#i feel this way especially about star wars because there are so many fans of it that embody the worst of the “um ackshually” stereotype

[gch1995]

Imo yoda has got to be one of the worst if not THE worst council member. Although I can understand the hate obi wan gets I can appreciate his character and think he can be redeemed to an extent. He shows sympathy and understanding at times and you can see he does care for anakin, but the cult he was in fucked him up; including his ability to empathise and understand others. Although he follows the council extensively he tries his best to make exceptions for those he cares about. (knowing about anakin and padme but choosing to ignore it because he knows anakin is happy like that, training anakin despite the council not wanting him to, yes I know it was qui gons dying wish but that is apart of it to an extent) the thing is being raised in the order took a massive toll on him and he seeks too much approval from them and doesn’t ever question their ways. He is a heavily flawed character but he does have redeeming qualities. Yoda on the other hand? None. Zero. Absolutely nothing. Nothing, not one thing about his character is redeemable. (Bit of a rant) This little green cunt is happily shown training a group of kids with lethal weapons in his fucked up cult. He is 500 fucking years old but never bothered to even attempt at learning how to speak normally, including when ordering the slave army he controlled. This fucker spent all his life supporting and feeding into the fuckery of the order whilst constantly telling himself it was the right thing. Arrogantly sitting in his little chair allowing slavery, making child soldiers and allowing god knows how much abuse to happen to others. This shit is responsible for approximately 700 years worth of abuse towards god knows how many others. This fucker straight up denies his responsibility for everything he’s done. And it’s not just the abuse. He’s caused billions to suffer because of his arrogance. The thing is, while I can find myself looking at a character like obi wan and thinking

“wow, this character is heavily flawed but has a lot of interesting aspects and I can sympathise with him at times. I like his character and the evolution of how he reacts and responds to situations although it’s sad considering his past and how those actions devolve into something horrific and unhealthy to the point where he becomes the abuser and carries on that line which is sad. Even though there are many things that he is responsible for there are times when it’s not his fault and I can empathise with that without excusing the ones he was responsible for even if they were heavily affected by the things he went through”

But when I look at yoda?

“I hope this cunt burns in hell for eternity for the things he’s done”

Legitimately cannot put into words just how much I hate him. He’s the one who’s heavily responsible for the way obi wan turned out and most of all:

He’s the one who tried to manipulate, gaslight and force Luke to kill his own mess of a father that he created.

I genuinely think he cannot be redeemed (for me, at least. I’ll never forgive that little shit) for everything thing he’s done. (Sorry for the long ask)

Definitely, agree with you! Within a Star Wars canon-divergent AU narrative that actually framed Obi-Wan’s bad choices and flaws as seriously bad ones in the story with stakes that he either learned from and self-improved upon before it was too late and/or didn’t learn from and suffered negative consequences for as a result. Yeah, he loses people he cares about, and, at least in regards to Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, that is partially his own fault. However, while I do feel some sympathy for him and realize that he’s flawed, it’s difficult for me to get on board with his character in canon as he is written because he never actually learns from his mistakes on screen, nor are there any real stakes in him making seriously bad choices and not learning in comparison to Anakin and Luke. I don’t hate him, but it’s hard for me to get invested in a character who can always magically get the upper hand in his duels with his enemies or opponents suddenly getting baited, provoked, pushed into a corner, or dumbed down for him to be able to effortlessly defeat them. He also repeatedly gets away with being an asshole in many of the same ways that Luke and Anakin get framed as wrong for and/or suffer consequences for in the OT and PT movies when they don’t learn to be better. Yeah, Obi-Wan loses people he cares about, and at least in regards to Anakin and Ahsoka, that is partially his own fault, but there is no sort of humbling or meaningful development in canon for him.

Still, because, as you said, Obi-Wan also was a victim of Yoda’s cult who did genuinely grow to care for Qui Gonn, Anakin, and Ahsoka, in spite of being really bad at it, he does have a lot of potential to be a better character in canon-divergent/AU material that actually has him facing real stakes and learning to take real self-accountability for his bad choices before getting to earn the hero treatment in the narrative. Within canon and especially his fandom of diehard Kenobist fans, though, Obi-Wan is such a grossly overrated Gary Stu that I’ve genuinely began to find his character more annoying and boring than he was before.

Yoda, on the other hand, really doesn’t seem to have any sort of real conscience or significant guilt for being an asshole. Nor does he really feel like a person at all because the only things he cares about are avoiding the dark side and staying in power. He also has no real backstory, so I don’t understand why he’s become an unapologetically apathetic asshole, learned nothing throughout his life, and remained willfully in-denial for the past several centuries. I don’t understand why he was allowed to be in charge for so long. I don’t understand why he is the disaster of a person he is in the series because there is no development for his character. With Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, the rest Republic senate, and the other Jedi they may not be wholly innocent, but I can understand why.

[assassinhomecreedstuck]

I hate interacting with people online about media I like because lots of people have lots of dumb opinions and are so bored that they spend all their time online just shitting on the stuff they like. Yes, acknowledge problems with the material, but also ENJOY IT. SPREAD MORE POSITIVITY AND STOP BEING A LITTLE BITCH ABOUT EVERYTHING.

[maxwellatoms]

Hello Mr. Atoms, I'm an animation student in college and fan of your work. I got this assignment in which I need to ask questions to a professional in the area. Could you pretty please answer them? It'd mean a lot to me.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

Okey dokey.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

Not really, in that there seems to be no career left.

The animation industry swelled its numbers greatly before 2020. Almost immediately after that, corporate greed synergized with a pandemic to reduce animated programs and the number of people working on them to almost zero. It takes almost a year from beginning to end to make a single episode of an animated show (by the modern standard). There was nothing being made in 2020 and four years later, we''re not in a much better spot. It's going to be a long drought for (especially) Kid's TV Animation.

Recently, many of my former co-workers have hit the financial wall and can't continue, moving away after (sometimes) 20 years in the industry. I begin to wonder if I'm very far behind.

A "bounce back" a year from now would need to start today. There are still some animated shows being made now, but those are almost universally "library" properties. That means it's an existing I.P. (Intellectual Properties like Garfield/Mario/Batman/Star Wars) so as an artist you're immediately in that box. Depending on the property and the studio, it can be an unpleasantly tight box. I grew used to holding and maintaining the vision for a show, but it's less fun when it's not my vision. It's even less fun when you can't inspire someone to follow your vision because they've been so ruthlessly abused.

I'm pretty sick of how big media corporations treat their employees. If I inherit one more burnt out crew due to mismanagement, I'm gonna lose it.

Over a decade ago I fought hard to get board artists story credit for the episodes they were actually writing, and felt like I'd won a big victory for everyone. The second my back was turned, it all reverted.

Mostly... what is the point now? My career is/was developing ideas, crafting those ideas into a workable show, then managing teams of thirty to seventy people to produce a couple of dozen episodes per year. Studios actively do not want new ideas right now, and are actively searching for ways to eliminate what artists from the process. I'm not sure what my job would be under this new system, but it feels like they decided to hang onto the anxiety-inducing deadlines while removing anything remotely pleasurable from the experience.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

It's the only way to get anything done, currently.

The current state of the industry is not sustainable. I (along with a lot of other animators I know) are trying to decide what's next, and pretty much everyone agrees that "you just have to make something".

It is (in that very specific way) a great time to be a young animator. The system was never going to treat you well anyway. If you can get something like a Hazbin Hotel happening without studio help, you can currently write your own ticket. I'm super proud of Vivsie, because that's a LOT of stuff to handle. I never had to handle my own marketing or drum up money to make Billy & Mandy happen.

There are opportunities there, but it's definitely "Hard Mode". The best idea is probably to team up with a few other people you like and like to work with.

Hopes? I hope that the young animators take over and make something new on top of the bones of the old industry, rather than just allowing that industry to patch its rotting hide with their collected works.

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

I suspect true AI might just peace-out like ScarJo in "Her", but we're not there yet. What we have now isn't Artificial Intelligence at all (though I do believe it may be the underpinnings of the Artificial Suconscious of what may one day become an actual Artificial Intelligence.)

The LLMs and "Generative AI" are (so far) a big dumb waste. They consume tons of energy and aren't great for doing anything creative. If you've sat down with Chat GPT for a creative writing session, you've probably run into the "out of the box" limitations which prevent it from talking about sex or violence-- which happen to be a major component of most stories.

Still, the technology has come incredibly far in an incredibly short amount of time. I imagine we're going to hit the point where we're being hazed by artificially generated political ads way before Generative AI can produce a consistent and usable character turnaround, so that'll be the test. Whatever the legal fallout is from this stuff over the next few years will set the tone.

Still, studios have a vested interest in pleasing their shareholders. Generative AI potentially has the capability of not only replacing swaths of money-eating artists, but handing that control directly to the billionaire studio heads. Mark my words: We're headed straight for billionaire-generated content.

I don't think the public at large will want to watch Elon Musk's fever dreams, so there's that. So law and general distaste might stave it off for a while, but I think there's just too much impetus for studios to continue to try to please their investors. "AI Art" is here to stay.

Eventually that will lead to millions and millions of bots generating millions and millions of songs and paintings and movies all day every day. Most of it will be utter trash. Right now (so I'm told) viewers are already burnt out, and will generally only click on what they already know. On Netflix, where there are twenty things you've never heard of and one you have, you're more likely to pick the thing that gives you comfort and gives you a guarantee you're not wasting your time. With exponentially more A.I. trash, how would you even begin to filter it out?

You'd need absolute control of an already existing distribution system. We currently have a few of those, and all of the media companies are desperately trying to merge with them to insure their own survival.

To me, the post-Gen-AI landscape looks a lot like old-school Cable, but with endless I.P. and fewer masters.

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

The real question is, maybe, "What am I even doing?" These days I try to do a lot of gardening. I'm trying to learn new art skills, because suddenly twenty five years of experience managing, drawing, and writing isn't worth much. I recently worked on Jellystone until Zaslav lost 2.5 billion in the wash and had to find justification for his new yacht. The show before that? Also culled midway through to save money. The days of multi-year gigs seem to be over, and if I'm going to scrape by doing freelance, maybe I can do that somewhere else.

I'll always make art. I can't seem to help it. Ideas aren't my problem-- it's executing those ideas without the help of a structured pre-existing system. I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to pull that off. My strengths are great, but were always supported by friends I worked with.

Can I start an indie cartoon with all of these cool friends? Sure, maybe. Most of those people have gone on to have other careers of their own and got used to being paid. Now nobody is getting paid and no one can pay anyone else. My immediate circle are all now middle-aged people with families and no jobs. Convincing them to give up a large chunk of their day for an idea that's not guaranteed to pay off is going to take some real effort.

I technically have fifteen years until I can claim my "retirement", assuming that still exists by then. That's a pretty big hole to fill with... I don't know what.

The difficult "What comes next" discussions at home are really just starting.

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

There are a lot of cool animation people out there. I already mentioned I was proud of Vivsie. I was also reminded recently just how great C.H. Greenblatt and Mr. Warburton are. I know they're my friends. They're both just really upstanding, creative people who take good care of their crews.

The treatment of animation industry professionals by the studio system has been one of the most demoralizing and heartbreaking parts of this demoralizing and heartbreaking time.

---

So there ya go. If you want to look for someone whose attitude is a little more upbeat, I won't blame you a bit.

Wherever you are, I wish you the best of luck. For me, just climb up there and crush it. I would very much like to add you to #5 someday.

[f1version]

DATES WITH YOU ♥︎ F1 HEADCANONS

includes: charles, carlos, max, daniel, lando, oscar, lewis, george, alex, logan, pierre, yuki, lance, mick, and sebastian.

summary: f1 drivers’ and their favorite themed dates!

author’s note: happy valentine’s day my loves!! this is incredibly late (almost 15th where i am) but here it is <3

love on top, a vday special ♥︎ general masterlist

now playing ♫₊⊹ until i found you by stephen sanchez

★ CHARLES LECLERC ( 16 ) — Charles has a bucket list with dates. Enjoys planning them curled up in bed, talks about how you shouldn’t repeat one until the list is done—unless you are a Drive-in theater date, he loves them. When they're arranged in Monaco, it's usually for old romcoms and coming-of-age movies, which is perfect in both of your eyes. Charles makes sure to bring snacks, blankets and pillows, everything so you can be comfortable while cuddling him. He whispers sweet nothings in your ear as the movie plays, dusk falling over you, looking as beautiful as ever. He loves this type of dates… it even gives him a chance to show off his magnificent car, but hey! that's off-topic.

★ CARLOS SAINZ JR. ( 55 ) — You and Carlos have a passion for trying new recipes, so sometimes, when you have everything you need, you decide to put on matching aprons, as well as toques, and start working on your next masterpiece. Usually, old Spanish songs play in the background, Carlos singing, grabbing you by the waist to distract you and dance a little. He loves days like these, your focused face and little scoldings are all he needs, especially because one way or another, you will end up laughing and dancing with him, sometimes full of flour and seasonings, the kitchen wearing its best perfume.

★ MAX VERSTAPPEN ( 1 ) — Max is always looking for ways to impress you, to catch you off guard and surprise you, he loves how you tease him about it. So that's why, when you go to one of your favorite places ever —the planetarium— as a date, he recollects as many details about the celestial objects as he can, waiting for your surprise when he drops a fact you didn't know he knew, starting a long, beautiful conversation about it. You know a lot more than him, but he's eager to learn, loves the way you explain every single thing to him, loves the way places like this brings you closer.

★ DANIEL RICCIARDO ( 3 ) — Daniel loves music, he spends hours on end with his headphones on, discovering new artists every day, sharing his songs, albums, and artists of the month with you, adding to his playlists your recommendations. So it's no surprise you find yourself going to multiple concerts. Dancing and singing, hugging and fangirling. Sometimes artists know Daniel and that's when you laugh the most because there's always a chance of him ending up on stage, singing to you (or trying to).

★ LANDO NORRIS ( 4 ) — Lando loves your creativity, he’s a fan of getting to know what's on your pretty mind and seeing your ideas come to life, he also loves sharing his own ideas with you, feels free doing so. His favorite dates with you consist of this: having a canvas, paper, or even pottery to paint on, gossiping and laughing for hours, having picnics and enjoying food. Lando would buy hundreds of utensils, wanting to try everything with you, forever. PD: He would have you paint him and his car, probably.

★ OSCAR PIASTRI ( 81 ) — It didn't start as a date per se, Oscar just couldn't sleep one night and you suggested building the Lego Star Wars ship in your closet, so you stayed up until 6 in the morning building it. He loves the tranquility it brings, how you can go from discussing the deepest topics to a comfortable silence. Focuses on the little things, like when your fingers brush his while reaching for a piece or that little celebration when you find another. In his apartment, he has a shelf dedicated to the Legos you've built together and photos to go with it. So, in Oscar's humble opinion, these are the best dates in the world.

★ LEWIS HAMILTON ( 44 ) — You and Lewis can live off two things: Roscoe and the beach. Surfing is something you have always bonded over, that's why you love heading to the beach early morning, going for a run with Roscoe, and then jumping to surf (taking Roscoe back inside first). You can stay out there for hours, challenging each other, improving your skills, and lying on your boards, talking about everything and nothing, loving every second of it.

★ GEORGE RUSSELL ( 63 ) — While experimenting with extreme sports would be a lovely date for George, he chooses to call his favorite something more domestic: comfy clothes, a good bottle of wine, and a long puzzle night ahead of you. He enjoys the challenging but relaxing parts of the activity, loves to strategize alongside you, and loses his focus when looking at you, falling deeper in love.

★ ALEX ALBON ( 23 ) — Playing Mario Kart as if your life depended on winning has always been part of your relationship — "It's our love language," Alex says— That's why you love to spend a large amount of time (and money) in arcades. You play against each other, with and without; also spend forty minutes trying to catch that one stuffed animal from the claw machine, cheering (and almost getting kicked out) when you get it. Alex loves it as much as he loves you.

★ LOGAN SARGEANT ( 2 ) — Logan fully believes that the best date in the history of dating are theme and amusement park dates. Whether it's a local funfair or the (in)famous Florida parks, Logan loves walking hand in hand, map and snacks in the other, trying to go on as many attractions as possible, calming the nerves of each other when necessary, laughing at the photos quickly taken on the rollercoasters (and going again to attempt looking good), and many other things that make this type of date his favorite.

★ PIERRE GASLY ( 10 ) — Pierre loves chaos and what's more chaotic than doing karaoke? Your catalog goes from High School Musical's "Gotta Go My Own Way" to Gaye and Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Sometimes they end up drunk enough (from adrenaline, from love, or both) to sing French songs and attempt Celine Dion's highest notes. You can spend hours teasing each other, dancing to the rhythm, and sneaking kisses in between songs.

★ YUKI TSUNODA ( 22 ) — Contrary to popular belief, Yuki's favorite type of date isn't taking you to a restaurant or cooking together, because even though he does love doing those things with you, your trips to farmers markets are his favorite. When the season is right, you visit them hand-in-hand, no matter the country since there is nothing better than discovering new foods with your favorite person. And hey! If there is something to eat, why not mix dates?

★ LANCE STROLL ( 18 ) — No matter the weather or season, you and Lance will always be up for an ice cream date. You're on a quest to find the best flavors, and the fact that some dates end in small big disasters is enough to keep you searching together, chins full of ice cream and all.

★ MICK SCHUMACHER ( 47 ) — Two things about Mick: he really enjoys ice skating and he loves you. If you put them together, he's guaranteed to have the time of his life, so he's lucky you like ice skating as much as he does. You both spend hours on the rink, being careful not to fall while holding hands, yet most of the time it's Mick who ends up in the floor as you drown in laughter. He loves that sound. He loves making you laugh and smile, it's his favorite pastime, and seeing you shine on the ice rink makes him realize how much he adores this place.

★ SEBASTIAN VETTEL ( 5 ) — Seb’s favorite is going hiking and then camping with you in the beautiful Swiss mountains, away from the a much hectic side of life. Just you and him giving new meaning to the known, sharing not only the beauty of life but also the comfort of one another, wrapped around small info-dumps and timeless laughter. It’s therapeutic being so close to each other, so pure and loving. If you ask him, he would repeat this date a thousand times over.

[phoenixkaptain]

Din Djarin and Luke Skywalker are both two men who get progressively scarier the more you watch them.

Like, Luke in A New Hope was baby af. He was a child. Even in the Empire Strikes Back, what a little guy. A tiny fellow.

Then boom, Return of the Jedi, and Luke is smiling and like “Tell these Ewoks that you are their God and that if they do not release us, you will be Angered…” He is in all black, he is missing a hand, he has gone off the rails conpletely. He’s like “How will I tell Leia that we’re siblings? …Oh! I know! Riddles!” Luke Skywalker gets struck by Force Lightning like nine times and still gets up and drags his dad’s lifeless body out. There were moments one might look at him and think, “no, ur wrong, he still babie” but you are the wrong one! He goes into Jabba’s Palace and straight up stands there smiling and threatening him the whole time. He’s standing on a plank over the Sarlacc and he’s still like “So this is how you’d like to play :)” Luke straight up snapped, he got spooky by the end of the og trilogy.

Din Djarin, straight off the back, is kind of intimidating. He is a man in full armour who hunts people and freezes them in carbonite and appears behind their shoulders when they least expect it. But, after Grogu shows up, you probably think “this man is weak to this baby, he will become soft” but no! The opposite happens!

I’m talking about episode 6. The Prisoner. I have wanted desperately to talk about this for days, but have only just found the words to do so. Let me explain.

Din Djarin is filmed and edited like a horror movie villain. Like a supernatural force of evil who stalks his prey. Straight up like a slasher villain out of the eighties. There’s hints of this beforehand, what with Din appearing behind a guy in the very first episode, and the fact that he has been shot point blank (many times) but no matter how many times he falls, he always gets back up. Okay, that’s all fine and good.

But episode 6 goes beyond that. He stalks a bunch if assholes through flickering red lights. He splits them up, he takes them out one by one, and the last person standing manages to get out, thinks they’ve escaped, only to die (technically) at Din’s hand anyway. He is straight up a horror movie villain I don’t know how else to explain it, he is a horror movie villain.

Don’t take this the wrong way. Being spooky and intimidating isn’t a bad thing, especially not in Star Wars! Luke Skywalker and his ability to say terrible things while smiling, Din Djarin and his predilection for appearing right behind someone, these ar egood things. I like these things a lot. I love these. I love that Luke is the cutest little scary fella in the galaxy. I love that Din is the most awkward little scary fella in the galaxy. I think it’s great.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, for one, I have been trying to word my view on Din Djarin for days now. I love this man, I have to mock him or I’ll feel incomplete. And I think it’s a disservice to pretend that Luke isn’t a person who most people in the Star Wars universe think about and shiver. Don’t get me wrong, I love sunshine boy Luke, but he isn’t really like that, at least not by this point in the series. He just strikes me as the type of person to say incredibly dark, deranged things with a blank face, then smile at cute kittens. Luke is messed up, and we should talk about it more because it’s very interesting to explore the various ways he’s messed up.

But for another, I am a big fan of Din and Luke being buddies who go absolutely anywhere and scare the shit out of people. A Mandalorian next to a Jedi Knight? Two people who eat Storm Troopers for breakfast?? Can you imagine how much the fragments of the Empire that are still left are quaking??? Those two would go absolutelu anywhere and the anyone on planet who ever sided with the Empire would give themselves up or run, immediately.

Like, Din singlehandedly took out that whole troop on Nevarro. All by himself, he shot out all of the Storm Troopers and everyone inside and I like to think there are whispered stories about him similar to the ones about the Boogeyman.

Now, I know Luke didn’t actually kill the Emperor and Darth Vader, but does anyone in universe know that? Or does everyone think that Luke not only blew up the Death Star, but he also murdered the two head honchos and came out completely unscathed? Luke is definitely a boogeyman.

I don’t know. Something about two terrifying men walking into a bar full of Imperials only to walk out five minutes later of a bar full of dead Imperials just really fills me with joy. Something about the mental image I have of Storm Troopers fearfully sharing increasingly terrifying stories about these two makes me happy. I like bad people being scared shitless, all right? Sue me.

[randomfandomblabdom]

I really need to vent about how much I like Cal and Merrin's dynamic in Jedi: Survivor cause they've quickly become probably my favorite canon pairing in the franchise.

I absolutely love that this relationship is built on the basis of friendship, respect, and a genuine mutual understanding of each other. From gameplay comments and conversations, Cal is very clearly so enamored with Merrin and literally everything about her. I know it's become a bit of a joke how clearly into her he is but he just thinks she's the most incredible being in the entire galaxy and it's honestly the sweetest thing. The writers could have very easily made his connection to Merrin a weakness or had it where it made his struggle with the darkness harder but I adore that they allowed him to be completely smitten with her and presented it as a strength. It's refreshing not only in Star Wars but in media in general, at least in my opinion. Love being presented as a positive asset is something so deeply missing in media nowadays - especially romantic love. Far too often in this day and age, love is presented as a weakness or something that will only bring you down, so I respect the fuck out of this writing.

Oops, this got really, really long so I'm putting the rest under a cut. It's kind of spitfire, so I apologize if it feels random.

I love how their first kiss is Merrin basically making a split-second decision where she realizes she doesn't want to die without kissing him at least once even if it runs the risk of making things awkward should they survive. Is it cliche as fuck? Absolutely, but it works so well in this instance. Cal being so dumbfounded, gawking at her like a fish, trying to process what the hell just happened that BD has to remind him they're literally about to die is the best thing too.

I appreciate that Cal is so obviously hesitant about giving into any sort of romantic feelings for Merrin because, of course, he would be due to his upbringing. He's pushing so hard against it to the point that he's even completely reluctant to so much as discuss it with Bode when they're on the Lucrehulk. Personally, I don't think Cal is oblivious to their potential feelings for each other. I've never been a huge fan of treating Cal as completely naive. He still might be a bit emotionally stunted, sure but he's lived 10 years outside of the Jedi Order at this point. I think he's hesitant to talk about it because first of all, it's really none of Bode's business but also, if he talks about it, he has to admit it, and if he admits it, that makes it real, and if it's real... well fuck, now he has to do something about it either way which is exactly what he's trying to avoid. I think he's trying to stay as neutral about it as he can until he gets to a point in the story/his arc where he decides he actually wants or feels ready to make a decision. Bode almost gets it out of him too before they're interrupted. The progression of Bode's questioning during that mission is something I actually find really interesting but that's a different topic.

Many people have pointed this out but Cal smiling so brightly while Merrin is clearly freaking the fuck out of Bode is just the cutest thing. Not only because he finds such humor in her scaring the shit out of people for fun when he of all people knows it's a running joke but he also goes along with the joke any chance he gets. He does this even when she's not around. People will be freaked out by her and he still plays along and it's not even like, "Yeah, I know, she's fucking scary bro," it's more like, "Yeah, I know, she can wake the dead, isn't it amazing how scary she is!" Someone else already pointed this out in another post but that feels almost more intimate than any kiss they share. His attraction to her encompasses all sides of her including those that many people find incredibly terrifying and I find that so endearing, he wouldn't ask her to change for anything. He's the only person who genuinely isn't freaked out by her in the slightest but not only that, he finds that side of her to be so incredible. Also, Cal being so blase with Bode about his obvious attraction to Merrin a mission prior and then having the most blatant sexual tension with her in front of Bode in the next scene is peak comedy, I don't care what anybody says. Like, Cal, honey, you just spent the entire previous mission trying to convince Bode (and yourself) there's nothing there and/or you're not pursuing it, so you're not doing yourself any favors by looking at her like that, standing that close to her, and speaking to her with the cadence of a lover bro.

I love that the second Cal walks onto the Mantis after killing Rayvis, she instantaneously picks up on the fact that something's wrong. Literally instantaneously. You can see her face drop the moment she sees him. She just knows something happened. Her ability to read him insanely well is something that is introduced very early on in the game, most noticeably in the campfire scene, and it stays consistent over the course of the story. The following conversation they have is honestly one of the best moments between them in the entire game. It's this type of conversation I've been wanting to see with a Jedi and their potential lover since Revenge of the Sith. He is so open with her even in a somewhat roundabout way about his genuine fear of losing himself and while the conversation is not explicitly about their relationship, the implication is still there and she 100% picks up on it, especially since he wonders aloud why Santari didn't see the change in Dagan before it was too late. Instead of shaming him for his reservations or calling it ridiculous or anything else she could have said at this moment, she instead decides to possibly help curb those fears and give him some comfort regarding it. She goes on to basically tell him in so few words she knows what she's signing up for and is willing to cross those bridges with him if they come. It's a great difference between Cal and Dagan. Though it's never outright stated that Dagan and Santari were in love, I feel like it's... pretty heavily implied, or at least he was definitely in love with her (was I the only one who read it that way??) but whereas Dagan demands that Santari talk him away from the darkness and seems to almost expect her to, Merrin herself plainly offers to do it with no prodding on Cal's part. It doesn't seem to be a burden Cal wanted to put on her, not something he was inherently expecting of her but she willingly offers, it is her choice, she wants to carry that burden with him. While she does seem maybe slightly annoyed by his hesitancy regarding their relationship to each other, she is also so incredibly patient with him while he's stewing over what he wants to do. It's beautiful. As a side note, "A shared dream is not so easy to wake from," is such an amazing line. Seriously, I want merch with that quote on it.

I liked that going through with the relationship was Cal's choice in the end. Merrin didn't push it, she didn't pressure it. She let him bring it up and come to her when he was ready and if that meant potentially being rejected by a man she very clearly adores, so be it, and I have no doubt she would've respected that choice if that's what he'd wanted. I know a lot of people seem to think he only makes this decision due to Bode's questions earlier but it really seems to be a combination of multiple things that lead to this. Bode picking his brain definitely got him thinking about it, maybe more than he wanted to, but I do think the other big part of Cal being willing to go forward with it at this moment is his confrontation with Dagan that, while an illusion, did cause him to come to grips with his own mortality in a way. "How does it feel knowing you're about to die. That your life meant nothing." As Cal says, Dagan uses an extremely powerful force hallucination based on fear here, so while losing himself to the darkness might scare him, his life being completely meaningless is what he seems to fear the most. Cal's journey throughout Survivor encompasses many things but one of them revolves around feeling aimless and finding a purpose, preferably outside of being a hired weapon that will surely and slowly consume him. It's what everyone consistently tells him: find a home, settle down, embrace happiness because it's fleeting, the path you're on is not healthy and will consume you otherwise...etc. His decision here to give in to his romantic attraction to Merrin is a culmination of all of these interactions and conversations he's had throughout the story, how they've influenced his line of thinking, and him coming to his own conclusions regarding what he personally wants and at this moment, when things are finally, calm and everyone is in a good place with a plan going forward, he personally decides there's no point in living up to the expectations of the Jedi when the Order doesn't exist anymore and wants to see where this could go.

I love the fact that when Merrin witnesses Cal's darkness in the ISB, it's made abundantly clear that she's just as afraid of losing him as he most likely is of losing her. I do think a major reason why she was able to talk him down at the moment is that he fundamentally understands what it feels like to lose everything and everyone, your entire livelihood. That is what they first bonded over and it's something that keeps them bonded in the saddest, yet most profound way and he would never want to add himself to the list of people she's lost. She's also doing exactly what she said she would. In an instance where again, she reads him like a fucking book, she can tell just from his responses on the intercom that he's losing himself and is guiding him back. She immediately went to rescue him as she says. No question, no argument, nothing, she simply does it. She made him a promise and she kept it and in that moment, he promises that she won't lose him, he won't allow it. This is a fundamental difference between Anakin and Padme's dynamic and Cal and Merrin's. While Anakin's love for Padme quite famously ends up extremely selfish in an "I would lose myself to ensure you're not ripped away from me" type of way, Cal and Merrin's dynamic is leaning towards a more selfless, "I won't allow myself to be lost because I can't let that happen for your sake," type of way and god damn it, I love it.

There are several interactions they have in gameplay that I'm lowkey peeved weren't included in cutscenes and one of them is when Cal returns to the Mantis after all but demolishing the ISB, they have this really short but great interaction where Merrin says that if he ever feels that way again, he needs to tell her. She doesn't even ask him to do it, she all but demands it, "If you feel that way again, you will tell me." She's demanding communication from him regarding the darkness and he doesn't fight this demand at all. He agrees to respect this request and I fucking love that from both of them. I will genuinely be kinda upset if we don't get a moment like that in the next game.

I like how their kiss after they've successfully navigated the abyss is kind of their first kiss inverted but instead of "omg we might die, I need to kiss you" it's more "holy shit, we survived, I need to kiss you," but instead of Merrin initiating, now it's Cal. I'm probably reading too much into that but whatever, it's cute.

This isn't about any one part in particular but I do love that it looks like the headcanon so many people had regarding Merrin most likely being quite physically affectionate is turning out to be true.

...I think that's enough for now lol I might add on some things later

Apologies for any typos and thanks for indulging my rambling if you got this far.

[inafieldofstarflowers]

Top five reasons you (yes, you) should watch Star Wars Rebels:

Immaculate found family energy—these characters have a home together. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and support one another in achieving the things that are important to them, and their relationships drive the show in a way that feels incredibly genuine.

Character depth—Rebels genuinely has some of the best character development of any Star Wars property I’m familiar with. Each of the characters gets a chance to grow in some way, whether that’s gaining perspective of the world or understanding something new about themselves. They are well fleshed out and consistent. It’s also such a cool look into both what it meant to be a Jedi in the rebellion era, between iterations of the Jedi order, and what it meant to not be a Jedi but still fight in the rebellion. I love that Rebels tells both stories and doesn’t favor one or the other.

Quality Lore—Rebels has a clear trajectory: you get to watch the cast progress from being one of many isolated rebel cells to helping create a unified rebellion. And yet, the show never loses sight of its roots, and the heart of the show stays grounded on Lothal, the planet where it began, and Lothal becomes something of a symbol throughout the show. Also, in terms of broader Star Wars lore, SO many important items or people have their stories told—you get lots of nods to or arcs centered around the darksaber, the mortis gods, the rebellion, darth maul, and more, all of which enrich the experience of watching a lot of the other movies and shows.

Cool visuals—I know a lot of people are turned off by the animation style, especially the saber size, and wish it was like Clone Wars. But Rebels honestly has really beautiful art, and you see a variety of cool planets along the way (Lothal is especially pretty imo).

Compelling villains—This is big for me personally, because to me, Star Wars thrives most when it has a good villain—think Vader and Palpatine; think Maul and Pong Krell. And Rebels has multiple villains who are believably threatening and also work incredibly well in terms of adding to the plot.

Give Rebels a chance; it’s truly incredible, and also just so genuinely fun. Whether you’re a fan of TCW who was thrown by the animation or a fan who just watched Ahsoka and wants to learn more about these characters or a fan who hasn’t dipped into the tv shows, you should ABSOLUTELY watch it. I promise you get used to the sabers being animated differently, and that the characters continue to gain depth throughout.

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: February 2024 ~ 

🌱 Happy March!!! 🌷

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post! 

New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)

🌟 Anti Reset - February 2nd (Taiwan)

🌟 Love Syndrome: The Beginning - February 8th (Thailand)

🌟 Baka Pwede pa? - February 9th (Philippines)

🌟 War of Y: The Reunion (special episode) - February 10th (Thailand)

🌟 1000 Years Old - February 14th (Thailand)

🌟 My Strawberry Film - February 16th (Japan)

🌟 A Secret Love - February 17th (Thailand)

🌟 To Be Continued - February 19th (Thailand)

🌟 Unknown - February 24th (Taiwan)

🌟 Wedding Impossible - February 26th (South Korea)

🌟 Kiseki Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 - February TBA (Thailand)

🌟 Ambiguous - February TBA (South Korea)

Monthly likes/dislikes

❣️ I'm gonna have to list Cherry Magic and Cooking Crush again just because they filled me with so much serotonin lol. Truly beautiful productions, so carefully written, so well executed and with so much wholesomeness and so many green flags lol. I had the best time watching them and the fact that 2 OG pairs had comeback shows back to back gave me so much nostalgia lol, especially since the genre is reminiscent of their old shows. It's been a blissful and therapeutic few months and I'm extremely sad that it's over 😩🥺🫶🏻 A+ content from everyone involved. 12/10 for both.

👎🏻 It has been a year lmao a lot of things happened this month, the Pawin situation makes me sad, we don't know what actually happened but the whole thing is messed up either way. James dropping out of LUAT came as a surprise as well, I'm not a NetJames fan but if they really had a falling out like the rumors say then that's sad. Singto coming back to gmm has been a nice surprise amongst the scandals lol but other than that I hope things go uphill after this 🥺

New series & movie announcements

🎥 My Bias is Showing (manwha adaption) - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 All About Lust - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 A Balloon's Landing - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Roommates - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Good Night to Get Drunk - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 First Note of Love - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 Living With Him - Coming April 11th (Japan)

🎥 The Young Gangster - Coming 2025 (Taiwan)

Other news from the BL world

❗️ Actor Singto Prachaya has returned to GMMTV as an artist. He previously left the company in 2021 to work as a freelance actor & producer after being under contract for nearly 5 years. It is unknown whether he will be part of any projects of the 2024 lineup.

❗️ The Thai BL Playboyy is getting a second season.

❗️ The upcoming Korean series High School Return of a Gangster announced the removal of the original BL plot. The show will air as a censored version, focusing on the friendship between the male leads.

❗️ Actors Charles Tu (HIStory 4) and Michael Chang (My Tooth Your Love) were confirmed to star in the upcoming BL First Note of Love. The series tells the story of a musician who is struggling with stage fright and one of his fans. An air date has not been announced.

❗️ Actor Non Ratchanon will no longer partake in the upcoming BL Live in Love. In an official statement, the production company stated that the decision was made due to disagreements between his agency and the one representing his co-star Hearth Chindanai. A recast for his role has yet to be announced.

❗️ GMMTV actor Win Pawin was accused of physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend, who made public allegations with photo evidence of her wounds. As a result GMMTV released a statement announcing the suspension of Pawin from all further work activities until legal investigations are complete. This lead to him making a public statement saying he is withdrawing from the upcoming BL We Are. He was cast as one of the 8 protagonists and was paired with his former partner Marc Pahun. GMMTV released a followup statement today, announcing Pawin's character would be recast to newbie Poon Mitpakdee.

❗️ Actor James Supamongkon announced his withdrawal from the upcoming Domundi BL Love Upon a Time. He released a statement on Twitter, saying he wants to expand his career and focus on other projects as an artist apart from acting. The company stated that Net and the others will stay part of the cast and that a new partner for Net will be cast shortly. This caused a big uproar amongst the fans who have been waiting for the series since it was announced over a year ago. Whether James' dropping out has anything to do with a dispute between him and Net is not confirmed.

Upcoming series & movies for March

👉🏻 Love is Better the Second Time Around - March 5th (Japan)

👉🏻 Deep Night - March 7th (Thailand)

👉🏻 Two Worlds - March 21st (Thailand)

👉🏻 High Demand - March 23rd (Thailand)

👉🏻 Wuju Bakery - March TBA (Thailand)

👉🏻 The Star - Date TBA (Thailand)

👉🏻 Blossom Campus - March TBA (South Korea)

👉🏻 Jazz for Two - March TBA (South Korea)

[loveoaths]

Anakin is not racist

oh, man, that was fast!

listen. i’m gonna assume you’re an anakin fan — great! so am i! — but anakin is objectively an awful person and a canonical space-racist. that’s apparent even if you’re new to Star Wars like i am.

from Legends:

when asked about his view of the tuskens, anakin’s immediate response is “i have no use for tuskens.” i mean, i don’t know what there is to explain about that, because it’s right there. a whole race of people he doesn’t care for because they aren’t “useful,” as if that’s all people are meant to be to him. his issue with them is apparent but he won’t name it.

a’sharad hett directly names anakin’s issue: he is prejudiced. and anakin does not deny this. he “apologizes” but does not specify for what, because he knows he’s supposed to. you don’t just admit you’re a racist, especially not to a Master Jedi. which is exactly what irl racists do, lmfao.

when push comes to shove, anakin outright SAYS it.

“I know what you are — filthy, sneaking, Tusken! Animals! Hiding behind your masks! Your kind tortured and killed my mother and I’m glad I killed them all!” (Emphasis mine)

like, listen. this is racist as hell. the racist dog whistle is now a racist klaxon, alright. he sees the tuskens as subhuman, as inherently untrustworthy because of their appearance and their culture, and he is not only not bothered by killing them, but he’s happy he did it. you could argue anakin is shielding himself from his guilt with self-righteousness, which i might buy with any other character, but anakin is down right unrepentant.

it wasn’t enough for him to kill the tuskens responsible, which even a’sharad notes would have been acceptable in Tusken culture; anakin wanted them all dead, because they’re all guilty to him solely by virtue of being Tusken. this anger and hatred and bigotry pushes anakin to even lash out against a’sharad, a tusken jedi, fully dropping any pretense that he is okay with a’sharad despite him being half-tusken and a jedi. because you know what anakin is following? the ONE DROP RULE! even a drop of Tusken blood is too much tusken.

and still the wrong lessons are learned. for some godforsaken reason a’sharad learns he needs to be seen as a Jedi first and not a Tusken, which is not only antithetical to the Jedi way, but totally opposite to the point of this encounter, which is that we are all many things all at once, and pretending otherwise leads to destruction. anakin is a jedi and a murderer and a racist and the chosen one. ignoring the unsavory and cruel parts of him, never exposing him to the jedi council, and hoping his “better nature” would win out over time ensured that it never would. a’sharad is a Tusken and a jedi and many other things, but his wrongful assumption that pushing aside his heritage will gain him favor eventually causes more problems for him.

the only reason anakin and a’sharad stop fighting is because a’sharad removes his mask, revealing, tada, a hot human face! now anakin is capable of an insincere apology. but he still assumes the markings on a’sharad were forced on him, because he still believes tuskens are a barbaric and cruel people. then the moment is moved past so they can escape.

and despite this shit-ass “heart to heart,” anakin walks away with zero appreciation for a’sharad or the Tusken culture. he fails a’sharad’s lesson: it’s not that he can’t see a’sharad as human, as a person, as a jedi, it’s that he won’t, because he is attached to his view of the tuskens as lesser than, because it excuses his behavior, because it makes him righteous, because it makes him feel better, because it solidifies his entitled view of the world. which is exactly how irl racism and whiteness work.

and the final word on the subject is this. when all is said and done and anakin is asked if he would kill the tuskens again, knowing what he knows about them now, his answer is a cold, unmoved, “Yes.”

now, i know the Legends comics are not officially canon; the new canon is whatever Disney chooses to use and whatever appears in the movies. however, even if we just look at the clone wars, which are now canon to the Disney SWU, there are several instances in TCW where anakin makes disparaging comments about another species’ appearance, intelligence, and capability. i don’t have those on hand because i am not trawling through 7 seasons for quotes for you, but you can find them if you want to look.

my final thought here is this: i am not disparaging anakin fans (fanakins, if you will); like i said earlier, i am fascinated by his character, and enjoy him as a concept. what i am doing here is asking you (especially if you’re white) to consider the lengths to which fandom goes to ignore the very obvious signs that anakin is not just genocidal but racist. like him all you want but don’t ignore that part because that makes you uncomfortable. he kills kids. that’s not any better than being racist.

understanding the role of racism in his depiction, and his turn to fascism, only aids your storytelling and view of him, because it’s true to life. society is willing to ignore massive red flags if someone is white (and in Star Wars universe, we’ll add “human” to the list), male, and conventionally attractive. obi-wan is willing to ignore these things because he is the same, and because anakin does not treat HIM this way, obi-wan can blindly believe anakin would never treat anyone like this — which is, again, a phenomenon people of color call out often, where white people will say “X can’t be racist because he’s never said anything racist around me!” well yeah. because why would he? nevermind the fact that obi-wan and ahsoka witness anakin treating non-human suspects with extreme prejudice, abusing his power and authority as a jedi to get what he wants, and worse. anakin is and always has been a shitty racist cop on a power trip, but because he worked with “good cops” and knew better than to say anything out loud, he got away with it until he killed them all too.

this all feeds into the concept that while anakin’s fall is tragic, it is by no means unexpected. the only reason the main characters of the prequels are surprised is because they willingly looked away from the warning signs. the characters who didn’t — the Council, Mace, even Ahsoka at some points — are vilified by anakin, and because the main characters love anakin and have an attachment to him being the chosen one, they believe anakin over those who are suspicious of him and ignore or downplay the warnings until it’s all too late. the tragedy of anakin isn’t a tragedy of not being loved enough, or having people fail you; it’s the tragedy of refusing to get help, of refusing to let go of things even when they hurt you, it’s the tragedy of the bitter man drinking poison to kill someone ekse, and it’s the tragedy of the bystander: of what happens when we all stand by and watch people we love do terrible things without stopping them, because we’re as afraid of them not loving us anymore as we are of confronting what it means that we still want to love and be loved by cruelty.

tl;dr: anakin skywalker is racist and prejudiced. you can still like him as a character; this is not a moral judgment. but maybe you should prod at your like at him a little, and investigate the ways in which both anakin as a character and the fandom’s dismissive view of his many faults is indicative of the insidious way racism and whiteness works irl. especially if you’re white.

[probadbatch]

Just saw someone say it was bad writing to kill off Tech so I just want to be very clear -- I don't think that at all. Whether his death is real or not, I think it was brilliantly done. I have no complaints at all about how it was handled on screen.

What I do think is that it would be bad management of fan expectations to have him be really permanently dead. As Star Wars fans, we've learned to read way too much into everything Lucasfilm says because they're absurdly tight lipped about upcoming stuff and they've encouraged us to do so. As far as I've seen, the people involved in the production all seem to use words like 'loss' and 'sacrifice' but never 'death' to describe what happened to Tech. And I might chalk that up to just an odd coincidence but for almost a year, fans have been pointing this out. If he's really gone, it seems unfair for Lucasfilm to keep doing it and not have someone just say bluntly 'yeah guys sorry but he's super dead' if that had been their intention all along. Whatever else I think of Lucasfilm, I don't think they're intentionally so callous. If it turns out that they were stringing us along, I'll be mad about that.

But I'll never be mad about the writing. It was a heart-wrenching but meaningful send-off for a character they did a wonderful job building up over the course of the show, especially season 2. They gave it the weight it deserved. They didn't just move on to the next part of the story, they let the characters (and us) feel the loss and they did so in a way that also moved the story forward. Sure there are some things we can all look at and say that's evidence that he's not dead, but none of it is anything close to a smoking gun. There would be speculation no matter what Lucasfilm said because it's Star Wars and I've lost count of how many characters have come back from the dead so far, but it wouldn't be to the extent that we've seen. It's really the fact that Lucasfilm has been vague with how they talk about it that's driving most of the speculation, and the actual show content is secondary.

So anyway the short version of this post is that if Lucasfilm has been playing with our feelings for marketing purposes, then they're jerks but the writers? They're doing an amazing job and I'm excited/terrified to see what they have in store for us this season.

[inficetegodwottery]

I have so many people telling me to play Helldivers 2, and yet every time I tell them I just don't like the vibes of it and I played the first game and didn't like the satire, I get told I'm just not media literate enough, and that I obviously don't just get satirical treatments of overwhelmingly evil ideologies.

I've been a 40k fan since I was eight, and I've had tons of great friends and cool people into warhammer my whole life. I have dealt with countless fucking dipshits who were either outright fascists or /pol/-ass cryptofascists. I have also dealt with countless people who assume being a fan of any warhammer property is a mark of being a cryptofascist. Both of which are exhausting douchebags.

I'm also a fan of Starship Troopers, specifically the movie version that's a direct fuck you to the original author, and all the deconstruction and exploration of political propaganda that franchise has been able to put out over the years, especially its satire of the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

In both of those communities, we have to constantly deal with the fact that parody (or really any portrayal) of an authoritarian ideology inevitably attracts real life fuckwit brainwashed members of that exact ideology who are all-in gung ho enthusiastic about the fictional authoritarian ideology of the setting. I'd like to think we do a good job. I'd like to think for every pasty teenage asshole screaming slurs at Eldar players, we've got ten more rational and emotionally mature folks who understand it's fiction.

So for a while I was inclined to re-examine my experience of the first game, and potentially give this new one a shot with the same caution and "media literacy" I apply to Warhammer and other games where you actively play as the villains.

...but then I actually looked up discussions of the game, and it was truly astonishing the number of times I saw supposedly levelheaded fans of the game shouting slurs (like libcuck K***), saying shit like (This is just another gamer gate/SMH why are there no straight pride flags), and typing stuff like "Kite Yams Street" at people who dared expressing their concerns at how the community actively glorifies some of the stuff in the game.

What really fucking disappointed me is how many upvotes and people agreeing with them there were, even on the main Helldivers communities.

As an example, from just a handful of Steam threads. (AND THEY ARE ALL FUCKING LIKE THIS)

These are some of the least gross examples I could find.

Virtually any topic on Reddit, Steam, Twitter, or Discord that even mentioned fascism indirectly becomes an absolute shitstorm, with Helldivers fans actively arguing with both people who think the game fails as a parody, AND with people openly, unironically, and EXPLICITLY self-identifying as fascists.

Because saying this game about authoritarian dystopia is attracting authoritarians is stupid and bad. There are no authoritarians in our community.

But also remember to tell the authoritarians in our community that they're stupid and bad.

I have to conclude that the Helldivers community is just instinctually hostile and dismissive to people who are in any way uncomfortable with the premise or delivery of the satire or the state of the community. "Stop putting politics in our political parody game!" I guess.

If your fandom is actively in a pitched civil war with openly avowed fascists within your community, you are not "just a parody," and it's extremely immature and hypocritical of the Helldivers 2 community not to openly admit to this issue and address it without screaming invectives at people who are scared off by it the same way Warhammer, Star Wars, and Starship Troopers have been able to in the past.

So let's just say now I don't feel bad in the slightest for being completely uninterested in Helldivers 2 anymore.

If I wanted to get slurs yelled at me over voicechat by a bunch of 20-something MAGA CHUDs I'd just reinstall Mordhau or Call of Duty. That I'm used to.

But it's one of the most depressing things in the world to get yelled at by self-identified leftists just cause I said a mean thing about their funny new Not-Starship-Troopers game and how it might, possibly, have attracted some of the exact sort of people they supposedly oppose.

[lesbianpraetor]

Just woke up and I'm still thinking about this movie, so I'm going to get the little hater out before I make an effort to only think about the movie in Watsonian terms, because if I am still thinking this much about it it's definitely good.

Being honest I went into Furiosa how I imagine 80's star wars fans went into the phantom menace and all the parts that I didn't like in retrospect make me appreciate the original cast more. Especially Charlize Theron and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and! Margaret Sixel's edit, she was one of the editors but not the only one in this film! You can definitely tell! I keep thinking about how George Miller didn't let Anya Taylor Joy shave her head and how it was Charlize Theron that made that decision, the war boys weren't even meant to have shaved heads! I think it was symptomatic of why the movie didn't feel as through the female gaze as the first one did.

This movie felt much more in the hands of George Miller, and obviously Fury Road was a miracle in all directions but I think the first miracle was there were just that many more women on set due to the plot of the story, and those women were grownups! I think George Miller really is an auteur, he cares much more about telling the story he wants to tell than whether it has too many women or men in it. Which is why Fury Road just happened to include two huge diverse groups of women, the wives and the vuvalini, he just had the vision of them and put them in. Then the actresses playing them were older, more experienced and just together which made them not afraid to make adjustments by themselves, be more relaxed, act more freely, I think that's what made the movie what it was.

Obviously Anya Taylor Joy isn't going to do that, she's one 28, Charlize Theron was 39 when Fury Road came out, and she's the only actress on set for most of the film. If the director says you are not cutting your hair you just aren't and you are going to carry yourself like how you usually do in all your movies where you also have a male co-star for most of them. She did do an amazing job with what she was told to do, and it really isn't her fault that she's just popular to the point of being distracting. In a way it made me appreciate Fury Road all the more. Going back to how this must have felt to Furiosa herself there was just a deep loneliness to her since the moment her mother died. It must have felt much more like a miracle to have found first Angharad, Capable,Toast Cheedo and The Dag, then Max, then Nux and then finally getting what's left of the Vuvalini back.

Anyway it's 2024 hire older unknown actresses to your movies, nothing makes a movie feel more fake than only 20 year old woman being on it.

[childlikegoblinqueen]

My question wasn't meant to be rude, sorry! I'm a fic writer too, I was wondering if you ever had second thoughts or something. Like, why do this when you could write your own stories? Or write nothing at all?

Oh jeez!!!! Now I feel bad if I came off as salty!

Haha.

This is a great question! Honestly, there’s a bunch of reasons.

First, I’ve never been particularly comfortable with my OCs. I love how many people are passionate about theirs and build whole facets of story into them. My job requires me to read ALL THE TIME and I am forever in awe of how writers can make characters that I genuinely care about… but I just always feel like my own ended up hollow.

Second, I had terrible insomnia after losing my parents the way I did. My therapist actually suggested that I try fan fiction and it just opened up a creative space I forgot I had.

I often think about how Dave Filoni was literally hired to “write Star Wars Fan Fiction” for Clone Wars and his OC(s) like Ahsoka Tano are now beloved in the fandom.

I guess there’s a part of me that finds relief in playing in a sandbox that has some sort of design. It’s a way to hone storytelling skills and plotting, but has scaffolding.

And the scaffolding is kind of a good place to start, even though I have no intention of writing anything to monetize it. But my brain wants to tell stories! I think a lot of us in fandom spaces feel that way? Or just in general. Maybe not?

Alex Hirsch said something at the Requiem Cafe panel about being a kid and imagining all fictional characters living in a dimension… maybe that’s a misquote, but I get the general idea because it’s not an uncommon thought. I can get REALLY deep into the weeds here, but I’ll leave it there.

In general I can say in good authority that MANY current best selling authors cut their teeth writing fan fiction. Some adapted their works into original pieces, others used their experience to sharpen their wholly original stories.

One can also consider various plays from Shakespeare, mythology, and Dante’s Inferno as fan fiction…

So

Why not write it? Especially if it makes you happy.

Thanks for the ask!

[sapphosewrites]

top 10 ds9 fan fics you've written, ranked?

Oooh, tough question, friend! I don't even know what the criteria for this would be, because the most AO3 popular ones are not always my favorites... Okay, you know what, here we go. I'm just going to go for it and make some decisions. I'm giving myself a rule, though, that I can only chose one from a series, so I'm not just listing everything in the Terok Nor AU. I'll also try to hit different kinds of fics I've written.

10.) After the End of the World: A Survey of Seminal Works of Cardassian Post-Apocalyptic Literature from cross-posted to tumblr. 533 words, "An examination of the Cardassian post-apocalyptic literary genre before and after the Dominion War." This isn't my most popular or my best written but it's one of my favorites; I like in-world diegetic texts and worldbuilding and I'm obsessed with the idea of post-canon Cardassia as post-apocalypse.

9.) Never Have I Ever from The Game Is Afoot, 1,294 words, T, "Julian introduces Garak to the human game never have I ever." This was fun to write and is fun to reread every time! I often spend a lot of fic space on angst and identity and all the reasons why it's a bad idea for Julian and Garak to get together, but in this one we just get to spend time seeing them be clever and enjoy each other's company.

8.) Tribbles, Togetherness, and the Great River, 1,742 words, G, "In their shared quarters, Nog and Jake discuss tribbles, pets, and telling their families about their relationship." This is my only full standalone Jake/Nog fic, and it's another that was a pleasure to write and still makes me smile. It's fun to spend a sweet moment with two young people figuring out how they fit together.

7.) Del Floria's Tailor Shop, 336 words, also known as the space tumblr one. I think this is possibly the funniest thing I've ever written.

6.) Push Me Til I Break, 4,653 words, M, also known as the one where Garak interrogates Julian, and the role play goes wrong. Maybe the most tense thing I've ever written, and really leans into the ways in which two deeply hurting people can choose to hurt or hold.

5.) Growth, 45,843 words, T, "Julian and Garak grapple with their pasts and their feelings for each other at the end of the series." My super long post-canon Cardassia fic, back when I had no idea how to string a multi-chapter idea together. There's a lot I would change if I wrote this now (I've grown as a writer in many ways, including my ability to have scene transitions), but some of the conversations and moments in here are still absolute favorites of mine, particularly around ideas of self-forgiveness, the clash between values and actions, and the importance of choice.

4.) Predetermination, 22,200 words, T, Mirror Bashir arrives at the station and suddenly the nature/nurture debate has never had higher stakes. This is one of the places I think I've been most successful in using sci fi to ask big questions that hopefully resonate in the modern day, about who we are and how we become. Also, the ending takes inspiration from one of my favorite TNG episodes, and that was cool too.

3.) Especially the Lies, 13,019 words, T, "Something is going on with Garak, and no one knows what, except for possibly Julian Bashir." This is my only archive-warning-applied fic and it was really important to me to tell a story about care, for a character who I think doesn't believe he's allowed to have any, in a real world circumstance that too often people have to go through alone.

2.) Necessary Storms, 15,149 words, T, Julian and Starfleet Spouse Garak get entangled in Trill politics. I feel like this is one of the things I've written that most feels like it could be an episode of Star Trek, and is also a fairly unsubtle (though initially unintentional) way to explore populism, demagoguery, resource distribution, and revolt at a very particular moment in national politics with the aesthetic distance that sci fi offers.

1.) Old Friends: An Enigma Tale from Terok Nor AU. I'm exceedingly proud of this whole series, which started as just "what can I do with the idea of dabo boy Julian" and has turned into a sweeping journey covering how Terok Nor becomes Deep Space 9. This most recent installment is perhaps not indicative of the series as a whole, but it was a lot of fun to write and is also a dip into my other favorite genre aside from sci fi (murder mystery).

[blueikeproductions]

Transformers fans have been going over a new quarterly report and there’s good news and bad news. The former is Transformers is Hasbro’s strongest performing brand, the later is RotB and EarthSpark’s toy sales are stinkers. In particular, EarthSpark’s considered an underperforming product, with the show’s ratings in the smelting pool. As some of us anticipated, the second season is the most we’re gonna get, no third season or beyond.

So as much as some don’t want to hear it: EarthSpark is essentially a flop, and the second season coming at all is more because it’s too late to axe it.

What’s carrying the toys so far are the collector lines: Legacy and Studio Series. For better or for worse, do NOT doubt the power of nostalgia. Also pricing. A friend was telling me a parent audibly freaked out at the prices of the EarthSpark toys, so that’s keeping parents away.

Do kids still like Transformers? Well in my experience they do, but they largely liked G1, Prime, RiD15, Bayformers and Rescue Bots. They did NOT like Cyberverse (especially in Japan where I’m told toys are STILL rotting on shelves down there), and now apparently EarthSpark. I didn’t see RotB in theaters so I can’t speak for that, but I did see a lot of kids at Bumblebee when it was in theaters.

The easy answer on its failure, and we all know GriftTubers will latch on to it, is Nightshade. Transformers making it on to Fox News is NEVER a good thing… not helped as the owl continues to be controversial due to the Japanese dub deciding to make them male. (Personally I say split the difference if Nightshade ever reappears and make them he/they but still.) I’ve been clear on my stance that NS is fine and cool, but I’ve also placed more importance on their skills, interests and personality. Their gender is not important to me to get them to like them, but the unfortunate problem is too many people on both sides focus on their identity and it scared off normies and parents. Again, well meaning like the Blue’s Clues Pride Parade, but read the room. There was a way to make NS work and still let them be NB, but they didn’t do it, and I still say the old “they’re Terran because gender means nothing to them as a robotic life form” was the way to do it.

The more nuanced answer however is more complicated. ES wound up being another kids show that was actually for adult fans and not kids, choosing to instead focus on a sense of identity and HYUGE importance on family. Stuff that isn’t bad on its own, but most modern writers and executives don’t understand subtleties: resulting in a lot of Bludgeoning of well meaning ideas in a show that doesn’t feature the Master of Metallikato. Most kindergarten and elementary school kids aren’t THAT interested in that stuff, they like Pokémon, Mario, classic Disney, classic Star Wars and anime in my experience. And Transformers has a certain expectation among people, and while there’s been stuff in the past that involves talking about things (Rad having environmentalist tendencies and Optimus respecting his feelings on needing to protect the environment when a fire breaks out during a Mini-Con Panel hunt, with Tigatron, Optimus and Dinobot having a similar conversation more than once in Beast Wars), if the Autobots AREN’T waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons, most aren’t interested.

This feeds into the show’s writing which also I think killed it: the show’s writing is decent but it only gets weaker as it goes along. The overfixation on making the Decepticons into misunderstood bullies who need a hug, despite also showing them perfectly content to kill people, the mixed signals of all the known Earth Decepticons now being friends with the Maltos, Optimus being a doofus the longer the show went on, the heavy IDW slants that weren’t popular at all with general audiences like Autobot Megatron, and Fix Fic Blue Eyed TFP Starscream. There’s also lack of proper follow up on plot threads like Ravage and Mandroid’s friendship with Alex, Schloder’s reasoning for hunting Bee being stupid, mysterious Transformer artifacts, poor reasoning on Energon aliens running amuck, why Cybertron never re-established contact, the lack of understanding why Quintus Prime seems to have such an interest in Earth and why the Emberstone is even here at all and more. Sure some of this might be touched on better in season 2, but do I trust this writing team now? No. No I do not. I think this can be summed up by the rejected episode pitch with Ratchet and Drift. More focus was put on them being husbands, and while both tried offering their own reasonings for the Cyber Sleeves, there was no concrete answer provided on why the kids had the sleeves. Its especially odd in that I wager they would’ve played up Ratchet’s atheism from IDW, but never once have Quintus actually speak up through the sleeves, like a joke in Family Guy where Stewie calls out Brian’s atheism because Jesus crashed on their couch recently. The episode is just… more fluff. People don’t want fluff in Transformers, and we’re seeing that with how well the Energon Universe is continuing to kick everything’s afterburner in comics. IDW never did that. The best selling stuff towards the end was the Marvel G1 prequel and sequels, and the Beast Wars reboot and those were still low in the rungs.

So what can be done to get kids more on board with new TF content? Go back to basics. Transformers desperately needs a new Beast Wars style show to give it a kick in the pants tv show wise. Earthspark I think fancied itself as that but was not meant to be. The Energon Universe is a good start: the true Neo G1 successor to the 80’s cartoon canon so far. The easy joke me and a friend have made is to just adapt the Energon Universe for tv, but it’s not ready yet. I think using it as a spring board would be useful and having the Void Rivals be supporting characters would help expand their exposure. But the simple matter is this: absolutely under no circumstances use IDW/MTMTE post war stuff. I’m willing to go as far as using characters like Adaptus, Nova Prime, Nominus Prime and the Guiding Hand for certain things but that’s it. Classic good Autobots vs evil Decepticons. Megatron is full on evil like in G1, the movies & Unicron Trilogy: no more of this making him into a repentant Anakin nonsense. More of stuff like Optimus’s friendship with Sparkplug and Spike and his consoling of the deer. Earthspark was on the right track making him more lighthearted and closer to the well meaning dad he was in G1, but they pushed it too far the other way like Cyberverse did. Maybe ease back on Bumblebee a smidge, that worked with ROTB and Energon Universe so far, and other than maybe a little mixing and matching (Like Strongarm, Iguanus, Fixit, Barricade, Blackout and other guys being main Bots and Cons for a change), stick to the basics.

Edit: adding more because I had to go run an unexpected errand. Not only the basics, but let’s revisit the idea of a proper anime again. It’s the second major modern anime boom in the States, why DON’T we have a new RiD or Unicron Trilogy type thing? And no I refuse to consider Prime Wars and War For Cybertron anime. I don’t care what Netflix calls it. The fact we don’t have a TF anime currently is baffling; the last time we had an anime was Transformers Go!, and that was more of a one off spiritual Brave successor. I’d rather at this stage Takara commission a new kids anime for Transformers with writers over in Japan scripting the premise who know what they’re doing to make a fun children’s show. Then it can be dubbed and we get Blum, Kaplan, Zeno and other popular/veteran anime dub voice actors to reprise roles/do new ones. I don’t care if Trigger, Toei, Polygon, Science Saru or whoever animates it, my stipulation going forward is 2D animated TF anime, but with designs that are easier to hand draw. Like somewhere between G1 and Transformers Animated. I liked the Armada designs but I can see why Energon and Cybertron opted for CGI for the robots because they became way too technical to draw outside of very specific scenes. If full on 2D robots wasn’t acceptable, the CGI technology used for SSSS. Gridman and Bravern is acceptable, but a full return to 2D animation is preferable.

As for a setting: Earth. Autobots protecting their human friends against the Decepticons. A new gimmick properly implemented from the toys into the show, with the Quintessons as a villainous third party with a stake in the affairs, hiring Mercs like Devcon, RoughEdge, Lockdown and Rampage, or freelancers like the Skuxxoid and villainous Void Rivals to do their dirty work.

Something like that, but above all else cast wise: Blaster and his Cassettes MUST return. And to acknowledge EarthSpark, Hashtag can be his kid sister, with Twitch as one of Hashtag’s own cassettes. Everybody wins.

[this-acuteneurosis]

Can I just say how much I appreciate the fact you don't stray much from the movies?

It's just so refreshing to see a fic that is built on a clear, unbiased and simple canon base. This way, as you demonstrated, a writer not only has the ability to further explore the main themes and ideas introduced in the source material, but they can also go ahead and naturally develop their own by branching out on those fundamentals. They can offer their perspective by using the source material to their advantage, instead of working against it or even worse, trying to include all contradicting canon aspects. Part of writing a fic is kind of like offering your input in a conversation/disagreement. You have to listen carefully to what the other person is saying in order to form your answer...If you're listening to a thousand different people who are all saying a different thing (in this case, The clone wars, legends, novels, comics ect), you won't be able to give an answer that makes sense, much less give a structured and stable opinion.

I love how you were like "I know star wars is entering an era of a shit ton of spin off content with seemingly no end and most star wars fans know shit like who chewie lost his virginity to and what the kessel run is but screw this. The movies and maybe some late night wiki research is enough."

And you were right.

It's so funny, because I feel like I do ultimately stray pretty far from the movies. Not in terms of events I guess, but especially the prequels, I reject some of the underlying assumptions of what is said on screen and just treat it like fallible people strongly asserting opinions that no one calls them on. See: everything I ever assert about the Force/Anakin's "destiny."

I do think it helped me to stick with limited material. And it wasn't even because I saw all of this new SW content coming. I've mentioned this before, but when I started writing Don't Look Back (when it was just Like Fire and I naively believed I was gonna be done in 200k words, lol, rip past me) I hesitated a lot because as far as I was concerned, I wasn't a Star Wars Fan.

I'd watched the OT and PT multiple times. I knew that novels and games and cartoons existed, I knew people had consumed them all. I had been reading some SW fic because @mylongsufferingroommate had been sending me stuff they were enjoying and I was having fun with it. But like, I would never have called myself a Fan. I got goaded into writing this fic by people who knew me too well and really wanted a political thriller. I wouldn't have called them Star Wars Fans either.

Limiting myself to the six movies I had watched was a preemptive defense mechanism against a fan base I wasn't sure would want to accept me. My thin skin is my own problem, but every time I think about writing in a new fandom the same sort of nerves take me: what if my fanon is "wrong" and people are mean?

I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you so much to everyone who gave me a chance and encouraged me and were excited and shared that excitement.

And please, for the love of all the sky and stars DON'T GATEKEEP FANDOMS.

Don't tell people their canon is too big (@blue-sunshine-mauve-morning and @chancecraz have amazing fics that are much more compliant than mine to the broader canon, as a quick example), and definitely don't tell people their canon is too small. Walk away if you aren't enjoying something. Give compliments when you like something that is unique in a fandom you're familiar with. Be patient with people, be kind.

I could easily have given this story up if people hadn't been patient with me. I got comments as early as my first chapter from people who were angry with a single thing that I said and felt the need to tell me I was wrong. I could have left. I could have stopped.

I'm glad I didn't. But I wonder how many other people have.