the narrative and give the story another layer. With prequel like SotR you obviously need some parallels to the source material, but you can twist them - and Maysilee and Lenore Dove are perfect for that. Whether you like Gale or not, Lenore Dove is Gale of this story, even in the og book, no matter how SC avoids this comparison bc people don't like Gale. She already shares emotional connection with Haymitch, she lives life similar to his, she despises the merchant families from D12 (her constant criticisms of Maysilee...), she's open in her hatred for the Capitol - but in the end, all she could do in SotR was to sing some songs, unlike Gale, who was the first one to push for resistance in D12. So show Lenore Dove as this initially strong person, who gets challenged by reality, and it turns out that she isn't as tough as she thought of herself. On the opposite side we have Maysilee, or Peeta of this equation. A merchant kid, conventionally attractive (pale, blonde etc), with implied not-so-pleasant family life (her comment about her mother choosing clothes for her and her sister implies some sort of lack of control of her life even in her household) - but, unlike Peeta, she's angry. And she doesn't try to appeal to people, she bares her teeth at them, which they don't even expect of her, giving her proper looks and cool attitude. The romance doesn't have to be outright spelled out to readers, it can only be implied that Haymitch and Maysilee's trauma bonding is getting into territories dangerous for his relationship with Lenore Dove. Just don't throw that damn sibling line out of the blue and let readers decide for themselves, how they read it. Having said that, I believe that Snow would definitely frame this version of Haymitch and Maysilee as romantic to get on Lenore Dove's nerve, as in his head she's merely a Lucy Gray's proxy.

NO PLANNED RIOT PLOTLINE. We already had that in CF, and it clearly wasn't in Collins' head while writing about Haymitch's games in there for one obvious reason: Capitol would never let Mags or Wiress or Beetee live, if that was the case. Sure, those characters still should provide the tributes with some informations that would be useful later in the plot, but the entire idea of Newcomers is about these kids grasping the reality that they outnumber the enemy. Let them use this and decide to ruin the arena as the one last hurrah from them because they know they're going to die, so might as well show Capitol that they're here. That they matter. We had small act of defiance in the very first book with the berries, but everything after that was some sort of greater secret scheme - so let's go back to the roots, and let the tributes be the initiators. Let their riot inspire the rebellion, be the first spark and the start. Leave. The. Agency. To. The. Tributes. Bonus gain? Avoiding of accidental ableism by retconning Wiress' autism-coded behavior and Mags functioning despite implied stroke as the effects of Capitol torture. Not everything has to be the evil caused by the Capitol! Mags entire arc in Catching Fire was so moving and powerful because it was a woman so old, she couldn't even talk anymore, yet she still decided to save people.

ENOUGH OF THE DAMN RETCON JUST TO SHOW THAT EVERYONE ARE CONNECTED. Yeah, D12 is small, the Seam is even smaller, so it's obvious Burdock and Haymitch knew each other and were probably friendly, but WHAT IS THE POINT OF MAKING THEM SUPER BESTIES, WHEN HAYMITCH NEVER MENTIONED ANYTHING ABOUT IT IN THE OG BOOKS? While it's obvious that he could influence Katniss through that the moment he started to care about her winning? How come that Katniss never knew anything about the Covey, if it was still alive and well with her dad apparently having more than one Covey relative? (And how big is Covey anyways? I feel like SC doesn't know either). Just stop with the fanservice ffs. And yeah, Effie totally was in D12 for the last 24 years. Totally. Apparently, Katniss is just an idiot who doesn't understand what she sees.

While we're at it, stop making Capitol look stupid. I can buy Snow letting Haymitch live after the parade because he decided it's a better punishment to have him fear the unknown - but that's as far, as my suspension of disbelief can go. The Second Quarrell was supposed to be the biggest event ever held by Capitol until 75th games, yet there's a fuckup after fuckup. I know it's supposed to show us how neglected D12 is, but I think it could be done without making Snow look like a fucking idiot, who's apparently not feared enough by organizers, if they aren't afraid of screwing something up. That being said, the accident on the parade can still play out similarly to how it happened, simply because accidents happen, especially with 48 people in the chariots. I could make entire bulletpoint just about how badly Snow is written in this book for the sake of reminding people of Snowbaird, but not having Haymitch as POV during their encounter before introducing Lou Lou basically erases this problem. We still could see that Snow is not over Lucy Gray, and will be forever bitter about it without spelled it out in the most riddiculous way possible.

Remember the love triangle plot I proposed? It also helps with Haymitch as a middle-aged man still longing after his dead, teenage girlfriend. It's not romantic, it's creepy - and Suzanne Collins knows it too, because she makes sure to let readers know that he totally sees her in his imagination as if she grew old with him. While never letting that one teenage love go suits Snow, because he's an evil person who never develops emotionally, it doesn't suit Haymitch's characterization; moreover, it doesn't work as a narrative foil for Snowbaird, because Lenore Dove never decided to stay with Haymitch. She's dead, and it's not her ghost, only his fantasy of her. But where's Maysilee's place in all of this, if she's dead too? Well, that's kinda the point. Maysilee, the girl with whom he emotionally cheated with on his girlfriend, and also the first death for which he can blame himself. And when she dies, he promises himself that he'll never let Lenore Dove know the truth, that he will lie about what she saw on tv, especially after learning that Lenore Dove is the only one left for him, because his family is dead too - and then, Lenore Dove dies as well (in this version, still by Haymitch's unknowing hand, but I think it could be executed better), filling Haymitch with regret that he could neither stay loyal, nor save her. The geese metaphor would be fine, if SC did fact checking and knew that geese mourn for a long period of time but eventually can find another partner. Haymitch can still mourn the girl(s) he loved, but the period of mourning ends for him when the war ends, and there won't be any more dead girls like Maysilee and Lenore Dove. Of course, since I hate how Haymitch's entire mourning in the books was retconned into a single target, the girls are not the only ones he mourns, his family, Louella, Lou Lou, and the tributes from the next 23 years are also what haunts him - but his two love interests have a special place in the line because the regret of 'casuing' their deaths is mixed with personal regrets of very grounded teenage mistakes that couldn't reach any resolution. And when the war ends, the world in which his two biggest regrets died, ends as well, so he can finally heal with his family of choice: Katniss, Peeta, and Effie too (honestly, I think even SC believes that movies handled Effie better than her in Mockingjay). We don't need another romance in the epilogue, but we need the spark of hope that it can happen. Not necessarly with Effie, Asterid would be a reasonable narrative choice as well, but don't just leave this man who lived a lonely, miserable life still hanging onto his high school sweetheart. And, for the love of god, if you have to involve poetry, just don't choose the poem that tells you directly that he will never meet his lost love in the afterlife:

Even with all these changes, I think SotR would be a very unnecessary book, but miles more respectful for both the readers and the established characters.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, I guess.

[iloveyourchocolatebar]

The thing I've always loved most about aa4 is how much darker the tone is than the rest of the series in a way that isn't just edgy for the sake of it, but subverts your expectations from the original 3 games in a really interesting way. The trilogy was built upon the trust Phoenix had in others, and it was something we as players could almost always feel certain in. AA4 flips this on its head and makes it so Apollo effectively can't trust anyone but himself.

Your mentor, who the in the trilogy was a paragon of wisdom you could always turn to no matter what, gets revealed to be the culprit and sent to jail in the first trial and by the end of the game his list of crimes has stacked high but you still have so few answers on why he did any of it.

Your boss, the goofy protagonist of the trilogy, is now inexplicably a washed-up, disgraced, cheating poker player with an implied drinking problem who seemingly found a new hobby in evidence forgery and jury rigging.

He has a codependent relationship with his daughter, your assistant, who usually is a completely innocent and hapless victim of circumstance. She sees herself as the provider for the house and will help her father cheat at poker, or forge evidence, or guilt trip the poor attorney they knowingly screwed of out of a job into working for them for dirt cheap.

The detective, the only other returning main character, a previous assistant, is completely changed since we last saw her. In the trilogy she was chipper and bright despite the hardships she faced, and now she's unfriendly and burned out, turned bitter by the world. The scene we're first properly introduced to her in Apollo genuinely spends several minutes thinking his boss is making him bribe her with cocaine.

Every single defendant is a criminal guilty of something other than what they're charged for. Each case centers around an underground black-market poker ring, a mafia family and medical malpractice, a smuggling ring, and a family of forgers and an incredibly shady troupe of magicians. The one thing all of these people have in common is that none of them will tell you literally anything about what's happening, half of them clearly reveling in being as big of cryptic assholes as possible.

The only person who doesn't fit this description is, for once, the prosecutor. Usually your biggest obstacle and the most morally corrupt of the main cast, he's the only person who's both 100% on the side of truth and on the same page as you for the entire game. He's just as clueless as you, being used nothing more than a chess piece just like you are.

But the truly masterful thing about AA4 is how morally grey it is. These characters aren't just one note villains. They're not even villains at all. Most of them aren't even malicious.

Your boss, for all the low levels he stoops to, is underneath it all the same guy he's always been, doing everything he can to bring a criminal to justice and protect his family. Your assistant is a sweet girl who truly cares about you, she's just prioritizing herself and her fathers safety before anything else. The detective is the same passionate and kind woman under everything else. The rest of the defendants are genuinely well-meaning young people who got involved in shady stuff they didn't fully understand.

The game is filled with good people trying to make the best of bad circumstances. The game has just as many fun moments as the original trilogy. For all it's rough appearance, the game has a similar heart. For every unanswered question or unrighted wrong, there's a smile or a hope for a better future. For every bad action, there's usually someone trying their best behind it. The game is melancholic and dark, but isn't afraid to let good shine through. It knows there's no shadows without the light.

[sunderedstar]

good books of 2024

according to meeee.

there is no order here, at least one of these was published ages ago, I'm just working my way through my 2024 timeline, godspeed spiderman. 🫡

Metal from Heaven

surprise hit of 2024. top of the charts. stunning, spectacular. gorgeous. Metal from Heaven FUCKS. almost every single main character is an explicit spicy toxic hot mess of a lesbian committing literal highway/train robbery, the bad guy is literally named Industry, leading to such peak sentences as "I am going to kill Industry." the prose is synesthetic in a way that most writers cannot sustain for a full novel but which here culminates in a moment of pure blissful Neon Genesis Evangelion that I will not elaborate on due to spoilers. the author pulls out the FUNNIEST lines, and also the most abrupt and heartbreaking tragedies. we're not here to be subtle, we're here to put the pedal to the metal until the engine explodes. such a damning, whip smart condemnation of industry, capitalism, power. all in the form of Lesbians. also the phrase 'clown orgy' is mentioned. this shit is like gideon the ninth with CRUNCH. NSFW.

but don't take my word for it. take amal el-mohtar's.

Absolution

Absolution is a hard book. requires thought and rigor at all times to absorb what's going on - and also a reread of the entire trilogy beforehand, because there's time travel nuance involved, which makes it next to impossible to sum up the plot coherently on its own without spoiling things. jeff vandermeer described it partially as 'fuck that alligator from the movie' and - valid. the first 60% had me; the later section...swapped gears drastically, which meant it took a while to hit its stride (aka until it reached Area X again). in hindsight I was just not prepared for one of the POVs to be the Freudian, violently stoned, unreliable narrator love-child of Karkat and Dave Strider whose perception/conception of the heart of the Southern Reach is extremely phallic. and then suddenly cannibalism happens. I liked Annihilation and Acceptance better, but damn. it almost feels like this should be the set up to another trilogy. much 2 think about.

Yield Under Great Persuasion

I don't know why I didn't hear anything about this one before it came out! (instead, I only saw posts about rowland's other book released this year, running close to the wind - which sadly did not hit for me at all). Yield Under Great Persuasion is just ridiculous enough to be fantastic. stubborn little gremlin man, big mad about Pumpkingate years after the original inciting incident that set him at odds with his love interest, attempts to pack his little rucksack and run away from all his self-inflicted gay problems, fails, is forced to deal with said personal problems by direct goddess-intervention. you know it's gonna be good when the guys are hate-banging by page 2. a short, delightful mix of (extremely silly and low-stakes) enemies to lovers and hurt/comfort and working out your emotional and communication issues on page style comfort food. self-indulgent in a fanfic way that is rowland's trademark in a taste of gold and iron (which was also fantastic and probably deserves a reread now.) NSFW.

The Spellshop

between this and yield under great persuasion there's an odd cozy fantasy pairing here. a self-isolated shut-in spellbook librarian who lives for her work escapes the fall of her city and sets up shop back in her old hometown on a severely magic-deprived island. there's some internalized trauma being worked through, against a simply charming backdrop of community and solidarity and magic spells. really. I was. charmed. which is a rare reaction on my part.

The Hunter's Gonna Lay Low

the curveball of the list, The Hunter's Gonna Lay Low is a translated (gay) Korean web novel, and it's the perfect intersection of a decent translator meeting an author who knows what they're doing. notorious tumblr user @spockandawe has a write up of the plot and its major themes here, but in essence it hooked me with its hunter/super-hero meets Pacific Rim setting, its themes of gifted kid burnout and unacknowledged trauma with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the fact that the author clearly plotted out all of this in advance, with minor details from the opening chapter being extremely plot relevant a hundred chapters later. also, the characters are FUN! the relationship compels me. clownery abounds in all the best ways, while the world-ending stakes are also scarily sky high. its translation is currently incomplete as far as I'm aware, which is literally this story's only downside right now, since you can read it online for free - but so much of the main story is up and translated already that it's hard to imagine how much higher the stakes can go, and I'm dying to know if these two make it through and get the happy ending they deserve. a delicious repast.

Apostles of Mercy

I'm gonna rant here. this is the story of a series that got the redemption arc it deserved.

if you don't know, axiom's end is lindsay ellis's blatant Bayverse Transformers female lead alternate history fic. period. she has openly admitted this. you can easily and clearly pick out the Optimus/Megatron/Starscream expies. and that first book was GOOD. it understood the assignment. loved it.

then...truth of the divine happened. book two of the series. was frankly. god awful. it was like twilight's new moon, where the main character's depression saturates and therefore stagnates the entire narrative, in this case to its detriment. it dragged. the entire appeal of first book of the series is the bond between the main character and her new definitely-not-a-Transformer life partner, and book two managed to both sideline that - the entire point!!! the main thing you're reading it for! the alien time! - and introduce the most skeevy and (for me) unpleasant to read human hetero romance of all time. it was so unpleasant I actually forgot how bad it was.

somehow. somehow. palpatine returned. after I spent three years mourning what could have been. book three saved it. Apostles of Mercy addresses the whole damn skeevy toxic mess that was book two and refocuses on what matters - the alien love interest and a LESBIAN love interest. yes. it's true. once again the sapphics won. we now have a book where the main character is reliving lesbian sex memories as an alien-robot-insect-definitely-not-a-Transformer mindmelds with her so I mean. good job team? her love interest also acquires an alien life partner of her own to expand this into potential alien foursome range? the assignment is once again UNDERSTOOD. in terms of the action scenes, to quote myself while reading it, "I can't believe I'm saying this but you needed to channel far more Bayverse" [for book 2], and doing so for book 3 has produced a work of art. I would say skip book 2 entirely and thank me later, but experiencing how bad the series got at its darkest point is part of what made book 3 such an exhilarating high in comparison. possibly that was the goal all along, impossible to appreciate until now. I just need lindsay ellis to get the contract to write the currently-in-publication-limbo books 4 and 5. because the series deserves it. it only just got good again! NSFWish because I can't remember currently how explicit they got all these months later, forgive me.

The Deep Sky

yume kitasei is new to me, but this book hit some interesting notes as a sci fi debut. it too is about gifted kid burnout and imposter syndrome, funnily enough, in a thoughtful take on the standard sci fi concept of 'a bunch of rigorously trained young adults are sent out into deep space as an ark to save a dying humanity' that actually does discuss how fucked up that is as a concept, both for the kids as they grow up under enormous pressure to win a spot on the mission and for all those people being left behind, in what might just end up being an overhyped waste of resources, since civilization sure is still kicking when they leave. the summary on the book is somewhat misleading - asuka, the main character, doesn't fall under suspicion until wayyyy late in the book, and spends the majority of it in a pseudo-detective role that is absolutely sanctioned by those in charge. she's not 'an immediate suspect' like the book blurb insists. go figure. it didn't knock me out of the park like most of the books above, but it was an engaging little read.

The Bees

a weird one from 2014, picked up on a whim - it's literally about bees! fictionalized bees! with personalities and priesthoods and caste politics and everything! I cried about it to be honest. very plotty, somehow all of it neatly taking place within the Lifecycle of A Bee™️, which takes some real craftsmanship to pull off and make compelling as a narrative. since I'm an unrepentant Raksura fan, I was like 'wow...how Raksura coded...' knowing full well that Raksura are dragon bee people, not the other way around. also the Raksura could never be as toxic (complimentary) as these bees are. 😂 it's just good literature your honor.

honorable mentions:

Heavenly Tyrant

has not come out yet. but let's be real. it's on the list in anticipation. it's what she deserves.

The City in Glass

I love nghi vo's work, have read and adored all of the singing hills cycle novellas. it took a month for my library hold on this book to be available. and then I promptly got distracted by metal from heaven and the hunter's gonna lay low 😂 I will read it!!! the first eight pages were good! vitrine's voice is very good! I've just had a very busy end of the year interrupting my everything. (update: I read two more pages and it immediately and promptly popped off. whoops. guess I'm reading that next. whenever I have free time again...)

[david-talks-sw]

Ironically, contrary to what most of the angry YouTubers are saying, I think The Acolyte is a story that heavily focuses on lore.

(Well, not really "lore", more like "fanon.")

But my point is, it makes a lot of metatextual commentary about these fanon tropes and lore elements that fans debate about ("are the Jedi truly good? Is the Sith way really so bad if they allow you to feel?") but it completely forgets that all those elements were created in the first place because they were telling a story.

Example: how the Jedi approach emotions.

The Jedi control their emotions. They don't repress them.

They allow themselves to feel them, but they do their best to not let themselves be ruled by them. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they do their best.

This is because wielding the Force is based on emotions... you use it with compassion in your heart, you're on the Good Side, you use it with negativity and selfishness, in search of pleasure, and it leads you to the Dark Side.

This all then ties in to how Luke and Anakin approached the Force, how the former saved the galaxy because of his compassion,after the latter one doomed it because of his greed, etc. It's a metaphor for emotional regulation and teaching kids to be compassionate.

There's a reason this has all been laid out this way.

So when you're making a new story, and your narrative is that:

"The Jedi think they're controlling their emotions, but actually they're just repressing them, and at one point one of them will snap and kill them all..."

Well... no? That's not the story. Because the narrative of the Prequels clearly frames Anakin's selfishness as the cause, and that of the Original Trilogy clearly frames Luke's retreading of his father's path to darkness as a bad thing.

Same goes for:

"Osha frees herself from the shackles of her trauma by killing her father and joining the Dark Side."

Joining the Dark Side is portrayed as a bad thing, it's synonymous with losing yourself, not finding yourself. That's why Episode VI frames Luke not killing his Dad as a good thing.

So... are we just gonna ignore all that?

There's a narrative attached to these points, and you can either reject it or embrace it... but if you don't address it in some way, you're missing the point.

The same way that, if tomorrow I decide to join a soccer game, then pick the ball up and shoot a hoop, I'm missing the point. The ball is being kicked around for a reason, the game is soccer.

The Acolyte focuses on lore and fanon tropes too much... and forgets to even address what the story of Star Wars is.

[rambosgirl]

Logan x hypersomniac reader headcanons

you guys this is literally just insomniac x hypersomniac, but I realized when I was finished writing this ;-;

also, I imagined the original trilogy Logan for this, but if you want to use your imagination ig it could be a different Logan

Masterlist

First of all, Charles is super nice to you and gives you a rest period in your teaching schedule so you can use it to nap

Your students are also very nice if you happen to fall asleep in class, which doesn't happen often but has a few times.

Jean is super supportive and will help you try to find solutions when your doctors can't help you

So pretty much everyone knows (how could they not when you literally fall asleep at meals?) but you don't mind people knowing

especially when they're this supportive

So when Logan first came to the mansion, you were in the middle of a nap so you had no clue who he was when you finally met him after you woke up

Logan was clueless to your condition, I guess no one told him

As he got to know you better, he started to notice some things about you

like how you would disappear for hours at a time and then resurface like nothing happened

he also noticed you yawned a LOT but didn't piece the two together for a while

He would ask around but everyone says they haven't seen you

When he asks you about it you tell him everything - your struggle to wake up and stay awake, the naps, and even the other effects that come with it like memory problems and trouble concentrating.

Logan's just like :0 How did I not figure that out before?? it all makes sense now

He's SO SUPPORTIVE

He'll remind you about the things you have trouble remembering, and he'll make sure you're taking care of yourself between naps

he'll never admit he's gone soft for you teehee

but it's obvious to everyone else

he still gets moody sometimes, but less around you, and he'd NEVER take it out on you (he takes it out on Scott lol)

you joke about him needing a nap more than you when he's especially grumpy

sometimes you'll sleep way later than you meant to, like waking up at 10pm, and he'll stay up with you

you guys will just be talking in the kitchen until you start to feel tired again

y'all make snacks for your late-night chats

he tries to make sure you're awake from late afternoon naps at a good time (like before 7ish) so that you don't mess up your sleep schedule too bad

he gets to know your schedule, even if you don't stick to it as often as you'd like, he tries to help you stay on it

AND GUYS

if you spontaneously fall asleep somewhere you're not supposed to, Logan will CARRY YOU to your bed and tuck you in (I'm MELTING)

You feel safe around Logan, making it easy to doze off around him

he often finds himself in situations where you're resting your head on him, fast asleep

he'll stay there for a while, and if you don't wake up soon, he'll carry you to bed

Sometimes he watches you sleep

Not in a creepy way (he tells himself) but he loves seeing you so peaceful, the worry melting off you

Jean tells him it looks creepy and he should probably stop before you wake up

Sometimes you get overwhelmed with your feelings about your hypersomnia, and Logan is there to listen and quietly comfort you.

You feel like you're sleeping through your life, like you're not truly living to the fullest potential you can

You also get so frustrated about the lack of answers you have for why you need so much sleep and the constant fogginess of your mind and memory

Logan is here for it all

he might not be the best at openly showing affection and support, but there is no doubt that he cares about you and will do anything for you.

He prefers actions over words, which becomes obvious in the way he treats you and takes care of you

That's all I have for now babes, hope you liked it (again, if you want a full fic lmk)

[lilmissbacon]

Rotg Mini-Theory

There's a thought that I've had for a few years now: The Rotg art book states that the nightmares eyes are gold because the dreams they were made from are still there within the corruption Pitch put upon them. Essentially foreshadowing that the good magic is still there, buried within the dark magic. Thus they can be reverted back into dreams by the end of the movie.

But here's the thing...

Pitch's design is the exact same way. His entire being is all blacks and gray, except for his golden eyes. Does anyone else think it's possible that that was meant to also be foreshadowing? Matching the nightmares he makes?

Rotg was originally planned to be a trilogy before it failed in the box office, and if his backstory is anything like it is in the GoC books; is it possible that they may had been planning to reveal his backstory in a future instalment? His golden eyes could've been foreshadowing the idea that he'd been corrupted/possessed as well and that the true him is still in there. That the Guardians could bring him back into the light.

After all, in the GoC books, as much as they say that it's impossible to save Kozmotis Pitchiner, there are plenty of moments that showcase that he is still in there as well. Even just Pitch trying to turn baby MiM and Katherine into his nightmare kids in an attempt to replace Koz's daughter. GoC is far from being the same universe as Rotg but they were made from the same source to be essentially the same story. Like how the Rotg art book also says how Bunny's Warren was designed with the intent to look like they're used to be a civilization there but they've long since disappeared. Meaning Bunny is still the last of his kind in Rotg like he is in GoC.

This really makes me think that a sequel was going to be about the Guardians needing Pitch to stop the next bad guy and befriending/saving him in the process. Especially since fear isn't inherently a bad thing, Pitch was just going too far in revenge and making the world go depressed. And it's not like the Guardians were trying to stop fear all together.

They didn't denounce the fact that fear will always be around, they're combatting fear enough so that no one has to live in it.

This bit in the final scene of the movie always felt almost like they might have been setting up for the next movie specifically being about how fear is a part of human instincts and life. It helps to keep one alive, but too much fear can cause someone to stop living their life as well. Pitch could've become the Guardian of Safety, an embodiment of the very thing the Guardians fight for. He'd still have shadow/fear powers, but using them to help caution the reckless kids while pulling back the fear to help the overly frightened ones.

[haylessa]

Bridge to the Turnabout

man do i feel like crying finishing this game.

the way they connected so many past cases to this final one is amazing. seems like everything connects to the DL-6 incident somehow lol. how Misty Fey failed her channeling on that case, Miles's phobia of earthquakes, leading all up to him losing sight of the suspect, which then made a chance for them to swap places with a twin. wow they truly planned this ahead didn't they.

playing as Miles!!! that was really entertaining. his inner monologues are hilarious. he flew all the way to Japan just because of Phoenix okay??? totally normal about this. and Franziska also flew from Germany just to have a chance at battling(?) Phoenix again (not surprised).

not them being in cahoots fooling the judge that Miles is a defense attorney HAHAH yeah siblings. loveee how they both ended up helping Phoenix big time in this case. like "eh since I flew all the way here why not" Franziska showing her kindness albeit being all snarky about it haha who are you fooling you're just a softie inside.

aww are you worried? she just randomly decided to follow Phoenix around welp that's cute... argh i love her she's so precious, they'll never make me hate you Franziska von karma<3

okay first time i saw him my first thoughts was that he's a relative of Diego. not being Diego himself. damn i thought he actually came from the depths of hell. as in like, zombies. there's spirit channeling, so another weird thing would be totally normal right? i was wrong.

people in this game hop jobs like hopscotch from lawyers to prosecutors to detectives (talking about lana) it's so unserious (i love it).

tbh this case was quite confusing even when there's all sorts of evidence. it would be very helpful if they explained the whole timeline of the murder in order at the end. because with all the channeling it was confusing who's body is who and where everyone actually is, or was that again, just me? they said Iris betrayed Dahlia when she planned the fake kidnapping? or when she killed her stepsister? or both? how did she betray her, i mean how exactly did she run away??

Godot said he contacted Misty and Iris. so Misty and Iris were in cahoots right? so she lied that she didn't know Elise was Misty then. god so many questions i should open up wiki later.

their story was such a tragedy:( and Maya oh Maya....... she probably only figured out Elise was her mom after she got killed right in front of he. but she had to be strong for Pearl. my poor little girls....i wanna hug them so bad. this whole fiasco is very fucked up. also did Misty refuse Maya to help cook because she might find out it's her mom?

Maya probably held deep in her heart on the fact that her mom, although missing, is still alive out there somewhere. and now... she's really gone.

i'm glad she's got a home with Pearl and Phoenix now. there's also Detective Gumshoe, Edgeworth, Franziska, and all the friends they made along the way who'll always look out for her. I wish we could see Maya and Franziska slowly becoming friends, they're nineteen! they should be at the club!!

this pic of little Mia and Maya is so cute:((( busted breaking the sacred urn even before Pearl did. and no one said a thing looking at it😭

i'm gonna miss them all so much... i haven't played the other games (yet) but i'm pretty sure nothing can top the original trilogy. quirky characters with personalities, unmatched goofiness, emotional sibling bonds, and overall a really really good story. it will stay with me forever<3

[thathomestar]

My four main issues with the Marathon reboot:

It doesn't look like classic Marathon

It doesn't play like classic Marathon

References to the original games seem superficial at best

PvP in Destiny 2 wasn't exactly a big draw to the game

Overall I'm more confused than upset. Why call it Marathon if you're gonna change it so much?

I'm not gonna argue whether or not the artstyle of the reboot is good or bad or whatever. However you feel about it is subjective. That's not the point I'm trying to make. My point is that it doesn't look like what the original games look like. The human stuff in the classic trilogy has a pretty distinct look and feel, so it's bewildering to see Tau Ceti get retconned into looking like it's some kinda neo-Y2K music video with solid color plastic aesthetics. One could argue that the 300 year gap between the creation of the UESC Marathon and the establishment of Tau Ceti brought a change in cultural aesthetics but I don't buy it. Plus we've seen what a human from Tau Ceti looks like in Marathon 2:

The main thing that burns my ass is the change in genres. After we've seen big budget reboots of other classic FPS games from Doom to Wolfenstein to Shadow Warrior, it would have been really interesting to see a modern take on something as story-focused and methodical as Marathon. From where I sit it seems like an easy W. The pivot to a PvP extraction shooter is a huge gamble that I don't think will pay off.

Maybe they were afraid of trying to add to or retell a story that's already been told? Which I mean fair, but then why choose a story-heavy IP from the 90s as your setting for a PvP-focused game instead of coming up with something entirely new? Besides the obvious of course (brand recognition!! (even though no one knows or cares about Marathon outside of classic FPS players and insane Macintosh heads)).

So ok, they're setting this PvP game in a legacy series with a story people lavish with praise any chance they get. What exactly are we getting out of it? So far all we've got is "it's on Tau Ceti" and "the UESC is there" and "there will probably be a S'pht compiler at some point". It feels so surface-level. This might be harsh, but you know that tweet where someone asked Elon Musk if he'd seen Evangelion and replied "NERV"? This feels like that, in a sense. Using one of Durandal's best lines from the first game as a marketing tagline rubs me the wrong way too. Like they're looking at you and winking, in case you didn't understand that this is Marathon. It's Marathon guys! We know what Marathon is!

My last point needs some explaining. I've played Destiny on and off, since the first game released up through The Final Shape last year. During the majority of that time I've never once thought to myself "I can't wait to jump in the Crucible and play some PvP!". That's not to say I've never enjoyed playing some Crucible matches from time to time, far from it. It can even be quite satisfying, since there's honestly no other game with PvP like it. It's just never been much of a compelling draw, you know? A side activity to the main portion of the game.

I don't doubt that the moment-to-moment gunplay won't be good. Destiny is a hell of a lot of fun to shoot guns and use abilities in. Bungie devs know how to make the gun shoot good, even now. I just question how long they can keep people invested in this. On the flip side, it will be refreshing to see a major studio with real talent actually take a proper stab at a PvP extraction FPS, because the only one on the market right now is Tarkov and that game from what I've seen is jank as fuck and rampant with cheaters. Though Destiny's had its fair share of cheaters too over the years... EDIT: i forgot about hunt showdown but you probably did too lol

This was a lot of words just to reiterate what I said at the top. Why did this have to be Marathon? It would have made a splash either way, it being a new game from Bungie and all, especially in a genre untested by AAA. I know why they did it but I'm still confused as to why they did it. I'm just left here scratching my head.

[schlong2]

latest fix rant time

none of my friends want to talk to me about monkey movies and then i remembered i have a whole blog dedicated to my latest fixations so. i've watched Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes two (TWICE ✌️) times in theaters. this was after watching the newer trilogy (Rise, Dawn & War) and the first 1968 original in prep.

things (SPOILERS!!!):

Kingdom's run time is 2 hours and 25 minutes. this is incredibly long for a movie. compared to 1968's 1 hour and 52 minutes, that's a half hour difference. Infinity War was 2 hours and 36 minutes for reference. that's a whole marvel cinematic convergence, but ape. the run time isn't exactly the issue i've seen talked about. it's the pacing. sitting twice through this movie was not a problem for me. i sat there engaged all the way through. on the second watch, i tried to be mindful of times in which it might have been dragging for the average person, and i like, literally couldn't find any. pretty much every scene had meaning and didn't drag imo. which is something these newer movies do extremely well. Kingdom is pretty equally split between verbal communication and sign language compared to the first three before it. the apes use both verbal and visual cues to talk. but because they don't talk every single time, it makes every moment that they do feel special. it reminds me of the Quiet Place concept, where most of the movie you only hear a human voice a few select times when it's safe to do so. Rise, Dawn, & War were kind of like this, as Caesar only really spoke when he was trying to make a point or communicating to humans, who are mostly speaking in those movies. he speaks more as he gets more fluent, and by War, he can speak very well. we see other apes like Koba, Maurice, Blue Eyes, and Bad Ape also speak English. these moments are rationed pretty well throughout Kingdom, making the dialog more select and meaningful. this makes every time these beasts talk feel like it means something and isn't just fluff to fill your ears. every other scene feels like it's building or showing a side of a character we hadn't seen before, and the scenes between those advance the plot or are like, really action-packed. i just don't see why some people say it has pacing problems. it's just long. i understand the average person's attention span is super short, but when you're sitting down to watch two and a half hours of movie, you gotta know there's gonna be downtime. moments where they're not fighting or advancing the plot. and i think that's GOOD man. but im also not one for action/adventures very much so maybe that's it? i think a lot of people maybe watch these apes for the violence and conflict rather than their introspection, genuinely thoughtful world building, and complex characters. and hey, that's completely fine to enjoy, but POTA is originally about morals and asking the audience questions and posing dilemmas to popular beliefs at the time. ok

Raka. he's great. Peter Macon has this butter smooth voice that's just perfect for the kind of character he plays. you can't help but like him. but he dies like 1/3 into the movie and is really only there to religion dump about Caesar (ape jesus) and then he's swept away. people are complaining that that's all he was really there for. to explain the real values of Caesar and provide a foil to Proximus. and i agree to some degree. i really hope he's not actually dead. his presence and death are felt throughout the movie, as both Mae and Noa (mostly Noa vocalizes it, Mae just silently shares in his loss and i think cries at one point?) seem to mourn him, saying shit like "if Raka were here..." and especially at the end when Noa gives the Caesar pendant to her. it's the shared memory of Raka and what he devoted his life to. but they never really like, actually linger on his death. there's a moment after he's swept away, and the shot stays on the rushing waters, Raka no longer visible and plays some sad tunes, but like. C'MON. he's not really dead. he isn't please tell me he isn't PLEASE

Noa isn't Caesar. i honestly do not get why you would want otherwise. of course, he isn't Caesar. we don't need another Caesar. he had a whole three movies to be the center of. i would be extremely disappointed if they just made a carbon copy of him or made Noa like a direct descendant of him or whatever. i hate that Chosen One bullshit. Caesar was just a guy that wanted peace for his people and that got him killed in the end. Noa is also a guy who wants peace for his clan. they're both leaders and have good hearts, but like. they're different characters. i LIKE that Noa has no relation to Caesar, i LIKE that he's his own character with his own ideals and purpose. Owen Teague does a wonderful job making the character his own. i mean Andy Serkis is Andy fucking Serkis. pretty big shoes to fill and i think Teague has the right foot size you know. i heard one guy say like "we've had our time to mourn Caesar" and yeah. we have. let's accept that and move on

WHERE MY APE DIVERSITY AT. we get a fuck ton of chimps, ONE orangutan, ONE gorilla, and ONE bonobo. what the hell. i mean. what is with the bonobo villian. Koba i fucks with because bonobos are some of the most playful, nonviolent apes out there. that humanity and its cruelty could twist a naturally peaceful creature into what Koba became.. i mean, that's great. but again with Proximus? maybe trying to evoke some of the same energy and nuance Koba had? ALSO. GORILLA PSA they are like so sweet. all that muscle is there to protect their families, and they're strictly vegetarians. i feel like Rise, Dawn, & War portrayed this better with most of the gorillas getting bodyguard jobs because of all their bulk. especially when Luca tucks that flower in Nova's ear. man. and Red going out like he did. gentle giants. in Kindgom we just have Sylva. gorilla henchman for Proximus. that's it. then we have Raka, the one orangutan character that i saw. wise and knowledgeable, guides and accompanies Noa and Mae then dies. at least we get one female chimp character that's more than just wife or mother. wikipedia lists Soona as Noa's love interest, which i can totally dig, like it's there. he takes her to the telescope at the end of Kingdom, which is more than what we saw romance-wise between Caesar and Cornelia. and the only other important chimp female is Dar, Noa's mom. in Rise, Dawn & War there was usually only one of each species of ape assigned a main role, but we saw much more diversity it felt like. maybe that's because there were smaller in numbers and have since spread out in the last 300 years? also like, bonobos are known for having female-female & male-male sex. dont know about the other apes. my friend mentioned that Raka said something about having a male companion and promptly searched reddit. all they had to say was: gaype?

the visuals. dear god the visuals. this movie is just visually stunning. absolutely breathtaking. they did a great job. i mean Rise, Dawn, & War are all triumphs of cgi and are excellent examples of the animation style done right. i did hear some guy say there is a loss of texture, as mostly everything in Kingdom is cgi, from the characters to the landscapes. but there's an explosion of texture in this film. there's one point where Noa is covered in the ash of his village and you can see it on his fur. there's quite a couple water scenes where the moisture clings to the apes' fur. It's all very impressive. great work

the references!! Rise especially has a ton of them (IT'S A MADHOUSE!!! & GET YOUR STINKIN PAWS OFF ME YOU DAMN DIRTY APE), and names like Nova and Cornelius, but Kingdom... i picked up on at least three main instances, but im sure there are more. there's the scene where the apes are rounding up the feral humans, and its very reminiscent of the scene from 1968 where they're doing the same thing for sport. there's the scene where Mae is running in the field, and she jumps on that log structure to get to Noa, which is nearly identical to a similar scene in 1968. the scene when Noa, Soona, and Anaya are exploring the human bunker and they come across an old classroom. one of them picks up a doll that says a distorted "Mama" which was huge in the original because that was evidence that once man did speak, why else would he make a doll that talked? superb call backs to the og. respect what was there before

SCHLONG THEORY

here me out guys. the starring ape-human relationship in Rise was between Caesar and Will. this type of love is called storge and describes the love a child has for a parent as well as the love a parent has for their child.

the starring ape-human relationship in Dawn was ultimately between Caesar and Malcolm. which i believe is truly philia towards the end, the love between friends and allies. just two dudes trying to keep peace in the world.

in War, i mean Caesar well and truly hates the Colonel. like more than he's hated any human in his life before. close to mania, obsession. anyways it's a study on this type of relationship between an ape and a human. true, all consuming hate.

SO in the newer movies we've explored familial love, platonic love, and hate, between an ape and a human.

in Kingdom the main ape-human relationship is between Noa and Mae. and their relationship is complex. not really that friendly and certainly not familial. no trust. some kind of begrudging respect maybe? i just think it would be neat if in further installments they explored a romantic love between a human and an ape. ok.

i KNOW Noa and Soona are probably going to get ape married and they're never going to touch on the subject but i just find it hard to believe that in the last 300 years or so that's NEVER been heard of. apes have the same level of intimacy between each other as humans do in this universe and can willingly consent. what are you so afraid of wes ball

after all, the whole franchise is about how apes, when given intelligence, compare to humans and begs the question: how different are we really?

is it possible for an ape and a human to fall in love?

[indigo-casson]

something that i've been thinking about lately is the parallels between star wars: andor/rogue one and tamora pierce's trickster's queen duology. primarily because the star wars brainrot is real and the tamora pierce obsession is forever, but also because they are kind of both tonal and thematic departures from their main 'verses in some similar ways?

in both the star wars verse and the tortall verse, the majority of the media has focused on one individual (or a small group of individuals) who make a profound difference in the world. Whether that's alanna singlehandedly finding the dominion jewel/becoming king's champion/making way for female knights, or luke skywalker blowing up the death star, or daine and numair going to the divine realms during the immortals war, or anakin skywalker becoming a sith and dooming the republic, most of the original material has seen battle and political change as something that is affected by either an actual chosen one or simply a single very plucky and well-placed individual.

trickster's queen and andor, however, really look at rebellion as something that has to be done by a diverse group of flawed people who work together despite their differences. mon mothma knows that her role is raising money. ulasim, chenaol, and the other members of the raka conspiracy each take their individual roles in the rebellion, and recognize that even though they might not want to work with aly or the luarin nobility, they need their skills and influence to make it happen.

both stories also show rebellion as extremely costly and something that requires making tough calls. nobody has their hands clean by the end of a civil war. notably, trickster's queen explicitly narrowly avoids having the protagonists kill a group of 5 year olds. luthen is ready to kill cassian when he becomes a liability, and cassian does kill lots of people, including some allies whose only "crime" is being susceptible to giving up rebellion secrets.

in rogue one, we don't like davits draven because he orders jyn's father killed, and that just feels wrong. jyn is our heroine and it upsets her, so emotionally it's distressing. but of course, draven and cassian and jyn are all working towards the same goal. draven did what he had to--galen erso is a liability as long as he's alive. dove and sarai's little brother elsren has to die because he's a direct heir to the throne, ahead of his sisters. it doesn't matter that he's five and totally innocent. as long as he lives, a luarin has a greater claim to the throne than a raka, and as long as that's true, the rebellion can't succeed.

in the star wars original trilogy, people for sure die! i'm not trying to say that they don't, but it's definitely not something that's shown affecting our protagonists on a deep, emotional level. they're all side characters, or else they come back as force ghosts. the prequels are uh. fucking tragic, but at the end of it, almost all of our heroes make it out. even the casualties of the war are droids vs clones, which is to say, totally interchangeable cannon fodder on both sides!

the number of character deaths in the tortall 'verse is fewer, probably because it's primarily created for middle grades, but even when people do die, they're either demonstrably bad people or minor enough characters that the emotional resonance isn't the same.

by contrast, at the end of trickster's queen, almost the majority of the main conspirators die in battle, not to mention those who don't even make it to the final conflict. at the end of rogue one, all of our heroes are dead, and people aren't exactly making it out of andor s1 in good shape either. more than half of the aldhani team dies on that mission.

I could go on further, but I think my main takeaway is that once you've invested a lot of time and attention and fandom into a 'verse, you have a lot more leeway to tell different kinds of stories. tamora pierce could not have written trickster's choice until after the values and world of tortall were so clearly established, and if she had, it wouldn't have had the impact that it did. similarly, part of what makes rogue one/andor so striking is the fact that it is such a departure from the preexisting values and story format of star wars.

for every chosen one we see in media, there are hundreds of people working behind the scenes to make their big, death star destroying moment possible. the only way to improve society is through collective action, and part of that is that everyone's hands are going to get dirty. i think lots of people want to imagine that they could be like luke skywalker and swoop in 2 weeks before the battle of yavin and become a hero, but the fact of the matter is that that's not how the world works! war requires us to do things that would ordinarily go against our values, but in the context of a drawn out, bloody, thankless battle, maybe we decide the ends justify the means.

[gaywatch]

oh my, you ship jack and elizabeth?

i’m definitely prepared for a highly intense and opinionated lecture if you have the time and energy for it! been shipping them for years but have never known someone else who does as well!

Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy so

Some people had the Vision to see potential in Jack/Elizabeth from Pirates of Caribbean right from the start. Those people were blessed with the gift of Sight. I was not. I took the first movie's canon as is, like a heathen. This is particularly funny given ::gestures to the entire desert island sequence::

Will/Elizabeth was good enough, though it probably should have been a sign that me, the Most Hopeless Romantic Bitch You Know, wasn't drawn to the canon romance in a particular way. I was an overall fan, I liked everything about it.

I had to have the sequel dropped on my head in order to Understand.

First of all, you know how Jack's compass won't work? The one that points directly to what he wants most in the world? And then it points at Elizabeth but oh whoopsie she had the papers or the map or whatever that would get him closer to immortality so it must have been that then never mind? MIND. The writers themselves confirmed what was implied throughout the whole movie--Jack was in love with Elizabeth to the point of a genuine dilemma between her and immortality. His feelings are canon. Oh, he makes little 'it would never work' jokes but that motherfucker wants her as much as wants to live forever.

And Elizabeth??? Excuse me??? With her own arc descending into a pirate's morality by way of extreme flirtation with the lifelong pirate? Packing chemistry that Will could never muster for a single second of his entire life? Will and Elizabeth have perfectly good devotion and care for one another, but excuse me ma'am you come to LIFE when you're around Jack, thank you.

And then the third movie just made it Worse.

She's the Pirate King. THE. Pirate King. KING OF THE PIRATES. And she's a damn good one. An inspiring leader. A clever woman. She fits into piracy and piracy molds itself to her in ways that make for a banger character arc, so why in the FUCK are we waiting on a beach for however many years while Will serves his time? The guy who doesn't want piracy but is forced to serve? Meanwhile the lifelong pirate who embraces the world you fit into is a no???? And not to harp on chemistry, but you expect me to watch Elizabeth fall into that kind of fire with one person and then NOT end up with him?

I do not understand. The arc and evolution of Elizabeth starting out with her childhood sweetheart and then over time growing up and rising into what she really wants in both a life (piracy) and Jack (not the boy-next-door good girls are supposed to dream about) would have been so compelling to watch alongside the main plot. Plus, for the time the original trilogy was made, it would have been mind blowing to see a love triangle where she doesn't wind up with the guy she was originally interested in or the Safe One. Hell it'd be a nice twist now.

Why is it ALWAYS the Safe One? These days there's a whole """bad boy""" subgenre to compensate, but it's mostly in books and they're mostly just assholes or abusive. I've been gnawing my enclosure for twenty years over this, and it's a huge reason why I never win love triangles whenever I wind up caring about them. Jack, Phantom, Gale, my track record for canon sucks but the straight ladies writing """bad boys""" don't get it either. Bad boys do not work unless they're also good men. He either grows into it or it's hidden for as long as you want but at some point it has to be Bad Boy, Good Man. That's where the money is.

POTC could have had it all but played it safe in the end. Sigh.

[antianakin]

I need scary Jedi. But not like... in a "RAAAAAAGGGGHHHH! I'M SCARY!" way. More like.... you're a bounty hunter after your target, you have killed Wookies, Gundarks, and many other dangerous species. The target? They are wearing robes, playing with children. Laughing and helping others. Sure they have a lightsaber, but you brought a slugthrower. Those are supposed to be effective against them. You line up a shot and... they're looking at you. They are smiling in such a friendly manner. But all you can feeling is cold. You suddenly realize, you're not the most dangerous person there. I just want more bad guys getting the shit scared out of them when they realize a Jedi is here to stop them.

I could see that for someone who's likely never MET a Jedi before and so all they know are the legends and stories they've heard.

I feel like this happens a lot less for Prequels Jedi because, even if there's fairly few of them and not everyone will even MEET a Jedi in their lifetime, they are still a known culture. You might not expect to see a Jedi in the street, but you wouldn't think it was impossible to see a Jedi in the street, either, necessarily. And you probably think you have a fairly good idea of what the Jedi are and what they do and why they might be on the street in the first place.

But it DOES happen to people like Luke. By the time Luke comes around, the Jedi have been nearly erased from the galaxy's memory. All that's left are some stories and those stories are likely highly exaggerated and they've gone through many different retellings that embellish and add things that never existed in reality. NO ONE expects a Jedi to show up anywhere because they're all supposed to be GONE. No one even believes the Force exists really and if they do see a Jedi, they probably think that the magical abilities they have are just made up. So when Luke starts using the Force to make things float or read people's minds or whatever, it's probably VERY unnerving. I know there's some comics where that comes up, even among some of the rebels he fights with. People ARE scared of Luke, even if they're fighting alongside him instead of against him, because he's something they can't understand and shouldn't exist.

There is a scene sort-of similar to what I think you're talking about in the films, and it is actually in the Prequels. It's when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon start fighting back on the Trade Federation's ship at the beginning of TPM. Neither Nute Gunray nor the other Neimoidian with him have ever met a Jedi and they clearly underestimate what the Jedi are capable of doing and overcoming. So when the Jedi start fighting their way through the ship, both Neimoidians start getting REALLY scared. The moment when they close the blast doors and think that that'll DEFINITELY keep them out and then Qui-Gon just shoves the lightsaber in again and starts melting the door from the center shows that very clearly. The moment where Obi-Wan catches Zam Wesell in the bar during AOTC could be another example, too, I guess.

This is supposed to be the Jedi at the peak of their power, their Golden Age of sorts, so it makes sense that this is when we see them able to really fight back in this way. After this, from AOTC on, the Jedi are often struggling against forces they can't quite overcome, and we need to see that so that it doesn't feel crazy when they're ultimately defeated in the end.

It's an interesting concept, the idea of the Jedi being a little frightening sometimes, because I feel like there's layers to it. With the Prequel Jedi, it's more about people underestimating them because the Jedi ARE more known and so their enemies often think that they can get the upper hand on one even if they've never actually done it before. But in the Original Trilogy era, especially with characters like Luke, it's the opposite problem, where Jedi are such an unknown quantity now that anything they do is a little frightening, even to people who aren't their enemies, because there's just no context for them to use to understand what the Jedi are and what they can do. They're SO Other that it becomes scary even if the Jedi in question is on your side or trying to save you.

This seems to be less of a thing in Disney canon for some reason. Kanan, Ezra, Ahsoka, and Cal seem to experience this very little if at all. Luke doesn't even seem to engender that kind of response when he makes his grand entrance in the season two finale of The Mandalorian (obviously Bo-Katan and Fennec would be more familiar with Jedi, but Din is not and should've had a MUCH more freaked out reaction to what a fully trained adult Jedi is capable of doing). Maybe it'll come back one day.

[mamawardentotherescue]

Okay, so I've slept and gathered my thoughts more and I'm going to explain why I don't like da:v (because some of you have assumed a lot about me and my relationship with the series)

First off, I have been in love with dragon age since I was 13/14 and have been obsessed with it for 12 years. It was my muse for writing and creating art; I read every book I could get my hands on and lived on the wiki and forums for everything else; when I got my first pay check I bought the lore books (which was hard to find in Australia). When I was depressed or so lonely my heart felt like it would burst, I would come back to the companions I would call friends. This game saved me from killing myself more times than I could count.

I have loved this game series for all it's writing and lore - the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, for me to be upset and disappointed in this game is not to be taken lightly.

Straight up, da:v felt wrong (I'm not going to mention why I don't like the inquisitor creator because I feel like at this point you should know why). They launch you straight into the middle of a plan your character has apparently known all along, but it left me feeling confused. I had so many questions! It's been 8 years since Trespasser, 10 years since the beginning of Inquisition and 20 for Origins; a lot has changed and I want to know what's happened in thedas since I've been away because I've invested a lot of time with that world, regardless of whether or not you respect my input on the world building...but the writing doesn't care about that.

I had a constant thought of "they're trying to recreate Mass Effect but have forgotten why people play Dragon Age, and they're not even respecting ME while they do it" and the more hours I put in to this game the more obvious this became.

"But MamaWarden, it looks so pretty and the combat is fun!" I hear you say, and yes, I do agree. The game was built really well in comparison to past games, but good hair isn't a good enough distraction from shit writing and a lack of respect for the series.

Before finishing the game I would often say that the best part about the game was the companions. They felt familiar and I enjoyed what I had with them but wished I had more. I was prepared to stick with that until they made me choose between Harding or Davrin (and Assan)...

Let me explain very simply why I fucking hated this:

1. It was another "look at us trying to be Mass Effect" moment but done shittily

2. Feels sus to say the least to pin Harding, the first female dwarf we've been allowed to romance and have a pre-existing relationship with (as the player), against Davrin, the first black elf we've encountered that wasn't just an OC of the player

3. Doesn't matter if you complete their companion quests, gain max approval and send what I would argue the "right" one to survive to a mission, only to have that person die because they were the other group's leader

As soon as it happened and the companion (I felt like I was forced to choose because I was romancing the other) was killed, I felt like nothing mattered. Again, it felt like someone tried to recreate the OG ME trilogy into one game but completely misunderstood what made those games ironically heart wrenching. I wasn't given a choice where I knowingly sacrificed a companion the way they did with Ashley and Kaiden, I was instead given a "who do you think will be best for the job?"

You might think it's a taste or preference thing, but it's not. It's a "dragon age has followed a particular pattern that's different to mass effect but now they've subverted expectations" type of thing. I might be autistic, but doesn't that bother you?

I hated that unless you were romancing Solas, your inquisitor really doesn't matter much to the story. I hated that your Lavellan felt like she was reduced to an additional underling to Solas instead of being his equal. I hated that characters like Mae, Dorian, Isabela and the Inquisitor had NOTHING to say about Varric, regardless of whether everyone knew the truth about him or not. I hated that bioware spewed "no unnecessary cameos" but barely used the old companions for anything useful outside of Varric and Solas pushing the story. I hated that shit is blowing up in the south of thedas but it feels like no one cares except for me, the player who has spent literal years invested into Ferelden and neighbouring countries.

Nothing felt like it mattered and that's the worst part of all of this. That might the intended meta commentary but fucking save it for a different game. This series has always been about hope in times of darkness, but this game feels like it cheapened that ideal and abused it so they can give this half-baked "morally grey" shit of a story and expect us to eat it

[vadertyrannus]

The lightsaber duels in the Original Trilogy weren't meant be "worse" then the Prequel duels

This ties into my earlier post debunking myths about Darth Vader's power level (an addendum to my Darth Vader is the most powerful Sith in Canon post), but I thought it was worth it's own post.

Sometimes, when I state canonical facts about Darth Vader's skillset, (primarily that he's the best lightsaber duelist)...

...people will try to cite the differences in the fight choreography between the Originals and Prequels as a counterargument.

The lightsaber duels in the Prequel Trilogy are more extravagant then the Original Trilogy. They're faster paced and more acrobatic, the Jedi and Sith are doing all sorts of flips and spins.

Most people chalk this up to the respective times in which the films were made. They weren't able to make fight scenes as "epic", back then.

As such, they are more then willing to buy Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Ben Kenobi being portrayed as more powerful and skilled in other Canon material. It’s downright disingenuous to insist otherwise (at least, if we're talking Canon).

We even see that in Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures, the Vader and Luke duels are given more gravitas, emphasizing the narrative intent.

Even in the old EU, Vader is an excellent duelist. He is, after all, supposed to be 80% as powerful as the Emperor, according to Lucas.

Despite this, Lucas purists will sometimes point to quotes in which Lucas insisted a narrative reason for the choreography differences:

"We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men, and young boys that learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing."

But once one does their research, they'll realize that this explanation isn't true to the narrative intent at the time the OT was made.

While it's clear Canon amped up the OT characters back up due to love for them, I believe there's legitimately good reasons to favor this interpretation for the story.

And while “it was originally intended that way” isn’t actually the best argument for why something is a good storytelling choice (after all, Vader being Luke’s father is a retcon, and it’s the best storytelling choice in all of Star Wars), it’s still important to establish this. People often try to cite "George Lucas' Vision" to give their arguments more legitimacy, so it's important to establish how fickle this "Ultimate Vision" actually was.

Now, I want to make it clear, when I say the OT duels are "worse", that's not reflective of my opinion of them, but rather the idea that the OT duels are more tame because the combatants are less skilled.

To divulge into discussion of personal preferences for a moment: I've come to prefer the OT duels far more. The two Vader vs. Luke duels in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are the peak of Star Wars lightsaber duels for me.

They're ferocious, yet still grounded enough to feel the stakes. There's weight and power behind each and every lightsaber strike. Far more emphasis is placed on the dynamic between the characters.

The characters were still doing cool lightsaber moves and acrobatics, but it felt balanced. These feel like fights between two badass warriors with supernatural abilities.

The Vader vs. Ben duel is alright. It's not as bad as people say it is, it's sometimes awkward, but there's still cool moments.

In comparison, I find the Prequel duels overstimulating to the point where they actually become boring. When there's 100 lightsaber strikes a second, suddenly each of those strikes become weightless noise. Sometimes I lose track of what's even happening. Who am I supposed to be looking at here?

This doesn't happen with any of the OT duels, in which it's always clear what character is meant to be the focus of the shot, as they're far more character-driven.

But enough of that, let's actually investigate the intent for how skilled the combatants of the duels in the OT was they were being made.

Darth Vader vs. Ben Kenobi was intended to be epic

One need not to look any further then this excerpt from the script.

The amount of flair given to the descriptions of the battle speaks for itself. Lucas goes out of his way to describe the duel in animated ways: "[...] a lightning movement of The Sith. [...]," "A masterful slash stroke by Vader is blocked by the old Jedi [...]," and "The two powerful warriors [...]."

This proves that George Lucas wanted this duel to be fast-paced and powerful.

And keep in mind, the words "masterful", "impressive", "powerful", "skilled", etc. are not used in the context of "for the OT-era". They just are. We're talking about a time when the Prequels didn't exist. Because the script is describing these actions within the context of the sci-fi world established by the film itself, they are impressive within the scope of the Star Wars universe.

This makes sense within the narrative framework of A New Hope: this is the ultimate battle between good and evil. The sinister Dark Lord of the Sith (the Master of Evil) and Master Jedi Knight (the Master of Good). Darth Vader is the ultimate adversary that Luke must aspire to defeat, and Obi-Wan is the ultimate good that Luke must aspire to be. The Bad Father vs. the Good Father.

George Lucas even says this:

"This confrontation with Obi-Wan and Vader— it works just as a confrontation between the good guy and the bad guy. I mean, he’s— Obi-Wan’s, at this point, the strongest good guy. He’s the one that has the most knowledge— the father figure that has taken on Luke. Then you have the bad father figure who is the evil father."

Vader killing Ben is a testament to his power to legitimize him as a threat to Luke, and build-up to that inevitable confrontation where Luke must conquer Vader.

For this to be a pathetic duel between two has-beens drains away all narrative power. It's also just plain dull, conceptually. It wouldn't make sense for Lucas to intentionally make a "lame" duel for audiences in 1977, free of any context from non-existent Prequels.

However, as with many things during the filming of A New Hope, he ran into problems on set. Most prominently, the lightsaber props were incredibly fragile, requiring the actors to not even actually collide them, but stop right before they hit. Once you know this, it becomes somewhat obvious how awkward the strikes are. Even as they cover it up with flashes added in post, you can see Guinness and Prowse are striking cautiously, as if the sabers are made of glass.

Additionally: this fight couldn't have been intentionally "bad" partially because Vader is a cyborg (which is dumb; I don't know why a sci-fi franchise would present cyborgs as incompetent), because Vader wasn't even intended to be a cyborg during the filming of A New Hope!

Originally, during the writing and filming of ANH, Vader was envisioned as a character more like Doctor Doom in Marvel Comics: his face was burned in a volcano, so he wears a frightening mask.

His suit was envisioned as an armored space suit decorated with Sith robes. This suit serves to keep him alive when he moves between ships, in addition to being armor in battle.

In post-production, Ben Burtt created Vader's iconic breathing sound effect. Lucas loved it, and realized it made Vader appear cybernetic. It is then, during the post-production of ANH, that he came up with the idea that Vader is a cyborg. This is when the imagined volcano backstory was revised so that Vader received far more injuries, requiring him to use a life-support suit. So while this iconic backstory was come up with by the time of ANH's release, it took time to develop behind-the-scenes.

This is the primary reason for the subtle changes to Vader's design and presentation between ANH and ESB/ROTJ. The shinier finish, placement of the armor above the Sith robes, additional electronic lights, iconic electronic flange effect to his voice (added to ANH in the special editions) were done to emphasize the newly-imagined cybernetic nature of Darth Vader.

And yet, even then, none of this was done with the intent that his cybernetics made him weaker in the Force or hampered his skills with a lightsaber. Or, at least, this is never mentioned, in any of the pre-PT sources I've read.

This is further proven by the fact that Vader fights better in the next two films then he does in this one.

Simply put, the duel between Vader and Ben was not intended to be a "bad" duel showing how far they've fallen. It was, in fact, intended to be the exact opposite: an epic duel between a master Jedi and master Sith.

The Improvements of the Vader vs. Luke duels

Something that was always apparent to me, which made me immediately see through Lucas' explanation, is that the Vader vs. Luke duels show a noticeable improvement in the quality of the choreography.

It's pretty awesome.

Sometimes, it really feels like when people say "OT duels" in a derogatory sense, they just mean the ANH one. While these ones aren't as "flashy" as the ones in the Prequels, they're still fantastic, and I find them more badass, personally.

There is plenty of evidence, too, that this was intentional. The filmmakers were aware of the shortcomings of the prior duel and wanted to up the ante. Hence the implementation of the usage of telekinesis in the fight, originally planned to occur in the first film.

This is also why they got professional swordsman and stunt actor Bob Anderson to play Vader during the duels. One of the reasons the Vader/Luke duels were improvements upon the ANH one is because Prowse didn't have the proper experience.

Additionally, it's important to note that, unlike the prior fight, Vader is holding back, as he isn't trying to kill his son. He wants him to join him. It is made clear several times in the fight that the Sith Lord is only toying with Luke, testing his abilities, and wearing him down.

"Don't make me destroy you." "Join me and together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son!" -Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back

"The challenge with the confrontation between Luke and Vader was to play it like a seduction, a temptation; the audience knows that Luke is not gonna die, so the ultimate hook is the fear that Luke might turn to the dark side." - George Lucas, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays

"So it's a slightly one-sided sword fight, where Vader has the advantage over him. Luke didn't know that Vader was his father, for the fight part, so what was happening is he thought he was fighting his bitter enemy, so he was fighting as hard as he could, he thought he was fighting the man who killed his father, fighting the man who killed Obi-Wan Kenobi, fighting the man who would, y'know, personify evil in the universe." - George Lucas, Star Wars Featurette: The Birth of the Lightsaber

The ESB duel was also meant to show that Luke had become a skilled and powerful warrior. He's still below Vader's league, but not as much as fans and Lucas would have you believe, post-Prequels.

"In Empire Strikes Back, it's the first time that the antagonist and protagonist actually fight each other, so that it is a very big fight, and Luke, now, has become proficient enough to be able to face Darth Vader." - George Lucas, Star Wars Featurette: The Birth of the Lightsaber

"During story meetings George Lucas and Leigh Brackett decided that it would be important to turn Luke into a very good swordsman and that that would pay off during his fight with Vader." - Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays

"[...] because [Obi-Wan and Yoda] think [Luke's] the only one who probably has the power to kill Vader." - George Lucas, The Star Wars Archives: Episodes IV-VI, 1977-1983

The implication of the Originals is that Jedi training doesn't take decades, like shown in the Prequels, at least for someone as Force-sensitive as Luke.

Luke is supposed to be a powerful, skilled saber duelist, not just a novice.

This is especially egregious when there's literally a point in the fight where Vader points out Luke's skills are "most impressive" (when he super-jumps out of carbon freeze), when, in comparison to all of the stuff the Jedi do in the Prequels, it's hardly so.

Furthermore, lightsabers were originally intended to be heavy. Lucas stressed a rule that one must always use two hands to hold a lightsaber, in combat.

"George was adamant that these things were really, really heavy. That we couldn’t take a hand off [the hilt]. We always had to have two. It was like Excalibur, 40 to 50 pounds of weight." - Mark Hamill

"They’re very powerful and have a lot of energy in them… so you worked with them as if they were heavy." - George Lucas, Star Wars Featurette: The Birth of the Lightsaber

Vader is an intentional exception to this rule, so as to show just how fantastic he is.

This nuance is now unfortunately lost, as the Prequels completely went away with this.

A once intentional visual cue testifying Vader's incredible skill was turned redundant, and context is robbed to make what was once far more impressive appear less so.

While Vader is still meant to be more powerful then Luke and is holding back, this is still meant to be an epic duel between two powerful, skilled warriors.

This robbing of context is also true for the ROTJ duel.

It's emphasized throughout that Luke has grown more powerful between the two films to a substantial degree. This is part of the narrative purpose of the sail barge action sequence.

Vader also places great emphasis on it in their scene together on Endor.

"I see you have constructed a new lightsaber. Your skills are complete. Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen." - Darth Vader, Return of the Jedi

If Luke was actually not all that skilled compared to the Prequel warriors, Vader would have no reason to compliment his abilities or call them complete.

This is the return of the Jedi, not a weak imitation of the Jedi. Luke's skills are complete.

It's also heavily implied within this line that building your own lightsaber is a sort of right of passage for a Jedi Knight, and a testament to one's power. Meanwhile, in TCW08, younglings are shown constructing their own lightsabers.

Additionally, while Vader is now emotionally conflicted, thus his skills are hampered, he's still very powerful. For the majority of the duel, he is either winning or at a stalemate with Luke. Vader is fighting just as fast and ferociously as Luke is.

This is meant to be a great climactic duel between two masters of the Force and lightsaber combat.

However, once again, these lines, as well as the fight itself, are now dampened in impact because of the Prequels.

Luke isn't meant to just be a novice, nor Vader just a "crippled half-droid half-man". At least, not originally.

"So what's the problem?"

While this kind of thing might be alright for fans of the super extra (and IMO, ridiculous) duels of the Prequels, to me, and likely a lot of other people who prefer the OT and it's characters, it just comes off as insulting.

It's retroactively undermining the OT and it's characters to the point where it damages the storytelling and the stakes.

There’s a massive difference between a good and a bad retcon.

Darth Vader being Luke’s father is a great retcon. It adds drama and tension, and gives both characters way more depth.

Telling us the fights and characters in second trilogy actually suck in comparison to the first trilogy… doesn’t.

First, it’s really dumb from a general story structure standpoint. You don’t make everything in the second half of the story lamer then the first. Investment is gonna tank. Escalating stakes is important. It'd be like if Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame came out before the rest of the Infinity Saga.

Second, again, it’s insulting to the second half of the story, the characters within it.

These films were designed for Darth Vader, Ben Kenobi, and (eventually) Luke Skywalker to be badass, capable warriors.

They're designed for you to be terrified of Darth Vader, intimidated by his mighty power. The ultimate instrument of the dark side of the Force. His cybernetics make him superhuman. Not to be like, "Awww, poor cyborg, he's only a shadow of what he could've been."

He's the villain of three whole movies for a reason, and it’s not so you can only feel sorry for him. There's a tragic element to his character, yes, but it has nothing to do with his power-level. He's tragic because he sold his soul for power, became a monster, and lost everything he cared about because of it.

They're designed for you to think of Ben Kenobi as a wise, experienced master Jedi, a relic of the height of the Jedi, and the idol that Luke must strive to be. Not be like, "Lmfao, look at that lame old man trying to do a spin, he's so much worse then he used to be."

They're designed for you to be in awe of how fantastic a warrior Luke Skywalker has become. His training is the legitimate training of a Jedi Knight, and he finally becomes skilled enough to face the mighty Darth Vader. Not be like, "He's alright, but not as cool as those other dudes from the Prequels."

It's like if you're playing on a playground as a kid, you've got your great characters and storyline, and some other kid comes along and is just like, "Yeah, you like those characters? Well mine are actually way betterer and strongerer then yours in every way! And if you think otherwise you're just coping! So suck it!".

I'd far prefer it if the OT characters weren't retconned into being lame. Especially if it's to prop-up characters that I, frankly, don't care as much about. And even if I did still like the Prequels (I was a fan of them, once), I still wouldn’t like the idea of dragging the OT characters into the mud.

People don't like to be told the characters they love actually suck. And it seems Disney caught onto this and is rectifying it.