#which always makes for slightly tragic character flattening

[starfieldcanvas]

what bugs ME is actually when authors elide that the reason jc lost his core and "became" suicidal (necessitating wwx's sacrifice) is that jc had essentially already tried to commit suicide to save wwx from being captured, and that's why he lost his core in the first place!

i have read (and even enjoyed) so so so many AUs where wwx swoops in to silently save jc from a situation that was entirely an unforced error on jc's part, rather than something jc was doing to save wwx, and it massively changes the tone of their relationship! this was the twist mxtx AND cql both saved until practically the end of the story because the result of the reframe is INCREDIBLY DRAMATIC. pretending it doesn't exist because you're having a hard time thinking of a good parallel for something so complex is understandable (hence, like I said, I've enjoyed many AUs like this) but it still bugs me. It's still a sort of character assassination to bring wwx's heroism forward into your modern AU while leaving behind jiang cheng's.

a thing that really really bugs me in modern AUs is when they have Wei Wuxian still put everything on the line for the Wens, and leave his family over it/get kicked out of his support system for it, and Jiang Cheng refuses to help or support him, and it’s fraught and angsty, but there’s no equivalent given for the Jiang Clan that Jiang Cheng is protecting by doing so

Jiang Cheng isn’t refusing to help because it ~looks bad~ or because he ~hates the Wens~ or whatever, he’s refusing because they a.) murdered his entire family and b.) it would cost the lives of the family he’s built since.  If there aren’t any stakes on his side of course he’s helping Wei Wuxian.  Of course he’s helping Wen Qing.  He’s not just a bad person who does bad things for fun and profit, he too is protecting people.  He, too, is protecting the weak and innocent.  He and Wei Wuxian don’t have that disparate of moral senses, it’s just that Jiang Cheng has to keep in mind the people who are already depending on him, and Wei Wuxian doesn’t consider himself beholden to them as long as Jiang Cheng is still there doing it for him.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t, and wouldn’t, abandon Wei Wuxian for anything less than the highest calling of his duty.

and even in a modern AU where the stakes are far lower than the life-or-death ones of canon, the motivations still exist.  They should both still be protecting people that are important to them.

……….furthermore, in canon Wei Wuxian very clearly presents his case to Jiang Cheng with a heaping background of “I’m not happy in Lotus Pier, and I want to leave.  Please don’t keep me against my will” and Jiang Cheng acquiesces to that wish, because he has seen all his life what happens when you try to keep someone you love by your side against their will, and he would never.  He would never.  It’s not Wei Wuxian saying “I need your help” and Jiang Cheng saying “I’m sorry but I can’t,” it’s Jiang Cheng saying “please come home and let me help you” and Wei Wuxian saying “I don’t want you in my life, please let me go.”  Like!  Wei Wuxian is lying in order to get what he wants with a minimum of fuss!  That’s important too!  He’s saying exactly what he needs to say to get Jiang Cheng out of the line of fire!  It’s not true!  He just knows what to say that Jiang Cheng will accept and believe, no matter how much it hurts!  BUT JIANG CHENG DOESN’T KNOW THAT ok I’m good.  and also sad.  again.  fuck they love each other so much and they hurt each other so badly

[tritoch]

I wish people were willing to have a slightly broader or more expansive understanding of FFXIV's women because I think there's so much there in terms of easily-unearthed subtext that no one really thinks about! And I don't mean this in a "people need to re-evaluate their response to the women of Stormblood" way (though I do think that's largely true), I mean I think fandom's understanding even of the women it mostly likes is pretty weak. And you can say that's because the women are underwritten, and I won't argue that they couldn't use more attention from the writing, but that doesn't prevent you from analyzing them the way you can any character in fiction.

Like everyone's always like, oh, Y'shtola and Krile are like your snarky wine aunts, haha. But...Sharlayan is a pretty ossified and patriarchal society from what we see of it in Endwalker and places like the AST quests. Can we open ourselves to the possibility that it means something that almost every young Sharlayan woman we meet, almost all young women in academia, tends to be a little sharp and quick on the retort? The arch and snarky ways in which those two carry themselves reflect in some sense the facts that Krile is almost literally a nepo baby woman in STEM who is barely older than her students, while Y'shtola learned her behaviors from her much older female mentor, a woman who hated Sharlayan academic culture so much she literally abandoned it to go live in a cave.

Or like, Alisaie! Fan jokes and meta frequently buy into her tendency to characterize the dynamic between her and Alphinaud as a jock/nerd, street savvy extrovert vs book smart introvert thing. Except, tragically, Alphinaud's highest stat is 100% Charisma and he absolutely pulled in his student days. All his greatest achievements are diplomatic, and he very easily develops strong friendships with people in every culture you learn about. Alisaie is the determined, sensitive genius who revolutionizes Eorzea by proving the tempered can be healed. She's just permanently carrying a chip on her shoulder that while she and her brother are remembered as the youngest students in Studium history, actually he got in six months before her, a fact pretty much no one else ever brings up once. She's constantly fuming over the fact that he was marginally better than her in certain specific ways in high school, and looking to differentiate them in ways that actually fail to credit her own obvious strengths and accomplishments. I think that's so fun! It's so juicy, and it's equally good for comedy or serious character studies.

Venat is a genuinely benevolent hero who has no compunction sacrificing lives for the greater good. Minfilia is kind and compassionate and clearly on some level actually buys into the narrative of her own unique moral authority. Ysayle is a revolutionary firebrand with almost no concern for the common man, whose death reflects her Javert-like inability to reconcile her own romantic belief in justice with the tragic ways her blinkered worldview (born largely of trauma) let her be easily co-opted by a violent system. But even people who like these characters rarely move past surface-level reads (people who think Venat is just an all-loving mommy figure make me want to fucking die). The fandom is allergic to drawing connections the game doesn't draw, and fails to recognize that FFXIV is a game where characters voice understandings of themselves and others that are wrong about as often as they're right.

You can already see the ways that women like Wuk Lamat and Cahciua and Sphene are getting flattened or losing their shading in fan reception and it's boring. Like I'm not even saying this because you should take female characters more seriously or something (though you should), I'm literally just bored to tears sometimes and if you guys turn Wuk Lamat into another Hot Dumb Jock Lady, I will combust.

[thomastair]

How about lucelia with 24?

lucelia—“you’re trembling.”

Waking up to greet the sun.

But I don’t know where you’re hiding.

I saw you once.

Your face a tint of gold.

I’m kicking up a dust storm.

Digging up a love lost.

Do you know if I’m still chasing ghosts.

Cordelia.

Cordelia.

Cordelia. Cordelia. Cordelia. Cordelia. CordeliaCordeliaCordeliaCordel—

Lucie threw her pen down in frustration, drawing her hand over her face in exhaustion, paying no attention to the ink smearing like a faded bruise over the bridge of her nose.

Her head hurt. Her hand was cramped. And she was thirsty.

Lucie stood from the window seat she’d been curled on, stretching her back with a satisfying crack, and went to grab her glass of water from her bedside table. It was very unfair, she thought, that not even a week after her parabatai ceremony scalding fever had decided to make its sudden reappearance in the London shadowhunter community. James of course had already been sick with it before so he didn’t have to stay inside alone. He was free to roam the city and make conversation with whomever he pleased. In fact he and Cordelia had just gone on patrol together the night before.

Lucie tried to ignore the pang of jealousy that went through her, as sharp and sudden as a stab wound.

It was, after all, not James’ fault that Lucie had been in love with Cordelia since they were children. Not James’ fault that Lucie was now sworn to be strictly platonic with Cordelia for the rest of time despite nearly fainting every time she was training with Cordelia and found herself pinned to the ground by Cordelia’s strong brown arms as Cordelia grinned down at her with sweat gleaming at her temples, her chest heaving from exertion.

For some reason Lucie had thought unrequited love would be less painful. She had sworn to be Cordelia’s parabatai in the hopes that whatever bond forged between them in the ceremony would override Lucie’s irrational daydreams. She had not anticipated that being parabatai would make it worse.

She rather thought she was starting to understand the agony that was written into her favorite books.

Lucie sighed and threw herself dramatically on the bed, muffling her scream of anger in her pillow.

Maybe quarantine would be good for her. Maybe quarantine would give her a much needed break from writing Cordelia’s beauty into her novel every time she watched Cordelia do anything. The last time Lucie had taken tea with Anna and Cordelia the urge to scribble down every detail of Cordelia’s pursed lips as she sipped from her cup had been almost overwhelming. Lucie was half convinced that Anna had puzzled out the situation concerning Lucie’s fancy and as a result she was now too embarrassed to meet Anna’s eyes at family events.

Anna probably would have been willing to help. She probably could have given Lucie all sorts of advice if Lucie was in love with any other girl. Lucie had opened her mouth to ask Anna exactly how it was that two women had relations —purely because of her literary interest in the topic of course—and had always decided against it. Anna wasn’t exactly a woman either after all and Lucie had no idea how it might be different for herself. In the end her questions had always led to awkward silences while Cordelia, oblivious to Lucie’s pining, inquired after Ariadne, who Anna always liked to talk about more than anything.

Lucie wished she could talk to Anna now but her quarantine made it impossible. It was so very lonely, this agreement between herself and the rest of the world to stay separate. Lucie didn’t know how she was going to bear the next two weeks.

Two weeks without seeing Cordelia’s eyes or Cortana strapped to Cordelia’s back. Things Lucie hadn’t realized had become commonplace to her everyday life until she no longer saw anything but the walls of her bedroom and the skyline from her window.

Just as she was thinking about going back to her seat by the window and taking up her pen again in order to record her inner turmoil, there was a clatter against the glass as a small pebble rattled the pane.

Lucie jumped up, throwing her window open just as another pebble flew up, narrowly missing her face.

She let out a squawk and looked down to see Cordelia on cobblestones below. She was wearing a dress that was the deep green color of moss that clung to her in all the right places. Lucie silently cursed Anna for ordering dresses that actually suited Cordelia's skin tone. While Lucie could appreciate the gesture of camaraderie it did make it somewhat difficult to focus and now she spent entire conversations with Cordelia constantly flustered, which was very out of character for her.

Cordelia put a finger to her lips and lifted the grappling hook she’d brought with her. Lucie backed away from the window, hastily glancing at herself in the mirror that hung opposite her. She was wearing nothing but a thin nightgown she hadn’t thought to change. Her mousey brown hair was mussed and she had an ink stain on her cheekbone and another on the side of her nose that contrasted nicely with the bags under her eyes.

She made a frantic attempt to flatten her hair as the grappling hook latched onto the windowsill behind her with a thunk. A moment later Cordelia was climbing into Lucie’s room like the prince in Rapunzel. Lucie hoped desperately that her composure was passably calm.

“What are you doing here?” She asked as Cordelia straightened up and turned to face her. Lucie had always been short but she was always particularly aware of it when her eyes were level with Cordelia’s lips.

Cordelia raised her eyebrows. Lucie forced herself to draw her gaze away from her cupid’s bow and make eye contact. “You didn’t possibly think I would leave you quarantined alone, did you?”

Lucie distracted herself by crossing over to close the window, fingers scrambling in the latch. “It’s not nearly exciting enough to warrant your wanting to stay with me.”

Cordelia bent to unbutton her boots, her fingers moving swiftly. Lucie looked away as the hem of her dress rode up, cheeks growing warm. “If you must know I’d much rather be bored with you than go on another patrol.”

Lucie’s heart lurched. “You can’t possibly mean that.”

Cordelia frowned as she unstrapped Cortana from her back, brow furrowing adorably. “Why wouldn’t I mean that?”

Too late Lucie realized her words had sounded like an accusation. She shrugged and sat down on the bed. Her legs felt weak.

She barely heard Cordelia cross the room to stand in front of her. Lucie could see her stockinged feet pressing indentations into the thick carpet.

Cordelia’s hands came up to grip Lucie’s shoulders, her touch sending pinpricks of fire to the pit of Lucie’s stomach from where her fingers pressed against the thin material of her nightgown. “You’re trembling.”

Cordelia’s voice was low. Lucie took a deep breath to steady herself and met Cordelia’s eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat. Cordelia’s were wide and dark, her lips slightly parted. All at once Lucie felt the loneliness affected on her by the quarantine come crashing down at once. She’d always been a social person and the past few days of minimal contact had been eating away at her energy. Being around Cordelia was like holding a bright candle cupped between her palms, something that warmed her and also made the tips of her fingers tingle.

She leaned into the pressure of Cordelia’s hands on her shoulders. Her mouth was suddenly very dry and she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, not missing how Cordelia’s gaze wandered. Lucie froze, almost daring to hope but already feeling herself veering off course into an unknown, but altogether not unpleasant territory.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to come see me.” Lucie murmured, not wanting Cordelia to move her hands from where they rested. “You could infect me you know.”

Cordelia’s eyebrows went up. “You want me to leave?” she didn’t move back though, her breath gently moving a strand of her red hair that had come out of its chignon.

“No! I never want you to leave!” Lucie reached up a trembling hand to push the hair behind Cordelia’s ear. She told herself that it wouldn’t matter if Cordelia flinched away, but she couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that escaped her when Cordelia stayed still, eyes dark and shining with an emotion Lucie couldn’t exactly puzzle out.

The silence stretched between them a silence Lucie was too afraid to break, lest she shatter the moment that seemed so achingly fragile to her. She thought frantically to her writing. How would she have written this scene if she were a character in her own story? Tragically her mind went blank as Cordelia finally moved her hand to fiddle with the lace collar of Lucie’s nightgown.

Cordelia took a deep breath. Lucie tried not to stare at the rise and fall of her chest above the elegant cut of her dress’s neckline. “Can I kiss you?”

Lucie saw stars. Without answering she threw herself upward, wrapping her arms around Cordelia’s neck, standing on tiptoe so that their noses were almost touching. Cordelia gasped in surprise but her arms wound around Lucie’s waist, fingers pressing the small of Lucie’s back. “I thought you’d never ask.” Lucie breathed.

Cordelia gave a surprised laugh and pulled her close, pressing their lips together. She was soft and warm and as Lucie’s eyes closed she inhaled the smell of Cordelia’s soap that still clung faintly to her hair and skin. She swayed, and their kiss deepened, the space between their mouths creating a heat that Lucie had never experienced before.

It was a little awkward at first, neither of them being experienced in the matters of kissing. Their noses bumped together and they giggled, the scrape of Cordelia’s teeth against her lower lip making Lucie pull her even closer. They were clinging to each other with a desperation now, Lucie’s hands winding into Cordelia’s red hair, pulling it down from its chignon so that it twined around her wrists as she caressed Cordelia’s face, running her fingers over the arch of Cordelia’s cheekbones, her fingers cold and pale looking in contrast to Cordelia’s warm brown skin.

Getting tired of standing on her tiptoes Lucie dropped down to press a line of kisses down Cordelia’s throat, rewarded by the sharp inhale of breath from the taller girl. In a sudden flurry of movement Cordelia hooked her arms under Lucie’s legs, lifting her up. Lucie gasped as the skin of Cordelia’s wrists pressed against her bare thighs. She wrapped her legs around Cordelia’s waist, suddenly looking down into the other girl’s dark eyes. Her heart was beating very fast.

“Is this okay?” Cordelia whispered, her breath warm when it brushed Lucie’s skin. “I know this isn’t exactly the height of propriety.” She bit her lip, her perfect teeth making small crescents in the sensitive flesh.

Lucie laughed, warm and light and happy. “I would gladly let you ruin my reputation any day.”

She bent to kiss her again.

[padmelives]

true and real the real enemy here is the american comic book and cartoon industry attempting to market to boys and young men with toxic masculinity. however, this characterization of men in comics and genres associated with male interest, scifi specifically, outside of their original material is often untrue ? like batman and superman are seen by the general population as stoic and physically strong as their main personality traits. the only emotion they are really allowed is grief. but if you ask someone who isn't male who is really into their comics, they would tell you that that's not very true.

i think you could pick out parts of anakin's story in the same way. yeah he's physically strong and yeah he is primarily motivated by grief, often expressed through violence. but that also leaves out a lot of nuance that is also present in his story. stuff like. why does he love padme? what values does he have? why is he made to turn away from them? instead, tcw flattens him to this violent, aggressive guy who doesn't seem to care about the people around him for any particular reason, he just kinda Does (exception is ahsoka) and he pretty much Only expresses emotion through violence. i also Really take issue with his demeanor throughout slaves of the republic. whoever wrote that one line is on my hit list. anyway so it's hard to understand any of the things i wanted to know about anakin's character and story while watching tcw because it conflicts with the movie. anakin's violence isn't something he initially enjoys about himself, it's something he's very upset with himself about. how else can we view his turn to the dark side as a tragedy? because he gives priority to certain emotions, he falls victim to becoming the kind of person he didn't really want to become. that's tragic. he loves padme because he idealizes her for giving him adventure as a child and he views her as a strong, dedicated, and caring person. he loves obi-wan because he raised him and he values him as a mentor and a friend. he can become aggressive because he is overconfident and impulsive, but he always feels guilty about lashing out with violence and not following the jedi code, which is something that he respects to an extent, until he is coerced into the dark side. imo it's hard to understand that watching tcw because he seems to be kinda destined to be evil (mortis my beloathed) and acts on every single aggressive/violent impulse he has, but is almost never emotionally vulnerable. anakin makes choices lol and it doesn't really feel like that in tcw he just kinda comes off as a general jerk. also he seems to kinda hate padme for being who she is ? and padme seems to kinda hate anakin for being who he is ? which is crazy because they love each other a lot and are kinda clingy freaks totally willing to abandon everything for each other (this has its own post)

ANYWAY this got away from me. so. when these kinds of characters are distilled from their original appearances for a piece of media that is going to target a slightly different audience, say for a children's cartoon instead of a movie released in theaters to an established fanbase, they're merely a derivative of the character they originally were. this doesn't have a point other than i want to say i really agree with this take and that toxic masculinity is bad for everyone, especially kids who are the target of cartoons like tcw, and it flattens characters and weakens stories that would otherwise be incredibly impactful. at least to me

unprompted rant in the gc

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 10: 2x06 The Doomsday Machine

Took a nap after work and really discombobulated myself. Then got a bit of a second wind watching Star Trek.

I believe I have seen this episode before but I had no memory of it going in and no memory of seeing it before even now that I’ve finished, so, who knows?

Where’s Uhura? Hopefully on shore leave somewhere having fun!

I feel like this other Communications officer walked over to the Captain’s chair hoping Kirk would acknowledge her lol. Then when he doesn’t, she doesn’t really know what to do with herself.

Some of the shots in this opening are really weird: the angle of Kirk and Spock at Spock’s station; the camera suddenly randomly dropping right before Kirk starts walking down the step.

DECKER?? Rev. Spice Boy’s father perhaps?

Hmm so the Constellation is another Constitution class like the Enterprise and the Intrepid. I always get a kick out of seeing other space ships of that same shape for some reason.

Mr. Spock in command.

Poor ship! In an aesthetically pleasing disarray, completely abandoned.

Kirk is a very good detective. “They didn’t leave any random mess, so they must have left on purpose.”

Spock in the chair!

Found Decker!

I know he has to be a Commodore to outrank Kirk later but... why is a Commodore in space? Or in other words, why isn’t the Constellation captained by a Captain?

Does Jim know everyone in Starfleet? He’s just that guy, isn’t he? He has a lot of acquaintances and he’s very friendly and easily charming so he just kind of collects people (especially Starfleet people since it is his WHOLE adult life) but he doesn’t have that many close friends or lasting romantic relationships; he’s hard to get really, properly close to.

Well that’s the mystery of the crew solved :( That’s like tragically sad.

I like when Kirk is smart and understands star ships.

Decker is not being very helpful here in actually explaining what the Threat is! Still, that’s a very classic horror trope: an evil so terrible that it is beyond description. (Alternately, he could have just said ��giant windsock dipped in cement,” which is what it was.)

Robot weapon!! Giant ancient alien robot weapon just floating around space, following its orders mindlessly because it is just a machine, a tool set loose by people no longer around to control or restrain it... I love that. That’s so cool and scary and weird all at once.

A space legend!! The Doomsday machine... The most terrible of all weapons, never meant to be used... it destroyed its makers and continues to destroy still...

Really into the visual of towing a ship through space.

We must deactivate the robot!

Now Kirk will repair the ship.

The Commodore is recovering, I see... at least nominally.

“Logically our primary duty is to save Captain Kirk.”

Spock is getting outranked!! Awkward lol. Not a good idea to try to outmaneuver Spock in any way, rank or no. He is Savage and he WILL bring up your dead crew. He is Pissed. The subtlety.

McCoy is soo the audience in this scene. “So are you.. Sir.” That patented rocking motion. Trying to get over, under, around, or through the regulations to do what’s right.

Is the Commodore chewing on one of the floppy disks? That seems pretty weird to me. You can’t EAT them.

Mmm, Kirk working on the ship; sexy. Yet again he must fly the whole constitution class ship BY HIMSELF.

The thing is that Spice Boy Sr. IS unfit for command; anyone who saw him 10 minutes earlier on the Constellation would know that.

I love that not!Uhura doesn’t even try to tell the Commodore the status report; she talks to Spock because she knows who the real boss is here.

Spock, always on the lookout for how to use regulations to get himself back in the chair. Also foreshadowing the suicide.

Now Kirk will distract the evil robot to save Spock!!

Got that ship doing with only Scotty’s help, working all the controls, flying the whole damn thing himself like the bamf he is. Gotta zig zag around to tempt and confuse the robot.

“Scotty you’ve earned your pay for the week.” They get paid lol? In what?

Now the robot machine is eating.

Love Spock’s little, subtle eyebrow raise when he hears Kirk’s name.

This scene is gold lol. Kirk’s not going to let Decker speak for Spock. “Where’s Spock? Give me Mr. Spock. What happened to Spock?” Like good news is that it wasn’t Spock being reckless with the ship but bad news is where is he??

Another regulations show down. “You can file a formal complaint but for now.. out of the chair. Or I shall snap my fingers and have security escort you out.”

Vulcans bluff all the time lmao.

Ah ha, now to get him officially declared unfit.

And now for the required hand to hand combat scene. This ep really does have everything.

The shuttlecraft is escaping!

I love that when Sulu announces that the shuttlecraft doors are opening, Spock’s just like “Well...close them. Duh.”

RIP Decker... The inevitable end of that character.

Spock wants Kirk back on the Enterprise immediately.

I know Kirk is slightly annoyed when Spock corrects his math but like...you know he also finds it sexy.

“Jim, you’ll be killed.” / “Don’t worry bb I don’t intend to die.” Is that not the dialogue?

Now Scotty has to solve literally everything himself.

The tension!!

“Gentlemen, beam me aboard.” That tone, though. That’s such a Kirk tone, like he’s got to be the Cool Boss even and especially in moments of high stakes. That subtle humor Shatner brought to him.

I knew they’re going to save him and I also knew they’d do it at the laaaast possible moment but I was still really scared.

Spock is so in love. The way he looks at Kirk at his return and welcomes him aboard...  Such relief.

And then some classic end of episode dialogue: Spock thoughtfully points out the larger implications of their adventure--that they might have only destroyed one of many planet killers still out there--while Kirk, all relaxed and happy now that the current problem has been solved, and still riding the high of his recent adventure, just makes a funny, minimizing remark. “I found one quite sufficient.” Little flirty smile for no reason.

And so the space legend lives on...

I loved this episode. It really had everything: great sci fi concept; K/S content; Starfleet regulations; a fist fight; aliens; a connection to the current events of its time (with the comparison to the H bomb, asking people to think about the long range/unintended consequences of our extreme weaponry); Kirk being heroic and good at his job; a tense finale.

I feel like this episode seems on its face to show the Kirk and Spock dichotomy that STID and the other AOS movies were trying to depict but like... AOS didn't get it. Like yes Spock quotes all the regulations and ultimately listens to Decker's regulation citing, and Kirk's like "yeah whatever screw those regulations,” but Spock is obviously making strategic decisions and he's always on the lookout for how to use the regs to his advantage--it's not just obeying for the sake of obeying. And Kirk isn't just cavalierly not caring about the rules--he's in an emergency situation and he reads it for what it is, a test of will, where regulations are being weaponized. And he weaponizes them, too: he knows Spock is his direct subordinate and not only will obey him but NEEDS to, per those same regulations.

All 3 of them, including McCoy, know both the regulations and their own morality; they're not that different, but they have different levels of power and different abilities with regard to how they use regulations and how they can interact with other people of other ranks. They ALL want to do what’s right and they will ALL either use or discard regulations as they see fit, to the best of their ability.

AOS just flattened it, in STID in particular: Spock likes rules and doesn't care about anything else and Kirk hates rules and never listens to them.

Of course Kirk in TOS is a decade older and has a lot more experience. Episodes like this make me think about how that experience is one of the huge differences between TOS and AOS Kirk (STXI and STID in particular). You can't fake 15 years of Starfleet experience. you just can't. Could AOS Kirk get down on the ground and fix the Constellation himself and fly it by himself? Probably not.

I get why the AOS verse ran itself into that corner, and in fact it doesn’t matter in STXI, where the narrative is a contained, emergency situation, and Kirk’s command is a field promotion for a discrete and limited purpose, but I do think the movies struggled with that conundrum later. No one has the time to grow and mature in a normal way. How do you build them up over time when you skipped over that development period they logically should have had, both as professionals and as people?

I appreciate STID in theory for trying to address that issue, I just think it did it badly. Like its Kirk narrative was supposed to be about "earning the chair" but it didn't keep Kirk IC while doing that, nor did it address the real problem: he's not just A Rebel, but he is verrrry inexperienced. (I know you could make arguments about his AOS background changing his personality blah blah blah I’ve seen STID recently and in my opinion it just doesn’t feel right.)

Then STB tried to skip over the issue by just pushing the narrative forward to mid-5YM. Well they’re magically experienced now! And that was even worse. So, what can you do?

Anyway that was a big AOS tangent lol.

Next ep is Catspaw. A little late for Halloween but always great nonetheless!

[forasecondtherewedwon]

hey if you're still taking requests from the prompts list can you do sweets x reader and numbers 61,98 please. thank you!

Thanks for the prompt, and the challenge! This is the first “reader” drabble I’ve ever written. I’ve imagined the reader as female, because that’s how I identify (meaning, it was easier for me to write it this way for my first attempt!), so I hope that’s ok with you!

61. “If you go anywhere near them, you’ll haveto deal with me!”

AND

98. “Hold me back!”

“Why didn’t you get more meat toppings?” Sweet Pea complains, stretching thelength of the couch to jam his clammy feet under your legs.

You turn to glare at him for being irritating on purpose. It’s hot today―too hot for the childishness yousometimes find endearing. You grab him by the shins and shove his legs aside,reclaiming the couch cushion as your own. Across the coffee table, Toni givesyou a look that tells you not to bother, that your boyfriend’s behaviour isgoing to get worse before it gets before. You know this, but you can be just astough to swallow as him when you want to be.

“Because it’s my pizza. I have myown,” you remind him, “you have yours, and Toni and Fangs have one to sharebecause they can actually manage to agree.”

“Yeah,” he persists, foot creeping towards you again, “but why do you needyour own pizza? I’ve never seen you put away more than four slices in asitting.”

You sigh, lifting the hair away from the back of your neck. Your fingers areprobably greasy from the fast food pizza these jokers made you pick up forlunch, but it’s fine. You need a shower anyway.

“They’re called leftovers,Sweety,” you snark back, using the nickname he hates to hear in company, butdoesn’t mind at all when you’re alone.

“They won’t taste as good when you reheat them,” he warns, rubbing his toesalong your thigh. “Besides, your microwave is super temperamental. You couldfry a gremlin in there.”

You glance over at Toni and Fangs to see if anyone else wants to berate yourpoor microwave. So maybe you fixed it with duct tape one time when you took itapart then couldn’t find a screw when you were putting it back together. It hascharacter now. Lucky for your friends, they’re chowing down on pizza, mouthstoo full to comment―probably on purpose.

“Then I’ll eat the pizza cold,” you counter, “and save the microwave to fryyour head. How does that sound?”

“Even more like science fiction than the gremlin,” he says with a snort,moving his foot to dig his toes into your side. You jerk slightly, ticklish,but refuse to laugh. Sweet Pea seems unsatisfied, which you know to be his mostdangerous mood. “I think I’ll have a slice of your pizza,” he declares with adecisive, why the hell not? nod ofhis head.

A second ago, you didn’t want to be touched, didn’t want to move, but nowyou feel irate energy rising in you, making your bare toes dig into thescratchy, cheap carpet that lines the floor of the entire trailer.

“Hold me back!” you hiss at Toni.

Eyes fixed on Sweet Pea, you don’t look at her, but you know she’ll get themessage. In this group, Toni’s the only one who ever has or ever will try tostop you from fighting or taking some other reckless action. Sweet Pea does theexact opposite and Fangs is too loyal to him to treat you in any way that wouldbe directly at odds with his best friend’s modusoperandi.

“I dunno, Y/N,” she starts in a sluggish voice, forcing you to glance overto see her contemplating the pizza crust dangling between her fingers, “I kindathink he deserves it this time.”

“Hey!” Sweet Pea interjects, propping himself up on the couch. “I haven’teven done anything yet!

“But you will,” you point out, mouth tightening. “You always do.”

“Would you let me starve?” he shoots back, swinging his feet to the floor.

“You’ve had like six slices already!”

“Seven,” he corrects you with an open-mouthed grin. “But not from yourpizza. I think it has potential, once I’ve flicked off the nastier toppings.”

“You go anywhere near them, you’ll have to deal with me!”

Your eyes lock with his like the two of you are a mechanically perfect fit.Fucking made for each other. He’s quick to get to his feet, you’ll give himthat, but before Sweet Pea can take a single step towards the pizza, you’vedived sideways at him, catching him around the waist. He’s solid, and it’spossible that your cheek will be a little swollen where it clipped his hip, butyou’ve got him.

Now, your mutual stubbornness kicks in, neither of you willing to concede.

Sweet Pea decides to walk towards the pizza anyway, deadweight or no, andyou’re dragged off the couch, getting your knees under you so they’re the onlyskin to be rug burned. You change your grip, grabbing the waist of his jeanswith one hand (the idiot never wears shorts) and attempting to pinch the backof his knee with the other. It’s no good, the denim’s too impervious and yourelease your captive, thumping to the floor.

“Watch her!” Sweet Pea shouts at Fangs, a laugh in the back of his throatuntil you throw yourself after him, scrambling to hang onto his shoulders andget your legs around his waist in an unwelcome piggyback.

This time, you take him down, and victory is as sweet as his name.

“Ugh,” your boyfriend groans as he allows himself to be flattened, facedown, on the floor, you sitting in the center of his back because you know he’sstrong enough to take the weight. “God fucking dammit, Fangs!”

You roll your eyes at the fact that he’s more willing to blame his friendthan accept that he was felled by you.

“Well what did you want me to do?” Fangs asks from the other couch, wavingthe crutch he had propped against the side. He’s almost better, but the heatwave has been a real drag on his energy. “Knock her out?”

Sweet Pea manages to turn his head enough to catch your eye. You shake yourhead no.

“She’s already a knockout,” he states, then shuffles around. It feels liketrying to balance on a rolling log while he does it, but once he gets on hisback, with you still perched on top of him, it’s a decided improvement.

“Flattery will not win you a slice of my pizza,” you inform him, starting tosmile.

“No? Then what will it get me?” His hands come up to grab your hips.

“OK,” Toni says loudly, making you look away from your boyfriend’s lips.She’s quickly rising from the couch and assembling everyone’s used plates in ahasty stack. “Let’s get out of here before things get gross,” Toni suggests toFangs, closing their box of pizza to take with them.

“You guys suck,” is Fangs’s parting shot. “So much for the pizza party.”

“Oh, good riddance to the pizza party!” Sweet Pea yells at their backs asthe trailer door bangs shut. He looks up at you, eyes heating admittedly betterthan your tragic little microwave. “It’s time for the pizza after party.”

Prompts come from the narrowed down list here!

[recentanimenews]

Chiyoko Fujiwara Has Come Unstuck in Time: Reveling in the fractured, nonlinear surrealism of Satoshi Kon’s <cite>Millennium Actress</cite>.

This week I had the pleasure of seeing the late Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress in the theater. It’s not just my favorite anime movie but my favorite film of all time, so I’m ecstatic to see that the anime market in the US has grown so much that we can get widespread screenings of Kon’s films, including this one and Perfect Blue. With Millennium Actress fresh on my mind, it seems to me like a perfect time to once again sing the praises of this sublime, quietly breathtaking film.

Lots of films and TV shows follow multiple timelines. There’s the ping-ponging intrigue of Memento, the flash-back-and-forward structure of True Detective and Lost, and the Guy Ritchie-inspired anime series Baccano! But Millennium Actress’s multiple timelines are a completely different breed. The film isn’t a puzzle box to be deciphered, with all its loose ends linked up with their corresponding pieces. It’s a hall of mirrors to be explored, with images bent and reflected endlessly into the distance. Millennium Actress depicts three timelines of vastly different scale and scope, interleaved into one another: the life of its titular heroine Chiyoko, the history of Japanese filmmaking, and the history of Japan itself.

Chiyoko’s timeline plays back relatively consistently, moving forward in time as we watch her age from a newborn to an elderly woman, always searching for the man who gave her a mysterious key one snowy day. Her journey through the world of Japanese film follows a similarly linear progression. It’s when Kon throws the history of Japan into the mix that time begins to distort. Movies can transport you to any place and time, and Chiyoko’s films, by bouncing back and forth between medieval period pieces, modern dramas, and science fiction set in the far-flung future, do just that. The history isn’t just covered by the movies themselves either, but also by Chiyoko’s lived experience, which covers the turbulent history of 20th century Japan. Chiyoko simultaneously exists in all of these time periods at once, immortalized on screen. It’s in this sense that she is a “millennium” actress — trapped in a thousand years of solitude, cursed to replay her tragic love story for all time.

In short, Chiyoko has come “unstuck in time,” the condition described by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five in which his protagonist Billy Pilgrim experiences moments from the past, present, and future seemingly at random. The allusion wouldn’t have been lost on Satoshi Kon, who repeatedly professed his love for George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse Five film adaptation. That single film had an immense influence on all of Kon’s work — Hill’s heavy use of match cuts in particular.

Match cuts, in which one scene transitions to another using one or multiple shared elements, were a favorite of Kon’s across his entire career, and Millennium Actress is a masterclass in the device. Earthquakes, a frequent subject of the cuts, jolt characters out of reverie and back to reality while connecting with Chiyoko’s statement early in the film that her life is tied to earthquakes. Doors also feature heavily, helping to carry the audience between major scene changes, as when the door of a derailed train suddenly leads to a feudal battlefield.

Most important of all, however, is the climactic scene with Chiyoko running to meet the man she’s been chasing after. The entire film is structured around this moment, with seemingly one-off shots — Chiyoko slipping and falling in the snow, her friends laughing about her first love — blending together into a single continuous scene. Though each of these shots is separated by decades of her life, they form a unified whole. We see Chiyoko’s entire life at once, in flattened, non-linear time.

There‘s a temptation, especially among American moviegoers, to explain all of this, to come up with a rational scientific reason for it. “It’s Chiyoko’s memories,” “it’s her mind playing tricks on her,” things like that. This does a disservice to what Kon is trying to achieve. Nearly every scene in Chiyoko’s past is patently impossible, even if you ignore the presence of documentary filmmaker Genya and his cameraman in the flashbacks. She has conversations about her personal life while in character for a film, making specific references to her cherished key and the man she’s after that are obviously not intended to be literal parts of her movie scripts.

In one scene, she’s cleaning her home and finds where her husband hid the key, only for Kon to zoom out and show the entire domestic scene as merely a set, with no camera crew in sight. Are we to believe that the key was hidden inside the set and Chiyoko was cleaning this fake home like a dutiful housewife when she found it? Of course not. What we’re seeing is a bit of reality and a bit of fantasy, placed in a box together and shaken up. Re-separating the parts and labeling them as “fact” or “fiction” is meaningless and detracts from Kon’s message.

That message is one that should connect with anyone who has ever fallen deeply in love with a great story. It’s the conviction that stories are what keep us going, whether they are real or fake or some unknowable mix of the two. And it’s a quintessentially Satoshi Kon insight that when we tell ourselves the stories of our own lives, we are always creating a fiction – inspired by reality but tweaked ever so slightly to grant us that much more clarity and purpose.

Millennium Actress is in theaters in the US for a limited time thanks to Eleven Arts and Fathom Events. Tickets for the Monday, August 19 screening, featuring a brand new English dub, are still available.

Chiyoko Fujiwara Has Come Unstuck in Time originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on August 16, 2019 at 4:51 PM.

By: Evan Minto