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scottysketches · 8 months

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[WIP Wednesday]

Not an excerpt from the next chapter of Don't Dream It's Over this time (I haven't started writing it yet), but this story (Meet You There) is set within the series. It won't be published until I've finished DDIO, just because the end of this story would spoil the ending of DDIO.

(Also, as an aside, this song from vol. 7 of RWBY is pretty much the vibe for Meet You There.)

Her feet carry her from the Jedi Temple — from her home — across the city with little to no input from her brain. She’s on autopilot, searching for safe harbour; despondent, her entire being swallowed by grief.

Left foot, right foot.

She exits the tram, her arms folded across her chest as her body fights to stave off the chill of the night air.

Left, right.

Everything’s too bright, too cheerful; it should be dull, dark and quiet, just like her. Snuffed out, like the spark that had lit up her soul from a young age.

Left—

The bell above the door tinkles as she pushes it open in a state of numbness. The diner is quiet, just like her, just one or two customers inside. Had she been in any state to care, she might have noticed that they were engaged in some not entirely legal business dealings.

But that’s none of her business. Not anymore.

She tracks a path to a booth at the back of the diner, shrouded in darkness. No one disturbs her, though she can feel Dexter Jettster’s beady yellow eyes following her every movement from behind the diner bar. She all but collapses into the booth, exhaustion crashing over her like a tidal wave.

She didn’t realise just how tired she is.

When she looks up, the Besalisk is crouching next to her, concern — and pity — written all over his expressive face. “Hey, kiddo,” he says quietly. “What can I get you?”

A new life, she thinks to herself — then, actually, a time machine. Let me go back and stop her from taking such a rash course of action…

She doesn’t say that aloud.

“Just a cup of jawa,” she mumbles, then adds, “please.” Stars forbid she forget her manners.

Dexter has clearly already anticipated what her answer would be, because he places a full cup of jawa juice on the table in front of her. “Sure I can’t get you anything else, kid?”

She doesn’t answer, just apathetically accepts the cup of jawa Dexter places down in front of her. The Besalisk leaves her be, understanding that she doesn’t want to talk. Her eyes focus on nothing in particular, her mind firmly locked in the events of the past few days.

The bombing.

The investigation.

The arrest of one suspect, and then…

Her own arrest.

Accused of murder.

Accused by those who had known her almost her entire life, those who — apparently — hardly knew her at all.

(Part of her fights back on that front, insists that there were people who knew her, knew her so well that they had fought for her, even if it hadn’t been openly…)

Her expulsion from an order she had dedicated her life to, known no different.

A military tribunal, with her friend as her counsel.

A military tribunal that, had her Master — no, she reminds herself, former Master — not done everything within his power to discover the truth, could have (would have) ended in her execution…

The revelation that her friend — or someone she had thought to be her friend — had set her up, to direct blame away from herself. That her friend had become so disillusioned with the Jedi she had conspired to turn an innocent man into a living bomb. That when her plan had gone awry, she had attacked the only person who had been on Ahsoka’s side (even if it had been for an ulterior motive, a full pardon for her own crimes), and then attacked her, let her believe that she truly had no one left in her corner.

She wonders if Asajj Ventress is alright. Wonders whether she got her lightsabers back.

Because even after everything her friend did to shift the blame onto her, Ahsoka Tano can’t find it within herself to hate Barriss Offee.

It’s not the Jedi way.

So engrossed is she in her own thoughts, she doesn’t notice someone sitting opposite her until a hand covers her own. “Ahsoka? Are you alright?”

She looks up into blue eyes — such a deep, rich blue, the colour of the sky on a clear day; the perfect mirror of his father’s, if he were perhaps twenty years younger.

She’ll never see those wise old eyes again. Never experience the warmth of Obi-Wan’s hug, never hear his laughter or the rumble of his voice as he scolds Anakin for an ill-thought plan. She won’t get to see him finally experience true happiness for the first time in his life, she won’t get to see him grow — as a man, yes, but also as a partner and a father.

She doesn’t realise she’s crying until Korkie Kryze has moved around to her side of the booth and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his body and whispering quiet reassurances to her. The embrace is familiar and unknown all at once; the smells are different — where Obi-Wan smells like tea and dusty old books and the smell of the earth after rain, Korkie is like a fresh sea breeze, salt and driftwood and seaweed all mingling together into a scent that is uniquely his. But if she ignores the difference in their smell, she can almost imagine that the arm slung across her shoulders is Obi-Wan’s; can almost imagine that instead of a simple t-shirt and jacket combo, he’s wearing robes that engulf her in a warmth that is so distinctly Obi-Wan’s…

She lets out a ragged sob as she tries in vain to forget everything that makes her former grandmaster the man he is, turning her head to bury her face in Korkie’s shoulder.

#wip wednesday #wip #fic wip #star wars #star wars the clone wars #sw tcw #sw tcw fanfic #ahsoka tano #korkie kryze #obi-wan kenobi #obitine #(i'm tagging it bc this story is a one-shot offshoot of my main obitine story)#satine lives au #korkie kryze is a kenobi #scotty's words #in your queue shall burn

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snail-eggs · 1 year

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Boss Intro: Frank

no, your eyes don't deceive you, there was a picture of Frank's namesake/faceclaim here but for consistency's sake, I decided to just cave and make his in-game model.

Franklin "Frank" Baptiste

dob: 07/02/79

african-american

Personality: Frank is too kind for his own good. Even as a Saint he is incredibly generous and loving to those he holds close. He was a really sensitive kid growing up and definitely had to harden due to circumstances in his life - one namely being joining the Saints. Still though, he feels his emotions deeply and often keeps them to himself. He's very quiet and only speaks when he has something to say.

Bio:

Life Before Saints:

Frank was born in Atlanta, Georgia and grew up there for the first 7 years of his life. He was teased in school for being sensitive and, at that point, never really defended himself. His parents divorced when he was 5 and his younger brother, Demetrius (Meech) was born. In Atlanta, his father met Xixi's aunt and quickly had Frank's youngest brother, Louis. When Frank was 7 and Louis was about 6 months old, his father and step-mother made the decision to move to Stilwater to be with her family. Due to the incessant bullying and teasing, Frank went with him and Meech, practically attached at the hip to his big brother, also decided to leave. After leaving, Frank does not speak much to his mother.

In Stilwater things weren't much different and Frank was fed up. He began to defend himself which landed him in trouble with everyone but his father. There seemed to be this unspoken understanding with his father that Frank would not fully understand until later.

As he got older, he also became an older brother figure to Xixi. The two were incredibly close growing up and Frank often called her his baby, though he has only been told this by other family and does not remember it himself.

Adolescence/Disillusion with Stilwater:

Now much older, Frank was able to see Stilwater for what it is. He namely saw its issue with gang violence. He hated the way people stressed over colors, hated the way he would get jumped just for being friends with someone from a specific gang. Still, he tries his best to fit in with whoever he hangs out with at the time. He becomes a chameleon and a shell of himself - this he detests above all.

Meeting Julius Little:

Before fully joining the Saints, he meets Julius. And at first, Julius stands for everything he is frustrated with in Stilwater. The Saints are just one more color to stress over, but Julius begins to work him. He sees something in Frank and over time he somehow convinces him that the Saints are different. Are better. It takes Julius a year-and-a-half. When Frank is 18-years-old, he joins the Saints.

Summer Romance:

During his first two summers as a Saint, Frank engages in a fling with a boy in the gang which he refuses to name. It his first ever experience being with someone of the same sex and it helps Frank realize that he is bisexual. The only person to know about this relationship at the time is his best friend, Johnny Gat. Johnny accepts him, though he doesn't fully understand it yet.

After the second summer, the boy moves away. Frank moves on.

Brother's Death:

When Frank's brother Louis is 13-years-old, he is killed in cold blood by a crew of rogue Vice Kings. The motive is suspected to have to do with Frank's affiliation. Racked with guilt and grief, Frank puts Xixi, who is also 13 and was at the scene, in his truck and drives her around town until she can tell him who did it, then murder a the culprit in front of her.

Things are never the same between them after this and Xixi noticeably distances herself from him.

Summer '06:

This summer marks a turning point in Frank's life, though he does not know it. He is engaging in a situationship with a girl from his old high school chemistry class who now dances at Tee 'N' Ay.

He has not spoken to Xixi in months, though he still drops in every once in a while to check in on her grandmother and through her, forms a small connection with Vanessa. She looks up to him and he does not like that.

On a warm night in June, Meech is shot by Vice Kings and survives. This is the second time he has let his family get hurt in retaliation to his actions. He will not happen again. This changes the trajectory of his life in a grander scope than he could ever imagine.

#oc: frank baptiste #boss posting #my favorite gang member with a heart of gold <3 #saints row

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fedzkun · 3 years

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BNHA 314: Another Reason Why It Was Lady Nagant That AFO Sent... (ft. a theory on AFO’s Modus Operandi, and some talk about hands)

...aside from Lady Nagant being an absolute force to be reckoned with and possibly one of the few people who can win against Deku. Here we go.

Why Lady Nagant as AFO’s chosen Queen piece in this round of chess? Lady Nagant is perfect because she is a type that Izuku has never encountered before: a successful Pro Hero who'd turned her back against the very same Hero Society that she’d once wholeheartedly believed in.

All for One is someone who is capable of anticipating Izuku's moves weeks before he even does it, and knowing that the boy is someone who tends to overthink, then I would argue that he had also predicted this: that Izuku might come to interrogate Lady Nagant and ask questions about her 'traitorous acts.' Which...surprise, surprise, he did.

And here comes AFO's play, his ‘gambit’ so to speak. Because All for One has a manner of operating, especially if you are to believe that he’s the large guy in the first panel below.

With him in mind as the possible driving force that set off Tenko’s series of unfortunate events, it is worth it to try nailing a pattern as to how he manipulates people. Above, as you can see, aside from the civilians leaving it up to the pros to save Tenko, it really is weird that a ‘densely-populated’ area couldn’t even spare a single hero or police officer to help the poor kid. And part of me wonders if All for One might have a hand in that.

But also, even if he did give the push, AFO mostly lets the rest of society do the talking for him.

In any case, the outcome is that Tenko was disillusioned and began to hate Hero Society. And I submit that this is what All for One is trying to do to Midoriya Izuku.

That is, to put further stress on Izuku’s views on heroes. One by one, the things he knows about Hero Society are being unmasked, being stripped of the glamour and glitter. Initially, Izuku still tries to appeal to the ‘hero’ inside Nagant. He asks, ‘Why did the former hero join a supervillain?’

By sending Lady Nagant, All for One sends a challenge. She is not like other villains, and she is not like other heroes. AFO sends her not just for her skill but also for her story, which I assume he’s sure that Izuku (being the hero lover that he is) will find fascinating.

It is as if he is mocking his hero-loving brother and, by extension, Midoriya. “See here,” his action bragged. “A former Pro Hero who once loved the idea of Heroics, but has decided that my rule would be far better than all these falsehoods about today’s heroism. Why not follow her lead?”

Which, good luck on that! Because our boy here, our MC, is someone who does a lot of reflecting. Izuku already recognizes that the world is not black and white, but filled with gray. He knows how to fight for his convictions.

However, Nagant is right...in that what Izuku does not yet understand...

...is that even his notion of ‘extending a helping hand’ is gray.

Pictured on the left is Lady Nagant’s hand covered in the blood of her mutant victim, as she reaches out to shake the hand of a mutant child. She was led to believe that she is ‘helping’ hero society by eliminating the ‘threats’ without due process.

Pictured on the right is All for One’s hand. And wow, what an absolute bastardization of the OFA Holders’ ideals. AFO uses the very same concept of the ‘helping hand’ (that Second had offered to First) to groom Tenko into becoming the new Symbol of Fear.

There is always the factor of whom exactly is doing the ‘helping.’

I think that it's very unlikely that Izuku will ever turn villain (nor do I want him to tbh), but this comes close as a parallel as the beginnings of trying to lure someone to the 'dark side of the Force' so to speak. It could be that AFO at least is trying to drive a wedge in between Izuku and the rest of the top pros via planting more seeds of doubt.

Because what better way to deliver a “death blow” than to strongly shake the faith of someone that even the top pros had put their confidence in?

Anyhow, like I said, good luck on that AFO. Even All Might is astounded that Izuku still idolizes him despite everything.

#bnha #bnha meta #bnha 314 #bnha theory #midoriya izuku #lady nagant #bnha afo #bnha all for one #bnha manga apoilers #bnha spoilers

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dandelion-wings · 3 years

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Here's a different AU: if you were to write a modern AU of genshin, what would you change and what would you keep the same re: character backstories?

Ooooh, modern AU! My personal approach to those is to keep the same world but give it modern tech and social systems, because I hate taking magic away, so this wouldn't be an our-world AU, but assuming more modern government styles and technology and so on, and picking out 5 characters:

1. Presuming a larger polity than Mondstadt-in-game, which is basically a small city-state, I think Jean comes from a well-known military family--Gunnhildrs are expected to become quite high-ranking officers, and her mom is a general. But Jean wants to protect more than she wants to attack, that's canon, and as an adult she ends up joining the police force in the town where her father settled down post-divorce! (In-game the Knights of Favonius are both military force and police force, but that doesn't really work in a large modern state. The closest would be the FBI, and Jean might be working towards joining that sort of organization, but you typically have to do your time in a smaller org first.) She's still very much who she is in-game, devoted to the people around her above her own life, but there's more friction with who she's been raised to think she should be. The overachieving in this case is partially to try and prove that she's doing something just as important here as she would as a military officer.

2. The Ragnvindr family is an economically powerful family, but Kaeya isn't sent to them to infiltrate Mondstadt, because one hopes Mondstadt is a more modern democracy in this set-up (with the archon of Freedom and all), so it's harder to guarantee a government position. Additionally, just adopting a kid off the street is harder with modern child-welfare systems! I think what happens is that Kaeya's father is the spy, and instills a lot of Khaenri'ahan patriotism and the evils of Mondstadt in his kid, so when he's killed on, like, an assassination mission, and Kaeya ends up in the foster system, he comforts himself with the belief that he can take on his father's work somehow. No one knows who his father is, just that here's this kid who ended up on the streets, and he ends up adopted by the Ragnvindrs by sheer luck. But he believes it's fated, because that's how he's rationalizing everything at that age. The big reveal to Diluc then becomes his father's identity--I think it would be fun if Crepus had been the person his dad was trying to assassinate--but it comes from the same feelings around loyalties.

3. Lisa keeps a lot of her backstory, just more modern-adapted--since there's still Visions in this world, she was still researching magic in Sumeru. I think in this case, she's a lot more focused on tech and magitech (since Electro would be a great element to power modern technology), but she's come to be disillusioned with "progress" that damages the world, creates greater and greater weapons, and often goes to further enrich the people on the top. She ends up quitting research at the prestigious Academia to come the same town Jean's working in and end up an adjunct professor at a local community college. (And then she and Jean both bond over the people around them expecting them to have done "bigger things," but being content with the choices they've made. My brain has given me like three possible meet-cutes for them in the process of typing this sentence.)

4. Razor no longer functions as a weirdly well-socialized feral child, because you have a more urbanized world and the same child-welfare systems that Kaeya falls into, so instead he's Police Chief Varka's undersocialized foster kid who got removed from a family where they literally let him just. Live with the dogs and sleep in the kennels. He's super upset about that, and there's probably a touching character arc in there where Varka wins him over in part through Andrius, who is definitely just Varka's absurdly huge fluffy white dog, and not the lingering remnant of an ancient wolf-spirit whose domain has been reduced, and his power with it, by the inroads humans have made upon the wilderness. Even though Razor isn't anywhere ready for college, Varka still takes him to Lisa as the only teaching-capable Electro user in town.

5. Since I just made the Knights of Favonius into the local police, Amber's grandfather is no longer viewed as having defected from the country--he was an officer at one point, let a suspect get away, and retired in shame and basically vanished. AFAIK it's not canonical that Amber's parents are dead (I tend to roll with that in fic, but it's just a headcanon), so in this case they're still around, meaning she can stay around and still hang with everyone. She is very into gliding, which is a competitive sport in this setting, and is the school's champion. She's going to nationals! Everyone is so proud! She wants to follow in her grandfather's footsteps still, but she's too young to actually do so yet.

Bonus 6: the Traveler is just straight-up a shapeshifting alien. They essentially are in-game, too, but in this case there's an actual spaceship involved. The "plot" kicks off when they crash-land on the edge of town and encounter Dvalin, who, like Andrius, is much diminished, but in a grimmer way.

#why not meme i guess #genshin impact

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greekbros · 3 years

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"greek-Bros: Character Headcanons prt2: The Boys ™️"

Heracles:

He is literally the 2nd strongest individual in all of Greece. The first is Atlas and the 3rd is Dionysus.

Every single thing that has happened to him is canon. The labors, the romantic nights of crossdressing when he was a slave, everything. He doesn't give a flying fuck about what you think he did. There is a likely chance he may have done it, whether he wanted to or not.

He's the tallest and most heavily built of Zeus children. It continues to baffle Hera and Zeus how Heracles is so large. When he started to grow olders, Zeus was worried if Heracles was the "prodigal usurper" that would over throw him, but solved this by having more children.

Heracles doesn't have any weaknesses nor fears. This effectively makes him the biggest threat to.... literally every other devine entity.

He doesn't hate Hera. Oddly enough he is fully aware of her frustrating marriage, so as penance, he tries everything to help her with whatever ever meaningless task she wants him to do. He basically is an unwanted adopted son to her. On Hera's side, she despises him, and she equally hates the fact that he's even alive, but it breaks her heart everytime Heracles does something nice for her.

After years of enduring cruelty, he still doesn't hold a lot of ill will. It's just a part of his strength.

Inspite of his polite and stern demeanor he actually does have a short fuse, he just chooses when it would be inappropriate time to lose his temper.

He has been married 1 1/2 times. His first marriage was rather normal until Hera ruined it, he was "pretend" married to Queen Omphales when they were doing their thing, and is currently married to Hebe.

He's actually a big softy, when he smiles it's considered as rare as a blue harvest moon, it's just that his face is so muscular that his default expression is "resting death face".

He actually enjoys hanging out with his more powerful siblings with the main exception of Ares and Aphrodite. He considers Ares to be "too immature to fight him" and he's too much of a legendary dude bro to fuck Aphrodite, he just wants love not fuck.

He can be bashful at times, mostly when he is told to either display himself or flaunt. He became bashful after his year of slavery with Omphales. It was more of a time of discovering he genuinely may have some deepseeded issues and Omphales helped him out figure out his insecurities.

Perseus:

He's considered Zeus's favorite demi-child. Mostly because Zeus considers him a "little earthly version of Apollo". Perseus however dispises this comparison.

He's currently in his mid 30s, yet he's still concerned the greatest hero in all of Greece. In some arguments he's always compared to Heracles, much like how one would compare Superman and Batman.

If he had a voice actor, it would be William Defoe. He's gives off this vibe of an old school kind of man with a side of chill.

He isn't too proud of his status as a demigod. It all started when he had to kill Medusa. The thing is that Medusa was the more prettier sister of the three legendary Gorgons however she was also considered the kindest out of the three. So when he kept being pressured by not just the fact that he had to save his mother from the marriage she did not want, save Andromeda from a sea monster that was being sent to kill her, and extra pressure from the gods too reclaim his honor as the son of Zeus... He had to basically do something he really did not want. Little did he know at the time, there were other means to be successful in his mission, years later when he discovered this he had become disillusioned with the glorious image of being a demigod. This ended up affecting him personally, affecting his marriage and ultimately a motivation to continue his quest to be a hero for the sake of helping those who need it most...not for glory.

He has this charming tooth gap that he's had since he was young. It's a distinguishing feature that basically separates him from being compared aesthetically to Apollo. He's also has a little stubble, riddled with small scars and abrasions from his many battles.

He with do a background check on you and your request, he has had plenty of experience with people trying to take advantage of him. Being a man who is willing to do the job correctly and as best as possible, people tend to hire him in order to give rid of whatever creature is just mildly inconveniencing them.. a good example would be if a farmer notices there's a griffin nearby but the Griffin isn't doing anything so he hires Perseus to kill the Griffin so it doesn't kill the goats, Perseus will find every way to either remove the Griffin from location or the farmer himself. He tries nearly everything to make sure he doesn't end up killing anything in the end, ironically this is what makes him an effective hero.

He's currently divorced with andromeda, due to his own personal and our struggles it's affected his love life to an extent where he is considered emotionally distant or just uninterested in being married. he doesn't have any infidelity issues or anything he just genuinely lost his motivation as a person but regained the motivation to be a better hero. Turns out Andromeda was the one who was cheating on him, he doesn't have any ill will against her surprisingly and he can't blame her either.

He has a 5 year old daughter who lives with lives with Andromeda. He always finds a way to secretly stop by to say hi and give her a gift.

The only person he tolerates from Olympus is Hermes, he still seems to see him more as a mentor and older brother than anything. He has a more professional relationship with Athena but after the conflicting information both her and Poseidon gave him when he had to kill Medusa, he tends to be very cold to both gods.

You actually never had ambrosia until Heracles introduced it to him, that was the day when he was deemed a full strength demigod. He's still angry at that because he wanted to die in peace of old age or in battle. It's the only thing Heracles is genuinely remorseful for.

He actually sees Pegasus less like a pet and more like a really oddly shaped brother. Turns out after he dug further into the situation, he found out that technically Pegasus is a half brother. so he just has full blown conversations with a creature that can't respond to him in human language, nobody really understood it at first until he explained it to Heracles and only Heracles.. because he loves being spiteful that way.

Theseus:

This is although equally as handsome as many of Zeus's sons, he's probably the least intelligent. It's even argued that he's actually less intelligent than Ares.

He's a complete himbo, outside of his lack of intelligence, he's also extremely vain. Both Perseus and Heracles theorize that if it wasn't for the promise of marrying minos's daughter, he probably wouldn't have helped in the first place.

In between heracles, perseus, and the rest of Zeus's sons, he's the second shortest. The shortest is Hermes. Hermes continues to be any perpetual cycle of distress and mild apathy because of this.

He's also the top person on Dionysus's hit list. For abandoning Ariadne, Dionysus cursed him to consistently get attacked by random animals.. specifically leopards and or animals of the felide family. Theseus still hasn't any idea that his lack of animal magnetism is actually a curse.

He genuinely does not know Ariadne is still alive, he's convinced himself that she abandoned him or just went back home for some bizarre reason. It's also never occurred to him that he may have accidentally left her on an island, it is not known rather or not he actually abandoned her on purpose or just because of unbridled ignorance.

He's surprisingly resourceful for somebody who couldn't figure out how to get through the labyrinths correctly the first time, he actually took one turn before he went directly back to the entrance and tried his best to go any deeper but still went back to the entrance. His resourcefulness may come from Poseidon's side of the gene pool.

Ironically, Zeus actually has no idea if this one is even his kid. There's an ongoing rumor amongst the Olympians that Poseidon and Zeus may have accidentally slept with the same woman, unfortunately it is not known rather or not Theseus it really is Zeus's or Poseidon's son. The two brothers rather not fight over this because it really doesn't matter in the end.

Due to Theseus's self-righteous arrogance, many of his ventures usually results in his god-given resourcefulness helping him out. Most of his success is attributed to either giving himself all the credits or simply assuming that he actually did something. this angers Perseus and Heracles quite a lot actually. And oddly enough unlike the two, Theseus never actually had to do anything above simply appearing and "solving the problem". His most iconic triumph right next to killing the Minotaur, was actually slaughtering a few Amazons. Ares is till this day trying to formulate the worst and most painful way to kill Theseus.

He's actually a bit of a coward.

He maybe currently king of Athens, but mostly because Athena directly influences him from time to time. Apparently he doesn't have the mental fortitude to resist Athena's control. Good for her because he isn't a really good ruler.

Achilles:

He's the sturdy brother. Prior to his injuries, he actually was similar to Ares but he was a little more clever. He was the best warrior in his army and he was the assisting tactician.

Post injuries, he has lost an eye, Perseus had to amputate his messed up leg thus he had a prosthetic foot made by Hephaestus, and he two more mental injuries. PTSD from his battle at Troy and the brain damage from an arrow that went through his eye.

Because of his brain damage, he can speak in incomplete sentences. He also has outbursts of wrath and acts out his battles. When he's speaking in full sentences, he's going through a thing where he genuinely believes he's back to his old life, going as far as referring to anyone around him as people he use to know, this actually maybe a side effect of his ptsd. Heracles and Perseus are aware of these quirks of his and does their best to make it less problematic for Achilles.

It's been century since the downfall of Troy, after somehow surviving the process of death through means that even he can't remember, Achilles seems to be immortal in both senses of the word. He neither aged since the downfall of Troy and it doesn't seem that he died from his wounds like he should have. Because of his prolonged existence in the underworld, he has also gained the ability to see ghosts, unfortunately the others think he's just simply talking with "the ghost of his past" and think nothing else of it.

Hades actually wasn't aware of Achilles's existence in the underworld until many of the residents started complaining of disappearances. After some thorough investigations, Hades found him basically living feral in the more isolated portion of the underworld where it seems he was surviving off the flesh of anything that would come across his path. At first Hades tried to help him pass on, but Achilles had other plans so he battled Hades instead and survived. Hades may have won but he has a large scar on the base of thigh from his encounter.

His invulnerability didn't actually come from his mother dipping him in the river Styx, or at least that wasn't fully the way he could have became invulnerable. One actually has to consume a little bit of the River to become fully invulnerable. When Achilles was a child, he was just merely dipped in it thus it gave him invulnerability until his skin was broken by the arrows, when he found himself in the underworld, he couldn't find any fresh water so he drank from the Styx instead. That is when he became fully invincible to the point of godhood. Now he's arguably even more indestructible than Ares.

Achilles actually seems to be have been completely hardwired differently after his experience. He isn't a genius, but he does seem to find solutions to things in unexplained ways.

He sees Perseus and Heracles as proxy soldiers and brothers-at-arms instead of biological half brothers. Never having any knowledge of them until they rescued him from the underworld.

He REALLY doesn't like Poseidon and Ares, the interesting part is that he doesn't understand why. It's as if he can't remember why he hated them so much, he has a passing apathy twords Apollo. He also doesn't understand why occasionally Apollo stares him down like an angry dog, infact Apollo never really elaborated on the fact that it was Achilles who desecrated his Temple back at Troy. Many of the gods actually don't fully understand what is going on with Achilles with the exceptions of Hermes, Ares and Dionysus. Since all three gods understand how mortals physically work, they can sympathize with him. However, every time when Ares interacts with Achilles, it always seems to look like someone put two male honey badgers in the same room with a shiv and a pocket knife tied to their heads when they're done fight.

He's likes horses, he actually tries to talk to them like as if it was his fellow soldiers. In reality, many horses he talks to are actually reincarnated warriors from various parts of Greece. some have no memories of their past lives, and some are fully aware that they've been reborn into a completely different life. In some bizarre senses Achilles accidentally may have coined the idea that horses are just reincarnated soldiers who died in battle. Strangely enough it's the only set of individuals he has fully constructed conversations with instead of just incomplete sentences perfectly summarizing his thoughts.

Achilles knows how to use almost every single weapon you can give him and for some reason he can learn how to use a new weapon that he's never seen before in just a matter of minutes. This is because he apparently has really good muscle memory and half of the time he just accomplishes so many interesting things because of it.

He genuinely enjoys watching Hephaestus and hangout with him in his workshop. He likes the dimly lit but warm workshop, he find it far more comfortable than the cold and damp cavern he'd stayed in after he "died".

No one is certain how he even survived to begin with. Some of the rumors that have stemmed from this situation say a Fury took him in out of pitty and nursed him back to moderate health, to Eris being responsible for his survival.

He's surprisingly stubborn for somebody who may have lost 10% of his brain function, memory, and who consistently goes through War flashbacks much like an old veteran would. At this point basically he has the physical strength and energy of somebody in his mid-twenties but the demeanor and temperament of somebody in their late eighties. The only way you can coax him to do anything is to simply trade with him. This could be either new weaponry for him to practice with, or just a snack.

#greek bros #greek-Bros #the boys™️#achilles #heracles #perseus #Theseus #greek gods #greek mythology #greek myth #character study #hellenistic

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uaklauslovesdave · 4 years

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Hi, thank you for sending me asks, I really appreciate it! :D Could you do 002 for klave, I always want to hear your thoughts about them <3

my buddy, my dude, it’s been roughly 17 years since you sent this ask, and i’m oh so sorry for taking this long to answer. it got to be one of those situations where i wanted to do it Properly, which of course brought the anxiety, which of course then brought the avoidance. But we’re here now! it’s a new era and i have a whole bunch of klave thoughts to dump on my unsuspecting followers. let us begin.

when i started shipping it:

Pretty much immediately! I remember first watching s1 and getting that slow confirmation that Klaus time traveled to the Vietnam War. We saw him on the bus with his fatigues and bloody hands and I was like ‘oh god oh no he went to Vietnam didn’t he.’ And then later we have Klaus experiencing flashbacks in the bathtub and there are echoes of the noises of war but also a strong and clear “Dave!” And in that moment my interest was piqued. Dave, he said? Who is this Dave? Is this someone he loved? Did he have a war-time romance with another soldier? And I was hopeful but I also didn’t want to get too ahead of myself because of Queer Baiting in Media reasons (like, I was in the marvel fandom, ok? I went through the whole stucky dance routine). But then, but then! We got more. We got roughly five minutes (or less?) of scenes of Klaus dropping down in front of a disoriented soldier, of this soldier introducing himself as Dave on a bus, of Klaus and Dave dancing in a bar, of Klaus and Dave sharing a kiss in a quiet corner, of Dave bleeding out and dying in the middle of combat as Klaus sobs above him. And it was quick and it was short but it was meaningful and it was tender and immediately I knew that I was gone for them. There was no turning back at this point. I was all in on the Klave Train.

my thoughts:

My thoughts? Where do I even start? I have many! Some are incoherent! Some are devastating! Some are sickeningly sweet! Some are raunchy! Stay tuned to find out!

what makes me happy about them/what makes me sad about them:

So I decided to combine these two questions because, well, I Do Not Know how to untie the happy and the sad when it comes to klave. I tried and I cannot do it. They’re two sides of the same coin with these two. Because their entire relationship is tinted by tragedy, you know? They only met each other because Klaus was tortured and then flung into a notoriously traumatizing war in the 1960s. And who knows what number tour Dave was on. Had he been there for just 2 months or was this second or third time around? I’m not sure which option is more painful, really. And it’s unclear, did Dave genuinely want to serve in the military? Did he truly subscribe to those values instilled by his family? I’d lean towards no, based on the conversation Klaus tries to have with the Younger Dave in the diner. But I think it took Dave some time to get there, as he grew older and came to better understand and accept himself and perhaps grew more and more disillusioned with the life he was pushed into. And then there’s Klaus, whose own experiences somewhat parallel Dave’s (they just happened on a different timeline). Klaus, who grew up under Reginald’s reign of terror, who was taught to be a soldier just like Dave was. But his own disillusionment was expedited and he was able to rebel and remove himself from that scene more easily than Dave could (but at the expense of losing shelter and security and stability). And we have some insights into what it was like for Klaus to grow up in that environment, constantly surrounded by death. When we first meet him he is a person who clearly does not do genuine attachment or sincerity, because that is far too vulnerable and far too dangerous in his experience. He looks out for himself and he does what he needs to do to get by, and he approaches things from a casual, crass (safe) distance. And then there’s Dave, who we learn a little bit about from his interactions with Klaus in 1963 Dallas. He appears earnest and kind, just a Really Good Kid. He seems somewhat confused by Klaus, but also intrigued. Pretty much every time we see Klaus interact with someone in the 1960’s who is not a member of Destiny’s Children they approach him with disdain (referring to him as “pretty boy,” kicking him out of the diner, etc.). But not Dave. Not until he is pressured into it by Uncle Homophobe. And after that Dave seeks him out and apologizes, says that’s not him. And he and Klaus talk, and we see that they really knew each other, they really had a relationship, but by the end of the conversation Dave has been pushed too far. He’s not quite ready to rebel yet, he’s not quite able to make that leap into living as his true self. Just like Klaus, Dave grew up trapped and restricted and surrounded by ghosts. Not literal ones, no, but the ghosts of dead war heroes who came before him, the ghosts of the Ideal Man and Good Son that he thought he had to be, that he thought he had to prove he could become. And it’s not quite clear how and when Dave finally got to that point where he could rebel, where he could finally push past the fear, knock down the walls of the box he had been shoved into. But by the time he and Klaus crossed paths in 1968 Vietnam he was ready. And Klaus was ready. And they brought that genuine, true, real love out in each other. Something both of them probably thought was never possible. Something both of them probably thought was just a myth. Just turning themselves inside out and sharing that with each other. Trusting the other to take care of it and hold and keep it safe. All in the middle of a deadly war. It’s beautiful and it’s painful and it’s why I love them.

things done in fanfic that annoy me:

Nothing really specific comes to mind. Generally if there’s something I don’t like in a fanfic I’ll stop reading and move on. There is, of course, the Fanon Klaus Problem that makes its way into klave fics, so I suppose that annoys me. Or stories where Dave is one-dimensional and seems to exist just to comfort and take care of Klaus. But really, I don’t wanna hate on anyone who writes fanfic in a particular way. You do you. If it appeals to me I’ll read it and if it doesn’t I’ll just pass it by. No big deal.

things i look for in fanfic:

It absolutely depends on the day and what I’m in the mood for in that particular moment. I’m a sucker for angst so I absolutely do not mind reading something terribly sad and tragic. I like hurt/comfort with an emphasis on the hurt. I’m a fan of the GhostDave Watches Over Klaus Through the Years genre. I like stories that explore their time together in Vietnam. I’m into AU’s that include AliveDave traveling back to 2019 with Klaus and they hang out in Klaus’ room in the academy and Dave meets the siblings and Diego gives him a shovel talk. Sometimes I just want that sweet, sweet smut. Mostly I look for something that is both lovely and sad, which is not hard to find because that is, essentially, their relationship. There’s lots of good stuff out there. All y’all writers are talented. I salute you.

my kinks:

Alright, I’m just gonna preface this by saying that I will try my best to be unapologetically open about this, but at my core I am both shy and repressed. My easy and safe answer to this is that my kink for klave is love, happiness, and tender intimacy. That’s what I really want for them. But also. But also! Let them be smutty! Let them find places to sneak away and fuck, Dave’s hand over Klaus’ mouth to stop him from making noise that will alert the other soldiers to their activities. Or maybe they’re sitting under a tarp in the pouring rain and Klaus sees how far he can take it, and Dave doesn’t back down, and it ends up with Klaus blowing Dave while some other guys are sitting just feet away, oblivious to what’s going on between Katz and Hargreeves just over there. And then there’s that time they get to take leave together, and they’re able to get a hotel room, just to themselves, with real walls and a door that locks and a bed and everything. And the digs aren’t great but it feels like a palace compared to what they’re used to, and they absolutely do not waste this opportunity. Dave fucks Klaus into the mattress, and Klaus gets to learn what it’s like to have someone take control because you actually want them to and you feel safe with them, and Dave gets to learn what it’s like to have someone trust you implicitly and be willing to be vulnerable with you. And it’s not perfect, of course, sometimes their histories and understandings of sex and intimacy bump heads, but they love each other, they really do, and they work through it. And they both cry during sex at some point. For Dave it’s the first time he’s done so, for Klaus it’s not (but this is nothing like those other times this is because he wants to be here this is because he’s overwhelmed with love this is a release this is being seen this is being cared for).

who i’d be comfortable with them ending up with if not each other:

Let me be real and say that I really, really, really want them to end up with each other, and I think that this is where the show is headed. But, if that is not the case, as long as they are happy I will be happy. Perhaps that is cliche, but oh well. Just let them experience love and support, whether that’s with each other, someone else, or just on their own.

my happily ever after for them:

I don’t know how and I don’t know when (like seriously, when in the timeline is a big question), but I want them to find a way to be together. Maybe it involves some time-traveling, maybe it involves some timeline-hopping, maybe it involves some Commission interference, maybe one or both of them will be dead, maybe (most likely) it involves something that has not even crossed my mind as a possibility. But, like I said, I think that somehow there WILL be a (perhaps nontraditional) happily ever after for them. It might take some time to get there and I don’t think it’s gonna be a smooth road, but I do think that’s the ultimate destination. And I’m looking forward to the whole process.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Good question! My first instinct was Klaus as little spoon. Because he is Klaus but also because of the Bar Kiss scene where Dave tenderly cradles his face and those Very Important blurry behind the scenes instagram photos of Klaus resting his head on Dave. But I also think it would be really nice for Dave to be the little spoon? Because Klaus gets to hold him and act as a Protector and maybe he can feel Dave’s heartbeat beneath his (hello) hand and he gets to wrap around him and hold on tight and he can let go when he wants to but he doesn’t want to, he wants to stay right here as long as Dave will have him. And Dave will have Klaus wrapped around him, holding on, as long as Klaus wants to stay. Dave gets to be held and cocooned in the arms of this beautiful person he loves. Dave doesn’t have to be strong right now, he doesn’t have to put on the face of the Good Soldier. All he has to do is fall into the space between them.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I’m gonna say that they had a lot of time to sit together and talk while they were in Vietnam. Sure, they had their duties and sometimes they were in the shit but there was also a lot of down time, just sitting around and waiting for something to happen. And so they’d sit and they’d smoke and they would talk. About their interests, about where they come from, and eventually about the life they would build together after they got out of there. But here’s a specific image that I have: they’re sitting close together, maybe it’s dark, there’s no one nearby. Cigarette smoke lingers in the air, mingles with the fine mist. The conversation has turned to music, somehow. Conversations have a tendency to meander when Klaus is involved, and Dave follows him step for step, never tripping, never questioning how they got there. And Klaus asks Dave about his favorite song, and Dave hesitantly mentions “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” like he’s embarrassed, but he’s loved it for years and he wants to be honest with Klaus. And Klaus hums and says he doesn’t know it, hasn’t heard of it, and he leans against Dave, lays his head against his chest. And Dave says, that’s ok, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a stupid old song anway. But Klaus says, no, you should sing it for me, I want to hear it, I want to know it. And Dave scoffs and laughs, but Klaus looks up at him, and then Dave looks away, and his mouth lifts into a smile, something small and fragile. He turns back to Klaus, looks him the eye, and softly, so softly, starts singing, “When Liberty Valence rode to town, the womenfolk would hide…” And Klaus drops his head and shifts closer to Dave and hears the words slip from Dave’s mouth and feels the words vibrate in Dave’s chest. He closes his eyes. There’s a war going on. It’s 1968 and he’s in Vietnam and his clothes are damp but he’s right where he wants to be. The song is not romantic, but it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. He never forgets the words.

#these are my klave rambles! they are long and i am sorry! i could not contain myself! i think you got insight into the Incoherent Thoughts!#alright i’ll stop yelling now #thank you again for the ask and sorry again for taking so long #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #dave katz #klave #an ask and an answer #softforklave

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faerune · 3 years

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basics and background + vera! 🧡

background also asked by @queennymeria!! thank you guys 🧡

What’s their full name? Vera Maria Victoria Volakov (we love a mouthful!)

What does their name mean? Why were they named that? Vera’s mother picked out Vera for her first name and Victoria and Marie are her maternal and paternal grandmothers respectively!

Do they have any nicknames? Besides, V I can’t really think of any! At least none that she would respond to lmao. The enemies in the game certainly have some colorful things they call V.

How old are they? Twenty-seven!

When’s their birthday? July 29th, 2050!

What’s their zodiac sign/element/birthstone/etc.? Do they believe that holds any significance? Leo, fire and rubies! For most of her life no but Misty turns her onto astrology for fun and honestly she’s just grabbing onto anything to make sense of everything/find comfort.

What’s their species/subspecies? Do they have any special/magical abilities? Just human! She’s got cyberware - most of it to help with her aim.

What “class” do they belong to (for fantasy characters)? If none, what weapon do they favor? Pistols~ Any guns really but pistols are her favorite. Too bad you can’t duel wield pistols in the game because you know I’d be using that all the time playing her save.

Where were they born? What was their childhood like? Heywood, Night City!! Full of both a lot of violence and things that kids should never be subjects to and a whole lot of community. Vera had love in her life - and she attributes that to her not going completely dickhead gonk ganger but her father was emotionally and physically abusive and her mother was in and out of her life due to her profession and addiction.

It really...made her accept the way things are in Night City and harden herself with that. A lot of things she can shrug off as “just the way things are” because it’s the way they always were for her and the people around her.

What’s their family like? sdkglsdgjk see above. Complicated and unstable. Vera’s mother really did love her and want the best for her. She tried her hardest to be the mother that Vera deserved and a lot of Vera’s fond memories of her early childhood are with her mom. Vera gets back into contact with her after about a five year gap when she’s 22/23? Her mother gets clean and they have a good few months together but sadly she relapses and passes away.

It’s what first shocks Vera into some kind of...doubt of Night City? It’s why she leaves for Atlanta.

Vera was her father’s pride and joy - he told her how to shoot and fight and survive on the streets but he was very harsh and abusive in response to any of her wrong doings even just...mistakes that kids and teenagers make and deserve to learn from instead of...that.

He died when she was 18 during the final few years of the Valentinos pushing the mob out of Heywood. It was just another of those things that she shrugged off as “just the way things are” and he had nailed into her head that people who die are stupid so...funnily enough she kind of thought about him that way for a long time.

What factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold? Vera stays away from gangers, just being a solo because she saw how long her father was on a bottom rung of the mob and where it got him. She’s basically the last person who would be part of any organization lmao. Which is what makes her becoming an Aldecaldo -chef kiss-.

How do they fit into their “story”? I guess she’s the protag since she’s my V? lol

Idk I just really love the way throughout the story I kept hearing dialogue between a bunch of different unconnected characters about ya know. Do you wanna be a legend? Have you ever tried to leave Night City? Night City you either rise or you sink in quick sand, etc, etc. So I really wanted my V to lean into that struggle of wanting to be known and having their only option for that following this awful suicidal path of these “heroes” that came before her. And then breaking all that down and having her becoming disillusioned and finally finding peace on her own terms.

Where do they currently live? What’s their place like? She currently lives on the road with the Aldecaldos! Vera and Johnny own an RV and it’s cute. Nothing bougie or anything but they’ve made it their own and Vera loves it so much - Johnny says he hates it but he loves it too. It’s got a nice big bed in the back, a little kitchenette, nice living area with a breakfast table and sofa and some chairs.

Lots of windows. Vera insisted.

How do they eventually die? I haven’t really given it much thought but hopefully old and after a long, happy life on the road with her soulmate.

#chuckhansen #asks #thank you GUYSSSS #this is long underneath the cut be warned #oc: vera

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ariainstars · 4 years

Text

TRoS Speculation: Maybe It Was Intentional…

All right, since the subject obviously doesn’t let me go, new speculation on my side. WARNING: this is a longer post.

Ever since the 80es, Star Wars has become a universal phenomenon with millions of fans all over the world. And while fans often agree, they more often than not disagree about the characters, the themes, the different turn of events etc. Star Wars touches very many different kinds of people deep down due to the emotions it provokes. Many of us have grown up with the saga, some with one trilogy, others with another. Others have read the EU novels or watched the TV shows first. The saga’s themes are so many that they appeal to all kinds of people, and the approaches are varying. There are very many topics on which we will never make everybody agree. Being the foundation for many fan’s view of the world, the root to a lot of their ideals, the source of many a dream, the saga has become a hugely personal matter. No wonder viewers all over the world can quarrel about it so venomously and get downright aggressive if you only introduce a new line of thoughts. Many fans feel that the saga belongs to them and not to the man who created it and the creative studios who are now employing it to develop new stories.

We have made our mistakes in our fandom, too, in the years since The Force Awakens came out. We were so excited in what we believed was investing into a redemption arc, love story and happy ending, connecting all kinds of dots throughout the saga and analyzing it from almost every angle. Some of us simply thought that who didn’t think like us was stupid. But many other fans believe that this saga is only about Good against Evil and not about human feelings. They keep seeing it as some superhero story, a comforting world where to retire when reality got too much, a place where bad things happen but then the hero eventually comes to take care of it. They stick to their conviction that the good guy (or the one you root for even if he’s a villain) is the one who’s the coolest. Many of them love the OT above all and plainly refuse to see anything positive about the PT or ST because they always expected to see the New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia. Some of them have waited for literally decades for the OT’s continuation. We, who also love the other trilogies (or at least the sequels) were at times disrespectful and arrogant looking down on them and believing that they simply don’t know what the saga actually is about. And all of us need heroes. We apply our own problems, needs and expectations to them and wait for them to fix the problem as an example for us. That’s also why we expect them to get their happy ending.

I have seen videos and read articles about how highly divisive The Last Jedi was. Some fans (a few of them even with tears in their eyes) openly declared that the saga was ruined for them. Similarly to us, who identify with Ben Solo and / or Rey, they had often found courage in the examples set by their heroes and it was offensive and hurtful to them to see Luke Skywalker reduced to a hermit who drinks green milk, rejects the ways of the Jedi and was personally responsible for his nephew’s fall into his abuser’s clutches. They were entitled to their feelings of disappointment and inner numbness as we are now. I know of people who actually survived many ugly periods in their lives finding solace in the saga. Some in one part of it, some in another. And we all got duped and let down, each by one chapter of the sequel trilogy, like some naughty, sadistic kid was kicking apart our favorite doll house a few days before Christmas.

I assume now that The Last Jedi was an experiment to gauge the audience’s reaction. It touched many a sensitive issue. My personal approach is that in order to like it, you don’t only have to be a fan of the sequel trilogy and its characters in general, or a hopeless romantic who wanted to see Rey and Ben Solo’s love story. You have to accept in the first place what the prequel trilogy painstakingly tried to explain to us (though it wasn’t actually said but more shown): that the Jedi were no heroes but got destroyed by their own hubris, and that Anakin Skywalker was largely a victim and not someone who became a villain because he enjoyed being evil, like the typical Batman or Superman villains. The prequels are not a fairy tale like the original trilogy but a cautionary tale following the lines of “society creates its own monsters.” It was only logical to deduce that if the Jedi were so perfect and the Old Republic so idyllic as Obi-Wan described them to Luke when they first met on Tatooine, Vader’s rise and the creation of the Empire couldn’t have happened in the first place. This was never said as clearly and concisely as by Luke to Rey during their second lesson on Ahch-To:

“Now that they’re extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But strip away the myth and look at their deeds: the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris. At the height of their power they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire and wipe them out. It was a Jedi who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.”

This is the message of the prequels in a few sentences, and a pivotal change to the “superhero approach” to the Jedi which might qualified if you only watch the OT and never question its themes on a larger scale. If you accept the Jedi’s failure for a fact, all of the rest falls into place - Vader being but a broken, sad old guy, Luke’s disillusion, his decision to give up the ways of the Jedi, his first lesson teaching Rey that the Force is not some kind of superpower, his forgiveness towards his nephew, the glimpses of goodness we saw foreshadowing Ben Solo’s redemption. The prequels also make much more sense this way than watching them expecting to see the Jedi being super-cool heroes and Anakin becoming Vader because he thought it might be fun.

But many fans chose not to see or accept what The Last Jedi actually was trying to say: that things couldn’t continue the way they did, because the Old Republic and the Jedi (though they didn’t actually have bad intentions) were deeply flawed. Leia tried to build another republic without any major changes that we are aware of, and Luke wanted to rebuild the Jedi Order without effectuating the considerable changes their Code would have needed. Both failed. It was e.g. never explained why Luke spirited his students away to a lonely planet for their training, but the fact that they were taken from their families when they were too small to make a choice and stick to it - Ben e.g. wanted to be a pilot like his father and not a Jedi - already shows the same pattern. Luke had not learned from the faults of his teachers until his exile. Logically, Episode IX ought to have continued these themes and showed the ST protagonist finding a new and better approach to the Force. Instead, what we got was another (in my opinion: redundant) Ultimate Battle of Good Against Evil, in other words some kind of superhero film which largely ignores the themes of its predecessor.

Any fan is entitled to his opinion. If someone hates the PT because it shows a stagnant society and the Jedi as highly flawed, because they didn’t get to see Darth Vader becoming over-the-top cool but were confronted, in Anakin, with a deeply compassionate person crushed by expectations he never could meet in the first place, if they judged him a whiny brat instead of an intelligent guy who clearly saw through the flaws of the society he was forced to live in and simply didn’t find the right words to express it: they’re entitled to it. Same goes for not feeling the tension between Rey and Kylo in the ST, for judging Kylo quickly (again) as a whiny brat instead of a complex, tormented character, for not appreciating new characters like Rose on account of not being Star-Wars-y enough. These feelings mostly stem from the fans’ long-standing wish to see an actual continuation of the original trilogy, not a new instalment where a new generation takes over and the old heroes are relegated to the background and, additionally, their characters and past decisions are openly criticized.

We may claim that fanbros are simply too stupid to understand what the saga is actually about. Well, maybe they are, or they are just too lazy to look at the bigger picture. But they have a right to that. Of course, it doesn’t entitle them to harass the studios, directors, creative team or actors the way they were, mind you: what e.g. Kelly Marie Tran, Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd had to endure was a disgrace. There are very many fans who disagree with the PT and ST without getting bitter or even vicious.

This doesn’t mean I have changed my mind. I still believe that the Jedi were everything but heroes, that Darth Vader is a tragic figure, that the main themes of the saga are family, hope and new beginnings and not “the coolest ones win, ka-boom, the end”; that what it means to say is that human feelings are in the end more important than power, even an enormous power like the one the Force can provide.

We who are angry and disappointed with TRoS now like to blame how it went that way due to the influence of angry white dudebros, misogyny, Calvinism, racism, the overall political situation, the Mouse only wanting to make money etc.

But we ought to consider that The Last Jedi, which was so deeply controversial, hit theatres only two years ago. Have mentalities, politics and social structures and Disney’s overall approached changed so considerably, in so short a time, to produce two so radically different approaches to the saga within the scope of two years?

Sorry, I can’t believe it. it doesn’t really make sense.

The Mandalorian is met with universal acclaim, no doubt partly due to the fact that it’s a standalone story without the huge dynastic weight the saga has on its shoulders. Being a TV show, it had more time to introduce characters and situations and develop them. And it worked out fine. It had all the Star Wars themes - a lot of action scenes, sure, but it was also about belonging, family, redemption, protectiveness, friendship. Meaning that the studios didn’t lose track or are too dumb to think up a good story.

The Rise of Skywalker seems to bring the saga to a closure, but it could also be a wholly new beginning; the beginning of what I was foreseeing and still believe was in the cards - a new galaxy with a new and better political order kept together by a common belief in the Force as a whole; a new Jedi order where Force-sensitive children are not torn away from their families but can choose whether they want to become Jedi or not; and where Jedi are not taught emotional detachment. This would mean balance at last, a balance from which everyone would benefit. I have no idea how Ben Solo could be revived but I still am certain that he would be an excellent father figure, the perfect foil to his grandfather; and that the best thing for Rey would be to take care of children who are lost and abandoned the way she once was. And with Rey being a Palpatine, there is an interesting ground from which to explore her character’s tendency to the Dark, mirroring Ben’s. The basic approaches for this kind of development were all there in The Last Jedi. But a project like that would be something completely different from the original saga, and it would take a lot of time. Maybe that’s why the studios dropped it in favor of appeasing the angry fanbros who didn’t receive The Last Jedi well at all.

Anyone has the right to think that the original trilogy is the one and only and that the rest is rubbish. But the heroes of that story had their friendship, their family, their adventures, their successes, their happy ending. Even the heroes of the prequel trilogy had their moments, including Anakin Skywalker. Our heroes didn’t. That’s why this ending is so bitter for us and so hard to stomach. Essentially, we were right - we knew that Ben and Rey belong together, that Ben would redeem himself and make peace with his family, that balance would come. What we didn’t get was our happy ending.

The Force Awakens was still more or less accepted, because despite the many new themes and choices it wasn’t subversive and controversial in its approach. The actual wasps’ nest was stirred with The Last Jedi. No argumentation could convince antis that it is actually a well-made film and that their personal approach on the saga is too narrow-minded to appreciate it. They wanted the same villains, the same settings and costumes, the same heroes (or at least rehashes). And they had a right to want that, exactly as we had the right to expect a better development and ending for our new heroes. The hardcore OT fans wanted and expected The New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia kicking ass. Well, it seems The Rise of Skywalker took care of that, finally giving them what they wanted and ignoring or “correcting” the course of events from The Last Jedi.

So, that’s it now. The OT fanbros got “their” Star Wars. I hope they’re finally appeased. They can ignore anything that happens next. That the saga is finished does not mean that the Star Wars universe came to a standstill.

If fans of the original trilogy felt entitled to ask for The Last Jedi to be removed from canon, or at least to be “fixed” in some way, so can we. In case you didn’t see it yet, the petition is already there: https://www.change.org/p/lucasfilm-continue-ben-solo-s-story

Let’s tell the studios to keep TRoS the way they prefer, but that we wish to have our Star Wars now. Let us not steep down to the level of who made the lives of actors who played characters they disapproved of a living hell (see above) or say over and over “Star Wars is dead” when we don’t know what’s in store for the future. With the Star Wars universe, you always have to be patient. In the meantime, we can write and read fanfiction and other stories and purse our own lives, telling our own happy endings.

Happy New Year everyone. Feel free to reblog. 😊

P.P.S. On a side note: Rey’s last scene shows her where Luke used to be, on Tatooine watching the suns set. The twin suns. In A New Hope, this was shortly before he met the other half of his soul who had been separated from him right after birth - his twin sister. Considering that it was explicitly said that Rey and Ben Solo share the same soul, it might be a hint about the future. I’m not trying to make false promises or to fuel wrong expectations here. Just sayin’. 😉

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smokeybrand · 4 years

Text

Bad Manager

Story time. All this talk of Karens has got me reminiscing about my time in retail. Way back in the wild of my youth, before my chick and i really started getting heavy into out relationship and she mellowed me out, I was a manager at the most ghetto Gamestop in the greater Sacramento area. I actually got the job like i got most things back then; After an argument over Dragon Ball Z. That’s actually how i met my chick, and argument over DBZ, but i digress. I had a thirty minute debate with the assistant manager at the time and he immediately gave me an interview with the store manager. This is, of course, before i found out how sh*tty Gamestop corporate is in real life. In about a year, I worked my way up from seasonal part-time, all the way to Store Manager and i have a Karen story for each phase of my brief career.

Seasonal Part-Time: When you’re a part timer at the ‘Stop, you are basically house b*tch. They make you do the most mundane bullsh*t. Clean the bathrooms, take out the garbage, vacuum the stores, etc. B*tch sh*t. The most mundane task you have, though, is f*cking alphabetizing the goddamn game racks. I HATED that sh*t. it was tedious and f*cking stupid. Once, it took me my entire four hour shift just to properly arrange the PS2 rack. Sh*t was whack, son!

So i finish this sh*t early one day, probably about an hour and a half before i’m off, and this Karen comes in with her kid. He wants a PS2 game. Fine. This little asshole f*cks up the entire system because he can’t find his game. I kept telling the little sh*t that everything was in alphabetical order but he ain’t care. He’s an idiot. After about ten minutes of watching this bundle of cooties and Capri Sun ruin my hard work, i ask him if he knows what “Alphabetize” means and his mom blows up! She accuses me of being cruel and how i had no right to chastise her child and that she would have my job.Obviously, this dumb b*tch escalated the scenario and i had to get my manager. She actually demanded a free game because i asked if her kid understood the order of his ABCs.

Full-Time: Once you graduate to full-time, you get to be looked upon like you are a responsible individual and not house b*tch anymore. There’s usually new part-timers for that. I became third key, a person who’s basically management but gets no management pay, after the ASM who hired me, left. Everyone moved up a rank after that. I started getting opening shifts and sh*t. This is before i was disillusioned with work life and still applied myself for faceless conglomerate who see you as expendable numbers. Don’t worry, we’ll get there soon. Since i’m Third Key, i get opening shifts now. Still don’t do payroll or take corporate calls, but i do everything else management does. As such, thee are days when it’s just me in the store. I’m the proxy manager because the two others above me make too much hourly and it’s cheaper for me to act as management instead of paying actual management.

It’s, like, six minutes before the store closes. My pat-timer is winding down their ABCing busy work because corporate decreed it so. I’m closing out one o the registers and setting the alarm on the safe to open because that sh*t takes, like, 30 minutes and my ass wants to go home ASAP. We are breezing, man, and about to be out this b*tch in record time. NOPE! Six minutes, man. I remember very distinctly because i glanced at the little clock on the register. Six minutes. This wild Karen rushes my door with her four goddamn crotch spawns six goddamn minutes before lock up! They destroy my store. My part-timer and eye can only watch in dismay. all that work. all that prep. all of it, mute. The f*cked up thing? This b*tch ain’t even buy nothing. We were located next to a Togos.She had the audacity to walk up and small talk at me about how they were waiting for their sandwiches to finish and just needed to kill time.

I tell her that we were closing and she told me, and i quote, “Not with me and my kids in the store.” 9 rolls around and tell her we have to lock the doors and she’s like, “Go ahead.” I explain to her that i’m not legally allowed to lock up the store with customers on the premises. She looks me dead in the eyes and says, “ Well i guess you’re gonna get some OT tonight then, right?” I’ll never forget that sh*t. That was the first time i felt Retail Rage. I wanted to murder this b*tch. Straight up keelhaul this hoe and set her little monsters on fire. I maintained my composure and after about forty extra minutes, they left. I ended up finishing the close by myself because i had to sen the part-timer home. that’s ABCs, Shelving, closing registers, re-timing the safe, etc. I didn’t get ot of that store until about 11 pm. And had a morning shift at 7. All because a Karen turned my store into a waiting room/playground six minutes before close.

Assistant Manager: My Store Manager got into some sh*t with corporate and they fired him on straight BS. Probably time card fraud, i dunno. I do know he had been with the company for eleven years so f*ck em. I got bumped up to Second Key. Got a little it of a raise. Made schedules now, officially, even though i’d been doing that sh*t since i was Third Key. It’s fine. I can do refunds now and give discounts. I’m “The Manager” and, boy, do you hear about it!

Gamestop is about money. They never want to lose a sale. As such, we have a POS system that let’s you look up merchandise throughout the district. If we don’t have something, we can send you to another store that does. That’s how this story starts. I get a call from another store asking about a game. We have one copy left. They tell me to hold it because someone is coming to get it. Fine. Karen comes in a backpack full of trade-in to pay for this game and get a few extra credits for a birthday gift. Whatever. Back then, we had to test every game that came i. This b*tch had, like, 30. Fine. She also had an old, ratty, PS1. The rectangle ones. That was going to be an argument because she was only getting, like, four dollars for it. She kept gloating about how she got it at launch when she was young and what not. Motherf*cker was as old as Jesus. Also, it rattled. We found out later that was because there was dead roaches in it but that’s a story for another day.

I finish this ridiculous trade in; Tested all the games, made sure they read on both PS2 and PSOne. a few were too scratched to read so i had to run them through the disc cleaner and they ended up being viable after. I trade all of this sh*t in, and the b*tch gets upset when i tell her she’s walking out with less than a hundred in credit and even less than that in cash. She blows up on me, demands to see my manager. I tell her i am the manger, and she just starts going in. I immediately disengage and become visibly indifferent because, if i don’t, i would have beat that b*tch up in front of her children. Like, straight up curb stomp cunts and sh*t. She berates me for being an hourly employee and how she makes more than i do the entire year in a week and all this other sh*t. She just kept getting more and more upset at the fact that i was indifferent to her bullsh*t. B*tch even drops the n*gga wit hte hard “R” a few times, like i didn’t notice. I maintain through all of this racist disrespect. That ain’t what she expected and it definitely wasn’t the reaction she wanted. She demands the corporate number, takes all her games, leaves the Sony RoachMotel, and storms out. I get written up a week later for being an asshole to the customer. I literally just stood there while she turned bright red racist hulk, all over my person, but i’m in the wrong. Okay, Karen.

Bad Manager: My Senior ASM quits because Gamestop is on that bullsh*t so now i’m big man on campus. My DM is forced to promote me to acting Store Manager. Basically, i’m responsible for everything the actual manager does, but i don’t get paid what the manager i pad. It’s that Third Key bullsh*t but, you know, not. By now, it’s been about six months and i do not care. Full on disillusioned and well on my way to outright militant. That’s what Retail does to you. It slowly kills your joy and makes you hate people. I already hated people but this? This sh*t just effortlessly validated why. So it’s me and the other ASM in the store. I hire some regular to round out the staff an change literally everything about the store.

First thing to go was that whack ass dress code. I believe you do your best work when you’re comfortable so it had to go. The next thing i nixed was the ABCs. That sh*t was stupid and a waste of time. As long as the helves were neat, we were good. The next thing i did was spread the reserve and sh*t around. I held a meeting and everyone agreed that was best for the entire store. Numbers were met and no one straggled. Everyone got to keep their jobs and i didn’t have to cut hours. The last major change i instituted was letting staff play games, in store, during downtime. If everything was legit int the store and it was slow, go ahead, pop one of the used titles in a test station, and have a blast. I don’t care. Just don’t be a dick to customers because i don’t want to get hassled. I don’t want you to get hassled. No one wants t get hassled. The time that i was in charge of that store, our numbers were spectacular and we killed even the richest stores in the district. It’s dope how well a team works together when they have high morale ya dig.

One day, i get a call from my new Third key. He and his part timer, his wife at the time, were opening. I wasn’t scheduled to come in that day but he was hysterical. Apparently, this Karen didn’t like her trade in quote and called the f*cking cops. Sac PD was in my store, intimidating the sh*t out of my staff, all because this b*tch thought she deserved more than 20 dollar for her used Gamecube or some sh*t. I walk my ass all the way to work, on my day off, and diffuse the situation with the cops. I explain that prices are set by corporate and there was nothing we could do about the trade in value. I then ask way the f*ck they were even giving validity to this crazy b*tches allegations when she freely admits nothing of hers was actually stolen. Cops didn’t like my questioning their motives and hassled us for another thirty minutes but whatever. They left eventually. I left. The Karen left. The it came back.

This b*tch was in my store for a total of three f*cking hours, trying to sabotage every transaction throughout my Third Key’s shift. Eventually, he clocked out and left. His wife stayed for a few extra hours and this Karen b*tch took the opportunity to just assault her with insults. My part-timer maintained a strong facade. I was so proud of her, man. A lot of the sh*t said was very cruel personal attacks about my part timer’s heritage and status. She was a Ukranian refugee, came over to escape Russian aggression. Gorgeous chick, for real. Very funny. Very affable. Bluest eyes i’ve ever seen on a person. They were unnervingly clear and mad piercing. She was also dummy thicc. Like, she had that super stronk Snow Bunny charm. Let’s just say i made sure to schedule her for a full shift when the Madden and 2K reserves went live.

Anyway, the actual scheduled ASM just hid in the back room while this assault was occurring because he was weenie. Sweet kid, total puss. Karen was going in on how immigrants were the worst and that since she couldn’t understand my part timer’s accent she didn’t deserve to be in the country or have this job. She effectively called her a slut, several times, by insinuating she probably “F*ck your big black boss for this job.” My part timer endured for hours. When she took her break, she immediately called me in tears. She filled me in on the situation. I couldn’t make it back to my store fast enough, man. i blew up on this Karen. I called her out on her elitist bullsh*t, her classist ignorance, and the fact that we didn’t need her stupid f*cking business. I attacked her appearance. infantilized her entire lifestyle. I told her she was a depleted cum-dumpster jealous that my part timer was so vibrant with because her genuine shine reminded the Karen of everything you lost by being a suburban cliche. A middle class punchline. I banned her for being a toxic b*tch. She left my store in gross, sobbing, tears. No one f*cks with my crew like that. I got written up again.

The next day, i was on shift and the Karen bought her husband in to “speak” with me. Part timer and i opened and this big ass, corn-fed, white boy, walks in, bobbing his head around like a rooster. I’m half-sleep behind the register because insomnia, so i let my part timer do her thing. I’m over yonder, full Sith mode, Decepticon hoodie full cowl and bad attitude, wishing a motherf*cker would. And a motherf*cker did. This motherf*cker is right red, trying to assail my part timer, again, just like his wife did before.Speaking of Karen, she’s out front, pacing the entrance like a shark, expecting the fireworks her beau was supposed to bring. Not today, Satan. My part timer was standing her ground, using a lot of firm language, but this motherf*cker is big and i start seeing him using that size to intimidate.

I, immediately, physically step between dude and my part timer. He’s about three inches taller than i am so he presses my gangster. I pull back my hood, and tell him i’m the manager of the store but i can clock out and just be a n*gga in the street if he wanted the Smoke. He didn’t want the Smoke. I called him a b*tch to his face, his wife a cock-gobbling hoe, and his mother a slut. He still did not want the Smoke. He bailed. His wife started gassing on him for being a b*tch as they both shrunk away like the cowards they really were. Never saw either one after that. I didn’t get written up for that though. No f*cks given. Bad Manager life. Gang gang, n*gga.

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sigurdjarlson · 5 years

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So, coz I never get tired of this (and because I'm trying to distract myself from being hellishly hungover): What would the Wintermoon girls be like as villains? Say they joined Aszhara, or Elisande, rather than making their own way?

Ooooh interesting question.

This got extremely long and borders on being a goddamn character analysis essay I’m so sorry

I hope you feel better soon though. Hangovers are hell.

edit: (OOOF forgot the read more. Sorry to anyone who had this monster of a post take up their dash for a minute there)

Any villain Diily AU I have tends to be one where she loses Alaluria and Ladelia in a very traumatic way and just kind of..snaps. Or rather doesn’t give a fuck about anything but getting vengeance.

Completely disillusioned with everyone, heroes, villains, she doesn’t care. Get in her way and you’re cat food.

A lot of things that make her..her? Would be gone. Compassion being the most notable missing trait. It’s switched off and twisted into something much worse.

I think..cold. She’s all rage but it’s a quiet and cold rage. Calculating. Patient. Ruthless. She’s a huntress after all and she is just..hunting a different kind of prey now.

And honestly cruel because why should she continue to be kind when the world never was to them? Why should she keep giving when all fate seems to do is take and take from her until there’s nothing left.

She’s putting all that pain and rage onto her victims and it makes for..very brutal deaths. Because they deserve it, don’t they? They’re all monsters. All of them. Look what they did. Even those who had nothing to do with it?

The world is cruel so she will be too. She tried being good once and look where that got her.

Such a huge part of her identity is being that sister figure to Alaluria and Ladelia. Her life has been dedicated to protecting them for 10,000 years. And naturally that inherent kindness and compassion extends to the rest of the world too.

They’ve all got some..hm..codependency issues that have been getting better as they get older and branch out, spend time with other people but they do still exist. Ironically I’d actually say Diily has it the worst there. It’s part why her and Alaluria clashed so much. It didn’t mesh well with Alaluria’s own deep rooted issues.

And WERE ABOUT TO GET REAL DEEP INTO THEIR PSYCH because it plays a huge part in how something like this could so drastically change her

GODDDD my Diily. She’s such a mess and full of good intentions that sadly don’t always have the best results. And the saddest thing about her is that she was just as much of a traumatized, terrified child as the other two when they lost their parents.

And she was thrust into that mother role which she was of course not emotionally or mentally prepared to take. She herself is deeply traumatized and trying to cope but none of them know how.

She does know she loves them though. And so, she throws herself in that role completely. They’re her world okay. She loves them more than life itself. I can’t stress that enough.

And another thing that breaks my heart is that in becoming what is essentially their mother as a young pre-teen she gave up everything. None of them had a typical upbringing and a typical adolescence but Diily really had none of that.

She’ll starve herself before she let them go hungry (she’s done it before). She’ll sell her body before she lets them freeze or succumb to illness. (And god she wasn’t ready for that. Not at all. My poor girl.)

She’d tear her own heart from her chest herself if it meant theirs kept beating.

She gives and gives and it leaves her very empty. This doesn’t only stretch to her sisters. She’s very much..a caretaker? But she doesn’t really know how to balance that with taking care of herself. So, she lets them fall or the side because in her eyes? She’s completely unimportant in comparison.

She never got to be a teenager. None of them did but she lost her innocence in ways that she bent over backwards to protect them from.

The worst part she’ll never think she’s done enough. She’s proud of the people her sisters have become but she feels she’s failed them. They didn’t have a normal childhood. They saw and did things no child should have to see and do. (Even while she got the worst of it)

In my eyes, she’s far from perfect but here she did the best she could. (and someone truly needs to tell her that ugh 3)

They’ve been hurt and she takes them being hurt as a personal failure. Rationally she cannot keep them safe from everything but she blames herself every time. She’s her big sister after all. She’s supposed to protect them.

And that has resulted in well intentioned but ultimately unhealthy patterns of behavior such as her occasionally being overprotective or overbearing. (As she gets older she does get way better about this but there were times as a teenager she naturally had no idea how to deal with Alaluria’s confusing outbursts of rage and Ladelia’s complete dependence on her. And it did result in her trying to protect them in ways that came out more controlling then anything because she’s not an adult she’s just a kid and she has no idea how to be a mother. That and she’s their sister not their mother and it creates really confusing dynamics when Diily tries to tell Alaluria what to do for example. They will never see her as a mother figure. So..there’s some clashing there if that makes sense.

Alaluria saw her overbearing/overprotectiveness as a need to control and it clashed completely with her independent nature. She lashed out. She left. (While simultaneously craving and needing that love and affection and it used to frustrate Diily so much because she didn’t understand. Alaluria unsurprisingly couldn’t articulate what she needed (what child can?) and Diily couldn’t give her what she needed. (She’d never be able to give her everything no matter how much she tries.)

God and you know I can see the rift deepening because Alaluria keeps lashing out and driving her away and simultaneously is hurt when Diily reacts accordingly because Diily doesn’t understand why she’s acting that way. She’s a child herself so her own stubbornness and temper make her snap back which only worsens the situation.

And it results in Alaluria acting out more because Diily is naturally going to well withdraw (and probably pay more attention to Ladelia as a result which wasn’t purposeful or spiteful but its natural she’s put her energy into the sister who doesn’t keep purposefully hurting her) but whatever she does it doesn’t get her the reaction she wants.

(Alaluria doesn’t know what she want. My beautiful ball of contradictions)

Alaluria flip flops badly when it comes to affection. She craves it but will reject it when it comes her way. It’s why she sometimes reacts positively to her sisters being affectionate and other times she lashes out or pulls away. It seems like a contradiction because it is.

And you know I can’t blame either of them. It was just such a clash of personalities and most of all…shitty circumstances. And it’s the fact that they were just kids. Maybe not when Alaluria left but emotionally they’re all kind/of fucked up so it really doesn’t matter.

And on a more personal level Diily doesn’t like herself. Frankly she hates herself. Her self worth is very much dependent on her role as a caretaker and protector. Sadly? The truth of it all is that you can’t be a perfect caretaker. You can’t protect everyone from everything. And it’s something she still struggles to learn. (See: her devastation at what happened to Teldrassil and desperation to make it right) there are other reasons for it too.

Shes..got this need to be seen as strong and put together. (Which is why I enjoy taking her apart so much I think). She wants people to be able to trust and rely on her and her eyes she needs to be strong for them.

Her pain, her needs get shoved down.

She doesn’t think about. She doesn’t want to. So she focuses on others.

And really? All her personal baggage? She doesn’t know how to deal with any of it. None of them have exactly learned healthy coping mechanisms lmao.

She was a scared, hurt little girl who was forced into becoming a mother by horrible circumstance and saw and did things no child should ever have to see and do.

And she’s been trying to pretend she has it together for a very, very long time.

But she has no idea what she’s doing. She was (and still is) just as lost and scared as her sisters but she saw that they needed her and stepped up in a way..she never should have had to.

Kids are supposed to be selfish and immature. It’s a give in. It’s a part of growing up and something they’re taught to grow out of. They’re not supposed to do the things she had to do to keep them alive or give up the things she did.

What else could she do after all? They needed her. There was no other choice,

So what’s the point of the character analysis? I wanted to talk about my girls and got extremely carried away. Losing them would devastate her completely. So much of her would just..shatter. And if the circumstances are right enough it could make her snap in a way that’s really..not a pretty sight at all

She doesn’t have it together. She doesn’t know what to do with these extreme emotions. She doesn’t know what to do without someone to take care of. She doesn’t know what to with without them.

The only beings I can see her not being indifferent to is Wildheart and Brightheart of course. She loves them as loyally and unconditionally as she does her sisters. They’re family

She’s willing to do anything to get her revenge because that’s all that matters to her. The world is as dead to her as they are. Or rather..she’ll make it so it is.

-cough-

Alaluria being the most morally dubious of the three is a bit easier to figure out. It could’ve a similar situation to the above or one where the fel madness takes over. Or both.

If you want the cruelest version of her it would be the last option. Hm..Alaluria is already cynical and disillusioned with the world. Where Ladelia and Diily try to find the good she just sees the bad.

Ex; She’s distrustful while Ladelia is too trusting. Diily throws herself into helping others. Alaluria does the same but does it mainly by fighting rather than the loving, soft way Diily cares for others.

She is not bad in canon though. So let’s talk about my canon girl real quick the same way we did with Dil.

And her repressed rage issues do come from the frankly massive amounts of trauma the three of them have been through. Rage that completely stems from pain. Diily internalizes her pain mostly. Alaluria takes it out on those she deems guilty. And she’s willing to do ruthless things to achieve a greater good. Her and Illidonk has that in common.

(She was honestly a happy child before everything. She’s always had a bit of a temper but so do Diily and Ladelia lmao. It’s just..a little harder to push them to their breaking points. Unless you know where to hit them.

And what really, really killed any idealism still clinging to her?

The Illidari. Illidan. That whole shebang.

She was still..there was a still a bit of that bright eyed brave little girl in her that wanted to save the world and make it a you know..not shitty place..and that was smashed to pieces when she really saw the reality of things.

Illidan has a part to play in that but no more than the entirety of the situation. Diily blames him for it. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to blame him too much as she made her own choice to join them and stay.

And sometimes there are glimpses of that little girl, mostly with her sisters. When she’s laughing with them or finds joy in something innocent like a saber cub batting at her tail or finding a really cool gem. (I almost said rock because that makes it sound really funny. “Wow look at this rock I found” “that’s great alaluria”)

Anyway, my point. She’s a deeply troubled woman with barely repressed rage issues and it comes from deep trauma and an all consuming pain and complete and utter disillusionment with the world..yet is she really? She’s still fighting for it. There’s some part of her that holds onto hope that it can be better.

But she’s also managed to stay a..mostly decent person. She doesn’t hurt innocents normally. She has but she feels genuine guilt for it. She might growl and grumble but she does help others. It gives her a sense of purpose that has recently been shaken with the destruction of the Legion. She feels..good. Like she’s doing something good.

The whole point of joining the Illidari was to help everyone. To help fix what she saw as the biggest problem.

She’s not the monster she thinks she is. She’s just a scared, hurting little girl in a woman’s body.

And yes, she left Diily and Ladelia but that separation (even though she did it willingly) was very traumatic and devastating for her. She was suddenly on her own for the first time in her life and more or less thrown into a den of wolves. (it says a lot about her that she came out leading the whole pack so to speak. :’) my girls are so strong I love them..why am i so mean to them)

And I think knowing Diily and Ladelia were out there even when not being with them is something entirely different from them being dead.

There was always the chance they would reconcile and I think maybe on a more unconscious level..she always thought/knew they would reconcile. It was something inevitable in her mind. She couldn’t imagine anything else.

I can see her always having this belief that after everything was done. After the Legion was defeated she would be able to see them again. And she’d say it was just to shove it in their faces that she was right but..

The world she so viciously determined to protect? She’s always been very aware they’re a part of it too. Even while she “hated” them she was trying to protect them.

So, I think losing them. Especially after reuniting with them (but even during the separation) would be especially devastating. Another thing ripped from her. More proof there’s nothing good at all in the world.

And you know she idealizes them to some degree. She sees Diily and Ladelia as inherently good and herself as bad. (Regardless of how they try to convince her otherwise)

And so she’s just full of rage because it should have been her? There’s no fairness, no sense of justice in this universe if they die and not her because they were good and kind and she’s a monster.

And they were her sisters. And she doesn’t know what to do, how to function in a world where there’s no hope of ever seeing them again.

And now she doesn’t have any fucks to give.

And an Alaluria with no moral compass is a terrifying Alaluria.

Also it would be extremely easy for the demon creeping around in her head/soul to take advantage of that completely and twist her into the perfect weapon. The weapon part.. It’s kind of what Illidan did but he did it for the purpose of destroying the legion which as an idea is a good thing but we all know his methods and morals are questionable at best (*blows a kiss towards Illidan Stormrage* love ya, you bastard)

A villain!Alaluria would be absolutely ruthless. Full of completely unleashed rage and pain. The world wants to hurt her? She’ll hurt it right back. She’ll make the whole damn thing burn.

The worst part is in this au though?

She becomes what she hates most.

As for Ladelia.

She’s the most innocent of the three. The most idealistic. Diily is kind but she’s also usually rather realistic. Ladelia is a dreamer.

A lot of this comes from Diily trying very hard to shelter her and Alaluria from the brutal reality of the world (this isn’t something she could ever do of course but she did try)

But she succeeded more with Ladelia. Alaluria lashed out where Ladelia clung to Diily. Ladelia was younger than either of them when they lost their parents. She doesn’t have the vivid memories that keep Diily and Alaluria up at night. She remembers bits and pieces but not as much.

And being the baby sister and the sister that was not only tolerant of Diily’s overbearing nature but needed it she was coddled more? Alaluria wouldn’t let herself be coddled. Ladelia needed it. She needed love and Diily is just so full of love.

(Diily never intended to create a rift between her two little sisters but she did and it still shows even now sometimes. Especially because Ladelia has been by Diily’s side when Alaluria wasn’t. That’s not a judgement on her though (it sounded too aggressive) it’s just that Alaluria feels..well, she feels left out when they talk about their adventures or they share an inside joke that she doesn’t understand. It’s a natural feeling and it makes my heart hurt for her. (They don’t mean to hurt her)

I wouldn’t call Ladelia spoiled necessarily but she is babied by Diily (and despite their differences and one sided rivalry Alaluria does baby her too..in her own way) It’s easy to see that whenever she’s in trouble she turns tail and runs to Diily. (And Maybe Alaluria resents that it’s never her that her baby sister runs too. God they’re all so complicated)

She’s become far more independent over the years but she still tends to lean very heavily on Diily which is only natural. And Diily wouldn’t dream of turning her baby sister away but she learned from Alaluria it’s important to encourage their independence instead of try to control it.

But codependency issues aside. Ladelia is a genuinely good and kind person. She has a lot of Diily’s compassion and tends to be more of a dreamer than either of them. It’s why she fell so hard for Jaina (and she hurt so much for her when Jaina lost that)

But she does have a temper. Her chosen element of choice is fire after all. (This says so much about her but I’ll tape down that essay for now. It’s especially notable when you compare her to her sisters who are not fond of fire at all and Teldrassil cemented that for them lmao) She’s..the most immature of the three. More impulsive and she wears her feelings on her sleeve unlike Diily and Alaluria. Ugh I don’t want to make her sound “weak” because she’s anything but. She’s endured horrible shit and still come out good and..soft. that’s..that’s not nothing :’)

But Diily is..generally reserved with strangers. Not aggressive or rude but she isn’t going to let them see her at anything but her best.

Ladelia an adult don’t get me wrong but she is more..immature than them? I’m not sure that’s the right word. Don’t get me wrong she has had the idealism dampened over the years by the things she’s been forced to see and do. War has a way of doing that.

But she clings to this belief that people must be mostly inherently good..because she needs to believe that.

There’s a deep sadness in her just like the other two but it manifests a bit differently.

A lot of her sadness is aimed at the world as a general thing rather than any specific entity? Diily and Alaluria hate, hate, hate the Legion and focus their rage on them. Now it’s shifted to Sylvanas and Azshara (although Azshara’s part in the Legion nonsense is something they very much are aware of and hate her for)

Ladelia does too but she doesn’t have the memories they do. Her memory is foggy (probably her mind protecting itself really)

She doesn’t understand why people do such horrible things. She doesn’t know why bad things happen to good people. And she hates that she can’t save everyone. (You’ll see that with both her and Diily)

But a villain Ladelia??

That would be someone who kills in the name of what they believe is good but I could see her sense of good being twisted if she lost Diily and Alaluria. Especially if in her grief someone like Azshara latched onto her.

She’d be very easily to manipulate in that sense.

And she is a very powerful mage. It’s something she is very proud of. Like Jaina she’s so hungry for knowledge. I think part of her thinks maybe if she understands the universe..she can “fix” it? She just has to understand first.

And that creates someone who absolutely excels in a field like magic. She’s very determined, she’s as stubborn as Diily and Alaluria are (it’s a family trait clearly) And she pushes and pulls and picks apart the mysteries of the universe and deep down a part of her just wants to understand so she can help.

And it’s just a desire to understand. She feels better when she understands things. Things aren’t as scary when you understand them after all.

She was an unbearably curious child and still has that curiosity. It’s something Diily has managed to keep alive in her.

She’s ambitious in the sense she’s always reaching for new heights in terms of skill. She takes great pride in her skill at magic. I could see that being a bad thing in certain circumstances. “Knowledge is power..but using it wisely is the key.” “control your power..or it will control you.” etc. So a villain Ladelia might have magic as a corrupting influence rather than a positive one like in..”canon”

So a villain Ladelia to me is one who has become disillusioned with the concept of good. Or maybe one who just has a twisted idea or what is good. She’s passionate and so adamant what she’s doing is right and that? Those kinds of people are some of the most dangerous. Think..Jaina snapping and trying to murder the entirety of Ogrimmar.

It’s the right thing to do? ..right? It has to be because she doesn’t know what to do if it’s not. And maybe she’s just full of rage and wants to take it out on those who are “bad” in her eyes.

But whether or not those people are truly bad..well, that’s almost always subjective isn’t it?

And maybe part of villain Ladelia knows that.

She just pretends she doesn’t.

She’s good at pretending.

——

NOW for the grand finale which is all three of them as villains together.

I’m wondering what could push them towards something so drastic. Typically it’s the death of the others that is the major catalyst in those au’s so.. (h

I think it would have to be an AU where they’re taken in by some sort of villain and manipulated.

Someone who pretends to love them and these three terrified, affection starved children eat up whatever parental attention they can get unaware they’re being manipulated.

It would have to be someone who can prey on all their individual weaknesses and bring out their best traits and then completely turn them on their head. Twist it for a bad purpose.

Diily’s capacity for unconditional love . Alaluria’s desire for revenge. Ladelia’s idealism and ambition.

I wonder if Azshara could be that person but it would have had to be when they were younger so it would have to be a pretty drastic au. They place a heavy amount of blame on her for the Legion shit. But if they were young she could probably twist it in her favor.

Maybe an old god of some sorts? (Oh dear that’s a scary thought)

I can see the Legion doing the same but through cruelty rather than faux kindness: I think it would be near impossible to make Diily and Alaluria loyal to the Legion after what they did to their home and family.

Ladelia is more..vulnerable to manipulation than them though.

BUT their captor would honestly have to be very good at psychological manipulation.

Using them against one another would be..horrifically successful. It could really work on Diily for example. It’s a very visible and glaring weakness and if someone took advantage of that. You could get her to do anything if you put them up as bargaining chips.

Hilariously I think their…hmmm captor would end up dead with that kind of behavior though. She won’t tolerate them being hurt and vice versa.

Lmao they just completely usurp their captor and..sadly take their role as villain however because it’s what they’ve been taught and groomed for.

Alaluria in particular would be willing if they really played with her arrogance and ambition. The demon in her head tries (and mostly fails since she’s very strong willed) to do that. You can do it better..just get him out of the way..you taught me to be ruthless after all.

(makes me wonder about an AU where she comes to hate and resent Illidan instead of admire and love him)

Ladelia is the most hungry for love. That’s something you could use against her if you’re an absolutely abhorrent person. She’d want to make their “parental” figure proud and please them so they love her.

Ah it just depends on the captor’s methods. Are they cruel? Are they “kind” to them? You could inspire loyalty and love from them or…hatred and ruthlessness but the latter wouldn’t end in their captor’s favor. However if they went the kindness route they would have three girls absolutely willing to do whatever they wanted.

You know if they wanted to take advantage of three traumatized children (who all have so much potential) and turn them into weapons instead of the people they are in canon (I feel weird calling it canon since obviously ocs aren’t necessarily canon to WoW lore but- nevermind. it doesn’t matter. My canon for them) because my canon girls are deeply flawed who make mistakes but are mostly good people who just want to help and take care of each other okay.

They have a creator who’s very mean to them

I will say I don’t envy the au where the three of them are villains (or separately but especially together).

#asks

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chiaratippy · 6 years

Text

Some Thoughts on Lethal White

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE BOOK!

So it basically started like this: I had pre-ordered the book on Amazon and the delivery was meant for the 28th of September, which was yesterday, so I told myself to wait untile then to start reading it, BUT since I am very very bad at being patient when it comes to things I’ve been waiting for for a long time, when the book finally came out on the 18th, I caved in and searched the not so legal parts of the internet to see if someone had uploaded the ebook.Yes, I know that it’s not a nice thing to do, but since I had purchased the book anyway, I felt I could put my conscience to rest. And in the end I had done right by me in retrospect, because Amazon let me know ONLY on the day the book was meant to arrive at my home, which was yesterday as I have already said, that they had no more books to send out, and that the book will eventually be delivered to me between the 28th of October and the 6th of December!! But of course I had already started to get my suspicions since the delivery notification had never been sent in the previous days. In the meantime, partly because I wanted to take it slow since I knew I would’ve to wait a long time for the next book, and partly because I was still thinking the book was coming on the 28th, on the 18th I had started reading the ebook but ordered myself to read only 1 or 2 chapters a day. Of course I tried my best and of course at times I have failed miserably and read more than 2, but I managed to not finish the first half of the book when the damned email from Amazon came yesterday morning. Once that email came to me, I threw all self-control out the window and started reading very fast and finished the book late this afternoon.

So, some thoughts about the book on the whole: did I like it? Yes. Is it my favourite? Honestly, I don’t think so. I might change my mind on a second read, but as of right now I still think Career of Evil had the perfect balance of private lives of the characters and crime-fighting and investigating. Lethal White has a lot of personal development that I really enjoyed and love and that I found realistic and well-done, but the crime part wasn’t exactly my favourite. It was very complicated - maybe a bit too much - and really started to take real shape and get the right rhythm and pacing starting with the second half of the book. It was different and it was good, but I did not find it that gripping or as interesting as I expected or hoped.

Speaking of the crime plot, I was convinced Raff was going to have an important part because of his “connection” with Robin, but I was really convinced of his being guilty and of his affair with his father’s wife once Strike told Robin about the connection between what Raff had said and what Della had told him, but I still couldn’t really piece all of it together when it came to the motive, when it was actually as simple as Raff being a piece of shit in every possible way. At the end I wondered if it was some kind of mental condition running in the male side of the family, given that his late brother was a piece of crap too. I had also got it right on the thing buried being a horse and not a kid, though even then I couldn’t find an explanation as to the why because it seemed to not make sense with the rest, and it did end up being something separate from the murder. I did not see Raff posing as Matthew and taking Robin to kill her coming, though.

I’m sure the adaptation will make things simpler and for the first time I think it might actually be a good thing. But I do believe they need to make at least 3 episodes out of this, otherwise it will be a mess.

Okay, now let’s talk about the juicy stuff! On a personal level as far as the characters go, this book was a gift! Personally, I had prepared myself for Robin not getting rid of that abominable piece of trash by the end of the book, but after reading the events of the wedding and how she wanted to get an annulment and how she had started to question her feelings for Strike, I became fairly sure that if she had started the book like this, she would’ve left the abominable piece of trash by the end of it, and the one-year time jump reinforced my opinion on the matter. And I was right, thank god! Though I would’ve preferred for Robin to not get married with that poor excuse of a man to begin with and to spend a year trying to make it work despite being clearly miserable, I think that given her personal history and character traits, she “needed” to reach the very bottom in their marriage to finally become completely disillusioned with him and realise she didn’t love him and probably held on to him out of misplaced feelings of love and safety and familiarity. I really liked the character development she went through both professionally and personally, and that last scene with the abominable piece of garbage was just great. I felt irritated, exasperated, disgusted and scared by him together with her, and I exulted and rejoiced when she did not let him stop her, she finally put him in his place and left him. I realised he was cheating on her two pages before reading his missent text to Robin that was meant for Sarah and that was when I knew for sure that the moment of reckoning was close, especially since before that Robin had already and finally admitted to herself that she didn't love him anymore. And oh, was it worth the wait. I didn’t think her soon-to-be-ex husband could disgust me more, but of course he had to refute me and make me put him in the top 5 fictional characters I hate with all my heart. His words to Robin were inexcusable and despicable and just showed and confirmed, together with everything said and done by him during their last fight and in the previous books, what kind of small and petty and insignificant human being he is. And I don’t know why but I’m sure he started the affair again after she refused to sleep with him, which makes him even more contemptible.

As I was saying above, I liked how Robin has grown in this book. She has shown how valuable and good she is at her job - she just needs to believe more in herself and that Corm really values her and respects her and cares about her both professionally and personally - she’s found a friend in Vanessa (I love that! Too bad there was no interaction with Nick and Ilsa) and I’m sure she’ll have made at least one more friend by the beginning of the next book and right now I have no reason to doubt we’ll find her more confident and healthy in the future.

And as Robin seems to have finally started her journey to the life she deserves and wants, I think Corm has to go through his own moment of reckoning with Charlotte. This book gave us a taste of what I think we’ll find in the next. Lethal White gave me reason to believe she will have a more central role in the next book, which could involve Strike getting in contact with her again for some reason and having to finally say goodbye to their unhealthy, dysfunctional, abusive “love.” I mean, that whole restaurant thing she planned? I had a strong feeling that she was manipulative, destructive and abusive and probably mental, but man... is she something. The way she talked, it seems she will try everything she can to get him to beg for her to get back together or at the very least to manipulate and have influence over him and his life as much as possible, which I think might involve Robin as well in some way. Cormoran has his own baggage when it comes to love and this book made it abundantly clear. The passage about his not wanting to say “I love you” unless he is absolutely and undeniably sure he wants to build a life with that person just screamed “OH IS HE GOING TO SAY IT FOR THE FIRST TIME TO ROBIN ONE DAY” to me and I can’t wait for it. I do feel sorry for all the women he ends up hurting along the way though. I understand where he’s coming from, but please stay alone if you can’t find it in yourself to be with anyone unless it’s exactly on your own terms. He should’ve known that after almost a year of dating, that woman would develop feelings for him. But I also understand that he’s human and he’s been a mess for a lot of reasons so I won’t crucify him for that. I do think he has learned his lesson from this latest relationship and I do hope he will stay single in the next book, and I’m also saying this because he needs to focus on Robin. ^^

After the way the book had started, with that distance between them and the whole honeymoon misunderstanding, I couldn’t help but LOVE LOVE LOVE chapter 26. I loved it so much I read it twice again before moving on to the next chapter. I loved that despite the current distance between them, she dumped everything for him and was there and he showed his vulnerable side to her and the kiss! Oh my god the kiss! It was accidental, yeah sure, but did they like it! It was so adorable and to be honest my mind almost immediately started to picture Tom and Holliday playing the scene perfectly in my head! I loved how they got closer and closer after that and their car trips are honestly becoming one of my favourite things to read. Robin’s breakdown in the car and at the side of the road was so powerful and important and Corm can be the cutest and sweetest and most tender of people and he is the only man who sees Robin’s worth and supports her and wants the best for her and that makes me love him more and more. And when he bought champagne to celebrate Robin leaving that piece of shit of her husband?? And it was great how he told her she should take care of herself and not to pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t. She did need to hear that and he was exactly the best person to do that, probably the only one she would’ve listened to. If only they were more open with their feelings for each other as they have learned to be on other matters... but I guess there’s still time for that. :P And something that I really liked is that he’s started to feel so much at ease with Robin to not care about showing and removing his prosthesis and showing his stump. I just wish he took better care of himself, when he neglects his health - his leg in particular - I feel the need to punch some reason into him, which also makes me love that Robin told him to stay put while they were digging and made him lean on to her when he was in too much pain.

Oh, and also: I knew she was going to wear the green dress for the olympic/paralympic event and that he would see her in it! But of course her poor excuse of a (ex) husband had to ruin that as well. -.-

Going back to chapter 26, it got me really emotional, seeing Cormoran so fragile and vulnerable, and it was refreshing as well I must say. I was also wondering if maybe this newfound relationship with his nephew couldn’t actually be a way for Corm to start being more open to the idea of having a child or more in the future, if the right person (*cough* Robin *cough*) were to show up. Just a passing thought I had (maybe I should write a short piece of fanfic on it :P), I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Okay, this is some of my rambling on the book, I am certain I forgot something and failed to delve deeper into other stuff, but right now I think my brain has had enough. xD I might post some more once my brain has digested all properly.

#lethal white #lethal white spoilers #cormoran strike #cormoran x robin #robin ellacott #strike novels #jk rowling

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yourladyocs · 6 years

Note

character solidifying for Percy !!

Sure!

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?

Since she does’t have a father, I’m going to use this question to talk about one of her adoptive mothers. She hates that she can’t see Midnight every day, but enjoys every single moment she can spend with her. She loves that Midnight shows her new things and listens to her talk. Literally, Midnight was the person who gave Percy magic and without it she would have been a completely different character. Midnight was also part of the influence for a new name for Percy.

2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?

She loves Marcia with all her heart and thinks highly of her. Marcia always encourages her to experiment and explore with magic and is always there to help. There is not much she hates about Marcia, because Marcia is just nice to her (not to say she isn’t strict some times). She loves how Marcia is always there to give her advice and offer collaborative work when doing experiments. She looks up to Marcia’s way of leading the tower and the extreme advancements she makes in magical theory. Without Marcia, I don’t think Percy would have been so willing to experiment on many things. I also don’t think she would have been so open about magic with people if it wasn’t for Marcia and those in the wizard tower.

3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings?

Valdís is her adoptive sibling. Frankly, Wren (kinda), and X17, are all family to her, but she wouldn’t classify them as siblings. She would consider Frankly her cousin. X17 would be her uncle. Wren is her best friend and sister that she wouldn’t want to lose in a thousand years. Percy loves all of them because they are all uniquely different with one trait in common (that they love her). She doesn’t truly despise things in them, like she can get annoyed at them but she could never despise anything they do. For instance, Val sleeps longer than she does. She doesn’t despise it, but it sometimes scares her (she misses them and gets worried).

4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?

In the middle? Both of them have rules to follow and Percy does follow them. She never had an issue with going to time outs and things like that.

5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?

Not really. She lived in a Wizard Tower where she learned a ton, then she went out in the world to hang out with her friends where she learned a ton.

6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?

Affection! Only the strongest affection.

7. What was the economic status of their family?

Uhhhh, I would say pretty good. Percy is independent, so the economic status is solely her own.

8. How does your character feel about religion?

People can believe it. It has to some merit since she has met a god.

9. What about political beliefs?

Percy has read a lot of history, so most of its formed from those books. However, I don’t think she has gained enough information on the modern political structure of the world.

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?

Book-smart.

11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?

Intelligent.

12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

Everything she says is very refined. Honestly that is the hardest part of her to play around with; it takes me forever to think of the way she would say things. She has a certain way of saying everything that is ladylike but is super intelligent.

13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?

YES. Percy loves school and her teachers and her schoolmates.

14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected?

I mean they did group projects and experiments, but I don’t think she joined any after school clubs. She did hang out with the kids in the tower, but like sports are not her thing.

15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED?

She is studying abroad right now.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?

The Wizard Tower is her living and is her education. Its like a work/study program, however she gets paid for developing new magical theory. She loves her work, there is literally nothing she doesn’t like about it.

17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?

Right now! She is traveling on the Alpenglow’s maiden voyage.

18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember?

Currently, she has found new perspectives and a new realm of magic to play with. And I think the memories part is to come.

19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?

That sometimes social conventions are not easily broken (at least they don’t break enough to allow curiosity).

20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced?

The Alpenglow’s maiden voyage will mark the beginning of air travel in the world. It has cultures from every nation on it and she gets to learn about all these different things from that. It is an international event and will probably go down in history.

21. What are your character’s manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate?

Percy is very blunt. She has manners, but she feels like that flattery is reserved for someone you truly hate or distrust. Her type of hero is the hero who is not afraid to explore the darkness in everything, but in the end makes the right decision. She also loves the nerdy types (like Sailor Mercury). They hate people who are super set in stone; like people who don’t want to explore anything.

22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or ‘ideal’ partner?

Everyone in the tower (and those previously listed above under siblings) are all extended family to her. She loves them all and wouldn’t want to have another family or friend group. She doesn’t have lovers. Her ideal type would be someone who is willing to explore different things with her. However Percy has different types of taste. Percy is attracted to attractive people, however she would like to learn more before committing. Percy is also a person who, as a strategy, would date the person she was sent to ‘mark’. Percy also would date people she is extremely curious about, making it easier to learn everything about them.

23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?

Percy wants loyalty and openness from a party. She wants to be able to always have an open and honest conversation with them. Percy is hard to describe when it comes to sex. She has the urges for it, yet stays away from it because of her anxiety. Percy is preprogrammed to be a spouse (in her past life), and she is afraid that her programming will resurrect if she becomes intimate with someone. Percy wants to fall in love with a person for who they are, not her programming.

24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?

She usually attends social outings/lunch dates with Wren. She always spends time experimenting on magical properties with Marcia. She usually plays the follower when she out in a social setting, however when it comes to experimenting then she is the lead. I personally think Percy takes the lead a lot more and she loves that position.

25. What are their hobbies and interests?

Experimentation with magical theory.

26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?

Percy’s room is comfortable. It is mostly covered in neatly organized books, with a comfy bed or chair. She likes having pink accents to her relaxation furniture, not so much the bookcases. Percy wears formal-ish clothes, but mostly just the style of the time. She has a pink blouse in order to show her old self and show off her favorite color. She has dark brown borderline black hair. She keeps herself neat and neatly polished.

27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality?

Her appearance is who she is, in her mind. She wears her clothing neatly and I imagine she gets something of normal quality? Its not high quality stuff because it is common clothes but... it is not cheap.

28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?

She has none!

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?

Curiosity. She can’t resist it.

30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?

Yes. Currently it is the thought of her having a son that she never met out there. She will not forgive her creator for separating them, unless her son is truly happy where he is.

31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate?

She does and she just found out about it. Percy was preprogrammed to be a motherly figure to her specific child. She wants to find the child, make sure he grew up happy, then leave. She doesn’t want to get involved in the kid’s life if the kid is happy in his new life. If the kid is not happy, she wants to be there for him and offer him a home.

32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?

She gets a little panicky but overall I think she would be evasive. She has the ability to lie and lie very good.

33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?

She does not! Her health is good.

34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous?

I mean she feels like Alice in Wonderland. It just seems she likes to explore. Like sure she wants her son back, but I wouldn’t say she wants revenge against her creator. And she won’t brew on it too much because its not her life anymore; she is completely out.

35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?

Failures are just new ways to explore that we haven’t learned yet. They aren’t necessarily failures, they are just new paths of experimentation.

36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?

Absolutely not.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?

Her imagination is tied to the rational thought of experimentation. She doesn’t daydream more like she thinks of concepts and plans for further experimentation. She isn’t worried about really anything. She doesn’t want to live in her old memories, but she will live in her current present and future.

38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?

New things means new information which means new experimentation!! She gets super excited!!

39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid?

Ignorance.

40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?

She has one, though I think her taste is slowly expanding because of JJ.

41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?

She is acutely aware of who she is. Her greatest strength is her curiosity and her ability to adapt to new things. She however is weak when it comes to social situations and meeting new people. She speaks rather bluntly (which could be both a strength and a weakness) but has the ability to be rather charismatic. She just doesn’t use her charm because she feels the need to not be fake in front of these people.

42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?

Experimentation on different forms of magic. Currently, this obsession has transferred to experimentation on Guardian. She wants to know the magic used to bind souls and completely understand that process. She not willing to kill in order to obtain something. She has limits on what she is willing to sacrifice for her curiosity.

43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back?

Yes. Yes.

44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?

Pretty badly, however it is not all consuming. She knows when to let go of certain goals in order to be happy.

45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?

It varies. I like her to think first, however I’m an impulsive player. Her character in both speech and action is rather hard for me to play. She would think first, however she follows impulses regarding subjects that intrigue her. She is extremely passionate about things she likes.

46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body?

SUPER TALL (she is 6′ 2″ without her heel boots). She is made of metal so she is heavy, however her body makes her look like normal weight for her body type. She loves her body and there is nothing she would change about it.

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?

I feel like people think she is younger because of her insane curiosity and wonder, however she is 38. She doesn’t care if people see her or not; she can go invisible at any point so like it doesn’t matter.

48. How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?

Unlike me, I think she has more control over her motions. I feel like she isn’t as expressive in her hands as I am.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?

Percy doesn’t have an accent. I believe she is in the alto range, and I believe there is no hint of metallic sound (after all she was a mimic of a human). I never really thought of the tempo, but she speaks rather normal I guess.

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?

:) Smiles are important. She is super expressive and for some robots that’s extremely impressive.

#percy #asks #romanarcadia

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topmixtrends · 6 years

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PATTERSON HOOD has been leading the Drive-By Truckers — a country-rock band with a hip-hop attitude — for more than two decades. Along the way, the Alabama native has become, in song and in prose, one of the sharpest observers of Southern culture and society since C. Vann Woodward, W. J. Cash, and the Southern novelists he read as a kid.

The Truckers’ latest album, 2016’s American Band, was widely hailed as one of the year’s best and as the group’s most directly political: its songs took on the killing of Trayvon Martin, the worship of the Confederate flag, the nation’s madness for handguns, and the role of the band’s native region in the whole mess. Hood, like fellow Trucker Mike Cooley, grew up near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and his father, David Hood, is the longtime bassist for the R&B studio’s famous rhythm section.

For many years based in Athens, Georgia, Hood moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2015. The Drive-By Truckers have just launched a US tour that brings them to Los Angeles’s El Rey Theatre on February 9.

SCOTT TIMBERG: Let me start at the obvious place. In your writing, you often look at the South, at the complexity of the region’s history. And there’s a whole bunch of writers who’ve done this before: Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor. I’m just wondering what, if anything, these people have meant for you?

PATTERSON HOOD: I probably first became aware of that type of thing, as a genre of literature, when I was assigned To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. That was the first book I was forced to read at school that I actually loved and connected with. I fell in love with it, and the character of Atticus Finch reminded me of a very beloved relative of mine, who was kind of like a second father to me — so I really connected hard with that. And then later, in high school or in college, I read Faulkner a bit … I was too young to really get it. But it was a short story, “Barn Burning,” that I first read, and that was a good entry point, because I totally dug it, and got it, although I don’t think I would have been ready to read As I Lay Dying or anything. I love reading. I’m a fanatical reader.

And that goes back to childhood for you?

Maybe off and on. I remember times in childhood when I read a lot. I loved Old Yeller as a child — I really loved that book. And like everyone, I read Charlotte’s Web, although I don’t think I liked it as a kid. I read it to my son, actually, a couple of years ago, and fell in love with it. But I don’t think as a kid I was able to get past the fact that it was romanticizing a fucking spider. I have arachnophobia, so it was a bit of a leap on that one. So yeah, I went through periods of reading and not reading, I guess because it reminded me too much of school, and I hated school and everything about school at that time. I had to get past rebelling against it in order to enjoy it.

Yeah, I think a lot of us, especially boys, go through that phase, even if they become serious readers later. So when you were reading Harper Lee and the Faulkner story, and maybe some other stuff, what did you respond to, what made you want to go back to it, besides the fact that it was about the part of the country you live in? Did you feel it helped you make sense of the South?

Yeah, I probably just responded to the dialect, because that’s the way my people talked. And I responded to some of the manners — you know, the manners that everybody had, even the villains, who were these kind of ignorant, white trash, really terrible people in To Kill a Mockingbird. They still had a certain amount of decorum about them. When they weren’t spitting in Atticus’s face, there was still a certain amount of “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” involved. And that was beat into me as a kid, you know.

So even though terrible things were happening, in a way, you felt like you were home?

Sure, sure. And I had a similar thing with R.E.M., early R.E.M., I fell in love with them really early. About two weeks before Murmur came out, I got turned on to Chronic Town, and in the press in those days, people talked about, “Oh, you can’t understand the lyrics, you can’t decipher what he’s saying.” But these things tended to be colloquialisms, which I could decipher. There’s a song by a side project called The Golden Palominos, and I remember reading a review by someone who couldn’t decipher what Stipe kept saying, like the hook. And it’s “fixin’ to go” — that’s all he’s saying is “fixin’ to go,” he’s fixin’ to go!

Of course, there’s more to being Southern than just a manner of speech. When did you get a sense that a key element of Southern literature was the question of race? How did Southern literature change the way you understood black people or the racial rift in the region?

Yeah, I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t aware of race, and the South’s role in that story. I don’t think there was ever a point in my life that I wasn’t, at some level, aware of it, because of what my dad did. He made his living playing on Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records, when they literally weren’t allowed to go out to dinner with him, and so he brought that home, you know — the anger over that came home with him. And we’d see George Wallace on the television screen and my dad would just start frothing at the mouth. But we have family members who I’m sure voted for Wallace, and whom I love dearly.

So there was always that disconnect. I was also aware of the generation gap, of the ’60s, the cultural revolution that was playing out in my family too. My parents came of age in the ’60s, and my dad smoked pot, and rode a motorcycle, and had a beard and long hair, and my mom wore go-go boots and hot pants … And I spent an enormous amount of time with my grandparents and my great-uncle, who were from the Depression generation. And so I kind of viewed the counter-culture, the culture clash, from a front-row seat as I was growing up, and I think that’s probably part of my attraction to dualities in my writing and the stuff I do.

It sounds like you didn’t need Harper Lee to show you that race was an obsession in the South — you were seeing and living that every day.

Absolutely. And it’s funny, because I haven’t read the other book of hers that came out. I own it, and I plan to — it’s really just a matter of time … I’m aware of its flaws, but I do want to read it, because I’m interested in that. I’ve actually written a piece, a song that kind of deals with that, because when a New York Times critic actually reviewed the book, it was the week after I moved to Portland. I read that piece in The New York Times, and I literally broke down and cried. I got so upset at Atticus Finch. I got really, really mad for a couple of days.

And then I had this epiphany that it’s absolutely right, that it was important. I believe that she was of sound mind in deciding to put that out, because I think it was important — not to disillusion everybody of their hero, or to make everybody that named their kid Atticus wince — but because that’s how it was. That is the truth.

We’re talking about the fact that Atticus, who’d been this hero of racial justice, became sort of a segregationist, a racist …

It made me mad and upset, but once I got past that, it totally rang true to me.

In the ’30s he was defending this man who was wrongly accused. It offended him on a human level that Tom Robinson was accused of a rape he obviously didn’t commit, but that don’t mean Calpurnia could sit at the table with Atticus at dinnertime. That’s a different line. When African Americans were demanding equality, that crossed a different line, and all of a sudden Harper Lee saw her father, her beloved father figure — who to her represented the side of right and justice — all of a sudden she saw him as a hypocrite. And she wrote this thing first, in anger, and then she went back and wrote, from the view of her childhood, the book that everyone knows and loves.

That rang so true to me, and I wrote a song that, at this point, has never been recorded. I’m still hoping to do something with it. It’s called “At a Safe Distance.” When you look a little closer, not at a safe distance, you tend to see things that aren’t so pleasant — you see the cracks. It really rang true to me; I wish it didn’t.

I guess you could say this about all literature, but it seems that, more than any other, Southern literature is based on history. I wonder if you ever went back and read any Southern history, journalism about the South, about the Civil Rights movement, or any of that? You’re kind of born into the middle of the Civil Rights era — ’64, right?

1964, yeah. I was born either at the last moment of the Baby Boom, or at the first moment of Generation X. I’m right on the cusp, as was my mother, who was born the day before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which is the official start of the Baby Boom. Her birthday’s August 5, so with the time change, she was probably born about the exact moment that the Baby Boom started.

So yeah, all of that fascinates me. I’m obsessed with the Robert Caro books on Lyndon B. Johnson, which goes back to the duality thing, because he was the ultimate dual president. I mean, he was the best and the worst, and sometimes at the exact same moment. Sometimes he would say the worst thing possible when doing something amazing, and vice versa. He could be surprisingly eloquent as he’s just fucking you. He’s a never-ending source of fascination to me, and the fact that such a gifted writer has literally spent 50 years of his life chronicling this guy — I get off on that too. I’ve read all four books that have appeared so far, and I’m eagerly awaiting the fifth and final one.

Was Johnson a sort of Texas racist who grew up and saw racial reality? Or was he an opportunist?

He was all of the above. Caro’s take on it, I think, is that he is all those things, and more, at the exact same time.

When people say, “Oh, he didn’t really mean that — he just did the Civil Rights thing because he knew it would be good for his historical legacy.” Well, sure, he knew it would be good for his legacy, but he very well knew that it meant the South wouldn’t vote Democrat again for 50 years, which it hasn’t. It was the beginning of the great migration of Southern Democrats to the GOP. And when he did those things, he purposefully fucked over people who had helped him his entire career.

And yet, he was absolutely a Jim Crow guy for most of his career. And all of those things coexisted within him at the same time, and I think all along. He did have some awakenings at a young age, he did know extreme poverty, and he taught at a school that was pretty much all Latino students. And I think he was very moved by their plight, and he took that with him forever. And yet he was willing to put that in a box and not deal with it for many, many years, building a career as the LBJ that the Kennedys hated so much.

Your dad’s music, and the music you play with the Truckers, it’s all grounded in the blues and R&B. And the Truckers were founded, in some ways, as an homage to hip-hop …

Sure, sure. Though none of us would have tried to rap. But we were immersed in it. I really responded to how hip-hop seemed to be telling you the news — what was going on right now. Modern-day country was more about retro things. I wanted to sing about what was happening now, but in a country style.

Did any of this lead you into African-American literature, especially essays, from the South or elsewhere?

I got into it really late, really recently. Through reading Ta-Nehisi Coates I tried to learn more about James Baldwin, and then I Am Not Your Negro came out last year, which was so amazing. There are so many books; I’ve only scratched the surface. I can spend the rest of my life reading every day, and not even read a fraction of the things I’m really interested in.

Anything you’ve gone back to and loved the second time?

I love Mark Twain. I made it a point to reread Huckleberry Finn at a much older age, after loving it as a kid. Reading it in my 40s was great. What a remarkable piece of work. I do like reading the classics. I was turned on to Hemingway really late. I responded to the style — it’s like the opposite of Faulkner, whom I also love. Instead of long sentences, reall short, concise ones. I respond to both forms. Hemingway’s stories are so devastating; there’s no way to improve them. I loved A Farewell to Arms. I stumbled upon it accidentally. I was at my in-laws’ house and may’ve been sick, was cooped up, it was a rainy day. They had the book; I picked it up, read the first chapter, and couldn’t put it down. I read the whole thing in like a day and a half.

Your old bandmate, Jason Isbell, is reputed to be a very literary cat. Did you guys turn each other on to books and writers when you were in the Truckers together?

We probably have more since we quit playing together. When we were playing together, we were in the eye of the storm. That was a crazy time. He turned me onto Peter Matthiessen, a trilogy of books that he rewrote as one book, Shadow Country, set in Florida in the Everglades, post–Civil War, when they were first settling that part of the country. It was kind of the last frontier. All of these outlaws that had been put out of business in the West being ended up down there. It was riveting — and one of Jason’s favorite books. He’s very well read, and a great writer in his own right.

Your last record, American Band, was your most explicitly topical. You wrote about racial violence and social tensions that were exploding around you. Did your reading of essayists, novelists, or anything else help shape that album?

I was reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me when I was in the midst of writing that record. I had already written “What It Means,” and I was going through a period of questioning: Did I have a right to write such a thing? Reading his book, I kept asking, “What can I do?” Maybe this is a small part of what I can do. Maybe there does need to be a goofy white dude, in a rock ’n’ roll band, with the following that it has, that can say Black Lives Matter. Maybe that is important. I didn’t write that song from the perspective of a black man being shot by police — I wrote it from the perspective of a goofy white dude, like me. Seeing this happening around me and saying, “This is wrong. Why are we at this place in 2017? Why is this still a thing?” And unfortunately, the song doesn’t have answers, it’s just questions. But at least questioning is a start, a beginning.

Scott Timberg is the editor of The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles and author of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class.

The post All the Poets (Musicians on Writing): Patterson Hood appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2nwKRsu

#Los Angeles Review of Books #topmixtrends

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serceleste · 7 years

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Well, considering you think Poe and Ben are interchangeable aside from skin color, I think it’s safe to say who doesn’t actually care about Poe here. You only care about Poe and his ‘heritage’ when it suits your agenda of fandom policing and harassment.

The idea that I am only writing about Poe as a substitute for Ben is so laughable I can’t even. If I wanted to write about Ben, I would just write about Ben – and I do! My works list is filled with Ben and Kylo fics! I have at least half a dozen WIPs in my file featuring him! I literally do not give a FUCK what fandom thinks I should care about or thinks I should write; I have always and will continue to write what interests me, regardless of what anyone says. Writing is a hobby and as such I put my effort into characters and ships I love, and I try to treat them all with care and respect. I’m not sure what “consequences” you think I am afraid of; I’ve had negative comments, I’ve had trolls like you harassing me and making ludicrous accusations, and I’m still gonna continue to write what I want. Considering how many months you’ve spent trolling me without getting me to stop should probably have clued you in on that. I will ship things harder out of spite, and thus produce more content. So… congrats? I’m working on something right now, I hope you fucking hate it.

Poe’s heritage is that he was raised on a colonized moon by a pilot and a soldier. He lived on a ranch with a Force tree in the yard and his mother taught him to fly in her A-wing. That is all the canon info we have. Believe me, I have read every bit of tie-in material that exists about Poe, because I love him as a character. He is played by an actor of Latino heritage, that much is true, and his parents, as drawn in comics canon, are correspondingly darker-skinned, but culture as we understand it does not exist in Star Wars. Star Wars is not Earth. Our countries do not exist there. Our cultures do not exist there. The Star Wars universe has had intergalactic space travel for tens of thousands of years, with all the intermarriage and mingling of races that that would create. Attempting to equate that with Earth is frankly ludicrous. Star Wars is not even Star Trek, where there was a more clear-cut difference between planets and races and cultures.

Can a writer draw from Oscar Isaac’s immigrant background and use that to tell a meaningful and enriching story about Poe? Absolutely. If you can, and that interests you, go for it. But it’s not actually canon, so if a person doesn’t write Poe that way they aren’t doing anything wrong, and when done incorrectly it is only stereotypical and borderline offensive. Making Poe constantly eat tamales to make sure we all know he isn’t white isn’t actually a great story-telling technique.

Racism as we know it does not exist in Star Wars. Again, all that co-mingling and space travel. Even the Empire didn’t care what your skin color was – they only cared if you were human or alien. Representation is absolutely important and we as viewers want to see people of all kinds in Star Wars, but the actual characters do not care what you look like and making it an issue is creating a problem that does not exist in the universe as written. Skin color to them is utterly unremarkable, in a way that we as a society are still a long, long way from achieving. We should aspire to be more like the people of Star Wars, rather than try to bring them down to our level.

Fandom is meant to be fun, and if people want to draw from their own cultures in writing a character like Poe, that is absolutely fine. Please do! Latinx kids never got to see someone who looked like them in Star Wars before characters like Bail and Poe. That’s an amazing thing. I hope Poe is important to people because I think he’s a wonderful character. However, drawing attention to his race entirely for the sake of drawing attention to his race isn’t actually progress; it’s a step back. Oscar Isaac is Latino; Poe Dameron is not. ‘Latin America’ does not exist in the Star Wars universe. In Star Wars it matters only that he is human. We don’t even know what planet he is from, or what planet(s) his parents were from. (The only thing we do know, really, is that Shara Bey is not from Alderaan – her canonical first meeting with Leia in Shattered Empire would have gone differently if she were.) He grew up on Yavin 4 – which, yes, was filmed in Guatemala, and because of that Oscar Isaac thought it would be cool if that’s where Poe was from, and it is a cool character detail that I 100% enjoy – but he wasn’t born there, and Yavin 4 has no definitive culture because it was colonized after the fall of the Empire. Families from all over the galaxy came to settle there and begin new lives, bringing with them their own cultures, making it a mish-mash of everything, which is a lovely thought. Poe would have grown up surrounded by all sorts of lifeforms, which doubtless helped shape the compassionate, accepting person he is.

I am also sort of amused that somehow this became an accusation of white-washing Poe when the only thing I disputed was the canonicity of Alderaan as ‘Latinx-coded’. Which continues to be FANON, NOT CANON. Many houses of Alderaan besides House Organa were composed of other races, white and black. But, you know, if you want to ignore that, the current canon is far from giving you the answer you want. Queen Breha – the actual queen, btw, Bail is her consort by marriage, but fandom largely ignores her utterly in favor of Bail – was played by an actress who is not, in fact, Latina; she is of Spanish, Filipino, German, and Australian descent, but that is never mentioned. Captain Antilles of Alderaan was played by multiple white actors. EU character Evaan Verlaine as drawn is particularly blonde and white-appearing. Claudia Gray, who has written three official tie-in novels, uses Tom Mison (white) as her face-claim for the Alderaanian character she created, Nash Windrider. As mentioned before, the amount of intergalactic travel for such an immense length of time, in addition to the fact that Alderaan was often a haven for refugees, makes the idea of a mono-racial planet ludicrous, which current canon agrees with. I am frankly uncomfortable with the way fandom seems to want to segregate all characters played by Latinx actors to one planet, as well as the incredibly generic ‘Latin America’ way it’s often done, as though those countries don’t all have distinct cultures of their own.

I am never going to tell anyone they can’t use their own cultures in their fannish creation. If Latinx fans want to play with the idea of Alderaan as a Latinx planet, please go for it. Fandom should make you happy. As much as I love seeing non-white faces in Star Wars, it will mean an immeasurable degree more to them. When I first saw the ‘space Latinx’ trope, I thought it was kind of awesome, honestly. I have only become disillusioned with the way I have personally witnessed it portrayed, and the corresponding drama attached to it. But no one is obligated to please other people with their creations, and everyone has the ability to scroll past what doesn’t interest them. I am only objecting to the conflation of fanon to canon, and the original suggestion I disagreed with, which was that Alderaan was destroyed because it was Latinx-coded, which is just blatantly false. (As is the accusation that Cassian was killed off because his actor is Latino, in a movie where the entire point was that everyone died. EVERYONE. And Shara Bey? I love her, but ‘dead parents’ is a hugely trope-y and common convention for hero characters. Honestly Poe is a rare commodity in that he had a loving, normal, happy childhood, with one parent still living.)

Anon troll, I know you don’t actually care about anything I have to say and I know you can’t be reasoned with or listen to logic. I know that you are simply latching onto the newest thing you can think of to attempt to scare me off, and that you have never actually read a word of what I’ve written, which is obvious from all of your attacks. I just don’t like stupidity or meanness, hence this post. I hate drama! I really do! I’m in fandom to have fun. I’m not aiming to offend anyone and I fully believe in a ‘don’t like don’t read’ policy, in all its applicable uses – no one has the right in fandom to tell someone they can’t write what they want or ship what they want, despite what you seem to think. But I’m not going to be intimidated by a random anonymous online troll.

And above all, as my friend put it, IT’S SPACE AND IT’S FAKE. If you put a portion of the effort you put into harassing strangers on the internet about fictional characters into crusading for actual real world problems, something might change. Lord knows there are enough terrible things going on to choose from.

Now, kindly fuck off. Did you know that Tumblr lets you block anons? Because I do. And you’re blocked.

#Anonymous #replies #please don't reblog #this has been a post for my own sanity

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