#talk to them or do anything when it could be written so that rian does it; why should he feel like taylor totally needs his support;

[unproduciblesmackdown]

as "let's see if will roland's birthday prompts any billions production clues from posts castmates may make about it" continues to yield "no one's posting about it, while some castmates post about other people's birthdays," already having more thoughts abt [i'm sure he'll show up in at least one episode even if only to be written out] type things like:

a) would be insulting if winston is fired to serve a subplot about philip and taylor having some difficulty in finding their footing re: working together as coheads, like, we're good at anticassandraing things and have gone "lol what if philip & taylor disagreed abt quants in that philip preferred winston. which he feasibly could," so what if instead it's philip arguing that winston should be fired to streamline things or because everyone who's not taylor will want him gone b/c they dislike him, and in learning how to successfully work together, taylor's like well alright. like, don't pit these elements against each other the insult is instead just Anyone, higher ups or lower downs, wanting winston gone b/c they dislike him, so he's fired

b) winston getting bullied by anyone or everyone is seen as him distracting them &/or provoking it with his presence, so he's fired winston being friends w/tuk is seen as a bad influence of loserdom on the latter (or distraction, or annoying, or w/e) so he's fired some Problem that needs solving or otherwise some need to fire Some people that really doesn't have much to do with him gets him fired anyways. like 5x05 all over again, isn't it always. or even if he's particularly involved in some problem you know it'd be something other people could get away with just fine. see:

c) what's even "a problem" like that despite everyone being in a hostile workplace, winston is especially, and we're so graced with dollar bill back on the premises who has already harassed and threatened and assaulted him (not only limiting the lattermost to something like "did he hit you, and like, closed fist, and i mean pretty hard. well that's just what he's like, you're fine." or the way like sabotaging a toilet is just epic pranks and only a problem if something looks bad to theoretical investors and we should talk about what tmc people might be doing to deserve it) while rian has been holding down the fort bullying and using winston. perfectly in line with everything if this kind of thing prompting any hostility in turn is like, nobody blinks at the other stuff, wherein if anything everyone keeps trying to fix dollar bill's feelings for him and talk about how who he's being awful to needs to appease him asap, and rian simply Wanting to use winston as a chew toy is just taken in stride while separately people have already been motivated by theoretically looking out for her / supporting her in various ways as well. whereas if winston Acts like he regards her as a hostile party, which she is, rather than seeming to operate in good faith that they can have regular constructive basic respect interactions, which he does while those decent interactions seem to come through rarely and unreliably, then i'm sure he'd be seen as mean / starting shit / out of line / etc, especially when it seems him Disrespecting the Rules & Social Hierarchy that should disallow him from like, speaking unless it's to self-flagellate, means people see him as aggressive or whatever. basically the classic scenario like, kid's bullied at school, they're supposed to just ignore it or it's otherwise "not that bad" / stuff gotten away with, even if supposedly it's like well just tell an authority figure here, that won't/doesn't work, any resulting obvious tension/dislike between the kid and whoever is like "uh oh, a Both Sides problem" at best, same if there's a physical fight or something or else it's like well That was unacceptable and if it was initiated by Your reaction to all other kinds of terrible treatment for however long, you're the problem. not that i expect winston to throw a punch about it, but, figuratively / parallel to this scenario

d) winston is sick of his deluxe hostile environment, doesn't actually like whatever coheading changes, sick of rian and/or dollar bill specifically, and/or doesn't appreciate some other goings-on, like one that results in him even being threatened with firing, and gets to just quit as has regularly seemed like something he might want to do anyways since 4x11 and intermittently on

e) not really another Way to imagine they kick him out but was thinking how like, Is a reason we're shown that taylor and rian hugging in the middle of an office was seen by i guess winston alone gonna be further relevant at all and about him making anything of it, which, he really couldn't possibly be wrong about any inferences. but going :/ at the taylor and rian dynamic just as a spontaneous, contained event would be self-explanatory too. but had the thought of like, maybe it's all "well taylor's been here 5 seasons and is in a more prominent position than last season, throw a PR problem at them for the first time for real, just as a shakeup / something that throws them off" wherein like winston wouldn't even have to be there to be cited in something like yeah i was fired or quit or whatever else and my former boss is dating an employee i think. or seems to have a real personal preference for them if not personal somethingship. which is true lmfao like? even if winston ""wrongly"" assumes they're dating like "oh sorry these claims are ridiculous, i only proposed as much to this employee who i already was informally mentoring and do favor such that she was promoted offscreen after like half a season to be able to make trades and this only came up when her using that capacity to do some shit she could've been fired for had me like 'but i'll take the heat for it' b/c any feeling that i'd wanna fire you is worth working through as a personal problem, and that employee turned me down not only just b/c apparently dating through work is too much (but not hooking up through work) but because she's afraid of how much she could love me, and now we're further personal somethings or who even knows what's ever been going on and so who can say if we were supposed to have fully closed the door on dating or not, even." wherein like....someone then doing further research consulting with every named tmc employee, in this hypothetical (and ignoring any hypothetical new, named/dialogued hires) scenario all now Former employees except rian who clearly won't have been firedor quit at the start of season 7, b/c yknow god forbid lmao....like, oh i'm taylor's best friend so no comment except that when i'm mad at them i'll apparently say that i always thought they inhumanly don't have feelings and all, very helpful. then there's like, oh yeah i was taylor's employee and dated them until business misalignments lead to a less than ideal breakup, and then kind of an aftershock of that for fun i guess. and then yeah i was also taylor's employee and knew they were dating another employee and i disapproved if only b/c i told them it could look bad but then also one of the reasons leading up to my quitting was having difficulty getting in touch with them while the other employee lived with them at least part of the time and i didn't seem to be a fan of that bonus access re: discussing business getting in the way of the formal structure / chain of command or whatever at work as well which is part of what i was already there to file a complaint over, so....even just the "it does look bad / people do think you leverage status for access to sex through employees" like no but that's My boss though. but also just that yeah taylor has at least tried to date employees twice, and their personal preference does affect professional matters, though that's also just like, pick any place of work and any slice of it, may not be a meritocracy after all versus how much it matters that some people are popular and/or liked by the right people while others can be recognized as Good Employees on paper but be left where they are or antagonized by peers or higher ups b/c of "failing" at the popularity contest aspect. and this could just be some new Kind of problem for taylor, and/or their just having to question themself more. or else go "ugh leave it to winston" and shrug it off once whatever's smoothed over.

f) winston isn't fully written off but rather it's something zany like, the twist is dollar bill coming back (god forbid he didn't either) while mafee, who evidently sees taylor outside work despite it all, is like eh we'll get dinners sometimes too, and does not likewise return despite saying he's the one who'd consider it. winston, being fired, or having quit, or just being unhappy w/things enough to consider it, is like well you're kind of regular at me sometimes and can't yell at me abt loyalty to taylor if neither of us work for them and you have weird confusing ideas about how they should be loyal to you if anything, and i can do the work of 50 phds, and i know you don't know shit abt the math and quanting but if you just leave it up to me entirely, that's pretty much been my work experience thus far anyways. then he'd be filming on different sets, possibly more rarely, and also dan soder has been likewise elusive but is also on site on the two even vaguely or implicitly [s7 production] related pics will's turned up in.

g) idk billions feel free to prank us where once again between seasons we worry winston could be written off but then he isn't, but elusivity paired with suddenly now castmates w/no mention of him for [march 5th] and [we are doing any bday acknowledgments] overlaps that otherwise get posts, especially. weird even if he Was written out in ep one but okay then

[ylojgtr]

i just watched patrick willem's video from 2018 on the last jedi called "what do we want from a star wars movie?" and im going to share my thoughts because no one can stop me, im 6 years late and i don't care

i like his channel a lot and i think he did a good job explaining it, but i agree maybe 50% with his main point. he says that fans who were upset with tlj were looking for the Star Wars Feeling™️ from a star wars movie, the feeling of nostalgia essentially, and that the eu normalizing explications for everything made fans less open to new stuff. the main thing *i* want to say though is about one of his supporting points: that the prequels didnt feel like star wars in that they weren't relatable like the ot.

i love the prequels man. of course, i grew up with them in a way many didn't (as well as tcw which just serves to heighten the movies), so there's definitely bias, but one thing i love about the prequels *is* that vastly different feeling. looking back, the ot could be described as campy, but every person ive talked to who saw Star Wars in 1977 said the effects and presentation were beyond any immersion they'd ever experienced before. the same cannot be said for ep. 1, even people who got into star wars from that movie (at least that ive heard), despite also being on the cutting edge of movie technology, and obviously the dialogue is way cheesier than anything written by anyone other than george lucas, but all that just adds to the vibes, ya know? the galaxy was in a different time then too, and i can't explain how much fun it is to experience these completely separate times in such a visceral way, intentional or otherwise, when watching through the saga

i hate the sequels. of the 3, tlj is far and away my favourite. i would have LOVED to see what trilogy rian johnson and his team could have cooked up if they'd been given control over the whole thing. i love tfa visually, and introduces some great characters (ahem, KYLO...also finn i love him) but just *feels* like anh remastered. if that's what you wanted, great! but for me, i was just sooo stoked to see what a new era would feel like that it really disappointed me. the main thing i hear from people who like tlj is that it takes the story in a different direction. and while i really appreciate that, and do like the force dyad stuff and finn and roses subplot and the not-lightsaber fight at the end AND what all that stuff means for the saga, it still has that feeling of sameness, at least to me, because it's trying to be something so different. the way i see it, it's trying to be *opposite* of what everyone expects, which means it needs to have that same feel in order to subvert it. which, again, is fine by me! tfa was already done and it has to fit that aesthetic to fit into the trilogy, and im just one fan. of course everyone hates ros which i guess tried to do opposite of what they did opposite in tlj? i don't know what they were on making that movie

another thing i wanted to bring up was the whole interconnectedness of the franchise. patrick brought up the eu to show how fans were taught that every detail has an explanation. no second of the ot was without a dozen books detailing what every character was doing in the background and how they came to be there. his point was that, when new characters are doing new things in unexpected ways, people don't like it cause there isn't a wookiepedia article on it yet to explain it exactly, and that that ties into why people hated tlj. i don't doubt it, but i also want to point out that that eu is a source of a lot of enjoyment too. i don't think he was denying this, or saying it was bad at all, but i just wanted to share that the eu is basically the reason im as big a fan as i am. the idea that everything is connected is appealing to me, and the way that star wars does it, where expanded material takes place in all different times and settings with no correlation to publishing date, just really appealed to me in contrast to the marvel way or any other big franchise like that. in any other series, each new installment progresses time forward. in star wars, we have infinite time to explore any era we want...which brings me back to how much i love the completely different aesthetics from the ot and pt. the variety is so refreshing. the galaxy feels so different between eras where the sequels just make it rebels vs empire again. we already have a billion books on rebels vs empire so...what expanded stories can i look forward to thats different in the sequel era? im sure there are lots, but the difference just won't be as great. also, star wars *is* goofy. patrick says it himself, bringing up that there were a lot more jokes in the ot. id argue the prequels take themselves so seriously that the seriousness becomes the goofiness (and i love it). ive said many times on this blog that i LOVE the stupid part of star wars lore. like yes, the fact that it's explained who the stormtrooper is that han killed and stole armour from and that he's fucking tarkin is SUPER UNNECESSARY but it's FUNNY AS FUCK. no one needs to know palpatines name is sheev but that's the best name ever? the problem isn't the lore, it's when people take it too seriously and don't allow for that innovation to happen that leads to more fun lore and stories. which i think is exactly what patrick was saying, he just didn't emphasize how enjoyable the unnecessary-ness of it all is and how distinct feels in different star wars eras are imperative to all these diverse avenues for story and fun to arise. (now do i think people should be able to survive lightsaber wounds? only cause of how much i love qui-gon, i admit to being a bit angry about that...but at the end of the day i don't really care that much? im here to have fun and yeah ill complain about it sometimes but just cause complaining is also fun)

that's why i love tcw (it fleshes out this distinct time period and political setting) and rebels (again, fleshes out the distinct era of extremely fleeting hope between the empire's reign and the coming of the saviour) and the heir to the empire novels (they establish a new era with a different feel—much more similar to the ot than the prequels are to the ot but still) and kotor (same as with htte but more similar to prequels) and the new jedi order and legacy (although it's also basically rebels vs empire, it has enough of a divergent story and tone that i like it) and the high republic in the disney canon (although i haven't digested as much of it as id like cause fuck disney)

but my main point: the thing i want from new star wars is a mix of things patrick seems to love,l AND things he seems to hate. yes i want it to be star wars, so there's some sort of familiar feeling there that needs to present, but i also want a twist on it. the ot was a classic fairy tale. the prequels were political thrillers (sometimes not so thrilling, but still). other stories people really liked act completely differently again, like the mandalorian being a western and also a heartwarming family bonding adventure or andor being a spy thriller and also the best star wars show. each era or sub-franchise has their distinct aesthetics and feels that future artists can make feel even more distinct and special yet theyre all connected which is just fun don't you think? the sequels would have made me a lot happier if they gave us some new ground for new feels the same way the prequels did. anyway that's my official response no one cares about to a 6 year old video. yay!

[clumsyclifford]

bella I would love a directors cut on literally any of the rilex you’ve written, but specifically it’s always her, and you, and me, or for these days you’ve been stuck in my brain 💙

OHHHHHH those are some CHOICESSSSSS lucy. fuck yeah. let’s get into it. ill link them both here but we’ll take em one at a time

it’s always her, and me, you

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

here’s a cut for convenience cos i KNOW i’m gonna go long here.

okay! let’s start with the rilisex fic.

it’s always her, and me, and you

so like it says in the ao3 notes, this fic came from realizing just how frequently rian and alex kiss each other like, all the time? just? casually? for funsies? this was another one of those situations like i mentioned where the hook aka first line (“Rian's no expert, but he doesn't think normal friends kiss this much.”) just appeared in my head and i was like heyyy that’s a GOOD first line. i have to build from that line. that’s the hook, that’s the summary, that’s the core. 

something i discovered upon searching through the editing history of the doc: i had originally sort of intended to go a direction with this where in some other circumstance, rian would see alex giving jack a super casual friendly kiss and he’d get all sad/jealous and be like sure why SHOULDNT alex kiss jack after all its just a thing he does with his FRIENDS. but the fic ended up going a different way and honestly? im glad. i like this way better.

the role of singin in the rain in this fic actually has a HILARIOUS backstory because the night i originally wrote that conversation in the tour bus kitchen, i went into the club and said the following

and then. the next day. rian streamed with ricky, and i asked if he’d ever seen singin in the rain, and he ANSWERED ME and said he hadn’t. so first of all i had already written the scene and i then had to rewrite it to make it so rian wouldn’t have seen it but also!!! i literally asked rian fucking dawson if he’d seen a movie for the sole reason of using that information for fanfiction!!!! and he provided me with the information i needed!!!! whole thing is just fucking hysterical to me. ANYWAY.

ANYWAY, the other reason why sitr has such a big role in the fic is because megs and i watched the movie together while i was in the middle of working on the fic, so it was extremely fresh in my mind. in fact i can probably show you this: i had this comment left for myself when i was kind of trying to figure out if i could make a real metaphor of sorts with the sitr ot3 and the Big Three of this fic. some of this ended up in rian’s wild musings in the hotel scene but i did conclude that it wouldn’t really have worked and that was definitely true but anyway. fuck it, director’s cut, here’s the kind of shit i leave for myself to refer to

so that’s part of the reason why it became such a puzzle piece of this fic, but real talk, it’s also just because i love singin in the rain it’s one of my favorite movies lmao

briefly gonna also touch on lisa and why she’s in this fic because i realize that rian/alex/lisa is an interesting approach to rilex! first of all, i love lisa. i love alex and lisa. and it occurred to me that there was really no reason to split lisex up just to make rilex happen. plus there’s this tweet that really just pushed me over the edge of being like yeah, rilisex is extremely plausible. so that’s that on that.

as for the scene in the hotel room while they’re watching sitr, there is a small piece of that scene - from when alex starts kissing rian’s shoulders etc to “it would defy the laws of nature not to” - that i actually wrote before anything else in that scene. that small piece got stretched out and edited quite a bit from how it started but it did function as a sort of foundation around which i built the rest of the scene, because that small section sort of ~came to me~ absolutely out of nowhere, and i really liked the Vibe it had and i wanted to include it. i THINK that was the only piece of this fic that i wrote Out Of Order - for the most part this was written chronologically.

ALSO!!! omg this is exciting, this fic actually has a deleted scene!!!!!! i hate cutting scenes but i also hate having scenes that are less than 1k and this one didn’t really contribute much to the fic. i can probably share it here right? sure why not ! hopefully you can read this. it originally took place after the scene where alex and rian call lisa for the first time. the question of “what gets left into interview videos and what gets cut” is also just interesting to me as a (fic) concept in general so...eyes emoji, but here’s my mini-exploration that i cut from the original fic. enjoy lol it’s silly <3

oh! also one more thing!! the very final scene was included for two reasons. the first reason being that when i write getting-together fics, i really prefer to add on a scene After they Get Together because i love to write domestic established relationship stuff and i think that’s a satisfying reward for a reader who’s just slogged through all the mutual pining and bullshit to get the characters together. but the OTHER reason is that i got an anon (here it is!) and i read that ask and was immediately like well shit. now i have to fucking include this. for the anon and for myself. so you can thank that anon for that last scene. (also i wanted to include merrikat especially since i had to cut their little moment in the interview scene above.)

so....................whew. i think i’ve bled that fic dry. holy shit that’s a lot of Stuff. OKAY! let’s move on.

~

these days you’ve been stuck in my brain

so!!! THIS fic was the breakthrough after (what felt like) a long bout of writer’s block. long for me was maybe two weeks, but i am the kind of person who is always writing, and two weeks was a long time to go with little to no inspiration/motivation to write anything. i had also been in a weird narrative headspace because i’d been binge-watching disney shows (jessie > austin and ally > girl meets world) and i don’t know how well i can explain this but the way those shows are written is a lot snappier and cares way less for realistic and consistent character development or plots or relationships, and so i was stuck between caring a lot about including those things in my fics but also being unable to conceptualize them in writing because my brain was in Disney Writing Mode. does that make sense? this is rhetorical so let’s go with yes. so anyway. i was in a slump

actually what i ended up doing was basically googling something like “au prompts tumblr” or something and just scrolling through posts. i saw something about soulmate telepathy and i actually tried to write something totally different before i wrote this one, but the first attempt was a different concept and then the direction i took it was like......it wasn’t quite right and i realized that i was kind of writing dark disney style? there is really no way for me to explain what i mean by that because it seems really obvious to me but that’s just because i’m inside my own head so just take my word. 

anyway. attempt #1 of soulmate telepathy rilex went poorly, and this fic was attempt #2. i kinda took the soulmate telepathy thing and changed it as i saw fit and i also went back to skim helen’s telepathy fic because obviously she’s the pro and then i tried not to steal her ideas. and as i was writing it i kinda realized i was doing the whole quirky funny best friend character with jack and also doing the whole “somehow this not-very-dramatic situation with teenagers is treated as The Most Dramatic Thing Ever and that’s totally normal and nobody finds it strange” disney trope with rian and alex being soulmates and i was like (deep sigh) i have to accept that no matter how much i try to fight this, this fic is going to be tainted with disney. and that’s life

on top of that i will add that the real-life rilex were extremely inspiring during the two-day period during which i wrote this fic, because that was when the once in a lifetime video came out and in the brief pre-video livestream rilex were Beyond Married and that definitely helped in the writing of fic rilex!

hmmmm what can i tell you about this fic itself.................honestly, i don’t think there’s much to tell! rian is a band kid because in real life rian was a band kid and he’s staff manager at rita’s just like he was in real life. there is truthfully not a lot to unpack here that i can think of!

oh here’s something i guess: rian and alex go on a date in this fic! that is because watching So Much Disney made me realize that i often forget the fact that people just. go on dates. sometimes. look i clearly do not have an active romantic life but i also really liked the idea of alex and rian going on a date despite not knowing if they’d be soulmates or not and liking each other organically just by getting to know each other, rather than being victim to the whole soulmate thing. like i wanted them to build a connection so that they would want to be soulmates. and then the audience would want that for them too. stakes!! very important.

i can tell you i had a mild crisis over the title of the fic because i am not a fan of the word brain and i didnt wanna use that sticky lyric for the title when it had a word i hated but it was objectively a much better title option than the other one i had, which was “sticky just like the song in my head” but i obviously decided on the former and it has not upset me nearly as much as i expected it to so that was the right decision imo

so! i think that’s all on that! sorry (?) that it got so long although then again i don’t know what’s to be expected in a director’s cut for two long fics but thank you for asking me about these, i love them both so very much rilex is so supremely underrated but so very important

[nothingunrealistic]

just for fun, some snapshots of this fic as it was being written, with commentary. under a cut to avoid dumping dozens of screenshots in a row on anyone’s dash. also i’m going to reblog this and add some more because tumblr is cutting me off from saving any more changes but i’m not done saying what i wanted to say.

i got this prompt back in july, dropped it into a new google doc, and then didn’t do anything with it until october. as you can see, i didn’t immediately have any good ideas, so i just let it percolate in the back of my mind (along with one or two dozen other writing prompts and projects) for a while.

then, three and a half months later, i finally had an idea! at three in the morning! (not pictured: half a dozen links to pages about autistic burnout, meltdowns, and shutdowns. research is important but it’s not as fun to look at.)

sometimes you think of dialogue well before you think of how to fit it into a scene.

this was eleven days later.

finally! some actual prose! and a way to tie the story to the events of canon! (after this, i worked on this particular fic every day until it was done.)

just putting stuff in brackets works basically every time. the bracketed notes start out as a more high-level interview of what’s going to happen, then get broken down / separated / elaborated on further until they pretty much stand in for individual paragraphs / sentences / lines of dialogue or inner monologue.

see: stuff from the Big Block Of Text getting copied and pasted to where it should be.

pretty sure *this* big block of text got written on one of the rare occasions where i actually managed to write for the entire hour i have set aside specifically For writing. if i were to break down the revision history further, it’d almost certainly show that many of these paragraphs started out as bracketed not-quite-prose, some of which still remained at this point. (also pictured: one particular line from mafee that did not make it into the final draft.)

more details from canon and just details in general.

mafee does Not have rights. (also, it turns out it’s much easier for someone to press their hands against their whole face if they’re not wearing glasses.)

by far the funniest change i made while writing this.

writing any new character’s pov is an adventure in trying to nail down how they’d talk inside their own head. doubly true for any new billions character given that no one talks like a normal person on billions; triply true when it’s a character like rian who Knows no one talks normally and is trying to fit in with the Accepted Dialect.

i’m like dropping hints that winston is having a bad time right now.

winston is having a bad time right now.

rip post-it note fidgeting; long live pen fidgeting. (another research topic: what *do* quants do all day that they might still be working on late at night? well, possibly, backtesting and optimization of algorithms.)

two character threads that started here: rian trying (and ultimately failing) not to make it obvious that she Cares about winston, and winston speaking more tersely than usual, for obvious reasons.

i watched Many clips from the show trying to figure out whether the doors at axe capital ever stayed open on their own, what sound they made when people opened them, and if it was even plausible for characters to hear construction noise through the glass when the doors were shut. (on that last point, i ultimately decided that if the mase cappers could hear becky lynch yelling through a closed door — and most likely they did hear her before they saw her — they could certainly hear power tools.)

“everyone else went home” was the best reason for mafee to walk back into the tmc office that i could think of. he just wants to hang out with Someone yknow?

mafee’s made the noise worse not only by leaving the door open, but also by sitting down loudly and talking a lot!

mafee’s use of “quisling” is a very specific shoutout to the incident he’s describing. axe declared that there was a quisling in the office; mafee had to ask what that meant, and donnie defined it for him; a few episodes later, mafee went out of his way to drop “quisling” into the conversation when talking about it to someone he wanted to impress.

getting the wording of this exchange just right was tricky. also rip mafee’s chair spinning.

switched up the placement of hammer noises and drill noises so that it’d be a Continuous, unrelenting noise that forced mafee to talk louder still and ultimately became too much for winston.

also had to figure out how to fit this comment from mafee into the flow of the scene.

mafee jumps to act as soon as he realizes something’s wrong; rian thinks about what the best course of action would be first.

rian’s got a pretty idealistic perspective on how taylor operates. (this connects nicely to a canon comment from wendy about how taylor tries “to solve every problem [they] see.”) she’s also still working out How people talk here.

wanted to include this early point about it being quieter in taylor’s office, but i couldn’t really make it work.

this was the first point at which i had a clear idea of how this fic was going to end / would conclude in any satisfactory way. bringing that “rian cares but doesn’t want that to be Known” detail full circle.

punctuation pickiness! (and the door is finally closed!)

you know what sounds even worse than metal on wood? metal on metal!

i spent so much of one day just working on these few paragraphs.

and then i got the idea to throw in rian’s recollection of winston’s description of the mase cap office either late that night or the next morning and wrote most of it down while sitting through a meeting. (ft. more emphasis on the Separation between rian and winston & taylor.)

DUMBO is an acronym (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) but it isn’t always written in all caps. i found a style guide (from a college department in nyc, though i can’t remember which one) that declared it should be written as Dumbo rather than DUMBO and decided to go with that.

mafee is WELL out of the loop here. no wonder he wants to leave.

i went pretty hard on “mafee is being Less Than Kind And Understanding about this whole situation” and eventually had to have him walk it back with “well i didn’t WANT him to suffer or anything.”

this is everything i managed to get done in the Designated Writing Hour (and then some) the night that the supernatural finale aired. oops.

i was torn between rian hearing Something to alert her of taylor’s presence and hearing nothing at all; ultimately i chose the latter. (this revision was also from the brief period of time where i changed the google doc to a landscape layout in the hopes that the Changed Visual would shake some more ideas loose. it worked, a bit.)

see: rian Not hearing taylor.

this detail was added pretty late — one of the last changes i’d made the day before posting. (i’d also switched the google doc back to portrait mode at this point.)

[dalekofchaos]

Why do you think Finn and Rose were broken up in between TLJ and TROS?

I’d say it results in a few things

Racist toxic assholes who harassed Loan Tran won and JJ and Terrio kowtowing to the racists and sexist assholes for reducing Rose altogether

The popularity of Finnpoe/Stormpilot and Finnrey overshadowed Rose as a character and her possible relationship with Finn. The tie in novel just showed that the author preferred Finnpoe and wrote Finnrose out of the picture because of that. And….it was all FOR NOTHING! Finn and Poe did not get together and Finn and Rey did not get together. So Finn and Rose were broken up for absolutely nothing, the racists won and Finn ends up alone. It’s as if someone was afraid of an interracial relationship between a black man and a asian woman. 

John Boyega. I am not referring to his “not being able to handle it” comment about KMT  as John has apologized for it. After TROS, he has obviously shown visible disdain for TLJ and TROS. Clearly he viewed Finn’s dynamic with Rose as a downgrade to the kind of character he was playing in TFA. He has shown that he prefers Rey and Poe and obviously shows he did not view Finn’s time with Rose very highly.

I just think it’s a real shame. I like their dynamic very much. I do still feel like there are internalized racist overtones with how Rian wrote them and it could have been written better, but I still like Finn and Rose together. These are two characters who lost their families to The First Order. We could’ve gotten a scene of Finn and Rose talk about their families in TLJ. Finn would say he was taken from his family by The First Order and never really knew them. Rose empathizes with Finn’s trauma and acknowledge that they are both cut from the same cloth. Rose and Paige lost their family and home and Finn lost his family and home, they have something in common and a reason to fight for The Resistance and against The First Order. Could’ve just cut the hostility altogether if you just let the characters empathize with each other.

Finn has shown throughout TLJ that he does care about Rose. He listened to her vent about the atmosphere of worlds like Canto Bight, he cared about making them hurt, cared about Rose’s attachment to Rose’s twin pendant, cared when Rose crashed into him and cared enough to carry Rose and cover her up when Rose was knocked out from the crash. Rose was enamored by Finn’s courageous actions from TFA. Escaping the First Order and leading The Resistance into destroying Starkiller Base. But, ultimately disappointed after discovering that he wanted to escape. Rose was in mourning and thought it was a dishonor to her sister. But ultimately they decided to work together and get along better and become close. Rose is obviously infatuated with Finn and wanted him safe after Phasma’s defeat and cared enough to save him from a pointless sacrifice. She kissed him because she loved him. Finn and Rose care about each other and it could’ve been more if they were allowed to.

Finn and Rose had chemistry and excellent potential for a relationship. There was no reason whatsoever to kill the potential. It was simply to please the Finnpoe/Finnrey crowd and to appeal to the racists and sexists who harassed KMT.

Instead of just passing off the kiss as a “heat of the moment” in the tie in novels and dismissing their relationship, Finn could’ve simply just kissed Rose back and they embrace each other.

What should have happened in TROS is that Finn and Rose are sent on a mission to start a Stormtrooper Rebellion. Just imagine Finn goes to Hux’s flagship and Rose helps using her skills to help Finn to broadcast a signal to every Stormtrooper. I think it could be something like this. “My name is Finn, I was FN-2187, a Stormtrooper. Like every one of you, I was taken from a family I will never know. I was raised to do one thing… but my first battle, my friend Slip died and that death marked me and made me realize We are people and we have a choice. I wasn’t gonna kill for them. I had nothing to fight for. Until I met my friends, they gave me a name, a purpose and something worth fighting for.(cue Finn smiling at Rose) So I am here to tell you.  You have a choice. You are people. You do not have to kill for them anymore. Take back your lives and fight the people who took your lives away from you. I am giving you the one choice they never gave you and choose for yourselves. You can either storm this very room and kill us or you can take back your lives. The choice is yours.” Then we get a very emotional scene of Stormtroopers led by Finn’s last surviving Squad member, Zeroes removing his helmet and tossing it to the ground and then we see hundreds, to thousands of Stormtroopers ripping their helmets off and tossing them to the ground. Officers DEMAND they put their helmet back on and kill The Resistance scum, but they don’t. It happens. Rebellion.  Finn and Rose have successfully led a Stormtrooper Rebellion and together burn The First Order from the inside out and Rose could say something that calls back to TLJ. “It was worth it, though. To tear them up, make ‘em hurt.” Finn would embrace Rose in a kiss and say “Now it’s worth it.” And you could’ve had the conclusion to Finn’s story by having Hux at Finn’s mercy. Hux is begging for his life, saying he will call for The First Order’s complete and unconditional surrender and giving Finn and the rest of the Stormtroopers info of their families and planets. But the defected Stormtroopers want blood. All the Stormtroopers who left the First Order because of Finn are telling him he has to kill Hux while Rose is telling him killing Hux will not be right. Finn makes the decision to spare Hux. Finn tells his brothers and sisters “that’s how we’re going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.” Inspired by Rose, Finn let’s  go of his past and takes Hux in alive so he can answer for his crimes. 

It wouldn’t change anything if Rose were in the mission with Finn, Poe and Rey. Finn, Rose and Poe is a more believable trio than Rey, Finn and Poe. Rey seemed to largely annoyed by Finn and Poe’s mere presence all movie. Seeing Finn, Rose and Poe together would’ve just been good, and wouldn’t it make more sense to use Rose’s mechanical skills to get 3PO to learn the Sith language to decipher the Sith dagger? And really, why was Finn just given a new dynamic with Jannah? They pretty much erased Finn’s ENTIRE NARRATIVE by making Jannah a new Stormtrooper who rebelled and was not inspired by Finn’s defection. Could’ve had Finn and Rose hug, forehead kiss her goodbye and kiss her after the battle was over. 

But no, they deliberately left Rose out of the adventure. They just had Finn pat her on the shoulder. It came off as a giant middle finger to the fans of their relationship and their dynamic. Then Finn is back to being someone who is just clingy to Rey. The entire point of Finn’s character arc in TLJ is that he needs to live for more than just himself and Rey. He learned that Rey is not his only reason for being. So not only was Rey’s character horribly regressed, it was Finn. He was right back to screaming WOOOOO and REEEEEEYYYYYY. Good fucking god. No wonder everyone now ships Rose with Hux. You gave up a connection to Kylo from Jakku, gave up on trying to resolve the fact that Poe killed Slip and changed Finn’s existence and gave up a Stormtrooper Rebellion.....FOR FUCKING SPACE HORSES. So stupid

They could be more than their past, their trauma and build a future together. Finn could finally move beyond Rey. Finn could take Rose’s last name and get both first and family name from his friends and loved ones. Finn Tico. Now that’s a big deal.

[skekheck]

In that same vein, how about gelfling ranking??? OwO

Warning this post may contain lightly spiced opinions. Also not going to list all of them because there’s a lot...

BUT HERE WE GOOOOOO

1. Seladon: Say what you want with how AOR handled her redemption arc, but she’s by far the most interesting and complexly written gelfling character in the series. She was raised with a lot of pressure, being the eldest daughter of the all Maudra. She had to train hard and taught by a mother who never really showed her love or recognize her accomplishments. Most scenes she’s in with Mayrin her mother criticizes her constantly. Seladon was raised to serve the skeksis and that their word is law and true. And then suddenly her mother and her younger sister who she had a strained relationship are planning to flip it upside down. Lead by the being who represents all of Thra who hasn’t been seen or heard of in forever. And then her mother was murdered for treachery and further being manipulated by the beings she was taught to serve. Does any of this excuse what she did? Of course not, but constantly seeing people berate her over actual genocidal turkeys is very telling how people’s biases get in the way of what’s going on. But at the same time, a character generating this much discussion for her gray morale is proof of how great of a character she is. Also she rocks the goth look. 

2. Kylan: Sweetest boy. Because he’s a minor character in AOR, I’m going to be talking about him from the books. His characterization was inconsistent in Shadows, but they became clearer in Song thanks to the fact his story was told from his perspective. He never really fit into anything: his parents were taken from him at an young age, his step-mother was not very kind to him despite loving him, he never fit in as a Spriton. Now, being part of a resistance of fighters, he once again feels inadequate as a songteller. How can a songteller fight the skeksis? Kylan struggled with self-worth, constantly comparing himself to his peers. But through his travels, he discovers that he has a place in the resistance and there are things that he can do that no one else can. He took on and defeated skekLi the Satirist through playing is firca (and aided by the mystics). Kylan was able to engrave dreametches (a rare and hard to learn skill) into the petals of the Sanctuary Tree to get the word out about the skeksis. He even saved Tavra’s life. He may be the broth boy in AOR, but he’s the smart, shy but very sweet songteller and I think more people should acknowledge that. 

3. Tavra: Absolute MVP in both AOR and the book series. There are things I wish AOR kept about her, like her relationship with Onica (but I feel this can still be remedied if they find the right way to include it). She was the glue in her relationship with her sisters, keeping them together even after she “passed away”. Although it took her a while to get there, Tavra shined even brighter in the books. After losing her original body, she lives the rest of her life as a spider. Like Kylan, she was having her own self-doubts of what she could do with her new body. She does manage to find ways to work around her predicament, but seeing what sacrifices she would have to make (like not being able to see her sisters ever again) is heart breaking. Whatever her situation may be, in both iterations her bravery is commendable and I absolutely adore her character.

4. Periss: So this is my complete bias coming in, but I loved this character. Although he’s not my favorite from the book series anymore, he still remains high on my list. He’s a rebel: he hates his clan and their complacent ways. He knew their Great Tree was alive, but no one listened to him as they thought he wasn’t able to let go. He fought with his brother, sandmaster Erimon, to the point he decided to run away. Periss became a thief who grew a fondness for materialism, as opposed to a clan who lives on minimalism. When the main group finds him after stealing from them, they force him to get them to the Dousan Clan and indirectly confront his problems. It’s there that we find he’s not completely selfish and cares for those around him. I adore smug thief characters with a heart of gold and Periss quickly grew on me. Please be in future seasons.

5. Onica: While a minor character in AOR, she plays a bigger role in the book series. Her characterization is similar, but we get to see more of her: she has a backstory and established relationships with other characters. She lost her wings while stuck in a storm, losing her wings by saving one of her friends. Although she mourns over the loss, she will never regret doing what she did and even concluding that meeting Tavra was worth it. She’s also got a little sass to her and I love how she doesn’t take shit from no one. I hope we get to see this version of Onica in future seasons.

6. Naia: Once again, book series does her more justice. She’s a headstrong badass who cares about her family and goes through great lengths to find her brother. Like a lot of her friends, she has her own problems of fitting in into the grand scheme of things and eventually doubting herself when she believed her one special gift was taken from her. Also she had a super interesting expansion on her dreamfasting ability where not only could she dreamfast with animals but also with the skeksis/mystics (with Gurjin involved). She doesn’t take shit and she gets stuff done no matter how hard it is. 

7. Maudra Argot: Sassy, doesn’t take any shit, should have been the All Maudra. How dare Mayrin rob that from her?

8. Maudra Seethi: My favorite maudra only for the tiniest bit of lore about her and design. I want to know more about you. Gimmie more lore.

9.  Rek’yr: He’s really cool, but there’s not much to him. Hopefully we get a prequel comic starring him soon.

10.  Kira: Should have been the protagonist of the movie. She’s a cute bog princess with a noisy rolly polly dog, can speak to animals, used said animals to kill a skeksis, knows how to use throwing weapons, what’s not to love? Sequel comics ruined her, though.

11.  Brea: I love her inquisitiveness and her need to find the truth. I said this before, but my friend and I joked she was BOTW!Zelda and that still sticks with me. The two are so much alike. Brea is my favorite out of the main trio, but I wished she was as developed as her sisters.

12.  Gurjin: I like him just fine. I don’t really get why people are so thirsty for him but everyone’s got different interests. He is really funny though and kiddos to him for staying strong while being tortured by the skeksis. He’s kind of the odd one out as I like him better in AOR than I did in the book series. I mean we didn’t really get to know him until Flames and by then he just couldn’t leave an impression on me.

13.  Mira: Should have been alive instead of Rian. I kinda really wanted an all girl trio.

14.  Maudra Ethri: I wish they kept her gem eye that was really cool.

15. Maudra Fara: She’s cool. That’s all I can really say.

16.  Maudra Mayrin: Conflicted. One hand I understand why she acts the way she does but on the other hand that doesn’t excuse her from treating Seladon so poorly. Even when she finally steps up to the skeksis I don’t think it really makes up for what she did. A golden star for trying, though.

17.  Elder Cadia: Who?

18.  Deet: Okay I might get some salty fans on me but... I don’t particularly care for Deet? Like she’s cute and should be protected, but that’s really it. She’s just cute. It’s cool to see things from her perspective: the surface world of Thra is so new and newcomers to the series can see its wonders and dangers through her. But there’s not much else. Hopefully this changes but I’m not very impressed.

19.  Rian: Now I don’t mind him, but I think I fell into the camp of I wish Mira was alive instead. He’s the typical hero character who’s needlessly surrounded by tragedy. The show never really gets him to mourn properly. And then he just moves on from Mira to Deet just like that? He’s also not really interesting as a character. He’s my least favorite of the main trio.

20.  Ordon:  I like him, but I don’t think he was very rememberable. I think he resolved his issues with his son too quickly and as soon as they reunite Ordon is killed off. His sacrifice wasn’t even worth it because skekMal survived anyway. Ordon’s death felt cheap, adding needless trauma and sorrow for Rian who was already dealing with the loss of Mira. Ordon deserved better.

21.  Amri: Okay here’s another take people might get salty over: he’s boring. he had promise being a weird experimenter, but we don’t really get to see much of that except for a few instances. Amri had a collection of jars full of weird junk he made. They were brought up in Song and never again. I’m not sure why he became the protagonist of Tides I feel like he should have remained as a side character. He just never made an impression on me.

22.  Jen: As interesting as white bread. I haven’t read the novelization of the movie yet so this opinion may change, but he’s just... not interesting. Also the sequel comics totally ruined him for me.

23. Kensho: I keep forgetting him most of the time. He’s boring.

24. Maudra Mera: Fuck this racist bitch. Worst gelfling 0/10.

[militant-holy-knight]

Kingdom of Heaven Review: Secular Agnostic Humanist Crusader Edition

Whenever the topic of Ridley Scott’s 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven comes up, it invariably brings up how it’s one of his most mediocre movies and that “the Director’s Cut is better”. This makes sense since the movie actually had a very mixed reception when it was first released on theaters, as critics lambasted the cliched plot and characters and overall being all style and no substance. As it turns out, several changes were made behind the scenes by executives who felt the movie ran too long and cut scenes they felt were appropriate, but actually improved the story.

I’ve heard so many people praising the Director’s Cut to the point they even said it was an “whole different movie”, which was very confusing to me, and made me wonder if they actually saw it and aren’t parroting someone else. Now don’t get me wrong: it’s true that the Director’s Cut is the superior version to the theatrical one and does fix issues like character motivations and actions, it doesn’t even come close to fixing the foundation which it was built on: an extremely politically-biased and revisionist distortion, product of someone molded by their own time period than anything else. 

The characters have anachronistic attitudes that are out of place specially at the heart of an holy war. The sympathetic characters - whether Christians or Muslims - can be identified as secular humanists that express religious tolerance and would rather live and let live, whereas antagonistic characters are characterized by their religious fanaticism. Baldwin IV and Saladin would rather live in peace with each other, but are beleaguered by the circumstances of their followers who clamor for war. This portrayal couldn’t be more absurd and further from the truth because the “peace” between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubi Caliphate was not meant to last forever, but more until both sides regrouped and rearmed to resume hostilities like an armistice, not to mention the fact both monarchs were extremely pious in their faiths (Catholicism and Sunni Islam, respectively) and considered themselves their staunch defenders. 

This is no accident. Ridley Scott is an agnostic and has admitted at multiple occasions that he used it as an opportunity to criticize religion. Perhaps the most illustrative moment where this attitude sweeps in is during the climax when Jerusalem is eventually besieged and Balian delivers an speech to the army that boils down to “Jerusalem belongs to everyone”, which simply wouldn’t fly with the Christians at the time. Consider in that era where even people of their own faiths struggled among each other (The Kingdom of Jerusalem was Latin Catholic and other Christians like Orthodox, Armenians and Copts were often regarded as schismatics, while Sunnis and Shias were at war with each other like they always do), can you imagine if someone actually said that in regards to other religions?!?

A particularly inconvenient aspect of the movie that is clear for everyone who sees it is that only the Christian side is the only one truly hit with the fanaticism issue, whereas Muslims comes off as cleaner. When you really come down to it, the crusader side is filled with more despicable villains who are named, whereas the Muslim side has one token nameless mullah who is an asshole to Saladin, threatening him that if he doesn’t give them Jerusalem, they will kill him and find someone who can - that is about the extent of his villainy. There is also a Saracen rider that wants to duel Balian at one point, but he is just some random threat thrown in, and it’s later revealed he was an slave masquerading as someone else. 

Now compare this with Balian’s asshole priest brother who steals his wife’s crucifix, the slimy Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Guy of Gisborne and Raynald of Chatillon, both of whom are generic warmongers that just want to kill infidels for no reason, the former kills an emissary which constitutes as an offense worthy of Genghis Khan’s wrath while the latter rapes and kills Saladin’s sister. What makes this worse is that none of these are true: The Patriarch actually helped ransom people during the Siege of Jerusalem, Guy wasn’t particularly better or worse than his contemporaries and if anything, he was regarded as an weakling rather than a bloodthirsty thug, whereas Raynald never even attacked Saladin’s sister (according to Arab sources) and while he was still a very violent man, it was the result of being held 16 years in a prison under Muslims in Aleppo and in the end, he died like a Christian martyr to jihadist terrorism - being told by Saladin to convert to Islam or die, which he picked the latter. 

You can tell when certain fedoralords say they hate religion actually hate Christianity only, and this is the tone that oozes from this movie. No wonder a historian once called this movie “al-Qaeda’s version of the story” because Christians commit horrible atrocities against innocent Muslims hence Muslim aggression by Saladin is justified. If anything Bin Laden likely envisioned himself as an modern-day Saladin, hoping to unite the Muslim world against the “Eternal Crusader”. The lionizing of Saladin is laughable given the fact that until recent memory he was an obscure figure on account of being Kurdish, but was co-opted by Arab Muslims as their hero. I wonder how would audiences feel that Saladin had half Jerusalem’s population enslaved which is something he actually did in real life instead of letting them go like in the movie.....

There are also other problems with the movie besides religion that even the Director’s Cut couldn’t fix like Balian’s character. I already went over how he is representative of the movies’s secular humanist themes, but there is a lot more wrong with him beyond that. Simply put, he is the most vanilla flavor protagonist, devoid of charisma or flaws, and comes across as a Marty Stu when you think about it: a nobody who is revealed to be the bastard son of some crusader baron that just so happens to be influential enough with Jerusalem’s nobility that everyone good immediately befriends him. He has a tragic backstory that makes him an atheist, but is perfect and devoid of any flaws and is written in such way that serves as a surrogate for the audience. By contrast, his historical counterpart was a knight born and raised in Jerusalem who was actually devout and politically shrewd, which comes across as more interesting and Arab Muslims agreed since they wrote “he was like a king”. But nope. Can’t have that because Balian is actually Scott’s self-insert by his own admission and we can’t have a guy like real-life Balian because modern audiences can’t identify with him.

Scott seriously misunderstood the Knight Templars. Naturally like our lead villains they are also genocidal maniacs, but also appear to be a secular noble/warrior class of some kind since Guy and Raynald are affiliated with them (they weren’t in real life), and it’s a plot point that Guy is engaged with Baldwin’s sister Princess Sybilla. Templars made vows of chastity and poverty, schewing all property and titles so it makes no sense for either of them being part of the order, much less for a Templar to become king. (Afonso Henriques of Portugal was at least a former Templar).

And then there are the geo-politics... Even though Scott denied that the movie was an metaphor, it certainly comes across this way with characters talking about how much wealth they made from the campaigns as if this was the American intervention in the Middle-East for oil. Jerusalem had no resources, no real treasures except maybe the True Cross which had great emotional value for the Christians and in fact, it was the other way around: it was far more expensive, having to secure resources, armor and weaponry to join the crusade with the likely risk of death with no returning home with the only comfort being remission of sins in case of falling in battle.

The Crusades were precipitated by Muslim aggression in the first place, namely the Seljuk Turks who crushed the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Mazinkert and began persecuting Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, not to mention the subhuman conditions that Eastern Christians found themselves as dhimmis under Islamic rule. When framed this manner, the wrath of Latin Catholics hearing the atrocities carried out by the Turks is quite justified. Could Scott himself say this is justified compared to how much Muslim caravans were attacked by Templars on his movie?

So to sum things up: we have liberal political bias that portrays one side as the assholes while the others justified in retaliating, a perfect protagonist that is clearly a self-insert, generic villains that are evil for no reason other than being Christian, historical inaccuracies, white-washing certain figures while removing all nuance and depth from others, honestly embarrassing analogies with modern topics that stick out like a sore thumb. And in the end, for you to walk away with not much. I am sorry but even the Director’s Edition didn’t make things significantly better because the movie’s issues lies at their conceptual form: Balian is still a Marty Stu, the Christians are largely one-dimensional evil, the Muslims are honorable and enlightened, etc. You can’t make a story engaging when the setting is revolving around religious conflict and the leads are all secularists, or else it shows how much “smarter than thou” attitude you have.

I’ve heard about how Scott got into a spat with the British historian community who made very clear how his movie was bollocks. A common defense on his behalf is that he isn’t obligated to tell history like how it was and he made the movie he felt best, which is honestly just baffling because it’s very insulting towards the audience. I am not saying that the audience should be challenged (at least not in a Rian Johnson way), but imagine if Raynald’s captivity was brought up and his death was portrayed in redemptive fashion after all his atrocities, imagine Saladin preaching jihad against the crusaders, imagine Balian breaking his oath, etc. Now that would have made an more memorable movie instead of the one who is remembered for his slightly better version released separately. Certainly history had a better story to tell than Ridley Scott.

Like what Amin Maalouf, author of “The Crusades through Arab Eyes” once said.

It does not do any good to distort history, even if you believe you are distorting it in a good way. Cruelty was not on one side but on all.

[megashadowdragon]

on lukes moment of weakness and how it is fitting for luke  among other comments

Personally I TOTALLY believe that George's Luke would have been VERY similarly to Rian's Luke.

And here is the reason why.... Luke has almost always been George's insert (lucas pronunced luke S )  and it makes total sense for Luke to be "exiled" and secluded away just as George became with Star Wars after the backlash of the prequels. But at the end of it, he comes back and stands up for what makes Star Wars what it is. Which is what Luke does for the Jedi and themes of Star Wars by the end of TLJ. He has learned from his mistakes, atoned for them, found redemption, confronted those he has failed, inspired hope, and learned to show compassion once again.

Now while George may have done it differently, I do believe that Luke being in exile was a metaphor for George's own relationship with Star Wars and its fandom.

www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/ebb4f3/lukes_momentaneous_thought_of_killing_ben_solo/

I know I'm stepping on dangerous territory here by talking about The Last Jedi, and I only do this because I think this is an interesting take on a key moment of the movie. Just bear in mind that I do not intend to make my point-of-view the absolute truth of it. After all, this is just my opinion.

We all know very well how divisive Episode VIII was, with many people pationately hating that movie. One of the main reasons of complaint is the fact Luke Skywalker had attempted to kill his apprentice and nephew, Ben Solo, because he sensed the Dark Side to be too strong in the latter. Luke Skywalker, the only person in the entire galaxy that saw there was still light in Darth Vader, tried to kill his relative. When even Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had lost all hope Anakin could be saved, Luke helped putting him on the path of redemption, helping Vader turn back to the Light and fulfill the prophecy of the Chosen One. It seems to be an insult that this same character gave up on his nephew so easily and tried to kill him.

I believe things must be analyzed more carefully.

I've just finished marathoning the Skywalker Saga (by the way, I STRONGLY recommend the Ersnt Rister order: IV-V-I-II-III-VI) and noticed something very interesting while watching Return Of The Jedi.

During the final moments of Luke and Vader's duel aboard the Death Star II, we see the young Jedi Knight wants to avoid fighting his father so as not to fall in the trecharous web of Palpatine, who wants to turn the young Skywalker to the Dark Side. Luke is hiding beneath the Emperor's throne. Vader chases him and, through the Force, reads Luke's thoughts to lure him into confrontation:

You cannot hide forever, Luke. Give yourself to the Dark Side. It is the only way you can save your friends. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... sister! So, you have a twin sister!

In this moment, we see Luke's face and he's completely terrified by the idea Darth Vader found out about his sister. It is something new and Luke fears for Leia's well-being. Also, we hear from Vader's words that he cares a lot about his friends, the people he loves. Vader continues:

Your feelings have now betrayed her too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, THEN PERHAPS SHE WILL!

Now we have something different. Since he was brought before the Emperor, Luke had been constatly confronted by Palpatine and Vader with the idea of him turning to the Dark Side. When Vader talks about the possibility of that happening to Leia, it's not a threat directed to him, but to someone he loves. In this moment, Luke loses it completly and attacks Vader viciously, totally enraged. The Sith Lord can't stand the power of his son, fuelled by hate and falls to the ground, defeated. In this moment Luke is prepared to make the final blow, but then he hears Palpatine laughing and clapping. This makes him go back to his senses and realize what he's been doing. He then turns off his lightsaber and refuses to kill his father.

"I'm a Jedi, like my father before me" and so on... we know what happens, so let's fast-forward to The Last Jedi.

When Luke is confronted by Rey, who demands him to tell what had happened between him and Kylo Ren, we learn how things unfolded through Luke's perspective:

I saw darkness. I sensed it building in him. I'd seen it in moments during his training. But then I looked inside, and it was beyond what I ever imagined.

In this moment of the flashback we see Luke's hand reaching out to his lightsaber, almost unconsciously. He then proceeds:

. He would bring destruction and pain and death, AND THE END OF EVERYTHING I LOVE BECAUSE OF WHAT HE WILL BECOME, AND FOR THE BRIEFEST MOMENT OF PURE INSTINCT, I THOUGHT I COULD STOP IT.

Here it is again. Like in Episode VI, we see Luke reacting in a similar way by the notion of something posing a threat not to him, but to the people he loves and cares about. Luke feared Ben would destroy everything he cherished, just like Vader had threatened by turning Leia to the dark. And, just like in the OT, it was a passing shadow:

It passed like a fleeting shadow, and I was left with shame and with consequence. And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose Master had failed him.

I've already written way more than I expected, so I'll just conclude here. I've realized the act Luke commits in the Sequels is the same (or at least VERY similar) as from the OT: he attempted to kill Vader then his nephew, out of fear of seeing what/who he loved destroyed. He repented and managed to stop himself in the act in both situations. And he was ashamed. So, at least regarding this point of the movie, I see the same Luke Skywalker.

(luke had more to lose now then he did before 

another example which I saw dont remember where I saw it  but I saved the comments unfortunately I didnt put in the links:

edit: (now I remember www . reddit . com/r/StarWars/comments/9a3hdl/)

Luke considered killing Ben for about two seconds in a vulnerable moment

Sort of like he almost got baited into killing Vader by a few mocking words, and cut the hand off his own father in blind rage.

Luke is still just a person. If we've learned anything in Star Wars it's that the Jedi are not superhuman paragons of virtue and perfection, no matter how they might appear to the unwashed masses in the SW universe. They have the same flaws, temptations, failures, etc as anyone else. Yes the Force can help them overcome some of this, but they're far from perfect. Luke could have, and I agree should have grown in a positive way, but it's not impossible or even unbelievable that he didn't. He just had his life's labor wiped out in front of him and blamed himself for it. All those years of finding lost Jedi knowledge and artifacts, being what he believed to be the last Jedi in the universe with the responsibility to restart the order on his shoulders alone. All those lives that he took under his protection and guidance as the Master of the new order, wiped out in one night. Because of him (at least in his mind). Everything he was working towards for years just totally undone in a few hours and it was all his fault.

So he leaves and says fuck the whole lot of it. He lives by himself, stews in his misery and regret, retreats into himself and rejects the most foundational principle of the whole concept of being a Jedi: to help people. He's the most powerful Force user alive and he's wasting away by himself on some desolate rock, swearing off the rest of the galaxy because he thinks that he's a failure, that he wasn't strong or good enough, that he can't win, that it's not even worth it to try anymore, and that even at the height of his wisdom and power, it was all undone, and by himself no less.

another comment

Stuff has changed, I mean he’s quicker to come to his senses. I wouldn’t call that his flaw though. His flaw is one of his greatest traits, his care for his friends and family. It’s a flaw cause it causes implusive actions, lashing out on Vader, leaving Yoda, a single thought that he could stop a horrible fate in Ben.

I personal struggle with a temptation in my life, a temptation to do something my faith says is wrong to do. I may have overcome it some days, but other days, whether the same circumstances or not, I might fall into it. Temptations are a constant battle, not a one and done thing. Flaws are similar, you don’t just grow past a flaw after one instance.

Because a day may come when you will brought face-to-face with that temptation or flaw again, but the circumstances will be different, and it won’t be so easy to overcome.

You mentioned Toy Story in a post, and that’s a decent example when it comes to one facet. Woody might not get jealous when another flashy toy comes along that gets more attention like Buzz did.

A better example of the nagging of a temptation, like Luke dealt with, is in Lord of the Rings. The Ring is a constant temptation to the bearer and those around them. At least by the film, Frodo may have resisted the urge to use it under the tree, but he still was tempted to use it at other times, and it was a constant battle. Same with Bilbo. Bilbo held the ring for 60 years. And the temptation of it held him greatly. He drops the Ring in Bag End, letting it go. If he was viewed similarly to how people viewed Luke tossing the saber, that’d mean he freed himself from it’s grasp and from the temptation to take and use it. We see in Rivendell that isn’t the case for him. He has a moment of wanting to take it back, and even at the end of his time in Middle Earth, he inquires about it, although more innocently curious.

That would be more similar to Luke’s case. To fall to the dark is a constant temptation that Jedi should always be aware of, and if you get close at one point, there’s the possibility that it’ll happen again, and if you aren’t prepared or it comes in a different form, you’ll either fall or get really close.

That turned out longer than I meant it, but I see this idea and..it’s just not the case.

another comment 

Just because you get older doesn't mean you necessarily get wiser and better.

Jedi are still people (and some aliens, but you get the meaning), and the prequels (and even the OT) showed that even the oldest and wisest among the Jedi were capable of mistakes and misjudgments.

I think it's unreasonable to assume Luke should have become incapable of making, or even repeating mistakes and succumbing to emotion.

Right because people only get better as they get older and we grow past our flaws and doubts permanently right?

You guys are weird.

Luke overcame that moment of doubt before he almost struck Vader down and you think what ....... Luke got some kind of videogame like powerup where that character flaw would never come back again?

Some of you have a very black and white (boring) opinion on life and human growth.

Spoiler: People have flaws, we don't all overcome those flaws.Your boy Luke is no exception.

Consider what nearly proved to be his downfall in Return of the Jedi: for all the Emperor's taunting about the Rebel Alliance's imminent demise, it was Darth Vader who finally pushed his Berserk Button by discovering that Leia was his twin sister and suggesting that if Luke didn't change sides, he and his master might have better luck turning her. Then, when Luke went berserk, it totally worked: he curb-stomped Darth Vader and still didn't go evil in the end. His father's killing off the Emperor also put an end to a whole lot of the Empire's evil and birthed the New Republic.

Flash forward thirty years, and once again someone is threatening everyone and everything Luke loves, and killing the guy would surely preempt a whole lot of trouble. In his heart of hearts, he doubtless remembers what Yoda taught him about how easy and seductive the Dark Side is, but he also remembers how Yoda's mistake of hiding the truth about his lineage from him nearly brought his downfall. He also remembers how killing the Emperor solved so many problems the way he'd better not try to solve them this time... Well, what's so tempting about that?

Luke had more to lose at this time. He knew what a relatively free, peaceful Galaxy looked like, and had other students to care for besides Ben. Instinctively, he was acting out of concern for them. Luke makes an important point when he gives Rey the truth: it is a split second. Luke is a hero, but he's human. He was impulsive and acted on instinct in his youth, so the fear of Ben turning is enough to push him to the edge for a second.

hopeforben . tumblr . com/post/623000635980333056/theres-a-significant-portion-of-the-fandom-that/embed

@emeraldspiral​ 

@daughter-of-water​

@someoneintheshadow456​

[minaminokyoko]

A Love Letter to ‘Knives Out’

Disclaimer: This isn’t even a review. This is literally just me freaking out about what a great movie I just bloody watched and I just need to vomit words everywhere about it. Sorry in advance.

I think the best thing ever is I went into this with zero information. I remember seeing the original trailer months ago, but it wasn’t detailed. Just the short one of the premise, and to be honest, I’m not really into Whodunits. Clue is one of the exceptions and Castle is the only detective-related thing I’ve ever liked and followed religiously (up until the final godawful two seasons), so I have no predisposition to even care about murder mysteries. But then Rian Johnson dangled the juicy carrot of Chris Evans playing against type (because we all know the man is a sweetie and I can personally vouch that he’s great at hugs) and so I decided to add it to my watchlist. Then the reviews came pouring in that it was great, which surprised me, and so I decided to take a leap of faith to see if the hype was real.

Oh God, was it ever.

Y’all know me by now. I’m a hard, cynical old bitch. It’s tough to impress me, but fucking hell, I really loved Knives Out.

It’s not that it does anything new; it’s that it is a fresh, creative spin on tropes we’re used to and it’s also the strong performances that just make it a delightful film. It’s kooky and dark and offbeat. It’s charming. It’s wonderfully political. It’s irreverent. This is the niche kind of writing that I adore. It’s why I’ve loved shows like Frasier or movies like Snatch. I love the interwoven mess between the plot and the characters and everything coming to light in a big explosion.

Spoilers down below for my talking points, naturally.

I want to start with Marta, simply because I love how this movie framed the character as innocent, but not stupid, useless, or weak. I love that she had a great relationship with Harlan. I love that Harlan didn’t have any evil ulterior motives. It was simply a man who looked around and realized that he thought he was providing for his family but all he really was doing was supporting selfish, downright cruel people. That family basically just siphoned off of him and had the entitlement complex that is currently killing this country right this fucking second. It was very satisfying when he left them nothing and gave Marta the money and the choice of what to do. The final shot of the movie is genius.

Which segways into probably my second favorite thing about the movie: the commentary about the entitled upperclass versus the working class immigrant. The whole Trump debate during the party made me groan because we all just wrapped up three holidays, so I know that people were having to go home for the holidays and listen to the broken-ass logic of their Trump supporter relatives. Especially since they dragged Marta into the bullshit conversation. I LOVE the writing of having this girl who busted her ass, who listened, who was a genuinely good person, still being able to be a good person in the end after one hell of an ordeal. I loved how the movie poked all kinds of holes in the fake narrative of inheritance and immigration and patriotism. Fuck that. This country isn’t some holy land. This country was stolen from the people who were born here and then they built a fake fucking pedestal on top of the mass graves and proclaimed it theirs. Fuck that revision history and fuck the people who believe these lies. This movie is so satisfying because it’s a giant middle finger to those people and it’s a reminder that the future is these hardworking, kind people who care about society and they are the ones who have earned all the good things this country has to offer.

I also love the examples of bigotry and microaggressions that were more subtle. The WASPs in this movie don’t even realize the backhanded compliments and the truly insulting shit that they do since they’re so entitled. For example, Richard handing Marta his plate while he was arguing for Trump. That’s brilliantly done. He thinks of her as a servant while he pretends she’s on equal footing: saying one thing and yet his actions prove the opposite. There’s also Meg’s comment of “we’re his REAL family,” showing that those bastards all will smile and welcome you until the second you cease to be useful to them and then they show you just how truly ugly they are beneath those “civil” masks. When the will was read, it was the exact shitshow we all knew it would be. That was a great representation of the upper class. It’s not about being loud and racist; it’s all those subtle, hideous things they do to suppress people of color and the working class so they can stay on top where they think they belong. This narrative is powerfully woven in that regard and I really needed to hear this story in today’s climate, especially since we just started 2020 today, which could be the end of everything all over again. I applaud the writing. As a woman of color, I see this kind of shit every single day, especially now that I work in higher education, so I really hope it opens more eyes to the shit that not only immigrants but working class POC deal with on a daily basis. I likened it to Zootopia, where you came to the movie for one reason but then you were served an absolutely piping hot side dish alongside the entrée. Well done, Knives Out. Well done.

I need to give a nod to this powerhouse cast as well. I forgot Michael Shannon was in this movie so seeing him made me giddy, as I’ve always liked him since he’s so damn sinister. He’s a great antagonist actor and I almost wish he’d been given more to do. Jamie Lee Curtis did great as well.

But y’all know what’s coming. I mean, look at my profile picture. You know I have to stop and talk about my future husband’s performance.

Chris Evans as a villain.

Not only that, but Chris Evans as a GREAT villain.

Oh, God, pass me the cigarette.

We all knew from his work in the MCU that the man can act his fine America’s ass off, but boy, did I really like his role here. I compare it to Chris Hemsworth in the godawful movie Bad Times at the El Royale, because while that is one of the worst movies of the decade, it was extremely smart in casting Hemsworth in the villain role. Why? Because it sold the believable factor. Chris Hemsworth is so handsome and charismatic that he COULD in fact be a creepy ass cult leader. You take one look at that man’s chest and tell me you wouldn’t fight a smelly hippie to jump in his bed. Damn right I’d be in a Chris Hemsworth cult. Point being, Chris Evans as the handsome but cruel Hugh was phenomenal. I really enjoyed seeing everything unfold. He did such a great job. It’s all the more satisfying knowing that in real life, he’s the cutest, sweetest goofball on earth. I’m so delighted he took this role because he knocked it out of the park.

Which brings me to my next point.

I’m gonna be a basic fangirl bitch for a second here. Just hear me out.

I’d LOVE an alternate ending to this movie where Hugh didn’t do it.

I know, I know. That’s super basic and dumb and I know part of it is because I just wanted to like Hugh anyway, but it actually would be a great piece of storytelling if you changed the ending.

In this premise, Marta really did mix up the bottles and accidentally killed Harlan. Well, what I would change is that Hugh really did have a benevolent epiphany and he decides to come back to stick it to his shitass family and he figures out what Marta did and decides to help her so she’ll slip him his cut. Then the rest of the film is Hugh and Marta trying to cover the rest of their tracks so that Blanc doesn’t piece together Marta’s accidental crime. Over the course of helping her, Hugh gets to know her and they become friends, so by the time they pull it all off—mind you, I’m ambiguous in this AU, I’d be fine if the detective works it out but lets them cover it up or if they actually manage to just destroy all the evidence so he can’t convict her and he admits defeat—he’s now invested and doesn’t accept the money when she goes to pay him. Bonus points if he falls in love with her during the cover up. It’s not necessary, but I saw a couple little sparks, so I think it would be very cute if Hugh and Marta hooked up to protect each other from the horrible family and build their own empire together. But that’s me.

Trust me, this movie is brilliant as written. It doesn’t need that alternate ending. But I have to admit it got my mind churning about what a fantastic character arc it could be if Hugh hadn’t been the bad guy and he and Marta learned things about each other and formed a friendship. I’m a writer, it’s kind of a hobby, sorry. I hope I’m not the only one who thought that, but we’ll see.

I’m so glad I started 2020 with this film. It’s a rare gem. I can’t wait for it to get on DVD, because I am gonna snag it asap and watch it again. What a romp. It’s also gratifying in a petty way that J.J. Abrams went out of his way to undo Rian Johnson’s work in the Star Wars franchise and it’s backfiring majorly critically speaking meanwhile Knives Out is getting bomb ass good reviews, so good for you, Rian. Your revenge is at hand. #TEAMPETTY

I can’t recommend this hard enough. If you love murder mysteries or if you just love Clue-style quirky black comedy, please see Knives Out. It’s worth every red dime, to quote the movie.

Kyo out.

[co-mixed]

What’s wrong with the characters in TROS

Obviously, Spoilers.

None of the characters were treated properly in this movie. And, before we go one by one, there are some things to consider. First and foremost, Rian Johnson went deep with trying to understand what each one of them would do and why. So, in a way, he’s given JJ the perfect outline of what they should do next. The only thing he had to do is listen. But somewhere it went wrong, so we went back to one dimensional archetypes, lifted straight from the OT. More mythical, less human, more standard, less unique. Let’s take a look.

Finn

Let’s face it, if and when somebody really stole John Boyega’s script, the only thing they found there was the line “Rey” randomly scheduled for different points in the movie. There is an attempt to make up for that with Force-sensitivity, but that’s a hint that you just don’t drop in the last movie of a trilogy. And that’s what TROS is supposed to be, a finale to the two movies that came before. And with Finn’s complete lack of knowledge or understanding of the Force that we’ve seen in the comics or books, it really has no place there. Where was that famous story group? Maybe taking a day off.

Finn has nothing to do in the movie, since there was no story for him. He just tagged along with Rey or Poe, became a general through nepotism, even though there were much more experienced people for that job, and ultimately, he was just there as a plot device several times.

Rose

That’s one of the worst cases. JJ spent a lot of time saying how glad he is to Johnson that he’s cast Kelly. Then he simply didn’t write a story for her either. Because you know, galaxy is not a place for a righteous optimistic girl. (Unless she’s a Palpatine)

And I would’ve written more, but well… it was wrong and that’s just it.

Poe

Poe already has a backstory. So what do you do? As a writer, you try to understand how to work his guilt from TLJ into TROS. But as someone who’s trying their best to undo TLJ, you just throw it all away and play off of similarities with Han. He’s charismatic, shoots well, flies well. Done, make him a smuggler. The whole unnecessary retcon kind of might work for general audience, since most people never learned anything from his past. With TLJ they’ve learned who he is now, but did they even need more? He already went through all the needed changes, to get him to lead the rebellion.

The only in-character moment was his rant at Rey, where he says that she is the best fighter, and they need her.

The most out of character moment is him blaming his so-called friends for being an ex-stormtrooper and a Scavenger. Man, you chose to do that, they were forced into it.

Zorii

Why was she even there? Nepotism maybe? Cool costume? Merchandise? I don’t know, but she was not there to serve the story.

Allegiant General Pryde

Pretty much the same thing as Zorii.

Hux

Poor character. I mean, really. He was a fanatic of the First Order, of the Empire, and all the evil regimes. This was pretty well pictured up to the point when one brave writer decided that his hate for the newly self proclaimed Supreme Leader is stronger than his hate for… let’s call it lack of Order. It seemed from his story, that he’d be the first in line to pledge allegiance to the Emperor. But surprises never cease in TROS. Not for a moment. Also, JJ deals with him in a matter of minutes. Done, and done. Next.

Jannah

What a cool character, for a show or a spin off. She has potential, I’ll give her that. Naomi Ackie is likable enough to carry her own show. But there was no need for her in TROS. Partly because it’s way too late for new characters, and partly because she’s also not given much to do. That mumbo-jumbo about the Force and troopers defecting, that’s a nice sentiment. But also could have been done by any random trooper.

Leia

Let’s not talk about her being in the movie, let’s stay on character topic. Her Jedi training was just a very random last minute concept, probably straight out of Legends. And she could’ve just as well been giving Rey pep talks or reach Ben without it. So that’s more of a “just why” moment. The part would have been the same, the lightsaber wouldn’t have existed, but that is still very fixable.

Palpatine/Snoke/All the Sith

Just why would you even bring him back? Anakin brought balance, killing him, got his redemption, taught the audience the primitive rule that only death is truly redeeming (which worked fine in the 70s), and Palpatine died. But then he was back because reasons, and we don’t need to see how or why. He also now is All-the-Sith-in-One, and very very powerful. Apparently, at least one character spends their off screen time learning. So… good for him?

If they wanted ancient evil, I’d rather they went with Plagueis. He could’ve seen the rise and fall of the Empire, he could’ve fooled death and he could’ve easily fooled his apprentice along with Kylo and obviously Rey.  It even works perfectly within the concept of balance where “Darkness rises, and Light to meet it”.

To be even more honest, I’d prefer that TROS was just concluding the trilogy, without bringing up old bad guys. There is still plenty of those in the next-gen.

Rey/All-The-Jedi

As every imaginable critic has already stated, one of the most inspiring messages of The Last Jedi was “you could come from nothing and become something”. And this way Rey would have been a perfect representation to any girl of how you build yourself with the help of your friends. That is what fairy tales are usually about. That or space princesses, heirs to Palpatine, who, we have to believe, had a son. At this point it would be way better if the stranger on Pasaana did randomly name her Solo (imagine that).

But my verdict is that Rey’s story in this movie wasn’t necessary, and was a rehashed story of Kylo Ren. Think about it, he was fighting the light in his bloodline, and tried every imaginable thing to destroy it, but still couldn’t. Not that it’s a bad idea, it’s just that we’ve seen in already in 2015. The character had a clear path ahead of her after TLJ, but again, she was forced into a completely different story. Just because she wants to be a Jedi really bad, doesn’t mean that she is immune to the Dark Side, because she’s not immune to fear. One scary vision of her on the Dark Side, and that’d be enough. Not to shoot lightning, but to go a bit dark, effectively pushing her adversary closer to the Light. And that would’ve been fine.

But she had to be All-The-Jedi instead, didn’t she. Funny how that’s now a thing, and we still have separate Force Ghosts of Luke and Leia (but not a certain Solo). This whole things falls apart, and if someone just reread the story at least once the day after it was finished, they would see it.

Somehow, the movie comes down to Palpatime defeating a Palpatine, and Skywalkers were in this Saga there for the show.

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo/The last Skywalker

His story feels fairly well done, except for a few moments. Because in TLJ, hу killed Snoke, we were lead to believe that he would come into his own. We also know what a nerd he is, so he probably has some knowledge of who Palps is, and how his kind operates. Now when he delivers the line “I killed Snoke, I’ll kill you”, I believe him. When he starts asking questions, I don’t. And that’s because it’s written, it’s there on paper, but that’s something the character refused to do willingly.

This happens a few times, and probably the cringiest of them all is when the writer forces him to say that Rey is a Palpatine. Because that’s the first time we hear that out loud, and aside from thinking “No-nо-no not that”, we experience a case of disbelief. That’s not how we wanted this to go, and that’s not how the story was supposed to work.

Then there are wonderful scenes with Rey and with Han, the ones we were always supposed to get, and then the awaited redemption. That was the story, the one that resonates with his character. What does not is what happens after — yeah, the pit. The last Skywalker spends his final battle, the destiny of his bloodline in the pit, while the Jedi choose to support Rey.

His death is another choice that I deem unnecessary, and a bit lazy. You need to live with your mistakes and learn to forgive yourself, while working through your issues. But sure, death it is.

Overall

Probably the biggest mistake of this movie is letting a Palpatine take the Skywalker name, and letting the last Skywalker be pretty much forgotten. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Rey’s supposed bloodline defines her, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. She’s lost someone important, a soulmate, and so many fans felt the loss, imagine how she supposed to feel. Her next stage would be Dark Side, because she by no means can live with that. And that’s far from a hopeful message.

A happy ending for this space fairy tale would’ve been the only reasonable choice.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

already pondering "what if there's even less of a boundary b/w tmc & the larger fund at the end of the season" whether via a choice entirely in taylor's hands, entirely out of it, or in between; and also noting things like "specific winston & tuk moment last episode & next episode's production pics ft. winston standing with tuk & ben in a scene in which taylor & rian are present but also standing separately?" like it probably wouldn't happen but considering at this point, along the lines of how at any given point it would make sense for winston to just walk out (he can leave), that Just Winston could just slide over to the general zone vs being in tmc specifically b/c it's both like, as hard as [rian & winston also hang out outside of work by now] indicates some kind of friendship, it's still never even clear cut / a Non Mixed Bag of rian acting like she doesn't consider him a friend in earnest; And you've got taylor interacting seriously nigh exclusively with rian since 5x08 & sure not having a sidebar with winston where he assures them he'll back them (we can probably assume he will like we & they could always assume winston won't just quit on them, but it'd probably only help to act like you care about it / Don't take him entirely for granted) like idk shrug yeah i support you taylor but you seem to have it covered working w/rian & not especially want or claim to need me around soooo probably neither of you should care if i scoot over here, right.....and who knows if they would lol

[overlycaffeinatedwarmage]

So four of us were at MegaCon last weekend and we had a chance to talk KC’s ear off.  We also had a chance to listen to her a bit.  I, of course, took notes.  Here’s what I got.  Please feel free to ask questions about anything I have.  I will flesh out what I can!

Panel notes:

None of her characters are based on real people that she knows. Too much bad shit happens to them. An element of her work that she’s proud of: she uses her history degree with her writing. Favorite mythologies to write are about gods (didn’t mention one particular cultural pantheon). Lots of cross over with various mythologies throughout the world. Makes sense since people travel and talk. Many of the giddy traits cross over, some of the gods are identical across cultures too.

Mythology has everything that Urban Fantasy has in it, romance, heroes, monsters, etc. Really UF is a retelling of the old stories in a modern way. We even have similar stories across stories, just like they did. God in a jar mythology is a common theme (Artemis is in a jar right now dajuan note).

World building: Write what you need for first book, world building wise, never enough pages for world building per book. Don't do all at once. Too much, leave some for future books. Your editor will always tell you to cut it down anyway. You need to know the world and back story even if audience doesn't yet. Audience will know if you contradict something and they will tell you. But don’t box yourself in, don’t let others write your rules, break them if you need to.

Writing is a you learn as you go craft. When you read your old stuff, think to yourself "look how far I’ve come!" rather than cringe at it. You aren't perfect. Enjoy what you are now and learn from it and grow from it. Work on the story, that’s what people care about more than the grammar and perfect characters, those are important but secondary to the story itself.

She knows the major beats of story now, but not all the details yet. Mystery authors are her favorites (Agatha Christie was mentioned several times). Liked mischievous gods, assholes, they more fun. If they are good, watch out! (Daj note, I got big HINT vibes here! Artemis isn't as altruistic as she seems maybe?? Personally, I've been wondering about her for a while. There is definitely more going on with her.)

Stay in genre but make it new, fresh spin: take new things, Pythia, new abilities. Hard to make vampire different, same with witch. Pick new creature to explore. Go back to original myths Bonicon: ox type thing, napalm from butt (need to look up name, I am 100% sure I either misheard or misspelled it). Must do some digging to find new stuff.

Add some realism, how do the characters get money? Stuff like that (ie early Cassie and Billy cheating casinos) Mystery, how keep threat level up? Kill someone else! World expansion: story or character come first? It depends All characters must have an arc. Even supporting characters, must change or not believable. Five characters in a scene, all should have a distinct voice. A friend should be able to tell which character said a line a dialogue Character best friend? Rosier, she would hang out with him (we cheered, loudly).

Personal discussion:

Mircea always a rogue. No one should be surprised by his shit in RtS. It was telegraphed all the way back in TtD.

Cassie is an extrovert who had to learn to be introvert by upbringing. She is learning to let people in now.

Cassie has a woman’s strength, is girly and ok with it. Meant to be a character many women could relate to.

Dory by herself would be boring(?) Dorina is what makes her unique or interesting. She would be more cookie cutter character without Dorina.

KC doesn’t want to write cookie cutter characters or stories.

There are so many characters out there for all types of men (strong, weak, nerdy, whatever) but not all types of women. Cassie is an “everywoman" character that every woman could see an aspect of themselves in. Because think about it, if shit were to hit the fan what would you do? Go out guns blazing or hide behind the sofa? Probably hide behind the sofa.

There was a lot of Tolkien talk about the three whole female characters in those books. I’m a little foggy here because Tolkien is not my thing, (I had to ask who everyone was to be sure I understood, yes I was a little embarrassed). One character was the prize for the king, one was a warrior woman or essentially a “man with boobs," and one was actually a woman with her own agency. There have to be more roles for women in fantasy than this. We deserve better. There is nothing wrong with the warrior woman, but that’s not all woman and many can't see themselves like that. (Daj note I can't see myself in the warrior women and I'm stronger than the average woman. Strength, power is not my strength.  I’m excited to see a wider variety of role models for young women.)

There are at least 3 more books after BtT. Big stuff is coming! No, we didn’t ask what!

KC does not write romances! This has been said before but needs to be reiterated. She writes about people and people have romance, sex, friends, enemies, etc so of course there would be elements of that in the books. Otherwise the characters would not be believable. She does write damn good stories and characters though. All of her characters have arcs, they change because real people change. The bigger the character the bigger the arc. Smaller or side characters have arcs too, though, they just have smaller ones.

There are some obvious hints in books as to what is coming that we are all missing. (No, we didn’t ask what they were. We did our best not to blatantly ask for spoilers. There were things that we would say that she'd just smile at, but I'm not saying what. I'm doing *my* damnedest not to spoil people as well.) People will sometimes pick up the smallest of hints she thinks they will miss though.

Yes, Mircea has a foot fetish. Why not? It's mild as fetishes go really. (We had a good giggle about that.) Again, it's a thing that makes him real. Rian chose Casanova for a reason and it's a BIG reason. If you catch my drift ;) (More giggles and an embarrassing amount of discussion was spent here.)

Rosier speech "fake it, everyone else is too" has gotten her through a lot (daj note, me too. It’s my favorite speech in the series, I give and get it often.)

Again, any errors are mine. I do not speak for Karen Chance so do not hold her to anything that I have written here. Most of this is cobbled together from notes and exhausted, overexcited memory.  She is free to correct me on any errors that I have made, and I sincerely apologize for making them and potentially speaking out of turn. She was an absolute blast to chat with and I am honored to have been given the opportunity to spend a few hours with her this weekend. I will forever claim that she is one of the kindest authors and people that I have met. I know a lot of wicked cool people, so I don't give that praise lightly. Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll will try to answer what I can. If my roomies have anything to add, please feel free! @emberfaye @pritkinspalemoons @annalane

[solitarylurker]

a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker

(the general failings of TROS)

at my most generous, i would say Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a generic meaningless popcorn flick, entertaining in the moment and immediately forgettable

as the ending to a 9-part space opera, it is a failure of colossal proportions

for brevity's sake, i'll keep this to a list:

the pacing is breakneck and leaves no room for the characters to breathe or to mourn the insane amount of character death or almost-death the film throws at them

the narrative stakes are embarrassingly low, with no real tension or obstacles for the characters to overcome

the fetch quests and the failed comedic moments should have been sliced and diced on the cutting room floor to give more room to the emotional beats

the character beats often fall flat, mostly due to regression back to TFA dynamics rather than evolving from the TLJ dynamics

e.g., Finn barely talks to Rose, Rey rehashes beats with Kylo she'd already come to terms with in TLJ (Kylo killing Han, etc.), Finn returns to crushing on Rey, Rey no longer has any compassion for Kylo, Poe is suddenly a heroic leader again, etc.

Abrams failed to capitalize on the aspects of the story that actually would have created tension between the characters, such as Poe holding Rey in suspicion over her darker force abilities (the jedi mind trick, the force lightning, etc.) <-- missed opportunities matter too

a superfluous excess of new characters (some of which i would have liked had they been introduced in TFA or TLJ), all of whom should have been cut in order to give more screentime to fleshing out established characters such as Finn, Poe, Rose, and Rey (yes, this includes the Knights of Ren)

with Rey being introduced as a Palpatine, and Luke and Leia being established as having known all along who she was, an uncomfortable side effect is that they both believed in Rey's goodness/morality but both of them (and Han) feared and rejected Ben--this would have been fine if Luke had admitted to Rey they saw Ben in her and wanted to fix their mistake with her, but none of this is established; it's as if Luke and Leia have written Ben off entirely (which goes against both TFA and TLJ) and only care about Rey

the framing of Luke and Leia as a couple (although I have always been a fan of the idea that Luke never got over Leia as his first love, they are siblings, not a couple, and Luke was not Rey's parental figure--Han was); perhaps this was merely sloppy framing on JJ's part and was meant to be more about Luke and Leia as Rey's "masters" in the force, but it doesn't come across that way with her obsession with her parentage

Leia's cheap death shot being for Rey's sake rather than for her son's sake--all this time she could have reached out to him via force projection, and she only does it for someone else's sake; this just proves his point that he's unloved and unwanted

Finn's weird character arc of having no feelings at all for Rose, reverting back to his crush on Rey, and then suddenly falling for Jannah out of the blue all while maintaining some kind of romantic dynamic with Poe (i will say i found Poe's jealousy over Finn wanting to say something to Rey rather hilarious)

the criminal waste of Hux's storyline which Rian so carefully set up at the end of TLJ

Palpatine’s bizarre and unnecessary resurrection as well as the silly force battle between him and Rey

the ending with Rey taking the Skywalker name might have worked if it was executed differently, but in its current form it's utterly tone-deaf

and last, but certainly not least, my biggest general complaint before i launch into picking apart Rey’s character (a complaint which has several dimensions because it is her character that suffers the most in this film) is JJ Abrams's inability to capitalize on the Reylo dynamic both he and Rian Johnson had set up in TFA/TLJ

the intimacy between them was completely lost, as well as the nature of the force bond Johnson established, replaced with a sterile replica that placed an unnatural distance between them

my suspicion is (and this is deeply unfortunate) that Abrams had never intended for Rey and Kylo's relationship to be anything more than pure virginal heroine rejecting the hideous monster with a villainous crush (perhaps while finding him mildly attractive) until the monster sacrificed himself for her in the end; this is probably why Rey seems curiously disinterested in Kylo despite the narrative necessity of the pull between them

this is one area where i think Johnson hit the nail on the head correctly--when he read the script for TFA, he latched onto Rey's attraction to Kylo rather than her disgust, and he realized that the attraction was both more interesting and where the real diamond in the rough of the story was to be found

Rey's disgust for Kylo comes from ego and from her own desire to remain a pure little girl for her parents--falling in love with a  bad/evil man is not what good little girls do

her attraction to Kylo comes from a genuine part of her which wants to complete itself and be recognized, a part that Kylo actually addresses in TROS, but which is never fulfilled by the narrative and which is undermined by Kylo "becoming" Ben Solo before Rey accepts her love for Kylo Ren--note, in Beauty and the Beast, the heroine realizes she loves the beast in his beastly form before the transformation is complete

it is not to Ben Solo that Rey is attracted--it is to Kylo Ren; her desire for "Ben Solo" in TLJ is merely her attempting to explain away her desire for Kylo Ren, and it's something that should have come to a conclusion in TROS rather than reverting back to the childish perspective of wanting only "good" Ben as opposed to "bad" Kylo

Abrams failing to truly mine this gem Johnson uncovered for him is where i personally believe the film truly, deeply fails and why ultimately it will never be all that it could have been; for Abrams, Rey's "purity" mattered more than her legitimate actualization as a woman and her coming into womanhood, and perhaps this can't be blamed on Abrams given he's not a middle aged obasan such as myself

still, a tragedy is a tragedy no matter how you slice it

[2/9]

[morsking]

tlj is only about family when it wants to give a shit about the themes surrounding it that the franchise had already established. rian wanted to force rey and kylo together so bad he conveniently “forgot” rey and luke should have had a familial relationship rather than “girl looks for man to help her, man is a grumpy old bastard, does not help her, but we’re supposed to believe he did and that all the crap that went between them mattered somehow”. 

“kylo hesitates killing leia! rey confronts kylo about killing han! the family theme is still there!” yeah but none of that was relevant ever again because rian wanted to excuse kylo’s actions with the stupid message “let the past die” so rey could bond with him and forget all the awful shit he did until it came time for rian johnson to reveal “bad guy is still bad guy, he’s just more self-serving this time” to dupe the audience into thinking his writing is smart.

you know who actually gave a shit about the family theme? carrie. the most touching scene in the entire movie, the talk between leia and luke after years of not seeing each other about how “no one is ever truly gone”, was written by her. 

it’s so fucking flabbergasting that in a movie that’s supposedly about “letting the past die” there is a scene about holding on to a piece of the past because it connects the present to the future. a huge deal in star wars is examining the mistakes of previous generations and setting them right. it was the entire thematic surrounding the original trilogy: luke discovering how the jedi order wronged anakin and how he fell to the dark side, and luke setting things right and restoring balance by restoring his father and have him embrace the light once again, and with that done luke could rebuild the jedi order into something better.

rian threw that out the fucking window by making a sloppy parallel of that with rey and kylo except rian wanted the narrative to have kylo do a heel-face turn without earning it since kylo would never have answered for anything while darth vader did. rian wanted to make luke a dick so kylo could have a reason to be an edgy incel and destroy everything the original trilogy had set up.

[swshadowcouncil]

“Predictable” Is Not A Four-Letter Word

Well, looks like it’s that time again. That’s right: it’s time to talk about our good friend, Subverted Expectations™.(WARNING: Game of Thrones spoilers below the jump)

Hey, who’s super excited for the upcoming Benioff and Weiss Star Wars trilogy now?

I’m alluding, of course, to the latest episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, in which, after an 8-season-long journey learning to own her own power, master her fate, lead armies, free slaves, and reclaim her family’s place on the Iron Throne, Daenerys Targaryen evidently got just a wee bit too much girl power and decided to become…bad? I guess? Boy, who could have foretold such a stunning subversion of expectations?

(I mean, a woman gaining power, being gradually resented by the men around her for her ascent, and eventually being viewed as a megalomaniacal villainess who needs to be taken down a peg is kind of the opposite of a subversion, it’s actually pretty much what happens to most women in power, fictional, or non-fictional, but I digress)

Fan response, needless to say, has been…mixed. Generally, folks seem to be unhappy with this course of events, given that, aside from some allusions to “Targaryen Madness” throughout the series, the buildup to Dany’s heel turn has been widely seen as rushed and somewhat arbitrary. True, she’s suffered a lot in the past few episodes, but the series has also put quite a lot of effort into making Dany a sympathetic character. Complicated, yes, and flawed, as most GoT protagonists are, but still heroic and generally good. Even as a conqueror, she holds her armies to a code of conduct, shows sympathy to the downtrodden, and overall seems to want to be a good, ethical ruler even after she’s taken the Iron Throne. So, uh….what gives?

Those of us who were Star Wars fans during the release and aftermath of The Last Jedi will recognize this feeling all too well. And, much like with TLJ, the backlash itself spawned a backlash. “Actually,” declared the internet masses, “It’s good that Rian Johnson subverted our expectations. To follow through on what Abrams set up would have been obvious and boring. The whole point of storytelling is to be unexpected!” But if this is the case, why did so many people walk away from TLJ, or this past episode of GoT, feeling so unsatisfied? And why, for god’s sake, do we find ourselves constantly having this argument any time a new piece of media comes to an end?

The internet certainly provides many examples of the attitude that objection to an incongruous shock ending is somehow weak, entitled, emotional, and juvenile. There’s a sense that true fans of a franchise are tough enough to absorb an unsatisfying ending, that they actually find satisfaction from the dissatisfaction, and that to want an ending that ties up loose ends and closes character arcs (dare I say, even happily, at times) is to want one’s hand held, or to be incapable of handling nuance or bittersweetness. “Life isn’t always happy!” the internet masses cry. “Life doesn’t always make sense! Life is disappointing too! Deal with it!” But stories aren’t vegetables we’re supposed to choke down before we can leave the dinner table. The purpose of storytelling, for adults, at least, is not just to condescendingly remind the viewer that bad things happen sometimes, and force them to suck it up. Which, of course, isn’t to say that all endings have to be neat and happy, either–there are stories with dark endings that are deeply satisfying (Breaking Bad) and ones with happy endings that are deeply unsatisfying (How I Met Your Mother). There are even stories with subtle, unclear endings that still feel logical and satisfying to many viewers, albeit not all. The ending of The Sopranos, for instance was famously controversial for its ambiguity, but even this ending was tied to themes and concepts planted earlier in the series, and several perfectly cogent arguments have been written to explain this quite persuasively.

But what satisfying endings tend to have in common, that unsatisfying ones don’t, is a feeling of appropriateness and completeness. Most fans who hated the finale of How I Met Your Mother did so not because they resented that it was “happy,” but because they felt it was a 180-degree turn from the arcs of all the characters and storylines up until the last few minutes of the last episode. Conversely, people didn’t love Breaking Bad’s ending because it was “difficult” or “dark,” they loved it because it was a believable, complete, fitting ending to the story that had come before (funny enough, I would wager that more people guessed the ending of Breaking Bad than guessed the ending of How I Met Your Mother, though that’s neither here nor there). But in the current cultural environment, a person can gain quite a bit of attention for boasting that unlike those blubbering fake fans, they LIKED that this ending didn’t conclude the arcs that had built for years, didn’t pick up dropped plot threads, didn’t allow protagonists to learn anything or achieve their goals, and so on and so forth. That they, by virtue of some unspecified quality, didn’t NEED an ending like that in order to enjoy what they were watching. Do I believe people who say this? Well, maybe. Human opinions are varied, and I don’t allege some conspiracy where everyone secretly hates the same things I hate. Nonetheless, I often find a degree of disingenuousness in these statements. A good ending can be obvious, unexpected, happy, sad, or even ambiguous–but more often than not, what makes it good is that it is satisfying. And loving an ending because it is unsatisfying, because it gives the audience nothing it wants, runs counter to this instinct, like it or not.

To use one example of a satisfying ending (albeit not a true ending, since it comes in the middle installment of a trilogy), Darth Vader’s revelation that he is Luke Skywalker’s father has gone down as one of the greatest plot twists in cinema history. Indeed, if you didn’t know that a mystery like this was building, you’d never think to put the pieces together–the ominous references to Luke having “too much of his father in him” or having “much anger…like his father,” the Chekhov’s gun of Anakin’s murder that goes unaddressed throughout A New Hope, and so on. But this twist is somewhat unique in that much of the buildup to it was done retroactively. During the writing of A New Hope, there was no plan for Vader to be Luke’s father–instead, the decision was the result of looking back at what the story had built, and following it to a coherent, unexpected, yet somehow totally natural conclusion that set up compelling stakes for the subsequent chapter. That is why the Vader twist works–it wasn’t chosen purely so the audience couldn’t guess the ending of the film, it was chosen because that was a compelling direction for the story to go, because it complicated and heightened the stakes, and because it deepened the existing text through unexpected means. In other words, arguably the greatest movie twist in history wasn’t great just because it was hard to guess, it was great because of the emotional impact of looking backwards and realizing how well it fit into the framework that was already in place despite the twist being unexpected. The surprise on its own is only a surprise; the surprise filling in the blanks of the story so effectively is what makes it sublime.

So why, then, do we find ourselves sucked into a maelstrom of hot takes every time we say we dislike a shock-value ending? And why does this trend seem to have gotten so much worse in recent years?

Well, it should come as a surprise to nobody that fandom culture to begin with is notorious for the ways in which elitism, gatekeeping, and all-around dick-measuring feature in its social interactions. Anybody who’s spent time in a major fandom has undoubtedly encountered this bizarre form of competitiveness, whether it’s being quizzed by strangers on their knowledge of canon or listening to boasts of “I was into it before it was cool” that would make a Brooklyn vinyl store owner blush. What has changed in recent years is the increased integration of the larger internet into these fandoms, shifting fan discussions from the confines of in-person hangouts or small online chat rooms, into massive public forums such as Tumblr and Reddit. Suddenly, said dick-measuring is not only happening for a far larger audience (including the general public, not just hardcore fans), but likes, reblogs, gold, and upvotes actually give fans a metric by which they can “win” or “lose” these competitions, further incentivizing them as a go-to mode of interaction among fans.

Now, with longform franchises, such as Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones, this who-is-the-nerdiest-of-them-all dynamic runs headlong into another common form of fan interaction; that is, speculation. When fans of a certain TV show or film series gather together, it’s only logical that one of the main topics of discussion is what they think might happen to their favorite characters next. These two dynamics in conjunction with one another form a fertile breeding ground for the almost gladiatorial style of fan speculation we see in most major forums nowadays. One person theorizes about a certain future plot line and receives a shower of upvotes, likes, favorites, and so on. Another comes back with a biting critique, and is given even more praise. Eventually, what might otherwise be a simple discussion becomes an outright competition, complete with points and ranking systems to keep track of who is “winning.”

This paradigm, in turn, incentivizes a very specific style of speculation. If I begin telling you a story about a girl named Cinderella who lives with her wicked stepmother and two wicked stepsisters, who asks to go to the prince’s ball, and leaves a shoe behind on the steps of the palace, your inevitable prediction that the story will end with a shoe fitting and a royal wedding may be correct, but it’s hardly cause for bragging. Of course you could predict how the story would end, because the ending was obvious. However, if I gave subtle clues in my story that the ending would go a different way, and you were the only one to predict that in this version, Cinderella was actually a vampire the whole time, and the story would end with her turning all the other characters into vampires, you could get praise for your attention to detail and ability to pick up on clues others had missed in this (absolutely bonkers) adaptation of Cinderella. Those of us who have followed the Star Wars online fandom since the release of The Force Awakens will recognize this pattern of behavior, especially in the areas of Snoke’s identity and Rey’s parentage. Though most agreed immediately on the heels of TFA that Rey was heavily implied to be Luke Skywalker’s daughter (or possibly Han and Leia’s), it only took a few weeks for the tide to shift to increasingly fantastical theories. First, the relatively mundane theories that she was a Palpatine or a Kenobi, then the slightly more perplexing suggestions that she was a Lars or Naberrie, and eventually theories that she was an immaculately conceived Force baby, or a clone, or a reincarnation of Padme Amidala.

The simplest explanation for this progression is just that people get bored of talking about obvious theories and want to mix things up with more unusual “what if” scenarios. But it’s hard to ignore the way that the competitive nature of social media fandom fosters this paradigm as well. Like someone betting on horse races, the lower the odds, the higher the reward and the sweeter the victory. Guessing that Rey is Luke Skywalker’s daughter, immediately after The Force Awakens, would be like guessing that the story of Cinderella ends with a wedding–yes, you’re likely right, but so is any schlub off the street who watched the movie once and made an idle guess. However, if you guess that Rey is the reincarnation of Padme Amidala, conceived through the Force, and you’re right, you may well be treated as some sort of prophet. Cue the showers of fake internet points.

I should be clear here–I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to guess the right answer to a mystery, or come up with a particularly clever solution to a problem that nobody else has thought of before. To the contrary, these are very normal human desires, ones that anyone who follows my writing knows that I myself engage in. The problem is, again, that this incentive to up the stakes of speculation with increasingly nonsensical, out-of-left-field proposals, purely to outdo others, makes it so that cohesive storytelling without shock value is stigmatized in fandom discussions. Which, of course, makes it harder to call content out for being unsatisfying without being accused of being childish, unsophisticated, or foolish. And so, we wind up in a self-perpetuating cycle. When we set up a paradigm where guessing the plot of a story is a competition, any predictable, reasonable, ho-hum answer becomes “too easy.” We expect content creators to structure their stories to make our guessing games harder, because after all, what’s the point of consuming media if the sweetness of “victory” is undercut by a simple, obvious answer? And if setting up these unexpected endings comes at the expense of a satisfying story, the response from many fans is “so be it.”

Which brings us to an even more pressing issue: the actual impact this discourse has on media itself. Content creators are praised by this subset of fans for creating endings that viewers didn’t expect, because, as established, this style of writing enriches the “game” that they play with one another in various forums. Consequently, fans begin to assume it is in longform media writers’ best interest to structure stories this way–to build a story that seems as though it will go one way, only to pull a U-turn at the last minute just to ensure nobody guessed the ending. Fan discourse, in other words, is normalizing bait-and-switching as a core pillar of storytelling, rather than one of many techniques writers can use to build a compelling story. And, as more people who came of age in the internet era grow up to become content creators themselves, I fear that this recent spate of shock-value media is going to become more of a trend than an aberration. Much has been said about the internet creating political echo chambers, but so too can it create artistic ones–and without dissenting opinions at the table, those reverberations will only get stronger.

So, am I advocating that people fearlessly defend “predictable” storytelling in its common connotation of “boring” and “unoriginal?” Of course not. But even if a story isn’t predictable, an audience member with a keen eye, a good instinct, and some time and attention, should in theory be able to predict it. It shows that the writer has put thought into foreshadowing, thematic congruence, consistency of character and motivation, and overall cohesion. Great, surprising endings are not created by building false decoys of these things. Instead, they’re created by rendering them subtly, slipping them in under the audience’s nose so they’re not aware of a surprise building; or sprinkling in deceptively contradicting information so the audience has to struggle to reconcile these conflicts in their minds. To expand upon a metaphor from our own HypersonicHarpist, a good storyteller–like a good magician–may disguise what they are doing with sleight of hand and misdirection, but ultimately they don’t stop mid-act, set down the hat and wand, and then pull a rabbit out of a nearby air duct vent instead. Put quite simply, we are hard-wired to want stories that leave us feeling satisfied. And the beauty is, we all have different ideas of what that looks like–that’s where good, productive discussion comes in.

But when we let disingenuous, performative internet groupthink make us doubt our instincts that something is amiss, for fear of appearing uncultured or childish, we do ourselves and our media a disservice. Bad-faith criticisms of “predictable” story arcs have poisoned fan discourse to the point where even genuine appreciation for certain shocking endings are drowned out in the cacophony of hot takes. And until more people begin to honestly admit it when they don’t see the Emperor’s new clothes, discussions on media will remain that way. As fans in the age of the internet, we have unprecedented voice and access to content creators, and more tools at our disposal to create content ourselves than any generation before us. Now more than ever, the way we talk about media guides media. It’s up to each of us to make sure we have a voice in that conversation.

[dalekofchaos]

TFA does not deserve a free pass

While TLJ and Rian Johnson deserves the criticism that we’ve been giving it since it came out, I feel like it’s only fair to criticize The Force Awakens and JJ Abrams. We don’t give JJ enough shit for  TFA. So I feel like in my post I will do just that.

My other Sequel Trilogy Critical posts

My TLJ Critical post

The Incompetence Of The First Order

Why Kylo Ren being redeemed is a bad idea

My problem with Rey

The wasted potential of Captain Phasma

No worldbuilding nor a reason why we should care for this war. Biggest mistake of the sequel trilogy is not explaining The First Order or giving them motivation. The Empire’s goals were order, security and control. The First Order’s motivation in the movies are nonexistent. I came up with my own First Order motivation. And honestly I don’t see why we should even care about the war. The New Republic didn’t even care enough to take the threat seriously. 7 planets destroyed and The New Republic is just gone? What? That’s like saying America was no more after 9/11 and terrorists became the new world power. You’re seriously telling me the rest of the worlds of the Republic are not motivated enough to join forces with The Resistance? The First Order is not the Empire, they are a terrorist like organization, they should not be the strongest power in the galaxy. Hell, there isn’t even a name for this war. We had The Clone Wars and The Galactic Civil War, but the world building for the sequel trilogy is so bad that there isn’t even a name for this war.

There is no originality in this war. Everything is just a copy of The Empire and The Rebel Alliance. Say what you want about The Prequels. It was original and creative. We had a war that isn’t just a copy and paste of the Galactic Civil War. There was no planet destroying weapon, the Death Star was being built, but that’s it. There was creativity in The Clone Wars and it really worked. In The Sequel Trilogy, there’s a just a bigger Death Star and a mini Death Star. Really? And while I can understand that there is an Imperial remnant, I don’t understand why with The Resistance. For some reason they are redoing the Rebel Alliance instead of having the New Republic fight the First Order. It really felt like it undermined what Han, Luke and Leia were fighting for.

Abandoning humanizing the Stormtroopers. When we were introduced to Finn, we were shown one of the most powerful and emotional scenes in Star Wars history. We were shown that underneath that souless armor, Stormtroopers are just human and we show Finn cares for his friends.....few minutes later Finn is laughing and smiling with Poe as he is blowing away Stormtroopers in the Tie-Fighter. Stormtroopers in the beginning were portrayed as human, and the rest of the movie they are portrayed as cannon fodder. They wasted a unique concept. Instead of leading a Stormtrooper rebellion, the Stormtroopers are disposable to Finn and feels no emotion as they die by his hands. The Pop Culture Detective puts it best in The Stormtrooper Paradox.

The lack of character for Rey. I love Rey but her character really felt missing. I can forgive TFA for the lack of character, TLJ is a worst offender. But I will talk about TFA. I love Rey and I adore Daisy Ridley and do not blame her one bit, but her character was poorly written. The other issue is Daisy doesn’t think Rey should have any flaws and that’s the problem. So here are my issues with how Rey was handled throughout TFA.  - Rey is a scavenger, so her combat skills are understandable. -Rey selflessly chooses not to give away BB-8. Rey grew up on Jakku, dog eat dog world. She had no reason to be selfless on that planet. I do love Rey, but it really makes no sense that a person who was raised on a ruthless and violent planet of thieves and scavengers, abandoned and lived the life of a scavenger who barely makes enough to survive. Rey should be a mix of Han Solo and Jyn Erso. Someone who only cares about her own survival and is consumed by her own trauma but learns to overcome her trauma, start caring for over people and something bigger than herself. That would’ve been the perfect character arc for Rey. It doesn’t work that she would be selfless and was willing to pass up all that food for a droid she just met. So I think it would help if she had sold BB-8 and later after meeting Finn, she learns of the importance of the droid and she feels guilt and fights to get BB-8 back. That I think would’ve improved her arc in TFA -Rey perfectly flies The Falcon despite not flying a ship. In the movie she says she’s never flown before and doesn’t know how she did it. In The novel she says she flew ships at night and simulation. That’s all well and good, but if you choose to explain things in the novel, but not in the movie. Then you deliberately chose not to explain how a scavenger who never leaves the planet knows how to fly the Millennium Falcon. -She pulls off maneuvers and mechanical tricks that not even Han Solo could think of and a scene later he is dumbfounded and astonished by Rey -Rey had her force potential awakened, so her resisting Kylo’s mind probe works. - Effortlessly beats Kylo. Rey has no prior training. Never held a lightsaber. Rey fighting off thieves with her quarterstaff is not the same thing, it is understandable that Kylo was struggling because of his injuries, but Rey didn’t struggle against Kylo. Even Luke struggled with Vader and Anakin struggled with Dooku. Either Rey should have barely made it out alive and the planet starts to collapse before either can hurt each other or Finn should’ve been the one to defeat Kylo.  I feel like Finn should’ve been the one to defeat Kylo Ren. Finn is a trained soldier. It would’ve counted to his character arc. Him fleeing from Kylo and The First Order throughout the movie and finally confronting him. Finn beating Kylo really would’ve helped make things work better and honestly Leia hugging Rey out of nowhere instead of Chewie just doesn’t work.  Rey would’ve recovered on D'Qar and both Rey and Finn would’ve gone to Ach-To to Luke. and they both would’ve been the ones to be trained by Luke. That would be better Rey’s character arc just feels flat and doesn’t feel like she has a character arc. It’s arguably worse in TLJ, but it still feels like Rey is not allowed to grow as a character. Rey is not allowed to have flaws or personal struggles or has a real hero’s journey.  Which is disappointing because I truly loved having Star Wars be centered around a female lead and feel like it’s a missed opportunity. It’s not Daisy’s fault, I feel like the blame lies with Disney. I’m not sure if Disney got cold feet with a female protagonist and felt they would get backlash if they made her character naturally flawed but it’s storytelling 101 to have your protagonist faced with problems that aren’t easy to overcome and correlate to said flaws. Instead we got a hero who faces no real consequences, has no real goals, and can defeat everything in her path with abysmal training. Which ultimately makes for an extremely uninteresting hero. No hard training, no real consequences, no real flaws, no struggles or not even an arc and everything is handed to her. It just makes Episode IX predictable and boring. Rey will defeat Kylo again to no one’s surprise. There is just not a reason to care to see what will happen with Rey. Finn, Poe and Kylo are what’s keeping this trilogy alive, Rey just doesn’t feel like a reason to even want to watch Episode IX and Disney just failed Rey as a character.

The Sequel Trio never shares screen together. We were lead to believe that Rey, Finn and Poe are the trio of these new movies. Finn has a great friendship with Poe. Finn and Rey have a good friendship that could be more. But the three heroes never share screen together. Finn and Poe crash land on Jakku and we never see Poe until the attack on Takodana. And we never see these three characters together as an actual trio. We don’t feel anything close to a relationship for Finn, Poe and Rey. That set photo of them hugging for Episode IX is great, but you did not earn that JJ, we could’ve built up their friendship by having Poe and Finn on Jakku, Poe giving Finn his jacket for Finn’s protection and Poe reuniting with BB-8 and asks Rey to help them off of Jakku  and as Rey and Poe pilot their way out of Jakku while Finn fires, we could’ve seen the trio’s friendship grow and see it progress and we could’ve seen Finn and Poe rescue Rey on Starkiller Base while Poe is confident in his team in destroying the Base. Instead you chose to keep Poe away till the end. JJ did not earn that set photo.

The lack of tension between Kylo Ren and Poe. Poe Dameron just witnessed The First Order’s arrival, the death of his friend Lor San Tekka and the massacre of a village. What happens next is a complete change in tone and lack of tension. Poe decides to tell a joke. JJ decides it’s best to throw in a joke, it just undermined the seriousness of the slaughter Kylo Ren has caused and killed one of Poe and Leia’s friends. Poe should not be cracking jokes. Poe should be brave, firm and defiant to Kylo Ren. Telling a joke is the absolute last thing Poe should be doing after witnessing the murder of a friend.

Kylo Ren is a terrible villain. I’m torn on Kylo Ren. Adam Driver does a decent job with what he's given and what he has been giving hasn’t been much. I like him in the Force Awakens a lot more than in The Last Jedi, but JJ Abrams did more to harm Kylo as a villain.   Why do I say this? First of all, it happens with his first appearance. Kylo Ren’s choice of killing Lor San Tekka. You have the man who had the map to Skywalker. You could have forced him to comply. Order the village massacre right there and force Lor San Tekka to tell you or just use the force probe right then and there, but Kylo chooses to stupidly kill Lor San Tekka. Kylo Ren knows the map is on Jakku. He chooses to let the Stormtroopers get the droid when he does not have faith in them. And the tantrums. How am I supposed to feel that a villain is a threat when he is throwing tantrums and destroying expensive equipment? Vader force choked Imperial Officers who failed him. Rather than do that, Kylo lashes out and destroys equipment on the ship. I’m honestly surprised Kylo has not bankrupted the First Order by now. And when he took his mask off. I know it’s supposed to showcase that he looks young(Adam Driver is over 30 years old) but he just looks ridiculous. Kylo Ren is a well-rounded antagonist that broke the clichés of most of modern villains. Kylo Ren was a complex and layered character who wasn’t glorified or idealized for his morally wrong actions. However the problem is Kylo merely an illusion of depth, just like the rest of this trilogy. This becomes evident when you put him up against other, better villains. When compared to great villains like Loki, Darth Vader and Eric Killmonger, it just feels like Kylo is a terrible and bland villain. We understand what launched these characters into their villainy, and it builds sympathy for their situation. Over the course of the films, we learn their plan, what they believe in, and see how they carry out their vision. No such thing has happened for Kylo; he's largely inconsistent and really we don't know why he or the First Order are attacking the protagonists other than "Hope" or something. Even when compared to Anakin, he's far less of a character, regardless of how you feel about his dialogue or acting. Anakin had a legitimately crappy childhood, and was told to let go of the people he loved. He does bad things, but it's clear he doesn't want to. Especially in RotS he tries his absolute hardest to do the right thing, but when faced with losing Padme, he changed his mind at the last minute. He shows true conflict in his actions, whereas with Kylo Ren, we have to be told that he was sad after killing Han Solo. With TLJ there is more damage done. Kylo has been so “moody” it’s difficult to take him seriously. When Snoke died, it made me feel like there was no longer an antagonist. TLJ castrated Hux, the FO is incompetent, and Kylo is a moody teenager. There’s no serious tension left. Kylo is just a whiny psychopath who has no reason to be evil, but decides to be evil anyway, but we're supposed to believe that he's "conflicted" about his psychotic actions because he's teary eyed every time he slaughters innocent people, and loses his temper like a child whenever someone offends him. And what really blows my mind is how some that want redemption for him believe he will make a total 180 on a dime and suddenly become a wise, benevolent leader whom the galaxy respects. This dude hasn't shown an ounce of political savvy, charisma, or even self-restraint, I'd be shocked if he manages to run anything properly as Supreme Leader.JJ will have my respect if he can turn Kylo Ren into an unhinged monster worthy of being afraid of, but I'm sure they'll just keep giving him the puppy dog treatment.

Captain Phasma does nothing. Phasma is marketed as this badass who takes no prisoners and would die before betraying The First Order. All she does ALL movie is walk around looking cool, order a massacre and cower at the sight of a blaster at her head(despite her armor showing her impervious to blaster fire) Phasma should have been the one fighting Finn on Takodana. It’s obvious that Phasma only exists to sell toys. 

JJ Abrams’ Mystery Box tactic. I have watched all 6 seasons of LOST. I knew something like this would happen. JJ Abrams is more interested in giving us questions he chooses not to answer. He is more interested in giving us questions to theorize on instead of giving us a coherent plot and world building. How did The First Order rise up? Never answered? Why does Maz Kanata have the Skywalker Lightsaber “good question for another time” How did Snoke destroy 30 years of peace? Fuck you, wait till the next movie. Why are we repeating the Empire vs Rebellion instead of getting The New Republic vs the Imperial Remnant? We need nostalgia to drag in the fans aka “we have no idea what we’re doing”. Abrams always does this thing  where he is great at creating these questions (MyStErY BoX) and then either has a lackluster resolution or dumps it off for someone else figure it out. 

The regression of Han Solo. The Force Awakens undoes everything about Han’s character arc in the original trilogy.  Han starts out as a selfish smuggler who is COMPLETELY fine with letting other people die if it meant his own survival and goes through an internal and external journey to not only give a damn about his fellow person but also grow as an individual to be a hero that is willing to risk his own safety for a much larger cause than himself. And all that character development is thrown out the window.  The new canon is dead set on making Han a bad father. They made it so that Han goes back to smuggling. Han learned that there is something more than smuggling and Han and Leia breaking up because their son turns to the dark side? Han would never leave Leia or abandon his child. It is simply bad writing to redo his entire arc from the original trilogy again and to make him a bad parent when it is out of his character to do so. Legends understood Han and Leia better. Han and Leia stood strong in their marriage for 3 decades despite a hostile extra Galactic invading species killing both Chewbacca and their 14 year old son Anakin, their other son Jacen becoming a Sith, him killing Luke’s wife Mara, and having to be killed by his twin, their daughter Jaina. And they both still kept up their roles as a General and Chief of State/Ambassador.

Leia is not a Jedi. The new trilogy was DEAD SET on not making Leia a Jedi. Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi said Leia has the potential to become a Jedi. “That boy is our last hope. “No there is another.” “The force is strong in my family, my father has it, I have it and my sister has that power.” Apparently JJ saw all that and thought “I think that all meant was to not make Leia a Jedi and just have spout off expository dialogue, break up the most iconic relationship in Star Wars for no reason and have her sit there and do nothing all movie” The last two movies were setting Leia up to be a Jedi and they did nothing with her. She could’ve been a Jedi Master and a politician but chose not to. For whatever stupid reason they did not want Leia to be a Jedi.  Leia could have used Battle Meditation to ensure the destruction of Starkiller Base was a success. and then used it to ensure the safety of the Resistance in TLJ, but they thought turning Leia into a Mary Poppins meme was the best possible use to give Carrie a swansong.

Only having Luke appear at the end. All anyone wanted to see was Luke, Han and Leia. Luke was nowhere to be seen, until the last scene. Mark Hamill was profoundly insulted that he had to walk all the way to that mountain and didn’t have any lines. And I would too. If you had the chance again to play the role that made you great but have you do nothing, I would be bitter to my last breath. Mark Hamill has every right to be mad at everyone involved with TFA and TLJ. Mark Hamill had the great idea of saving Rey and Finn from Kylo near the end. It was rejected because the new characters would be overshadowed by the old ones....ya’ll did not have any problem having Han, Chewbacca and Leia overshadowing Rey, Finn and Poe. So why is it any different with Luke? Episode VIII could’ve been about Luke passing the torch to Rey and Finn while Leia hands the leadership role to Poe and finally Episode IX is Rey, Finn and Poe winning the war and saving lives. And now with Han dead and with Carrie’s passing, we can never see Han, Luke and Leia on screen ever again