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wolfstar-in-color · 3 years

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July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that.

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him.

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things.

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation.

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit.

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do).

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster.

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

#wolfstar #disability in fandom #disabled remus #crip remus #please write me some crip remus #I beg of you #fandom meta

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diamondcitydarlin · 2 years

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i really am utterly devoted to the idea of getting to see the process of Mobius' 'Loki study'. I like to imagine he had to, of course, be as familiar as possible with the sacred timeline approved version (or versionS as the case may be, as my other theory is that the sacred timeline is divided into layers like a cronut that just manage to cycle parallel to each other) and watch hours upon hours of footage, particularly of those crucial moments in Loki's life that define his placement on the timeline and he has to know off the top of his head when, how and where those things happened.

so, he gets assigned his specialty in Lokis and is given the various research/studying materials and gets to work because he's been mentally conditioned to take great pride in what he does and never question its morality. that's initially all it is, but as he watches the reels of Loki's life in the time theater he starts finding himself heavily invested- not for the sake of the TVA, but because this being fascinates and amuses and irritates him all at once and he starts avidly looking forward to the time he gets to view more of Loki's story. His work becomes even more impassioned because he's got to know more, he wants nothing else than to be able to wrap his mind around Loki and his motivations.

But ultimately the expectations the TVA has given him (a villain, a scourge, a negative energy meant only to amplify those deserving of heroism) are not lining up with his own interpretations of the person he's studying. He reasons that Loki is just very complex, more complex than any one here present can fully understand aside from him (why else would he be chosen to do it?). He doesn't yet have the ability to entertain the idea that the TVA might be lying.

That He-Who-Remains might have had a repeated problem in keeping the timeline contained with Lokis running around and didn't fully know how to keep them at bay until some simple civil rights lawyer on his way home from work in midtown Manhattan decided not to kneel to the invading alien God and, instead, engage him in a casual debate about the logistics of what he was doing. When Loki didn't even think to kill him, but instead better protect his pride by continuing the verbal sparring, Kang knew he'd found his man. The TVA hunters only took Mobius that time and reset the rest. No need to have him and Loki properly acquainted just yet.

After all, he has to be mentally reset, imbued with the right attitudes, and then given time to be trained into the proper expert so that every mischievous Loki variant that tries to stray from the path will have a worthy opponent facing them, anticipating their movements. Usually things go smoothly; Mobius pinpoints where and when a Loki issue will be, the Hunters collect the variant, the variant is pruned before Mobius has any contact with them at all.

But sometimes (and this happens often which is terribly inconvenient for the mastermind of all this) Mobius and a specific 2012 Loki will come into contact with one another and everything just goes to shit. I mean, Kang figures it makes sense a connection like that would be a bit unstable and prone to any and all outcomes, but it's when Loki really starts wrapping himself around Mobius' finger and convincing him of things he really shouldn't even know about that they both have to get reset. Again. Things will go fine for awhile after that, but sooner or later in the mobius loop Loki will try to grab that tesseract again and- well.

but anyway Loki studying, I just like to think there were little moments here and there where Loki said or did something that evoked such feeling in Mobius he'd start to doubt, even without Loki whispering directly in his ear

#lokius #headcanon #canon revision #hopefully the time stuff makes sense #not trying to be moffat levels of confusing here #agent mobius

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Cass wouldn’t even begrudingly tolerate [the Black Bat], because she’s even less lenient than Bruce on killing and far more willing to throw down.' - THANK YOU for remembering that.

Cass is my favorite Batfam member, the only one really that I have an active interest in reading about. I'd be incredibly ignorant to not bring bring up such a crucial aspect of her characterization. And even if I didn't personally care for her, well, last thing I'd want is to be another source of frustration for Cass fans. Lord knows there's enough of those to go around.

mousebrass also asked: On that note, how do you imagine a meeting between Cass and the Shadow going?

Fair warning: This one took me 6 hours to write, and it became a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. I liked Cass a lot, but I never quite realized I had this many feelings regarding her until I was tasked with writing this, and a lot of things clicked for me regarding my plans for The Shadow thanks to this ask. @mousebrass, thank you. I mean it. I think I may have found something here I've spent years looking for. Hope you enjoy the post.

I'm thankful that this scenario is only really taking place in a hypothetical fanon where both characters can get a fair shot, because I wouldn't trust DC with this premise. I don't trust DC with either of them as is.

There's a lot of ways that this crossover could go on about taking place naturally, initially because Cass is already connected to some of Batman's pulpier elements, due to her connections to Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and one could connect Cass to Myra Reldon (who really should just be race swapped if ever brought back so she can stand out as the cool character she is, without the yellowface gimmick holding her back). There's two things I think are crucial to making the most of this idea, and the first of which has to do with the subject of killing. I usually don't like to come up with hypothetical team-ups for The Shadow that focus too much on the fact that he kills, because it's far from the most significant aspect of his character to focus on, much of it is written from a wrong understanding of the character, and it never amounts to anything other than perfunctory. But here, not only is it completely unavoidable to discuss, here there is actually a very, very substantial grounding as to why this has to be such a big part of the story.

The first and foremost thing that's gotta be established to everyone reading that doesn't know already is this: Cassandra Cain, more so than Batman, more so than any other DCU hero, has a tolerance towards murder lower than zero, and this is completely non-negotiable. She will throw herself on the path of an assault rifle to stop men trying to kill her from accidentally killing each other. The defining moment of her incredibly grim backstory is that she was trained from birth to be the world's greatest murderer, and her first kill traumatized her so badly that she has pivoted as far away from that as possible. I stress a lot that the Shadow should not be written as the trigger-happy maniac comics made him into and that the pulp version killed mostly to defend himself and others, generally left criminals to the police if possible, offered plenty of second-chances, had stories dedicated to the rehabilitation of criminals and so on, but none of this would matter to Cass.

Cass has literally chosen suicide over the prospect of living with murder on her hands time and time again, and The Shadow kills. When he kills, he does so without remorse, with unshakeable certainty. He hates death, he doesn't want lives to be at risk in the first place. But people will die if he doesn't do anything, and what he can do, what he exists to do, is turn the tools of evil against evil, and murder is the oldest tool of evil there is. He doesn't kill because a war scarred him, he doesn't kill because he's got a demon in his soul, he doesn't kill because he's mentally off balance, he doesn't kill because he's evil or sadistic or arrogant or anything of the sort. He kills because the men he fights chose death when they sought to harm innocents and fire guns at him. He kills because he is Death itself.

Regardless of how compassionate he is or can be, regardless of the fact that he's motivated by a desire to protect people, regardless of how justified he is, he is still dropping corpses and laughing maniacally doing so. Cass's real arch-enemy isn't Shiva or David Cain, it's Death, it's the thing that she's fundamentally most opposed to. And guess what The Shadow gets compared to often enough? Literally the very first line of the very first book where we get to see him, this is how we are introduced to him:

So the premise here is that we are taking a character who is defined by her fundamental opposition to death with every fiber of her being, who understands death on a level no other human being does, who is traumatized and hard-wired to detest death at all costs and to choose suicide over it, and asking her to team up with The Grim Reaper.

Even if he received the most abject lesson conceivable on the sheer wrongness of murder, even if he does put down the guns around Cass out of respect for her, he cannot protect his agents and others if he cannot shoot or kill those who try to harm them, and the protection of the agents is absolutely non-negotiable and not at all something he's willing to fuck around with by trying out gadget kung fu superhero alternatives. The Shadow has chosen to throw his life away for their sake time and time again, and no matter how appaling or disgusting Cass finds his deeds, even if he concedes that she's right and should be right on all accounts and that he is fundamentally a monster who has no right to judge others, he would not concede on his mission and he would make it very clear she would have to put him down violently to stop him from protecting others this way, and death has not stopped him before.

And to be upfront in case there's anyone who doubts it, Cass would kick The Shadow's ass, if they had to fight. She is the strongest fighter in the DCU, she lives and breathes fighting and combat in a way no one else does. And The Shadow's not one of those characters who is supposed to be invincible and the best at everything all the time always, he can and does lose fights and scrapes to people far less adept at it than Cass. He's a great fighter, obviously, he hauls bigger men than him through doors and was disabling people with Vulcan neck pinches decades before Spock, and he would definitely have an edge in other areas, but he's out of his league here. Frankly, I don't see The Shadow raising a finger against Cass unless she's been brainwashed into killing people by bad writing. Not because she's a woman, that doesn't really stop him from dealing with evil. But because, for one, she's practically a child compared to him age-wise. Two, he'd obviously know beforehand of her capabilities and how futile it would be to fight or even provoke her. And three, the Shadow's whole thing is knowing. The Shadow Knows and all that. Knowing comes with understanding.

He'd understand very quickly that there is no way someone this young could grow so quickly into the world's greatest fighter without horrific treatment that no one should ever be subjected to. He'd see the movements too practiced and quick, the self-control, the strength and speed far beyond even the trained warriors he's seen, the places where she's been scarred and is good at covering it up. Assuming he doesn't already know about her life story, any meeting between the two would lead to him very quickly figuring out that there's something much deeper about her opposition to killing than just moral reservations, something deeper than Bruce's own gun trauma.

Denny O'Neil's 2nd Batman and Shadow story was about The Shadow secretly helping Bruce overcome gun trauma, and Bruce rejecting The Shadow's intentions to hand him a gun. And to make it clear, people tend to assume that The Shadow only helps people for utilitarian reasons, which is not true as I've tried to demonstrate many times now. I don't want to convey that he would want to help Cass overcome her trauma just so she could be more efficient or something, absolutely no, he'd help her because he helps people in any way he can. I think a story with The Shadow and Cass might involve a similar premise, The Shadow understanding that she has been traumatized very deeply by death and refuses to accept it on any terms, trying to help her overcome it, only to learn that she does not want to "learn" anything she doesn't already know, that she has weaponized her trauma into a source of strength, and wishes nothing more than to help others with it.

And here's where we get to the part that allows the two to be on less antagonistic terms, because one thing that also very strongly defines Cass, at least the Cass I like reading most, is her stubborn, almost desperate need to believe in the best of people, that people can and will change for the better. Like The Shadow, her strength too is knowing, it's perception, the things that she knows about people that words cannot convey. Just as there are many things The Shadow would grow to understand about her that others would not, there would be many things that The Shadow would not be able to conceal from her. Things that no one but her would figure out. Things that, despite her age and lack of experience compared to him, he would have to defer to her knowledge on, which reverses the usual dynamic The Shadow has with people. And perhaps one aspect of that reversal, it's that maybe it's she who winds up secretly manipulating The Shadow into overcoming a deeper issue.

Cass's perspective on killing is shaped not just through trauma, but from a painfully intimate understanding of not just what happens to someone at the time of death, but the cost of murder upon the human soul, the ways it warps people into things they never should have been. Killing is a deeply, deeply serious matter, much more so than fiction seems ever willing to go into. Of course we suspend disbelief for fiction, there's nothing wrong with that, but if a story starts asking questions, starts poking holes into fantasies, they should not be disregarded.

And so it begs a question: How has it affected The Shadow? Is he really as remorseless as he appears to be? Is the fact that he's only killing evil people really of that much use? What's the cost of living as someone who has to know so much about so much evil in so many hearts? Knowledge never comes without price, and knowing evil is his tagline. When he enlists Harry Vincent, he makes it very clear that he has lost lives as he has saved them. From when is that regret coming from? What lives did he lose then? Is he saving people by damning his soul or merely prolonging the inevitable by piling corpses on another end of the scale?

If there's a character that could meaningfully start bringing these questions forth, who could ever truly get The Shadow to stop and reveal things to the audience he never would otherwise, maybe Cass could be that character. A girl who was raised to be a monster, who is treated as a monster and an aberration in-universe (and even outside of it), and turned that into a strength she uses to help others, who cares about everyone and refuses to let others be dehumanized as she was. Who better to know what lurks in the Shadow's heart?

Sometimes when I get an ask, I bullshit my way through infodump walls of text until I can structure it into something vaguely resembling a point. And sometimes, and I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I get a very, very clear word on my mind related to it before I start writing, that almost seems to be a beacon pointing where I need to get to, and I work my way into getting there. Once you sent me an ask about crossing over The Shadow with Cassandra Cain, the word that came to mind the very second was Language.

It's an interesting relation the two have with language. Language is of course a very substantial part of Cass's character, who does not process language and linguistic development the way most people do, and instead reads body language to the point of superpower. Many stories revolve around Cass's relation to the concept of language, the help she may require from others in getting around things beyond her upbringing, and ways in which she has mastered beyond anyone's scope. Though she is mute, language is her power, what makes her what she is, and she is someone that Batman freely admits could kick his ass if she ever felt like it.

For The Shadow, language is also his power. He speaks all languages and connects allies all over the world, he is an expert ventriloquist, he is able to project his voice beyond what's physically possible, he can imitate voices perfectly to the point of being able to conduct group conversations single-handedly well enough to fool even the people whose voices he's imitating, much of his presence and terror and manipulation are done through his voice, arguably the very reason he exists in the first place is entirely because a radio actor's voice performance was so good and captivating that it tricked people into thinking the character was a real star and not just a glorified narrator. The man you cannot see, but only hear, the perfect hero for radio. And then of course the laugh, which I have a whole separate post on and which, in many ways, acts as a substitute for language in the novels. He uses the laugh so often as a substitute for statements or words, even to himself, that it's pretty much his own personal language. And language is at the core of how he deals with people, as he knows the right language to use to manipulate and move and help them. He knows what to promise, what to reveal, what to omit. He knows what to say, how to say it, when to say it. Language is the strings by which he puppeteers the world around him (and he can talk to animals, at least of one kind).

The Shadow and Cassandra Cain have mastered two different types of Language as throughly as anyone can possibly master them. The Shadow can talk a group of hardened criminals into killing themselves, Cassandra can punch a heart into stopping without killing it. The Shadow echoes his voice "through everywhere and nowhere at once" to whip crowds of thugs into frenzies, Cassandra outraces missiles and was tanking bullets as a child. The Shadow can lie and usurp lives so masterfully to fool even the families of those he's passing off as, Cassandra is a living lie detector who gleams inner conversations from miniscule reactions. The Shadow can speak every language known, Cassandra is the greatest master of the world's most universal language other than music. The two are supposedly human, but every now and then, something comes along to call that into question because of the things they can achieve. They cannot hide secrets from each other the way they do to everyone else. They are driven by a deep desire to help others, to make something out of the circumstances of their lives. To weaponize that which dictates they should be evil and monstrous into a relentless force of good.

Language is the root of understanding. And if nothing else, as impossible as a conciliation of their approaches to crimefighting may be, I think there could be an unique understanding between the two. Perhaps, and this is a bit crazier a concept but one that seems to be where I might have been heading towards all along, even Cassandra Cain finding a calling away from the frayed dynamics of the Batfamily, away from the Bat's looming presence, to become The Shadow's successor, swearing to uphold a mission of justice through non-lethal tactics while he stays on the backseat guiding her. If The Shadow could trust the safety of his agents and the protection of the innocent at the hands of someone as capable and selfless and good-natured as Cassandra, I think he'd be all too happy to be able to trust someone in such a manner, to no longer be the Master of Darkness, but instead to serve the next generation that's weaponized darkness without submerging in it. To achieve, and perhaps return, to his strongest, highest self: A disembodied voice heard, but not seen. Once again the narrator, not the star.

It's a concept I've thought about very extensively for the years I've been a Shadow fan, but now it occurs to me that, if I had to appoint a successor of The Shadow, someone who could take up the mission but shine on their own right, even improve it with the right guidance and circumstances, it would be Cassandra Cain. The Orphan, The Shadow of the Batgirl. Daughter of the greatest assassins, meant to be the world's most lethal murderer, instead pivoted to being one of it's greatest heroes, but never allowed to shine as she should. But in the darker, less restrictive and wilder world of pulp heroes, in The Shadow's world, a beacon would shine all the harder. Perfect strengths attached to perfect opposites, joined together for a greater good, unstoppable after together having weaponized that which most take for granted: the power of language to move worlds.

#replies tag #pulp heroes #comic books #the shadow #cassandra cain #batgirl #i always had a feeling that a successor to the shadow should not be modeled on batman but someone within that range #i never quite found a character i would be happy with taking that role or a similar role #aw shit i just talked myself into a new favorite character #that just so happens to be another character brimming with potential that's denied them by corporate overlords #who could have seen that coming

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maaruin · 4 years

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The Institutional Problems of the Jedi Order

Preface

I think it is time to finally write this post. These ideas have been going through my head for some time after reading some Jedi discourse. But I should preface this with: even though the Jedi made mistakes, this does not mean Palpatine’s genocide of them was justified. It only means that he saw certain flaws in the Order that he could exploit. I suspect that without these flaws, he probably still would have managed to take over and persecute the Jedi, but much more of the Order would have survived.

For this post, I am mostly using the prequel movies with a bit of lore added from the old Expanded Universe. I’m not using The Clone Wars, because its depiction of Anakin’s fall to the dark side is different from the movies. And I’m not using the new Disney Canon, because I don’t know what has been retconned so far and what hasn’t.

Depending on how we count, I think there were either two or four major flaws. I’ll number them as four, but the first three could be grouped together.

1. The Jedi Order is a religion but isn’t organized like one

The Jedi are a religion. They are a group that believes certain things about the universe and practices a way of life that fits with these beliefs. But they are also entirely organized as “Jedi Knights” who are “guardians of peace and justice in the [old] republic”. This is… odd. The entire religion is basically made up of full-time professionals. Or rather, monastics.

If you want to study the Force and use it, you have to become a monk, basically. And more than that, to be accepted you need to already have a special talent in using the Force. Actually, you can’t even do that, they only take toddlers, so your parents have to decide if you should join this religion and become a monk. (Or maybe the Jedi Order just takes all Force sensitive children no matter what the parents think, it’s not entirely clear.)

A normal religion isn’t organized like that. Normally most members of a religion are normal people with normal jobs with varying levels of devotion. They participate in the practices of the religion in a way that fits into their daily life. Then there are religious professionals like priests who work to make it possible for the normal followers to practice this religion. And then, in some religions, there are monastics who dedicate their life to practicing the religion, generally apart from the normal believers. The Jedi only have the last group.

That alone would make them much easier to target and wipe out. But it is even more like that. The entire Jedi Order is integrated into the institutional framework of the Republic. All of the higher ranked Jedi (we will talk about the lower ranked later) basically work as special police and special diplomats for the Republic. “and” not “or”, all of them must fulfill both roles. And, when the Clone Wars start, they all become officers in the Republic military.

Now, in principle I don’t think religious institutions working closely with the state and fulfilling important roles for it is necessarily a problem. But if this is the only way this religion can be practiced, the practice of this religion will become poor in variety and closed off to most people who would be interested in participating.

2. Slavery in the Galaxy

There is slavery in the Galaxy Far Far Away. It is illegal in the Galactic Republic, but it is widely practiced in the planets of the Outer Rim, which might or might not be members of the Republic. The Jedi know that slavery is bad. What should they do?

Well, as much as a like the image of a hundred Jedi waltzing into the Hutt Cartel and killing/arresting them all, that probably wouldn’t be the best idea and cause much more chaos and harm than it solves, at least in the short run. But there are alternatives besides doing that and mostly ignoring it. For a start, here are two:

Establish underground railroads to smuggle slaves to freedom or assist on already established ones. Jedi mind-reading and precognition abilities will be very helpful in such endeavors.

Assist in organizing and fighting in slave revolts. One Jedi can turn the tide on the battlefield and if they are respected diplomats, the can help the slaves in finding supporters.

But this isn’t what the Jedi do because they are preoccupied with their role in the Republic. Qui-Gon says to Anakin that he didn’t come to Tatooine to free slaves. Which is true, he was sent to assist the government of Naboo against the Trade Federation, not the slaves on Tatooine against the Hutts. And why was he sent to Naboo and not Tatooine? Because Chancellor Valorum decided that resisting the Trade Federation was in the interest of the Republic, but freeing slaves wasn’t.

As mentioned in part 1 the number of members of the Jedi religion is smaller than it should be and integrated into the Republic in a way that leaves little room for it to act independently.

3. The Clone Army

Suddenly, an army for the Republic conveniently appears in time when the Republic is about to go to war after centuries of peace. This army is made up of, for all intents and purposes, slaves. Slaves that have been bred to be especially obedient. The Republic is expecting the Jedi to serve as officers in this army. What should the Jedi do?

Serve as officers, because the clones would suffer more without them?

Refuse to serve because that would mean supporting the introduction of slavery into the Republic?

Throw their political weight around and demand the clone troopers be freed and given Republic citizenship and in addition demand an end of the clone production in return for serving in the war?

Serve on both sides of the clone wars because the Republic obviously doesn’t have the moral high ground anymore and if their service in the Republic army leads to less suffering, their service in the Separatist army will do so as well?

There are probably more options. The Jedi decided to pick the one that reduced the suffering of the clones in the short term, but by doing that squandered the opportunity to take a stance against the creation of the clone army. And we don’t even see meaningful discussion within the order about this choice. This is, I suspect, because the Jedi are so used to their role as enforcers in the Galactic Republic that the alternatives weren’t really on the table.

(Palpatine’s plan was counting on the Jedi to behave this way when he planned Order 66.)

4. Dealing with emotions (the problem with Anakin)

While the Jedi Order may not demand it’s members to be emotionless, it does demand that they keep their emotions under very strict control. Nonetheless, almost all the Jedi we see do seem to be emotionally well adjusted. Obi-Wan, Yoda, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu, all of them seem to have little trouble with this demand.

Anakin, on the other hand, has a lot of trouble with it. He often has emotional outbursts through Episode II and III, then shortly afterwards walks back and apologizes. Curiously, this isn’t the case in Episode I. There he is actually quite good in dealing with his emotions. In other words, his time in the Jedi Order made his ability to handle his own emotions worse. Much worse, actually.

I think the reason for this is that whenever he feels something, other Jedi tell him that this is not right. It starts with Yoda in Episode I. “Afraid are you? […] Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate.. hate leads to suffering.” Criticisms like this no doubt continued all the way through his training until, by the time of Episode II, every time he feels an emotion he is angry at himself for feeling that emotion, which leads to more emotional instability, not less.

But why is this a problem Anakin has and not for the other Jedi we see. Maybe it is because he started his training later than is normal for a Jedi. But I suspect it is something slightly different: The Jedi who go through their training either find a way to handle their emotions in a way the order approves of, or they are sorted out. In the Expanded Universe there is a so called Jedi Service Corps where Jedi who fail their training go to work as farmers, explorers, educators or medical assistants. These jobs are, however, seen as lesser and going there is considered a failure. This is unfortunate, I think the Jedi could do much more good in the galaxy if the best of them were able to work in different fields instead of all being stuck with warrior-diplomat. Nonetheless, the Service Corps actually mitigates one of the flaws the Order has to some extend, if it works like I suspect. If the Jedi don’t have a way of dealing with emotions that works for everyone, the next best thing is to only pick the ones that can handle it and put the rest somewhere where they are useful and can’t do damage. Certainly not ideal, but an understandable adjustment.

But anyways, Anakin wasn’t sorted out. It is never confirmed in the movies, but I would suspect they made an exception for him. Yoda already made an exception for him when they decided to train him at all. And because he was the chosen one, I think they thought that his potential would be wasted if he only got to be in the Service Corps. If we ignore the Service Corps and only go off the movies, my criticism still stands: Yoda recognized that Anakin might not handle Jedi training well and he should have stuck to his guns and refuse Anakin to be trained within the Jedi Order.

Why are the Jedi like this?

Personally, I like to explain these flaws of the Jedi Order historically. Now, the EU doesn’t really fit with the theory I have. Because in games like KotOR and SWtOR the Order seems very similar to the Order in the Prequels. On the other hand, other sources say that this structure of the Jedi Order is a product of the Ruusan Reformation which happened after the end of the last Sith War a thousand years before Episode I.

To defeat the Sith at the end of that war, all Jedi were brought together as one army, no matter what they had done before. They didn’t really defeat the Sith (the Sith were deceived by Darth Bane to destroy themselves), but they thought they did. They thought they almost single-handedly saved the Republic from destruction.

Because of this, they rebuilt the Jedi Order in a way that was explicitly integrated into the institutions of the Republic. They built it in a way that made the fighting Jedi the core of the Order, other forms of being a Jedi were downgraded to the Service Corps. Because many Jedi had fallen to the dark side in that war, they taught a very strict form of emotional control and only trained force-sensitives from birth. And because they were so linked to their role as enforcers for the Republic, the neglected many other things Jedi should do, like helping slaves free themselves.

A better Jedi Order

No matter if this is how it happened, I do think the Jedi Order could be different (better). Here is how I would change it:

A Jedi Laity: Every living being is connected to the Force, so let them participate in practices that serve this connection like Jedi meditation. They may never be able to move things with their mind, but that’s not the point.

Jedi who serve the people should live among them: Jedi priests, Jedi healers, and yes, even Jedi knights should not form their own community but instead be in the same community as the Jedi laity.

Monasteries for the monks: Jedi who fully want to focus on their connection with the Force could still live in monastic communities.

Don’t completely integrate into the state: Working with the Galactic Republic could still be a thing, but the Republic should never depend on the Jedi and only a minority of Jedi should serve the Republic directly.

Help people everywhere: Because they are not completely bound to the Republic, many Jedi can decide how they will serve the people in the galaxy. Some might decide to help the slaves in the Outer Rim.

A Variety of Emotion: Not every Jedi will be as capable of controlling their emotions as the others. If there is a large variety of ways to be a Jedi, I suspect that most of them could still find their place to fit into the Order.

Allow adults to join: With adults it is much easier to determine if they would make a good Jedi and what way of being a Jedi would suit them. If there is a Jedi laity, they can be trained as children to some degree before they decide if they want to join.

Would this Jedi Order have fallen to Palpatine’s manipulation? I don’t know. But I think it would have been harder for him. If most Jedi didn’t serve in the Republic military and weren’t in a small number of Jedi temples, Order 66 would have claimed much less of the Order. (Probably 10%-20% instead of >90%.) Jedi would find it much more easy to hide in the population and the laity could help carry on the Jedi traditions in secret. Anakin might have been more emotionally well adjusted and not fall for Palpatine’s manipulations. (On the other hand, in a more open Jedi Order like this, there might be more people who could be turned, so who knows.)

Well, this is my contribution the Jedi discourse. The Jedi aren’t evil, and they certainly didn’t deserve genocide because of this. But as the Prequels depict them, they have certain tragic flaws in the way they are organized that Palpatine could exploit.

(Maybe I’ll make a shorter Part 2 about how Luke deals with this.)

#star wars #prequel trilogy #jedi #jedi order #order 66 #there is no emotion #jedi service corps #fictional slavery #jedi critical #galactic republic #anakin skywalker #palpatine

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bitch-for-a-rainbow · 3 years

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So there's a blanddcheadcanons post that says that "Kara is the mortal avatar of Rao" and I really don't like it, especially in the context of SG 3x04 (The Faithful). At best, as was pointed out to me by a friend with whom I discussed this post, the House of El is likely blessed and somewhat sponsored by Rao, which probably doesn't do much but produce Krypton's greatest heroes, given what the word "El" **means** in Kryptonian. I'm interested in your thoughts on this (pls post your answer).

I reject the headcannon solely because if it were true it would mean Coville was right and I fucking hate that bitch.

In all seriousness, though, this is an idea I've seen a lot and I'm not a huge fan of. I don't know much about Raoism beyond what appears in the show and that which can be inferred off of the show. One thing I would point out though is that El in Kryptonian (while obviously being intended to mean God by the original comic writers) can mean Sun or Stars, and since the Kryptonians in the show are, as far as I can tell, monotheistic, and worshipped only one particular star, the El family is not necessarily named God. It would, however, signify their enormous prestige on Krypton and contribute to the famous El pride (or rather, arrogance). I’m not sure it would necessarily have to mean anything more than that-- that the Els are a respected house who have produced a variety of successful politicians, civil servants, and scientists. And (this time reaching a little bit) that they are perhaps so old and respected that their house name was once a title.

There is a certain allure to the theory, for sure. Kara is a paragon character. She always, always does what she thinks is right, regardless of the cost, personal or global, and regardless of what other people might think of it. She has a very direct moral compass, and there are only a handful of times when she doesn’t follow it, all of which involve saving Lena. Ship who you want, but it is notable that Kara routinely prioritzes Lena’s life over that of others given the rarity of that happening otherwise. She never even considered breaking Rick Thompson’s father out of prison when he kidnapped Alex, and all he’d committed was bank robbery. Kara has lines she does not cross (though murder is clearly not one of them). She is a character that has seen some of the worst that sentient life is capable of, has seen more death and suffering than most people could imagine, and she came out of it with an all-encompassing desire to protect others. She lives to give people hope. Plus, the humor of having Kara-- the one person most offended by the idea of being an Avatar of Rao-- turn out to be an Avatar of Rao is great.

But, I would also say that having Kara want to do good because she is the avatar of a benevolent god is reductive and not particularly true to her character. It is true that helping and protecting people is a large part of the core of who Kara is. But there is a difference between altruism and the self-destructive, bordering of suicidal desperation to save absolutely everyone that Kara practices. And to anyone who doubts the suicidal bit, I direct you to the season 1 finale where Kara literally goes on a goodbye tour because she thinks if she goes out to fight Non she’ll die. She still goes because she has hope, but that hope is that she can at least save Earth with her life. She doesn’t fight because she is certain in the ultimate victory of good and justice. She does it because she more afraid to lose another family than she is to die. Kara doesn’t become Supergirl and risk her own life because she believes in good, she does it because she can’t stand to listen to people suffer-- because she has suffered. To use Alex’s words in 1x13 “You fight everyday to keep people from struggling like you have.” Notably also in 1x13, Kara wakes up from the Black Mercy and her first words are “Who did this to me?” and then she goes after Non in what could arguably be described as a homicidal rage-- a rage that is fueled entirely for personal reasons, not the greater good of Earth (though that comes as an added benefit), which is.... not very befitting the avatar of a benevolent god.

A major part of season 1 is Kara dealing with grief and rage. She nearly breaks a guy's arm in episode 6 because he screamed at her for damaging his car, to hell with the children he'd almost hit with it. In season 3's Midvale flashbacks we see her first put both hands through a lunch table, then attack Jake when she suspects him for Kenny's death. She gets better at controlling it as the seasons progress, but during Crisis she very nearly melts Lex. Also not particularly godly of her.

Then there is the fact that so much of who Kara is is shaped by fear: fear of the government, fear of humanity, fear of abandonment, and fear of herself. In her civilian life, Kara is, for the most part, unnoticeable. She's polite, soft-spoken, doesn't wear a lot of bold colors or styles, and is often a pushover. As shown by her encounter with Red Kryptonite, Kara would not dress or speak the same way to people without the pressure of hiding her identity (though much of her dialogue is purely the loss of her "don't be an asshole" filter, some of it is stuff she had every right to say before and just didn't). I have always found that episode to be very interesting purely for the fact that Kara doesn't actually seem to be seeking harm on others so much as seeking their attention. Her argument with Alex is almost entirely about how much she hates having to hide and pretend to be less than she is. Kara drops Cat off the balcony and then catches her. She attacks the police when they point weapons at her but doesn't kill or even hurt them that badly, instead of destroying the car they're using as shelter. Red-K removed her inhibitions, made her angrier, yes, but if her goal was to actually hurt people, she could have done so-- would have done so, and with great ease. She goes to a public bar and uses super strength to smash bottles by flicking peanuts. Why do that at a crowded bar? Why not just flick potato chips at the windows in her own apartment?

This is Kara at her absolute worst-- but does she seek out the DEO agents who shot her out of the sky? Does she go after Maxwell Lord or Non? No. She tries to make people pay attention to her. Her most shameful and hideous desire is for people to give her respect. (Admittedly, respect gained through fear, but still.). Kara's a nice person-- much, much nicer than average-- but a lot of that "nice" is just her avoiding conflict to avoid attention.

Kara is a good person. Kara inspires people. But that is because Kara gets up every day and chooses to be good and to inspire. It's one of the reasons I enjoy Non as a villain so much-- he and Astra are Kara's narrative foils. They also remember Krypton and grieve its loss. They also were trapped in the Phantom Zone. But where Kara had the Danvers to convince her that some good people existed and would risk themselves just to help others, Non and Astra had Alura sentencing them to eternal suffering rather than helping them save their planet (through the means they thought necessary) and then landed on Earth and found it headed on the same path as the planet they'd just lost. Kara had people to help her grieve. Non and Astra were surrounded by misery. They lost hope. Kara discovered it.

Kara is the Paragon of Hope because she has been hopeless. Because she has suffered so much, seen so much, and because she chooses to believe in a better future. She didn't have hope her first time in the Phantom Zone. She didn't even have hope for a while on earth. From what we can gather, Kara's choice to start actually believing in the future was a gradual shift that occurred sometime after Kenny's death and has lasted her ever since. For Kara, hope is learned. She chose to hope and she won't let it go, and to assign that incredible victory off to her being a God is an insult to her growth and to her character.

Now I personally thought “The Faithful” handled this concept very well. 3x04 is one of my favorite episodes of television in general, let alone in Supergirl. Season 3 is my second favorite season, and that says a lot for its good episodes when the bad of season 3 is so, so very bad (To say nothing of the episode to episode production value, we have the waste of Argo, Mon El’s return as obviously he’s grown he has a beard Mon El, and whatever the hell was going on with Kryptonian genetic engineering eclipse causing witches). To this day I don’t know why Kara had magic dreams. The show did nothing to explain it and I can’t imagine up a reason.

But “The Faithful” works because it highlights the whole paragon part of who Kara is. When you realize that every person in the room of Coville’s cult is a person she has personally saved-- that hits hard. Especially since only a fraction of the people she’s saved would ever set foot inside that building with the totally not-creepy, entirely wholesome way they deliver the invitations. (“Your daughter is special. She has been chosen. As have you.”) It works because it focuses on how the average human must view Kara, the ones who don’t see her argue with her sister over potstickers and crush her phone when she gets mad. It works because of how desperately hard Kara tries to be a human. It works because the writers know that we, the audience, do not see Kara as anything but a regular person with irregular abilities: a kind and remarkably devoted person, but not a god.

#I didnt discuss it above. but Kara gets REALLY mad about Covilles whole deal #I really love watching her reaction to kryptonian artifacts #girl goes suspicion first and anger second #and it highlights her humanity #even as it puts her on a pedastal #Kara saved all these people but she will still tear her holy book from your hands #and scream at you for daring to quote it #Supergirl 3x04 #Supergirl 1x13 #Supergirl 1x20 #Supergirl #Kara Danvers #Supergirl meta #Kara Zor el #Raoism

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sokkastyles · 3 years

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One of the things I love about Katara is the way the narrative does not force a dichotomy on her between healing and fighting.

I don’t want to heal, I want to fight!

Which doesn’t mean she didn’t feel any pressure from other characters who tried to force that dichotomy on her. The way that Katara’s healing ability is introduced into the narrative, in “The Deserter,” we do have a clear dichotomy between fire (destruction) and water (healing).

Jeong Jeong: You have healing abilities. The great benders of the Water Tribe sometimes have this ability. I've always wished I were blessed like you - free from this burning curse.

Katara: But you're a great master. You have powers that I will never know.

Jeong Jeong: Water brings healing and life. But fire brings only destruction and pain. It forces those of us burdened with its care to walk a razor's edge between humanity and savagery. Eventually, we are torn apart.

Katara did not even know that she (or any waterbenders, for that matter) could heal, and in this episode Aang and Katara also experience personally fire’s capacity to cause pain. I also love that the first thing Katara heals is herself, she heals her hands, so that she can then go on to use those hands to heal others.

But then this dichotomy is broken down as the story goes on. Jeong Jeong’s “curse” is a self-fulfilling one. Because he himself cannot escape the sins of his past and sees his bending as a burden, he is at first hesitant to teach Aang:

How can I teach you if you refuse to listen? Before learning firebending you must learn water and earth. Water is cool and soothing, earth is steady and stable, but fire, fire is alive! It breathes, it grows. Without the bender, a rock will not throw itself! But fire will spread and destroy everything in its path if one does not have the will to control it! That is its destiny! You are not ready! You are too weak!

Yet when he says this, and Avatar Roku appears to convince him to teach Aang, we see the fire symbolically imprisoning Jeong Jeong, showing that it is his own fear that his holding him back.

Ironically, this also ends up holding Aang back. Aang was reckless and impatient to learn the cooler aspects of firebending, and there is some truth to what Jeong Jeong says about him not being ready, and perhaps it was wrong for Roku to convince Jeong Jeong for that reason, but it’s also Jeong Jeong’s own fear of the fire and the way he sees it as a curse that leads to Aang losing control and burning Katara. Jeong Jeon can’t teach Aang how to control the fire because he always feared losing control, and so all he teaches Aang how to do is be overly cautious, which increases Aang’s fear when he does lose control. This is also another reason that Zuko is the perfect teacher for Aang. Zuko had to learn self control and discipline the hard way, by making mistakes.

Katara learns how to heal without even meaning to, in the same episode that Jeong Jeong and Aang try too hard to control the fear of fire and end up losing control. There’s also the obvious masculine and feminine symbolism here associated with fire and water, respectively, and when healing came naturally to Katara, whereas using her bending to fight was something she had to continually work hard at, I dreaded that the show was going for a moral about gender essentialism.

Healing does become a big aspect of Katara’s narrative, but it never supersedes her desire to fight. Katara is both a fighter and a healer, and she is both of those things because she chose to be. This is reflective in Katara’s personality, and how she gets to be both soft and strong in turns, both a mother and revolutionary. She could have stopped fighting when she learned that female waterbenders were supposed to be healers. She could have even accepted that healing came naturally to her whereas her waterbending was often a source of frustration in early seasons, and embraced that instead. It certainly would have been easier. But Katara is not a character who chooses the easy path. She’s always chosen what she believed was right, even when others doubted her. And her significant moments of both fighting and healing reflect that.

When she offers to heal Zuko in the crystal catacombs, we are seeing her compassion and her ability to empathize with even an enemy. Someone she’s fought against, and held her own against, multiple times.

And then when he betrays her, we see her righteous anger (which actually doesn’t come to a head until much later).

When Aang is shot by Azula’s lightning, we also see Katara’s compassion, her rage, her fighting, then her healing.

The symbolism of her holding Aang in the pieta pose while being surrounded by water, and the equally powerful symbolism of her riding the wave like an avenging force of destruction.

People argue about which ship embodies yin and yang, but I give you Katara being both. Lest we forget that both yin and yang are parts of a whole, a little of the each inside the other.

And the climax of Katara’s story is a moment of triumph in battle and a moment of healing.

She never has to sacrifice one for the other, because she is both. And that fits in perfectly with the theme that separation is an illusion and the way the story deconstructs the dichotomies it sets up with regard to the elements, only to break them down.

I’m not getting into LOK, shush.

#katara #atla meta

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stardustdancer · 3 years

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Darklina to the core or ... The real reason for the passion for a certain storyline

First of all ... the good thing is that the majority of society is able to distinguish between good and bad. We learn that early on.

I don't close my eyes to reality. There are terrible people in this world. There are people who have had faced or currently face terrible situations. There is good stuff happening in this world as well as great people do exist. But sure as hell there are no perfect ones.

I am shipping Darklina. I have my reasons. They are my own individual and personal reasons and I am looking for answers.

You can find answers everywhere. From advice, a sight, an experience ... I know Darklina is a damn toxic relationship. This was shown to us with a sledgehammer. Aleksander did Alina dirty. No doubt on that. I’m not excusing such behaviour and such actions in any way in real life.

The good news is ... Darklina is not reality. It's fiction, and the thing about fiction and stories is that they have a purpose. They give answers. They remind us of things. They show us dreams, hopes and wishes. They teach us something. They contain a message. Their goal is to explain to us in a simple but often exaggerated way how we can or should deal with things in our real world.

Critical voices could now say: "Then why are you shipping Darklina? Is the lesson not clear? No chance for abusers!"

Yes, you are right. That is a lesson to be learned from it. But it's A lesson. Not the only lesson.

See, we humans are all so very, very different. We are different because we all go different ways. We have different legacies, different experiences. We have different ambitions, different demons, different passions, desires and hopes. We all have different lessons to learn.

What about the lesson of never giving up? The lesson of how much is too much to reach your goals? What about the lesson of change? Is there a way to get out of the dark or is bad bad and will stay bad forever? Do you remain a monster with no hope? Is it worth fighting your demons, experiences, your past? What about the lesson in true forgiveness? (I recommend everyone look up the word "forgiveness" and what it means.)

There are real people in this world who ask such questions. Are they not allowed to ask these questions or find answers because the moral compass of our society forbids it to only whispering about our moral gray traits? Does the morally perfect society ignore the fact that different people face different problems that this perfect society cannot understand at all?

As different as the people, as different are the lessons and as different are the motivations and preferences.

But back to Darklina AND definitely ... we mustn't forget ... It's a story! It's an exaggerated fiction that I'm talking about.

In order to be able to learn something from it we have to turn the story of Aleksander and Alina into reality by removing all magical things, the war situation, the killer vipes and the hunger for power to reduce the story events to its core. (Just for your information, the point is not to downplay a problem, but to make it more understandable.)

When all of this is gone, we have a man who wants to achieve a goal by taking advantage of a woman's talent.

Let's create a new story based on this core. Just an example ...

How about a story where a boss wants to win a project. He sees the potential of a woman in his company and asks her for help. They get closer as they work together, but the boss is a stupid workaholic who has worked toward his goal all his life. So far he has been alone for a very long time. He doesn't know how to trust someone and the relationship with this woman is new. Maybe it is too new and his newly awakened feelings are frightening him. He is afraid and sees his reputation threatened by this woman's talent and steals that mutual successes of a presentation and presents it as his own.

The woman is hurt and it sure means that she was abused by her boss too. It's exactly the same gist as Alinas and Aleksanders in Shadow and Bone, but turned into a more realistic and more minor incident. Something that can definitely happen in reality.

Now we talk about what someone sees in Darklina. Does this new story still evoke exactly the same negative and dramatic feelings in you as in the original story? No, or?

That's because there's a certain familiarity in this story. It could be true and it could be something that can actually happen to anyone.It's realistic. It's still bad. No question. Still a shitty situation, but it isn't tainted with urealistic cruelty and there is a good chance of finding a good and realistic solution without killing anyone. It's something a random person is able to deal with in real life.

It’s the core of a story that draws us in and not… (well…not only) the obvious sexiness and chemistry of a protagonist.

Most of the time what draws us in reflects something that is within us. Be it guilt or hope. Be it wish or reality. For fun or for distraction. The end of a story could be an answer to a question or food for thought for someone who has an inner question to deal with.

The woman might either find a good lawyer to help her or she will move heaven and earth to convince her boss to change his behavior.

Different endings, different paths, different motivations, different lessons.

And, depending on your inner needs, you have chosen which of them you like best.

Some Malinas might look for the handsome boyfriend to help Alina gain inner peace and find sweet love. Maybe these people are craving a healthy relationship or they just enjoy the fluffy stuff. It is absolutely valid. I'm happy for them. Enjoy your trip!

But that's not it for everyone. Darklinas may see a different message. They hope for something else. They have different needs. They enjoy other things. What is also valid.

There is nothing wrong with showing interest in Darklina's plot because nobody but you knows what you can get out of this story for your personal growth because nobody but you knows what your life lessons are.

It is up to you which way you go. Which story you prefer, what lesson you need or want to learn. What your wishes are or what your hopes. It's individual. It's personal. It's different for everyone.

So if you take the story down to the core, it will be easier to identify a message and that will help you find your answers.

Unfortunately, the problems with stories is that you will never know which route the writers will choose. You won't know the end until it ends. You can only stick with it until the story tells you that you won't find your answer in it. You have to wait and hope that the story gives you what you are looking for. Either you are the lucky one or you are the one who remains unsatisfied. Then you haven't found your answer yet.

However, it's important to always remember that at some point, somehow, somewhere you will find your answers. You just have to keep looking.

Until then, enjoy the things that make you happy!

And in my case, it's only to watch Ben Barnes look delicious!

Just kidding ... it's the hope of a good ending to a person stuck in a dark place trying to find their way back into the light.

That's all! Sorry for my bad English. It's not my mother tongue.

Take care! Bye!

#darklina #shadow and bone #grishaverse #alina x darkling #the darkling #team darkling #aleksander morovoza #alina starkov #story passion #general kirigan #life lessons

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delusionland · 3 years

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I think modern superman is defined by his ability to be nice to people who would hate him if they knew his truth. Being able to slip under the radar and look human is important to him. It allows him access to a world that hates him just for existing and existing on Earth.

Clark doesn't want to be One Of The Good Aliens. Clark wants to be your work friend/drinking buddy you don't know is Marginalized in some way, who playfully calls you out on your shit in a way that might go over your head. He wants to steer you in the right direction---morally, ethically, socially----but he wants to do that by laying a good example, with the hard work he does being a journalist and exposing lies and injustices and ignorance. Clark knows the best way to convince someone other people have rights is not to be their One Marginalized Friend, but instead to be their Non-Marginalized Friend who listens to them vent about their false persecution complex and doesn't outright attack them for it---but instead states their own boundaries but provides the information and kindness they need to get out of that state of delusion.

Clark keeps his true self close to his chest. Very few people know his secret identity. Superman is a tool Clark can use to help people---but so is HAVING a secret identity.

Clark knows he is under no obligation to reform all the ignorance in the people around him. But he also can't imagine not being there for every person that crosses his path. Clark will always listen to you, and Clark will always try to tease something better out of you, challenging you just enough to make you stand a little straighter and question the fallacies in your logic and prejudice. But its a lonely thing, sometimes. Trying to be better than your instinct to write people off for your own sake, trying to help people who would never give YOU the time of day. There are exceptions, of course. Clark fucking hates rich people, for example, and will fuck them up if they do something unethical---as Superman. But so often people just... tell Clark things he doesn't always want to know, and Clark feels obligated to listen and try to change because... that's the kind of person he is, who can't stand to see someone suffer their own foolishness when he can see its just from a place of insecurity and paranoia.

Lois and Bruce are sometimes the only people Clark feels really know and understand every part of him. Even before he comes out to them as both identities. Its a very... particular thing. He allows himself to be completely an asshole with them. He allows himself to vent to them and debate with them like he's writing an article, instead of being so ginger and Featherlight with his touch.

Clark has a big heart but he's extremely opinionated. People he feels he can honestly express his opinions with without pouring attention into how he phrases every word are extremely important to him. Even if its just---people who allow him to express human emotions like ANGER and annoyance. Clark doesn't often let himself be angry. For many reasons... this is why Lex is still an extremely valuable person to Clark even after all they've been through. Lex allows superman AND Clark to express anger in a way Clark feels is righteous and true, which is important to him...

Clark isn't isolated from society bc hes an alien with alien feelings who could never hope to be human or something. Clark is isolated bc he is so human he doesn't want to hurt anybody without a reason to, he doesn't want to force anybody to accept him, doesn't want to be a poster boy, wants to help people but not have to share the insecurity he feels over feeling so alone and removed from his heritage.... its extremely lonely, "passing" and still feeling different, still knowing what people would say about u if they knew... in many ways his relationships with lois Bruce and lex are freeing for this reason bc they'll say it to his Goddamn face that he's a flying alien brick lmao.

Clark is a good person but sometimes, even in all his snark and condescension, he's TOO kind, too nice, tries too hard to help and risks his own feelings, gets hurt in the process. His heart is so vulnerable, and he tries to protect it with secret identities and self-isolation... but he can't help himself.

If you call out for a friend, if your heart beats too fast or too slow, Clark can't help but hear it. He wants you to understand. People are people, we are all the same infinite prism of complexity and doubt and fear and love, refracted light patterns in an infinite amount of directions and thoughts chosen and not. Clark can hear your heart, Clark can see you for exactly who you are... but he feels he can never tell you who he really is or you'll reject him in a way he refuses to reject most anyone. It's sad

#hc: clark #ooc: hc #ch: clark #fandom: superfam #long post cw #fandom: dc #fandom: superheroes

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justicebled · 3 years

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Yuri feels no regret for killing Cumore, Alexei, and Ragou. He believes his actions to truly be justice even though he knows he can like any human being and person, contradict himself in his choices. That said, every person he has killed under the mantle of vigilantism and doing what the corrupt law system cannot, has been seen in his dreams / nightmares and he has actively hallucinated them all at one point in time, particularly after he’s done a ritualistic washing of his hands; knowing full well the red won’t come off.

Not to say Yuri feels guilt. He feels responsibility for his actions, and knows murder is a crime, even if his actions have saved countless lives unaware. He doesn’t glorify it, and often will push away the people he loves the most, Brave Vesperia, Flynn etc. Immediately in Mantaic he pushes Estellise away when she eavesdrops on his conversation with Flynn, asking her point blank if she’s now frankly, afraid of him. Three times he tries to push her away from his side by insisting she go with Flynn if she is now afraid of him, since he is not just a vigilante / anti-hero / genuinely good guy on the side of justice and unselfish intentions, but also a criminal and murderer and he never sugarcoats his actions or others.

To Flynn he understands there is a line crossed in terms of their ability to really be around each other beyond instances in their lifetime. They have devoted their lives to ‘making people smile with their swords’ and that is no small thing. It is unlikely even with their capability that they will solve everything if ever even in their lifetime, and Yuri will not stray from the path and justice he’s chosen and sacrificed himself willingly to bear its burden for. Like many party members say, it’s the job no one wants, but if anyone can bear it, Yuri can and it’s his choice. He didn’t do it for admiration, martyrdom or respect.

Because no one ever wants to do the hardest job for change, and yes, while the final nail was Flynn showing that he too was agonized and stuck, he did this for his own reasons and sense of what was ultimately the right outcome. Even if the actions to get there are a crime.

So while there is no regret, and he blatantly tells Raven he has no problems ‘cutting Alexei’ the more he knows about him, one death he did take upon himself as no one was willing to was someone he admits he never wanted to take the life of, and that’s Don Whitehorse. He deeply respected him, even admits that if they’re both heading to hell, that he doubts he’s even worthy of being in the same place as him when he dies. Yuri obviously thinks he isn’t going to be anywhere BUT hell for this. But he chose it knowing he would suffer, but he literally says, It might as well be me. Because he has the strength to bear it. He even lets Flynn and his knights take all the credit for all the good that comes from his vigilantism.

Basically Yuri doesn’t live his life regretting, he lives his life doing. People who know him can testify the virtue of his character, he isn’t wasting time on that. He doesn’t care about himself much in the scheme of those hurting or suffering. It’s both a strength and a fatal flaw that Yuri time and time again takes on things no one else should be shouldering or has the resolve to bear / wants to, but due to the grit and toughness of his nature, he can without being ultimately consumed. His resolve is like steel, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the toll.

But while he doesn’t regret... it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have wakeless nights remembering every time he’s drawn his blade for the sake of his belief of true justice. Even those like the Don, who died by his hand, admits Yuri is taking on a massive burden, much like Raven himself admits to the party as Yuri ruminates alone with his grief. That doesn’t mean Yuri’s actions are something you should be doing, but they’re human, and it isn’t like he’s unaffected.

I will never sugarcoat that Yuri is still murdering human beings even if they’re literal villains who won’t change. Even if he is in a sense in my opinion, in the right chasing down the oppressors / monsters who sap the life of the world. He doesn’t sugarcoat it. Does this make Yuri evil? No. He’s actually an absurdly good person to even take on this burden without being a martyr, because his morals and conviction never wavers. His purity of self and of being ‘true justice’ that hasn’t been fortified yet? Is still there. He has the will to bear this burden, the one ‘no one wants’. The one that is in a sense very revolutionary for a dynasty of the Empire that’s eaten the oppressed to sustain itself. But that doesn’t mean killing is ‘okay’. Even if they deserve it.

It isn’t fun for him to kill other people that frankly, while horrific beyond measure, were still people, but people who abused others relentlessly and like the party said, ‘even if let out they’d never change’. Killing is still wrong. Yuri is never oblivious to this fact. He isn’t killing for funsies like so many memes may tell you. He’s killing / breaking the broken law system because he personally feels at the time it is the best and only option people have as a solution to the insane oppression / cruelty in Terca Lumireis to the weak and civilians who do not ‘have the chips’.

Also it doesn’t and will never change how Yuri remembers every single face either, after all, good or bad...

... the dead talk back.

#𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐒 ✴ —— blood pools beneath your feet; shadowed heart; ragged bone and moonglow.#yuri: doesn't regret his actions #also yuri: is self-destructive in bearing burdens no one wants but is strong enough and has an actual support system not to be consumed by i #yuri: sees all the dead good and bad in his waking insomniac hours.#yuri: sees every kill in perfect memory.#yuri: sees red on his hands even when they are spotless.#yuri: doesn't even think he'll land in a good place if any when he dies.#yuri: doesn't love himself enough to realize he doesn't have to bear everything and keep it a secret for most of the game.#yuri: has self-esteem issues along with blaring confidence. first due to flynn having purpose and him having none then just..openly thinking #that he isn't a good person when everything he literally does by /action/ says he is.#even if he is committing crimes and i won't say that's peachy.#i won't romanticize it.#do i think those people should have been removed? yeah.#do i see where yuri comes from in this story more than flynn? v much.#do i see flynn's pov? yes!#also me: yuri deserves peace when he dies and i like to think the don got it too.

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, REY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE HERMIT with the faceclaim of LUCY BOYNTON. History loves a revolutionary, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this sentiment will extend to Marceline. I could feel her desperation to be part of something bigger than herself -- maybe even larger than her father’s ambitions -- they practically leapt right off the page. I felt for her in her loss, ached for her in her need for revenge, empathized with the pain and appreciated her determination to change things for the better. The Hermit has the potential to be small-scale, but you’ve taken her far beyond that, and I cannot wait to see what Marceline does on the dashboard!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC

NAME: Rey PRONOUNS: She/Her AGE: 25+ TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST. Because I am currently working from home, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, I am a 7. I try to log on at least once a day. ANYTHING ELSE?: Just how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON: The Hermit NAME: Marceline Ash Pelagius FACECLAIM: 1. Lucy Boyton 2. Lindsey Morgan AGE: 22

DETAILS: I’ve chosen the Hermit because she reminds me so much of the French republican youths that got involved after the French Revolution (as most famously depicted in Les Misérables) and I’d love to dig into the historical parallels. Like Enjorlas, Marceline is born into wealth, but she sheds herself of this reputation and becomes a bleeding heart for the revolution. (Also like Enjorlas, she’s a “charming young (wo)man who is also capable of being terrible.”)

Revolutions rarely begin with noble aims, even if the outcome might not suggest so. For Marceline, revolution begins with vengeance. Her attempts to get closer to the Fool and the guards of the city in order to avenge her father’s death opens her eyes to the social and political inequalities of the kingdom. What was once simply about revenge is now about so much more. She’s a woman who knows she wants to kill a king, but her reasons for deciding to do so only keep growing with time. Before long, she begins to assume her father’s radical political beliefs: tear down the monarchy and replace it with a republic. I find myself drawn to dedicated characters with unyielding drives - especially ones whose moral compass seems so set but will in actuality change at the shift of a tide in order justify their end goals.

Marceline is very much a person to be reckoned with. Her fight becomes a fight against her own grief, her unknown magic and the monolith of monarchy. Each of these seem to be an immovable object, but she is the unstoppable force that beats against them. The Hermit tarot card can signify someone who is taking too much time for self reflection or too little. In the case of Marceline, she is someone who thinks she knows herself well enough to simply act; she is so set on her path that true self-reflection is something she doesn’t spend enough time on.

BACKGROUND:

You know this is not a rebellion, you know it’s a revolution.

You are born of a noble house, the only child, last of your name. Your mother is revered in court as the Keeper of Coins. She has a mind for finances and business, though you inherit the steel of her spine and the cut of her jib more than anything else. If you trace her lineage far back enough you’ll see that before nobility came piracy and maybe that’s why she’s always been so good with gold. She’s a smart woman with a sharp eye that upholds her family’s reputation by being someone that can sniff out a poor deal or a tampered book with ease. She’s never really sailed the seas, but you can see that she misses it. And thus, so do you. Most of your lullabies are sea shanties and you take your first steps along the banks of Tyr’s Tear. You cannot remember a time when you didn’t know how to swim. Your mother, for some hidden reason, knows how to fight and she is the one to teach you how to use a sword. ‘A cutlass’ she clarifies the first time you call it something else. ‘There’s language used correctly and then there’s language used beautifully.’

Meanwhile, your father is hopelessly bound to the land. More specifically, he is hopelessly bound to his books. He is an academic that is fortunate enough to be born into nobility. His father lived a long life as a trusted advisor to Octavius Valmont. A former educator at the Bard’s College, the birth of you brings about a new chapter to your father's life causing him to leave the college and spend most of his days in Tyrholm writing, reading, and discussing matters of political science. How he wooed your mother you’ll never know, but because of them you’ll never doubt what love is. If you had to guess though, your father enchanted your mother because no one used language more beautifully than him.

Your father has a secret though. When you are four years old, you learn that you’ve inherited it. The two of you are Inferi magi.

The fastest way to someone’s heart is through conspiracy and you and your father are bound by this secret you share. He’s spent his whole life hiding this, and he teaches you to do the same. You hate being anything other than outspoken, anything other than untruthful about what you think and who you are, and the only anchor is you know how much he hates it too. The two of you hold tight to something the world hates and work to make it a gift more than a curse. This is what connects you to your father. Inferi magic is destructive, but your father shows you that sometimes that is the way of life. He tells you about the pine-trees that depend on heat to crack open their seeds. He talks about entire forests that are born from the ash of forest fires. Sometimes, in order to make something stronger, you must burn it down; sometimes, in order to make something last forever, you must destroy it. You know the story of the wolves and the snakes, he’s told you it over and over again to lull you to sleep, but he tells you it again now. Political structures - you are five so you say ‘what’ and he replaces the phrase ‘political structures’ with the words ‘Kingdoms, like Tyrholm’ and you say ‘oh, okay’ - Kingdoms, like Tyrholm, get better, continue surviving, by being torn down and rebuilt. Just like the wolves and the snakes.

‘Let me teach you little one, how revolutions begin.’ He tells you instead of bedtime stories.

Your father believes in revolution, in a way that is before his time. He wants to dismantle the monarchy and in its stead assemble a republic government. His political ideology stands stark amongst the beliefs of this world and you are young enough to be enraptured by the optimism of it. Your mother, far better at playing society’s game than your father is, tells him not to speak so loudly about such things when you are not in your home.

And it is a nice home. For all of your father’s gripes against King, it seems the current system has given you and your family everything you need. You have all the flourishes that come with wealth: a respectable reputation, a lavish upbringing, a thorough education. You’re a lady and the dresses and the etiquette and the social gatherings don’t let you forget it. In many ways you are like your father, you debate and you discuss and think deeply on things with little regard to how that reflects on your station in life. Your mother is the opposite. She teaches you how to lie and survive within the status quo.

You are ten when your father begins writing pamphlets - ‘purely educational,’ he defends - about what a republic is. At least once a month he meets with a handful of like-minded people who are interested in discussing such things and their conversations often go late into the night. They sit tucked away and hidden in the back of a low-lit tavern - and you know these things because you are wily enough to try and follow him one night. Your father catches you and drags you back to the manor by the scruff of your neck like some stray kitten. Your mother is furious - at the both of you.

You are sent to bed without any supper and your father sleeps in the library that evening.

So goes your life. You become your mother’s apprentice as the Keeper of Coins and she makes it worth your while by teaching you to spar in the evenings. Your footwork improves more quickly than your mathematics, but you’re not too bad at either. Your life as a lady blooms. More lessons, more competitions. You find love, a first love, so you don’t understand that there can be different kinds, and even sour kinds. All you’ve ever witnessed is the warmth between your parents, even in their bickering, and so the most naive parts of you believe this to be true of all love.

This routine is almost enough to make you forget about the plights of the kingdom and that you live in a gilded cage.

Your father gets bolder in his commitment to a radical political movement. You’re 15 when you start staying up late to help him proofread the pamphlet he writes. The two of you start taking camping trips to the Volkun Forest, so that you may discuss such things freely amongst the trees. Out here, if the wrong word slips out or if a little bit of magic pushes through your fingertips, there is no one to pass judgment. Out here is freedom.

You take these trips and your father returns, only to lock himself in his study for the next three days. Sometimes you’ll press your ear to the door when the house is quiet and hear nothing more than the quick and furious scratching of a quill across parchment. Not too long after there will be fresh sheets of radical ideas floating through the city.

When you are 17, the fabric of your world is ripped apart at the seams. Your father’s ideas are labeled as treason and the King’s Guard ambushes you in the middle of the Volkun forest. They run your father through with a broadsword more times than necessary to kill him and he is left in a bloody, bloody heap. You manage to survive by playing dead. It’s a decision you replay over and over and over again. The anger over it lingers for years. You should have leaped to your feet and fought, and instead - you chose a coward’s route.

You dig a grave for your father using only your hands and still, somehow, you manage the return home.

The rage in your mother’s eyes when you tell her complements your deep sorrow. She dries your tears and you dry hers, but both of you agree that no one else will see you cry. Your magic burns in you that night, so hot and unknown that you throw yourself into the river to temper the flames that lick your blood. Your lack of training has never been more apparent than now. At such times you’d ask your father what was happening to you and even if he told you that he didn’t know, the shared loneliness made it bearable. He is not here now, and you must weather this alone.

Your mother doesn’t speak for 13 days. At first you think she will never speak again, you have heard of those that die of heartbreak, but you soon realize that she is scheming.

“I know what we will do.” She says on the thirteenth day and you nearly drop the sword you are polishing.

A plan forms. Together, the two of you plot. How do you kill the men that struck down your father? How do you kill a king? It’s decided that you will join the guard. You abandon your engagement. Like that, you abandon your life. Your reputation is ruined and your mother barely scrapes by.

You move out of the familial manor, out of safety for your mother. She’ll still write you letters and you will still visit to sleep in your childhood bedroom, but the two of you agree to keep these instances to once in a blue moon. You move to Lowtown. You know that one of the men you want six-feet under is the Captain of the Guard.

When you first ask to enlist, they think you are pranking them, trying to pull the wool over their eyes because some noble has dared you. When you don’t leave though, that’s when they grow from disbelief to skepticism. ‘Why?’ You are asked. ‘Because I dream of a better world.’ Of course you’re met with laughter. You, however, refuse to lie. You stay steadfast in your plot. You wait for their amusement to die down before challenging the man nearest to you to a spar - if he wins you’ll leave and never bother them again.

That evening, you bring your cutlass and you win your way into the Guard.

After all is said and done you hear a stray spectating guard say to another, ‘She fights like a pirate.’

No one can stop you once you are a woman decided. You spend the next few years putting your head down and doing the work. You become the youngest lieutenant the Guard has ever seen. You are not intimidated by this, you swallow it easily with the knowledge that you are here with a higher calling. The truth has a tendency to make things harsh and unwelcoming, and yet it is the very thing that makes the men here listen to you. They look at you and see someone unwavering in their honesty, merciless with their virtue. It earns you a level of respect that most lieutenants spend their whole lives scrounging for. The world may not be fair, but you intend to make it so. That is seen and that is respected. They listen to you, but more importantly, they trust you. You make it clear that you’ll take an arrow for any of them, parry whatever blow comes their way. When a man is struck down in the field, you’re one of the first to volunteer to tell their family. They start letting you do this by default, your stoic demeanor and steady nature prove to be the exact temperament needed to weather a storm of their family’s sadness. Every time you do this - every time you confront a freshly widowed bride, a newly motherless son - you promise to take care of them. You won’t let their death be in vain, you say. You find yourself caring for all these families as much as you care for your mother. In this way your family grows, and it no longer feels like you are last of your name.

All of this goes without mention of the elephant in the room. Your job puts you in painful proximity to the Fool, one of the men that killed your father. However, these days it seems you’re on the same team in more ways than one. Together you lead the Guard, together you declare you’ll fight in the same revolution. You seek forgiveness within yourself, but your heart finds it hard to go back on a judgment once it has passed. You know that striking him down would be a poor move on your part tactically, that it would scatter the men, that it would lead to a different kind of revolt. You don’t want to tear your new household in two just. So you take his name to that list of names you intend to make your way through and shift it to the bottom. That night you begin a new list, one of additional grievances to call upon that specifically the Fool is responsible for and you decide that you will savor and remember these grievances when the day of his death finally comes.

You’re intense, you ache for revenge, you age for revolution. Those that would think less of you for the latter are nowhere nearby; they’re far off in some ivory tower. Those that surround you are bolstered by it. Each breath is spent on the growing rebellion, each action is dedicated to felling an empire and an unjust king. You are a flame that keeps your friends warm, you are a fire that chases your foes into action.

Living amongst the Guard has taken you out of luxury, out of a life of nobility, and placed you in the thick of a growing revolt. Each citizen of Lowtown comes with their own history, of a life earned through hard work and skill, and you realize that a monarchy is bullshit. Power to the people, you think.

It’s difficult to remember the girl who existed before your father died. But try and you remember. You’ve still got your family crest, it reminds you of the sea. A mutt wanders onto your path one patrol of the Volkun forest and you swear it looks part wolf. You take him in. Two weeks from now he’ll chase after a snake on your hunting trail and even you will say “Oh come on” at the heavy handed metaphor life has thrown your way. In these ways, the world continues to remind you of who you are.

And then, only on quiet lonely nights do you let your mind wander, galloping through the memories back to the day your father was butchered before you. You clawed your way back to the city, clawed your way back to your mother. You’ve defied death once and so hell nor heaven scares you anymore. Buried deep within all your noble intentions is an undeniable truth: you have your revolution, you have your decided aims for a republic, but you would put it all on the line, just to get back at the men who killed your father. You pray to the wolves and snakes you will become a better person.

You are not a revolter, you tell yourself, you are a revolutionary.

PLOT IDEAS:

Marceline doesn’t believe in kings. As the revolution grows, there are plenty that want to replace this king with a new one. Who will take Septimus’ place? The Emperor, the Chariot, the World? None. Marceline thinks that’s just trading out one cage for another. As mentioned: down with the monarchy, up with a republic! Marceline believes in the ideals of a republic, the same ideals her father believed in, and she wants to work to stoke that fire in the same way he did. It might be a moment before she returns to distributing pamphlets or standing on soapboxes, but natural rights and equality for all citizens of Tyrholm is something that she is determined to fight for. She will try to convince every revolter she comes by of her radical ideas and even when they turn her away, she’ll find a way to stay. She’s always been a woman bad at understanding the word no. I’d like her to try and convince as many people as she can and I think this has the potential to be an interesting plot. Not everyone is going to agree with her and I’m sure it’ll cook up a new batch of allies and enemies. Her father wrote and distributed pamphlets against the king and in favor of a whole new political structure, and Marceline would like to get this radical political movement going again through these handouts. However, Marceline is not the same wordsmith her father was. She’ll do it, if she has to, but I would love for her to find that person to help her write a new round of Enlightenment principles with. In general though, Marceline will be at the forefront for a push for a republic. It’s an ideology that she’s willing to die for. In the long run maybe this even causes a schism in the revolution between those that want another king and those who want something else entirely. TEMPERANCE: Marceline breaks off the engagement, returns the ring that is given to her, leaves without a word. Marceline knows she loves the revolution more, but still her love for Temperance lingers. From where she’s standing, it seems as if her former fiancee has had no trouble moving on and so Marceline is doing her best to drown herself in work and other people. If she could pick one person to convert in favor of her ideal vision for the future, it would be her. But the more Marceline stays with the Guard, the more she sees that Temperance is blind to her own privilege. She wishes Temperance could see things her way. If Marceline ever had to pick between the revolution or Temperance, she would do her best to try and save both. Marceline has left the life of nobility behind, but I would love to see the life of nobility try and drag her back in through her undeniable love for this for this woman. THE FOOL: Until a new republic is built, Marceline still has to live in this monarchy, and there is plenty to do here. There’s her own vendetta, for Marceline will do anything that’s necessary to track down and kill the men that killed her father. Fool kills Dad. Hermit kills Fool. That easy, right? Wrong! Things are already messy as is because both she and the Fool are revolters and thus technically on the same side in more ways than one. Because of this, Marceline needs to find cleverer ways to retaliate against him. Their relationship is a complex one as she is always quick to undermine him, but still sees him as her co-partner in leading the Guard. For a girl who believes in keeping a judgement once it is passed, I want to push the boundaries of her decided vendetta. As she lies in wait, I imagine Marceline trying to be close to anyone that the Fool knows. I’d also love her feelings for him to grow and for her to have to wake up every morning and have to conscientiously decide that she wants to kill this man. I want the Fool to make her change as a person so that by the end of this she’s either consumed by hate for this man or consumed by love - no in between. THE MOON: The Moon is possibly the only friend Marceline has outside of the Guard. Every time Marceline ventures Volkun forest, she brings back something new for her botanist friend. There’s a comfort she feels with this one - one she hasn’t felt since her father was around. Something tells her it’s magic, but Marceline knows the dangers of asking about such things. Still, she will do everything to maintain a friendship with the Moon, as she is one of the few people around whom she is utterly at peace. I see them growing close because of the revolution, and I can see them growing even closer if they ever choose to tell each other about their magic. Ever since the death of her father, Marceline has completely turned away from the magical side of herself, but that does not mean the magical side of her does not exist. I see her magic being a grab bag of abilities that she has absolutely no control over. (And per admin discussion, I have some ideas on this.) She feels utterly lost, but Marceline does everything she can to avoid letting anyone know about this side of her. (She always tells the truth, except in this instance.) There’s probably less than a handful of people that know and while I would like this number to slowly grow, I imagine the Moon would be the first. Ultimately, I would like Marceline to come to terms with her magic and see how it influences her thoughts on the war and the revolution. Eventually she’s going to come to understand that her magic might be able to help her take down the king. She might even like to try and travel to Hypatos sometime to seek out mentors. Maybe this is somewhere she and the Moon journey together. Marceline is willing to train up anyone who wants to learn how to fight, be they part of the Guard or not. If you’re part of the revolution, or even if you take no particular side, she thinks you have a right to be able to defend yourself. Just expect to eventually get an earful about some radical political ideologies. Marceline hates pirates and bandits. She cannot stand either of them, especially when they terrorize her Guard. She wants to make a statement to show that the Guard won’t turn a blind eye to being messed with. She’s willing to offer both groups a shot at joining them against the king, but if they refuse, she won’t hesitate to go against them for the men they’ve harmed. In the meantime, any pirates or bandits should steer clear of her as she won’t go easy on them. Marceline sees every single guard as a member of her family and when a guard dies she makes a commitment to look out for that guard’s family. I don’t want this to be easy for her. I’d love to try and throw her up against her own moral compass while trying to stay true to a promise she’s made.

CHARACTER DEATH: Totally cool with you killing my character. My character’s dog however, needs to live forever.

WRITING SAMPLE

There are those that shared his beliefs that come knocking at their door to share their condolences. Marceline and her mother had vowed not to show their tears to the public so Marceline’s mother greets the guests with solemn eyes and a quiet nod of thanks. Marceline doesn’t even make it out of her room. Her father’s death is still too fresh, too heavy on her heart and it’s difficult to be confronted with the fact that someone the world keeps turning.

Marceline is coming up on three days without sleep. Her throat is sore, her eyes are raw, and they are both nothing compared to the dead thing in her chest. She tries to sleep, but etched onto the underside of her eyelids are the faces of four men that she will never forget. She knows grief is nonlinear, but she wishes it would leave for a while and return later when she feels a little stronger. Finally, utterly exhausted, her body gives up on her and she falls into a restless sleep.

There’s a full tangerine moon in the sky and Marceline wakes up in delirious pain. She finds herself on the floor, covers still tangled around her legs. She’s rolled off her own bed. She is still herself though - and that’s what matters. She can see through the haze of pain her hands, her fingernails, the bits of dirt underneath them.

What is this pain? It’s her magic, she thinks, or maybe it’s her grief. She’s buried this part of herself so often, that she forgets about it until it makes itself known. It pulses in her blood with such unpleasantness that she cries out for her father before remembering he is too far to hear her.

She doesn’t want to do any of this without him.

The pain licks up and down her spine. She can feel this Inferi magic coursing through her blood, taking her immense sadness and twisting it. This is in no ways normal, but each time she’s had to face it she’s always had her father.

Marceline kicks with trembling legs at the covers still wrapped like mummy bandages around her body. She crawls to the chair at her desk and grips at the chair leg with her sweaty hand. The wood begins to glow red - at least she thinks it does - and she knows she is going to set it on fire if she doesn’t move it. She grabs higher, pulls herself up, grabs the curved back of the chair until her feet are flat against the wood floor.

Marceline takes a shaky step, then another, and then she stumbles with the inertia of pain out the door of her bedroom. She nearly collapses as soon as she reaches the bannister of the stair. Her torso hits the wood and the impact blows another wave of fire all through her, knees crippling - she catches herself before she hits the ground but the world spins around her.

She is going to die. She is going to die. She is going to die.

And whatever it is inside her is going to kill and destroy everything in this house. How did she ever think she was going to survive in this word three days without her father?

She must though, she must.

Another wave of pain throws her to the floor. She curls into herself; her sadness magnifies and triples tenfold. Like a wave it washes over her, and then recedes. Here, she will die here -

And then Marceline gets up.

Only this time, it is her magic rising from inside her. It surges through her, hardening the muscles in her legs. She slaps a bloody hand on the counter and straightens up. She breathes hard: in and out, in and out, in and out. As her eyes close, she hears - she swears - the steady beating of wings, as it reminds her swelling heart to keep beating.

She crunches her way out of the hallway, down the stairs, and then out into the garden where the moon hangs low. It is watching her, she feels it. Its light pours over her bloody form with every step she takes. At first she steps slowly, she eases her toes into the cool grass. But then faster, steps more steady, and then even faster, until she is running away from her family’s manor, towards the river, as though she could flee from her sadness.

But she is fleeing towards the moon.

Her magic gives her strength and gives her pain. It roars in her chest now, harmonizing with her grief. She hates it, she hates it so much, hates how it makes her hide, hates how it’s always been a mirror of her emotions.

She remembers her father and how he could look at a burning thing and see the growth that will come after. She’s never going to see him again and there are precisely four men to blame. She can’t stop her tears as she splashes to the banks of the river and falls to her knees inside the reflection of the full moon, which dances on the surface of the water. Her hands press into the sand. She fists the rocks and shells. She is probably going to die. And she should fight it still, but her magic is the only part of her father that is still left.

She doesn’t want him to be gone, and it’s the last thought she has before it feels like she goes up in flames.

Marceline falls forward into the river.

The next morning, she wakes to the sound of the water, as it kisses at her toes and her ankles. Slowly, Marceline blinks her eyes open to the sunlight appearing over the river. The pain is over. Her body felt peaceful and brand new. Three days of mourning and now - rebirth. She feels like she’s just shed her own exoskeleton. She’s done it all on her own too.

A raven picks at the hem of her blouse and forces her to sit up to shoo it away. Tyrholm is still here. She is still here. She breathes in like she needs to remember what it is like to have her lungs expand. Both her magic and her grief, she thinks, are strange, strange things.

EXTRA

A few extra headcanons: While growing up Marcline’s mother would temporarily stay in Noble quarters at Castle Tyrholm. Marceline and her father lived in the Pelagius manor in Hightown. After her husband’s death, Marceline’s mother moved out of the Noble quarters and returned to the manor. Her mother is still Keeper of Coin for the king. Marceline lives in Lowtown but makes sure to visit her mother in Hightown at least once a month. She writes letters often. One does not simply become the youngest lieutenant of the Guard without being a skilled swordsman. Thanks to her noble upbringing, she’s had access to top tier mentors and tutors. What Marceline lacks in size and sheer strength, she makes up in swiftness and cunning. In fact, Marceline’s noble upbringing has left her with a handful of random skills that she is never sure she will use again. She’ll spend most of her evenings these days in the Barracks playing cards or drinking with the Guard. They are her pack. Marceline is slowly starting to pick up where her father left off with his pamphlets. Marceline has a mutt that is probably part wolf... no one really knows. But his name is Little Wolf. He’s her hunting dog (and possibly her best friend.) He follows her around plenty while she is on patrol. He loves members of the Guard and hates the aristocracy.

A few stray musings: Look, I’m not saying she wants to inspire the French Revolution of this world. But... yes okay that’s exactly what she wants. Big Enjorlas from ‘Les Mis’ vibes. Mixed in with some Hamilton. There’s a touch of Isabella from Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’ thrown in there as well. “So men say that I’m intense or I’m insane.” Most likely to yell “Wake Up Sheeple!!” in the middle of a crowded ball. Bisexual AF.

#accepted #accepted: the hermit

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moonlitgleek · 5 years

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Isn't Rhaegar absolved from his actions due to the fact that the prophecy is true and his son with Lyanna is the savior of the human race? Isn't Jaehaerys II absolved from his since the prophecy was true and TPTWP, in fact, is born of Aerys and Rhaella's line? I know we can mull over how Rhaegar could have done things differently to get his third child, but it seems that it was destiny. With Jaehaerys II, there wasn't even another option but to force the marriage to fulfill the prophecy.

Neither is absolved, no. Because the ends do not justify the means, and destiny is only what we make of it.

So many characters in this series act on the rationale that the greater good merits any number of sacrifices made in its name, which is also often used to justify and minimize blatant atrocities. Varys plays with people’s lives and maims children on the thought that King Aegon will right all the wrongs in Westeros. Mel argues that burning children alive is a necessary price for the survival of everyone else. Rhaegar treats the thousands of lives lost over the course of the rebellion as an acceptable collateral damage for a prophetic enterprise. Stannis is on the path to fall to that same viewpoint of a necessary sacrifice (”we do not choose our destinies” You do, Stannis. You do. You’re the only one who can choose). Robert’s council tries to frame Dany’s assassination attempt in the context of how ending two lives would spare thousands. Tywin tries to spin the Red Wedding as something that spares countless lives that would have fallen if the war continued. Mirri Maz Duur kills an unborn child on a crime he has not committed. Bloodraven may have honed Euron’s magical abilities on the notion that it would be worth it in the end, and he has a history of working on the basis of “the ends justify the means” during his tenure as Hand (e.g, killing Aenys Blackfyre in a breach of safe conduct, letting the Greyjoys pillage and reave as they please because he was too focused on the Blackfyres, etc). Though there is an obvious variance in the overall morality and sincerity between these character, all of them give the same rationale of a necessary evil done in the name of a greater good. If you have to sacrifice a few to save everyone else, if you have to sacrifice one person to save everyone else, it’s a no brainer, right? What is one life opposite everyone else?

The answer is “everything”

Human lives are worth so much more than being means to an end. Putting people on the chopping block for “the greater good” dehumanizes them by reducing them to sacrificial lambs in the name of a higher purpose. But ASOIAF has always advocated for the recognition of the value of life and respect for the sanctity of human life. Though the methods may vary, the text remains loud and clear in its refusal of dehumanizing ideologies, whether the source is human characters like Tywin Lannister, Robert Baratheon or Randyll Tarly, or supernatural creatures like the Others who are the literal embodiment of dehumanization. ASOIAF is about the fight for our common humanity, for recognizing that humanity regardless of things like class or race or which side of a magical wall you were born on. But you can not fight for our common humanity by devaluing people’s lives. You can not use the argument of “doing it for humanity” to disregard the humanity of those being sacrificed. That cold ruthless pragmatism is not the point of this series; the fight against it is. That’s been the point from the first prologue when Wymar Royce stared the abyss in the face and charged at it.

That’s why the support of the narrative lies with characters like Ned Stark and Davos Seaworth who refuse to give into the idea that the cruelty and dehumanization is necessary for the greater good. Through them, GRRM delivers the point that every single human life matters. That saving one person can mean everything. That it’s not naive to think that one life is worth everything. Protecting the one is not inherently inferior to protecting the many. The greater good can just as well lie in saving one person. Which it did in the case of Ned and Jon.

I think it’s pretty significant that Ned had no idea about the prophecy or what role Jon would play when he protected Jon, while Rhaegar who did know made everything exponentially harder. There’s a rather underappreciated irony in the fact that Rhaegar (and Jaehaerys) had little to do with fulfilling the prophecy; in fact, they jeopardized it. They may have orchestrated the circumstances under which Jon and Dany could be conceived, but a closer look shows that Jon and Dany were born mostly in spite of them and their actions. I mean, Jaehaerys married Rhaella off so young it impacted her health and her ability to bear living children. She almost died at Summerhall along with Rhaegar in an ill-fated attempt to hatch dragons, and while that’s mostly on Aegon V, I expect that Jaehaerys was fully on board as well considering the measures he took for the prophecy. Rhaegar impregnated a teenager and left her to give birth in less than ideal circumstances, and spurred a civil war thing that weakened the realm and put his entire family at risk and got a few of them killed. I can only describe their efforts as counterproductive.

But I find it extremely fitting that they ended up doing little and less for the War for the Dawn, because Rhaegar and Jaehaerys embraced the metaphorical cold in their quest to fight it. Jaehaerys reduced Rhaella to an incubator for a savior as if her humanity and her worth are narrowed down to her womb. Rhaegar was willing to see thousands of people die for his vision of what the prophecy required. They allowed themselves to decide people’s worth. Rhaella, Elia and Lyanna mattered only as much as the children they could bear, and those children mattered only as much as their prophetic roles. Rickard, Brandon, their entourage and the rest of the casualties of the rebellion mattered not at all. But that’s not how it works. Rhaegar and Jaehaerys don’t get to decide people’s worth. They don’t get to decide which lives matter more. They do not get to devalue other people’s lives because these lives are not theirs to decide what to do with. Individual lives matter, not because of a prophetic destiny but because of their humanity.

That’s why I don’t see the prophecy as Rhaegar and Jaehaerys’ absolution, but rather their hubris.I get the sense that they acted on the assumption that the prophecy would make everything alright in the end, especially Rhaegar, and so ended up missing the entire point. They got so entangled in their interpretations of the prophecy that they did everything wrong. Got a lot wrong too since Rhaegar wasn’t even trying to get the Prince that Was Promised from Lyanna; I doubt her was even aiming for a boy. Hatching dragons in Summerhall ended on a tragedy. And of course, no one ever accounted for Tyrion. But the prophecy, true as it may be, doesn’t make things go a certain way; people do.

Which brings me to what you say about how it was destiny that Rhaegar acted like he did instead of other alternatives available to him. This argument fundamentally misunderstands a rather significant theme of this series - that it’s our choices that define who we are. Through the political and magical plots alike, individual choice is held up as immensely important to the point where many characters’ existential victory lies in that choice, the clearest case of all is how the three heads of the dragon have to contend with some version of this dilemma.

It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.

Does Dany have “the taint” of madness? Is Jon’s decision to fight his or is it an inevitability orchestrated by prophecy and Rhaegar Targrayen? Can Tyrion break free of the toxic legacy left behind by Tywin? Do they get to define who they are on their own terms or are they beholden to their lineage and their ancestor’s legacy? That’s for them to decide.

“Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”

Maester Aemon lays down the bare bones of this recurring theme in Jon’s arc. Across multiple books, Jon faces the choice of keeping to his watch or leaving several times which only frames the significance of how his destiny as one of the saviors of Westeros lies in him making that choice. Jon’s “chosen one” status has always been linked to him taking control of his future and deciding for himself. It’s him choosing to stay in Castle Black despite his appalled discovery of the reality of the Watch and to take his vows despite his frustration with the appointment to the stewards. It’s him going with Qhorin Halfhand of his own accord. It’s him picking the Wall over deserting for Robb or Ygritte. It’s him making a conscious decision to be the leader of the fight at the Wall over Stannis’ offer of Winterfell. It’s him taking responsibility of the free folk and recognizing that the commonality of being human is what matters. Jon is on the forefront of the text’s central conflict by virtue of his choices.

Dany is also fighting for our common humanity over in Slaver’s Bay. Her arc is basically a hard fought battle for autonomy, whether hers or the slaves’. Dany fights for freedom, for people’s right to choose, for them to be recognized as people not things to be gifted and sold. “Have you asked them?”, she challenges when Xaro Xohan Daxos argues that slaves have no use for freedom because they were made to be used. But Xaro Xohan Daxos doesn’t get to decide others’ fates, neither do the slavers of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen. They don’t get to deprive them of their right to choose. People’s lives do not belong to them to decide what to do with. They don’t get to strip them of their free will or dehumanize them by treating them as things to be used to their satisfaction.

Because that’s what the Others are doing. They are supernatural slavers coming with their ice cold chains and stealing every single choice from humanity, right to the choice of dying. You can’t even die. They will resurrect you and force you to be their undead puppet.Mankind can’t even choose death because they will rip death from your grasp and drag your corpse up to join their army. The real threat in this text is a supernatural embodiment of dehumanization and taking away people’s choice. The War for the Dawn is nothing if not a fight for freedom, for the right to choose and to be human.

So the idea of “destiny” controlling how things go? It goes against the very heart of the series. Destiny is nothing but a series of choices deliberately made by individuals to shape the future. There is no fixed inescapable narrative that they can’t deviate from, or some all powerful cosmic power dictating how they should act. Even in the presence of magical visions, it remains the characters’ choices that decide their future. They get the prophecies but what they do with it is on them because the prophecies do not decide who they are. For all the magical elements and prophetic visions in this narrative, it remains that one of the things that the story emphasizes again and again is that our choices matter. They have meaning and they have consequences. Nothing is inevitable unless we make it so.

And that needs to hold true for the story to have any kind of meaning. Acting as if there is some kind of predetermined destiny that compels people to act in a particular way means that literally no one is responsible for their actions. People were just always meant to do what they did. Everyone is bound with chains of magic, lineage and a mystical force that has free reign to manipulate them. Free will is only an illusion fed to pawns that have no control. And if that’s the case, you can no longer hold anyone accountable. How can you call a person good or evil if no one has the capacity to choose their path? How can you hold anyone responsible either for their heroics or their atrocities? And if there is no good and evil, if honor and corruption get tarred by the same brush, if you have no basis to distinguish between the true knights and the false ones, then the only choice is truly “you win or you die”. Which is bullshit. These are false binaries and are far, far from being the measure of triumph.

ASOIAF has never been a story about the futility of ideals but rather about the fight to hold onto those ideals. About how“the battle between good and evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make”. It all comes down to a choice and to the accountability for that choice. This series is rife with people trying to sidestep responsibility for their decisions, from Tywin maintaining plausible deniability to Robert willfully closing his eyes to corruption and transferring blame onto the next convenient target to Roose cultivating “a peaceful land, a quiet people” to Littlefinger keeping “clean hands” to Barristan Selmy and Arys Oakheart hiding behind their vows to justify their inaction in the face of tyranny. But they don’t get to outrun their responsibility for their own decisions. No one gets off scot-free, not because of vows of obedience, not because of corrupt systems, and not because of some notion of an inescapable destiny. The narrative won’t let them.

You must make that choice yourself, and live with it all the rest of your days.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf themes #r plus l equals j #the war for the dawn #rhaegar targaryen #jaehaerys ii targaryen #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #the prince that was promised prophecy #Anon asks #ask box

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therebelresistance · 4 years

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars Episode Opening Quotes

01×01 – Ambush: Great leaders inspire greatness in others.

01×02 – Rising Malevolence: Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

01×03 – Shadow of Malevolence: Easy is the path to wisdom for those not blinded by ego.

01×04 – Destroy Malevolence: A plan is only as good as those who see it through.

01×05 – Rookies: The best confidence builder is experience.

01×06 – Downfall of a Droid: Trust in your friends, and they’ll have reason to trust in you.

01×07 – Duel of the Droids: You hold onto friends by keeping your heart a little softer than your head.

01×08 – Bombad Jedi: Heroes are made by the times.

01×09 – Cloak of Darkness: Ignore your instincts at your peril.

01×10 – Lair of Grievous: Most powerful is he who controls his own power.

01×11 – Dooku Captured: The winding path to peace is always a worthy one, regardless of how many turns it takes.

01×12 – The Gungan General: Fail with honor rather than succeed by fraud.

01×13 – Jedi Crash: Greed and fear of loss are the roots that lead to the tree of evil.

01×14 – Defenders of Peace: When surrounded by war, one must eventually choose a side.

01×15 – Trespass: Arrogance diminishes wisdom.

01×16 – The Hidden Enemy: Truth enlightens the mind, but won’t always bring happiness to your heart.

01×17 – Blue Shadow Virus: Fear is a disease; hope is its only cure.

01×18 – Mystery of the Thousand Moons: A single chance is a galaxy of hope.

01×19 – Storm over Ryloth: It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

01×20 – Innocents of Ryloth: The costs of war can never be truly accounted for.

01×21 – Liberty on Ryloth: Compromise is a virtue to be cultivated, not a weakness to be despised.

01×22 – Hostage Crisis: A secret shared is a trust formed.

02×01 – Holocron Heist: A lesson learned is a lesson earned.

02×02 – Cargo of Doom: Overconfidence is the most dangerous form of carelessness.

02×03 – Children of the Force: The first step to correcting a mistake is patience.

02×04 – Senate Spy: A true heart should never be doubted.

02×05 – Landing at Point Rain: Believe in yourself or no one else will.

02×06 – Weapons Factory: No gift is more precious than trust.

02×07 – Legacy of Terror: Sometimes, accepting help is harder than offering it.

02×08 – Brain Invaders: Attachment is not compassion.

02×09 – Grievous Intrigue: For everything you gain, you lose something else.

02×10 – The Deserter: It is the quest for honor that makes one honorable.

02×11 – Lightsaber Lost: Easy isn’t always simple.

02×12 – The Mandalore Plot: If you ignore the past, you jeopardize the future.

02×13 – Voyage of Temptation: Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

02×14 – Duchess of Mandalore: In war, truth is the first casualty.

02×15 – Senate Murders: Searching for the truth is easy. Accepting the truth is hard.

02×16 – Cat and Mouse: A wise leader knows when to follow.

02×17 – Bounty Hunters: Courage makes heroes, but trust builds friendships.

02×18 – The Zillo Beast: Choose what is right, not what is easy.

02×19 – The Zillo Beast Strikes Back: The most dangerous beast is the beast within.

02×20 – Death Trap: Who my father was matters less than my memory of him.

02×21 – R2 Come Home: Adversity is a friendship’s truest test.

02×22 – Lethal Trackdown: Revenge is a confession of pain.

03×01 – Clone Cadets: Brothers in arms are brothers for life.

03×02 – ARC Troopers: Fighting a war tests a soldier’s skills, defending his home tests a soldier’s heart.

03×03 – Supply Lines: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

03×04 – Sphere of Influence: A child stolen is a hope lost.

03×05 – Corruption: The challenge of hope is to overcome corruption.

03×06 – The Academy: Those who enforce the law must obey the law.

03×07 – Assassin: The future has many paths – choose wisely.

03×08 – Evil Plans: A failure in planning is a plan for failure.

03×09 – Hunt for Ziro: Love comes in all shapes and sizes.

03×10 – Heroes on Both Sides: Fear is a great motivator.

03×11 – Pursuit of Peace: Truth can strike down the spectre of fear.

03×12 – Nightsisters: The swiftest path to destruction is through vengeance.

03×13 – Monster: Evil is not born, it is taught.

03×14 – Witches of the Mist: The path to evil may bring great power, but not loyalty.

03×15 – Overlords: Balance is found in the one who faces his guilt.

03×16 – Altar of Mortis: He who surrenders hope, surrenders life.

03×17 – Ghosts of Mortis: He who seeks to control fate shall never find peace.

03×18 – The Citadel: Adaptation is the key to survival.

03×19 – Counterattack: Anything that can go wrong will.

03×20 – Citadel Rescue: Without honor, victory is hollow.

03×21 – Padawan Lost: Without humility, courage is a dangerous game.

03×22 – Wookie Hunt: A great student is what the teacher hopes to be.

04×01 – Water War: When destiny calls, the chosen have no choice.

04×02 – Gungan Attack: Only through fire is a strong sword forged.

04×03 – Prisoners: Crowns are inherited, kingdoms are earned.

04×04 – Shadow Warrior: Who a person truly is cannot be seen with the eye.

04×05 – Mercy Mission: Understanding is honoring the truth beneath the surface.

04×06 – Nomad Droids: Who’s the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

04×07 – Darkness on Umbara: The first step towards loyalty is trust.

04×08 – The General: The path of ignorance is guided by fear.

04×09 – Plan of Dissent: The wise man leads, the strong man follows.

04×10 – Carnage of Krell: Our actions define our legacy.

04×11 – Kidnapped: Where we are going always reflects where we came from.

04×12 – Slaves of the Republic: Those who enslave others, inevitably become slaves themselves.

04×13 – Escape from Kadavo: Great hope can come from small sacrifices.

04×14 – A Friend in Need: Friendship shows us who we really are.

04×15 – Deception: All warfare is based on deception.

04×16 – Friends and Enemies: Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

04×17 – The Box: The strong survive, the noble overcome.

04×18 – Crisis on Naboo: Trust is the greatest of gifts, but it must be earned.

04×19 – Massacre: One must let go of the past to hold on to the future.

04×20 – Bounty: Who we are never changes, who we think we are does.

04×21 – Brothers: A fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.

04×22 – Revenge: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

05×01 – Revival: Strength of character can defeat strength in numbers.

05×02 – A War on Two Fronts: Fear is a malleable weapon.

05×03 – Front Runners: To seek something is to believe in its possibility.

05×04 – The Soft War: Struggles often begin and end with the truth.

05×05 – Tipping Points: Disobedience is a demand for change.

05×06 – The Gathering: He who faces himself, finds himself.

05×07 – A Test of Strength: The young are often underestimated.

05×08 – Bound for Rescue: When we rescue others, we rescue ourselves.

05×09 – A Necessary Bond: Choose your enemies wisely, as they may be your last hope.

05×10 – Secret Weapons: Humility is the only defense against humiliation.

05×11 – A Sunny Day in the Void: When all seems hopeless, a true hero gives hope.

05×12 – Missing in Action: A soldier’s most powerful weapon is courage.

05×13 – Point of No Return: You must trust in others or success is impossible.

05×14 – Eminence: One vision can have many interpretations.

05×15 – Shades of Reason: Alliances can stall true intentions.

05×16 – The Lawless: Morality separates heroes from villains.

05×17 – Sabotage: Sometimes even the smallest doubt can shake the greatest belief.

05×18 – The Jedi Who Knew Too Much: Courage begins by trusting oneself.

05×19 – To Catch a Jedi: Never become desperate enough to trust the untrustworthy.

05×20 – The Wrong Jedi: Never give up hope, no matter how dark things seem.

06×01 – The Unknown: The truth about yourself is always the hardest to accept.

06×02 – Conspiracy: The wise benefit from a second opinion.

06×03 – Fugitive: When in doubt, go to the source.

06×04 – Orders: The popular belief isn’t always the correct one.

06×05 – An Old Friend: To love, is to trust. To trust is to believe.

06×06 – The Rise of Clovis: Jealousy is the path to chaos.

06×07 – Crisis at the Heart: Deceit is the weapon of greed.

06×08 – The Disappeared Pt. 1: Without darkness there cannot be light.

06×09 – The Disappeared Pt. 2: Wisdom is born in fools as well as wise men.

06×10 – The Lost One: What is lost is often found.

06×11 – Voices: Madness can sometimes be the path to truth.

06×12 – Destiny: Death is just the beginning.

06×13 – Sacrifice: Facing all that you fear will free you from yourself.

07×01 – The Bad Batch: Embrace others for their differences, for that makes you whole.

07×02 – A Distant Echo: The search for truth begins with belief.

07×03 – On the Wings of Keeradaks: Survival is one step on the path to living.

07×04 – Unfinished Business: Trust placed in another is trust earned.

#star wars #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #anakin #yoda #quotes #clone wars final season #the force #jedi #sith #nerd #starwars #lightsaber #rebel alliance

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friendships-are-masterpieces · 4 years

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Rey Skywalker and the false promise of a feminism

*This was never meant to be this long*

Star Wars introduced Leia Organa in the late seventies, a big leap forward for strong, feisty female characters. Not because she was the perfect role model, but because she felt authentic. She still had flaws, and often struggled with being a leader and admitting her mistakes: “You do have your moments. Not many, but you have them.” Human traits that solidified her in pop culture, specifically with female fans. She was always learning, growing and evolving along with her male counterparts. She was an equal among the group.

Fast-forward to Padmé Amidala, who was heavily scrutinized. She obviously falls for Anakin Skywalker, the prophesied golden boy: “He is the chosen one. He will bring balance. Train him.” And when he becomes a tyrant, she attempts to save him one last time: “I don't know you anymore! Anakin... you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow! Stop! Stop now... come back!” Luke continues this pattern by appealing to his father’s good-nature, with Anakin returning to the lightside again. Luke becomes a legend, but his mother is often portrayed as the weaker character. This is odd considering the series has always preached compassion as its strongest quality: “Your father was the most hated man in the galaxy. He caused so much death and destruction for many years. But you saw there was conflict inside him. You believed that he wasn't gone. That he could be turned!”

It’s clear Disney wanted to move past the prequels, and recapture the original trilogy. The Force Awakens follows a pretty standard formula that’s akin to New Hope. It introduces Rey, who’s also force-sensitive and stuck on a desert planet. It sets up a familiar story, while its sequel subverts expectations. Rey struggles to understand her new powers, while developing a relationship with Ben Solo. A genius move that draws parallels to both trilogies, and ties up the franchise nicely. Ben is an obvious parallel of his grandfather, except Anakin started in the light: “You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the force... not leave it in darkness!” Meanwhile, Ben Solo lives in his shadow: “My worthy apprentice, son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader, where there was conflict I now sense resolved, where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfill your destiny.” They’re parallel journeys, and a subtle metaphor for sons inheriting the sins of their fathers, etc. Like Padmé, Rey attempts to save him: “You don't have to do this. I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart... You'll turn. I'll help you.” It shouldn’t lessen her impact as a female character, but Disney still backs away from this decision nonetheless.

Rey profoundly regresses in the final installment. Her strength is attributed to a legacy character because she’s too powerful. Her compassion for Ben Solo wavers because it’s now mistaken for weakness. She becomes a beacon of hope for the Skywalker's, replacing Ben Solo’s presence: “Because she saw your spirit. Your heart. Rey, some things are stronger than blood. Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny. If you don't face Palpatine, it will mean the end of the Jedi, and the war will be lost.” Her character shifts and becomes inauthentic because in an effort to pacify critics, she becomes nearly perfect. Someone who can do no wrong. She’s able to defeat Palpatine, which supersedes Anakin’s prophecy. And Luke is able to accept Rey’s lineage, despite having doubts about Ben: “My nephew with that mighty Skywalker blood. And in my hubris, I thought I could train him, I could pass on my strengths... By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late.” Her characterization is stripped away, and replaced with a stereotype of female empowerment. Despite her strong, romantic connection with Ben Solo, Rey’s final moments on-screen are alone. The epitome of purity and righteousness, while she returns to another desert planet.

Unfortunately, this is most likely due to a committee of people trying to manufacture the perfect, female protagonist. This creates an extremely one-dimensional character, and someone who’s unrelatable. Making mistakes is apart of human nature, and not exclusive to gender. Women should be able to have intrinsic flaws, and not be scrutinized or placed on a pedestal. It’s unrealistic, and doesn’t fit within the Star Wars saga. It’s how we learn, grow and evolve that ultimately builds character. Likewise, killing Ben Solo only reaffirms the idea that you can never fully atone for your sins. Anakin confirms to Luke that anyone can be saved: “Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister... you were right.” But Disney swiftly backs away from this notion, reverting to the idea of good versus evil. The villain must always be punished. It waters down the characters, and leaves Rey remaining a pure, innocent and morally righteous Jedi. How very disappointing.

#reylo #tros #tros novelization #star wars #save ben solo #ben solo deserved better

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Review: THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS (2011)

With the first Witcher game under my belt, I decided to plunge straightaway into the second game in the series: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Expecting little beyond improvements in graphics and controls, I was very curious to see how the game delivered on the cliffhanger ending of the first game, in which Geralt of Rivia defended King Foltest of Temeria from a would-be assassin, only to reveal that the killer was also a witcher. I’d had a decent time with The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, particularly in the storytelling aspects and the choose- your-own-adventure narrative, but had found myself frustrated by dated game design and graphics and lackluster combat. Still, it was, by the end, an arresting experience that had captured my intrigue enough to make me want to go back and replay it to see what paths I could have chosen. Choice is truly the number one aspect of The Witcher, in that Geralt generally chooses not to choose sides, but is often found forced into doing so. Choice is also the highlight of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, so much so that by the end of the game I was nearly horrified with how all of my decisions, ambient though some of them were, had stacked into a neat pile of awful fuckery. If you want to feel good about what you’ve done by the end of a game, The Witcher series might not be for you. But if moral ambiguity and robust, branching paths are what you seek, then read on dear reader, because things are about to get immediately messy in what is some ways a vastly superior sequel to the first game, but in other ways falls short of the narrative potential established by its predecessor.

From the start, Witcher 2 is once again a big game of Choose Your Own Adventure. Opening with a prologue establishing Geralt’s involvement in a political assassination, the player is continually given agency over where Geralt is going, what he wants to do, and how he is going to do it. This is at once the game’s biggest strength. Just as in the first game, Geralt’s choices have domino effects that tumble down the slippery slope of lesser evil decision making, affecting what characters do and whether or not they might appear elsewhere in the game. And, furthering the CYOA aspects, certain portions of the grander story are hidden from sight should Geralt choose to go down a different path. Maybe some characters will have happier endings than we see them get if Geralt decides to help them instead of quest elsewhere -- maybe not. Perhaps the biggest departure from the previous game’s style is that the entire second chapter of Witcher 2 is different depending on which side of a conflict you choose to enable. This, of course, is also all based on whom you’ve sided with previously, with deft moments of quick situational judgements, some of them timed. Give the elven rebel his sword so he can defend himself, or push him to the side so you can leap into the fray yourself? Not every decision is placed in front of the player as a monumental choice; some of them are as simple and clean as whether or not you pick up an object in front of you, knowingly saving someone’s life. This makes the world -- and the story -- feel surprisingly alive, vibrant, always on edge as though the lightest touch in any direction will spell consequences for some and reward for others. This does, however, create a shorter gameplay experience overall. Where my full playthrough of the first game was close to fifty hours, I clocked in just over thirty hours here, but this is partially because the full content of the game cannot be seen in only one playthrough. There’s a massive amount of game to be held, but the unfortunate reality is that it can only be seen piecemeal. It’s like getting to the end of an actual Choose Your Own Adventure novel, only to realize there’s a vast amount of pages left unread because you didn’t take the roads less traveled...or simply traveled differently. For better or for worse, the first time through this game will leave the player with the sensation that there is a lot that they didn’t get to see, despite the freedom of branching paths being thrilling and adventurous. And the story itself isn’t nearly as investing as the previous game. Geralt’s adventure in clearing his name of wrongdoing and tracking down his memories are at the forefront of his story, but in the background is a complex, political plot that simultaneously is and isn’t important to follow. Decisions made by Geralt heavily affect what’s going on, even as Geralt himself is constantly growling about how he wants to track the kingslayer and a missing friend. But the game and the characters populating it continually drag him back to the fray because they need him, dammit, and if he wants the means to his ends then he’ll have to endure everyone else’s shit. Perhaps that’s the point: Geralt’s actions continually change the entire world around him, whether he wants to be a part of it or not. That said, the straightforward narrative is defiantly strong here, partly because the branching system demands it need be. This is a Story with a Purpose, the Purpose being to establish a series of unfortunate events happening around Geralt, if not to Geralt. But when it’s as bland as it is -- save for the bits where Geralt is trying to clear his name -- it can be difficult at times to maintain a steady pace. And the entire third act takes place in a ruined elven city which is a chore to navigate, nearly ruining the momentum and the whole of the game’s experience; there’s two disasterously difficult combat engagements to wade through as well as a grating boss battle with a large beast, not to mention a magical puzzle which demands navigating the labyrinthine ruins if you want to discover what it is. And yet, by the end, the house of cards comes tumbling down into the awful realization that everything behind the scenes has been doing its utmost to raise the stakes high enough to win the whole pot, and depending on Geralt’s actions, it does so to varying degrees. I sincerely doubt there is anything close to a happy ending in one of the alleged 16 conclusions the game contains; if anything, it can only go from shitfucked to fucked-with-hope-on-the-horizon. And, despite the sometimes slog, that’s effective.

Gameplay has seen a heavy upgrade. Gone are the original title’s point and click controls, replaced with a more intuitive interface that relies heavily on action and exploration. Similar to Arkham Asylum’s Detective Vision, Geralt can use his medallion to scan the world around him for interactive elements or objects to search through. Neat in concept, but oftentimes the execution is lacking; it can be incredibly difficult to find objects on the ground left by corpses without always using the medallion, as they can get lost in the surrounding scenery. Upgraded, too, is the combat, which is thankfully no long a boring fucking exercise in clicking at the right time to string together combos. Geralt rolls, swings, magics at the click of a button, using the WASD and mouse camera to keep an eye on the action. The triple division of combat styles -- fast, strong, and group -- are replaced with a fast and strong attack bound to the two mouse keys, and upgrades can make it so Geralt’s attacks can hit multiple people. Blocking is integral, but Geralt needs vitality for a block to be effective, or it will chip away his health. I both enjoyed and did not enjoy the new combat system. It’s functional, but I couldn’t help but feel out of control in tense moments, attempting to roll or dodge or block or use signs between sword strikes. Geralt only swings at whoever he is targeting, not simply in front of him, so if you accidentally turn the camera to the wrong angle while trying to attack he will swiftly turn and swing at someone else entirely, leaving him open to devastating counterattacks from behind. Frustration can mount quickly, as it seems that Geralt is a whole hell of a lot squishier this time around than in the first game. Sure, the first Witcher had plenty of moments where getting overwhelmed could happen in the blink of an eye and Geralt would turn into fresh meat, but Witcher 2 makes every sword fight feel like an exercise in dodging just to stay alive. Maybe I wasn’t playing with enough patience, but it felt like I spent more time rolling and running to regain health than I did connecting with satisfying blows. Sometimes, quicktime events pop up during major boss encounters, which are devastatingly difficult in needless ways. Just like in the first game, Witcher 2 will absolutely dial up the volume on the difficulty knob without warning and around an unseen corner, to an extent where I found myself pained by exhaustion and anger at yet another GAME OVER scene. This is compounded by the strenuous camera, which is awkward at best in outdoors environments, frustratingly awful in close quarters hallways. Making things even worse is the game’s departure from the previous healing methods in The Witcher: where potions could be downed on the fly, and food eaten to regain mild portions of health, now the only way to heal is potions while meditating, or simply by meditating. Without the ability to heal in the middle of combat the thoroughly aggressive enemies will stymie even seasoned players as they watch their health bar helpless disappear with no respite.

Graphically speaking, this is leaps and bounds better than the original. High-detail, crisp textures, far draw distances, I very rarely had any stuttering or framerate issues. At worst, there was minor pop-in and fade in, some seams showing where textures were laid out, and jittery models here and there. Also, motion blur and bloom were turned on by default. Never fun. It was an absolute job to take in the world on hand, with the variety of monsters and humanoid characters to encounter, lovingly rendered with tons of color and flair. Outside of the story, this is where the game truly shines. Before there had been low-res models being reused left and right, but here nearly every character model (outside of factory-line soldiers) feels unique enough to recognize in and out of combat. It’s really a fucking wonder to behold. It felt the same as the graphical leap between Uncharted and Uncharted 2, with nearly an overwhelming amount of detail in the world to take in, dizzingly put together in a way that is breathing and living.

That said, is the game actually an improvement over the first title? Well, yes and no. Graphically, interactively, yes, to an extent. The branching narrative is bold, but feels like there is so much you’re missing out on once you’ve chosen a particular path. For example, there’s a dragon that exists in the game, and its origins are shrouded in mystery. I only discovered them based on a trophy I got at the end of the game, which felt like a huge cheat to learn that way. If the game had told me something about the dragon’s nature, even down the path I took which actively led me away from the dragon, then I wouldn’t have felt disappointed, but it didn’t. I learned the answer through a trophy. And in many ways, while this game does things better than the first game, it’s only to slight degrees, and while I do want to go back and play this again, it’s difficult to do so after a somewhat disappointing first run. Geralt’s story was excellent, and kept me on the edge of my seat whenever it came around, but everything else that happened felt largely disconnected from what was driving Geralt this time around, and ultimately only served as setup for the third game in the series. Again, perhaps that’s the point: perhaps Geralt will have to face the weight of his decisions, that which defines the world at large whilst he maintains a selfish lean towards his personal goals. Geralt of Rivia both is and is not the most important person in this story -- he is but one man who is forging a path towards his wants and needs, but maybe he’s crumbling kingdoms along the way, intentionally or no. While I’ve heard nothing but Game Of The Year praise for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I’m keeping my expectations tempered based on this sequel, which is fun and daunting and clever, but the drawbacks are hefty, saved only by the draw of the lead character and the living story itself.

Final Score: 7.5/10

#the witcher #the witcher 2 #assassins of kings #cd projekt red #andrzej sapkowski #geralt of rivia #triss merigold #yennefer of vengerberg #dandelion #zoltan chivay #ck burch #review #rubyranger #steam #enhanced edition #long post #ranger report

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