#BUT because it's so obviously a trick here (and *not* a bad case of ooc writing) i find it hilarious and kind of adorable

[xxgothchatonxx]

No deep thinky-thoughts - just Cagula’s sad puppy eyes :(

oh I have Thoughts about this part right here! But I’ll shut the hell up for once and just leave this funny post alone 😂

[ayayabaroque]

AcademicRival!reader x Alhaitham???

 im revisiting my childhood by listening to sum music Inspired by Nadarang because i was doing some journaling and i got an Alhaitham sticker recently and made me think rlly rlly hard. Like hard hard CW; slight-kinda iksekai’d au?, heavily implied filipino reader, slight archon quest spoilers(or not, but still putting it here in case cuz i might write smt i dont mean to), reader studies in the Akademiya, ooc Alhaitham??, crackfic-ish, not close to canon lore because i cant write for shit because of God knows what. somewhat swearing in filipino, modern au

It’s unbelievable how the Akademiya’s Scribe chooses to show off to you out of all the scholars he could choose as a “rival”. You had a really, really hard time keeping up with whatever tricks he’s got up his sleeve to “impress” you... “You ought to fix your posture, a proper scholar never slumps even with a ridiculous amount of theses and presentations due by the end of the week.” Stupid scribe, he doesn’t even get to report the same projects you’re working on, since he only record the Sage’s meetings or something close to that- “Are you even listening? Or do we repeat the lesson again since your pea brain doesn’t comprehend what you’re supposed to do as my assistant?” Blue-gray irises stare at you, obviously waiting for an answer. “Well?” “I’m not that stupid. I just spaced out for a bit since your voice irritates me to the point I should acquire special earmuffs just for you.” “How sweet. You’re actually self-aware of what I go through every session with you.” WHAT. He did not just use your insult to insult you so, would insulting him insult yourself since the insult was yours but he insulted you with it???? “ULOL POKENGINAMO BOBO KINGINA MO TANGINA KA HAYOP DEPUTA KA GAGO PAKYU BETCH” “?????????? what” “actually i want you to explain chapter 5 until 74 please, I don’t get what the lesson’s supposed to be” “Now that you mention it, you do seem like the type of idiot to require special attention to understand a topic.” how dareness?? Your eyes blown wide, you ask him— “Tinatawag mo ba akong lutang putangina ka?” “Are you calling me light-headed you mother fucker?” “Whatever you learnt in whatever universe you came from, I sure don’t understand what little complex language you’re saying right now.” “fuck you bi—” He always suggests you to have a one-on-one study session with him, if your schedule’s full, too bad that you’ll have to cancel everything because you’ll never win in reasoning with him. “You’re here again?? You know I can’t stay away from your bright demeanor, right?” “tf did you just steal a line from Shanti Dope??” “Okay so?????????” But really, he can’t stay away from you even for the love of his life. He wouldn’t admit to it though. i should stop writing based off of what music i listen to ngl

[kirisaki-daichi-scenarios]

a discussion of jabberwock with team interaction hcs + deeper nash analysis

for anon who asked "Can we get some headcanons for jabberwock members or like headcanons when they're together? (its okay if it was jason or nash only)" and made me realise it's about time i get these guys' personalities down

note before we start: cause i didn't know their names until i wrote this

zack is the bald one, allen is the one with a headband, nick is the other white guy apart from nash.

team hcs

nick gets bullied for being under 6ft, but not by jason

nah good old jason teases all of them for being short fucks, emphasising that they’re all 5ft tall in comparison to him

he 100% lifts things out of the others' reach and then laughs for ages after when they try get them

unfortunately though, they’re all used to this and now just ignore him. either that or nash stares at him so intensely jason actually repents and hands it back

zack’s another one with a very good glare, but he’s used it too often on jason and it’s since stopped working.

also jason gives me ‘straightens his back as much as possible when getting measured so he’ll measure in as 7ft’ vibes

oh and he thinks he could wrestle a gator and win. i’ve got no explanation for that except for the fact you can't tell me it's ooc.

allen’s very protective over his white headband - it’s his lucky item - but he’d never let anyone know that

he’s confident in his abilities like the rest of them, but there’s nothing wrong with wearing a headband just in case

(nash knows anyway)

they watch nba matches together and do not shut up once throughout the entire match - lots of jeering, booing each other if someone criticises a player they like, lots of “i could do that”, lots of “get your fucking hand out of my popcorn do you want me to punch you in the face” etc

they used to all live together, but nash has since moved out. he was sick and tired of trying to make people do chores, as the only one who kept their room clean.

yeah the others’ house looks like a heap of trash but also very much “where’s my toothbrush?” “it’s in the third coke can by the orange peel behind the sink” *silence* “yeah thanks” *a minute later* “who the fuck has been using my toothbrush”

they’re all “bro your dribbling sucks why are you on this team loser” to one another, but also very protective (aka arrogant for one another) if anyone else Dared to criticise one of their teammates

then again, what kind of person would criticise jabberwock

half of the time he spends with jabberwock, nash is a Single Mother TM trying to get a bunch of man children to behave; the other half of the time, he's just as bad as the rest of them

i talk about this a lot but i get the feeling nash is an exceptionally hard worker, but at least he gets to let his hair down around his teammates sometimes

nash is also the only person jason thought was truly ‘strong’ at first sight

and nash is also the only person who can beat jason in a fight, and also the only person who can get nash to train, and also the only person who can.. [etc. you see my point].

(n.b jason calls himself the ‘almighty me’, nash says that ‘even god can’t beat me’. point made.)

you know how jason silver’s motto is “I have never thought”

imagine him proudly stating that, before zack adds with a straight face, “yeah cause nash does it for you.”

in short, the team would fall apart without nash.

although the team’s communication and coordination is very fine tuned, nash is the guy who keeps everything in order off the court to prevent what is essentially a team of aces ('main characters', if you will) from falling apart

they hang out together a lot, but do all have other friend groups that do not overlap

team bbqs

unofficial rule not to criticise anchovies on pizza because the one time nick did, nash snapped

however pineapple on pizza is fair game, even though zack quite likes it

more than once, jason has brought a girl home and nick has stolen her attention away with effortless trick shots, funky ball manoeuvring etc

more than once nick has had to trek to nash’s place (with a black eye) at midnight to have somewhere to sleep

do you see a correlation?

oh and everyone in the team has been walked in on by nash when they were naked with some girl

nash has absolutely no shame

he apologises to the girl with a charming albeit insincere tone, and then remains standing in front of the bed/couch until his teammate does what he expected of them

usually it involves not having come to practice

allen learnt a few (emphasis on ‘few’) words of japanese before they travelled to japan and was disappointed that he never got to use them

that said, one of those words was hentai

and now a quick analysis of some panels

a) so there's at least one player who wasn't underestimating vorpal swords. if i were to overanalyse, i'd add that nick's wearing a hoodie (possibly athletic wear) whilst nash has a 'fancy' shirt on; perhaps nick wasn't expecting them to be going to host clubs instead of chilling/training?

b) i know what you're thinking: "how can you say nash is a hard worker when he didn't want to practice for the match". i reckon he was still pretty high on the complete and utter success of their previous match, that plus being around girls, encouraged him to have a more 'jason-y' personality. (either that or fujimaki didn't want to add too much depth/realism into nash's character bc he's unequivocally the villain, right? and obviously this helps with the plot and the jabberwock bad geniuses gom good geniuses rhetoric.)

earlier, i mentioned how nash is the only one that could keep the team together, and is thus the undeniable head of the team; here's a clear example. you can see both jason and zack have no interest in continuing - if anything, there's disgust in their faces, kinda just saying "we spat on all of japan, now we can go home". whereas nash won't allow for the slightest of possibilities that there might exist a team stronger than them, and hence agrees to the match. the key thing here is that the others do as he says without too much fuss.

another thing to note is nash's reference to harakiri. now what can we make of that, alongside his proficiency in japanese, in relation to his character? the way i see it, he's either a weeb or possibly has some japanese lineage. (you could spin that even further and say his mother was japanese, taught him the language, then abandoned him, and hence his almost excessive hatred/mockery of the japanese people.) (is that why he wanted to do another match in japan..?)

just a quick point. "thanks to him" - jason isn't so superior as to think that he could win this match effortlessly without nash's support. links pretty nicely with my earlier idea about how nash is the only person jason has always considered 100% strong.

yet another point about how nash is the strongest of the team in pretty much every way you can think of. you know how scary/powerful you have to be to shut jason up (after he's getting real pissed from being prevented from scoring?)

i personally think this is a pretty important panel, though i've never seen anyone mention it before. did nash grow up training in a professional basketball training situation, as opposed to growing up playing streetball like i suspect the others did? well, to answer that question, imma bring in another panel.

here we see visible rage on nick, zack and jason's faces - they can't accept their loss, which is fair enough. but i'd argue that nash's face seems to depict sadness more than it does anger like to rest of them, look at how downturned his mouth is - and he's looking away from the 'camera', as if hiding his shame.

when you combine that with what he says here, i have no doubt that this is someone who has experienced some proper lows in basketball - as would be expected from someone who's played 'properly'. he's possibly not even a prodigy like the rest of them - compare jason's motto with his. "i have never thought" versus "do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door".

there's various lines of thinking you could design with this - he might have been trained by alex (hence, himuro having heard of jabberwock, though he should have known of a team as popular of jabberwock regardless), he might have grown up with professional basketballer parents etc. but here's my own little theory:

nash received serious basketball training from early on - maybe because his parents were living vicariously through him, or maybe he always loved the sport and wanted to be no1. so there he was training away, but, as he grew older, it started getting all a bit too much.

he didn't want to dedicate his entire life to basketball. after all, his hobby is water sports and his speciality is boxing; that's a lot of different things to be keeping up with, whereas the pipeline for promising athletes demands people focus solely on basketball. as a result, nash become bitter: stopped attending practice regularly, got in trouble for trash talk of increasing severity, etc.

result was he was kicked out of the program.

only when he was no longer playing basketball again, did he realise how much he missed it. and hence he got into streetball, where he was tremendously successful as someone with so much training, 'elite skills', and the overly confident attitude to boot.

then, one fateful day, he met jason and the rest is history.

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

RWBY vs Comic

Alright, I said I was gonna do this back when the comic first started getting published but I got so frustrated reading it that I couldn’t actually keep up with it enough go through with it. I think I stopped around issue 4 because that was when I just got angry and threw my comic back into the plastic. I figure now’s as good a time as any since I’m actually rereading it now. My whole issue with the RWBY DC comics is that they’re super canon divergent but somehow still canon material. It’s so frustrating that this is the case because we’re supposed to take into account things that happen in the comic as gospel- things like Adam revealing he’d always been genocidal, Bumbleby’s bottlecap, Weiss’ zoo animal arc, etc, but a lot of these different story arcs don’t make sense in our current canon. So I’m gonna talk about them because why not.

 Issue #1:

The first issue actually isn’t that bad- mostly because it’s just an intro to the series- but there are still some huge inconsistencies between the comic and official canon.

These two panels are a fucking mess.

1) Ruby was passed out when she was delivered to Patch by Qrow. She’d just used her Silver Eyed Warrior powers for the first time, hurt Cinder, frozen the dragon, and passed out. We were literally forced to listen as Qrow carried Ruby out of the rubble and back home, because she was unconscious. But the comic has her just arriving back home all on her own. “I came back to my dad’s house.” No you didn’t, you literally woke up in your bed after what must’ve been days of being unconscious.

2) We know Blake didn’t get to Menagerie on a little wooden boat. We all watched the episode. It was a decent sized ship with multiple crew members, dozens of passengers, and literal armaments designed to destroy Grimm. Sun can’t hide in a robe for 3+ days on this boat. This boat wouldn’t have survived a Grimm attack in the first place. Idk why they decided to draw this boat instead of just drawing the Pride the way it was designed in the first place, but whatever I guess.

RNJR didn’t tell Taiyang they were leaving. Ruby and her team just left. There was a whole scene dedicated to showing the shock and horror on Tai’s face as he saw Ruby’s letter and ran out of the house hoping to catch up to his daughter before she left. Also not as important but still relevant, RNJR left during winter. There was snow on the ground. I don’t see no snow in this panel- that tree looks real green. That last issue is mostly a nitpick- who cares what season they left in tbh. But the fact that they just wrote this panel into the comic despite the fact canon shows Taiyang had no idea of Ruby’s departure- and the fact that Ruby’s departure is actually really important to a bunch of later scenes in this show is really fucking weird.

Issue #2:

I know we know next to nothing about Raven Branwen, but holy fucking shit do I wanna believe this is ridiculously out of character for her. You’re telling me that Raven actually did come visit Yang and Tai and Ruby, but the one time she ever made her presence known to any of them was to berate and terrify Ruby the one time she’d learned anything about Summer?! Like BRO. This is so fucked up! This is too fucked up! This is straight early 90′s level villainy right here. What was even the point behind this?! This scene tells us that she felt so negatively about Summer Rose that she was willing to break her silent cover just to disillusion Ruby for no other reason than to tell her she was weak. Which makes no fucking sense because when we finally meet her during season 5 Raven has nothing bad to say about Summer at all! What did Qrow say to her after they spoke? “Hey sis why the fuck are you flying around your ex’s home scaring his daughter who just lost her mother? You realize you’re talking shit about the woman who raised your child too right?” Like, this is so wildly terrible, that if we’re meant to take this into account, I don’t see how anyone who reads these comics could say anything positive about Raven ever again. This is strike one, two and three for her entire characterization.

Issue #4:

I’ve said it already but fuck this boat.

Not so much an issue with the comic as it is with RoosterTeeth’s sometimes sloppy storytelling, but we really need an exact age on Adam. Is this man a pedophile? We know Blake is about twelve here, meanwhile- besides looking maybe a little scrawnier- Adam looks the same as he did during the show. How old is this kid right here? Fifteen? Seventeen? Was he 20 during the events of volume 1? Was he 25? I really dislike this specific problem RT has created because at no point during canon were we led to believe that Adam was significantly older than Blake or our other characters, but here in the comic we’re getting huge pedo vibes. Idk if this was RoosterTeeth retroactively trying to throw Adam’s character even further into question but... Idk man, RT y’all need to hurry up and carbon date this kid because I’m really not liking this.

I’m not gonna harp on the whole “Adam as a revolutionary vs Adam as a genocidal maniac” issue again. Most of y’all already know where I stand on this and have either made up your minds that either, yes, Adam’s sudden change towards being genocidal after being forcibly conscripted by Cinder doesn’t make much sense, or, no, Adam’s behavior is entirely in line with what little we’d seen of him up to that point in the story. I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinions on this issue, I’ve got about a dozen other posts for that. My issue with these panels specifically is that this is the moment Blake discovers Adam is genocidal. This is the moment Blake realizes that Adam never wanted peace, never wanted coexistence, never wanted what the White Fang actually wanted in the first place. He wanted Faunus supremacy- a goal entirely removed from the White Fang’s goal of equality between Faunus and humans. This is the moment Blake realizes that his ideology is so far from what it is she herself wants. If this is correct, why does Blake never mention this AT ALL when she’s talking about Adam. When the conversation comes up during season 3, she specifically states that Adam’s change was gradual. Not that he’d been hiding who he really was from her but that he’d become a completely different person from the man she’d originally known. I recognize that a lot of people say that this could be explained away as evidence of Blake’s abuse- oftentimes abusers don’t even realize just how monstrous their abusers are, even after they’ve escaped from said abuse. But this is just such a monumentally larger issue than manipulation and abuse. Adam is outright saying that he wants genocide! He’s not trying to hide it, he’s not trying to lie, he’s not trying to manipulate her! He’s telling her explicitly that he wishes he could kill as many humans as possible. But during the Black Trailer she’s still asking Adam about the crew members as if they hadn’t had this conversation hours ago! During season 2 she’s drawing him in her notebook as if she misses him! During season 3 she’s explaining that he’s simply misguided! This is apologia of the umpteenth level that is absolutely inexcusable. If I’m honestly supposed to be made to believe that Blake knew Adam was genocidal from before the events of the Black trailer and season 1 but still had feelings for him... I’m sorry but I’ve lost any and all respect for her entire character. You can’t have feelings for someone who’s genocidal- who you know is genocidal- and expect sympathy. No amount of abuse would forgive someone for having feelings for Hitler.

I recognize the comics aren’t supposed to be a shot for shot recreation of the show, but what the fuck is this panel? The frame of Adam dismembering Yang was such a good, amazing, impactful frame. The black and red framing, the yellow of Yang’s hair and weapons, the red of Adam’s sword. Why would you not even try to recreate that?

Leaving nitpicks for the end, really wish they hadn’t used “sunflower” here. That’s Yang/Ren. But again, the comic is made by people who aren’t in the fndm and don’t interact with the RWBY community at large in the first place, so of course they wouldn’t know.

Issue #5:

Why does Blake seem so ooc here. Like, the fact that she’s trying to make Weiss feel guilty for “cheating” in a “win by any means necessary” free for all match is really??? Weird??? When we know Blake isn’t above using underhanded tricks herself considering what she did to Reese during the tournament and her Semblance in general??? But whatever, that’s mostly a nitpick as well.

Issue #7:

My issue with this story is that it ends with Yang like, wistfully thinking of spending more time with Blake. But this is before she even put the prosthetic on. This is before she even got to talk with Weiss after meeting up with Raven. This is so early on in her healing process that I find it extremely difficult to believe that Yang is fondly remembering any time she spent with Blake. When Ruby talks to her during 3.12, she was angry that Blake had left her! Abandoned her! And then in the conversation she has with Weiss that happens after this event in the comic she’s still frustrated with Blake for leaving. So like... did she suddenly forgive Blake just a few weeks into her recovery and then relapse back into feeling like she’d abandoned her? Wtf is this?

Issue #9:

I know she’s obviously supposed to be drunk here, and we barely got to know her during the short scenes she had, but like... she never struck me as this kind of person. To literally forget how old her daughter is? Like...???? The same woman who was so perceptive she was able to recognize that Whitley was acting out because he’d felt lonely and abandoned by his sisters? Doesn’t know how old one of her children is? This is silly.

This isn’t the same woman we met during season 7. This isn’t the same quick witted woman who immediately directed Weiss to the cameras she’d hidden around the house when it was time to spring the trap on Jacques. This isn’t the same woman who was so honest when she admitted to her own faults just a few short months after this scene supposedly took place. You could argue that the events of this comic are what led Willow to become the person we meet later on, but like... That’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of offscreen growth you’re expecting me to just assume has happened. These aren’t the same people. This is ridiculous.

Issue #12:

This seems so ooc for Sun. Why is he literally begging her to run away and not face a problem when his entire relationship with Blake up to and past this point is him teaching Blake to love herself enough to face her problems head-on in the first place? This is so weird and gross imo because it just feels like they’re warping Sun’s character to make it look like Yang is the only good influence in her life when that’s simply not the case. Every conversation Sun has with Blake from season 1 to season 6 is him telling her that she deserves happiness, love, and to forgive herself. There are multiple songs about this aspect of their relationship! Sun has helped Blake grow just as much as Yang has. Why is Sun taking this approach to manipulate Blake into staying silent about something that’s bothering her? On top of that, Sun’s never been the brightest banana of the bunch anyway, why the FUCK is he smart enough here to recognize that if Blake tells the truth and makes those people feel bad, that they’d draw more Grimm? He’s never been this intuitive before. It really feels like they made him smarter than he normally is just to make him scummier than he’s ever been so that we could feel that Blake’s relationship with Sun is less than her relationship with Yang. Awful writing and characterization from the RWBY DC team here

Issue #13:

This is so wrong and despicable and manipulative and terrible. Again, this isn’t the same woman we met in the show. 

Willow never made excuses for herself or her actions like this. Not once during the entire time she was on screen did she do anything like this. She knew she wasn’t a great mother and she took full responsibility for her actions- and inaction- I don’t know WHY she’s trying to excuse herself here. This is more Cruella De Ville than it is Willow Schnee.

I’m not gonna explain how lumping this “prized menagerie” story with “Faunus slave labor” story together is godawful but just recognize that it’s Black History Month and this plot point they decided to write in is not MLK approved.

Anyway, that’s the whole RWBY DC run. All in all it wasn’t the worst adaptation of an established series, but goddamn. I’d rank this up there with Eragon or Percy Jackson or the end of the Soul Eater anime or something. This is such a slap in the face by people who obviously only ever skimmed through the show for the explicit purpose of writing this series that I’ve read fancomics and fanfiction that handle canon better than this. It’s really frustrating too because this comic run is like, beloved by certain people in the fndm who are only in this for the ships, and people who refuse to see anything wrong with this series ever. The healthy servings of Bumbleby and crumbs of Monochrome and White Rose are apparently enough to make people go “fuck all the inconsistencies, this comic is great.” Cannot express how much these people make me wanna slam my head into a wall. 

I did this just to highlight all the issues I have with the run, but I’m sure other people have other issues with this comic than I do. Have fun in the comments I guess.

[brave-clarice]

“Clarice” Liveblog: Episode 2

Again, some extremely unfashionably late hot takes.

(Special thanks to @kathrynethegreat and @special-agent-pendragon​ for encouraging another liveblog!)

Clarice is working out! And eating junk food! I love it.

and cleaning her gun!

hey, Ardelia is drinking what I’m going to assume is her grandmother’s “smart people tea”.

Krendler disciplining Clarice already is infuriating but appropriate.

“I lost control.” Oh no, I don’t like that. Don’t make Clarice unstable. Her mental and emotional state never had anything to do with her failing career.

getting weird mixed signals from Ardelia. Last week, she obviously didn’t want Clarice to lie/stick to the script Krendler gave her, but now she’s telling Clarice she messed up by not doing so...?

“I better know you if you’re calling this early.” Amen, Ardelia.

I’m in love: this cinematography is straight out of the film (when she’s flying to WV with Crawford)!

“When’s the last time you went back to Appalachia?” “It’s been years.” What??? It has NOT been years--Clarice was JUST in West Virginia last week as well as in Silence, and she arguably attended college there as well. (UVA is at least nestled in the mountains, and you don’t have to drive far outside the Albemarle Valley to hit Appalachia proper.) After all the details about her character they’ve been nailing, they miss this glaring error? 

I like the tiny details she’s noticing (like the guy biting his nails). Not only because she’s an investigator, but because it’s reminiscent of Hannibal’s influence (imo).

Clarice Is Short: The Saga continues

still not getting any creepy vibes off Krendler. He’s going to be much less effective as an antagonist if he isn’t lewd as well as a dick.

I really don’t care for the way the opening “credits” fade out from the death’s-head moth to Clarice’s face. There are MANY animals that represent her, or parts of her, in the books--lions, lambs, horses, and of course birds--so this choice feels empty and lazy to me.

also lazy: having a fellow agent straight-up tell her in episode 2 “you shouldn’t be in the Bureau.” Maybe in two or three years, after some further “Death Angel”-type incidents, I could see this blatant rudeness, but not yet.

“Reesey”? Thanks, I hate it.

this flashback must be of Clarice’s little brother. That answers one question I had last week. That said...Clarice’s brother doesn’t play the same role in her story that Mischa does in Hannibal’s--but this sure feels like a Mischa-esque flashback.

good: they’re finally getting to the source of Clarice’s actual trauma!

bad: this is NOT how Clarice found out about her father. In fact, that whole incident is laid out in detail in the novels, and there’s nothing overly literary/un-cinematic about it, so this feels unnecessary. “The police are here! Something happened to Daddy!” No, bad! Show, don’t tell!

she would’ve known better than to introduce herself to that kid as “Clarice Starling, FBI,” come on now.

were they regularly able to wire tap hair clips in 1993? 

actually, nothing in this show looks very 90s to me so far. I’m sad about it.

so in eighteen months, Ruth Martin has gone from a junior Senator to the Attorney freakin’ General, and now she might run for governor?? At least let her get settled in one position of power first, why don’t you!

yet more Buffalo Bill flashbacks...alas.

are they trying to make this guy another surrogate Hannibal character? He’s commenting on Clarice’s accent and the dryness of her skin, asking about who she “left behind”...it all feels very Hannibal. (I know he’s a Charismatic Cult Leader trope, too--but when played off of Clarice...)

“Ew.” “I hate this guy.” I laughed.

I understand that Clarice probably feels conflicted re: her siblings in the book, but I’m really not digging the flashbacks of this Tim Burton character her brother.

@ the writers: Clarice already has the lamb backstory/symbolism, too. We don’t need this Little Brother stuff.

*shrieking* Mrs. Starling! At the sink washing the blood out of his hat!!! 

...aaand they had to ruin it with the brother’s painfully bad dialogue. Will still be good for gif-making, though.

are we supposed to interpret all these flashbacks as Clarice being incapable of controlling her emotions/state of mind? She keeps losing herself in memories and emerging all doe-eyed and panicky. I don’t like it.

not to be a broken record but...Clarice should be TOUGH. Again, Ardelia only saw her cry once in seven years. But she’s more worked up in this scene than Jodie was in Memphis!

when Mr. Cult Leader shouts “Agent Starling! Agent Starling!” he sounds exactly like Hannibal calling her back to his cell in the asylum. That has to be intentional. 

damn, wish that I could look as good five minutes after I’ve been crying as Clarice does.

I LOVE that Ardelia gets to be the crucial behind-the-scenes book-smart partner to Clarice’s action heroine.

AG Martin’s just playing politics by turning a blind eye to the crooked sheriff. But when her own daughter was just kidnapped and almost killed, she looks like a real hypocrite.

gosh, Rebecca Breeds is great. I already hope she gets nominated for an Emmy.

so Krendler is...doing the right thing???

Clarice’s father was definitely not a sheriff. I hope she’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect. (Maybe this will be clarified later.)

she couldn’t just sit with a manipulative guy without getting emotional, but she’s cool as a cucumber while telling an extended story about her father? HmmMM.

sometimes her mannerisms and facial expressions are so much like Jodie’s that it’s uncanny, like here when she leans forward to confront the Cult Leader.

“She did it.” Damn straight!

another great callback to Silence. this show’s camera crew knows its stuff!

“He’s concerned I have some residual trauma from Bill.” I. Hate. This. Subplot--and all its OOC implications.

“Catherine was close to her father, too.” Ooh, a nice allusion to the novel! Clarice makes note of their “common wound,” the loss of a father, when she’s in Catherine’s apartment in Silence.

she is just SO pretty.

little Clarice looks a LOT like Rebecca Breeds. I hope we see some more of her. 

The Good:

the continuing visual nods to the Silence film via cinematography

Mama Starling!!!

Clarice’s “The World Will Not Be This Way Within the Reach of my Arm” attitude, refusing to leave without helping the victims.

Ardelia Mapp coming in clutch! 

Clarice being, generally, a badass

and using psychological tricks/mind games to pin the antagonist...that’s the woman who disarmed a monster with just a few words.

Rebecca Breed’s acting has been phenomenal so far.

I like Clarice’s haircut a lot better when worn down (though it’s not very practical for fieldwork, so we probably won’t see it much).

The Bad:

the continuing Buffalo Bill-related Trauma Subplot. Ugh.

all the flashbacks to Clarice’s brother (and the not-so-subtle suggestion that her brother is, symbolically, another lamb).

will the real Paul Krendler please come forward? this guy is so TAME.

the other agents’ hostility towards Clarice needs to be toned down slightly so that it can escalate. Otherwise, where’s the tension?

is this actually 1993? I’m not feeling it. Shouldn’t it have a little of that Season 1/2 X-Files aesthetic? Please give me more than once-an-episode references to pagers and fax machines!

that glaring Appalachia continuity error...it’s still bugging me.

I missed the overt Hannibal references, even though they’re not necessary to any part of this episode. A lady can dream!

Overall, I really liked this one despite my various issues with it. It started shakily but built to a great finish. The emphasis across both episodes on Clarice being in the FBI not just to “get out, get anywhere,” but out of a genuine desire to help victims has been wonderful. I just hope they don’t swerve too far into the “too traumatized and emotionally compromised to function” lane. It would be a disservice to Clarice’s character and to her journey (and would smack too much of “Hannibal really did prey on her weak mind/brainwash her”.

Things I’d still like to see: More of her personality. Her hobbies and interests. That she’s cleaning her gun is great! Now let’s see “Poison Oakley” practicing her sharpshooting skills. Or car shopping. Or clothes shopping to show off her “developing taste.” (Ardelia can come!) I’ll take literally anything. Give us more of Clarice’s sense of humor as well. She had some subtle funny moments in the pilot, and it’s nice to see Rebecca smile for a change.

And Krendler? Smear that man in grease! I appreciated a happy ending even though Clarice’s career is, as we know, already in a downward spiral--the last thing we want is for every episode to be a slog, especially when a good chunk of the audience hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know Clarice is doomed to fail in the Bureau.

However... Krendler’s not a “redemption arc” kind of character. Or even a “run-of-the-mill sexist asshole” character. This is a man who spent seven years systematically sabotaging a young woman’s career because a) he was jealous that she solved the Gumb case before him, and b) she wouldn’t fuck him. He was a Justice Department official working fist-in-glove with a serial child molester who was planning some of the heinous vigilante justice imaginable. THAT’S why his very gruesome end at Hannibal’s hands felt deserved--even Clarice thought so! In short, he needs to get nasty.

Anyway, thanks for coming to another long-overdue TedTalk. Fingers crossed that the next one will be more timely (aiming for Sunday night)! 

[e-vasong]

Can I ask about your writing process?

Huge fan of your TUA fics here - the way you just GET the characters is incredible - its almost like reading a novel written by the actual show writers!

How do you go about your characterisation and your drafting process? Any tips on nailing the complexities of the characters (specifically five)?

Thanks!!!

:') This is literally so nice I don't know how to respond, oh my goodness. I wish I had, like, life-altering writing wisdom for you here, but I honestly feel like my entire process is kind of a mess. I'll share it with you anyways, though, just in case you can glean anything helpful from it. I’ll tuck it below a cut, but here it is (ft. some of my specific characterization notes on Five, since you asked :D).

Pre-draft: Concept stage! This can be a variety of things -- sometimes it's a specific scene. For me it's usually a challenge of some sort. I like to take things that I think are unlikely for a character (under what circumstances would [x] character ever become a bad guy? How would [x] character’s secrets get revealed if they never talk willingly about their emotions?) Then I build out from there. I outline sometimes now, but I’ve been winging all my pieces for so long that it’s pretty tough for me. 

Draft one: Throw things at the wall. If I let myself, I will spend way too long agonizing on making every word perfect on the first go around, and I’ll never write anything. So draft one has permission to be as bad as it needs to be: sentence fragments, OOC dialogue/actions, clunky word choice, the whole nine yards. The most important thing is getting the words/scenes on the page.

Draft two: What sticks? Everyone is different -- I find it easier to edit than to write in the first place. So here’s where I look over my work from draft one. Is my sentence structure variable enough? How are their voices? Their actions? Does the narration work with the POV I’m using for the scene? 

Like, okay. I’m working on chapter two of the end of the war right now. Currently, it includes this line:

“How did you even—” Five starts, then shakes himself.  Absolutely not.  He isn’t entertaining this.  “Luther.”

In retrospect, I’m not wild about it. It doesn’t sound in character to me. I’m not pulling out receipts right now or anything, but the more I think about it, the more that I feel certain that Five rarely expresses surprise unless really shocked. Part of this is likely the contrast between him in his siblings (all the stuff about the Apocalypse and time travel is familiar to him and new to them, so the show has a lot of “Five explains [x] to his siblings while they look flabbergasted by him.”)

Anyways, it doesn’t sit right. So maybe, instead:

Five frowns, taken off guard. He could ask, but--quite frankly--he’s starting to think that he doesn’t want to know. He does, however, know what this is a preface to -- Luther is going to meddle. 

“Luther,” Five says it like a warning. Luther either doesn’t hear it or doesn’t care.

Anyways, rinse and repeat step two as much as necessary, and you basically have my entire drafting process.

Characterization, though, I have a more thorough process for!

Fanon and meta is super, super helpful, but I definitely prefer to look at canon first and foremost. I find it easiest to build characterization by asking myself questions about the character! I mean, don’t get me wrong. The first step is just to...get your own read on their personality? And there’s no trick to that. Everyone comes away from watching a show/reading a book with a slightly different interpretation of a character’s personality. But when building off of that to write them, I find questions helpful. They vary from fandom to fandom, but, like, here are some of the questions I’ve asked myself while writing Five.

What motivates them? For Five, this is a super easy one. He literally says it at multiple points throughout the show. He’s motivated by his family. To the point of wanting to save the world because they’re a part of it. Five troops through injury and pain and discomfort, but one reference from Handler about a deal to save his family is enough to coerce Five into 1 - working with her when he doesn’t want to and 2 - taking a job that he doesn’t seem like he wants to take.

How far are they willing to go to get it? For Five, he’s willing to do pretty much anything.

Are there any contradictions in their characterization? This is a weirdly specific question, but! People are inherently contradictory. Sometimes in TV or movies or books, it’s just bad writing. But sometimes it’s because people are complicated. So, in TUA, Five is consistently a big-picture thinker throughout the series. He seems to view his job at the Commission with apathy because he knows that it’s part of maintaining the timeline and necessary for him to get back home and stop the Apocalypse. He plans to kill an innocent person because he believes the butterfly effect of their death could stop the end of the world. He is, in many ways, a utilitarian -- the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The greater good sometimes requires a lesser evil. Pull the lever in the trolley problem, and kill the one to save the five. Unless that one is one of Five’s siblings. 

For instance, his dialogue with the Handler in season one seems to imply that he is willing to give up fighting the Apocalypse if and only if she can guarantee his siblings’ safety (though this admittedly turns on how honest you think he was being with her -- I think he was honest, but smart enough to know she’d never follow through, but a fair argument can be made either way.) There are a million ways to read this, and the fun of playing with characterization is that you get to experiment with them! I read it as proof that Five is so driven by his desire to save his siblings that he actually places their wellbeing above his own moral compass (whether his moral compass is right or wrong is a whole other debate.)

What are they like at their best vs. at their worst? At his best, Five is strategic, driven, independent, determined, loyal, and protective. At his worst, he’s controlling, suspicious, bloodthirsty, temperamental, and obsessive. Of course, most people don’t just switch between these two extremes, and these traits frequently coexist, interact, and manifest in milder ways.  Five being suspicious usually manifests as him being cautious until he’s confronted with a character (in season two, Lila) that strikes him the wrong way. Him being obsessive is often just a side product of the fact that he is determined, loyal, and protective.  The fact that he can be controlling is connected to how independent he can be -- the same reason that Five tries to keep Diego in the mental hospital, never tells people that he’s injured, and hides things from them is the same reason he’s so quick and effective at getting things done. This is just a handy way of compiling a flaws/virtues list, and I like to look at it in terms of the potential extremes because I think it makes it easier to see how they interact to create the middle ground where the character actually exists.

How do they talk? Arguably the most important question for actually getting their voice, and the easiest way to nail this down is to just...look at the canon dialogue. Does the character use really big words? Do they talk in long gusts or in short, clipped sentences?  Do they use contractions more or do they not shorten things? This is the hardest part of writing Five for me, because my first impulse is to make him talk like an Intellectual (tm) and Very Erudite Adult. Like, I default to that when writing him, and it’s a horrible habit (in my opinion) because...while he does speak that way sometimes (usually when explaining things to his siblings) that’s not actually how he talks most of the time.  (Like, for instance, I tend to default away from Five using contractions in my first drafts of things. He actually uses contractions a lot, and frequently shortens words--”got to” is “gotta” for Five, “because” becomes “‘cause”, etc.) 

Other examples:

Five: Billions of people are about to die tonight. You can change that.

The Handler: Tonight, tomorrow. So little difference in the scheme of things. Don't you remember the Commission's raison d'etre? What's meant to be is meant to be, or, as I like to say, que será, será.

Five: It's bullshit in any language.

I love this exchange so much :D. And it establishes some great things about the way Five talks! He doesn’t dance around the issue or debate her or try and prove her wrong. He just tells her he thinks that that opinion is dumb, obviously.  He’s blunt, straightforward, and honest. (This seems to tie into the thing I was saying about Five and contractions -- he picks the most straightforward way of saying things unless he’s giving a technical explanation.)

Five: Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it.

Five talks like an old man. Not all the time (though there’s a wonderful gif set out there somewhere of Five using old timer slang -- wait, I found it here.) He doesn’t use the old-timey slang all the time -- and I personally like the idea of mixing up Five’s slang habits and including slang from all sorts of eras because he’s a time traveler whose primary source of interaction after four decades alone was other time traveling assassins. But! He also talks in a way where he shows his age. 

Regardless of where you think Five’s psychological age falls (I have my own Opinions on this), he seems to unilaterally view himself as the Big Sibling, and by a very large margin at that. That’s reflected in how he talks. Not always, since not every line of dialogue is relevant to his age. But stuff like this, or related to it, crops up a fair amount. He counsels his siblings on their problems (as when he comforted Diego post-Eudora’s death), and there are little moments like the quote above, where the point is that Five has indeed seen many more years than his siblings and has the perspective to reflect that.

Well, this is way too long now, and it’s really late where I’m at. I feel like the comprehensibility of this post has been steadily declining the whole time, but if other writers have tips that they want to add onto this, please go ahead! 

[idontneedasymbol]

13x07: War of the Worlds

Bucklemming is back in form!

Some fans really enjoyed this episode, and I get that. If you are a fan of Lucifer and/or Ketch, there was a lot to like. For me, though, both of those characters were a drawback, not a plus, and there was little else I was into.

Things I did like:

Kevin!!! Post-apocalyptic angel-enslaved geek, whatever, I love Osric Chau. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of him in Dirk Gently and I loved seeing him again here.

Rowena!!! Is not back yet but obviously will be! Can’t wait.

Lucifer getting tortured. (Or were we not supposed to be cheering Michael on – are we supposed to forget he was doing to Lucifer the same kind of stuff that Lucifer did to Sam? I wouldn’t want to see the Winchesters doing that. But one villain to another – yeah, hurt him more.)

The witch going to the Winchesters for help, because that’s what they do (did Sully post a review on monster Yelp or what? ‘Superlative assistance, Sam is so awesome and brave, 5/5 stars, would reveal our secret world to again.’)

The labeled FBI/CIA/etc. phones.

Then there was the rest. I admit, I don’t watch SPN for the plot. “Red Meat” is one of my all-time favorite episodes, and you could drive a semi through its holes. But this ep was…inconsistent, even for Bucklemming. Some of the many points that confused me (corrections/counterpoints/explanations for any of these would be appreciated!):

Witches being natural enemies of hunters. Did no one ever tell the Banes this? Max was open about his witchcraft in a house full of nervous hunters. The witch in this ep didn’t seem like a wicked sort, considering she didn’t even hurt Ketch when escaping. Is this a regional thing? Has she just met the wrong sort of hunters?

Sam & Dean being so confused that Ketch could be back to life. Without mentioning shifters. Or shapeshifting demons. Or that in just the last episode they faced a ghoul who took the form of a century-old corpse, and because they didn’t burn Ketch’s body, nothing was stopping anything from taking a bite.

And why didn’t they burn the body again?

I already asked this but seriously, why? Forget about magic spells bringing people back to life, why weren’t they worried about Ketch’s vengeful spirit haunting the bunker?

Putting aside how annoyed I was to see Dean enjoying torture (that’s not OOC, but it’s usually a sign he’s in a dark place, except when Bucklemming writes him) – what the hell was happening in that interrogation? Why did Ketch take so many blows before he mentioned the identical twin thing, as opposed to going right away, ‘hey, are you talking about my brother?’

What was the deal about the evil twin? Did Ketch actually have one for real? Otherwise, how long had he had that ruse going on? Because Sam mentions that he found records of Alexander on the harddrive he stole from the BMOL’s bunker – that he stole before Ketch died. Was this some kind of long con or what?

Also, Ketch has been dead at most a month, given how little time has elapsed in-show since the finale, but everyone was acting like he’d been doing this for a while?

I would’ve better liked Dean figuring out Ketch if he had used a little more logic and a little less “gonna say it’s gut instinct so I have an excuse to beat up a guy whose face I hate.”

Why are Sam & Dean so mindbogglingly stupid about keeping prisoners now? Because yeah, Ketch wasn’t a demon, so he would need food and basic amenities, Dean should know that. But then Sam letting Ketch wander around the bunker, repository of the MOL’s knowledge and weapons, totally unsupervised, is just blockheaded. Even if Sam doesn’t think he’s really Arthur Ketch, the guy still tortured and murdered several possibly-innocent witches. And Sam was keeping him chained, so he didn’t trust him anyway, but what chains would stop him from picking up a sword? Or a much more dangerous artifact?

(The only explanation I have is that Sam actually was using the cameras he was watching Jack with to spy on Ketch, giving him a chance to prove the truth about him, but he couldn’t explain that to Dean in front of Ketch?)

Ketch explained how he got out of the chains, but how did he get out of the dungeon? Or is that unsecured? Sam was maybe too trusting but Dean didn’t trust him at all, so apparently he just sucks at securing a prisoner?

Like, he couldn’t hold Ketch for even 5 minutes, given how quickly Ketch caught up with them?

I admit I wasn’t paying attention to most of Lucifer’s scenes because I find it so grating that they’re trying to turn the show’s one-time biggest bad into an anti-hero a la Crowley, but was there any reason why Cas didn’t tell Sam & Dean that Lucifer was back the moment he reached them on the phone?

Also why didn’t Cas ask Lucifer what happened to Mary?

Or does Cas not know that Mary ended up stranded in the AU?

In which case where does Cas think Mary is?

Or has he forgotten she existed, for all he killed Billie for her before?

And why didn’t he just stab Lucifer – come on, Cas, he was right there! Stabbing angels is one thing you’re really good at!

What was Asmodeus’s plan at the end here? I’ve seen mixed opinion about whether Ketch at the end there was just joining up with Asmodeus, or was the hunter in Asmodeus’s circle all along. Either way, I can’t figure out the plan. If Ketch was working for him, why did Asmodeus send demons after Sam & Dean, only to have Ketch kill them? Was it to try to get them to trust Ketch (a big failure)? Or was Ketch not working for Asmodeus yet at that point, in which case why would Asmodeus hire the guy who just killed his demons?

And anyways, how could a few minor demons get the drop on Sam & Dean so completely that Ketch had to save them?

I’m getting really tired of Sam & Dean being unable to take out a single monster without help.

Come on, get it together, dudes.

Speaking of which, you guys know there is a shapeshifting demon around. Why have you taken zero precautions? If you had a simple pass-phrase, Asmodeus couldn’t have tricked you with his fake Cas voice.

I know they’ve never really taken precautions against shapeshifters, but it hasn’t gotten them in serious trouble before. Now it is, so they just look like idiots for not being prepared.

Getting really tired of our boys looking like idiots.

Also getting tired of the obligatory ‘Sam & Dean sit around in front of laptops in the library and hang a lampshade on how useless they are.’

Like at least have them doing laundry or changing lightbulbs or something! Give us domestic cuteness to make up for how they’re not doing anything plot-relevant!

But at least they were very pretty.

Richard Speight can come back and direct any time, he makes everyone gorgeous!

[chimeramaker-blog]

Rules

[last update - 07.12.2017]

First off, this page may be heavily updated in the future, since I am not very experienced with the rp community on tumblr nowadays - feel free to consider me as some kind of newbie though I've been rping in the past, things were a little bit different back then, I will do my best to adapt. What I am trying to say by this is that I will add/change rules along with my experiences, for example if I come across something I feel uncomfortable with. I will write a little text post to inform you if things have majorly changed. With that said, enjoy reading my basic rules, lmao.

For more info about the muse, go here. If you want to know about the mun, there.

General Information

This is an independent and semi-selective roleplay blog of my BNHA OC.

I obviously am OC-friendly. Multi-muses are depending - it can be confusing. If your rp blog is a sideblog, please tell me what your main is in order for me to keep track on who to follow and if we're mutuals. I interact with mutuals only. I am very selective about crossovers, I prefer rping in my muses universe, but I may make exceptions.

I am 24 and from Germany. Since English is not my native language, some grammar and spelling errors may occur, however I will always try my best and double-check before submitting a reply.

I am very okay with romance and shipping. I am also fine with multi-shipping, however my muse would not cheat on someone, all relationships will be in different universes.

Do not interupt a thread I am writing on with someone different than you. Starter calls/ask memes and the like are always open for multilpe persons but already ongoing rps are usually closed. If you want to interact with a certain situation/comment on something that has happened in a thread: write a separate ask/post about it.

Writing smut and other nsfw content is fine by me under certain circumstances. Altough I'm a very smutty person, I am not okay with writing smut without at least a bit of plot beforehand, much less if our muses have never interacted before. It'd be impossible for me to know how to act in these situations if I don't know how our muses interact in normal situations.

I will not write nsfw content with you if you are not at least 18+.

I may reblog/post drawings of my OC now and then - if not stated otherwise, those were drawn by me and it should go without saying that I do not want you to repost them without credit/permission or claim them as your own. If you do, I will report you without further notice.

Personal Things

I see how my muses abilities can remind of themes and shows like Steven Universe. I personally don't like Steven Universe much so please try not to make comparisons or jokes containing it. I don't want to affiliate my muse with a show I don't like.

Dragonball Z jokes however are okay, actually I can see Kenzou try to trick classmates into learning and performing the DBZ fusion dance in order to be able to use his quirk on them.

At this point, I am not up to date with the BNHA manga yet. However I don't care at all if you post spoilers or the like, I'm perfectly fine with that. Just know that I may not understand some plot-related things or know some characters all too well yet. Don't be too surprised if I mix things related to the manga up a bit - I just may have not reached a certain point yet. [This point will of course be deleted as soon as I reached the latest chapter and finally am up to date.]

I have ADD, AvPD and high grade depression. Therefore OOC posts may be heavily depression themed, but I will tag them accordingly.

Interacting with my ooc posts is okay.

I'm a slow writer, please be patient.

Mun faceclaim = Jinie Kwon [The Breaker: New Waves]

I'm all for quality over quantity. If my reply contains more or less words than yours, do not think I may have lost my interest or want you to write more as well. Sometimes I'm able to write more and other times I can't think of a way to make my reply any longer. I prefer to receive a reply at all, than for you to struggle keeping up with the numbers of words. At the same time, please don't be mad at me if my reply may end up a bit short. It's either that or my avpd making me avoid replying to the thread at all because I don't think I can pull off writing as much.

IC =/= OOC If you read both my mun and muse about pages, you probably realized that I am sharing a lot of traits with my muse. Yes, I may be self-inserting a bit but the genral rule of course is that all ic do not represent the mun. If our muses get into a fight, it is simply because of the ic interaction and in no way because I have a problem with you as a person. At the same time, if I'm a bit moody ooc, I will not try to make it show ic.

Triggers and Blacklisting

I'm fairly easy to handle. There are no real triggers for me, after spending over 6 years on tumblr I think I have seen some shit but I have never felt the need to blacklist anything other than specific fandoms/shows I do not feel comfortable with (those being: Rick and Morty, Homestuck & Hiveswap, Voltron, Hetalia, Transformers, MLP, Steven Universe). If you're part of these fandoms, please don't feel offended, I either have bad memories for these shows or just don't enjoy them. If you are rping as one of the characters of the shows I will not follow you/rp with you, so unless you are reblogging posts of these shows independently to your blogs theme there will no problems. If you do reblog content of these shows: please tag it. If your mun/muse faceclaim is a character of these shows, please ask me if I am okay with it - in some cases I may make some exeptions. Since my muse likes to fuse animals, I may reblog pictures/drawings of animal hybrids or mutated animals. I will not tag them as 'animal abuse' unless the theme is actually showing - which I usually wouldn't even reblog. At this point I am not tagging them as things like 'body horror' either. If there is specific mutations that make you feel uncomfortable, please tell me. For example a irl photo of a snake with two heads: I would tag it as 'muliple heads'. If you are uncomfortable with the theme of fused animals altogether - maybe blacklist the tag { creations } or do not follow me at all. !!! This blog may contain triggering content like (minor) gore, explicit language, swear words, mentions of abuse, nsfw content, violence, depression, anxiety and so on. I will always do my best and tag everything as good as I can. Should I ever forget to tag something or if there's something specific you want me to tag, always feel free to contact me about it.

Examples of things I'll tag for you: nsfw, tw: spiders, tw: cannibalism, tw: gore, tw: irl gore, tw: animal abuse, tw: blood, tw: self harm Things I want you to tag for me: - other than the fandoms listed above, none so far -

If possible, please like this post after you read my rules, thank you!

[ofcacthuxandkylosaur]

Shook in a good way or a bad one?

Hello Anon, thanks for asking and sorry for my late answer (busy days, sleepless nights :/ ) This got bit long and also took time to write…

I’d say Shocked because I was so not excpecting this…unfortunately, althought I did like some stuff in the movie and I could have actually enjoyed it had it not been a Star Wars sequel, it was not a really good surprise… Too much OOCness for me.

I am also left with some frustrations and a lot of worries about what will happen in ep IX and what will happen to the fandom…

I put more details (a lot of it being kylux related) under the cut (beware for spoilers (obviously), me being the anxious and dramatic bitch I am, rambling and probably poor english (I am so tired,sorry)).

So first of all, as I said, there were things I liked: Rose (being a badass), Finn wanting to find Rey, BB8 being a badass ass well, Luke being critical of the old  jedi order, Kylo not being able to kill Leia despite trying, Leia being alive at the end of the movie (I didn’t thought It’d hurt so much when I though she died!), R2D2 showing Luke Leia’s message, all those new alien spieces (loved those big cat-horses!!!), lightsaber duels (wow), new and interesting ways to use the force (I am now craving for long distance cuddling/sex thanks to the force), getting to see a lot of Kylo’s face and hair (dashing!),Kylo dropping his robe Obi-Wan style,…

But my main and big problem was how OOC felt most of the characters…

Luke. Luke with a lightsaber above a sleeping Ben and wanting to kill him. No. I mean, they did explained he never wanted to kill but lighted it on out of pure reflex when his jedi senses went tingling, but still…

Hux. Come on, Hux is not an idiot! He is competent and rutheless and sassy. It didn’t bother me seeing Poe making fun of him. I mean Hux is his enemy, of course he would take on the occasion to diminish him/make him look like a fool. What did bother me was Hux’s reaction. Like he wouldn’t realise what was happening!! Only at the end of the movie did I feel like I recognised him (It was relieving reading I was not the only one in the case)! Also I didn’t see him repeating Kylo’s orders as a joke but rather as a proof the he was the one in command (they did obey him!).

Kylo may be the one that upset me the most thought! He turned from Snoke too fast if you ask me (Rey too was prompt to “accept” Kylo) . And him being unable/unwilling to kill her! So what he can kill his father (even if it shatters him) but not a girl he met twice?? This plus the topless scene makes me fear they could make Reylo happen (I do respect people shipping it but I really don’t like it). Since they obviously won’t make Stormpilot happen (I did not have a lot of hope but well) my only hope is now that Finn and Rey end up together (and that the “purpose” of that kiss with Rose was to introduce unecessary jalousy in their relationship (and not a way to destroy all the other parings involving Finn, making Rey “available”)).

And the way he treated Hux hurt me. I know I sound dramatic and all but it did (I was uncomfortable with the strangle and actualy yelled in protest in the cinema when Hux was pushed against the wall). I know they kind of hate each other and that Snoke himself made sure to maintain a rivalry between them, but that was unessessary (I could even argue that if Snoke took the calculated risk to encourage the rivalry, it was because he knew that Hux had the shoulders to take on the competition and that Kylo somehow respected him enough to not kill him/damage him (otherwise the co-commandship would have been compromised)). You don’t see Vader strangle Tarkin, and I can’t imagine him doing so even if the Emperor had died. Plus, Kylo may be a bad guy but he was never shown taking pleasure in inflicting pain for the sake of it, so I don’t see him enjoying hurting Hux for revenge.

On a side note, as much as I like how “Supreme Leader Kylo” sounds, part of me still fail to understand why would Kylo want to be Supreme Leader in the first place and why he didn’t just…leave. Maybe he would want to “take” his master’s position, but the fonction is also highly political, and at that point Kylo was pretty much “fuck the resistance fuck the order fuck them all”. Of course ruling the Order would mean he has troops and equipment at disposal (useful to track Rey, Luke,…) but for that he would need Hux… And where are my Knights of Ren anyway??

I am scared for the Kylux fandom right now. With a new movie coming, the perspective of gaining new shippers was real. But now I feel like Reylo will be the (only) ship that will gain a lot of popularity (again, I don’t mind people shipping it, as long as no one spread hate, but it makes me still sad for Kylux (+Finnrey and Stormapilot)). To be honnest, had I only see TLJ, I would have never shipped Kylux (hopefully I’ve seen TFA and I don’t intend on stopping). The relationship was depicted differently, in a way I don’t like. I am aware I may seem like an oversensitive bitch but I need a relationship to be balanced for me to ship it  And I absolutely hate anything that looks like an abusive relationship to me (of course I am not talking here about consensual practices between responsible adults). I don’t fancy seeing Kylo raising hands on Hux and I would basically rather have had no scenes of them together than having had those. I have read meany beautiful Kylux fic, were I found them to be on character and and I didn’t have this feeling during the movie.

This somehow terrifies me because I felt like there was a Kylux dynamic (now of course everyone has their own headcanons, that’s not what I’m saying) and I am so affraid that all this could be lost. That they may be seen as a violent/abusive couple now besause no. That is never how I’m gonna see them. And that is not how their relationship was depicted in TFA (and yes I know I am not completely stupid, TFA did not declare Kylux canon I am just talking about their interactions in general). And I know my anxiety may seem stupid and ridiculus and anxiety episodes might often look that way, even from the point of view of the anxious person but it doesn’t stop it from deeply shaken you because for you it’s important and frightening. And I have really not been good lately with a weight on my stomac (wella big weight that hurt) since leaving the room and my mind running wild on bad thoughts so.

But enough with my state of mind, their are also two other main things that bothered me and that was

-Snoke’s dead. WTF???(I was in shock in the cinema with my mouth open, yes) How did Kylo turned against him so fast (I can consider the fact that killing his father made him reconsider things but still it was a big turn) and mostly What? Like that? So fast? It was almost too easy! And won’t we have any explainations about him?!? Who is him? What are his motives? Why is he so force-powerful? What was he even doing on this ship in person after being a distant hidden figure during ep VII? (and where did he find those golden bathrobes??). At this point I am almost convinced that he is not dead, that his presence aboard the ship was a force projection (like Luke’s) and that it all was part of the plan, and I am going to be pissed if he is not in ep IX (and if we don’t at least get information about him!).

-The second thing was Holdo’s actions. I was waiting to see her and was happy to see the actrice again (I am also happy everytime 35+ looking actresses get a job) but I found the character frustrating. I can’t find a single reason why she woudn’t inform her fellow resistance members that she did have a plan (a retreat planet waiting for them). Was she afraid of a mole? Was she afraid Poe was a mole (he was strangely careful in the begining of the movie but that’s a bit extreme)?? If not why did she not just told him what was planned? And if she thought there did was a mole or had any other valid reason not to tell it, why did she not at least tell “Yes, I have a plan. I cannot explain it to you yet but there indeed is an other option than to run out of fuel and be killed”. When there begins to be this much tension inside the group it may be time to do something so you don’t destroy each other before the enemy can! ‘You don’t have to wait for the day to believe their is a sun’ well at least tell me there is a sun so I can believe in it and wait for it! How can people trust you if you don’t inform them their is something to trust? If you don’t tell people there is an option of course they will try to find one?!

In the end I felt as if TFA had been made by people who knew and love Star Wars (I had low expectations about it and ended up so happy!) while TLJ was made by someone that wanted to made a sci-fi movie and that’s all. And since I came to see a Star Wars movie I feel somehow tricked…I also had the feeling that things were a little bit rushed, as if this was supposed to be a stand alone movie rather that the middle part of a trilogy… And I am not sure I amgoing to take everything in the movie as canon rather than as the realisator’s own vision…

Wow this got really long, thanks for reading if you did and sorry for throwing my fears and frustrations around but I needed it! And don’t let soft Kylux die please…