#well intentioned but doing fucked up things also applies to that scene where she erases dra❌'s memory

[animmal]

getting a handle on mavis is kinda 😵‍💫 bc on the one hand she's an empath (literally) and is shown to generally have more emotional intelligence/maturity than dr🅰️x/nebs/rocket combined, but at the same time she apparently saw no problem at all whatsoever w kidnapping kevin 🥓 for peter 😭 which is like???? i mean maybe those two things can be true at the same time but like... How. 😭 is she an empath or is she okay w taking people against their will to give as a present to her brother ?

[norgestan]

Hello! I was wondering how would you have liked dani to be and how would you have liked the damira scenes to be ? (the changes you would have made to actually enjoy and ship damira)

okay quick bucket list:

recast dani with a muslim actor of color

rewrite the entire s4 script

done :)

with the funny answer out of the way... there’s simply no way that i could’ve shipped damira, i am sorry. it’s truly beyond me. nothing about their dynamic charms me or makes me think they’re better or any different than the superior option for a white/non-muslim love interest, aka amiris. i can even enjoy virihugo despite really disliking the way they got together and most of their clips anyway. (also this is a good post that explains why dani being amira’s endgame LI is a bit of a fucking joke)

however, there are a couple of ways in which i could’ve enjoyed damira narratively. and that requires heavily tweaking dani as a character as well of how their entire dynamic works. i’ve made plently of jokes of how i am Not an og purist but, if eskam had chosen at least one relationship to develop super closely as it was in og, then i would’ve wanted that relationship to be yousana. they’re my favorite pair in skam for a bunch of reasons and most of them have to do with yousef being so in contact with sana’s culture. one big example of that is the last clip of episode 9 where they go on that iconic date: it’s both a slideshow of their chemistry and sensual/romantic tension as a couple, and a showcase of the thing that makes me love them the most, which is their super long conversation about faith and their future. to me, those were the moments lacking in damira because they got too caught up on painting dani as this hyper-realized version of a LI which turned out to be a self-congratulatory asshole who disrespected amira in various ways. there were never instances in which they seriously discussed dani reverting to islam in the future, or actually conciliated their visions of their faith to really show where they were in sync and where they disagreed to start working on it. after watching the yousana date clip, i left with the impression that yousef reverting to islam was a real possibility, but i can’t say the same for dani. the damira ending in particular rewards dani for being the way he is, and the worst thing is that amira practically encourages him to never be a muslim because she loves him the way he is (what the fuck!). moreover, he never showed any interest in following amira’s conditions, never tried to familiarize himself with her culture and friends (he took her to a BAR to meet HIS friends but he’s never even shown bonding with las labass?), never really cared about anything that wasn’t to get amira to be physically intimate with him. see, when i think of the yousana dynamic i see the yousef as someone who can read the sana and therefore know what to say and do, not because he only wants to charm her but because he genuinely cares about her. even sofianne showed some of that on the earlier episodes of skamfr s4, but that’s completely lost on damira and dani in particular. and i’m not gonna pretend that this task is possible to do with a white, christian-raised love interest. for this to work, whoever sp!yousef is has to be way more in sync culturally with amira.

a way to partially solve that issue is to make dani be honest to amira throughout the season. i don’t doubt he’s genuinely into her but then he doesn’t communicate her his doubts about the relationships and lies to her about the whole “the only problem in our relationship is the haters <3″ bullshit that he spews out for three entire episodes. moreover, dani being honest from the start would’ve given amira enough hints (red flags) that dani didn’t really take any of her conditions seriously and he was just waiting for her to be less strict about the terms that he agreed on, and maybe there would’ve been a real critique to the character that 1) didn’t make amira look like an “annoying religious fanatic” (which she wasn’t at all lol) to most of the white audience who sided with dani when the relationship started falling apart, and 2) taught an actual lesson to amira about how would a relationship between a white dude who has no intentions to be muslim in the future would go like. i can understand why eskam still left the question pending on the air as they wanted to give amira an endgame and they probably didn’t want to make it seem like muslim/christian relationships don’t work in the slightest when this is the first mainstream show with a hijabi protagonist in spain... but eh. fucking cowards.

if it’s not obvious by now, to me, the ideal version of damira is the one where they’re not endgame by any means, even going to the point that i really dislike that dani even likes amira back. i would’ve really loved if dani stayed in amira’s daydreams throughout the season, where her idealized version of a childhood friends to lovers story is quickly replaced by a more realistic relationship with someone who actually makes efforts to be with her (cough cough bi!kasim anyone?). in that case, dani can be as douchebag-ey as he was for the entire season, idc, but now the show would really acknowledge that and drive the message that amira deserves someone who’s attentive and respectful and genuinely loving of her. and hopefully say that without making it seem like it’s impossible for muslims to date non-muslims: more like, it’s unlikely for amira to date dani in particular, and only because he clearly has no interest on following on the things that she values the most - which is a message that applies to every relationship, honestly.

if i had free reign on completely redesigning dani’s character and the damira dynamic, then i would make dani way more understanding and have his clumsiness be acknowledged and criticized instead of both the characters and the audience using it as a justification time and time again. he’d show genuine interest in islam, he’d thoroughly discuss boundaries with amira to assure that they’re both comfortable, he’d made sure to safely insert himself on her spaces and not just drag them to bars and basketball courts on every date, they’d have SO many conversations of faith that truly make him a nuanced character and also help flesh out the reasons of why amira loves being muslim. which i think are just ways of dani respecting amira’s agency and showing genuine interest on her besides his initual infatuation, as all the other endgame LIs of the show have done it. i’d completely erase the stupid “uwu islam won’t let me kiss dani/viceversa” plotpoint from existence, for SURE. with all of those changes i would be neutral on the existence of damira as i am with virihugo, i think. but also the thing that truly holds me back is that... just, the lack of characters of color in the show. with the way kasim was only used as a plot device and dounia was written out off her best friend role very early in, we truly don’t even have a significant presence of muslim people of color in amira’s season. whitewashing yousef is a big part in that too, and that’s why people were so eager to believe that kasim could’ve been amira’s endgame for this season.

[stevenuniversetanzanite]

Second First Meeting (Sally x reader)

I got some dialogue from my directing class about a junkie named Sally you all can guess who I thought of. I think the dialogue is from an Australian tv or web series called Blue mountain. Anyway, I adapted the story so I could work in into a story.

As this is a one-shot for the sake of the story, I am forgetting time is a concept that applies to humans. You get to choose if you age like a normal human or you were turned into a vampire and are immortal. Whatever makes your experience more enjoyable- however, you have to age slightly after the leaving part.

This is a lot more dialogue than I normally do. So I hope it isn't too bad. Also, I've written for sally. She is a bit ooc but I feel like it works because none of it is set during the main duration of the season. 

The story starts here:

"What are you doing?" You asked your girlfriend who you ran into unexpectedly on your way to a deal.

"Nothing" she said in a daze.

The woman in a leopard print tried to stumble past you, having places she needed to be that didn't concern you. She was happy until you interrupted her euphoric dream of a world her lasted dosage of drugs gave her. She'd found the stash in your shared apartment, knowing how to do it from when you showed her long ago when you first sold her drugs. Years had passed since your high school days, the two of you had fallen further into the world of junkies and quick fixes in order to feel something.

A month ago, you both promised each other you'd give up drugs and make a life for yourself. You'd finally seen the damage it had done to her, you and the people you sold drugs to. Most people you couldn't care about, but her, you'd do anything for. She was no longer on the 'beginner' stuff, moving on to higher doses, more frequent use and stronger drugs. She outdid you nowadays with her intact. You had lessoned your usage, the reason you got into the scene, economic problems were now fixed, you were wanning your dependence on the substances. Who knows, soon you might be able to get a normal job.

When you made your empty promises, you had the full intent on giving up that life, her fingers were crossed behind her back. You'd half kept your promise, you still sold on the side, but you kept telling yourself that you'd stop soon. You just needed to get rid of the stock. You said that last batch. A part of the newest batch was what was giving your girlfriend her high.

"What are you doing here?" You were a quarter of a block away from where you dealled, standing outside the Hotel Cortez.

"I just came to visit some friends. I just wanted to get out of the house!"

"What, so you come here? What are you here for?" You spot her bag, having a hunch as to why she was there, you snatched her bag to search it.

"What am I supposed to do? Sit at home and watch Days of our Lives all day?!" Sally yelled as she attempted to get her bag back, but you push her back.

You throw the bag to the ground and ask, "You using something huh? Show me your arm." You grabbed her arm. She yanked her arm about, but you held onto her with a firm grip.

"Jesus Christ Y/n, you're a stupid arsehole! Let go!" Sally gets out of your grasp and walks over to her belongings and began to off.

"Where you going?" You went after her to stop her from leaving both you and the situation, catching the handle of her bag and holding her back. "Why don't you show me what's in the bag."

"There's nothing in the bag!" She cried. You glared into her eyes, scanning her for anything that would tell you that she was lying. You couldn't see anything. You went to your next guess. "You up here screwing some guy? How the hell am I supposed to trust you? How am I supposed to trust you Sal?"

"I hate all this shit! You're so bloody jealous!"

"Junkies....You're all bloody junkies!" You were no better and the fact that she didn't point it out, still astonishes you. She was two caught up with the personal attack to come up with something better. You'd never called her a junkie before though you both at one point met the criteria.

"I'm not a bloody junkie!"

"Well you're an addict. What's the difference?"

"I know what I am, you get it right."

"You know what? You whatever the fuck you want. Go blow some dude for all I care."

"Okay, I will."

"Good, have fun."

She took your advice but when she came home, there was nothing left. All your stuff was gone. No note detailing where you'd gone. The apartment was trashed, and all her stuff was shoved into a box near the front door.

She never saw you in all your favourite spots or the alleys you used to deal. Your existence was erased from the world, the only evidence that you existed was her memories. Maybe you were an hallucination the whole time?

Ever since she sought out potential partners with a desperate need to be loved. It was fine at first. She pretended to forget you, found her true path in music and even got a job composting for her friends one of her favourite musicians. She found herself needed more then drugs, she never realised that you, yourself was a drug to her, the love you gave her, she craved it and for a fraction of a moment she found it in the duo. They two gave her a new life from one she was trying to escape. You had helped her with her initial problems, a bad experience in youth and these two helped her to forget you if only your face.

The night you disappeared from the world you decided to go into the Hotel Cortez for some drinks. A bold lady sat reading a newspaper at the reception desk. She peered up from paper to give you a once over. Your hands were stuffed in your vinyl coat to keep them warm. You made your way straight over to the desk and asked how much a room was in your sweetest sounding voice you could muster up. After being told, you pulled out a wad of cash and handed her the amount. She gave you an odd look at the amount you carried on you. You payed her no mind. Waiting for her to fetch you the key to your room before asking her about the status of the bar, "Is the bar opened?"

Once checking out your room and tidying yourself up you headed down to the bar. The same woman form before was now behind the bar tending to it. "You don't have much staff?"

"Not many people stay here at once."

"That's a shame, it's a cute hotel. Very vintage."

Liz asked what drink you wanted then went to prepare it. "So, what made you decided to stay with us, Y/n?" You told her your name when you reserved your room.

"Had a fight with my girlfriend?"

"Got kicked out?"

"No, I just don't want to go home and face her yet." The woman, who's name you learned was Liz handed you a drink.

You spoke to her for hours, admitting things that you'd told no one. She gave her outsiders perspective on your situation and to put it simply, maybe Sally wasn't the right girl for you. You wanted to move to grander places and your half success showed progress. You would have to cut all ties to that lifestyle in order to move on completely. You mentioned to her a business propose a family member offered you that you were considering taking up but didn't because you knew you wouldn't be able to do it with your current life. It involved you moving across the country which you couldn't afford before, but if you sold your apartment and used the money for plan tickets you might be able to make it work.

You didn't know if the offer was still available, Liz told you all you had to do was call up the person and ask. She offered you encouragement in doing so and even offered you a free drink if you did it.

Your family member was ecstatic that you accepted the offer, preparing a space for you when you arrived. Said member knew of your struggles and was willing to help you out of your rut, as well as offer a job helping with their fashion line. You were a business person, you knew the trade which was what made you a great drug dealer to begin with, it would be a different scene but all you could do was hope you were a fast learner.

You spent your last week in room 64 trying off loose ends so you could start anew.

Years later Sally found herself trapped in the inner walls of a hotel, haunting the grounds, finding pleasure in killing whomever she pleased in whatever way she like. Her choice, as with most things, was with drugs. Her face was permanently stained with tear tracks darkened by her runny mascara.

It was no longer the 80's. Decades had passed, and you found yourself back in Downtown LA. You were there on business, one of your companies provided funding for Will Drake's fashion line for years. You saw potential in his works and helped him by providing resources. His newest fashion show was exclusive, but you managed to easily get a spot. You'd heard that the fashion designer had a new 'face' for his brand. You'd never met the person face to face, but the name was familiar, Liz Taylor. It must have been a common name. You were surprised when you discovered Will Drake wasn't the one to request for your invitation but Liz. You were happy for the invitation none the less. It didn't strike you until you entered the newly renovated hotel Cortez who Liz Taylor was.

There were very few invinations and all phones and cameras a band making the whole show more intriguing. The models were unusual, the variety was a present surprise. One woman sent you back into your past. You audibly choked catching the attention of a few of the people around you. You brush them off and watched on.

At the end of the show, all the models walked out to show of their outfits one last time. The models lined the edges of the runway. The model resembling your past love stopped in front of you. She looked out into the far back of the audience. Her eyes glaze over you and she stiffens, tilting her head slightly in confusion but trying to act professional. The audience abrupted in applause, you delayed for a moment before following in the others lead. You maintained eye contact until she had to turn to leave the stage. You hit the open bar as soon as you could, wanting to forget what just happened. You'd downed a couple drinks before you heard the familiar voice from beside you.

"Hello there," the carbon copy purred.

"Hello," you squeaked out before downing another drink. She smirked. You stared into her eyes, wanting to quiver under the wait and power of them. "Drink?" you said pointing to the alcohol.

She chuckled, before getting some for herself. "You seemed mighty fascinated in me while on stage. I thought I would return the favour."

"Well, in that case. How do I look?"

"Not bad. A bit older than I'd usually go for."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Not nearly. More experience."

"I guess you could say-"

"L/n-" your attention snapped form the timeless relect in front of you to the new face of Will Drake but an old face to you. What was with this looking vintage place and the past. Sally reacted to your surname even going so far as to repeat it.

"Liz, I wanted to congratulate both you and Drake on an amazing show. However, I never expected any less." You said shaking the woman's hand. "I assume you'll pass on the praise to Will Drake yourself as he's become recluse from the public eye."

"Of course, L/n. I see you met one of our models. I hope Sally isn't give you any trouble."

"Sally?" Your eyes darted back to her. A look of bewilderment on your face. How could it be? Liz's eyes dart between the two of you. You both shared the same expression. She knew she was missing something. "What's your last name?"

"Mckenna."

"Oh fuck- Shit. How is it you? Oh god."

"Y/n? You got old."

"You haven't aged a day."

"You two know each other?" Liz asked.

"I was her dealer-" "She was my girlfriend-" you spoke at the same time. Liz understood immediate, remembering your tale from decades prior. You'd called her Sal the whole time you were talking about her, it could have been short for anything. From all the stories Sally had spat out in one of her angry drunk sessions Liz had all the clues to piece it together sooner.

"Was I nothing to you?" Sally asked. "I should have guessed when you abandoned me-"

"Sally, quiet down-" some of the guests turned to when hearing her yell.

"No- don't you dare talk to me-"

"You can yell at me all you want, just not out here." Here eyes followed yours catching the stared of the crowd around them. She had to stop herself from snapping at them. She didn't want to ruin Liz's show.

Even though she had all this anger built up, from your general presence being back a time she had recently gotten over. She'd wait until your both alone to tear you into shreds.

"We can go to my room." Sally grumbled before grabbing arm to tug me off. Liz warned her not to harm me as she was better than that (also it would affect business). I told Liz I was used to 'her type' which enraged Sally more. Your ex dragged me all the way to the elevator before tossing me inside and selecting the level. "You're lucky this isn't the last show they had here." you didn't know what she meant by that. Was she a different person then? Had she changed since then? You knew she was implying something but weren't exactly sure what.

By the time she reached her destination she'd didn't want to slit your throat at the sight of you.

She pulled you to room 64, wait this was your room, why was she taking you to your room? She pulled out a key and opened the room. You entered before her, noticing all your belongs in the same place as they were normally along with the random keyboard in the room.

"You want to explain why you have the key to my room?"

"It's my room."

You pulled out your key and showed her it. "Liz?" she asked. You assume she meant the receptionist.

"Iris, I believe or at least she was the one who gave me the key."

"They must have run out of rooms and started evening our rooms away."

"Why would they give your rooms away if there yours?"

"Long story."

"Make it short."

"I don't have to answer to you."

"How about a question for a question?"

"Fine."

"You answer mine first."

"I don't think you'll believe me-"

"That's not an answer. I don't have to believe you; I just want the truth."

"What was your question again?"

"Why did they give away your room if it's yours?"

"Right. I'm dead."

"You're right, I don't believe you."

"Told you."

"Keep going."

She rose her brow. You didn't believe her, yet you wanted to keep listening. "As we are dead and can't move on from this place, we haunt this hellhole."

"There's more ghosts?"

Sally nodded. "That's two questions. My turn, why did you leave me?"

"I don't know a good answer do that." Sally was going to make a snappy comment, but you kept talking. "Short answer, I wanted more, and my life was holding me back. I was torn between the opportunity of a lifetime and life with you. I got an outsiders opinion and they helped me figure out I couldn't have it all and be with you."

"Were you happy?"

"For a bit. It was hard at first with rehabilitation and learning to fit into a life I hadn't had in years. It's different on the other side. I had something holding me back to my old life, a loose end I never resolved."

"What was that?"

"You. I never told you I left. I felt guilty for not telling you. Always wondered what happened to you but never dared to find you."

"Scared I'd pull you back in?"

"No, I was scared I made a mistake."

"You did."

"I don't think there was a good option. I'd lose either way."

"What about you? What have you made of yourself?"

"Other than a ghost? I perused music."

"Good for you, you were always talking about doing that."

She ended up telling her whole life story up until getting stuck into the hotel. She spoke about how she was making music with Patti Smith in the 1980s, but she got fired from the project. She went on about how her addiction got worse and with the loss of you and abandonment issues were enhanced. She mentioned how she was working with Patti Smith for a while at the time before you left but never mentioned it because she wanted it to be a surprise. In 1993, she was a songwriter and had a threesome one night with her friends, a couple of musicians. Sally injected all of them with heroin and in a bizarre drug-induced psychosis, developed the idea to sew all of them together. Her friends died in the process. She was trapped for three days whilst lying trapped next to the corpse of her friends. While being tortured by something she called an 'Addiction Demon.' You didn't understand why she was telling you about this even, but you listened nevertheless. For a moment, it seemed like old times, you were entranced by every word. She told you about being murdered in 1994 when a guy, iris' son, died from an overdose, much to Sally's indifference. Iris pushed her out the window. She goes on to say, now the two where okay. Iris ended up introducing Sally to the internet and showing her a world she never thought she could have again.

"Did you move on?" She was unsure as you didn't mention anyone in your tale of the past, while she went into detail- mainly because she couldn't harm you, so it seemed like the second-best option. She hoped it made you jealous.

"Couldn't." Your answer was short. You didn't want to go into depth about your lack of interest in anyone besides her, so you lied. "Too busy."

Once the two of you were done, you sat in silence. No more questions among the two, closure on both your ends. So, what now?

Part 2

Considering doing a part two as 2 people on wattpad wanted me to. However I have no idea where to go from here. 

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v4 #1 and 2099 Omega Thoughts

This is literally the third time I’ve purchased a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 #1 in 5 years. Technically more if we include reprints. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?

Fun fact, I wasn’t buying any comics (sans some pre-OMD Spidey and Deadpool Classic trades) between 2009 and 2014. It was the 2014 Spidey 2099 run that got me back into the game, for good or ill.

This issue wasn’t nearly as good at series. And Omega was…lol…it was so bad and essentially an extension of Spidey 2099 I’m covering them together.

I remember fondly my hype when I saw Miguel in ASM v5 #25 and my hype for this one shot, back when I didn’t realize it was just part of a larger event.

Oh boy did this let me down.

Let me start with some superficial praise.

The art for Spidey 2099 and Sandoval on Omega were decent. And there was some interesting ideas pertaining to the world of the future, such as the removal of money and instead having everyone’s value depend upon what they can contribute. A society built upon meritocrisy, albeit with harsh reprisals if you can contribute little. Also the idea of corporations fixing things so only insiders can gain employment speaks to the corporatocracy  of the 2099 universe (one severely undermined when we consider Doom is ultimately in charge anyway…). People intentionally using drugs to keep up their work productivity is another great idea, and a genuinely interesting twist upon the original depiction of the rapture drug from Spidey 2099 v1 #1.  Finally people essentially enabling identity theft in exchange for drugs was an interesting sci-fi concept.

But beyond that…this was bad.

When I began covering this event proper with 2099 Alpha my dominant critique was ‘who is this for’.

A reboot of the 2099 line over 20 years since the original line ended and less than 3 years since the revival of it ended? A reboot intended to modernize the 1990s’ take on the future, a take that frankly proved 99% accurate anyway. And finally a reboot that alternated between doing spotty world building, killing off new characters, tie-ins to modern canon events and most of the time communicated its ideas in confusing and baffling ways.

I put forward that it was doomed to displease the old 2099 fans like me because it was erasing what we knew and loved. But it was also so poorly communicating its rebooted vision that new people were going to be alienated.

I’m only slightly going to backtrack on what I said. Because the Punisher 2099 issue was if you like the greatest argument in favour of the reboot. It wasn’t just the best issue in this mess, it was a bona fide awesome story just in general. It actually dived into an aspect of futuristic sci-fi that the 1990s 2099 series (to my knowledge) would’ve struggled to cover as it pertained so much to 2010s life and technology.

More poignantly though, the problem with this event is that there was no over arching vision between the titles. Not every one shot had the same problems but they all in different ways displayed problems that smacked into the very premise of this event.

F4 2099 was literally pointless as it spent a whole issue introducing a new F4 then killed them.

Conan 2099 could’ve been virtually the same if Conan was like 20 years in the future not this new future we rebooted.

Arguably Punisher 2099 relied upon familiarity with the Jake Galloway Punisher 2099 before it subverted your expectations.

Ghost Rider 2099 was fun but the writer clearly LIKED the original take on the character to the point where he essentially minimized changes to the rebooted version making the act of rebooting the character pointless in the first place and failing the mission statement of the event.

Venom 2099 was a weird tie-in for Cates current Venom mega arc involving Knull that was nonsensical as it proposes that Knull is still en route to Earth and thus in theory there is no tension in Cates’ run. Moreover it wasn’t much of a futuristic take on Venom himself and fundamentally hurt as there was no Spider-Man for Venom to act as a dark reflection of.

Doom 2099 in fairness had a cool twist, but a cool twist that didn’t make sense in and of itself and was also reliant upon familiarity with the original 1990s character.

And then we come to these issues.

These issues I’m sad to say just absolutely fundamentally fail conceptually.

He’s incredibly passive and very bland as a character so newer fans coming in with no knowledge or attachment to the Miguel O’Hara of old are unlikely to warm to him. His defining trait is being someone who cares enough about the suffering of others that he will not actively take part in it, but will also not actively do anything to help like his brother Gabe. This is then set up for his brother to die, cue a less good retread of Peter Parker’s origin story but minus much action of Miggy in costume. On paper the idea of a guy experiencing Peter’s ultimate failure and from this being motivated to OBTAIN super powers is interesting but it’s just not examined all that much in the story. What I’m saying is at a time when there is a sea of Spider-Heroes to read about on the stands this version of Miguel O’Hara is lame, derivative and the execution of his character half-hearted.

Then on the other hand you have the older fans’ perspectives. Obviously old Spidey 2099 fans are unlikely to take to this new version just on principle. But when you realize you lost the old character for THIS guy…oh boy does that sting.

Original recipe Miguel O’Hara was cool because he zigged where Peter zagged. He was kind of an asshole, but one with limits on how little he cared. And he became more heroic over time, but never the same type of hero as Peter. And above all he was a sarcastic, sardonic, cynic who you could tell was thinking ‘I can’t even with this Spider-Shit right now’. Case in point, he was okay with straight up killing opponents. He was more unique and much more compelling than this version, as were his cast. Lyla is basically the Aunt May of this story and not the source of humour that she was even in the first 3 issues of the 1990s run. She also lacks her iconic Monroe look, and isn’t even consistent with how she looked in ASM v5 #35.

Losing a cool character for a lame one would be bad enough but then the story straight up invalidates both itself and the entire goddam event.

It does this by having the rebooted Miggy start to see visions of the pre-rebooted (prebooted?) 2099 timeline, meet an aged version of his prebooted self and then have even more flashes of the prebooted timeline. *

Wow…Just….Wow…

Let’s pretend that the vision of 2099 in this event was a temporary thing, an Age of Apocalypse or a House of M just for 2099 and the plan was always to go back to how it was before when the story wrapped up.

That makes this entire event pointless. See the reason AoA worked (and HoM in theory could have worked) is because it was a temporary change of pace.

That doesn’t apply to the 2099 line, a nostalgic, discontinued line of comics and characters that are unlikely to get a full on revival and who’s last attempt at a revival wrapped up over 2 years ago.

THIS event should’ve been a nostalgia trip for the old fans and a chance to introduce that line to a new generation. Instead it discarded the old in favour of something new which was seemingly intended to go nowhere.

Good job Marvel, any new fans you MIGHT have gotten hooked just got fucked over and people like me who pre-ordered this event thinking we were going to get the characters we knew and loved also got fucked over.

And in fact the entire exercise was an example of intentional redundancy.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oh and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So Miguel was thrown back in time when his timeline was starting to be erased and replaced with the rebooted timeline, then he was erased in ASM v5 #34, which began this new rebooted timeline…but he is alive in it, remembers it, can give his past self visions from the old timeline...

…I’m a Doctor Who fan and that’s not any kind of wibbly wobbley timey whimey nonsense. It’s just regular ass nonsense, just like the Man-Spider monster Miguel encounters who repeats ouroboros to him, the same word ReedDoom said in the Doom 2099 issue. How and why would the Man-Spider creature say that to Miguel. How would prebooted Miguel know it said that? How and why would rebooted Miguel see Spidey 2099 in costume spray painting that?

Shit what the fuck does ouroboros even mean?????????

*one google search later*

A snake eating its tail as a symbol of endless infinity…what the fuck does that mean?

That Miguel makes himself Spider-Man 2099 always?

There was a cool idea in the Omega issue wherein we learn Doom essentially erased everyone’s memories with magic so they’d forget the Age of Heroes altogether, but the rise of the characters in the one shots represented that spell breaking down. Too bad it doesn’t add up given how Venom was always going to exist and existed SINCE the Age of Heroes and people obviously remember Thor as there is an entire tribe dedicated to him!**

However the Omega issue’s biggest sin is showing us how truly pointless most of the issues of this event were. Honest to God you only need to read Doom scenes from Alpha and then Spidey 2099 and Omega. Those are the only plot relevant issues out of this whole event.

Over all, these issues and this event have been a humungous, insulting disappointment. Check out some of the art but literally nothing else sans the Punisher.

*I mean if you want to get technical the 2099 universe has technically been rebooted multiple times. The version of it presented from 2013-2017 actually differed from the original 1990s version in various ways, e.g. Miguel’s love life panned out very differently. When I refer to the pre-rebooted/prebooted timeline I’m referring to the version from 2013-2017, just to be clear.

**There are other contradictions in these 2 issues as well, like how poverty and bad health have been erased but…we see they haven’t as there are multiple examples of both in the one shots.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Honestly, my biggest problem with the Aftran infestation plot is the Natural Morphing resolution to Cassie going Nothlit is uh... weak is the kind word for it.

To quote a writing buddy:

Some fans… approach stories in terms of what would be most ‘logical’ for one character to do in a story… Which not only misunderstands the whole need for characters with different points of view within storytelling, but that getting into these nonsense-logic debates belies the deeper intent and functionality of storytelling itself.

Because there is literally no point to approach the ‘bad logic’ of a given story choice like you think you are fixing flaws of a film. Instead, you are literally erasing conflict from the movie. The obvious problem there is that the entire damn point of a movie is to create conflict. We want stories that get at the heart of strife between two people, and through the dramatization of that conflict, will say something about the human condition. But in the humane desire for an audience member to seek resolution to that same conflict (which I think speaks to the power that stories have upon people), they will often subconsciously try to resolve it with an outside-the-box practical decision that reflects their own brain, over the logic of the drama itself.

I guess what I’m trying to say with that quote: it’s not necessarily logical for the story to function that way, but the goal of the story was never to be logical.

K.A. Applegate isn’t writing a rhetoric and rationality manual.  She’s a) trying to tell a complex story about enemies coming to realize they have common ground, b) making a point about the messy nuances of privilege and the fact that lack of privilege doesn’t give one the right to hurt others, c) trying to entertain readers as young as eight, d) building an emotional arc for six main characters and a handful of supporting characters, and e) trying to educate children about animals.  That last one is actually the motivation Applegate herself sites for writing the Animorphs series in the first place and (I’d argue) one of the strongest aspects of the series, that she manages to make nonsensical morphing into these very real-feeling experiences.

Is it “logical” for Rachel to be allergic to crocodile DNA?  Of course not.  Does the scene with Rachel involuntarily turning into an elephant and nearly crushing Sarah to death feel utterly, horrifyingly, nightmare-inducingly real anyway?  At least to me it does.

Sure, I agree with you that authors’ Rules of Applied Phlebotinum should be internally consistent.  That said, I also feel like pushing the envelope a little to achieve a desired effect is perfectly fine, because Charles Dickens constantly gets away with much, much worse.  The ends have to justify the means, but I think that they do in this case.

To explain what I mean: in my utterly uninformed opinion, the moment in #1 where Tobias “hears” Jake’s thoughts while Jake isn’t in morph is kind of a frustrating error.  It doesn’t advance the plot, it doesn’t get an in-universe justification, it doesn’t achieve a character or setting effect, and it’s not cool or otherwise emotionally evocative.

HOWEVER, the moment in MM2 where Tobias tries and fails to morph in order to fix a broken wing is a little annoying but I’m willing to overlook it.  The crisis of Tobias being injured and alone with Rachel achieves several effects:

It forces the decision that Rachel could just morph and fly off in search of the others, but that she is entirely unwilling to leave Tobias mostly-helpless and alone to do so.  It draws attention to the fact that Tobias is new at morphing, and self-conscious about that fact.  It helps set up the Big Honking Character Moment at the end of the book through showing that Tobias is a much tougher person, willing to make much bigger sacrifices, than that soft-skinned starry-eyed kid we saw in the first book.  It causes Rachel and Tobias to confess their feelings for each other, which at that point in the series they’ve yet to do.  It allows Rachel (and by extension the reader) access Tobias’s dinosaur knowledge while denying the rest of the team that knowledge, creating some great moments of dramatic irony.  It highlights Tobias’s dual identity, that he is more willing to navigate a strange environment as an injured bird than as an uninjured human.  It separates the group, thereby setting up the same conflict that each Megamorphs book faces: a reduced team deciding under desperate and unfamiliar circumstances just how far they’re willing to go to survive.  It’s one of the forces that drives Rachel and Tobias together as a couple.

Does that moment still bug me, in that I wish Applegate had found a different way to achieve the same effect?  Yeah, a little.

Anyway, that moment with Cassie not becoming a butterfly forever and ever:

Allows Cassie to demonstrate that she is Committed As Fuck to this deal with Aftran, in that she actually goes through with the nothlit thing.

Justifies Aftran’s own heel-face turn, because it calls BS on Aftran’s “even death is preferable to life without a host” argument.

Keeps Cassie in the narrative in spite of her becoming a nothlit, without resorting to an attempt to explain how she could also do a favor for the Ellimist while stuck as a butterfly and then regain her morphing but be a semi-permanent butterfly…

Presents one of the stranger realities of nature — that little worm-things make shells, crawl into those shells after shedding their skin a quadrillion times, dissolve into goo, and pop out with completely different morphology — in a way that actually incorporates it into the drama of the story, in contrast to all those children’s books with characters droning straight at the reader about The Life Cycle of the Butterfly.

Foreshadows not only Aftran’s eventual fate but that of all the yeerks — Aftran might have been born a little worm-thing, but that doesn’t mean she can’t transform and achieve nearly infinite potential without needing a host to do so.

Grounds Cassie within her team through showing that she and Marco especially might be at odds a lot of the time, but that all five of her friends would be devastated if she could no longer be in their lives.

Affirms Cassie’s connection to her parents as well, amidst the ongoing narrative of her becoming so adult that she views them almost as children she must protect, through forcing her to be separate from them for a few weeks.

Gives the book directly before the David trilogy a happy ending, a much-needed uplift just before the horror to come.

Conveys a really important message about how doing the right thing is often hideously difficult.

And shows that doing the right thing is usually more about making a commitment to something and then following through no matter how difficult it becomes, less about throwing oneself in front of buses to save innocent children.

And gets into the gritty details of there being consequences to doing the right thing, not just adults coming in at the end of the adventure to pat one on the head for a job well done.

And forces the issue of The Right Thing sometimes being the thing that hurts a hell of a lot, when it’s not just a matter of destroying the ring you happen to like also destroying the whole army of orcs.

Does not end the book with Cassie stuck as a bug forever, using an excuse based in nature itself, thereby fitting well with the motif of the series as a whole that nature is disturbingly powerful.

Anywhoo, I’m not sure what K.A. Applegate could have done differently under the circumstances to achieve the desired result.  Maybe it’s “weak” to assume that a naturally-occurring metamorphosis process could derail the limits of a technological reality like morphing.  But this is a book series with shapeshifting, time travel, alien invaders, and New Yorkers still having landlines in 2009, for cryin’ out loud.  I think it’s entitled to a little illogic in order to achieve a desired plot-character-setting-emotional arc effect.

[izzyovercoffee]

The thing is, I never read Legends, so I always saw the warrior mandalorians as imperialist. Both of the houses we see (Kryze and Viszla) are headed by white, blonde families and Clan Wren are the descendants of a people who were conquered, converted to Mandalorian ideals, and placed in a subordinate position under Viszla. Bo Katan, a traditionalist, rejects Maul as unfit to rule because he's an alien. And this was all decided before the reboot with Legends so....I'm confused.

Confusion is totally understandable! 

For the record, because this got so long, it has to go under a cut. I apologize for the length, and if my tone is off it’s not intentional. I’m, essentially, info-dumping, because there’s a lot of extraneous information that applies to the arcs I’m gonna try to address under the cut. I’m also reading your ask as if you didn’t see Satine’s New Mandalorians as imperialist, bc that seems to be what you’re implying in the ask? If I’m off, I apologize in advance.

Also even though I say “you” in this reply, I don’t mean you specifically, I’m meaning to address a general “you,” not you you.

The short answer is that even if you are not familiar with Legends material, reading only one of the two houses as imperialist kind of misses all of the subtext conveyed purely by the information presented in the arcs themselves, and oversimplifies imperialism. It is easy to miss, though, and imperialism itself is a complex subject that isn’t discussed as well as it should be.

But, ultimately, even if we were to ignore Legends and only look at canon material, we still have what boils down to this:

The New Mandalorians, an all white faction of mandalorians:

exiled people of a differing cultural philosophy

has a society not achievable through means that don’t involve steps towards ethnic cleansing 

declared pre-established nonwhite mandalorians as not mandalorian, thereby stripping any claim to that cultural identity, in the same vein as calling them the equivalent of savage

were part of a regime change backed by an outside stronger, larger military force invested in that regime change

All of these things, together, paint House Kryze and the New Mandalorians as Imperialist. Regardless of Legends material, regardless of how anyone feels about Death Watch.

And even though the writing does not really carry the kind of awareness that definitely points to a lesson on imperialism, if we entertain that as the conclusion to all of the arcs … it would have been more effective to make Sundari diverse in comparison to Death Watch, and have that diversity leverage Death Watch’s war crimes directly, rather than make Sundari the accidental genocidal Imperialist power by poor design decision.

Furthermore, as much as I would rather not bring it up as it’s always used as a straw man argument against the existence of racism, the fact is that Imperialism is not the sole purview of white people. Chinese Imperialism exists. Japanese Imperialism exists. Both are as effective analogues for Imperialism, and both are closer to actual Mandalorian history than the space!Nazi aesthetic the writers went with—not just for obvious reasons, but because the space!Nazi aesthetic implicates an altogether different type of imperialism. 

And it’s a type that completely distracts from and undermines the ultimate goals of their storytelling in those arcs. 

Moving on to that last point, though … that scene where Bo-Katan rejected Maul, can be read differently—as in, she did not reject him because he was an alien so much as she rejected Maul because he wasn’t mandalorian. Or it could be both of those things, but it’s an important distinction to make—it’s important to not forget all of the things Bo-Katan, specifically, was fighting for.

Bo-Katan fought to save the culture Satine was trying to eradicate — and in terms of cultural genocide, if Maul was to take up his position as leader of mandalorians, that is just trading one type of cultural genocide for another.

It is, under no circumstance, the same as framing it as a simple rejection of Maul because he’s an alien. Him being an alien literally does not matter in that moment, tradition or not, because Maul had no stake in it—because it’s not his culture on the precipice of extinction. To treat that scene like it was … well, was to miss the point.

The very long longer answer goes under the cut.

To warn you about what’s under the cut, as it’s, again, very, very long. I’m basically going into a detailed explanation about: 

Legends & why/how Legends applies to the Mandalore arcs

a longer diatribe on imperialism: —To Legends or Not to Legends —Why does Legends help the New Mandalorians?

how & why the New Mandalorians are Imperialist: —A Diatribe on Imperialism

and their platform is transparent and hypocritical w/o the additional context of Legends to soften the edges: —Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorian’s Transparently Hypocritical Political Platform, and more on Jango Fett

a longer explanation on Bo-Katan and Maul: —Xenophobia versus Continued Cultural Genocide

the actual events that are contextually relevant to the Mandalore arcs: —Legends: The Aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars—Legends: The Mandalorian Excision

what I mean by the Fetts were established as mandalorian before the Mandalore arcs aired: —Why the decanonization of the Fetts matters, in the context of the story and canon —An aside: Separating “Boba Fett” from “Mandalorian” after 30+ years

As I’ve said, it’s a lot. Mostly meant to be used as a reference, I guess. I apologize if I repeat myself too much. I wrote this in chunks and threw it together, so if it’s messy or even more confusing, that’s 100% on me.

[[ EDIT:: it has since come to my attention that George Lucas was the mind behind the retcon, stated once in a special featurette for TCW DVD set for Season 2. Him being known and expected to be (hopefuly for obvious reasons) incredibly racist makes it all a little less surprising, but no less fucked up. That the writers still stick with it now, after he’s out, is disappointing, and I maintain that that tweet by Hidalgo was unnecessary. Nothing else about the argument changes except on who to blame and criticize more than the others. ]]

To Legends or Not to Legends

The Imperialism implied in the show was based off of a larger context of conquer and destroy that exists in Legends, and at the time of airing took for granted that the viewer would have at least some knowledge of that mandalorian history, but would still work overall if the viewer did not know those details.

So, even if you are not familiar with Legends the show at the time took for granted at least superficial understanding of the KOTOR series and The Mandalorian Wars that occurred 4000 years prior to the events of the show. The Mandalore Arcs make multiple references to a history of galactic-scale war and conquest, but nothing was ever established even close to threatening outside of the events leading to KOTOR i & ii. The writers, themselves, also indicated familiarity and desire to canonize the KOTOR events (writing Revan, for example, into the show and having them voiced until, ultimately, Revan was cut from that episode. It doesn’t make KOTOR canon, but what it does do is build a case and point to the inspirations of where the writers were coming from). 

The Expanded Universe was still referenced even if it was obliquely—and under that knowledge, Expanded Universe / Legends material therefore matters when it comes to talking about the context of the Mandalore arcs.

I mean, obviously it wasn’t required knowledge, as anyone can watch the episodes and follow for the most part, and at this point because most of those things are now relegated to a time period that, most likely, will not be addressed or brought up in canon material from this point forward, it’s hard to gauge if it will ever “matter.”

But, regardless, the intent to reference the old republic can still be seen in there, and the Mandalore arcs make more sense, overall, politically and otherwise, when the Mandalorian Wars were / are taken into account as compared to how the arcs stand without that background.

At the time, while Legends wasn’t rebooted yet, only the highest levels of canon really “mattered,” and those were movies and TV. They both did and did not matter, because the showrunners ultimately had the final say of what they wanted to present. They could draw from the expanded universe material, even extrapolate on what was set up as a foundation—or they could do as they ultimately did and annihilate what was previously established.

To reiterate, the movies, and the shows, had the power to erase pre-established expanded universe canon, as it was canon at the time, just a “lower level” of canon. It wasn’t a clear cut line like it is today, where Legends is Legends and doesn’t “exist” in the star wars universe. Expanded Universe was canon-enough right up until the movies and the shows decided otherwise. Expanded Universe was canon right up until the show decided to outright erase some parts and rewrite it.

And that’s ultimately what happened to the mandalorians.

A Diatribe on Imperialism

So, to come back to the topic of Imperialism, Imperialism absolutely was the topic of discussion. But, again, because of the design decisions, even though they framed the New Mandalorians as the radical faction that came as a direct counterpoint to Death Watch and Mandalore’s history of war and conquest, the visual notes and hints they ultimately settled on implied a wholly different background that really … can’t conceivably be what they intended from the beginning.

Both Houses were Imperialists, and both of them carry a violent history.

I also want to reiterate: Imperialism is not the sole purview of white people. Other races, other Empires, have also expanded their respective territories, have also conquered huge territories, have forced assimilation of local peoples into their respective Empires. The Mongolians. The Chinese. The Khmer Empire. The Vikings. The Romans. The Japanese. And so on, and so forth.

Presenting imperialism = white is a very narrow, limited view of imperialism, and inaccurate (Chinese Imperialism is a real thing, Japanese Imperialism is a real thing. These things really happen today, and affect real people, and so and so forth). 

Not only white Europeans colonized huge chunks of the world, but generally white Europeans did so to such a degree that world is still fucking wrecked by it even to today. (But that doesn’t make the survivors of other imperialist conquests any less significant. It doesn’t make ethnic cleansing and intra-racial imperialism and genocide any less heinous, but I digress.)

Beyond that, though, while Imperialism and its effects absolutely is an important discussion to be had, by oversimplifying imperialist = white, and “warrior white” = imperialist, we fail to recognize the other types of imperialism in effect today (and in the star wars universe) that absolutely should be acknowledged and discussed.

Contrary to popular belief, there are other visual analogues that exist outside of centering white supremacy, even when that centering is meant to be in criticism of it.

Further, Imperialism isn’t only perpetuated through physical violence—and, in fact, in today’s world it’s more effectively perpetuated through other means, through policy. Satine Kryze’s reign is, yet again, another example of how a superficially nonviolent society can still wield imperialism through policy and not be demonized because, technically, they’re not violent like those other guys, aka Death Watch.

It’s easy to defend something terrible when the only other comparison is a group of extremists already demonized by history that are marginally more obviously terrible.

But, again, if the racism inherent in the episodes is missed, then it’s very easy to miss all of the unfortunate implications tied in with it. It’s also then easy to miss how the whitewashing comes in. And, ultimately, it’s easy to miss how that decision distracts from and completely undermines the point of those arcs. 

Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorian’s Transparently Hypocritical Political Platform, and more on Jango Fett

When the writers chose space!Germany, space!Nazis, they implicated Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians in a specific type of imperialism, and a specific type of genocide. And even though I cannot make any claims as to fully know what they intended to indicate, from what can be determined watching the arcs, the intention was not to paint Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as having that history of genocide. She was supposed to be a symbol against those war crimes, not a symbol whose power stems from it.

To reiterate, it was not one they wanted to implicate her and their faction in—it was one they wanted to implicate only Death Watch in, alone. But because of all the things I’ve pointed out in previous posts and above, there’s no other way to interpret the visual presentation of Sundari as anything but carrying an implied violently racist society. Because you cannot achieve a population that looks like that without eugenics, without genocide.

And if you still don’t see it now, after myself and other people have explained how and why Sundari is the perfect example of what that looks like … well.

Coming back to the white = imperialism analogue, that’s where, I think, the “well, of course they’re all white / blond / blue-eyed!” analogue falls short. Because the actual comparison of space!Germans? Space!Nazis? It just doesn’t work. It does not fit. The quick and easy analogue of Imperialism that the writers chose to go with, does not match what the apparent goals of either the longer Legends-inclusive bloody history nor the Mandalore arcs were trying to convey.

And as I’ve said before: we, the viewers, were supposed to sympathize with Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians, but for anyone even remotely familiar with the concept of eugenics, anyone who knows what the extreme conclusion of a racist society looks like, looks at the New Mandalorians and Sundari and sees them as the defacto success story of space!Nazis.

To say “it’s not that deep” is to, ultimately, pick and choose when and where one cares about visual details in a visual medium—when and where one cares about how information and story is illustrated through setting—and that’s really not an effective way to learn how to improve storytelling in a visual medium, nor learn why these interpretations arise and how to avoid (or fix!) them in the future.

On top of that, it ultimately takes away from the story. It takes away from the arc. It undermines anything Satine and the New Mandalorians could have stood for, because instead of being a Pacifist society out of a willingness to change and be better than what their history says they are, they’re a Pacifist society that had a successful implementation of a eugenics and cultural genocide program and that’s how they maintain their stability. And that’s monstrous.

It made Satine into a monster, by sheer accident and oversight.

When they made that design decision, they unfortunately implicated all of the white New Mandalorians as complicit in a specific type of genocide, one that can only be associated with space!Nazis, because that was the visual shortcut they decided on using. 

We were supposed to see the monsters only in Death Watch, not in the New Mandalorians, and not in Satine. The intent was to implicate Death Watch as all massively violent criminals and murderers, not make them victims to stand on ground equally bad. Not to inadvertently make them sympathetic.

It was just not reflective of the context they were pulling from at the time, nor was it effective for the story they wanted to convey. In no way did it make Satine Kryze sympathetic, because how could it?

Their writing choice had the exact opposite effect of their intended goal.

Why the decanonization of the Fetts matters, in the context of the story and canon

Moving on from that, I, generally, would couch against oversimplifying Satine’s (and the New Mandalorian’s) position: what they were doing, in no uncertain terms, was taking a culture that was, before the Mandalore Arcs, established as a nonwhite culture and declaring them savages that needed to be colonized for their own good. Almost literally exactly how the Fetts were decanonized within the show.

That is a type of Imperialism. That, in itself, is a type of colonization that has already happened in our history in the real world, worldwide, to countless native societies and people. 

Whether Filoni and Hidalgo George Lucas and the other writers liked it or not, the Fetts were still mandalorian as of the movies’ airings, and his retcon delivered through the show didn’t come until years later. So that retcon, that declaration, cannot be separated from what was established as canon beforehand and at the time of that episode’s airing—no matter how much the writers seemed to want to erase or ignore 30+ years of the larger franchise establishing otherwise in expanded materials without conflict. 

And because it cannot be separated, that directly implicates Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as just as Imperialist as Death Watch, except they’re less “terrorist.” But terrorism, in general, is determined by governmental and institutional power, and because the New Mandalorians wield all the power in mandalorian space, any act of obscene violence they may or may not wield on their marginalized populations will never be called terrorism—because, again, terrorism is the sole purview of people who don’t wield institutional power.

So, to reiterate, as I’ve said before, and as someone rightfully pointed out in the notes of the previous posts, by having the Fetts identified as mandalorians in canon material prior to the Mandalore arcs of the show, it was implicated that mandalorians as a cultural identity were nonwhite. 

To then introduce the New Mandalorians as all-white out of nowhere, and have them thereby declare:

the Fetts as not mandalorians, and

fighting as veneration was unconscionable

basically made the New Mandalorians echo real-world violent colonialism in the terms of the White Voice Of Reason coming to Tame The Savages and make them “reasonable and cultured.” 

So on the one hand, you have white Death Watch who is obviously Imperialist, yes, but then by doing the above the writers accidentally made it impossible to separate the New Mandalorians from a different but still clear Imperialism. I say accidentally because, generally, the writing of the early arcs didn’t seem to be all that self aware in those implications for Satine.

I mean, also consider that the Death Watch of the show also had:

a white woman in a position of power who wasn’t white supremacist pale / blond / blue-eyed, and

later established that they had nonwhite people among their ranks in respected positions

In comparison to New Mandalorians? Imperialism is still present, but the ethnic cleansing and the eugenics is not.

The impression that Clan Wren’s ancestors were subjugated by Mandalorian Expansion may not be wrong, or it may be. But consider why you want to make that assumption, if it’s necessary, and if it’s coming from a place of “well, of course they’re not naturally mandalorian, because they’re not white!” And if that perspective is being used to form a complex history and relationship with their cultural identity, or if you’re only doing it for superficial flavor that adds nothing to the story nor context. Because if it’s the latter, it’s not a decision that is made in vacuum, but rather one that can contribute to racism / racist narratives.

It’s racist in much the same sense as saying that someone cannot be British if they’re Asian. That someone cannot be American if they’re Asian. These assumptions that are being made, they’re not factual statements built from nothing but racist assumptions that don’t hold up under their own weight or logic.

Which isn’t to say that Death Watch isn’t terrible—they absolutely are.

The implied Imperialism of Death Watch is very real, yes. The problem is that I haven’t seen anything to implicate DW as subjugating the Wrens or other humans, if we’re looking at the show and canon only. 

I say that because … we only have the word of the New Mandalorians, who are speaking from a position I’ve hopefully explained in great detail as hypocritical at best, as well as the word of the Jedi Order / Republic, who both have a vested political interest in making damn sure the New Mandalorians keep their seats of power and would not want to undermine that stability (because the New Mandalorians are Republic-friendly and Death Watch is quite clearly Republic-unfriendly. Not to mention that both the Jedi Order and the Republic had a direct hand in the war to keep the New Mandalorians in power years before, when Satine rose to the duchy. And yes, this was stated in the arcs themselves, is canon and thereby not relegated to Legends information). 

None of the people pointing fingers at Death Watch are speaking from an unbiased position—and if the writers really wanted to make those accusations clearer and from an actually sympathetic POV, they would have made Sundari not all white, and gave minor airtime to a nonwhite mandalorian leveraging those crimes against Death Watch. 

But, they didn’t go down that route, so instead we have a conflict that is murky and convoluted with no right side. And as much as I detest Death Watch, the accusations towards them are not coming from a source that doesn’t benefit from villainizing everyone who contradicts them across the board.

And that’s a problem when the story arcs, themselves, expect us to just see Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as the “obvious” correct side without any kind of deep or critical thinking.

In Legends, Death Watch has always been anti-alien, but again, because of that lazy design decision … the writers relegated the anti-alien sentiment to all of Mandalorian space as a whole, as opposed to just Death Watch. 

Like I said, it’s distracting from the points and sides they were trying to make.

We also have another canon man native to Concord Dawn to compare Jango’s status to, because the excuses that we’ve been given so far has been “he’s not a mandalorian but he’s native to Concord Dawn” as if that should be an easy distinction to make … yet we have someone else who is also native to Concord Dawn, who was never part of Death Watch, and yet he’s still considered mandalorian.

That man is Fenn Rau. 

Canon material shows us:

Fenn Rau is a mandalorian, despite being from Concord Dawn, while

Jango Fett is “not,” when he’s also a Concord Dawn native

Concord Dawn sits firmly in Mandalorian Space, and Fenn Rau was a True Mandalorian, as was Jango Fett—also known as the Journeyman Protectors. They were a different faction who ultimately sided with the New Mandalorians against Death Watch—but unlike the New Mandalorians, they always dropped everything to fight whenever DW so much as blipped once on a radar. 

We also have the now-canon information that Fenn Rau was on Kamino and trained the clones, and from what Legends tells us … Jango Fett was the one who recruited a good number of mandalorians to help train the clones. At the very least, they must have known and interacted with each other, having been of the same factions and in the same space multiple times.

Again, the things Fenn Rau and Jango Fett have in common:

natives of Concord Dawn

part of the Journeyman Protectors third faction

and the things they don’t have in common:

Fenn Rau is white

Jango Fett is not white

So. 

There is no real logic involved in these writing decisions, outside of explicitly implicating the New Mandalorians as an Imperialist force complicit in racial & ethnic cleansing. That would be the most logical leap to explain why Fenn Rau is a mandalorian, but Jango Fett is not. 

Literally none of it makes sense story-wise in canon otherwise—because that’s, literally, the shortest logical leap that can be supported by the information provided by canon without bending ass over head and making weak excuses.

And, well, even so … If you only look at it from what you see on the shows and movies, it still doesn’t make much sense. Canon as it stands alone frames Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as a faction that stands on a position built on transparent irredeemable violent hypocrisy. 

Xenophobia versus Continued Cultural Genocide

And once more I come back to that scene where Bo-Katan rejected Maul. 

To reiterate, I argue that him being an alien does not matter. She may have said it, it may have been implied, but identifying him as an alien in that specific scene once Pre Vizsla was killed does not automatically mean xenophobia—especially when that scene was meant to be a defining point between continued cultural genocide and survival. Whether mandalorians would be willing to crucify itself on its traditionalism and be totally extinguished by accepting Maul, or by standing true to survival and rejecting an outsider from assuming a culture with which he has no stake in.

Rejecting Imperialist cannibalism, yet again.

Allowing Maul to lead the Mandalorians after executing Pre Vizsla would have been trading one violent subjugation for another—trading Satine Kryze’s cultural genocide in the forced conversion to Pacifism for the subjugation under the violent rule of a person who wasn’t mandalorian and had zero stake in what they, as a people, had to lose (once again, their cultural identity).

And that context matters. It matters. She didn’t make that decision from a position in which she was given much choice, regardless that allegiances split on that decision. Bo-Katan was fighting for traditionalism, yes, but that traditionalism is built on a foundation of mandalorians surviving mandalorian cultural genocide at all costs — first from the New Mandalorians and the Republic, 700 years prior, then the New Mandalorians and Satine a few decades prior to the show, and finally, if you take Legends context of The Mandalorian Wars, a survival of cultural genocide as brought into play by Sith manipulations.

Pre Vizsla died because his rigid traditionalism was the sword on which he was willing to impale himself on before he was willing to change. And that kind of rigid inability to adapt would have meant the death of mandalorian culture. 

So … don’t oversimplify that scene. Context matters. Everything that leads up to that moment in the show matters. 

Legends: The Aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars

What ended The Mandalorian Wars?

The Jedi Order was, essentially, split into two: The Jedi who would fight, and the Jedi who Refused to fight. The Jedi who left to fight followed in the steps of Revan and Alek, and the Exile.

What ended the war was this:

At the Battle of Malachor, the Jedi Revan executed Mandalore the Ultimate, and 

stole the ceremonial mask needed for any Mandalorian to declare themselves Mandalore and lead the people

At the same time, The Jedi Exile, a High General, made the decision to activate the Mass Shadow Generator, which wiped out the entirety of the Mandalorian Army, and

nearly killed off all of the mandalorian people in the known galaxy in that same action

The entirety of the Mandalorian Army was, simultaneously, the entirety of the Mandalorian People. And because the majority of Mandalorians, at that time in history, served both in a civilian and a military capacity, when the Jedi Exile initiated the super weapon, she nearly wiped out the entire population of Mandalorians from the known galaxy. 

From that point forward? Mandalorians, as a people, were forced to change their philosophy in order to survive. Mandalorians, as a people became a people focused on survival instead of conquest. Fighting was, is, central to their culture, but the fight stopped being about conquering and became about survival.

But later, when they eventually recovered their numbers, different factions within the Mandalorians would pop up.

There were:

Extremists, who wanted to return to their conquering ways, irregardless of the fact that conquering directly lead to their annihilation. These people would venerate Mandalore the Ultimate for all the wrong reasons.

Isolationists, who wanted to focus only on the growth and continued survival of the mandalorian people, who wanted to continue Mandalore the Preserver’s work — and never regress to the old, conquering ways, because that’s ultimately what killed them.

From these two factions, eventually, over the millennia that followed, would continuously fight each other: because Extremists wanted to return to the toxic ‘old ways’, and Isolationists saw conquer as an invitation to the Republic (and the Jedi) to finish their path of genocide.

And the thing was: they weren’t wrong.

And this is important as historical context to know, when taking in the Mandalore Arcs of the Clone Wars, because in those arcs, it’s clear that The Republic and The Jedi Order have not only had a vested interest in Mandalorian politics—Kenobi clearly references a time when he was directly involved with keeping Satine Kryze in power.

Historical context.

Because of the sheer scale of catastrophe the Mandalorians successfully caused to the galaxy during the Mandalorian Wars, The Republic and The Jedi Order would forever remember those events and continue to act accordingly to prevent them from ever happening again, no matter the cost.

THAT is why both The Jedi Order and The Republic have such a serious and vested interest in Mandalorians remaining demilitarized and passive.

And THAT is why, ~700 years prior to the events of The Clone Wars, roughly 3300 years after the conclusion of the Mandalorian Wars, The Jedi and The Republic carpet bombed the fuck out of Mandalore without provocation. It was thenceforth referred to as the Mandalorian Excision

Legends: The Mandalorian Excision

When the arcs were written, imperialism was both a direct reference not to a recent campaign, but to a literal galaxy-wide imperialism ~4000 years before the events of the Clone Wars, as well as the one ~700 years before.

The Mandalorian Excision came after the end of the Thousand Years War in which the Jedi waged a millennia-long campaign against the Sith and wrecked the galaxy, again. The Republic, weakened by the war against the Sith, could not survive another galactic wide conflict.

But, after the rise of Tarre Vizsla ~1000 years before the events of TCW, the warring Houses of Mandalore banded together to join a united Mandalore. The constant fighting and war left Mandalorian Space very, very weak, but of the factions that arose out of that peace, half wanted to regain their power and conquer the galaxy, while the other half cautioned for pacifism and peace.

Unfortunately for all of the Mandalorians, the Republic got wind of the ancestors of Death Watch — and even though Mandalorians were undecided as how to proceed, and didn’t have any power whatsoever to follow through on those desires because they were still extremely weakened from both the galactic-wide conflict and their own inter-clan and inter-house fighting, The Jedi Order led the “preemptive strike” and glassed Mandalore.

Preemptive strike is interesting language choice, because what that ultimately means, and what actually happened, is that Mandalore did nothing to provoke that attack because they were nowhere near to threatening to anyone in power, and the Jedi and the Republic still decided to base delta zero Mandalore anyway, just to be safe. 

Because we can’t be having any repeats of The Mandalorian Wars, even though that was ~3000 years before.

And after they carpet bombed Mandalore, the Republic and the Jedi Order then invaded the planet, and installed a new government as ruled by the New Mandalorians, under the agreement that they would never move against the Republic.

The New Mandalorians then began the exile-or-die campaign, with the “help” of the Republic. Anyone who was unwilling to denounce “the old ways” would be killed or exiled.

Why does Legends help the New Mandalorians?

Because without the above context, without the very extreme, very dramatic, very real threat of genocide by the Republic to the Mandalorians, there is no motivational pressure for the New Mandalorians to act like they do — to force pacifism to such an extreme.

But when you’re in a position of be pacifist or the galaxy will crush you again, and this time they might wipe out everyone, then there’s a literal galaxy’s worth of motivation to force cultural genocide to kill the literal thing that has made you and your people a target for elimination if you so much as breathe the wrong way.

And that context, above, was the context in which the episodes were written. Because, like it was said, the Legends reboot didn’t happen yet — so all of the expanded materials attached to the Mandalore arcs lay out a very real, very clear wider view of why the New Mandalorians violently enforced radical Pacifism.

This isn’t to say that the implied ethnic & racial cleansing is forgivable, and this isn’t to say that cultural genocide is forgivable, because these things are literally unforgivable, heinous, and monstrous — but given the situation, given their position in the galaxy, given everything that was at stake … can you blame them?

I mean, obviously, duh. Yes. You can blame them. You should blame them.

But … it gives that extremism more sense, on all sides of the conflict.

An aside: Separating “Boba Fett” from “Mandalorian” after 30+ years

Yes, I’m back on this. I promise this is the last section. I just wanted to clarify whitewashing and what I meant when I said 30+ years of the franchise.

At the time of the show’s airing, by making the decision to make the second-highest level of visible canon mandalorians white (as TV came just under Film at that time in terms of validity) and in that same arc retcon the Films’ non-white Fetts from that same category, that was an act of white-washing. That is essentially the most obvious and easily pointed out example of whitewashing. 

It was literally an act of rejecting and delegitimizing nonwhite representation on-screen when that nonwhite representation had many years of worldbuilding and detail behind him/them. Boba Fett, himself, was named as a mandalorian bounty hunter as far back as the late 70s (I apparently have official trading cards from the 80s that say this, too). Since Jango Fett’s debut in Episode II: Attack of the Clones in 2002 he was written as mandalorian.

That’s 30+ years of the name Boba Fett associated with Mandalorian.

And, decades later, when it’s revealed that Boba, and Jango, are not white, it’s mysteriously retconned in a TV show that neither of them are mandalorian? After more than 30 years of the franchise establishing the exact opposite?

TCW canon erased “mandalorian” from the Fetts, redefined mandalorians as white with the introduction of the two Houses and Sundari, and then obliterated expanded universe all in the very same arc by taking what was the capital planet of Mandalore space and glassed it, then gave it Sundari as its central city. The capital planet that was, before the show, ethnically and racially diverse with different climate zones and flora and fauna.

The mess that was the mandalorian fandom trying to make sense of it all was … even now, years later, the community is still reeling from it.

The most grievous, obvious, in-your-face racism and whitewashing done in a long time in the franchise. There’s no way to argue that it isn’t.

Unintentional? Sure. Accidental? Probably. But still, it is what it is.

The thing, though, that gets me the most? Is the out-of-context tweet to confirm it, one that was entirely unnecessary and unneeded.

Why unnecessary? Because mandalorians, as I’ve said time and time again, have a history in Legends-to-Canon of fighting over identity politics, of literally starting wars over the “right” way to be mandalorian. 

To have White Mandalorians look at a Brown Mandalorian and say “THIS MAN, this man who was born in mandalorian space and taken in and raised by a mandalorian clan to become a mandalorian warrior and then elected mandalorian leader of the True Mandalorians, he is NOT A MANDALORIAN!” … is par for the course in the world of mandalorian politics in the larger context of mandalorian history. Mandalorians.

They do this shit, all the time. 

It could have been left alone, to be taken as one will—and it should have been. But instead of doing that, Pablo Hidalgo, in a tweet, “confirmed” that Jango was never mandalorian at all, thereby eradicating any of the complexity that can be inferred on the in-context declaration in the show, and supporting what is, ultimately, an act of racist writing that was as I’ve already said, unneeded and unnecessary.

After 30+ years of Boba Fett established as mandalorian, and 6+ years of Jango Fett as mandalorian, suddenly … he was not white enough to be mandalorian in a show that had higher canon validity than 30+ years of expanded material.

And if you read that section above comparing Fenn Rau and Jango Fett … well. If you can’t see why it’s messed up … I don’t know how else to better explain it.

[lunarmadison]

rebuilding | madtana (1/11)

Who: Madison McCarthy & Santana Lopez When: Wednesday January 11, 2017; afternoon Where: Santana’s dorm What: Madison visits Santana with a token of friendship, and Santana helps to reconstruct her version of the events of Samhain. 

Madison was still not entirely thrilled about the way that her "training" session with Santana had gone; nonetheless, she knew it just meant that she had to be better. She was here to learn, after all, and that sometimes meant that she would fail. Besides, it wasn't like she was crushed in a humiliating landslide. It had been a close match. All that aside, she wanted to show her friend that there were no hard feelings, and she found some free time to go visit Santana, bearing some snacks and coffee. Hopefully she could keep Santana from gloating too much. She shifted the bag of snacks and tray of drinks to one hand, and with the other knocked on her door. "It's Madison," she said, since she wasn't expected. "I have coffee!"

Santana, on a normal day, would be really wary of opening the door to Madison coming unexpectedly. Specially after beating her. Would she want some revenge? She would ask herself. But she just beat Puck and she had to tell the news. She quickly opened the door to greet her "Welcome to the room of the girl who beat Noah Puckerman" She announced inviting her inside

Madison laughed brightly at that news, eyes shining. "Well, in that case, you doubly deserve these," she said as she stepped inside. "I wasn't sure what you'd want so I have a cinnamon mocha and a peppermint one, and ... um, some baby cupcakes. As a thanks for the other day." She started unpacking the snacks and glanced over, curious. "So ... how'd you beat him?"

Santana almost jumped a little. She even got a little prize. "Give me the cinnamon one" she said while also getting some cupcakes. "Thank you for what?" She said with a cupcake in her mouth. She hoped Madison didn't notice her kind of broken corkboard, almost burned bed and general scratchs in the floor and walls that were recent in her room. Maybe she should had illusion them, but now it was too late. "Same way I beat you" She said, being kind of literal.

Madison nodded as she selected the peppermint mocha for herself and sipped it. "Mm, so by distracting him," she noted. If that was Santana's go to move, Madison would just have to activate some more, stronger focus sigils for next time. "Thanks for helping me train," she explained. "I'm not going to get any stronger if I keep working with people who are weaker than me. We had a pretty good match, I think. Even if it was kind of muddy."

Santana shrug and smiled. "Is the illusions way, distract the enemy and change their expectations" It was lying applied to a fight. She really didn't want Madison to get stronger, but she faked it anyway. "Whenever you want to get your butt kicked again, I'm here." She said. 'Working with people weaker than me', Madison said. "Are you talking about Mason?" It was a good match, but she prefer to not admit Madison was pretty close to defeat her.

Madison shrugged and unwrapped a cupcake as she sat down, making herself comfortable. "Mason, the trainees back at home, anyone," she filled in. Mason was fairly equally matched to her, if she was being honest, but Santana didn't need to know that. "So what else is new with you, San? Have you kicked everyone's butt yet?"

Santana was a little surprised to Madison admiting so easyly she thought Mason was weaker than her. Interesting. Maybe it wasn't a good idea teaching a slayer how to fight against a trickster, but on the other hand, she was learning how to fight against slayers. And they were more methodic than her. Easier to read. "I still have Sam on the list, of the ones who agreed on it" She said, "And you, what's new in Madisonland?"

"Honestly..." Madison sighed, shaking her head. The dance had been terrible, her ex hadn't even spoken to her when he'd visited the Compound, and there was still the threat from Creepy Hoodie hanging over her head. Madison land was full of garbage, and most of it was garbage that she didn't know how to deal with. But she could only imagine how Santana would suggest reacting to any of that. Ignore the boys, they weren't worth it. Fight your enemies face to face. Madison shook her head. "I don’t know. Too much to get into, I think. Too much I can't do anything about yet." She finished up her first baby cupcake and sighed. "Any progress on the Samhain front?"

Santana thought of offering her help... but hell, imagine if it was some slayer business. She didn't know if she wanted to get into it. "You can tell me. We have time!" She said, anyway, maybe she get some information. She almost spit her coffee with the last question. She cought a big. She's just asking, she doesn't know anything She thought. "Uhm, I'm still waiting news of..." She really felt so watched since that day she did that stupid shit "...the witch we need for it." She took another sip of her coffee. I wonder sometimes if all that hiding information is worth it or if it's better if just tell everyone and hide in the chaos." She admited.

Madison paused, studying Santana's body language. Was she nervous about something? Hesitant? "Well ... you told us about it," she said. "Tina and me, I mean. I know we had evidence, but have you talked to anyone else about it? I can't help but think that if more people know, the harder it'll be to deny that something else happened that night." She pursed her lips and glanced down at her coffee. "I sort of wish we still had the mistletoe stickers."

"You kind of forced the information out of me" Santana reminded her. "At first I told almost everyone about it. Except... Hunter, Blaine and Puck. But no one believed me, so..." She shrug. "The thing is, if I tell people, and you tell people, and they tell other people until it becomes a rumour whose no one know the source off, it could be also a decent strategy... Specially if we told people outside NYADA..." She looked at Madison "Have you though of... commenting it to your mother?" She asked, really curious."The mistletoe stickers were a double edged weapon" She appreciated too much being able to lie again.

"My mother?" Madison echoed, the pitch of her voice rising in surprise. "She's not going to be able to do anything about this." And she wouldn't be too pleased to find out that Madison was admitting a weakness instead of trying to figure out a solution on her own, or with the resources available to her in her own generation. "Mason, though ..." she started. It was so weird not having told Mason the entirety of what she'd learned. "And everyone else. If it's widespread enough to become a rumor, then the Cardines who did this can't trace it back to any one person. Right?"

Santana looked at her surprised, raising an eyebrow "That powerless is the Guild when it's not a L.Naturae issue? Ugh, I don't know why I ask, of course" She hated the guild so much. "If you want to keep a secret, Mason would be the worse candidate... If you want to spread a rumour, he is the best one." Alongside Ryder. Though Ryder could also keep a secret. "If we are doing this, we are doing it big. They could erase the memories of a whole school, and a ton of commons. It would be great to count with someone they couldn't touch. It's something to consider"

The Guild wasn't powerless at all, but that was, again, something that Santana didn't need to know. Madison could let her keep on thinking whatever she thought; it was probably easier for all of them in the long run. "What do you mean by someone they can't touch?" she asked slowly, trying to put it all together herself.

"Well, I guessed at least they won't erase your mother's memory, but if they did it to you I guess they don't fucking care" She said, really annoyed.  She hated the Cardines and the Guild and everything who had some kind of authority. And she hated that she really didn't know how it all worked. "Ugh" she complained and sit on her bed. "...Do you wanna see it?" She asked, after a while "What happened that night"

Madison blinked, eyes wide, as Santana's question cut into her ruminations, trying to think of who else might be untouchable. "See it?" she asked. "You mean ... you could show me what you saw? It's worth a shot. If seeing the orb triggered something, even if it felt like a dream ... Yeah. Yeah, show me."

"I'm an illusionist, honey" She just said. "It would be like watching TV" She didn't really want to make an absolute illusion to Madison, it was her best attack and she prefered to keep it more of a secret just in case. She made a circle illusion so she could see a small version of what happened, with everyone the size of a barbie doll. But more realistic, of course. "I don't know where you were" She admited. "I was with Marley, Puck and Hunter when it happened." She said while pointing at the small version of themselves

Madison watched as Santana created a small image floating in the air, one that was, in fact, just like a circular television screen. She saw the small figures standing around the bonfire, and one of the doors that Santana and Adam had talked about appearing apparently out of nowhere. And she had absolutely no memory of any of it. "I don't ... know where I was," she said quietly. She tried to think back to when she'd had that flash of receiving the orb. "Maybe ... here? Further back?" she indicated, gesturing off to the side of the 'screen.' "The light from the fire was coming from the left in that ... in my dream. That I guess wasn't a dream..." It still didn't seem real.

Santana tried to do a representation of how she remembered the place, and how she supposed Madison was. "Ok maybe you were around here." She said, making a door in front of a little Madison. "I heard the doors were different, but I don't know how the others were exactly" she admited . "But they had trick and treat written on them"

"Trick or treat..." Madison mused, intently watching Santana's newest additions to the scene. That felt familiar, too, like part of the dream that she'd forgotten. "Did they all have that?"

She shrug. "I guess?" She tried to remember all the information she had from Adam. "Apparently they asked trick or treat, if you said treat...they either eat you or give you... you know what. Apparently both Tina and Blaine said treat to the door." She got back to where she was "Hunter didn't say anything, but I throw some things and the door just got him" She said while making an illusion of what happened to her, the smokebats, Puck going through the door and she losing Marley on the chaos.

Madison watched. It didn't seem to matter whether someone said trick or treat, since both answers could elicit both reactions from the doors. "Wait ... is that why you were asking about smokebats on the dash back then?" she asked, the realization dawning on her. "They're guardians, you know? Minion-type things. Easy to kill, but they ... they show up in groups." She pointed out the smokebats on Santana's little screen, which had, in fact, shown up in pairs. "Cause I remember you asking that, and it seemed weird."

She keep doing her illusion and barely look at Madison when she asked "Oh, yeah. It was for that. You probably know more about them than me. They weren't too strong but there were a lot and it was really annoying. Mostly they just destroyed themselves" She said while showing a smokebat setting itself on fire. "Anyway, after a while they were saying of going to the main building, I found Sam and we were kind of locked up and with some spell who make impossible to communicate" She said showing the room full of people. "I didn't know where was no one, I just know Rachel, Blaine, Hunter, Puck, Ryder, Sebastian and Quinn entered the doors. I don't know if someone more did." She showed in the illusion the Cardine she got "They asked me what I saw, I told them, though it seemed really weird to me cause they could see all through Puck's camera" She explained, while putting the words of the Cardine. "You had fun of October 31, 2016..." the illusion started, and continue the full speech "There was nothing but knows fun in NYADA"

The rest of the illusion seemed a lot like the beginning of it. Neither Madison nor Mason were with the group of people that were escorted back to the school building, which meant that Santana couldn't help reconstruct whatever had happened to them. Neither could Adam. But Puck was missing, too, which meant that the sight watch that he had on him would have had to record whatever he'd experienced. Madison found herself hoping that she'd actually been stuck with him, if only because it would help her figure out what she'd actually done. The Cardine's words sent a chill down Madison's spine, as she watched in horror what Santana remembered. "There are no monsters at NYADA," she repeated. "If there were, we would have dispatched of them ..." She shook her head slowly, not liking this one bit. "That's ... that's exactly what I told people. Like, word for word..."

She looked at Madison again. "They said monster, not only smokebats. So those weren't the only ones." She informed "And Rachel said that they fought a devilish creature at Saltus. And something tell me is not the devilish cool guy Elliott type. People were bleeding and all that, apparently" She looked at Madison "Well, I guess Cardines and Slayers had that in common... or the spell worked on you perfectly"

"I'm guessing the latter," Madison said drily. There was still a doubt nagging at the back of her mind that Santana had fabricated this, had fabricated all of this in some elaborate ruse -- even though that didn't line up with what she'd told Madison under the influence of the truth sticker. Maybe Santana and Adam were the ones who had been conditioned to believe that this had happened instead of the concert ... that made a lot more sense, after all. "Wait ... Rachel? What did Rachel say? I thought she didn't remember anything, either."

"She doesn't remember anything. She said that on Halloween." She explained "I really don't know much more of what happened, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask" She said vanishing the illusion

Madison sighed, watching the illusion fade before her eyes. It still felt like something that happened to someone else, like a scene she hadn't been a part of at all. "Did you talk to anyone who knew what I did? Or Mason?" she asked. "It sounds like we all got split up into groups..."

"That night, after losing Marley, I only talked to Ryder through the phone, and later Sam." She looked at Madison "You should ask other person who remembers what happened" She said, both knowing who they were talking about.

"I should," Madison mused, nodding. "Hopefully he'll actually talk to me. I have no idea where I even stand with him." Except ... that wasn't entirely true, she realized, thinking back to the nice note he'd sent her for Yule. And the gift. She hadn't even gotten anything in return for him. "It's worth a shot."

Well, he probably won't want to talk to Santana.  God damn it why she always had to ruin everything and hurt people. "If you could talk to him, it'll be great" She wondered if she could do something to make it slighly better... but she only though of ways of making it worse. She sighed.

"I'll talk to him," Madison assured her. She suspected that Adam and Santana hadn't actually managed to patch up their differences even when they were the only people affected by this -- or not affected, depending on one's viewpoint. And that was a shame. "Maybe we can work something out." She sighed again, then put on a smile, brightening a little as she changed the subject. She had more information now than she did before, which was something; she just had to figure out a way to put it to good use. Adam may well be the key. "So all your classes and stuff are going okay? What're you doing for an elective this semester?"

She tried to make some sound that was like a yes. She has 0 faith on working something out. She saw she changed the topic, wich was fine, but she wasn't a big fan of small talk.  "Yeah, everything all right... actually I have ton of homeworks I should totally do that I haven't done because I spend too much time fighting people, but well" She said as if it's not important. "I'm trying to keep being on learning alchemy. How about you?"

Madison nodded. "Alchemy, cryptozoology..." She sighed; Santana probably didn't want to hear about all of Madison's other classes. "I've got, um ... history of druidry, and one of the, I mean, one of my classes is at Justitia this semester. Maybe ..." She trailed off, trying to figure out how to give her thought form. Either way she said it, it sounded like a terrible idea. "Maybe I could talk to someone there about what happened. Find out more about Cardine stuff, frame it as ... something else."

Santana make a mental note of all the classes Madison was. It might seem boring but it might also be helpful. "If you can, just be sure the information doesn't get lost"

"Yeah..." Madison trailed off, already starting to formulate plans. "I guess I should let you get back to all that homework you have, huh?" she suggested. "I've got some of my own and some other stuff to do today, too; cryptozoology isn't nearly as easy as I thought it'd be no matter how fascinating it is." It was almost time to meet Marley at the stadium, anyway.

She nodded, and pat Madison's shoulder. "Thanks for the coffee and cupcakes" She said "Do your best on cryptozoology" she said as to finish the hanging out...because she actually should do her homework. "Mm... maybe we can hang out to study some day on the library" She said, for some reason.

"Yeah?" Madison asked, hopeful, as she gathered up her bag to leave. "You know, I'd like that. I kinda miss having a study buddy. And it sounds like we're both taking alchemy this semester, so ..." She trailed off, but it was a good start to getting their friendship back on track, the way it was before ... before Madison ruined it, really.

Santana nodded "Yeah, why not?" She smiled at her, while shruging a bit. "We can practice together someday"

“Cool,” Madison said. “Well … good luck with your homework. And … thanks again for showing me that. You can have the rest of the cupcakes if you want them. I’ll text you later, okay?” She waved goodbye, and headed out to Undique for her evening training session.