#and my truth is that they are more compelling interacting w other characters than w each other

[m1ckeyb3rry]

GUESS WHO FINALLY CAUGHT UP W THE BLLK MANGA 🤩

[benevadeca]

Relistening to razia's shadow bc I belatedly realized they posted their new version of it and not that they changed any of the lyrics or plot but hm! Just as confused as I've ever been and honestly fr guys am I missing something. I do not understand the plot lol my feelings for it are very "makes no sense. compels me tho" i mean

all of this critism coming from someone who has no knowledge of any possible lore that may or may not exist abt this and has never interacted w anyone about it but just listens to the album sometimes and has seen the youtube puppet play <3

OK so the whole theme being "the unrelenting constancy of love and hope can rescue and restore you from any scope" aw <3 except it literally never does lol like Prophecy Boy dies in both acts.

It's truly the unfeminist of albums I mean. My 2017 memories of making an entire AU where I change the lyrics to all the songs with our #girls bc they suck TBH. honestly I just need to break down my gripes song by song okay so

>missing piece

OK!! so they were both very gifted but it's only arima and his man angst that goes off committing arson??

>life is looking up

it's literally Oh The Scientist being cringe and creepy like give ur son boy some encouragement damn :/ guy who caused it: I'm staying out of it. also the "but the sculpture of the earth was looked upon by jealous eyes" okay so there's always trouble in paradise got it, but the whole "dark and the light" theme is so confusing

>spider and the lamps

i hate the "crawl inside her" line soooooo much i think of it in my head as "crawling insider" like...he's a spy a creep a guy offering a new (worse) perspective on a guy who's at a mental low under the guise of helping him when he's really manipulating him. etc.

>toba the tura

literally in 2018 i had a whole animatic planned where the reason nidria leaves is bc she's literally a leader to her people and it's her making the tough choice to choose the responsibility she has to them who are now, idk refugees or whatever? etc etc. so yeah the irony of ari being the guy who's like "when i die you will realize" only for his terrible actions to be what forces nidria, who never even expressed any real desire or felt any necessity to Show Off Her Skillz, to take this active leadership authority figure role. anyway what was i talking about.

oh yeah uh, ok so i love toba bestie <3 love that they're a #girl in the new version like yes feminism. we love a genderfluid goat and i loved the singer but the "my words will tear through the air" line which is SO powerful in the original was kinda mediocre ngl. so yeah disappointed there but otherwise <3

i had a whole character concept for them in the far past but i've forgotten it honestly and relistening and watching wow they're kind of a cop huh? this is me going with my 2017 AU where the dark v/s light thing is a veiled xenophobia metaphor taking inspiration from the mechanisms high noon over camelot album. but yeah in this view the "every dark corner will soon see the light" is very civil servant performing their duty that, oops, kind of involves a punitive judgemental form of justice that negatively disenfranchises some more than others.

but again, the dark v/s light thing is so unclear like rly acting as if it's unpopulated when he's ari is banished or whatev ("desolate throne" but people do live there?? or once the light-people leave the land gets re-populated by the dark-people who were possibly implicitly expelled from there? going w the fantasy racism theme + the weird unexplained sickness thing i think the disparity between them is at least partially due to physiological differences in a nocturnal vs diurnal creatures kinda way. vampires who can't stand light vs guys who would wither away without it. etc etc.

But also again fuck Oh The Scientist the entire "you've broken the trust of your father's love" when was that love expressed?? and hello NIDRIA??? who has like a whole song about expressing her love!!! not even a "the truth of those you love" more encompassing kind of lyric just the very narrow vision of it is so :(

>the oracle

lots of nitpicks bc i'm a hater on this one <3 but another contender for worst line in the musical "in her lock he will turn the key" makes me GAG. not even like a "together they will turn the key" in a "these TWO guys will fulfill the prophecy bc it's a TOGETHER issue bc we all saw what happened last time when prophecy was left up to Just Some Guy, with a girl also there"

ALSO the "Their true love will be strong enough, To erase the wrong we've done" line i'm so bleh over? Like it's not abour ERASING the wrong it's about being able to look it in the eye and move past it! facing it and confronting it in order to work together to build something that learns from the mistakes of the past that is more equitable and lasting. so yeah idk just simple lyrical changes like "to move past"

Also the "will be strong enough" is so hamfisted....add some ambiguity or a touch of hopefulness or desperation bc we already saw prophecy isn't all it's caked up to be! "with their love, may it be strong enough" or smth. idk man!! idk!!

>the exit

the new ver literally has pallis like. push him to the ground at the beginning? BOO!! he's shown to be not understanding but still caring through his coldness, and also it's unclear what the prophecy is but in the beginning and the end "you really are the chosen one the calculated sacrifice" LIKE?? no wonder he was against it!! either knowing ur brother will die and/or being the killer??? yeah i think i'd be unhappy too abt my younger brother chasing a suicide mission.

and as for adakias and how literally his whole thing being feeling trapped, not fitting in, forced to fill a role he doesn't feel suited for, yearning for understanding and newness, etc.

and anura ALSO feeling those things!! self-recognition thru the other etc, and then for the next song to like immediately pivot to "and now they are going to settle down and have kids :)" it's SOOO infuriating. "to float away, and settle down" SETTLE DOWN????? AFTER ALL THAT YEARNING FOR A HERO'S JOURNEY???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN

>it's true love

literally changing all of anura's lines bc again misogyny the musical.

"I never would guess your touch could, Fill me with such thoughts to marry you, have your babies, too" BLECKKKK

TO ME changes to: "...guessed someone could Fill me with such a tender feeling, how, Just to be with you, Is it too good to be true?"

Also the "Adakias, can't you see that I knew at first kiss?" >> "can't you see that without you I'd have never escaped" this line is partially bc i couldn't hear what she was saying lol but it sounded vaguely like this to me and fit with the themes of like. desperation, loneliness, finally finding someone who understands you and the desire to cling to that person, the whirlwind that mixture of things can spur you into making looking before you leap decision making, etc

also more lyric changes but i would simply change "i can't let her learn about my past" to "if i let her learn about my past" with a yes maybe? :) hopefulness to it, that then pivots to the "if she found out where i came from" of the original. the back and forth!! the desire to entrust your full self to the person you theoretically has this magic connection of love and understanding with that you don't want to lie to!! but that is shadowed by the fears of being forced back to a life you don't want. instead of just "oh yeah and i will simply keep this a secret, forever, regardless of how much this endangers the people around me :) what could go wrong"

>meet the king

literally the narration at the end w/ the "the king as his greed" HIS GREED??? bro he literally knew he was hiding something and ofc he was concerned for his daughter making a crazy rash decision based on someone who very well COULD just be after her for status!!! and who did end up getting her sick and almost killed!!!!!

songs written by someone who doesn't get the plot of romeo and juliet. and also addy constantly ending his lines to the king with "You Fool" BRO that is not how u convince ur date's dad to like you!!!!! and way to give away ur not just some commoner who tf talks to royalty like this you loudmouth. KIDS

but also on the other hand what even is the sickness plotline....def puts a weird bit into my xenophobia metaphor plotline but as a plotline itself even without that it's so nonsense!!! means nothing to me!!!!

>holy the sea

i think this song fucks love the boat chorus :) i do think the "sits atop ur family tree" thing is kinda boring like booooo no fancy chosen one bloodlines, i say in a work where the only characters are all monarchists or smth, the reincarnation thing is on thin ice but i'll allow it bc making puppets is hard and i support reusing character designs in a "same guy but slightly different and to the left bc see they are Parallels" i fall for it every time.

>doctor doctor

lol literally i cant listen to this song it's so. like the music is fun but the entire plot and lyrics are soooo

i mean addy was rly gonna just sell anura to the creepy doctor without her consent bc, what? "Trust me, I know how this must go!"??? BRO as if you've trust her with anything!! and if it's not your fault in the first place!!!!

>the end and the beginning

i was always very confused where tf the doctor went in this song until i saw the visual of the door just falling on him. everybody say thank you pallis

the way it doesn't make sense tho lmao <3 "she would never RLY like u bc she's a spoiled princess who needs a prince" BRO?? damn that's crazy where the hell would we find one of those? and if not every character in this song is royalty???

"these two have been on quite an odyssey" :( i would also like to witness the odyssey. also belated question why in the new version are so many of the characters kind of gay (the spider, the king, pallis and his puppet hip thrusts)

and the way the entire song is abt her and pallis forcing her to justify herself to him but she like. barely has a line in it!! also the amount of lyrics i simply have never known bc im looking it up now on genius lyrics and damn where tf was i supposed to get maharaja and maliloquently from

more lyrics i dislike and change in my head: "please listen, I really can explain...Now you know the truth, but that knowledge shouldn't change the nature of our love" > "I really can't explain...Now you know the truth, and though that knowledge may change the nature of our love" the meaning is found in the acknowledgement that ur actions have consequences!! that you can't go back from but you can face up and be willing to accept that they will affect you moving forward!! and ofc the nature of it will change bc it NEEDS to change bc as proven by the lies and harm that's been done, it should change and that change can be something for the better.

the way she has NO like individual lines after the truth reveal tho. feminism loses :(

also the end like "we regained our science" HOW??? WHEN?? sorry i wasnt there for that lol. narrator living in a different sphere of existence. "cause an idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon" sir i have not gotten what the idea is.

anyway thoughts on just the musical as a visual:

i prefer the original spider puppet i just think the black light was better!!

they rly made him green huh....weird.

the weird blurs on the camera sometimes...like when pallis goes in for the stab and it has this weird overlapped motion blur what even IS that.....

i do like pallis and addy's little outfits :) brother who cant dress themselves

them holding hands in the meet the king song is cute. like children at mcdonald's "he asked for no pickles" kind of look.

the very end narration being all "never surrender :)" (image of guy bleeding out on the floor) is. quite the choice

[tanoraqui]

okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight​‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse.  LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

SO

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

[hongism]

AAA I JUST READ MOC 43 AND I NEED TO GET ALL MY THOUGHTS OUT SO BEAR W ME ok so first of all—Jisung. Reading this chapter, I don't think he's the absolute worst person ever, but he's definitely still super shitty. He's incredibly selfish and only does things for himself. Obviously, he has emotions, but his worldview is skewed by them, essentially making him the MC's number one yandere. Also, Min is not doing a good job of treating that PTSD jfc. I do agree with his points on Yunho tho. - siren

uuuuuu HI BELOVED T^T im excited to get into your asks heh thank you for being patient with me im sorry for making you wait so long but let’s GO!

so. jisung. the fun thing about having these one on one interactions with him is really unveiling what’s behind the exterior he has, he’s not necessarily a sociopath buttt he is pretty awful nonetheless for certain ! calling him mc’s number one yandere is a very apt description of him ! Min’s words will come into play more in the future, it’s moreso a little bit that im hoping you guys consider and think about too bc there is truth to it!

I'm sure Jisung and Hyunwoo really did inject Y/N with the serum to try to protect her from her own trauma, but I still wouldn't count it as the right thing to do. Unless past Y/N had wanted that serum, it's not their job to protect her from those things. Another Jisung (and Hyunwoo until I can see otherwise) being super selfish moment. Besides, I think blocking her memories might just make her time coping worse because she didn't have the chance to do it properly in that moment. - siren

indeed we are starting to get into more dicey things too! the question of what were they trying to protect her from is a heavy one, but you’re so right in saying that unless she wanted it then they should’ve never done it! while i think neither of them expected for things to go the way they did, it does leave the question of ‘when everything gets unveiled, how is she going to cope with that’

NOW the arguably hardest topic for me to analyze—is Y/N like Wooyoung when it comes to those murders. I really had to think about this since our cast is very morally ambigious to begin with LOL. What separates good and bad murder, at least in my POV? Of course, Wooyoung didn't mean to kill that other siren nor did he think he actually could, but he still decided to do it regardless if it was in a dream. I wonder what compelled him to do that even if he didn't think he could? - siren

something i think that is easy to forget in the course of this story is the fact that our characters are criminals and morally grey more often than not! obviously wooyoung feels guilty and awful about what he did, but where does he sit on the spectrum of right and wrong? but you ask a really good question in asking what compelled him to do that even if he didn’t know he would actually kill the man?

As for Y/N, she chose to murder the king because she couldn't stand to see her friend become a martyr, especially since Jisung wouldn't own up to his actions smh. I can't excuse her gruesomeness here, but at least her reasoning was better LMAO. As for the more recently grab-heart-from-chest situation, obviously she didn't even mean to do that since she's still having trouble controlling her powers. I'm sure the others have done worse ngl. imo, this is what separates her from Wooyoung. - siren

and the golden question, is y/n’s murder still justified if it was simply to keep her friend from becoming a martyr? and if she could have gone for a less gruesome way, then why didn’t she? why did she choose the worst possible option?

AS FOR THE OTHER HALF OF THE CHAPTER, wow. That was SO much information. All this mention about fate reminds me of Woosang's fortune. The fortuneteller told them they were never supposed to be together because of fate. However, Y/N and Wooyoung were supposed to be sacrificed years ago, but here they are. The only thing stopping them might be their own mental constructs surrounding fate. Unless fate is an actual higher power that'll kick their asses LOL. Or those deities. - siren

but YEAH. LONG ASS CHAPTER WITH A LOT! it does carry the most implications for the siren storyline and what’s going to happen with that and amongst the crew. fate as a concept i think can be described as an invisible prison, and i think that’ll appear more as a concept in the future too. but we have to wonder if maybe that fortuneteller told yeosang and wooyoung they were never meant to meet because y/n and wooyoung were meant to be sacrificed, and if that’s the case, then how does that affect the idea of fate as a whole?

LASTLY, the prophecy. It obviously turned into a rumor that you round up the five last sirens and in return get this amazing super cool treasure. The thing is, Seonghwa's book had the prophecy, and I'm sure he read his books so why does Hongjoong seem so painfully unaware about these things surrounding sirens? Seonghwa usually tells Hongjoong everything, so why is there a disconnect there? Even if it seems like a fairytale, wouldn't it be useful to know? Maybe I'm reading into it wrong;; - siren

this i think is the most important thing and i think of all the ideas you’re getting into, this one is the most important too. seonghwa’s book had the prophecy, the assumption is that seonghwa read his own books, so why is it that hongjoong doesn’t seem to know about the things contained in that book? if seonghwa usually tells hongjoong everything, why would he not tell him about this book in particular? what in the book would make seonghwa not want to tell hongjoong or let hongjoong read that book? you’re absolutely reading into it properly and you’re onto something very important :3

[rethesun]

Is there a name for middle lane larries?

Topic: An opinion on larry

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see.

If someone calls me a larrie, it's not insulting at all, but if someone were to call me an anti i’d be sad, honestly. Below I say many things that make it seem like I negatively judge hardcore larries, but I don't. I find it extraordinary that people can be so brave and sure of themselves, and I wish I could be too. I tend to get along with larries, while I mostly avoid antis unless they manage to be respectful, which is unfortunately quite rare. 

I think it's practically effortless to get toxic when trying to prove or disprove things. I think it's dehumanizing and feels stressful to me as a fan. Therefore I can only imagine the difficulty and what it takes for people in a position of fame to get to a place of inner strength and resilience where the millions of opinions of the world don't affect them as much. It's sometimes hard to judge/differentiate what is and isn't disrespectful, and it hurts terribly to know I'm crossing boundaries. So I'm putting my opinion together in hopes it isn't as counterproductive or pointless as it feels.

I'm not at all trying to convince anyone of a narrative to sway people to believe or not believe. What and how much you know and where you "stand" is down to you. 

Do I believe in larry? 

First and foremost, being a fan of someone means supporting that person without expecting anything from them. It means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as an individual. It means caring about how the person may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place. 

That said, here is my not long-awaited opinion.

I think there is substantial compelling evidence, but I'm not 100% convinced that there is still something but it’s possible there is we just don’t see. I will not disregard what Harry and Louis said back in the day and pretend they had nothing when at the very least, Harry said it on video directly twice. Yes, he was a kid, but people will decide Harry is with a skinny blonde woman older than him for much less, so I don't take what he said as a platonic joke. However, I try to be as realistic as possible. As an outsider, it's not easy for my brain to conclude on most things. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be. One big reason is that I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. Even though I understand controlling narratives in the industry happens and happened to 1D. I don't know to what extent. It's hard for me to judge that any or all of Harry's "relationships" are fake, and thus, he's had a few "stunt" songs for those relationships, etc. It’s plausible that he wrote female pronouns on a song or a few and the song refers to a man/men but that's far from saying this is a stunt song which would imply an entire fake relationship which is too far for me to say wasn't real as I am just an outsider. 

Whether people say it's the fans who say it or the boys behavior, the statement, 'larries ruined their friendship,' is sometimes interpreted as centered around homophobia. I do not see it this way.

However, whether there was or is a relationship, it's entirely reasonable to consider, the circumstances as a whole hurt them and likely the rest of the band in multiple ways that made things really hard. I do not think fans ruined the band or their connections with each other. I think being overworked with little freedom or breaks to discover/express independence were just a few reasons why.

Why I think larry appeared to become distanced to the public eye: 1. Understandably, putting blame on the heteronormative gender restrictive times we were in and still are in. 2. How some fans react to Larry's interactions due to reason number one. Otherwise, all the 1D members, their families, and friends have been honest. That would mean there isn't an elaborate conspiracy; they are just tired of people messing with who they care about and want to live without the harassment. Regardless of whether some fan theories are accurate or not, people in the spotlight and their families deserve peace of mind. They don't deserve to be dehumanized. I wish some fans would understand how wrong it is to swarm people or ask strangers to confirm any personal things. Not only because it's rude and invasive but because of mental health. If that's confusing, imagine if it were you in their position.

I used Zayn's interview because he shared it eloquently while the other mentions that ‘Larry isn't real’ were mostly screen captures of constituents replying impatiently to larry comments on social media saying the Larry thing is delusion and not what real fans do.  Zayn in this 2015 fader interview. "There's no secret relationships going on with any of the band members," he explains. "It's not funny, and it still continues to be quite hard for them. They won't naturally go put their arm around each other because they're conscious of this thing that's going on, which is not even true. They won't do the natural behavior." He goes on to add to the statement, "But it's just the way the fans are. They're so passionate, and once they get their head around an idea, that's the way it is regardless of anything. If it wasn't for the passionate, like almost obsession, then we wouldn't have the success that we have." Before the subject changes, Zayn said that fans would find a way to water down what he said and make any excuses, e.g., that he couldn't speak the truth.

I can't speak for anyone but myself. (I’m a queer cis female) I don't think I would want to 'get dragged through a round of 'coming out' press. Why should sexuality be treated as an oddity by the median, and why should queer people have to subject themselves to that treatment?' The amount of coming out stories and things that could follow a person, or the people around, in the aftermath, would be atrocious. People, personally and professionally, may treat you differently after. The queer stereotypes would be exhausting. Also, it's not always as safe sometimes to be out. Whether there was/is a relationship at all between 1D members. “Being open to everyone isn't easy. Now imagine yourself no less human than right now, but add millions of eyes on you. It's insensitive to assume about someone when they could be doing their best/what is comfortable—please let's stop invalidating what we don't understand.”

Zayn's career connects to Hollywood, and he’s in the spotlight so it's not easy to suddenly believe everything I hear and see is the truth just because someone like him said it. However, at the same time, it's rather discomforting for me to disregard and look into everything people like Zayn or his constituents say. I want to believe the best in people and sympathize and “back him up” in a sense. It's also way to hard to believe all things other fans say because we are passionate and obsessed, so there is confirmation bias. 

Do I concretely believe anything? 

Yes, but those things don't directly confirm or deny anything especially Larry.

I believe the boys were responsible for RBB & SBB.

I have some reason to believe the song Carolina could be about experimentation with drugs since Johnny Cash's Cocaine-Carolina song is plausibly similar. Also, it's not uncommon if you're wealthy or famous to experiment with drugs, including harmful drugs; the environment can make it more accessible and normalized. I don't condone drug abuse; I hope Harry is wise enough not to make it a reoccurring thing. I want him naturally happy and healthy, but it's not my life, and I don't know him to have any right in making that call. I trust from Harry's character and what he said in his Zane Lowe interview that he knows better. However, the song Carolina might be about Townes or maybe it's both, I have no clue. 

I believe SOTT is about "fundamentals" like Harry said it is, not just from the perspective of 'a mother telling the child to go forth and conquer.' I notice some people readily look over the childbirth story, saying 'it makes no sense,' but it can easily coincide with fundamentals, "Equal rights for everyone, all races sexes, everything." Check out this in depth lyric analysis?

I think most of us know and support that Harry is a proud member of the community. If he wasn’t he’d just say that. 

I think maybe COAC and SOTT may have been collaborative. There are multiple writers on both songs and if it’s possible to have a ghost writer then I say it's plausible they chose to write them similarly. 

I think Louis possibly queer codes. Straight people don’t queer code so you might think it’s queer baiting but I don’t think someone sick of gay rumors would go that route. Either that, or he's a passionate and sympathetic ally.

However, Louis is still "with" E. From a perspective of committed fans, it doesn't look like a sincere relationship. As an outsider, again, it feels far too presumptuous for me to have a B&W opinion.

It seems that adults with somewhat official platforms let rumors run rampant, and not many grown adults of the time seemed to correct or silence it. I should have said this early and cannot stress this enough, ANYONE who is not the Louis Tomlinson or in his family tree is in no way an official source. If they're acting like they know things (not just reporting on what's happening), they were/are either trolling or want people to freak out for clout. Being led astray by people looking to capitalize on fans is always a danger. It's insensitive, inappropriate, and unprofessional, but it happened. I am surprised by that and that 1D's management didn't try to protect Louis and his image more. I’m not an insider able to judge him negatively or to overanalyze the situation. So I won't assume he's not a dad, and I hope he's doing well.

(About the above paragraph about Louis this is an update after the original post I made to say I don't have a further developed opinion because I never looked into it and don't know if I will so don't hold that against me please I just personally don't feel like it’s a thing I need to do and I know larries don’t appreciate when non-larries make comments on things without thoroughly looking into things so you won’t see a further opinion from me or judgment unless I do actual research)

In conclusion, and to reiterate, I feel like there is some truth to some things. Again, it feels disrespectful or too presumptuous for me to have many opinions, especially of the negative kind, as an outsider. I don't know any of these people personally, and I want to believe in the best in others. I am not harshly judging things because I don't have a complete story or the right to. However, this doesn't mean I disregard how bad the industry can be to people in multiple ways.

As fans, we can do much better. It's not unreasonable to wish people didn't constantly objectify/sexualize people with fame and didn't harass them/their families about fan theories. Also, always wanting something from these people and expecting them to fulfill god-like expectations as if they don't go through the same human experience and aren't completely flawed like the rest of us, or stalking them—something sick and a behavior that's saddening and disgusting. Real fans just leave them be to live their lives. Please call out stalking and discourage it if you notice it. Overall, I think we can all be a bit more respectful and understanding or try to make an effort. I'm not a superfan, but I'd like to be genuine and not a reason why these people dislike being in the spotlight. I feel like that means being as grounded, realistic, and sensitive about how these people may feel about things more than caring about how I feel about things that aren't my business in the first place. It ultimately means any fan theory isn't crucial. What’s important is just supporting them as is, as individual.

[#’s are for exposure and may not correlate]

[k-i-ssmyash]

Pls I would love to hear your analysis on why those mitski songs fit each iz boy (feel free to ignore this but if you'd like do tell bcs I think it is interesting B) )

Oh buddy you've made a mistake. You'd love to hear the analysis? Well I love to talk; I hope your ready for the absolute word vomit and rambling that's under the cut. But yeah, no, i'll never turn down asks like this! Interact with me! I'm but a simple, lonely tumblr hermit.

Let's start off with the first post containing Zim and referencing A Pearl. I tie this song in with his (fandom assumed) character development and how it effects both his mental state, Dib, and his ideology of the Irken Empire as a whole. In a way, I think a lot of us over-sympathize or find common ground with our alien and it prompts us to victimize him and excuse a lot of his actions. And for good reasons honestly? It's easy to do so consider that he was born under the rule of a tyrannical society where flaws are looked down upon. He does wrong but to him it's not exactly wrong, is it? It's unfair to judge him and scrutinize him the same way we do humans. The show is slap-stick at it's core and despite the grim and black-humor based undertones, not much is taken seriously. Although it often ends up in failure, everything he attempts to do is to better the empire, to receive recognition from the beings they hail to about the same degree as a deity. The long and short of it is that he wants to make the Tallest happy. To prove that he's worth their time and that he can live up to everything he dreamed he could be, but the truth is that he can't. He loves the people that hate him the most. It's an abusive relationship at it's finest, really. So he picks up the most unhealthy coping mechanism: Denial. He can't accept the fact that he's a fake invader, or that his Tallest weren't coming to Earth, because it would genuinely destroy him. And why wouldn't it? Pleasing his superiors and contributing to the hive-collective is encoded in him. It's all he's ever known. I specifically chose the given lines "(It's just that) I fell in love with a war and nobody told me it ended-" because that's the back-bone of Zim's character. You can take it both literally and metaphorically if you'd like. He's invader Zim. He likes being an invader because it gives him a purpose. The Tallest give him a fake mission and play into his delusion of doing good and being someone important (of being loved, even) and never truly hammer in the fact that he's exiled--not counting the unaired episode or the bit of commentary mumbled under the Tallests breath-- because they find the situation funny to an extent. (also, what gets me just in general with it is that Zim thinks that people like him but he's actually just one big joke and ow goddamn it my feelings) Main lyric(s) out of the way there I similarly associate the song to Zim's uh 'character redemption' so to say. I think he'd struggle to become accustomed to Earth and the fact that he doesn't have to rely on commands to live his life. I relate the line(s): "You're getting tired of me (and all of the things I don't talk about) / You love me so hard and I still can't sleep / It's not that I don't want you / It's not that I don't want your touch / There's a hole that you fill" With his relationship with Dib-- platonic, romantic, whatever-- and the general give and take of it all. He'd like to assimilate and believe in the freedom given by living on Earth. He wants it and in a way Dib provides the stability he needs there and it would be so, so, easy to give in to it. But he can't because the Empire continues to loom over him and his day-to-day life. As it's been proven, without Dib there to provoke Zim, the little alien falls into a depression, not unlike the one he fell into in Enter The Florpus when he saw the truth in his mission. Dib is his substitute, essentially. (there's something to be said with that relationship and how I view it but this is already dragging on and this is only the first analysis, so maybe another time.) And lastly, I'd like to think that the Pearl the song is eluding to can be compared to Zim's PAK. The whole 'Pearls are parasites that live inside of mollusks' bit can relate to the PAK and it's purpose. But I see it more in the sense that the PAK is the second brain, a computer memory drive that grants Zim access to the memories he can't bring himself to forget or delete. I.e., "And it left a pearl in my hand / And i roll it around every night just to watch it glow /

Every night, baby, that's where I go" Every time he takes a step forward, he takes two back because he just can't let go of what he knows (the Empire).

--- As for Dib and I Bet On Losing Dogs, well, it's a little more complicated and I'm still not entirely sure of my break-down here because there's so many layers to apply. Originally when I started messing around with this idea, it was going to be centered on Membrane "My baby, you're my baby, say it to me" and him loving Dib despite his flaws. And I still think it could apply. While Dadbrane doesn't support Dib's paranormal bull-shit, and he shouldn't considering the lengths Dib goes through to prove it (bus hoping, obsessive behavior, the fucking trench-coat) he does support and love his son despite the absentness. Hence the "I bet on losing dogs" and you know, Dadbrane just being there to pick him up and have his back when he really needs to. But then we get to the last line of the first verse. "Tell your baby that I'm your baby" To which Dib, in all of his edgy glory, decided to stick his big-head in to my thought process. I saw it as Dib wishing that Membrane would pick him over Science. Kind of a plea for attention? Like: Put your work away, I know you love it but you need to love me more. Dib has got to have the biggest hero-complex out of everyone in the show. He also has an inferiority-complex that compels him to try and prove himself. Quite frankly, and pun fully intended, he is the underdog. The odds are always against him and he almost never comes out victorious in the end, in that way, I feel like Dib himself is the loosing dog. His belief in the supernatural is the loosing dog. No one will ever believe him, "I bet on losing dogs / I know they're losing and I'll pay for my place" but he's too stubborn to give up. Even if he's mocked and ridiculed he would never stop trying to prove himself correct and would continue to stick to his guns. "I'll be there on their side / I'm losing by their side" He ostracizes himself from his peers by not letting belief go. He is purposely sabotaging his chance of being seen as someone other than the crazy kid.

That being said, the next line is where his Hero-complex comes back into play. "Where I'll be looking in their eyes when they're down" in Enter the Florpus, his sworn enemy was in a funk that he knew all too well. Sure, in the end he wanted to use Zim for his own gain, but before that he sympathized with him. And in a way, he possibly wouldn't know how to act if he ever did actually succeed? I couldn't help but think that Dib, who has always lost wouldn't feel like exposing Zim would be a win? He'd miss the fight. Dib would miss the struggle of being beaten down only to rise up when he finally gets some sort of substantial evidence: "I wanna feel it / I bet on losing dogs" he hopes that Zim will come up with something big and bad not because he wants him to win either, but because then Dib has something to fight against. Along with that, the one time Dib actually broke away from paranormal to go along with his father's wishes he was absolutely miserable. He was successful. He made his father happy, he could have made something out of his life but he couldn't; the appeal of Zim and their on-going stalemate was too much to resist-- "I always want you when I'm finally fine / Someone to watch me die" -- Dib is ruining himself by obsessing over the truth and Zim would be going down, right there with him. ahaha, that was a lot wasn't it? It probably didn't make sense either as it's just my personal rambling here, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on it all.

[mikeshanlon]

iwwv anon and PHEW OK. I def did not expect that essay and now I feel bad cause I KNOW my thots r not gonna be articulate or right. nonetheless! i think Oliver does qualify as an unreliable narrator cause hes. very oblivious but not like... Richard papen (who is a whole ass clown don't get me started on tsh) but not like addy from dare me(I will support till the day I die that dare me is da like I WILL die on this hill) who sees what she wants to see. 1/?

i think he just... thinks that his friends r diff ppl than they actually r? that doesnt rly make sense but yea. what I mean is that everything the characters do is coated in that empathetic view Oliver has which is usually wrong? so we don't get an objective look into the characters. meredith is my girl like I love the hot popular girl trope deconstruction but at the end of the book she's not at a great place like she's w someone that doesn't love her like she needs to be loved... 2/

I guess the most probable ending is that James never meets Oliver again and that everyone is kinda stuck on what happened but that's soo sad and I really don't want to think abt it. ngl iwwv wasn't like my fave book ever and I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with dark academia sometimes but what i rly liked abt the book is that despite how fucked up everyone is and how toxic they r to each other they do at heart care abt one another...3/

like I rly liked that esp cause at that point the only other da book (other than dare me!) that I had read was tsh and godd every character is so fuckinh annoying and they all hate each other. i was super confused by it till I saw someone saying that it's satire and I felt my mind explode. I feel like this is so long but I didnt rly properly answer all you wrote sorry! I think its a pretty good book tho it has some crazy quotes like hold awn Im gonna look at the highlighted stuff on my copy.. 4/

Were you in love with him?” “Yes,” [...]Yes, I was.” It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still. LIKEEE PHEWW OK OK OK. WE OUT HERE. that line literally made me go crazy. I'm so sorry for any spelling mistakes or like general mistakes I made here English isn't my first language, it's 1am and I wrote this in the notes app w/o looking it over. so like.. NOT a professional review lemme tell you. 5/5

 Ahh im so sorry I did not see this before I yeeted for a month!!!

Oooh okay first of all dare me as a DA… I’ve only watched the show but like yeah I see the Elements for sure.

Also yeah I can understand what you mean abt Oliver being an unreliable narrator now… Ig my view of unreliable was more like they are purposefully twisting the truth or omitting facts or just literally don’t know shit but I get how personal bias can make the narrator unreliable. I do think the assertion that Oliver thinks his friends are different than they actually are makes sense. He sees James in a very positive light and though I like James a lot and think he is better than, like, Richard, he definitely has darker moments and manipulates Oliver at times (again I’d like to think it’s not the most nefarious thing in the world but like him just being shitty bc he’s in a dark place and he one, wants to do anything he can so Oliver doesn’t figure out he fought Richard so Oliver still thinks of him the same way/bc he knows Oliver would do something stupid like get himself arrested for James; and two, is very jealous that Oliver is with Meredith after Richard dies and has sort of a somewhat positive outcome from Richard’s death versus James being riddled with guilt and anger). And yeah, the probable ending is they never meet but I refuse to acknowledge that so LGNRG. Also that line makes me go CRAZZZZZZZZZZY!!! There are so many great lines, both using Shakespeare and on their own and its like okay give me a moment im going bonkers…

Personally, I haven’t read that many dark academia novels yet (bc for some reason i can barely finish a book rn sigh) but the concept interests me. I think what’s compelling is the setting/atmosphere of like ~mysterious college vibes~, and the idea of a sort of niche, obsessive bond and pursuit of knowledge with a tight knit group of friends (and the like inherent homoeroticism in every single DA elrngenrg). Like Dead Poet’s Society (the film I haven’t read the book) isn’t Dark in the same way most other dark academia is by like, obsession and death and manipulation (though of course there are dark elements with Neil’s storyline), but I think the other building blocks of academia are present there in a more wholesome way and you can see why people are drawn to that idea. As for the more Dark aspects I think it’s interesting to analyze things like group psyche, obsession, manipulation, etc, like what went wrong for everything to take such a dark turn???

 But, like everything else, it really has to be done well or else its just like okay….… I’ve tried to read TSH twice and I may try again but from the 100+ ish pages I read I totally get what you mean. IWWV is so interesting to me bc the characters are all very compelling and multifaceted and I like that they are a close friendship, we come in after 4 years of them spending all the time together and to me that is apparent. Like you said, we can see fissures and problems especially as the novel continues but there is care there between them. That also makes the decision to let Richard die much more interesting and sinister imo, as well as how all of them interact with each other after he dies, and how the roles of the group change without their “leader” so to speak. Also, maybe it’s just bc I like Shakespeare, but I think the academia part of IWWV is so much more accessible compared to TSH. Like I don’t know every Shakespeare play or anything so I didn’t understand every nuance or was like immediately like oh this is from Cymbeline or whatever the fuck, but you could understand the gist of things and it made sense that they spoke in Shakespeare lines bc that’s all they’ve been doing for four years and also theatre kids are Like That. Their pretention also provided any Layers to the story, like the parallels between the characters they play and their own arcs, how some of the lines echoed their own thots, foreshadowed, or they were able to say things through Shakespeare (I’m thinking of like, Oliver realized he loved James during Romeo and Juliet, the foreshadowing that James was going to ruin Richard’s life and that he dislikes Meredith/Richard when he quotes Mercutio at the start “A plague o’ both your houses”, the exchange Oliver and James had onstage and had that kiss during King Lear before Oliver was arrested,etc.) (Also I think the structure of some of the dialogue being formatted like a play really helped make it feel more realistic and immersive). Versus TSH which is just so pedantic and dense and hard to follow at times im like I get they are smart but what??? And maybe that’s part of the satire aspect (or maybe im dumb) but like donna I read TGF I know you are pretentious and info dump abt random obscure shit anyways so erglknerg. Like to me there was a Point to all of the academic Shakespeare stuff in IWWV and it was the soul of the book, and M.L. Rio made it very interesting—like the way that the directors reimagined the plays and had Julius Caesar be like a modern political play, the cool mirror shit in King Lear, the Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet performances where they did them at events and interacted with their environments (which were one of my favorite parts of the books bc I just think that concept is so interesting), etc. For TSH the shit they did literally just felt like “okay look at them they’re smart see you can’t even keep up!” like okay… I felt lost a lot and only like snapped into reality whenever Henry (?) was like oh… murder….. and even then I was like idk what this dude is saying but like he’s being darksided LMAO. And I also agree that it’s just like… Richard being thrown in the middle of this group could lend itself to some cool ideas but its hard to believe that he fits into the friendship group and hes just like hell yeah I love Greek so much and lets go kill this guy other than like okay ur gay and stupid and just want to impress Henry or whatever his name was (which he was but I digress). It’s just not as impactful to me as this close friend group falling apart. Ik TSH fans might be angry if they see this (and of course I haven’t finished the book so my perception may be warped but I also kno many ppl felt that way u did) bc I’ve seen ppl say IWWV is just like TSH but “lackluster” or whatever and while I can see some parallels (mostly b/w Richard and Henry and Alexander and Francis), I really think M.L. Rio expanded upon common DA tropes and the interesting parts of TSH but made it her own and interesting and oh yeah there are actually multiple compelling female characters and LGBT characters (and no incest)!!!

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider W Episodes 37-49

Why are endings always so hard to go through?

And we finally reach the final stretch of W. This was way faster than I imagined, I can't believe I managed to pull this off, I'm so happy.

This final third of the show was, as expected, the final arc. But different from other series I'm used to watch this one had a "finale" vibe to it through-out all thirteen episodes. Right from episode 37, we were already hit by a rock saying "the end is near" and things were slowly progressing and escalating until the end.

Before I talk about the positives of this arc let me discuss a few of my problems with it.

The first one is pretty minor, I was just disappointed that they introduced a villain who had an awesome design but she lost right away and we didn't get to spend time with her. My second complaint is again pretty minor, it's not a problem of the arc itself and more with the show and how in order to make Ryu seem smart they immediately transform Shotaro on a dumb person which isn't fully truthful to his character.

The next complaint is the first major one. I don't like how they've built the Sonozaki family through the entire season, just to shove them aside in the last two episodes and changed them for a less charismatic villain we know nothing about. I've mentioned this before and I'll say it again, the Sonozakis are very good villains and I do care for them (excluding Shroud) they're very charismatic characters, and better than that they're very charismatic villains! I really liked Ryubee, he could easily be the final boss of the season (like they were building him to be), he was very powerful, he had a strong presence as a dopant and an even stronger magnetism in his civilian form, and they even had something that could've been very interesting to see being played on a final battle. But no, let's change them for this Foundation X, a group of people we know nothing about and have no attachment towards to so that we can weaken this finale.

My final major complaint, and the biggest one of all, is how this show had a perfect ending in episode 48, but they had to ruin it with this epilogue where they revert the boldest decision they've made for the ending in exchange of... I don't even know what. Yes, is sad that Shotaro now is on his own, and it would be awkward for this show to end without one of its main protagonists. HOWEVER, this weakens all actions from the episode prior. If they wanted to make an epilogue it would've been better if they showcased how Shotaro has been coping with Phillip's death, we should have seen Wakana "reformed" and trying to do good in name of the brother that gave his life for her. You wanna make Phillip appear? Put him on a dream, put him as a hallucination of Shotaro while he's sad looking at the sunset wondering what to do, have Wakana somehow connect with him in the library. There are so many options, they didn't need to go by the easy route and revive Phillip.

Thankfully this show isn't just bad moments, and while these points I gave are for sure a problem on my eyes, I can't deny that this arc did a lot of great things that more than compensate for these flaws.

To begin the pace is pretty good, I think this part was the one that did the best regarding the "MOTW Cases" because, as isolated as some of these were, in every episode we could see things moving forward as we would slowly see new revelations happening that would eventually converge in the end. I especially like how the thing that would serve as a match to give start to the final battle would come to the boys' knowledge from a client dropping a case, it seems very simple but I still love this touch.

I also like how in this third act we could see a little bit of development happening for most people on both sides of this coin. Yeah, sadly the protagonists took the shorter end of this stick this time, but the villains had a compelling arc and the side characters also got something. Like, heck they even managed to give Jinno, someone who has been more or less just a comic relief character at this point, some love, this deserves to be praised. And as much as I have problems with the final three episodes I can't deny that the ending was very good and emotional, and they also found a way to redeem all members of the Sonozaki family and to me that was a huge plus because, if it hasn't been clear, I really like them.

The  designs for this part were also great. The dopants were more hit or  miss visually, Grasshopper, Old, and Utopia are probably the better   ones, but they all had very interesting powers that elevated them to   higher levels. Wakana (or I should say Clay Doll?) got an Xtreme form   and I really loved the design because it reminded of Taboo which I think  is my favorite girl of this season. Saeko also got a new form by using the Nasca memory and she looked amazing in it! I also L O V E the "dragon" Terror  can summon to attack, it looks dope and it's super powerful, amazing. We  didn't get any new power-up forms during this part but it was really  exciting to see Kamen Rider Joker becoming a thing.

I feel like I haven't talked as much this time, but this comes from a place of joy. I was enjoying this final arc so much that I didn't take as many notes as I usually do, so I don't have many strong opinions on the huge positives. Still, I wanna take a moment to highlight the few episodes that got me wanting to sleep because I didn't like them.

Episodes 39 and 40 are very important because this cycle is where Wakana gets her power-up. Sadly this plot comes with an attachment that is very awkward, being the stupid movie the Gene dopant wanted to do. This was without a doubt the lowest point of this batch of episodes, Akiko was annoying, the dopant was lifeless, and the movie they were shooting was just awful. I couldn't care about ANYTHING this plot was going for, I think this was supposed to be Akiko's closing episode but, as I mentioned in the previews post, she doesn't have an arc, she never did, so her "ending" felt shallow.

Episodes 43 and 44 are the Ryu's arc closing episodes. This was more successful than Akiko's one, but as I said, the fact they make Shotaro look bad in order to have Ryu looking good is a big downside to me. Also somehow now Ryu is super special, he has a power we never have seen or knew about before. And to top that off they once again wanna throw the Ryu x Phillip rider idea, and just like the last time Phillip was willing to do it which yall know, I HATE. Yes, this time Shotaro had been transformed into an elderly and transforming with him wasn't the best option, but we really didn't need to see this stupid plot again.

And that was basically it. I thought I would come out of this with a big lesson learned as what you usually expect from shows like this and that I would be able to dissert on that lesson as a way to conclude this post. But W was more emotional and character-driven than what I'm used to and I'm kinda thrown off, but not in a bad way. This show made me feel things, intense things, just by seeing those characters that I grew to love interacting, rather than having a clear "good message" they were trying to convey and that was easy to grasp, and I don't really know how to translate these emotions I'm feeling. But I'm actually really glad, this is something new for me and it's very exciting, I can't wait to see what the next seasons are going to throw at me and if I'm gonna be this mess by the end of each one of them. XD

When I started this, I wasn't planning on watching the movies since there's a whole bunch of them and they seem pretty messy to get into. But I've done a little bit of research and apparently W has 3 solo movies that don't really connect with other season and just expand this world so I'll be giving Kamen Rider W Forever and the two Return movies a chance before I start the next season and depending on how much I have to say about them I may or may not make a post about this week, but this ain't a promise so don't keep your expectations high.

Now, this is really the end. Thanks to everyone who stayed with me on his journey and I hope I can count on you to keep me company for the rest of this project. I'll see you all next week with the first few episodes of OOO, bye bye~.

[dogmeatthedead]

Why I believe that Slade’s right eye never healed.

For as much as I like to joke about DC not having an answer/them being reluctance to talk about Deathstroke’s missing eye, it’s a question that doesn’t seem to have a very satisfying answer. The most we have gotten to date it that he can’t rebuild organs and that works for the horrid prieststroke, but if we are talking about OG Slade then we need a better answer.

I say that a simple lack of ability is boring and the easy way out, let’s look at an answer that was all but said pre-new 52, one that adds more to the character and is so blindingly obvious (pun intended) that you may not believe that you never put it together before.

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                                           Drum roll please

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                                            He doesn’t want to

Or to be more exact, he feels that he doesn’t deserve to.  

THEORY #1

There is evidence for this scatted around various different issues and even titles but the idea always remains the same. Slade physically has the ability to regrow his eye, but he can’t or won’t because of what the loss of his eye represents.

It represents the destruction of his family and the lesson that his pride should never be put before their safety, a lesson that he shows that he learned well throughout his fights with the titans. He damaged his reputation to ensure that his children would be safe and have a true family, and before his characterization went to shit, this was believable given everything we had known about him.

While there is most likely more than just the pieces that I will use they are, in my opinion, the most compelling to support my claim:

Titans Vol 2 #35-36 (He can in fact regrow his eye)

Faces of Evil: Deathstroke (He can control how fast, what and if his healing factor heals)

Teen titans #78 (showing the impact that Joey losing his voice and what the loss of his eye represents)

THE EVIDENCE

I chose Titans Vol 2 #35-36, while I could have used the last 15 or so issues of the classic run to showcase his healing, I chose to go with this one because Slade’s other eye was ripped out and within about a day it had completely regrown. This shows that Slade does in fact have the ability to regrow not only organs but also his eye, which leads me to believe, he doesn’t want to.

Evidence for that comes from Faces of Evil: Deathstroke. It showcases that Slade can control, not only how fast he heals but also what heals.Quote “Control, Rose. That’s what I’m about. Absolute control over every molecule of my body.”  Meaning that he could, hypothetically, chose to not regrow his eye despite having the ability; he might do this if, say he feels he doesn’t deserve to.

Which brings me to my last point, why he would believe that he doesn’t deserve to regrow his eye. For evidence I turn to Teen titans #78, wherein Deathstroke, Joey and Rose were fighting black lanterns. Slade was being taunted and about to be killed by “Zombie” Wintergreen, and Slade says that while this version of Will may have his memories that he doesn’t understand the truth. Slade only went after the Titans because he wanted to drive his children away because he knew he that they would never be truly safe while they were with him. Even if Slade wanted them to be close, his missing eye would always remind him that a close relationship with them would just get them hurt like Joey and the loss of his voice.

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So now you heard the claim and evidence, let’s hear me try to rebuke some dissenting opinions.

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                         ON TO POSSIBLE PLOT MONKEYS

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“So why” you may be thinking, “why wouldn’t Slade, after he became a callous jerk who forgot that lesson, heal it?” *cough* Geoff Johns and the Rose fiasco *cough*  Well said dear reader, however you should remember that he had been functioning as Deathstroke for close to twenty years with only one eye and if he chose to regrow it after his lost it he would have had to relearn to fight for a third time.

“Ok well that’s a bit of a stretch isn’t it? Why wouldn’t he just say that he doesn’t want to? Him not being able makes more sense.” Well because to quote Charlie Scene “it’s like pulling teeth for me to give a compliment” and I think the same holds true for Slade, it would be painful like pulling teeth for him to be so vulnerable (I know that’s a stretch, I just really want to quote Charlie) Added to that he would have no reason to say it. Outside of people stabbing it, his missing eye almost never comes up in conversation. Besides as shown above, he can heal eyes.

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“Okay” the more astute among you may say, “what if he couldn’t heal whole organs when his eye was shot out?” YES!! I am glad that the voice in my head asked that! This is my second theory about why it never healed.

THEORY #2

So this is my least favorite of the two because I think it’s a little boring as well, but this is how it goes, please note that it does not have any evidence to support it and is based more off of head cannons/ observations than anything else.

We know from past dialog that Slade’s enchantments are hormone based and when he first got them they fluctuated and then finally stabilized (too lazy to look up images, just trust me) so what if, like hormones, they continued to fluctuate.

This would not only explain why someday’s he can go head to head with Wonder Woman and other days Damian Wayne can get good punches in…Either that or plot monkeys but hey who am I to judge?

Given that they would always be at different levels, that would mean that it would also effect his healing. So what if at the time of when he was shot he was either at an all-time low or else simply didn’t have to right hormone cocktail yet?

I think that it could make for him to have a permanently missing eye, however this theory does have some unexpected repercussions. Namely that if he didn’t have the right cocktail at the time yet later developed it, than that would mean that his powers are still evolving.

“But if he had just got his powers than of course new ones may have been appearing”  

Good point, however Slade didn’t just get his powers when he was shot. He had them for years. Joey was conceived shortly after Slade got out of the hospital and was around eight when Slade was shot, so, at a minimum Slade would have had his powers for six to seven years. Hardly just got them.

So this would mean that Slade would continue to get powers as more “chemical cocktails” were mixed however, given that DC wants to nerf him in current years, him gaining more powers seems unlikely.

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These are just some thoughts on why the famed right eye never healed.

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All of this is just my humble opinion, so feel free to disagree; however all I ask is you do it respectively.  I love feedback so if you find any holes I would love to hear them and the same goes for questions, I love to interact with other fans and will probably drag a comment chain on longer than it needs to be.

I am not trying to paint Slade in a sympathetic light, or make him out to be more moral than he may or may not be. Rather, I am trying to paint away plot monkeys that DC either never addresses or does so poorly.

Also, not that anyone cares, but this is copied from my account on DC comics amino. I mostly post over there however I feel that app is dying so I am slowly moving over to Tumblr.

[mrlnsfrt]

If You Had Known Me

This post continues a study of John 14 that began with my post One Way which covered verses 1-6. In this post, I will continue the study from verse 7.

If you had known Me,

“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” - John 14:7 NKJV

I don’t see it as much now, but for a while, it seemed like everywhere I turned I saw WWJD? bracelets. WWJD? stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” This is a great question that causes us to stop and reflect on our situation and then choose to behave in a manner that is in accordance with the way Jesus lived His life while here on earth. I do not have anything against this question. However, texts like the ones found in John 14 remind me that there is much to who Jesus was that remains beyond my grasp.

The picture of the disciples in each of the Gospels is that of dull, slow-learning humans. We, of course, must be careful not to judge them too quickly because if we had been walking in their sandals, we might have been even slower in perception. - Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B, p. 113). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

I tend to look down on the disciples for taking so long to realize that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, but of course, it is a lot easier for me. I have easy access to the entire Bible, not only that, I have also been taught by women and men of faith who have explained these truths to me. Imagine how challenging it must have been for the disciples to believe that this Man they followed, who looked like them, was indeed the Son of God? Not only that, I have met several people who claim to believe in God and study the Bible who still struggle with the idea of Jesus being God.

Imagine Jesus standing in front of you. Imagine you are one of the disciples. You have seen Jesus sweat, you have seen Him sleep, eat, etc. Maybe you have witnessed Jesus bleed, have callouses, messy hair. If there was no deodorant and shampoo back then I imagine Jesus smelled like the rest of the men and women of that time after a long hot day. Imagine now looking at Him and believing that you are seeing the Father. Imagine spending weeks and months and years with Jesus and believing that you know God!

I believe that the text is a rebuke to the disciples, who should have realized that “really knowing” Jesus would mean “really knowing” God. (Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B, p. 111). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.) It is also worth noting that the plural “you” is used in v. 7, so Jesus’ statement is not merely addressed to Thomas (v5). It is addressed as a general statement to all the disciples and thus to the Christian community. (ibid)

Show us the Father!

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” - John 14:8 NKJV

Sometimes I imagine Jesus doing a facepalm. As I read through John 14 it seems like Philip wasn’t even listening to what Jesus just said. But as I thought about this more carefully I could the point made by G. L. Borchert, that “Philip’s words here are easy to understand because they represent the general human longing to gain a firsthand personal and practical confirmation of theological ideas and assertions.” (ibid) He also adds that “the idea of Jesus being one with the Father is rationally a hard idea for humans to accept.” (Ibid) Scholars continue to debate and argue and try to “find” a historical Jesus that is not divine.

Scholars seem to be continually seeking to discover a historical human Jesus between the lines of the Gospel texts. See the English versions of D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972); W. Wrede, The Messianic Secret (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); A. Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1954); followed by J. M. Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus (London: SCM, 1959); and then the so-called third wave in J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1991); R. Funk, R. W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993); and R. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1998). For responses see J. Green and M. Turner, eds., Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994); B. Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove: IVP, 1995); M. Wilkins and J. Moreland, Jesus Under Fire (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); M. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco: Harper, 1999); and J. Charlesworth, “The Historical Jesus and Exegetical Theology,” PSB 22 (2001): 45–63. With respect to the Fourth Gospel see the discussion in Haenchen, John, 2.125, who represents one form of the quest when he states: “The Jesus of the Gospel of John thus already speaks as the risen Christ, and thus already with the clarity that only the spirit of truth can give to the disciples.” Moreover, he continues that the Jesus of this Gospel says “what the ‘historical Jesus’ cannot yet say.” The clear split between the Jesus of history and the Christ of the confessing church is evident in Haenchen. - Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 We might not be willing to admit it but we have a lot in common with Thomas and Philip, we long to have a confirmation of the reality of God. I believe there is compelling evidence for the existence of God, but don’t we all wish we could see Him?

Yet you have not known Me?

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. - John 14:9 NKJV

One of the many challenges with looking at Jesus and seeing the Father is that we have a hard time wrapping our minds around this theological truth. It is difficult to explain and even more so to imagine. We have to use very careful language and end up with theological statements like:

Schnackenburg categorizes this dual “in-ness” of Jesus and the Father as a “reciprocal formula of immanence.” This close interdependent assertion is an affirmation of a close unity between the Father and the Son without assuming that the unity implies absolute identity (cf. 10:38).  - Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B, p. 114). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

I don’t think the disciples were very interested in philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence. I believe that many of you reading this are not too interested either. So we sit here believing the words of Jesus without being able to fully explain or to fully grasp the truth they convey. But, just because we can’t fully grasp it, it does not mean that we are not able to grasp it at all.

What I take away from this is that we should not try too hard to differentiate between Jesus and the Father in terms of character and love. The actions and teachings of Jesus reflect the character and values of the Father to the point that seeing and interacting with Jesus should give us the clearest understanding we could possibly have of who God is and what His heart is like. This understanding of God keeps me from seeing the God of the Old Testament as being any different from the God of the New Testament. The love and grace that Jesus presents us are a revelation of the love and grace of the Father.

The Power of Believing

 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. - John 14:12-14 NKJV

John records several of these “double amen” (“truly, truly” or “verily, verily”) sayings of Jesus. This means that what Jesus is about to say is a very important statement. I should not have to tell you that there are many interpretations of what Jesus meant by this statement. For example, what does Jesus mean by “greater” works? What could be more dramatic than raising the dead (John 11:43-44), changing water to wine (John 2:7-11), walking on the Sea of Galilee (6:19), the multiplying of the loaves and the fish (John 6:9-14) or any of the amazing miracles Jesus performed?

The book of Acts helps us better understand what Jesus meant. Jesus continues to work miracles, except now He does so through the church, through His followers.

And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed.” Then he arose immediately. - Acts 9:34 NKJV

This interpretation fits with the idea that by greater perhaps Jesus meant greater in quantity rather than quality. Christ’s activity had extended over a relatively small area of the world, and also for a short period. After the ascension, the gospel would spread to all parts of the world. (Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1980). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 5, p. 1036). Review and Herald Publishing Association.)

Jesus’ earthly ministry was limited in time and space. He served the Father for three and one-half years and never outside the boundaries of Palestine. The disciples, on the other hand, as Acts clearly attests, carried out ministry that was greater geographically, in terms of numbers of people reached and long-lasting effect.

We find a leadership principle here as well. All parents should be able to say to their children; all pastors should be able to say to their staffs; all leaders should be able to say to their followers: “You have the potential to do greater things than I have done.” To empower and develop followers whose ministry exceeds the impact of their mentors is to follow the model of Jesus.  - Gangel, K. O. (2000). John (Vol. 4, pp. 266–267). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

“If you ask Me for anything in My name, I will do it.” - John 14:14 Berean Study Bible (multiple translations available here) is also interesting because the Greek construction makes this a conditional sentence. What is most intriguing is that the most likely reading of the Greek text here would have the prayer addressed not to the Father but to Jesus. It is also worth noting that the meaning of the expression here of asking me in my name, as H. Bietenhard has suggested, probably means praying both “according to his will” and “with the invocation of his name.” (Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B, p. 117). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)

The fact that John can here speak of praying both to Jesus (14:14) and to the Father in Jesus’ name (cf. 15:16 and 16:23) would not likely trouble this Gospel writer because he would clearly see an intertwining of the two ideas in his thinking about God (cf. 1:1 and 20:28). The problem for Western Christians is that we usually define things by mean of distinction whereas the Semitic mind defines things by description or in picture-thinking. The overlap of Jesus and God in the statements of John may trouble us, but John was apparently not troubled. Therefore the Semite had no trouble in his Trinitarian formulation of speaking of God as the one who is, was, and is to come, the Spirit as the seven spirits, and Jesus as the firstborn from the dead (Rev 1:4–5)—and in that order. But we have come to speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and in that order. - Borchert, G. L. (2002). John 12–21 (Vol. 25B, pp. 117–118). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

 But the invitation to pray for “anything” (14:14) in this context is not, in fact, to be understood as “anything” in the absolute sense because the guiding principle of the believer’s prayer must be the same principle that Jesus followed throughout his life. That principle was the glorification of the Father in and through everything done by the Son (14:13). To read this promise of Jesus concerning asking in any other way would be a complete misunderstanding of the promise. (ibid)

I love how this principle is described in the book the Desire of Ages.

He explained that the secret of their success would be in asking for strength and grace in His name. He would be present before the Father to make request for them. The prayer of the humble suppliant He presents as His own desire in that soul’s behalf. Every sincere prayer is heard in heaven. It may not be fluently expressed; but if the heart is in it, it will ascend to the sanctuary where Jesus ministers, and He will present it to the Father without one awkward, stammering word, beautiful and fragrant with the incense of His own perfection. - White, E. G. (1898). The Desire of Ages (Vol. 3, p. 667). Pacific Press Publishing Association.

“And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” - 1 John 3:22 NKJV

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” - 1 John 5:14 NKJV

Obviously, just saying “in Jesus’ name” creates no magic potion for prayer. The culture in which these words were spoken took names very seriously, so much so that they equated one’s name with the character, spirit, and power of that person. That is why the Jews never spoke the name of Yahweh. (Gangel, K. O. (2000). John (Vol. 4, p. 267). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.) So it is important for us to continue to familiarize ourselves with what the Bible teaches regarding prayer. One thing is for sure, that there is power in praying in the name of Jesus, but that is also accompanied by reverence and deep desire and willingness to live our lives in accordance with His will.

As the will of man co-operates with the will of God, it becomes omnipotent. Whatever is to be done at His command may be accomplished in His strength. All His biddings are enablings. – Christ’s Object Lessons p333

God’s Love Language

15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. - John 14:15-18 NKJV

If you were to look up John 14:15 in various English translations (here) you will notice that it is sometimes translated as an imperative, “keep my commandments” or as an indicative “you will keep my commandments.” This should not cause any concern since both options make theological sense. Those who love Jesus demonstrate their love by keeping His commands or words (John 14:21, 23-24; 8:31; 12:50). Obeying the commands of Jesus or abiding in His words all mean essentially the same thing. In a practical sense obeying His commands means copying the example that Jesus left us. Jesus never broke any of God’s commandments, because to do so would be to sin (1 John 3:4), and Jesus never sinned (1 Peter 2:22).

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. - 1 John 5:2-3 NKJV

Jesus knew that in order to live as He lived we would need help, and so He asks the Father to send us another Helper. Living like Jesus cannot be done by sheer willpower and discipline, it takes supernatural help, it takes a miracle. Jesus does not abandon us to figure this out on our own. The Holy Spirit is available, we just need to ask.

"Just so long as the church is satisfied with small things will it fail of receiving the great things of God. Why do we not hunger and thirst after the gift of the Spirit, since this is the means by which we are to receive power? Talk of it, pray for it, preach concerning it. The Lord is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to us than parents are to give good gifts to their children."  -- Reveiw and Herald May 19, 1904 Par. 11

What we need most is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We should not be lowering God’s standard or making excuses for our failings and cherished sins, we should be asking God for the Holy Spirit to come upon us with power and cause us to be more like Him. It is impossible, without God’s help it is impossible for us to live like Jesus lived. But when we love Him, that is our desire, to follow His example in every way, and this should cause us to seek the Holy Spirit daily, and to love like never before. This will transform every aspect of our lives. This is God’s plan for us.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” - Luke 11:13 NKJV

[lexidanger]

My TLJ (way longer than expected) analysis/rant/review

DISCLAIMER: I work for Hasbro but knew NOTHING behind the scenes for this movie like I did for TFA, so I didn’t have any outside influence...also

SPOILERS GALORE, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE I SUGGEST SEEING IT FIRST ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A SW FAN

I honestly have a lot of mixed feelings about this movie, because while there were things I absolutely adored in it, but there were also choices made that I really still can’t wrap my head around and ultimately have left me pretty disappointed, I’m not going to go over every little thing but if you have a question about how I felt about a certain character/scene etc just shoot me an ask and i’ll rant at you there. Anyways I’m gonna start with the good shit since I might get a tad ranty with the bad

THE GOOD

The opening sequence- The opening scenes were phenomenal imo, that was absolutely the way to start off the movie, It honestly held a lot of that SW nostalgia and felt really great action/tone wise, it pulled you in like a good hook should.

Leia- So i’m legit a huge emotional baby when it comes to stuff I love, I was already crying as soon as the opening crawl hit, but it wasn’t until they showed Leia the first time that both me and the girl next to me started sobbing (she turned to me and offered some tissues saying she made sure to bring a bunch so it was nice to have some emotional solidarity) But anyways Leia was great and i’m beyond happy with how they handled her which leads me to my next point…

LEIA USING THE FORCE- Everyone in the theater was crushed when she was thrown out into space, and as soon as the shot closed in on her body and she began to use the Force to bring herself back, you could hear the sigh of relief and amazement come from the crowd (as well as the sniffles because everyone was crying at this point) and it was such a magical moment to see her finally use the Force in a tangible way and shut up the fanboys who thought she wasn’t Force Sensitive. And speaking of one half of the twins...

Luke- As always Mark is an absolute delight and gift to this role, and it was so nice to see him back on screen again. A lot of people are crying out about how this movie “””””ruined him”””” by showing his more grey morality (THAT HES ALWAYS HAD B T W) but even as a dark sider I’ve always adored Luke and his views and he made me super proud in this movie. I’m honestly not ready for people to start demonizing him for "almost killing their precious Ben bby uwu” because again that was a moment with a lot of complexity on both sides that I think could bring up a lot of great conversations about Luke’s trauma in the war and wanting to prevent the loss of billions of lives.

Also as a side note I just want to say how heartwarming it was to see Luke reunited with R2, the moment he recognizes him the bitter old facade melts away and we see that sweet excited boy from Tatooine when he gets to talk to his best friend again after so long.

I’m so so sad to see him go, but honestly I couldn’t think of a better way for him to go out, I’m glad it was done in such a peaceful way (except maybe him actually going to Crait and pulling an Obi proper but thats a whole other issue)

Snoke- I adored Snoke, plain and simple. The few scenes he was in he commanded attention and I was honestly captivated by Serkis’ skills as a character actor once again. The CG work done on him was remarkable, his personality was actually very enjoyable and I really wish we got to see more of his Force mastery, it’s so rare we get to see it controlled on that grand of a scale and so effortlessly too (For those of you who read Darth Plagueis you know the difficulty that comes with using the Force on someone over hologram/long distance, so it was definitely a treat to see that). The potential of this character is remarkable and if anyone involved with SW media is smart they will tap into it and release more content with him ASAP

Rey’s Parentage- As someone who was an avid Rey Palpatine theory supporter, I just want to say how glad I am that Rey’s parentage proved to be of no significance, because in a way it still holds kind of what I wanted to see from her being related to Palpatine. I wanted them to show that really in the end, your bloodline doesn’t make you who you are, you decide who you want to be, not your past, and in a way they did that. They showed that someone from humble beginnings, like Rey and even Finn, can rise up to do amazing things, you don’t have to be part of a dynasty like the Skywalkers to be great.

Imagery/Portrayal of the Force- If theres one thing I can really commend this movie for, it’s the visuals. From the color contrasts of Crait to the trippy Force shenanigans everything was visually stunning. Leia using the Force to glide through the void of space to safety was such a magical moment I will never forget (and anyone calling it Mary Poppins or Superman flying is honestly just afraid to have whimsical moments in their SW and therefore a coward) the blend of CG and puppets was super great and using a puppet for Yoda’s return was such a great callback to the original trilogy. After watching so many Transformers movies its nice to watch an action flick that doesn’t rely on shaky cam to sell the intensity of a scene, but instead uses the art direction and imagery as it should.

Also as far as the Force goes, i’ve been so happy that we’re moving away from the two extremes. The Dark Side in not completely evil and the Light Side is not completely good, i’m just glad we’re finally showing that in the movies, and if it makes people mad then good, the truth hurts but they need to understand not everything is black and white.

Humor- Some might argue that a lot of the humor was oriented more towards the younger audience, but tbh most of the bits really hit with me (probably because I am a child) and provided some nice warm moments in what might be considered a tense and dark movie. We’ve been debating for years now how Luke’s first interaction with Rey would go, what would he say to her? What would he do? and it’s my belief that they could not have gone with a more appropriate choice than for him to toss the saber over his shoulder as he did (Luke’s “reach out” moment with her was also so nice and I’m 1000% convinced it was improv by Mark) The bits with the guardians of the island were great, the porgs were surprisingly enjoyable (if not still a bit bizarre) and my favorite running joke of all, turning Hux into what i’ve always seen him as, a huge joke, a slapstick prop to be tossed around and ridiculed, it was quite satisfying.

Additional things- Despite the fact that there wasn’t a saber on saber fight the entire movie, the Snoke’s Praetorian guard fight scene with Rey and Kylo will go down in history as one of the great fight scenes in SW history. Rose was such an amazing addition to the cast and Kelly is so talented, I’m happy she’s a part of the SW family now. And BOY you want to talk about memorable moments, Holdo’s lightspeed crash into Snoke’s Supremecy was absolutely breathtaking. The way it was shot, the sound design, everything was perfect and people are going to be talking about it for a very long time.

THE BAD

Snoke’s Death- The moment Snoke was killed off is the moment I feel like everything shifted in the movie, I was enjoying it quite a bit up until that point, and then as soon as the saber bisected him this huge wave of disappointment and disbelief washed over me, which is why this is probably one of the biggest mis-steps in the movie besides Phasma’s treatment. For years now we’ve been theorizing and trying to piece together who Snoke could possibly be, whether it be the return of an older character or him being his own thing and with every tiny piece of info that came out we were further pulled in to the mysteries that surrounded him. Who is he? What is he? Why does he look that way? How did he come to power? I never expected all of these questions to be answered in TLJ, but a piece of info or two thrown our way to reward our patience and interest in him would have been appreciated.

Instead what we got was nothing and a swift ridiculous death half way through the movie. To say that i’m crestfallen is a bit of an understatement. Those that know me are aware that I’m a huge dark side fan and an even bigger fan of Sheev Palpatine, he’s a compelling character in a lot of the ways Snoke has the potential to be, so to see another great antagonist along the lines of Palpatine just thrown away without any second thought or explanation is an awful thing to see.

And I’m aware that they are probably going to throw his backstory into a book or comic, which part of me is grateful for (especially since James Luceno, author of Darth Plagueis might possibly be writing it right now) but tbh you shouldn’t throw the responsibility of portraying a character off on someone else when you have more than enough time and opportunities to show it in the film. As someone who is heavily invested in the alternative media surrounding SW I still don’t think that you should put your viewers through that, making them ask questions about a character, pay for a ticket to possibly have some of those questions answered and then pull the rug out from under them like “Nope sorry you’ll have to buy the book when it comes out next year” it’s very in-accessible and just downright disrespectful to the writers that set him up for a decent arc.

Plenty of uninteresting things were prioritized over the interesting so don’t tell me they couldn’t have taken 10 minutes out of something inconsequential to slip in some context for this character. It’s such a shame to see an opportunity to flesh out a compelling character passed over for the purpose of subverting everyone’s expectations, cheap and unsatisfying. #AndySerkisDeservedBetter

Phasma- I want to say for the record that I am absolutely outraged, not only did we get even less Phasma than we did in TFA, but they “killed her off” in a way they can either bring her back and do what they said they were going to do after TFA which was give her a decent amount of screen time, or leave her dead. It’s honestly a travesty that they continuously recruit these talented actors to portray these characters and they get shafted as far as content and inclusion goes. I can’t even put my excitement into words when Phasma was first announced, I just wanted female Stormtroopers period but having a woman play a fierce Stormtrooper commander meant everything to me. But alas, just as Snoke it seems these directors can’t seem to find a place to put them amongst the other pointless plots that are stuffed into the film which brings me to…

Canto Bight- A beautiful planet/setting but very unnecessary as a whole. I mean the whole idea of them needing to go to a planet to get a random codebreaker to get on the ship in the first place is absolutely absurd when they’ve had countless ways upon these ships in the past. And the fact that they had to call up Maz so they could poorly stuff her into the movie for 2 minutes as she quickly rattled off their mission in a very Battlefront 2 manner was absolutely ridiculous. The casino itself was neat and I’m glad they touched upon the fact that these people got rich by selling weapons to both sides, but the whole animal chase sequence and everything with DJ felt so out of place and long and distracting from things that would have far better served the characters and plot.

Length- As someone who sat through Age of Extinction after drinking a large soda at the beginning of the film, trust me when I say I know when a movie feels long and this one felt unbearably so. Every time I thought to myself “oh this is it this is going to be the climax and resolution” they would set off on another escape plan. It’s like they came up with 5 different endings and couldn’t decide which one to use so they just kinda tacked them on to the end of each other. After learning that this movie was 3 hours at it’s original cut, I cannot imagine sitting through another hour of squished together side-plots and escape plans, if those cut scenes had more Snoke and Phasma it might’ve been worth it but something tells me it didn’t. We wont know until the bluray with all the deleted scenes comes out next year.

Rey as the future of the Jedi- There was fanboy outcry at the end of TFA saying that Rey was a “”””mary sue””” for being able to defeat someone like Kylo Ren with no lightsaber training/understanding of the Force, but all their arguments are bullshit and there was nothing unbelievable about Rey’s skill with a staff translating to a saber and embracing the Force to gain an edge over Kylo and defeat him.

Now in TLJ Luke’s training of Rey was set up (like many things) to be a main focal point in the story when in reality, it lasts maybe two days and in that time not much training happens at all, in fact Luke tries to show Rey why the Jedi should NOT continue. But in the end it’s very much eluded to that it’s now up to Rey to continue on the Jedi ways and teach a whole new batch of bright eyed young light siders. Rey was skilled enough in TFA to handle herself, but she was still very much a student in need of a teacher herself, something she got only briefly. I honestly have little faith that they can convincingly portray this if they choose to go this route.

Confusing moments with Holdo/Mutiny- I don’t know if was just me but with the movie as a whole being an overwhelming stream of events and developments, the whole Poe mutiny against Holdo was an absolute clusterfuck to me. It was obvious that Holdo was planning something and wouldn’t share it with Poe to the point where it was almost as if she was a traitor/spy and was running everyone into the ground on purpose, and I thought my suspicions were confirmed when she broke back out of custody, but then suddenly Leia shows up and stuns Poe?? Was she a Changeling??? What the fuck was going on??

And then it turns out that she just had a plan to stay with the ship and to get everyone to the Rebel base on the planet below THAT SHE WOULDN’T TELL ANYONE. Like if she would have been a little more up front with this plan I think things would have gone smoother and the whole Poe mutiny thing could have been avoided. It was all very necessary and created conflict and complexity where there didn’t need to be.

Confrontation- While the final confrontation between Kylo and Luke is impactful in it’s end, I think it would have been even more so had it not been needlessly complicated by having him project from Ahch-to. I mean he probably wouldn’t have survived the Walker blasts, but if he could project across the galaxy like that then he could’ve figured something out. When he showed up at the base out of nowhere my suspension of disbelief was already running thin with the loss of Snoke and Phasma, but seeing him look so different from what he looked like minutes ago just ruined the surprise of him not actually being there. I would have liked to see him reunite with Leia in person before becoming one with the Force, and I just think him being there and pulling an Obi Wan by disappearing and leaving the cloak behind just as he did with Vader would have been a nice call back.

Rose/Finn- This moment I did not see coming because tbh, there was no build up to it, and just like the infamous Steve Rogers/Sharon Carter kiss from Civil War, it was awkward and unnecessary and I’m fairly convinced this was added last minute to subvert fans from the whole Stormpilot ship, because you know, how dare us gays want to be included in SW right? Rose is a BRILLIANT character, and even tho Finn suffered the short end of the stick as far as development in this movie went, neither of them needed this rushed moment to make her action or their friendship any more meaningful.

Payoff- Although I was happy with Rey’s parentage I don’t like that it was made to be such an issue that ultimately ended up not being a big deal. Now a lot of this comes from the fact that Rian took it upon himself to “fix” some of JJ’s weaker elements from TFA, but instead of fixing them he eliminated what would have been really nice payoffs for the fans who’ve invested so much time and love into discussing this series. This also goes for Snoke, why create this mystery around this character and have people talking about him if you aren’t going to give them some kind of payoff in the end. That bit of satisfaction that we hoped to get just slipped away and  we’ll have to wait another 2 years to have another chance at it, or maybe not at all and thats incredibly frustrating.

In the end I had fun, but that fun just can’t make me forget about the glaring issues this movie had. And they’re not just issues, they’re needless issues, things that could have been easily avoided or fixed. At this point i’m not even really invested enough in the characters that are left to be excited for the next film.

So yes this film had problems, but is it the worst SW film ever? Is SW really dead? Absolutely not, everyone is being far too dramatic, which honestly isn’t surprising seeing as most of them still pretend the prequels had nothing of value and don’t exist.

It had problems.

Fix them.

Do better next time.

It’s as simple as that and if the filmmakers can’t recognize this film’s shortcoming to avoid making the same mistakes again, then it’s their own fault for the criticism they get. The film isn’t a total loss in the slightest and hopefully some of the deleted content will shed some light on a few things we so very much wanted to see.

[char27martin]

Writing Voice: 4 Tips for Tailoring Your Distinctive Voice

The following is an excerpt from WD Books’ new release, Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page & Engaging Readers. It originally appeared in Writing With Quiet Hands by Paula Munier.

As an agent, I get very excited when I find a writer with a great voice because I know that it’s easier for a writer to learn structure than to discover her truth. I often meet talented writers who have yet to sell their stories because they have yet to find their voice—or they are fighting the truth about their voice.

Part of my job is helping my clients recognize their authentic voice and tailor it to the best commercial project for them. Let me tell you four stories about four very different clients—and how they developed a distinctive voice, used that voice to tell great stories, and got published in the process. Each story offers a different voice lesson for the perceptive writer.

All writers bring a unique set of skills to their work: One author might write outstanding characters, while another might dazzle with dialogue. You don’t have to master every aspect of the craft in order to succeed, but the one quality required of every writer is a compelling, original voice. Your voice, which is often difficult to define and even more difficult to master, can transform your writing from pedestrian to powerful.

In Writing Voice: The Complete Guide to Creating a Presence on the Page & Engaging Readers, you’ll discover effective instruction and advice from best-selling authors and instructors like Donald Maass, Adair Lara, Paula Munier, Dinty W. Moore, James Scott Bell, and many others, plus exercises, techniques, and examples for making your prose stand out, be it fiction or memoir. You’ll learn how to explore the unique way you write, study the distinctive styles of other writers, understand the importance of word choice, develop the right voice for your genre, craft excellent narration that keeps your readers coming back, choose the proper voice for your nonfiction, and more.

1. Reveal Yourself: A Cop’s Story

When I first became an agent, I was overwhelmed by queries; my first week on the job I got more than one thousand queries from writers I didn’t know, and the numbers have grown exponentially ever since. I needed an intern. (As it turns out, I always need an intern.)

I got a call from a professor friend of mine who also writes popular traditional mysteries for St. Martin’s Press. She had an MFA student who was looking for an internship. She warned me that this was not your typical grad student but rather a middle-aged writer who’d spent thirty years as a homicide detective for the Oakland Police Department. I was thrilled because (1) I represented a lot of crime fiction writers who would benefit from a cop’s perspective on their work, and (2) I’m a sucker for a good police procedural.

His name was Brian, and he rocked. He read my queries, he edited my clients’ work, and he finished his thesis, which just so happened to be a police procedural. I liked it and offered to represent him and his work. But first he had to refine his voice.

For Brian’s voice was his selling point, the leverage I needed to pitch his work when I shopped it. Cops who can write are few and far between, so when I find one, I sign him—or her—right up. But voice is a two-edged sword: Brian’s experience on the force informed every word he wrote and gave his prose a confidence and authority born of that experience. All good. But not enough. What was missing in his story was how he felt about that experience. Readers would love his cop hero—but they would love him more if they got to know more about his heart—and not just his head.

This wasn’t easy for Brian, who, like most cops, kept his feelings close to his bulletproof vest. I knew he thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. But he did what I asked (another reason I like working with former law-enforcement and military personnel, as they actually listen to me and follow my advice). He beefed up his protagonist’s inner life, and I shopped the series. Within short order, I got Brian a three-book deal. (Look for the Matt Sinclair series, by Brian Thiem, wherever you buy your books.)

The only real significant revision request from his editor: Beef up the inner life of his hero even more. (I love being right. And I love Brian.)

VOICE LESSON #1: Readers respond most to emotional honesty in a writer’s voice. Don’t be afraid to reveal yourself.

In The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, author and literary agent Paula Munier shows you how to craft flawless beginnings that impress agents, engage editors, and captivate readers. You’ll learn how to develop the big idea of your story and introduce it on page one, structure opening scenes that encompass their own story arc, kickstart your writing with effective brainstorming techniques, and introduce a compelling cast of characters that drive the plot. You’ll also examine best-selling novels from different genres to learn the secrets that experienced writers use to dive straight into a story.

With thorough examinations of voice, point of view, setting, dialogue, and conflict, this book is a must-have tool for luring your readers in with your opening pages—and convincing them to stick around for the ride.

2. Remember Who You Are: A Novelist’s Story

I’ve known Meera for many years; we met decades ago when we were both beginning writers in San Jose. We hung out at writers conferences and participated in writers workshops and read our work aloud to each other in writers’ groups. Meera was one of the most interesting people I knew; originally a farm girl from Missouri, she’d traveled the world in search of enlightenment. When I became an acquisitions editor for a mind/body/spirit imprint, I sought out Meera to write books for the new line—and she made a career for herself as the author of nonfiction titles, wonderful how-to books on the secrets of living an authentic life.

She wrote fiction, too—fabulous stories starring the exotic people and places she’d met on her travels. While technically proficient, these stories fell flat on the page. Meera was imitating the voices of other cultures, other customs, other writers—and drowning out her own voice in the process. In the meantime, she moved to the country and settled on a little farm she called the Henny Penny Farmette in Northern California. She started blogging about her chickens, bees, and goats.

Her blog was a big hit—and the ammunition I needed to convince her to write a novel set on the Henny Penny Farmette. She’d found her fictive voice right there on the farm. (Of course, she’d never lost it; she used it when writing nonfiction. But her love of other cultures and faraway lands blinded her to it in her own storytelling.) She wrote the first in a traditional mystery series set on the farmette—and I got her a three-book deal. (Look for the Henny Penny Farmette mystery series by Meera Lester wherever you buy your books.)

VOICE LESSON #2: If you’re having trouble finding your voice, start close to home. The truth is often right under your nose.

3. Listen to the Sound of Your Own Voice: The Historian’s Story

When I first moved to Massachusetts, I had no writer friends, and even though I was working at a publishing house with book people, I missed hanging out with writers. (Editors are not the same as writers, though I love editors—especially editors who are also writers.) So I joined the online chapter of Mystery Writers of America and started interacting with the other members online.

There I bonded with fellow Rainer Maria Rilke–fan Brian Thornton, who was from the Northwest (and not the same Brian who writes police procedurals—my world is full of great writers named Brian). We became fast friends and met in person several times at writers conferences. Brian, a history teacher by day, even wrote a couple of great history-related nonfiction books for me while I was an acquisitions editor.

But what Brian really wanted to do was publish fiction. We exchanged some stories for critique. I read Brian’s modern private-eye novel and one of his historical mystery stories. I told him that he should focus on historical fiction, as his historian’s voice seemed better suited for it. Commercial historical fiction is not easy to write; only people who are passionate about it and can make it relevant to the modern reader succeed. The good news is that if you can write solid historical fiction, you can usually get published. So I wasn’t at all surprised when Brian sold his first piece, a historical short story, to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Now he’s working on a historical mystery—and now I’m an agent—so here’s hoping that he lets me shop it when he’s ready. (Did I mention that I love being right?)

VOICE LESSON #3: Capitalize on your voice’s strengths. Not only can this help refine your work, it can help you sell it.

Every fiction-writing guide offers its own set of beliefs, techniques, and methods for crafting a novel, developed from the values a particular instructor deems necessary for powerful prose. But while writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue this: If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader’s experience must be an emotional journey that aligns with your characters’ struggles, discoveries, and triumphs.

That’s where The Emotional Craft of Fiction comes in. Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to connect readers—viscerally and emotionally—to your characters and your story. You’ll learn how to create an emotional response through showing and telling, develop a moving narration style, understand reader expectations for a character, and more. Readers can simply read a novel … or they can experience it. If you want to give your readers an experience, start by conjuring vivid, authentic emotion on the page.

4. Do Not Confuse Voice with Plot: The Artiste’s Story

Sometimes I’m so bowled over by a writer’s talent that I ignore the lack of market potential for the work and sign the writer anyway. That’s what happened when I read Richard’s writing for the first time. Richard’s talent was obvious, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so; he’d been celebrated for his brilliant short stories. But he’d yet to break into commercial fiction with his novels.

Richard’s work was überdark—and überdark is not an easy sell. Even your True Detective stories have some (wan) light at the end of the dark tunnel of prose. I warned Richard about this, and he did some revision as requested, but he resisted my appeals to explore his not-so-darn-dark side. Eventually I caved—and I sent out the novel as it was to all the editors I knew who loved dark material. One by one they passed, saying it was just too dark, even for them. But if he wrote anything else, they’d love to see it.

I didn’t give up. (I hate giving up.) I knew that we just needed to find an editor who’d fall in love with Richard’s work the way I had. And I’m happy to say that we did; it took two years, but finally I got Richard a two-book deal with a Big Five house.

Unsurprisingly, the editor wanted a little (wan) light at the end of the dark tunnel of prose. Richard balked. The editor called me, and I called Richard. Richard was worried about “compromising his voice.” But voice really had nothing to do with it. If he found an audience, he couldn’t risk engaging them with his compelling voice only to lose them at the end of the story by refusing to make a slight shift in plot from a “so dark you can’t see” ending to a “dark but not so dark you have to slit your wrists” ending. I explained to him that the first page sells the book and the last page sells the next book. He didn’t have to change his voice; he just had to rethink the emotional impact of the ending on his reader. Leaving a bad taste in the reader’s mouth—no matter how beautiful the voice—is not the way to build an audience. (Richard Thomas’s novel Disintegration debuted to great reviews and endorsements by such literary lights as Chuck Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Wendig, Paul Tremblay, and more.)

VOICE LESSON #4: Voice is how you tell the story—it’s not the story itself. Be sure that you don’t compromise the emotional impact of your story to protect what you mistakenly believe is your voice.

About the Author:

Paula Munier is Senior Literary Agent and Content Strategist at Talcott Notch Literary Services. She began her career as a journalist, and along the way added editor, acquisitions specialist, digital content manager, publishing executive, author, and writing teacher to her repertoire. Paula is the author of several books, including Plot Perfect: How to Build Unforgettable Stories Scene by Scene. Her first mystery series debuts with Spare These Stones in 2018 (St. Martin’s Press).

The post Writing Voice: 4 Tips for Tailoring Your Distinctive Voice appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/excerpts/writing-voice-lessons