#it was an absolute riot and then the fandom just proceeded to Never Do That Again. wack.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

Wait a second... Considering SotO's theming, and the consistent pattern of content that came out of past expansion releases thus far...

Are we going to get a new Mists-themed Guild Hall?

[bombshellsandbluebells]

“Murphy plans, Emori reacts”

When we started season 5, I confidently said a few times, “Murphy plans, Emori reacts” and then the show proceeded to prove me wrong like five times in a row, so I was like, “okay, I clearly read that part of their dynamic wrong, let me adjust my reading of them.”

But I’ve been thinking about it more and more, and I don’t think I’m wrong that that WAS true for most of season 3 and 4 - and the shift in that dynamic is another sign of how the time in space affected and changed them.

Emori can be incredibly cautious about things, she tries to avoid situations that will put her in danger, and she IS conniving and clever and smart and has thought and manipulated her way out of some dangerous situations (namely the iconic Baylis con). All of that is true. But once Emori was IN a dangerous situation, she often tended to react rashly:

she was going to fight three large, armed men in the forest when they captured John and only stopped because he told her not to (there was literally no grand plan there other than fight to the death with one (1) knife)

she took the chip despite seeing what it had done to Otan because it MIGHT have helped her find John

she wanted to go after Otan despite it being incredibly dangerous and only didn’t go because John argued against it (acting as the rational voice of reason)

she tried to cut and run after 3x16 because she was afraid of what John’s reaction was going to be

her first response to hearing about the plan to test nightblood was to immediately assume it was going to be her and try to run away, despite not having all the information

her immediate response to everyone finding out about her con was to RUN FORWARD AND TRY TO DESTROY THE MACHINE WITH EVERYONE STANDING THERE WATCHING (literally the dumbest thing Emori has ever done)

Up until s5, Emori tends to panic and then react. The fact that she is cautious and wary tends to keep her out of dangerous situations in the first place, but once she’s in them, she doesn’t take the time to plan an escape - she runs for it, ready to throw fists at anything and anyone in her way.

Because that’s what Emori had to do to survive in the world. She faced so much danger in her life that she had to learn to react to things quickly, and if something started looking like a dangerous situation, she really only had two options: throw some fists or flee.

Emori is brilliant. She’s a master manipulator. But she’s really not a strategist.

Before s5, Murphy really is the more level-headed of the two of them, even though there seems to be some sort of disconnect that keeps the fandom from viewing Murphy as level-headed in any way. (He WAS, guys.) Emori’s the one who wants to fly into a situation fists swinging without all the information, Murphy’s the one who wants to stop, take a breath, figure out what the situation is, and THEN come up with a way to get out of it.

And this is all because of what happened to Murphy when he was the one acting on impulse. The way that Murphy reacts to danger in s3/s4 is absolutely a result of the hanging and the banishing (and likely, getting locked in a lighthouse he immediately decided was a safe haven without knowing otherwise.) Acting on impulse ended badly for Murphy. Using violence ended badly for Murphy. And because he’s the ultimate survivor - because he LEARNS and adapts to keep surviving (the whole survivor identity is more than just luck, guys) - he learned to stop, assess a situation, and then approach it. (Not to say that he doesn’t sometimes still act rashly or with violence when strong emotions are motivating him, of course.)

That’s why he:

wisely told Emori not to fight a bunch of armed men in the forest with one (1) knife and instead found a way to save himself using the information he learned by not acting rashly

found a way to keep himself alive with Ontari that didn’t require him to fight everyone in the tower and die

was the ONLY ONE in the ALIE Resistance Team that pointed out going up the tower with no way down was going to likely end badly for them

calmed Emori down during 4x07 and then went to a) learn more information about the situation (aka, hey Clarke are you REALLY going to use my girlfriend in your experiment?) and b) potentially to try to talk Clarke out of it

Pre-s5: Emori panics and reacts. Murphy thinks things through. Both as a result of things that have happened to them in the past.

And then in s5, the dynamic flips completely. 

This isn’t a case of bad writing or the writers losing track of their characters (like some of s5, tbh) - this was a deliberate change in character indicative of the change both of them went through in space.

I’ve talked before about how the environment on the Ring affected Emori and Murphy both completely differently, and I won’t go a long rant here - but the gist is this: to Emori, space was a safe haven she’d never experienced before. Space was an entirely new place that held no trauma for her and had never operated under the laws of Earth that banished her. Space was a fresh start, populated only by people who had been willing to save her life and later came to accept and love and support her.

Space for Emori was almost paradise. Sure, they were stuck, and sure, it was constantly trying to kill them, but it was a far improvement from Earth, which had not only always tried to kill her, but also always isolated her. And that’s why Emori was able to grow so much and so positively on the Ring.

Space also was full of threats, but they weren’t the immediate kind she had been used to on Earth. Sure, a breakdown of the Ring’s life support systems would kill them, but reacting rashly and without thinking things through was not only no longer useful, it was more dangerous. The way to stay alive in space was to learn as much as she could about the Ark systems and how to repair them and then maintain them through slow, continuous, monotonous repairs. And that likely forced Emori to change her tendency of reacting without thinking. It taught her to pause before acting and think things through. It taught her to plan and be strategic.

Space for Murphy, however, was hell. Not only was it a place that held trauma for him, but he was trapped with a bunch of people who he had complicated pasts with. Space couldn’t be a fresh start for him at all. And since I tend to believe that there’s a lot more trauma related to the lighthouse bunker than the show really dives into, being trapped in an enclosed space for such an extended length of time was likely the worst possible thing for Murphy.

Murphy tends to need distractions to handle uncomfortable situations, and when he doesn’t keep himself occupied, he struggles. I mean, we’ve all joked about his tendency to find toys everywhere he goes, but that little detail really does show us something about Murphy’s character - he needs to be distracted. He needs things to happen. Richard has talked about how Murphy struggles with peace time, and I think it’s because Murphy really doesn’t handle being bored well. Because being bored gives you time to think and be introspective - and in an environment brimming with trauma and unresolved issues, I’m sure that’s the absolutely last thing Murphy wanted.

The problem is that the Ring was pretty much unchanging for 6 years. Once you fall into a rhythm of the necessary tasks to survive, there isn’t much to do. And if Murphy in particular didn’t feel he had a useful and unique skill to contribute, then he really didn’t have much to do. Playing around with bouncy balls is only going to keep you occupied for so long.

So Murphy in s5 NEEDS SOMETHING TO HAPPEN. He’s bursting with anxious energy. He’s bored and trying to keep himself distracted. He’s feeling trapped. He needs to act. And so he backtracks. No longer does he stop to plan things through, he just acts, because at least SOMETHING will happen, even if it’s bad.

The Murphy of past seasons would have never suggested they contact the other ship before knowing if it was a threat or not. He would have been cautious and wary of putting themselves in danger. But the Murphy of s5 who is dying for some kind of change in the endless monotony of the Ring, who cares more about getting down to Earth than staying cautious, who picks fights just for SOMETHING to do, wants to contact that ship the minute they spot it because potential danger is better than the hellish, unending waiting.

The fact that Murphy reacts so rashly throughout so much of s5 isn’t meant to be an aspect of his character that’s overlooked. It ISN’T “just classic Murphy” - and that’s the point. It’s indicative of what’s happening inside of him - what’s been happening over the course of the time we missed and how it’s changed him.

And the fact that it ALWAYS BACKFIRES ON HIM is also incredibly important. Staying behind with Raven before knowing all the information leaves him stranded in the last place he wants to be. Throwing the rock and starting the riot ruins the truce that Bellamy/Clarke had secured. 

Which is why I’m still a bit disappointed that this writing didn’t carry through to any kind of conclusion. We didn’t have a moment when Murphy was forced to recognize acting rashly was only going to get him killed. (I mean....acting rashly DID get him shot, but it’s also framed as a necessary and noble sacrifice to keep Bellamy and Echo safe.) Emori grew positively and that was celebrated by the narrative - but Murphy growing negatively wasn’t called out the way it NEEDED to be called out. Not in the end, at least.

Having Emori and Murphy switch roles in this dynamic was really important to show how they handled space and what it did to them and to easily reveal who they were now compared to 6 years ago, and I do really think that was masterfully done (5x04 aside) - but whatever message they were trying to deliver with Murphy was lost amongst everything happening in the finale. And that’s disappointing.

Still. At least I didn’t misunderstand their dynamic for two seasons. (Go me!) This change was absolutely intentional.

[annabcth]

tbh your blog sums up everything that is wrong in the sw fandom. if you didn't like tlj and if you don't get ben solo's character, just shut tf up.

If Rey had been a Skywalker or a Solo and either Luke’s daughter or Han and Leia’s daughter, that would’ve ruined these characters. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, then again, is a Skywalker, not Poe or Finn. And btw Solo is a good movie, not the best one but good. It’d be amazing if people like you would just delete their blogs bc you make the Star Wars fandom toxic and not fun to be part of.

Kylo has been emotionally and physically abused for his whole life and you’re telling us he’s evil and the bad guy and abuses rey and doesn’t deserve a thing and doesn’t deserve to be in a poster that portrays the skywalkers? Lol your precious Luke Skywalker wouldn’t approve.

i’m replying to those messages for two main reasons. one, i’ve been getting hate about my stance on tlj/rey*o since december, both in my askbox and under my edits, and while i don’t really care about it, i’m torn about not publishing those messages/replies/tags because the rey*o fandom is a riot and i feel guilty about deleting evidence of their harassment. two, this new discourse is actually extremely relevant, so here we are.

since you’re writing this on anon, i assume you know i’m not the problem here, you are. i keep my opinions to my blog, i don’t look for a fight, i always tag properly. i’m not even an active anti. tlj really hurt my star wars obsession, and i needed to vent for a while, which i did, but then i moved on, and my blog is discourse-free once again. i’m assuming those messages were prompted by my tags under a post criticizing the comic-con poster fiasco.

we obviously have different interpretations of tlj, and you’re bothered by mine. i find it very reasonable though, given that ky*o did recreate anakin’s decision from rotj, and then proceeded to almost destroy everything his grandpa’s great redemption accomplished (saving luke and the rebellion). thankfully, he didn’t succeed (yes, luke died, but it was framed as a defeat for ky*o), and the legacy lives on. through whom? well, luke tells us: “the rebellion is reborn today, the war is just beginning, and i will not be the last jedi”. the editing shows us who will carry out this fight for the light side. the movie ends ky*o’s arc with his promise to destroy the new heroes. so yeah, for that reason i think finn and poe belong in that poster right next to rey, since all three were branded as the new rightful heirs. i get that you’re reading the film differently, probably hoping for ky*o’s eventual redemption and a happily ever after with rey, and honestly, there is nothing i can do about your opinion, so i’m not gonna try to. neither of us decides which interpretation is canonically correct. in the end, it’s jj’s choice, which was probably made back when he was creating those characters.

taking all of this into account, i’m hoping you could suppot two men of color who are an important part of the sequel trilogy’s narrative, whether you agree with my opinions about tlj or not. they were given their own storylines and character development, and they’re tied to the main conflict as leaders of the anti-facist movement. they deserve to be recognized as crucial to this story, and they deserve a spot in the comic-con poster.

my ramblings in the tags mean nothing. you sending anon hate means nothing. neither of those things matters in shaping the narrative for episode ix. quarrels over a ship becoming canon don’t influence the final outcome of this trilogy. however, people defending and supporting two characters of color in a predominantly white franchise means a lot, and can change a lot, at least in the long run.

we have our own opinions, and that’s alright. i voiced mine on my blog, in the tags of a random post. you were lurking on my blog, and sent me hate. i’m not the one who’s toxic here. we’re in the same boat, really- you will absolutely hate it if ky*o dies/doesn’t get redeemed, i will hate it if your ship becomes canon. the answer to that anxiety you’re feeling is to find a different thing to fixate on, and let go for the time being. or just keep your opinions to your blog, and don’t harass people by telling them to delete their tumblrs.

to address other things you mentioned in your messages (they’re standard rey*o talking points, so it should be quick):-  there is no canonical proof that ky*o has been abused his whole life. a dark presence watching him as a fetus/baby doesn’t equal grooming or emotional/physical abuse. it’s defenitely what his relationship with snoke is when we meet up with them in tlj, but we have no idea how and when this partnership was formed. that being said, i admit it’s possible that some additional information about kylo’s fall will be revealed, and it could change my opinion about this character. however…- even if kylo was abused, it wouldn’t justify his actions. he kills his alleged abuser in tlj, and continues to be a major ass, so yeah, he’s the bad guy. (to be revealed) cool motive, still murder*. - yes, kylo’s relationship with rey is abusive, both physically (throwing her into a tree, restraining her) and emotionally (invading her mind, telling her she’s nothing, lying to and gaslighting her). they’ve known each other for a couple of days, had five/six conversations in total, and the amount of time she didn’t want him dead could be counted in hours, i think. she asked him to stop killing her friends, he refused. conceptually it’s such an awful groundwork for romance it’s almost funny. she literally closed the door on him, flying away with his mother on his father’s ship, gripping his uncle’s and grandpa’s lightsaber, the literally destroyed heirloom of the skywalker family. leia said to her “we have everything we need”, completing rey’s tlj!arc of realizing that she’s destined to become the new legend despite her humble beginnings, disillusionment, self-doubt and abandonment issues. this is probably the point where you jump in to say the symbolism of the final scene between leia and rey foreshadows rey mending the lightsaber/redeeming ky*o, but i have three problems with that. one, rey already tried that, it didn’t end well. two, i don’t think jj gives two shits about vague symbolism of tlj, given that rian didn’t bother to uphold basic continuity between his movie and tfa. three, it would be incredibly sexist if rey, instead of being the true heir to the chosen one legacy, was used as a tool for redemption of the failed heir that almost destroyed it. this legacy, along with the one of leadership and rebellion, no longer belong to the skywalkers**. luke’s aforementioned quote makes this clear.- i never said kylo doesn’t belong in the comic-con poster. i only said finn and poe should be there as well. if you feel like their presence in the story threatens your predictions for kylo’s arc, then maybe those hopes you have are not well-founded in canon and you need to distort it in order to make your ship seem more plausible. just maybe. also, luke wouldn’t be able to approve or disapprove this opinion of mine that i never had.

and you’re right, luke skywalker is very precious to me.

* there is a great post going around arguing that ky*o’s apparent lack of relateable reasons for turning to the dark side is a great metaphor for neo-facism and current alt-right movements, and it makes him an excellent and very relevant villain. i agree.

** of course, this plotpoint would change if rey/finn turned out to be a solo/skywalker. i have complicated feelings about this concept, and voicing them would make this already long reply even longer, so i’m not gonna do that.

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Remembering Paul Jones, the Believable Heel

Bruno Sammartino died last week, and was buried yesterday. Quite rightly, his death has dominated the wrestling news of the past week. He was a massive star and a legitimately likeable, decent man with a fascinating personal story. If you read one retrospective, David Bixenspan’s eulogy at Deadspin is beautifully written and comprehensive.

Sammartino was a giant and giants cast large shadows. In the shadow of his death, the news that “No. 1” Paul Jones had died the same day was muted. Jones, a tag team legend of the Southern territories and an even better heel manager after he was done as a full-timer, deserves a bit of a retrospective of his own.

I’d be a liar if I said I was well-versed in Paul Jones’s wrestling. His in-ring career was in the 1960s and 70s. The footage of him during his best years as a wrestler is grainy or overexposed, coming from darkened house shows in local coliseums around the South. It’s not the neatly produced pro wrestling which even the 1970s WWWF, the current WWE’s forerunner, created.

But the sound is still there. Listen to the clip below. The match is Paul Jones and eternal babyface Ricky Steamboat versus the heelish Ric Flair and Masked Superstar. From the time the clip starts, there’s a high-pitched shriek from the crowd which never stops. It’s the sound of a crowd buying into the proceedings, wholly and completely, with their lungs and hearts.

The work between Jones and Steamboat is smooth and fast, and if it would be foolish to say that Jones was the bigger star of the two, it would be equally foolish to say that Jones was simply a stand-in. The end of the match, which sees Jones take out Flair so that Steamboat can get the pin, reaches an absolute roar the second Jones’s hand connects with Flair’s flesh.

Despite serving as a moral Swiss army knife for whatever promotion he was working for at a given time, Jones was not a natural babyface. He kind of looked like an asshole, and he was a burly type built for brawling. When he turned on Steamboat in 1979, after three Mid-Atlantic tag team title runs as a team, he reached his internal equilibrium. They had what amounted to a blood feud which is, again, defined by sound: every clip of them wrestling around this time has the same heart-palpitating thrum to it. It’s the thrum of bloodlust, and it’s the sort of thing which didn’t and doesn’t just happen on its own.

Jones entered the modern pro wrestling consciousness when he retired in 1982 and became a manager. He formed a large stable called Paul Jones’s Army, a sort of holding pen for weirdo, violent heels which, in retrospect, seems like a forerunner of WCW’s Dungeon of Doom without some of the high camp weirdness (the Army was low camp and gritty, but still definitely camp). Abdullah the Butcher was part of it, as was Baron Von Raschke, a mild-mannered Minnesotan cosplaying as a Nazi in a cape. The Barbarian, a man made of face paint and muscles, came in. Less weird was “The Raging Bull” Manny Fernandez, a legitimately frightening and legitimately violent guy who teamed with Rick Rude as The Awesome Twosome under the Army’s auspices.

Despite never being the biggest, fastest, best, or most articulate, he felt believable.

Jones took his barrel-chested physical presence and amped it up. He started wearing safari style khakis and carrying a riding crop. Alarmingly, he grew his moustache out but began cutting it shorter and shorter, until the entire ensemble of moustache, shock of black hair, and khakis had him looking like Hitler. Anything for heat, and if it doesn’t threaten to cause a riot, is it really pro wrestling? He was asked to stop trimming it; even Von Raschke didn’t go that far.

Jones’s defining feud would happen during his days as a manager, not as a wrestler. He was managing the Assassins, who were feuding with “Boogie Woogie Man” Jimmy Valiant. If you’re not familiar with Valiant, picture a guy who wasn’t the greatest wrestler in the world but who had a huge beard and seemed to be made of raw charisma. He’d dance with his valet, Big Mama, and shout a lot about the fans. He was awesome and a beloved mid-card act in the early to mid 80s.

The Assassins and Jones couldn’t really get one over on Valiant, so in 1984 they figured the best way to get him was to cut off his beard. So they beat him up and cut a big chunk out of it. This kicked off a legendary feud which lasted for years.

The best way to put it is that the feud was, ultimately, about hair. Valiant didn’t like losing his beard, so he started putting his hair up against the Assassins’ masks. His friend, Pez Whatley, turned on him—after Valiant qualified that Whatley was the best black athlete in the world rather than the best overall—and cut his hair. Valiant went on a rampage. He shaved the Army’s hair until only Jones remained.

Quite opposite of expectations, the feud remained white hot and buoyed the second and third tier stories of the era. At Starrcade 1986, Valiant put up Big Mama’s hair against Jones’s in a match between the two. Of course Valiant won and of course the crowd bayed and howled once again for a match involving Jones, years after his peak.

I remember being a kid and finding myself enthralled by the storyline. The 1986 vintage of Valiant vs. Jones and his proxies helped define my nascent pro wrestling fandom. Starrcade ’86 is still my favorite pro wrestling show and the Valiant-Jones match one of my favorites on the card. Not because it’s a great match in any technical sense, but in a dramatic sense. It was one of the most perfect feuds in pro wrestling history and had a perfect ending.

Central to that was Jones. It’s hard to quantify, but despite never being the biggest, fastest, best, or most articulate, he felt believable. There are promos he cut during the Valiant feud and he seems so spittingly angry at the entire situation, so frustrated that he couldn’t get his final victory over Valiant and that damned beard, that he’s reduced to barely being able to speak. It rules.

That’s what Jones seemed to bring as well as any of his contemporaries: believability. He seemed real in a way an awful lot of his Army, in their capes and face paint, didn’t. And whatever character motives kicked off his hatred of Valiant, it seemed to boil down to frustration. That’s a relatable feeling, the way we don’t like something or someone and we just want to scream or shave a beard or punch a wall or just do something to let it out. That was Jones. He was the one who let it out. It made him a villain, but one that felt tangible and real, despite everyone loving Jimmy Valiant, and it made him and that feud one of the touchstones of mid-80s Southern wrestling.

Remembering Paul Jones, the Believable Heel syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com