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continues to be wild to me that people still favor a half-baked characterization of cassian andor derived from a messy 2016 movie where he isn’t given enough time to be fleshed out + a couple paragraphs from a visual guide, over a 2-season, more in-depth, serious examination of the character and the events that shaped him, which diego luna himself had more say in. or people can’t handle that a character can lie and have fluctuating commitments and that these are, in fact, internally consistent traits

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Final Fantasy XVI ; Clive x Jill "Flower scene"

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@pscentral event 11: 2023 Releases | Final Fantasy XVI

A Song of Fire and Ice: Clive and Jill

Credit: @marlenadia

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"I thought I was ready for this."

"I know but we will face it together."

Credit: @marlenadia

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Hottest couples in dramas 🔥

Kim Mi So & Lee Young Joon- What's Wrong With Secretary Kim

Go Moon Young & Moon Gang Tae- It's Okay Not To Be Okay

Eun Bong Hee & Noh Ji Wook- Suspicious Partner

Ryan Gold & Sung Deok Mi- Her Private Life

Yu Na Bi & Park Jae Eon- Nevertheless

Cha Ji Won & Baek Hee Sung- Flower Of Evil

Kang Joo Eun & Kim Young Ho- Oh My Venus

Joo Wan & Shin Joo Yeon- In Need Of Romance 3

Secret Affair

Another Miss Oh

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Things in “Flower of Evil” that fucking broke me

***Spoilers***

- Ji Won’s face when she finds the watch

- Hyun Soo slowly, and then suddenly, realizing that Ji Won knows who he is

- Hyun Soo being scared that Eun Ha won’t like him/will inherit his sociopathy

- Hyun Soo’s panic attacks

- “I only believe what I see with my own eyes”

- Ji Won making him realize he’s capable of love and emotion

- Ji Won having sex with Hyun Soo even after realizing who he is, loving him too much to pull way until she has proof that she should

- Ji Won calling the child psychologist and screaming at her for failing Hyun Soo

- Hyun Soo believing that he’s an emotionless, manipulative sociopath even as he literally loves, cares for, and protects his family with his entire heart

- Hyun Soo repeatedly NOT killing people

- “I want to go home, Ji Won”

- THE EGG TARTS

- Hyun Soo completely losing it when he think Ji Won is dead

- And then still hesitating to kill Hee Seong!

- Ji Won begging Detective Choi to not go after Hyun Soo and Choi trusting her instincts

- WHERE THE MORNING STAR RESTS

- “I see dead people…”

- Ji Won being the only thing that banished Hyun Soo’s hallucinations of his father

- Hyun Soo standing guard outside Ji Won’s shop without ever expecting her to know or care

- Hyun Soo being so guilty and sad after holding Ji Won at (blunt) knifepoint

- Ji Won just full-on handcuffing herself to Hyun Soo out of loyalty and spite

- Moo Jin owning up to his complicity in front of Director Baek

- Hyun Soo going all human-shield for Ji Won even as he’s trying to escape from her

- Hyun Soo’s dream before he loses his memories

- Hyun Soo having to wear his wedding ring to do metalwork without injuring himself

- Ji Won being willing to let him go in the end even though she still loves him and remembers their life together

- Ji Won putting his wedding ring back on his finger

- All the tearful kisses

- “He’s the father of my child. He’s my family, my person.” 

- Hyun Soo and Ji Won sobbing together in the car

- Hyun Soo hearing Eun Ha call out to him and instinctively going into Dad Mode even though he has ACTUAL AMNESIA

- Hyun Soo’s mind forgetting Ji Won and Eun Ha but his body and heart remembering them completely 

- Hyun Too getting to revisit his original self and become who he always could have been, with his family and friends finally, truly by his side

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reasons to watch flower of evil

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"And what do you sacrifice?"

"Calm. Kindness. Kinship... Love."

"I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space."

"I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion, I’m damned for what I do."

"I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost, and by the time I looked down, there was not longer ground beneath my feet. What is my— What is my sacrifice?"

"I’m condemned to use the tools of the enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see."

"And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror, or an audience or the light of gratitude…"

"So what do I sacrifice…? EVERYTHING!"

"You’ll stay with me Lonni. I need all the heroes I can get."

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Saw Gerrera, Mon Mothma, and Luthen Rael

So first of all… how fucking good is andor. I mean really, peak Star Wars and peak TV. But what I think is fascinating is how it fleshes out the Rebel alliance. 

https://at.tumblr.com/madmag94/fairly-substantial-andor-spoilers-and/cikwwbagr5xr

I’ve talked a bit about this before in the post above, especially in how Andor works within the context of the rest of Star Wars to lend a grim and realistic counterpoint to the optimism in other media. But I want to dig a little bit deeper into one of the major themes of Andor, and how its played out in this and other star wars media, specifically with regards to Luthen Rael, Mon Mothma, and Saw Gerrera.

Obviously spoiler warning for all but the last 2 episodes of Andor

So, one of the biggest themes in Andor so far has been the corrupting nature of revolution. The delicate balance between ends and means that pushes the leaders of any violent rebellion to their breaking point. The thing that, in the real world, so often leads revolutionary movements down the path of Authoritarianism.

Mon Mothma is an interesting character in the history of Star Wars, given her extremely obscure start. Andor is very much her first time getting any central focus, and the time between her only two appearances with lines until Andor was 33 full years, since her minor speaking role in Revenge of the Sith was cut. The only thing defined about her character was her important position within the Rebel alliance, which has given Genevieve O'Reilly a ton of space to define a beautiful character arc within Andor.

Within Andor, we see how the pressure of empire and rebellion drives Mon to the limits of her idealism. From her dynamic with Luthen and her concerns over his methods, to dealing with the amoral Chandrilan banker, to potentially using her daughter as a bargaining chip to keep her ability to funnel funds to the Rebellion. The rebellion asks mon, like everyone else, to make sacrifices in a circumstance where ethics can be a burden.

Of course we know that ultimately Mon Mothma DOESN’T sacrifice all her principles, in many ways her idealism is vindicated and she becomes the voice of a rebellion that engages in a higher form of war, and maintains it’s principles. But in the trenches before the dawn of the Rebel Alliance, the question of “how far can she go” looms over Mon’s entire character.

Saw has BEEN in this fight. He resisted the Empire right from the first day it was founded, as we’ve seen in Bad Batch. Saw’s defining character arc ever since he showed up in Rogue One is his extremism, and how that extremism alienates him from the alliance at large. But in the time of Andor, he’s also one of the parties who is able to actually get things done. He doesn’t have the luxury of cooperation and camaraderie at this point, and has been forced into a dark place by the nature of this.

And it’s clear how this has corrupted him. Once upon a time, he trusted the Jedi, and then the republic betrayed him. Lots of rebel movements are populated by the seperatists who killed his sister, or at least their sympathizers. He fights on his own, because thats what he has to do. But it wears on him. The fear, the paranoia, the lies, the deception. He can’t join the alliance because he can’t trust anyone without his clarity of vision. He never stopped fighting the good fight, but by the time of Rogue One he’s lost to his paranoia.

But he still, somewhere within him, believes. Unlike Mon, he sacrificed his idealism, if he ever had it, before the empire ever rose. But in his last words he shows that however hard he fought against the alliance, he still believes. In the end, he realizes his time is over, and that all he can hope for is that the Rebellion, the Dream, will persist

https://twitter.com/bland_username1/status/1588150327899045888?s=20&t=EeoDaaczHTlUScLNKADEXQ

(This wonderful twitter thread sums up a lot better how Saw, despite the needs of revolution costing him his soul no matter how righteous his cause, still believes in the dream. I’d encourage anyone who likes Saw to read it.)

Lastly we have Luthen Rael. Luthen’s monologue at the end of Andor is… perhaps one of my favorite monologues I’ve ever heard in on screen media (I’d love to use it as an audition piece sometime) and it so clearly articulates the themes of ideological sacrifice for the rebellion, and why its oftentimes worth it.

Luthen Rael has done terrible things. He “burned his decency” a long long time ago. Like Saw he has seen the writing on the wall and is willing to go to the places other people like Mon arent. But unlike Saw, he still keeps enough of his principles to know what he is. He doesn’t think he’s the only one with clarity of purpose, he’s tortured by the things he had to do, but he knows that in the end it serves the greater good.

He is the Axis around which the Rebellion at this point swings, the one who is currently fighting the hardest to bring them all together into a Rebel Alliance. And its because he has a willingness to do what is right rather then what is good, but the wisdom to know that it leaves a stain. He can’t lead the rebels, because he’s not a hero. But his work will lay a path that heroes can walk.

Kino Loy leads the prisoners on Nakina 5 to freedom, knowing that in the end he can’t swim, and will have to be left behind. Saw, Luthien, Cassian, Melshi, they’re all willing to pay the personal price of revolution. To wade into the muck and blood that the rebellion necessitates, to pave the way for a brighter rebellion. One that can fight openly, proudly, one which can win. They’re all paving the way

For A New Hope

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“What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future.”

For me , that’s the most important part of this monologue. We’ve already seen Luthen make decisions that unsettle us. Decisions that are cruel, cold and calculating. As he should. Because that is the only way the rebellion has a chance, only if the good guys use all their tools not just the ones that allow them to keep their moral high ground. And I love that because what we’re usually shown is so damn unrealistic and annoying. The heroes clinging to their morality and their high horse refuse to fall to the villain’s level. They refuse to play dirty. Sometimes, if the writing is good, they pay for it. Usually, though, by some miracle it all turns out ok and the hero doesn’t pay for his stupidity and we, the audience, are left to roll our eyes yet again.

Don’t get me wrong. It is important to be good. It’s important to strive to be moral and keep yourself in the light when everything around you is dark. It’s one of the many lessons Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings teach you. But when we’re talking about infiltrating and bringing down entire regimes, fascist empires that enslave an entire galaxy you’re gonna need every tool at your disposal. You can’t fight with one arm tied behind your back. There must be at least some individuals to make the hard decisions in the same ruthless manner the villains do. That’s Luthen. That’s the guy who allows heroes like Luke Skywalker to keep the moral high ground.

I adore Luke, but he threw away his lightsaber to prove a point, that his father was still good, and he was willing to bet billions of lives on it. Luthen would have killed both the emperor and Darth Vader to ensure the empire’s demise and that would have been the right choice for the greater good. The only reason that Luke did not pay for that terrible, stupid choice was that George Lucas chose to show the romantic side of a rebellion. And that’s ok. It’s too bad that in reality that side barely exists. That’s what Andor chose to show. And that’s ok too. I for one think it’s great that these two sides can coexist in the same Star Wars universe and we get to enjoy them both.

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"everything"

And what do you sacrifice? Calm. Kindness. Kinship. (Love.) I've given up all chance at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space.

I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote fifteen years ago from which there's only one conclusion:

I'm damned for what I do.

My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield. My eagerness to fight. They've set me on a path from which there is no escape.

I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost. And by the time I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.

What is my sacrifice?

I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see.

And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice?

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MINE

Family...

Photo Credit: IG @netflixgeeked

Goes back to what I always say, family by blood is overrated. Whoever is putting in the work, loving, caring about one is who I call family blood related or not. Ciri's father is trash. Yennefer's stepfather was trash. Geralt's mother, trash too. We don't know a lot about Jaskier's background but he has found a family too, they all have.

One thing I love about Geralt and Yennefer is they have this weird kind of trust but at the same time are fully aware of what the other is capable of. I call them the perfect ying-yang. They are not blinded by love. Their dynamic is one I enjoy and I'm particularly invested in.

The way Yennefer's face lights up at the unicorn scene as she says I'm a beacon of purity, really warmed my heart. It was like the world stood still for a moment. Her smile was soft, genuine, innocent, so bright it could light up a room, immaculately beautiful, and that split second of sheer joy and happiness, that comes from deep within before the guilt of what she was about to do crept right back. It was one of those moments you forget all the troubles you have been in and the ones about to come.

When Ciri asked Yennefer about Geralt and she goes on about longing, regret, hope, and fear, and Ciri is just like so you love him too.

Lilac and Gooseberries

Yennefer: How is this possible

Geralt: I don't care

When Geralt addressed her as dear friend, I laughed so much. And then he had the nerve to call Istredd her other dear friend, it was hilarious.

I think I got a bit of shyness as he introduced Yennefer to Ciri which was cute because Geralt is anything but shy.

It also reminded me of a scene in Killing Eve when Konstantin (also played by Kim Bodnia) was hitting the blender, saying all old friends together, sarcastically of course! Haha!

I loved how Ciri and Yennefer were introduced to each other, I think it was just perfect in explaining who exactly she was and what she meant to Geralt without words said.

Of course, she cared about her power. In such a violent world, there is no convenient time to lose one's powers at all.

I think it was interesting to see Yennefer try to cope without her powers not just in survival, but also in what it meant to her essence. And in the final moment as she slashed her wrists, even if she had died, she would have been satisfied because she had finally filled the void of a child with Ciri.

Yennefer is loyal to herself and the people she loves and that's what I love most about her. She understands the dynamics in the sense of how the different authorities are only out to use one until they are not of use anymore.

"Betrayal doesn't depend on how or how much you love someone. It depends on the magnitude of the dilemma before you."- Berlin in Money Heist

I do not condone Yennefer's intentions to sacrifice Ciri but I understood it.

Yennefer struggles with the feeling of not being enough which stems from her childhood trauma, abuse. Someone also pointed out the parallel between slashing her wrists in season one and season two and that broke my heart.

Four marks

I dreamed of becoming important to someone someday.

This is a woman who had given up on legacy, the hope of having a baby, life in the finale of season one. And even said if she died, that will be okay as she had lived multiple lifetimes to which Tissaia said her power could be her legacy.

Except she didn't die, and the one thing she had, chaos, which she described as her sight and a life force that makes one feel alive was gone too.

Desperation and the need to feel.

Now one may ask, but Ciri is a child, Geralt's for that matter and promising legacy, so why do it?

Out of the three women, she held out the longest.

I find it interesting how Voleth Meir manipulates them using their pain and desires against them, telling them it is what they deserve. Showing Yennefer, not just her trauma but also painting a life she desired (with Geralt and the baby) only to watch it burn and disappear in smoke, using them to make fun of her. The sick manipulation makes the psychological torture of it all heartbreaking.

Three women that have been put down many times, Francesca as an elf, you can imagine. Fringilla is abused as a mage in training, tossed from one king to another as we know how unstable the leadership of Nilfgaard is. And Yennefer, abused by her own family, almost killed by the king she served covering up one atrocity to the other and the wrongs go on and on. So it's not entirely surprising that when a shiny gold-plated promise of power is presented whether that is the live birth of a pure elf or to finally have true power and not just be seen as timid or to have one's chaos back.

Geralt: Nowhere is safe now. You can't run from the world. You can't hide from it. But you can find power and purpose. A chance to survive the horror.

We see how she stumbled in the dark (without her chaos). I felt her painful scream in this scene, juxtaposed with Geralt's monologue to Ciri about finding purpose as we see her struggle in opening a portal, no way forward in sight.

But she tried, knowing how selfish Yennefer can be, she held on. But, in the end, her pain, desperation, and selfishness got the better of her.

Jaskier: Oh, no, well, obviously we'll kill her. We'll definitely kill her. I just haven't found a good enough jabbing stick yet. But what if she's changed too? People do stupid things when they think they're trapped in a corner, Geralt. And they say stupid things. That's what friends do. They come back.

And Jaskier was right because, at the dying minute, she didn't go through it. I think she had been fighting the internal battle the moment she knew Ciri was his child surprise.

Her facial expression in that split second showed, she realized this was going to be harder than she thought. She had her doubts. She kept avoiding Geralt's eyes when he asked certain questions and drank from her cup because she was nervous and lying. The moment she knew who Ciri was to Geralt, she knew this was going to be harder than she thought.

In talking to Ciri and helping her channel her power, she found something greater than her power, purpose. And she faced her fears of the possibility of never regaining her chaos or being able to feel and finally won her internal battle when she didn't go through it.

She realized everything she ever went through was for a reason and so she could teach someone who will not have to walk the path alone as she did. I think this growth was necessary for herself and also for the role she was going to step into, as a mother figure.

Geralt was very justified in his anger and MINE, remains one of my favorite lines. The anger, protection of his daughter and I think at this point, he had fully accepted/realized that he was a father to Ciri just as Ciri had admitted that he was the father she never had.

The betrayal wasn't just in the fact that she intended to sacrifice Ciri, but in that she knew who and what she meant to him and she still went along with it anyway.

In season three, I expect some work especially from Yennefer in rebuilding the trust she has broken...

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Has anyone else written the essay on how MCU Clint is actually canonically better at combat than Natasha or Yelena?

This is not an opinion piece, and it actually goes deeper into who they are as characters than what their skillsets specifically are. This is also MCU specific, and not comic comprehensive, which is fine. Natasha was ok with hurting someone if it meant saving them. She had a brutal upbringing and training, and she's not afraid to break things in order to fix them. Clint on the other hand goes out of his way to avoid hurting.

In Budapest, Clint refused to take Natasha out. He didn't take the shot. However, based on everything we know of Natasha, she wasn't about to just let him walk up and talk to her. Whether the arrow marks in her apartment are from an initial confrontation or made during their later escape (or them being chaotic and bored), at some point Clint managed to get her to not fight him long enough for him to offer her a way out.

In The Avengers, Natasha goes after Clint to stop him from bringing down the helicarrier. It's a crude, no rules style fight that lasts only a few seconds, and Nat knocks Clint out. This is the only time she actually bests him, and he is 1) being mind-controlled and 2) clearly exhausted to the breaking point. An argument may also be made that he was even holding back, based on Selvig building in a backdoor to shut down the portal while being controlled by Loki, and Clint purposefully failing to kill Fury by shooting his vest - there was some awareness of who they were underneath the scepter's power.

In Civil War, Clint and Natasha spar for a moment, though neither one of their hearts are in it. We can't be certain what the outcome of this fight would have been, as Wanda interrupted it. But, based on Clint's reaction - taking offense that Wanda went after Nat and could have hurt her - he wasn't concerned about that outcome. Wanda even accuses him of pulling his punches, which Clint does not deny. We could of course say that Natasha was pulling her punches too, which may very well be true...but that inevitably leaves us with the same conclusion.

[Clint as Ronin, aka Clint hurting, is another essay for another time, but I think it's significant how much of a polar opposite his actions as Ronin and his actions as Hawkeye are to each other.]

On Vormir (sob) Clint actually gets the better of Natasha. This isn't directly hand-to-hand combat, but he surprises her and pins her one time, and then knocks her aside with an explosive arrow the second time. Again, specifically making an effort not to hurt her, but to get her out of the way. Clint later struggles with the fact that Nat was better than him, and that it should have been him. But the only reason it was Nat is because she ran after him - after he had stopped her and jumped off the mountain's edge.

Fast-forward to the Hawkeye series. Clint's first fight with Yelena is a mess. He's unprepared, and also trying to keep Kate safe while dealing with both Yelena and Maya. We don't see much of Clint and Yelena's actual fight here, but one move that is highlighted for us is when Yelena gets the draw on Kate. Rather than taking her out while her attention is distracted, Clint steps between them to protect Kate without hurting Yelena. Interestingly, here it's Kate who shows she's not afraid to hurt (shooting Maya), and the encounter ends with all parties retreating.

[Related note: Clint also makes a visible effort not to truly hurt Maya, despite knowing she wants to kill him and is fairly capable of doing so.]

Lastly, we have Yelena fighting Clint in the finale. Her sole mission is to kill him and again he knows this. Yet during their entire fight, Clint does not make a single offensive move against her. He has her by the back of the neck and merely uses the moment to speak to her. She comes at him and all he does is put his hand out to ask her to stop. He holds her in a potential stranglehold and again spends valuable seconds telling her about her sister, until she frees herself.

Yelena then comes after Clint with her baton. And he lets her. This is the one that gets me. Clint makes no effort at this point to defend himself. Talking about Natasha, seeing Yelena's pain, has brought all of his survivor's guilt to the front. Yelena told Kate that actions matter more than words. In this scene, Clint first tells Yelena he doesn't deserve what Natasha gave him, and then also shows her that he believes it. There is calculation to Clint's actions here, taking Yelena's punishment until she exhausts herself and draws her gun. Then he uses Yelena and Natasha's whistle, and it takes all the fight out of her.

There are many complicated layers to this - Yelena and Clint's grief, her rage, his guilt, and the clear role of his over two decades of experience. Clint lets Yelena get the better of him because he can't bring himself to fight her, and yet he's still controlling the fight the entire time. I think at the end there was a fifty-fifty chance he was going to use the whistle or choose to stay silent and let her kill him. I also think his family and Kate are what tipped the scales. When Yelena says "I loved her so much" and Clint says "me too" and then places his hand on Yelena's shoulder, he's offering Yelena the very same thing he offered Natasha: Not a fight. A way out.

TLDR; Clint Barton in the MCU is canonically a better fighter than the black widows, and yet he chooses repeatedly not to hurt them, but to help and save them.

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Still not over the fact that even though Clint Barton is the grumpy Avenger who just wants to be left alone, he’s also the most approachable Avenger who people love being around. Reasoning:

1) Even though Clint tried to kill Natasha Romanoff, not only did they make up, they became best friends. Natasha even taught Clint her secret whistle.  

2) He gave Wanda Maximoff the courage to fight back against Ultron. 

3) Even though their interactions were short, you can tell that Pietro Maximoff liked messing around with Clint. They could’ve had an uncle-nephew type relationship.

4) It’s heavily implied that Scott Lang became best bros with Clint. I mean, Scott gave Clint access to Pym technology, he wouldn’t do that for any random person.

5) Clint just met Grills and the LARPers the other day and by the end of the week, the LARPers dedicated themselves to him. They literally became the Hawkeye army.

6) Lucky the Pizza Dog immediately became attached to Clint, as if he was the dog’s owner the whole time.

7) He stopped Yelena Belova’s attack with just words and kindness. 

8) Should I even discuss Kate Bishop? We have six episodes of how she looked up to Clint as a child. 

TL;DR Clint Barton is the heart of the Avengers, even though he’s a grumpy dude who just wants to be left alone

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You showed me that being a hero isn’t just for people who can fly or shoot lasers out of their hands, it’s for anyone, who’s brave enough to do what’s right, no matter the cost.

HAWKEYE | SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS?

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“But I’m not gallant enough. Nor valiant enough. I’m not suited to be a soldier or a hero. And having an acute fear of pain, mutilation and death is not the only reason.  You can’t stop a soldier from being frightened but you can give him motivation to help him overcome that fear. I have no such motivation. I can’t have. I’m a witcher: an artificially created mutant. I kill monsters for money. I defend children when their parents pay me to. If Nilfgaardian parents pay me, I’ll defend Nilfgaardian children. And even if the world lies in ruin - which does not seem likely to me - I’ll carry on killing monsters in the ruins of this world until some monsters kills me. That is my fate, my reason, my life and my attitude to the world. And it is not whst I chose. It was chosen or me.”

(…“But I don’t want to die to die in a war, because they’re not my wars.”)

- Geralt of Rivia, Blood of Elves