#she’s cool because Filoni makes her look cool in everything but there’s nothing real about her character anymore | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bluntblade · 2 months

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I've got a theory about why this happened, and I think the other Mandoverse shows support it, especially Mando S3. Basically, these shows have over-committed to using the Volume to the point that it hurts their action scenes. Not just in terms of how they look and feel, but what can even be put in front of the camera.

As Greig Fraser (the brilliant DoP who worked on early Mando as well as Rogue One, Dune and The Batman, and first got the Volume to work) has said, the Volume comes with pretty steep limitations. Spielberg has managed to do some things with it that Fraser hadn't thought possible, but for the most part it restricts what angles you can shoot at and also what movement you can have. Film Crit Hulk talks about it in more detail re Mando back in 2020:

Note HOW MANY times they’re standing relatively flat and the camera angle is directly parallel to a ground so that it puts the horizon in the same 1/3 of the frame spot behind them. They do this because if they raise the camera higher (as many shots should and would) it would reveal the “boxy” angle of the stage. It may seem small, but it REALLY de-emphasizes the natural surrounding and I’m worried it’s hurting the overall look of the show.

And it occurs to me that arguably the best-shot action of that series is probably the one where they went out and just filmed in the California hills. Note how Boba gets to tower over that one Stormtrooper and how there's a real sense of wham when he lands.

youtube

If you're shooting everything in a context where nothing can move all that fast, though, it really hurts your most kinetic characters. When Kelleran Beq gets his showcase in Mando S3, the camera can't move to add oomph to his strikes or give him a hero shot (in Kenobi you see them trying this with Vader, but they have to stop short of an angle which will actually give the image punch). If you've seen Dune Part Two, think of how the camera races along with Paul and Chani in some of their fights with the Harkonnens. That's wholly missing here.

And this also impacts the old jet packs (and Jedi acrobatics, for the most part). Whereas Jango could rocket around merrily, it's notable that the Children and the Nite Owls alike only really use their packs for dedicated aerial scenes. In the pirate fight, you can easily imagine them boosting from rooftop to rooftop and sparking even more "high ground" memes, but instead they conduct the fight entirely at a walking pace and on the ground.

And all of this hurts Sabine in particular, because like Ahsoka, she originated in animation and has previously been depicted in a really kinetic way. Even without a jetpack, she's a very acrobatic fighter in Rebels, and it's one of the things which makes her a really fun character. But in the process of moving to live-action, Filoni and co opted to change the characters to fit the Mandoverse style, instead of changing the style to fit the characters. The result is that lots of the things that first made Sabine so cool and fun just aren't really possible now.

#Sabine Wren #Ahsoka show #Ahsoka critical #Mandoverse critical #Youtube

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just-prime · 8 months

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Just read all your Ahsoka reviews, they're great, thanks for writing them

I think the reason Thrawn's eyes look off is the same why as Ahsoka's, Hera's, Ezra's, just anyone with the weird contact thing going on, all do. In real life you can't actually clearly make out someone's eye color from like across a room distance, but they've given this always noticeable almost florescent glow to the eyes. You can do that fine in animation but in live action it becomes uncanny valley

Very much agreed that the worst thing is the feeling of nothing happening. The show isn't paced to stand on its, it's meant to exist as part of the filoni cinematic universe. The mcu-ification of media is a f-ing plague upon the soul of art

And speaking of nothing happening WHAT IS SABINE DOING like she knows she's got a very short time to somehow steal the hyperspace ring so they can get back and stop Thrawn from returning, but she's just like nah I'll just tell Ezra nothing and chill out with him I AM PULLING MY HAIR OUT

Also just a last thing that was (painfully) funny to me that I haven't seen anyone else point out, at one point Sabine slashes a guy in the face then stabs him in the chest, then STILL kicks him away from her which is what actually knocks him over, BECAUSE LIGHTSABERS CAN! NOT! KILL IN THE NEW STAR WARS

Sorry I started out thanking you for your great posts, but then ended up just ranting in your inbox, totally no worries if you just want to completely ignore this ask lol

First off holy shit I have my first ask!!! I was in class when I saw the notification, so I couldn't get up and do a little happy dance...But know that I wanted to.

Anyway, YES on everything about the eyes. That's exactly it. You've managed to put words to what felt off perfectly. SO thank you, because yes, to all of it.

Also, yes, the mcu-ification of media is indeed a FUCKING plague upon the soul of art

I say this as a recovering MCU fan who's coping with the death of her childhood via fanfiction but seriously not everything needs to be set up for something else.

Also, it feels like this should have been a movie. 2 hours, maybe even 3, but then everyone would be in position and we wouldn't have to deal with all the stupid filler.

Yup, Sabine is horrifically out of character. She's nonchalant about things she should care about. She cares about thinks she should be nonchalant about. It's painful, and annoying, and I can relate to wanting to pull my hair out.

It is laughable to me that we've gotten this far and lightsabers are still functionally just swords? Like, we've not gotten to see someone doing something cool with them in a while. I totally agree also that they've been watered down, which is a shame because we're finally getting to the point effects-wise where we could be doing some really cool shit with them, and instead they are left as poke-y sticks.

Thank you so much for dropping into my ask box. Thank you especially for the rant. It was very fun to read. If it helps assuage the anxiety, know that not too long ago I was the on leaving anonymous blocks of text thanking people for the validation and also ranting a bit too :P

#rambles #dave filoni critical #ahsoka critical #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka series #star wars #prime responds #anti filoni

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twilightofthe · 9 months

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okay i put all my cranky thoughts into a separate post that's now drafted and it made me feel better so i'll be able to watch this episode now lol but if it gets me worked up again i'm posting the rant i'm sorry i cannot be helped or changed or saved <3

ANYWAY AHSOKA EP 2

also i forgot to say so last episode but kevin kiner my ABSOLUTE BELOVED the return of the king is real so happy to have you here my dude the ending and full theme was absolutely gorgeous

anywayyyyyy so i am guessing sabine did not make like satine and survived her shish kabobing

well there's ahsoka

oh yeah there's bean she's fine she'll be fine xD

damn filoni really gave more handwaving to having a character survive a major impalement vs me twisting myself into fucking knots writing anakin getting run through lmao

ahsoka sorry but actually i'm gonna blame u for this you still kinda seem like a mess and i don't think you were a very good teacher to sabine and now ur dropping back in on her when she's convenient to you?

well at least we know why she's so adamant against training baby yoda lol

ope here's goth girl and the fuuuuck is his NAME again i keep calling him fucking bryan

i like the fancy sithy-looking sundial tho

pfff second ep is "toil and trouble" guess we're getting witchy!

OH YEAH WAS SABINE'S KITTY OKAY

THEY BETTER BE OKAY

I SWEAR TO GOD

yea ahsoka what happened to showing up in the nick of time and saving kanan and ezra from inquisitors in rebels u were slowwww girlie

OK GOOD THE CAT IS OKAY

that's all that matters

ope one more droid hanging around ezra's place

GIRL UR SITTING UP ALREADY?!

GIRL HOW CAN U BREATHE

we do love the mechanic girl of my heart

sabine does love her explosions

no huyang hera just likes explosions

sabine works best under explosive pressure we LOVE HER

ope back to corellia i guess? we can reuse the old solo sets?

sabine

you were just

impaled

"but she's not the one who needs to hear it right now" ahhh there's the sabine and hera dialogue. ugh but i'm still not used to natasha and mary i can just hear tiya and vanessa doing it instead :(

WHY DO Y'ALL KEEP MAKING SABINE AND AHSOKA ANGRY EXES TF

"ancient ppl from a distant galaxy" waaaaaaait are they bringing in those eu dudes

no wait i think i remember something about these guys that was mention as the big bad in the canceled animated rebels sequel

or it could just be the chiss lmao

that could be it too, makes sense why they'd want thrawn

ok that is some real cool galactic map visuals i am an absolute sucker for a good starmap

ok but wait how the fuck did y'all get a map to thrawn anyway did the space whales write it

also sorry morgan but i don't personally think thrawn would go for u nothing personal you are hot but you don't quite seem his type

waaaait is fucking thrawn gonna have force sensitivity now THAT would be absolutely hilarious and he'd hate it so much

who's marrok i have no memory

y'all you can't just make thrawn work for you didn't he only work with the empire cuz he had to because it would advantage his people somehow (has read zero thrawn novels and only seen rebels)

please tell me sabine is in the fucking vents of ahsoka's ship

THERE'S THE GHOST WHERE IS CHOPPER

I AM NO LONGER FUCKING ASKING

okay so i think my issue with Mary is she doesn't have any of the same authority and purpose Hera's meant to hav

CHOPPER

MY MURDERBOT

MY SON

MY ANGEL MY EVERYTHING

Anyway

yeah

oh yeah harping in that the new republic is a total fustercluck

ew a capitalist

bro you know hera used to steal from people like you for the rebellion

sdlkfjsdk omg sabine's mom needs to talk to the teacher to keep her from getting expelled

but also y'all sabine is like 25-30 right now she's not a kid

@ ahsoka bitch you have no fuckin clue what you're doing doooon't talk about readiness

y'know maybe the imperial era just advanced medicine so later impalements don't kill people

oh oh so it IS ezra's!

sabine go find luke he'd love to have you

STOP WITH THE GAY DIALOGUE

ok so yeah she likely doesn't have force sensitvity

goddammit huyang neverMIND

so sabine IS force sensitive :) and kanan and ezra just never brought it up :) great :)

hera my beautiful ship nerd ily

bitch do NOT fuck with hera she has more presence than anyone ever

hera my dude you know better than anyone that if a ship wants to take off you gotta go try and stop it in person

ah i have been waiting like 5 long years to watch hera best pilot there was kick aerial ass

we STAN

chopperrrrrrrrr

oh yeah ahsoka's fighting an inquisitor too lmao

CHOPPER GET THEIR ASS

CHOPPER ADD TO YOUR KILL COUNT

ok this hera and chopper banter is perfect i do love it

VICTORY FOR MY GHOSTS

oh and good job ahsoka lol

aghhh sabine and her therapy cat i'm ;_;

theeeeere's sabine's mando armor

SABINE AND KANAN'S FUCKIN KNIFE I'M GONNA EVEN IGNORE THE BAD MULAN HACKJOB ATTEMPT

okay it seems like mary's kinda on and off for hera so far, she has her moments but she can't hold them

rosario keeps losing me i'm sorryyyyyyyy

natasha is doing GREAT

aaaaaand we redoing the end of the rebels epilogue!

god this makes me miss zeb

and kanan obvs but i've come to accept his death

zeb's still hanging around where is he!!!!!

ah all is right

sabine has her gay haircut back

here we go gay roadtrip to find ezra time

alright so i'm still not really vibing with jedi!sabine at All but i have concluded that this show is watchable but honestly not that good, writing-wise, sorry dave, so i think i'll be able to watch it with my brain turned off

goddammit first i thought the holograms visiting morgan were nightsister witch ghosts xD

RIGHT RIGHT HIS NAME IS BAYLAN NOT BRYAN

morgan stop simping for thrawn i guaranTEE he's not your type

oKAY

we are through with the two episodes! it is very late for me so i'm gonna sit and think on what i've seen so far and shitpost a little. i did really like seeing my rebels blorbos again even if the live action actors don't quite have their groove yet. obviously very excited to retrieve ezra <3 so yeah that was that and i'll be back for more next week!

#sw the ahsoka show #ahsoka #sw ahsoka #ahsoka spoilers #star wars #sw spoilers #star wars spoilers #ahsoka show #ahsoka tano #sabine wren #liveblogging the ahsoka show

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vaguely-concerned · 3 years

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The Mandalorian Chapter 14 reactions: HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME BUT ALSO I’M CRYING edition

- the good good din characterization is back after all the weirdness last episode!!!! that soft way he says ‘no, no, I’m not mad at you’? THAT’S din djarin, he would not be fucking impatient with his son having just been informed and seen for himself that he is terrified, go away mr filoni I know you’ve got all of canon memorized but you don’t get this lol. this feels much more right in how din being conflicted and still thinking he should give the baby away for his own good plays out too

honestly every line of dialogue for him in this one was perfect I was just whispering ‘I love this awkward clueless wonderful man just doing his best’ to myself any time he said anything. “...does this look Jedi to you?” sir I adore you more than words can describe

- we got din chuckling. asjdklfhsdkafghsdafsadhjkfsdahjkfh. fskahfksjad. side note: I can’t believe my joke post about din desperately trying to Force home school the kid with the one (1) jedi trick he knows about and the baby being delighted by it over and over anyway -- listen to his expectant excited laugh when din takes the ball and sets up the game!!!! -- was canon all along. and then the baby & mando music kicking in when he gently put the silver ball into the baby’s hands again and tells him he’s special (because he IS special. to din)? hmng. hmmmmnnnnn

they opened on the height of softness so we would all crumple under the weight of the rest of the episode and that was very mean of them in a way I sincerely appreciate

- nothing to see here... just a dad trying to walk through the literal manifestation of the unassailable underlying forces of the universe to get to his baby again and again........ the desperation in that, the love, the foolhardy devotion................... shit

- okay so I might be a dumbass, but I’d never noticed this before -- the silver ball has a blue spot on the top, like so:

and in addition we get the room where the baby goes full darth grogu (I have to laugh so I don’t cry okay) on those storm troopers, and there’s a red light in there dominating the room (and it did even more in the concept art):

in star wars blue means light side and red means dark side (it’s very sophisticated that way), meaning the visual storytelling here is that there’s a battle for the baby’s soul and gideon and all his nonsense (and the trauma bb’s been through in the wider sense) is pulling towards the dark, while grogu and din’s connection leads him towards the light. just... the image of the baby looking at his own reflection in the symbolic representation of his relationship to din? the way children find their sense of self through being safely reflected and held by their caretakers? god help meeeeeee I will go in there and fistfight gideon myself for disrupting that in any way

the smaller light seems to be blue too, like there’s still the presence of light even if it’s dimmed and small in that shitty horrible room, which is a change from the concept art!

- FENNEC SHAND SURVIVED BITCHES!!! I even called that she’d be back with new shiny robot parts back in season 1, could not happen to a cooler lady, I hope we get more backstory and interaction from her the next episodes -- sounds like she’s basically sworn herself to boba’s service in gratitude for saving her life, I wonder if that’s a cultural thing of whereever she comes from? does she live aboard slave 1 now too?? because that would be hilarious and amazing, it must be like two strange cats trying to get used to sharing the same space

- everything I could ever hope for about boba fett in this series came true, they went down the much more interesting and nuanced route with jango and boba’s identities as mandalorians, he looked cool as fuck and made din as a character shine rather than overshadowing him... amazing beautiful yesss

(I did 100% not anticipate just how ‘cool uncle boba here to help you fuck shit up’ he was going to be but I am delighted to get it anyway. uncle points deducted for getting someone to point a gun at the baby, but the main point still stands lol)

the power and brutality of his hand to hand fighting too... a w e s o m e , I enjoyed the action scenes a lot in this one

- they even recanonized him actually wearing jango’s armour. what more could I ask for. I’ve had confused parent & child feels about these two since I was like eleven and here we fucking go again. and jango fighting in the mando civil wars too!

- so I’m grieving the razor crest (and I always will be, rip you magnificent jalopy, always in my heart) but also there’s the grim satisfaction that my reading on it was sort of true -- it is (...was. oh god it’s going to take a while to sink in huh) a symbol of din’s self and life, and at this point when they take the baby it tears everything else to pieces. the only thing that’s left in the ashes is the beskar and the thing that connects him to the baby. and there’s... a strange solace in seeing that that’s all he needs to keep going? he’s fucking obliterated from orbit but he still has his love for the baby and the beskar and that can keep him going until he finds something new, everything else can be replaced?????? weirdly healing, though he is probably going to have a solid breakdown at some point after they get the kid back (shut up they are getting the kid back) and the cold distant fog lifts

also this scene/shot feels like it carries some Meaning, doesn’t it? I’m on record several times saying I never want din to be mand’alor and that’s still true, but there’s something about the framing of this and the way boba looks at him that’s like... hm. I’m not sure I have the words for it. there’s something heightened about it, anyway, for a moment he looks like something mythic there in the wreckage

(something I would be much cooler with is our clan of two growing a little bit and those new people rallying behind him, actually, that might be neat. imagine if a force user does show up for the baby and gets adopted into the clan somehow??? so many possibilities.)

- from the way he picks up the silver ball... din djarin is on his way to straight up murder some people huh

I think part of what reassures me about this scene is the music -- this mando flute is not distant, is not beaten, is not despondent, it’s clear and determined and strong.

I love this. I love when we get explicit baby POVs, it makes it feel so real and intimate and... like home. (I especially loved baby’s point of view inside the razor crest, which just made me tear up again. baby lost the closest thing he’s had to a home in a long long time on top of it all. everything is suffering)

Emotionally Significant Thumb Grabbing tm; the show

- din djarin looking for the ‘on’ switch on a magic rock fhsdakjfhsadlfhsdjah I can’t breathe

“Well, this is the seeing stone. Are you. Seeing anything?” fsafkdsajhfsa sdhfksjalhfkjsdahfkjsdhf

- the energy around the baby as he’s, in ahsoka’s words, ‘choosing his path’ is blue, and the force sort of works across time and space, right?? so there’s definitely still hope for our lil green bean to not have to come up with a really dumb unsubtle sith name for himself, as is regrettably yet delightfully tradition. darth babbu should never come to pass (I do like how they’re interrogating the normal dark/light side dichotomy in this series, seeing as this is a literal baby who can’t really be responsible for that stuff himself yet and has such capacity for both.)

- listen. listen, the way din says ‘can you please hurry up’ with no sarcasm or real impatience whatsoever, more like a harried worry, to his force-meditating son as he jogs off to make sure no one’s trying to kill them. is hilarious and also YES this is what the character is!!! weirdly and incongruously polite under stress sometimes and with a slightly odd reaction pattern to things!!! he’s not just quiet and badass, he’s a little strange sometimes and it’s so good!

- a friendly opening volley warning shot from boba there

also din uncertainly asking BOBA FETT if he’s a jedi... now this is the dramatic irony I’ve been looking for haha

I guess neither shand nor boba actually know din’s name after this either. baby you gotta start introducing yourself at some point it gets real confusing when there are two mandos on screen

oh the long weary sigh going through din’s frame when boba says he wants ‘the armour’ and he thinks it’s just someone trying to peel the beskar off his corpse again. sorry the galaxy’s so shitty dad

- “But fate sometimes steps in to rescue the wretched” is a killer line well done mr favreau. I like that boba actually offers din a good deal as well and seems to intend to deliver on it from how things are going.

- din using his beskar-covered bod to cover someone he’s fighting alongside!!! literal moving cover haha. also I love fennec’s costume design

- I don’t know where din got more whistling birds from and I don’t care, it was really cool haha

wow haha um so anyway --

(cue all the ‘who wore it better’ with cobb vanth’s ‘spiderman’s first home made costume’ look on one side and ABSOLUTE UNIT DADDY boba fett on the other side posts lol)

- aaaghh the music almost like a stunned desperate fluttering heart beat as din watches the razor crest be destroyed

- for someone who has willingly worked for them in the past boba sure sounds less than thrilled about having the empire back in any capacity

- oof the deadness in din’s voice when he says “The child is gone”. ooooh no that got me h e l p

- guessing next episode is at least partly a ‘gathering old allies and preparing the assault’ step before the grand finale, then! they cannot go for the season ender cliffhanger with this, I will fucking riot. anything can be up in the air except baby and dad being separated, I will not allow it

it would be very funny if the force user baby called out to comes stumbling into the middle of all this like the troy entering the room with pizzas meme too

- the music in the darth grogu scene is partially a dark mirror of the baby & mando music :’( is nothing in this world sacred

also from how he reaches out for it baby might have used a light saber before in the past with the jedi? ngl the idea of baby wielding the dark saber not when he’s all grown up but in like two episodes -- with all the chaos a toddler holding a laser sword would involve -- is all that is keeping me sane here

‘liable to put an eye out with one of these’ well gideon you sure have doomed someone to lose an eye with that one, here’s to hoping it’s you, for full dramatic payoff

he is a deliciously smug awful force with great musical cues tho, you have to give it to him

- okay so this

is obviously awful and horrible and it makes me so sad... but it is undeniably also very very very funny in how it’s framed. you know what? after all this bullshit baby grogu can have a little dark side tantrum, as a treat, we’ve all been there right

(forget finding a jedi, we need to go out there and find a child psychologist who can help him deal with this without adding the fear that he’s on the path to become a two foot tall evil space sorcerer to the mix Y_________Y)

- rip the razor crest except for the second time :’’’( gone but never forgotten

- the last thing din tells the baby is “I’m gonna protect you; I’ll be back soon”. and I hope that stays with the kid somehow and that it actually comes true, that din will be back for him as soon as humanly possible and all this pain and fear can be repaired. ggggghhhhh my emotions are too big for my dumb human body

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta #okay I'm gonna have to. go take a calming walk or something after this haha

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cross-d-a · 3 years

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fic tag game

aaahhh @vishcount thank you for tagging me!!! These are so fun and I adored reading about your fic journey~! ೖ(⑅σ̑ᴗσ̑)ೖ ❤

OH as a note!! For the ppl I tag at the end I don’t expect you to read all of this bc it’s A Lot!!! but I figured you might want to do this game yourself? haha :)

Name: cross-d-a shortened version of my first ever username. unfortunately stuck with it now haha but i’m fond of it :p wish it was cuter tho!!

Posting the rest of this under the cut so it doesn’t eat up people’s dashes!!

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Fandoms:

oKAY YIKES there are....honestly too many too name. I’ve got a short and obsessive attention span so it’s either all or nothing with me usually. When I can stay in a fandom for a long period of time it’s a miracle. I’ll name the bigger ones that I’ve all written fic for! Even if I’ve never posted them haha

Right now I’m very firmly into Daomu Biji (dmbj). It feels like it’s both got a crap ton of content and yet barely anything at all haha. Maybe because the English fandom is so small. But at least there are a bunch of dramas and books!!! I really, really, really adore dmbj so much!! And a large part of that is the fandom!!! It's been a really cool and unique experience! Everyone in it is truly so kind and wonderful, and I’ve made some really incredible friends because of it (looking at you vish!! ❤). I’ve got a bunch of wips, but I’ve only posted two fics for dmbj!

Before this I was very into Guardian and mdzs. MDZS was my first foray into cdramas and Guardian’s Zhu Yilong really suckered me into watching more haha I also have fics for both these fandoms!

My very first fandoms were Fullmetal Alchemist, D. Gray-Man and Naruto. My very old ffnet account has fics for these and I’ve got a bunch of newer wips on my tablet. Then Star Trek, Twilight, BBC Merlin, Sherlock, Death Note, Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar the Last Airbender and Marvel were a few of my main ones in high school. Plus a bunch of anime (like Fruits Basket! and Kuroshitsuji and Natsume Yuujinchou).

Then college hit and I renewed my childhood love of Tolkien (mainly lotr and the Hobbit), and Star Wars. I also found Teen Wolf! Then after college it was Stranger Things.

I find myself in a cycle of mild fondness and complete obsession with these fandoms haha I go back to Star Wars at least once a year!! Then I’m in the gffa hole for a few months. Marvel also reoccurs, depending on how interested I am in new content! Star Trek I always always always go back to. TOS is my comfort show and it will never fade from my heart ❤

But for now I’m stuck in cdrama hell and I love it

Tropes:

Time travel, found family, whump+hurt/comfort, fairytale-like elements, resurrective immortality (thanks to a “Nine Lives” Hobbit fic), CROSSOVERS

I’m a slut for all these things so they often worm their way into my plots haha

I also just- love weird premises. I think that’s the anime influencing me haha

Fic I spent most time on:

My series he leaves sand and stardust in my wake (main fic is hurricane on the edge of oblivion), I have...spent five years on now. I have done so much research for this fic it’s insane.

The premise is force ghost!Obi-Wan getting shunted back into his tiny 10 year old self. I incorporate a shit ton of legends and I try to stay as canon as possible. I basically want this au to feel like it’s 1000% plausible while still getting all my gay shit. It’s chock full of whump, redemption, found family, minor characters turning into major characters, and I’ve got slavery uprising on the mind, too. It’s just- everything I could ever want to explore in the Star Wars universe basically.

It’s my first big project. I started doodling and scribbling ideas in the margins of my notebook in my Scottish History class. I adore it so so so much. But, because of my hyperfixation and fleeting intense obsession with things it makes it- really difficult to consistently update. I leave it for months at a time and I am constantly guilt-ridden about it. Because it’s my baby and I have a lot of wonderful readers. I fear I’ll never be able to finish it. Especially since I’ve written so much and I’m still only in the beginning of it. ( ; A ; )

Also, I’ve spent so much time with Xanatos, Feemor and Bruck that they just feel like mine now. I can’t read any fics that involve them, it’s too strange. Which is a damn shame because I love them so much haha OH ALSO!! I think it’s the first really big fic to include those three?? So I’m very proud about that haha (I’ve had so many ppl comment about how they actually Give A Shit about these three and are Invested bc of me haha)

Favorite fic(s) you’ve written:

hurricane on the edge of oblivion (with nowhere to go) (Star Wars)

My long-term passion project. My love-letter to Star Wars, I suppose. Reading it now I feel like a lot of it is clunky or long-winded, but I think it really shows the foundation of my writing today :) Main characters are Obi-Wan, Xanatos Du Crion, Qui-Gon Jinn, Bruck Chun and Feemor. Eventually we’ll get to Maul, Savage, Feral, Shmi Skywalker, (more!) Ahsoka, Anakin and a shit ton of clones ❤

things we hunger for (Guardian)

My Ye Zun self-indulgent fic. It’s a time travel amnesia Weilanzun! Honestly has some of my fav writing I’ve ever done. It’s so soft and really indulges in the hurt/comfort. It gives Ye Zun the friends and family I think he deserves. Also, he gets to grow into a (mostly!) functional person and I adore him.

the beast that slumbers within your soul (mdzs)

Jiang Cheng centric fic!! I feel like all my favourite fics I’ve written are love letters haha. This is one def my love letter to Jiang Cheng. This fic possessed me for two whole days. I wrote 16k in almost one sitting. I went to sleep at 6 in the morning bc I couldn’t stop writing. And when I drifted off I kept thinking of new ideas so I’d whip out my phone and write down lines and notes. I- have never ever ever felt that way about anything. It was- insane. It felt insane. It was so amazing. I’m still riding the memory of that high.

Basically Jiang Cheng actually finds Baoshan Sanren and it turns out she’s a fox demon and Jiang Cheng is descended from wolves. It’s- okay I said the fic above this had my favourite writing?? That was a lie. This has my favourite writing I’ve ever done. It’s unfinished bc I am in dmbj hell but I am still excited about the next chapter which features Wei Wuxian’s pov!!

the whispers of spirits (dmbj)

My current passion project. In a way it kinda feels similar to hurricane? Bc multiple povs, incorporating different aspects of canon (we’ll get there!! I promise!), shit ton of research, etc. etc. I really really really love it for so many reasons. I’m basically taking all the things I was unsatisfied with in Reboot and Sha Hai and running with it. Found family and whump galore! It’s also a love letter to the women of dmbj who really deserve so so so much better.

Honourable mention to:

One Day (you’ll have given more of yourself than is meant to be taken) (Marvel)

This fic also kinda possessed me. I just- couldn’t get rid of the idea of a trans!Thor. And I mean a mtf Thor! It’s just? So many people look at Thor and go “that’s a Real Man.” Full stop. They never think there could be anything more, and it really really really bothered me. So I wrote out my feelings. I’m not trans. I don’t have that experience at all. I’ve had issues and confusion about my gender but nothing like this. I just wanted to do justice to this idea of Thor in my head. And I still feel a bit nervous having posted it. But I've gotten so many comments from people who really connected with what I’ve written? So I’m very very thankful I wrote it and it has a very special place in my heart. It’s a very cathartic fic.

Fic I spent least time on:

Probably we rise (Star Wars) and I think it shows haha. I wrote it in response to Dave Filoni posting a drawing of Ahsoka and Gandalf telling her “People thought I was dead, too, and look how that turned out...” So I incorporated Ahsoka (and Din and Grogu and Ezra!!!) into the ending of Rise of Skywalker, kinda explaining how I think they could all still be alive. :)

Longest fic:

hurricane is my longest fic (159k) but I’m kinda worried whispers will eclipse that.....

Shortest fic:

Of my posted ones it’s The Five Moments it Took Tony and Scott to Admit They Were Best Friends (and the first time they ever did), currently clocks at 1.6k. It’s unfinished tho so maybe that doesn’t count.... otherwise it’s we rise which is completed and 2k.

Most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks:

hurricane overall has the most of all these. Though I don’t think hits counts as much bc it’s multi-chapter. If you discount multi-chapter stuff, most hits goes to my obikin smutfic Homecoming, bc people are horny af haha

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on:

If I had energy I’d like to rewrite the beginning of hurricane bc it feels so so wordy. I’d want to expand on One Day bc I really would like to write a whole series with trans!Thor. And like- I’d really like the focus to finish any of my WIPs.

Share a bit of a WIP: I really wanna share my Guardian/dmbj crossover that I started back in August. Bc I adore the idea of wu xie&shen wei&ye zun triplets! Plus time travel!!! I dunno if I’ll ever finish it tho ( ; A ; ) It just feels like a lot to deal with right now.

This scene takes place during the Mountain Awl arc. Guardian crew and desperado fam run across each other at the village! Wu Xie has recently found out that he’s adopted and he’s searching for answers in the area Sanshu originally found amnesiac!toddler!Wu Xie in :) Gonna pull two snippets bc I’m v excited and this might be the only time anyone else sees this fic haha:

“Oh?” Pangzi focuses on Yunlan now, lips twisting. “You think I’ve ‘got the wrong guy,’ huh?” He laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. “That’s rich! Are you that cocky or are you just stupid?”

Bristling, Yunlan drops his hands and scowls. “Excuse me?”

“Sir,” Shen Wei tries. “I think—”

Pangzi’s eyes snap back to Shen Wei, sharp and blazing. “How dare you fucking steal his face!”

What?

Automatically, Zhao Yunlan turns to Shen Wei, but the professor looks just as shell-shocked as Zhao Yunlan feels which- is seriously something. Since everything about Shen Wei is so carefully controlled, kept to the minimum. Except for those delightful little smiles that bloom across his lovely face, or the startled little bursts of laughter that fall from his lips. Or even when anger and frustration spark across his features, cracking his calm veneer open enough that he can see a glimmer of what lies beneath, the fire in those eyes. Zhao Yunlan delights in those moments, makes a game of making Shen Wei’s control slip.

He tells himself it’s nothing more than a game. Nothing more than trying to find out what makes Shen Wei tick.

Zhao Yunlan’s always been very bad at lying to himself. Or very good. Depending on who you’re asking.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yunlan splutters.

But before anyone can say anything else, a very familiar voice calls:

“Pangzi? What’s wrong?”

Yunlan can feel Shen Wei stiffen, and Yunlan himself is pulled to that voice like a planet in orbit, like the inevitable plummet to the ground.

Another shadow wavers in the doorway before it steps out onto the dirt. Light illuminates shaggy hair, limning it gold, sharply casting everything else in shadow. But as the figure nears, the contrast softens until Yunlan can see the newcomer’s face properly and- and—

“Wu Xie!” Pangzi growls. “We’ve got ourselves an impostor!”

The man wearing Shen Wei’s face steps up to them, brows furrowed and mouth pulled down into a sharp frown. He glances between them, eyes landing on Shen Wei. His scowl deepens. He opens his mouth, but then—

“Wu Xie?” Shen Wei breathes, all trembly and lost and hopeless.

Heart in his throat, Yunlan turns to Shen Wei again. Turns and flinches at that stricken look upon Shen Wei’s pale pinched face.

“A-Xie?” Shen Wei chokes. “Didi?”

and

Pangzi snorts. “Professor?”

“I-it’s true!”

Startled Yunlan swings his attention over to Jiajia who clenches her backpack to her chest, face screwed up in admirable determination. “P-professor Shen took me and Xiao Quan on a field trip to investigate an archeological site around here!”

“Oh?” Wu Xie drawls all slow and amused. “Well, what a coincidence. We’re archeologists, too.”

“With guns?” Yunlan bites out.

Wu Xie raises a brow, grin full of teeth. “Well, you can never be too prepared.”

“Right,” Yunlan drawls right back. “Are you a professor, too, then? You come here with your students?”

Wu Xie outright grins. “You could say that, I suppose.”

Out of the corner of his eye, one of the men rolls his eyes. He’s the one with sharp features, glasses and looped earbuds. Does he think it’s appropriate to listen to music at a time like this? Yunlan admires the man’s gall.

aahhhh vish thanks so much again for tagging me!! This was so fun to relive my fic memories!! I’m gonna tag @alwaysaslutforshakespeare @jockvillagersonly @tehfanglyfish @lichelleme @undyingsunshine @humanlighthouse @thewindsofsong I’m curious about your guys’ writing and fandom journey!! As always, no pressure to actually complete this!! I just thought it was fun ❤

Wow if you read all of this I am very humbled and impressed, thank you!!

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

#cross talks #my fic #fanfiction #uhhh what else do i tag this as i dunno #about me #cross posts #wip fic

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padawanlost · 4 years

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Can I confess something? I know that positivity is “better” than negativity, and people are allowed to have their opinions, but there is something about Pro-Jedi “they did nothing wrong, absolutely no flaws, but were ONLY destroyed by Palpatine” arguments that makes me kind of uncomfortable. Nevermind that half of it is sourced by Disney revisionist canon, it’s just… there is something in the “the intent was good, but this is harmful” “NO ITS 100% GOOD ACTUALLY” that makes my skin crawl. Sorry

I feel you, anon. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It worries me how defensive some people are getting. I mean, I love my favorite fictional characters too. I think that’s absolutely normal, and loving a fictional character whether they are the heroes or the villains doesn’t say anything about who we are as people. Admitting we love Anakin or Darth Vader doesn’t immediately make us favorable to torture, war, fascism, murder and corruption.

However, the arguments we use to explain a characters behavior do say something about who we are. And some arguments being used by the star wars fandom are downright scary. You know, there’s a difference between saying ‘I don’t like Padmé because she’s not the type of character I’m usually interested in’ and saying ‘Padmé is useless weak bitch because she died’. One is about you expressing your taste and the other is you showing the world your sexism.

It’s the same with Anakin, Vader and every one fictional character in existence, regardless of fandom. there’s nothing wrong with loving Anakin, but when you start advocating that genocide is a valid option, if you think women belong to men, that torture works and authoritarianism makes the world better, I’m not gonna lie, warning bells do go off in my head.

It’s the same with the Jedi. there’s nothing wrong with loving and supporting them because they were designed to liked by the audience. but once you start advocating that child slavery is not that bad, that war crimes are justified, that indoctrinating children is healthy, that mind controlling people against their will is a kindness, dismemberment is compassion, that child soldiers are a valid option and that the enslavement of poc characters is a necessity…MAYBE the issue here is no longer about fictional characters.

It’s ironic because if an Anakin fan says Anakin was right in slaughtering the tusken raiders, most people – anakin fans included – will be outraged by notion that genocide and mass murder should ever be considered the right solution to any problem. we love Anakin but we also know he made mistakes and what those mistakes were. it’s not about defending him, it’s about acknowledging certain things are simply wrong even if they are done by fictional characters we love.

Weirdly enough, when it comes to the Jedi nothing seems to be wrong enough to some people. everything is justifiable: war crimes, child endangerment, slavery, etc. Nothing seems to be bad enough that they can’t find a way to justify it. And that scares me. because it has become so obvious these issues only matter when the jedi are harmed by them.

The most current example of this is the The Clone Wars series finale. The episode was heavily focused on the massive loss of clones lives that happened during Order 66 and yet some fans were outraged that their white favorites weren’t the main focus of the episode because THEY SUFFERED SO MUCH MORE. It’s the same with fans rapidly turning on Ahsoka, the Martez sisters and even Filoni for so much as hinting they didn’t agree with the Order’s decisions.

You know, it’s not about them defending the Jedi is about how and why they defend them. Saying I don’t care what the jedi did because I love them is fine. Saying I love the Jedi because they never did anything wrong and then writing a long ass essay on why the lives of POC characters don’t matter is not. It sickens me to see people spend a lot of time writing fucking books desperately trying to justify why not helping Kitster, Ahsoka, Barriss or the younglings hunted for sport was the right call at the same they romanticize Obi-wan’s short enslavement as the one of the most tragic things that has ever happening the entire franchise.

Imo, that’s pretty telling. I don’t know if they are racist or just really, really insecure about their own taste but it does makes me wonder about who they are as people. it sounds harsh even to me to say this but the truth is this does goes beyond fiction. this shit has affected people in real life. I mean, every once in a while I see a jedi ‘stan’ telling someone Karen Traviss hated the Jedi and that she was the personification of everything that’s evil about people who criticize the Jedi Order. Look, I don’t know anything about who she is a person but I do know the same Jedi stans spent years sending her death and RAPE threats for being critical of the FICTIONAL CHARACTERS even after she wrote a long letter explaining she didn’t actually hate the Jedi. I don’t know where everyone moral compass is pointing at but *I* was raised to believe that wishing a woman dead and/or raped is NEVER the best answer.

But somehow people who say ‘I love the jedi even if they weren’t perfect’ are being portrayed as the villainous, irrational fans who are ruining everything and attacking everyone. I sleep well at night knowing i never tried to pass actual crimes that harm actual people as good, righteous things just to make fictional characters look better.

It’s not about hating the Jedi the same way that acknowledging Anakin’s crimes is not about hating on Anakin. It’s about recognizing that something that is legally and morally wrong in real life is also wrong in fiction, specially when the fiction world was build as a political parallel of our own. We are not saying war crimes and slavery is wrong because we hate the say, we are saying war crimes and slavery are wrong because THEY ARE WRONG. If our love and support for fictional characters can so easily blind us to real life morality then maybe we should do some soul searching before going to such lengths to justify something considered a heinous crime in both fictional and real world

A few days ago I was trying to get a coworker to start watching Breaking Bad. We were talking about Walter White and why he was such iconic character. he’s clearly not a great guy but that doesn’t mean we don’t love the character. I think that’s the difference some fans have a hard time grasping: the difference between a good character and a good person. I have seen many fans saying WW’s actions were cool, badass, ‘manly’ or whatever but I’ve never seen anyone trying to pass drug trafficking and murder as morally superior choices.

That’s what I’m trying to say. We can love (or hate) fictional characters for whatever reason we want. but how we go about justifying their actions and how we react to those who disagree with our views do say a lot about who we are. I mean, there’s a big difference between saying ‘it was so cool to watch Darth Vader is laughter all those red shirts in Rogue One’ and saying ‘and war crimes are a necessary part of life, Darth Vader was morally justified in slaughter them all and those who disagree with me are haters’.

Taste doesn’t really said anything about who we are but behavior does. Loving or hating a fictional characters doesn’t make us better or worse than anyone. But what we have to say about fictional and how we behave around other fans do say a lot about who we are.

Fandom is a community and like any community nothing and no one is perfect. Pretending ‘everything is awesome’ is choice, of couse, but one i’m not very fond of.

#ask #anon #sw meta #meta: fandom #jedi order #txt

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cruisercrusher · 4 years

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i totally wanna hear what you have to say abt rebels!! personally im a big fan and ive never seen anyone specifically not like the show so im interested in ur thoughts !!

Ok please keep in mind I do not at all pretend to be unbiased because clone wars is my most favourite thing ever so every Star Wars thing ever gets compared to clone wars it’s like my thing

The core of why I’m not fond of rebels is because to me none of it felt impactful. I’ve actually watched I think 3 out of the 4 seasons, because my d*d made us all watch it as a “family” and imma be real with you chief. Years down the line I struggled to remember the main characters names. Almost none of it actually stuck with me in any meaningful way, someone will mention something that happened in an episode I did watch and I’ll be like damn i have no recollection???? But also like having gone back and taken a second and third look at the show I’ve gotten the impression that even within the show nothing has that much impact, maybe the last season is different idk but it feels very one note to me and at times shallow in the story telling. Nothing sticks, because the characters retain a degree of staticity throughout what I’ve seen, and Disney very clearly had a set formula laid out for how the episodes/arcs would go that left little room for the ballsy storytelling and character development we got from clone wars.

It’s a little disappointing because I think there were things in rebels that had a lot of potential, rebels as a whole had a lot of potential but Disney really put a stranglehold on Dave Filoni and the rest of the creative teams creative ability.

That being said, I really don’t like the animation either. Like, really don’t like it. I feel like it lacks depth and texture, and I don’t like a lot of the character designs, and the backgrounds are a little flat, and the way the characters move is weird to me. They’re just a tad too fluid and a touch too expressive that for me it reads as very uncanny valley, it actually took me out of it sometimes.

(Also the human skin tones all looked kinda off to me I was like I don’t think that’s the right undertone babes that’s too much yellow. Too much yellow babe)

As well as the fact that the animation stayed pretty much exactly the same throughout the series, and had none of the actual real innovation and groundbreaking animation that the clone wars had.

Going back to the story telling, and again, this is Disney’s fault, there were a lot of missed opportunities for them to go really hard. There were a lot of lessons in clone wars (like always question authority, and Capitalism Bad, and War is Futile, and sometimes the people who are supposed to be the good guys aren’t necessarily very good) that Disney is just straight up afraid of. Like clone wars really had a lot of more left leaning themes that is simply too much for the conservative, one percenter, trump supporting Disney executives and shareholders.

An example of this I feel would be when they introduced the clones. If I could have I would have done that arc very differently. And don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing grandpa Rex! But the way those episodes were executed felt a little. Dissatisfying? Maybe not quite disrespectful, but then again imo the story of the clones is THE MOST tragic one in all of Star Wars and those episodes had an element of levity to them that I don’t think fit. That arc could have been really deep and somber (and they could have done at least a little to acknowledge the rampant ptsd the clones must have, especially Wolffe who shot down his general and father figure against his will) yet the script didn’t really do those characters justice at all.

Also, I would have written Sabine’s character very differently. For one, I would have made her at least twenty, because with everything I know about it her it’s baffling that she’s supposedly only like sixteen. Makes zero sense. I don’t get it. Also I would make her a butch lesbian. Like a total mean dyke. We need more of those and I think Sabine could have mean dyke potential.

Now. The inquisitors. Dear lord. Again, could have been really cool, but tHOSE SPINNY LIGHTSABERS DRIVE ME INSANE HOW DO YOU FLY WITH THOSE IT SHDHJSJFJD FORGET THATS NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS, THATS NOT HOW PHYSICS WORKS!!!!

Barbie life in the dream house had better animation because they were actually supposed to look plastic. Also, rebels yoda haunts my nightmares.

And I specifically don’t like Ahsoka’s character design either. I like her outfit but she looks less like Ahsoka to me and more like Ahsoka’s cousin. Her skull is a different shape. Why is it a different shape? Did she have jaw transplant surgery? Where is the consistency. We literally see an older version of Ahsoka during the mortis arc and she actually looks like herself (and looks really cool!) but Rebels Ahsoka looks nothing like that? I don’t understand. It makes my brain hurt to think about it

Alright, I’ve said a lot of negative things, so here’s a positive: I really appreciate Chopper. I just love chaotic astromech droids who feel nothing but unbridled bloodlust at all times. It is so funny. I appreciate him

And, bearing in mind I haven’t seen the whole episode (because I don’t want to) mostly just gift sets and clips, but the episode where Maul finally finds Obi-Wan on tatooine and they have their final duel?? Very cool concept, lots of potential, I just wish the lightsabers weren’t so SKINNY WHY ARE THEY SO SKINNYYYYYYY

I think that’s about everything? Barring the fact that for the longest damn time I thought none of the characters had fingernails because I mistook Ezra’s layered gloves for fingerless gloves and thought he didn’t have fingernails and that freaked me out? Yeah I think that’s about all my thoughts. I tried to have as little blantantly comparing to clone wars as I could because that’s not exactly fair, of course rebels was never going to be on the same level as clone wars. When it comes to well done cartoons I think it’s like. Way up at the top tier is Atla then clone wars in second place, and then literally everything else is wayyyy below it because that’s just how it is tbh. Anyways hope this satiated your curiosity!

#also i dont like jeb i think hes just annoying. like why is he here. literally what does he even DO what js his purpose other than to be #annoying. and ugly

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smokeybrandreviews · 3 years

Text

I Am No Jedi

With season two of Mando over and the entire series in the can, for now, i was still on a pretty high Star Wars kick. Since i have Disney+, and time before WandaVision starts, i figure I'd ride this wave right into another Star Wars show i didn’t have the opportunity to actually get into deep; Star Wars: Rebels. Now, i have REALLY mixed feeling about this show. It’s an odd watch for me because of the conflict between the parts that are clone wars-y and the original content being presented. I kind of hate it when Ahsoka, Vader, Maul, or Thrawn aren’t onscreen but, at the same time, there are some really standout episodes. The Honorable Ones and The Forgotten Droid immediately come to mind. Unlike Clone Wars, however, which is a whole ass masterpiece of storytelling and character development, Rebels feels incredibly flaccid, overall. Still, i did like some things therein. Others, not so much...

The Things I liked

This show is gorgeous, man. The character models are lovely, this soundtrack is one of the best in the entire franchise, and the animation is head-and-shoulders above the first last season of Clone Wars. By that i mean season six. This thing ain’t got sh*t on season seven. Not even a little bit. Even so, this how is f*cking stunning to see. Everything about this aesthetic is just chef kiss levels of kino, as the kids would say.

All things Ahsoka. Look, its no secret i adore Ms. Tano but she really comes into her own with Rebels. You get to see that wisdom she gleaned during the Clone Wars on full display, even if she isn’t a proper Jedi anymore. Watching her reunite with Rex was wonderful but watching her fight Vader? That was hard. That was really hard. That episode, Twilight of the Apprentice, is easily some of the finest Disney Star Wars produced to date. It’s up there with Mando and the seventh season of the Clone Wars, for sure, and is the best episode of Rebels, itself, hands down.

Vader.

Maul in Rebels was exceptional. I enjoyed his turn in Clone Wars, of course, but his relationship with Ezra and his growth over the course of this series was exquisite. I was stunned by how much i liked Maul because, admittedly, i didn’t see the allure. I came to Clone Wars late so watching Maul blossom was a surprise. Seeing that continued evolution through Rebels was a real treat. That last duel with Obi-Wan? F*cking tragic. Beautifully tragic.

The Inquisitors. I like the whole concept of the Inquisitors but, specifically, The Grand Inquisitor and the Seventh Sister are decidedly the superior of the lot. I really enjoyed Grand and felt like his character was a little short-changed but Seventh Sister came along and picked up that slack only a few episodes later. Thanks to Rebels, i got other amazing characters like Second Sister in Jedi Fallen Order, The High Inquisitors in

F*cking Thrawn, man. I knew this dude was the dude from the Thrawn trilogy sequel books and never expected him to actually be canonized. Seeing my favorite blue sociopath show up in season four was a real gas, giving him proper credence as a threat going forward in the canon Disney mythos. The revelation that Ahsoka’s whole mission in her Mando appearance, was just to find a lead on this dude, was one of the biggest geek-outs i ever had for Disney Star Wars and it was Rebels that set all of it up.

Speaking of canonization, Rebels mad Darth Bane a thing and i will forever be grateful of that fact. Darth Bane is a huge deal in the canon and Filoni sneaking his legitimacy into the new lore, right under Kathleen Kennedy’s hating ass sabotage, was genius. I heard that he wanted to do the same for Darth Nihilus, Darth Traya, and Darth Scion, but that script was rejected. I imagine Darth Kennedy didn’t care for the Bane slip and put the kibosh on all other lore.

I actually like a lot of the additional lore. The Bendu, those temples, the mega-weapon on Malachor, The Veil; All of it enriches and expands upon the new canon. It gives it more life, more potential. and i love potential in storytelling. Makes for a ton of different, wonderful, possibilities.

Look, i just really like the Bendu. That motherf*cker is hilarious.

I really did enjoy Hera and Sabine. Those two ladies were a delight. I’ glad they were added t the lore because, particularly Sabine, there is a wealth of potential for them going forward. Hell, we’ve already seen the return of Hera in Star Wars: Squadrons and, with Mando going full anthology, i would be hard pressed not to think that Sabine will have her turn as the titular Mandalorian in a few seasons.

Not going to lie, seeing Zeb in this show was pretty dope. As a Star Wars geek, i knew that the Lasat were basically prototype Wookies that were cast aside. It’s dope seeing that design getting a second wind onscreen and a prominent role in the main cast. Plus, i mean, Zeb is actually a pretty chill character, himself.

The Things I didn’t

What the f*ck are these lightsabers, man? They're supposed to reflect the original concept of the weapons from one of the first Star Wars draft scripts, which is cool in a geek sense, but corny as sh*t in practice. These things look anemic, as f*ck, man.

It’s ridiculous to me that the crew of the Ghost are so goddamn pivotal to the fledgling Rebellion. These assholes cannot be this important, even with all of the plot armor. Like, seriously, I'm supposed to believe that they were the ones who retrieved the B-Wing, founded the first Rebel base, and stole Phoenix Nest from the Empire? Word?

There no stakes to this show. Like, i get that our principals had a lot of plot armor in Clone Wars, i never once felt like Ahsoka, Kenobi, or Anakin were ever in real danger, but there were certain episodes where i thought, for sure, their characters would be totally crippled somehow. Not with Rebels. I don’t expect any of these motherf*ckers to have even a semblance of lasting bruises. Kanan literally dies and nothing of importance was lost. Like, i know this is Ezra’s show but goddamn.

Speaking of Ezra, i hate this kid. I don’t know if that’s by design, like Filoni did with Ahsoka in the first few seasons of Clone Wars, but i grew to love her. She’s literally my second favorite character in the entire mythos, after Vader. Ezra did not grow on me. At all. I hate that so many lore altering events surrounded this dipsh*t. Kid ain’t even all that powerful in the force. I’m pretty certain that Ahsoka is stronger than Ezra is but he gets to be the one to “discover” the Veil of the Force. Like, bro, for real? You telling me Anakin, Yoda, or even f*cking Luke missed out on this sh*t? Word?

This show feels a lot like Avatar The Last Air Bender but worse. I had a whole ass emotional connection to the characters in that show. It broke my heart to see Azula having that meltdown. I did feel that same agony in Rebels, but it was for Ahsoka. When Vader looked up and you heard Anakin’s voice through the filter? “Ahsoka.” F*ck, that broke me. It was like watching Spider-Man getting dusted in Infinity War. I never felt that way about any of the ghost crew. Never. Not when Kanan died. Not when Ezra disappeared. Never.

The best parts of this show, of the actual, Rebels, canon, is either leftovers from Clone Wars or Legends content. Bane, Thrawn, Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, the Emperor, even f*cking Hondo; All characters that existed before Rebels. Outside of the Inquisitors, Rebels added nothing of worth to the canon. It’s effectively a non-show. I mean, The Veil might be a thing eventually. We’ll see. That motherf*cker is a whole ass retconning mcguffin if I've ever seen one.

It’s weird to say, but nothing about this show feels of consequence. I know, for a fact, there are certain aspects Rebels added to the lore that will be vital to the overall canon but it doesn’t feel like that, you know? It feels like this was a detour, a frolic of, like, three or four episodes but holds no bearing to the grander scheme playing out. Sh*t’s ridiculous because Clone Wars felt like a whole ass problem, Rogue One gave us a legit catharsis, and Mando outdid everything Disney ever made while setting up an entire new age. F*ck, man, even the sequel trilogy gave us Kylo Ren. Rebels feels like Star Wars: The Filler Show and i kind of hate it.

#Star Wars #Star Wars: Rebels

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smokeybrand · 3 years

Text

I Am No Jedi

The Things I liked

Vader.

Look, i just really like the Bendu. That motherf*cker is hilarious.

The Things I didn’t

0 notes

vaguely-concerned · 3 years

Text

The Mandalorian Chapter 13 rewatch thoughts; the reduced salt edition

or at least I’m trying to be more constructive with the salt in this one let’s goooo

- god I miss the armourer so much. look at how fucking cool she looks, this is the mando design I hunger for so deeply, WHY would you give me boob plates back instead haha

- I will say with the way it’s presented this place feels way too small to be called a city lol (and I think that limited scale hurts how much I’m willing to accept the magistrate as a credible opponent to go toe to toe with ahsoka freaking tano. maybe if we’d seen directly the extent of the magistrate’s power and influence and not just the burned out wasteland that power leaves behind I’d be more on board with it. canonically she’s clearly been extremely rich and influential on a galactic scale, while the aesthetic filoni takes from samurai movies in this has a lot more to do with local warlords and smaller stakes. this is not the only time the adherence to that aesthetic without adapting it for the emotional story at hand or giving it a spin for novelty hurts the episode #hot take. it’s empty homage without quite understanding why the moments you’re emulating work so well in the context of the story they serve.)

this might be because how it’s filmed makes it seem like there’s just one big main street towards the magistrate’s palace, it’s implied to be quite a bit bigger from the establishing shot as the crest comes flying in?

- LOVE the implication that din lets baby play with the silver ball pretty freely while they’re on the ship but sets the (completely sensible tbh) boundary that he can’t bring it with him somewhere outside where he might lose it for good. that seems like reasonable dad-ing, din, well done.

anyway my heart is hurting because that silver ball is like a comfort item for the kid and it’s pretty clear from the very start that he has some kind of understanding of what might happen on this planet and so does NOT want to go out there, but also... that thing is narratively introduced as the baby’s way of saying ‘dad, don’t forget me, don’t go’. it’s what made din go back for him the first time, and that’s a connotation it still has both in the audience’s mind and for the characters. and I need to go cry in a corner for a while be right back

- not for nothing but in this scene of the baby being faced with din and a jedi standing side by side as if to present a choice, din literally has the sun right behind his head like some kind of fucking halo

gee I wonder what the baby’s choice is going to be fsadfjkhasdkjfhs. (he! loves! his dad! so much!!!!!!!)

- I wish they’d done more with the bored punch clock villain, hey-I’m-just-here-for-the-paycheck-man vibe of the guard captain guy and maybe given his nonchalance a bit of a darkly comedic tint, I think it would’ve made a better moment when he’s facing off with din towards the end if he had more... character. make him a bit more of a dark mirror of the soulless gun for hire people have seen din as in the past (and as the magistrate seems to now), do something interesting here. maybe even make it more of a mexican standoff with him holding a gun on an innocent or something so there’s something here for din to lose, it still does the western thing and lets you have that ramping tension you need for when you cut between the sword duel and this. hell, have him actually give up and walk away to show that he doesn’t fucking care about any of this, he did evil for money without any driving passion or conviction behind it, and let din decide if he’ll let him walk away scot free or not after what he’s been part of, that’s a neat subversion of the trope as well! as it stands it’s just so... empty

- baby says ‘mada! mada!’ again when they try to approach the vendor who appears to be serving foodstuffs! so maybe a word he has for food or maybe something like ‘lady person!’? (he says it when frog lady is gone on the ice planet and also as she’s walking into the razor crest for the first time. he did seem more interested in the eggs at that point, sooo lol)

din reacts to him speaking too, he glances down at him <3<3<3

- the baby seems to sense ‘ooof this is scary, time to hide’ on his own before they go into the magistrate’s place, din doesn’t appear to signal anything to him

- there’s a lot of deliberate silence in this episode, but the sound design that gets space away from the music somehow isn’t as immersive to me as it usually is on this show? I have no idea why, though

- ‘a jedi plagues me’ is somehow so fucking funny to me. the tl;dr for a lot of star wars villains through the ages

it also still cracks me up that din is immediately like ‘ma’am you can’t afford me’ fsdhfaskf

- I’m so happy din talks to and reassures the baby when he puts him down in these situations now, I remember being SO SAD when he didn’t back in chapter 7. he’s learning all the time!

- I think we should all be very happy this fight is cut off almost as soon as it begins, because I’m pretty sure ahsoka could kick din’s ass real bad and that would be terrible because I love him (listen din definitely has his moments, but up against a force user for the first time and said force user being one of the most powerful and battle-experienced jedi alive? probably not huh, if he survives that it’s on pure fatherly love and desperation and nothing else)

- this seems to be the baby asking ahsoka to carry him back to be with din (mando certainly seems to be what they’re ‘talking’ about right before) and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

din’s fingers are also doing the nervous curl-uncurl thing as she puts the baby down, and it remains the sweetest goddamn character tic, he’s adorable

in the long pause after he tells her “he needs your help” he’s sitting SO TENSELY, it’s only when she at least promises to test the kid that he relaxes a bit

baby (well, grogu, but he’s also baby) recognizes yoda’s name and seems to almost ask ahsoka ‘yoda is here???’, and her blink in response is like ‘no, I’m sorry’

- I still deeply dislike how it’s actually done in the episode, it’s so clunky and it annoys me on a craft level, but I do like the overarching thematic narrative of both mando and the baby being on this journey towards specificity and remembering themselves, of reclaiming the particular nuances of an identity that make up a self after a series of traumas have stripped it away from them. at the start of the show neither of them has a name (and din doesn’t even have a face) and they’re basically presented as broad archetypes, The Mandalorian and The Child. and now we’re slowly unearthing things that make them this specific child, grogu, this specific mandalorian, din djarin. it’s rediscovering parts of yourself you might have thought lost as you heal from trauma and I do like that very much, it’s touching and the emotional throughline this show should never lose sight of

- oooooh no baby glances over at din when she asks him to push the stone back ;______________; it’s so awful because you can just tell... he understands that if he does this thing din might leave, but also people have clearly tricked him into using the Force before and given him this traumatized kneejerk association that if he uses it where people can see him Bad things might happen

oh okay so I think din just subtly misunderstands the baby’s appeal to him here, he thinks that look towards him means ‘dad help I don’t understand what’s being asked of me’. I guess he doesn’t have any way of knowing how complicated the baby’s past is with this yet, it’s a good try

- I’ve seen people take ‘he understands’ as baby understanding everything that’s said to him all the time, which is patently not true haha. he understands quite a lot, in the way toddlers actually understand quite a lot of what’s going on around them, even a bit of words spoken to them before they’re especially verbal themselves, but he clearly mixes up his colours still sooo

I also suspect he’s played this game before -- surely that must be one of the most obvious activities the jedi would do with the smallest children, playing Force catch basically? but he still doesn’t trust it, or her. (on the other hand he does trust that din would never hurt or trick him. help me I’m drowning in my own tears)

- personally and from anything else in this show I don’t think din would be this impatient with the baby after hearing, less than half a minute before, that he’s terrified

but hey I’m not the man in the cowboy hat what do I know (yes I’m bitter characterization matters okay lol)

- it’s both funny and so sweet that the same music plays during this father and son playing catch scene as when baby lifted that mudhorn fkdfha

- for my money din reacts exactly perfectly to grogu finally Force pulling the ball -- he’s excited and happy, signalling that this thing doesn’t have to be scary and dangerous and that when shared with the right people it can be a good joyous thing, he moves over to the baby so they can share in this victory and attune, and crucially he doesn’t demand more afterwards, which the baby must have gotten before from some of the assholes who’ve been experimenting on him. it’s just the celebration and satisfaction of having done the thing without demands or threats or any ulterior motives. HIM!!! DAD!!!!

tattoo this straight onto my heart... the way baby cheerfully offers it back to din... sdkjafhksdfhsakdjf

- din breaths out roughly and unevenly through his nose almost like it’s been punched out of him and starts fiddling with the silver ball (which is still his primary tell for anxiety/stress!) when ahsoka says “he’s formed a strong attachment to you” :) listen if I have to know that all of you fuckers are going down with me

- see the thing is... if you don’t know who ahsoka is in pretty deep detail, you might take her at face value here instead of understanding that she’s actually projecting her own feelings and traumas onto this. if you absolutely have to use this character for this part of the show you have to set her up better specifically so someone who’s never seen a single episode of clone wars can grasp the basics of where she is emotionally and what her motives are, so that her role in this story makes sense. as it is it’s sort of a compromise between pleasing old fans (who can do quite a bit of inferring to figure it out) and approaching audiences who don’t know anything, and it falls flat

(for the purposes of this show I aggressively do not care where thrawn is, and so I’m just annoyed when we find out what this was actually all for haha)

- still feel reluctant to discuss too much about ahsoka because of the whole... situation with dawson, but I do like that she lets one of the guards leave after disarming him because he’s cowering and giving up, and that she still has her padawan braid wound into her belt. also I think the effects on her and her outfit are completely fine, my problems with her this episode are all writing craft and real life stuff

- when you get first the jet pack sound, then din coming down kicking that dude in the face, then the mando flute kicking in as he lands properly... the only time the action in this episode made me go ‘fuck YEEEAAAAH’ it’s awesome

- again, just like with the idea of having a samurai/ronin movie standoff and a western standoff at the same time: having the scene be mostly silent except for the almost musical sounds of the light sabers hitting the beskar spear is such a cool concept, and it does not work in action. I don’t know enough about filmmaking to tell you why it doesn’t, but it doesn’t.

there’s also something about... the ahsoka vs. morgan scene apes the deliberately staged, ritualized, exaggerated almost like how you’d perform it in live theatre aspect of the duels in the genre, but in an empty way? why are they acting like this, what’s their relationship to each other, what’s their individual code of honour that makes them let the other person slowly theatrically disrobe before going for them? just plucking the aesthetics out of a tradition and plopping them down in your own thing without thinking about the whys or original context of it leaves it without meaning

(also let morgan express something of her own character other than I Am Evil rather than having ahsoka drop the entire exposition on her. maybe you could have her snarl some illuminating lines while they’re fighting so you get the feeling of the bitterness and brokenness that has fuelled her and burned the woods of this whole planet. in some ways she’s not that unlike din and ahsoka, she lost everything in the clone wars too and was motivated very differently by it than they were, play that up so the situation’s relevant to our protagonists! I’m sorry for all this nitpicking but I HAVE to figure out how this could have been done better for my own sake haha)

- ooooooh the way din says “I can’t accept” when offered the spear is in fact almost an exact echo of when the armourer offers him the signet in chapter 3! I thought it sounded familiar, it’s delivered in such a similar way. huh. din has some Feelings about earning things and when he hasn’t earned something, doesn’t he

- din also cares A LOT about not breaking his word, to the point of being willing to stoop to some quite dishonest methods to avoid giving his word in the first place, and I find it utterly delightful

- baby closing his eyes again after din wakes him like he’s thinking ‘maybe if I don’t wake up dad won’t go’ or even ‘at least this way I won’t know it happened until later, when it’s over’... pure emotional torture :) thank god din’s entire soul is clearly howling in protest and he took the slightest chance ahsoka gave him to not actually go through with it

- so this is the second time we get someone telling din he’s like grogu’s father. well, the armourer gives it more like a command/almost a religious obligation, ‘until it is of age or reunited with its kind you are as its father’, ahsoka is stating what’s obvious at this point but says ‘you are like a father to him’... maybe they’re doing a rule of threes thing and the last time it’s ‘you are his father’ and it sticks?

- anyway din cradling the baby so close to his chest with both arms all the time instead of the more practical way he carries him around in the crook of his arm sometimes... my suffering is deep and endless

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta

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vaguely-concerned · 4 years

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The Mandalorian Chapter 13 reactions

Well, that was... well. in short I quite enjoyed some of what happened while din was there and I didn’t really care about what happened while he wasn’t there lol. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that I just don’t care for the episodes dave filoni writes for this show, which is simply a matter of taste I guess.

(if you loved this episode wholeheartedly -- probably look away now, I’m going to be a bit of a downer about it and I don’t want to shit on your joy haha)

- let’s just get this out of the way first: there’s a lot of stuff around rosaria dawson and transphobia in real life and yeah, of course that affects how I watch the show. I don’t even want to talk that much about ahsoka in this because of it. she was not that good in the role, after seeing how it played out I don’t think the character needed to be in this show at all, and she should never have gotten the role in the first place and that’s about it for what I’ve got to say.

- dave filoni consistently does things with din’s characterization that feels off and weird to me, subtly out of place with what we see in other episodes (he’s... ruder? more short tempered/cocky/actively or aggressively interpersonal? more prone to express himself directly than he is usually? idk how to describe it but filoni!din always feels one step to the left of what he should be and I’m so hyper-attuned to this character that when something’s a bit iffy with him it throws everything else off haha. it feels like a shallower, more convenient read on him and I don’t like it)

I also think filoni is almost too familiar with and in love with the source material sometimes? “A Mandalorian and a Jedi? They’ll never see it coming” is undeniably a great line that echoes in decades of deep lore and so on, but dave my good man din had no real idea what a jedi even is until literally this morning. we, the audience, know about this long and storied history, but unless ahsoka spent the afternoon explaining it to him din still only knows the faint outlines of it, he has no personal experience of or attachment to it. it’s not bad, as such, it just rings false to the character based tone of the show for me personally

- positivity break: baby sitting perched on the dashboard to be close to papa while they’re in hyperspace........sd sdfskdjhfdsakjksdhfkasjd

also this is some full on madonna and child in the manger shit and I am LIVING for it (odds he’s crying quietly behind the helmet here? pretty damn good if you ask me). the mundanity of what’s essentially the shitty spartan bathroom of the razor crest on one side contrasted with the light and tenderness and love on the other? amazing, a perfect microcosm of what this show does with combining the grittier everyday down to earth stuff in the star wars universe with myth and wonder and magic and through it elevating both

- the idea of having an iconique samurai/sword duel standoff and a western standoff going on simultaneously is genuinely inspired, but in action it didn’t really work for me. (the sword duel stuff needs these moments of stillness with sudden outbursts of violence and then stillness again, the western standoff needs mounting tension until it’s nearly unbearable, and cutting between them the way they did you sort of didn’t get either to its full potential. again it’s a cool idea, though, I hope someone picks it up and does it better at some point)

- seeing a jedi and a mandalorian wander together through a burned out wasteland left desolate by greed and warfare should have hit me harder than it did but for some reason it didn’t, idk. thematically sound, though, I like it a lot on the metaphor level

- I LOVE that pure beskar makes a specific sound, and that it’s an almost ethereal noise like the high clear chime of a distant bell. also now din has something to fight light sabers with that isn’t the dark saber which makes me so happy because you guys I do not want him to be the mand’alor. keep that funky laser sword away from my dad, apart from killing him at the end that is literally the most boring way to end his arc pls do NOt

- wow they really went in hard on the samurai stuff in this one huh! there is a part of my mchanzo-loving heart that thrives on seeing a space cowboy and a space samurai team up, *wild otp-fuelled whisper* they’re twin genres inextricably entwined okay they belong together if you see this spreadsheet I’ve made over here --

- even knowing it was just a trick I felt such intense distress seeing the signet pauldron away from din. like the attachment I have to these pieces of metal because That Armour Means Dad... wild

- they really chose the dumbest name possible for the baby huh fsajdfhsaj I agree with din his name is ‘kid’ now (eh just give me a while to get used to it probably I’ll come around)

also... you know what I’ve said before about shrinking the big unknowable galaxy ‘the mandalorian’ has been setting up? wow did they do that big time in this one, and it makes me feel decidedly :/. why does the baby have to come from the jedi temple, is there truly no other tradition of force users in the entire galaxy he could be from? WHY do you have to pull thrawn into this when most people watching this show won’t even know why he’s such a big deal? is this a stealth tease for a rebels sequel? if so why spend an entire episode of this show that only gets eight precious episodes a season on it??

- on a more fun positive note: baby’s clothes are clean again, so it’s confirmed that din does wash them (and I guess that he does have some means of washing clothes aboard the razor crest!). I loved... most of the dad and baby stuff in this one, but then don’t I always I’m easy to please that way haha (the ‘playing catch’ sequence felt a bit off to me but I don’t know why. din being like ‘he’s so stubborn’ wasn’t... eh. didn’t land right. “that would be a first” was fun tho lol)

- having ahsoka state the baby’s feelings out loud like that felt... weird? and also kind of unnecessary in parts, like yeah he’s a baby who’s been passed along to different groups of strangers and experimented on by empire scientists, you don’t need to spell it out for me that he’s been scared and lonely, or at least spell it out more interestingly? it’s such blunt force storytelling where it didn’t need to be? there are more elegant ways to get the same things across, I am absolutely convinced

- ...wow while I was watching the episode I was mostly like ‘okay this is Fine I can go along with it’ but seeing what I’m thinking about in hindsight... yeah probably my least favourite episode of this show full stop haha, it took the spot from chapter 5 which was also a filoni ep

- I did 100% genuinely adore the whole part of din approaching the town and meeting the magistrate. consistently hiding the baby behind his cape and his arm? being deliberately, teeth-grindingly dispassionate with everyone, just giving them nothing? getting to see a bit of professional bounty hunter din again? wonderful in every way, I love this man

- lots of meaningful shots of baby in the middle with a mando on one side and a jedi on the other, it’s almost like they’re setting up some Themes here lol

- ...do you think din told ahsoka about either the rhino-levitating or the force choking. because girl I don’t think not training him is going to make this just go away haha, he just won’t know what he’s doing

- it makes me so sad that baby connects his force powers with being abused :( (also a heartbreaking sign of just how much he cared about din from the very beginning, since he used it on the mudhorn to save him anyway ;________; was that like. literally the first time he sensed kindness and affection in anyone in like twenty five years or... )

- I understand why ahsoka would feel this way because of her past and specific traumas, but tbh attachment in a baby? probably a good thing, he doesn’t really have the higher brain functions to cultivate non-attachment yet and needs a safe figure because again. he is a baby.

good on her for realizing it’s not a task she can take on both for the baby’s sake and her own, and also that din is that baby’s Dad though. the way she smiled at the end watching them leave seemed vaguely hopeful/had a little bit of wonder in it, like maybe she felt the potential for something good there, something she couldn’t conceptualize from her background but could sense the tentative outlines of anyway?

(also so much pressure on a lil bb to decide his path... his dilemmas should be limited to what colour socks he wants to wear today not the course of his entire life :( I know he’s a magic baby but.......)

- idk maybe I’ll find more affection of this episode through rewatches, you never know

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta

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