#but at the end of the day they work on pretty similar principles as fandoms

[moodyseal]

Had a pretty obvious revelation yesterday after spending my weekly hour agonizing over how maybe I should be a little less invested in fandoms now that I'm getting older, and that revelation is that if other adults can be loud about their interest in sports and invest their time and money into it why should I be ashamed to do the same but with the things I actually like

[marvelstars]

I think there´s not enough talk about the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin relationship with Padmé.

In the fandom there´s a take that Anakin didn´t trust Obi-Wan and that´s why he didn´t tell him about his relationship but I don´t think this case is so simple, the problem wasn´t just Obi-Wan´s reaction, it was also the council of the Order and the fact that not marriage is an actual rule in the order nobody is supposed to break, a rule they definitely were not going to change just to accomodate Anakin.

The truth of the matter is that while Obi-Wan tried to be a supporting teacher he usually takes the council side when they and Anakin have a disagreetment, this happens in the movies and in the clone wars series so my guess is that this is usual behavoir with Obi-Wan in relation to Anakin, in this both Anakin and Qui-Gon are very similar. Obi -Wan often disagreed with Qui-Gon for fighting the council and told him that he already would have been part of the Council if he didn´t fight them so much.

Anakin is aware of this, he also knows Obi-Wan has worked for years towards getting a place in the council, it´s important for Obi-Wan in a way it never was for Anakin or Qui-Gon. So part of the reason Anakin didn´t told him was because he thought Obi-Wan would not approve but also to not put him in the ankward place of knowing about Anakin´s marriage and not tell the council to which he belongs.

It´s fun because Obi-Wan knows, Anakin knows and Padmé knows but they never, ever talk openly about it because it would be making it a reality.

Still even if Obi-Wan is supporting that doesn´t mean Anakin can stay a Jedi once it´s discovered and this was something Anakin knew. In the ROTS novel he talks about becoming one of the new "lost ones" because he can´t keep being a Jedi once Padmé gives birth.

From Anakin´s pov, the main reason that linked him to the Jedi Order was Obi-Wan, he wasnt happy in the order, he didn´t agree with some of their principles and he very much wanted to be Padme´s husband so his main interest in the clone wars was to help the Order during the war, make sure Obi-Wan was safe and once the war was done he was planning to leave the Order to live with Padmé on Naboo.

It´s pretty clear in ROTS he just wants the war to end, he doesn´t care if it´s Obi-Wan or him the one who defeats grievous, when Palpatine brings the matter to make Anakin mad at Obi-Wan, Anakin just shurgs, as long as the war ends everything would be ok and he mostly just wanted to follow Obi-Wan because he was feeling worse day by day on, Coruscant, he wasn´t sleeping and he was worried for Obi-Wan and Padme.

Obi-Wan knew in a way it was a matter of time for Anakin to leave the Order, his words very much sound like a goodbye before he left to fight grievous so I believe one of the reasons he didn´t want to talk about this with Anakin is because he didn´t want to make it real and make Anakin leave sooner. This is also why Anakin´s main conflict in the movie is to make sure Padme survives the birth, not wether he remains a Jedi or not, his decision was already made in that area.

In a world where Anakin doesn´t fall to the darkside and there´s no Empire I believe he still would have left the Order to be with his family but not because he could not tell Obi-Wan but because it´s simply the way the Order manages itself and Anakin wasn´t in a possition or had the wish, to ask them to change their rules.

Curiously enough it was Padme the one who insisted to Anakin to stay in the Order after their marriage and during the war, she only had a different oppinion once it was clear they were going to have a child and had to plan towards the event of Anakin being left outside the Order and her to lose her position in the Senate but in the end, both of them wanted to have a family on Naboo.

Anakin is making me all sad for all the trust he had in Palpatine here, he had confidence that everything would be ok once the war ended. Of course Palpatine told him he was going to bring peace, he just didn´t tell him how he was going to do it.

[rainofaugustsith]

So it seems like the Jedi Wars are heating up again, sigh. I have fandom sheriffs blocked instantly here. I am leaving reblogs on this open but I am warning in advance that you do not want to come at me on this post because the response will be an immediate block with no engagement. So you should really save yourself the trouble of typing it out. But I feel like some of the essential points are being missed. Namely:

Nobody has to like the Jedi.

Nobody has to approve of the Jedi.

Fans really are entitled to think the Jedi are terrible and their tactics are terrible.

All of this is about a work of fiction.

People, again, are entitled to have opinions about the media they consume.

None of that, in any way, affects people who are Jedi fans/apologists unless they actively choose to make it their problem.

Most of the time those of us who don't dig the Jedi are in our corner and don't give a damn what you're doing as long as you don't bother us.

It would be really nice if some those who liked the Jedi would remember those basic principles - but they have to Fandom Sheriff things and to loudly and aggressively let everyone else know They're Wrong. They come storming into posts, even when the OP has warned they do not want discourse, to try to engage and argue to tell people They're Wrong. They accuse people who Are Wrong!! with having sympathies for real-world fascism and Nazis, which is offensive on more levels than I can even articulate. They insist that if you don't share their opinion you must have issues with "Eastern Religion" (which is a pretty damn vague way to consider not only multiple streams of Buddhism but the many MANY other religions practiced in the "East" that have a very wide range of beliefs. As well as a big damned stretch considering it was all written by a Protestant white man from the USA. As well as the fact that we are again talking about a piece of fictional media and not a real world long established religion). Their way is apparently the only way one can possibly believe about a piece of fiction and they will aggressively butt into your conversations and posts to tell you.

All of which, at the end of the day, is a lot like evangelism/fundamentalism.

If you like the Jedi, there are ways to actively avoid those of us who do not agree with you. Filter tags. Block. Cultivate your fandom experience to surround yourself with people who have similar views. Associate with people who are mature enough to realize a mutual can disagree with their interpretation of a work of fiction without accusing them of being a Nazi. Hell, that's what we all do to avoid you whenever possible.

But grow the hell up and realize that not everyone will share your opinions on your favorites in fictional media, people with differences of opinion are entitled to them, and they are also entitled to their own fandom experience without you yipping at their heels and squeaking indignantly in their conversations.

[naturecalls111]

as someone who read tfc for the first time almost 10 years ago and is having a blast with tsc and the series revival i'm very curious to know if you have any thoughts/opinions on the books/the story on it. (btw, i love your work so much!!! came for one of your lovely sanjis and stayed for everything else you made)

Waaahh amazing question anon! Thank you! I’m gonna have a blast answering this :3c

(Also, thank you so much for the kind words TTT ❤️❤️)

I’ll TL;DR at the end because I have a lot of thoughts on AFTG and am taking this opportunity to yap lol

I’ll preface this with a few things just so my opinions exist within a specific context rather than like, a biasless void:

1. I read the series only to be in a similar fandom space with a friend of mine. She enjoys it a lot, and I enjoy her brain a lot, so even if I didn’t care for the series I would be at least One Foot in through the door of the AFTG world because I really love her characterization and takes and analysis etc etc you get the gist - I have an INCREDIBLY curated space to talk about it and the vast majority of my enjoyment for the series comes from that

2. I personally, have a few gripes here and there with Nora Sakavics writing. I think she’s a good writer pretty consistently and an Excellent one in certain scenes, so I don’t mean this as a slight to her skill, rather just establishing my bias of not really being the biggest fan of the way she deals with certain topics and the way she structures her story. This is totally a personal preference though, I can’t stress that enough

3. I haven’t read TSC yet, and either avoid or haven’t gotten around to reading Nora’s extra snippets and points of characterization outside of what exists in the books. Like I refuse to accept Andreil cat names sort of thing. Lol.

OK-

I’ll start with the stuff I like:

1. I looooveeeeeee… love these characters deeply. The Foxes are so cute and awesome and I like that their general vibe is “they hate each other but they hate everyone else more.” I know the principles of the Foxes is that they’re found family, and I get that, but I’m happy Nora wasn’t afraid of making them antagonistic or abrasive with each other, and that it doesn’t become a “and then, through Neil’s efforts, they all REALLY get along !!!” Like. Seth and Kevin actively hating each other, and Kevin not backpedaling on that when Seth dies, was both terrifying and engrossing, because it made me realize just how much smaller their already small circle becomes. Dan is so fun, Matt is so fun, Allison is SooooooOooOOOOOO Awesome. Jeremy was lovable from the get go. I like all the characters - I care for their… character sheet? More than I care about the story, if that makes sense?

2. To be honest I was less positive about it at first but I actually love this invention of a sport LOL the name is cool too… Exy…

3. I genuinely think Nora is Good at making scenes exciting and giving you that “jaw drop” moment with exactly the amount of fanfare the scene needs. It was intensely enjoyable to read AFTG because I was Constantly feeling something and wanting to see how something unravelled, and I didn’t know when she would Drop That Big Moment next. AFTG is a lot of great things, but if I had to choose one thing, it would be how great Nora was at making me antsy about what comes next.

4. It’s funny. OK! IT’S FUNNY! I laughed a bunch of times. It Has Funny Dialogue. Early Andrew made me crack up multiple times and the way his general actions were written were perfect LOL

5. Generally really happy that Nora wasn’t afraid of pulling any punches with the themes presented in the story. Very tragic and intense! I’m always eager to read content that is willing to explore that stuff so I’m happy the book Had That to the degree that it did

6. It has Nicky Hemmick and Kevin Day in it. I am obsessed with both of them.

And then there’s stuff I’m in the middle about, where I like it sometimes and I don’t at other times. It’s up in the air, I can make a case for not liking and make a case for loving it:

1. Neil not describing anyone’s physical appearance properly like. Ever. And I don’t know if this is a Nora thing or if this is a Neil thing, if that makes sense. Because on one hand, I’m like ok yeah it would make sense that Neil Josten does not care to comment about the way people look, but we get SO LITTLE outside of “dark hair. Light hair. tall.” I’m like equal parts endeared and grinding my teeth at it

2. Some dialogue is really corny. But that’s okay, because I think they deserve to be corny sometimes. Corny isn’t bad, you know? It still made me kick my feet at times

3. I cannot gauge how well I think the story dealt with rough topics. I think viewing the world through a Neil lens makes it a little easier to not completely consider everything at face value, and it’s really nice that despite everything Neil could have become, he’s still intensely likable and all around Good. That being said, it’s not so much Neil’s POV that I’m stressed about as it is how the story goes around issues of other characters? I won’t take out my list of eyebrow raises but I was like, immensely Not Happy about how Matt’s addiction was dealt with. I don’t even have a problem with what Andrew did (in terms of, I don’t have a problem with that being something written into the story) but Matt’s reaction to Neil’s (rightful) horror about how he could be okay with that, and Matt being like no yeah listen trust me, it’s fine, and also my mom approved of it…. Hhhh maybe it’s for personal reasons that I don’t like how that was dealt with, but I just didn’t. Meanwhile, I thought Andrew’s backstory was dealt with well. I thought the Drake scene was handled very well, in that it moved me to numbing shock and I got nauseous and I think the details it chose to omit and include were incredibly important (had the scene been More explicit, I think I would have been less visceral? Because so much of it would have been set out in front of me, but because the vast majority of that scene was Emotions And Implication, it REALLY fucked with me, I appreciate it)

4. Nora has used verbal expo dumps enough that I Noticed it but can’t decide where I stand on it because I’m also totally of the mind that people Talk. And that’s fine. Like people in Real Life also have expo dumps about others so I’ll cut it some slack actually

And the things I don’t like…:

1. Why is Exy capitalized that drives me nuts

2. I put off reading AFTG for a while because the entire premise admittedly seemed totally not my type of story and, expectedly, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get into the whole Mafia thing. I know it’s a large part of what drives the plot forward but I genuinely have to turn a blind eye to it when I talk about my love for AFTG LMFAO like I just can’t it’s too much. I know the story has a lot of moments where you have to suspend your disbelief and I’m happy to do that because that’s the point of fiction but the mafia stuff is just like. Background noise to me. I don’t think about it. I don’t think I registered a word of what Lola said. I get that we need some source of trauma for these kids but also. Also. LMSFKDJSKLDFJ like you could easily replace the mafia stuff with something else and get the same effect but. Whatever. This is clearly like a Me Not Liking Mafia Things thing

3. Sometimes it got too corny for my taste, and certain dialogue I thought would do better as more vague thoughts. In line with me loving Neil being such a shit stirrer and short tempered, I had a difficult time with his monologue/mouth off at Riko during the ball because it felt too dramatic and rehearsed I’m so sorry Neil baby I’m totally supportive of you telling Riko off (THE INTERVIEW SCENE IN BOOK ONE WAS SSAAAUURRRRR GOOD!!!!) But other times I was like. Hiding my face behind my hands and bashing my skull against my pillow. I think the only part of that initial ball scene that I liked was Jean’s general introduction and interactions. Also I know it’s Andrew’s whole Thing when he’s on meds but some of Andrew’s lines occasionally had me scratching my chin awkwardly. This complaint mostly sizzles out by book 3 though. I liked book 3

4. I mentally retcon Andrew and Aaron’s and Riko’s heights where I can. I’m sorry. It’s for my own sanity. I don’t want to be taller than any of them in any given moment. I can accept Neil’s because I like Haikyuu also

5. I’m not satisfied with the book 3 ending.

6. I say this as someone who speaks four languages, 2 of them fluently and the other two very close to fluent - the language shenanigans of the characters in AFTG is literally so extremely batshit LMFAO I will never forget Jane texting me if I know how to say dashboard lighter in my native tongue and me being like ‘I don’t even know what that the fuck that is in English’ HAHAH like . Just. It was silly. It got silly. I don’t know how many languages Nora speaks but with the given time frames of how long they would have had to learn the languages + the context in which they learned it . Just. You’re not convincing me I’m soooo sorry!!!!

ANYWAY that’s my general review on it. The TLDR is that mafia stuff isn’t my thing and at times I struggle to suspend my disbelief but I enjoy the characters a lot and the dynamics built between them, and the fact that Nora wasn’t afraid to make the story Hurt, the characters Hurt. You know?! I’m excited to read TSC and fawn over Jeremy and the fact that I can never have him!!!

[citrus-soda]

for fandom ask: 9 for ship ask: 10 with giroaki for character ask: 11 with kururu

...which characters I think should have interacted more in canon.

tbh i think we have similar ideas on this lol. Fuyuki and Kururu's friendship (or what we see of it anyway) is very cute. Fuyuki would LOVE to chat about anything alien / space related with Kururu. I also think Tamama and Kururu have the potential for a fun friend-dynamic as the two youngest on the team. They need to team up as the trendy youngins. I remember reading a fic where these two had to interact for most of it and i LOVED their dynamic. They squabble and bicker yet at the end of the day they do care about each other. Like hell theyd ever say so though.

For something you yourself didn't mention earlier... Well this kinda relates to the next question but i think its weird Giroro never had more interactions with Aki and Fuyuki. He LITERALLY lives on their property? He arguably would be seeing them all the time. fwiw Giroro and Fuyuki have a cute dynamic when they do interact at least. Giroro helping fuyuki be less of a indoorsy pushover is v fun. Sorry my GiroStepDad propaganda is poisoning me. uhm anyway. Next question!

Im putting the rest of this under a readmore it got long.

...rate the level of stupid they reach in their pining.

Giroaki pining.............. Ok well ofcourse Giroro is the top piner. He's so pine he's practically growing needles. He's got TONS of reasons why he should not be pursuing Aki romantically, and yet... he just can't get his mind off of her. If you sneak a look at any scratch paper that's been in his possession it'll probably have little hearts and G + A's on it. "Hinata Giroro" maybe if its REALLY BAD. He is cooked. If she pats him on the shoulder he's thinking about it for the next two days. And then feeling ashamed over his reaction for one more day.

He's a mix of lovey-dovey and feeling VERY guilty for the lovey-dovey!

"We are from different worlds and can never be, but also I'm daydreaming of you at least once a day" pining. Absolute clash of his principles and his heart. Loving her feels like spitting in the face of his entire upbringing. But why is it so wonderful anyway...? ( its because women are epic and you gotta ditch the military giroro. )

On the flip side I think Aki is pretty calm with the pining. This lady is BUSY she does not fucking have time to sigh and shuffle over some dumbass alien frog thing. Her pining is much less intense and comes as quickly as it goes. Maybe she sees Giroro being nice to her kids and she wonders what life would be like with him in it... I don't think she has any qualms over romancing an alien she seems cool like that. Her main obstacle is her busy work life.

...how well I actually understand them. Do they feel like a very vivid character to me or are they kind of bland and hard to get invested in?

Yeah Kururu is tricky for me. Most of what i get from him is from reading other ppl's character analyses lol. If you'd asked me a few months ago i would've said he was just a sinister silly guy. Which is all LIES apparently.

He's such a guarded character and it can roughly be implied that most of what we see of him is just a facade... So what's under that facade then? Does he seriously micromanage every single one of his interactions? Im the kind of person who SUCKS at crafting a facade and controlling my actions to reach a desired outcome, so I cannot wrap my head around him. He strikes me as very calculating... the kinda guy who knows more than he lets on. Wonder if he ever gets strained from the constant daily masking.

[ignitification]

What the Future Holds

“It is the temptation of war to punish; it is the task of policy to construct.” (Henry Kissinger). 

There has been a lot of debate around what is going to happen after (the heroes win? AfO is defeated? The Villains are saved? - are all valid hypothesis), right at the end of BNHA. Long ago, though, someone asked - what would be the reaction of the civilians at large when this all goes down? We know for a fact that while, more or less, our protagonists are in the loop of what exactly went down with the villains (or at least that they have not had a lot of positive experiences and possibilities to grow up as good as them), the civilians know close to nothing (apart from Touya’s broadcast, which in hindsight should be at least enough to make space way for the possibility of civilians understanding the woes of the villains and trying to accept the change which this ending will brings, and yet) when it comes to this matter. Will they be able to accept ‘a hero’ saving ‘a villain’? Will the change in society, the abolishment of a Quirk Society in general and the aftermath of the war (likely the cancellation of the hero rankings, and just the demotion of the title hero as profession) be accepted eventually?

While these are question to which I would like to answer ‘It depends’, I’d say that it might be the case, but the change will be slow, gradual and likely painful. Let’s take the example of Heteromorph Quirks, which, so many years after the discovery and establishment of quirks, are still looked down upon. This highlights the struggle with which this society adapts, and that it adapts to only certain parts of the society (which are usually the pretty parts, while the ugly ones are or ignored or just thoroughly refused to look at). It is the same principle we see in not only the narrative of Lady Nagant (and the rose-colored glasses with which civilians see society and pro-heroes), and the villains themselves (as their Quirks made them unfit for the general public to be displayed or used) but also in the same narrative which Izuku carries - he struggles to accept himself as someone who is Quirkless, and takes his chances to inherit All Might’s power, a little because of his dreams and more because that way he can also be part of that same society who treated him like shoe’s dirt before he gained ‘power’ and a standing as a UA student with a Quirk fit to be a hero.

We can see and take a little bit from what is probably going to be the reaction to the ending, both by seeing the reaction we have to Dabi’s broadcast, the press conference of the Top 3 and Izuku going rogue and looking villainy, as well as the public’s reaction to him coming back to UA.

Being likely familiar with these scenario, it definitely does not hit as a positive-filled situation, but rather the outage of the small mindedness and the expectancy of a perfect world division in villains and heroes by the civilians. Yes, it is the famous panel of the dichotomy of heroes and villains and look who already did foresee this so long ago: a villain, which is hilarious in itself but also pretty logical if you think about it.

The thing is, that as told millions times before the core problem of this society is that it does not understand nuance (and so doesn’t this fandom, for that matter): everything should be white or black, good or bad, hero or villain. But in reality, this dichotomy falls short of understanding what is hidden behind the curtain: the ugly truth of the fact that sometimes there is no good or bad, and that maybe sometimes the good is not as good and bad is not as bad. And as said million times before again, this stems from the fact that a. society has been kept in the dark from the deeds that the HPSC has done all these years, therefore conditioning and manipulating society into believing that a distinction exists; and b. it is rather easier to separate the good and the bad guys by a simple principles like a working label and to stick to it, even in front of rather compelling evidence. In the end, it is clear that the public has trust issues at their finest, but it then shows what a shaky base these society has been built on: a rather fine balance, which has been topped over once the castle of cards has been knocked down. 

It is in the hands of the new generation then, to attempt and change how thing have been so far. Retributive justice, just like in the quote above, is always tempting - and it is no brainer that it will be likely very hard for the civilian to accept whatever is thrown at them in the end, which does not involve the imprisonment and therefore the punishment of the villains. But at the same time, it is also true, that slowly but steadily things are staring to look up: we have Shouto who wants to save his brother, and Izuku who instead is trying to understand the villains and why they become such, stemming from his will to understand and help Shigaraki. After all, their main power is to change things up: a change which, hilariously, can be seen concretely by Bakugou’s words in chapter 323. Bakugou, who is a byproduct of that same society, is admitting his faults and the fact that it happens at this moment is likely a foreshadow for a major scale change: after all, the entire society owes an apology to the villains, big time. It is not a case then, that the narrative is putting everything to its places and showing us the before, and the tough process of change and the consequences of it. In this scenario, Izuku, Shouto, Bakugou, Ochako and generally the UA kids play the role of policymakers: they are looking in the future, trying to get an overview of the situation which they know as true and the one the villains consider as true and then trying to do ‘the right thing’: unfortunately, there is never a right thing when it comes to these matters, and no shoe-fits-all solution. It will therefore be interesting how exactly things will play out and whether society (in a not so distant future) might accept the fact that the villains can be victims, and in search for the satisfaction of that same retributive justice they are trying to enforce on them. In my opinion, the effort made by the young generation in this matter will be crucial: some people will refuse to accept such a thing (blaming the villains for everything that went wrong since day 1), other will struggle with accepting it and likely will remain neutral (which, in hindsight, is even worse as it is somehow similar to the civilians that thoroughly ignored Tenko when we was clocharding of the streets) and the who begrudgingly might accept the fact that exactly like Dabi said, pro-heroes are not always heroes in private too and they have as much harm potential as villains, it just does not get publicly displayed. And maybe, slowly, society will come to the consensus that while not always the case, offering a hand to those who struggle, might save a life - and why not, maybe at one point they will stop classifying people as ‘heroes and villains’, and instead accept themselves as humans altogether. But such is the human struggle: lost in the will to put a label on things, and forgetting that unlike labels, humans have the infinite capacity to grow, expand and change.

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Is that Supa Strikers show really that great? Would I like it even if I don’t like soccer/football? (I’m asking because I’ve never seen it. In fact, your posts are the only reason I know it exists at all.)

Okay. Okay, okay I was going to work on requests during this meeting but then I saw this and I have many feelings on this show so you're getting an essay. Buckle up son. Brief History

For those not in the know, Supa Strikas is a series from South Africa that started as a futbol-themed comic in I want to say the early 2000s. It quickly gained popularity throughout most of Africa and today is published in Latin-America, South America, Africa, some parts of Europe and Asia.

Almost every continent has this comic. You cannot tell me that isn't cool and also very telling of how many people like this series.

Seeing the comic get so popular so fast, a TV show followed up in 2009 by the same name and is still going to this day. This series has been along longer than most presidential terms.

The show had a similar story with only slight character changes, and while the entirety of the 2021 season is already out, there are signs that they may be more coming out in 2022 so. Fingers crossed!

What is it about?

The story centers around Shakes, a young futbol player who has recently joined the Supa Strikas, a team based in an unspecified African country. The comic follows the team winning the Super League during different seasons, going around the world to find out new techniques, deal with teams that cheat and overcome their own inner problems as well.

The series differs from the comics in that we don't see Shakes' journey to becoming a Supa Strika and we don't get the official names for the characters either, only their nicknames. Wikipedia has their official names listed I think, but if anyone whose read the comics wishes to tell me, by all means do so.

It's a pretty straight forward storyline, with some good story consistency (characters who appear in one episode do show up again and are given consistent writing). Very episodic.

Why should I watch the series?

The series is fun. Sincerely, un-apologetically fun.

The main characters get good screen time and we get to see some fun, decently written personalities that act off each other well. The Supa Strikas is a team of himbos but different varieties of himbos and I love them for it. You do get the feeling that this is a group of people that cares for each other, not a group of characters just shoved together because the series said so.

The side-characters are also great. Some of them are a little one-note but many of them are just as crazy, if not more fun, than the main characters of the show. There's an American dude named Ninja whose entire gimmick is that he's a reality star fame-seeking dude straight out of Las Vegas and I love him. He's one of the tamer character concepts.

Coach. That is all.

There's a vast array of diverse representation. While the Supa Strikas team is the only team is they only team of mixed nationalities (South African, Jamaican, Brazilian, Spanish, etc) every team is representing a different country. There's a Brazilian Team, a Mexican Team, a Saudi Arabian Team and many others.

In connection - the Supa Strikas have players from around the world. Dancing Rasta is Jamaican, the captain of the team, an incredibly competent leader and very down-to-earth. You do have players that are a little stereotypical (North Shaw is an Australian who loves extreme sports, shocker) but are written in ways that you find yourself not minding.

It's funny. There's a lot of good moments both in writing and in the animation. As someone who got to study animation, I can say without a shadow of doubt that the team behind the character animations had no fear in pushing what they can do and making the characters feel fun.

Some of the stereotypes used in the show are used well and are written in a fairly respectful way. El Matador, a Spanish player, fills the stereotype of being a self-absorbed Spaniard. but he's also written to care for friends and to be very competent in other areas. Plus, there are other Spanish characters like Riano that are nothing like that and have distinctly different personalities. As a Spaniard, I found this to be a good writing choice. These jokes are seen less as insults and more like friendly barbs between most countries and it doesn't detract from the show.

The technology. It's a running gag that the tech used to train the guys is progressively more outrageous.

No forced romance storylines! There's no character moment where boy meets girl and then we're stuck watching this inevitable couple find reasons to not be a couple. It's nice to not have the forced hetero-normative relationships we see in a lot of other shows.

To that end, fantastic healthy male friendships! There's no "no homo" moment and the characters all have very good chemistry. Again, you feel like they're actually friends. They all have different dynamics too, so the friendships don't feel uniform and stale.

Good emotional moments.

Bromances for the win! Genuinely shocked there's not more fandom for it considering the sheer quantity of POSSIBILITIES of bromances and potential ships to work with.

It's 100% fine if you don't know anything about futbol. The show shows literally what matters, not every single little throw-in, and most times there's some world-breaking nonsense going on that distracts from that. There's literally an episode where the opposing team changes gravity on the the field to try and beat the Supa Strikas, the rules barely matter. I promise you, you don't need to know what "Offsides" means in order to watch.

The commentators. I love them both.

The episodes are varied in stories. There's ones about training, ones about exploring a different country, others where the opponents cheat, etc. There's an episode which is almost a murder mystery and I love it.

All the episodes can be found free online on Youtube on the official channel for the show. I love this creative team so much.

There's a lot of good writing choices!

What might I not like about the show?

Some people like episodic shows, some don't. For those in the latter category this may drive them away from Supa Strikas.

There's like. 4 female characters. I can see why they did that, but I can also see why that is upsetting (speaking as a woman who is very tired of the Smurfette principle). The humor may not be for everyone. That's more based on personality, because I think there's something for everyone, but there are jokes that I recognize fall quite flat.

In connection to that, the stereotypes. Like I mentioned earlier, the show utilizes and breaks some stereotypes very well. There's a character (Spenza) who is written to be the chubby comic relief that is also 9/10 times the guy who saves LITERALLY EVERYONE from trouble and gets recognized for it, for example. However, the entire Japanese team is a karate-based team with a Coach named Ura Giri who wears Chinese clothes despite being Japanese. The German team is just a military branch and, while funny, might be offensive depending on which German you ask. It can be detracting from the show.

There's some bad writing choices that can be rough, but they are episode centric.

What should I do?

Watch the show. Give it 2-3 episodes and if it doesn't grab you, okay! You tried! If it does, welcome! it's literally for free on youtube, Seasons 1 through the last number I can't remember. I watch it when I'm working on something because it's fun and gets me to laugh, you might watch it with a bowl of popcorn. Just do your own thing!

If you do like it though, come back, hit me up with talks and questions about it. Besides multydoodles I haven't found a lot of people who really are into it so come! Join us! One of us!

Hope this mini-essay helped out and that the show works out for you!

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

*This event has ended! Click the links in the Timeline to see individual rounds, prompts, fics, voting, and results!*

Hey, Tropesters! It’s time for another TROPED event, but this time the prompts will be in the form of MOODBOARDS! Made by yours truly, the moodboards function as the inspiration for the fics written for this event! We've got four exciting themes picked out, and the boards are already looking great, so we hope you're excited! This event will be a little different from the others that we have put on, so keep reading for more info!

How It Works:

Firstly, this is our first ever TROPED Multi-Fandom event, so share this around! We would love to get fics from fandoms we've never had for TROPED before! All Fandoms are welcome and there is in no minimum participation required for this event!Because this is a Multi-Fandom event, the voting process and the overall event structure will be a little different!

No Sign-Ups Required! We will release the prompts right here on the TROPED tumblr and you will submit your fics to the AO3 Collection! The Writing Periods will be on a rolling basis, with a moodboard dropping every ten (10) days, but fear not! If you are inspired for a round later in the event, you can still submit a fic to be included in Voting! We will simply drop the next board, but nothing will officially close or end until the end of the full Writing Period, on August 25th! Fics will be accepted into the official collection for the entirety of the event! **You will write four or more (4+) separate fanfics inspired by each round, but you do not have to participate in each and every round.**

Moodboard Prompts! As we said, the prompts for this event will be in the form of MOODBOARDS!!! Because photos are open to such a wide range of interpretations, and inspiration from a moodboard can come in all shapes and sizes, this event is much less strict in terms of 'sticking to the prompt'! We will be releasing the moodboards with a little blurb about what it is we envisioned when putting them together, but if inspiration strikes and takes you in another direction, go for it! Pretty much anything goes, as long as it fits with our standard rules! As a general rule, we'd like you to take each of the nine (9) photos and find a way to include that imagery in your fic in some way. Try to find a way to incorporate the concepts and inspirations you get from each photo into your story! Similar to the tropes used in our traditional TROPED format, the photos in the moodboards should matter to your story. You should try to have the photos not be inconsequential moments within your fic, but rather make the moments in the moodboard plot relevant!

All Pairings Allowed! TROPED is always a neutral space for any and all ships! We encourage [and sometimes require ;)] rare pairs, platonic pairings, and other out of the box dynamics within our fics! TROPED is, by design, a positive fandom space for everyone, and focusing on allowing and celebrating any and all pairings (that are allowed within the rules) is a big part of that! **Please feel free to write any pairing (within our rules) from the Fandom of your choosing. You do not have to write the same Fandom/Pairing for each round!**

**As a note, the photos in the moodboards are not definitive! A lot of stock photos are white, and straight, but we chose photos simply for the ✨vibes✨ of the photo, not the pairings themselves!! You can implement those scenes into your fics with any characters or combos, as long as it complies with our relationship rules!!**

This event will be Optionally Anonymous! Because the voting for this event is much more chill, and the writing period will be open for over a month, we will not require this event to be anonymous! However, if you would like to have your fic be anonymous, we will be sharing a small tutorial on how to make your fics anonymous and how to remove them from being anonymous sometime before the event starts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Voting! The voting for this event will be pretty simple! We will keep a list of all fics submitted for each event, and then at the end there will be a "best overall" poll for each round, along with some bonus polls! The voting will be based on the fics as a whole, and will include all fandoms together! If you do not want your fic included in the voting, you can let us know, or you can simply upload your fic to our non-anon collection instead! We will still share it along with the other fics and it will be included in all masterlists! We will provide a link to SurveyMonkey when voting begins.

For the OG Tropesters: As an added bonus for our long time The 100 fandom writers, we've cooked up an extra special little challenge for you! We will be including a special tenth (10th!!) photo, just for you! The 10th photo will be of a character of our choosing from The 100 (obviously) for you to include in your fic! We will be releasing the character we've chosen for each round when we drop the moodboard, so keep your eyes peeled!

Timeline:

Writing Period Dates: July 15th - August 25th!

Moodboard for R1 : July 15th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R2 : July 25th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R3 : August 4th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R4 : August 14th at 12:00am

End of Visual Writing Period: August 25th at 3:00am PST/6:00am EST [EXTENSION UNTIL SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH AT 8:00 AM EST!]

Voting: August 28th at 12:00pm - August 30th at 11:59pm

Winners: August 31st!

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified!

Rules:

If you are a veteran to our TROPED Challenges, the rules below are mostly the same as before, but any newbies joining the fun should definitely take a look below!

This competition was created to get creative and put out different fics into the world, and to create a fun, positive fandom experience for everyone! In order to ensure that we achieve that goal of a positive experience, here are a few rules and guidelines that must be followed!The requirements for the fics entered into the competition will be:

Must include Characters from your specific chosen Fandom

Must try to fit the Theme of each round! While this event is a lot looser, each board will have a clear concept or theme for you to use in your fics!

Must try to use ALL of the pictures selected for the round. Each of the 9 photos are meant to be taken and turned into scenes, images, or themes within your story! This isn't hard and fast, but we encourage you to try to utilize the boards in a specific way, beyond just the general ✨vibes✨ of the board!

All fics must be 10,000 words or less! (We have allowed a 500 word buffer to allow for fics that are not quite finished at the 10k mark to get wrapped up!) There is no minimum word count.

All ratings G through M are welcome, but E Rated fics are not allowed. Please be aware that some fics may not be everyone’s thing! Write what you like, but the voting is public so just keep that in mind!

Multiple Entries Allowed. We love when authors are able to pump out multiple fics for a single prompt! If you would like them to be considered seperately for voting, please be sure they are standalone fics! If you end up writing multiple chapters or parts of one fic, let us know! We will only include one for voting but we will be sure to share all the parts!

Collaborations! We've had some people ask about collaborations, and we're all for it! If you and a friend would like to write a fic together, go for it! Just let us know who to credit when we share the fics on our masterlists and we will be sure to tag anyone involved!

You will be disqualified if you include:

Smut! Due to the chance that some fandoms might include a cast of all underage characters, we have decided to exclude smut. All ratings G-M are allowed!

Rape!

Underage! This means no High School AU with sex, no teacher/student if the student is underage, zero adult/under 18 romantic relationships!

Incest! Incest includes adopted siblings, foster siblings, parent/child, step siblings, biological siblings, or any familial relationship, blood related or not!

Negativity towards any character or ship! This includes any sort of abuse perpetrated by a character intending to paint them in a negative light, negative statements about a character intended purely to express your dislike of a character, or things of that nature. You MAY write characters as villains! Writing a character as a villain asks the audience to disagree with the characters motivations and choices, not to dislike the character on principle. The basis of this rule is that your fic should not be written as a way to simply express your dislike of a character.

Plagiarism! While the tropes we use in our challenges are common and communal, the stories and words you create must be your own! Fanfiction is about transformative work, and taking concepts from other writers is natural! Inspiration can come from lots of places, but rewriting someone else’s fic is unacceptable. *Following our own rules, we want to let you know that all photos used in the TROPED: VISUAL Moodboards are from Unsplash.com —a source for freely-usable images.*

This is meant to be a fun and positive experience for everyone. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone if we are reading their fic and we think it violates any of our rules!

Because this challenge is NOT completely anonymous, feel free to share your fics and post about them to your hearts content! If you wish to remain anonymous until after voting, you can, of course, wait and post about your fics then! The non-anon only applies to this event, though, so if you come back to write for us in the future be sure to keep those lips zipped!

Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, the TROPED Instagram, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release our prompts in these places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!! 

If you have any questions about this event, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box or DM a Mod (@dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire)!

[duhragonball]

Battle Tendency Liveblog: JJBA Ch. 71-76

Let the joy of love give you an answer

And I will hold you when you're lost Just walk on to the light 1938 Bizarre Summer Every road will lead us to a memory of

Great Days

When I started reading the Battle Tendency Manga, one of my goals was to find connections between Part 2 and the others, because I feel like Part 2 is sort of isolated from the rest.   You never hear anyone talk about the Pillar Men in Part 3 or 4, and Joseph Joestar never appears again, save for an entry on a genealogy seen in JoJolion.

But thematically, there’s a lot of connective tissue here.   I already pointed out the scene where Smokey steals Joseph’s wallet in his first appearance, echoing Joseph’s final appearance, where Josuke steals his wallet in Part 4.   And I already mentioned the Italian connection.    Hirohiko Araki’s love for Italy is pretty well-known in the fandom, but only two JoJo parts have the distinction of taking place on Italian soil: 2 and 5.

But there’s other, subtler connections.   Joseph’s Clacker Volley relies on angular momentum, much like the “Spin” techniques used in Part 7.    But then you also have this moment in Battle Tendency where Caesar explains Hamon to Joseph, and compares it to the way a discus thrower spins around to gain distance on his throw.   In the same vein, the fictional Ripple techniques used by all the good guys is just an extension of something natural.    Everyone gains energy from respiration and blood circulation, but Hamon users can amplify that many times over to do amazing things with that energy.    It’s very similar to the lessons Johnny Joestar learns about “Spin” in Part 7.   I never really thought “Spin” had much to do with Hamon, and conceptually they may not be related, but the way they’re presented to the audience is very similar.

More Part 5 connections, you ask?   Well how about a trip from Rome to Venice?  No assassins on the train this time, so Joseph doesn’t have to steal 100 cars to finish the journey.

And how about a meeting with a mysterious person wearing a strange disguise...

Who turns out to be a lady?  What’s weird about this is that when I went through JoJo in order back in 2017, I never noticed the Lisa Lisa/Trish connection.   There was just so much crazy stuff happening in Parts 3 and 4 that I forgot all about how Lisa Lisa debuted.  

So yeah, let’s get back to the main plot.   I mean, I was going to talk about some connections with Part 6, but I seem to be drawing a blank.   Joseph’s parents died when he was very little, so there’s no way for him to have a contentious reunion with an absent parent.    There’s no way for his mom or dad to reveal that they were looking out for him this whole time, but they couldn’t tell him how or why.    I mean, Lisa Lisa kind of reminds me of Jotaro.   They’re both stoic badasses who smoke cigarettes.   But that’s kind of a stretch.  

Anyway, Joseph convinced the Pillar Men to let him live for another month so that he could give them a better fight later on.   To hold him to that promise, they implanted poison rings in his body, which will kill him in exactly 33 days, unless he defeats the Pillar Men and receives the antidote.   Caesar realizes that they both need more training to face the Pillar Men again, so he takes Joseph to Venice to meet his Hamon Master, for more training.   That’s Lisa Lisa.

I’m confused as to why Lisa Lisa wasn’t brought in a long time ago.   The plot progression of Part 2 implies that she only heard about this crisis when Caesar contacted her for more training, but we’ll soon see that the Ripple Clan has known about the Pillar Men for thousands of years, just as the Pillar Men knew about them.  

Actually, now that I think about it, why didn’t Straizo recognize the Pillar Man in Mexico then?   You’d think he would have taken one look at the guy and said “Oh shit, these dudes are back,” and forgotten all about his dreams of becoming a vampire like Dio.  Maybe Straizo had just lost all perspective by then.  Well, we’ll see if that gets explained later.

Anyway, Lisa Lisa starts the training immediately, by putting a mask on Joseph to control his breathing, which is a vital component of Ripple/Hamon stuff.  One thing Caesar explained to Joseph before they left for Venice is that their Hamon powers were about equal.   The only reason Caesar’s seems stronger is because he’s learned to concentrate it into smaller points, like his fingertips.   Joseph, on the other hand, has to express his Hamon power through his entire hand, which reduces its effectiveness.   Caesar compares this to the spray of water from a water pistol.   The smaller the nozzle, the more powerful the stream.

As for Speedwagon, well he just flew back to New York.   Joseph forbade him from telling Erina about the bind he’s in, so Speedwagon simply tells her that he’s bumming around Italy for a month.  Meanwhile, Lisa wants the boys to climb the Hell Climb Pillar.

So the Ripple Clan has this island castle off the coast of Venice, which they built in 39AD to train their students.   This was after the Pillar Men wiped out most of their guys, so I guess they wanted to really ramp up their training for the future.   Lisa opens the front gate and the first step inside takes you into this big pit full of oil, and she just kicks them inside without a word.   Ha ha, Lisa Lisa is awesome!

So the object of the Hell Climb Pillar is just to climb out of the pit.   Except the only way to do that is by clinging to a sheer pillar in the center and ascending 24 meters (about 79 feet).  Oh, and there’s some sort of fountain built into the pillar that keeps it covered with oil at all times.   The only way to make this work is by using Hamon power to cling to the oil and work your way up.  

Caesar is familiar with this test, and he at least has a general idea of how to do it, but he’s never attempted it before, and he knows a lot of students have died in the attempt.   The first thing he figures out is that it’s such an exhausting process that if you fall off part way, you won’t have enough stamina to start over, so you really only get one try at this.  

He spends most of his climb, however, worrying about Joseph, because Joseph’s Hamon skills are so rudimentary that he doesn’t even know how to cling to the pillar in the first place.   Fortunately...

Hermit Purple?   In my Battle Tendency?  It’s more likely than you think.   Joseph tries ripping his shirt and fashioning a makeshift rope for himself, but Lisa cuts it with a dagger before he can even try to use it.    I’m somewhat skeptical that this would have worked anyway.   She may have only foiled his attempt for his own benefit.   Joseph might have wasted a lot of precious energy trying to use this trick before giving up and doing it correctly. 

So, after all other options are exhausted, Joseph finally follows directions.  He watches Caesar for a while, then realizes that Caesar has been clinging to the oil with his fingertips, and not his palms.   It looks precarious, but Joseph remembers what Caesar told him about the water pistol and figures out that this is an application of that concept.    So he quickly catches up to Caesar, only to discover that the pillar gets harder to climb around the 18 meter mark. 

Around that elevation, the Pillar “protrudes”.   I think that means that it gently widens as you go up, something you can’t really see until you’re already climbing up there.    So now you’re not climbing straight up any more at a 90-degree angle to the ground, you’re more like 95 or 100 degrees, making it that much more of a struggle to hold on.  

But things get even worse when Joseph discovers a small crack in the pillar.   It’s the only handhold on the entire pillar, so he figures he can get a firmer grip on that and rest a bit.   Big mistake, because it’s booby-trapped, and when he touches the crack, it turns on this high-pressure stream of oil at the 20-meter level.   Oil just spews out from all sides of the pillar, and the pressure is so intense that when Caesar sticks a pen into it the oil stream cuts it in half.  

Joseph thinks Caesar is angry at him for his blunder, but Caesar’s actually worried for Joseph’s safety.   He only knows one way to get past the oil stream, and he isn’t sure Joseph has the skill necessary to pull it off.    See, you can use Hamon to cling to the oil, but you can also use it to repel the oil, and protect yourself from the high-pressure stream.   But Caesar now has to use use both of those principles simultaneously.   He has to cling to the pillar while moving through the stream.   He ends up doing this mid-air jump thing, and it works, but now he has to haul ass to get to the top of the pillar.   It’s not just for his own sake, but Caesar feels that he has to convince Lisa Lisa to call off the test to save Joseph’s life.   He doesn’t know how to do the trick Caesar pulled off, and Joseph’s the kind of guy who might get desperate or frustrated enough to do something drastic and get himself killed.   But when he reaches the top, there’s no one around.

But he needn’t have worried, because Joseph’s drastic idea actually works.    He apparently can’t repel and cling at the same time like Caesar, so instead he just clings.   Instead of passing through the oil stream, he clings to it, sliding across the flow of oil to the edge of the current, then flipping over it, where the pressure is low enough that it won’t hurt him.   Then he bounces off the top side of the oil stream and clings to the outer wall of the pit.  

Everyone is impressed, except the walls of the pit are even harder to climb than the pillar, and Joseph can’t quite make it to the top.    Caesar saves him with just 10 cm to go.   

Joseph is still sore at Lisa Lisa for putting him through all of that, but she tosses him an upside-down glass of water and Joseph is surprised to find that he can hold the water inside the glass with his Hamon, something he couldn’t do back in Rome, when Caesar told him they needed to train.    So now Joseph’s finally on board with all of this, and Lisa introduces the boys to he assistants, Messina and Loggins.   They put Caesar and Joseph through a grueling three weeks of training montage, until finally...

...They go shopping!  Some guy with a pompodour tries to steal a necklace from Lisa, but she catches him and lets Joseph deal with the guy.   Joseph covers the dude in mustard and then he complains about her carrying around a bright red stone like that for pickpockets to see.    Wait... red stone?  Yeah, it’s the Red Stone of Aja.

On their way back home, Lisa explains the backstory of the Pillar Men.    They created the Stone Masks to improve themselves, and tested the technology on humans.    No one knows how the Stone Masks work, but the “bones” that jut out of them somehow bring out “latent power” in the human brain and it turns them into vampires. 

I never really considered that before, but I suppose the bony spikes in the masks are kind of analogous to the effect of being pierced by the arrows in Parts 4, 5, and 6.  Part 5 offers a partial explanation for the Stand Arrows by saying the heads of the arrows were carved from a meteorite found in Greenland, and there was an alien virus in the meteorite.   You get cut by this metal, and get sick from the virus, and you either recover with a Stand power or you die.   There was a text piece in Part 7 that tried to connect the Stand concept with Hamon, the Stone Masks, and “Spin”, suggesting that the latter three were attempts to achieve what Stands can do, and I guess that makes sense.    Maybe the Stone Masks were the Pillar Men attempting to invent whatever the alien meteor was supposed to do.   Except it’s not as advanced, so it can only do vampires instead of Stands.

Eventually, Kars’ experiments led him to the discovery of a particular stone that amplifies and focuses light.   He believed that if he could work that into his Stone Mask technology, then he could create a more powerful mask that would bring about greater improvements into his own body.   The problem was that he needed a bigger, more flawless stone than the ones that were available to him.   And that’s why they went to Rome to find one.   The 1st Century B.C. Ripple Clan couldn’t stop the Pillar Men, but they did manage to secure the stone they were looking for, and it’s been in their possession ever since.   Lisa Lisa holds it up to the sun and blows up part of her boat just to show off what it can do.

Joseph suggests that they just destroy the thing.    After all, it does them no good, and it means everything to their enemies, so why keep it around?   But there’s some legend that says it will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men if the Red Stone of Aja is destroyed.

This seemed kind of hokey to me at first.   Lisa Lisa even admits that she doesn’t understand what that legend means, but she’s convinced that she has to protect the stone anyway.   But then I remembered Tonpetty, the leader of the Ripple Clan in Part 1.   He taught Will A. Zeppeli how to use Hamon, but warned him that it would lead to Will’s gruesome death.   Presumably, Tonpetty had some sort of gift of prophecy, and maybe it’s not far-fetched to think that others in the Ripple Clan had the same ability.   So maybe someone, a long time ago, foretold the ultimate fate of the Red Stone of Aja, and the Ripple Clan has been following that vague counsel ever since.

This might explain how the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men in the first place.    It never made much sense to me how the Pillar Men would travel to Rome and this secret band of warriors would be there ready to oppose them.   It’s also kind of convenient that the Ripple Clan knows so much about the Pillar Men’s Stone Mask research.   I mean, the Pillar Men barely acknowledge humans as it is, so why would Kars deign to explain anything to them?   

Now that I think about it, this might be why the Ripple Clan turned to divination in the first place.   Their enemies were so mysterious and their motives so baffling that they may have had no choice but to consult fortune-tellers and psychics for insight.    And, one way or another, they managed to get some solid intel this way.   Kars really was doing R&D on Stone Masks.   He really did go to Rome in search of a “Super Aja”.    Will Zeppeli did die, as Tonpetti warned him.   Kars really did return in 1938, as the Aztec’s predicted.   And it really will be impossible to defeat the Pillar Men without the Red Stone of Aja.    Lisa doesn’t know how that works yet, but she knows it’s true.

But that’s not important right now.   For now, it’s time for Joseph and Caesar to complete their training by heading back to base for a final showdown with their instructors.   Joseph’s final test will be a battle with Loggins, so I assume Caesar has to take on Messina.   But when Joseph shows up for his test...

He finds two people on the battlefield.   One is Loggins, and the other guy is killing him.

And yeah, it’s Esidisi.  Who invited him?   Well, Joseph was going to fight him in a week or so anyway, so why put off tomorrow what you can do today?

[capricornus-rex]

For your muse! :D “How about making me vice president in charge of cheering you up?”

“Two Sides of the Coin” | Chapter 16: Memory in a Shallow Grave | Jidné Sheedra x Cal Kestis

Summary: Hell-bent on exacting revenge and retrieving the Holocron, the dreaded Darth Vader is now on the hunt for the young Jedi Knight, Cal Kestis. Under the assumption that he still possessed the artifact, while fueled by the intrigue of the boy’s strength and skill with the Force, the dark lord hires the bounty hunter, Jidné Sheedra, to track him down and have him delivered alive. However, the task becomes a trial for young Jidné, as she faces a conflict that tests her beliefs of a scarred past she had hidden for so long.

A/N: This has got to be the longest reply (in the guise of a fic chapter) I’ve ever written! ;A; I hope you don’t mind the 4000+ or so word count, honey... because this is the part where Order 66 angst kicks in T^T

Also tagging @silver-is-in-too-many-fandoms @calsponchoemporium @stellar-trinity @queen-destenie @calgasm @cal-jestis @justtinfoley @peterwandaparker @sweeetteaa @ayamenimthiriel @superwarsofthrones @fallenjedii

Also in AO3

Tags: Fem OC, Jidné Sheedra, Force-Sensitive! Fem OC, Bounty Hunter! Fem OC, Jedi! Fem OC | Special tags: Order 66, Nomara Anesh, Togruta! Fem OC, Jedi Master! Fem OC

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 | Previous: Part 15 | Next: Part 17 | Masterlist

16 of ?

23 BBY

Jidné passed the time by studying the Holocrons she borrowed from the Archives, she came across Master Kit Fisto’s Holocron wherein he has discovered the ancient lightsaber modification that allows one’s saber to function underwater as it would on dry land. The little Padawan was intrigued and fascinated, so she set aside the other datacrons to listen to this particular one.

For the rest of the afternoon, she whiled away in reviewing the instructions and carefully studied the cross-sections. She realized that in order for this modification to work, she will need a second kyber crystal for the energy channels to route one another—since a single kyber would short-circuit if submerged or activated underwater.

“That would mean going to Ilum again,” Jidné thought out loud in the solace of her dorm. “I wonder if I could ask Master Anesh. I bet she’d allow me.”

“Jidné?” the disembodied voice of her master beckoned her.

The girl’s head jerked to the direction where she found the voice, she seals the Holocron shut using the Force with promptness and sees Master Anesh walking into the garden square. Jidné set aside the artifact on the bench along with her leather-bound journals where she copied the things she liked page after page, she landed on her feet as Nomara approached her little Padawan.

“I’m here, Master Anesh,”

Nomara peeked over the child’s shoulder and saw the Holocron sitting atop a small pile of notebooks.

“Have you been busy?”

“Just studying, I have something to tell you as well, Master Anesh!”

“Later, after today’s practice,”

Jidné nodded in agreement, then the master noticed the four turquoise beads adorning the end of her Padawan braid.

“Did you do something with your braid?”

“Hmm? Oh, remember our mission back in Alderaan? A peddler sold these beads. I thought the color’s pretty and they resembled the ones on your headband, so I thought of decorating my braid with it—to make it look like yours!” the Padawan girl beamed.

The radiance of her innocence endeared her master, the gesture warmed Nomara’s heart that she had to clutch her chest out of impulse.

“How sweet of you. I think it made your braid twice as prettier,”

“Thank you, Master!”

“You’re welcome. Come now, my little one, we’ve much to do for today’s practice,”

Jidné timed the moment where she can ask Master Anesh if she’ll permit to go to Ilum for that one requirement of the modification. Outspoken and carefree as ever, the Padawan girl decided to speak it out anyway before they could commence the training session.

“Master, if I may ask,”

“Yes, what is it, Jidné?”

“About your saber. Is it waterproof? I mean, can you use it underwater?” the Togruta slighted her head to the side, shooting the girl an attentive look.

“Yes, I can use it underwater. Why the sudden interest?”

“I came across a Holocron that shows how to modify the saber to make it work while in the water,”

The Togruta smiled, clearly recalling and knowing what the little Padawan is referring to.

“Ah, so that Holocron over there must be a copy of Master Fisto’s,”

“Yes, well, I was wondering if…” she trailed off rather bashfully, almost too shy to speak. “I could ask permission to go to Ilum—with you, of course! To get that second crystal to make it work,”

Nomara smiled, her response to Jidné’s request birthed a wide grin across the little ten-year-old’s face. The girl sprang up and down from the floor out of sheer excitement, her ecstatic “Yes!” echod across the emptiness of the gardens.

“But first, we still have instruction. We’re going to need to work on your Force Shroud. Remember when you told me that you still had trouble in using it? Well, we’ll work on that, okay?”

The girl flashed a small smile, “I’d like that very much.”

“We’ll begin when you’re ready,”

The Padawan did a series of stretches for warm-ups, as well as her spinning exercises for her lightsaber handling. Nomara’s teaching methods were similar to how Master Caius trained her—he didn’t rely on drones and droids, he personally sparred with Nomara during her days as an apprentice as well as enemies in the battlefield.

Nomara shed off her long, brown robes—making it easier for her to engage in combat against her Padawan. In between strikes and dodges, the Jedi Master bantered with the Padawan—giving her words of affirmation or extra tips to better the girl’s combat style. Jidné showed the same amount of promise that she demonstrated in the Initiate Trials; her skill with the lightsaber amplified with Anesh’s rather hands-on method of training, motivated by the aspiration to master Form V: Shien & Djem So—which the master can clearly see in the Padawan’s pattern of movement.

“Steel your nerves, Jidné, that way your Force Shroud doesn’t falter in the slightest scare!” Nomara coached, and the sharp-witted girl took that into mind.

In the next move, Jidné did steel her nerves while cloaked within her Force Shroud, she evaded Nomara’s line of sight and studied her master’s watchfulness until she could find the window of opportunity to strike. Jidné jabbed at Nomara’s direction—to which she flexibly deflected—but immediately pulled away to mislead her master’s eyes; again, she observed the Togruta’s expression and quickly realized that Nomara is still searching for the invisible Padawan.

“Very good, Jidné!” Master Anesh commended albeit incapable to find her Padawan.

Perhaps Jidné didn’t notice it—she didn’t turn visible when she landed that jab and only found out after Master Anesh affirmed her. The child was satisfied and proud of herself, continuing in that same rhythm, the instruction carried on until dusk.

—–

22 BBY

A year has passed since the Clone Wars began.

Members of the Jedi Council were, by default, appointed as generals, much to their chagrin and great contrast to the principles of their Order. A handful of Jedi were also dispatched as an auxiliary military group to aid the clones in fighting the war against Separatist and the droid army.

Seeing that it couldn’t be helped, Nomara—along with her little Padawan—has been named a general. She made peace with the fact that she can never keep a protective umbrella above Jidné’s head—away from all sorts of harm and violence—given that this was the life that her mother preferred for her than digging the earth to live back in her homeworld of Eshyn.

At the disposal of the Jedi General are the 304th Battalion of clones commanded by the trooper captain—CT-7462 or Captain Gat—and a fleet spearheaded by the Venator-class cruiser named Wayward Patriot. The Patriot became the pair’s second home after the Jedi Temple, Jidné’s only consolation and company aside from her master were the clones—which greatly fascinated her. She talked their way into their hearts with her curious questions and playful nature.

“Is training hard for you guys?” Jidné inquired.

The clone chuckled, “Well, it gets a bit tricky sometimes. I mean, it can’t be any different from your training, eh, kiddo?”

“Nah, I have it hard too, I guess,” Jidné shrugged one shoulder, then slowly breaks down into little chuckles. “Who doesn’t get their nerves worked up when they’re fighting another youngling with tons of masters and other kids watching you?”

“Ooh, that does sound tough!” the second clone played along while being genuinely bemused by the girl.

Despite the war, Nomara and Jidné continued their usual days for practice and instruction. The Padawan has made progress in utilizing her Force Shroud until she can now manipulate and bend it to her will. The eleven-year-old also found it thrilling and frightening at the same time—to be exposed to such degree of violence at this early a stage of her life.

“Run along now, little Jid,” the first clone tussled the girl’s head. “General Anesh is waiting for you. Best not to keep her waiting,”

“Right, see you guys later in my free time!”

Jidné hopped and skipped through the corridors of the Patriot until she found the specific room where she usually has her physical lessons with Master Anesh. She walked in on her master conversing with the clone accompanying them on the control room. The Padawan cleared her throat politely to call Nomara’s attention.

“Ah, Jidné, just in time,” Master Anesh cooed, gingerly dismissing the clone with a slow wave of the hand. “Are you ready for today’s practice?”

“Yes, Master Anesh,”

“Very good,” the Togruta turned to the terminal to press a pattern of buttons and then beckoned her Padawan. “Come now, my little one.”

The two of them descended from the control room for the ground level of the room via a turbolift. When they walked to the center of the room, Nomara held up a small remote in hand—with the single touch of a button, the tiles of the floor started to rise, take shape, hover and stick to the walls. The shifting and changing of the environment startled Jidné at first, but she got the hint.

“I didn’t know this room has that!” she beamed.

“It’s very conducive for using skills that you’ll often be utilizing in the battlefield,”

“I’m ready, Master!”

“I like your enthusiasm, Jidné,” Nomara smiled back. “Alright then, whenever you’re ready.”

Beginning with the physical exercises, little Jidné did her personalized set of stretches, she also studied the room—how it looked like, where the blocks are for her to take cover or use to her advantage—with a single passing glance before signaling her master to commence.

“Remember what I taught you, little one,”

“I always do, Master!”

The tile where Master Anesh elevated her until she stands in the same level as the control room, her pedestal remotely stayed in that height. Meanwhile, Jidné remained in the ground, her senses keening as she continues to study the structure of the room—given that the tiles and blocks can change at any given moment of Nomara’s command—while anticipating for her master’s starting signal.

Turrets unfolded from the ceiling of the room, their loud whirring alerted the girl, Nomara forewarned the girl that the guns were configured with non-lethal projectiles set for a training setting.

“Shall we begin, Jidné?”

The girl buckled, “Ready when you are, Master!”

Observing the Padawan scamper across the room, evading blaster fire here and there, Nomara can’t help but ponder to herself in her mind as she watched the girl skillfully evade and deflect the projectiles.

She has become more adept than I either hoped or imagine. That’s good. She’s learned to be strong and willful with the Force.

Her thinking led her to become off-guard of other thoughts. Out of the blue, the whistling noise the turrets made whenever they fire stimulated blurry images and incoherent sounds ringing in Nomara’s drums. She brought her hand to her head, massaging the base of her montral as she struggled to ease the sudden heaviness that she feels within her but couldn’t find.

—–

20 BBY, THE DAY OF THE JEDI PURGE

Jidné joined her master in the conference at the bridge comprised of the admiral manning the Patriot, real-time hologram projections of the Jedi Generals Plo Koon, Depa Billaba and her Padawan Caleb Dume joining the transmission. Jidné recognized Caleb as she has met him during a joint campaign with their masters; the two children smiled at one another upon finding each other in the conference.

The masters concurred in giving each other reinforcement if the need arises. Jidné intently studied the projections flashing in the holotable, reading the inscriptions and data numbers floating beside the diagrams of the weapons and map.

“May the Force be with us all,” Plo Koon bade, not out of custom but out of heart before his projection fizzled out of existence, followed by the other Jedi Masters and the other Padawan.

Nomara released a long sigh, she remained leaning by the edge of the table, her hand brought to her lip as she spaced out into deep thought. Jidné noticed this and didn’t disturb her until she opened her eyes again. The little girl wondered if the Togruta had the same thoughts she’s been having of late, she meant to disclose it to her master but they’ve been piled with tons of transmissions as the tension of the war rages on.

“There seems to be no end, does it, little one?”

“I suppose so, Master, but… We are doing a big help, aren’t we?”

The Togruta noticed the little girl’s tone to have mellowed but there’s a tinge of concern to it. Nomara places her hand gingerly on her dear Padawan’s head, stroking her hair down to her beaded Padawan braid.

“Yes, we are. It’s our job as peacekeepers to stop this kind of destruction from disturbing the planets who don’t deserve and need chaos,”

The master’s words did little to console the girl, despite managing a smile at the Togruta, the feeling of being downtrodden persisted within the young learner. Nomara then shepherded the child to the hangar where their starships await them. Along the way, Jidné didn’t seem to be herself lately.

“Your silence says a lot on your mind, child,”

Jidné jumped a bit, startled that her master pointed out her silence.

“Master, something doesn’t feel right. Please tell me you feel it, too,” it was unusual for Jidné to speak in a hushed tone, Nomara sensed the pang of worry that rung between the words of her Padawan.

She thought she had fully buried that worry into the recesses of her mind, but she was proven otherwise when the same heavy feeling returned to her—clutching and wrenching at her core. It was a bothersome feeling that she can’t exactly pinpoint… at least not yet.

“Yes, I have, my little Padawan. Although, much like yourself, I cannot seem to place my finger where it originates,”

Deploying from the underbelly of the Patriot, Nomara and Jidné’s starfighters led on a squadron of fighter pilots to the surface. The vessels dotted the sky in a crisp V-formation and circled the perimeter of the city in Modala, where thousands—if not hundreds—of battle droids were marching in organized blocks and columns, with the superweapon guarded in the middle of the formation.

“Cleaver, make sure you charge and prepare your ion cannons. We’re going to put that superweapon completely out of commission before it could reach the legislative building!” Nomara barked through her radio.

The fleet of fighters closed in on the surface, getting more range at the enemy by the minute. The droid army was alerted when their radars and scanners picked up a multitude of signatures coming from the Jedi’s fleet and their clones. The sight of their ships caused panic among the sentient, metal beanpoles that are the battle droids.

Nomara forewarned the entire fleet to disperse once the high-intensity ion cannon is fired. When the signal was given, all of the ships flew away from the blast radius that could disable their ships’ auxiliary and main power grids and made a running pass around the perimeter to find a safe landing spot.

“Prepare to continue this on land!”

Jidné licked her lips, a smug smirk curled on her face, “This is where the fun begins!”

The ground assault was tense. The flock of LAAT gunships assisted Nomara from the air, amplifying their firepower against the approaching droids and their superweapon.

Lightsaber in hand, both master and apprentice charged through the line of battle, deflecting blaster fire and cutting down the battle droids by the numbers until they could reach the building in the heart of the city.

The battle was won, but not the war. What seemed to be only hours felt like days, the Jedi and her Padawan have secured the legislative building as the Separatist general who hid in it willingly relinquished it after being arrested. Despite their victory today, Master Anesh could not shake the dark feeling that lingered within her heart.

“General Anesh,” a clone approached the pair to report, standing just behind Jidné. “We’ve made a sweep in the building. The captives and the guards have been freed and are taken to a medical ward in the city.”

“Very good news, please relay that to me later for my report to the Council,”

“Understood, General,” the captain erected his posture and saluted at the Togruta. He excused himself and was about to return to his post by the door, but in the middle of his walk, he answered an incoming transmission labeled as urgent.

Execute Order 66. Groaned an ancient, raspy voice through the muffled feedback of the clone trooper’s comlink.

The Togruta turned her attention to her little Padawan, overlooking the city through the window of the office space.

“Now that Modala’s been freed, are we going to give Master Plo or Master Billaba some reinforcements?”

“That still depends, my little one, we have yet to expect their transmiss—” Nomara abruptly left her sentence hanging, her hand instinctively went to the base of her montral, her fingers curling around the fullness of the horn to alleviate the aching but to no avail.

“Master, are you okay?” Jidné’s voice shuddered.

At the corner of her eye, Nomara spotted the clone aiming his rifle straight at the child’s head; the Padawan noticed the steely look in her master’s eyes and followed its direction, looking over her shoulder only to be face-to-face with the hole of a blaster’s barrel. Everything seemed move in slow motion, her heartbeat was the only thing ringing in her eardrums; the adrenaline sharpened her reflexes and senses, the Togruta brandished her saber, pushed the girl out of the line of fire and then cut down the clone. Jidné registered everything when the deed was done.

“Wha—what was that!? Was he gonna shoot me?! What’s going on?!” Jidné bombarded her master with question who was still recovering from the nausea.

“Jidné, something’s not right. Something’s very wrong,” Nomara panted. “Our clones have betrayed us. We need to leave this place. Now!”

“They’re in here!” the shout of a clone roared through the door, muffling his voice.

Nomara thought fast, she locked the door using the Force and laid out the escape plan to the girl as concisely as possible. However, they were cut short when one of the clones planted a sticky bomb to the door. The master and apprentice quickly cut down the clones that were coming after them, even after that run-in, neither of them withdrew their sabers.

“Where do we go from here?” Nomara thought out loud.

The Padawan peeked over the window again and saw that their starfighters were still intact.

“Master! Our starfighters!”

Both of them vaulted over the desk where they took cover, but before they could leave the room and run out into the open—with the risk of being chased by their clones—the Togruta grabbed Jidné by the shoulder and knelt to her Padawan’s height. Her plan was to split up—making herself live bait to lure out the clones so that Jidné can get to the ships safely. Of course, Jidné preferred sticking close with her master as much as possible, but Nomara tried to talk her into it.

“Whatever happens, you run. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Jidné shuddered. Unable to contain her fear, she threw herself into Nomara’s arms and the Togruta embraced her Padawan in the tightest she could.

Master Anesh held the girl’s small face in her elegant hands, “Now, be brave. Don’t look back. I’ll be right with you. I promise.”

Jidné nodded, in turn, her master mouthed “Go” and the little Padawan girl bolted through the halls. Her legs carried her fast as they could, evading the clones whose senses are now on high-alert for both Jedi and Padawan. As much as she wanted to use her Force Shroud, the sheer levels of stress intervened with her focus—being able to only use it for a few minutes’ worth of running—when she felt that she’s re-materializing, she hugged the walls before turning around a corner to see if the coast was clear.

What went wrong? What changed? These questions screamed and ricocheted on the walls of her skull, and were answered by missed blaster fire and angry shouts of the clones, claiming that they’ve spotted the Jedi running.

“Where’s the little girl!?”

“She’ll come around, get the Jedi!”

Jidné crept to another path in the intersection, she was too busy focusing on the two clones who were in the corner that she didn’t notice the clone in the path where she’s heading into and bumped into his side. The clone was understandably startled, but upon sight of the Padawan, he swung his rifle and struck her across the face, a portion of the weapon had scraped the skin—producing a cut on her cheekbone.

The young Padawan was too frightened and confused to think fast, she crawled backwards—away from the Stormtrooper who was already aiming the barrel at her heart, until an indigo beam of light flew his way, cutting through his torso forward and then another when the lightsaber was spinning back to the direction of its owner.

“Jidné! Are you alright?!”

“Yes, Master Anesh!”

A clone appears out of the corner at the end of the hallway, “The Jedi and the little girl are here! Don’t let them escape!!!”

“This way, child! Come on!”

“Coming, Master!”

The two bolted through the grand, luxurious hallways now strewn with bodies of clones—both from the siege and their betrayal against the Jedi. The closer they think they’re getting to the exit where their starships are, the farther the clones push them in—cornering them into the building like mice in a maze.

Eventually, the clones have led them into the central foyer of the legislative building where they surround the master and her Padawan in a circle. This wasn’t part of Nomara’s plan, so she collected all of her might in her body—while praying to the Force to be with her—and then invisible yet torrential ripples exploded out of her hands, throwing the clones off of their feet and disorienting them. While there’s still a chance, before any of the clones could get back up on their feet again, both Jedi returned to following their original path.

“Keep up with me, Jidné!”

“I’m trying, Master!”

Finally! After losing their breath from evading the clones, the starships were in sight. The hope they thought was lost was regained. The two of them dashed out of the main entrance, the wake of destruction from the siege still ran fresh as smoke pillared to the heavens.

Just when they thought they’ve finally secured their escape, a line of troopers with an ARC Trooper in the middle stood in their way between the starships.

“Get behind me, little one!”

Jidné literally went back-to-back with Master Anesh, lightsaber in hand, and faced the direction of the main entrance anticipating the clones that the Togruta had disoriented using the Force. Not a moment later, the same clones from inside had reached them in the outer lobby.

“Jidné, I want you to do exactly as I say, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Master…”

Nomara spoke in the calmest of voices that Jidné has ever heard amidst the chaos, “Use your Shroud. Now.”

The Padawan’s eyes widened, partially with confusion and immense horror, she had a clue of what her master’s plan is. She didn’t like it—not a single bit.

“Jidné,” Nomara spoke calmly again, but the tone of her voice was hard and strict, so as to not give away their bluff to the troopers. The Togruta’s eye glanced to the side, looking at the frightened Padawan. “Now.”

The ARC Trooper, already trigger-happy, barked at his brothers, “Blast her!!”

“JIDNÉ, NOW!!”

“NOOOOOOOO….!!!!”

In the blink of an eye, Jidné felt like she was flying—and flying she was, Nomara had used the Force on the Padawan to send her out of the line of fire. Jidné only landed a feet away from the circle of clones with the Jedi in the center, deflecting and banking away their shots with the remainders of her strength. Obviously, it was too much for one exhausted Jedi to overpower a ring of fifteen or so clone troopers shooting at her from all directions. The little girl, unaware that she had absentmindedly activated her Force Shroud, witnessed the clone troopers—the other people she called her friends ever since this war began—pelt her master’s body with blaster fire.

Nomara, her body riddled with bullet holes through her armor and clothes, spotted little Jidné—in this instance, she was surprised to be able to see Jidné while the child was under the influence of the Force Shroud, she didn’t sought for the explanation, she was glad that her dear Padawan is unseen and unharmed, although it saddened her when their eyes met; never have Nomara ever seen the little girl so stricken with terror upon what she’s seeing.

As the final fulfillment of her promise—not to the mother anymore, but to the child albeit unspoken—Nomara called upon the Force, amplifying her the nearly-fluctuating energy within her. She pulled her arm back, fist clenched in the tightest that she could hold, and struck the soil hard—this wave was very much stronger than the last, the seismic magnitude of Nomara’s Force ability sent the clones literally flying. Some of the clones caught in the shockwave have died from a shattered spine or a cracked skull upon impact of a rock or the stone ground when they landed.

When the wave died down, Jidné is unscathed, though she’s left with the unfathomable degree of fear that her thirteen-year-old mind couldn’t wrap around. Nomara was still standing—however she’s clinging onto the last threads of dear life as she knows it. The Padawan scrambled up to her feet and caught her master before she could fumble near-dead to the soil.

“Master…” Jidné sobbed, cradling Nomara’s head on her lap.

“Jidné…” Nomara gasped, her vision already blurring and a black ring bordered her eyes.

“I’m here, Master…!”

The master hoists her weak hand to the Padawan’s cheek, her thumb ran across a tear streaming down the girl’s face. She choked as she struggled to speak.

“Jidné… you have to go…”

“No, I can’t leave you here!”

“Please… Jidné, more of them will be coming for you,” coughed Nomara, a tear rolled over her cheek. “Save yourself… Run!”

And with that final word, the bright, sparkling teal of Nomara’s eyes have turned milky and lifeless. Jidné couldn’t yet accept the reality of her master’s death, she shook the Togruta in a hopeless plea to wake up and there was no response. Nomara’s head bobbed limply in Jidné’s scrawny arms, the strand of beads fell from the montral headband and clattered to the dust. The girl picked it up and kept it in her pocket, regretting her decision of setting up a pyre for the deceased Jedi, seeing that this would alert the other clones who might still be looking for her.

Following her master’s final request, Jidné did run. Eventually, her running has brought her into the dense urban area of Modala, the entrance of her new life while leaving behind the one she has always known.

——————————————————–

CURRENT TIMELINE

“And ever since then, I survived Modala… somehow. But it still haunts me up to this day, I can’t seem to let go of it even if I wanted to,”

“We all have lost someone during the Jedi Purge. I know how hard it is to overcome the sadness,”

“Yeah… It’s just difficult to find more ways to cope,”

“How about making me vice president of cheering you up?”

Jidné turned her head to the boy. She chuckled, endeared by his child-like purity, a similar trait she has buried within the depths of her core, though she doesn’t realize that.

“Here, I got something for you,”

Cal produced a trinket strand similar to Jidné’s: a chain of Featherfern and Royal Fluzz buds—two for each—encased in transparent, glass beads. The Jedi girl admired the handiwork with wonderment.

“It’s a saber tassel like yours, I made it myself. My first gift as vice president of cheering you up,”

“It’s beautiful,” Jidné sighed, not wasting a second in tying it up along with her original tassel at the pommel.

She secured it with a tight double-knot, the new addition to her pommel dangled with the turquoise beads as she held it up in front of her and Cal. Finally, her tassel got prettier with the variety in color. She turned to the redhead and smiled warmly at him.

“Thank you… so much,”

“C’mere, you must be cold,” Cal cooed, lifting up his arm to open the sleeve of his poncho to offer his side to Jidné.

The girl scooted closer to the redhead’s side until his arm could wrap around her shoulder. She released what ought to be the biggest sigh to date, she felt her entire body soften up the moment Cal held her close, nuzzling his cheek against her head and curling his fingers tighter around her arm. For the first time in years, she felt safe.

[incarnateirony]

One of the funniest things I’ve encountered recently is antis, from multiple fandom lanes tbh (lbr, they’re usually alternate-ship motivated), but one in particular this last few weeks, being absolutely incensed that I will not argue with them, and have zero reason to prove my read to them.

Various conversations have gone:

Me: “Listen, you can have your read and I can have mine. In the end, one will be right and one will be wrong. Or hell, maybe we’re both wrong. But we can argue circles all day about kiss vs true love or whatever the timeless stupid debate is until we’re blue in the face and nobody is going to be able to change the validity of anybody’s read, especially contingent on the material anybody builds their read from. If your read works for you, so be it.”

Them: “EXCUSE ME?”

Like, what, I’m sorry, does it bother you that I literally don’t have to run the same argument for the thousandth time with you as your predecessors? They went off on a rage fest after that and I’m just sitting over here with my coffee mug like-- I’m sorry, you have me confused with someone who cares. I already said you have the right to your read as long as it works for you. The simple fact is, even if I could demolish it to your face 17 ways to sunday, I won’t, unless you come chumming to try to slap me with it, and even then, I’m not gonna do it in the standard method of piss warring that goes on here and reduces complex texts to My Ship > Your Ship. If you get this mad about it, I’m going to have to assume that somewhere subconsciously, your read isn’t working as well for you as you want, and it bothers you that someone else’s read is securely working for them, because that’s all that really reduces to. And that’s not my problem or responsibility.

This ironically comes to heads of them claiming you think your read is better than theirs. I mean, well, yeah, implicitly; but just as implicitly the sheer tonal offense that I feel no need to justify anything implies they feel theirs is better too. Of course we think, silently at least, that our reads are right. If we didn’t see them, they wouldn’t be our reads. That’s kind of how this works. 

Other ones that piss them off seem to be not even bothering to rehash things I’ve blogged about for years. “I don’t think Dabb is using that theology!”

“Listen, whether you understand it or want to learn it or not is up to you. If you never read the content presented to you for fear that it may have Destiel Cooties, you’re never going to learn what, why or how. Neverminding of course that the better part of my meta orbits around concepts like souls, cosmogenics, and aeons -- you’ve already allocated what you think my meta is about and thus you will never read it. In never reading it, you will never consider it. I can’t force anybody to educate themselves on what this philosophy in play is, but trying to call it just interpretation at this phase in the game is tantamount to calling it Just Interpretation that seasons 4-5 had heavy christian influence and was loosely following the book of revelations as its source despite all the dogma, quotes, symbolism, verses and everything else.”

“EXCUSE YOU?”

I mean-- it is what it is. 

“How dare you sit so smugly!!”

I mean, um. Yeah. If one of us is “the broken clock is right twice a series run” in spec and the other one is prewriting entire episodes or mytharc runs, I really don’t have to sit here and pat-slap around anybody else’s stuff. Even if they’re really, really mad for some reason. Cuz here’s the trap: I pat-slap it around and they get mad about DiFfErEnT oPinIonS. 

In fact this, too, happened.

There’s a multiship server I’m in where everybody has their own sandboxes to play in. While people from a few given ships haven’t figured out how to not be hostile cross-area (though tend to be dealt with swiftly when done so), generally--you stay in your sandbox, you’re left alone.

Now, someone came with very (Ship A) goggled lenses. They could have stayed in their ship corner, squii’ed with like minded people. But instead, they came into a general/spoiler room yelling their idea. Now quite literally, their idea doesn’t add up, not remotely. If someone politely says, “I disagree, and here’s why,” especially without directly attacking a ship but rather the premise of the presentation as it stands within the sum of the mytharc, and doesn’t even have to evoke their own ship into it -- that’s not ship warring. And hell, that’s not being mean. You go to a general discussion area in a server that’s intersectional and you’re going to get general discussion from people with other perspectives. Why this basic self care is beyond them, I’m unclear. 

That’s not being bullied. It just means there’s other takes out there, and if you choose to present those takes in general zones, people can and probably will politely disagree with you. Emphasis on “politely.” Now, polite doesn’t mean putting squishy words and cowing to a way where everybody’s take is completely untouched and everybody floats in their own conversational bubbles never really actually encountering each other’s points of view. It means not extremizing it and trying to warp social justice narratives (eg, ableist, whatever) off of the first impact. It means not reading everything in absolute bad faith. It means not calling people cunts or whatever. Those things clearly aren’t polite. But if you’re going to go to a general speculation zone, you have to be prepared for other forms of speculation.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to argue with the other forms of speculation. Nobody’s entitled to your time. But the simple acknowledgement that there may be other speculation is how this works. You can’t yell “all interpretations are equal” and then rove through general areas, demanding half cracked thoughts of impulse and wishlists that you throw out like law never be presented with another point of view. If you want that, go to a location, or a channel, or whatever where people are literally coalesced that have similar POV/wishlist/egregore/whatever.

Why. Is this. Hard.

When it comes down to it, we’re in the final run. There are seven episodes left. When this is done, what’s done is done. While there may be several ways to interpret the final product, most spec and arguments about who’s gonna die and who’s gonna come back and who’s the endgame XYZ be it unit/pair or family or whatever the FUCK else? Those are gonna be pretty well defined. There’s no infinite extension, no way to extend it to next year while people’s reads stretch more thin than Sam’s rubber band soul. No way to manipulate theories over and over again. That theory you’re sitting on? You have a few episodes left to build on that. After that, it’s done. 

I can’t emphasize enough how pointless it is to argue with people and their various overstretched theories in any given lane. Because what’s gonna happen is gonna happen. Now, if you’re confident in your read, rather than making confused noises or rejoicing overloud because the clock finally appropriately tolled twelve for the first time in 5, 10, 15 years for you; that’s fine. Sit confident.

You know what isn’t confident?

Aggressively feeling the need to prove your worth or merit against reads, a large sum of which in this fandom are outright comical. And let’s face it. We all know it. Somewhere even within your (character) or (ship) lane you’ve even found some sort of spec or opinion that even you kind of hide your face in your hand in embarrassment behind your screen. So why the hell are you contending with opposite points just as ridiculous?

Come on y’all.

If you can’t have nuanced intersectional conversation to safeguard your opinion, don’t go to general areas. If you can’t have that intersectional conversation without turning into a kindergarten slapfight, why even bother? 

I’m not saying to not ideashare or whatever. But this fandom pretends to have no idea what that is anymore, even though most of y’all are grown assed adults or at least pretty damn close. If your read is so sensitive and fragile that the slightest breath contrary to it sends it and you shattering and off into a hysterical frenzy of being offended, maybe it’s better to not try to engage in those areas.

The louder anyone crows in someone’s face trying to incite fights, the less confident they are. It’s that simple. It’s a simple validation thing, “VALIDATE MEEEE FIGHT MEEEEE” we see it all the time even outside of fandom. Why everybody thinks human psychology is so vastly different between fandom and political twitter is a mystery. So why the hell.

It’s not your responsibility to bring down your level of confidence to someone else’s just because they refuse to recalibrate and figure out why they’re so dependent on argued validation, and it’s not wrong to be confident, especially if you have damn good reason to be confident. Confidence does not come in the claim of confidence, but in the principle of behavior around the material in which you are confident. Everything else is disingenuous hot air that bloats the sum of our fandom conversation and sets it on volatile explosion risk on any given day.

[cruelangelstheses]

safe and sound

fandom: avatar: the last airbender rating: T characters: sokka/zuko, jet words: 5.8k additional tags: alternate universe (no bending), first meeting, swordfighting, sharing a bed, light angst with a happy ending, jetko that turns into zukka description: zuko has been searching for a home for a long time. a/n: sup i posted this a While back as an ao3 link for @zukka-week 2018, day 1: swords, but i’m reposting my fics as tumblr posts. this setting is technically an au but basically it’s just like the avatar universe without the four nations/elements, bending, or spirits, and thus the characters’ backstories are somewhat different, and i imagine the city as being pretty much ba sing se

read it on ao3

—

Zuko is not above stealing. He’ll steal an apple or two from a distracted merchant. He’ll steal money from people that he knows have more than enough. He once stole some bandages and medicine after being injured in a fight—the shopkeeper had seen how little money he had and turned him away, and he thought it ridiculous to have to pay to stay alive. No, Zuko does not necessarily object to stealing on principle, not if it’s for survival, not if it won’t hurt the person being stolen from. But something about Jet’s suggestion—to go out on a “spree of liberation,” as he so eloquently (and suspiciously) called it—makes Zuko’s skin crawl.

Jet has “liberated” a lot of things in his life, but Zuko has never actually seen him do it. He’s never really allowed himself to think about it too deeply, nor has he ever asked; it’s one of those things that he’s been content to leave as a mystery. Now, though, he’s about to find out what exactly happens on one of Jet’s “expeditions,” how he gets those expensive-looking weapons and perfectly cured meats.

The night has just begun, the sun having set less than an hour ago, the sky fading from purple to dark blue to black as Zuko quietly closes the door to Jet’s apartment and steps out onto the dimly-lit street. Jet is standing a few paces to the left with his arms folded pensively, and though they both have their faces covered up to the eyes, Zuko can still see the wheels turning as Jet seems to run through an invisible list of potential victims. Finally, he turns to Zuko and beckons with one hand to follow him.

Zuko and Jet have been dating for almost a month now, but the only people who know about it are Jet’s friends. They met at a shitty tavern near the edge of the city, Zuko alone and Jet with those same friends. As it turned out, they were all in similar situations: they were all kids without families, just trying to get by. They understood each other, and that was something precious, something Zuko couldn’t pass up, even against his better judgment.

Zuko has been alone for a few years now, ever since his family died in a devastating explosion. Zuko was the only one to survive, but not without a permanent reminder on his face. He’s been living on the streets ever since then, working odd jobs and sleeping outside or in cheap little inns. Now, of course, he sleeps in Jet’s apartment, which isn’t fancy by any means but serves as the nicest place Zuko has lived in since his family’s demise.

Jet leads him down various side streets into one of the poorer, darker, more run-down areas of the city, the sort of area where one of the biggest concerns is being caught in the wrong place after dark. It’s an area Zuko has spent quite a bit of time in these past few years. In fact, it was while he was living in one of these areas that he decided to buy his dual swords (any weapons that his family had had were lost in the explosion). As Jet slows down and starts to more closely observe the area, slinking against buildings and hiding in dark spots, Zuko’s stomach drops.

“What do you expect to find here?” he whispers, trying to mask his dread. “There won’t be very many valuables.”

“You’d be surprised,” Jet replies smoothly. “And this place isn’t very heavily guarded. You can get a lot more with a lot less risk. I usually start here and work my way up.”

Zuko opens his mouth to say something else, maybe even to try talking him out of it, but before he can actually form words, Jet’s eyes lock on a target: a young woman carrying two bags of food. Zuko thinks he sees bread in one and fruit in the other—basic necessities. Her clothes are plain, and she looks tired from a long day. She is exactly the type of person Zuko would make sure not to steal from.

Reluctantly, Zuko follows Jet’s lead as the woman turns down a lonely alley with few lights and no other people around. Jet darts around the corner after her and uses the end of one of his hook swords to catch her foot and trip her, a trick Zuko has seen him use a few times. The woman falls to the ground, the bags’ contents spilling everywhere. Accompanying the food are a few articles of clothing; it looks as though she just finished buying these things from a nearby market.

The woman gasps and glances up at them, terrified. She seems like she wants to say something, anything, but she’s frozen in fear. Jet swipes one of the pieces of clothing and briefly examines it, as if to determine whether or not it would fit him or any of his friends. Then he turns to Zuko, his eyes narrowed with expectation, silently saying, You gonna help me or what?

At that, Zuko breaks out of his horrified trance—he’s been watching Jet in shock, trying to process everything; he hasn’t even unsheathed his swords. Pulling down his mouth covering, he blurts, “Jet, what the hell?”

Jet stops what he’s doing and tosses the clothing to the ground. Without looking at the woman, he points one of his hook swords at her threateningly, a wordless demand for her to stay put. “Thought you said you didn’t have a problem with stealing,” he hisses to Zuko.

“I do if it’s from people who are just as poor as we are,” Zuko snaps, “if not poorer!”

“Zuko, you of all people should know that it’s every man for himself,” Jet snaps back. He doesn’t waste any time; he’s going straight for the jugular. “You and I, we’re outcasts, remember? We don’t have any allies. We don’t have any family. We had to do everything we could to stay alive. And we still do. You know that.”

Zuko scowls at him and clenches his fists, making his anger clear. Jet’s right, and he’s persuasive, and they both know that Zuko is far from a saint, but none of that stops the feeling in his gut that this is wrong, that he’ll beat himself up for it years down the road if he doesn’t say something now.

“No,” he says firmly, narrowing his eyes at Jet, feeling something akin to disgust rise in his chest, in his throat. “Look at this woman. She can’t be much better off than we are. This isn’t harmless petty theft. You’re practically mugging her. You’re not just doing what you need to do to stay alive; you’re hurting people. People who don’t deserve it—people who didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jet stares back at Zuko, long and hard, his expression unreadable. Then he sighs and lowers his hook sword. To the woman, who is still trembling on the ground, he says, “Grab your things and get out of here. Before I change my mind.”

The woman scrambles to her feet, hastily grabbing the bags and stuffing her goods back into them haphazardly. Within ten seconds, she’s already rounded the corner, running home as fast as her legs can carry her. Zuko silently hopes that nobody else decides to prey on her tonight.

Once the woman is out of sight, Zuko turns to Jet and says, his voice a bit softer now, “Jet, you know I don’t care if you steal from merchants, from the wealthy, from people who have more than enough food and all the money in the world. But I want you to promise me you won’t do something like that again.” Deep down, he knows he won’t be able to stop Jet from continuing to do it behind his back, but he wants something.

After a long pause, Jet says, “Okay. I promise.” It’s quiet but firm.

Zuko, half-expecting Jet to refuse, doesn’t really know what to say, nor does he know what their new plan for “liberation” is.

As if sensing Zuko’s confusion, Jet answers the unspoken question. “You know what?” he says, actually sounding somewhat nonchalant. “Let’s call it a night, okay? We can go all-out some other time. The full moon’s out anyway—too much light.” He raises an eyebrow. “That cool with you?”

Pleasantly surprised, Zuko just nods and says, “Uh, yeah, okay. Lead the way.”

The quick walk back to Jet’s apartment is carefree and comfortable, almost as if nothing happened between them. On the one hand, Zuko enjoys it, feeling like everything has returned to normal. But he can’t shake the tiny, nagging voice in his head that tells him to be on his guard.

They fall right back into their regular evening routine as soon as they return to the apartment: share the same bed (both shirtless), kiss a little (or a lot), fall asleep—Jet with one arm draped around Zuko’s body. In the comfort and safety of the bedroom, the world of crime and violence and immorality feels so far away, like a distant nightmare, like a memory from long ago.

The voice in the back of his mind tells him not to believe it. So when he wakes up in the middle of the night and finds himself alone in the bed, Zuko knows exactly where Jet has gone.

He doesn’t know how late it is or how long Jet’s been out. All he knows is that it’s still dark out (despite the moonlight) and that Jet and his hook swords have mysteriously disappeared. A part of him hopes that it’s not what it looks like, that he’s wrong, that Jet’s not doing anything behind his back. It’s just that, though: a feeble hope, based only on what he wishes were the case, not on what he knows is the truth.

Zuko wastes no time—who knows how many people Jet’s already harassed and mugged? He pulls a shirt over his head and slings his swords’ sheath across his shoulder. Then he heads out into the night, running down the same side streets Jet showed him earlier, searching for any sign of life. He investigates every shadow cast, every movement glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. Just when he starts to think that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Jet isn’t out stealing from the poor, he hears a voice in the distance, yelping, “H-hey!” It’s followed by the clatter of metal hitting the ground.

Zuko bolts toward the direction of the sound. Turning a corner at the end of the street into a dark alley, the first thing he notices is the oddly dark sword lying on the ground near him, a few feet away from the struggle. The next thing he notices is that, just as he suspected, the instigator is none other than Jet, his face inches from the boy he’s antagonizing. “Gimme your money,” he says, his voice low and hostile.

The boy—darker skinned, hair pulled up into a short ponytail, pretty damn attractive—holds his hands up. “Hey, hold on a minute, I don’t have any money,” he protests.

Jet shoves his knee into the guy’s stomach, and the guy gasps in pain. “You’ve got enough for that fancy sword, don’t ya?” Jet says with a slow grin. “Gotta be more somewhere.”

The boy gulps. “And what if there isn’t?”

“Well then,” Jet replies smoothly, “I’m sure that sword’ll fetch a fine price on the market by itself anyway.”

Zuko, who has yet to be noticed by either of them, unsheathes his swords, the sound making his presence known. Jet glances over at him and promptly freezes, like an animal seconds before it’s killed, only much less innocent. “Zuko—”

“Let him go,” Zuko interrupts gravely, taking a few deliberate steps forward. “I’ll fight you if I have to.”

Jet’s eyes narrow, wild with something between disappointment and anger swimming in their dark depths. “I thought you’d understand,” he says slowly, turning away from the boy and tightening his grip on his hook swords. “But I see now that I was wrong about you.”

“I could say the same to you,” Zuko retorts. “Fucking liar.”

Without much warning, Jet lunges at him, hook swords raised, and Zuko blocks them with his own dual swords, steel against steel, the clang echoing through the alley. Zuko shoves Jet back, and as he’s reaching forward to strike with one hand, Jet uses both his hook swords to grab onto the end of Zuko’s, deflecting it to the side. Zuko manages not to lose the sword and swings at him again. Jet leaps backward, but he doesn’t completely avoid the blades; Zuko can distinctly hear and feel the cutting of fabric and flesh, though not very deep.

Jet glances down at the cut on his arm and falters slightly, taking a step backward. Zuko takes advantage of the opportunity and springs on him, making a quick slash at the wrist of his right hand. Jet hisses in pain, instinctively loosening the grip on his sword, and Zuko swings at it with all his might, successfully knocking it out of Jet’s hand. The sword lands on the ground only a foot or two away from the boy Jet was harassing, who snatches it with a clever grin and points it threateningly at Jet.

Jet seems to realize now that he’s outnumbered and lowers his lone hook sword, staring daggers at Zuko. “Traitor,” he spits.

Zuko shakes his head. “I should’ve known. I should’ve known the moment I met you. In a way, I kind of feel sorry for you—the world has been so cruel to you that you think the only way you can survive is by hurting others.” He shrugs. “You’re confused like I used to be. And maybe one day you’ll learn like I had to. But until then…” He puts his swords back into their sheath—he’ll clean the bits of blood off later. “Until then, I don’t want to see you around.” He pauses to let that sink in, and then he adds, “I’ll come back to your place tomorrow to pick up my things.”

Jet scowls wordlessly; he knows he’s been beaten. He holds his hand out toward the boy, who still has Jet’s other hook sword. “Gimme that,” Jet says.

The boy turns to Zuko, as if for permission. Zuko nods at him, and he holds the sword outward. Jet swipes it out of the boy’s hands. He gives Zuko a look of betrayal, of anger, but Zuko can see the hurt that lies beneath it.

“Goodbye, Jet,” Zuko says softly, and something in his heart hurts, too. There’s a significant part of him that wishes it didn’t have to be this way. But it does. If Zuko is going to fully move on from the mistakes of his past, it does.

“Goodbye, Zuko,” Jet replies grimly. Then he turns around and runs swiftly out of the alley, seemingly unfazed as the blood from his cuts starts to run down his arm. He doesn’t look back.

The boy breathes a sigh of relief. “Wow,” he says as he processes everything that just happened. “Thanks, dude. Zuko’s your name, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Zuko says, suddenly feeling his boldness leave him as he looks this guy over more carefully. He’s probably around the same age as Zuko, but a little shorter and lankier, with deep blue eyes and a pretty face.

The boy seems to notice the way Zuko is looking at him (Zuko’s never been good at hiding his feelings), and he smirks knowingly, but not maliciously. “I’m Sokka,” he says smoothly, his eyes twinkling playfully.

“Sokka,” Zuko repeats as Sokka heads over to where his own sword has been lying on the ground. He picks it up and casually wipes the dirt off of it. As Zuko watches him, an opportunity for conversation strikes him. “Why’s your blade so dark?” he asks.

Sokka smiles proudly. “It’s made out of the rock from a meteorite that landed out in the woods recently.”

“I...wow,” Zuko says in genuine fascination, staring at the dark gray sword as Sokka returns it to its sheath.

Sokka stares at Zuko for a second or two, looking like he’s considering something. “Do you, um,” he says slowly, clearing his throat, “have a place to stay for the rest of the night?”

Zuko shrugs without saying anything. He could probably find a cheap hotel or a nice spot on the street to sleep on like he used to, but the truth is that, once again, he doesn’t have any reliable place to stay.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Sokka says firmly. “You could stay with us for the night, if you want.”

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “Who’s ‘us?’”

“My sister and our two friends and I,” Sokka replies casually. “We all share an apartment not too far from here.”

“Oh, uh,” Zuko stutters, somewhat flustered at the offer. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose…”

Sokka waves his hand nonchalantly. “Nah, you’ll be fine,” he says, already starting to walk away. He glances back over his shoulder, as if expecting Zuko to follow him. “Well? I’m sure you’d rather sleep in a warm bed than on the damn ground, and I doubt your boyfriend’ll let you back into his place.”

That catches Zuko completely off guard, and he rushes to catch up with Sokka. “H-hey, how did you—?”

Sokka shrugs, that teasing, knowing grin back on his face with no sign of disappearing anytime soon. “Call it a hunch,” he says. “That fight definitely felt like a lovers’ spat to me.” He doesn’t mention Zuko checking him out, but it hangs in the air between them, unspoken. Sokka knows that Zuko thinks he’s attractive, and Zuko knows that Sokka knows.

After a few moments of near-silence, with the only sound being the sound of their footprints as Sokka leads Zuko to his apartment, Zuko asks, “So, what made you decide to take a walk in the middle of the night, anyway?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sokka replies. “I had a weird dream where food started eating people.”

Zuko snorts; he can’t help it. “Talk about revenge.”

“I know!” Sokka says, his voice going up an octave, throwing his hands up in the air. “But anyway, usually eating helps me when I wake up in the middle of the night, but obviously I wasn’t gonna do that this time. So I thought I’d take a little night walk instead.”

“If you were just taking a walk, then why’d you bring your sword with you?”

Sokka just laughs at that, short and sharp. “In case I got attacked.”

Zuko laughs a little, too, something he doesn’t do very often—he didn’t even laugh all that much when he was with Jet, and yet Sokka’s gotten him to laugh within half an hour of knowing him. That’s impressive, to say the least. “Well,” he says, “it looks like it didn’t help you out that much anyway.”

“He caught me off guard, okay?” Sokka insists, but he’s still smiling. “The guy’s stealthy. I admit it. But if I’d had my boomerang, too, he would’ve been in for it, I’m tellin’ ya.”

When they reach the apartment, Sokka lowers his voice and warns Zuko to be quiet, since everyone else is likely still asleep. Zuko can’t make out much in the darkness, but the apartment has a similar layout to Jet’s, though it doesn’t have as many rare or expensive items obtained under suspicious circumstances. Most of the things that Zuko sees are things he’d expect to see in most people’s homes—rags to clean with, some pots and pans, a few articles of clothing strewn across the floor. So far, the most remarkable possession he’s seen of theirs has been Sokka’s “space sword,” as he calls it.

“So, uh, we’ve got two beds,” Sokka whispers, “for four people, but Toph always sleeps on the floor.” He gestures to a dark shape on the floor of the main room that must be Toph. “Aang and Katara usually share the one bed because both refuse to share one with me.” He points toward the open door that leads into a small bedroom area. The other bed, decently-sized, rests near the corner of the main room, which also consists of a small living area and a kitchen.

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “Why don’t they want to share with you?”

Sokka smiles sheepishly, looking embarrassed but trying to hide it. “I just toss and turn a lot. And sometimes I accidentally steal the blankets.” He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “So, um...I can, uh, sleep on the floor,” he says slowly, “if...you’d be uncomfortable...you know.” Even in the darkness, Zuko can see a blush on Sokka’s cheeks.

Zuko shrugs. He genuinely doesn’t care if he sleeps in the same bed as Sokka; at least it’s a bed, and he’s slept in much stranger places with much stranger people. (And there’s also the fact that Sokka is very attractive, and Zuko would be completely fine with sharing his warmth. But that doesn’t influence his decision at all, of course not; that would be ridiculous.) “I don’t mind,” he says out loud. “Really. It’ll be fine.”

Sokka sort of smiles at that, seeming almost relieved. “Okay,” he says, making his way over to the bed. He takes his shoes off and leans them up against the wall, then pulls the sheath of his sword off his shoulder and rests it on the floor next to the bed. He lets his hair out of its ponytail and rests the tie on the nightstand, then climbs into the bed. The covers are already somewhat messy, but only on Sokka’s side.

Zuko takes his own shoes off and rests the sheath of his swords on the floor next to the bed like Sokka did. Then he awkwardly crawls under the blanket, trying to be calm and fucking normal instead of thinking about how pretty Sokka is and how close they are. He can’t blow this.

“What’ll your friends think when they wake up and see a stranger sleeping in your bed?” he asks as the thought hits him.

“My sister might freak out a little, but other than that, it should be fine once I explain what happened. Don’t worry,” Sokka replies calmly.

Zuko rolls onto his side so that his back is facing Sokka. As he’s lying there, it finally hits him, just how much everything has changed in so little time. He broke up with Jet, and he’ll be on his own again, and he’s sleeping in the bed of some guy he just met, and everything is weird, and yet it doesn’t feel bad. He thinks he might even be okay with it.

After only a few minutes, Sokka whispers, his voice barely audible, “Zuko.”

Zuko rolls over to see Sokka sitting up, looking contemplative. “Yeah?”

“I have a question,” Sokka says quietly, “and you don’t have to answer it, but I was just wondering.”

Zuko takes a deep breath. Here it comes, the inevitable question, the question everyone asks soon enough after meeting him: the scar question.

But what comes out of Sokka’s mouth isn’t what Zuko expects. Instead, Sokka asks, “What did you mean when you said to Jet—that was his name, right?—when you said he was confused like you used to be? When you said maybe he’d learn like you had to?”

Zuko sighs in relief. Strangely enough, it feels easier to him to answer this question than it does to answer the scar question. Maybe it’s because he’s made peace with his past, with his mistakes. But he still hasn’t made peace with his family’s brutal deaths, especially his mother’s; he was closest to her. He doesn’t think he’ll ever make peace with it.

Zuko sits up on his elbows. “After I...became homeless, I did a lot of things that I regret. Things like what Jet was doing. I was angry at the world, and sometimes I think I still am. I don’t rely on it anymore, but I did then. I stole food from people who were starving because I didn’t care. I thought that I was better than them, that I deserved food more than they did. I got into fights with anyone who so much as looked at me the wrong way. A lot of them were kids or teenagers. One was probably around ten or eleven, and I think I was fourteen.” He sighs, remembering all the bloody noses, bruises, deep cuts, and broken bones he’s given people over the last few years.

“It got worse before it got better, especially after I got my swords. I mugged poor, innocent people. You would’ve wondered why I never got an apartment or anything, what with all the money I stole, not to mention the odd jobs I worked sometimes. I think it was because I didn’t want to stay in the same place. I liked running around with nowhere to be and everywhere to go, and besides, it would’ve been easier for other people to trace me if I stayed in one place, instead of committing a crime and then disappearing. I think I must’ve slept in every hotel in the city, except the really high-end ones.”

Sokka watches and listens, not judging, at least not openly. His gaze is intent and sincere. “What changed?” he says softly. “What made you stop?”

Zuko sits up more, leaning the pillow up against the wall and then resting his back against it. “It happened not too long after I turned fifteen. One evening there was this awful fire in another section of the city that destroyed several houses, and that night, across the street from where the fire had been, I saw this little kid sitting on the curb, all curled up into a ball and crying. He was maybe eight or nine. I remember not wanting to care. I remember just wanting to walk away and forget about it, because it wasn’t my problem. But I had a bad feeling about why he was crying, so I went over to him.” He closes his eyes briefly, imagining it, remembering every detail.

“He didn’t notice me at first, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just kind of sat down next to him, and that’s when he looked up at me. He asked me what I was doing, and I honestly didn’t really know, so I told him that I saw him crying and felt like I couldn’t just leave him there, which was the truth. When I looked at him closer, I realized he was partially covered in soot with a couple of small burns. He told me that his parents hadn’t made it out of the fire, that his home and his family were all gone and he didn’t know what to do. That was the first time in a long time that I’d felt sympathy for anyone. I saw myself in this kid, and I realized then that I didn’t want him to grow up hating the world and everyone in it. So I turned to him, looked him right in the eye, and told him to promise me he would never hurt someone for no reason. I remember how confused he was, because to him, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the fire. I explained to him that when you go through something hard, sometimes it makes you bitter and angry, and I told him that I didn’t want that to happen to him. So he nodded and said that he promised, and then I gave him a bunch of money that I’d stolen the night before, and I told him to find someone that would help him, like a neighbor or an uncle or a family friend or something. He said he’d try and ran away, and then I sat down on the curb where he’d been sitting and thought about everything I’d done.

“It was hard to go through all those victims and put myself in their situations, but I did it. It was like seeing that kid had opened the floodgates and made me able to care about people again. Up until then, I think I’d locked my heart up. I never allowed myself to feel anything other than hatred and anger, because anything else made me weak.”

There’s a stretch of silence after Zuko finishes as Sokka seems to process everything. Then he says, gently, his eyes soft, “Is that what happened to you? With the fire?”

Zuko bites his lip as he remembers hearing something burning, as he remembers looking through the little window in one of the doors with his left eye just seconds before the explosion. He doesn’t look at Sokka when he says it. “Something very similar. Yeah.”

“I...I’m sorry,” Sokka says, sounding genuine. “Katara and I lost our mother six years ago.” He reaches his hand out tentatively, his gaze filled not with pity but with understanding. Normally, Zuko would shy away. Normally, the scar is off-limits. But this is far from normal.

Sokka pauses right before his hand reaches Zuko’s face, as if silently asking permission. Zuko nods. “You can touch it.”

Sokka moves closer to Zuko and rests his hand on Zuko’s cheek, his fingers feeling the burned flesh. They’re so close now, only inches away, and all Zuko has to do is lean forward and bridge the gap.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, his hand never moving, “I don’t know what exactly it is about you, but I feel...close to you for some reason. Even when I first saw you fight with Jet, I was drawn to you.”

Zuko’s heart starts to beat faster. “I, uh, I could say the same to you.”

And then they’re kissing.

It’s soft and slow, gentle and tender, Sokka’s fingers lightly brushing against Zuko’s skin. Zuko drapes his arms over Sokka’s shoulders, sighing when Sokka runs his tongue across Zuko’s bottom lip. It’s bliss, but not an energized, ecstatic bliss, like the way kissing Jet felt like. It’s more of a glowing sort of bliss, a tranquil and safe sort of bliss, warm but not scorching. Whereas kissing Jet felt like fireworks, hot and wild but short-lived, kissing Sokka feels like a hearth—like coming home.

When they break away, both of them mildly out of breath, Sokka kind of laughs and says, “Well, now I know I wasn’t misreading the signals or anything.”

He’s referring to Zuko checking him out, and Zuko’s face heats up a little. “Well, yeah, I guess I’ve never really been the best at subtlety.”

Sokka just smiles and says, “Would it be okay if I...saw you again sometime?”

Now Zuko’s definitely blushing. “I, uh, yeah,” he stutters. “Of course.”

Across the room, an annoyed voice groans, “Great performance, lovebirds; now will you please go to sleep?”

Sokka and Zuko both jump. Zuko doesn’t think he’s ever been more embarrassed in his life. One of Sokka’s friends—the one who sleeps on the floor, Toph, if he remembers correctly—is awake. He doesn’t know how much she’s heard, but apparently, she’s heard enough.

“Toph!” Sokka hisses. “Way to ruin the moment!”

“Way to ruin my sleep,” Toph retorts. “Your gross kissing noises interrupted my dream. This guy better be cute.”

“I—he is!” Sokka says, his voice cracking, also clearly embarrassed. Zuko tries not to smile (and fails miserably).

“I don’t trust your opinion,” Toph replies bluntly. “I’ll ask Katara in the morning.”

Zuko looks over at Sokka quizzically. “Can’t she just decide for herself?” he whispers.

“She’s blind,” Sokka explains. “She has no idea if you’re cute or not.”

“Guys, what’s going on?” another unfamiliar voice asks. Someone steps out from the other bedroom into the main room and turns a nearby lamp on: a girl who looks a lot like Sokka, but a little bit younger—his sister, most likely. “Sokka, who’s—?”

“Sokka’s new boyfriend,” Toph interrupts from her place on the floor.

“He’s not my—we just met!” Sokka sputters, blushing.

“Yeah, but that didn’t stop either of you from pouring your hearts out to each other. And then making out.”

“We were not making out!” Sokka insists, his voice going up an octave again; Zuko thinks it’s cute. “My tongue and Zuko’s tongue didn’t meet once!”

Another person steps out of the bedroom and into the main room, a younger boy with black hair. He rubs his eyes. “Okay, guys, you know I’d prefer it if we didn’t argue at all, but if we have to, can’t we do it after sunrise?” Then he glances over at the bed and, noticing Zuko, raises an eyebrow. “Um, Sokka, I’m not judging or anything, but why is there a random guy with a scar in your bed?”

“Can we please just discuss this in the morning?” Sokka groans. “This guy saved me from his ex-boyfriend who was trying to mug me and he needed a place to stay so I told him he could sleep here for the night. And I’m probably gonna keep hanging out with him, so be nice.”

“Katara, I want your honest opinion,” Toph says to the other girl. “Is this guy cute?”

Katara seems to think for a moment, and Zuko tries to hide his self-consciousness. Finally, she says, “Um, yeah, actually, he’s not bad-looking.”

“Great. That’s all I needed to know,” Toph says. “Now can we all please go back to sleep?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” the boy—Aang—says, turning around and heading back into the bedroom. After giving Sokka a skeptical look, Katara turns the light back off and follows Aang.

“I’m sorry for them,” Sokka says immediately. “They’re nice, I swear, but they don’t know you and it’s the middle of the night and they’re cranky.”

“I can still hear you, you know,” Toph grumbles.

Sokka ignores her. “Anyway, um, we should...probably get some rest,” he says slowly. “It’s been a long night. I can give you a proper introduction in the morning.”

Zuko just smiles a little and lies back down; this time, though, he’s turned toward Sokka, not away from him. “You know,” he says, “you and your friends...almost feel like a family of sorts.”

Sokka shrugs, but he’s smiling, too. “We are.”

Zuko hasn’t had a family in so long.

“Maybe one day,” Sokka says, his voice soft, “you can be a part of it, too.”

That night, Zuko sleeps better than he has in a long time, probably since before his family died. He revels in the feeling of Sokka’s warm body next to his. When he was with Jet, it felt good. But when he’s with Sokka, it feels right, like finding something that he thought he’d lost forever.

Like coming home.

[teamoliv-archive]

🔥

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.

Well I suppose it’s time for this one...

Can we talk about ship expectations in RP for a moment?

This is an odd topic for me mostly because it’s not something that I personally deal with so a lot of this is from an outsider perspective. This is just down to the fact that I don’t play canon characters for the most part. However, I’ve noticed it’s pretty common, particularly in this fandom, for players of canon characters to be effectively expected to be on board with certain popular fan ships, to the point where I’ve seen players who aren’t actively criticized.

The most common offenders are only for a few characters, but it’s so pervasive that I wonder how many of them are actually in for the ship, how many simply write well with their usual partners, and how many just go along with it due to expectation. Before the show gave both some actual substance these last few volumes, the ever-popular Bumblebee and Renora ships were something that I’ve seen some RPers I known get flak for not immediately running with it when approached for interaction by a blog of the ship’s counterpart as a brand new interaction. I’ve seen the same thing for Qrow blogs who don’t have their rendition having some kind of lingering romantic feelings for Summer as is the common fanon and/or be unwilling to pair with a Winter. Other STRQ combinations, Glynda/Ozpin, and some permutations of other adult characters also seem to get this to a lesser extent, but it seems like the further away from the three or four hugely popular fan ships, it does wane a bit.

Now, the first two of ships had subtext that could have related to it in the show and one later become direct canon while the other all but confirmed at this point, but before that, it was hell for a lot of canon players who weren’t treating it as already such to dare say their character wasn’t going to be involved in a popular fan ship and several I know have left the fandom entirely due to shipping wars they were unwillingly dragged into because of the character they played.

This isn’t a condemnation of any ships themselves or anyone who does ship them. However, do not assume that players of canon characters will automatically be on board with a ship purely because of the character they play.

OCs are of course not safe from this either, but a similar situation can occur when one player wants to ship characters and the other either doesn’t or isn’t sure. There’s a common practice I see among ship-centric plots where romantic interest is just assumed to be reciprocated eventually because they want a ship and the other player didn’t directly say ‘no’. This is dumb and uninteresting to me. One-sided crushes exist, people can pine for someone they’ll never be with, or sometimes a relationship just doesn’t work out or something disastrous ends a relationship. I’ve done this with my own characters before with some people taking the drama in stride and others just dropping entire sections of dynamic because it didn’t go the way they wanted. It’s less specific, but I feel the core of the problem of just expecting a ship to happen because of an arbitrary reason or a single interaction that could have had some subtext to it. If you want a ship to be the first interaction between two characters, I’m probably going to say no on principle unless we can come up with a good narrative reason; the Valentine’s Day blind date threads I’ve decided to make an annual thing are a lot of fun, for example. However, even then, there’s no guarantee things will go well past that.

Canon or OC, I firmly believe that shipping needs buildup. Even canon ships can have some fun playing up some background buildup with small threads, events, or other things that can lead up and give backstory to a romantic dynamic instead of leading with one. I’ll admit that’s more my take on storytelling than anything else, but I feel a lot more people could learn from trying to slow things down and not just assume a ship is going to happen.

[llawlietofficial]

What type of characterisation do u like for fics? I do find that fic from back in the day is mostly 1 dimensional but I was curious what ur issues w it where?

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this but I’m gonna be real my opinions on stuff like this have led to me being labeled toxic to the point where people have literally implied they want me and people who share similar opinions with me to leave the fandom, so I’ve been kind of hesitant to answer something like this bashing some recent characterization again. So if you’re one of those people I’m sorry and you should probably stop reading now.

opinions under the cut with some lawlight characterization stuff I don’t like + some stuff I do like:

Honestly? I try and read at least the first chapter or so of every new lawlight fic in the tag and recently it’s been impossible for me to enjoy a lot of it because when I read it it just doesn’t feel like L and Light to me at all? Like it feels like someone at some point wrote a big fic with strong characterization and interesting characters, except they weren’t much like L and Light and they acted in ways L and Light wouldn’t act. And a lot of fics now are based off that same characterization, which in turn inspires fics with that characterization, rinse and repeat. And that’s just not enjoyable to me when I’m looking to read lawlight fanfiction.

Obviously old lawlight fanfiction wasn’t all 100% perfect and there were a lot of doozies in that mix too but it felt like there were more really solid multichapter fics that might have been messy and toxic in ways but they made sense with the canon characters. And fics that did have a happy ending and some fluff thrown in were still written using circumstances that could be believable, even if it took a long time or a slow burn to get there.

To answer your question more specifically, here’s some common tropes that feel out of character to me (and I’m not calling out any specific author or saying fics that do any of these things are poorly written because they’re not and we have a lot of talented and dedicated people here):

Either one of them changing their principles and switching sides within the first 20k words and without a LOT of persuading. IMO “we’re two sides of the same coin and not that different despite both being hugely stubborn” is shit I love, “actually I’ve sided with you secretly the whole time/your magical dick has cured me of disagreeing with you/I’m willing to sacrifice the principles I literally died for in canon easily because I want to be with you” is shit I don’t love.

“We suddenly agree and work super well together as partners now that we’re in an AU and there’s no death note” doesn’t feel authentic to me because death note or no death note their entire outlook on the world is different. Light would think L’s methods are disgusting. L would think Light’s initial idealism is naive. Light believes mankind is inherently good and once you get rid of the bad that can shine, L…doesn’t seem to share that. That’s not to say they can never work together but the good shit is when it’s a long journey into understanding each other and where they’re coming from and slowly making compromises and falling in love.

L being a naive uwu tries his best baby who’s being taken advantage of by Light. Light being a misguided uwu baby who tries his best and is being taken advantage of the whole time by L. They’re more complex than that and they’re both bad people but they also both have good sides so any sort of simplification of the characters into one being a villain and one being a victim is uninteresting to me. 

They shouldn’t work but somehow despite everything they do, because they’re alone and because despite disagreeing and being enemies by circumstance and by beliefs, they know without the other they’d never really be challenged or fulfilled. That’s neat. I like that. It’s messy. They’re drawn to each other even as they’re disgusted with each other.

It’s more interesting when they are their own conflict rather than the conflict solely coming from outside sources.

The 500000 fics where Light is a rebellious and progressive omega who actually secretly wants to be protected by L and feels grateful that they’ve found each other? don’t love that. I dislike omega fics in general even if there’s a couple I’ve thought were pretty alright so that doesn’t help either. It is kind of interesting that despite their differences this could be an in-universe reason to force them together. It just seems like omegafic is the lawlight default right now. Like even fics where the plot doesn’t revolve around omegaverse stuff is sometimes omegaverse and that’s ? hard for me to wrap my brain around? that’s not just a lawlight problem though that seems to be happening in a lot of fandoms

Similarly to point one, either of them being okay with losing like lol what. 

yotsuba can be difficult to tackle because there’s so much going on there with the characters, but there’s so many interesting layers to explore and dive into that sometimes get ignored in favor of fluffy hijinks and that’s boring to me. from Light’s perspective L took everything from him and has made his life pretty miserable because of this whole Kira thing and catching the real Kira is the only real thing that could totally clear Light’s name and L just sort of….gives up, for a lot of it. mopes about and acts unmotivated and uninterested because Light isn’t Kira. that’s probably very frustrating for light! and fun wacky fluff or hijinks can happen, but I love when it happens in the “we got so distracted being the smartest people in the room we forgot we’re supposed to be enemies” way because that’s juicy to me

sometimes it’s the little things, too, that bother me. stuff that’ll happen and it’ll completely pull me out of the story. like L Lawliet made Naomi Misora destroy her whole damn computer after he slid into her DMs and you really think there’s any way in hell he’d have any sort of google home or siri or alexa? or casual social media, even under fake names? facebook knows everything. or light saying something or making a joke that i could never in a million years see him saying in canon because the author thought it would be funny or cute. 

anytime Light is suddenly some kind of beacon of goodness champion of justice just because he didn’t find the death note. the death note didn’t make him a completely different person, he’s bitter and jaded and thinks some people would be better off dead even before getting the death note. self righteous yeah totally but actually righteous? nah man

or Light just being a fucking awful person who kidnaps and r*pes L because he lusts after him but it’s okay because somehow in the end they end up together ? i’ve seen that trope a few times and i know it existed in 2007 too i just avoided it like the plague then also. 

I see a lot of AUs that are less “what would L and Light legitimately do if this was the situation or universe they were placed in” and more “i want to write this situation happening like this and i want to make it lawlight because that’s my main ship” 

like, the characters that are being written are fine but if you want to write OCs right OCs. I know all of this seems really harsh which is why I put a warning about it at the beginning, and of course I know some of these problems were also prevalent between 2013-2017 and there’s tropes here that have been happening like this since the dawn of lawlight fanfiction, but since it’s happening now and now is when i’m frustrated by it now is what i’m complaining about, it could be the reason i go back to older fanfiction so much is because i had lower standards back then and it was easier for me to wade through the ones i hated to get to ones i liked and now it’s easy for me to find those again. who knows. Also I agree most fanfiction from 2007-2009 were pretty 1 dimensional. 

And like, fuck me I guess but I actually like the canon characters and I joined the fandom to experience more of them and apparently that makes other people feel unsafe.

I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to express opinions that are different than me or that I Know Better Than Everyone Else or that I don’t like people posting their own headcanons or ideas or things they wish were different about the series, it’s just not my cup of tea and it’s a little frustrating that fanon is mostly all I get in fics now and that people are allowed to express opinions but only if those opinions are “people who stick too close to canon are elitist and should die and are sticks in the mud and need to leave the fandom to stop ruining things for everyone else” because like, we’re people too?

Anyway sorry this veered in a bit of a different direction and I hope I don’t lose followers over this because it’s sad to see people go but I’ve been blogging here for over 5 years and I’m not going to stop anytime soon. I also wrote most of this while having bad anxiety at like 3am last night so it’s all over the place and i’m probably going to think of like eight things in the shower later I forgot to mention because i’ve been thinking over this ask for like two weeks now. 

[seyaryminamoto]

I know this isn't your primary fandom, but I'm curious. What would you say are the problems with Thor: Ragnarok? For me, personally, it was the worst Thor movie. Completely unfaithful to the source material, bleeding of convenience writing and full of shoehorned bathos that killed any 'serious' moment.

Ha.. ha.. ha… ha…

I kind of was grateful no one had asked me this on Tumblr, but you just had to go for it, huh, Anon? Yeah, yeah you did, and now I have to do this. Now I have to rant. And risk getting a ton of people yelling at me for my controversial opinions.

But you know what? Quoting my good old buddy Oghren, “sod it”. This movie deserves it.

I think Ragnarok has no saving graces. It’s really that simple. I will of course elaborate on why throughout this post, but I’m really glad you believe it’s the worst Thor movie because so do I. In fact, I think it’s the worst of all the MCU, I can’t think of any I disliked more. Even the very controversial Ultron has more to its favor than Ragnarok, and that’s saying a lot.

So, where should we begin?

You’re quite right about it not being faithful to the source material, convenience writing oozes out of the screen all the time, it’s guilty of terrible humor worthy of a 14-year-old in the throes of puberty, and it’s incapable of keeping true to the previous established films in the same cycle. But there are explanations for all of this, of course.

First things first: when Thor: Ragnarok was announced, everyone was horrified and for good reason. No one who cared about Thor’s story and characters wanted to watch a horrible, nitty-gritty movie that would kill all the characters they’d grown to love over time. That’s what Ragnarok promised, initially. Remember the original design for the logo, when the movie was first announced?

Yes, it looked dark. Extremely dark. It sounded like it was going to be an angst fest. And nobody likes an angst fest (not true, a lot of people do, but not enough to make up for the tickets that wouldn’t have been sold if the movie had been dark instead of humorous).

So, after promises of making this movie the be-all, end-all for the Thor franchise, suddenly the executive team behind it was changed. That’s when the very acclaimed Waititi came into the picture. Not only did he scrap everything that had been prepared for the movie, but he did so by outright removing reported elements that could have genuinely made the movie better than its predecesors.

By this I mean, there was a lot Ragnarok could have, and should have done, to improve on what the previous movies did wrong. The first of such things was creating a better bond for the audience with Asgard, with the asgardians, with the people whose world we were about to see destroyed. This bond was not entirely absent for a large portion of Thor’s fanbase: there were people who liked Thor’s friends, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. People complained about Frigga’s fridging, not only because it was unfair that she was relegated to that kind of writing in The Dark World, but because they liked her character too.

Were Thor and Thor: The Dark World less than stellar at the box office? Okay, sure, let’s say they were. Let’s not deny that. But…

The only MCU-related franchise with more content on FF.net than Thor is the Avengers. Thor has more fics on FF.net than Frozen. And if you think these fics are all from Ragnarok’s era, you’d be sorely mistaken: Thor Ragnarok came out on October 10th, 2017. I went back on the list of fics, turns out there are 422 pages: October 10th, 2017, is only the 56th page. The 56th. Please, let’s let that sink in. THAT is how much content was made for Thor before this damn movie even came along.

Don’t care for FF.net, though? I know a lot of people don’t. Do we really think AO3 will yield a considerably different result?

The “Thor (Movies)” tag features a total of 38,932 fics today. That’s thrice as much as what FF.net features. A total of 1947 pages. October 10th is at the 658th page. Again, more than half the content was written BEFORE Ragnarok. Not only this, but a lot of the content post-Ragnarok is quite likely not canon-compliant, as is typical in fanfiction (I saw quite a lot of Loki/Jane stories written after Ragnarok happened, and as anyone would know, Jane has been written out of the MCU so far, ergo the 2017-owards stories aren’t even necessarily taking Ragnarok into consideration).

Therefore, was the Thor franchise a box office failure? Man, I can’t even say if it was or wasn’t. But the fan response for Thor far outdid most everything else in the MCU. The thing is, it wasn’t the fan response Feige and the Marvel people were after. It’s basically the same concept as why Young Justice was cancelled back in the day: the target audience wasn’t responding to it as much as the audience they were actually reaching. Thor resounded the most with women, with an audience that saw a romantic hero where Feige and his cronies wanted a big buff moron who smashed on par with the Hulk. And that just wasn’t acceptable for these big executives.

Honestly, considering that the original Thor earned $449.3 million, and The Dark World earned $644.6 million, I don’t even know why they’re talked about as box office failures. Were they not as big as the other Marvel movies? I assume as much because of how people talk about them, and yet box office results that triple a movie’s budget should be far from failure. These movies were not flops. They may not have been the most successful with the critics and with a large portion of the audience, but like I said above, they generated a HUGE fan response. Bigger than many other fandoms related to the MCU (over at AO3, only Captain America beats Thor, from what I’ve seen).

So, my point is… would it have been THAT BAD to have a third movie that followed up on the previous two? Would it have been a box office flop? Considering that Marvel has a huge fanbase that watches every single movie they release without really caring about what’s in it, just because it’s Marvel, I don’t think it would have been a flop at all. Having Thor’s franchise as a less successful side of the MCU in terms of money, but more successful in terms of fanbase, would have been just fine, as far as I can tell.

But what do Feige and his buddies want? Money. And that’s why they went to Waititi.

Oh, people will say that Waititi was only an indie filmmaker, how could they know he was going to make a movie this big?! Well, the thing was, James Gunn was busy, so they had to find someone who was willing to make of Thor the same success Guardians of the Galaxy was and Waititi offered to do just that for them. Because, let’s be real: Ragnarok is practically a rip-off of Guardians of the Galaxy. Not only because of the style of the movie, not only because of the humor, but even because it’s fundamented on the notion of “unlikely team-up between different and damaged people united for the common goal of saving the world!”, which yes, you could say is the same notion that made Avengers what it was, but in Avengers there’s an actual effort to get the team together. S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted these specific superpowered people to work together to stop Loki. Here? It’s the same concept as Guardians of the Galaxy because a twist of fate, pretty much, brings all these people together by chance and they team up to put an end to a nasty threat. So, yes. Guardians of the Galaxy rip-off.

Why was it bad to recreate Thor as Guardians of the Galaxy, though? That’s what a lot of people might ask. Well, here’s the deal: you don’t expect Captain America to feature in something that feels like an Antman movie. You don’t expect Ironman to star as the protagonist in something more befitting of a Black Panther movie. Marvel movies are all largely similar in terms of how formulaic they tend to be, but they usually have their independent contexts, their IDENTITIES, and those identities aren’t easily replaced just like that.

Thor had its own identity. That identity was marked by Kenneth Branagh’s original Thor movie: it was practically Shakespeare in space. The development of the characters, its character-driven-storytelling, the organic unfolding of each situation, the understandable motivations of each characters, both heroes and villains, all of it made the original Thor something DIFFERENT in the early MCU. Ironman was the flagship of the MCU at the time, and Thor came out as a completely different story with ONE link to Ironman, in the form of Agent Coulson. Ergo, Thor stood on its own. Did it not stand as tall as the others, like I said? Big effing deal. It was its actual own thing. You could watch Thor without watching anything else and you would still get a fully-rounded movie.

Oh, but apparently it was a snoozefest for a large portion of the MCU fanbase who came here hoping to find the ten thousand action sequences from Captain America: The Winter Soldier or so. Shakespeare in space? That’s just lame! That’s just boring! Character-driven storytelling isn’t cool unless you have explosions on par with a Michael Bay movie! 

Well, to such “critics”, I’ll just say: Ragnarok wasn’t exempt from making people fall asleep either. I already have heard of several people who fell asleep halfway through, and my own mother couldn’t even finish it in a single sitting because of how utterly boring and annoying she found it. She ended up enjoying Deadpool better and she usually hates gratuitous violence on principle. Enough said.

Alright, so moving on: what else comprised Thor’s original identity? Humor. Oh, sure, it wasn’t “14-year-old boy in the midst of puberty” humor, but it was still humor. How many jokes have been made about Thor’s mug-smashing? How about him asking for a large enough dog to ride? Darcy made a lot of people laugh too. Are we really going to pretend none of that happened because “Ragnarok is funnier”? Or is it everyone just forgot about those things, quite conveniently? Thor was hardly a dry, dark and gritty franchise. It’s never been like that. Pretending otherwise to justify Ragnarok’s complete shift of tone and character is absolutely ridiculous.

The Dark World borrowed from Thor’s original identity and built up from there and Avengers to create a story largely disliked by fandom and critics and pretty much everyone, apparently. Still… it had a ton of jokes. If humor was all that mattered, why the hell was The Dark World not as successful? :’D Thor hanging the hammer on the rack, Darcy tossing the keys into the crazy dimensional portal, “How’s space?” “Space is fine”, Loki’s entire prison break sequence, just about everything with Selvig? Don’t come at me now and pretend nobody found any of this funny because there were posts, memes, EVERYTHING, going around about all this. Ergo, why exactly is it that HUMOR was deemed as the one thing this franchise needed when it was ALWAYS THERE?

Thor’s franchise had its failings here and there, perhaps. Maybe they could have handled things better, like I said above. But the failings were not what Feige identified, as far as quality goes. Again, though, what we really were facing was a big ole money-grabbing scheme from a big businessman. And all the audience fell for it like lemmings leaping into nothingness.

What exactly did Ragnarok do, then, to garner my rejection, spite and absolute disapproval?

First things first, like I said above, Waititi did away with everything that gave Thor’s franchise an identity. I’m going to get this first thing out of the way, but keep in mind that this is just the start: Waititi’s movie started to make mistakes I could barely forgive it for by doing away with TWO female characters who, as I proved with the link above, one of them (Sif) was reported to have an important role in the movie before Waititi came along. The actress for the other character, Jane, had said she was “done with Marvel”, but this was misunderstood and misinterpreted by fans as “Oh Natalie Portman HATED working in Marvel SO FUCKING MUCH, that’s why they got rid of her!”, when in truth…

“As far as I know, I’m done,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know if maybe one day they’ll ask for an Avengers 7, or whatever.” She continued by saying that Thor “was a great thing to be a part of.”

Thor was a great thing to be part of. Was it just courtesy? Was it just for the press? Who the hell knows, but this hardly sounds like the VERY MUCH WORSE stuff Idris Elba said about filming the Dark World, that still warranted him returning roles in Ultron, Ragnarok and Infinity War:

“I’d just done eight months in South Africa. I came to England and the day I came back I had to do reshoots on Thor 2.” He raises an eyebrow. “And in the actual scene my hair was different, my…” He stops and gives an exasperated sigh. “I was like, ‘This is torture, man. I don’t want to do this.’ My agent said: ‘You have to, it’s part of the deal.’ ”

Idris Elba says outright, on a published interview, that working on The Dark World, that working for Marvel, is torture. And he’s still been in FIVE movies of the MCU. Please, let that sink in.

Back to the subject at hand: Natalie Portman’s reported willingness to return to the franchise implies that the popular myth that Portman didn’t want anything else to do with Marvel, as an explanation for why she was no longer involved with Thor’s franchise, is nothing but rumors without real basis. It means, ultimately, that she was kicked out just because making Thor a more romantic hero than the rest was just not the angle Feige wanted. Likewise, Thor’s other potential love interest, who was never explored as one by the movies and honestly didn’t have to be, was similarly given a very shitty deal in Ragnarok:

“I was asked, but the timing of when they were going to shoot and when Blindspot was gonna shoot — it was pretty much the same time,” Alexander told Yahoo. “So there was a conflict there.”

Things might have worked out though if Marvel had given her more lead time. “I was hoping for more of a notice from [the studio] so I could make it work, but it was a short notice thing,“ Alexander said. “They called and said, ‘Hey, by the way, would you come do this?’ I said there is no way I can make that work that fast.”

Alexander did try, but ultimately “It couldn’t happen. They were on a different continent!” For reference, Thor: Ragnarok was filmed in Australia.

For further reference, Jaimie Alexander’s show is filmed in New York. As far as I can remember, that was where she was when the Ragnarok call reached her. And all things considered, she was better off not showing up, seeing as the Warriors Three just died within less than five minutes of screentime for each of them. There’s absolutely nothing to say the same thing wouldn’t have happened to Sif.

Why were they absent, then? To please a large crowd of movie-goers who were very consistent about how much they disliked Jane’s character, how much they wanted her to die, how she ruined Thor entirely, and the stories go on and on. Turns out that, the one time Marvel decided to listen to their audience, they got rid of one warrior lady and one female astrophysicist. Funny how this time no feminists gave a shit about that, because Valkyrie suddenly was the strong female character they wanted for the franchise (particularly because she was POC and bisexual, I assume).

But alright, alright. These characters weren’t the most essential part of the franchise, and a new movie could have done without Jane no problem… she didn’t really have to be involved with Ragnarok, and I get that. She also didn’t need to be broken up with Thor just for this, though. Especially broken up without any onscreen evidence that their relationship was doomed or bad or unpleasant. The last we heard, Thor was absolutely proud of her: suddenly she’s just not with him anymore and he’s just fine with it, apparently? Just… why? How? Couldn’t they just ignore Jane altogether instead of breaking them up with a single line in such a stupid and insignificant way?

Either way, accepting Jane and Sif are gone is relatively bearable, despite I really don’t like this, despite it means taking away one character who was essential to the two original movies and another who was meant to finally have her turn to shine on this one. But heh, that’s only the tip of the Ragnarok iceberg.

Finally getting into the movie’s content: my first question is how was Thor in Musspelheim? How did he get there? When? Why? The movie asks these questions for humor. It expects you to laugh at Thor’s monologue just because, but it doesn’t really stop to consider that maybe it SHOULD answer those questions. That maybe the last time we saw Thor, in Ultron, was A LONG TIME AGO. And within that time, he allegedly returned to Asgard because he left through the Bifrost and he should have found Loki impersonating Odin ever since, especially if Loki is so obvious about what he’s doing.

But nothing indicates Thor really had been in Asgard since then. Not at all, because when Thor returns to the Observatory, he runs into Skrull or whatever Eomer was called here. Skrull isn’t a newcomer, he’s not only just taking the job: he’s been here long enough to fill the place with shit he stole from all over the world by using the Bifrost (something worth wondering about, since who the fuck was opening and closing the Bifrost for him when he went on these trips, exactly?), but also by using his new position to appeal to women. Thor is surprised and confused because where is Heimdall? Well, Heimdall’s been gone for a while. And Asgard’s become a big ole’ shrine to Loki. This, then, proves Thor hasn’t been home for a while or else he would have at least seen the building of statues and the sudden shift in the population into Loki worshippers. Where the hell did the Bifrost take Thor after Ultron, then? If it was indeed Asgard, how is it he only realizes NOW that Loki is the one ruling when Loki has already spent a few years on the throne and, if this is his way of ruling, it should have been fucking obvious he wasn’t Odin since day one, according to this characterization? (This, despite we saw he was pretty good at his impersonation of Odin in The Dark World, he only made a tiny mistake that Thor was unable to notice anyhow, so he should’ve fooled Thor just fine)

So, first plothole, first inconsistency, first example of convenience writing and it happens barely ten minutes into the movie. But alas, I need a detour. I really do.

Loki’s a complete and utter idiot in this movie. There’s no other way to describe him. I’ve always thought part of Feige’s frustration with the Thor franchise was Loki’s massive popularity compared with Thor’s. Not that Thor wasn’t popular, but Loki was the first villain to actually warrant a fanbase in the MCU (and although Killmonger more or less got a fair share of people fawining over him, I honestly don’t think it was on par with the Loki phenomenon). Loki committed a crime for a MCU movie: he wasn’t there just to build up the hero’s legacy, he was there to tell his own story. We saw Loki develop from an uncertain ally of Thor’s to an outright enemy, to a begrudging ally, all over the span of Thor, Avengers and Thor: The Dark World. Which Loki do I prefer? The first one, of course. Avengers didn’t do him many favors, and The Dark World also could have handled him better.

But here’s the funny thing: Avengers built him up as a villain to defeat, but that meant Loki had to be menacing, had to be smart to some degree, he had to be respectable. He was smarter in the original Thor, yes, and he’s smarter in the Dark World too, but still, he was worthy of a certain respect in all three movies in terms of how he was built as a character.

Ragnarok obliterated all that respect. Ragnarok reduced Loki to a joke, a really bad joke, about how narcissistic and egotistical he was. He wasn’t smart, he wasn’t competent, he was constantly outdone by Thor in just about every regard, and there was nothing for him to do other than provide the audience someone to laugh at, and someone to project all their LGBT headcanons on, after the way they built up his situation with Jeff Goldblum’s hedonist character. Not that they needed to do that for Loki to be interpreted as LGBT, the fics I referenced above pretty much establish he’s been interpreted as of every sexuality you can think of, all because the original myths did establish him as someone with a very complex sexual identity.

But the point is, people told me Loki was amazing in this movie. I heard so much about that, how he finally got what he deserved… he got to be a laughingstock? That’s what he deserved? Oh, wait, he got to play second fiddle for Thor and accepted that as his place in the world. Was that it? I don’t even care if Loki doesn’t get to fulfill all his ambitions and dreams of recognition: I do care that he’s reduced to nothing but that, when his character was ALWAYS MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN THAT IN EVERY OTHER MOVIE HE SHOWED UP IN. Being told that THIS is how Loki should be handled? It’s the same as being told the Avatar comics did a brilliant job at characterizing Azula, when I’ve written a fuckton of critical posts that prove that’s not the case.

So, when you give me a Loki whose entire purpose in Asgard is to turn it into Lokiland? You give me a joke. You give me a laughingstock. You give me something unworthy of the previous stories that established his character, amidst many things, as a man desperate to find a place where he belonged, desperate to the point where he could commit heinous acts to fulfill his quest, which is what made him a villain in the original film. And why, oh, why would anyone do such a thing?

Well, that’s because Taika Waititi had the brilliant idea of making Thor: Ragnarok as a standalone movie. I’m not kidding, it’s all right here:

“To be honest, what I did was I tried to approach it as if there were no other films.” Waititi explained. “I wanted to make this a standalone film. I loved Thor 1and Thor 2, but if I was going to make this film my own, I couldn’t have come in and tried to make a follow up movie, to try to make the next episode. I wanted to do my own thing.”

He says he loved the first two movies, but I question that’s true. Someone who loved the original movies would have likely avoided a fuckton of mistakes Waititi made in Ragnarok, mistakes that anyone who actually gave a crap about the first movies would have considered utterly ridiculous. When Waititi decided to build Ragnarok as a standalone, he did away with EVERY SINGLE CONCEPT ESTABLISHED FOR THOR IN THE MCU.

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

First Thor movie: Thor’s character is established as an arrogant guy who would send his world to war just because his pride was injured. This arrogant guy gets his power stripped away from him, as punishment for his irresponsible behavior, and it’s not until he reflects on his actions and eventually takes a step forward to stop the Destroyer when he was at his most vulnerable, that Thor finally becomes worthy of his powers again. His attempt to reason with Loki works, but he pays for it with his life, pretty much, until his powers return to him.

So… how is this situation soooo different from Ragnarok’s big fight against Hela? I’ll tell you how: Thor actually displays vulnerability in the original movie, something that hits home much deeper than “OMG I HAVE UNLIMITED POWER INSIDE ME, I DON’T NEED MY HAMMER!”. His pleas to Loki have the intent to SPARE his friends, to spare an entire town of people who don’t know him and probably never will. His fight with Hela has no pleas. He just gets his eyeball plucked out and is forced to watch Hela destroy his city just so he can rage into talking with Odin (if I recall right) and then go Super Saiyan. Because, uh, the power was always inside him!

After an original movie where the power was in choices, in the choice of sacrificing himself for everyone else, Ragnarok is a movie about obtaining literal power to smash your enemy with. You tell me which is more complex and compelling for an intelligent audience.

Oh, but was it deeper in other senses? The talk about colonization and culture erasure and all that was something so new to this franchise!!!

No. It fucking wasn’t.

Movie one opens with a story about the Frost Giants terrorizing the humans and the Asgardians taking them down. The story didn’t end there, though: the story continued when we visit Jotunheim with Thor to discover it’s a completely nasty ruin, as though they haven’t recovered at all from the war and everything Asgard took from them, including a treasure as valuable for them as the Casket of Winters or whatever it was called. And amidst what Asgard took is Loki: how much clearer can the message get? Odin STOLE Jotunheim’s prince for the chance of using him to broker peace between the realms when he deemed Loki ready for said task. He took Loki as a baby and yes, raised him, but he saw that child and thought he was looking in the face of an opportunity. You’re going to tell me that’s not more meaningful, that doesn’t drive in deeper the message about how harmful this sort of colonialist and supremacist culture is (Loki was raised to think his own people were monsters, driven to madness to the extreme where he was going to exterminate his own people just to show his father that he was a worthy son? Seriously, how were there no attempts to interpret this from a post-colonialist point of view, but there are for Ragnarok?), than some dumbass exposition scene with some old paintings in walls where oh noes, turns out Odin KILLED PEOPLE?!

BIG FUCKING DEAL!

WE’VE KNOWN THAT SINCE THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF THOR’S ORIGINAL MOVIE!

Just, how the hell is this a big damn surprise to ANYONE? ESPECIALLY TO THOR! He was willing to destroy Jotunheim because they ruined his parade: HE WAS DOING IT TO FOLLOW ODIN’S EXAMPLE. THE ORIGINAL MOVIE NEVER SHIED AWAY FROM THIS.

Oh but the surprise is that Odin had a daughter he locked away and hid from the world because he was ashamed of what he’d done? Just… how was he ashamed? When did we see Odin ASHAMED in the previous movies? As much as they tried to portray him as mellowed out, he always acted like everything had been necessary for peace. He outright says in The Dark World that he will immolate Asgard in its entirety if need be to defeat the Dark Elves. Please, how are we genuinely pretending NOW that Odin was hiding any of what he’d done, any of what he was capable of, from Thor or from Loki or from just about anyone?

This is also the part where the original myths and themes of Norse Mythology start to debunk Ragnarok with astounding ease. Original myths that, surprise surprise, the first two movies abide by with much more respect than Ragnarok ever could.

Norse mythology is complex and rich and arguably the second most recurrent mythology in popular culture right after Greek mythology (I reckon Egyptian used to be the second but has dropped in popularity in recent years). I am far from an expert with Norse mythology, I actually am most confident with Celtic mythology, in particular the Irish Mythological Cycle, but that’s not the point: anyone who hears about Norse mythology is likely to have heard about the characters we met in Thor, and about the afterlife according to these myths.

Death in Norse mythology can lead people to different places, not too differently from how it is in other mythologies. Let’s see what the lands of the dead are like:

Valhalla is an afterlife destination where half of those who die in battle gather as einherjar, a retinue gathered for one sole purpose: to remain fit for battle in preparation for the last great battle, during Ragnarök. In opposition to Hel’s realm, which was a subterranean realm of the dead, it appears that Valhalla was located somewhere in the heavens.

Hel’s realm is separated from the world of the living by a rapid river across which leads the Gjallarbrú that the dead have to pass. The gates are heavy, and close behind those who pass it and will never return again. Hel is the final destination of those who do not die in battle, but of old age or disease. 

As these two are the only ones that matter for this movie, I figured I’d bring these up. There are of course thousands of various interpretations on how these afterlifes work, and some people say it’s not so cut and dry, but in general, it’s understood that Valhalla is pretty much an honor.

This honor was extended to Frigga in The Dark World. The only good thing about her death in that movie was that it established HOW death works in the MCU’s Asgard. She died in battle: she was given the greatest honor and sent to rest in Valhalla. The land of heroes who die in battle, fighting for their own.

Hel, on the other hand, should be the afterlife for those who die in less worthy ways, meaning, not in combat. Death in combat is considered one of the greatest honors in Norse culture, from what I’ve understood from all the stories I’ve seen that are set in Norse or Viking settings, and not dying in combat wasn’t a favorable prospect for just about anyone. Deaths outside of combat are, of course, accidental deaths, diseases, old age, you name it.

Hel should be connected to Hela, the character from Ragnarok. Hela should preside over Hel, the unwanted afterlife for so many people who would rather die in a much worthier way.

Hel showed up once before in the MCU, by the way. In the very controversial and despised Ultron. And no, I’m not talking about Thor’s weird-as-fuck delirium about Asgard. I mean in this particular dialogue…:

Natasha Romanoff: Thor, report on the Hulk?Thor: The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims.[Natasha glares at Thor and Banner groans in despair]Thor: Uh, but, not the screams of the dead, of course. No no, uh…wounded screams, mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and, and uh… and gout.

Gates of Hel. That’s a direct reference to actual mythology. He could have said that Hel was full of Hulk’s victims, just like that, but he outright references the GATES. Ergo… Thor knows Hel exists.

PLEASE LET THAT SINK IN.

When you arrive at Ragnarok, Hela is a complete mystery for Thor. Oh, you can come up with whatever in-world explanation you care to, I honestly wouldn’t bother making up one to begin with: Ragnarok is built on the premise of defeating Hela, Thor’s scary sudden sister he had no notion of, who was locked away in some weird ass prison and who happens to be called Hela, but has no connection with Hel.

None.

Why do I say this?

Because her powers allegedly are connected to Asgard.

Allegedly.

Can someone please explain why should Hel’s powers have a connection with Asgard when there was such a bloody obvious possibility in making Hel the realm she’s connected to? She’s the goddamn REGENT of Hel! That’s not even up for debate in Norse Mythology, out of all the things that can be debated! But instead her power comes from the LIVING? It comes from VIOLENTLY KILLING WARRIORS WHO FIGHT AND DIE DEFENDING THEIR HOMELAND HONORABLY?

I’m going to outright say it: Hela should have gained NOTHING from a militaristic approach at attacking and destroying Asgard. If the plan was to make Hela a big shock for everyone, a plot twist… she should have spread disease and old age through Asgard. And then people die dishonorably.

And they end up in her realm.

And she could enslave them and use their souls to fuel her own power or so.

Please, do tell… how is this not a much more myth-compliant approach than “Oh lookie she’s just this SUPER BADASS FIGHTER! And she can take down ENTIRE ARMIES all on her own by FIGHTING!” How isn’t this more consistent with what was already established by the MCU? (oh wait, Waititi doesn’t care to keep things consistent, I forgot…)

Man, I’ve played Dragon Age: Origins a fuckton of times by now and one of the saddest and truest things I’ve seen in it, which connects with my own reality, is one of the riddles on your way to the Urn of Andraste: how did Andraste and the Maker destroy the Imperium’s army? Through FAMINE. Through HUNGER. What’s more disgraceful than living to EAT? Nothing feels more dehumanizing, and I can tell you that just fine considering that in hyperinflation that’s EXACTLY what venezuelans like myself live like right now.

Why didn’t Hela starve Asgard, then? Why didn’t she do something that Asgardians simply couldn’t FIGHT against, seeing as that’s all they know how to do?

Oh, again, because Thor is an ACTION HERO! That is the identity Feige and Waititi HAD to build for him! That’s what he ALWAYS was supposed to be!

I’m going to share now one of my favorite things about both Thor and The Dark World: the way Thor finishes his final battles.

In the first film, Thor defeats Loki by destroying the Bifrost. He uses Mjöllnir to destroy someTHING, not someONE. Hammers can be used to build and destroy, Thor used it to destroy at that particular point in time. By destroying, he stopped the chaos Loki was unleashing with the Bifrost and saved an entire realm.

The Dark World? Thor isn’t the one who comes up with the way to defeat Malekith, since it’s Jane who makes the wacky portable portals stuff. Nonetheless, Thor is the one out in the fray, fighting the big bad… but how did he take down OP Aether-addled Malekith? Not by shoving a fuckton of lightning into his face, he already tried that and failed. Nope: he nailed the device Jane built. He nailed it right into the motherfucker’s chest. And then Malekith gets portaled away and killed by his own ship. Again, it’s not Thor using POWER to kill his enemy, it’s Thor using a hammer’s natural damn use to his favor. It’s Thor using his BRAIN.

THOR.

USING HIS BRAIN.

THINKING SHIT THROUGH.

USING HIS AVAILABLE RESOURCES TO FINISH A FIGHT EFFECTIVELY.

NOT POWERING THROUGH EVERYTHING LIKE A DURACELL BATTERY ON DRUGS.

People out there who complain about how Infinity War gave Thor an axe instead of letting him be powerful all on his own piss me off, I won’t lie. Because Mjöllnir was NOT a crutch for Thor. It was a tool, in all senses of the word. It’s like pretending Doctor Strange’s cloak is the secret to all his powers. The entire first movie is about showing Thor that the hammer, that POWER, does NOT define him: why the FUCK did he have to lose it in Ragnarok, and suffer about it like he’d never been parted from the hammer when it happened just the same in the first damn movie? Hell, the first movie stole ALL his lightning and thunder-related powers and he STILL managed to find true worth in who he was after that! He still learned what he needed to learn to be worthy of his hammer again! This movie, though? It rewards Thor for losing Mjöllnir, ZERO GROWTH OR DEVELOPMENT NEEDED BECAUSE FUCK IT, HE DIDN’T LEARN A DAMN THING IN THIS MOVIE by making him superpowerful just because it could. And Thor ends up winning the day without using a hammer in the way a hammer should be used, breaking with the pattern of the two previous movies: again, the identity of the original movies gets tossed away completely.

It’s not cool. It’s not amazing. It’s devoid of all meaning. Thor losing his eye just like his daddy before him? Another piece of crap devoid of meaning. Thor didn’t need to lose a goddamn eye to be “parallel” to his father, because he’s already in the position where he has to take charge of Asgard to become king, and nothing’s a more apparent parallel than that.

Funny comparison time: did you watch Lion King 2? A lot of people think it sucks but when I was little I looooved that thing with the force of a thousand suns. Now, if you did watch it, remember Kovu? Remember the part where Zira scars him, leaving him to look just like Scar? The drama at that point is that Kovu has been groomed all his life to kill Simba, just like Scar killed Mufasa. He was “chosen” for the job, and all his similarities with Scar not withstanding, Kovu’s growth pushes him to NOT WANT TO FOLLOW ON SCAR’S FOOTSTEPS.

So, when he gets the same scar but acts entirely differently from how Scar would have? When he chooses to love rather than to hate? When he takes a stand for peace rather than to further stir up war? He’s choosing to be different from the lion whose example he’s been forced to follow all his life!

When Thor fights Hela… what does he do that is in any sense different from what Odin would have done, in his shoes? Could someone perhaps enlighten me? He fights Hela, he doesn’t extend a hand to her and offer her a second chance. He fights to defeat her, he gets Loki to unleash Surtur on Asgard and destroy it with Hela in it. Oh, wow, he distanced himself SO MUCH from Odin’s legacy by, uh, destroying his homeland and killing his sister. That’s not so different from locking Hela up for eons, let alone so different from saying that he would sacrifice as many asgardian lives as were needed to end the threat of Malekith.

Oh, but Thor saved lives, didn’t he? Sure he did!

No, he didn’t. Fucking Heimdall was the one worried about protecting people. Who the hell would have saved them if Heimdall hadn’t been there? Who the hell would Thor have saved if Heimdall hadn’t protected people and created that weird underground refugee site? If Thor had arrived and Heimdall and his people had been caught all along, who the fuck would he have saved? NO ONE.

Also, this concept of “Thor saving a few civilian lives WHILE MILLIONS GET SACRIFICED” might as well apply to Odin’s destruction of other cultures because of how they threatened Asgard too. Heck, Bor’s destruction of the Dark Elves is presented in the same light too in The Dark World. Ragnarok attempts to make people feel bad about all the deaths in the shallowest way I’ve seen, because for one thing, it tries to criticize the previous movies by being oh so shocked by Odin’s massacres when everyone and their uncle KNOWS that Odin’s been killing cultures and worlds and things since day fucking one. But it basically spits upwards when it says “Asgard is its people, not a place” and… kills the majority of the people, along with the place. Just… what the hell was even the point of pretending Asgardians would be refugees rebuilding elsewhere when, on top of it all, they all died in Infinity War anyhow?

Now, let’s think about it: how many named asgardians do we know who survived Ragnarok? We know Thor, Heimdall and Valkyrie. Loki is a honorary asgardian, I suppose, so let’s say he counts. Who else? Oh, damn, no one. I’m all out.

And THIS is where Ragnarok was always supposed to improve on the rest of the Thor movies. THIS. Because in a movie that was going to kill the Warriors Three, Sif, Odin and as many asgardians as they could, you had the reasonable obligation to make the audience GIVE A SHIT. Constant criticism for the original Thor movies by less passionate fans is that they didn’t care about any characters aside from Thor, Loki and Heimdall (cue my surprise when they all survive Ragnarok, it’s almost like it was fanservice, oh my!), and that Asgard was BORING.

Ragnarok should have tried its best to make Asgard less boring. It should have tried to make the less popular characters relevant, interesting, valuable…

What did it do? Killed them all. Every warrior dead. Sif would be dead too, if Jaimie Alexander hadn’t been too busy to go to Australia. Every last one of them would be dead. And as for Asgard? As for the place we should see Thor cares about soooo much?

We saw more of Asgard in The Dark World, of their customs, of their complexities, and the majority of the movie is spent elsewhere. We saw more of Asgard, obviously, on the original Thor, where half the movie is spent there. Ragnarok’s response to that, though, is to practically spend the entire fucking movie in a literal trash planet, because getting out of there was so very vital to the movie! When, uh, ending up there was already a fucking pointless waste of time in the first place.

Let’s think about it: why exactly did we need our heroes to end up there? Hulk could have crash-landed somewhere in Asgard. Valkyrie could have been an actual Valkyrie, not a cast-out drunk trying to forget her days of glory and misery. We could have seen THE Valkyries in action, gearing up to fight a serious threat, and people would be fawning about such a huge damn female army, on par with Wonder Woman’s amazons…!

But no. We went to a trash planet instead, all to make a shitty version of Planet Hulk, which yes, I haven’t read, but the people I know who did read it say it was a complete disservice to a story that was so much more complex and serious than the trash heap we were given through Ragnarok.

And, most importantly… all to make the movie FUN. All so Thor could have something else to do while everyone died in Asgard. All so he could indeed be incompetent as defender of his realm because in the end he couldn’t save most of them. And it didn’t even matter to him that he didn’t, that’s yet another thing that pisses me off: he mourns his father a lot, spends the movie bitter and angry that Odin had died just so he can have an understandable reason to be pissed at Loki, and sure, he wants to go back to Asgard and save his people from his sister. But I can’t remember him seeming genuinely concerned about what fate awaited his friends and the people he ruled. Of course, neither did Loki, but as Loki was portrayed as an egotistical maniac the whole movie, it’s no surprise. Our hero, though, should have a bigger heart than this, right? He did before, didn’t he? He did everything in his power to get Malekith to leave Asgard alone, including risking the life of the woman he loved, no less!

But naaaaah, in Ragnarok he did a lot for his people, uh-huh, sure as fuck. That’s why he spent all his time in trashland making jokes and having fun except for most the time he was dealing with Loki, because by then he got pissed because Odin’s death is all his fault. Just like Frigga’s death. Just like everything because Loki sucks and Thor is forever mad at him. Thing really is, he has pressure to leave, but you don’t really feel it going by his attitude. If everyone you knew and loved were about to die by the hand of your unknown sibling, would you be chill, trying and failing to flirt with a girl by tossing a ball to a wall so it can hit you right back?

Thor’s entire character in Ragnarok is cringeworthy. This isn’t just because he was so vastly different from who he was back in the other two films, it’s because of how he acts, how he behaves. How he takes next to nothing seriously, starting from Surtur, all the way to Asgard’s destruction. This is the man who was actually characterized for FOUR films as someone with a sense of humor, but with a strong sense of duty and honor that makes him an even better man than Steve Rogers (reminder of the hammer scene in Ultron, Rogers can’t quite lift the hammer yet, Thor’s supposed to be a worthier man than him, according to whatever criteria Mjöllnir uses). And here? Here he just jokes around, he wastes his time, he acts like a complete bufoon as he has stupid arguments with Hulk and deals with Jeff Goldblum, and flirts with Valkyrie, and outsmarts Loki (hell knows how, considering how incredibly idiotic Thor felt through this entire movie, but that’s how stupid Loki was in it too).

The ideal way to compare how Thor was written in the original films and in this one is the romance. Where in the previous movies Thor is charming, confident, treats women with respect (he supported Sif in her efforts to prove herself on par with any man, he encourages her to survive and live to tell her stories herself, he listens to Jane’s explanations about space and offers his own stories when she wants to hear them, and so on), in Ragnarok he meets Valkyrie and acts like, again, a 14-year-old fanboy who just met the celebrity he faps to every night in his bedroom. He’s nervous, he’s giddy, he’s trying, TRYING to impress her! Before anyone chimes in to say he’s meeting his hero, of COURSE he’d be nervous… please, no. Thor is a goddamn prince, as good as a king already. Thor has met countless people in his life and treated them all with the same amount of respect. He has NO REASON to dumb himself down and behave like a fanboy with Valkyrie. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t funny. It was absolutely out of character, that’s what it was. For he wouldn’t be trying to flirt with her, let alone so poorly, even if he’s interested in her romantically. No, he would respect her, first and foremost. He would admire her without seeming a complete idiot in the process, the same way he did with Jane. He wouldn’t be trying to impress her by acting like he’s cool, but coming off as an idiot, because he supposedly grew out of his stupid arrogance all the way in movie 1. But naaaaah, not when he meets VALKYRIE! Nope, because she’s SPESHUL! 

Give me a break.

I’m sure there’s more about Thor, but I think I’ll leave him alone for now. I already did my piece on Loki earlier, so now… two newcomers.

Valkyrie bothers me. No, it has nothing to do with Valkyrie breaking the stereotypical blonde warrior aesthetic that people expect from Norse mythology stuff, because hell, Heimdall doesn’t bother me and never did just because he’s not aryan. Honestly, it doesn’t matter in the least what color they are.

What does matter with Valkyrie is that her change of heart and motivations make absolutely no sense.

When we first meet her she’s just scavenging trash to drag to Jeff Goldblum. She’s drunk, but she’s tough as nails and she gets everything done anyways. Is it ideal? No. It feels insulting, even, considering this is how the movie chooses to portray a valkyrie and its only heroic female character. But whatever, let’s move forward…

When Thor realizes what and who she is, he goes fanboy mode. Valkyrie dismisses all reminders of her past life, and as far as I can remember, she did that at least twice. Maybe thrice, I can’t recall that much. When Thor asked her why she didn’t want to help him save Asgard, her answer directly implies she remembers perfectly well what happened the last time she dealt with Hela and she is still too grief-ridden about it to bother fighting her again. Thor throws a tantrum, Valkyrie still refuses to go along with him, all ends just like that.

But when Loki does the ONLY useful thing he did in the entire movie, as in, hi-jacks Valkyrie’s memories and makes her relive everything, she changes her mind. Why?

Oh, because she reclaimed her past? Because she had forgotten it? BULL.FUCKING.SHIT. Valkyrie didn’t forget JACKSHIT about her past! The answer she gives Thor, initially, shows very clearly that she remembers EVERYTHING and refuses to go back anyhow. Because Hela is too powerful for her to defeat. But one forceful blast to the past makes Valkyrie not only NOT feel violated, which honestly blows me away, sure she hit Loki afterwards but I wouldn’t exactly be so chill after someone got inside my head and forced me to relive my worst memory, but it makes Valkyrie decide that she wants to help Thor now. 

WHY?!

There is NOTHING reasonable that has changed since she told Thor what she did. NOTHING! She didn’t come to a conclusion such as “well shit my life sucks badly enough here, I might as well go die”, nor does she have a heartfelt conversation with Thor about how hard this is for her but that maybe she can correct the mistakes of her past if she helps him out now. No, man, this movie doesn’t need anyone to have believable behaviors or motivations, because Valkyrie needs to join Thor so she can play the Gamora to his cheap Peter Quill, and if her brain needs to be bent backwards to join this team, so be it.

Again, let’s put things into perspective: was there ANY need for Valkyrie’s character to be exactly what it was? Why couldn’t she be the only line of defense in Asgard to endure against Hela’s attack, for instance? She’s presented to us as the only representative of this really cool elite group of fighters… and she’s just doing Jeff Goldblum’s dirty work. Please… can someone tell me what was the point of doing this?

Ah, wait, I know: COMEDY. Because that was the priority established by Waititi and who knows who else, because that’s what mattered most. So, was it fun to have a serious warrior lady kicking ass in Asgard? Nah, it was fun to make her a drunkard who’d fall over sideways when collecting Thor for Goldblum because she’s drunk. Haha. Funny.

Valkyrie is wasted potential. That’s the truth of it. She could have been amazing, but as it is, I find Sif a thousand times more interesting than Valkyrie because at least with Sif I can see where she’s coming from, I can understand her storyline even without her ever being at the forefront of any movie. Question now, why did it have to be Valkyrie? Why couldn’t Sif be the one helping Thor in Ragnarok? Fucking hell, why couldn’t it be BOTH of them? Aside from the obvious “we forgot Sif existed until ten seconds before filming the deaths of all of Asgard’s warriors” explanation, it’s because you can’t make the Guardians of the Galaxy formula work with well-rounded individuals, Nope, you need broken people. And what’s more broken than a warrior who lost her will to fight? Who lives to drink, like my good buddy Oghren who I mentioned back when this post began?

Valkyrie, then, is not a full-rounded character. She’s more convenience writing. She’s a happy coincidence for Thor, because woah, what are the odds that the ONE PERSON WITH ASGARDIAN PAST would find him in trashland? They’re not good. In fact, they’re pretty bad. But that’s what the movie needed, so that’s what the movie got. And how do you get her to change her mind about fighting when she’d given up? By convenience writing. Not even a pep talk, like what Jyn Erso got in Rogue One from her dad, which made her switch flip completely and she did a 180° regarding her opinion of the war and battles between the Empire and Rebels. I complained a bit about Jyn changing her mind so easily… but compared to Valkyrie? Jyn made a fuckton more sense than that. At least you could see where she was coming from when she changed her mind. At least you could say a fiber of her being was touched by her father’s words. Valkyrie was touched by Loki’s invasion of her mind? By what, exactly? By Waititi twisting her character over because otherwise his GOTG team-up wouldn’t work?

The absolute worst part of Ragnarok is realizing that, as a cheap rip-off of GOTG, it failed not only to hold up the identity of any Thor film before this one, it failed to imitate GOTG properly. GOTG felt organic, this feels forced. GOTG felt like a good story to tell, because it was a group of renegades, pretty much, saving the entire galaxy even though they’re nobodies, even though they’re as good as mercenaries, even though they’re a team brought together by what feels like random factors (but it’s not that random because, as a reminder, all of them minus Drax were after the Orb, and in the break-out Drax joins them because he hopes they can help him fulfill his quest for revenge). Everyone in GOTG has reasons to fight, though, reasons to work together. They seem to barely stand each other, but they’re convenient for one another at the start and they bear with it.

Ragnarok fails to achieve GOTG’s success in terms of storytelling because Ragnarok featured Thor as good as begging everyone to help him. Reluctant team-ups like GOTG’s are achieved by having two or more characters work together for a common goal, or for goals that they can only achieve with each other’s help (I have used the same resource in writing in the past plenty if times as it is). But when you have to feature a character BEGGING others to work with him, this formula doesn’t elicit the same feeling. It doesn’t result in “wow, look at all these unlikely heroes working together”, it results in “aw look at ‘em helping the little guy who needed them”. Thor offers everyone a chance to fight a battle that, in general, doesn’t concern them. Hulk has nothing to gain from fighting Hela. Valkyrie has no reason to fight her again, as she’d given up and displays no believable motivation to go for a rematch. Loki does have reason to fight, but Thor doesn’t trust him and it’s not until the last 10 minutes of the movie that Thor finally trusts Loki again, just because Loki is doing exactly what Thor wanted him to.

Give me a Valkyrie who has spent AGES looking for Hela through the universe, hoping to fight her, and upon hearing she’s back, she wants revenge. Give me a Thor who tells her “hey, maybe you can avenge your fallen comrades, but there are a lot of people who are still alive that we have to save too. Maybe revenge isn’t the only thing that matters”, and then Valkyrie reasons with what her motivations had been. Give me a more HUMANE Valkyrie, and that way she won’t be here merely to fulfill the typical and criticized “strong female character” trope, whose entire character arc revolves around being a cool fighter and being the object of admiration/affection/love interest of the main character, because newsflash, that’s what happened with her. The so very despised trope of “strong female character”, right here with Valkyrie.

Was Sif any better? Why, yes, I’d say so. Because Thor didn’t want her. Because she was only friends with him, because her life as a warrior took priority over any romantic interests she might have. Because her eagerness to go down in history in GLORY makes her near suicidal in movie 1, to the point where Thor has to make her snap out of it and force her to understand her life is worth more than the stories she wants people to tell about her in death. THAT is a character. THAT is a genuinely interesting female character, who got snubbed in all the films she featured and even in the one where she didn’t, precisely because she didn’t. Because her strength has flaws, because she’s not invulnerable, because she’s prone to failure, because she has loyalties, because she lives to serve her people. Sif is Valkyrie done right. Valkyrie is, like I said, a “strong female character”. And no, that she’s bisexual makes no damn difference, especially when said bisexuality is only known to people who follow Tessa Thompson on Twitter and general fans who look for information on characters outside of the movies themselves. Either way, if she had been shown making out with a girl onscreen that wouldn’t make a difference: she’s still only here to beat people up and to be a potential love interest for Thor, because if she’d had believable, understandable, EXPLORED motivations, she’d be more than that. But she doesn’t. Her entire character revolves around those two things. And that’s a failure in my eyes.

Finally… Hela. Why is Hela a terrible villain, on par with losers like Obadiah Stane, Malekith, the cheap excuse for Baron Zemo from Civil War, Darren Cross… honestly, spare me naming them all because frankly the only ones I wouldn’t lump together with the bulk of Marvel’s villains are Loki and Vulture, but my point is, Hela was all about appearances, all about the acting pedigree of Cate Blanchett, and nothing about making her into a decent villain. Why’s that?

I’ve talked in the past about why Marvel’s villains generally fail, and it’s because they’re not built to be characters but foils. Marvel’s not so subtle approach at storytelling holds a certain principle at its very highest, and said principle is that the story is about the HERO. The villain can’t be more developed than the hero, else you’re failing the movie’s purpose. Only a few of their movies failed at this (I can only think of Thor and Black Panther as examples of not keeping true to this precept), everything else does it just fine. Why, though? Because the villains are completely generic. Because they’re here to further someone else’s storyline, and not to have one of their own.

Loki had his own storyline in his first movie. You watch his ENTIRE thought process through Thor, you see that he didn’t start off with the “I’m going to annihilate Jotunheim!” idea, it’s something that builds up as the story unfolds. You meet Loki as a troublemaker, capable of very chaotic messes such as what happens during Thor’s failed coronation, but he’s not stupid. He’s not trying to cause a war, he’s just sabotaging his brother because, curiously, Loki is right about Thor at this point in time: Thor is NOT fit to be king, and Odin agrees eventually. The simplest provocation caused Thor to wage war on an entire realm, just because he wanted to rule Asgard RIGHT NOW. Loki’s mischief revealed this about Thor, but it wasn’t done with the intent to completely ruin Thor’s life: Thor’s reaction to Loki’s scheme is what reveals that he’s not ready to rule at all.

It’s especially clear when you recall that Loki ends up facing the truth about himself during the fight in Jotunheim: Loki has no idea what his true heritage is. He knows he’s been sidelined and treated differently, but he has no clue what’s up. Where Black Panther features a Killmonger who has already come to terms with his heritage and his connection with Wakandan royalty, Thor treats us to the ENTIRE PROCESS of Loki’s slow but certain collapse. He starts off fine, but he ends up losing all sight of who he is, of everything that matters, because his parents weren’t his parents, because he was lied to all his life, because his brother was favored over him all along and NOW, in front of us, he has come to understand why.

Loki’s entire journey parallels Thor’s. Where Loki grows more unhinged, Thor is humbled and grows into letting the goodness in him shine, in letting the better traits that make him a decent man pull through while he lets go of his arrogance and his belief that he’s entitled to a throne and to everything he could ever want. Their journeys happen simultaneously, and THAT is unique to any Marvel movies. You don’t see that anywhere else. THAT is what made Thor so successful with fans: it wasn’t JUST Thor’s story, it was Loki’s too. The Dark World at least gave Loki the courtesy of a small arc of his own. Ragnarok? Jokes at his expense and a diva complex that resulted in him coming back to help Thor merely because that would mean he would be regarded as hero and savior to Asgard. How is it not cringeworthy?

But that’s not what I was trying to get to, nope. No, my point was Hela: what was the purpose of Hela, in the end?

Ragnarok, traditionally, is brought upon the world by Loki. He’s the one who supposedly ends the entire world, causes the massive fight of the gods and wreaks havoc comparable to the Christian Apocalypse. But Loki can’t do that in Ragnarok because he has too much of a fanbase and can’t be guilty for such heinous crimes, can he? Nope.

Let’s, instead, find someone else to blame everything on. Are there other options for this role? Surtur, Amora, maybe? Oh, no! Let’s go with Hela! Who IS Hela, anyways?

In one iteration of the comics, Hela is LOKI’S DAUGHTER. Never, from my understanding, was Hela anyone’s sister, let alone Thor and Loki’s. Is it that terrible to make her Loki’s daughter? Well, yes, because that’d mean Loki would have to know of her existence and that would cause more problems than Waititi wanted to handle (plus, gives too much protagonism to Loki, and he certainly did not want THAT!). So, Hela had to be something else. She had to be something personal for Thor too, but making her an old flame would be too much (despite uh from what I read she even had a kid with Thor in one iteration of the comics? So it wouldn’t have been completely out of left field?), because we don’t want Thor having multiple romances, we don’t even want him having a full romance, because that’s why the first movies failed! Nope, that can’t do.

Oh, wait a minute, I know! Let’s make Hela Thor’s SECRET SISTER! AHAHA, PERFECT! Because it’s not like he already had a brother in black-and-green clothing who was snubbed and given a shitty deal by their dad and who came back from said betrayal by Odin to destroy everything Thor holds dear. It’s such NOVEL storytelling, so unique! So unexpected! We totally never have seen this story told before!

Hela is a cheap rip-off of the original Loki. Just as the entire movie is a rip-off of GOTG. Hela TRIES, so very hard, to be as impressive and imposing as Loki originally was. Hela fails. Why?

Because for one thing, she’s a crappy retelling of Loki’s story. She has nothing new. She’s not impressive in any regards because she does nothing unexpected, nothing that makes her ANYTHING aside from a bad villain Thor needs to defeat. Loki was Thor’s friend and brother once: Hela generates no such conflict because she could easily be Odin’s former slave rather than daughter and the story would be the same. She could have literally ANY relationship to Thor and nothing would change. Why? Because her being Thor’s biological sister does NOTHING for the story. It creates no bond between them, because the bond that existed between Thor and Loki was established during AGES of growing up together. Hela has no such thing, ergo, you can’t pretend that her being Thor’s sister will amount to anything just because Odin handled her poorly (newsflash, Odin has been handling shit poorly since the first time he showed up in the MCU and most of Thor’s problems in his movies come from that, ergo this is, again, nothing new). 

For another thing, Hela is here to take Loki’s place as the complicated family member Thor needs to get in line. Hela is, I theorize, Waititi’s wish fulfillment for what he’d like to have done to Loki but couldn’t because he needed to be around to keep his fanbase appeased and buying tickets for the movie. Hela, though, was new. Hela was irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Hela could turn into all of Loki’s “evil” and “chaotic” impulses, while Loki is reduced to narcissism and cheap comedy, and this way Hela is turned into a cartoon villain who’s only here to break everything because she allegedly obtains her power by doing so.

I already got into it before, but I guess I’ll do it again: Hela’s connection to Asgard is absolutely idiotic. There’s an entire damn realm named after her, connected to her. It’s like saying Hades from Greek Mythology obtains his powers from the Olympus. Or like saying Satan derives his powers from Heaven. No. That makes no effing sense. Therefore, destroying Asgard to destroy Hela feels stupid, and defies all logic. But they needed Hela to cause a catastrophe in Asgard, otherwise you can’t justify destrying Asgard by using Loki to, HAHAHA, HONOR THE ORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY, HAHAHAHA, AFTER ALL THIS TIME OF SHITTING ON IT AND UNDERSTANDING NONE OF ITS CONCEPTS, NOW THEY WANT TO HONOR IT, IT’S THE ONLY FUNNY JOKE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE!

It’s bad enough that the movie fucks over Loki’s character as it does, but it attempts to make him a good, dutiful brother who steals the Tesseract from the vaults but still takes Surtur to the funky flame thing. The destruction of Asgard is ultimately done by Loki, but not really, no, it was Surtur. And not really, no, it was because Thor asked Loki to. So, in the end, it’s actually Thor who killed Asgard and his sister. But um, they were being faithful to the myths, sure.

Hela is a failure of a villain as usual for Marvel. Her story is presented via exposition, via TELL, NOT SHOW. We don’t witness the crumbling relationship between her and Odin because that would have required for her to exist since the first movies. No, we are told all about how Odin used her as his ideal tool to KILL PEOPLE!!!1 (I think I raged enough about this before, didn’t I…?) and then locked her up somewhere because she was too dangerous! Compared to Loki’s very palpable fall from grace, Hela’s character arc is absolutely insignificant. People only liked her because she was hot. That was it. Like I said earlier, Cate Blanchett’s doing. Had it been any less than stellar actress, Hela wouldn’t have garnered more than a couple of shrugs.

I guess it warrants to say Odin was probably the only thing this movie maintained close enough to the original movies (despite he was poorly written in his death scene anyhow). Odin making shitty decisions seems to be one of the main story points in Thor’s franchise, so I suppose that’s not out of line. Ironically, though, staying true to the same variable with Odin is… pretty damn old by now. All of Thor’s movies have featured Odin being controversial, doing shitty things for his perceived greater good (from stealing a child of another culture to comparing his son’s girlfriend to a goat), so Ragnarok isn’t even telling us anything new about Odin. It’s also not telling us anything new about Odin and Thor’s relationship, because we already know Thor loves the man despite it all, and whatever shitty decisions Odin made, Thor accepts them. He did since the first movie, he does again in this one. Zero new information.

As for a few more inconsistencies:

The Bifrost. Remember how Loki activated the Bifrost and destroyed a lot of Jotunheim by leaving Heimdall’s sword in place, back in the first movie? At one point in Ragnarok, the sword stays in place again and nothing happens. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The scene could have easily happened without the sword there, too. But nope. It stayed in place for no reason, and what came from that? Nothing. Just, a completely absurd situation where, again, Ragnarok is inconsistent with the original Thor.

Another inconsistency, this time one that people laughed about becuause “it fixed the Gauntlet problem”. Reminder: the Infinity Gauntlet shows up for the first time in Asgard’s vaults in the first movie.

In Ultron, though, inexplicably Thanos is wearing the Gauntlet and saying he’ll deal with everything himself (what did he even have to do with Ultron is a pretty good question, one I still have no idea what its answer is). When this happened, people thought Loki was working with Thanos and gave him the thing. Or Thanos broke into Asgard and stole it. But ultimately, it meant Thanos had the Gauntlet and we were doomed, right?

Ragnarok “solved” this problem by featuring Hela saying the Gauntlet in the vault was fake. She knocks it over and says that’s just a shitty copy of the real deal. Fast forward to Infinity War, though…

Tyrion and his buddies fron Nidavellir built the Infinity Gauntlet for Thanos. It happens before Thanos even has access to the Time Stone. Ergo, Thanos couldn’t have made the dwarves craft THE ORIGINAL GAUNTLET and then, I don’t know, used the Time Stone to show it to Odin ten thousand years ago just to get him to make a fake version of it to put it on display for Hela to knock over later. Even if he had done that once he gains access to the Time Stone, someone needs to have at least a shred of common sense and ask themselves why the fuck would Thanos do something so pointless.

Because ultimately, a plothole becomes even more absurd when the attempt to fix it just fucks it up more more. The fake, copy of the Gauntlet, which looks EXACTLY like Thanos’ Gauntlet, existed first. It’s like saying Windows was the original when Bill Gates outright worked for Apple and got his ideas for his own business and OS through working on the MacIntosh. No, Windows isn’t the original. Neither can Tyrion’s Gauntlet be the original because IT MAKES NO SENSE WITH ANY TIMELINE YOU CAN THINK OF.

Had Ragnarok ignored the Gauntlet, nothing would have happened. The destruction of Asgard could have meant this proto-Gauntlet died with it. Thanos could have simply asked the dwarves to make him a new gauntlet because the one that existed was in Asgard, out of his reach by Ultron’s time, and simply gone by Infinity War. But oh noooo, they had to FIX THAT! Well, good fucking job, as usual. You created yet another stupid ass plothole, Waititi. Congratulations.

In short… Ragnarok’s big success comes from it being a “funny” movie with scatological jokes about anuses and orgies, for instance, with Thor making a complete dunce of himself throughout the painful two hours of movie (I don’t even know if it was two hours but it felt like an eternity to me), and let’s not get started again with what happened with Loki. The movie fails at establishing new characters anyone with common sense would be concerned about because they’re as complex and deep as a puddle on asphalt, and it fails at characterizing old characters too. The movie does its best to be funny, but the constant efforts to be funny are akin to a stand-up comedian who is desperate to make his audience laugh at whatever cost. It’s forced, it’s stupid, it’s consistently unfunny, at least it was for me. I can honestly say I laughed at zero points in time in the movie. Was I predisposed to dislike it? I’ve been predisposed to dislike a lot of things before. That the movie failed to subvert any of my expectations is hardly my fault: it was exactly every bit of a failure I expected it to be.

Because when they turned that original logo into a garbage new one, worthy of 1998 Word��s WordArt, when they released a trailer that was HUMOROUS, I knew I wasn’t going to watch something worth my while. You can make comedic stories about the end of the world, people have done it in the past, but Thor did not lend itself for that sort of thing because Ultron establishes Thor is going to be RESPONSIBLE for Ragnarok. Thor has a responsibility to the end of his world. And the Thor we knew, originally, wasn’t the type who would smile and shrug if his mistakes would cost the lives of millions of people.

This is like telling a version of Harry Potter where Harry, faced with Voldemort’s second rise to power,decides to go look for Horcruxes in casinos and strip clubs because hey that’s more fun than an endless camping trip. Well sure, it’d be more fun, but it’d make absolutely no sense and people would die while he enjoys himself and fails to find a single damn Horcrux, right? It’s also like telling me that in Avatar, when Zuko reveals Ozai is going to use the comet to destroy the Earth Kingdom, Aang goes “Oh wow… that’s a shame, huh? So, how about we go back to playing now?” instead of thinking he had to prepare and fight with Ozai to put a stop to the man. 

It’s telling me that the destruction of Asgard, of Thor’s world, of his realm and kingdom, is a fucking JOKE. And if we’re not supposed to take it seriously because Thor won’t take it seriously, the movie is a failure. I never felt like any of the previous Marvel films wanted me to take them as jokes, not even the most comedic of them. I did with Ragnarok. Because all that death, all that destruction, all the sacrifices made, brushed past Thor like water from a shower, that he just dried up and walked away. Because the destruction of his world, of his friends, of everything he was supposed to protect, indeed isn’t deserving of a serious treatment because selling movie tickets via comedy is more important. Because quality, consistent, COMPLEX, storytelling isn’t anywhere near as important as making your audience laugh.

Well, congratulations, Feige, Waititi. You guys should have been stand-up comedians instead and left movie-making to people competent enough to make something worthwhile.

This movie is singlehandedly to blame for my loss of interest in MCU matters and in the Thor franchise. I would still write the occasional story for it, I would still enjoy other people’s works about it, but right now? I’ve even blacklisted a bunch of terms so I can see as few Ragnarok posts as possible. And precisely because I want nothing to do with it have I never gotten in the way of people who do enjoy it unless they outright ask me for my opinion, as you did, Anon. If anyone enjoyed Ragnarok despite EVERYTHING I wrote here, that’s on you. I don’t need any arguments to convince me that I’m wrong and they’re right about why this movie has some worth. The contradictions, conveniences, poor characterization and lack of creativity that went into this film will not go away just because someone excuses them one way or another, so if anyone is hoping to “enlighten me” about why this movie is actually brilliant? Save it. For your own good.

So, after these twelve thousand words on why Ragnarok is the worst MCU movie for me… is there anything left unsaid, really? I suspect so, because I watched it too long ago to remember every detail. Still, I’d have nothing good to say anyhow, so it’s probably for the best that I stop now that I’ve made my case quite clearly, right?

[imitationpersonne]

BNHA Chapter 215 Review aka I’m So Fucking Tired

So after 24 hours of shitty-brain-chemicals mini-crisis and reading the full pages and translation of chapter 215, I return...to confirm that yep, I’m still fuckin’ pissed.

Warning: If you’re not prepared for chart-topping Reddit-‘fandom’ levels of salt, shade, and bitterness with a whole lot of fucks mixed in, I suggest you read no further.

Let’s just do this page-by-page, shall we.

Oh my god, FINALLY. It’s already been five minutes; we’ve waited so long for this whole ‘scary new power’ phase to be over. Five whole minutes, y’all! Wow.

I mean, ya not wrong, buddy! You pretty much can do anything if Mr. Author’s plot dictates it. Because who gives a fuck about feeling like there are any stakes in anything or making the world seem real; amirite, Hori?

Shinsou again with the super relatability. P sure a lot of us are goddamn incredulous about the overplayed ‘struggling with new quirk manifestation’ drama, now that Izuku is magically instantly proficient. Because that’s how quirks have worked up until this point.......

Oh no...! Back down to 8% with no air force attack for a hot second?? WHAT A NERF! Whatever will he do?? ...Oh. Still win everything. So who gives a fuck. Does anybody really believe these percentages don’t just mean whatever Hori wants them to at any given moment anyway?

Yo, I’m sorry. Apologizing for the author who hyped some fantastic MonoShin collaboration and then did everything he could to prevent that from happening. Bitch.

But then...they did? Sooooooooo...? What the fuck’s the point of Shinsou recovering his mask and going for another plan? Legit nothing came of this. Why does this panel--no, most of this chapter even exist?? Like I get that it’s supposed to look like a struggle between the teams, but it’s all just...super contrived the way it ends, my dudes. This is bullshit writing, k.

Okay, I frickin’ loved this scene. I can be mad as all hell and still admit this was enjoyable. The quirk meta, the mind games, and Monoma’s zero-grav hair.

Okay, but did he really need another fucking limit on his quirk??? Time limit, one-at-a-time limit, potentially type limit (not able to copy mutant quirks--but that’s just speculation/headcanon for now)...and now number limit? WHILE IZUKU IS GETTING SIX WHOLE FUCKING PERMA-QUIRKS FOR GODDAMN FREE??

YEAH OKAY, LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT. I saw a post I mostly disagreed with and disliked (and don’t care to identify or quote; I can’t even remember whose it was or anything) saying this six-new-abilities ability is going to erase the need for a ton of other already-existing characters. Sero, as an example, since Black Whip basically usurps his specialty and more. On principle, as the worldbuilding has stood up until this point, I disagreed that characters like Sero would become useless. The way society has been trending, teamwork has been increasingly essential and encouraged. That means two people with lasso/tape-like quirks would do just fine! There can be more than one person with a similar quirk! Hell, that’s all Monoma’s quirk is--a temporary second of one that already exists. OR TETSUTETSU AND KIRISHIMA MUCH? They’re both useful! Even together!

So as a general principle, people with similar quirks can and do exist just fine in the same universe and even same space and role. The danger exists only if the author is so irresponsible as to consciously edge out the other characters by letting his pet character take care of everything by himself. Which seems like exactly what Izuku’s new six-quirks is at risk of doing now. Sure, argue Uraraka was useful and that Izuku relied on her this time, mmkay, but wait until he gets his own antigrav quirk, lol. Like, at this point, I honestly don’t trust Hori not to fuck up the beautiful character synergies and contrasts he’s already built. Because he sure did fuck up a lot of things that had great potential this arc already. Often by stepping on the ‘little’ guys. Fuck you, Tokage didn’t deserve that, and Baku didn’t deserve to dominate that hard. Where is the goddamn sense of struggle and achievement? Aight, that’s a rant for another day...

Anyway, back on track, call me biased as hell, but usurping the specialty of the guy whose ONLY NICHE WAS BEING THE ONLY ONE WITH VERSATILE MULTI-QUIRK USAGE? AND GAINING MULTIPLE QUIRKS BUT WITHOUT SEVERAL OF MONOMA’S LIMITING FACTORS? Gooooooooooo fuck yourself, ‘blessed boy’.

But...HE DIDN’T, THOUGH? Monoma’s ace-in-the-hole surprise Twin Impact stunned Mr. Protagonist for an amazing two whole seconds! Because of course; the fuck were we all thinking hoping other people mattered in this story or stood a chance against plot-device-convenient auto-scaling levels of OP? Like why even try tbh???

Shinsou fucking gets it. We all get it; it was an amazing play. But protagonist privilege too strong; what the fuck can you do.

Oh yep, here’s a more accurate translation, given the goddamn results.

Hahahahaha, amazing, even literally everybody in-character gets it. Team 5-B had every right to win this shit. But then...!

Oh boy!!! Generic shonen anime protagonist inspiration spiel to the contrived-Hori-plot rescue! Now, with these magic thoughts, he will win! Amazing how that works!

Well yeah, no shit, it makes sense for you to have that kind of confidence, considering that’s legit how your protagonist life works. Congrats on the contrived win, dude; I know you’re not surprised. Y’all, I know this isn’t in-world Izuku’s fault; he’s doing his best which is what he should be doing. It’s the shitty writing, plain and simple. Don’t blame the kid that gets everything; blame the one who spoils them at the expense of others. So perhaps calling me petty would be deserved, but my bitterness can’t help but leak out towards the character as well; it’s just human nature. I don’t like Baku as much as I used to either, because all the interesting bits are gone now that he’s OP and comparably perfect. At least Hori kinda kicked Shouto to the OP-privilege curb a little; makes him more realistic, relatable, and likable.

Ohhhh god, generic shonen anime faux-inspirational epilogue to put the icing on the shit cake; brb gagging.

Alright, so let’s summarize all the implied morals to the story here!:

Things turned around at the very end for basically no other reason than Hori wanted Team Protag to win.

All the dipshits were actually right; class B is legit inferior to class A, as evidenced by the results of literally every time they’ve directly faced each other. 1 win to 3 this time, bitch, and don’t make me remind of the sports festival. Even though B class clearly has better teamwork and synergy. Screw that, A more powerful, A smash. A main character class; A win.

Monoma, your backstory classmates were right, turns out! You are apparently an ineffective hero student who just keeps losing! You’ll never be more than a side character to be used, abused, and discarded. Fuck your aspirations, fan-fucking-tastic.

Shinsou, don’t kid yourself; you haven’t fucking changed. You got beaten by the same dude in nearly the exact same fashion. Your entire arc was fucking pointless; have fun in general studies! (In honesty, if Hori has any remaining shred of sensibility, I think he might let Shinsou into hero course anyway? Did they ever say Shinsou technically had to win both of his matches? Or just show progress? Who fucking knows at this point.)

Everybody who didn’t need to be reminded they’re great won. Are you not inspired?

Beautiful. Beautiful goddamn arc, Horikoshi; you taught us the important things in this world. Applause. I will honestly punch myself in the face in ecstatic shock if Hori manages to pull some way out of his ass to make this a satisfying conclusion.

My final thoughts:

Fuck this shit, I’m out.