#'she's not groundbreaking' is such a nothing criticism to me like literally who cares. she's still good!

[aerithisms]

"taylor swift doesn't know what it's like to be a normal person so she'll never be able to write about certain experiences the way other artists can" is a fair critique of her as an artist but i will say i think if you think all she's trying to do is play pretend as a normal person and that she's never written anything profound about her specific life experiences you just don't know her discography. her songs ABOUT fame have produced some of her best lyricism because she understands fame in a particular way that very few people on this earth do. and while she has never been a normal adult she WAS a normal child/teen and i think the way she's able to write about that in retrospect now has also produced some of her best work. no she's not a groundbreaking unique poet but just as a lot of swifties overstate her poeticism i think a lot of people who don't like her do understate it

[andorerso]

i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about why you don’t like marva? (loved the new chapter of don’t say you love me)

Hoo boy, where do I begin? Put under a read more for spoilers, and for the anti-Maarva rant incoming.

First and probably biggest reason is the kidnapping. Drugging and taking a child from his community and his only remaining family, a child who's terrified, who's clearly never seen technology like theirs before, who doesn't even speak their language... She's quite literally the textbook example of the white savior trope, and most baffling of all, this is portrayed as a mostly positive thing. (Well, not even mostly. Other than Cassian still looking for his sister and their relationship being strained, I struggle to see where the show called out Maarva for her actions because well. It didn't.)

Then there's the way she treats Cassian after that. She's belittling, dismissive, borderline emotionally abusive, constantly puts him down and talks down on him, always criticizes him... She treats Bee kinda shitty too, mind you (for example snapping at him to shut up rather cruelly if you ask me.) Then she abandons Cassian when he needs her the most because now she suddenly cares about fighting the empire? And once again, it's portrayed as this selfless heroic act because I guess fighting the Empire is more important than anything. Fine, if that's what you wanna go for. Except that she doesn't fight them. She doesn't do anything, and this "noble" act of sacrifice is completely meaningless. It does nothing else but hurt Cassian. She took this child from his home, never took accountability for it, never treated him right as a mother, and now when he has no one else left and he's just begging her to go with him because despite everything, he does love her and he doesn't want to be alone and he doesn't want her to be in danger... she turns him away? And for what? So she can stay on Ferrix, sick and stubborn and refusing to take her medication and just being a nuisance to everyone? So she can die alone a month later without having any closure with her son? Okay. Makes sense. Oh wait, I forgot. She makes a speech. Groundbreaking.

What's especially annoying to me is that the narrative fully takes her side and never bothers to call her out on any of this. Yes, some people just don't have good mothers, and that'd be fine as a story, even though I'd still dislike her, but what makes me hate her even more is that the story doesn't seem to consider her a bad mother. The story wants me to like her. We're told she's a beloved part of the community, that she's a selfless mother, that she's an inspiring leader. Except that's not what they show us. Fiona Shaw herself talks about what a selfless hero she is for quote-on-quote rescuing Cassian, and it feels like I'm getting whiplash because did we watch the same show? Rescuing Cassian is not how I'd put it. She full on drugged and kidnapped a child, that's not a noble or heroic act of self-sacrifice.

Maarva never shows any warmth towards Cassian. Even in episode 7 when he goes back to her and episode 11 when he tries to call her, it feels like a boy desperately trying to please and live up to his mother's standards because she never made him feel like he was good enough. And that really is just the last straw. I wouldn't forgive her for kidnapping him, but I had hoped, initially, that there'd be consequences to this, that she'd show remorse at least. But I don't think Maarva ever really thought she did anything wrong because the story doesn't think she did anything wrong. And instead of trying to make it up to him like Clem seemed to have tried, she just gives him even more emotional damage.

I just can't tolerate her. Even her love for Cassian seems selfish at best, so there's nothing redeemable about her in my eyes.

[classysassy9791]

They named her Kagome after finding her injured and unconscious on the subway. Suffering from amnesia, she recuperates under the care of a semi-retired surgeon and a fresh young doctor. But when dark and violent flashes of her past come back to haunt her, Kagome begins to wonder if her past was worth remembering. Especially when a man she doesn’t recognize quite literally lunges into her life, accusing her of murder.    

Fandom: Inuyasha Genre: Drama, Mystery Pairings: InuKag, MirSan Warning: Dark themes throughout

Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l Ch. 3 l Ch. 4 l Ch. 5 l

Chapter 6 Word Count: 5800 Can be found on AO3

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Miroku flipped another chart closed and handed it back to the nurse sitting behind the desk in the center of the emergency room. The last of his patients had finally been seen after another brutal day. He had changed scrubs once due to a motor vehicle accident coming in with a bleeding artery. The entire trauma room looked like a murder scene, and that's how his morning had started. It didn’t get much better from there. One of the silver linings, however, had been his mentor, Shizu Takemi, giving him praise for his quick assessment and critical thinking skills that would one day make him a proficient trauma surgeon. 

Working alongside Kaede had taught Miroku so much in regards to handling the chaos traumas frequently came with, often leaving little room for error, needing quick and concise decisions to fight off the grim reaper. He had been lucky she had been willing to take him under his wing the day he showed up at her clinic unannounced, practically begging for her counsel. Even though his father had been a distinguished surgeon in his own right, it had been Doctor Kaede Miyamoto’s research analysis and groundbreaking methods that had left him stunned. 

When Miroku had learned of her early retirement that came without warning or cause, he had been bound and determined to track down the physician he had idolized from afar. Maybe that was a bit overkill, even stalkerish behavior, but it had always been a dream of his to be an apprentice under her expert instructions. He had done everything he could to rise to the top of his class and snag an internship position at Memorial Hospital in which she ruled. 

And then she had left - there one day and gone the next. It left Miroku feeling a little lost, as he had always wanted to be the best surgeon possible, but how could he be if the best mentor was no longer within reach? 

Kaede folded her arms over her chest and raised a brow, the lights of her clinic casting her in a golden back-glow. “You want me to train you?”

“Please,” he had begged, nearly on his knees as he tried to figure out a way to convince her. “You’re the only one who can.” 

He must’ve looked like a pathetic fool, but perhaps she had seen something in him, for she invited him in for a cup of tea and heard him out. She hadn’t promised grandeur surgeries or exhilarating late night calls. It was official: she had hung up her surgical scrubs for the quiet life of a clinician.

But, she had offered what she had left. 

She invited him to stay at her home. When he wasn’t grinding out shifts at the hospital, she would teach him everything she knew about traumas and how to fix the things that were broken. In return, he would assist her at the clinic when able. It was hardly a fair trade off, and Miroku had wanted to offer her more, but she had declined. 

“There’s nothing more you can offer me,” she had told him with a whimsical smile. “At least, not yet.” 

Begrudgingly, he had yielded to the arraignment, vowing to one day pay back Kaede’s kindness in full. He only realized too late that perhaps he had brought more trouble to her doorstep than she had bargained for - two disobedient patients who wanted nothing more than to escape the safe haven she had created, regardless of their physical and mental wellbeing. 

Miroku exhaled deeply and ran a hand through his dark locks. She couldn’t say he didn’t have drive, but damn, he really didn’t know where to draw the line sometimes. Earlier, during the whirlwind of his day, Kaede had sent him a quick text letting him know that she had returned home with Kagome and Rin, and would fill him in later. A twinge of guilt ate away at him. While he was here furthering his career, Kaede had taken it upon herself to clean up his mess. 

“Do you need anything else from me before I go, Koharu?” he asked the petite brunette sitting behind the desk. 

She smiled up at him, her eyes bright. “Nope. I think we’re all good here. Thanks!”

The doors to the emergency room slid open with a whoosh, letting the cool Spring air flow into the space. Both Miroku and Koharu turned their gazes on who entered - a woman with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and a taller man wearing an aloof expression. 

“Hello, may I help you?” Koharu greeted cheerfully, always so upbeat even this late into her shift. 

“Good evening,” the woman greeted as she sauntered up to the nurses’ desk. “I’m looking for the nurse in charge.” 

“That’s me!” Koharu confirmed, turning to give her full attention to the pair, a few strands of hair pulling free from her messy bun with the movement. 

“I’m Detective Sango Tachibana, and this is my partner, Detective Takeda Kuranosuke.” She flashed her badge, the man at her elbow following suit, before they returned them to their hips.

That caught Miroku’s attention. He certainly had experienced his fair share of police interaction since working in the emergency room - gunshot victims, car accidents, and other physical injuries often brought the authorities to their doorsteps. His gaze roamed the pair of detectives. Takeda seemed to wear the traditional detective attire - clean pressed slacks and button-up shirt - hinting at Miroku the man played by the books. But Sango wore jeans paired with black combat boots and a black faux leather jacket, hardly the attire of someone on official business. 

Koharu glanced between them. “How may I help you, Detectives?”

“There was a car accident on 34th street Friday night that’s being investigated,” Sango explained as she leaned against the counter. “We were wondering if you knew who was working that evening.”

“I’d have to check our staffing logs. Hold on.” Koharu stood and crossed the nurse’s station to rifle through the Charge Nurse binder. 

Miroku smiled and sauntered up to the two detectives, his gaze trained on the one with chestnut eyes and a nice rack. “Hello, there, Beautiful. I’m Doctor Miroku Ishida,” he greeted, holding out his hand. 

Sango raised a brow and didn’t spare a glance toward his outstretched greeting, instead keeping her focus solely on his face. “And?”

He faltered. She didn’t fluster like most women did when he was so brash. He knew he had charm and good looks that often gave him an edge when it came to the female population, but he wasn’t used to rejection. Sango had tenacity and apparently wasn’t easily impressed. Chuckling to cover up his surprise, he slipped his hands into the pockets of his scrubs. “I was working the ER Friday evening. Maybe I can help.”

“Ah, great,” the man beside Sango said - Takki? Kurano? something like that - as he reached into his overcoat and pulled out a small notepad. “Did you recall if anyone with suspicious injuries came in?”

Miroku’s shoulders fell. He wanted to continue speaking to Sango and wasn’t really interested in dealing with her partner. “No, not that I remember. Business as usual,” he replied begrudgingly.

“They would’ve had blunt force trauma, cuts, maybe a broken limb,” Sango prodded, hoping to jog his memory. “Most likely would’ve just walked off the street, and could’ve been a woman, although not conclusively.”

Miroku absently shook his head at each of Sango’s suggestions until she said that the victim could’ve been a woman. He paused. Friday night was when he had discovered Kagome on the subway. She had much of the same injuries Sango listed. With her amnesia, it had left everyone in the dark as to how she had ended up in such a state. Could it have been the car accident they were investigating? 

“Doctor Ishida?” Sango’s voice stirred him from his thoughts. 

He quickly collected himself. “Yes, sorry, I was just thinking. You said the accident happened on 34th street?”

“That’s right,” Takeda confirmed. 

That street ran through the business district and had a major subway platform used for people to commute in from the suburbs. It was also one of the station routes of the train Miroku always used to get home. It was plausible that Kagome was in that car accident, found her way to the subway, and passed out on the chairs where he later found her. 

Sango frowned. “Do you know something?”

Miroku hesitated. Since he met Kagome, her behavior had been odd. She had asked for no cops and had a gun - two uncommon behaviors for most people. If he told these detectives of what he knew, would it be doing more harm than good? Would he be putting Kagome in danger? Although he knew very little about Kagome, she had put her faith in him, and he was hard pressed to betray her confidence. 

Then again, what if she was as dangerous as Kaede had first feared? What if she was a wanted criminal? He couldn’t picture Kagome being a hardened delinquent, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t lead a life of crime prior to the accident. Besides that first interaction of waking up, she had shown no true animosity toward them. And if he did tell the detectives about her, there was a chance they would be able to help them piece together Kagome’s past. 

But would his breach of trust be worth it?

“Doctor Ishida,” Sango said again, this time her tone more firm. “If you know something, now would be the time to tell us.” 

Miroku smiled easily, swallowing his moral code. “Unfortunately, I can’t recall anything eventful or out of the ordinary from that evening. I wish I could be of more help.” 

Sango narrowed her eyes at him, but it was Takeda who spoke. “No problem. If you happen to think of anything that may help, give us a call.” He handed Miroku a business card with a phone number on it. “Even the smallest detail could prove to be useful.” 

He took the card and waved it casually. “I’ll be sure to do that.” 

“Here’s a copy of the staff members who were here that evening, along with their contact information,” Koharu said as she returned with the requested list. 

“Thank you,” Sango murmured as she took it from her and gave it a quick glance. 

“We appreciate your help,” Takeda added. “Have a good evening.” 

As the detectives turned to leave, Sango’s gaze lingered on Miroku for a moment longer than necessary, before she finally turned and followed Takeda out of the hospital’s emergency room entrance. Miroku waited until they were out of sight before glancing down at the business card he had. 

He wasn’t an immoral person, and hated lying to anyone without just cause, much less to the police, but there were simply too many unknowns right now. Even if he hadn’t known Kagome long, he had promised to care for her as long as she needed. That meant regardless of what her past carried. What kind of man would he be if he handed her over without mulling over the consequences for more than a few minutes? Besides that, he definitely needed more information. 

Part of him wanted to divulge the encounter with the detectives to Kaede immediately. She had always been level-headed and would know what to do. But the other part of him feared that Kaede’s decision would lead Kagome down a dark path, and he had already brought so much trouble to Kaede as it was. 

With a ‘have a good night’ to Koharu, Miroku began his walk back to the residents’ locker room to change. First thing was first - he needed a beer. Then, a couple of hours to research the car accident. He wasn’t much for watching the news or keeping up on current events - that had more to do with his lack of time than his lack of interest - so he had a bit of catching up to do. 

After that, he would decide what to tell Kaede, or if he would tell her at all. 

The following morning, Kagome found herself in a funk. On the one hand, she had been eager to start working toward physical recovery - mending her dislocated shoulder and injured leg. In the same thought, however, she still had no idea how to recover the memories or her mental state. Kaede had assured her that her memories would most likely come back with time. How much time? Kaede had no answer for that, and couldn’t guarantee that they would come back at all. 

It left Kagome feeling a little lost. 

“Come on,” Kaede said as she entered Kagome’s temporary bedroom, her hands on her hips, and a stern look on her face. “Sitting in bed all morning isn’t going to get you anywhere.” 

Kagome scoffed. “What else is there to do right now?”

With a hum, Kaede opened up the wheelchair that had been occupying the corner of the room, and geared it toward Kagome. “Remember what you told me yesterday?”

It had been less than twenty-four hours, and already Kaede was making sure Kagome stuck to her word. She had told Kaede she trusted her. Now she would be paying for it. With a few disgruntled complaints, Kagome allowed Kaede to help her into the wheelchair. 

Moments later, Kagome found herself sitting out back of Kaede’s home in a self-made garden of sorts. The home bordered a small forest, and was far enough away from the main road to avoid noise pollution. Kaede locked the wheelchair in place in the center of the patio next to a wicker armchair. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured before disappearing back inside. 

The morning air had a slight chill to it, causing Kagome to wrap the shawl Kaede had leant her tighter around her shoulders. She watched the leaves of the trees sway with the wind as birds fluttered between their branches. The trickling of water drew her attention to a small waterfall that spilled into a pond full of koi fish. She closed her eyes. Her heart beat slowed, the thrumming of anxiety quieting to a small tickle at the base of her neck, as she took a deep breath of damp moss and wet tree trunks

The images were clear for the first time. 

Dew glistened over the leaves, occasionally dripping to land on her skin. She glanced up from where she sat at the base of a tree, watching sunlight peek through the branches. A cool breeze whispered against her cheek, pulling dark strands of hair across her shoulders. She felt so much younger than she was now, able to recognize her middle school uniform skirt draped across her thighs. To be honest, she probably should’ve still been wearing her winter attire with the slight nip in the air. 

She smiled. Today was going to be a good day. Her eyes glanced over at the sound of approaching footsteps against cobblestone, settling on a man whose face was still muddled in darkness. He stood nearly as tall as the tree behind her, his baritone voice soothing as it reverberated through her. 

“There you are~!”

“Here you are,” Kaede’s voice pulled Kagome from her memories. 

She opened her eyes to see the doctor holding out a cup of tea for her. “Thank you,” she murmured, taking it carefully, the scent of hibiscus flowers rolling over her. 

This time, the memory she had wasn’t a flash or jarring like the others she had experienced. It felt soothing, familiar, a small bit of gaiety amongst the dread she had so far been plagued with. Yet, regardless of what the memory had shown her, she still felt her heart clench, as if it had only precluded the darkness of a storm. 

Kagome frowned and bit the inside of her cheek, simply watching the steam curl away from her tea. 

“What’s wrong?” Kaede asked as she sat down beside her in the wicker chair. 

“Why do you think somethings wrong?” she countered. 

“Well, you’re biting the inside of your cheek, which usually means somethings bothering you.” 

Kagome quickly stopped gnawing on the offended skin, a heated blush working into her cheeks. “Dammit.” 

The doctor chuckled. “Come on, talk to me.” 

A deep exhale escaped her and she took a sip of her tea - a tart, almost cranberry-like flavor - letting the warm liquid soothe her throat. “I-” She pursed her lips, trying to figure out how she was going to word her next statement. “I guess I’m having, uh, flashes?”

“Flashes?”

Kagome nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think they might be memories, but I can’t always grasp onto them. It’s almost like a bad rendition of a flash film.” 

She shrugged. “I’m no expert on amnesia. I’ve read studies, though. Most people will get their memories back sporadically or they'll wake up one morning and everything will just be there .” 

“Most people?”

“There’s a few who never get their memories back,” Kaede replied, gazing over at her with a sad smile and a despondent look in her eyes. 

Kagome huffed. “Well, at least I know my odds.” 

“Cheer up,” Kaede said, trying to bolster her spirits. “At least you get to hang out with Miroku and I until you figure things out.” 

The expression on Kagome’s face must’ve been hilarious, because Kaede barked out a laugh that nearly startled Kagome. 

“We’re not that bad,” Kaede proclaimed. 

A smile tugged at Kagome’s lips. “I guess not.” 

“Miroku has his faults, but he’s one of the best guys I know,” Kaede went on to explain. “He’s been through a lot to be where he is today, and you’d never know it. I mean, he rescued some bleeding woman with a gun from a subway train.” 

Kagome fully grinned at that. “Yeah, when you put it that way, what was he thinking? ”

“He was thinking you were someone in need, and he’s a savior to his core - in work and in life.” Kaede’s voice was softer. “He never would’ve been able to turn a blind eye.” 

That left Kagome quiet, almost ashamed at her earlier actions, considering what Miroku had put on the line to help her. Yet, she couldn’t quite fault herself for taking actions she didn’t understand. She sipped on her tea thoughtfully. “What about you, then?” she asked Kaede. 

She tilted her head. “Well, let’s just say I’m more realistic than he is. I’d love to save everyone, but that’s just not how the world works. There’s too many horrible things out there to believe that my hands can repair everyone.” 

“Your hands?”

Kaede nodded. “I’m a retired surgeon. Well, I guess ‘forced into retirement’ would be a better description of it.” 

“If you love medicine so much, what happened that made you retire?”

Kaede pointed to her eyes. “In the peak of my career I was diagnosed with Best’s Disease. A sneaky son of a bitch that’s apparently hereditary, but evidently I was the lucky one to start the genetic fault.” She turned her gaze to the gardens. “One day, I started noticing some trouble with my vision. Didn’t think too much of it for a while. Figured I was needing glasses or something. Went to a few eye doctors until one sat me down and finally gave me the diagnosis.” 

“It affects your vision?” Kagome asked. 

She nodded. “Yeah, my central vision. There’s no treatment and no cure. Only thing I can do is get checkups to determine how far along it is. My vision really isn’t too bad right now, but it’s a vision no surgeon can safely operate with. So, I was forced into early retirement.” 

“Wow.” Kagome didn’t know what else to say to that. Kaede lost her passion and livelihood with one tragic diagnosis that she had no control over. She didn’t even have an inkling that it was possible for something like that to derail her career. 

“Yeah,” Kaede answered with a sigh. “That about sums it up.” 

The pair sat there in companionable silence for a while. Kagome mulled over the information Kaede shared with her. She couldn’t imagine going through that, and yet finding a way to fall in love with a new line of work. The strength it must’ve taken had to be profound. 

“So, what then? You opened a clinic?”

Kaede laughed. “Oh, heavens no. After I was forced to retire, I nearly drank myself to death.” Kagome nearly spit out her tea, causing Kaede to laugh again. “Having your entire life turned upside down is not something easy to overcome. It takes a lot of strength and perseverance, not to mention a lot of tears and alcohol - at least for me.” 

“I guess I can somewhat relate,” Kagome murmured. 

She nodded. “Yeah, I suppose you can. At least for me, I had memories and people to fall back on. You don’t have that, and I can’t imagine how hard that is. But Kagome-” she placed a hand on Kagome’s and squeezed gently, granting her a small smile - “Miroku and I will be your people for now. We’re going to get you through this.”

Kagome slowly nodded. Not for the first time did she feel eased at Kaede’s presence and words. The kindness Miroku and Kaede had shown her went far beyond what she would’ve expected, or frankly, deserved. Where would she have been without them?

Probably dead. 

“I don’t know if I ever thanked you,” Kagome said after a moment of quiet. 

“You didn’t.” 

Kagome frowned, earning raised eyebrows from Kaede. “Fine,” she continued. “I didn’t. And I’m sorry for that.” 

The doctor chuckled. “It’s okay. You’re in a unique situation. I can’t hold memory loss against you.” 

She smiled. “I guess not.” 

As the morning sun drifted across the sky, Kagome and Kaede found a new friendship between them, and an even deeper understanding. 

“Thank you,” Takeda said to the waitress as she dropped off their morning coffee. 

Sango offered the waitress a smile before turning her attention to the cream and sugar on the table, adding more than what was probably reasonable into her coffee. Takeda’s nose crinkled with disgust as he sipped on his - bitter and dark. “Don’t give me that look,” she chastised as she gave hers a stir. 

“I have no idea how you could drink something so sweet.” 

“I don’t know how you could drink something so bitter,” she barbed playfully in return. 

They had decided to mix up their morning routine and grab breakfast at a quaint bistro around the corner from her apartment. It allowed Sango to enjoy something better than cop shop coffee and to indulge in an actual breakfast, considering she more often than not started her day with a quick pastry from her usual cafe. 

The weather, although still cool, had warmed to a comfortable degree that morning in which they decided to sit on the bistro’s patio that overlooked the busy downtown street. People bustled by on the sidewalk as they hurried to work, the sound of cars driving by occupying the air. Sango leaned her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand as she gazed at passersby. 

“When did he say he was coming?” Takeda asked as he perused the menu the waitress had left. 

Sango shrugged, eyes drifting to the watch around her wrist. “He said he was on his way, but knowing Koma, that could mean two minutes or two hours. He probably got distracted by something.” 

Takeda smiled. “He’s one of the smartest men in the room, but heaven forbid his attention gets stolen by something trivial.” 

“Honestly, Souten probably held him up by reminding him to wear his jacket,” she mused. “Even I wouldn’t entice her wrath.”

He chuckled. “She’s a spitfire, that’s for sure.” 

“They’re good for each other, though,” she replied, tugging her scarf more snug around her neck to ward off the chill. “Speaking of, how are you and Shima? Did you enjoy your vacation?”

Takeda nodded, his lips tugging into a smile that made her heart do a little flip. “We did. Got to enjoy some relaxation, but also went on a few adventures.” 

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Snorkeling, jet skiing, and a bit of parasailing. You know, the normal touristy things people do on a beach holiday.” He waved his hand in the air as if to minimize the excitement of it all. 

Sango hummed dreamily. “That all sounds fantastic. I wish I could be on a beach somewhere right now.” She honestly couldn’t recall the last time she enjoyed a vacation, too married to her work to leave time for much else. When she wasn’t working, she spent her time worrying over Kohaku and his whereabouts. 

“You should take a trip,” he said, motioning with his coffee toward her. “You work too hard.” 

She frowned, not really wanting to delve into her work-life balance. Her father had always been dedicated to his detective work, and he left big shoes to fill. Even though he was gone, she still experienced an unseen pressure to make him proud. She would be lucky enough to be even half the detective he was. 

“Not sure if I would know what to do with myself,” she replied wryly, meeting his brown eyes that danced with mirth. 

“Yeah, relaxation isn’t exactly in your vocabulary, is it?”

Sango wrinkled her nose. Takeda, although considerate most of the time, also knew how to hit her at her weak points. A playful jest, but she couldn’t stop the souring of her mood. “Har har,” she barbed back, taking a large gulp of her coffee and wishing it was laced with some alcohol. It was too early to be diving into her insecurities when it came to her personal life. 

With both of her parents gone, it was just her and her younger brother, and Kohaku was never around, so really, she spent most of her time alone. She didn’t have any friends outside of the police force - which she chalked up to her drive and ambition - and even when she was invited out on rare occasions, she tended to find a reason to turn the invites down. Sango knew there were some underlying issues she didn’t want to admit to, but that would probably require years of therapy to uncover, which made that particular task daunting and off-putting. 

So, instead she did what she always did when finding herself too close to a sensitive topic: she changed the subject. “Anyways, I think we covered the major hospitals in the area surrounding the accident scene.” 

Takeda didn’t bother commenting on her sudden change of conversation, only offering a knowing smile. “Yeah, I think you’re right,” he agreed with a nod. “Considering those didn’t turn up any new leads, I think it would be good to start making rounds on the small community hospitals.” 

Sango clucked her tongue. “Maybe the clinics, too.” 

He raised his brows. “You think someone would go to a clinic with those kinds of injuries?”

She shrugged. “If they were desperate enough. Or if they sought any medical attention at all. We’re just guessing that whoever walked away from that accident went somewhere to get treated. They could’ve patched themselves up in some backdoor warehouse or something.” 

“You’re right,” Takeda said before he took a long sip of his coffee thoughtfully. 

“Hell, I’d be willing to even interview a school nurse at this point,” she grumbled, turning her eyes back to the busy street. Having no solid leads was beginning to wear on her last nerve. Hopefully when Shippou arrived, he would bring some good news.

Her partner leaned forward with a teasing grin. “Sure you don’t want to go back and interview that doctor from yesterday?”

Sango pinched her brows together and shot him a sideways glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He looked awfully interested in talking with you,” he said with a shrug. “Just figured you may want to pursue it.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Any man who greets you with a ‘hello, beautiful’ should be castrated.” 

Takeda winced. “Ouch. A bit much, don’t you think?”

“I don’t have time to waste on arrogance.” To be fair, she didn’t have time for any men, but she had kept her nonexistent dating life undisclosed. The last thing she needed was Takeda trying to hook her up with one of his old cop buddies. She knew that would be something he would do; it was just in his nature to help out another person, even if it was unwarranted. “Though, I do believe he knew more than he was saying.”

“What makes you say that?”

Sango shrugged. “Call it intuition, I guess.” 

Her partner smiled at her comment just as the waitress returned. They quickly rattled off their food orders and desire for more coffee before she breezed away again. 

“Hey there, Tachibana!”

Sango looked up from her phone - about to shoot a text to Shippou - but found herself looking at the red-haired investigator instead. She smiled brightly as he waltzed out onto the back patio and pulled up a chair at their table. “Well, it’s about time,” she greeted lightheartedly. “We just ordered food. You want in?”

Shippou sat down with a shake of his head. “Nah, Souten made breakfast this morning, which is why I was running late. She keeps after me to make sure I’m eating well.” 

“Like a good wife should,” Takeda said with a sagely nod. 

Sango swiftly kicked him under the table, getting a good-natured chuckle out of him. “Misogynist,” she grumbled, and then turned her attention back to Shippou. “Souten just knows how much you like your sweets.” 

The crime scene investigator chortled, but didn’t deny her comment as he pulled a file folder out of his bag. “I’d love a coffee, though.” Takeda waved their waitress over and Shippou ordered a coffee-to-go. 

“So, why’d you want to meet this morning?” Sango asked as she eyed the folder Shippou held. 

“This hasn’t hit the air waves yet, so I thought I’d give it to you in person.” He handed over the case files. 

“Giving us a gift before eight a.m.? I think that’s a new record for you, Koma,” Takeda said, taking a sip of his coffee. 

Sango opened the folder and quickly thumbed through the first few pages. “Dental records?!” she nearly shouted, forcing herself to stay seated in her excitement. “They were able to identify the three bodies in the car. And Koma even included their arrest records.” She flashed Shippou a wide smile. 

“Best in the business, I swear,” Takeda murmured as he stood to round the table and look over Sango’s shoulder. “So, who’ve we got?”

“The driver was Manten Sanda, convicted of armed robbery in the past. Looks like he was also arrested for attempted murder, but it never went to trial due to insufficient evidence.” She handed the profile to her partner before going onto the next one. “The woman in the passenger seat was Yura Yamaguchi.” 

“Any relation to Kristi Yamaguchi?” Takeda asked. 

“No,” Shippou replied sullenly. “I already looked into it. But man, that would’ve been a story!”

Sango chuckled. “Looks like she was arrested for some prostitution and a few drug busts. Nothing too crazy. Oh, and she had a restraining order against her at one point. Apparently went after a guy because she liked his hair.” 

Takeda scrunched up his nose. “Oh, nothing too crazy, huh?”

“Okay, maybe she had a few screws loose.” Sango rolled her eyes. “But not a big fish in this city. The third body was Hinten Sanda, Manten’s older brother. He’d been arrested alongside his brother for armed robbery, as well as solicitation of sexual favors, and rape - but apparently was never tried because the victim backed out of prosecution. He was also a suspect in a murder investigation, but again, there wasn’t enough evidence to bring him to trial.” 

“Damn scumbag.” Takeda took another drink of coffee and shook his head. “Can’t say I’m upset he’s dead.” 

Sango didn’t voice it aloud, but she agreed with him. She studied their mugshots. The ‘Thunder Brothers’, as they had self-proclaimed themselves as, didn’t look alike, obviously being gifted with opposite ends of the gene pool. While Hinten was tall and muscular, Manten was short and stocky, with a large nose and lips that reminded Sango oddly of a platypus. Not that it mattered, considering they were both deceased, but she bet they had caused more trouble than their arrest records foretold. “Well, not exactly sure what we have yet, but their identities are sure to turn up some new leads. Thanks, Koma!”

Shippou saluted her just as the waitress returned and handed him his coffee to-go. “My pleasure,” he said, pouring even more cream and sugar into his coffee than Sango did. “I’m going to head back to the lab and continue processing the evidence from the train car. I was able to pull some strings to get you those I.D.'s. Figured it would get you started, but the rest is going to take some time. I’ll call you when something else comes up.” 

Sango and Takeda said goodbye to him and then turned their attention back to the file folder he gifted them. “Well, she began as she placed all of the documents back into the manila folder and tucked it inside her bag for safe-keeping. “I guess we’ll start with last known addresses and known contacts. Figure out what connects them all.” 

Takeda rounded the table and took his seat again. “Let’s call Fujimori to start a paper trail while we hit up the community hospitals. We’ll be able to cover more ground that way.”

Sango sighed. She wanted to dig into the newly identified criminals, not hit the streets like a beat cop. But Takeda had a point. Fujimori was most likely already at the office and could start investigating the newly acquired identities immediately. Meanwhile, Sango and Takeda were already out and not far from one of the community hospitals that came to her mind. 

“Fine,” she grumbled, relenting to his good judgment. Police work wasn’t about who did what part of the investigation - it only mattered what evidentiary items were collected to bring down a perp. Sometimes her desire for the chase muddled that teaching. 

“Let’s get a list together of the medical centers and clinics we want to hit. If all goes well, hopefully we’ll be done by noon and be able to get in on Fujimori’s search.” 

As Takeda probably knew, the challenge lit a fire under her, causing her eyes to sparkle with eagerness over her new prey. He always knew how to get her going. 

[marinaiguess]

just finished watching sonic prime so why not share my thoughts on it? before i start rambling, i suggest you go watch it on netflix, it definitely deserves a watch.

now

Technicalities first (if i can call them that). So, judging as a viewer and not as a sophisticated critic who has read cinemtaography books, I’d say the show’s direction overall is pretty good. It’s nothing special but it’s pleasing and keeps you interested. The direction, the angles, the camera changes regarding placement and focus are well coordinated with the writing and each emotion each scene tries to convey. So, really, nothing new (i wasnt expecting a sonic show to make groundbreaking ways of storytelling through cinematography), but I believe it is worth mentioning because it plays a huge role on how one views the show. And there were many moments where I realized that a certain angle made the scene look more tense for example.

Animation! I think we all liked the bouncy styled animation, contrasting the hugely popular disney/pixar styled animation (which is good, dont get me wrong, but the animation tecnhique used in prime fits sonic a lot more imo). Also, the facial expressions are part of what made the show so great and enjoyable and I love how much emphasis they put on them, literally perfect. The details in animation, like the animalistic behaviours of sonic and co. and how they were depicted (ears twitching for example) are all very important and im glad they were implemented. And, I know a lot of us are focused on the facial expressions but we shouldnt forget abt the background as well. There definitely was attention to detail, details that were everywhere and completed the overall image of the show.

Music! the music is good what do you expect me to say like, oh that major g in the pirate scene made the scene look more tense but if it was a minor f it would make it a bit more sad and thus more fitting- no. the music was good. not surprised and props to everyone who worked on the music but i just dont think theres anything to add LOL.

Voice acting! Voice directing-wise? Really REALLY good, i wasnt expecting great performances but i was proved wrong and im happy about that. Now, for the main cast seperately? Devon has done an EXCELLENT job with his lines. His sonic voice is a combination of Roger Craig Smith and Ben Schwartz i believe but it’s also unique and very fitting for sonic, despite me not liking it at first. Brian as Eggman is meh for me, very good voice acting skills but i didnt like it that much. Ashleigh as Tails fit surprisingly well and idk why. Kazumi for rouge was a really good one, bringing rouge back to her sa2/heroes era and not the overly sexy and seducing voice she has in the games (i know its abt voice direction as well but yeah). big is meh, i dont like it. knuckles is pretty good tbh. and now, shadow the hedgehog. yes. ian did an excellent job voicing shadow and i LOVE LOVE LOVE his voice in prime, makes he’d sound like that in the games as well. i’ll stop now or i’ll start fangirling. 

Characters! I like the characters and sonic’s crew. the way the show’s written so far though has made me care about the post-apocalypse characters more than the other shatterverses. like, i like them all, yeah, but i care more about nine and knucks and rebel. maybe that was the point. also,HHHH WHY NOT BLAZE? why not silver? hoping to see them soon but PIRATE WORLD? there was a purple cat and a brown raccoon there but it wasnt blaze and marine. lost opportunity. (and rouge should have been the captain in the pirate one fr fr)

And finally, writing. I’ve seen a lot of opinions these days. Here’s mine. Good characterisation. Yes, it might surprise you but the characterisation is actually good. for every character. including sonic. maybe in a different post i could talk about every character but for now, i wanna talk abt sonic. bouncy, energetic, talkative, honest, lively, adhd coded, cheesy sometimes, reckless, extroverted who wants to work on his own from time to time. this is actually sonic. someone who loves his friends but doesnt listen to them cuz he has no patience. someone who conveys his emotions with actions and puts words aside. someone who likes to lay back once in a while, but not when the whole world is broken to pieces. someone who wants to save everyone, puts everyone above him and his needs. someone who cant stop talking, making witty remarks and jokes despite the given situation cuz he never gives up and is always hopeful and optimistic. frontiers gave us a different view of sonic’s character but it’s a very different situation as well. yet, if you carefully compare the two, you’d see how much things they have in common and how prime! sonic is very well written. 

overall writing is okay. characterisation is very good, interactions between characters are very good but some could have been better(some moments were too short for my liking), easter eggs, there are many and are greatly appreciated, many details, the recap of the prev episodes was really funny and clever but I feel like we were deprived of some great opportunities. like, eggman nega with eggman instead of the chaos council. thats just an example. and im not too salty abt it cuz it’s mainly a kids show and it shows. im glad that its enjoyable for adults like me as well though.

thats all folks. no one asked for this but youre getting it anyway.

[hangingfrommylips]

The over-headcanonization of things. Pt I: Remus

Being immersed on internet fandom since the ripe age of 12 (not something I’m proud of, perhaps on another ranting sessions we can talk about that), I’ve definitely seen some weird things when it comes to fanfiction. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it, think it’s a beautifully creative way of interacting with a piece of media (when it’s inherently fictional and not based of real people or events, and, of course, when it’s well written and thoughtful), but it can also be very damaging on the ones consuming it.

Taking the Marauders fandom as an example, the amount of actual canon information we have on them is infimal. The ability an entire community had to create a very complicated backstory and practically entirely new characters out of thin air is amazing, especially once its main source is a racist transphobic hag, and the fandom is so detached from it that it's composed of the very people she claims to hate. We took literal 0 information from old and plot-hole-full books and made it our own.

For another, since there’s no actual foundation on what the characters originally were like, it’s very hard to sort wrong from right when it comes to characterizations and creating material for the stories (I refuse to talk about shifting here cmh). There are also very bad headcanons, in which completely change the essence of the character to satisfy some personal goal or even comes from some intrinsic fetishizing. A perfect example of this is Remus Lupin, who ever since 2005 was a very recluse, shy, lanky and depressed character, turned into this breathtakingly beautiful, horrifyingly tall, toxic-angry jock. A roadman, really? At first it was ok, only a different POV on a widely loved character. But then it became the only thing about him, and when he wasn’t, people started complaining. What? When did being toxic to your boyfriend and treating him like an incapable and fragile human being (which is exactly what some fans are doing to Sirius nowadays btw) became the standard? We used to be so much better than that. Not to mention when, just by being bookish, people treat him like some sort of all-knowing god that nothing goes past. C’mon!

Talking about the role “All The Young Dudes” by MsKingsBean89 had in the modern generation of the fandom, it being really groundbreaking and a real work of art. I think this is where the current RJL vision came from. The difference, however, is when the lovely author put in the very beginning notes that his personality was heavily affected by growing up in a boys-only care home, not having a mom or dad or good authority figures to relate to. 

That‘s why, in that very specific scenario, Remus was sort of a douche. But he got better-ish, even as a traumatized grownup. People run with that through every treadmill ever, and, no backstory to build the character on, just took the specificity and banalized it to the fours. It’s actually an insult to MKB that people would read her hard work as such shallowness. 

To sum up, it’s very important to analyze and criticize the media you're interacting with, via reading, writing, reviewing or whatever. Is that really the healthiest this storyline can be? Do I feel compelled to that relationship and not wonder about the dynamic or the unintentional flaws in it? Why do I want my favorite character and the one I relate to to be toxic? Is this really the way said person would react to the situation? And in the end, when you don’t recognize that chr. anymore is when you know you lost them to the deep filth of the internet. I’m not saying every character or world build should be flawless and almighty, far from that actually, just that sometimes you need to know when things have gone too far. It’s very hard to want realism when referring to Harry Potter fanfiction of all things, but even fantastic worlds have their batch of decency and, in the human side of things, reaching a byline.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

#5: The One With Astruc's Self-Insert

In my introductory post, I said the main inspiration for this blog was @hypocrisyofandrewdobson​. For those who don't know, Andrew Dobson is an infamous webcomic artist known for drawing webcomics that tend to demonize people he's come across in public or people who disagree with him online (either critical of his art or his political views), while portraying himself as the victim or wise man calling them out on their differing beliefs.

If you want to learn more about this guy who I consider to be far worse than Astruc, check out the blog in question. And no, I don't know why he draws himself as a blue bear.

Why am I talking about this? It's one thing for some schmuck on the internet to use his work to respond to criticism, but the creator of a popular animated series dedicating an entire episode to attacking his critics and trying to get others to feel bad for him is another story.

The second episode of Miraculous Ladybug's third season, “Animaestro” served as a wake-up call for fans (myself included) to make them realize how immature Astruc could be. The plot centers around the premiere of a movie about Ladybug and Cat Noir directed by Thomas Astruc, who voices himself in the original French dub.

And this isn't just a brief cameo like what Stan Lee did in the MCU. Astruc is the Akumatized person this episode, so there's naturally a lot of focus on him. Throughout the first half of the episode, Astruc portrays himself as this timid man who nobody recognizes or respects, like this idiot who doesn't know what animation is.

Doorman: This is a private event, sir.

Astruc: Huh? Excuse me? I'm Thomas Astruc, the movie director.

Doorman: You filmed Cat Noir and Ladybug? What are they like in real life?

Astruc: Er, it's an animated movie. It's all cartoon characters. We don't actually film anyone. See, there's this whole team that draw the chara—

Doorman: Whatever. Who would want to see Ladybug and Cat Noir as cartoon characters?

Get it? Wasn't that meta joke hilarious? This is how much I was laughing:

And Astruc continues to get about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield when he interacts with other characters like Jagged Stone and Chloe.

Jagged Stone: Ladybug is one of my best buds! I can't wait to see her movie!

Astruc: Well I—I'm the director, so actually it's more my movie, so to speak.

Jagged Stone: Oh, so you're the one who created the story?

Astruc: Well, technically the screen writers wrote the story, inspired by Ladybug's exploits.

Jagged Stone: Oh, okay. So you did all the drawings?

Thomas: No, no. The animators do all the drawings.  

Jagged Stone: So what do you do then?

(Later on...)

Chloe: So you're the one responsible for this movie?

Astruc: Yes, yes! Exactly! That's me!

Chloe: Then you were the one who left Queen Bee out of the trailer. You're lame, utterly lame.

I can't believe Astruc had a scene where he interacted with Chloe and didn't insult her at all.

The episode is determined to make the audience feel bad for Astruc. Nobody respects him and what he does. Isn't that saaaaaad? Nobody cares about animated film directors like Walt Disney or Tex Avery anyway. Not even these stupid children understand how hard Astruc works.

Several Children: Ladybug! Where's Ladybug?

Astruc: Hey there, kids!

Teacher: Ladybug isn't here children. We came here to meet the director of the movie. Children: (frowning in disappointment) Aww.

(Astruc looks visibly disappointed.)

Way to insult your primary demographic, Astruc. I thought you said kids have a better understanding of these stories when people criticized the writing of a certain episode (It's that scene in “Puppeteer 2” if you're curious/don't value your sanity).

It's almost like you're using that as an excuse to half-ass your work while still getting to claim this show is so groundbreaking.

In case you can't tell, “Animaestro” is one of those episodes. The ones where the showrunners decide to dedicate an entire episode to attacking critics of the show in a blunt fashion. Whenever a show addresses criticism, they either create an obvious strawman character to parrot the opinions of fans who don't like their work, or have someone defend the show and insult the critics directly.

The problem isn't that they're ignoring criticism. It's their show, and they aren't obligated to listen to critics or fans who don't like the direction the show is taking. On the other hand, they aren't obligated to fight back like this and treat their audience like crap. Any show that does something like the three clips I showed you usually comes off as petty and immature because they dedicate so much time to insulting the critics. 

Even during the Akuma fight, Astruc has to call out Ladybug for having problems with his movie in-universe, obviously representing critics of the show Astruc claims have no right to criticize the show while it's still airing.

Ladybug: What's with that trailer too? I am not scared of cats, at all.

Astruc/Animaestro: You haven't even seen the movie and you're already slamming it?

Cat Noir: He does have a point, you know.

Ladybug: I wasn't slamming it. It's called constructive criticism!

Yeah, how dare Ladybug be angry that this movie is portraying her as a powerless coward dependent on Cat Noir as opposed to a confident and brave superhero. She just doesn't understand the genius of Thomas Astruc!

And of course the character Astruc claims is “perfect” is the one to take his side.

And that's another problem with this episode, the metatextual references. Before he gets akumatized, Astuc says he spent three years of his life working on his movie. I get that time in this show is weird (we somehow had episodes taking place on the first day of school, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and the first day of Summer), but how did Astruc's self-insert work on a movie based on a superhero who has only been active for a year? Meta-wise, it's an obvious reference to the scorn Astruc has gotten from fans after working so hard on his show, but the only people who would get that reference are the ones who are aware of Astruc's reputation online.

Self-Insert aside, I actually think the titular Animaestro is one of the more visually impressive Akumas featured on the show. Animaestro takes on several forms based off several different forms and eras of animation, like flash, anime, rubber hose, and they all stand out. Granted, some of them are obvious parodies of other characters like Goku or Sailor Moon, but the actual Akuma fight is fun to watch. According to the Mexican Miraculous Ladybug Twitter account, this episode took two and a half years to create, and it shows. It's too bad the story behind it is completely insufferable, almost like the cartoon equidistant to Pixels.

But then comes the part that honestly makes the episode worth it, mainly for how unintentionally hilarious it is. Do you want to know what Animaestro's weakness is? Do you really want to know?

Animaestro is physically incapable of moving unless someone is watching him. I am not making this up.

Ladybug and Cat Noir literally defeat Animaestro by getting everyone to stop paying attention to him.

I could make so many jokes with this, but I can guarantee you're already thinking of something just as good, if not better, than whatever I write.

And there's the end where Astruc gives Marinette his ticket to the movie, which prompts Marinette to kiss up to him for no real reason.

Astruc: Sorry, I guess you don't know who I am either.

Marinette: Of course do. You're Thomas Astruc, the movie director!

Astruc: She recognized me. Somebody actually recognized me!

Nothing happened to make her change her opinion on the Ladybug movie, she didn't really say anything to him earlier in the episode that connects to this exchange, and outside of a few lines Animaestro said, she doesn't even know why he got akumatized (even though ironically she and Chloe accidentally contributed to it because of the awful subplot involving Kagami I talked about last time). If anything, it comes off less like she actually appreciates Astruc's work, and more like she's stroking his ego just to keep him from getting akumatized again.

So yeah, this episode is awful, and the fact that it came out right after the controversial “Chameleon” only proved to show what kind of direction the show was taking this season.

But honestly, even if Astruc still wanted to make about how he doesn't get enough respect the episode could have potentially. All he had to do was make a simple change: Instead of making it about validation for Astruc as a creator, make it about validation for animation in general.

It's a common misconception that animation is only used for shows and movies aimed at children, so the episode could reflect it. Instead of the huge turnout where several celebrities appear at the premiere, instead, the turnout could be a lot smaller, with the media dismissing it as some stupid kiddie flick. Instead of getting akumatized because he gets humiliated in public/getting no respect from anyone else, Astruc gets akumatized because he sees the audience didn't go wild for the movie after the premiere. All he can hear them say is that it's just “kids stuff”.

So when Astruc is Animaestro, he goes on about how important animation is. How it's helped produce propaganda since World War II. How it helped improve special effects in big blockbusters. How the medium is used to create movies that simply can't be filmed on a physical set.

After defeating Animaestro, Ladybug shows up to talk to him. She had seen the movie earlier, and actually enjoyed it. She had a few problems with the story, but they were just minor nitpicks and inaccuracies Astruc wouldn't know about, and she was blown away by the animation. She tells Astruc not to be deterred by his critics, and continue to do what he does. As a designer in her civilian life, Ladybug knows the joy creating brings her, and both she and Astruc want to spread that joy through their work.

Back at the premiere, Astruc thinks about what Ladybug said to him when he sees some kids reenacting a scene from the movie. Astruc walks over to them and asks what they thought of the movie. They said they loved it and how energetic it was. When he tells them he is the director, the kids' faces light up and they say they want to do what he does when they grow up, bringing a smile to Astruc's face.

Isn't that a much more humble approach instead of what we got? It would have helped Astruc come across as more sympathetic, especially with animation fans. But instead, we got an entire episode of Astruc whining about how misunderstood he is.

And you know the footage used for the movie at the beginning? Remember that, because I have a huge rant about it saved for a later post.

For now, here’s an example of a creator appearing in his work done right.

[ariainstars]

Thank You, Disney Lucasfilm… For Destroying My Dreams

Warning: longer post.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So… I watched The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+ a few weeks ago. Again.

Sigh.

I guess it has its good sides. But professional critics tend to dislike it and even the general audience doesn’t go crazy for it. I wonder why?

  The Fantasy

When his saga became a groundbreaking pop phenomenon in the 1970es, George Lucas reportedly said that he wanted to tell fairy tales again in world that no longer seemed to offer young people a chance to grow up with them. The fact that his saga was met with such unabashed, international enthusiasm proves that he was right: people long for fairy tales no matter how old they are and what culture they belong to.

“Young people today don’t have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did… All they’ve got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. All the films they see are movies of disasters and insecurity and realistic violence.” (George Lucas)

I’ve been a Star Wars fan for more than thirty years. I love the Original Trilogy but honestly it did not make me dream much, perhaps because when I saw it the trilogy was already complete. The Prequel Trilogy also did not inspire my fantasy.

The Last Jedi accomplished something that no TV show, book or film had managed in years: it made me dream. The richness of colorful characters, multifaceted themes, unexpected developments, intriguing relationships was something I had not come across in a long time: it fascinated me. I felt like a giddy teenager reading up meta’s, writing my own and imagining all sorts of beautiful endings for the saga for almost two years.

So if there’s something The Rise of Skywalker can pride itself on for me, it’s that it crushed almost every dream I had about it. The few things I had figured out – Rey’s fall to the Dark, Ben Solo’s redemption, the connection between them - did not even make me happy because they were tainted by the flatness of the storytelling reducing the Force to a superpower again (like the general audience seems to believe it is), and its deliberate ignoring of almost all messages of The Last Jedi.

Many fans of the Original Trilogy also were disillusioned by the saga over the decades and ranted at the studios for “destroying their childhood”. Now we, the fans of the sequels and in particular of The Last Jedi, are in the same situation… but the thought doesn’t make the pill much easier to swallow. What grates on my nerves is the feeling that someone trampled on my just newly found dreams like a naughty child kicking a doll’s house apart. Why give us something to dream of in the first place, then? To a certain extent I can understand that many fans would angrily assume that Disney Lucasfilm made the Sequel Trilogy for the purpose of destroying their idea of the saga. The point is that they had their happy ending, while every dream the fans of the Sequel Trilogy may have had was shattered with this unexpectedly flat and hollow final note.

I know many fans who dislike the Prequel Trilogy heartily. I also prefer the Original Trilogy, but I find the prequels all right in their own way, also since I gave them some thought. However, it can’t be denied that they lack the magic spark which made the Original Trilogy so special. Which makes sense since they are not a fairy tale but ultimately a tragedy, but in my opinion it’s the one of the main reasons why the Prequel Trilogy never was quite so successful, or so beloved.

Same goes for Rogue One, Solo, or Clone Wars. They’re ok in their way, but not magical.

The sequel trilogy started quite satisfyingly with The Force Awakens, but for me, the actual bomb dropped with The Last Jedi. Reason? It was a magical story. It had the spark again that I had missed in the new Star Wars stories for decades! And it was packed full of beautiful messages and promises.

The Force is not a superpower belonging solely to the Jedi Anyone can be a hero. Even the greatest heroes can fail, but they will still be heroes. Hope is like the sun: if you only believe in it when you see it you’ll never make it through the night. Failure is the greatest teacher. It’s more important to save the light than to seem a hero. No one is never truly gone. War is only a machine. Dark Side and Light Side can be unbeatable if they are allies. Save what you love instead of destroying what you hate.

Naively, I assumed the trilogy would continue and end in that same magical way. And then came The Rise of Skywalker… which looks and feels like a Marvel superhero story at best and an over-long videogame at worst.

Chekov’s Gun

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

(Anton Chekov, 1860 - 1904)

If you show an important looking prop and don’t put it to use, it leaves the audience feeling baffled. There is a huge difference between a story’s setup, and the audience’s feeling of entitlement. E.g. many viewers expected Luke to jump right back into the fray in Episode VIII, because that’s what a hero does, isn’t it? The cavalry comes and saves the day. And instead, we met a disillusioned elderly hermit who is tired of the ways of the Jedi. But there was no actual reason for disappointment: in Episode VII it was very clearly said (through Han, his best friend) that Luke had gone into exile on purpose, feeling responsible for his failure in teaching a new generation of Jedi. It would have been more than stupid to show him as an all-powerful and all-knowing man who kills the bad guys. Sorry but who expected that was a victim to his own prejudice.

A promise left unfulfilled is a different story. The Last Jedi set up a lot of promises that didn’t come true in The Rise of Skywalker: Balance as announced by the Jedi temple mosaic, a new Jedi Order hinted at by Luke on Crait, a good ending for Ben and Rey set up by the hand-touching scene which was opposite to Anakin’s and Padmés wedding scene. Many fans were annoyed about the Canto Bight sequence. I liked it because it felt like the set-up for a lot of important stuff: partnership between Finn and Rose whom we see working together excellently, freedom for the enslaved children (one of whom is Force-sensitive), DJ and Rose expressing what makes wars in general foolish and beside the point. So if we, the fans of Episode VIII, now feel angry and let down, I daresay it’s not due to entitlement. We were announced magical outcomes and not just pew-pew.

The Star Wars saga never repeated itself but always developed and enlarged its themes, so it was to be expected that delving deeper, uncomfortable truths would come out: wars don’t start out of nowhere, and they don’t flare up and continue for decades for the same reason. In order to find Balance, the Jedi’s and the Skywalker family’s myths needed to be dismantled. Which is not necessarily bad as long it is explained how things came to this, and a better alternative is offered. The prequels explained the old political order and the beginnings of the Skywalker family, and announced that the next generation would do better. The sequels hardly explained anything about the 30 years that passed since our heroes won the battle against the Empire, and while The Last Jedi hinted at the future a lot, The Rise of Skywalker seemed to make a point of ignoring all of it.

  The Skywalker Family Is Obliterated. Why?

Luke was proven right that his nephew would mean the end of everything he loved. The lineage of the Chosen One is gone. His grandson had begun where Vader had ended - tormented, pale and with sad eyes - and he met the same fate. Luke, Han, Leia, all sacrificed themselves to bring Ben Solo back for nothing. Him being the reincarnation of the Chosen One and getting a new chance should have been meaningful for all of them; instead, he literally left the scepter to Rey who did nothing to deserve it: merely because she killed the Bad Guy does not mean she will do a better job than the family whose name and legacy she proudly takes over.

I do hope there was a good reason if the sequels did not tell “The New Adventures of Luke, Leia and Han” and instead showed us a broken family on the eve of its wipeout. It would have been much easier, and more fun for the audience, to bring the trio back again after a few years and pick up where they had left. Instead we had to watch their son, nephew and heir go his grandfather’s way - born with huge power, branded as Meant to Be Dangerous from the start, tried his best to be a Jedi although he wanted to be a pilot, never felt accepted, abandoned in the moment of his greatest need, went to his abuser because he was the only one to turn to, became a criminal, his own family (in Anakin’s case: Obi-Wan and Yoda) trained the person who was closest to him to kill him, sacrificed himself for this person and died. And in his case, it’s particularly frustrating because Kylo Ren wasn’t half as impressive a villain as Vader, and Ben Solo had a very limited time of heroism and personal fulfilment, contrarily to Anakin when he was young.

The impact of The Rise of Skywalker was traumatic for some viewers. I know of adolescents and adults, victims of family abandonment and abuse, who identified with Ben: they were told that you can never be more than the sum of your abuse and abandonment, and that they’re replaceable if they’re not “good”. Children identifying with Rey were told that their parents might sell them away for “protection”. Rey was not conflicted, she had a few doubts but overall, she was cool about everything she did, so she got everything on a silver platter; that’s why as a viewer, after a while you stopped caring for her. Her antagonist was doomed from birth because he dared to question the choices other people made for him. It seems that in the Star Wars universe, you can only “rise” if you’re either a criminal but cool because you’ve always got a bucket over your head (Vader / the Mandalorian) or are a saint-like figure (Luke / Rey).

One of Obi-Wan’s first actions in A New Hope is cutting off someone’s arm who was only annoying him; Han Solo, ditto. These were no acts of self-defense. The Mandalorian is an outlaw. Yet they are highly popular. Why? Because they always keep their cool, so anything they do seems justified. Young Anakin was hated, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen attacked for his portrayal. For the same reason many fans feel that Luke is the least important of the original trio although basically the Original Trilogy is his story: it seems the general audience hates nothing more than emotionality in a guy. They want James Bond, Batman or Indiana Jones as the lead. Padmé loved Anakin because she always saw the good little boy he once was in him; his attempts at impressing her with his flirting or his masculinity failed. Kylo tried to impress Rey with his knowledge and power, but she fled from him - she wanted the gentle, emphatic young man who had listened to her when she felt alone. Good message. But both died miserably, and Ben didn’t even get anything but a kiss. Realizing that his “not being as strong as Darth Vader” might actually be a strength of its own would have meant much more.

The heroes of the Original Trilogy had their adventures together and their happy ending; the heroes of the Prequel Trilogy also had good times and accomplishments in their youth, before everything went awry. Rey, Finn and Poe feel like their friendship hardly got started; Rose was almost obliterated from the narrative; and Ben Solo seems to have had only one happy moment in his entire life. Of course it’s terrible that he committed patricide (even if it was under coercion), but Anakin / Vader himself had two happy endings in the Prequel Trilogy before he became the monster we know so well. Not to mention Clone Wars, where he has heroic moments unnumbered.

The Skywalker family is obliterated without Balance in the Force, and the young woman who inherited all doesn’t seem to have learned any lesson from all this. The Original Trilogy became a part of pop culture among other things because its ending was satisfying. We can hardly be expected to be satisfied with an ending where our heroes are all dead and the heir of their worst enemy takes over. What good was the happy ending of the Original Trilogy for if they didn’t learn enough from their misadventures to learn how to protect one single person - their son and nephew, their future?

For a long time, I also thought that the saga was about Good vs. Evil. Watching the prequels again, I came to the conclusion that it is rather about Love vs. War. And now, considering as a whole, I believe it to be essentially Jedi against Skywalker. The ending, as it is now, says that both fractions lost: they annihilated one another, leaving a third party in charge, who believes to be both but actually knows very little about them.

Star Wars and Morality

After 9 films and 42 years, it still is not possible to make the general audience accept that it is wrong to divide people between Good and Evil in the first place. The massive rejection of both prequels and sequels, which have moral grey zones galore, shows it.

It is also not possible without being accused of actual blasphemy in the same fandom, to say the plain truth that no Skywalker ever was a Jedi at heart. As their name says, they’re pilots. Luke was the last and strongest of all Jedi because he always was first and foremost himself. Anakin was crushed by the Jedi’s attempts to stifle his feelings. His grandson, too. A Force-sensitive person ought to have the choice whether they want to be a Jedi or not; they ought not to be taught to suppress their emotions and live only on duty, without really caring for other people; and they ought to grow up feeling in a safe and loving environment, not torn away from their families in infancy, indoctrinated and provided with a light sabre (a deadly weapon) while they’re still small. A Jedi order composed of child soldiers or know-it-all’s does not really help anybody.

The original Star Wars saga was about love and friendship; although many viewers did not want to understand that message. The prequels portrayed the Jedi as detached and arrogant and Anakin Skywalker sympathetically, a huge disappointment for who only accepts stories of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. The Last Jedi was so hated that The Rise of Skywalker backpedaled: sorry, of course you’re right, here you have your “hero who knows everything better and fixes everything for you on a silver platter”. The embarrassing antihero, who saves the girl who was the only person showing him some human compassion, can die miserably in the process and is not even mourned.

Honestly: I was doubtful whether it would be adequate to give Ben Solo a happy ending after the patricide. I guess letting him die was the easiest way out for the authors to escape censorship. (I even wrote this in a review on amazon about The Last Jedi, before I delved deeper into the saga’s themes.) The messages we got now are even worse.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

A parent can replace a child if they’re not the way they expect them to be. A victim of lifelong psychical and physical abuse can only find escape in death, whether he damns or redeems himself. An introspective, sensitive young man is a loser no matter how hard he tries either way. A whole family can sacrifice itself to save their heir, he dies anyway.

Rey

Self-righteousness is acceptable as long as you find a scapegoat for your own failings. Overconfidence justifies anything you do. You can’t carve your way as a female child of “nobodies”, you have to descend from someone male and powerful even if that someone is the devil incarnate. You are a “strong female” if you choose to be lonely; you need neither a partner nor friends.

In General

Star Wars is not about individual choices, loyalty, friendship and love, it is a classic Western story with a lonesome cowboy (in this case: cowgirl) at its centre. Satisfied? 

The father-son-relationship between Vader and Luke mirrors the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, saying that whoever we may want to kill is, in truth, our kin, which makes a clear separation in Good and Evil impossible. The “I am your father” scene is so infamous by now that even non-fans are aware of it; but this relationship between evil guy and good guy, as well as the plot turns where the villain saves the hero and that the hero discards his weapon are looked upon rather as weird narrative quirks instead of a moral. 

In  an action movie fan, things are simple: good guy vs. bad guy, the good guy (e.g. James Bond may be a murderer and a misogynist, but that’s ok because he’s cool about it) kills the bad guy, ka-boom, end of story. But Star Wars is a parable, an ambitious project told over decades of cinema, and a multilayered story with recurring themes.

A fairy tale ought to have a moral. The moral of both Original Trilogy and Prequel Trilogy was compassionate love - choose it and you can end a raging conflict, reject it and you will cause it. What was the moral of the Sequel Trilogy? You can be the offspring of the galaxy’s worst terror and display a similar attitude, but pose as a Jedi and kill unnecessarily, and it’s all right; descend from Darth Vader (who himself was a victim long before he became a culprit) and whether you try to become a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker or a Sith trained by his worst enemy, you will end badly?

Both original and prequel trilogy often showed “good” people making bad choices and the “bad ones” making the right choices. To ensure lasting peace, no Force user ought to be believe that he must choose one side and then stick to it for the rest of his life: both sides need one another. The prequels took 3 films to convey this message, though not saying so openly. The Last Jedi said it out clearly - and the authors almost had their heads ripped off by affronted fans, resulting in The Rise of Skywalker’s fan service. It’s not like Luke, Han and Leia were less heroic in the Sequel Trilogy, on the contrary, they gave everything they had to their respective cause. They were not united, and they were more human than they had once been. Apparently, that’s an affront.

The Jedi are no perfect heroes and know-it-all’s and they never were, the facts are there for everyone to see. Padmé went alone and pregnant to get her husband out of Mustafar - and she almost succeeded - although she knew what he had done and that he was perfectly capable of it (he had told her of the Tusken village massacre himself) because she still saw the good little boy he had been in him; Obi-Wan left him amputated and burning in the lava, although he had raised Anakin like a small brother and the latter had repeatedly saved his life. But Padmé was not a Jedi, so I guess she still had some human decency. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda lifted a finger for the oppressed populations of the galaxy during the Empire, waiting instead for Anakin’s son to grow up so they could trick him into committing patricide. Neither Luke nor Leia did anything for their own son and nephew while he became the scourge of the galaxy, damning his soul by committing crime after crime. On Exegol, Rey heard the voices of all Jedi encouraging her to fight Palpatine to death. After that, they left her to die alone, and the alleged “bad guy”, who had already saved her soul from giving in to Palpatine’s lures, had to save her life by giving her his own. The Jedi merely know that “their side” has to win, no matter the cost for anyone’s life, sanity, integrity or happiness.

Excuse me, these are simple facts. How anyone can still believe that the Jedi were super-powerful heroes who always win or all-knowing wizards who are always right is beyond me. Luke, the last and strongest of them, like a bright flickering of light before the ultimate end, showed us that the best of men can fail. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. But it is wrong and utterly frustrating when all of the failure never leads to anything better. If Rey means to rebuild the Jedi order to something better than it was, there was no hint at that whatsoever.

  And What Now?

The Last Jedi hit theatres only 2 years before The Rise of Skywalker, and I can’t imagine that the responsible authors all have forgotten how to make competent work in the meantime; more so considering that Solo or The Mandalorian are solid work. Episode IX is thematically so painfully flat it seems like they wanted us to give up on the saga on purpose. The last instalment of a 42-year-old saga ought to have been the best and most meaningful. I had heard already decades ago that the saga was supposed to have 9 chapters, so I was not among who protested against the sequels thinking that they had been thought up to make what had come before invalid. I naively assumed a larger purpose. But Episode IX only seems to prove these critics perfectly right.

The last of the flesh and blood of the Chosen One is dead without having “finished what his grandfather started”?

Still no Balance in the Force?

And worst of all, Palpatine’s granddaughter taking over, having proven repeatedly that she is not suited for the task?

Sorry, this “ending” is absurd. I have read fanfiction that was better written and more interesting. And, most of all, less depressing. I was counting on a conclusion that showed that the Force has all colours and nuances, and that it’s not limited to the black-and-white view “we against them”. That’s the ending all of us fans would have deserved, instead of catering the daddy issues of the part of the audience who doesn’t want stories other than those of the “lonesome cowboy” kind. I myself grew up on Japanese anime, maybe that’s one of the reasons why I can’t stand guys like James Bond or Batman and why I think you don’t need “a great hero who fixes the situation” but that group spirit and communication are way more important.

It was absolutely unexpected that Disney, the production company whose trademark are happy endings and family stories, would end this beloved and successful saga after almost half a century on such a hollow note. Why tell first a beautiful fairy tale and then leave the audience on a hook for 35 years to continue first with a tragedy (which at least was expected) and then with another (unexpected one)? And this story is supposed to be for children? Like children would understand all of the subtext, and love sad, cautionary tales. Children, as well as the general audience, first of all want to be entertained! No one wants to watch the legendary Skywalker family be obliterated and a Palpatine take over. The sequels were no fun anymore; we’ve been left with another open ending and hardly an explanation about what happened in the 30 years in between. If you want to tell a cautionary tale, you should better warn the general audience beforehand.

The Original Trilogy is so good because it’s entertaining and offers room for thought for who wants to think about its deeper themes, and also leaves enough space for dreams. Same goes for the first two films of the Sequel Trilogy; but precisely the last, which should have wrapped up the saga, leaves us with a bitter aftertaste and dozens of questions marks. 

We as the audience believe that a story, despite the tragic things that happen, must go somewhere; we get invested into the characters, we root for them, we want to see them happy in the end. (The authors of series like Girls, How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones ought to be reminded of that, too.) I was in contact with children and teenagers saying that the Sequel Trilogy are “boring”; and many, children or adults, who were devastated by its concluson. There is a difference between wanting to tell a cautionary tale and playing the audience for fools. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. Who watches a family or fantasy story or a romantic / comedic sitcom wants to escape into another world, not to be hit over his head with a mirror to his own failings, and the ones of the society he’s living in. Messages are all right, but they ought not to go at the cost of the audience’s satisfaction about the about the people and narrative threads they have invested in for years.

This isn’t a family story: but children probably didn’t pester the studios with angry e-mails and twitter messages etc. They simply counted on a redemption arc and happy ending, and they were right, because they’re not as stupid as adults are. I have read and watched many a comment from fans who hate The Last Jedi. Many of these fans couldn’t even pinpoint what their rage was all about, they only proved to be stuck with the original trilogy and unwilling to widen their horizon. But at least their heroes had had their happy ending: The Rise of Skywalker obliterated the successes of all three generations of Skywalkers.

If the film studios wanted to tease us, they’ve excelled. If they expect the general audience to break their heads over the sequels’ metaphysics, they have not learned from the reactions to the prequels that most viewers take these films at face value. Not everybody is elbows-deep in the saga, or willing to research about it for months, and / or insightful enough to see the story’s connections. Which is why many viewers frown at the narrative and believe the Sequel Trilogy was just badly written. This trilogy could have become legendary like the Original Trilogy, had it fulfilled its promises instead of “keeping it low” with its last chapter. As it is now, the whole trilogy is hanging somewhere in the air, with neither a past nor a future to be tied in with.

The prequels already had the flaw of remaining too obscure: most fans are not aware that Anakin had unwillingly killed his wife during the terrible operation that turned him into Darth Vader, sucking her life out of her through the Force: most go by “she died of a broken heart”. So although one scene mirrors the other, it is not likely that most viewers will understand what Rey’s resurrection meant. And: Why did Darth Maul kill Qui-Gon Jinn? What did the Sith want revenge for? Who was behind Shmi’s abduction and torture? Who had placed the order for the production of the clones, and to what purpose? We can imagine or try to reconstruct the answers, but nothing is confirmed by the story itself.

The sequels remained even more in the dark, obfuscating what little explanation we got in The Rise of Skywalker with quick pacing and mind-numbing effects.

Kylo Ren had promised his grandfather that “he would finish what he started”: he did not. Whatever one can say of this last film, it did not bring Balance in the Force. What’s worse, the subject was not even breached. It was hinted at by the mosaic on the floor of the Prime Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but although Luke and Rey were sitting on its border, they never seemed to see what was right under their noses. It remains inexplicable why it was there for everyone to see in the first place.

We might argue that Ben finished what his grandfather started by killing (or better, causing the death of) the last Jedi, who this one couldn’t kill because he was his own son; but leaving Rey in charge, he helped her finish what her grandfather had started. The irony could hardly be worse.

Episode IX looks like J.J. Abrams simply completed what they started with Episode VII, largely ignoring the next film as if it was always planned to do so. We, the angry and disappointed fans of The Last Jedi, may believe it was due to some of the general audience’s angry backlash, but honestly: the studios aren’t that dumb. They had to know that Episode VIII would be controversial and that many fans would hate it. The furious reactions were largely a disgrace, but no one can make me believe that they were totally unexpected. Nor can anyone convince me that The Rise of Skywalker was merely an answer to the small but very loud part of the audience who hated The Last Jedi: a company with the power and the returns of Disney Lucasfilm does not need to buckle down before some fan’s entitlement and narrowmindedness out of fear of losing money. And if they do, it was foolish to make Rey so perfect that she becomes almost odious, and to let the last of the Skywalker blood die a meaningless death. (Had he saved the Canto Bight children and left them with Rey, at least he would have died with honor; and she, the child left behind by her parents, would have had a task to dedicate herself to.)

The only reason I can find for this odd ending is that it’s meant to prepare the way for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, which - hopefully - will finally be about Balance. We as the audience don’t know what’s going on behind the doors. Filmmaking is a business like any other, i.e. based on contracts; and I first heard that Rian Johnson had negotiated a trilogy of his own since before Episode VIII hit theatres. Maybe he kept all the rights of intellectual property to his own film, including that he would finish the threads he picked up and close the narrative circles he opened, and only he; and that his alleged working on “something completely different” is deliberately misleading.

Some viewers love the original trilogy, some love the prequels, some like both; but I hardly expect anyone to love the sequel trilogy as a whole. What with the first instalment “letting the past die, killing it if they had to”, the second hinting at a promising future and the third patched on at the very last like some sort of band-aid, it was not coherent. I heard the responsible team for Game of Thrones even dropped their work, producing a dissatisfying, quickly sewn together last season, for this new Star Wars project and thereby disappointing millions of GoT fans; I hope they are aware of the expectations they have loaded upon them. George Lucas’ original trilogy had its faults, but but though there was no social media yet in his time, at least he was still close enough to the audience to give them what they needed, if not necessarily wanted. (Some fans can’t accept that Luke and Leia are siblings to this day, even if honestly, it was the very best plot twist to finish their story in a satisfying way.)

I’m hoping for now that The Last Jedi was not some love bombing directed at the more sentimental viewers but a promise that will be fulfilled. “Wrapping up” a saga by keeping the flattest, least convincing chapter for last is bad form. Star Wars did not become a pop phenomenon by accident, but because the original story was convincing and satisfying. Endings like these will hardly make anyone remember a story fondly, on the contrary, the audience will move to another fandom to forget their disappointment.

On a side note, I like The Mandalorian, exactly for the reason that that is a magical story; not as much as the original trilogy, but at least a little. Of course, I’m glad it was produced. But it’s a small consolation prize after the mess that supposedly wrapped up the original saga after 9 films.

We’re Not Blind, You Know…

- Though Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) has Darth Vader’s stature, his facial features are practically opposite to Vader’s creepy mask. This should have foreshadowed that his life should have gone the other way, instead of more or less repeating itself. - As a villain Kylo was often unconvincing; by all logic he should have been a good father figure. (Besides, Star Wars films or series never work unless there is a strong father or father figure at their center.)

- Like Vader, Kylo Ren was redeemed, but not rehabilitated. Who knows who may find his broken mask somewhere now and, not knowing the truth, promise “I will finish what you started”. - The hand-touching scene on Ahch-To which was visually opposite to Anakin’s and Padmé’s should not have predicted another tragedy but a happy ending for them. - The Canto Bight sequence was announcing reckoning for the weapon industry and freedom for the enslaved children. It also showed how well Finn and Rose fit together. - Rey was a good girl before she started on her adventures. Like Anakin or Luke, she did not need to become a Jedi to be strong or generous or heroic. - Rey summons Palpatine after one year of training. Kylo practically begged for his grandfather’s assistance for years, to no avail. Her potential for darkness is obviously much stronger. - Dark Rey’s light sabre looked like a fork, Kylo’s like a cross. - The last time all Jedi and Sith were obliterated leaving only Luke in charge, things went awry. Now we have a Palpatine masquerading as a Skywalker and believing she’s a Jedi. Rey is a usurper and universally cheered after years of war, like her grandfather. - The broom boy of Canto Bight looked like he was sweeping a stage and announcing “Free the stage, it’s time for us, the children.”

Rey failed in all instances where Luke had proved himself (so much for feminism and her being a Mary Sue): - Luke had forgiven his father despite all the pain he had inflicted on him. She stabbed the „bad guy”, who had repeatedly protected and comforted her, to death. - Luke never asked Vader to help the Rebellion or to turn to the Light Side, he only wanted him back as his father. She assumed that you could make Ben Solo turn, give up the First Order and join the Resistance for her. She thought of her friends and of her own validation, not of him. - Luke had made peace by choosing peace. Rey fought until the bitter end. - Luke had thrown his weapon away before Palpatine. Rey picked up a second weapon. (And both of them weren’t even her own.) - Luke had mourned his dead father. Rey didn’t shed a tear for the man she is bonded to by the Force. - Luke went back to his friends to celebrate the new peace with them. Rey went back letting everyone celebrate her like the one who saved the galaxy on her own, she who were tempted to become the new evil ruler of the galaxy and had to rely on the alleged Bad Guy to save both her soul and her body. - Luke had embodied compassion when Palpatine was all about hatred. Where he chose love and faith in his father, she chose violence and fear. - Luke had briefly fallen prey to the Dark Side but it made him realize that he had no right to judge his father. Rey’s fall to the Dark Side did not make her wiser. - Rey has no change of mind on finding out that she’s Palpatine’s flesh and blood, nor after she has stabbed Kylo. Luke had to face himself on learning that he had almost become a patricide. Rey does not have to face herself: the revelation of her ancestry is cushioned by Luke’s and Leia’s support. Rey is and remains an uncompromising person who hardly learns from her faults.

This is cheating on the audience. And it's not due to feminism or Rey being some sort of “Mary Sue” the way many affronted fans claim. Kylo never was truly a villain, Rey is not a heroine, and this is not a happy ending. The Jedi, with their stuck-up conviction “only we must win”, have failed all over again. The Skywalker family was obliterated leaving their worst enemy in charge.  Rey is supposed to be a “modern” heroine which young girls can take as an example? No, thank you. Not after this last film has made of her. Padmé was a much better role model, combining intelligence with strength and goodness and also female grace. The world does not need entitled female brats.

Bonus: What Made The Rise of Skywalker a Farce

- The Force Awakens was an ok film and The Last Jedi (almost) a masterpiece. The Rise of Skywalker was a cartoon. No wonder a lot of the acting felt and looked wooden. - “I will earn your brother’s light sabre.” She’s holding his father’s sabre. - Kylo in The Last Jedi: “Let the past die. Kill it if, you have to.” Beginning with me? - Rey ends up on Tatooine. - The planet both Anakin and Luke ardently wanted to leave. - Luke had promised his nephew that he would be around for him. - Nope. - Rey had told Ben that she had seen his future. What future was that - “you will be a hero for ten minutes, get a kiss and then die? (And they didn’t even get a love theme.) - “The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.” On a desert planet with a few ghosts. What of the ocean she used to dream about? - Ben and Rey were both introduced as two intensely lonely people searching for belonging. We learn they are a Force dyad, and then they are torn apart again. - Why was Ben named for Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first place, if they have absolutely nothing in common? - The Throne Room battle scene in The Last Jedi was clearly showing that when they are in balance, Light Side and Dark Side are unbeatable. Why did the so-called “Light Side” have to win again, in The Rise of Skywalker, instead of finding balance? - Luke’s scene on Ahch-To was so ridiculously opposite to his attitude in The Last Jedi that by now I believe he was a fantasy conjectured by her. (Like Ben’s vision of his father.) - Anakin’s voice among the other Jedi’s. - He was a renegade, for Force’s sake. - The kiss between two females. - More fan service, to appease those who pretended that not making Poe and Finn a couple was a sign of homophobia. - We see the Knights of Ren, but we learn absolutely nothing about them or Kylo’s connection with them. - Rose Tico’s invalidation. - A shame after what the actress had gone through because for the fans she was “not Star-Wars-y” (chubby and lively instead of wiry and spitfire). - Finn’s and Rose’s relationship. - Ignored without any explanation. - Finn may or may not be Force-sensitive. - If he is: did he abandon the First Order not due to his own free will but because of some higher willpower? Great. - General Hux was simply obliterated. - In The Force Awakens he was an excellent foil to Kylo Ren; no background story, no humanization for him. - Chewie’s and 3PO’s faked deaths. - Useless additional drama. - The Force Awakens was a bow before the classic trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker kicked its remainders to pieces. - The Prequel Trilogy ended with hope, the Original Trilogy with love. The Sequel Trilogy ends on a blank slate. - “We are what they grow beyond.” The characters of the Sequel Trilogy did not grow beyond the heroes of the Original Trilogy. - The Jedi did not learn from their mistakes and were obliterated. The Skywalker family understood the mistakes they had made too late. Now they’re gone, too.

  P.S. While I was watching The Rise of Skywalker my husband came in asked me since when I like Marvel movies. I said “That’s not a Marvel movie, it’s Star Wars.” I guess that says enough.

P.P.S. For the next trilogy, please at least let the movies hit theatres in May again instead of December. a) It’s tradition for Star Wars films, b) Whatever happens, at least you won’t ruin anyone’s Christmases. Thank you.

[stonersolana]

Adding on to your tags about Nikolai: i personally think Nikolai’s racism was never addressed in the books at all??? His “friendship” with Mal was also shit too bc of the way he treated Mal and never got any criticism for it in the end at all. it’s kind of ooc imo for Mal to just accept Nikolai’s apology/just be friends with Nikolai in general given how the monarchy was the reason he and Alina became orphan in the first place and also bc of how Mal was dehumanized by rich ppl (and it’s also implied that Nikolai KNEW Mal was being treated like trash and also did the same thing to Mal)

oh i never said it was. i specifically said that Nikolai being horrible to Mal for no reason was made worse by the fact that Mal was a person of color in the books. Nikolai treated him like absolute garbage, like he was beneath him, less than a worm - and for literally no reason! Mal did absolutely nothing to him to deserve that initial treatment. I'm 100% sure Nikolai would've treated Alina like that if she wasn't "The Sun Summoner" you know? Mal is constantly dehumanized by the royals and it's really gross. Nikolai, for me, is a type of villain. He's the sneaky type. Darkling is obvious because he's a pedophile sex trafficker who sexually assaults Alina twice and does all manner of unspeakably horrible things. but Nikolai is the sneaky villain. He's lowkey racist, he's an imperialist colonizer, and continued the child trafficking of grisha children as cannon fodder for the second army. But as long as he Makes Ravka Great Again, it's all cool. Nikolai is at least a more interesting villain to me than Darkles tho. the whole "mommy issues/victim turns into a monster because of abuse" thing doesn't interest me at all. as a victim of abuse myself, i just really hate the whole trope that abuse victims turn into worse abusers than the ones who hurt them. And a misogynist white guy with mommy issues is also very boring for me. For me personally, mixing those two tropes is a recipe for a boring villain. so Darkles is a drop in a bucket of other white misogynist villains 🤷🏻 "he's white and a misogynist? groundbreaking 🙄"

Nikolai on the otherhand: a child who grows up as a royal with no respect but wants to do better by the country who doesn't care about him? wanting to do better than his gross racist child trafficking father only to fall into those same patterns when he's old enough for his actions to only be his responsibility so he can't blame anyone else? he can't even see himself becoming a monster like his father was, the man he looked up to then grew to hate? yeah that's interesting to me at least lol but i still think of him as a villain and that Zoya should have addressed his racism before he got with a WOC. i love the books, but Leigh does have a habit of fixing shitty men with "love"(*cough cough* Nina & Matthias/Nikolai & Zoya) but i'm glad she doesn't do that with all the ships(Rasmus & Hanne - not that they're a ship/Inej & Kaz, etc)

it was just very skeevy that he was like 23 trying to seduce a 17 year old kid. i'm turning 24 in a few days(3 days after S&B comes out on netflix) and the thought of trying to get with anyone younger than like 20 is absolutely repulsive to me. a 6 year age difference is HUGE when one of the people is a literal child. i don't really care if it was only for political gain, that actually makes it worse. He was basically doing the same thing Darkling did to her: use her and seduce her for personal gain. Which considering they're both adults and she's a child is just super gross.

in my opinion, Mal shouldn't have forgiven him. Nikolai did nothing to deserve being forgiven. Apologies only matter if you accept and take responsibility for your actions and grow and become a better person. Nikolai not being shitty to Mal for 15 minutes isn't a good enough reason to be forgiven. Forgiveness is earned and i feel like Mal felt like he had to forgive him because he was a Prince(soon to be Tsar) and his "better".

btw i do actually like Nikolai's character. He's very interesting to me. But he doesn't deserve to be coddled for the things he's done which a lot of fans end up doing.

[autisticburnham]

Past Tense Parts 1 & 2

Boy, rewatching this in 2020's gonna probably be a fucking trip

Trill has purple seas and Bajor has green ones???

They really named a Ferengi Belongo, huh?

Quark looks so fucking floored that Ben knows the Rules of Acquisition

Christ, forgot the cops wake Benjamin by pushing a gun into his shoulder

The dude thinks Ben and Julian are wearing matching pajamas. He thinks they're a couple

Business Man really almost walks past Jadzia

I know literally everyone who reviews this episode comments on this, but definitely not a coincidence that the men of color immediately get arrested while the white woman gets whisked away into some high class fantasy

2020 does definitely highlight how crowded and underfunded the sanctuary districts are, not to mention the fact that I seriously doubt they get any medical care, just how quickly disease could kill all these people and how little anyone would care

Business Man, you're white as fuck, you having a Maori tattoo isn't impressive, it's gross

Discount? I wish I could say government databases charging government employees for running searches and giving them ads was surprising

This guy sitting next to Ben is so sad he won't let him draw on him

Welcome to beurceacy, Julian

Christ, the cop is so condescending

Uncle, doesn't this Gabriel Bell hu-man look exactly like Captain Sisko?

Oh, Benjamin, I wish riots did start a watershed moment in history

I like to think that more than Benjamin being a history buff, Bell is one of his personal heroes

"Benjamin "power stance" Sisko triple dog darring this dmv worker to call them out for writing their birthdays 300 years in the future" @jvlianbashir 's post lives in my mind rent free

Gross that this lady is like "oh, you're not mentally ill? Well, then, I'm so sorry for not treating you like people"

"It's not that they don't give a damn, they've just given up. The social problems they face seem too enormous to deal with" that may be sharply resonant with the average person, Ben, but it's starkly clear that the people in power do genuinely not give a damn

You know what? I'm actually thrilled that disco is exploring exactly Julian's question as to whether or not humanity has really changed and how the Federation would react to a devastating crisis. Like, I know that that's ds9's whole theme as well, but it's going to be so fucking nice to have a hopeful Star Trek message about the future during this fucking year

Love Julian immediately trying to throw hands with Hat Man for beating someone up

I feel like there's a not so subtle element of racist assholery to Hat Man sarcastically asking "Oh, have we done something to offend you?" abt beating the dude up

Julian, you are too tall to sleep width wise in this alley

Controversial opinion, but Julian's homeless trash is the best outfit he wears

The sanctuary districts existing at all is disgusting, but the fact that there are babies here is horrific

Hell, yeah, dude! Class solidarity!

Christ, the hard cut from the sanctuary district to the business party isn't subtle at all

Those protests in France are undoubtedly a good thing, Business Lady

Granted, I'm white, so I could totally be out of line here, but I actually like that two of the Business People are poc, and that they're just as much privileged assholes as the rest of the Business People. I feel like despite the implications of institutionalized racism with Ben and Julian immediately being arrested, this helps subtly showcase that a very large part of the problem is capitalism bc there's not solidarity between poc if that lack of solidarity can help some of them get rich

Love Julian's tos style double fist punch

Fucking gross that they know that the government killing thousands of sanctuary city districts residents will mean absolutely nothing if the government can "justify" it with the death of like 5 government employees

I love how charmed Miles is by Nerys wanting to yell at Starfleet

"Right now, this ship is all that's left of Starfleet" the disco writers really like this episode, huh?

Class Solidarity Guy's kid just said that this whole thing started bc a guard got in a fight with a dim. Of course it's the fucking cops that escalated the situation in the first place

Of course white ass Hat Man is just trying to personally benefit himself rather than help all of the people here and also has no problem escalating the violence

I don't like Hat Man, but I do like his line "Why do they sound so surprised? You treat people like animals, you're gonna get bit!"

Of course Business Man is friends with cops

I broke my nose...

The solution isn't to get everyone jobs, it's to make it so that having a job isn't a requirement to be treated like a human being

Cop, you're a huge part of the problem for so many fucking reasons, not the least of which is your being a class traitor

"In the interest of friendship," I'll allow 10,000 people to be fed

Ds9 is largely good abt criticizing capitalism, but I do dislike the "I don't want to rely on handouts! Give me the right to work myself to death"

Listen, I know DMV Lady is trapped in the capitalist system as much as anyone else and that if she tried to help more people, she'd probably end up in a sanctuary district herself, but. Her story about helping that one lady gives me Slitheen DoctorWho "I spare one person every now and then so that I can convince myself I'm a not a monster for murdering millions" vibes

I do fucking love her "Everybody tells themself that, and nothing ever changes" in response to Julian telling her it's not her fault tho

✌🌼

Well, their dad shouldn't have been a class traitor then, Bernardo

"Change takes time" "You've run out of time" Tell her, Ben!

Jadzia Dax, coming out of her sewer to shame mankind

Gross that Hat Man is coming on to Jadzia despite how uncomfortable she obviously is and doesn't stop until he realizes she's "with" Julian

Can you imagine if Jadzia had gotten hurt here? Imagine you're a doctor getting ready for surgery and you find a giant slug in a woman

Idk why, but "Invisible" Man gives me Neelix vibes

I do like how Julian and Jadzia work with the frame he understands and just ask him to give the combadge back. "Shockingly," treating him like he's a valid person makes him agreeable

Business Man, you're rich enough that breaking the law won't even mean shit for you

Christ. "The public are starting to view them as people! We have to kill them all now before it gets any worse!"

I like the cop making fun of Julian for liking tennis

Aw, I forgot Class Solidarity Guy died

Forget matching uniforms, Benjamin's actual pajamas are gay culture

"How could they have let things get so bad" 🙃

Groundbreaking, lifechanging, whatever the rest of that Lady Gaga quote is. 100/10

[bi-outta-cordonia]

Top 10s

The year is coming to a close and despite this being my first foray into PB fandom for the year, some interesting shit has happened in these books and 2019 was full of all sorts of fun stories. I want to cap off Choices this year by naming my top ten favorite moments in all the books released in 2019.

Tagging all my favorite unfriendly Black hotties: @questionablespecies @imogen-wescott @beyonceswigs @annelyseadair @cassiopeiacorvus @massivelysilentchaos @nikkisha16 @boujeechoices @raleigh-carrera @mand-delemonde

10) BB MC training with Jax: I like. Many things. Many things involve swords. Jax training BB MC in fight skills was awesome as a scene, especially since it came with the moment of him reestablishing his connection with his blade and the two of them touching foreheads as they come to terms with her death. But nothing--nothing--is gonna top the moment where the two of them literally fight each other. They train and they train hard as hell. “What’s this position called?” “It’s called ‘you better not break my defense because I’ll kick your ass’.” And then she cuts part of his shirt. He looks up, they start back with the training, and he slices part of her dress. They keep going until eventually there are no more clothes and they are now on the ground, making out. The exact opposite of training, but I can’t hear over the receptors in my brain that sound off for couple training scenes.

9) “Oh, you like that”: Listen. NB was trash. There’s no denying that. But that first moment when you finally get to dive into Cal, make out with him, when ol girl takes off both of their clothes for the most intense face sucking she’s ever experienced in life? And then he dips his head or bites her neck or whatever the fuck he does--I don’t even remember. Because what I do remember--very vividly--is damn near throwing my phone across the room when he says “Oh, you like that...” I read it in his drawl, felt that shit in my soul, and it will never not make me so incredibly disappointed that we will never get to see him really go buck wild with MC because it was there.

8) Landry bailing if you don’t talk to him: It happened with Vanessa, happened with Becca, happened with Olivia, happened with Sebastian--sometimes. I don’t want to make friends with folks who come at me sideways when it doesn’t immediately benefit them. Landry being a little coward was something all the intelligent folks saw coming but you could see inklings of the narrative trying to set him up for redemption at the eleventh hour. Except. I didn’t want that. A majority of folks did not want that it seems. And PB listened for once and didn’t force us to have to interact with him during the last leg of the first book. If you talk to everyone in the friend group before you get to him, he bails and is not seen or heard from. Good. 

7) MOTY MC making bank off her deadbeat ex husband: MOTY was also another unexpected favorite to come out of 2019 and told the story of a single mother trying to raise her baby right. Guy was and is easily the worst antagonist to ever show up in these books because he is so disgustingly real. Emotionally abusive, manipulative, narcissistic, and cruel--he did everything in his power to exert power over MC. He wanted the kid, not because he wanted to be her father but because he wanted to use her to help boost him, and going through the whole book making sure to pick options that would best demonstrate that MC was providing exactly what the baby needs, only for the judge to say that not only is she not awarding custody to Guy but he also has to pay child support, pro- and retroactively?? When sis opened that bank account and saw tens of thousands sitting in her savings?? I almost cried.

6) ILB MC rising from certain death and avenging her parents: Okay so this might be cheating a little because ILB came out in 2018, but I also said this was a top ten list of shit that happened in 2019, and seeing this bitch break out of a coffin, swim up, and straight murder the man that took her parents from her was insanity. Richard really thought he had her on the ropes, huh? He thought she wasn’t gonna be able to break out and kick his ass? And when she told him that, as far as the entire town was concerned, he was already dead and they were just waiting for his body to wash up? Ooh, she wasn’t stuck on the boat with him--he was trapped on the lake with her.

5) Logan was a forced LI for a good reason??: Girls, Ride or Die: A Bad Boy Romance was an unexpected fave this year but out of all the moments to choose from that absolutely floored me, the fact that Logan was so heavily pushed was because Kaneko asked him to gain your trust so that the crew could use you? That shit hurt so much and had me screaming the entire time I was tapping through the revelation scenes. I mean, we’ve had LIs betray MCs a ton of times but I still could not believe that Logan had so thoroughly did what he did and when they showed you the flashbacks of the very subtle ways he was trying to weed information from MC? In the early stages?? Man.....this is why my MC went with Colt--kidding kidding. She is with Colt but I love Logan deeply solely because of this.

4) BB MC dying: okay NB tried to do something groundbreaking but like it got completely overshadowed by BB MC getting fucking stabbed through her chest because typically your MC will walk away okay from most scenarios but this bitch actually didn’t. Couple that with the fact that I’m romancing Jax so the thing that killed her was his sword, something that has been revealed as being a precious thing and something he’s cherished for a long time as a tool to help him protect the ones he loves? It hit me right in the a ng s t. She pops back up a vampire in the third book, a reveal which comes to us at the end of the second but oh man watching Jax cradle her dying body, knowing he was never going to forgive himself for this happening? It was delicious.

3) ACOR MC turning the crowd on Caesar: okay, stabbing Caesar was fantastic, no one is denying that, but I honestly thought the most impactful and most fucking insane moment of ACOR is when MC made the first attempt, got caught, and was able to stir the crowd during the final leg of her trial to the point that she started a literal riot in Rome. The flavor, the power--can you imagine being Julius Caesar and watching a ho string your folks along and convince them that she couldn’t possibly have been guilty of a crime because her pussy is too good for that? Who is gonna win this fight--a certified conqueror of several realms or one bitch with the world’s most fantabulous coochie? The answer may surprise you...

2) TRR MC is pregnant: we got stuck in yeehaw hell for seven weeks...seven weeks of having to act like Bertrand and Savannah were even that important according to the narrative when MC is a whole ass duchess trying to start her family....all the months of seeing Liam talk so enthusiastically about wanting a family with MC, wanting to be a father, and wanting to build a life with her, after all the bullshit they went through and the hurdles they had to jump in order to even get to the point where they could be happily married? And then she called him out to the field and told him that they were having a baby? I cried. I cried so hard.

1) ACOR MC stabbing Cassius in the fucking back: I loved ACOR so much. So much of the political machinations, the scheming, the dancing around language while trying to manipulate powerful patrons into doing your bidding--I had Antony wrapped around one finger and Cassius on the other--string them both along while trying to achieve my own goals but maaaaaaan....Betraying Cassius at the last second in order to protect yourself from reprimand so you can make a clean getaway from Rome was the peak. The epitome of ACOR MC in a nutshell. I fucking loved how absolutely unhinged and manipulative that bitch could be. She literally sat up there and told him all the things he wanted to hear, acted like she cared about who he wanted for Rome, in some cases straight up lied to him about how much she loved him, and then during the moment that mattered most--when they both stabbed Caesar and thrust Rome into chaos--she shed the visage of the beautiful woman he had so deeply fallen in love with and unveiled the poisonous snake she had always been. She used him. He truly and honestly didn’t see it coming until he peeked outside and happened to spy her standing firm at Antony’s side. And the narrative let me do that with the utmost glee. 

And that’s it. Go forth. Make your own list. Criticize mine, idc. 

[kinetic-elaboration]

January 27: Thoughts on The 100 2x09, Remember Me

...For some reason I was really angry at the beginning of this? Also there’s a lot of Lxa bashing. Sorry. And some Clarke criticism but in the latter case, I mean it well.

Also this is really long whoops.

*

So...I miss when killing off main characters was a big deal and people actually reacted to it.

I truly cannot take Lxa seriously I’m sorry. I don’t find her... intimidating at all.

I’ve already complained repeatedly about her complete bad faith deal making at every turn so I won’t go into it again but nevertheless, here she is, again, moving the goal posts of the negotiation. ‘I’ll withdraw my army if you cure the Reapers. No, if you give up your friend. No, if you give me his body.’ Clarke should have double crossed her immediately.

Also I know that I ultimately did think it was reasonable for Finn to face Grounder justice (except insofar as that justice was itself morally untenable--that is, the Torture Porn) but now that he’s dead, I think there’s no real moral argument to be made that the Grounders deserve his body. I understand their traditions, which in fact I found quite moving when I first watched this ep, but surely his people have, or could make up, some traditions for his burial also. He is still their friend. This seems like little more than an excuse to be cruel. And Clarke’s so fucking broken she just goes with it. It’s truly awful. I mean she’s doing the only thing she can do I guess but it’s laughable that she sounds as if she has any sort of upper hand, you’re getting played bitch.

(Yeah I know, Lxa is being ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘revolutionary’ by even semi-accepting capital punishment without torture and taking his body is a way of appeasing her harder line advisers but like cry me a river--she’s either the all powerful commander or she’s fucking not.)

“We want the same things.” Lol if you wanted the same things you would have stuck to the original deal. No I’m not over this at all I guess.

I also still can’t get over how Clarke has literally never earned true leadership in the eyes of her own people and yet she continues to be randomly viewed as a leader by the Grounders and thus retains pretty much full de facto control over her own people’s power structure.

Also Kane shut the fuck up. I completely forgot about this but they really did put him through an off-screen 180 where all of a sudden Lxa is a God to him and can literally do nothing wrong and to this day we have never been given an explanation how that came to be. Guess it’s easier to tell not show huh?!?

ALSO I get we’re suppose to see a sort of racism-corollary to lines like “I don’t think they know what peace is” like obviously this rubs one the wrong way automatically. But Abby’s not really wrong. And despite what Kane thinks, Lxa has given, again, NO indication at all that she is interested in peace. She has given a lot of indications that she wants to do whatever she can to wring as much from the Sky People as she can without giving anything in return and hey we’re only halfway through the season and she’s already psychologically broken Clarke (also the only person she acknowledges as the leader even though she is not, cannot emphasize this enough, the leader of anything... and thus the only person L really has to break) and sunk-cost-fallacy-ed her into submission. Now that Finn is dead Clarke would cut off her own tit to make Lxa happy because anything else is “letting him die in vain.”

...Why am I so angry lol?

I understand the positions of both Clarke and Raven in this scene, which is fucking brutal, but I sympathize more with Raven. Clarke’s basically just a messenger, but what the Grounders are demanding is (I know I already said it) cruel, and cruel to Raven above all. And Clarke is almost all business. I think that’s what she needs to be for herself but it’s not helpful to the situation.

Anyway here are my faves in Mount Weather. It’s almost hard to watch these scenes because I want to, like, memorize them. Partially for the C/M story and partially just because. Today’s adventure is getting to a radio to send a message to the Ark-wide channel, which is a term for a thing that exists. Also I forgot how snarky everyone / Miller was to Maya. Which, I get. But--are they not thinking about how her own people have experimented on her? Like she is expendable to them, this is just a known fact at this time. So yes, there is a real risk to her, Nathan.

“Oh, is that all?” / “No--there’s more.” Monty’s so one-track he didn’t even hear the sarcasm. I love him.

“Their army has been getting their ass kicked by Mount Weather forever.” Bellamy speaking the truth. Do they need the alliance, or do they just need the Grounders to back the fuck off from attacking them? (Spoiler: they do not need the alliance.)

Ah Bellarke, always quick to reassure each other. Blindly, even.

“Since I don’t take orders from you, I’m going to need a better reason” is one of my favorite lines, and underrated. Finally someone reminding Clarke she’s not actually in charge of everyone and everything all the time. (I realize this sounds like I dislike Clarke. I don’t. I just find certain traits of hers frustrating. But this just makes her a good character.) Also you can see that, rather like her moment with Raven, she falls back on being business like and direct and issuing orders to avoid talking about feelings or breaking apart.

The United States War Room survives the apocalypse.

I’m sorry but it’s ridiculous to think that Lxa invented the concept of an alliance lol.

I guess Clarke needs to go all in on the alliance because of Finn, but... I also think this is part of who she is. Her sense of practicality outweighs any human desire to hold a grudge, and I think she assumes a level of practicality in others too, automatically, such that she underestimates wariness in others. Like Bellamy and Gustus and everyone is right to be uncertain about this literally hours-old alliance--not even an official alliance, since L’s latest demand hasn’t technically been met!--and Clarke’s like ‘yeah I’ll sleep next to people who would have killed me six hours ago np!’ because now that she’s in, she’s in. She’s neither angry nor afraid.

Linctavia like “Google Earth, always taking pictures.”

Is Lincoln wearing Ark clothes?

I know Raven is made to look kind of wan and sunken and sad but yet this scene where she’s being disarmed is honestly like peak hotness for me and I don’t know why. I like my women sullen and covered in knives?

Interesting how allegedly only the warriors knew English and yet Lxa’s big announcement re: get in line with me or die is made in English. Just going to point out yet again what a big mistake that throwaway S1 line is.

What a sad life to lead, where random declarations followed by “or death” have to form the entirety of your belief system “Don’t be upset that your wife and child are dead...or I’ll beat you to a pulp.” I truly don’t understand how we were ever supposed to get in line with this society as sympathetic or interesting. So much so that they get a whole prequel I guess???

I’d rather have a Mount Weather prequel except not really, don’t ruin it for me.

I love Miller’s canonical insane superhuman strength. This is a trait often overlooked in fics.

The usual comment on Mount Weather scenes: I love all of it.

The thing is that if everyone were on board with the funeral ceremony, it is touching. Murderer and murdered together, and the people who’ve been hurt, on both sides, saying goodbye as a group. It’s just that Clarke’s people were coerced into this--they weren’t convinced it would be a fitting ceremony, just told ‘well this is how it is and if you don’t like it, we could perhaps... KILL YOU?”

Is this a new revelation that Mount Weather crashed the Exodus ship (still a really satisfying belated explanation imo)? Or did we know that because, unlike Monty et al, we knew about the jamming signals already? Can’t remember.

You can see how L came to believe what she believes but nevertheless this is bad advice lol. “Don’t care about other people.” Okay, I’ll just stop doing that then.

Mmmm, a feast in a subway station. Delicious. Fucking full pig head as the centerpiece. Very DC.

Kane (handing over pure space moonshine probably): Just don’t drink too much of it. Clarke (five minutes later): Guzzles whole bottle at once. #partygriff is officially canon.

Waiting until tomorrow to start the war? Procrastinators. Clarke didn’t kill Finn for this.

I love Certified Dramatic Ho Bellamy knocking the cup out of Clarke’s hand even though she had made no move whatsoever to drink it.

“When you plunged your knife into the heart of the boy you loved, did you not wish that it was mine.” Lxa, also a certified Dramatic Ho.

Clarke kinda deserved to be punched in the face given that it wouldn’t actually make sense for Raven to try to poison Lxa--and make Finn’s death mean nothing? And put them all in danger in enemy territory? Nonsense. Nevertheless it’s hard not to feel bad for her when she follows this accusation up with a psychotic break.

Hmmm, do I think Abby turning in Jake was the same as Clarke killing Finn? Not really. She didn’t directly kill Jake, that was Jaha, and Jaha is who Clarke should really be mad at. That said, I don’t think she was really saving anyone in the direct way Clarke was. So, apples and oranges. Crazy awkward moment to bring it up, though lol. “Oh Clarke, you’ll feel better eventually--remember that time I killed your Dad? I got over that! Wait--does talking about your dead father upset you? That’s a surprise!” Nevertheless I appreciate major actions having consequences as that’s a semi-rarity on this show.

Monty Green: hero.

“Lxa needs this alliance as much as we do.” - True, if she intends to get her people out of MW. “She’s shown herself to be flexible.” - Not true. She’s given the bare minimum of concessions. Kane, please crawl back out of her colon for like 5 seconds, get some air.

Interesting that Raven and Bellamy are chilling near each other. I wonder what they were discussing. Tbh Bellamy’s feelings on everything in this episode are rather opaque. Other than understanding why Clarke mercy-killed Finn and being skeptical of the alliance.

“Kill one person and destroy the alliance” is literally only merciful because the default in this society is “kill everyone all the time for any reason.” Like, I guess??? That’s mercy by comparison?? But forgive me if I am not moved to admiration.

“This time justice will be done” says the woman who used the barest sliver of evidence to decide that a random person was guilty so she could have a public execution. A public execution to replace the other public execution, in fact, not to avenge a death because Gustus isn’t dead. (Yet.)

Kane’s really okay with letting Raven be tortured to death, huh? Gah he’s fucking annoying.

Bellarke: Crime Solving Duo. That’s some satisfying teamwork. Clarke figures out how the scheme worked. Bellamy figures out who’s behind the scheme. With all the evidence put together, the motive becomes clear. (Honesty, they should have been suspicious that the poison not only didn’t kill Gustus, it barely harmed him lol.)

Check out all the Department of Homeland Security stuff on Monty’s computer. This is perhaps Dante’s log in? There’s a set of “personal” files too. And a set of President’s Office files, which one would assume not everyone would have.

Anyway, I have a Thing for tense sequences of hackers...hacking.

When I first watched this season I was often so tense my whole body hurt and it’s mostly because of MW scenes like this one where Monty is caught. Like aaaaah it still gets me. He almost makes it... and then almost makes it again, with his silly little salute... (Never forget that he is A Dork.)

On the one hand, Raven being tortured and then seeing Gustus tortured to death allows her to see why Clarke killing Finn was an act of mercy, to forgive her, and to move on, so the narrative can continue with them as allies and nominal friends. And it works, basically. But I also think there’s something to the theory that they were never the same, that the wound never really healed.

I’m sorry but Octavia’s face when Clarke’s like “Yeah B, you’re expendable, go get yourself killed, have a map!!” is hilarious. Like, he’s just said that Gustus doing anything for Lxa made sense, and Octavia responded with “Look at the thanks he got” which seems to me like She Knows and then 5 seconds later Bellamy is basically thrown away by the person we all know he’d do anything for... I mean the face is fair. Also this is Bellamy’s idea and it’s a good idea and so he was right before and Clarke is also right now, but it’s still so... annoying.... like “okay, I’m done caring about you lol bye.”

And Raven’s just totally confused. It’s been a damn long day I guess.

Why are they all such fucking hotties? It’s hard to pay attention to “the plot.”

So the ashes Abby tries to give to Clarke are the same ashes, perhaps, that Jasper scatters in S3? This vial looks smaller. Why did she not immediately give them to Raven? That would seem to be the obvious thing to do.

And here we see Clarke, under L’s direct influence, becoming Increasingly Insufferable. I love her but this is obviously supposed to be her descent into the abyss: she treats her friends like little expendable minions, she turns her back on Finn’s memory, and then she ends the episode by dramatically walking into a dark room in slow motion to creepy chamber music. I mean this is the hero’s fall guys!! That’s what it always was!!!

If only they’d handled Bellamy’s hero’s fall in 3A, and Clarke’s rise again in 3B, as well.

That ending is a straight up horror movie thanks that’s why this is my favorite season.

[nandalorian]

Since I posted my thoughts about how Roswell has adequately represented queer men on the show and completely shit the bed on their representation of most everything else, I need to address the epically fucked-up treatment of female queerness and the queer female gaze in the context of Isobel and Rosa. This has been bugging me for a few weeks, and the reveal of Noah as the fourth alien pretty much cemented my feelings on the matter. I know there are people who feel the way I do about it, but if there’s another post on the subject I just haven’t seen, please link me. And if you disagree completely about this too, that’s cool. Let’s discuss.

While in my last post I applauded the show on its treatment of Michael’s bisexuality, I still don’t feel great about the introduction of a Michael/Alex/Maria love triangle. It’s one thing for Carina to double down on her defense of love triangles and insist they are not an overused and biphobic trope in popular media--news flash, it is, and in this case it’s also potentially damaging to the one black woman on the show, who will almost certainly bear the brunt of fans’ ire for “stealing Michael away” if they go through with a Maria/Michael relationship. I’m sorry if I don’t take a random straight white woman’s insistence to the contrary as gospel. Saying your formative years were shaped by straight love triangles doesn’t change the fact that it’s an insulting trope to women and an outright damaging one to queers, not even taking into consideration how the two intersect, or further when you consider POC characters, etc. You can’t compare straight relationships with queer ones, in the same way you can’t compare white experiences with nonwhite ones. To insist otherwise denies a whole system of privilege that drastically shapes and influences people’s lived experiences. 

But that isn’t what I want to address, because it’s another thing altogether to come for female sexuality and queerness. If I was willing to maybe give Malex a pass on the good-intentions-written-badly front, this is a hill I’m ready to die on. Isobel’s arc in season 1 of RNM demonstrates a lack of understanding that these are identities equally vulnerable to attack, exploitation, and misrepresentation--maybe even more so--as male queerness. That the outrage about Malex drowns out this other but no less important conversation kind of reaffirms the point I’m trying to make.

More under the cut.

Female sexuality has always struggled to find positive representation in popular media, no matter the time period or culture. Compared to male sexuality, it is not taken seriously, always played against the male gaze, or disregarded altogether because it excludes men. Queer female desire challenges societal structures around male desire and sexuality because it just… doesn’t require men to function and in fact actively rejects them. This is obviously a problem because the patriarchy loves it when men are shown to be extraneous and irrelevant. 

A lot of us know what it is to be invalidated as queer women, socially and sexually. Put your hand up if you’re a woman (in which I include cis and trans women, of course) or nonbinary individual who desires women and has been told, oh, you just haven’t met the right man yet, or oh, you’re just putting on a show for male attention. We have all been there and experienced this kind of erasure to various degrees of aggressiveness. This refrain is especially loud for bisexual women, who suffer erasure and ridicule from queer and straight communities alike, but the fact is, women’s sexuality has always been portrayed as less than or dependent upon that of a man’s. That isn’t to say bisexual men don’t also experience bi erasure. They do, and this is as much a product of homophobia as it is the primacy of the queer male gaze even within queer spaces and contexts. But in this case I’m addressing that of female and nonbinary bi-erasure and biphobia.

Furthermore, the role of queer women in society and popular media has always been underrepresented compared to that of gay men, or seen as more harmless or less significant, groundbreaking, or offensive for a couple of reasons: namely that a lot of people have played down or played off the existence of female sexuality and desire because they doubt its validity to begin with, or it’s “allowed” because it’s desirable to the male gaze. In some ways this has worked in our favour because subversive or queer female behaviour and desire in media have been able to fly beneath the radar, but it’s still a symptom of a greater problem.

I include this preamble because the writers of Roswell New Mexico have stunningly managed to ignore or remain ignorant to this context. The straight women on the show are shown to express their sexuality in upfront or positive ways, even opening up conversations about kink and reversing gender roles, but often in problematic ways too. The show sometimes fails the Bechdel Test or reduces characters, especially WOC like Maria, to having no purpose but to desire male characters and be desired by them, or portrays them as unable to want sex without quickly falling in love the way Maria seemingly has done with Michael. They’ve known each other for over a decade, and yet Maria only catches feelings after they’ve had sex, a night that, supposedly, meant nothing to her but quickly is revealed not to be the case. Interesting.

But beyond even that, my beef is with the whole Isobel-might-be-bisexual-and-in-love-with-Rosa-Ortecho storyline. I was excited about it at first; I couldn’t believe our luck that we had not one, but two bisexual characters on the show, and one of them was a bisexual woman married to a really awesome and seemingly caring South Asian man. But it was not to be, and this to me is ridiculously tone deaf and offensive in light of the fact that she was possessed by a male alien the whole goddamn time.

This tells us two equally disturbing things about the writers’ take on the queer female gaze and queer female sexuality: a) according to them, in this context, it literally doesn’t exist, and b) it is wholly a product of and subject to the male gaze.

From the promo for 1x12 it looks like they are going to delve a little bit into the mindfuck around consent due to Noah effectively brainwashing/tricking Isobel into marrying him, but one aspect of this I’d be surprised if they acknowledge is how he has also robbed Isobel of agency over her own sexuality. Not only has she been in a nonconsensual relationship with Noah this whole time, but he’s stripped her of the ability to discern whether her desires are her own, including the possibility that she is bisexual. As a woman, how can Isobel take her own sexuality seriously/see it as valid when she’s been forced to reconcile with the fact that, until now, it hasn’t been?

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the fact that a man used a woman, against her will and without her knowledge, to kill another woman. All over the simple fact that Rosa didn’t desire him/Isobel by extension. This stupid-as-fuck storyline is literally about weaponizing queer female sexuality in order to do violence against women. 

Just think about that for a second.

To make matters worse, Noah is a South Asian man and represents a community that is already marginalized in white media and society. Brown men have, in white culture, been relegated to two-dimensional stereotypes, rejected as love interests, and often portrayed as villains, and instead of positively developing an Indian character in a multiracial relationship and using that representation for good, he’s been made to violate his wife and use her to kill another woman. My girl @insidious-intent has written a really fantastic post to that end and I’d encourage you to read it. According to Carina, hiring Karan Oberoi to play Noah was colourblind casting. But viewers aren’t naive enough to buy that it’s ever that simple, or it shouldn’t be. I don’t see how you can write a nonwhite character the same as you would a white one and not expect it to have deeper or more damaging implications.

So my point, or at least one of them, is this: the failure of Roswell New Mexico to its queer viewers isn’t just that they’ve desecrated a ship as sacred as Malex or, at best, totally failed to do it justice. Roswell has failed us by invalidating and retconning female sexuality, and if this isn’t something we should all be angry about, straight and queer viewers alike, I don’t know what to tell you. While people are justified in expressing their anger to Carina about Malex, I think it’s also important to acknowledge and protest JUST AS LOUDLY the queer female angle. When you are thinking about how to represent, express, and phrase your disappointment to the production team, remember this goes far deeper than Malex. She has let us all down in ways that have nothing to do with our ship potentially not becoming a reality by the end of this season. She’s let POC viewers down just as resoundingly hard, both distinctly and factoring in the intersectionality of their writing choices.

All writers make mistakes. I want to put that out there. And I also want to put it out there that the issues around queer and POC representation are serious and disappointing, but not insurmountable if the writing team shows a willingness to learn, improve, and listen if the show is greenlit for season 2. But that isn’t what they’re doing. Carina has taken a stand, via Twitter, that they’ve done nothing wrong, and that is a big red flag that the writing team isn’t as woke as it likes to pretend and definitely not interested in listening to criticisms about their politics or how they try to convey them. So are her efforts of trying to silence bisexual viewers with legitimate criticism, or POC viewers doing the same thing. She and the writers would rather praise themselves for their token representation than acknowledge, listen to, and learn from real people expressing real concerns and sharing lived experiences.

[afriendlyirin]

I’ve been thinking about my proposed Steven Universe rewrite, but on reflection it’s still not satisfying to me.

I kept thinking of ways Hubnerite [my replacement for Yellow Diamond] could be "redeemed", but when I tried to come up with details they just always fell flat. Even if Diamond's Homeworld isn't to the level of evil as in canon, if it's still oppressive and classist that casts heavy doubts on her motives for upholding it and her overall goodness as a person. Did the gems panic at the chaos and lack of direction and so she thinks they wanted a dictator to lead them? But how can that make any sense, when this happened because of a rebellion loudly proving that gems wanted to make their own decisions? Did she genuinely believe in "law and order", thinking that hierarchy is the only way gems can be happy? Sure, it's reasonably possible for her to genuinely believe those things and genuinely be hurting people out of ignorance rather than malice and therefore it would be possible for her to recognize the errors of her ways and change... but I just can't help but see that message as irresponsible. Because regardless of if some of the real-life analogues for Hubnerite and Diamond genuinely believe those lines, it is overwhelmingly a lie. Regardless of if these ideals started out as genuine and good, in modern politics they are nothing but lies, canned party lines the powerful use to disguise the fact that their true motivations are purely selfish. Just as it was irresponsible for the show to have White Diamond spouting the lies abusers always say while telling kids she actually means it, would it not be irresponsible to have a villain spout conservative dogwhistles and dishonest party lines but say it's okay because in this one instance they really mean it?

Drawing a parallel between Steven and Hubnerite as people crushed under the weight of living up to an idolized figure is clever from a narrative perspective, but from a moral one it's false equivalence. If Diamond really was evil, Hubnerite's personal issues are nothing but a distraction; the issue isn't that it's wrong to force her to live up to an impossible ideal, it's that she shouldn't have tried to live up to those ideals in the first place. The only way it works is if Diamond was at the very least not evil, but then why was Rose even rebelling -- we just end right back at "Actually no one's really evil all conflict is bad rebelling against authority is wrong" which is all sorts of awful. I could maybe make an author's saving throw by having Steven try to make that connection only for Garnet, the adult in the room, to laboriously explain why he's wrong, but that's utterly incoherent from a thematic perspective if we are supposed to be committing to the seasons 1-3 themes of forgiveness, self-love, and self-actualization.

...Which is kind of the problem. Those themes are all about the self, the individual, they're totally self-contained. They're not about actually solving or changing the problems outside of you; they're, at most, methods of coping with an oppressive system outside of your control.

So to be honest, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to use any kind of threat-from-without here, with an oppressive society and a vertical conflict. I just cannot conceive of a way to satisfactorily address that issue within the framework of the show's themes, and leaving it completely unaddressed would also be awful. But in that case what even is the conflict, why did Rose rebel, if we cut that out why was she even on Earth why did she choose to make Steven why do we have a story at all?

So okay, we have a story where Homeworld isn't actually oppressive or expansionist and it's just the normal stresses of society that are hurting the main characters... but then why do we need to make this a fantasy story at all? How is the fantasy applicable to real life? Do we make it a metaphor for how we ostensibly overthrew our monarchies ages ago but we never really let go of the old aristocratic mores and that's still poisoning our society in ways we don't like to acknowledge? But how can it be when so much of that poison has to do with negative violence and a dependency on resources? In way I guess I can't fault the Crewniverse for going so over-the-top with the eugenics, because in what other way can you meaningfully oppress perpetual motion machines that don't need to eat or sleep or even reproduce, since they're immortal? But that framing is also dishonest, because so much of the violence in our current society is negative. Oh, no, of course we won't murder you for being black, that would be very wrong and we will of course make laws against that! We'll just suck all the money out of your schools and businesses and hospitals so you can't pay for food or shelter or medicine, and then nature will do the job for us. But we didn't personally pull the trigger, so our hands are clean and we don't have to change anything. It's a shame and all but really, isn't it your fault for not working harder?

It's so easy for us to say that active violence is wrong. Too easy. There's nothing truly groundbreaking or thoughtful about that message.

This has been making me think a lot about fantasy as a genre. I used to love it when I was a kid and teen, how we can create these environments totally divorced from the real world yet still use them as analogies and metaphors to talk about the issues we care about. But now... I don't know if that can cut it anymore. Maybe I'm just too bitter and cynical, but I feel it's not enough to sugarcoat these issues in a veneer of metaphor. Because I don't think the people who most need to hear the message want to look past the metaphor. It's too easy to ignore, too easy to just see what you want to see, to never question your worldview if you don't want to. It's not enough. You have to be blunt, you have to be direct, you have to say these actual people, these literal people right here, they are dying and it's your fault, do something about it.

I've plugged Mob Psycho before as something I felt did a better job of being Steven Universe than Steven Universe itself, and I think that's in large part because of how it framed its world. It only includes fantasy elements to mock them, to criticize this exact type of irresponsible, denialist escapism. All the real issues revolve around the characters as ordinary people in an ordinary society.

For all the cool worldbuilding we got from the gems, maybe in the end that's really all Steven Universe should have been.

[wadey-wilson]

I see you saw Captain Marvel. what's your opinion on the movie? i kinda liked it, but I feel like i haven't got a strong opinion yet :/

since i don’t know how to write reviews, i’ll just… here goes.

ok so, the movie wasn’t as bad as i expected it to be, and it necessarily wasn’t as Great as i wanted it to be. i say it wasn’t as bad because i always go to a theater with the half ‘how bad can it be’ and half ‘i hope it’ll be good’ kind of an attitude. 7/10 for me. i feel like upon rewatching it i’d give it a 7,5/10.

and now hear out my logic before you go after me or something, because i can explain, okay. it’ll be messy, so i’ll just… do it in points

- music - some of it worked, some of it didn’t. i felt like the need to be 90s-like overwhelmed the directors/producers, and some of the songs weren’t put in the moment they should’ve been, or were put in a wrong way (say, Come As You Are). but it worked for the most part, no big complaints on my side.

- editing - it worked for like 90% of the movie. sometimes the editing was so quick that i couldn’t tell what was going on. but even the badly edited moments are light years ahead from the TASM movies.

- the make up was just… amazing. the fact that the skrulls looked so good makes you wonder why fox got lazy on their make up with like one fucking person. mcu literally paints like half of their characters, even wade wilson in fox looks just wonderful, and then you have raven who looks more and more like shit with every movie she appears in.skrulls looked almost breathtaking, i was really amazed by the job the make up artists did, huge kudos to them. the fact that talos expressed his emotions so well under the prosthetic was just… wow. kree looked very good, the glowing on carol look very nice, and the cgi on nick fury was just freaking groundbreaking - at some point you just couldn’t believe this guy is like 70yo in real life. when the cgi is so good you don’t even notice it, then you know that the artist reached their goal.

- i liked the world building. i understood the cosmic stuff for the most part. i knew who, why, when, and what for. the movie had a lot to say in not so much time, yet it still kinda managed to no overwhelm me with the information.

- i adored the interactions. characters were playing off each other really well. the buddy cop relationship between carol and fury was undoubtedly one of the best parts of the movie.

- the pacing was great. some of the marvel movies or movies in general really feel like they want to be 8 hours long, and this movie doesn’t have that problem. you don’t really notice the time passing, the scenes don’t drag, there’s no focusing on such bullshit like obligatory/forced hetero relationships, too long conversations, or too long action scenes, and before you know it the movie ends - that’s how you know the pacing was fine. (compare it to AMATW and how it dragged. seriously, i needed breaks while watching ant-man and the wasp. i couldn’t sit and watch this whole movie. thank god i didn’t go to the cinema for that because i’d probably annoy everyone with pee breaks every 3 minutes. but that’s an opinion, don’t @ me, we can have different opinions about different movies and still live a good life.)

- i really, really enjoyed the way the movie mixed everything. you have the kree, you have skrulls, you have humans, shield, the air force, some flashbacks, and the movie doesn’t feel like a frankenstein kind of a creature. take TASM 2 for example where it feels like you’re watching 9 different movies put in 1 movie despite the action taking place in one freaking city. i felt like it was all tied together very well in captain marvel, and i think it may be because the main character took you on the journey and showed you everything from her perspective, and it worked.

- the humor was so good. you had to get used to carol’s snarky comments or how she brushes off everything with jokes, and then some dry-like kind of humor came in, and then some real humor came in, and even if some jokes didn’t land, it still felt like that person would actually say it.

- i like the twist with mar-vell [*‘everything has to be like in the comics’ people screeching in the background*]. i like how the skrull were done - i really, really felt for the skrulls (that moment when talos rubbed his face against his wife… my eyes watered.)

- goose the cat. that’s it. he won my heart.

- and as i mentioned before - the movie also undercuts these superhero-landing tropes - we’ve seen that before, it’s not so impressive anymore, AND we’re gonna see it dialled to 11 in endgame.

- now hear me out and don’t @ me - brie larson does not have the MCU-like charisma… YET. just yet. she’s on a good ground. you know she likes that role, it shows she likes that role, she wants to play it, she wants to be that character.

mcu charisma is what i like to call the kind of a vibe that the mcu actors give off when playing their roles. you know nobody could replace tony stark, you know nobody could play steve rogers the same way evans does, you watch tom holland and forget it’s tom holland, you see a peter parker, you look at rhodes and forget there’s an actor underneath. i didn’t feel that with brie larson just yet in like 1/3 of the movie. i could see her acting, see her having fun and knowing what she’d like to do.

and i’m NOT saying it’s her fault she doesn’t have that charisma yet. i think the fault’s in the writing and the directing. carol danvers did not have enough ‘me’ screentime. again, don’t @ me, i do not criticize the acting or the actress, or the movie. it’s about how her character was written into the story. because it felt just like that - she was written into the story, instead of the story being written around her, despite her being the main character. and it was a glaring problem that wasn’t really a problem you cared about - and that was because the lines delivery was great, the movie was funny, well-paced, well-acted, the action was good, the music for the most part was good, the cgi aged well. so you didn’t really notice that lack of ‘is she the charcter yet, has she become the character yet?’ thing.

but then again, i didn’t feel for steve rogers up until the end of the movie where he crashed the ship. i didn’t feel for thor in any other movies than the avengers, ragnarok, and then endgame. i still don’t feel for sam wilson EVEN THOUGH i like the character (he certainly has more depth than black widow in one movie than she has in all the movies, and it’s the writers’ fault, not scarlett’s). i have never felt for black widow - she has no character for me. she’s better now than she was in im2, but i still don’t like her as a character, and that is because i have… nothing… to like. she’s snarky and bland for me. and it’s a shame because then you see shuri or pepper potts, or okoye, or even aunt may and you can tell they have a lot of depth despite being given not so much time on the screen. and then natasha shows up and like, ugh. *spider-man noir voice* who are you again?

some of the mcu actors hit off with the character charisma the moment they show up on the screen, some of them take their time, and it’s ok. it’s absolutely ok for brie larson to not BE carol danvers yet.

we’re yet to see her in endgame and in other movies, so i’m more than certain she she’ll become a captain marvel.

i feel like she’ll kind of have this thor complex - boring (yet carol is way way way way better in her movie that thor was in thor 1 and 2, don’t @ me, i really don’t like thor 1 & 2) in the origin movie, but wackier and ultiple times more interesting as it goes on. she also has this stephen strange complex - she needs more characterization the way doctor strange did. strange was a prodigy in almost everything he did job-wise but was disconnected with his emotional side, and i kinda feel the same for carol danvers.

she will be good, i feel it, i believe in it, give her time. even though i liked her in the movie, she still lacks some depth. that’s not to say she has no depth, no, she has a lot of it. she just hasn’t been able to show it yet.

overall, given that it was a first movie with such huge budget for those indie movie directors, i think they managed. yes, the movie is a bit scattered, and it lacks a bit of depth, but it ties into the mcu very well, it’s entertaining, the humor is good, and the action is good.

7/10. lighthearted and entertaining, even if a bit choppy. we can discuss.

[allysartstuff]

Note: This has been drawn as a reference guide which is free to use if you wish to draw this character. However, please do not repost or claim as your own, thank you.

The tenth born in my MLP Next Gen.

WARNING! Below has some sad stuff including a fan favourite canon character. Don't say I didn't warn you and please keep your tears and pitchforks at the door thank you.

Berry Bubblegum

Personality: Emotional, high-strung, mindful, passionate, fun loving.

Likes: Making others happy, factoids about royalty, parties with Cheese Sandwich, goof offs with Pinkie Pie, helping out even the smallest of ways.

Dislikes: Arguing with Bright Eyes, bugs, criticism, teasing, feeling useless.

Story;

Berry Bubblegum is the youngest daughter of Princess Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie. Like her older sister Bright Eyes, she is the result of Alicorn Magic combining the love of two ponies of the same gender and third party reproduction. This means she is related to both Pinkie and Twilight and has both their DNA. By Pinkie’s request, Bright’s biological father is Cheese Sandwich and Pinkie carried her, on equal ground with Twilight who carried Bright Eyes.

At a very early age, all Berry ever wanted to be was a princess, just like her Mama Twilight. She dedicated herself to finding everything out about princesshood, constantly bothering Twilight and any other royalty about it. She insisted on going to every event Twilight was invited to, never leaving her side and proudly proclaiming she was the princess’s daughter. However, this ego inflation caught the attention of a few green eyed bullies. Many of them pointed out that she was just an earth pony and there was no chance of her becoming a princess. Berry pretended to ignore those comments, not showing how much they chipped away at her confidence. She was still determined to become a princess and anyone can become a princess!

Right?

Those dreams and obsessions, however, began to break when Berry was ten. An eighteen-year-old Bright Eyes, who was more than a tad clumsy with her magic, accidentally invented a groundbreaking new spell. Her reward from Princess Celestia herself was to be turned into an Alicorn Princess, much to everyone’s surprise and Berry’s horror. She was utterly crushed that her sister became a princess and not her. Bright, who in fact did not want to be a princess, saw how upset Berry was so she literally demanded Celestia turn her back into a non Royal Unicorn, which she did. Berry really appreciated the gesture from Bright and it brought them together closer as sisters. However, Berry slowly began to realise that the likelihood of her becoming a Princess were very, very slim. She tried every extraordinary thing that she could be capable of doing but nothing worked.

Berry also had another problem. She was now a teenager and still didn’t have her cutie mark. Because she was so set on becoming a princess, she didn’t think to consider other options. This was the cause of more bullying, led to depression and more insecurities. Eventually, she just stopped trying at anything. Her parents noticed soon that her grades were low and she stopped coming to Twilight’s Princess outings. One day, Pinkie Pie decided to have a heart to heart with her about it. This was where Berry expressed her feelings and insecurities, saying that because she was not a unicorn or a pegasus and couldn’t perform magic, she wasn’t special or good enough to become a princess. She was just a dumb, stupid, useless earth pony. Trying not to sound hurt by Berry’s words, Pinkie asked her what was so bad about being ordinary? After all, ordinary earth ponies are still capable of doing extraordinary things. Berry didn’t believe her, though she did feel guilty when she overheard Twilight comforting a weeping Pinkie Pie.

When Berry was sixteen, Cheese Sandwich made a surprise trip to Ponyville and Berry was delighted at seeing her dad again. But he was not there on a happy occasion. He revealed to the TwiPie family that he was very sick with cancer and, while treatable at this stage, it very close to being terminal. Everyone was devastated, most especially Berry, who is the most emotional out of her and Bright. Everyone dealt with the news differently. Since the Ponyville hospital had a good cancer treatment department, Twilight allowed Cheese to stay in the castle during his treatment while Pinkie took him to all of his appointments. Berry tried to be strong and spend as much time with her father as possible, even attending all his appointments with him, but she desperately wanted to help him and felt even more useless than usual. It also didn’t help that Bright had locked herself in her room and buried herself in her studies, not wanting to address Cheese’s illness. Berry was furious, accusing her sister of not caring about their father’s sickness.

After that fight, Berry stormed off, running to the hospital where Cheese was on an overnight stay. She found him entertaining foals, still smiling and making ponies laugh despite being in incredible pain. Touched, Berry knew what she could do to help. She asked Pinkie if she’d be willing to teach her how to make others laugh, much to an already emotional Pinkie’s delight. While being taught and improving her skills, Berry gathered her friends Lucky Bug, Lickety-Split, Opal and Forelle to put on a performance for all the ponies at the hospital. It was a huge success and Berry finally felt she had helped not just her father, but the kids and her sister, who finally came out of the castle to see it and opened up about her emotions about Cheese’s illness. This was when she finally received her cutie mark, several blue bubbles.

In the current timeline, Berry is eighteen and still in school. She is much more confident now, still continuing to entertain for sick ponies and plans to create a charity based around that with help from Twilight. Both Pinkie and Cheese (who is still very ill but is making progress) train her in the ways of entertainment. Berry also goes by her unofficial title as ‘The Princess of Parties’.

Bits and Pieces;

Ever since getting her cutie mark, Berry’s confidence improved. She even challenges Pinkie to a Goof Off every now and again. There’s yet to be a decided winner.

Pinkie’s baby name for Berry is ‘Berry Baby’. Berry isn’t entirely found of it but Cheese gets away with calling her that.

Berry’s full name is Raspberry Bubblegum Sparkle Pie.

Berry’s nickname among friends is ‘Bubs’.

Berry’s best friend is Forelle. Berry is one of the few ponies who doesn’t act awkward over Forelle’s blindness and is the only one who gets away with joking about it.

Berry is the only one out of the whole next gen to have different coloured eyes. The left is pink and the right is purple.

Despite being high strung, Berry care very deeply for her friends and family. She loves to make them happy, even just a little and keeps a little scrap book of everyone’s favourite things called ‘The Happy Book’.

Just like Pinkie, Berry has appalling table manners.

When Berry got her cutie mark, she screamed excitedly for a while, joined by Bright when she showed it off to her.

Bright and Berry often squabble as sisters do. Bright is more logically thinking while Berry is more emotional driven. However, they bond over planning parties and charity events. Before Cheese became ill, their favourite time of the year was summer when they would attend Cheese’s party expeditions.

Berry gained her father’s height and is significantly taller than Bright as a teen. Her body type is similar to Luna or Fleur de Lis.

Since they have two mothers, Bright and Berry call Pinkie ‘Mom’ and Twilight ‘Mama’.

Berry is deathly afraid of any kind of bugs and insects. This was due to a childhood prank on her from Lickety-Split, who dumped Lucky Bug’s collection of bugs on top of her. Since then, she cannot even look at a pretty butterfly without screaming blue murder. Bright often has to ‘rescue’ Berry from bugs since their castle is full of them.

Berry Bubblegum © Me

My Little Pony © Hasbro

[latinalesbi]

Bradley and Peter admitted they knew in October re cancellation and spinoff. Awkward chat on the tv insider podcast. You were right!! Poor Sherri et al still pushing for season 6 back then. It was all money related apparently.

I keep losing the replies to these questions. I am going to probably be brief.

Yeah, these guys are liars. And it breaks my heart to think of Sherri still trying to get this renewed in January. They were committed to the show and I am happy to see them working because their talent was too good for all involved.

Anonymous said:                                                                      I’m excited for the eps the moms will be in. I haven’t watched the spinoff so far so i have no real context re storylines but I don’t care, just to see them back will be awesome. Maybe certain people will realise just how great and missed they are 😜            

I mean, I am not one who thinks that anything we do will bring them back more often or at all. But yes, I look forward to them being on and getting any kind of recognition. They deserve it. The problem I fear is that they have probably shared the best scenes. All we are going to be left with is the moms propping up this shitty cast. I think they will especially be targeted to prop up the new lesbian icon.

Anonymous said:                                                                      Why wasn’t Freeform and the producers of the Fosters not called out for the blatant ageism that took place? Older women clearly not welcome on the network even though their characters probably had more effect socially than anything else they produced. The Stef and Lena characters were groundbreaking imo. There was no reason for the cancellation as the ratings were good. The network won’t survive much longer with whomever makes the decisions in charge.    

It was blatant, and I tried to point that out. I read recently that Gen Xers are ignored by media, so this would def. fit that narrative. We are silenced. Stef and Lena were absolutely groundbreaking and for a couple to be the lead, married, solid for 5 years. You aren’t going to see that for a long time. Freeform is in a freedive to hell. No one there can run a business. The thing about Stef and Lena is that they were so socially relevant that they hit the nail on the head. Since then, they’ve been trying to be socially relevant and they just are pathetic doing it. Trying so hard, ticking all the boxes. 

Anonymous said:                                                                      Upsetting your fan base that you took five years to build up was never going to be a sensible idea. Then in promoting your new show you dismiss your old show by making it sound like it was for children. Madness.      

Absolute madness, where do they think they were going to get an audience? They had a base, but they just insulted everyone. Idiots.

Anonymous said:                                                                      I watched an interview Maia and Cierra did on KTLA re GT- They basically admitted they knew before it was going to happen ‘ we had an idea’ ‘we knew it was in the works’ ‘the opportunity had popped up’ lol… all the lies we were told this time last year, it’s funny now. The creators have been the same too. They just handled the whole thing so badly, was it worth it considering how their ratings are tanking - I’m sure they’ll put a ‘spin’ on it but nope!   

More proof. People doubted me when I said it but basically they were planning it from late summer, then they signed deals in October. Sherri is still tweeting about renewal in January, while the cows had stopped doing so. Then came both news and they announced it in the worst possible way. I hate them. I am glad it’s not looking good. Freeform has released a press release for every premiere this year, not for GT. There is nothing they can spin to look good. And they would if they could. Yesterday showed the precious demo dropping again, 12%. Awful.

Anonymous said:                                                                      Hypothetical question but if and it’s a big if GT gets cancelled (don’t think it will as it would be a big dud for Freeform) I wonder if the producers would regret having started the whole thing. I guess it’s a business at the end of the day and they get paid but all the sh*t it caused and still is they must have been affected by it I think. They had a lovely little fandom in comparison to other shows and they kinda ruined it. There is still so much animosity a year on from the decision. 

I think Freeform already has regrets about Noah. They should have signed him when they had the chance. They really hung their coats on the worst of the cast. Idiots. The producers won’t ever admit it. According to Joanna, I am not really gay, Johnson, working with the judge actor is the highlight of her career. Ok girl. Yeah our fandom was nice and small but active. GT can’t get GT trending at all. Not top 20 nationally, nothing.

Anonymous said:                                                                      The Fosters ratings were always good for Freeform that’s why it was so weird the cancelled it. They were always so stable. For a network struggling it was a strange thing to do. I’ve heard money was an issue, but apart from the casts wages they didn’t seem to spend anywhere near as much as they have done on the spinoff. Look at the director they chose for the pilot. Do Freeform hate family dramas that much?        

I think part of it was that Freeform didn’t own the show so they didn’t get as much money. The other part was that it was on Netflix, they didn’t have a deal with Hulu and it seems Freeform is exclusively on Hulu. They dumped us and shadowhunters, which was also on Netflix. I think that they would eat the loss if it meant the ratings and critics favor that the Fosters generated. But it’s clear, whoever runs freeform doesn’t know anything at all.

Anonymous said:                                                                      They can’t spin those ratings, they are sooo bad. All the money they spent on promotion I got sick of seeing it. Will people really not watch the moms episodes live do you think? I’m torn, I don’t want to give the show ratings considering how they treated the rest of the cast but I also want the ratings to go up to say ‘see look what you lost getting rid of the moms’ I have seen that those who have had advanced previews of the first 5 ep’s of Good Trouble says the moms episode is the best!!!!   

The ratings are so bad. And they spent tons on promotion. I think it doesn’t hurt the moms but if it goes up, it’s good things for Sherri and Teri. I am sure when they come in, they will give the show heart and then when they’re gone it will go.

Anonymous said:                                                                      Hated it too how they belittle The Fosters. If FF were so willingly to give them free reign for GT why not The Fosters. You chose the storylines. Instead we had repetitive Callie getting in trouble whilst trying to save the world-yawn! Weirdly the tweet that pissed me off was back in Dec, Joanna- Smthg along the lines of ‘didn’t think I could love a cast more than the Fosters but I do’ -you worked with those people, ur family for 5seasons you’ve been with those people a few months -fickle as f! 

Yeah, it sucks that they have chosen to bad mouth the fosters. It’s not helping them. There’s no need to do that. I think it just shows how all of them hated writing for Stef and Lena. Joanna is a traitor and a liar. No wonder she’s in such a frigid marriage. I don’t think it’s being fickle though, it’s more like fake. They haven’t worked for long and already a family. You want to hear Hollywood honesty? Listen to Teri and Sherri. Sherri will tell you that she didn’t know what to do with Teri for a long time, then it was like. bam, forever love.

Anonymous said:                                                                      I made an effort to watch the first good trouble episode but honestly made literally no effort to watch the second. I might watch it, if there’s nothing on tv that sounds good, but I’m not exactly planning on it.             

I am like on a forever boycott of Freeform. So, yeah, I would rather watch youtube than Freeform.