#No one makes me hate Star Wars more than OG Star Wars fans

[blueteller]

Do you have more character analysis on og!Cale and how his relationships are with the other characters? Before and after transmigrating

Well, I'd love to, but..... here's the thing. For all the hype about OG Cale – and I'm definitely a member of that crowd, don't get me wrong – there isn't actualy... much about him. That is actually canon, I mean.

In fact, despite being one of the most popular characters in the fandom, OG Cale is only present in the novel for less than three full chapters in total (655-657), and all of them are spent mostly discussing how the war in the TBOAH timeline went down, not OG Cale's personal relationships.

Everything we know is all told through KRS!Cale perspective, who mostly just makes guesses and some pretty inaccurate assumptions. Sure, there was some stuff on how OG Cale treated his family in the TBOAH novels; but because "Nelan Barrow" did not really know the actual reason behind OG Cale choosing to act like trash... It's all extremely vague.

Nelan Barrow goes like: "OG Cale yelled at his servants yet never actually hit any of them, respected his father but kept distance from his family, and the closest person to a father figure he had was Ron Molan whom he treated like a human being". And that was basically everything, without any context added.

Ron had all of one flashback about OG Cale comforting his father after Jour's funeral. No explanation about Deruth's second marriage, about Basen – not even that they're not biologically related! OG Cale himself stated that "no matter how hard he tried to act like trash, they wouldn't kick him out", so that means the whole Henituse family did love OG Cale unconditionally. And also Ron and Beacrox were visibly quite tired of his nonsense by the time Cale transmigrated. But beyond that...

Well, to be fair, there were some minor characters sprinkled here and there who had a connection to OG Cale, before KRS!Cale got to meet them. There was Hans the butler, who was kind of scared of OG Cale... before he loosened up completely around KRS!Cale. And also there was the Eric Wheelsman, Gilbert Chetter and Amiru Ubarr trio; who were OG Cale's childhood friends because of their connection as North Eastern nobles. There was also the unnamed niece/OG Cale's reincarnated mom, and some Korean characters came up in the extras. They're all great characters, but... all of their relationships with OG Cale were exactly as one might expect: they're confused by OG Cale, yet overall like him (because for all the "trash personna" he did, OG Cale was never actually a bad person).

...Not much left to be said here.

And regarding the 20 years of war in the TBOAH timeline... OG Cale could be a biased narrator like Cale himself, but it sounded like he wasn't really anyone super important. He saw the confrontation between Choi Han and the White Star from the sidelines, not as someone close to the "main hero". He was just a soldier in the background of the battlefield. I doubt he talked to Choi Han even once.

Look, overall, most of OG Cale's relationships can be deduced or estimated from context – like the fact that despite his terrible reputation, no one who knew him actually hated him all that much – but in true canon, there's nothing much going on regarding his bonds with anyone aside his family. Yes, we can headcanon all kinds of drama based on Choi Han's violent actions in the beginning of TBOAH, followed by him leaving with both Ron and Beacrox without them saying goodbye to OG Cale... But that's all fan theories. In the TCF novel, OG Cale is a complete mystery for over 600 chapters.

...Which is probably why fans are so obsessed with him. Fleshing out OG Cale's character is super fun. No wonder there are so many Twin AUs, hahaha!

[bluecrocss]

And you know what's so crazy about the PJO fans that are up in arms over the changes in the show and have been having a fit over the castings?

ATLA is my favorite show in the entire world. It was my favorite as a kid and still my favorite now as an adult. I have re-watched that show start to finish, more than anything in my life and it's probably the one subject I am most knowledgeable about.

When they announced the live-action I had initially been ecstatic, but as I read more about the direction Netflix was taking it, learning the og creators left the project, and a few casting choices I didn't love, I realized it wasn't for me...

So you know what I did? I just didn't watch it.

I have not concerned myself with the live-action since. I don't stay up at night wishing the worst for the show, I don't hate watch it, I'm not in the comment sections of the cast members I didn't agree with harassing actors that simply auditioned for a part, I'm not on fan pages and fan posts for the show, lamenting all the things I don't like. I don't even interact with the live action fandom.

And it's not out of anger or spite, just pure indifference.

The existence of the live action, doesn't take away from the og show I watched. It hasn't burned it out of existence. I can still re-watch it and get exactly what I want out of it anytime I want.

The existence of the live-action fandom doesn't keep me up at night. Why would it bother me that there are people who enjoy the live action, when I don't? Why would I wish for the cancellation of a show that they enjoy? What difference would not making the rest of the seasons of the live action have towards my life?

Also for the cast, regardless of how I feel about the performances or which castings I liked, and which I didn't... all I can see is a whole host of young actors of color, getting a shot at roles that wouldn't have existed for them like 10 years ago. How can I look at that and be angry? over a fictional story?

Idk man... fandom spaces have been getting progressively more vile and toxic as of late (and this is coming from a fandom veteran). Whatever happened to the concept of "scroll if you don't like"?

It's like people feel this entitlement that every piece of media correlated to something that you liked as a kid, has to cater to YOU specifically (don't even get me started on the Star Wars fandom).

With the PJO show, it's already clear it won't be a 1:1 adaptation from the books, the casting won't follow the physical descriptions of the books... if that's too far for you, don't watch it. Why are you determined to torture yourself, and bring the people who actually did enjoy the adaptation and it's changes down with you?

As someone who read the books and loved them as a kid, and watched the adaptation and also enjoyed it for what it was (Not that I think the first season was flawless. And there are definitely somethings they need to fix going forwards), I just don't understand this behavior.

I've tried to empathize with the people that are still harassing the child actors, and making hour long videos on every detail that wasn't 100% book accurate, and launching think pieces on how Rick Riordan is now the devil incarnate apparently and I just think back to my relationship with the ATLA live action, and I wouldn't even have the energy or desire to do any of that shit. Like, what is driving y'all?

Also, I'm not gonna go into my rant about the new streaming format of 8 episodes, every 1-2 years and the effect that is having on the quality of the shows we are getting, cuz we'll be here all day, but something I have noticed is that shows aren't allowed to have bad seasons anymore.

Like, people will hype up a show before it comes out and if season 1 isn't perfect, they'll start praying for it's cancellation and claiming it's unsalvageable. That's not how showrunning works. Y'all realize if that was how they did things in the past, we wouldn't have shows like: the office, parks and rec, the simpsons, Star trek tng, etc.

Rather than review-bombing a show because the first season has flaws and pushing the networks/streaming platforms to cancel it, how about we encourage shows with good foundations so we don't miss out on the gems they can become in the future?

[writingforfun0714]

If you have nothing good to say about Star Wars The Acolyte I would like to tell you to keep scrolling and block me now because I enjoy the show.

I really don’t understand the hate for the Acolyte. Like yeah it’s about a witch coven and the MCs have 2 moms but it’s actually a part of the story and not just ‘wokeness’ shoved in there for the sake of it and was important to story.

Also Mae/Osha do not take away from Anakin’s story/conception because the twins are different. Anakin was created from the will of the Force while Osha and Mae were created by Mother Aniseya, who manipulated the Force to create the twins inside Mother Koril.

I don’t have an opinion on Vernestra Roh since I’m unfamiliar with her character in Legends/EU. As a show-only character, she was ok. Not really a standout character like Jecki or Yord but not bad by any means. From what I understand, fans of the High Republic think she’s a bit stiff in the show but idk for sure. I hope she has more screen time later this season.

Now, is there cringe dialogue? Yes. There are a few moments that SW has a sort of ‘cringe’ moment (think Anakin ‘I hate sand’ Skywalker). Is there an overuse of PowerPoint transitions? Yes, but the OG trilogy is known for those kinds of cuts and personally I’m not bothered by it. Are there moments where things don’t exactly make sense? Yes—the scene with the fire in space comes to mind. But it’s not like SW hasn’t done that before (the effects in OWK, ‘somehow Palpatine returned’, etc).

My point is that nothing the Acoylte has done has warranted the kind of hate it and the actors get. Which, btw, stop harassing the actors!!! For real! No one is forcing you to watch this show. Also didn’t think this needed to be said but hate is different than criticism. Criticisms are critiques with the goal of making something better. Hate is harassment and bullying.

However I believe the story is solid so far and I’ve loved the sound design/music, fight choreography, character designs, and I believe the actors have been doing a good job, especially the kid actresses (real-life sisters) for young Mae/Osha. As someone who has younger twin siblings, their interactions felt realistic to me.

Anyways, please block me if you disagree cuz I’m gonna obsess over this for a bit—thanks💙

[nomsfaultau]

What fandoms would the fault crew be into?

What fandoms are you into, besides mcyt?

Tommy mentions liking Marvel/DC properties, Deadpool, etc. Fairly mainstream tastes, likes a lot of streamers too. Canonically went behind his mom’s back to watch R rated movies like Saw, although gore at least isn’t necessarily his taste, he just wanted to break the rules. Nowadays he veers hard into X-Men because Tommy needs the idea that those with anomalous properties can be loved and good people even if they are despised by the world. Draws OCs of himself in a fairly Mary Sue fashion.

The Blade only gained access to human interactions/spaces around his late teens, and has the least exposure of the group. However that man’s only connection to anyone was through the internet and he was kinda obsessed. The Blade has canonically seen star wars and didn’t understand the newer movies. Also likes Taylor Swift but I think in a very casual way. Got really into Percy Jackson when younger but then when he got more into the og myths during college he had a bit of a bashing phase for the inaccuracies, but then settled on liking both. Drifts towards action/comedies since it entertains the voices. Would love to be into video games but the hooves and insta win kinda make it not fun. Dabbles in short fics but doesn’t have the attention span for long ones.

Philza is into the human fandom. Loves those funky characters. There’s probably a bunch of media lost to time that he was hyped about and now has no one to fan girl with rip. Really appreciates the classics that have been kept over time, though probably has beef with fans of folklore and myths and oral tradition, collective story types, because nooooo that isn’t the version he learned what are you talking about that’s WRONG. Number 1 Epic of Gilgamesh fan loves the themes of developing humanity and grief and accepting humans cannot become immortal, really resonates w him.

Wilbur has more general exposure to human media than The Blade, but also more resentment. Doesn’t like stuff with human protagonists. Probably leans towards books since movies/shows trap you in one place for awhile. Would get so deep into musicals if it had the chance. Lovecraft is a canonical part of void eldritch knowledge, and Wilbur literally named itself after Wilbur Whataley.

Tubbo likes the x files bc the mulder and scully remind them of their dynamic with Willow when they were a kid. Really a lot of their interests are reflections of people in their life. Jurassic park for Jasmine. I feel like Rosalind had soap operas/telenovelas as a guilty pleasure. Old sitcoms for Rhodes. Canonically hates the bee movie for the lack of understanding of bees and courtroom dynamics.

As for me, it’s mostly sbi all the way, but I like The Adventure Zone, Welcome to Nightvale, Dungeon Meshi, Mob Psycho 100

[2n2n]

the Sounds of Nightmares...

Well specifically I'm being baited by the stupid Sounds of Nightmares podcast, despite my own insistence that I don't care about aside material or really consider any new content commissioned by Bandai-Namco, and the scattered independent producers of all the various things under the property, necessarily relevant when analyzing the 2 games helmed by Tarsier Studios ...

Which-- I do stand by that ! Here is... an important... precursor, to talking about it.

I think who produces something is very important. It's not the franchise name which makes something enjoyable to you, it is what voice is creating it. If there were JSHK stories written by someone other than Iro-sensei, or if the property was sold off to another artist & writer, would you still be a fan of JSHK? This is how properties like... Warrior Cats (which is a book packaging deal comprised of at least 7 ghost writers), Star Wars, Marvel, work-- those characters, worlds, are not anybody's baby, but are loose concepts which people are paid to contribute to, to generate money as a franchise. It banks not on artistic integrity, but recognition of the property.

For example, I don't love everything that 'Adventure Time' is, or has become. It has passed through different directors, artists, writers, to the point that the original team who made it what I love, is not a part of something as derived as Distant Lands or Fiona & Cake. I also think somebody could like Fiona & Cake and not like OG Adventure Time. Because these are entirely different creations, with different vibes. I'm sure everybody actually has a relationship like this to SOME franchise! Liking early seasons of AT under Pendleton Ward, doesn't incline me towards liking how Adam Muto directs things, once he takes over. If my favorite board artists gradually leave, and are replaced, then I may not relate to the new voices writing episodes. I may not recognize what I loved in the original thing at all, in these new voices. OR sometimes, I CAN like a new voice... that's the roulette spun when things change hands many times.

I mean, people can like or dislike any Star Wars movie, as a mundane example. There is not 1 voice for all trilogies. Or extended universe novels. Or games. Or cartoons. Or Spinoffs. Famously.

By design, art created this way can't represent a singular vision, goal, or worldview... so as a result, these things tend to be haphazard, sloppy, inconsistent, roguely retconning or redefining aspects of canon as different writers or artists want to remake, reinterpret, or ignore set-ups proposed by others, in favor of their own. You'll have characters... often forgotten, brought back, killed multiple times, imbued with significance as quickly as they are written off. Some writer might introduce a concept which the next installment's writer hates. Individual teams or studios for different disciplines (one may commission a wholly different place to make an app game, a podcast, and a comic), may have hardly any communication with one another, and may only be working off of a loose lore bible or rubric. It depends on... the integrity of the franchise ... but almost by uhm, virtue of being a franchise, I'd say most don't... have.... integrity. Because it's often better to just throw more and more darts at a board and test what your audience likes .... artist integrity doesn't necessarily make something popular or speak to what the audience wants, after all. If anything I'd say being an artist with integrity makes one stubborn and liable to act regardless of what the audience wants ...

SO. all that out of the way....

Where all Little Nightmares bonus material is concerned, I take in each on their own terms, and don't necessarily absorb it all into my 'canon'. I mean, I feel LN2 entirely threw away what VLN did, by locking the 2 games in an enclosed loop.

I can't think "this aside comic EXPLAINS this thing from the games" when the games writers don't often acknowledge or engage with what those teams are doing.

BUT BY ENGAGING WITH THINGS ON THEIR OWN TERMS, I CAN ALSO BE LIKE... UGHH??? urhghgg... any random thing COULD beguile me. I mean, nothing is STOPPING ME from LIKING a new installment of Adventure Time, it's just that I DON'T like them, as fate has it.

I think the Sounds of Nightmares, is ,, HILARIOUSLY badly written, like from a quality or believability of voice standpoint. The dialogue is so cartoonishly bad. Feels a bit like a fanfic written by a 14 year old 😭 unfortunately it do be sounding like the exact kind of dialogue the writer of 1&2 has mocked & talked about swerving to avoid in his own work. Like the lack of subtlety... its so funny when LN1&2 are, entirely composed of subtlety.

but you know what I cannot resist, in my godforsaken bones ................................................... the notion of Mono & Six having been siblings in their previous existence. For The Love of God!!!! THIS AVVY BAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAOURUUGHHH ... Mono as a little brother growing older, struggling with the idea of his big sister abandoning him, refusing to believe she ever would willfully do such a thing... falling down an oubliette of moral decay, torturing children & sending them into oblivion in his desperation to reach her. The concept that he may do all of that only to become trapped in a loop where he both doesn't fully recognize her, or himself, but is also continuously abandoned by her endlessly. But also Did Find Her, Did Reunite, Does Have Her. So maybe the kid torture was the right choice.

I LIKE THE IDEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it is mildly frustrating to engage with, because of the lack of... absolutes. I feel like the implications are intentionally opaque yet ubsubtle all at the same time (Six's theme softly plays as Otto shouts at recognition of her yellow raincoat.... he is perfecting tuning the frequencies of the nightmares... he comments on the eyes watching him.... a tan trenchcoat is seen in the seamstress area wherein bodies are made to tether children into this other realm... otto mentions the importance of donning many masks...). There is a plausible deniability to it, and I wholly believe creating Red Herrings tastelessly is expected of the property, given the entire bait-and-switch of VLN is you thinking that girl is Six, But No She's An Unrelated Raincoat Girl (why?) (it helps the franchise recognizability by there always being SOME sort of girl in the iconic raincoat.. how could you sell an app game without that visual cache?)

I think the threat of "is this Six? Wouldn't that be interesting...." is frustratingly imperative to maintain audience attention, while the open possibility of saying "naaah lol nvm" is important to 'save' the lore (particularly if the audience doesn't like or rejects an idea ... you can pretend anything was the intention all along retroactively). This is the madness of franchises... *rubs temples*...

so what do I have to say. I do think the writing is not good, but I think the concept is delicious. I would love for Mono to have created a device to communicate with the Nowhere (and it as a semi-reality semi-dreamspace IS original canon...), and I like that suffering is essential to reaching towards it. I would love the creation of this device to be the inception of the Signal Tower, I would like his only window into this world to be the thing that will entrap him, as if the two cannot exist apart. I would like Six as a long-lost older sister who escaped through her dreams, but perhaps anticipated her brother following behind her.

The vibes of Otto, are great. I love a guy muttering "my beloved..." about his sister, and pathetically whining about how she'd never leave him. I like how much "Sisi" sounds like "sissy". I love how he speaks always in possessives about her "my Sisi" while Noone also fsr validates this by saying "your Sisi". Yeah!!!! I like how absorbed his life is in this, like he's had no pleasures or joys outside of his sister, and is always yearning for her.

I would say it suits Mono's description of being "uncommonly single-minded. When he sets himself to a task, he rarely gives up before it's completed." He's a uniquely determined person, to a fault. The Thin Man erodes many in his terrible city, so corrosive is the humm of his Signal Tower. I would like all of the irradiated child remains found in the Pale City to be children he treated with his machine, who were not only lost to their nightmares, but trapped within the Signal's call.

Imagining Six & Mono's lives before winding up in this nightmare... I haven't had anything in mind; I like to engage in the world as it is now, on its own terms. I would imagine neither remember what existed before this, anyway. Suddenly being proposed "Mono was Six's obsessive little brother" is like being electrocuted. UGUGHHH... YEAH??????? FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if YOU want to, SAY THAT.... !!!! to ME.... ! it's designed specifically to torment ME.... to test my integrity....

It is also kind of HILARIOUS!!!!! Ahhhhh imagine working tirelessly to reunite with your sister, only to have the demons that be give you the ironic fate of being unable to remember or recognize her in such terms, yet there is a draw, a pull, a sense to need to protect & keep her at all costs. And then what ! It would be amazing to fall in love with her, to find her beautiful. It would be amazing to fuck her brains out like that !!

For the mostpart I don't have... interest at all in Noone's, visions or what have you, it feels a little mind-numbingly episodic, but I could probably enjoy plenty of it fully visualized...? I don't really vibe the podcast medium as a tool for storytelling I am afraid; it feels simultaneously less than a book and also less than a visual medium. Not enough immersive prose or opportunity for shifts in perspectives a book could offer, limited duration, a kind of hokey amount of SFX and the need for a contrived framing narrative (which basically demands a lot of unnatural exposition to convey anything), really dampens it for me. I read it all as transcripts because that's a little more tolerable, but that just leaves me wishing it didn't need to be in a scripted format, and was .... a book .

My favorite concept it did bring forth, which well-aligned with my own impressions, was that seamstress room. I liked the half-made doll stabbed onto the table, and Noone feeling a connection, as if that was her, and all of these awaiting clothes. I enjoy the idea that one's consciousness is sort of split & hobbled when in-between reality & dream, until a vessel is made on this other side, which 'completes' you at last. I like the mythology of that, of needing a new body... exploring the 'doll' aesthetic we've got here.

I also like.... the notion of time not being linear, the Ferryman simultaneously existing for a lot of children. Since I'm only willing to engage Sisi & Otto as Six & Mono... I would love the notion of timelessness, that despite 'searching' for his sister for years, they might come into existence in this world at just the same time; maybe the Ferryman could have promised Six that her brother will come, & the matter of time is relative here as everything warps. They won't be apart, actually. I am FOND of the idea of Six & Mono's clothes coexisting in a trunk... despite Six having disappeared much 'before' his, in our world. Perhaps her body isn't finished being stitched together until Mono appears. That would be what I would like... </3 Maybe sissy only left because it was promised that you would eventually come.............. only the illusion of abandonment. To motivate you </3 come chase meeeeeee otouto

[anakin-pilled]

okay i finally finished the star wars sequel trilogy and here’s my opinion and thoughts on each of the movies that no one asked for but i want to share anyway 🤓🤓 spoilers below!

The Force Awakens:

Don’t have a strong opinion on this movie TBH, I think it’s the weakest of the three but it’s a good introduction movie.

Wasn’t expecting Han’s death…RIP TO A REAL ONE😭

Still don’t understand how Rey was able to beat a trained Kylo Ren in battle…she was too OP for the first movie.

Kylo’s back story isn’t convincing enough and I think he’s kind of lame, I don’t think they did him justice.

Transitioning between scenes is so reminiscent of the OG triology and I love it.

The Last Jedi:

THE BEST OUT OF THE THREE!! I really enjoyed this movie; especially all the different sub plots. I loved that we got to see more characters.

I AM A FINNPOE ENTHUSIAST

I AM NOT A REYLO ENTHUSIAST

I liked Rose’s character and her dynamic with Finn!! Kelly Marie Tran did not deserve all the hate she got ): Rose was awesome ):

The scene in Snoke’s throne, Kylo reminded me so much of Anakin in ROTS, from the hair to the expression on his face, I literally think he channeled Anakin’s energy into his performance (think of Anakin when he first pledged loyalty to Palpatine)

Kinda confused on the direction they went in with Luke. You mean to tell me Luke refused to kill Darth Vader because he believed there was light still in him, but couldn’t extend the same hope to Kylo? Idk, Luke’s main characteristic is that he’s the hopeful, optimistic hero and I feel like they completely scrapped that. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THEY DONT EVEN DIRECTLY TELL YOU WHY KYLO HAD SO MUCH DARKNESS IN HIM, i blame the story tellers

Luke saying no one’s ever really gone…yeah I cried 😭

I knew Luke died from like years ago, but watching his force spirit in front of the two suns just reminded me of that iconic scene in ANH where he’s standing in front of the two Tatooine suns. Literally one of my favorite Star Wars scenes EVER 🥹

The Rise of Skywalker

I think my biggest gripe with this trilogy is that it completely ruins Anakin/Vader being the Chosen One. Like….George Lucas confirms he’s the Chose One and then we see in ROTJ that he helps brings balance to the force, thus completing the prophecy. BUT THEN PALPATINE DIDNT DIE AND HES BACK AND THAT MAKES THE PROPHECY COMPLETELY MOOT AND THATS AN INSULT TO MY POOKIE.

Didn’t expect Leia to die…I know Carrie died (RIP TO A REAL ONE) but I honestly didn’t know she was going to die in the movie and I kept on wondering how they were going to pull it off. And I’m just realizing they killed each of the OG trio 😭

We needed more Rose.

They built up Finn to be a love interest for Rey in the first movie then completely scrapped that idea for Reylo 😭

Not sure how I feel about Reylo. I was really hoping they wouldn’t kiss then BOOM they kissed. Idk I just don’t think the chemistry was there.

I still think they did Kylo’s character building dirty, but I did enjoy his redemption arc. RIP

The voices of all the Jedi guiding Rey, I CRIED OKAYYYYYY

FINNPOE SUPREMACY

I love FinnPoe, but also Finn and Poe separately. Oscar and John were amazing

Seeing all the Death Stars crash, the Ewoks looking up and cheering, the celebration scene 😭😭😭😭 I cried so much IDK it just reminded me so much of the the end of ROTJ and honestly I’m a huge sucker for a good winning final scene.

Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy more than I thought I would and while I do think it’s not PERFECT and I do think there’s a lot to fix, I do think a lot of SW fans are just salty and hated the idea of a more diverse, female led franchise. I would definitely watch again (:

Now I need to know what happens after lol

[angst-is-love-angst-is-life]

B, N and T for the ask game and with the Flash fandom :))

Yay!!! Thank you for the ask! (for my favorite fandom no less🥹) and sry I took a bit to get to this.

Time for my ✨silly little ramblings✨™️

B “A pairing-platonic, romantic or sexual-that you initially didn't consider, but someone changed your mind” : Ooooooo, this is a good one. Well I’m not a big shipper naturally tbh, unless I see undeniable chemistry and/or suggestive scenes between characters, I’m probably just going to ship what was canon— that was until I fully entered tumblr and related fandom spaces. Now I see ships everywhere. Especially with Ao3.

Ao3 has made me ship soooo many ships, the OG being Superarrow/Kariver

More recently tho: Coldflash (my current OTP), Snowest, Hartmon, and I personally prefer them as platonic but I definitely support them as a ship— Barrisco

Also as much as I hate to admit it— I understand Eobarry and why people ship it (One sidedly it’s basically canon) but I still do not like it and definitely don’t ship it. (Ok but how tf could it ever be two sided guys— it’s also creepy af) nvm I’m not jumping into that rabbit hole today.

N “Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)” : Hmm— does more fanfiction count?💀 Ok ok, three things let’s seeeee

1: More merchandise. I finally have a STAR labs sweatshirt and it is one of my most treasured possessions— but I wish there was more options, I wish we could get Ciscos vibe glasses or smth like that (I know we can on ebay and stuff, but it’d be nice if the CW or WB put in merch effort) Ah. The pain of smaller fandoms (and I say this in relation to my other big fandoms being Star Wars and the MCU)

2: Less discourse/hate. I’ve calibrated my space here on tumblr to be on the positive side of the fandom but I remember when I couldn’t look at comment sections without seeing at least 10 hate comments (from other fans may I add). Idk maybe it’s not as bad now. I also notice this was primarily around the topic of shipping; specifically around Westallen vs Snowbarry, I saw some pretty bad stuff on both sides. Personally I just believe in ship and let ship. If you don’t like a ship then that’s fine; but don’t attack the people who do. But like I said; maybe it’s not as bad now. (Sry that was a long one lol)

3: M o r e w h u m p— including taking place in later seasons; 9x4 has so much potential and I really want someone to take advantage of it (I say, knowing full well that I could write it— I can’t though; The Bad Ending is taking up all of my writing time/energy)

Either way; whumpers I love you and I hope more of you find this fandom

T “Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?” :

*Rubs hand together* Oh do I— it’s ramble time

Now as a fanfiction writer, I have to have headcanons; it’s how I make the story and characters work while giving them extra depth. Naturally however; it’s not something I would usually think of outside of that. I have created the most fanfictions for this fandom by far (It was also the first media I ever wrote it for) so naturally I indeed have headcanons that will make their way into my fics.

Oliver trained Team Flash in hand to hand combat Now this one is less of a headcanon and more something I wish happened— cause where tf did they get their training from?? Maybe I’m missing/forgetting something and if so sry my bad— but this seems like something that absolutely could’ve happened. (I’m not counting superhero fight club as canon btw; as fun as it is)

Everyone goes to therapy

Gods this one is more wishful thinking than anything else— I’ll never forgive the CW for having Barry and Iris take couples therapy when what they both need is therapy therapy. The number of life threatening scenarios the entirety of Team Flash has gone through is more than enough to warrant therapy (and some form of PTSD but that’s a whole nother topic). The only possible exception I would make is Barry, because it would not surprise me at all if Joe had him go as a kid and the therapist didn’t believe him about the man in yellow just like everyone else; plenty of people have bad experiences with therapy that make them not want to go and that’s completely understandable.

Team Flash has movie night

You can’t look me in the eye and tell me they don’t.

Barry has claustrophobia

Nothing to support this really, but hey— that’s why it’s a headcanon

Also I have sexuality headcanons for most characters but I’ll do those another time.

Sweet! This was so fun and again; thank you for the ask!!! Sorry that it was so long but I had a lot of fun :-D

[jyndor]

Syril is a fictional character. Plenty of people love Vader, even Palpatine and they are both worse. Preference in fictional characters says absolutely nothing about what people would support in real life.

Ah good I've gotten a bunch of new followers recently, so I guess it's time to cull the herd of weirdos who think fiction doesn't influence reality <3 if you don't agree with me, just try to hear me out but if you won't, just unfollow I have no patience for fascism apologia, fictional or otherwise.

When I say stan, I am talking about a fan that defends their fave no matter what. I'm not talking about someone who just finds a character interesting. I do have Opinions about people who watch Andor and find Karn to be the most interesting of the characters because there is a trend of white fans finding the white side character more interesting than leading characters who are racialized as non-white. But to be clear I think Syril Karn is a FASCINATING character. I do. He is a well-written and acted neo-nazi in the making. I'm not talking about people who think he's a compelling character. I'm talking about those who gravitate towards him over a main character who is coded as an immigrant and as indigenous and who, coincidentally, is also sort of written as having a redemption arc of sorts and who we literally see murder an ally in his first scene in Rogue One.

I was just thinking about Vader's fandom. Of course Vader and Palpatine are worse, they're the og Imperial baddies.

I don't know a lot of fans who think Palpatine is good or redeemable though. I know George Lucas had a Stupid Idea about some girlfriend scorning him and then that's why he goes evil... lol that's dumb and I hate it but thankfully that's not canon. There's not a whole lot of people making excuses for Palpatine, or begging for a redemption arc. Why? Because we understand that he is too far gone, that he has crossed a line that he will never come back from. He has no interest in redemption, he is a true believer in his sithy shit. That doesn't mean he isn't a good character or a great villain. He is, of course he is. He's iconic for a reason.

Anakin has a sob story and his stans are annoying tbh - he's got a horrifying background, he was enslaved and his trauma is never really dealt with properly. I have empathy for him. But he is also undeniably not someone people should stan - his views on politics are not great even when he's 19. and then despite all the good he does as a Jedi and the decency he has in his heart, he goes fash and kills a bunch of kids. Commits genocide and then enforces Palpatine's will for decades.

It's interesting that in the original trilogy we don't see him actually doing a whole lot of fascist shit - he holds Leia back from Tarkin as Tarkin commands Alderaan be destroyed, but he's more or less meh on the whole death star thing. He's a fascist because he's an Imperial, but he is focused primarily on Luke most of the trilogy. His arc is not so much about the Empire in the ot is about connecting with a past he thought he lost, connecting with Anakin Skywalker as well as Luke. A father's love for his son, that self-sacrificing love parents should have for their children. The redemption works because Anakin hates what he has become and recognizes that he was the reason he never got to have the family connection he wanted his whole life - he experiences self-awareness and growth, and that is what allows him to break free of the Emperor's control and save Luke - and ultimately save the galaxy. But Anakin's redemption is also only in Luke's eyes. To the rest of the galaxy Darth Vader is a war criminal. He would never be allowed to live in the New Republic. He would have to atone for his crimes. So Anakin has to die on the Death Star, he isn't allowed to just go join up with the Alliance and finish off the Imperial Remnant.

Darth Vader is less overtly in control of the Empire - even in ANH it's fairly obvious that he's not the top dog. It's like, Tarkin is a fabulous character but no one would want him redeemed LOL.

And of course there are people who have faves that are bad people. But I've seen this film before - the Kylo Ren stans come to mind most notably, but yes Anakin stans are weird too. In TFA Kylo Ren was not sympathetic - he had literal royalty for family and a privileged upbringing because of his parentage. He was a mess - violent, angry, cruel and a mess. He was actually a compelling villain at first because he was intended to be a villain - he wasn't some woobified romantic antihero bullshit that he became thanks to R*ylos, Rian Johnson and then ofc JJ Abrams. Kylo Ren was a metaphor for a neo-nazi, even if Disney shied away from precise politics in the sequels.

Redeeming him was ridiculous because the cause for him was the point, not the consequence like it was with Vader. Kylo Ren was a true believer who wanted to finish what Vader started - blah blah comics blah blah books I'm sorry, the movies showed us what they showed us and everything else was damage control to make him more sympathetic.

I don't care what Luke did in TLJ, I don't think it's in character for the guy who thought Vader had good in him, but let's say it's totally in character and makes sense and was wrong. Okay but trauma does not excuse genocide. Trauma does not excuse mass murder. This should be obvious - and of course since you can divorce fiction from reality, anon, I'm sure you wouldn't excuse Kylo Ren's actions.

There is no moment when Kylo Ren, whose whole thing IS the cause, seems to understand that he was wrong to believe in the cause of the Empire and the Dark Side, there is no real redemption. He just thinks Palpatine's granddaughter is hot ig and saves her.

I am not against redemption arcs. I love a good redemption arc WHEN IT WORKS. Zuko in ATLA works because he realizes that he is wrong, he condemns the system he supported as a child and actively works to repair the harms done by him and his ancestors. Vader's works because he kills the Emperor and dies after making amends with Luke (and only with Luke, which again is why Anakin's redemption is a personal one but not a political one).

So why is Anakin's redemption more believable than what someone like Karn's might be? Well for one, we have NO evidence that Karn is even capable of redemption. There is nothing in his actions that signifies a change of belief or conflicting feelings about ideology. He seems to understand that he is in over his head on Ferrix, but this is a man who shows instead all signs of DOUBLING DOWN. Even the ISB officer who shuts Pre-Mor down points out that Karn is PROUD. This is a man who lines up nicely with most of Umberto Eco's 14 characteristics of fascism, which I am planning on writing further about.

What is there to sympathize with? A mom who he has a complicated relationship with? So does Cassian. And yet, people are literally justifying Karn's belief in corporate rule because some cops fucked around and found out. They are writing the very copaganda that the show is actually trying to combat.

Not for nothing it doesn't escape me that the Star Wars fandom has a bit of a problem with fascism, and unfortunately I think that is due to a number of things:

poor media literacy

poor critical thinking skills

poor understanding of history

aesthetic over substance

It has real-world consequences. These people have harassed POC in star wars viciously. They have made fan spaces unsafe for marginalized people. I'm not saying that Karn fans are like the Geeks and Gamers level shit, because I doubt those idiots are even watching Andor.

Fiction impacts real life. I can list the studies that show Black children playing with white dolls and internalizing that Black people are uglier, or stories about how Law and Order: SVU literally has had victims of SA go to police and be re-traumatized when the cops did not support them. I will also never forget that American History X, which is explicitly ANTI FASCIST, has a massive neo-nazi fan base because the fascists look cool. They didn't get the memo because they didn't want to.

Of course it doesn't mean everyone who likes Karn is a neo-nazi, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of white fans of his who can see themselves more closely in Syril Karn than they can Cassian, and that is concerning given who he is and what he represents, and what he has NO evidence to suggest he ever WILL represent.

Anyway. Fuck Syril Karn stans.

[passionesolja]

After doing research, I’ve figured out that y’all be thinking Andor “isn’t Star Wars” because their no Jedi or Sith in it. Y’all so childish and remedial. That’s really all this series is to yall?

This is literally the worst line of thinking I’ve ever heard and it why y’all see Star Wars flopping. But the one time it lowkey have a chance to evolve yall be hating on it because it don’t have the Jedi and Sith battles that make you feel like a 8 year old child again.

Y’all why this series flops.

Let me give y’all a story from a different series and let me spit some game. It’s kinda paraphrased but bare wit me

When Stone Ocean ended, Hirohiko Araki was like “damn, what now?” Because believe me, the story went and pretty much wrapped up.

He couldn’t really move back, or forward with the story of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

So, he says “fuck it, new universe” and he makes Steel Ball Run.

SBR is complete reset, some of his classic characters are there and some concepts from OG JoJo are there. But they’ve been reworked like this shit is not anything like Phantom Blood.

It was JoJo, but it was so drastically different (while keeping the basic fundamentals like Stands and bringing back Hamon, ayo)

Now, I can’t speak on the fandom then because I was a kid and not even aware of the series, but I can say that mfs worship the ground SBR walks on in the present day. Hell, the main discourse in JoJo’s fandom rn is if SBR is too praised.

I say all that to say that SBR was not traditional JoJo, it was an evolution of JoJo. It the product of all the growth Araki went through. Mfs consider it a magnum opus of Araki, both because of the story telling, artwork, and characters.

Y’all Star Wars fans can have that too. Y’all can have your own SBR, and then your own JOJOLION, but you got to allow Star Wars to grow and evolve. I understand the mentalities of the fandoms are different because JoJo changes every Part and Star Wars is fighting to relive the OT, but y’all can still a modern magnum opus.

Since SBR, we’ve got nothing but bangers that are even better than the OG Universe (I’ll say that there never been a bad or low quality jojo Part), but we get that because we trust Araki’s process and don’t try to tell him what is and ain’t jojo.

I know that Star Wars has been flopping but that’s because y’all got these people guessing on what y’all wanna see, instead of making what vision they got.

One thing about Araki, is he controls the reigns of JoJo and that’s why the series has been as successful as it is and is like 35+ years old and never once been stale or forgotten. It’s only gotten bigger and more advanced.

Star Wars fans, let Star Wars change and evolve because it’ll flop if it’s not doing it. Andor is giving y’all a chance to get y’all own SBR, like if I was a Star Wars fan and there was a show or film that was considered “Star Wars’ SBR” I’d be pretty honored

[drcornwater]

Something that makes me genuinely confused is the rehabilitation of Avatar (the James Cameron movie) into this cinematic masterpiece. There's people who will get into real arguments if you disagree with them about it.

Did I miss something or am I unaware of a cultural shift or something because all I remember after all the hype was us collectively thinking the movie was cool as fuck at first then it just being okay after. It was everywhere and it was huge and now 3D TVs were the future because Avatar was going to be on there and that's the biggest movie of all time!!! By the time a year or so had rolled around, no one cared and it had become one of those songs you hear on the radio a million times so you fucking hate it. People had picked it apart so thoroughly that the sheen of the hype wasn't enough to keep the flaws from being apparent and we realized it was just Pocahontas But Blue People. The world moved on and Marvel movies began their reign at the box office.

Now all these really serious movie guys will fight to the death about how good it is. They see it as some landmark film of the 21st century and for action movies. I've seen some truly wild analysis about Avatar that is really just galaxy brain garbage, but there's a few I could take really seriously. But I really think it's part of a larger phenomenon.

There's this need in our culture to make things we all agreed sucked into these misunderstood masterpieces. Take Metal Gear Rising Revengence. When that came out, it was critically mixed. Fans felt pretty mixed too, but there was a sense of disappointment. There were a lot of complaints of difficulty spikes, wonky camera angles, the game being super short (only 6 hours-ish), and not really knowing who it was for. But now? If you speak ill of MGRR, several greasy 19 to 29 year old men will emerge from the darkness with katanas they bought at a booth at an anime convention to murder you for heresy.

Or what about the Star Wars prequels? Those got a huge resurgence in support over the last few years. We all HATED them. And yet, there are some real life adults that will engage you to the point of arguing that the prequels are better movies than the OGs living on this very planet right now. How we got here is beyond me.

Is it because these pieces of media had immense hype behind them? Metal Gear had a great deal of anticipation behind it. Avatar was a massive cultural moment. The Prequels had people going to watch just the fucking Phantom Menace trailers before other movies because they were so hyped.

Maybe it's because people can't be wrong? They can't be wrong and the hype had to be true. The hype couldn't be wrong. It's the best. It's a classic. It wouldn't be a big deal if the hype wasn't there right?

I feel like the need to be contrarian and how that's so cool in a cynical society like ours also contributes to this. Avatar sucks? Oh yeah? Well I love it. The Prequels sucked? They're actually the best ones. It's like the opposite of hating on popular things to seem cool. It's this weird thing that the internet encourages out of people in the worst way because it rewards the cynical hive mind behavior. You post your stupid contrarian take, then you get a million likes and interactions. Now your brain has lit up like a Christmas tree and you feel Great. Repeat process.

This almost always happens on Twitter. The more I use that site, the more I realize the vast majority of Twitter just needs one large supply of antidepressants.

TL;DR

Avatar is a blast but isn't that deep

Metal Gear Rising sucks ass

Prequels suck ass

Stop being cynical and a contrarian asshole

[alligatorjesie]

Suck it ya flaccid pecker

Aye, 2 can play at this fucking game @mystarwarsmatters In reply to your God fuckin’ awful gatekeeping post: Most Reylos I've ever had the absolute pleasure to meet in this fandom know more about Star Wars than your average Star Wars Fan because they're able to follow really fucking basic context clues gently blown at them from ep7 when some of ya'll are still struggling with the concept of 'The duel of fates' in ep1. I’ve also never met one who goes out of their fucking way to gatekeep people in the fandom spaces. Long story short; don’t be a fucking cunt by making incorrect assumptions about people in the fandom simply because they would like to see 2 characters kiss. Remove your head from your anus, take a deep breath for your poor oxygen deprived brain, & realize that people like things you don’t like but that don’t make their enjoyment of a thing less pure than your own for lemme check my notes here uhhh enjoying a canon ship. You get the fuck out of this fandom. And stay the fuck out. No one wants you in it if this is how you’re going to fucking act. I’ve seen 4 year olds share better than you.

Ya fuckin’ cunt

[jerryb2]

Here we have what I’ve taken to calling the (Minor) Jedi Council Collection. From left to right:

Depa Billaba, Shaak Ti/Adi Gallia, Kit Fisto & Ki-Adi-Mundi

In years past, I wasn’t too hot on the Prequel hilts that used bar graph displays. Initially, I kind of wrote them off as extraneous, but after working with them a bit, I think I’ve finally come around. While not strictly necessary, it adds an extra bit of sci-fi-ness to the saber, and it makes me wish more Jedi incorporated them into their sabers. 

Having all four of these on-hand, I was reminded of this wonderful piece of art, associated with the OG Republic comics:

In fact, recently I’ve been reading some of the aforementioned Republic comics that initially I missed out on in years past. *gasp* Yeah, I know, I’m a fake fan & I hate Star Wars - c’mon, give me a break, I was five-years-old at the time. 

For those of you who don’t know, the Republic comics began publication in late 1998, roughly six months before The Phantom Menace dropped in theaters. It would go on to be one of the longest running publications in the history of the franchise, ultimately ending with the final issue of the Dark Times spin-off in 2014. 

In the early months of the series, it chronicled the adventures of everybody’s least favorite Ceran, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and was actually the official introduction of the character. The series would go on to chronicle the exploits of many members of the Jedi High Council, including Adi Gallia, Saesee Tiin, Eeth Koth, Even Piell, Yarael Poof, Plo Koon, Mace Windu, Depa Billaba, Yaddle and Oppo Rancisis, among others. 

This brief window of time in the history of Star Wars publishing is honestly one of my favorites, if only because of how sloppy and disorganized everything is. Comic book writers like Randy Strandley, Jan Strnad, Tim Truman & (the best one) John Ostrander were just throwing everything at the wall and hoping that something would stick. These writers were essentially operating one main directive; be true to the characterization of the Jedi in the Original Trilogy. That’s it. Everything else - the world building, lore, events & setting - were all secondary. 

This of course applies equally to something like the Tales of the Jedi comics, which were published years earlier, as well as many of the novels more contemporary to the Republic comics, particularly The Hand of Thrawn Duology & I, Jedi. This practice, coupled with the revolving door of writers, made for a very eclectic (if sometimes a bit underwhelming) Expanded Universe.

In stark contrast, when you turn a more critical eye toward Disney Star Wars, everything is just so bland. If, for example, you look back on the Tales of the Jedi, that series is straight-up bonkers. From Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Riders of Onderon (yes, that’s what it’s actually called) to the mutated Massassi trying to sacrifice Exar Kun to a giant Sith Worm (their exact words) on Yavin IV - by the standards of modern SW, the Tales comics are set in an entirely different universe. 

Some people may like the uniformity of the Disney Canon, and deride the EU of years past for perpetually not keeping its story straight - but not me. Because while the EU was a mess of conflicting stories, contrived character arcs & wildly varied writing styles - it was always about something. It was about something bigger and more important than the individual characters. It was about Good triumphing over Evil. It was about growing to accept your destiny, even if it ran counter to what you might want. Star Wars was fun. 

Now let me ask you - what the kriff is Disney Star Wars about???

[dutchdread]

Hi again, I'm the same anon from your last ask. So my next question then is why would you consider it to be a bad story if Cloud ends up with Aerith in the end? You also say Cloud and Tifa supposedly have something going on, but even if they did, Aerith doesn't know that. Neither Cloud nor Tifa tell anyone, or even show that there's anything going on between them throughout the whole story. Did you see that in Remake that Aerith even asks Cloud if Tifa is someone special and he says no?

Thanks for the question. Your question is comprised of two parts, why Cloud ending up with Aerith would be a bad story, and then the secondary part about Aerith not knowing about the history between Tifa and Cloud. I think understanding the later will be helpful to understand the former so I'll start with that. This goes back to what I said in my last reply concerning the difference between thinking someone is a bad person, and thinking they're a bad character. First off, let me just make clear that I don't judge Aerith too much concerning her behavior in the OG, since as you rightly state, she didn't really know that there was anything going on between Tifa and Cloud, she probably knew there was some attraction there, but nothing about the extent or the history. And if in the remake it turns out she's actually blissfully ignorant I'll be more lenient there as well. However, in my opinion the remake heavily implies she does realize there is a thing between Tifa and Cloud. You mentioned Aerith asking if Tifa was Clouds girlfriend, and him replying "no". However, as always, there is context here, for starters, the scene doesn't end there and then. Aerith replies knowingly "but she's someone special". Moreover the scene is also only one scene in a series of relevant scenes concerning Clouds relationship with Tifa, which starts with Jessie asking about who Tifa is too Cloud, this plotpoint then continues through Aeriths flower. When Aerith gives Cloud the flower she mentions that his girlfriend will love it, then later when Aerith asks him who he gave the flower to Cloud says he doesn't remember, and Aerith calls him out on the lie. The question is then answered when Aerith goes to the 7th heaven and discovers Cloud gave it to Tifa, prompting a smile from Aerith. She figured it out, actually, she probably figured it much earlier, but now it was confirmed. She had a hunch about Tifa, just like Jessie, Cloud was defensive at first, then evasive, but ultimately, Aeriths hunch was correct, Cloud gave the flower to Tifa. He can pretend all he wants, Aerith knows. Personally, I think she smiled because it reminds her of the future. Throughout remake Aerith is hinted to know more than she lets on, and that's especially true concerning Tifa and Cloud. When Tifa is kidnapped she pushes Cloud to go after Tifa, calling Tifa Clouds special person. If I recall correctly she even uses the same terminology that she used to describe Elmyras husband. She actively tries to make Tifa jealous by calling Cloud her bodyguard, and then she straight up tells Tifa to follow her heart. She gives me the distinct impression that she knows perfectly well where Cloud and Tifas hearts lie, and is trying to push them into action. This is borderline confirmed during the Aerith resolution where she basically straight up admits to knowing more about Clouds feelings than she actually should, assuming you think that this apparition is at least somewhat related to the current Aerith in some manner. The thing that really clenches this in my opinion is a trace of two pasts, where Tifa straight up tells Aerith about her and Clouds history. If Aerith doesn't get it by then, then she's being willfully ignorant. But lets say she does indeed not know, that would to some degree absolve her as a person. But it would still make her a bad character, because WE, the audience, know. We know that Cloud is supposed to end up with Tifa, we know that's how the story goes. And when you rewrite old stories in such a way that you take things away from one character, just to give more to another character, you run the giant risk of insulting the characters involved. You see this in things like the star wars sequels, where they effectively character assassinated Luke Skywalker in order to artificially make Rey seem better. But there are two reasons why this doesn't work, for one, it tends to create Mary-Sue like characters who just get given everything, and two, it inherently causes the fans of the other characters and stories to resent the character that's taking it away.

People don't like people who are simply handed everything, even fictional ones.

In a sense, this is also why Cleriths so often seem to hate Tifa, because they feel like Tifa took their story away from them. The difference, of course, is that Cloud ending with Tifa is a part of the original game itself, while Aerith coming back to life and ending up with Cloud would be a 25 year retcon which would blatantly disadvantage one character in favor of another, this in turn would reek of favoritism, which in turn would generate bad blood in the player. A character who needs to take away from other characters in order to be put forward is not a good character. Good characters add to the characters around them, not take away, that's what Aerith in the OG does, that's what Aerith ending up with Cloud, would not do. This effect would then be magnified by Aeriths already over importance to the plot. Having the universe revolve around one character generally isn't good writing. One of the things that makes Lord of the rings so timeless and beloved is that Frodo is just a small hobbit in the grand scheme of things. Likewise, one of the key elements that makes FFVII so appealing to human nature is Clouds humanity and lack of importance. The fact that Cloud turns out to not be a soldier 1st class, but just a grunt who wasn't good enough, who still ends up being the one who saves the world, speak to the human spirit. Aerith living and ending up with Cloud wouldn't be just a small difference where the overall story would stay the same with only the love interest switched, no, it would inherently ripple effect into all other aspects of the story. From the smallest details to the overall themes of the story, from directing to the personalities of characters, everything would be effected and all of it would fall apart. I could go over a hundred examples but I'll limit myself to some of the smallest and largest. Stories have a flow, where what is happening follows logically from what came before. It's not that it's impossible to write a story where two characters that are roughly similar to Cloud and Aerith fall in love, get separated by death, and where the Cloud character mourns and pines for her after she's gone. The problem comes when you add in Tifa, Zack, and all the other context and details of the story. Consider Zack, if we take the concept of Zack as it relates to Cloud and Aeriths relationship and boil it down to the essentials we could see it as a story about a girl falling in love with a boy because he's channeling the spirit of her dead ex, the main internal conflict the characters need to overcome could then be the question of whether these feelings are true, or whether they are just the shadow of her feelings for the old boyfriend. On the surface, this premise works as the basis of a story. The problem lies in the execution. If you write such a story there are a few things you can and cannot do. For one, you have to make this love exceptionally obvious, you can't tell a story about whether or not feelings are true if you never even get to establishing the feelings in the first place. One of the key things you need to do for this is establish the two characters central importance to the others internal emotional arcs. The first thing you DON'T do is establish a second female character and have Clouds emotional arc revolve mainly around her. If you want to tell a story where Tifa and Clouds relationship turns out to just be friendship, while Aerith and Cloud turns out to be love, then you show the scenes establishing that. However, whenever Cleriths argue for a story like this they have to assert that Cloud no longer loving Tifa is just something that happened off-screen and is never mentioned. But if this were true, this would be extremely important to show. So again, if this is the story, then this is bad direction, aka, storytelling. Scene choices matter, if your story requires you to assume that the scenes you're shown aren't important, and that the crucial bits have to be imagined to happen of screen, then that's bad writing. And the reason you can't suddenly do it now, 25 years later, is

because of a thing called "set-up". Even if they were to change to story to suddenly direct it as such now, it would constitute a drastic change of direction, which means the larger 2-decade long story we've been told is no longer a single coherent whole. If the story in remake is that Cloud always loved Aerith, then why wasn't the ground work for that lain 25 years ago? If you want to say that the story is about Cloud loving Aerith, and ending up with her eventually, then you can't have Cloud not speak her name for the second half of the original game, and devote that time completely to establishing port-mortem that Cloud wasn't himself while with Aerith, and that his true self has deeply ingrained feelings towards another woman. And not some minor character who exists only as a plot-device, some fake hurdle designed to try to raise some fake tension, but Tifa, a character who is routinely established to be the "heroine" of the game, someone of equal importance to Aerith who cared for Cloud while he was in a coma, whose history with Cloud started his internal character arc, whose history with Cloud resolved his internal character arc, and who lives with Cloud 2 years later.

And the same thing goes for Zack, it was possible to write him as negligible when it was just FFVII, if you ignored the addition of Tifa and JUST focused on the Zack element as a side character. But the addition of Tifa and the existence of Crisis Core cause the narrative to become disjointed when trying to view it as a single story. This is why people so often want you to ignore Crisis Core, because they understand that if a conclusion of a story is that Zacks role isn't that important, then why did your story spend an entire game cementing the importance of Zack? One of the things I hear most from Cleriths is "why couldn't Cloud just get over his childhood crush on Tifa and fall in love with Aerith? It happens in real life" , or some other variation of "why couldn't this happen?" But this shows the problem with how they want the story to go, because stories aren't real life. Anything CAN happen in a story, but not anything should. Stories have a concept called " checkovs gun", if a gun is introduced into a story in the first act, it has to be fired somewhere down the line. If the gun turns out to not have a role in the story, why was it there? But the same thing doesn't apply in real life, in real life, chekovs guns almost never fire, with few exceptions, real life is a bad guide to how to write stories. Stories written like real life, generally suck. If characters in stories behaved like characters in real life, half their lines would be "uhhhhh", and half the scenes would be them sitting on the couch having meaningless unrelated events happen.

The entire flow, pacing, and sequence of events is wrong in a Clerith version of this story. In order to sell the idea that FFVII is a story about Aerith and Cloud getting together you first have to sell the idea that all these plot threats concerning Tifa essentially don't matter. But if they don't matter, then why are they there? What purpose do they serve? What purpose does Tifa serve? Or Zack? In order to "fix" their preferred interpretation, Cleriths need to get around this problem, which causes them to have to re-interpret everything that happens and twist it in order to create the appearance of a coherent story. This requires them to resort to minimizing characters, character assassinating characters, and generally misrepresenting everything that happens. I think there is no bigger indication of why Cloud and Aerith getting together would suck as a story than looking at how the people who propose this version of the story look at Cloud and Tifa as characters. What follows are some excerpts from the dumbest person I've ever debated.

This went on for over 200 replies, this is not a mentally sound interpretation of the story, but this is what you need to believe in order to get the Aerith/Cloud love story to work. You're forced to minimize Tifa and her importance to the story, and you need to demonize Cloud. So basically you have two options here, you either have to say "all this stuff with Tifa and Zack, doesn't matter", all their scenes, all those plot threats, they all aren't a part of the larger story being told and ultimately amount to nothing. Or two, you remove all those scenes or rewrite them to instead focus on Cloud and Aerith. And both those approaches suffer from the same basic problem, they're both effectively going "screw everything, all that matters is Cloud and Aerith". Which brings me back to my earlier point. If your story is pushing everything aside in order to hype up the main character, you're not writing a good ensemble story, you're writing a bad fan-fiction. This is the writing people HATE. Cloud is no longer a sad but likable character with complex motivations and feelings who wasn't as important as he thought he was, no, he's cliche self-insert main character that the world revolves around, who every girl genuinely loves regardless of whether or not it makes sense, even though he's a complete asshole who abandons children and takes advantage of women just because he's "lovesick". No other man could ever compare, a week with him braindamaged and you forget all about the man you pined after for 5 years. Aerith is not compassionate to a man who blames himself for his failings and thinks he'd do more harm than good, she's compassionate to a piece of human filth who refuses to go save children because he doesn't care about them. She's not just a girl with a big destiny and a tragic fate, no, the universe itself resets to make sure she gets laid. Tifa isn't a powerful woman who devotedly supports the man she loves through his darkest hours, instead she's a weak unimportant doormat without self-respect who even in 2 decades could not measure up to a week with Aerith. Zacks connection with Cloud doesn't come with complex implications about Aeriths feelings, Zack never really mattered, his entire story of getting back to her? Doesn't matter, it only exists to show how much Aerith must love Cloud to choose him over Zack. The entire lifestream reveal concerning Cloud? Doesn't matter, nothing matters, it's in the past. The central reveal of the story isn't important because Clouds true self suddenly likes Aerith now.....good writing. etc, etc, etc. Where Aerith was once a part of an ensemble cast, the heroine of the external plot, tasked with saving the world through her powers as an ancient, while Tifa as the equally important heroine of the internal plot saves Clouds through their shared feelings, now everything instead revolves around Aerith, and the other characters only exist in service to her, not as characters in their own right, but only to make sure she and Cloud gets together, like every hated mary-sue in history. The pain of her death? Gone, the impact and nuance of the story? Gone. Literally everything that made FFVII special? Gone. And concerning the small, even the little details would no longer be coherent, Cetras thematically guide people to the promised land, note: "GUIDE", but now Aerith would suddenly be the promised land herself. The through-line of Cetras "returning to the planet"? Gone, if Aerith doesn't die that doesn't link to the story anymore at all. Tifa's bar being the 7th heaven, aka, the final heaven, aka, the promised land where Aerith guides Cloud to? Suddenly a meaningless name. Tifa's last name "lockhart" being a direct hint towards the "tender feelings locked up inside Clouds hart"? Completely trivial, the feelings weren't that important to the story. And I could go on for hours, every aspect of FFVII, from small to large, would be fundamentally poisoned if Cloud ends up with Aerith.

I could rewrite the story to make it work, but that's the point, then you'd be rewriting the story in order to diminish every other character and story in favor of Cloud and Aerith. Which brings us back to it becoming a horrible fan-fiction where no one and nothing matters except Cloud and Aerith. It's ok to write unimportant characters, it's not ok to make your important characters unimportant in retrospect in order to wank off another character. Thanks for asking.

[valkyrieelysia18]

My Thoughts on Reboots, Remakes, Sequels, and Spinoffs

Hey there everybody! I know that everyone and their mother have an opinion on this topic, but I just wanted to added my two cents on to to something that wasn’t going to be that long.

Part of the reason I’m doing this post is because two series I loved dearly when I was younger, Winx Club and Inuyasha, have gotten a live action remake series and a sequel series. Now I’m not here to talk on the many MANY wrongs of Fate The Winx Saga or the issues of Yashahime because other people have already went into detail on that stuff. Instead I’m going to talk about what I feel like adapting old properties as whole.

As we fully know and acknowledge, nostalgia is a powerful force with an iron grip and Hollywood and other film/tv makers are doing their best to exploit our nostalgia for as much cash as they can get from us. It’s considered less work and less risky to adapt an older project with a ready fanbase than it is come up with an original property. Most of the time these things aren’t made because there is more to expand on in either the work’s world or characters or bring a new fresh take to it, but because it would make money. Manipulative as it is, its sound business logic.

That being said: remakes, reboots, spinoffs, and sequels aren’t inherently bad. When done well, they don’t just keep to the heart and soul of the original work, they SURPASS it. There’s nothing wrong with changing things from the source material, especially if it’s to add more diversity to the line up or correct a problematic element found in the original series. Even if an interpretation doesn’t hold a candle to the original, it’s still fun to see what creators can dream up for a franchise. For example, Batman the Animated Series will always be the definitive Batman experience for me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy Batman Beyond, Batman the Brave and the Bold, the Dark Knight, Arkham Asylum, or other adaptations of the character.

The problem is more often than not, these projects are not handled well. As I said before, it’s more to make money than to actually be a good and/or faithful adaptation. I think everyone remembers the fiasco that was the live action Jem and the Holograms film from a couple years ago. That movie did the worse thing an adaptation can do for fans: used the the name for brand recognition and threw just about everything out from the original series to appeal to the modern crowd (by the way the makers of this movie didn’t even seem to understand THAT demographic), spitting in the face of the original fans. It honestly wasn’t that surprising the film was pulled from theaters so quickly. As a Winx Club fan, I can relate to Jem fans now in a way that I wasn’t able to back then.

Now some would say fans can be extremely judgmental and toxic when it comes to any changes to their beloved franchises. To an extent, I do agree. For example, I was almost five years old when the Star Wars Prequels came out and thus didn’t really get the hate for it because I didn’t have the nostalgia the older fans did. Now that I am older and have watched both trilogies, I can acknowledge that the original trilogy was better in terms of story and characters, but those films are far from perfect. And you got to give the prequel trilogy credit in that had a distinct definite vision and that it was telling its own story, not just relying on what came before. 

But in my honest opinion, I think a lot of the hate from fans of these series comes from the fact that these adaptations more often than not seem to spite the fans and butcher the things they used to love. And considering this is where the original buzz and money come from for these projects, it feels like those behind these projects are going for short term cash rather than long term gain.

I think sequel series in particular can come as off very problematic if their continuation seems to retcon or destroy a very good and satisfying ending. Part of why I can’t really get behind Yashahime is because it feels like the series kind of invalidates the really good ending of the original series and how poorly it has treated the og characters. A series’ ending is arguably the hardest thing to pull off well, it’s one thing to start strong but its another thing to carry that quality to end of the story. And even if a finale isn’t bad, it can still be controversial or divisive among fans. Ducktales 2017 is a great series, but even it stumbled in its finale. Anyone who’s seen it can probably guess what I’m talking about. 

So, how should we approach these projects? I think the best mindset to going into these continuations is cautious optimism. That way you’ll be surprised if it turns out to be good, but not too disappointed if it turns out to be the opposite.

And if nothing else there is this comfort for us who live in this time: where canon fails, there is fan fiction. Seriously, I see more passion, creativity, and quality from things I read and view for free on the internet than things that have huge production teams and tons of money poured into them.

Sorry if this just seems like a ramble to you guys, but you know sometimes that there are things you just need to get out there. And hey it turns out this my 100th post on tumblr. So yay to me.

Don’t worry for those who are here for my Rewrite post. Next time we’re going to get to Cinder....AND I HAVE THOUGHTS.

See you soon!

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sarah Ellen Parsons

Sarah Ellen Parsons has 18 X-Files stories at Gossamer and 19 at AO3. If you want high quality fic with interesting characters, go read her stories. Some of my favorites of her fics are The Crouching Thing and My Constant Touchstone Who Makes Me A Whole Person (which are two very different stories!). Big thanks to Sarah Ellen for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

With today's binge-watching culture, I'm not at all surprised. You can watch a bunch of eps and then seek out fic that is where you are in the series.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I took away a writer's group Yes, Virginia, that is still together.  Mostly as friends, but whenever I write something, or someone else writes something, it's the first place we all run for machete beta. I have betad SO MANY novels.

We have a number of folks who are published writers since then and our time in X-Files fic brought us lifelong friendships IRL and made us all better at our craft. The majority of those folks were better writers than I am. And I make my living as a writer in my day-job.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else.  We had our own Yahoo group for beta.  We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories.  But the main method of distribution was the lists.

Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.

Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there's a will, there's always someone ready to step up and find a way.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That's the best takeaway.

Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people's egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn't serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror.  I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer's room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.

I'm a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being "too dark". And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn't terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.

My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I went to the X-Files Expo to see if I could make contact with someone from Harper Collins because the tie-in novels sucked so hard.  I got rejected with my pitch as I didn't have a literary agent.

Around that time, a pal who I watched X-Files with IRL was looking for a free X-files wallpaper for her work computer when she found the website where fans in Pennsylvania had fic archived. She read some and wrote to me - "you need to see this, and you can do better."  So I started reading and was.... I probably CAN do better. So I wrote The Batman Plot. And made two friends I'm still friends with with that one story.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Nonexistent.  I couldn't even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.

X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn't end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)

I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can't tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

This list is far too long to actually make.  But characters I spent time writing about include: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Co. (I wrote three unpublished Star Trek novels before I found online fandom). King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, Sherlock Holmes (I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play after seeing "Crucifer of Blood" and entered it in a national competition, where I got very nice comments back.), Mulder, Scully and Krycek, Rowling's Hermione and Snape (like him or not, its masterful characterization), Dean and Sam Winchester, John Winchester and Bobby Singer.  I wrote one comedy story starring Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  A couple of Roswell stories under a different name. Catwoman and Batman. I have some unpublished Avengers fanfic lying around as I'm an OG Marvel fan with a massive comic collection.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I was on a business trip a few years ago and FX had a marathon and I watched part of it when I was in my hotel room. Early seasons are comforting, but I don't go back there now.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic anymore. I read a tiny bit of Star Wars after the second movie because Rian Johnson had it right. Now I don't care. I love Mandalorian, but am content to watch.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to count.  All of YV. Which reminds me, I need to go update our entry at Fanlore. I promised Punk I'd do it a while back.  I need to at least get everyone linked.  Right now it's only Punk and Sab.

But it was a ton of us.  Marasmus, Maria Nicole, Cofax, CazQ, M. Sebasky, Livia Balaban, Kelly Keil, Wen, Ropobop, Jess Mabe, JET, fialka, and a bunch of others that I can't remember their fic names any more, just their real names because I know them all IRL. I need to go back and look up their fic names and link them up there.

In addition to my little group of pals, I loved reading Mustang Sally and Rivka T, Rachel Anton - I keep trying to find her to encourage her to write romance if she's not doing it already, but no dice, Dasha K., Anjou, there were so many great ones, but their names have slipped my mind in the past 20 years.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I'm most known for Prone, and I'm proud of that story for all kinds of reasons, but I think my very best is The Crouching Thing.

I mostly didn't publish anything I didn't think was good and hadn't been machete betaed within an inch of its life, but I'm not sure much of the angsty romance stuff holds up as well. I think it worked when the show was still ON and we were all in that emotional headspace, but probably not now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I have been making my living as a writer for 25 years. I write the word count equivalent of 5 Tolkein novels a year, just for my day-job.  I am turning back to original fiction, which is where I was before X-Files.  I'm working on the M/M thing, a high fantasy thing, a low fantasy historical thing and a bunch of M/F Regency romances as I get time and energy.  I publish Fantasy and SF under my real name. Romance has pen names as you don't want that getting back to your workplace, either.

SEP is fic only and here she will stay.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have too many ideas to count.  I try to write them down when they come, so I won't forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I've been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because "Mists of Avalon" pissed me off so bad as I'd read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Sarah Ellen was my great-grandma, Parsons was her grandma's last name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn't know about the fic. Just the "real" writing.  I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

My X-files stuff is up on Gossamer mostly. I'm trying to get the stories all moved to AO3 for all the genres. I'm working on this now.  SEP is really not a living thing anymore, but there was a time when she was more me than me.

If you want to find my "real" non-fic writing, write to me at se_parsons at yahoo dot com and I will point you at it.

And PLEASE someone, hunt down Rachel Anton and get her writing something we all can BUY.  Where are my old Krycek bitches at?  Do any of you know where she is? [Lilydale note: I’ve tried contacting Rachel Anton for this Old School X project but have not had luck. I would love to find her too!]

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show.  Find a living community you love for a show you love.  There are great people out there creating and get involved.  It will be worth it.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 15, 2020)

[duhragonball]

Chi-Chi

I think I’m gonna wrap these up today so I can get back to work on my fanfic.    For the record, I got Buu, Frieza, Jolyne Kujo, Father Pucci, and Jobin Higashikata left to go, and then I’m done.  

But I hate to call it here, because this has been fun.   Maybe I’ll bring this back some time.  

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: I started watching DBZ back in the fall of 1998, and I didn’t get very serious about it until 2000.   Chi-Chi didn’t have a very big role in the Saiyans or Frieza arcs, and I wasn’t making a point of watching every episode, so it took a while for her character to be fully revealed.   Starting out, she was basically popping in every so often to remind us that she wanted Gohan to study.   She stood up to Garlic’s henchmen in Movie 1, but didn’t really get a chance to do anything.    In the Garlic Junior Saga, it’s stated that Chi-Chi is the strongest woman in the world, which sounds pretty impressive as long as you don’t think too hard about how many women are on the show.  

I don’t think I really understood Chi-Chi well until I got to the part where Goten spars with Gohan, and he reveals that Chi-Chi had been training him while Gohan was studying.   That was where it became clear to me that she only emphasized book-learnin’ over ass-whoopin’ because she knew Goku had that side of things covered.    With Goten, Chi-Chi had to be both mother and father to him, and she didn’t shirk from that.   

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Chi-Chi’s a great supporting character.   She maintains a presence in the story whether she’s on-screen or not, and you learn about her gradually through these short appearances.    And when she does show up, it’s just a treat to see.   She’s always got something to say, and she’s cute and she can beat your ass.    What’s not to like?  

Why I don’t:  Yeah right.   Look, the biggest gripe people have with Chi-Chi is that she makes her son do homework, which is dumb.    She explains this a number of times: There’s more to life than fighting, and she wants that for her son.   And Gohan’s not exactly worse off for her style of parenting.  

I think the disconnect here is that people watch this show and they want to see Goku and Gohan screw around and go on adventures, and they feel like Chi-Chi is here to kill their buzz.   I guess it’d be like watching a football game, and every so often some guy wanders out onto the field and scolds everyone for playing football.    But that guy would be right, because football is dangerous, yo.   Everybody keeps telling Chi-Chi that the only hope for the world involves her little boy getting his ass kicked by aliens, and she’s like “no, that’s bullshit,” and she’s absolutely right.   She’s a saint for tolerating it as much as she does, but I think a lot of fans refuse to look at it from her point of view.    They just want the fighting.  

I remember Lanipator observing that he used to hate Mr. Satan when he was younger, but the older he got, the more and more he appreciated the character.    I can’t relate to that, because I was old enough to drink when I started watching this show, so for me, there is no “when I was a kid” perspective on Dragon Ball.    I thought Mr. Satan was awesome from the start, and I never had much of a problem with Chi-Chi either.  

They did tend to overexpose both characters in the anime, cutting to them when they needed a filler moment to pad out an episode or five.   So maybe that’s got something to do with it.   But that’s not the fault of the characters.    But yeah, if I was watching the Cell Games at age 10 I’d probably get really sick of them constantly cutting to Mr. Satan or Chi-Chi for analysis.    

Favorite episode (scene if movie):  It’s probably hard to top the one where she fought Goku.   That was one of the last Chi-Chi moments I got to see, because I didn’t get caught up on OG Dragon Ball until 2004.   It’s an excellent use of the character and her lengthy absence from the show.   By the time she reappears, no one recognizes her, and she’s upset about being forgotten.  

Favorite season/movie:  I think I’d have to go with the Buu Saga, on the grounds that she got more time to shine, mainly due to so many other characters being unavailable.    It was a real roller coaster ride for her too.    Her husband’s dead and she’s raising two kids on her own, then he comes back, then he leaves again, and maybe Gohan’s dead too, and now Goten has to fight, and then she’s dead, and then they’re all back together in the end.     Wild.

Favorite line:  In the Cell Games Saga, there’s a TV show where Mr. Satan drags three buses onto the set, cuts a scathing promo on Cell, and then punches one of the buses to put an exclamation point on the whole thing.   Wait, I take it back, I’m pretty sure 10yo me would have loved Mr. Satan.  

Anyway the live audience is marking the fuck out for Mr. Satan, but at Kame House Yamcha and Krillin are unimpressed, because they punch holes in like fifty buses every morning as a warm-up.   But in the dub of that episode, Roshi remarks that Mr. Satan’s theatrics are “sad”, and Chi-Chi goes “It sure is.   Somebody could have used that bus.” Classic, total classic.

Favorite outfit: It’s hard to pick, honestly.   I like the Buu Saga yellow, but I prefer the way her hair looked in the Saiyans Saga.  And that outfit she wore near the end of DBZ was pretty great too.

OTP:  Goku. come on.

Brotp: I think Bulma sort of stepped into that role after Trunks was born, but Chi-Chi seems like a loner to me.   She basically rolled in, got Goku to marry her, and then retreated deep into the mountains to interact with as few people as possible.   I need me a freak like that.  

Head Canon: I think she’s genuinely proud of Goku and the boys being so great at super-karate-laser wars.   She doesn’t talk about it much, because there’s plenty of other people to congratulate them on that sort of thing, and I think they sort of look to her for as someone who grounds their family.  

To put it another way, I don’t think Goku wants Chi-Chi to talk a lot about the androids or the Saiyans or whatever.   I think he wants someone to bother him with household matters and chores and ordinary stuff.   And Gohan and Goten just want a regular mom to balance out their alien monomyth dad.    And she plays that role well, because that’s who she is.   But she’s still proud of them for saving the world and so forth. 

Unpopular opinion: Chi-Chi was right. 

Look, how was Gohan going to make a life for himself as a fighter, in a world where Goku and Vegeta have that market cornered?   

Where’s he live?  In a big-ass mansion.    Why?  Because he married a rich man’s daughter.   Where’d he meet her?   In the school Chi-Chi made him go to.  How’d he get in to said school?   He aced their entrance exams.    How’d he do that?   Chi-Chi made him study.

What does Goku do all day when he isn’t training?  He drives a tractor?  Why?  Because his wife has a thing for farmer aesthetics.   Why does he just do whatever his wife tells him?   Because he didn’t study.

A wish:  I wish all the Chi-Chi haters would stay out of my soup, because it’s salty enough as it is.   (Heyoooo!)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I’ve been seeing Manalorian spoilers lately, and I don’t want to give anything away, but it seems like every time something happens on Mando, all the chuds come out of the woodwork to complain about Episode VIII and/or IX.     They’re like “thank you, Disney, for giving us the [Star Wars thing] that Disney refused to give us.” 

My fear is that Star Wars has become balkanized into this thing where people praise half of it as fixing or undoing the damage caused by the other half.   Used to be, people would either like the Ewoks or hate them, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that they were there.   Now it’s like any movie that doesn’t feature Ewoks is done to cater to the anti-Ewok crowd, and any movie that does is solely for the purpose of keeping the pro-Ewok side engaged.   

My point is that I worry that this will happen to all media franchises, and Dragon Ball Q will feature a Chi-Chi that gets turned into a hateful she-hag to satisfy the haters, and then Ultra Dragon Ball Deluxe will feature a more nuanced version of Chi-Chi as a make-good, thereby pissing off the haters.   And they’ll go back and forth trying to please everyone while the character ends up becoming an incomprehensible mess from it.  

5 words to best describe them: Adorable tiger mom/bus advocate.

My nickname for them: Cheech.