#but if you're positioning that as a criticism of the movie's writing...what else were they supposed to do

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on Sonic 3!

On December 10th, 2018, I was on the last day of a trip to Milwaukee. The night before, I'd attended the wedding of one of my best friends, Jake, who I've known since high school. Even though half of us were sick the whole trip, it was a great time. Derek had asked the wedding DJ to play "One Week" as the first request of the night, and proceeded to lip sync the entire song on the dance floor. On that cold winter morning in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home, Derek and I groggily checked Twitter on our phones and saw the shocking news: Paramount had teased the design for Sonic from their upcoming live action film. Even in silhouette, the shape of his face and the realistic curvature of his limbs made him look like a grotesque little homunculus. This movie was going to suck.

Six years later, I've now seen the third entry in what's become a hugely successful Sonic film franchise. It features Keanu Reeves as the voice of Shadow the Hedgehog in a fairly faithful adaptation of his story from Sonic Adventure 2. At the time of writing, it currently sits at a whopping 86% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, vying for the title of the best-reviewed theatrically released video game movie of all time. Critics are saying nice things about the emotional journey of Shadow the Hedgehog. Never in a million years did I think I'd see this day.

I, too, have now seen this movie, and... yeah, it's pretty good.

I'm gonna get deep into spoilers here, so I'll just say up front that I liked the movie. It feels like just about the best possible execution of this version of Sonic. But that's also damning it with faint praise, depending on who you ask.

If you're a fan of the games who didn't like the second movie, you probably won't get much out of this one, either, unless you just really love Shadow so much that nothing else in the movie matters to you. It doesn't reinvent the wheel for this film series. It's still got a heaping helping of broad comedy, cheap pop culture references, bad one-liners, and characterization that diverges greatly from the source material. This is not high art, nor is it a direct adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2. If you're the kind of person who hates this portrayal of Sonic and Eggman, or a lore nerd who'll hate that they let Shadow do Chaos Control without an Emerald, then just don't bother with this.

On the other hand, if you did enjoy the last movie, then you'll probably have a fun time here, too. Shadow is very cool. The action is the best it's ever been. There's a bit more focus on characters from the games, and less on human characters invented for the movies—with the exception of Agent Stone, who's in this a lot because everyone likes him. There's a lot of SA2 fanservice. They even play "Live and Learn." It's a fun time! Be sure to stick around through the end credits.

And now, to dig deeper, let's get into the spoilers! I'm gonna jump around a lot and talk about different aspects of the movie, spoiling everything along the way.

Shadow and his reams of lore

Here's the main thing you came for: Shadow is great in this! They really did him justice. Keanu Reeves is extremely solid in the role. He can be a bit flat as an actor sometimes, but I think he did well here. He can be tough and menacing, but he can also be earnest and emotionally vulnerable. Good casting call. Excited at the prospect of seeing more of him in the future.

Really, as a Sonic Lore Nerd I'm most interested in discussing the changes they made to Shadow's backstory. I'm sure there will be many fans upset with the changes, but for the sake of streamlining a complicated backstory that was subject to a bunch of retcons and multiple layers of amnesia and fitting it into a 110-minute movie, I think they generally made smart choices.

For one, Gerald didn't create Shadow using Black Arms DNA, because Gerald didn't create Shadow at all! Instead, Shadow arrived on Earth inside a meteor, and Gerald was merely the prominent GUN scientist who studied him after he was captured. (That meteor does have very strong Black Arms vibes, though, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them exploring that stuff in the future.) This simplifies things a lot and allows Shadow to be a direct foil for Sonic, kind of a version of our hero who was treated as a lab rat and lost the only human he considered family instead of finding happiness like Sonic has. Then later Shadow hurts Tom and Sonic wants revenge, and it mirrors Shadow's feelings about Maria, and after they fight they can empathize with each other over this, Shadow sees the error of his ways and helps save the world, yada yada yada. You get it. People predicted 95% of this movie's plot from the trailers, but it's effective.

Likewise, all of the stuff about creating Shadow as the ultimate life form who's immune to all disease to cure Maria's illness is completely cut out. Shadow's still called the ultimate life form, but he's treated as more of an energy source than a genetic research project here, playing off of the stuff about Eggman wanting to harness Sonic's natural Chaos Energy in the movies. The original intent behind the ultimate life form project was always hard to explain in the games and doesn't even come up that much, so I don't blame them for cutting it.

Because Gerald isn't doing genetic experiments and creating artificial life, the Biolizard also doesn't exist. It does, however, appear in an old monster movie Shadow and Maria watch in a montage, with Shadow later commenting that he worries he's a monster like the one he saw in the movie. That's a clever way to include it, I think.

The ARK sort of exists. There was no space colony back in the '70s, all of the events of Shadow's flashbacks just took place at a secret GUN base on Earth. Fair enough for a version of the story ostensibly set in the real world. The big space laser in the third act of the film is obviously supposed to evoke the ARK, but it's referred to as simply the Eclipse Cannon. It's still not a full-blown space colony, just a weapon of mass destruction Gerald designed for GUN in exchange for his release (while also secretly planning to use it to blow up the planet in an act of revenge). I am, however, pleased to report that the Eclipse Cannon still has a giant Eggman face on it.

And as for Maria: I like her in this! She's obviously not going to get a ton of screentime, and she's always going to be a very straightforward character, but she's more playful and lively here. She teases Shadow for being grumpy and plays with him a lot. She feels less like this perfect embodiment of everything good and pure in the world and more like an actual kid. She's still not a complex character, but it works.

And the most important question: do they show a child getting shot and killed by the military? The answer is almost. In the flashback, GUN soldiers chase Maria, Shadow, and Gerald and ready their guns, but the young Commander Walters (who's in his 20s rather than being a kid) grabs them and tries to stop them from firing on a child. In the chaos, a soldier fires, missing Maria but hitting a generator that then blows up and kills Maria. So, y'know, close enough I suppose.

So, yes, many of the details change here, but they captured the gist of Shadow's story from SA2. The emotional core is there. I will say, though, I almost feel like Shadow isn't in this movie as much as I thought he'd be? I think he's used effectively in all of his scenes, and they make room for his backstory, and BOY does he get to kick ass in his fights, but for much of the middle part of the movie he's overshadowed by Ivo and Gerald. Though this might be a compromise to leave more screentime for...

Tails and Knuckles

I'm relieved to report that Tails and Knuckles both get a good amount of cool stuff to do in this! They don't feel like an afterthought.

I was worried that Tails in particular would completely fall by the wayside, since even his debut movie didn't entirely know what to do with him. But he's good here. He pretty much just feels like the Tails from the games at this point, especially since they dropped that fawning admiration he had for Sonic with that running gag of him going "Only Sonic the Hedgehog could do that!" He often chimes in as the one who wants Team Sonic to stick together when Sonic and Knuckles bicker. He particularly gets to shine in the Mission Impossible-inspired heist sequence at the GUN headquarters in London that serves as the climax of the second act, which feels like it was tailor made to let him shine as the tech guy of the team. He also gets several opportunities to swoop in and catch someone for a save in an action scene. He's good in this!

Knuckles is... fine. He's definitely fallen into the role of the comic relief dumb bruiser since joining the good guys, but he's at least a little better than he was in his own streaming show. The jokes lean more into him just being really brash about his strength and skill, rather than him being this archaic warrior who doesn't understand anything about the modern world. He also gets a few more serious bits in the back third of the movie where he gets to shine a little more, so overall it evens out to him being fine. They could've done way worse.

As for the relevance of the Knuckles show: Knuckles is now said to be the guardian of the Master Emerald, like in the games, though with no Angel Island this amounts to him hiding it somewhere for safekeeping. It's eventually revealed that he just gave it to Wade, who gets exactly one scene (sorry, Wade-heads) for a joke about him using the Master Emerald as a hockey puck. So, the miniseries explained why Knuckles has a connection with Wade. That's it! Also I think Knuckles might use the Flames of Disaster a bit in fights, but they never called the technique out by name, so I never really thought about it. So, yeah, the six-episode streaming miniseries about Wade bowling has zero meaningful relevance to the Shadow movie. Who could have seen this coming?

Miscellaneous humans

For that matter, the human supporting cast is MASSIVELY downplayed in this one. Tom and Maddie are there for two key sequences (the beginning of the movie and the GUN HQ heist), but otherwise they disappear for long stretches of the movie. They don't go to Japan in act I, nor do they go to space in act III, and there's no subplot for them during those periods, either. There's nothing like the wedding subplot in Sonic 2 where they'd constantly cut back to Hawaii for comic relief with the humans and only reveal why this was relevant to the plot near the end. (There's also no random dance battle in Siberia.) If a human character is here, it's because they have something to contribute to the plot right away. Most people will probably consider this an improvement, and I'd certainly say it makes for a much tighter script, though I have to remind everyone that I thought the wedding being a GUN sting operation was such a funny twist that I'm a defender of the Hawaii subplot.

On the subject of Tom, something funny I've noticed is that they've just completely downplayed the fact that Tom and Wade are cops. Tom being a cop never comes up once. Wade being a cop only gets referenced via the fact that he's practicing hockey on the roof of the police station in his one scene, but he's not in uniform or anything. They clearly got the memo that we don't want Sonic to hang out with cops.

Here's something else funny: Rachel and Randall got character posters, but they're actually not in the movie! Not technically, anyway. During the heist sequence at GUN HQ, Tom and Maddie use some gadgets Tails invented to holographically disguise themselves as those other characters. But the real Rachel and Randall never show up in the flesh. It's a very odd way to shoehorn the actors into the movie. (Jojo is also absent. They did not give her Amy's role of being the girl who reminds Shadow of Maria. Instead they just let Sonic have the big heart to heart with Shadow that makes him switch sides.)

You know who IS in this movie? Krysten Ritter. Not as the voice of Rouge, as the fandom once hoped, but as a director for GUN. She gets like three scenes and she feels completely checked out the whole time. Can't say I blame her! She's not really a character, just a plot necessity. Commander Walters dies in Japan but gives Sonic one of two keycards needed to activate the Eclipse Cannon, and then Ritter's character assumes Sonic stole it and labels him a bad guy. So that's why they have to break into GUN HQ in the second act instead of just talking things out with them. Still, I am at least relieved that Sonic doesn't work with GUN for most of the movie.

I gotta be honest: when Walters pulled a credit card-shaped object out of his pocket, I thought he was about to give Sonic another Olive Garden gift card as his final act before dying. Part of me wishes that happened.

The supporting human character in this who really gets to shine is Agent Stone, which I'm sure most fans will agree was the correct choice. There's a LOT of Agent Stone in this. He's good. I don't have much to say about him, but he's fun as usual.

But, of course, the ones who steal the show are Jim Carrey, and his costar Jim Carrey.

The Robotniks

I've gone back and forth on whether or not I can actually see movie Robotnik as Robotnik. I think with this third and final entry in the Jim Carrey Robotnik Trilogy, I've landed on... yeah, that's just Jim Carrey playing a Jim Carrey character. He's absolutely having fun with the role, and I enjoyed watching him, but I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that I'm a millennial who grew up watching Jim Carrey movies. If you didn't like him before, this movie will probably be nails on a chalkboard to you, because now there are two of him.

Ivo's arc here leans very heavily into the fact that he grew up as an orphan and never knew his family, a thing offhandedly mentioned in the first movie that's never been a thing for any other version of the character. Here, he learns that he has a living grandfather who's also a mad scientist, and it feels like a hole in his heart has been filled. It certainly makes sense for a place to take this version of the character, and it fits with the movie's themes of finding and losing family, but the cartoonish, childlike affection Ivo feels towards Gerald and all the scenes of them frolicking and dancing together have basically nothing to do with the characters from the games. He's a fun villain for this movie, but he's overwhelmingly used as comic relief this time rather than as a serious threat. He doesn't particularly feel like Sega's Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the arch nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog who'd take over the world with an army of robots and a fleet of airships in the span of a day if Sonic wasn't around to stop him. He's a guy who lives in a big crab robot and has some drones. He has more in common with Carrey's depictions of the Grinch or the Riddler or Count Olaf than Dr. Eggman. Though he does, at least, finally get his outfit from the games by the end of the movie. So that's something. And also he's in a fat suit now. They only make jokes at the expense of his weight a little. Hooray...?

Gerald, meanwhile, is... largely the same character as movie Eggman, but older, so they can make jokes about him having saggy flesh and smelling funny and needing dentures. (Also, his voice kind of sounds like Homer Simpson sometimes?) To his credit, Carrey absolutely nails the handful of more serious scenes Gerald gets, whether it's Maria's death or his sinister turn when he reveals that he actually wants to destroy the Earth. But then it's right back to goofs about there being two of the same guy. Even the final battle features a lot of slapstick shenanigans with the two Robotniks fighting each other. I was able to enjoy the absurdity of it all, but if the humor doesn't land for you the dual Jim Carrey schtick is a hell of a lot of the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more Gerald than Shadow in the movie, when you go and tally up their screentime. I was able to enjoy the sheer absurdity of it, but your mileage will vary.

I will, however, say that the split screen stuff they do with the two Carreys is EXTREMELY impressive, from a filmmaking perspective. They were absolutely flexing with their ability to pull the effect off. They don't rely on cheap tricks like cutting a lot, or having shot/reverse shot scenes where you're looking at the back of a body double's head. Instead they have a lot of long takes where the two Robotniks are talking to each other, you can see both of their faces, and they'll even hug and touch each other a lot, and the whole time the conversation maintains a natural pace like it really is two actors playing off of each other. It's really well done. It's an incredibly silly idea, but boy did they commit to it.

Sonic

I've hardly said anything about Sonic himself in all of this. It's his movie, isn't it! Well... I don't know, he's fine.

I feel like movie Sonic is a known quantity at this point, and either you like this take on the character or you don't. There was some speculation early on that this was supposed to be a younger Sonic who would grow into being the character we know from the games and comics, the one who's still got lots of quips but is also kind of aloof and cool, a free spirit who goes where the wind takes him, a figure the other characters look up to. And... no, that didn't happen. Once again he gets more serious as the stakes are raised, and he's totally badass when he goes Super, but the rest of the time he's still a little goober with tons of generic one-liners who learns schmaltzy lessons about the importance of family. He's still constantly going to undercut the tension of most scenes by cracking a pop culture reference that will make the average American parent go "haha I've heard of that." I don't think they're ever gonna change that. I think this just what the writers think Sonic is like.

And, again, for what it is, it's fine. He's a little annoying. You already know how you feel about movie Sonic. This third entry won't change that. But they do, at least, have him say "Talk about low budget flights, no food or movies... I'm outta here!" before jumping out of a helicopter. As my thoughts on the climax will show, I am not immune to fanservice.

The climax

God, the climax is SOOOOO fucking good. It's fantastic. Easily the best action these movies have ever done.

Rather than saving Super Shadow for the team-up with Sonic at the end, they have both of them go Super to fight each other first, and they just go full DBZ with it, fighting across the entire planet. It absolutely rules. I think this is the new coolest fight the two of them have had in anything ever. And then they have to stop the Eclipse Cannon together, and sure, there's no Biolizard. But Gerald DOES release a swarm of GUN Hunter robots, and the ensuing space battle turns into some Gundam shit. It's good! It's so good!!! The movie's flaws kind of melt away for me here when I'm watching Super Shadow take out an army of robots with Chaos Spears on the big screen. What a timeline we're living in.

And yes, they play "Live and Learn." They had to. They knew the assignment. They actually play a slight remix, but it's still got the original vocals, so it's perfectly recognizable. Actually, the tune of the song is used as a leitmotif for Shadow throughout the movie, first introduced via an acoustic guitar version played by Maria, and I really love that. I've been begging these movies to use more music from the games the whole time, and I'm glad they finally did so here. (They also use the traditional level clear jingle early in the film, and Eggman's theme from SA2 is very briefly used as a ringtone.)

... Anyway, uh, meanwhile Eggman, Tails, and Knuckles straight up just kill Gerald to save the world? They unceremoniously knock him into an energy field at the end of their slapstick fight aboard the Eclipse Cannon and he disintegrates like he hit a bugzapper. It's over in an instant. It's not graphic or anything, but it's, like... I didn't expect them to show it, or for it to be such a casual murder! Eggman has one quip about it and then immediately moves on.

Shortly after this, Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to stop the Eclipse Cannon. Shadow's sacrifice doesn't stick, obviously (he's revealed to be alive by the end of the second stinger—pretend to be shocked), but Eggman's probably dead dead. I seriously doubt Jim Carrey's gonna come out of retirement for these movies again. His final moments before the big explosion are also SO dragged out and belabored. He has a dramatic final line like ten times in a row. It really just feels like the series saying goodbye to Carrey. And, again, it feels like a fitting enough end for this Eggman's arc, but it's an odd adaptation of the character from the games.

And so, that's what we're left with. This is far from Sonic Adventure 2: The Movie. It's not that, though there are many, many references made to that game in particular. It's a sequel to the film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that has a similar tone and style, but Shadow and Gerald are in it, and Shadow gets some really cool fights, and there's a liiiiiittle more focus on stuff from the games than last time, and the script's a little tighter. If that sounds fun to you, you will have fun with this. I know I did. If it doesn't, you're probably better off waiting for them to inevitably do an animated reboot whenever this live action series runs out of steam.

It hasn't quite run out of steam yet, though...

The post-credits scenes, and the future

One of the big questions going into this was: what's next? How do they top a Shadow movie with heavy Sonic Adventure 2 overtones, in terms of hype for the fans? How do you fill Eggman's shoes after Carrey retires, for real this time? There are still more fan favorite rival characters to get through, but how many movies in a row can they introduce a furry foe for Sonic who inevitably turns good and helps him stop a larger threat by the end? And when the hell are we gonna see the girls?

Well, we now have our answer, and it's one I'm cautiously excited for: a whole army of Metal Sonics, and Amy!

Yes, Amy! Finally!! It's an absolute crime that we've gone three whole movies and a streaming miniseries without including the female lead of the series. I've complained about this ad nauseum (and also the fact that they cut Rouge from the story). But at least now they're finally doing something about it.

But now the question is, how will they characterize Amy? Sega's struggled with her for years, and there's a million different directions you can take her. Her one scene here has her smashing a bunch of Metal Sonics and wearing a cloak for the sake of a dramatic reveal, which gives her the vibes of a mysterious, badass action girl. This is, of course, completely different from how Sonic and Amy met in the games. What will her personality be like? She doesn't speak here, so who will they get to play her? Where did she come from? Will she even have a crush on Sonic? All of these have yet to be determined. So, like, I'm hyped to finally see Amy, a character who should've been in the movies from the start, but they could so easily end up playing it safe with an incredibly boring girlboss version of Amy who's no fun at all. We'll have to wait and see.

(My prediction: they're going to try to cast either Zendaya or Ariana as Amy.)

Metal Sonic, likewise, is very exciting, and he looks perfect. He looks just like the design from the games. But the question is: what will they do with this army of Metals? Will they be lead by one main Metal Sonic, perhaps Neo Metal Sonic, who gets to be a proper bad guy? Will they take some cues from Sonic CD, Heroes, and the OVA, or do something completely original? Where did they come from? Were they activated as a failsafe after Eggman died? Did they and Amy come from some sort of bad future, riffing on Sonic CD's time travel? Will they explore the fact that Metal wants to be the one and only Sonic? Or will they just be an army of disposable robot grunts for Sonic and friends to mow down like it's a Dynasty Warriors game, while some other villain takes center stage?

It could go so many different ways, and some prospects are more exciting than others. I mean, the Knuckles show had endless possibilities for what it could do with him, and none of the options on my bingo card were "Pachacamac's ghost tells him to help Wade win a bowling tournament." And while I'm a sicko who thinks it's funny that the Knuckles show is what it is, forgive me for keeping my hype about Amy and Metal Sonic in check here until we learn more.

Regardless of what they do, it'll still be hard to top the hype of Shadow, and it'll be hard to fill Jim Carrey's shoes for general audiences. So despite this clear statement of intent, I have no idea what the future of this film franchise holds. But regardless of what they do, I can say one thing for certain: the kids in my theater were hyped as hell for it. They popped off over Metal Sonic, and they were screaming their heads off with excitement over Amy. I heard a teenage girl on the opposite end of my row of seats say "finally!" over Amy's reveal, verbalizing my exact thoughts. She also said that this movie was "peak," though it diverged from the games, and she hoped they'd do a movie with Silver and Blaze someday.

The kids are gonna be okay.

[bonbonly]

a/n: a little thought to help me get back into writing (because god forbid im allowed to sit down in front of my computer without my family losing their mind asdfasdf), new au alert tho: hollywood!

↪ producer!carlos sainz that's more than willing to sign you onto films only if you showcase your gratitude on your knees. you're more than happy to oblige to help boost your career, but you realize he's slowly starting to see you less and is now more focused on a younger supporting actress, costing you some big films in favor for her.

↪ actor!daniel ricciardo who's still trying to make his big comeback with a good film, but can't stand having to share the screen with you and makes it more apparent when he decides to purposely outshine you in scenes that were made for you. you bite your tongue and play along, knowing you only had a few days left before filming ended.

↪ actor!max verstappen who garners all the praise on set, snapping his fingers and asking you to get his coffee. you tell him repeatedly that you're his co-star, not his assistant, and he slaps his forehead, apologizing and explaining that he just keeps forgetting. you find out later that he was one of the main reasons why you were snubbed from an oscar a few years ago.

↪ actor!charles leclerc that's the fresh face, the pretty boy that came in for an increase in audience viewership as you put it. he smiles at you, saying that's always admired your work but before you can rescind your statement he adds, "just your work, not you, though" and now you're trying all you can to get him fired from set for hurting your ego.

↪ producer!lewis hamilton who always sends you back to producer!carlos despite your pleas to work with someone new because you cannot stand being the second female lead, you want priority! he smirks at you, shaking his head and saying the only way for him to prioritize you is for you to only ever listen to what he demands. his offer isn't very tempting, but you'd rather stick with him than carlos. that was the best choice, right?

↪ director!sebastian vettel that loves to dote on you while filming, praising your skills in front of the other artists who aren't very happy. he loves to guide you through a scene, hands on your hips as he positions you just the way he wants in front of the camera. he likes to inhale your scent, leaving a flirty comment about how amazing you are. you soak all his words, at least someone was giving you the attention you deserved!

↪ retired scriptwriter!nico rosberg who you keep calling to come back into the field so you could work on something together and create an academy award winning film. he's not very thrilled and likes to be left alone, being fed up with the lifestyle of actors and actresses. but when he sees you waiting outside his house in nothing but a fur coat, he might reconsider your proposal. he has some good ideas on what to do with you... scriptwise that is.

↪ film critic!jenson button that loves to write a new article about how your films suck. he gets a kick out of seeing you all riled up, storming into his office at night with a scowl on your face. he twirls his pencil around his fingers, tossing you another critique he wrote. he circles around you, asking if you liked his new paper. when you tell him he better write an apology, or else you'd ruin his career, he shrugs and pulls you onto his lap whispering "we both know the real reason why you even bother to visit me"

↪ retired actor!fernando alonso that's your mentor and hates to see you perform poorly on screen. he lets you come over to his house for some private acting lessons that's only for you and none of the other rookies. most of the time, you're always tangled in his bedsheets, the script for your new movie on the ground. he might be sneaky enough to have his hand on your ass when you walk on the red carpet, telling the media he was just guiding you to the premiere nothing else!

[sundrop-writes]

Fanfic Recs!

I would really like to start reading more fics so I can reblog them and recommend them on this blog - so please, feel free to send your fic to me if you think that I would like it!

As you guys know, I have started doing a daily fanfic rec on this blog, and it's something that I have been really loving to do because as a writer I know how much I appreciate someone reblogging my fic with positive comments, so I really want to do that for other people. However, I am realising now that I don't actually have a lot of fics in my backlog to recommend. You guys know that I mention a lot that I don't generally read a lot of fanfiction - because I spend most of my time writing my own and typically when that is over, my brain doesn't always have the energy to read someone else's. So I usually only read fics one day out of the month or so, but I am trying to change that.

Also, it doesn't help that I remade my Tumblr in 2023 so a lot of my old reblogged recs were deleted with my old Tumblr. And I considered linking some of my favourites from AO3 on here, but I don't really like doing that, because there's not really a way to notify someone when you recommend their AO3 fic (other than going to the comments and going 'hey, I rec'd your fic') - but I really wanna spread the love to Tumblr fics specifically. Because I feel like a lot of Tumblr writers are overlooked - especially people who write x reader fics.

So, I want this to be an opportunity for people to have their fics rec'd on this blog - if you are okay with waiting a little while for me to read them. Please, send me your fic if you want me to possibly recommend it - which would include me reblogging it to this blog with some of my random comments/thoughts on it.

General Guidelines:

I will only write positive comments on the fics, not unsolicited criticisms. However, that also means I am not going to Beta Read unfinished fics. I do not have the time or energy for that unfortunately.

I am only going to read and recommend x Reader fics - not fics with character x character pairings. (Because I feel like they are underappreciated, and because that is the general genre that I write, so it is what people who follow this blog are already interested in seeing.) However, I will read fics that have GN or Masc Reader characters.

I will be reading one fic a night, so you may have to wait a while for me to read your fic. (Unless you're the only person that sends me one, which fully might happen.)

I am mostly looking for oneshots (fics that can be read in one sitting) that are posted to Tumblr, and short or long is okay. It can be from 1k words to 30k or 40k (but if it's above that, it might take me a while to get to it), or it can even be something below 1k, because I love shorter fics.

(Also, even though I am primarily looking for Tumblr fics, it's fully okay if your fic is also cross-posted on AO3.)

I am really NOT looking do to multi-chapter fics because unfortunately, I don't have the time to dedicate to reading a longer fic.

Please feel free to self promote!!! Send me your fic that you really love and you're really excited about.

If you don't write fics, send me a fic of someone else's that you really love.

I would also really like to promote fics that are less popular and have less notes (100 notes or less), but of course, I will still recommend popular fics too

Here is a list of fandoms that I am willing to read for: Harry Potter, DC Titans (or DC in general), UK Youtubers, 911, Teen Wolf, The Walking Dead (though I don't like Negan and I would only read fics for characters I have actually 'met' in the show), The Maze Runner, many different horror movies (I can create a more comprehensive list if you want), occasionally Stranger Things, and occasionally Criminal Minds. There's likely more, but I think that covers it for now. (I am also open to including more fandoms in this list, and if you have a fic from a fandom that's not on this list, feel free to ask me if I would like to read it.)

Any topics are on the table, including smut, dark topics, pregnancy, heavy angst, noncon, dubdon, ABO, whatever. I really don't care. I will read pretty much anything. Just make sure the author has put it under a cut so I can reblog it

So if you have a fic that you really like, and you feel like it fits these criteria, please send it to me! It can be through DMs or as a link in an ask - and I will like it and then read it before I go to bed one night of the week. (But please, don't be upset if it takes me a few days to get to it.) Also keep in mind that my reblog with comments will come from @tenpintsof-sundrop - my main blog, before it's reblogged here

I really want to foster an environment where writers are friends with each other again and genuinely make friends again, so hopefully this adds to that.

[badgalsasuke]

A lot of Naruto fans, especially the younger ones *especially on Tiktok* seem to struggle with Kishimoto's writing of Zabuza and Haku's relationship.

They feel uncomfortable that Kishimoto wrote their relationship as a romantic one, where is heavily implied that Haku is in love with Zabuza and Zabuza at last acknowledges that he reciprocates these feelings. So what they do instead is completely rewrite their relationship to one of father and son and give it a found family tag.

What baffles me is that these people don't understand that they're not "interpreting" things differently, they're just straight up making up a whole different thing. Then, they call anyone who sees their relationship as one of romantic love a "proshipper" (this dumb term I swear) or a creep.

And here's the thing, I get it. I get why people specially young gen-z and gen alpha where the biggest crimes in humanity are age gaps and adult/minors relationships in fictional works feel this need to rewrite canon text, it can be icky. You're reading or watching Naruto because you're enjoying it so far and then you encounter this, what do you do? how do you react? how do you engage with it?

Here's where your media literacy comes in handy: your morals are not defined by someone else's art.

Art is the only place where you're allowed to explore all types of scenarios, dynamics and relationships including the "problematic" ones however you want because it's fictional, it's not real. Whatever piece of art or media you're enjoying and engaging with does not say anything about your morals because you're supposed to have enough media literacy and critical thinking skills to separate fiction from reality.

"But what about the author?? why would anyone write anything like this?"

Kishimoto wrote Zabuza and Haku's relationship with clear gay romantic subtext because he wanted to and this really doesn't say anything about his morals either. As an artist, he's free to explore whatever scenario pops up on his head and that's what he did, that's it.

People who have this idea that fictional works must reflect on their creator moral compass seem to very young (at least that's the grace I'm giving them) so they haven't really explored media beyond the series and movies that come with the typical "lesson" characters learn at the end to be better people (y'know superhero movies, disney movies, etc.) but that's not how all art works.

I've read Stieg Larsson's Girl with the dragon tattoo trilogy that depicts rape of women and femicide, the author never abused a single woman. I've watched Game of thrones that depicts all sort of explicit violence (both gore and sexual violence), the screenwriters and the writer of the books have never comitted such acts. We also have horror movies and books and comics depicting abhorrent acts of violence, are we gonna say the people behind them are all sick twisted freaks? no, because none of that is real.

Sure, there's been artist who were also bad people who comitted evil acts but this is not necessary correlated or caused by the art they made. There's people who made wholesome art/media and still ended up being evil (Dan Schneider for instance) just like there's people who make icky dark themed art/media and never did anything evil or harmful to anyone.

And if you watch/read this type of media you're not gonna suddenly lose whatever ethics and morals you already had and immediately go commit what's being depicted there, be serious.

What is bizarre to me is the people that want to pathologize Kishimoto for writing Zabuza and Haku's relationship that way but not for all the violence depicted in the manga. So he's a weirdo for that specific relationship but not for the Uchiha massacre or the Hyuuga slavery? oh, okay... And don't try to come and say it's because the relationship is portrayed in a positive romantic light and the other two aren't because Itachi is considered a hero in Konoha and the slavery in the Hyuuga clan was never abolished and none of the Hokages saw anything wrong with it.

I see this is a problem where people infantilize themselves and make it the author/creative's problem to cater to them and their moral compass, basically going "I don't agree with this so you can't depict this in *your* work because it would make *me* feel uncomfortable and if you don't then *you're* a freak, sick, twisted, degenerate, etc." and no offense but grow tf up. Y'all also need to be very careful with this way y'all love talk about art and artists behind it because it is very much christofascist rethoric.

Anyways:

Completely rewriting someone else's text because it made you uncomfortable is not engaging in good faith with it, in fact, is not engaging with it at all...

Pathologizing the writer and the readers of such text is not engaging with it either and is just being a loser with no media literacy. They're not "romanticizing, sexualizing, normalizing" or whatever other fucking -izing y'all come up with, none of this is real.

Don't be so quick to condemn and be offended. You need to learn how to navigate media that depicts acts and scenarios that make you uncomfortable and understand that none of that reflects on you and who you are as a person.

You also have the other option that is to remain a disney adult type of person for the rest of your life, I guess.

[damnfandomproblems]

6013

I don't understand the first reblog response at all. Clearly the OP was referring to people who are acting like "playground bullies" and getting in other peoples' faces with some degree of confrontation. That's a far cry from people who are just being critical or politely sharing negative opinions. Like it or not, many people on here do weaponize their opinions and use them to talk down on other people, and if they unironically say nonsense like, "I love being a hater" in response to people saying they need to leave them alone, that should be a huge red flag. Among all the others. To ward off naysayers, I'm writing that as someone who's been highly critical of properties I used to enjoy for years. But unlike the sorts that were described in the OP, I know better than to rain on other peoples' parades by directly inserting myself into their spaces. Honestly, people don't want to hear my criticism. A lot of criticism may be "correct" or "valid", sure, and I should be allowed to criticize media, but where in that statement does etiquette permit me to splash criticism all over unsuspecting parties and act like they're fools for not agreeing with me? If you have criticism, keep it to your blog or people who explicitly state they're open to discussion. Tag it like a reasonable fandom resident would. Don't act like people are stupid, or that you're better than everyone else, even if you think their opinions are stupid or misinformed. If people look at you and go, yikes, they're really on a crusade here and it's exhausting, you need to stop and think.

^ I agree with this!

I can write an essay with criticism for some movies, but I don't go around acting holier-than-you to other people? If I tell a rogue jerk with a superiority complex to tone it down because they're getting in people's faces with criticism, that's way different than being allergic to criticism of media. I'm not allergic to criticism, trust me lol I do a lot of it myself. What I'm actually allergic to? Is rogue jerks with superiority complexes who think it's okay to shove their takes in my face, and soapbox in my own inbox, without prompting when I just want to focus on the positive things.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

[des2dream]

Happy New Year, 2025!!!

The year of 2024 had a handful of reeling events. I've seen countless creators online who were once praised are now exposed for being creeps, manipulators, liars, and everything else you can chalk off. I've seen so many people getting hurt and even killed for simply just existing or living their lives without a care in the world. I've seen so many injured and traumatized children who had to witness and experience something beyond the nightmares they used to have as they cry at night wishing those events never happened. I've seen beautiful homes and towns that have now been reduced to rubble and empty land. I've seen people lose all hope once they discovered who was going to be in charge of politics soon. It was awful......and yet, there were a handful of good events too. I've started spending my time online and getting to meet or introduce myself to some friendly faces. I've been improving on my studies to work my way into a successful creative writing path. I saw artists being able to spread their creations with positive feedback (even in constructive criticism). I spend time with others while engaging in streams or movie marathons simply to have a good time. I allowed myself within welcoming communities at a time where I truly needed it. I saw people constantly uplift each other no matter how big or small something was. I saw unity and I knew I still had reasons to not lose hope even when times got tough. I don't know what 2025 has in store for the future. I don't know what problems we'll have to face or who the next creator we thought was good to us was actually just another a-hole. I don't know when there will be another disaster coming to pull us apart. But, I do know that we're strong enough to keep ourselves together as long as we're there for each other. I also know that you are allowed to feel sad when times are tough, but don't let that sadness take over you. No matter what happens in 2025, I hope we can all pull through. You're all wonderful. You're all creative. You're all strong. Goodbye, 2024. Welcome, 2025! I wish you all the very best.

[georgiapeach30513]

My suggestion to your 🤡 anon:

Look on Reddit and YouTube. Instagram too.

Avoid Twitter/X and TikTok.

X is notoriously an echo chamber of the nastiest group of people. I literally stopped going on there during Covid because it was just a toilet bowl of miserableness.

Materialists was trending on the top YT for the last two days (don’t think it is today) but there are thousands of comments on there and people are excited, mixed, curious, optimistic, and in between. Obviously this could be a miss too, but Celine is visionary filmmaker. She writes from her heart and her experiences. This movie very much follows the K drama path too. So anyone familiar with that will notice. I expect Korean cinema to remake this one at some point like how Hollywood tried to remake OldBoy and a ton of other Korean films. 😝

https://youtu.be/4A_kmjtsJ7c?feature=shared

Check the top few. 🤭

—

A lot of people on the internet are rooting for Celine. And also, rooting for CE. I think the public wants a win for him more than he probably even does.

Pedro obviously has his fandom but he’s not really needing a win, he’s in everything right now he’ll be fine. Dakota is mixed but she’s also Nepo baby extraordinaire and she’ll be fine.

But Chris is the one the people want to see succeed, and there was even this random thread on the Oscar’s Reddit today: (the first comment made me LOL)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Oscars/s/FYUA07br67

There’s people out there not on this “tumblr fandom” that want this man to win. Think he could do better and should do better. But of course, he himself has to want this for it to actually happen. No one else. You know, for those angry birds on here who think everyone hates him and nobody cares about him anymore (except continuing to clog up his tumblr tag with your nonsense is giving him attention but hey, I mean delulus gonna delulu). I’ve been trying to tell people on here that his fandom is not 50 people on tumblr who write fanfiction and pay to watch his films. You’ve got XXXX all over the world who have seen his obscure movies like London and they’re probably male fans. He has a lot of them. His fans are NOT just women. Believe it or not. Take it or leave it.

😘

I do agree that I think X/Twitter is one of the most toxic place for movies. Actually the comments on TikTok were pretty positive. I also do believe that if you're looking for something negative, you will find it. Hey, even Brandon Lewis had something positive to say about Chris. So that's a win. I wonder where the Letterboxd critic is 😂

I think people are extremely excited to see what Celine is going to bring to this genre. People want to see to see her succeed. And I do think there's a lot excited to see Pedro and Chris together. A lot want to see Dakota leave, and those two get together. ChrisRo 4eva!!

I do think there's a lot of people who are rooting for Chris in something not action. Despite what some believe, people do like Chris. I don't think he's as famous outside of Marvel, but he's done well for himself.

I think his upcoming movies will be interesting to see. He is going completely opposite of what he normally does, so it's a breath of fresh air!

[the-blue-fairie]

hey, no worries at all about venting in the tags of... your reblog of my reblog of your post, lol!! as i mentioned, i was trying to find a completely different old post by someone else, and then ended up seeing your post in my search and i just feel that it's a great explanation of some of the issues that i have with the ending. i can totally understand why people who like the idea behind the ending and what the writers were trying to say with it want to defend it, to an extent, but i agree with you that they just didn't successfully say that. which only makes me more frustrated with the ending than i imagine i would've been otherwise. and i'm sorry people have been trying to group you in with frozen 2 haters when you didn't want to be seen that way! and to me, the posts of yours that i've read about the movie (including the one i reblogged that prompted this ask) never came off that way either. you always seemed like someone who had your issues with it and criticisms of it, but could also still see positives in it and things to celebrate about it.

Thank you for sending me this message. I apologize for not replying for a day; life got a bit busy.

Looking back on my old discussions of F2, I feel I was hamstrung by not wanting to make my friends angry. I have friends who are fans of F2 and, while I wrote those posts, I was cripplingly scared that they would stop being friends with me, or unfollow me, or dismiss my critiques as mere negativity. In fact, my fears were justified. Some of these people DID unfollow me and DID tell me I was being overwhelmingly negative. This broke my heart - especially because I spilled so much ink trying to balance every negative I discussed with a positive and celebrating the good elements, but it felt like it didn't matter. It didn't matter how anxious I was to be understood, it didn't matter that I was writing in good faith. And that hurt.

I also feel that I was intimidated by the extreme sides of the fandom. If, for example, I wrote a post criticizing Elsa's arc, anti-Elsa people could jump on it and say, "See, this is why Elsa is a bad sister."

So that's why, in my vent, I said I was too kind to the film. I was so constricted by being terrified of other people's reactions - terrified of having an unpopular opinion. So I qualified all my statements with, "Of course, I don't mean to be overly negative" instead of just focusing on my points.

I just want to shake people sometimes when they tell me the point of the film and say, "They followed through on their intent with very poor execution. They DIDN'T DO the things you are saying they did. They tried, but there are scores of reasons why they did not succeed - reasons that go beyond my personal preference, that have to do with characterization, pacing, story structure, etc."

It hurts because... I feel like, in the past, I tried to force myself to like the film more than I do. I've wanted to like it for years, but the last time I put it on I broke down crying and not in a good way and I just... I wish it worked. I wish that all the various thematic threads coalesced into an emotionally satisfying whole. And I know that, because of my emotional response, people might just dismiss all my discussion - no matter how nuanced I am, no matter how fair towards the film I am in my analysis, as, "Well, you're biased from the start."

No. I've spent years trying to see all sides, empathizing with a variety of people in the fandom, sometimes even at my own expense. I do value the parts of F2 that work and acknowledge the beauty of various elements including Anna and Elsa bonding with the Northuldra, the anticolonialist themes, The Next Right Thing, and more.

But at the same time, I argue that my case against other aspects of the film is robust, cohesive, and correct.

And to the friends that can see I am writing not to be a hater, but in good faith with actual analysis and discussion in mind - you mean the world to me. Thank you.

Sorry, this became kind of a vent in itself.

[tarotapprentice]

Can you do a post on how yoongi is currently doing post dui and after the final verdict? I’m still so worried about him and thinking about him every day :( I hope he’s getting a lot of support from the members, his family and friends.

After finding back the decks that I thought that I lost, I first pulled a card from the energy oracle deck and I got the card of envy. I did not perceive it as literarly, but what I saw more was as if a kid that was grounded and was looking through his window at the other kids playing freely outside. I am sure that by describing this image you can feel the vibe I was getting.

Further on, I pulled the oracle card 'your soul has fucked off'. I got a sense of dissociation. He is distancing himself from certain situations that might make him feel a certain way but he needs to be a bit careful not to get lost in that numbness.

I finally pulled a card from the tarot and I got the ten of cups. There is a certain unhapiness and sadness but it is not heavy as in depressive. Just a bit unhappy and there is dissatisfaction.

After that, I pulled the card 'individuality' and it gave me the vibe that he might feel lonely but in the sense of feeling singled out or feeling like only you are going through a tough time compared to others (again this can be related to the envy card).

As last, I got the 'bone collector' card. I was gettting moving on, starting over and learning from the past in order to move on. Pretty much taking experiences through certain situations as opportunities for the future.

I was particular interested in what the messages actually were for two cards and once I read them I believe they fit what I was getting myself:

Your soul has fucked off:

"Meditate and ask your soul to come back cleared and healed because you really can't do this bullshit earth thing without being totally present in your physical bodys When you feel you are beside yourself, you literally are. Your soul is just out of reach from your physical body because something or someone has made it uncomfortable for it to stay with you. Give it permission to heal and come back to you so you can get on with the job."

The bone collector:

"When the Bone Collector appears, she is asking you to look closely at your cir- cumstances to see if you're fully present or reacting out of past conditioning and unconscious expectations. Whenever we're wounded, especially when we're young, it's as if something is stolen from us. We adapt, and accept a particular version of the truth that then sets us up to behave a certain way in the future when faced with a situation that reminds us of the original event. What we know about ourselves thus becomes influenced by a perception of limitation. You may feel unworthy or without courage; you may see yourself as flawed or unlovable, or expect to be criticized. The truth is that you are a powerful being with limitless possibilities. She has kept safe what was stolen from you in the wounding, and here for you as you reclaim everything you believe you lack. With awareness, the wounds of past need not define you."

To finish on a more positive note, a prediction for him for the rest of the year:

Time for emotional healing + the fool = a new start as what I was already getting and freedom from having the feeling of being grounded.

"You are no longer feeling and are just dangling around like a dead dingo's donga and apathy is your bitch. Your suppressed anger is literally killing you, and those pains in your body are caused by suppressed sadness. Your physical body is ready to explode and cave in on you because you have not been releasing your emotions safely. Scream into a pillow, punch a boxing bag, cry over a sad movie go for a long walk or run. Write it all down where no one else will see it and then burn the crap out of it, letting it all go and being transformed by fire into air and light. Remember to release the resonance, guilt and fear away from each emotion you experience, as these little suckers can keep you attached to victimhood. Get in touch with your emotions and really feel them so you can release them from your wounded soul. Find someone to help you get in touch with and release your emotions in a safe and loving way."

[ceasarslegion]

So FNV is my fav right not a hot take but I am curious about your takes on the other games? Personally I don’t think the Bethesda games deserve as much hate as they get, like Fo76 is fun for the gameplay and the way they designed the environment and 4 is like a fun camp action movie to me in a way I can’t explain. And admittedly haven’t given 3 a full college try, it feels too restrictive in its narrative for me to enjoy even though 4 is similar in its approach, maybe it’s the extra faction options in 4? Idk

The bethesda games dont deserve the hate they get at all, ive noticed that this trend is completely self-serving and often done by people who haven't even played them all the way through.

Fallout 3 was my first fallout game, and it's my favourite fallout game. Saying that is often enough to have at least 3 people jump down my throat about how shitty they think it is both story-wise and mechanically, often while forgetting that fo3 was the first 3D fallout game and was bound to have some amount of the frontrunner curse: it was the one they made all the mistakes on. This doesn't make it a bad game, it makes it the first one. And in my opinion, I love the story of it. I feel that every single fallout game gets compared to FNV retroactively and then folks don't even give any others a try.

Another thing I've noticed is that the fallout fandom tends to be plagued with the fallout equivalent of genwunners, except that the same criticisms they tear down every bethesda game for are even more prevalent in the interplay games. Not "enough" endings, mechanical issues, etc.

And my take that people really didnt and continue to not like me for regarding besthesda is that bethesda has owned fallout for much much longer than anybody else has at this point. They've made the most installments, contributed all of the lore after the base was established in the 90s, and are the reason the franchise still even exists. Bethesda does not "misunderstand" fallout because you cant misunderstand your own book that you're writing yourself. It's their thing at this point whether the fandom likes it or not. FNV was a spinoff, and obsidian were really not these darling saviors to the lore that theyre presented to be, theyre just any other game studio that made a publishing deal with a different one. And the just... CONSTANT barrage of hate and vitriol towards bethesda feels so unnecessary and self-serving at this point. There's no diversity of opinion in the wider fandom because if you do like the bethesda properties you're treated like some intellectual traitor, which is a red flag to me.

In my opinion, the fallout "fandom" on tumblr doesnt even like fallout. Anything that's not FNV gets crickets of engagement and if its bethesda then its treated like some cardinal sin to have anything positive to say about it without a bunch of caveats attached about how bad it is. And don't even get me started on the utter meltdown there was about one frame of the fallout show because they didn't like what ending bethesda just teased FNV to have had. Any other game fandom would be overjoyed at having a professionally produced show at all, but from the moment it was announced to the moment it finally aired it was NOTHING but criticism and negativity, even before it aired. It's no wonder that bethesda doesn't consider this "fandom" worth listening to when they decide in advance that nothing they make will ever be good enough.

Sorry... this turned into a bit of a bitter rant about the reasons why i left the fallout fandom entirely. I grew up on fo3 and i loved fo4 just as much as any other fallout game, and im loving the show so far (im on episode 5). I love the franchise as a whole, which makes it very hard to engage in anything the fandom does anymore. I like FNV just as much, but i find it hard to engage in anymore because of the constant attitude i got from its fans about the ones i like, especially fo3. Which i know is unfair to it, but i just can not mentally decouple it from that vitriol very well anymore, which is a shame.

And i just... i dont want to hear how much everybody hates the things i love in the same place that claims to be superfans of the franchise in the first place.

Again, sorry. This wasn't your question, and I dont mean to sound like im yelling at you specifically, im really not. I think ive just been a little too consistently hurt by the attitude in the fallout "fandom" to be able to talk about it without bringing it up anymore. I legitimately had some of the most negative and toxic fandom experiences of my life in that community, all because my favourite fallout game wasnt the only one deemed acceptable.

[thenewfuture]

This goes back to that previous criticism I made about Hiyoko's simulated death scene. The closest comparison I can think of would be "slasher movie victim writing". Where a character is so utterly unlikable that it feels like you're meant to outright cheer on their murderer subjecting them to a grisly death. That's how it came across, and the current scene is really not helping matters at all. Especially the implication that Hiyoko owes the people who framed her for murder an apology. Just…no. That is ridiculously unfair, and Fuyuhiko and Peko are mature enough to know damn well that they're not entitled to that. In fact that's something else that I feel needs addressing. The writing's emphasis on sympathizing with the murderers is getting a little...much. I mean yes, of course we the audience can and should find it in our hearts to forgive them. But I think they're being let off the hook a little too easily. Mainly at the expense of the people they harmed. And it's not just Hiyoko being unsympathetic compared to her own murderer and the people who framed her. Or Mahiru coming across as the unreasonable party in the matter of settling what happened in Chapter 2 and in the Twilight Syndrome incident. But also cases like with Gundham and Teruteru or with Teruteru. Yes all things considered, Gundham is the most sympathetic blackened in the game. And there was a gentleman's agreement going on. But I think the others would be quite right to call them out on the fact that they didn't need to get two people killed or have a lengthy class trial. One person committing suicide and making it as obvious as possible that they did so (like Sakura did) would have sufficed. They let male pride needlessly complicate matters (and unintentionally led to Nagito's later actions down the road). Teruteru frankly was let off way too damn easy for his actions. Unlike Sayaka and Leon in the first game he had a far better understanding of what the cost of committing a murder and getting away with it would mean for his classmates. And he had an ENTIRE DAY to think things through and report Nagito to the others. Plus unlike his co-conspirator, he doesn't get the excuse of being mentally ill for wanting to start the Killing Game. He really needs a scene where he owns up to the fact that he bares equal responsibility to Nagito. And speaking of Nagito, he seems to be the one killer who's the exception to this treatment. Being scorned by everyone for his actions. Even though when you look at things objectively his was perhaps the most understandable and sympathetic reason for starting a class trial that didn't involve mind control or self-sacrifice. No one shows empathy for his actions in Chapter 5 or acknowledges that Monokuma manipulated him into mutilating himself to death. By deliberately withholding the part about the Junko AI possessing them all. And probably also the fact that they were brainwashed and didn't commit those crimes of their own free will, judging by the way that Junko's AI tries to downplay those claims when Makoto intervenes. On their own, with no one there to offer emotional support, it is likely that any of the Remnants would have completely snapped if they'd been in his position during that revelation. I'm sorry but it feels like there are a lot of double standards going on when it comes to the "problematic class members".

I cannot apologize enough if Hiyoko's death scene seemed unsympathetic and harsh. Maybe it was and I went too far trying to get the point across or convey it. But even so, I am still proud of that work and I swear to you it was supposed to have the exact opposite effect. Even so, I'm going to break down the rest of your ask here because....wow is it a lot...

Murderer sympathizing. So if you've played any murder mystery game; DanganRonpa, Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, etc..., you know that it primarily focuses on figuring out who committed a crime and more importantly WHY they did it. Motives for killers vary over games and mysteries, but there comes a time when you can understand a killer's motivation. Now, no sane and stable person would ever kill someone in real life, but if you can understand the push as to what drove them to such actions, then that character has depth and is in some ways relatable. DanganRonpa is full of these types of characters, on the sole basis that the players are TRAPPED IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE! Killing to get out is encouraged! Almost every character in these games would have at least one reason to kill, making them all sympathetic! Now of course there are some outliers in the mix(Celeste, Despair-state Mikan, Korekiyo) but the ratio of sympathetic to not is quite high. So why did I say all this? Well, you the payer have to understand why some killers did the crimes they committed? Well then so should the characters by default too. Especially in an enclosed setting like DanganRonpa, the characters have to come to grievance that some amongst them has just died. How could they possibly react to that? Well Hiyoko reacts like this:

Hiyoko was there when she heard Teruteru say he not only wanted to stop Nagito from murdering someone, but to also see if his sick mom was all right after all this time had passed. And yet, she say this. So its clear Hiyoko has the mindset of: kill=bad. She is the outlier of the group. Hiyoko cannot understand why Teruteru would do such a thing, or why others would feel sorry for him. Hiyoko is the one in the wrong here.

2. Hiyoko owes Fuyuhiko and Peko an apology. Okay, we understand sympathy for killing somewhat, right? Good. Let's move on to Fuyuhiko and Peko. Fuyuhiko found out his sister was murdered. His classmate knows something but won't tell him. In fact, she even hid evidence and lied about the fact just to cover up her own. Fuyuhiko has every right to be pissed! And in some cases, the right to kill Sato for what she did! Okay? Okay. On to Peko. Now of course I'm not expecting one to understand the feeling Peko has of being used by the Yakuza and basically a weapon only to serve someone else. But the want to protect someone from becoming the blackened is understandable at the very least, no? Now, OF COURSE, Hiyoko has every right to be royally pissed at being framed for murder. I don't expect to forgive them easily. In fact, if you saw this blog at all, you'll know that Fuyuhiko and Peko apologized to her first! They are fully aware of not expecting an apology from Hiyoko. They've made peace with that fact. Hiyoko DOES owe them an apology for bursting in on their therapy session! Now again, you may say that aspect is going too far and you'd be right. I personally think it falls in line with Hiyoko putting her beliefs and ideologies first and wanting others, especially her best friend, to agree with her take on it. I mean it's already pretty on brand with what the two do. Hiyoko does something bad, and Mahiru just accepting it.

3. Gundam and Nekomaru. Now I'm not here to discuss the moral implications of murder versus suicide. I will say this though. Chapter 4's trial and murder was about wanting to live, no matter what. Hajime's offer to not kill and just starve to death was just throwing life away as Gundam put it. It's like stories of a soilder who would rather fight with a stick than just to give up and die. He has no options left and his chances are pretty slim, but he still wants to live. That's the whole reason behind Nekomaru and Gundam's duel. A duel for life. Whether the others live or Gundam wins the class trial, no one is giving up on life. Everyone wants to live. And so they fight for that honor.

4. Nagito. "speaking of Nagito, he seems to be the one killer who's the exception to this treatment. Being scorned by everyone for his actions. Even though when you look at things objectively his was perhaps the most understandable and sympathetic reason for starting a class trial"

Okay that may have been in pretty low to go for that, but still. I'll humor you and say that Nagito maaaaaaay have had a good reason for it. Stopping suppossed psychotic terrorists does sound like a good enough reason.......too bad he ruined it by basically insulting everyone in the 4th trial and half of Chapter 5. He kept insulting the others and especially Hajime for reasons ONLY HE KNEW ABOUT! Monokuma did not manipulate Nagito in any way, in fact it was the exact opposite. Monokuma simply gave him the file because he cleared Russian Roulette at the highest difficulty, I don't he expected anyone else to do that. Nagito's plan was all his own! You think Monokuma could have predicted out of ALLLLLL options to murder the gang, that Nagito would just choose to poison a fire grenade and let his luck choose the one person he wanted to win!? Now you say that the file hid the fact of Junko trying to possess their bodies and that they were brainwashed, but OOPS I guess we'll never know because Nagito ripped the fucking pages out by the time Hajime and Chiaki get to it. Thanks, you ugly trash turnip. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't, we'll never know. We're simply just playing guess at this point, so it's futile to justify this action any further. Bottom line: Nagito did it all his own without any help because that's how deeply committed he his to his own ideology about hope and Ultimates.

Anyway, I keep saying Hiyoko will get better, but if you're still on this and you don't believe me or won't even like where I go with it. Then it's probably best if you leave, honest. I won't make you stay and read my blog if it upsets you this much. It was not my intent, honest.

I am really tired, it is so late that I stood up making this answer....

-Mod

[epickiya722]

Part of the reason why there were some ships I just don't take to as much as I do others is the shippers themselves.

I thought being in a fandom was about community. Engage with people who feel the same joy you do, right?

Kinda hard to do when there's that group of people who decide to be jerks instead.

Ship wars, I hate them. I think it's a waste of time to argue over ships. I don't think I should go back and forth with a person over which ship is better when if I like the ship, I like it. If you don't, I will not spend my time to convince you otherwise because chances are you're not going to change your mind.

I rather spend my time writing and reading fics of my ship. Using that time to create fics means I and others who feel the same I do have more to entertain ourselves with and be happy about it.

I learned over the years to just isolate myself into my own corner of whatever fandom I'm in. While it's peaceful, it can also be lonely. Loneliness can be good, but also sometimes I want to ramble about my interests with someone who feels the same way I do. And even if that person doesn't know what I'm talking about, it's just nice to have someone go "oh, that is neat" and genuinely mean it and hey! They could end up liking it because they see my passion. about it.

Not just with ships, just in general with everything.

Look, there are still a lot of shows and movies I have yet to touch, but seeing people I follow be passionate about those shows and movies is nice. It fuels my curiosity and I'm just like "I think I want to check that out". And even if i don't like it, it's fine. I can just move on to something else.

I probably said it before, but when someone says "why don't people ship this more" and it's a ship I seen people say that have a bad experience with, their reasons mostly be because of the shippers.

People can see the potential in those ships, but ever wonder that maybe it be how the shippers behave in that community?

Same with characters. There are characters who people just don't like anymore because fans of that character. Be honest, some of you act very possessive over characters. You act like it's illegal for someone to like a character and if they say something "bad" about that character it's "fake! you can't say that if you like the character"!

I'm just saying, I think if more people ramble positively about the ships and characters they like, maybe that community can be better.

Sure, have criticism, I don't like there's anything wrong with criticism. But there's a difference between having criticism and just wanting to be an ass.

You can't be like "well this ship is stupid and the shippers are too" and call that criticism. You're just attacking people who don't even know you. You're poking a bear and the moment that bear attacks back you're gonna whine and be like "I can't be critical, I can't voice my opinion".

You can voice your opinion, but why say that?

Of course, some ships and characters are gonna have more fans than others of the other fans act like a bunch of asses.

[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

I mean they still coerce/steal children into joining them. And they left Anakin's mom to die a slave death. Like sure they aren't awful as an organization but they aren't always right?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too harsh on Jedi antis. Then something like this happens and it hits me that no, if anything I'm being too soft.

Let's begin with the obvious, out-of-universe part. It's very rude to come to people's clearly tagged posts and say something like this. I love the Jedi I see in the PT and TCW, and I should be able to make, at least, vaguely positive posts about them without having to see this in the comments.

Now, onto your argument:

"They coerce/steal children into joining them."

You'd have a hard time arguing this, even using only Legends, the continuity that's most critical of the Jedi.

Baby Ludi doesn't offer us much information beyond "the baby's family was reasonably but incorrectly pressumed dead". Even then, these type of stories are used to show what the public opinion of the Jedi was, not what the Jedi were actually doing.

Children of the Force (the comic) is another of these stories. The Shatterpoint novel, on its own, contradicts every single instance of the Jedi being baby-snatchers or not being allowed to know their birth families/culture. Shatterpoint was written by Matthew Stover, who spoke with George Lucas personally and knew George Lucas' vision for Star Wars, and had that aside from his own personal interpretations that may or may not align with Lucas', unlike many other EU writers. This puts Shatterpoint very high in Legends canonity tier.

Jedi Path is stupid even when reading it in good faith. Movies, shows and later books with more canonity contradict it, so not good for argument.

Anything written by Karen Traviss is bullshit because 1. she disagrees with the good vs evil narrative of a franchise intended for kids, and 2. she only watched the PT halfway through, as a child. That's not getting into how she tries to paint both sides of the Empire vs Rebellion war as bad. Let me repeat, she's presenting the original heroes as bad. She's not engaging with the narrative presented to her, so what she writes is something else with the names of the Star Wars universe slapped into it.

In TCW this is trope of baby-snatchers is invoked and defied. A planet believes the Jedi steal children (manipulated by a Dark Side cult, so the people's worries were born out of propaganda), the Jedi stop going there, and the arc ends with them making up and solving the misunderstanding. To add to that, Children of the Force (the episode) is about Force-sensitive children being kidnaped by Cad Bane, and ends with the Jedi giving the children back to their parents; one of them was in the middle of an adjustment period to the Order and the other's parents had refused to give their child up, and there is zero indication that either child becomes a Jedi in the future.

In the PT the only introduction into the Order is Anakin, and the Jedi refuse. Until they can't refuse because Anakin is in danger of being discovered and brainwashed/stolen by a Sith, the Jedi say no. This is not how you portray characters to want to paint as kidnapers. Also, Palpatine (y'know, the Sith who's grooming and trying to turn Anakin against the Jedi) doesn't bring up anything related to child-stealing. If the main villain doesn't make that point, not even to be subverted later on, it's simply not true.

Coertion is an interesting argument because… it's never brought up. Yeah, you read that right. Never. Not even in arguments against the Jedi done by villains.

Jedi are not kidnapers in any continuity. Fandom made that up. Can that make for some interesting story about shady situations? Sure, if you're into that, but it's not canon. If you're critizing canon Jedi, bringing this shit up immediately makes you lose the argument.

"They left Anakin's mom to die a slave death"

No, they didn't. This post talks about her death, but something important I want to add is that she'd been free for years at the time of her death. Also, who's to say they didn't try? Who's to say they even knew she was a slave? Qui-Gon brought Anakin to the Order and then he died.

In Legends they actually had a hand in her winning her freedom, too.

You proved my point. You can critize the Order (I'm the first person to say they aren't perfect and some of their choices should be critized), but creating a narrative about the Jedi stealing children that has no basis in either Lucas', Legends or Disney canon to dunk on them is not being critical, it's just slander.

Friendly reminder that if you're gonna critize the Jedi, they have to be wrong.

"They told Anakin he wasn't fit to be a Jedi" Yeah, was he? He was unhappy the whole time, broke all their rules and eventually slaughtered them.

"They massacred the Sith Order" Yeah. Those "I'm better than everyone and everything and they all should kneel to me or die" people? I see no issue here.

"They fought in the Clone Wars as peacekeepers." Yeah. What was the alternative? Standing by as the clones, civilians and the Republic itself (the best government out those in the galaxy, although admittedly that's rather a low bar) were massacred by the Separatists? Yeah no. And peacekeepers ≠ pacifists.

"They forbid marriage." They are a religious organization, monks. Fobidding its members from marrying is pretty standard in monasteries. They also aren't celibate, friendship isn't discouraged at all and it's all but stated by Obi-Wan in TCW S6 that romantic feelings are perfectly allowed. Several of the Order's members practice their home planets' culture and religion and language (Barriss has a Mirilian Idol in her room, she Luminara Quinlan etc have cultural tattoos, many characters have accents which implies Basic isn't their first language and others don't speak Basic at all,etc). They have no dress code, they are allowed to drink, smoke, etc., even become part of other religions organizations (see Plo Koon)! Marriage being forbidden is nothing, literally meaningless next to the freedom Jedi have.

If you're gonna critize the Jedi, they have to be wrong.

No, they shouldn't change their whole way of life just because you don't like it.

[mdccanon]

Thoughts on this vid?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Ak5uEcDUQ

I have been thinking about this in terms of fiction as part of something that I want to write about the dissatisfaction with fantasy without revolution.

To put it simply, even when we reach for entertainment, we have become unhappy unless the point of the story is to address the inherent flaws of the society of the story. We are unhappy, even when we fantasize.

But, besides me always interpreting everything through fiction writing, I completely agree and I have two levels that I have to address of this in myself. That I address with two main tenants that I try to follow, that you see me use in my conversations with people here on Tumblr.

Be angry about things you can change. Be ambivalent / humorous about everything else. AKA sleep deprivation is real. Don't stay woke.

As upset as a woke person may feel towards me for saying that, I say that with the full expectation of working to change something. I completely agree that everyone should spend their life addressing some great change. There are a lot of problems in the world. Shit needs to get done. But absolutely everyone is a "single issue voter" with only a handful of things they have an educated opinion and commitment about. To fake an educated opinion causes the stress this young woman is talking about, because you're ruminating on variables you don't fully understand and can't change, and you're doing it out a fear of other woke people calling you insensitive, which is just a double layer of peer pressure stress. Changing the world is already stressful. There is no mental benefit to daily stress that the world is not changed.

2) Unless you plan to pay people, what good are you giving people for converting them to your cause? AKA Unionize Wokeness.

For being affiliated with the labor movement, wokeness is one of the most exploitative causes that I've ever seen.

Let's use this young lady's example of going into the world feeling every opportunity is secretly diminished or against her. Staying woke does not lead to Black folks using Black-owned media and elevating the standards of journalism; it just leads to them being hypersensitive to how CNN reports. Staying woke doesn't lead to Black folks fostering new relationships and championing worldwide hip hop; it just leads to them hyper fixating on the mistakes of hip Hop of the last 30 years with no real understanding of how anyone else's using it. Let's sprinkle a little bit of dangerously manic manifest destiny on these minds. I try as hard as I can to be sympathetic and say "I recognize that you were in pain. But what would you like to do to get better?" And the woke mentality says that the best thing that you can do is to continue to mourn the pain. How?

So, look at every example common on my blog:

People upset about MCU castings (something neither I nor they have control over) want me to change my opinion on the casting (seeking my validation, as if I matter) but aren't willing to put in ANY work to introduce me to the alternative actors and actresses they suggest because their priority is to feel "heard" by a random stranger on the Internet than to express a single iota of agency. Also, they have no real suggestions about Wanda's storylines or opinions about her position in the story, either the Infinity Saga or Multiverse Saga, because this issue matters to them because it's a chance to Be Woke about something and not because of any interest in fantasy writing, movie making, or comic books.

These people never knew anything about Romani filmmaking or actors and I would think that that would be more insulting to pretend you know them for clout then to just be unaware. And these people never wanted to learn anything because that would be within their control. They don't want agency, they want to feel Woke by not having control.

During the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard case, Amber Heard supporters would try to diminish my critical questions about the testimonies during the trial because they 1) don't actually watch the trial of the defendant they are supporting, 2) don't actually know the full outline of her allegations against her ex-husband, 3) don't care about how the legal system works, and 4) are willing to ignore things Amber Heard said and did if it interfered with their narrative. And tried to make a court case about defamation of character in journalism about Tweets from fans. Because the issue matter to them because they wanted to stay Woke about women who accuse men of domestic abuse and not because of any actual interest in that particular woman and that particular accusation. Have any conversation with any Amber Heard supporter who kept asking me "Where did you hear that from?" when I quoted the literal trial.

It is more insulting to the issue of domestic abuse to support a person who is obviously faking their accusations, and whenever I would talk to these people about real volunteering in domestic abuse, that's not something they wanted to do because that would be within their control. They don't want agency. They want to feel Woke by having no control.

As a person who suffers from anxiety, I know that it is very tempting to feel that the silver lining of it is that you are always ready for problems. But being anxious, ruminating over problems, is not the same thing as being ready for them. If it was, anxiety would not be a mental disorder. Order to Stay Woke you must approach it from a perspective of assuming you have no control. The average person is not a community organizer working shoulder to shoulder with a national icon on a large civil rights issue. For THAT person, Staying Woke may be a healthy layer of vigilance as they work tirelessly (and dodge death threats and assassination attempts). You are not James Baldwin. If you want James Baldwin's mentality, live his life.

But I've actually stopped and asked why James Baldwin gets away with saying "I don't have a dream job; I never dreamt of labor." when his life was sustained doing fulfilling work that he enjoyed and helped others... And no one has yet to have an answer to that. He just sounded so damn Woke sayin' it.

[mademoiselle-cookie]

I'm sorry if you feel disrespected, but it's pretty daring to talk about disrespect when I'm just proving my ideas to you with arguments, when you only have baseless points (a bit of projection?). And if you willingly came to a post tag as 'pro-jedi' and is suprised that someone is arguing with you, I have sad news for you about the world.

Honestly don't bother to respond because I only do that because I LOVE talking about SW and you won't change your mind. You're a walking red flag for what I see. I was Jedi critical before but I changed my mind after really seeing the movies and analysing them in depth. If you stay on your positions after all my proofs, it's because you have ulterior reasons, and it sucks.

You are someone who closely values George Lucas’ vision, and I am not, that’s what it boils down to. You react to the text based on how well it correlates with that initial intention, I react to it based on the context of the story itself as it has been written both by Lucas and by the various other people who have added their creative voices to the story, and my own life experience.

The problem is not how we see Lucas' intentions but canonicity. I have no problem with what Disney brings as long as it stays consistent with the original SW (I know it might sound contradictory but if a writer writes that something is blue, and their successor says it's red, it's not consistent. On the other hand, if they continues to say that it is blue, it does not matter who the original author is, it remains faithful to the spirit). The thing is, the EU was never canon.

« [Game makers and novel writers] have their own kind of world […] the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves » George Lucas, Total Film, 2008.  

« Our expanded universe books and comics were never meant to be canon. Only what George wrote was canon » Lucy Autrey Wilson (ex-director of Publishing for Lucasfilm), Star Wars Interviews, 2022.

« Our biggest problem was a guy named George Lucas. […] We wanted it to be one universe, […] but George as the filmaker didn’t want to be beholden to somebody else’s creative vision. » Howard Roffman (head of Licensing at Lucasfilm ) « Messing with a classic », 2017.

Lucas was the one to decide what is canon and what is not. So only the movies and TV series were.

You can't judge SW canon with the EU, they don't take place in the same universe. And since you came to a post talking about the canon and that never mentioned the EU, you can only use the canon in your argument.

And I agree with the 'what are the author's intentions' vs 'what they show'. I have this problem with TOTJ. The original idea already sucks but HOW Filoni shows the events doesn't even work with his intentions (he want to be Jedi critical but failed badly). But you didn't give an argument that is not 1. from the canon or 2. completely out of context (I will come back to that).

And it's not to say that Lucas writing is perfect. He thinks Anakin is fine and can be still be redeemed in ROTS when the Tusken massacre already happened, he write Anidala as a good but tragic romance when it was always extremely toxic and creepy, Anakin is supposed to be a strangely extremely excellent General when it's one of the most incompetent. And I can't get past this.

(It's still strange that you talk about the EU but that you don't take into account the works that are pro-jedi. You claim that Quilan is shunned and looked down upon as an absolute truth, especially by Obi-Wan when the two are best friends, so this idea that he's hated is just pure invention. So you demand respect for your imaginary world. You're delusional)

But there's also nothing wrong with the way I interpret the story

You're perfectly right. You can see SW the way you want, no issue with that, but you're the one imposing their view.

Given what was in some of those temples (and that's just ones we know about), I don't really care why they left. Abandoning them was a mistake. And the fact those outposts existed in the first place proves the Jedi had use for them. The fact that their purpose is lost even to the Jedi in-story is Not Good. The sheer size of the galaxy is more reason for the Jedi to be more spread out. How could having at least a few major sites across the galaxy make them less effective than having just one right in the middle?

You never moved? Whether it's because of the money, because you have to go to another city, because you don't like the neighborhood anymore, because it's dangerous…? There's many valid reasons to do that.

And again, an outposts is useless. You seem under the impression that Jedi are a military group. They're not. Jedi are diplomats, not wandering knights. They get their power and autority not from their brutal strength but from the Republic. Having vigilantes everywhere is pointless. They are far too few for a galaxy far too large. Even if there was ONE Jedi for ONE system (so including children), it won't be enough. (For comparison, there are 35,000 employees in the Red Cross and 500,000 volunteers on ONE planet where it's not even the only humanitarian organization. Are they able to help everyone just about problems in their field? No. Do they have to? No. Wouldn't it be up to the government instead to ensure that these problems do not exist? Yes)

What good is a lightsaber against a political conflict between two planets? Nothing. But the authority given by the Republic to negotiate peace between them? A lot!

We didn't have much about how the Jedi work before the war but from what we see, they act with the authorization of the Senate. Which is normal, nobody can do whatever they want, especially dangerous space wizards. So living near the center of command is logic, you can directly discuss with politicians or receiving your missions or whatever without having to space-travel.

By the way, speaking of that, did you forget hyperspace? They're no need to leave near the 'possible' zone where something 'can' happen when you can just use your ship (even if you leave nearby, you WILL use your ship anyway, you can't just walk between planets)

The purpose of this outposts (are they even outposts?) doesn't seem lost either, they just look like their former home. Nothing more.

Keeping all the kids in one place ultimately did not protect them though. Having multiple schools across the galaxy would have forced Palpatine to organize a coordinated strike on every location at once, which would have been far less effective overall.

If the Jedi were divided in different locations, then their forces would have been weaker. It's mathematic. (Divide and rule if you know what I mean) It's easier to protect a group of things/people/others if they are in the same place. Go watch again the ep "Bounty Hunters" on Felucia. That's why they want to keep the villagers and the sillim in the hangar.

Palpatine already did organized a coordinated strike. Remember all the Jedi in the battlefield? Aayla, Ki-Adi, Depa, Plo Koon, etc? They weren't in the Temple and they were killed anyway.

And don't tell me that there would have been no clones in the different "outposts". We know there were some in the Temple of Coruscant (if you need proofs, there's were clones killed during the explosion organized by Leta in the Temple).

The Jedi are in war, do you think they have the means and staff to have multiple schools? That they can easily defend (because of course the Separatists will try to target them, they already did with medical bases)?

I disagree that dividing the initiates would have decreased diversity. A large group of children growing up in one place and learning from the same group of instructors is going to end up far more homogeneous than multiple smaller groups growing up in different places, immersed in different cultures, and each learning from different instructors, no matter how many guest lecturers they have.

OK, you just don't know how mathematics work.

How having a thousand possible teachers is less diverse than a small group?

We see Ahsoka herself having several teachers in TCW, of very different gender, age, species and culture. Outside of the obvious Anakin and Obi-Wan, there's :

And her teachers aren't limited to Jedi!

She even became a teacher herself.

(It's not to say I am not against there being several "sects" among the Jedi (@acewizardinspace made a very good post on this subject here) but it is necessary to explain the why and the how. And it needs to be canon)

Some of the Lurmens and the villagers on Felucia criticized the Jedi in the same way. To them, Jedi only appeared in times of violence and crisis.

Yes, ONE Lurmen critized the Jedi but not specifically because they're Jedi but because of his philosophy of "It takes two to fight".

And the double episode are there to prove him wrong. He refused to fight or use any form of violence against the Separatists, despite the Separatists ransacking his village, or promising they will conduct other "searches for Republic contraband" in the future, and he stated that there was no reason to believe that the Separatists would attack them with their defoliator specifically made to target organic beings (to his son's frustration). Because other Lurmens didn't share his opinions.

Wag Too: "We're going to help." Tee Watt Kaa: "I forbid this!" Wag Too: "What more would you have them do before we are allowed to defend ourselves?" Tee Watt Kaa: "But…" Wag Too: "We have to do this!"

Tee Watt Kaa was ready to have his village killed for the sake of not fighting! ("If it is our destiny to be destroyed in your war, so be it.") He wrongly believe that being pacifist would be a sufficient protection against violence. And if the Jedi had not been there, the village would have been destroyed.

So, to prove the Jedi were wrong, you used an episode made to show they were right. CLAP CLAP CLAP

The villagers of Felucia didn't criticized the Jedi. On the contrary, they were happy they were there (Cassis : "Can't you see these are Jedi? We are saved!"). The only things I can recall that match your description is the one who complained because he didn't want to fight himself, and one of the bounty hunters, Sugi, who said the Jedi failed as peacekeepers because they're in war (a war they didn't create, from which they were drafted and if they didn't fight, people will die horribly). She's immediately contradicted by Obi-Wan, one of TCW’s most reliable narrators. (And, well, she's a bounty hunter, she fight for money. She only care about her business, so the viewers are not supposed to care about her opinion.)

And in the end, what's the problem if the Jedi only appear during time of crisis? It's their job to resolve conflicts, of course they appear when there's conflicts.

Same for Trace and Rafa. They didn't dislike Jedi solely because of Palpatine's propaganda, they disliked them because the Jedi were seen as high-and-mighty agents of the Republic, not servants of the people, as they should have been.

How do you know its not solely because of Palpatine? Did you knew the sisters before the war? They were introduced to show the efficiency of anti-jedi propaganda. That's they're role in the narrative.

They're not accurate reliable narrator. Again, the sisters are people who think they can escape the war by going where the real war is. They think the Jedi started the war when we know that's not true, they thinks Jedi must take care of every individual civilian when that's the role of the Republic and the Jedi are in the middle of a war. If they had misinformations about the Jedi, if they had expectations of them - that they could not possibly realistically meet - it's because of the political set-up, because of Palpatine. They doesn't realize the Jedi are fighting on their behalf. And how bad the sisters would have been if they knew they were dying for people like them, and still criticize them for- what, not doing enough?

The ONLY thing that makes a little sense is when they think Luminara was cold with them.

(keep in mind we only have THEIR side of the story, the pov of two hurt young women who lost their parents. We don't know how Luminara really reacted)

This is not Luminara being cold. It's Luminara using the most meaningful words she can to reassure people who lost someone important.

Does that means Trace and Rafa must accept them? No, of course not. They don't feel the Force, this blessing doesn't have the same meaning for them, so it's normal if they don't take comfort from it. To the Jedi, it means everything, but to someone who doesn’t understand, it can sound pointless and unhelpful.

But we, spectators, know it's incredibly important for the Jedi. It's said in basicaly every movie, it's said during all Luke journey with the Force, it's the last thing Obi-Wan has recorded in the Jedi beacon in ROTS. It's even become a cliché in the real world.

And even if we didn't have this context, what Luminara says is like a religious person telling "My thoughts and prayers be with you" to an atheist. As an atheist, I'm happy when someone use the most powerful words to make me feel better, even if it's through their religion. You don't need to understand the religion to understand the good intentions.

I believe they should have been a more community-oriented presence rather than acting mostly on behalf of the Senate.

And firefighters should have been more community-oriented to instead of listening their orders. That way, fewer people would want to throw stones at their trucks.

Jedi shouldn't care about their reputation. They should act according to what they can do and whether it is right or not. Being worried about what the public will think and act accordingly will be a disaster.

Their job is more important than a community-oriented presence. They can do so much more. They can stop war or save planets.

What tell you don't already have a community-oriented presence? Maybe it's the hobby of some Jedi, maybe it's part of younglings/Padawan training.

What use would that be? Regardless of their reputation (which was already extremely good before the war) and the public's knowledge of the Jedi, the propaganda and predicament created by the war would still have made civilians credulous.

Yes, the Jedi were naive to think their actions will speak for them and to do not pay special attention to their reputation, but they have good reasons to not care about it, and it wouldn't have saved them anyway.

Don't accuse me of victim blaming and then turn around and blame the Republic's citizens for "accepting" the Empire. That's not classy.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Projection is really something, isn't it?

So saying that a Republic which elects its Supreme Chancellor as Emperor and applauds when he annonces the genocide of a whole community without trial is victim blaming but saying that said community should have divide their numbers, changed their view on their own philosophy, had a better public image, been less arrogant, more flexible, more kind with the one who will lead their genocide, etc, etc, etc. is not? Gotcha!

It's not at all as if it was one of the themes of the prequels and that it was said several times

Oh, it is.

But it wasn't like George Lucas said that himself:

"How do democraties end? And mostly they end because the Senate or the people bring in a dictator." Starlog #337, 2005

"[...] it got me thinking about how democraties turn into dictatorships. Not how they're taken over, or how there's a coup or anything like that, but how the democracy turns itself over to a tyrant." Revenge of the Sith, Director's Commentary, 2005

"How does a democracy crumble? How does it die? [...] Would the people vot for it? And yes, they do vote for it, that's the whole point. [...] And the populace gives up the democratic powers and this guy is suddenly running the show. You end up with the Empire." An Oral History of star Wars: Episode I, 2019

"The story is ultimately a discussion about how fragile democracy is and how democracies sometimes get turned over to tyrants with applause" (as reported in Secrets of the Force), 2021

Oh, he did.

I know perfectly well what attachment means in Star Wars. I just happen to think "attachment" was an awful word to use to describe it and that it has lead to a murky portrayal of the concept with excellent highs (Anakin understanding the theory but being unable to separate his love for Padme from his attachment to her in practice) but equally devastating lows (Ahsoka and Luke's tonal whiplash as they went from very loving people to distant masters who preached the no attachment rule without explaining what it actually meant, thus muddying their characters and the intended moral lesson in the process).

That's your opinion and it's valid but keep in mind that a word in a specific context is not the same in another. Like, if a mechanic or a Doctor Who fan hears the word "screwdriver", they won't think the same.

Or simply, homonyms. Words can be spelled the same way and not have the same meaning at all.

About the term attachment in particular, it has a different meaning in the context of parenting and in the context of Buddhist teachings. Yes, the English term is much more neutral when in Sanskrit, it's closer to 'thirst' or'clinging'. But it's the term that's been used in English even before Lucas decides to use it. So he used it.

I won't defend TBOBF further, I didn't even care about the show. You can hate that however you want.

Yoda was obviously calling out Obi-Wan (who missed it entirely, poor dear) but that doesn't mean what he said wasn't also true in the broader context.

If you want. To each his own interpretation of the scene.

But it would have been better if Lucas shows them being arrogant, except for that ONE scene with Jocasta (which was perfectly understable because the Jedi archives had Kamino in their files, they just couldn't guess one of their own will erase it).

I said Anakin's attitude caused ripples, not that he was hated. Don't put a whole paragraph of words in my mouth.

Then what's the problem? He was never punished and was even complimented for his behavior. The "ripples" Anakin's attitude caused was because a high ranking officier disobeyed orders. It's normal, there's nothing shameful about Jedi raising an eyebrow at that (because that's litteraly the extent of Anakin's punishment).

Once again, I have never said nor insinuated that the genocide of the Jedi was their own fault, despite how determined you are to claim I have.

You are. By saying they could have done more, by doing such and such a thing, which would have been the logical thing to do if they weren't arrogant or too rigid, you insinuate that they could have reduce the horror of their tragedy, that more would have survived if they were better. Victim blaming is more than that.

If you said to a woman who was raped that even if she wasn't responsible of her attack, if she had a knife, it would have never happened, or it would have not been 'this bad', it's still awful. (Yes the example of rape is easy, but it's a horrible crime and unfortunately the comparison works)

And for the record, the extermination of a fictional, powerful, government sanctioned religious order of warrior-monks is very different from the genocide of a real-world marginalized religious minority

Yes, the Jedi genocide is fictional. But genocides aren't. The "it's just fiction" is an excuse, its only usefulness is that it's less sad than real deaths. That's it. It does not mean that you can say that the victims of the said genocide are responsible for it, could have prevented it or done better. It doesn't work like that.

If the author uses it as a parallel for the real world, you use real world logic to understand it. If Lucas represents a genocide, it's to see how horrible the persons who committed it are, not to criticize their victims.

Fiction as an excuse is just like anonymity on Internet, they offer the opportunity to freely express their real opinion on a subject, no matter how horrible it is.

No, the fact that the Jedi were warriors does not make it less impactful or sad or undeserved than if they had been mere monks. Nor the fact they were a government sanctioned religious order BEFORE their genocide. Genocide is genocide, period.

Palpatine used the Jedi's wishy-washy stance on politics to maneuver them into a no-win scenario

You don't want powerful wizard who can strangle you with their mind or manipulate yours in politics. Believe me.

"How? Give examples and screenshots." "Proof of his closed-mindness?" ahem no (:

Nice to show you didn't have any proof (:

I do not owe you my time or effort, nor do I need to justify myself to you because you don't like my opinion. You're lucky I've given you this. Don't push it.

Then why do you respond? Even better, why did you reblog a pro-jedi post?

Luke throwing away his lightsaber was him choosing the Jedi way of compassion and non-violence, rejecting the cycle of hatred and killing that Palpatine began. Attachment would not become a talking point until the prequel trilogy.

Just because it's not explicitly presented doesn't mean it's not there, George just didn't use the word 'attachment'.

Non-attachment is not something obscur, even we, westerner, have it in our culture. What do you think it is when Hiccup chooses to part with the dragons for their own good in 'How to Train Your Dragon'?

Anyway, that's it from me. I'm going to choose the Jedi way of peace and go do something else now.

Stick to your words, sweetie

Darth Maul on Obi-Wan Kenobi +

Perception of the Jedi by their Enemies

Darth Maul has a very consistent strategy when trying to bring down Obi-Wan. Which is attack somewhere, put innocent people in danger. Kenobi being the annoying knight he is will come running to save them. Than kill him when he is busy being a good person.

1-Raydonia 2-Satine 3-Mandalore 4-Luke

(He didn't personally go in the third one but he sent Ahsoka. And he put himself in great risk by authorizing the Siege. This action was illegal.)

The best part is Maul is completely aware what he is doing. He acknowledges this many times.

Your noble flaw is a weakness shared by you and your duchess.

I was expecting Kenobi. Why are you here?

I am lost... And yet, I-I can feel his presence, so close. So close! I can... see him... in my mind's eye. Kenobi. KENOBIIIII!... Will it end here, like this? No. NO! I must draw kenobi out, tempt his noble heart. But how, how?... I know... I know.

His plans literally revolves around Obi-Wan having a noble heart. Which is one of the reasons Maul sees it as a flaw. Because it leaves someone vulnerable to wicked people like Maul.

This isn't even a specific Maul & Obi-Wan thing. We can find many examples of people trying to use Jedi's virtue against them. The Jedi seem to have a reputation in the galaxy as highly virtuous people.

Examples:

Admiral Trench specifically bombarding Senator Organa's refugee camps because he believes this will force Republic Army to engage him. (Tell me again how Republic was as bad as the CIS)

Zygerrian slavers method of enslaving and attempting to control Jedi was hurting innocents every time they showed defiance.

Admiral Trench makes this gamble again in the last season but with the worst person he could choose.

This is a good reference to other scenes and quotes. Reusing the word "nobility" was definitely trying to make a contrast between Trench & Anakin with Maul & Obi-Wan.

It really shows how much Anakin has diverted from what a Jedi should be. He even calls nobility a flaw like Maul does.

☀️☀️☀️

Inspiration for this post came when after seeing some bewildering takes on Obi-Wan, my first thought was:

"Man, even Maul would find these claims ridiculous. No one in star wars has any delusions of Kenobi being evil or corrupt to the degree they imagine."

Things spiraled from there. I ended up finding many evidences of this in canon. Like this quote ⬇️

Why come to this place, not simply to hide?... Oh, you have a purpose here.

I love this one. Maul knows Kenobi is not one to abandon his duty or ideals. Which means if he is on Tatooine he must have some some kind of mission here.

☀️☀️☀️

All of this resulted in creating a hilarious picture because,

I can't believe Admiral Trench and Zygerrians have a more positive perception of the Jedi than many fans of Star Wars.

And people are really out there making Darth freaking MAUL look like a fan. You know it has gone too far when even Maul (the og hater) can't agree with such horrible takes.

I must draw Kenobi out, tempt his noble heart.

[themousefromfantasyland]

Santa Claus and the Nature of Belief

I doubt anyone will read this thing, but here's my not-so-little essay: God is as real as Santa, and Santa is as real as God, and I don't say this in a negative way.

Every holiday season I end up reflecting about Santa and the nature of belief as a whole.

We tell our kids to believe in Santa, and generally we try to protect that belief for as long as we can. A frequent theme in Christmas movies is the kid or adult that don't believe in Santa Claus, but by the end of the movie their faith is restored and magic can be sensed everywhere.

And I wonder, what was all that truly about.

Yes, Virginia. There's a Santa Claus

This is the most reprinted newspaper editorial in the English language, and one of the most important pieces of Holiday lore in North America.

Virginia O'Hanlon was the daughter of a coroner's assistant, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon. In 1897, at eight years old, she asked her father if Santa Claus existed. Her father recommended that she send her question to "The Sun", a very important newspaper from New York City, which ran from 1833 until 1950. This was her original letter.

For the surprise of everyone involved The Sun responded the question of the little girl. As far as I can see there was no utterior motive. The paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the page, below even one on the "chainless bicycle". But it was noticed by the readers. It became almost a legend.

What is important about the story is that the author of the editorial was Francis Pharcellus Church. This man was a war correspondent during the American Civil War. He saw pain, death, misery and despair.

"The Rest of the Story", a radio program that presented little-known or forgotten facts of History, described Church as a hardened cynic and an atheist who had little patience for superstitious beliefs. Initially, he didn't wanted to write the editorial. He even refused to allow his name to be attached to it.

His other writings typically espoused hardened cynicism, skepticism toward religion and superstition. Yet, his most memorable work celebrates faith.

Was he forced to write this thing? Why someone so contrary to blind faith and superstitious beliefs would try so hard to protect and legitimate the beliefs of a young girl? We will never know the answer.

Santa as a metaphor for God.

Mr. Kringle is not concerned for himself, if he was he wouldn't be here. He is in this regrettable position because he is willing to sacrifice himself for children. To create in their minds a world far better than the one we've made for them. If this is, as Mr. Collins suggests, a masquerade then Mr. Kringle is eager to forfeit his freedom to preserve that masquerade. To subject himself to prosecution to protect the children's right to believe. If this court finds that Mr. Kringle is not who he says he is, that there is no Santa, I ask the court to judge which is worse: A lie that draws a smile or a truth that draws a tear.

Miracle on 34th Street

To believe in something even when it doesn't make sense or when you don't have proof. This is a frequent theme in Santa movies. Many use Santa as a commentary on the nature of faith and use him as metaphor to the Christian god. No one took it so far as the 1998 remake of Miracle on 34th street.

The final proof on court that Kris Kringle may not be crazy is that since the US Department of Treasury can put "In God We Trust" on US currency with no hard evidence, then the people of New York can believe in Santa Claus in the same way.

The "Hogfather" and Terry Pratchett

I wrote this essay because I recently read the "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett, and he basically wrote the best argument for faith and belief that I've ever seen.

First, there's this dialogue exchange:

"There are many who say this... person does not exist," he said.

He must exist. How else could you so readily recognize his picture. And many are in correspondence with him.

Well, yes, of course, in a sense he exists..."

In a sense everything exists

But this one takes the cake. This dialogue is between Susan Sto Helit and her grandfather Death, the best character in the book mind you. This is after they save the Hogfather, the Discworld version of Santa.

Susan: Thank you. Now...tell me...

Death: WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVE HIM?

Susan: Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?

Death: NO

Susan: Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."

Death: THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN

Susan: It's been a long night, Grandfather. I'm tired and I need a bath! I don't need silliness!

Death: THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN

Susan: Really? Then what would have happened, pray?

Death: A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.

Susan: All right, I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need...fantasies to make life bearable.

Death: REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

Susan: Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—

Death: YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

Susan: So we can believe the big ones?

Death: YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

Susan: They're not the same at all!

Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

Susan: Yes. But people have got to believe that, or what's the point—

Death: MY POINT EXACTLY.

And it continues...

Death: THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.

Susan: Yes, but people don't think about that. Somewhere there was a bad...

Death: CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE A BED. IT IS THE MOST TALENT."

Susan: Talent?

Death: OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.

Susan: You make us sound mad. A nice warm bed...

Death: NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

Belief makes us human

It doesn't matter which religion is the true one because no one is. At the same time, all of them are.

Religion is about humans in the past finding patterns in the chaotic world, and trying to survive through it. By believing there's a order in the world, they were able to bring order to their communities and to their personal lives.

Belief is part of our nature. It's our way of understanding the world, of making sense of it all.

These characters and stories in a sense are very much real. They are metaphors for the forces we struggle with in our daily lives, the eternal hardship that is to be human

They don't have to be absolutely real to mean something. Think about your favorite character. They aren't real, but what they represent, best, what they represent to you, this is very real.

Listen, I not advocating for complete abandonment of logic and reality. Today we have a very serious problem with people who completely disregard facts and cults. They consume fake news, they believe in stupid pseudo-science and by refusing critical thinking they put others into danger.

And then there are the Christian fundamentalists, that by all talk about "Religious Freedoms", they really meat forcing their belief system in others and control what people can or cannot believe.

Facts and logic are very important. Always believe in the Science. And, I can stress this enough, Critical Thinking is ESSENTIAL to escape con artists and charismatic cult leaders.

But you can force people to live by only what it can be proved. We aren't robots. There will always be a hole that rationality alone won't be able fill. A deep existential hole that If left unchecked will destroy you bit by bit.

I'm not saying "You need to convert" or "You need religion". But there's clearly something way deep and transcendental in these rituals and stories.

I don't really believe in God and the supernatural. I say that as a gay men who had a lot issues with my overly religious parents. But the gods and these rituals and stories clearly mean something, and I think we shouldn't dismiss the living experiences of these people as just mere superstitions, be then christians, muslins, jews, Wiccans, neopagans, hindus, etc.

Belief certainly brought something to their lives, and certainly they know something we don't.

If your faith makes you happy, if it helps you bring order to your life, if helps you appreciate the world better, if it doesn't force you to discriminate, your faith is completely and integrally valid, and you don't have to prove it to anyone