#this ship doesn’t make sense but they talked once in a comic strip and I’m latching onto that

[loyallieutenant]

Dumping my Dragalia are all into one post because I know it’s not what people follow me for and I don’t wanna be annoying aaaaaa. Anyways! I’ve been playing Dragalia a lot recently and I’ve become totally fixated on Joachim in particular. Joachim and Noelle.. found family.

[stanknotstark]

Astral Pt. 10 (Loki x Reader)

So im out eating right now so ill add the link to the last part in an hour and stuff also I did not beta read this part and apologize if I need to change something later on but I want to try and keep up with posting at 5:30 so im releasing it 🤗

Alright we finally have some actions and many open ended questions that I’ve got to close up BUT we also experience one of our main villains warriors. If you read the comics you’ll immediately know who the main villain is (Or Google it but I suggest not doing that if you want to be surprised :p)

You knew having peace and hanging out with your team and Loki would only last for so long, but you were still saddened when it came time to finally work. 

You’re all on the top most floor of the Avenger’s tower, the War Room as Tony called it (sounds a bit over dramatic but it was Tony so...). Fury is there in hologram mode, sitting in the middle of a large custom made table that had the Avengers logo engraved into the middle of the dark oak. 

“What kind of readings are we talking about?” Stark asks Fury. 

Fury’s hand comes up and swipes at something invisible on his end and it translates to Stark’s theater size screens on the wall. It’s a bunch of graphs, statistics, and other jargon you can’t understand. You raise a brow when Tony and Bruce gasp and start talking in hushed tones to each other. 

“Tony, make this english so everyone can understand what’s going on, please?” Steve asks. 

Tony clears his throat and points to one of the graphs, “According to Fury’s collected data, Thor give Jane a big hug when you next see her, they’ve picked up on some form of energy spikes in the middle of Death Valley, Nevada. Like we’re talking colossal size spikes. ”

You look at Loki who sits up in his chair next to you and squints at the screens.

“I know what these ‘energy’,” Loki says energy like it’s disgusting, “readings are. It’s magic from another realm. Specifically, it’s time travel but...” Loki frowns and you watch as his eyes become almost fearful.

“Spit it out, Reindeer Games.” Tony says, sounding concerned at Loki’s fear.

“It’s time travel across an alternate timeline.” 

Tony blinks. Bruce frowns and pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. The entire room is silent. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know who caused these readings would you?” Tony finally asks. 

Loki, who has a neutral face now and the fear is gone from his eyes, shakes his head. “I can’t know for sure unless I can inspect the magic in person.” 

Finally Fury speaks, you had almost forgot the director was even here. “Prepare a quin jet Stark, get Loki and whoever else you deem reliable to escort. We need to figure out who came for a visit and if they’re ally or enemy as soon as possible.”

Fury disappears from the table and Tony gets into worker mode immediately. He points to you, claiming you’re the close combat person, to Clint, who is your ranged fighter, and to Natasha who would be pilot and your extraction. 

Things become a blur after that. You remember going to your room and jumping into your Shield issued attire (Stark had yet to make you your own suit), and meeting Loki at the roof where a quin jet readied for take off. Before you walked into the quin jet Loki stopped you, his hands holding your shoulders making you face him. 

“I promise that I will let nothing harm you, you’re my first priority and if things get violent I will teleport us away to safety.” 

You nod but give him a small smile, “I can handle myself but it’s good to know I’ve got someone watching my back.” You then push onto your toes and give Loki a peck and make your way to the quin jet. 

The ride there is tense and quiet. Loki says he’s putting a spell on you that acts as a shield but doesn’t specify how it works.

Looking back you wish you would have asked how it worked. 

Landing around 100 meters from the destination Clint, Loki and you leave the ship and begin your trek to the site. 

“Holy fuck! If I could strip out of my skin I would.” You say to Loki and Clint. Death Valley’s temperature was a recorded 130 degrees today. 

At your displeasure Loki slows till he’s next to you and puts an arm around your shoulders. You look at him questionably but gasp as his arm generates a coolness that at least stops your sweating. You make sure not to say anything so Clint, in front of you, doesn’t become jealous. 

The trip to the site is very uneventful. Even reaching the site is uneventful. About 30 meters from the site you see nothing. Literally, it’s just desert, surrounded by high cliffs, for miles. 

So you snoop, you walk around the site as Clint and Loki argue about whether the coordinates are correct. 

“I swear, this is what Stark gave me so, if they’re wrong, blame him!” Clint says, exasperated.

“It can’t be wrong I can feel something pulling at my magic but-”

That’s when you run into an invisible wall and yelp as you fall backwards onto your butt. 

“Found it!” You cheer as a space ship slowly appears, the colors changing and shifting from the point you hit till the whole thing is uncovered. At first glance the ship looks futuristic but once you overlook the whole thing with Clint keeping his distance, and Loki exploring with you, you realize it’s shaped as a sphinx. 

Very fitting for the desert surrounding the ship. 

“Work you magic.” You tell Loki and he does. You both congregate at the head of the ship/sphinx and he waves his hands over it, his green magic trailing out here and there to touch the ship. Loki himself mutters under his breath. 

You keep your eyes on him but also keep vigilant about the area. You finally get an idea and close your eyes for a second, your magic leaving your body and passing through the ship. No life forms. When you open your eyes again Loki lifts a brow at you, still muttering. 

“No life I can detect.” You tell him and he nods and focuses back on the ship. 

You put a hand to your ear piece and tell Clint, “I don’t sense any life forms but I’d keep a close eye anyways.” 

Clint gives you an acknowledgment. 

Loki finally stops his magic and drops his hands to his sides, just as he looks at you and you hear Clint yell into your ear, you’re hit by a concussive blast. When you look up in shock you see one lone humanoid figure walking towards Loki, who although wasn’t in the way of the blast also got blasted back, curious you think. Loki had immediately gotten into a defensive stance after getting up from the blast, one hand on his back holds three daggers, the other hand put up in a manner meant to calm the figure. 

You quickly get on your feet and stand next to Loki, your magic congregating at your balled fists. 

“Listen, buddy, I don’t know who you think you are-” Loki hisses at you, trying to get you to stop antagonizing the being that is close enough to identify. He is tall, around 7 feet tall and is dressed in a skin tight tank and leggings that are a dark purple color, it looks like metal but it’s too flexible to actually be metal. His head is encased in a tight helmet that frames his face and covers his head from his forehead, up, in a way that makes you think he is bald underneath. You shiver as you look into his eyes, they glow white. 

“Identify yourself.” The being says. Standing casually as if he didn’t attack you. 

“I am Loki, Prince of Asgard, and you are?” 

The being stands there silently. You huff. “I’m y/n, of Earth.” 

The being stands still for a few seconds then gets into a fighting position.

“I am here to take y/n, anyone who stands in my way shall perish.” 

Loki immediately grabs you and teleports you to Clint, you yell out angrily as he teleports back to the being and they start fighting. Loki throwing magic and daggers at the being. You gasp, the first ball of magic Loki throws at it makes a purple light encase the being, in a rippling effect, who then grows a bit. Hawkeye lets loose some arrows that explode on impact. It does nothing but make the man grow even more. 

Loki also realizes what’s going on because he stops attacking the being. The being takes his chance and lunges at Loki. Loki isn’t fast enough and takes a blow to the head. You scream and begin running towards him as he lays in the dirt discombobulated. Clint tries to grab your arm but misses you just so. 

In your ear you hear Clint tell Natasha to ready the jet. Before the being can get to Loki you throw yourself over his body. When he’s a few feet away you look at him with furious eyes.

“Stop!” 

To your surprise the being stops mid step, considers your words, then stands in place. You frown but look at Loki who is watching with fascinated eyes, recovered from the hard hit he took. You watch as blood trails down the side of his face and out of his ear. He probably can’t hear out of his left ear. 

Looking back up at the being you ask it, “Who sent you? What are you?”

The being stares at the two of you but answers, “I am Subject 52103 Growing Man, and my master sent me.” 

You feel Loki tense under you and assume he knows who his master is. 

“Tell your master to leave Earth alone, that if you or him show your faces here again, the Avengers will take you out without hesitation.”

The Growing Man nods and leaves in a flash of purple and black. 

Letting out a tense breath you stand and help Loki up. Making your way back to the quin jet, you pick up Clint. 

“Why does he want you?” Clint asks, looking at you. 

You walk, holding Loki at your side, the hit from the Growing Man doing enough to leave him a bit disoriented and sluggish. 

“I don’t know and I’m not quite sure I want to know.” You say. Loki stays conveniently quiet the entire walk to the quin jet. Clint doesn’t ask anything else either. 

Pt. 9.1/Pt. 10/?

Tag list: @justfangirlthingies​ @emelieh99​ @high-functioning-lokipath​ @loveableasshole​ 

[sonicringnoise]

Have a Jak 3 rant

Okay, I need to talk about Jak 3 and just...how absolutely janky the plot is. 

This rant is extremely long, so I put it under the cut.

First of all, I just want to point out, I love this game. I love it so much, and it’s my favorite out of the trilogy. But it just...it could have been so much better, guh.

And I know that development of this game was rushed (hell, it only came out a year after Jak 2), but I’m still going to rant about it!

It starts out just fine, with the Wasteland and Spargus and the arena, but it gets so weird as it goes on. Just...really disjointed.

We never really find out why Jak keeps going after eco crystals. Seriously, he gets a dark eco crystal from the Dark Maker at the beginning of the game, a light eco crystal from Seem, and just...starts collecting them, for some reason? Like, was he going to make a necklace? Start a rock collection? It’s never explained.

But whatever, it turns out those are needed later in the game to save the world. Fine.

After some Spargus-y missions, we then go...to the Monk Temple. You know, the temple. That’s never been mentioned before, and we didn’t even know existed, but we just went up there to explore and stuff and...

Like, how hard would it have been to have a line where Seem says, “We monks live far to the north, in a temple in the mountains.”

Then we’d at least have a reason to go there. But no, instead we just show up there and start poking around. 

This is one of my biggest issues with the game. In Jak 2, there are cutscenes that set up these missions, or even communications in gameplay that tell us where to go. In Jak 3, there’s just...a lot of that missing.

But, fine. Whatever, Jak has, like, ESPN or something.

At the volcano, Jak gets a dark power of invisibility, I guess. But only when he touches certain statues, and it’s only ever really used to get past a few traps and then never again.

Oddly enough, this was something that...made sense? I mean, invisibility is actually a power that dark eco has. Remember in Jak 2, there were metal heads who could turn invisible. 

But it’s never used! And that complaint holds true for almost every power Jak gets. You basically use the powers when a prompt comes on screen to get through a one-time obstacle, and then never again. 

Then we find out Veger is talking to the monks, but no one ever really expands on why? Or how? Like, for a city hidden in the Wasteland and forgotten, a lot of fucking people know it exists! 

Speaking of which...

We meet Ashelin in the desert and she begs us to come back to Haven City. Jak asks her how she knows Damas and she answers, “It doesn’t matter now.”

Excuse me??

It totally does matter! If Ashelin knows Damas, it begs the question: does she know that Jak is his son? Does she know the Kid is his son? Does she even know about the Kid? 

I mean, Ashelin would almost have to know that Jak is Damas’ son: during this scene, she gives him his seal back and says, “Don’t you remember who you are?”

Whatever. Add that to the list of things that are never mentioned again.

Jak says he’s not coming back to the city, because he’s an angry teenager and he likes hanging around with his Sand Dad. 

This is immediately followed by Jak returning to Haven City.

We head to the Monk Temple, again for no reason. This time, we open up some doors and Pecker leads us back to the city. 

There is no explanation as to why Jak has a change of heart. I actually think that the scene where Damas and Jak had a heart-to-heart and he mentions his lost son should be here: it leads perfectly into Jak deciding that the Greater Good is more important than his feelings.

Instead, we get nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just Jak heading back to Haven City because it’s The Thing To Do.

We reach Haven City after a boss battle and meet with Samos and Keira. Samos sucks, but that’s in character. Keira has no lines in this scene, and only makes goofy faces. Seriously, look: 

That’s it, that’s the character. 

Like, what’s happening in this scene? What’s going on with you, Keira? Are you okay? Are you making bedroom eyes at Jak? Are you confused? Did you smoke some of your father’s funny herbs again?

(Again, I know Keira’s role got cut down a lot because they changed voice actors, but it’s...so...jarring for a normally prominent character to suddenly get shoved into the background.)

We do some missions for Torn and eventually find out that Erol is the bad guy. Never explained how Erol survived slamming his Zoomer into dark eco and exploding in front of a huge crowd, but at this point, it’s whatever. 

We continue on our journey: Tess is a furry, Samos is useless, Torn is...Torn. 

We get a scene with Sig where Jak and Daxter ask him about Damas and his job as a spy and all that stuff. Fine, well and good, except the following exchange happens:

Jak: You’re playing with people’s lives!

Sig: Why not? They played with mine.

I’m sorry??

There’s a story there, and I’d like to know! What the hell happened to Sig? Why is nothing ever explained??!!

We get some Dadmas feelings, then we head over to have a chat with Kleiver. And this happens:

Jak: Kleiver, I need to find some very special Precursor artifacts, but I’m running out of time.

...Are you?? Has that been established?

So, in one of the previous missions, Samos mentions over the communicator (during gameplay, not in a cutscene) that to activate some ruins in Haven Forest, you’ll need some artifacts. But all he says is this:

Samos: Mar wrote that there was some ancient ruins to the west that were activated by five special artifacts and revealed wondrous truths. I'll see what I can find out.

That’s it! There’s never a cutscene where Samos says you need to find the Holo Cube, the Quantum Reflector, the Beam Generator, the Prism, and...by the way, there is no 5th artifact. Samos, you’re full of shit.

(Unless the Eco Sphere you get from Seem towards the end counts, but it’s very unclear.)

And, by the way, I had to Google those artifact names. The artifacts are never actually named until you acquired them in-game. Jak just finds random artifacts and is like, “Welp, this’ll do it! How convenient!”

Sigh.

Once we get all these artifacts no one told us about, we’re told to go take a cab down to the center of the earth. We don’t do that, and instead blow some shit up to visit our friends in person again. 

(Quarantine mood, really.)

And, again, I can’t get over how much of a non-character Keira is. Seriously, she just stands there and claps like a 3-year-old.

And we also come to my own personal pet peeve: the scene where Ashelin strips Veger of his title.

I can’t with this shit.

The biggest issue I have with this game, from a story standpoint, is how quickly the inciting incident is resolved. Like, Jak being banished is the whole reason we have a Jak 3. The city turned against him; his anti-hero choices in Jak 2 led to him being blamed for the war in Jak 3. It made sense.

But Ashelin decides, 75% through the game, to just be like, “Naw, Veger, fuck you. Get out of my face, buh bye.”

It just pisses me off, because if Ashelin had that power, why didn’t she use it before Jak was banished??

And why is Jak okay with this? Why is Moody McAngerface not even a little annoyed that she didn’t care enough to do this when he was dying of heatstroke in the desert?

Uuuuuuggggghhhhh guys I don’t understand.

So we see Vin again, blow some more stuff up, fight Erol, and get some tentacle wings. Seem acts all nice to us and gives us a present we didn’t know we needed. More Dadmas ensues, we see the Dark Maker ship for some reason, blow even more stuff up.

Finally, it’s time to head to the catacombs. We get into some trouble with Dark Makers (even though there’s only, like, three of them), and Damas busts through the goddamn wall in a car.

No idea how he got here, considering the Wasteland appears to be an island, but whatever, it’s a badass scene.

Then, because Jak can’t have anything nice, they get hit and crash the car all over Damas’ legs.

Seriously, dude, I get that you might be dying from blood loss, but why are you coughing, your lungs are fine.

So Damas dies, Jak is his long-lost son, it’s very sad, and Veger you piece of shit.

I will forever be salty that Veger, who was an overall excellent villain, was sidelined for Erol of all people. Admittedly, Jak 2 did the same thing with Praxis, but Kor was a much better Big Bad than Erol.

Regardless, we then get the Worst Plot Twist Ever, when we find out the Precursors are ottsels.

k.

Moving on from that tragedy, we then get to fight Erol. The fight sucks, it’s boring and I hate driving the stupid Wasteland buggies.

And then the end comes, and my blood pressure skyrockets. Somewhere, my PCP senses a disturbance.

The Precursors being ottsels is stupid, but Jak telling them to call him “Mar” is even stupider. First of all, Jak does not seem like the kind of person to get sentimental over his birth name. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.

Second of all, the ottsel leader calls him Mar once, directly after that. And then never again. 

Seriously, 90 seconds after Jak says he wants to be known as Mar, this happens:

I’m sorry, what’s that?

Why would you add that line in about Jak wanting to be called by his birth name, and then ignore it a minute and half later??!!

It just infuriates me. There’s a lot of stuff in Jak 3 that does this: it’s touched on once, then it’s gone forever.

And let’s talk about Daxter’s wish. I actually find this particular decision - where Daxter chooses to wish for pants instead of being human again - totally believable. 

Despite how much Daxter is regarded as the comic relief idiot of the duo, he’s actually shown to be pretty sharp. He’s definitely observant. And at this point, remember that he’s already seen the Precursors at work: he saw them turn Veger into an ottsel.

So Daxter probably realized that these guys were on some monkey paw, be-careful-what-you-wish-for bullshit and decided to wish for the most innocuous thing he could. Who knows what would happen if he actually asked to become human again? Might come out lookin’ like Samos.

And he’s right, by the way! Look at what those assholes did to my baby Tess. They could’ve just got her a size 6 pair of Levi’s and been like, “Here, boom, pants.” 

But nooo, they turned her into an ottsel, too, because why not why the fuck not nothing matters ahhhhHHHHHHHHH

...

...

Anyway, like I said, Jak 3 is my favorite in the series. It had such potential. It’s like a puzzle that’s missing pieces. I like it more for what it could have been, rather than the absolute mess it actually is.

[365days365movies]

May 10, 2021: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (Recap: Part Two)

Said I’d talk about artificial humans in sci-fi, so...

There are a HELL of a lot of examples of artificial humans in science-fiction, as well as the ethical and philosophical concepts that their existence raises. Now, your definition of “artificial” may differ from medium to medium. At its base form, these are humans that are not born, but made. I’ll be talking fleshy organic humans, not robotic ones. The most common of these is, of course, clones.

A clone, strictly speaking, is a genetically identical copy of a pre-existing organism, in this case a human. While this isn’t technology we’ve applied to humans as of yet (due to the NUMEROUS ethical problems and questions), we have done so with animals, mostly sheep and cats. It’s actually a good way to de-extinct certain species, and we’ve already done experiments with that. Of course...that has its own concerns.

Keeping up the Jurassic Park reference streak! Anyway...

There are a FUCKTON of examples of clones in science-fiction, but since I’m a massive comic book nerd, I’ll use Superboy. The genetic combination of Superman and Lex Luthor, Conner Kent is one of the most prominent clone superheroes. He’s not the only clone of Superman, of course. He’s not even my favorite clone of Superman, to be honest...

Bizarro am the worst. ME WILL LIVE ON THAT HILL.

Oh, and let’s not forget THE most prominent artificial human in comic books PERIOD. I don’t care what her origin in the movies is, that’s never been my favorite version of Wonder Woman. Making her a demigod robs her of something important, in my opinion.

...Should I make a comic book blog? Shit, thinkin’ about it.

OK, before I do that, these are just my favorite examples. Fact is, there are FAR too many examples of artificial humans to go into, whether they’re built, grown, sculpted, conjured, or a chemical reaction with an extra ingredient in the concoction.

And look, I could go on all day about this, but we got a long-ass movie to get back to. SO, lets jump back in. Part One is here!

Recap (2/2)

Understandably exhausted, K returns home, confused and conflicted. However, he’s greeted with a surprise from Joi: a prostitute! Namely, this is Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), one of the girls who approached him earlier. Joi’s called her here in order to be “real” for K, the effect is impressive, if somewhat...off-putting. Still, while K obviously didn’t need this to be happy with their relationship, Joi might, and Mariette’s all on board.

And it doesn’t take K terrible long to get on board, either. As both Mariette and Joi strip, it makes me wonder...how much does this subscription service for Joi cost. There’s no goddamn way this is free, right? Like, how exclusive IS this AI? And they cut from that scene to a Joi commercial, where we hear that Joi becomes anything you want her to be, and does anything you want her to do. But something tells me that...well, that it’s not quite so simple.

Once the night is over, Joi tells Mariette to leave, and not nicely either. Mariette leaves, rebuking her on the way out as well. K, meanwhile, knows that the Blade Runners will soon be coming after him. He’ll be going on the run, and Joi wants to go with him. And so, they put her inside of a remote device, while deleting her information from the main apartment console. This gets the attention of Luv, who head over to the apartment to figure out what’s going on.

K goes to Doc Badger (Barkhad Adbi), who analyzes the horse for him. It’s discovered that old radiation can be found there, and that amount and kind of radiation can only be found in areas where a dirty bomb has been set off. This would be in the desolate and weird-ass ruins of Las Vegas. While nobody lives there at this point, K and Joi go to check it out.

An IMMENSELY frustrated Luv, unaware of K’s discovery about himself, goes to confront Joshi about K’s whereabouts. Luv berates her for being afraid of change, and tells her that she “can’t fend off the tide with a broom”. Which is a great line. However, as Joshi is no use to her at this point, Luv just straight up kills her. Which, I’m sure, will go over well with the whole “Replicants aren’t dangerous” thing.

Meanwhile, in Vegas...shit is WEIRD. First off all, the desolate wasteland is full of statues of giant sexy wimmin, and I mean GIANT statues. Beneath one of them is a series of beehives, which K goes into to get a hand of beeeees. After that, he goes into an abandoned hotel/casino, rigged with tripwires and booby traps. OK. What.

So, somebody’s using this place as a hideaway, despite the entire city being destroyed by a dirty bomb, and probably extremely radioactive. K searches around and finds it empty. He begins to play a piano, hoping to draw someone out. He ends up drawing out a dog, as well as the inhabitant of the hotel.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), baby! Quoting Stevenson’s Treasure Island and holding K up at gunpoint with dog at side is the original Blade Runner himself, Rick Fucking Deckard. God, I love this. Deckard hunts K down throughout the casino, where we see some trippy holograms, and the future of Vegas stageshows (probably).

The two fight, but eventually call a truce and decide to get a drink at the bar. K gets to it pretty quickly, and confronts Deckard on his potential child with Rachael. He confirms that Rachael was indeed pregnant by him, but he had never met his child. Which was the plan, to be fair. He wanted their child to be protected, not hunted down and eventually dissected.

Sometimes, to love someone...you gotta be a stranger.

To an old Frank Sinatra song, a forlorn K (now calling himself “Joe”) looks around, and sees carved wooden animals that resemble the horse that’s haunted his life and memories so much by this point. Which makes sense, considering the foil unicorn from the previous film. Neat little tie-in there.

But paradise is not all it’s cracked up to be, as someone soon comes to find both K and Deckard, despite the fact that K came alone. Although, now that I think about it, Joi may not be one that you can truly trust. Deckard and K try to escape their pursuers, but are caught pretty quickly. In the process, K is injured, but manages to get up in order to fight back. However, this is Luv with these people, and she beats K down EASILY. Turns out that Luv is actually an enforcer, rather than just a secretary. And when Joi awakens from K’s device to ask her to stop, well...she kills the device, and she kills K. In the process, she also takes Deckard away, leaving K behind. Fuck.

K wakes up, only to discover Mariette standing over him in the Las Vegas wasteland. She takes care of him as he wakes up, also stitching up with wounds from the explosion. She tells K to trust her, as well as her compatriots. One of them is the hooded woman from earlier, a Replicant named Freysa (Hiam Abbass). An old friend of Sapper’s she saw the delivery of the child, the “miracle”, and also hid the child away, as it was a symbol that the Replicants are more than just slave, that they are their own masters.

Freysa is building a revolution in order to free the Replicants once and for all. And I’m hard-pressed to disagree with their cause, not gonna lie. However, this comes at a price. In order to prevent Wallace from killing the cause, K must prevent Deckard from leading them to Freysa. They must do what they can until they can reveal the child to the world. For she will be their leader.

Fuck.

Understandably COMPLETELY crushed at this revelation, and more confused than ever, K collapses. Freysa tells him that they ALL wish they were the one, and they all believe. It’s at this point, that K realizes exactly who the Hybrid is: Dr. Ana Stelline. The horse from earlier, it turns out, did in fact belong to her, and she planted her childhood memory with the horse in K’s mind as a Replicant. Damn. DAMN! That’s why the memory moved her so: because it was hers.

Meanwhile, Deckard awakens to a separate nightmare: Jared Leto telling him how he feels about him. After all, Deckard helped to create the first Replicant-human hybrid. He asks him for his help in obtaining the child, so that the key of Replicant reproduction can be further unlocked. And he proceeds in convincing Deckard by playing audio of Rachael and his first meeting (from the first film, of course).

Niander fucks with him further, by suggesting Deckard was summoned all those years ago specifically to fall in love with Rachael in order to father a child with her. But despite all of this, Deckard refuses to give up any of his information. And so, Niander pulls out his ace-in-the-hole...and it’s a real shitty thing to do to a man in mourning. 

Damn. Dude rebuilt Rachael, tries to tempt Deckard with her, FAILS, then lets Luv shoot her in the head. Fucking power move, and fuck Niander for playing it. Dude is a DICK. Meanwhile. that one visual from every single ad of this movie is happening, and I can FINALLY use one of the 8000 GIFs of it, goddamn.

Not gonna lie, it’s an iconic appearance, so I get why it’s so famous. Anyway, K considers a suicidal option, now that he knows the truth. However, before we get to see the final decision, we get to see Deckard being taken back to LA for interrogation by Wallace. However, to prevent him from potentially leading Wallace to the secret of Ana Stelline, K suddenly appears, opening fire on their ship.

The craft is downed, and K exits the car to engage in a firefight with Luv. He appears to win, but Luv isn’t killed once she’s shot. The two have a fistfight out in the rain, and Deckard waits for water to slowly kill the craft that he’s still inside of.

As expected, Luv handles herself well, and despite a number of close calls, she JUST. WILL. NOT. DIE. Damn, she’s resilient. However, despite K, Luv, and Deckard all nearly drowning in an INTENSE fight between the Replicants, an enraged and crazed Luv finally eventually drowns, ending her threat for good. 

K saves Deckard from the sinking ship, and agrees to stage his death, allowing him to meet his daughter for the first time. Once at her facility, K returns Deckard’s horse to him, knowing that it was a gift from him. He tells Deckard that his best memories all come from her, implying that this makes him similar to Deckard’s son, which he picks up on when he asks if he’s OK.

Deckard goes to meet his daughter, and K hangs out on the stairs outside. He feels the snow fall on his hand, and he just...watches it all fall around him. He sits, and he watches it all. And meanwhile, Deckard meets his daughter for the first time.

...Can I just say...GODDAMN!

That movie was absolutely stellar, and it’s definitely landing in the high ‘90s for me, calling it now. I...wow. Seriously. Amazing.

See you in the Review!

[hellstenglow]

Fiveya Meta: they need to talk

Endure me, I am on a fiveya-train and my thoughts don’t shut up.

After watching the most recent behind the scene videos of TUA season 2 we can conclude that they did make senseless choices in the plot because in some cases they had to. For example in the case of the snow storm created by Harlan in the final episode, that was added to the script because suddenly there have been a snow storm on the outside set the days before the scheduled filming and they couldn’t clean the place enough, in time for the recording. The snow was added.

I also think they could have written some of the characters better and given them real development (*cough* Luther, Ben *cough*). I wasn’t even a fan of the whole “Vanya lost her memory” thing, but I’ve read that Steve Blackman (the showrunner) doesn’t want to diverge from the original content too much (which is a bit silly to say since they did make major changes since season 1, but okay). I guess that’s why Vanya’s amnesia was still there, although they treated it differently. In the comics it was Mom-Grace who helped Vanya to find herself again and her own value, in the show it was Sissy who did it. I thought it was kind of a hint to the comics the fact Sissy resembled Show-Grace a bit (blond, kind and a mom). Did I think it was unnecessary to have a love interest for Vanya right after season 1? I did, but I justified the choice by thinking that the show wanted to give Vanya a taste of what real love (not like Leonard’s manipulative and abusive love) is supposed to be. I also thought it was a way to show how Vanya needs to stop clinging to the first person who gives her affection, attention and treats her with kindness. I hope she’d realize that and work on herself and family in season 3, first and foremost.

Even with the evident flaws I enjoyed season 2, especially because I decided to treat it as a passing by (detour/digression) chapter in a longer story. All Hargreeves siblings in the ‘60s tried hard to make a new life and ignored their actual life (Allison, Luther, Klaus) or had a convenient amnesia (Vanya) or focused on something too much to lose track of what matters (Diego). Everyone except Ben (who was not treated once again as a full character despite the apparent level up the PR promoted) and Five (who once again was running around in panic mode to stop an apocalypse). Remember Vanya saying, “New timeline, new me.” And Five replying “That’s NOT how it works.”? I may give the writers more credits than it is due, but I hope those two lines were some kind of meta messages for the more attentive viewers. Those two lines can explain perfectly season 2 to be honest.

Nobody can know how long a tv show would run, a fact that expose us to uncertainty. It’s always a gamble trusting writers and showrunners to deliver a good story, but all it’s fair game and one has only to accept it. I do not trust any of them, but I cannot help myself and still hope that they will not ruin everything. With all this said, let’s talk about something I think the show has to tackle in next seasons: Five and Vanya are two points of a theme that needs to be addressed and solved. They need to interact, talk and close their open theme together.

This is not a cohesive meta and I probably will lose myself in too many details, but I hope the message I am trying to convey will arrive. This is only my reading of the show and theories, so you can disagree. I just hope you’d find something interesting and maybe help someone to have a different perspective on what’s going on and where (I pray) the show will go. Here the points I will talk about, if you are in for a very verbose essay, please click on the “keep reading” button. Meanwhile I’ll wear my tinfoil crown and sip some margarita.

Five and Vanya are a theme

It was mean to be Ben

Why the Fiveya’s tension in S2 EP 7’s iconic scene is a symptom of something

I dare to hope in fiveya (at least until proven wrong)  

1. We have a theme: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the apocalypse

It’s a twisted joke of the universe that the very thing Five is obsessed about in season 1 (the apocalypse) was caused by the person he trusted the most (“I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust” - Five in S1EP1). The red thread that linked Five and Vanya can’t be more evident, that’s one of the reasons why I started shipping them. The family’s dynamic, the siblings’ relationships and bonds are equally important, they add layers and motivations to the story, but if we strip everything else and look at the core, we all know Five and Vanya are at the centre of it.

It’s not a simple coincidence that Five said “I’m the four horsemen”. At first, it’s just a funny line, because Five is drunk and he described himself as those fearsome figures (because he is the best assassin of the whole world and time. Death incarnated in his humble opinion). You don’t take him seriously when he said that line, you don’t pay attention to it.  

However, later it gains a certain degree of truth. Subtly the show tells you that indeed Five is linked deeply to the “apocalypse” (Vanya), as much as the four horsemen (they are the prelude and the bringers of the end) are linked to the apocalypse (in the biblical sense). He lived it. He was trapped there for 45 years. He is obsessed with it. The Apocalypse is his business.

Timid little Vanya is the first person he looked for in the middle of the doomsday’s ruins and arguably his closest friend. On the first day of his return Five only have meaningful talks with Vanya. Five sought her to confide the horror of his memories and share the burden of the truth. He trusted her above everyone else. Then the universe made a laughingstock of him when it was revealed that Vanya caused the Apocalypse. Five didn’t know he was running towards her, despite wanting to go back to his family (her) all his life. 

In the first two episodes of season 1 they made clear that Vanya and Five had an intimate bond in their childhood and still cared for each other after so many years, then the show proceeded to separate them until the finale. They tried so hard to keep them far away from each other during season 1 and we all know everything would have been different if they had time to properly talk, process their situation and find a solution together. Of course, the show didn’t give them that chance, otherwise the show would have ended in episode 3 and goodbye drama!

They did not confront each other in the end of season 1, they let Allison take that role because the show built up their connection as sisters and I didn’t dislike the choice. Did it work thematically? No, Allison has no connection with the apocalypse. That’s Five’s business. He didn’t confront Vanya, he let others take the lead in the most crucial moment and with no surprise the apocalypse still happened.

The other apocalypse in season 2 was still connected to Vanya and again Five ignored the cosmic signals and focused on dead ends. Despite knowing perfectly that the butterfly effect can come from any source, he didn’t even think about Vanya’s being the cause of the apocalypse again. Five should have listened Klaus when he suggested that Vanya might have been the cause. Funny how Klaus told him in S1 that he has an addiction and Five aggressively denied it. Funny how saving his family and stopping the apocalypse are always his top priorities, but Five still deny himself (for a reason or another) the time to confront Vanya (the apocalypse).

We have a theme waiting to be resolved: Five wants to stop the apocalypse and Vanya is the cause of the apocalypse. If Five does not confront Vanya the theme will never have a closure. It’s still open right now. It is still there, waiting to be picked up again. There is no resolution.

2. Vanya and Ben’s goodbye

The scene between Vanya and Ben was one of my favourites from season 2 and after pondering for a while I concluded that it couldn’t have been anyone else but Ben the one who helped Vanya in that moment. My theory is that the show will walk backwards the breaking points of Vanya’s life: Ben’s death, Five’s leaving and Reginald’s abuse.

Vanya is not fixed. How could she when she was barely Vanya in this season? “New timeline, new me” she said, but that was just a convenient escapism mechanism. Years and years of mentally and emotionally abuse don’t disappear in one week. The Hargreeves have still a lot to process and resolve, individually and as family. That’s why I hope the show will progress the story in the right direction and actually work on them in season 3. Especially Vanya, who needs to confront her trauma. That’s why the scene with Ben in episode 9 was necessary.

From Vanya’s book:

[…] Our everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad had [...]-pped into treating us like experiments. Not as children, but like animals. And what happened to Ben was the last straw that finally shattered the illusion for the others …

Ben died long time ago and his death was the last straw that shattered the illusion (for the others) that their father cared about them (even in his own messed up way). Everything changed from that moment and each sibling drifted away from one another after that. Ben’s death was the moment Vanya and the rest of her siblings stopped being a family. The definitive step of Vanya’s alienation from her siblings.

There was no place in the group for her. With Five’s absence and Ben gone (he is a caring brother, with Klaus is like that and I can imagine him being kind to Vanya in their childhood too. Although, Ben is not Five and we have seen him being harsh to her in the flashbacks in S1EP10), Vanya was truly lost.

The tearful and important moment between Ben and Vanya was a reverse moment in my opinion. Vanya needed that from Ben, his death heavily influenced the course of her life (everyone’s life) and it was only fitting that Ben should have been the one helping her to start again. It’s symbolic in a sense, but also very factual.

“Sorry that I left without saying goodbye” – Five, S1 EP2

“At least this time I can say goodbye.” – Ben, S2 EP9

I’m using my fiveya-goggles, but we all thought that what Five said in S1EP2 (when Vanya tried to find him at Hargreeves’ mansion) wasn’t just about him leaving her apartment. It’s a very specific line that works on double levels: text and subtext. The subtext of course refers to the day he run out the house and time jumped. I highlighted these two lines from Five and Ben because I think they share the same theme: leaving her without saying goodbye.

Vanya wasn’t on mission with the team when Ben died, and I doubt she even saw his body (or whatever remains were left) when the Umbrella Academy returned. She didn’t even see his manifestation during the Icarus’ fight, too focused in her own power. The scene between them in Vanya’s mind gave both the opportunity to make amend of untold words and missed moments.

Ben is dead, he is the one he cannot return. His departure is permanent, there is nothing they can do about that. However, they can have a closure. Ben needed to be the one first patching to mend Vanya’s relationship with her family, to remind her that she does belong. This sort of second death (finally move on into the Light) has more meaning than the first one, this time Ben completed the mission. He saved someone he loved (he couldn’t stop Klaus from destroying his life with drugs and alcohol) and could trust his siblings to take care of the rest.

I still think Ben didn’t need to die-die, but in a sense it was time for him to move on into the light. He was afraid to go on, but if he could move on so his siblings. It is time for Vanya to move on her own trauma.

(Yeah, I know. I still have problem with the scene because they erased canon in a way and Ben could do a lot more as character. They erased the fact drugs stop their powers like in Klaus’ addiction and Vanya’s pills, so how Vanya was able to use them under LSD? I tried to explain that to myself by the fact “they needed to bs that canon fact in season 1 and ignored it”.

We can also argue that Ben could have prevented the apocalypse in 2019 by doing the same thing, but in their defence S1-Ben didn’t know he could possess a body. Yeah, how did he do that without Klaus’ power help? No idea, that doesn’t make sense to me either. Ahah. I just swam with the flow at that point and accepted it as it is. Call it the power of superpowered siblings’ love. I’ve seen worse plot holes in my life. I can live with this).

3. Pass me the knife, there is some tension here!

From Vanya’s book:

Though prone to arrogance and outbursts, even more than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidante in the years before he disappeared. It almost seemed fitting […] the siblings to leave us, it would be him who [I fully?] […] who fully trusted me.

I said that Vanya’s walking backwards her life’s breaking points. So, after Ben’s death, she needs to address Five’s leaving. Five was her only confidante in the years before he disappeared, as she wrote in her book. Five was very important to young Vanya (and old Vanya needs to remember that) and I bet when he left, that was a scar never healed.

Vanya missed him and hoped for his return, for a while she kept the lights on in the house every night and prepared for him his favourite sandwich. When Five did come back Vanya couldn’t process that fact properly in season 1, all she could think of was that she didn’t want to lose him again. Five on the other hand decided that he would save everyone on his own and for that choice he made a bunch of tragic rookie mistakes.

Miscommunication is their kryptonite and right now Vanya and Five aren’t able to fully communicate at the same level. Reggie did such a good work at parenting that they’re so unfit to deal with their emotions and relationships, that will always be the root of their mistakes.

Same story in season 2, meanwhile Vanya is on the verge to provoke another apocalypse (although indirectly), as usual Five was too obsessed with his own plans and was not even aware of the situation. He knows nobody is insignificant when it’s about altering the timeline, but he always ends to focus on the wrong lead. The show again did incredible summersaults to avoid the two to interact properly and when they interacted things still didn’t work for a reason or another. She didn’t remember her past, he was not entirely sincere with her. She wanted to start anew (having a family with Sissy, easy-peasy), he is trapped again in a run against time to save his family. They are still not at the same page and for the show that is convenient. They still can play with their open theme (my point number 1 in this meta).

I don’t blame Five in S1 for thinking that if the worse happens, they would need to kill her. I think he was in a very delicate state of mind in that moment, he didn’t have time to process the fact Vanya (his favourite sibling and we all know she is his favourite) caused the end of the world. It was disappointing and cynical, but time was ticking fast, and he had been in his “maniacal-panic” mode for almost eight days. I also think he wouldn’t really kill her; he was the one who convinced the others that they needed to take her with them in the time jump. They need to “fix her” (aka help her to never feel alone in the universe and prove her we do love her) or they’re going to make the same mistakes again and again.

Just to be clear I think if Five wasn’t one day from the end of the world and in a rush to stop Vanya, he would had had the same reaction as Old Man Five in S2. His 14-days younger version take it very well “Fair enough” he said and then proceeded to tell Luther how to save Vanya, no mention about killing her whatsoever. Old Man Five had time (10 days more than our current Five) and a direct clue on how to stop the apocalypse (thanks Luther). Nobody was going to kill Vanya.

“Vanya will always be the cause of the apocalypse, unless we fix her.” - Five S1EP10 

“Vanya is the bomb. She will always be the bomb.” - Diego S2EP8

Vanya is the bomb and she will always be the bomb unless she heals. A fact that can be added to my number 1 point in this meta, there is an open theme and they need to tackle it. Five and Vanya need to confront each other and resolve it.

This takes me to S2 EP7: the iconic stare-power stand between Five and Vanya. THE TENSION was real, and you could cut it with a butter knife. The first time I screamed at my screen, I felt like Gordon Ramsay in one of those episodes of “Kitchen Nightmare US” when someone finally serves him good food.

Of course, the immediate reading of the scene is that Five needed Vanya to come along and Vanya didn’t want to go because at that point these Hargreeves are still strangers to her (amnesia is so convenient), Sissy and Harlan are the ones she knows and loves in that right moment.

They were still able to cut each other with sharp words and hostile glares though. Five let her have what she wanted, not because he feared her, but because as usual he cares more about her feelings than what he would ever admit. It’s the second time in S2 he let her go, his soft spot and favouritism for Vanya was showing once again! *fakes surprise*

I think the tension shown in this scene is a symptom that Vanya and Five are on the verge of something they will (they have to) confront soon or later. This is the subtext reading I came out with.

Even if you don’t look at it with shipper goggle, you feel there is something going on. They let the viewers feel there is a sensitive something whenever these two have an alone scene together. All their alone scenes have a specific grade of intimacy, they made it clear since the scene in front of Five’s portrait. They care for each other, they love each other (sibling love, platonic love, we-could-have-been-something love etc…) and it’s there. However, Five left and Vanya never truly recovered from that. They didn’t process that fact and I truly believe they can’t move on until they heal that scar.

Basically, S2 EP7 Fiveya’s scene = We have to talk, but this is not the moment because the show is only on its second season! THIS TENSION IS HERE FOR A REASON.

4. Hope is the last thing to die

I shouldn’t trust a show, I’ve been disappointed so many times in the past years and showrunners of popular shows tend to be unoriginal and cowards. However, I am an optimist at heart and until season 3 I dare to hope anyway. If proven wrong, there are always fanfictions who can do better job than canon.

If all was lost they could have eliminated Alluther too from the universe because of certain fans screaming “harcest is incest you weirdos”, but Allison and Luther’s situation still exist and still work on the parameter “will they or not”? I imagine for their shippers it was annoying to have such a regression in season 2, but they didn’t destroy it and they still gave them scenes.

Fiveya had even a more subtle situation than Alluther but they’ve been granted the same level of intimate interaction whenever they have an alone scene together. Until Five (the character) will gain an older body (which he can) the whole thing is suspended. However, I think they wouldn’t have been open about the possibility of Five changing back to an older body and spoke about in season 1 if they didn’t have an idea for that.

I brushed off the line Five said to Old Man Five about being forever trapped in his 13-years-old body. It’s canon that there is a way to gain an adult body for Five, the Commission has the technology and even if it’s not the Commission they can mambo-jambo the thing in a way or another. That would never work. The actor is a growing up teenager and from season 1 to season 2 he has already changed. I imagined he will change even more before season 3 will ever start recording (maybe very late due the COVID-19 situation).

Aidan is a fan favourite and I am one of those who can’t see anyone else playing Five, with this said there are still ways for the show to give us fiveya. Young fiveya flashbacks will be always an option to explore the idea of “they had a crush on each other when they were young” and make other viewers understand that it wasn’t all “sibling” love between them. Endgame in a distant season can always have an epilogue with an adult Five (another actor I mean) having a very non-platonic (let adult Fivey kiss please) moment with Vanya, meanwhile building up the longest slow-burn (kinda, deep down I believe those feelings for each other are there) of the century.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe my tinfoil crow is too tight, and my brain doesn’t breathe. Maybe the show will succumb to easy paths and angry bullies. I don’t know, but until proven wrong I dare to hope.

PS: This is a monster of a meta and it probably doesn’t make sense? I hope someone will get what I’ve tried to say. I hope you survive, brave readers. Here a glass of margarita for you. I’d love to hear what you think

[hail-the-supreme-leader-kylo-ren]

My final musings/speculation on all the TROS TV spots

I’m so sad that this is my final write up for TROS speculation.  You can find my previous “End” TV spot breakdown here, “Fate” one here, and my other TROS trailer breakdown here. 

Timeline stuff

Costumes are the biggest indicator of the timeline in the TROS footage we’ve seen so far. Poe starts by wearing his scarf and gloves, then he gets an arm injury and wraps the wound with said scarf. Later back at the Resistance base, he gets it properly bandaged and takes off his gloves. And I suspect that, for the final fight, he changes into his pilot get up and helmet (see the images below for his outfit timeline). Similarly Rey has her staff and bag or does not in various trailer footage.

JJ told us that Pasaana takes place towards the start of the film. I reaaally want to know why Rey, Finn, and Poe all have bags. They must serve a function in the story. I feel like the Resistance gang is on a mission to collect something, hence the bags. And I think that one of the things that’ll eventually be carried in Rey’s bag is the mysterious dagger she’s seen with.

Here’s Rey on Pasaana at the Aki-Aki’s festival, with a beaded neck with bits of material or paper that are pastel pink, green, and yellow. They remind me of “omikuji” which are Japanese fortune-telling paper strips that can be found in shrines and temples (see below). As Pasaana is at the start of the film, this seems very fitting for Rey, “what will her fortune be?”. Rey still has her saddle bag on.

We can see that the FO crash the festival and are in pursuit of the Resistance members, we know from the comics that Kylo has placed a bounty on them all.

On the left of screen you can see some Aki-Aki angrily chasing after the resistance and the two speeders. So I think the resistance definitely borrowed (*stole*) them from the locals to get away from the FO. 

I like how the shape of the two speeders are very different. TROS has some great design all round from what we’ve seen so far.

Here’s Rey looking v angry, and she still has her bag on but no longer wears the necklace. 

We know that Kylo and the Knights of Ren are also on Pasaana, so it’ll be interesting to see how/when the KoR interact with the Resistance. I have a feeling that the two speeders will be spilt up, and Rey will end up coming face-to-face with Kylo. 

And then there’s this scene of the Resistance inside a cave on Pasaana, all with their bags on, and they don’t look happy to see something/someone one. I think this may be once they all meet up again after the chase?

Now for the Rey flips over Kylo’s TIE Silencer scene. It’s odd because for this scene Rey doesn’t have her staff or her bag with her. Just her ignited saber. But this is still clearly Pasaana. So maybe this is after the speeder chase, or on a whole other day? The sun is setting after-all, (which will make for ~very~ romantic lighting hehe).

And I really don’t know if Rey destroys his Whisper, with her saber or with the force, but his ship is definitely toast.

Rey looks at her hand, either because she used the force to destroy his ship OR he force grabbed the legacy lightsaber out of her hands because he is now worthyyyyy. Either way, she looks shook. 

Also on Pasaana, we have footage of Rey standing in pretty much the same spot (the landscape background matches up), and she shouts “CHEWIE” and is looking up and distressed. I really don’t know what is happening to Chewie, but the trailer footage does seem to be point towards him being captured by the FO and then Finn/Rey/Poe/C-P30/BB-8/D-O go to Kylo’s FO ship to rescue him. To be honest, I don’t really understand why they’d kidnap Chewie but if it does go down like that then I would love to see the Kylo/Chewie interaction, it’ll be amazing.

And there’s also this footage of Poe on Pasaana, next to a different ship yelling “REY”. Perhaps he’s watching the Reylo stuff go down:

This is The Knights of Ren walking through the same FO ship the Resistance runs through (the corridor is the same shame/blue LEDs). The squad all leave behind muddy footprints. Now in all the images we have of the KoR, they’re outfits are muddy at the bottom, but I wouldn’t have thought they’d get muddy from Pasaana, dirty yes? but not muddy.

(See in this Vanity Fair image, all their boots/pants/coats are covered in dried brown mud).

I wonder if the KoR were with Kylo on this other planet, with the ashy/sandy ground (pictured below). This extended shot also shows that Kylo does slice through that guy he body slams. 

Kylo is muddy himself during this fighting scene. I’m also really curious as to why he doesn’t have his helmet on for this forest fight. I feel like this killing/forest mission Kylo is on is more-so a personal one, hence why he’s not wearing the helmet and that’s why he’s alone in his TIE afterwards, still all muddy.

After Pasaana, I think the Resistance gang goes to Kijimi, where they meet Zorri Bliss, find D-O, and Babu Frik does something with C-3PO’s memories. I personally hope they learn more about Anakin/Padme. Finn, Poe, and Finn all have nice warm puffy jackets on. Poe still has his scarf so he hasn’t been injured yet, and as far as we know the crew didn’t have D-O on Pasaana, so this seems to be the correct timeline regarding planetary visits. Chewie is not present.

This is an intersting shot of Rey and Zorri talking outside. I wonder if Zorri will have any juicy information for Rey.

The FO must be notified by someone that the Resistance is there, because the Stormtroopers and Supreme Leader Kylo Ren arrive:

I find it funny how Rey’s warm jacket is gone for her saber confrontation with Kylo:

I also think this scene of the TIE’s chasing the Falcon could be Kijimi as well, because its very cold/icy/snowy.

Then after Kijimi, the Resistance gang *sneaks* into Kylo’s FO ship, to free Chewie, and interestingly they’re not flying the Falcon but another ship (see below), which is weird because in later footage we see the Falcon waiting for Rey to leap to “get away”. This different ship looks a lot like the same one Poe is next to on Pasaana when he shouts “REY!”, as the ramps hinge details look the same.

We see Rey, Finn, and Poe, D-O and BB-8 leaving the ship and killing all the Storm Troopers in the hanger. We can also hear C-3PO, so I think he’s with them too. Rey still has her staff and bag, and so do Finn and Poe. 

We see the “trio” (HA) run into some Storm Troopers in a hallway, but Rey uses the Force on them. Then my guess is they decide to spilt up to find Chewie, or whatever else they’re after/doing there.

Rey takes the stairs and HAPPENS TO STUMBLE INTO THIS WHITE ROOM:

This room may be just a shrine to Vader or a gallery style room of Kylo’s Jedi/Sith artefacts. But regardless I think Rey actually has a few minutes to herself in here, because she puts her bag and her staff down. She leans her staff against a big column with mechanical parts (AND RED WIRING *red string of fate*), and you can see that Chewie’s bowcaster is also there. 

Sidenote: this kind of doesn’t make sense because in a different shot Rey’s staff is leaning against a white ‘cabinet’ along with Chewie’s ammo belt and bow which is directly opposite the Vader statue. See below, you can glimpse their stuff beneath the falling Vader helmet. And that mechanical column is to the right of screen. 

But I digress. At some put Kylo shows up: Enter Kylo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s so Pride and Prejudice, where Mr Darcy finds Elizabeth in his house. And from somewhere Rey produces a dagger. It was either in her bag, or its one of Kylo’s artefacts that she’s grabbed.

This set is SO COOL. It’s very symmetrical and geometric, and it reminds me sooo much of Vader’s ESB mediation chambers shapes plus its white interior! (see below).

They fight, and either purposefully or haphazardly destroy the Vader stand.

And I wonder what happens post-fight, because later in the bunker THIS HAPPENS AND IT LOOKS SO LONGING AND ROMANTIC. His helmet is off, Rey no longer has her staff or bag. Where is her stuff? He is gonna give it back to her?? Regardless, Ben stands there looking forlorn watching her leave.

While Reylo was happening, Finn and Poe must find Chewie and have to make it back to the ship. 

I suspect that right here is where Poe gets his arm injury as Finn yells “POE!”. The background is very FO.

We have this footage of a Rey and Chewie hug in the Falcon which could be a reunion post-rescue, who knowsss.

After the Resistance gang is all back together maybe they go back to the Resistance HQ, or they head straight to the planet with the Death Star ruins (it may be Kef Bir, because they seem to meet Jannah there).

Here’s the DAGGER again! But this time Rey appears to be using it as a wayfinding tool, guiding her to the ruins. What ever are they searching for in the Death Star II ruins??? 

The quillon of the dagger also look longer than in the fight scene with Kylo. It looks like carved Ivory and the tip looks red like its blood stained.  Very sinister.

We see then have seen footage of Rey taking the water-boat thing by herself, presuming leaving the others behind? Then she’s climbing the Death Star ruins solo.

Somehow she finds herself in the ol’ Throne Room and KYLO IS THERE. She no longer has her bag, and he doesn’t have his saber lit but she does.

Then for the zillionth time Rey attacks Kylo. I wonder how this fight must come to an end but then also continue outside??

It seems that Kylo follows Rey outside to the debris, his saber lit this time. These two shots look super romantic, and paint the picture of an inventible watery angsty fight kiss. Ben looks so determined to sort this shit OUT. 

But then here Rey appears to Force Freeze Kylo, which is karma for when he did it to her in TFA. This demonstrates how better attuned Rey has become with her abilities. Maybe this happens mid-fight? Anyways, this is the third Reylo fight and everything comes in threes, so I think this will be the final fight they have. One that will end with a resolution that changes everything for the rest of the film. By this point Reylo has an audience, Finn and Jannah are there on the ruins also.

The Resistance foresty HQ stuff

This is the shot where Rey says “Its too dangerous” and want to go alone, but everyone wants to go with her etc. Poe doesn’t have his scarf on and his “injured” arm is hidden, but he has no gloves on. And him and Finn do still have have their bags. So this seems to be both after both Pasaana and the Death Star ruins?

This is early on in the film, (see Poe’s outfit), and it may very well be inside the new ship the Resistance crew uses going into the FO hanger.

This is the same ship you can tell by the dusty window shutters.

Also I think Rey’s training in the forest with Leia will be early on in the film.

On to PALPATINEEEE

This is that awesome sequence of Kylo arriving at  ~planet/Sith Temple~ to show down with Palpatine. And its hard to tell, but I don’t think that it’s his Tie Whisper, looks just like a regular Tie Interceptor.

In this shot, we can see the trademark blue Palpatine force lighting, and also water below the floating cube/triangular structure. I think this is the same frozen water, where see the Imperial Star Destroyer’s emerging from:

I’m lovvvvinggg, the sheer scale of these statues compared to tiny Kylo/Ben, its giving me such prequel vibes.

And here he is quietly sneaky around, saber ignited. His demeanour and facial expressions in this sequence are calm/sad/determined. On the right there’s this machine thing that looks like a tooth, and it reminds me of an incubator. I wonder if Palpatine is in there or uses it as a healing pod etc. I wonder why Kylo seems to be seeking the Emperor out? And at what point of the film could this be occurring in? I cannot fathom Kylo seeking Palp’s out because he’s after more power, that doesn’t fit his character.

I’d say this place is definitely all the same location where Palp’s throne is and where Rey finds herself face-to-face with him.

Then there’s this footage of Kylo from a different trailer. Originally I was getting a “I’m in cave of a wise mystic by a fire” vibe (like Yoda in ESB). And I thought this may take place on the ashy/forest planet. But perhaps, this is Kylo coming across Palps because the flashing cyan lighting is correct for that.

Anyways, I've always has this head cannon that Kylo would find out first that Palpatine had “returned” and he’d immediately go to Rey and warn her (The TIE Pasaana scene). OR either Rey or Kylo would accidentally “awaken” something that caused Palpatine to stir. And I would love them to already be a Reylo team and actively go and try to take Palpatine down, but I also think they could follow that trope of one person going solo to defeat the villain (to keep the other person safe), but then they fail and are held captive as “bait”, and then later the second person shows up and frees them and together they take down the villain. 

And speaking of Reylo, cannot wait for more Force Bond scenes. I think they’re 100% happening because why else would Daisy have her hair done but be in warmer clothes doing the clapperboard for a FO ship scene??? Force Bond offscreen reading with Adam.

(This is just a little humble brag, that I was CORRECT. Those pods being deployed from the Imperial fleet do hold Sith Troopers whom are ready to fight the Resistance on the orbaks. he he)

Now for some footage that I cannot put into context:

I reaally want to know when the reforging of Kylo’s mask happens with KoR, because it seems funny that he’s been Supreme Leader for a year without needed a mask but now for some reason he now needs it again. Very interesting.

Rey is rocking her Jedi hood and she looks heavenly. I cannot wait to see Kylo/Ben also rocking his hood as well, no helmet. (After all he has one for a reason, EEEP). Rey looks very mature and drained in this shot, and the background is green and rocky and could very well be Ahch-to but its hard to know. I definitely do not think that this shot is from the burning TIE moment because the lighting on her face would be much stronger from the huge flames that she’s standing like 5cm away from.

This is such a dramatic and beautiful shot. Who’s TIE Interceptor is this? Did Rey destroy it and why?? Does she just go around continually destroying ships in TROS haha? Also it really looks like Rey dos not have her arm wrappings in this fiery shot.

I have no idea when this green alien chase sequence happens. But Rey does not seem to be there, she’s probably busying with Ben and Palps. The Resistance is being pursued by the FO, and Klaud is somehow aboard!

Also here’s the Falcon is being chased by more First Order TIE’s, and there’s a possible sun in the background, and lots of red sharp rocky shards. Where is thiss???

Also here’s the Resistance allies flying, but I have no idea why the light is red. It looks hellish.

There’s still sooo much we don’t know about the film. We’ve only been shown a few minutes of footage in total, and there’s probably so many locations/sequences they’ve shown us nothing from. (Fingers crossed for “The World Between Worlds” Force stuff). Also we really don’t have any context for the epic stuff we’ve seen so far, there’s still a lot of mystery and questions! I am soo excited to watch this film in a few days! 

[troywalters658]

9 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR MOBILE DEVICES SECURE WHILE TRAVELING

From coffee shops to planes, trains, and cruise ships, we've become accustomed to having ready access to the Internet just about anywhere. The problem is, it's easy to forget how vulnerable that makes us to security threats.

I learned this the hard way recently when traveling from San Jose to Tampa, passing through four cities along the way. Even though I'm well aware of the potential for others to hack into my devices, I'd never had any problems previously. Unfortunately, there's always a first time: When I got back home, Facebook alerted me to some suspicious activity. I had been "Firesheep'd"!

Apparently someone in Chicago (using Firefox and a Windows PC) had logged into my Facebook account via Firesheep, a Firefox extension that can intercept unencrypted cookies from certain Websites on any open Wi-Fi network, making it possible to steal login credentials for sites like Facebook and Twitter, or even access your e-mail.

Think it can't happen to you? Think again. Fortunately, a combination of plain old common sense and some technology can protect your devices--quickly and fairly easily.

HOW YOUR GADGETS MAY BE VULNERABLE

Whether you're traveling with a laptop, netbook, smartphone, iPad, or all of the above, the risks and defenses against them are basically the same, according to Joe Nocera, an information security expert and a principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Many of the security concerns that people think about when they think about their personal computers are applicable in the mobile world." As mobile devices become more sophisticated, they lend themselves to the same types of access to e-mail, passwords, and other secure information that PCs have done in the past.

Because today's devices are so much more powerful and can hold so much more information than ever before, the risks are increasing, says Martin Hack, information security expert and executive vice president of NCP Engineering, a software company that helps businesses with their secure remote access systems. Add to that our tendency to carry both personal and business information around with us on the same device, and our mobile devices have never looked so appealing to hackers, he says.

As specific mobile devices become more popular, they become more of a target for hackers. "Five years ago, the vulnerabilities were Microsoft-based and targeting PCs. Apple tended not to be targeted so often," says Nocera. "But, in the last year and a half or so, we're seeing a shift. More and more often we're seeing either Android- or iPhone-based vulnerabilities being targeted. We predict that by 2014 you'll see those types of vulnerabilities being the most targeted as more and more users go to those mobile devices."

The good news is it's not difficult or even expensive to protect your devices and the information on them. The fixes are simple. The problem, stated quite eloquently in an old Pogo comic strip, is: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

9 TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR MOBILE DEVICES SECURE 1. Make sure your software is up-to-date. The first line of defense, says Nocera, is making sure that all your software is up-to-date. "Almost every release of software patches a number of security vulnerabilities that are out there," he says. Before every trip, or at least every few weeks, it's a good idea to check the manufacturer's Web site (or search Google) to see if a software or firmware update is available. If there's a new one, download it, unless there's a massive firestorm of negative reviews from early adopters.

2. Employ strong passwords. "Be sure to use some combination of letters, numbers and/or special characters of 8 characters or more," says Jeremy Miller, director of operations for Kroll Fraud Solutions. "Avoid using dictionary words. Instead, [use] acronyms for things like favorite songs, restaurants or other items known only to you. And change the password frequently--at least once every six months." If you're just not feeling clever enough to create your own passwords, programs like RoboForm will do it for you.

3. Don't mess with the security settings. Nocera notes that most of the default browser settings in Android, iPhone, and Blackberry phones are fairly secure out of the box. "I recommend not going in to change browser security settings--they're pretty good already," he says.

4. Avoid unencrypted public wireless networks. Such Wi-Fi networks require no authentication or password to log into, so anyone can access them--including the bad guys. In some cases, bad guys set up an open network to snare unsuspecting people. Encrypted networks, on the other hand, are those that require an ID or password for access--you'll find such networks at many hotels and coffee shops that offer Wi-Fi services. These networks have two different types of security--WEP (wired equivalent privacy) and WPA (Wi-Fi protected access); the second is most secure. Even encrypted networks, though, have risks--it's possible for bad guys to gain access to encrypted networks at a hotel or café, for instance, so be cautious about the sorts of things you do on such networks.

Besides avoiding connecting to unencrypted networks, turn off Wi-Fi when you're not using it. This will prevent you from automatically connecting to networks (and it will extend your device's battery life).

5. Paying to access a Wi-Fi network doesn't mean it's secure. Access fees do not equal security. Just because you pay a fee to access a Wi-Fi network doesn't mean that the network is secure.

6. URLs beginning with 'https:' are safer (but not foolproof). Whenever you're accessing a site where you'll be sharing personal or confidential information--your bank's site, for example--you want to make sure that you're doing so securely. The s in https means that you're connected to the site via the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). In layman's terms, this means that all data transmitted to that particular Website over the Internet is encrypted.

SSL is not foolproof though: If you're on an unencrypted network connection, you may still be subject to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, a form of eavesdropping where the bad guy makes a connection independently with two parties and then "gets in the middle," making both believe that they are talking directly to each other.

These types of attacks are rare, but to guard against them, make sure you're both connected to a secured network and that Websites use https when you're entering sensitive information.

In addition, says Nocera, most e-mail service providers have both a clear text option (that sends unencrypted data) and an encryption (SSL) option. "Make sure you have the SSL option enabled," he says.

7. Use VPN. If you have access to a VPN (virtual private network), use it. A VPN provides secure access to an organization's network and allows you to get online behind a secure layer that protects your information.

8. Turn off cookies and autofill. If your mobile device automatically enters passwords and login information into Websites you visit frequently, turn that feature off. It's convenient, but it can also be a privacy threat. To get back some of the convenience that autofill offers, you can try third-party apps, available for most platforms, that can manage saved passwords with a higher level of security. Mac OS X, for instance, comes with a built-in password manager--Keychain. KeePass is a free, open-source password manager for some versions of Windows. For iOS and Android smartphones, there's LastPass, 1Password, and SplashID. Using them is not as secure as turning off autofill altogether, but it's one way to strike a good balance. In the end, a little inconvenience can go a long way toward added security.

9. Watch your apps! Apps are great, and many are free, so it can be tempting to download with abandon. But, Nocera cautions, you should be selective about the apps you download, particularly in the Android market, because "the Android app market is a little bit more open," without the strict developer guidelines found in Apple's App Store. Do some due diligence before downloading apps. Make sure that you trust the developer and have taken the time to review some of comments.

TaintDroid is an Android tool that can identify apps that transmit private data and notify users that a third-party application is requesting private information. However, it's not an app that's offered through the Android Market. Instead, users have to manually compile and build the app using the framework provided by an app analysis company.

IF YOU STILL GET HACKED... If you do everything right and still have your information stolen, what should you do? The damage can often be repaired simply by changing your password (to one much stronger) and sending a message via the network that was affected, explaining what happened. What if one of your devices gets stolen? Be sure that all of your mobile devices have a remote wipe or autowipe feature. For Apple's iPhone and iPad, there's Apple's MobileMe service. GoogleApps offers a solution for Android as well. If your device is lost or you know there's been a breach, you can quickly and remotely perform a factory reset from any computer connected to the Internet, wiping out all of the device's data and even locking it indefinitely.

[applekitty]

‘game dedede’ is not a good person to ship escargoon with and here’s why

im glad my escargoon analysis resonated with lots of people. i saw some comments on it, which i feel the need to reply to because they’re on my post. a small few comments have been about the main focus of this whole multi paragraph crazed yammering; game dedede

(content warning: i talk about the horror comic killing stalking for four paragraphs. wow i bet this content warning doesn’t give mood whiplash at all)

now, game dedede isn’t much of anything. he’s a non-character, as he has no discernible personality in the games that isn’t really much of anything more than a catalyst for people to project a personality onto. as are all the game characters, because kirby isn’t focused so much on plot and indepth character development as it is about the gameplay. nintendo’s always been good at gameplay,  so they have basically stuck to what they’ve known and sprinkled small plot bits around places and entirely discarded anything other than hints personalities so that way they have an excuse for pure gameplay and fun to occur. it’s the same way with mario, and zelda, and usually basically all of their properties. yes, even pokemon, though usually when pokemon gets too plot heavy we get games like sun and moon, which are basically just cutscenes upon cutsc- 

what was i talking about? oh, right, game dedede.

game dedede is usually seen by the fandom as a variety of things, but the main one is nice. and by nice i mean he is usually portrayed as someone who is typically valorous and is doing the right thing, not someone who is necessarily pleasant, though some like to make him pleasant or jolly. if you know me or have even been on my blog even once on pc you’ll notice the cool deviantart stamp i got from one of my friends. i fully agree with the things it entails; dedede not being your typical uwu ‘do nothing wrong’ monarch that he’s often now plastered as because he did the whole ‘i help this cat’ in rtdl or because he wanted to keep nightmare from coming out of the fountain in nightmare in dreamland and.. whatever the name was of the game that it was a remake of.

people usually want to be able to root for the protagonist, and since dedede was a protagonist and / or in the right in a few occasions, we want to see him as a good guy doing good guy things. and there’s plenty of different ways to take that, as there’s both evidence for and against him being a morally light character. but that’s not really the point of what i’m talking about here. regardless of your own personal opinion on how ‘game dedede’ morally is, he is not a good person for escargoon to be with. there’s a reason why i said someone should be shipping him with an oc rather than game dedede, and it’s precisely because ‘game dedede’, even if he somehow zapped into the anime verse, would not be good to ship with him.

and it’s not based on chemistry or because game dedede is secretly or openly evil or something like that. it’s purely because escargoon is still a victim of abuse. and if you’re someone with a few braincells you want him to get out of that abuse and go find a new husband who’ll love and care for him. for escargoon to get game dedede seems to make sense at first because escargoon is so devoted to the anime one, but when you look at it, it’s not healthy at all.

this is essentially taking escargoon’s old abuser, wiping away all the ‘sins’ of his character just to make it so escargoon can date him. just so he can date an idealized version of his abuser. this person is quite literally just his abuser but with a mental coat of paint. 

allow me to draw comparison.

i’m going to go off here about a comic that i warned about at the top of the post. i’m not going to go too indepth about it due to the sheer nausea i might cause people if i do. it is a rather extreme example sheerly due to the content of said comic, but i can’t think of another better one off the top of my head. there’s a comic named killing stalking which was a big note for socio-political talk i think a few years back. it was a horror comic about a killer and a stalker wherein the murderer takes the stalker in, breaks his legs, and keeps in his house. the stalker, who already had sexual interest in his kidnapper, is abused due to various here and there reasons, and then after a while the comic begins the two’s sexual-romantic yet still abusive relationship. here’s the thing. the two of the characters are both men, so the relationship is gay.

many took to tumblr and various other medias smacking the comic for the display that it created (the comic chock is full of fairly nauseating things that are worth calling disgusting, but are expected of a shock horror comic) and the association it made between gay men and murderers, as well as making gay men look predatory and dangerous. normally said comic wouldn’t have been much of a problem or very noteworthy if it were about a straight pair, but it was about this Evil Gay Murderer Pair, so it was a source of controversy like shit is an attractor of flies.

despite the controversy that the comic had gotten, and the treatment in-canon it had of its characters being very clearly evil and in the wrong and clear deservance of being detracted, something strange happened. not in the comic, but in the people who decided to support said comic. people decided to support it for a number of reasons, one being that ‘oh it’s a horror comic i like horror despite what controversy or effects it may have on people’. i remember seeing it once, on my dashboard, i think. or back in the day when i was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with this comic that everyone on my dash was just going to town on. people were shipping the two main, gay characters with eachother. and they weren’t doing it in a way that was ‘oh the murderer is so hot look at him in all this blood’ sort of way. it was in a much more.. ‘cozy’ position. it was fluffy. it was shown as cute. at first i thought it was because people were fucking weirdos, but i remember this one caption that has been recalled in perfect paraphrased clarity to me.

‘some people make aus to make their ships more angsty, but i’m out here making mine healthy lol’

people were taking the murderer, the main person who was causing the problems in the comic, and turning him into a loving husband for the stalker (who was shown as very mentally ill and in desperate need of love and attention). people were making the pairing that the comic itself showed as horrifying and awful to be fluffy and cute and devoid of any problems. so that way the victim was no longer hurt. it was an au. the murderer had a new personality, he was a changed man who never hurt anyone, so he was perfect for the stalker. that way, the ship could be had but there would be no issue whatsoever.

and to be quite honest, that’s what we have here. we have an offshoot of that. though obviously the source material is much less dangerous in our case, we still have a victim in desperate need of love in an abusive relationship with someone who hurts them. then, we have people shipping said victim with a new version of that abuser just to wipe the slate clean. just to keep the ship going without anyone objecting to it, because it can all be explained away as an au or what have you. though, i’m sure the ship in killing stalking was very much bashed by people (at least, i hope it was), while this one isn’t.

i can hear my strawman in the replies already going ‘well thanks for the tangent. but ching, game dedede’s a different person. he is legitimately a different canon than anime dedede, meanwhile this is people making things up that the canon doesn’t support. if you dated a twin you won’t apply the sins of the twin on the other one, would you?’ and if this were a real life situation, you’d be correct. 

it’d be wrong to place the sins of one twin onto another sheerly because one was an abusive asshole. but since is a real life scenario, putting a victim of abuse back with someone who looks exactly like their abuser would most certainly create extreme fear and panic in that victim. it wouldn’t matter if one of the twins hasn’t done anything, the potential relationship would forever be ruined and it’d be out of their control. and no one, no self respecting person, should ever have a victim date them if they look exactly like said victim’s old abuser. that’s just asking for mental troubles and constant panic attacks.

but that’s if this were real. it’s not real. this is video games and cartoons. it doesn’t come down to that, it comes down to us and what we decide to do, and what we decide to ship. these are not real people. we are putting them together for our own amusement because you’d think they’d get along. and doing this with a ship like this with game dedede says, to me, "I do not care if it is abusive in canon, I want to ship it anyways without any problems or people calling me out, so I’ll make it so people can’t do that by stripping the abuser of their abusive characteristics and make it so this abusive ship is all sunshine and rainbows". this is especially poignant if escargoon is stripped of all his abuse as well, allowing for him to be shipped more easily. it is quite literally going ‘nope’ when one is confronted with the very real trauma of a character and discarding it. don’t get me wrong, some things in canon should be discarded in some sources of entertainment, but a character’s abuse being discarded entirely for the sake of shipping just does not sit well with me.

of course, people who ship it are absolutely not thinking this maliciously when they ship discountdesuka, but that’s what it is irregardless of what they are thinking.

‘game’ dedede / escargoon is a ‘what could’ve been’ situation. 

it is an idealized version of dedesuka, one which throws a key aspect of escargoon’s out the door purely for the fluff and the cute gay moments that could’ve been. and sadly enough, it’s probably what escargoon dreams and hopes could happen (which is arguable because escargoon gets suspicious whenever dedede is nice to him), but it never does.

i understand why people do it. i know they don’t have some secret plan to be evil by creating secret abusive content that has hidden messages in it so everyone will ship abusive ships or something ridiculous like that, and if you thought that i thought that you’re very wrong. 

in some’s cases (as shown by the tags on my escargoon post), they want to reclaim a relationship which was blatantly homophobic in execution and turn it into something better. others just want a cute ship because their version of ‘game’ dedede is morally better than his anime counterpart, and wouldn’t hurt escargoon. they want to make wholesome content to drown out canon’s shows of abuse and negativity. which is understandable to want, but to show respect to the concepts the show puts out, isn’t something that should be embraced with ‘game’ dedede/escargoon. 

but there is no undoing what anime dedede/escargoon is in the show, and what it means to give escargoon over to ‘game’ dedede instead. ‘game’ dedede / escargoon is not abusive by any initial means, but it is still something that should not be shipped regardless.

it is disrespect to escargoon’s status as an abuse victim to  ship him with the same exact person who abused him and say it’s okay because ‘he has a different personality’. 

i am begging you. please ship escargoon with your oc or some other game character.

[kcwcommentary]

VLD7x03 – “The Way Forward”

7x03 – “The Way Forward”

The end of this episode gives us an explanation for the time skip, but there’s a big problem: That explanation contains a giant plot hole.

This episode is another absolute mess of direction. The writing doesn’t help either. Main characters are given nothing to do while side characters are given the spotlight. The pace of the narrative makes much of the episode feel like it’s spinning its wheels. Character motivations are erratic at best. Most of the episode is either uninteresting or confusing.

The episode starts with the Galra cruiser in space, letting the writers skip over having to think through the logistics of how where the last episode ended got us to the point that this episode begins. There’s a shot of a Galra cruiser main cannon sitting in a cargo bay. And then finally with the third shot of the episode, we’re given some context to be able to orient ourselves with the narrative: The Lions are disabled in the ship’s cargo bay. Somehow, slamming the Lions into the ground with a tractor beam at the end of last episode didn’t just pin them down but also totally knocked them out. Somehow, the Galra were able to remove the Paladins from the Lions since the Paladins have been put in the brig. How any of that happened is not explained.

Lance is the only one trying to examine their cell. Everyone else is just sitting or standing around doing nothing. I guess she’s supposed to be behind where the camera would be, but after a few shots of the whole group, suddenly in the reverse shot, Krolia is standing near the door. It was weird and made it look like she came out of nowhere, or like she had been forgotten to be included in the group in the previous shots. Lance kicks the walls, it hurts, and it’s played for humor. It’s not funny. “Will someone shut him up?” Krolia asks. How about Krolia shut up. I am not interested in her. Don’t introduce a new minor character, have the narrative give her time and prominence while not giving any to most of the main characters, and then have her demand one of the main characters to shut up. It’s obnoxious.

“There’s only one guard patrolling out there,” she says. The visuals don’t match the dialog because the guard isn’t patrolling, he’s just standing there guarding the cell. Patrolling and standing guard are two significantly different activities.

Hunk then asks, “What happened to Coran?” Sadly, I hadn’t even noticed that he was missing. Krolia says, “He must have managed to hide when we were captured.” Since Krolia had to have heard Coran yell that he was joining her to fight the Galra who landed on the Black Lion’s back last episode, that Krolia then came back in the Lion and never wondered where Coran was does nothing to make me like her. “At least we have one ally out there still able to fight for us,” Allura says. I don’t know if there were some technical difficulties recording Allura’s line, but the sound of her voice has an unusually high amount of hiss.

What happens next makes me angry. Pidge reacts, saying, “Are you saying our fate rests in Coran’s hands?” There’s a supposedly humorous camera zoom out from the group, several characters have a supposedly humorous dejected facial expression, there’s supposedly humorous deflated music, and Pidge follows up by saying, “I will help you look for that passage.” This moment is the show trying to be funny by saying that Coran is an incapable person and how absurd it is that they all have to rely upon him. This infuriates me. Coran has spent this entire series working harder than nearly everyone, taking care of all these people. He’s the one who was constantly making sure the Castle Ship was functioning, often with no one helping him. He has always been depicted as someone who is fundamentally reliable and capable. And now for an attempt at humor, the episode assassinates his character.

So, Coran getting trapped behind the door on the Black Lion last episode is paid off in this episode. I’m glad that it’s getting paid off, that it didn’t just happen for no reason last episode, but it still doesn’t work for me. Last episode, his getting trapped was played for humor, but it happened quickly and was never referenced again in that episode. I now wonder if Coran’s quick, “I’ll help too!” and his running off after Krolia only to get stuck behind these doors was added really late in the production of that episode. It felt so out of place then and had no narrative impact for that episode. It annoys me that there were four people on the Black Lion other than Coran, and none of them realized he was missing once he got trapped, none of them heard him hollering for help, and none of them thought to look for him.

I briefly want to talk about how big the inside of the Lions are shown to be now. We’ve had six seasons of these Lions, and while we could assume there was at least a little more space inside than just the cockpit, I don’t remember the show ever showing any of it. The fact that it was never properly established that there was all this space, all these rooms, until now when everyone’s having to live in the Lions, it honestly kind of feels like a retcon.

Coran trying to get out of the room he’s trapped in is played for humor. He’s given a long comedy monologue. It’s funnier than the earlier character assassination, at least. Unfortunately, I don’t feel prepared by the episode for a big humor scene like this. I really want to like it more because all the comical stuff Coran is doing in this scene is decently written, especially his freakout over the sound of the mice coming into the room, but I’m still offended by how the narrative through Pidge demeaned Coran in the prior scene.

The mice somehow open the doors. Given that they’re mice, they couldn’t have physically pried the doors open (Coran, being an Altean, would be really strong, so if the doors could be pried open then he would have been able to do so). The Black Lion has no power currently, so the mice couldn’t have opened the doors by hitting a button on a control panel. The episode does not explain how the mice opened the door. I don’t know why the writers think it’s okay to have things happen without explanation like this. I know the intention is that it be read as funny, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Also, the wolf is hanging out, laying right at the other side of the door. He’s not shown to be laying there in the establishing shots when the camera first starts outside the room before cutting to Coran inside. He’s also just laying there, like he’s been sleeping right there against the door. The space wolf is supposed to be the childhood dog Keith never got to have, but my experience with dogs suggests he would not just be laying there if he heard Coran yelling on the other side of the door and banging on it. The space wolf has also demonstrated way higher than standard dog level intelligence, having rearranged the passengers via teleportation and having attacked the Galra fighter pilots with teleportation last episode, so the idea that he’d just lay here against the door and sleep rather than helping Coran get out of the room is not plausible. Also, if the Galra went into the Lions and captured everyone in order to restrain them and take them to the brig, then did none of them see the wolf?

For that matter, when the Galra broke into the Lions to capture everyone, did the Paladins just let themselves be captured? The last we saw of the Paladins, they were all conscious, so it’s not that the Galra grabbed them while they were unconscious. I can’t imagine the Paladins would get captured without putting up a fight, so with Keith, Shiro, and Krolia here on the Black Lion, was there not a loud fight that Coran would have heard? Are we supposed to assume that he just stayed quiet during that fight? (I think that would be out of character for him.) Are we to assume that the space wolf would not come to Keith’s aid in that fight? Why is the space wolf sleeping here against the door right now instead of trying to find Keith?

So much of this does not make sense.

Also, the show giving this hero moment to the mice reminds me again, especially since we’re in season seven now, that the show wrote more investment and importance into the mice than they did Adam. The idea that the EPs and writers considered Adam to be of such importance that killing him would reveal how significant the invasion of Earth is just isn’t plausible considering how little time they gave him in the show. They solely derived that supposed importance out of him being Shiro’s same-sex “significant other.” In other words, the whole reason they chose to kill Adam is because he was supposed to be important to Shiro. They killed Adam specifically because he was gay.

Coran lifts himself out of the room. Uh… when did the other room have a lower floor than this room? Coran says the space wolf as injured, and he did apparently get injured off-screen last episode. The wolf had been with Pidge in the Green Lion, not here in the Black Lion, so when did he come into the Black Lion? I assume he was looking for Keith? Still, if he saw the Galra taking Team Voltron away in cuffs, wouldn’t he have come to Keith’s aid? If he’s here at the door because Coran is the only one in any of the Lions, why wouldn’t he have just teleported into the room to be with Coran? None of the wolf’s behavior makes any sense whatsoever.

Coran and the mice are outside Black. The mice attack the one singular Galra guard, causing him to freak out and drop his rifle. Coran then slips off of Black, falls, and lands with his crotch in the Galra’s face. Let me say that again: The show has Coran (accidentally, but still) smash his crotch into another character’s face. Getting hit in the face by Coran’s crotch somehow knocks the Galra unconscious, and Coran strips him and puts on his uniform.

Ezor is sitting by herself, looking sad, when Zethrid enters the room to report that they’ve got the Paladins and the Lions secure. Ezor says, “If Voltron survived, do you think that means Lotor is still alive?” Zethrid says that they’re going to find out, and Ezor expresses worry about what Lotor would do to them now if they did find him.

Zethrid then says, “I will always take care of you, Ezor.” She kneels close to Ezor and continues, “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” We then get a little bit of context when Zethrid says, “We just took down a Galra cruiser, and we have the mighty Paladins of Voltron locked in our brig.” If we go by this line, then their being in control of this ship is a very new development for them. It makes me curious how they got the miscellaneous Galra who are fighting for them since the way Zethrid is talking about having to capture this cruiser suggests that Zethrid and Ezor are acting rogue and not as part of the Galra Empire. How did they get followers to help them run this ship and pilot all the fighter craft?

The moment has some romantic undertones, and they’re apparently supposed to be in a relationship here. The episode ending with the two of them seemingly blown up, especially given that the show in a few episodes blows up Adam, made this season look like it revealed four characters as gay and killed three of them by explosion. Of course, season eight has Ezor and Zethrid somehow survive being blown up without any explanation as to how they survived, but without season eight, season seven killing three out of four queer characters is infuriating.

And then Ezor gleefully says, “Let’s go torture some prisoners,” and Zethrid responds, “That’s my girl.” This bothers me on a whole different level. In the very end of the show, Ezor and Zethrid have joined Keith in the Blades of Marmora doing humanitarian work. While there’s a little content with Zethrid next season (and technically Ezor shows up weirdly for a brief moment but never does literally anything), the show does not give any reason for us to consider these two to be redeemed enough that Keith is working alongside. Ezor and Zethrid’s personalities here are villainous, talking eagerly about torturing people. That is not heroic, so it’s unearned for them to be reclassified as heroes working with Keith in the end.

Coran is sneaking through the ship, trying to fake a conversation with a couple of Galra. He doesn’t do well. Out of nowhere, Axca jumps out of a vent and attacks the two Galra.

Back at the cell (I’m surprised that the Galra are keeping all of the Paladins locked in one cell), two Galra open the door. And we see the butts of two characters walk in. There’s a dramatic fast pan of the camera to the shocked-expression of the Paladins that is unintentionally funny because the show thinks that there’s some big dramatic reveal happening here. It’s like we’re supposed to feel surprised because we’re shown the Paladins looking surprised, but because we already know that it’s Ezor and Zethrid, there is literally no surprise in this scene. This moment is given dramatic tonality, camerawork, and music, but there is no actual drama in the reveal.

Lance says, “Hey, you’re the ones Lotor shot into space.” So, we’re supposed to believe that somehow Lance, while in the Red Lion, was able to not just see that Lotor ejected people into space in 6x06 “All Good Things,” but that he could specifically see the identities of who those people were? This is not believable.

Hunk, trying to see if being diplomatic will help, says to Ezor and Zethrid, “I’m glad you survived.” Ezor responds, “I’m glad you survived too. It’s no fun torturing a dead person.” (And again, we’re supposed to forgive them by the end of the series.)

Zethrid demands to know, “Where have you been all this time, and what happened to Lotor!?” Shiro’s confused, and Ezor says, “We’re talking about your little disappearing act.” Zethrid asks, “How did you survive that explosion?” Hunk counters with, “Don’t you know, you were there.”

Hunk does bring up a good point, how did Axca, Ezor, and Zethrid survive the expanding tear in reality and the explosion used to close the tear in 6x07 “Defender of All Universes”? They did not have any ship, at most having a jetpack built into their suits. They couldn’t have gotten far enough from it all to have escaped.

Keith tells them that Lotor is dead in the quintessence field, and Ezor says, “Yeah, that doesn’t really add up, why aren’t you dead?” How does that not make sense to her?

This is apparently supposed to feel like some really tense moment in the episode, but the pace of the episode feels stalled, like the episode is stuck in mud spinning its wheels. Zethrid asks the same questions again.

Meanwhile, Axca and Coran are continuing through the ship without any explanation as to what they’re doing, what their goal is. They’re both hiding behind some of the ship’s structure, but Axca acts surprised to see Coran when she turns around. He asks her what she’s doing here. She says she picked up the signal Team Voltron was sending to Earth and assumes that that’s how Ezor and Zethrid were able to find them. That makes a better explanation for these Galra ships showing up last episode than how last episode leaves us to think they were hanging around waiting. Coran asks Axca why she’s helping them, and she responds, “We don’t have time for that now.” This is such fake drama. She might not have time to explain everything but explain something at least. Something as minor like, I thought Lotor was different than most other Galra, that he could change things, but I was wrong, if things are going to change, Voltron has to make it happen. Having a character say they don’t have time to explain anything doesn’t create tension.

Axca wants to break the Paladins out and help them get away. The show continues to have the Lions be conveniently low-powered to justify not using them as the super advanced technology warships that they are. Axca says they need to create a distraction and establish an escape route. Coran points out the giant cannon that was shown in that conspicuous, yet oddly located, shot at the beginning of the episode. Somehow this cannon, despite just sitting in the hangar, is functional. This isn’t a hand weapon, this is a major cannon that would have to be hooked up to specific ship’s systems in order to function. Those systems would not be in the hangar. This is totally contrived.

Somehow if they blast a hole in the hangar door, it’ll cause other doors to seal, and keep the Galra from being able to get to any fighter craft. Axca tells Coran to free the Paladins, find their helmets and weapons, and that she’ll blow open the hole so that “you and your Lions will be sucked out into space.” I don’t know why this misunderstanding so persistent in the writing of space shows, but the pressure differential does not result in being “sucked out into space,” you are blown out. I know most people don’t care about the difference, but there is very much a distinction.

Zethrid picks Pidge for their “first victim,” to use Ezor’s words. Lance screams and is animated to look in a way that is really jarring. I’m not saying that he can’t come to Pidge’s defense, but the tonal shift that happens is too severe and too sudden. Ezor knocks Lance down easily. No one else really does anything. Keith takes half a step forward, but that’s it. Shiro does literally nothing, despite our having seen how fiercely he’ll fight to protect his people before, like way back in 1x07 “Tears of the Balmera” when he fought Sendak while having both his hands tied behind his back.

Ezor uses her sock head to lasso Pidge and pull her to her. I still really do not like Ezor’s design.

The Galra that Coran knocked out with his crotch regains consciousness, sees that he’s in his underwear, and alerts the ship to “an intruder in hangar one.” There’s a shot of the hangar, and the Lions are rearranged in the setting to now be directly next to the cannon. The shot of the cannon at the beginning of the episode did not include the Lions, so this is an animation inconsistency. Similar to last episode, this one also feels like it was poorly directed. It shouldn’t be surprising then that this episode is the first solo directing work that Rie Koga has done for the show.

Galra show up almost immediately and start shooting at Axca. Why they think she’s the intruder, despite her being Galra, I don’t know. The writers wanted her to be attacked, so she’s being attacked. I guess it’s nothing more than that. This show has never been one that was good at having characters behave logically.

Coran, lacking a helmet, uses the Altean shapeshifting ability to turn his skin purple. A door opens and someone in a full suit that looks like a person-sized Robeast runs into Coran. This show has not given us any kind of explanation as to who all these people are, why they’re following Zethrid and Ezor. So much of what’s in this episode feels so out of place. Coran tries to punch the guy in the suit, hurts his hand, and they walk down the hall and doors shut behind them. Are the doors that shut supposed to be the same doors that opened? The doors that opened were to the side of a hall, looking like doors to a room, but these doors that close are in the middle of a hallway. Again, I don’t know if these poor logistics are the result of bad directing, bad storyboarding, or both, but the episode lacks clarity and precision.

Between fighting Galra and pushing buttons on a display on her wrist, Axca does whatever. The cannon powers up and begins to blast and then the episode cuts to Ezor still holding Pidge by the collar when the ship announces a hull breach in the hangar.

The plan was supposed to be that Axca would have the cannon blast open the hangar once Team Voltron were in their Lions so that they would be “sucked out into space.” No one is in any of the Lions, so why is she blowing stuff up now? Did the writer forget what he wrote Axca to say in her describing the plan?

Ezor, Zethrid, and the other Galra run out of the cell to handle the hangar issue, the cell door slamming shut behind them. Krolia gives everyone their plan: Wait by the door to overwhelm the guard the next time the door opens. It feels absolutely contrived because of course that plan is being established to be undermined. I thought maybe the door would open and it’d be Coran and they’d all jump him, but no, the door opens and it’s the mice. Somehow the mice knocked out the guard and opened the door. When the show writes the mice as being more competent than literally everyone else, something is wrong.

The show spends too much time having the mice tell Allura what’s been happening and her translating for everyone. Everyone just standing around in the hallway watching Allura talk to the mice is totally unreasonable given the situation they’re all in. The mice even tell Allura that Axca is helping them, and that gets Keith’s attention.

Coran is being beaten up by the guy in the armor, who is knocked out by a single punch from Allura, who used her shapeshifting to grow larger. Everyone standing around with a smile on their face while she returns to normal size is so weird. They are all trying to escape imprisonment, but they look like they’re about to wish Coran happy birthday or something.

Keith asks Coran where Axca is, and Coran replies, “I don’t know. Where am I?” He’s bruised and one of his eyes is swollen shut, and clearly he’s having cognitive difficulties. Shiro responds to all this by asking Coran, “Are you okay?” Clearly he isn’t! What is this writing?

Ezor and Zethrid are running down a hallway and look out a window to see the Lions have been blown out of the hangar. Axca scoots through the door into the hall just as it closes. The force of the air is enough to blow the large, metal warships that are the Lions out into space, but Axca is somehow able to move against that force in order to get through this door? That’s not how physics works.

There’s no explanation for why Zethrid and Ezor don’t like Axca now, even though they were all treated the same by Lotor the last we saw them. Ezor explains Axca’s behavior as being motivated by being attracted to Keith. It would be nice if male writers would write female characters without their actions being motivated by being attracted to a guy. Ugh.

This is another moment that reminds me, like several before, why I don’t like these characters. Lotor’s generals were introduced and for several episodes were really interesting. The fact that they’re half-Galra, and thus were subject to discrimination by Galra who believed in Galra-supremacy, was interesting. The fact that Axca, Zethrid, Ezor, and Narti were all female was interesting. But then, these characters got lost in a constant shifting of loyalties. Who they were willing to work for or against changed at the flip of a switch. It made them fundamentally inconsistent, their motivations being effectively nonexistent since they changed at any given moment. There is no core to who they are.

There’s a shot of the Paladins’ helmets and bayards, and the shot includes an animation error. There’s a pink bayard on the table. Allura, despite wearing pink in her Paladin armor, weilds the blue bayard. The bayard that’s colored pink should have been the black bayard. This animation inconsistency shows the absurdity of having Paladins wearing armor with colors that do not match their respective Lions.

Lance, who’s supposed to be looking after Coran per Lance’s own earlier statement, joins Keith and Pidge right at the open door to this room that has their helmets and bayards and two Galra. Coran, who still is exhibiting unusual behavior from being hit by the big Galra earlier, yells at these two Galra. Why Lance stopped and no one else stepped up to look after Coran is senseless. Characters are not behaving like normal, rational people in this episode.

Keith, out in the hallway, closes his eyes and the black bayard starts to glow red. Why does the black bayard glow red? Why red? If Keith is supposed to be the Black Paladin now, why didn’t the black bayard glow purple, which is the color of glowing for things associated with the Black Lion and being the Black Paladin? It makes it feel like the show has abandoned its lore entirely. The black bayard disappears and teleports to Keith’s hand, and he uses it to take out the two Galra.

The show had written Keith to have left the Paladins. He was not a Paladin at all, let alone the Black Paladin. And then he shows up in season six, the clone is triggered by Haggar, and suddenly Keith is the Black Paladin again. There show doesn’t do anything to have Keith or Shiro discuss this. The show completely unceremoniously rips being Black Paladin away from Shiro and gives the position to Keith. It’s offensive.

Keith tells Lance to “lead the way, keep the team together.” Lance questions him, and Keith says he’s going help Axca. Why are they going in separate directions? One, Keith has no idea where Axca is. The best assumption he could make right now would be to think she was near the hangar and is responsible for blowing it up. Since that’s the same direction that everyone has to head in order to get to the Lions, why is Keith going the opposite direction? This episode’s logistics make no sense.

The Paladins all put on their helmets. Somehow Shiro now has his black helmet, despite it not being on the table with the other helmets earlier. Krolia also has her helmet despite it having not been on the table earlier too. Coran and Romelle put on some conveniently nearby space suits. They open a door and jet out into space toward the Lions.

The show has Lance, at the direction of Keith, leading the group now. This infuriates me because its more of the show taking absolutely everything from Shiro. They’ve turned him into a background character. He was one of the two main characters of this show’s first two seasons, and now he’s given less to do than the mice. The EPs wanted to kill Shiro, and while they weren’t allowed to permanently do so, they’ve effectively done so by having him just standing around doing nothing. Again, it’s infuriating.

Some Galra follow the Paladins out into space, shooting at them.

Keith comes to Axca’s defense. Zethrid and Ezor taunt them, reducing Axca to being sexually attracted to Keith. Keith screams, “Can’t we just fight!?” For a situation that’s supposed to feel tense, it only feels silly and ridiculous.

Rather than continue on as fast as they can to get to the shelter of the Lions, the Paladins stop and turn to engage the Galra following them. Hunk wraps a rag or a scarf or some piece of cloth around the helmet of one of them to block his vision and keep him from being able to see to shoot them. Hunk then kicks the Galra into another Galra and then shoots at several Galra with his bayard.

The Galra scatter because apparently Hunk can’t hit them when they’re right in front of him. Krolia jets up behind one of the Galra, pulls a jetpack-style engine off his belt (seriously, rather than have jetpack engines built into their suits, the Galra are using belt clip-on engines), and the show uses an old sound effect from the Jetsons cartoon as he for some reason blasts away from Krolia. Her taking one of his clip-on engines from his belt causing him to then be thrust away from her makes no sense whatsoever.

Pidge gets to the Green Lion.

Zethrid, Axca, Ezor, and Keith continue to fight. There are no emotional stakes to the fight though. The point of contention between these four characters is nothing more than Zethrid and Ezor want to make fun of Axca for her being attracted to Keith. This fight is meaningless.

Zethrid shoulder-checks Keith hard enough to cause Keith to collide with Axca and the two of them to tear through a metal wall, which is absolutely ridiculous. Inside this new room are canisters of something that Keith and Axca look at and automatically know what’s inside. The canisters are explosive. Keith communicates with the Paladins and tells them to shoot his location. Keith grabs Axca, jets past Zethrid and Ezor just as the Lions’ blasts tear through the hull. The canisters are ignited, and there’s a huge explosion. Ezor and Zethrid should be dead. That season eight reveals that they’re not makes it feel like the show is just jerking the audience around.

Keith and Axca jet to the Black Lion. Voltron flies away and lands on some planet that is nearly physically touching another planet while sitting on top of the edge of a disc of clouds. What in the world is this design? The Lions have landed on one of these two planets, and there are broken metal buildings nearby. The Lions can’t sit like normal because they have no power, but of course we have to ignore that they were just shown having the power to spare that four of the Lions all blasted Keith’s location on the Galra ship. It doesn’t feel consistent at all.

Team Voltron is staying inside a cave with a sheet for a door. As I said in my commentary for 7x01 “A Little Adventure,” in 3x07 “The Legend Begins,” Alfor says that the Lions have “an endless supply of power.” The premise of these episodes that the Lions have little-to-no-power is inconsistent with what the show has established about how the Lions function.

“We should probably give them some time to recharge before we head back on our way,” Shiro says. Like last episode, the only thing this episode gives Shiro to do is to state the obvious. It’s infuriating.

Lance says, “Wow, a lot of things really changed over the past few weeks.” There’s nothing that’s presented itself as so different for him to make this comment. The script only has him say it so that the show can have its manufactured surprise moment in fully declaring the time skip. “Weeks!?” Axca asks, so taken aback by Lance’s comment.

Axca says that she, Ezor, and Zethrid made it “to cover on a meteoroid. There we saw both Voltron and Lotor disappear. Eventually, Voltron re-emerged alone. But then, there was an explosion and after that, nothing. That was three decafebes ago.”

Pidge says, “That explains the discrepancy in the star charts in our Lions.” No, it doesn’t. Yes, stars are constantly moving throughout space, and yes, they move really fast, but the amount of time that has passed has not been enough to make their star charts be significantly off.

Pidge then says, “I thought they were off because of our interdimensional jumping, which I guess they were in a way because when you think about it, that must have been the cause of the time slippage between our experience and that of the rest of the universe.”

Here’s the plot hole. Pidge is saying that time passed slower for them during their fight in the rift than it passed for everyone outside of the rift. Coran, Romelle, Krolia, and Shiro’s unconscious clone were outside of the rift. If the universe outside of the rift experienced more time than the Paladins when they were in the rift, then Coran, Romelle, Krolia, and Shiro’s clone should have lived the same extra three years that Axca, Zethrid, and Ezor have.

The show wanted this time skip to make the invasion and fight on Earth happen. But in the process of setting up the time skip, the EPs and writers failed to track the logistics of the battle with Lotor. Through Pidge, the show gives us this explanation for the time skip, but that explanation would mean that Coran, Krolia, Romelle, and Shiro’s clone would not have skipped time like the Paladins do.

Axca tells them that she worked with Ezor and Zethrid to take over a Galra ship that came to investigate Lotor’s last known whereabouts. Is this supposed to be the cruiser they were just on? Is it supposed to be the same cruiser that Zethrid referenced earlier when she told Ezor, “We just took down a Galra cruiser”? Did this taking of the cruiser “just” happen like Zethrid said, or did it happen three years ago like Axca says here?

Lotor’s death created a power vacuum in the Galra Empire. The Paladins knew this would happen since Lotor had been fighting specifically to keep it from happening. The Paladins were so much more interested in fighting and killing Lotor because of his Altean colony that they didn’t bother thinking about the consequences taking out Lotor would have on the universe.

Axca continues that Zethird and Ezor wanted to seize what power they could in the crumbling of the Galra Empire. Axca says, “I knew I had to find my own path.” It’s cliché and does not make her an interesting character. She turns to Keith, “…and it led me to you.” All this set-up for them to have a romance only for it to not happen makes it look like the EPs and the writers of this show wrote the story without any sense of cohesion, direction, or purpose.

Axca then complains about Lotor, “He preached unity, but in the end, he only sought power.” As Lotor said multiple times, the power he wanted was to find a source of quintessence that did not require killing life. Wanting power isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Lotor was very specific about the power he was trying to acquire. The show then redefining that power to dictatorial rulership is a total retcon and character assassination of Lotor. Allura says, “I fell for Lotor’s lies as well.” The show has never even once identified what Lotor ever said that’s supposed to be a lie.

Pidge then wonders what’s happened on Earth in the past three years that she can’t get in touch with Sam or Matt. Allura ends with, “If Ezor and Zethrid became warlords in that time, what else has changed?” The ominous end of the episode doesn’t feel earned because Ezor and Zethrid do not feel any more threatening than they did before.

This episode was exhausting to get through. Too much of it made little sense. The episode engages in character assassination of Coran and continued character assassination of Lotor. The motivations of Axca, Ezor, and Zethrid continue to change depending on the wind. Most of the main characters are given nothing to do but stand around. The episode is significantly reliant on the mystery and reveal of the time skip, but that reveal does not have enough emotional weight. And the explanation the episode gives us through Pidge has a giant plot hole in it. The writing and the direction of this episode continues a clear decline from the previous seasons, which is saying something.

[loopy777]

If you were told to write a spiderman series, with the regular high school/college love triangle shenanigans involving the usual ladies of Peter's life, only with the twist that in the end Spiderman/Black Cat would be the actual couple of the series, how would you go about writing them? Also what do you think the good and bad things about a series focused the ship would be?

(Sorry for the delay. The most recent chapter of Traitor’s Face insisted that every single thing I wrote for it needed to be completely rewritten at one point or another.)

Huh, now this is a new idea. It reminds me of how the 90’s animated series started with Felicia Hardy, no Black Cattiness at all, as the main love interest. And for some reason she was a cheap knock-off of Gwen Stacy for something like four seasons. I can only guess that they came up with the character first, and then stuck a random name on her from the comics.

However, if they *did* start with the idea of using Felicia, I understand how they wound up having to add so much to the character. The first big problem with the concept is that she essentially doesn’t have any character besides being the Black Cat. So anything that tried to make her the winning Love Interest would either need to bring Felicia into Peter’s civilian life and flesh her out as something more than a costumed adventurer/criminal/hero, or make the focus of the stories on his life as Spider-Man. You know, maybe do something like the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and make him a pro-hero all the time.

The second big problem is the Black Cat’s weird status with her powers. If she doesn’t have any powers, she’s just a Catwoman knock-off. For a short while she had generic Cat powers, but that’s nothing that’s going to put her on the map. Her ‘true’ power, as far as I’m concerned, is her Bad Luck thing; it plays well on her full theme, it’s fairly unique, and it’s something that can be presented in a dynamic way, with her opponents continually encountering ridiculous bad luck as they try to impede her. But there’s no real origin for those powers, is there? She got them from Kingpin (in a story I haven’t read) and as far as I know the exact method by which he gave her those specific powers isn’t known; it’s incidental to plot point of her going to Kingpin in the first place. So a full, meaningful origin would have to be invented for those powers, too.

The final thing that needs to be created for the Black Cat is a reason to stick around long-term. She dips in and out of the comics because, when she isn’t romantically involved with Spidey, there’s really no reason for her to be in the story. She pursues her own goals, which can take her away from Spidey’s drama.

With all that in mind, here’s a possible scenario I came up with to answer the question.

Set during college years, Felicia and Peter are childhood friends, once being part of a Three Amigos thing with Flash Thompson before Flash became a bully. All three came from messed up histories, with Peter being the orphan raised by his aunt and uncle, Flash having an alcoholic father, and Felicia having something more complicated that we’ll get into. What Peter doesn’t know is that Flash turned against him because Flash fell in love with Felicia, but she had feelings for Peter. Peter never noticed because in high school he was a total nerd who didn’t feel lovable, and after that he was too distracted by Spider-stuff.

Anyway, Felicia’s backstory is that her family was super-poor until her father started working for the Kingpin as a spy, enforcer, and coordinator/boss of Kingpin’s thieves. Their family had to hide that Daddy was involved in organized crime. After Felicia got into college, though, things became more strained, as her father couldn’t deal with all the super-heroes who have been chipping away at Kingpin’s empire, especially that insufferable Spider-Man! But Kingpin has made a deal with an evil scientist (maybe Norman Osborn, maybe the Jackal, maybe even Doc Ock) who has developed a counter for Spider-Man: a 'Bad Luck’ power that’s actually an unconscious psionic defensive ability to alter the immediate future. It’s a direct counter to Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense, which is an unconscious precognitive defensive ability.

For reasons, this can only be given to one person. Perhaps having too many Bad Luck people around compounds the effect? Or maybe Kingpin fears the power’s subtle nature, and doesn’t want to pass it around too much. Perhaps a few other limited people are given the power, but they only come into the story on rare occasions, like when Felicia needs to deal with a Shadow Archetype.

So Felicia becomes the Black Cat, and becomes an apprentice to her father. She battles Spider-Man, but isn’t entirely committed to the idea. She’s a good person, and doesn’t like the Kingpin or the way his empire hurts people. But she’s loyal to her family, and if she doesn’t do something about Spider-Man, her dad will be killed. She’s also juggling her college like, because she wants to eventually get out of being a criminal.

This all gets complicated when Felicia’s Bad Luck ability sets into motion a sequence of events that end with her finding out that Peter is Spider-Man, with Spidey unaware.

So we settle into our storytelling engine, where Spidey encounters some crime or adventure. If it doesn’t involve the Kingpin, then Black Cat helps him out because she wants to protect her buddy Peter. If the Kingpin is involved, Spidey and Black Cat can find themselves on opposite sides; in those cases, Black Cat obviously is trying to hold back against Spidey, and because he can sense this, he holds back against her, too. He even becomes rather taken with her.

This frustrates Felicia to no end, for obvious reasons.

Throw in the complication that, in their civilian lives, Flash is dealing with his family history and trying to be a better person as he goes through college. He tries again with Felicia, who both feels bad for him and is frustrated that Peter is more interested in her alter-ego. And there’s the outgoing Mary Jane Watson who seems interested in Peter, and he in her.

A change in the dynamic can happen if Peter discovers Black Cat’s secret identity. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that she knows who he is, and she doesn’t know that he knows about her in turn, so hilarity ensues as they’re both unaware that they could end all these complications with a very simple conversation.

Another 'end of an era’ switch-up can happen if the Kingpin gets taken down, but not necessarily Felicia’s father with him. I like the idea of replacing Kingpin as the big bad with Norman Osborn, and Osborn discovering Peter’s identity can mess around things. Perhaps Felicia’s father even teams up with Osborn, dragging her into the conflict. The love triangle could be messed up by Harry Osborn getting involved and pursuing Felicia or the Black Cat- or both!

I’m thinking we also need to eventually do something for the Black Costume Saga, so that Flash has the opportunity to become Agent Venom and get involved in the super-heroics that his childhood friends are perpetrating. It would be interesting if Agent Venom is working for SHIELD or somesuch government agency, and both Spider-Man and Black Cat can be wanted felons by that point, so they’re both fighting Flash without realizing it. Bonus points if Flash’s superiors include a corrupt character who is running a criminal sideline.

I’m keeping to the spirit of this idea as a comic book, so I don’t have a definite endgame. Obviously, Peter and Felicia would have to become fully aware of each other’s identities and knowledge. Perhaps Flash’s death is what inspires them to finally try to commit to each other, or else the defeat of a major villain, which might wind up being Felicia’s father as their ultimate enemy. I don’t think I’d have them give up their superheroics afterward, but it probably depends on all the drama and trauma they’ve suffered through at that point. Since the speculative scenario is that I’m writing a real comic book with this storyline, I need to keep my options open for either getting canceled after twelves issues or going over a hundred.

The main appeal of this kind of series, I think, is that the female lead gets to be involved in both the civilian soap opera stuff and the superhero drama. It’s always hard to get the love interest involved with the superheroics, Lois Lane being the exception to prove the rule. In every other case, I loathe it when the Reporter job is used, because it feels so derivative of Lois.

The main weakness of this series, I’m thinking, is that excuses have to be generated to keep Spidey and Black Cat from just talking things through and teaming up. Their relationship needs to remain in a constant state of volatility, although sometimes at a low simmer, and that can become contrived.

Also, as shown by my plans here, the end-ship is going to be telegraphed from the start. I think it’s futile to try to make the Black Cat a dark horse in the romantic race like Mary Jane was, because MJ’s success was an accidental result of many contributing factors, including the transition from Stan Lee to Gerry Conway as the primary Spider-Man writer, and then the promotional mandate that had the newspaper comic strip’s marriage between Peter and MJ forced on the main comic line.

Also, I’m not one for real love triangles in fiction. Done right, it just seems like a good way to alienate at least half the audience at the end, while being done poorly is just going to make the ending obvious anyway. It’s fine to throw in spoilers every now and then, but any romance I write is going to end in a predictable way, and the audience is just there to enjoy the ride.

[cookiefonster666]

hey it’s time for more homestuck epilogue ramblings, this time about jade

Again basically a mirror of a recent Blogger post. I have quite a few other posts about the epilogues on my blogs, but most of them I don’t quite feel comfortable posting here.

Content warning: This post contains some discussion of sexual content, starting from the header "The Candy (in Candy)". Read at your own discretion.

The Not-So-Wonderful World of Shafted Characters

Enter Jade Harley, the character who's been an odd spot in the comic's sprawling cast since day one. She starts as basically just a plot device but becomes a genuine wonderful character in Act 5. But after that point, she gets an upsettingly small amount of screen time and is rudely stripped from the on-screen dialogue reunions most everyone else gets. And by the time Collide and Act 7 happen, the comic has done away with dialogue. Yeah, that sure is fun.

So obviously, one of my biggest hopes for the epilogue was that Jade would get a full strong resolution, perhaps with dialogue "reunions" she should have gotten or with a major new role in the storyline. Jade did get plenty of dialogue early in Meat and some in Candy and it was pretty great, but what ultimate resolution did her character get? Fucking nothing!!! No resolution in Meat, no resolution in Candy.

The epilogues did a LOT of things right, don't get me wrong. Each of the twelve creators on Earth C gets a good share of screen time and I think the epilogues are reasonably balanced in that regard—far more balanced than late Act 6 was. But the epilogues are incredibly imbalanced in giving characters resolution. Some characters had an astounding resolution arc that far surpassed my already high expectations!!! But for one reason or another, some characters get the opposite of resolution arcs—you probably know who I'm talking about. I'll have to talk about those another time. And as I said before, Jade doesn't even get a resolution. I'll discuss exactly how she doesn't get a resolution, first in Meat and then in Candy.

The Candy (in Meat)

Earth C Jade's first appearance in Meat is a conversation with Dave and Karkat about politics and romance. We quickly learn that she's in an unresolved love triangle with both of them. Continuing the time-honored tradition of Harleyberts not understanding how love works, Jade clumsily tries to set up a three-way romance with Karkat and Dave and misunderstands everything about the quadrants along the way. I found that scene absolutely hilarious and a surprisingly on-point satire of how fans think of character shipping. As per tradition, Jade tries to solve everyone's problems through a shipping grid because obviously that's worked spectacularly in the past. Also, she literally fucking says Dave and Karkat are "kind of like moirails". I don't know about you, but I found that one particular line to be the funniest shit in the world.

It's already apparent that Jade has changed quite a bit from last time we saw her. She's considerably more airheaded and free-flowing, and her most prominent trait now is her severe lack of social skills. This change makes a lot of sense considering Jade's history. She was still almost entirely human after ascending to god tier, but that has changed over the years. Now she has lots of dog hormones, a tail, and you-know-what. Not to mention this is the Jade that spent three years with John and Davesprite dead. It also fits into an interesting pattern I've noticed: generally speaking, the less screen time a character got in late Act 6, the more that character has changed by the start of the epilogues. Think about John and Dave, how much they retain from how they acted in A6A6I5. Now think about Jane Crocker. Jane FUCKING Crocker. I think it's no coincidence that the character fans have always regarded as boring is now basically a full-blown antagonist. Now think about Gamzee MOTHERFUCKING Makara. ... uh, actually no, I don't recommend you think about him. My point is, I'd say the epilogues succeeded at parodying the comic's fans while simultaneously paying tribute to them, and Jade's first dialogue in Meat is no exception.

The Meat

Next up, Jade presents the political situation to Roxy and Calliope and discusses a few more things in her Jade fashion until suddenly she falls into a coma, her soul now possessed by god tier Calliope who herself inhabits a different iteration of Jade. There she goes, that's the end of Meat Jade's character arc. She's now once more a shameless plot device pushed around by the whims of fate—how's that for going full circle? The few times afterwards where Jade speaks, it's only brief intermissions between being possessed by the Dead Cherub or getting knocked out by Dirk so he can have the narration back.

Basically, Jade ends Meat having completed an enormous circle of stupidity: plot device -> good character -> shafted character -> changed character -> plot device. It actually is a fitting ending now that I think of it, especially in the half that's more focused on tying plot threads. But it feels annoying considering what kind of ending Jade gets, or rather doesn't get, in Candy. Let's go over it, shall we?

The Candy (in Candy)

Jade's first appearance in Candy isn't too different from her first appearance in Meat: a conversation about romance and politics with Dave and Karkat, the two roommates who are (not) dating each other and both most certainly (not) dating Jade. A bunch of stuff I already said two headers ago.

... And then things get weird. Really fucking weird. Our heroes get paired into four romantic groups forming basically the Buddy System 2.0, which is even more unnatural and freaky than the first one was. Most of those groups start having kids, but Jade's group—her, Dave, and Karkat—has issues that aren't quite easy to sort out. Now here's where I have to talk about the elephant in the room: Jade's penis. Or as fans call it, "dog dick".

The middle section of Candy all but outright confirms what was once an absurd headcanon. At a glance, it directly contradicts what Hussie himself said about Jade before, that she only has dog ears and the rest is still human. But if you think deeper you can tell that Hussie didn't necessarily change his mind, but decided that Jade would start only with dog ears and then gradually gain more elements of a male dog.

Anyway, Jade's penis is enough of a confounding factor that she, Dave, and Karkat can't agree on a way to have kids. And then a few years later, Karkat becomes the hero he was always meant to be and the tragic breakup happens. Then after even more years of presumably a bunch of hemming and hawing, Dave and Jade FINALLY get married. That's amazing, right???? The ship that's been a fan favorite for longer than probably any other? And they're married after all this time?

Uh, no. Not really at all. Not too long after their overdue wedding, Dave has a touching conversation with his number one hero, Barack Obama. He confesses that he's living a lie and can't get over Karkat, or the long-gone Dirk for that matter. When Obama offers Dave to ascend to his ultimate self, he immediately accepts it over staying on Earth C with his doggy wife and becomes Davebot, now proud and ready to achieve greater things in paradox space.

With Dave having achieved what can only be described as one hell of an ending, what triumphant resolution does Jade get? That's right, fucking nothing! Dave leaving Jade behind to explore the White House is the last we hear from her in Candy.

grrrrrr i want more epilogues (or do i???)

And that, my friends, is one of many reasons one could reasonably hope for a follow-up to the Homestuck Epilogues. I'm too lazy to list all the possible reasons, there's just way too many.

So instead, I'll say the following: despite all the flaws, I'm still more than complacent in rereading the epilogues over and over instead of daydreaming about getting even more. It's just such a mass dump of material that you can't fully process after reading just once, much like Homestuck itself. My prior posts about the epilogues already read like someone that doesn't fully understand them, at least to me. Such is the beauty of Homestuck, it's absurdly fun to think and talk about.

Conclusion

I LOVE HOMESTUCK. I LOVE HOMESTUCK, I LOVE HOMESTUCK, I LOVE HOMESTUCK, I LOVE HOMESTUCK!!!

I

LOVE

HOMESTUCK

[untapdtreasure]

TV Show Ask Game 1, 3, 5, 7, 9-29, and 31-49.

TV Show Ask Game

1. if you could reboot one TV show, which one would it be? Earth 2. But only if they could go back in time with the same cast at those ages. It was a brilliant concept that maybe just came ahead of its time.

3. have you ever quit a show before it finished? why? No. But I've wanted to. Once I start something I like to finish it.

5. what’s your comfort show? H20: Just Add Water. I seem to go back to it when I need something light and fun and that doesn't require a ton of thinking in order to enjoy it. I know it's an Australian teenage drama, but I absolutely adore it and the characters.

7. have you ever been inspired to start a new show based on gifs or memes it has produced? The Man From the High Castle and Westworld.

9. what’s one show you thought you’d hate but turned out to really enjoy? Family Guy. I usually don't care for shows with that kind of humor, but it has turned out to be a true gem and favorite of mine.

10. what’s one show you thought you’d love but turned out to really hate? Sons of Anarchy.

11. which TV show has the best musical soundtrack, in your opinion? Cold Case. And Supernatural.

12. have you ever watched a show just for a specific actor? did you enjoy it? I tried to watch Californication because of my love for David Duchovny. I didn't get past season one, and I haven't had the urge to continue it further.

13. what genre of TV show is your favourite? Science-Fiction.

14. do you tend to stick to one type of TV show (eg, short-form comedy), or are you into many different genres? I love a ton of different genres. I mean, sticking to one type is mega boring. And I'm not always in the mood for something funny or drama or sad or whatever. So I like to have options. Lots and lots of options.

15. do you feel like there are any overrated TV show formats? I'm not really sure what this means so I'm not going to comment.

16. do you feel like there are any underrated TV show formats? I'm not really sure what this means so I'm not going to comment. 

17. have you ever written fanfiction for a TV show? I started with CSI and The X-Files a long time ago (2004) and still write it today. So yeah. I've written fanfiction for a television show that I love. Several of them in fact. Fifteen years and still going strong.

18. have you ever drawn fanart for a show? I cannot draw to save my life. So the closest thing I've ever drawn for a show was stick figures for The Walking Dead for another ask meme. LOL.

19. are there any shows on your “to watch” list right now? Oh my heck! There are a ton of shows and movies that are on my list to watch at a later date. I even go through it sometimes and delete things that I've added in the past that I know I will never get around to watching. It drives my husband mad to see all the crap in there that never gets watched.

20. Netflix, Hulu, or Prime originals? I happen to like some of all of them, but my favorites just so happen to be Hulu ones. The Handmaid's Tale and Hollie Hobby!

21. if you could be a guest star on any show, which one would it be? The X-Files but that won't ever happen because I'm pretty sure that the show is likely done this time around. I hope anyway. LOL.

22. if you could write your own TV show, what would it be like? A complete disaster. It would be a feel-good show with characters that care more about others around them than anything else. So yeah! A complete disaster. I'll leave the writing to the professionals and stick to writing fanfiction because it's so much easier.

23. are you a fan of will-they-won’t-they plots? Yes, I am. Some of the best ships have come from just that scenario.

24. how do you feel about bottle episodes? I have a love/hate relationship with them. When I haven't seen a character or a couple of characters for a bit, they are fun to play catch up with them, but then I would rather every episode have a little of everyone than focus on one group or character solely.

25. do you prefer proper opening credits, or a simple title card? A simple title card is all that I need because I'm ready to watch the show. I know who stars in it. I don't need to see it every time.

26. favourite TV show theme song? Pretty Little Liars.

27. which actor do you think deserves an Emmy for their work on TV? Melissa McBride and Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead.

28. who would be your dream cameo on your favourite show? Kathryn Erbe in the Zombie Apocolypse would be an absolute dream come true! I'd love to see her play in a scene opposite Melissa McBride's Carol.

29. do you tend to quote TV shows a lot? have you ever started using a word/phrase because of a TV show? No, I don't usually quote anything from a TV show unless I'm talking to a fellow fan and we're discussing the show. And I can't think of a time that I've ever taken a phrase from a show/movie and used it in real life. OHHH! Yes, I have! There is a contestant on Survivor that says, "Oh my heck!" and I love that phrase now. LOL.

31. do you use subtitles while watching TV if you can? I will rewind a scene and turn them on if I'm confused about something that is being said, or I'm making a comic strip/photo or gif set where I need the exact quote.

32. what’s one show you could watch over and over? Earth 2, H20: Just Add Water, Mako Mermaids, etc. I could go on and on with some of my favorite feel-good shows.

33. would you be interested in trying a show in another language? I've tried to watch a new series on Netflix, but it just really takes me out of it when I have to read the words. I can't focus on the actions and scenery if I'm constantly having to read the dialogue.

34. what are your top 5 shows right now? The Walking Dead, Law & Order: SVU, Heartland, The Rookie, and 9-1-1.

35. who are your top 5 TV characters right now? Carol Peletier, Lt. Olivia Benson, Athena Grant, Howard 'Chimney' Han, Rookie Officer John Nolan

36. what TV character would you die for? Carol Peletier. But not really.

37. which TV show setting would you most like to visit? The Walking Dead.

38. do you prefer hour long episodes, or 30 minute? It really depends on the material. Sometimes thirty minutes is long enough to tell a complete story, but sometimes, you really need that full hour.

39. do you prefer 22 episode seasons, or 13? It really depends on the show and the story being told.

40. is there a show coming out soon that you’re really excited about? The sixth season of The 100. There is nothing new coming out that I'm that interested in.

41. if you could change 1 detail about any show, what would you change and why? I would change the way in which season four of The Walking Dead was executed so that it made better sense. I wouldn’t necessarily change the main plot points, but I would change how the story was told and would elaborate on whatever needed to be elaborated on so that it made more sense narratively speaking. I believe that certain things had to happen to get the payoff down the road, but the way in which it was written and executed was entirely bogus. Scott Gimple did not trust his audience at all. 

42. what’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever watched a show in one sitting? Five plus hours when binge watching ER with my Mom on the weekends.

43. what do you think is a good amount of seasons for a TV show? Six or Seven. But that depends on the show and material for the show. Some shows really can't be wrapped up in that time frame, but some that really should end on a good note. Justified is a wonderful show, but those in charge knew that it was time to let it go. But Supernatural doesn't seem to know that it should end already. The first five or six seasons were brilliant, but it got a little (or a lot) stupid after that.

44. if you could replace any actor on TV in playing their role, who would you like to play and why? I wouldn't want to replace anyone because I absolutely love and adore the people chosen to play their specific roles. I wouldn't want to mess with the chemistry of the cast for even one minute.

45. do you own any TV shows on DVD? I own several shows on DVD. Too many to list.

46. do you prefer to watch TV alone or with friends? Alone because if you watch with friends there is too much talking going on.

47. are there any shows you love but your friends aren’t interested in? Like almost everything. LOL. My tastes and theirs do not usually mesh. It's rare that we have overlapping interest in a show.

48. are there any shows your friends love but you aren’t interested in? Yes. Just about as many of my shows as their shows, honestly.

49. who are your favourite couples on TV? Well, most of them are really canon ships, but there is Carol & Daryl from The Walking Dead, Olivia Benson and Rafael Barba from SVU, Regina Mills and Robin of Locksley from Once Upon a Time, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files. There are several more, but I think those are plenty to list right now. I have an otps page if you'd like to see the ones that I love the most. Oh! Han & Leia from Star Wars.

[hetamavi]

Did England Raise America?

It’s widely accepted in this fandom that England raised America. If you’ve ever seen or, unfortunately, got caught up in a shipping war concerning UsUk, it’s an argument I can guarantee you’ve seen be thrown around.  

However, that argument is one I want to call into question. Because, the thing is...England DIDN’T raise America.

Throughout this analysis, I will cover why the two don’t qualify as an adopted family relationship. Both Hetalia canon and historical information will be used. I will also use this perspective to analyze the two as separate characters. All translated images used here are from hetarchive and hetascanlations.

One more thing! This analysis is not intended to convince you of anything as far as shipping is concerned. Whether England raised America and whether the UsUk relationship is romantic are two distinct topics. I have many motivations for writing this analysis. Trying to tell you what to ship is not one of them.

LOOKING AT IT HISTORICALLY

The first American colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The American Revolution started in 1775 and ended in 1783. If we were to say the American colonies were still considered colonies until the very end of the war, this would mean that Great Britain and the United States had a colony-colonizer relationship for 176 years. A relatively very short time period for a society to be established and then grow until finally declaring and winning Independence. So.  

How did this happen so quickly?

The answer lies in the fact that, from nearly beginning to end, the British left the colonies to take care of themselves. Which makes sense logically when you think about it. Britain had its own regional issues and the distance provided by the Atlantic Ocean wasn’t making governing the American colonies any easier. So, Britain neglected to do so. The biggest British presence in the colonies came in the form of Royal Governors, but even their power was more theoretical than actual thanks to the power over the purse assemblies (which consisted of colonial elected officials rather than anyone appointed by the King) wielded over these governors. If a Royal Governor didn’t comply with the needs and wants of the those in the colonies, their paychecks were cut short. In they were compliant, they would get bonuses. This power over the Royal Governors only increased as time went on until the Assemblies were the main governing power in the colonies. (Source) (Source)

The most significant attempt at having any form of British policy came in the form of the Navigation Acts which were passed in the later part of the 17th century. The Navigation Acts were an attempt to regulate colonial trade, but what can I say other than they were very poorly enforced policies that failed on every level? Again, due to issues such as distance, it would have been more trouble than what it was worth to actually enforce the Navigation Acts so smuggling became a pretty common thing in the American colonies. (Source) (Source)

Unintentional neglect evolved into a degree of intentional neglect starting in the 1720s with the appropriately termed period of “Salutary Neglect” (though Great Britain started to loosen up its control even more than it already had starting back in the 1690s). Edmund Burke, who served as a member of British parliament, can be credited with naming this unofficial policy:

“That I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me.”

Starting in the 1720s with Robert Walpole’s (Great Britain’s unofficial first Prime Minister) rise to power, Great Britain intentionally started to turn a blind eye to colonial activity, particularly the already mentioned smuggling. The idea was that if the colonies were left alone to flourish, Great Britain would profit. This “let them do whatever” mentality lasted until the end of the French and Indian/Seven Years’ War, when heavy taxation started to take place in the colonies to pay for the war. And, thanks to the poor reception (to say the least) of the heavier taxes, Great Britain, for the first time since the colonies were first established, made more serious attempts to have a prominent presence in Colonial America (with things such as the “Intolerable Acts” and more taxation). This heavier presence combined with the previous long-time neglect is what led to the American Revolution that kicked off only 168 years after the first colony was established. (Source) (Source) (Source)

To sum this all up, Great Britain had a glaring lack of presence in its American colonies that led to a strong sense of autonomy. This sense of autonomy led to the American Revolution.

SO WHAT ABOUT HETALIA?

Now that it’s been established the notion of England raising America doesn’t make much sense from a historical perspective, it’s time to move on to Hetalia itself. After all, Hetalia doesn’t always perfectly match up with history so I can’t just end this on nothing but historical facts.

So, what about Hetalia then? What is the pre-Revolution relationship shared between America and England?

It’s one of absence and rapid growth. Let’s start from the beginning.

Here’s something from one of the earliest canon portrayals of colonial America. The strip starts out with England thinking of all the responsibilities he’d have to take on as America’s guardian. But the strip ends with England coming to the realization America is perfectly fine by himself, alluding to how the real-life colonies were self-sufficient without any British supervision. It’s a quick reference to colonial history, but one telling of what’s to come.

Here’s something a bit more telling. England leaves America and returns to find he’s developed into an adult or almost adult physical appearance. The first thing I want to talk about is young America’s reaction to England leaving him. While it’s not abnormal for a child to be upset when left alone, America is upset to the point of sobbing and begging England not to leave. Is that the type of reaction a child would normally have to being left by someone who was constantly around? No. Because normally the adult figure would return very shortly. But that’s not the case here. America is upset because he knows that once England is gone, he’s not going to stop by again any time soon.

Moving on to the second part of the strip, my first point seems to be proven right. Even with America’s quick physical growth, England must have been gone at least for a few years for such a dramatic physical change to have taken place. Speaking of, there’s that rapid colonial growth I was talking about earlier! We’ll get to see more of that later.

Now we move on to the Davie strip. The comic starts in Davie’s childhood and ends after his death. While I can’t say for sure, I’d guess this was a time span of 60-70 years and, judging by America’s appearance, took place during the earlier colonial years. Which leads me to suspect America’s growth started to REALLY speed up starting in the late 17th century, early 18th- around the time when Salutary Neglect was most prominent. Not long after the likely time Davie passed away.

So, 60-70 years. And America was a colony for only 176 years (less if you want to end at the beginning of the Revolution). And England has only two brief appearances, with each being many years apart going by Davie’s changing physical appearance. I think that information makes this comic the most telling in how often England was around colonial America.

It also makes thing a bit more tragic doesn’t it? The America I see here is that of a very lonely child who craves attention and company. So, he latches onto Davie, who is unfortunately a human that quickly passes away.

Moving on, we get a strip that shows America’s unusually fast growth. By the time he has a teenage body, Canada is still around toddler age. Also, worth mentioning is that America is seen with a book in both latter two panels and Canada’s way of approaching America and his wording in the very last one implies America is constantly busy. This is the diligent America I needed to see to completely match him up with colonial America in reality.

Here we do NOT see England holding his hand throughout this learning process. America is shown taking on the task of learning politics on his own and of his own free will. This is where the “England raised him” argument becomes extremely frustrating to me. Combine this strip with the one with the buffalo from earlier, and we get to see a hard-working, self-sufficient America that brought upon his own quick growth in the absence of his colonizer. A reminder not to take his modern obnoxious personality at face value. He is, in fact, VERY competent.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

And with that, it’s time to talk about the American Revolution. I want to bring attention to the “I’m no longer your brother” line. This dialogue if often disregarded, since you can’t actually cut off familial relationships with words. However, I don’t that gives the full picture of what he means here. This is NOT a declaration of a sudden, immediate change.  

Think back to everything I’ve talked about up to this point. America showing a capability of handling himself at a young age, England’s absence throughout his growth, America growing up extremely quickly, the diligence and dedication he showed in teaching himself throughout that speedy growth…

Again, he is not making any sudden declaration of cutting familiar ties. He’s acknowledging something that has already happened. America has proven he’s more than capable of being fully independent by raising himself up into someone capable of taking a stand against England in under the time span of 200 years. The child England found is gone and England needs to acknowledge that.

With that said, let’s talk about England for a moment. Particularly his state of mind throughout all of this.

In Europe, England had NOBODY. He was the black sheep, the guy with no friends. So, he turned to America, or rather the idea of America, as a source of comfort.

America became his emotional crutch. But, besides such a thing being unhealthy, his relationship with America was, for the most part, not something represented in reality. He liked the IDEA of there being someone there for him. Once you get attached to at least the idea of a person always being there for you, you don’t NEED to constantly be there with them. As long as America is there waiting for him when he does have the time to stop by, his imagination can do the rest with sugarcoating reality. This is an accurate take on the different perspectives of the British and the colonies, with more emotional investment thrown in to make England seem more sympathetic and human. The British thought of the colonies as an entity completely subordinate and loyal to Great Britain. But the colonists didn’t really see things in that way. All the time they had spent left to their own devices had built up a spirit of autonomy.

When the Revolution breaks out, he reacts to the possibility of abandonment violently. Of course, there’s practical reasons to not want to lose the American colonies. But in England’s case, he seems to be driven by his emotional investment and reliance on America. Everything builds up until England finally breaks down in the end.

It’s not the cutting of familial ties that makes this scene so tragic. It’s seeing reality catch up to England. It’s seeing his loneliness and fear of abandonment completely exposed. It’s seeing that he kept fighting even when he had no Army behind him (possibly because everyone else had already given up). It’s seeing even some of America’s soldiers giving England looks of pity. It’s seeing America looking down on him and commenting on his fallen image.

As sad as this is, it needed to happen. Being under another nation’s rule was becoming a hinderance to America’s further growth, and England had become unhealthily attacked to something that amounts only to a fantasy. The bond was a toxic one.

MODERN TIMES AND CONCLUSION

Keeping this section brief, I’ll end this analysis on this scene.

America says he’s jealous of the kids specifically. Because, these kids have something America himself didn’t get the chance to have: a fulfilling childhood loaded with consistent affection.

America didn’t have an affectionate childhood, he was mostly alone. Or put more accurately, he didn’t have much of a childhood AT ALL. His early days weren’t anything you can attach much familial love to. He was more like an orphan than someone under the loving care of a father/brother figure. He was alone, so he had to grow up and raise himself (in this case, that happened on a more literal and physical level).

Saying England “raised him” is a dramatic misrepresentation of what happened and it’s a dramatic misrepresentation of the depth both characters have.

England wasn’t upset over losing a son. He was upset over losing an emotional crutch that he rarely even got to see. He broke down, because of insecurities that were an issue far before the Revolution happened. His miserable appearance during the Revolution wasn’t just apart of some isolated event. It was a look into England’s very troubled and lonely mind.

America wasn’t just some kid who decided to rebel against daddy. He was someone who had thrown away his own childhood, so he could raise himself. Nobody was there to help him. What he accomplished was through his own hard work and he, understandably, wanted that to be recognized.

And to those of you who are still put off by the title “brother” being used in America’s colonial days, remember that it’s a title that’s used very loosely in the series with the biggest perpetrator being “big brother France”. In this way, having a “big brother” indicates having a friendly relationship with an older male, especially one in a higher position of power. Another example of non-related characters using “brother” to describe each other are Norway and Denmark (with Denmark also addressing Iceland as such and overall thinking of himself as a “big bro”).

[salarta]

My Attitude/Pessimism Toward Marvel

I’m tired but can’t sleep. That means writing a post about Polaris and my general pessimism toward Marvel.

I’m putting this behind a cut because I know some people out there don’t want to see it, and I won’t push it on them when they search. Others have probably seen it over and over and are sick to death of seeing it. Here I go.

I’m extremely pessimistic about Marvel these days. I expect a mix of nothing, backhanded/sabotaged use, and empty gestures that function in the most technical sense possible but don’t actually amount to anything.

Preface: when I note a specific person, do not harass them. I am not just saying this. I mean it. Harassment is bad. It sucks. Don’t do it.

Introduction to Marvel

I learned about Polaris in 2009. I’ve been putting up with Marvel’s behavior for the past 8 years. I’m jaded and pissed off.

When I discovered her, it was at the precise moment when Marvel was shutting down the good things going for her and trying to discard her in space. I loved Jeff Parker’s Exiles run. They abruptly shut it down after six issues; Jeff Parker even had most of a script for issue #7 done when they did it. I loved Lorna’s presence in the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon. They abruptly canceled it after one season, despite the team having plans as far out as season 3.

My introduction to Marvel’s attitude toward her was already on a sour note. In spite of it, I entered into Marvel with optimism. I naively thought that perhaps with enough positivity and shows of support, things would change.

But then I got to Tom Brevoort. Presently Senior Vice President of Publishing.

Introduction to Editorial/Executive Individuals

Back around 2012, Brevoort was very openly negative toward Polaris. When the matter of Lorna’s parentage came out, he was more than happy to try to claim Lorna couldn’t possibly be Magneto’s daughter, yet somehow Siryn could be Banshee’s daughter, with some convoluted excuse about “genetics breeding true.” When someone asked about Polaris possibly being in the Avengers vs X-Men event, his response was to say that Lorna couldn’t be part of it because “events are only for A-listers and B-listers.” Meaning he blew off any potential value she could have to the story, and looked down on her as a “lesser” character.

This is in addition to Brevoort bending over backwards to exclude her from family events in things like Children’s Crusade.

My first experience with someone at Marvel in an editorial/executive role was someone who had nothing but contempt for my favorite character and looked for any excuses he could find to devalue her and exclude her from anything he could.

Handling Lorna’s Return From Space

At the time I got into her, Marvel comics had Lorna shoved into space, same with Rachel Summers and Havok. You know how important they seemed to see her? They kept her in space limbo for a year. A full year lost, because according to what I’ve read, the X-Men and space offices didn’t know who had control of the characters.

Think about that. If this was someone like Wolverine or Storm, they would’ve been on top of making sure who could use them. Instead, they cared so little that they spent a year just letting her hang with no writers able to use her.

When they did finally bring her back? They shoved her back onto X-Factor.

X-Factor

Now, a lot of people love X-Factor, and they love Peter David. I understand that. I had a volatile start here, and if I’m completely honest, I didn’t give Peter David a fair shot before judging at the time. But I need to explain why I was volatile over this.

Polaris was in X-Factor in the 90s. She had a lot of major development afterward. She joined her father Magneto and her step-siblings on Genosha, developing her powers, gaining vital skills, building a reputation. She survived the genocide and dealt with trauma afterward. She lost her powers from Scarlet Witch stripping them from her. Got them back when Apocalypse forced her to become Pestilence. She went through Hell.

... Then Marvel decided to kick her back down to where she was before all of that development. They shoved her back on her old 90s team. Forced her to remain Havok’s supporting girlfriend. The reveal cover even had her standing behind Havok to drive this point home.

To me, it felt like a symbolic “fuck you” to everything Lorna suffered through, all the growth she had, all the ways she established her own character.

This was my first experience with, in my eyes, Marvel technically fulfilling something I and other fans wanted while undermining it. Fans wanted her back from space. They brought her back from space... then put her on a book that at first glance turned back the clock on all her development, and with a writer who is deeply opposed to characters he’s writing being involved in crossovers and broader Marvel events if he can help it.

Marvel traded exile in space for exile on X-Factor. They didn’t solve the problem. They just changed where the problem existed.

But like I said. I don’t think I gave Peter David a fair shot at the time. He did do some good things.

Sabotaged Milestones

I want to note going into this that I had some major problems with some of Peter David’s writing. I was very upset when he wrote Lorna saying he could do without seeing her father for the rest of her life; giving Marvel an excuse to never use that relationship. All-New X-Factor #3-6 also treated Lorna very, very poorly. It lacked empathy in writing her “rage” moments, and undermined her leadership to make Gambit look better.

I wanted to get that out of the way for context.

X-Factor #243 told Lorna’s origin story. She’d gone over 40 years without it being told. And it was good! Much better than I expected.

All-New X-Factor let Lorna lead a team in her own right! It also took over 40 years to happen. Until then, she only got to be “replacement leader” for other characters’ absences.

All-New X-Factor in general let her interact with Quicksilver, and #14 let her interact with Scarlet Witch! It was the first time she got to spend time with her siblings in around 10 years.

... And Marvel refused to promote any of it.

Marvel did nothing to promote Lorna’s origin story getting told after 40 years of Marvel never telling it. They didn’t promote ANXF at all. When ANXF #14 was coming out, they went so far in trying to keep people from knowing about it that they withheld its cover until a week before release. Too late for most people to order it. Not to mention it was the second issue of a double shipping month.

But wait. It doesn’t just stop there. It also goes into Marvel trying to use attributes of Lorna while refusing to actually use Lorna herself.

“Replacing” Lorna, Not Using Her

At the same time as ANXF #14′s release, Marvel had promoted Axis with a cover months in advance of Scarlet Witch paired with Enchantress, with Wanda’s hair tinted red and Enchantress’ hair tinted green. So basically? While Marvel tried to bury ANXF #14 happening, they tried to exploit the visual of Lorna and Wanda to sell more copies of Axis.

Then, after Axis forced a retcon that made Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver suddenly not Magneto’s kids anymore, Marvel decided to do something else dickish. They created a character called Luminous, to be a “sister” to Wanda and Pietro.

That’s not one, but two times Marvel - mainly the Avengers side, meaning most likely Brevoort - tried to replace Lorna instead of actually using her. One, a character they saw as “more worthy,” and another brand new character they created for the sole purpose of occupying the role she had. That’s how much Marvel looked down on Lorna: they decided they’d rather create a character than use her.

Forced Limbo

Marvel canceled All-New X-Factor “due to low sales.” Notably, when they put out the Scarlet Witch solo, they let that book last for a year despite having sales just as low starting with issue #2.

The last time we saw Lorna in anything before her return this year was Secret Wars in 2015. At the time, I was excited. She was going to be able to interact with her father. Her broad family ties were acknowledged with Secret Wars: House of M. Various alternate reality versions of her had cameos.

I started dreading that Marvel doing so much for her all at once was a sign they planned to throw her into limbo afterward, and this was just to smooth things over before they did. I kept it to myself though because I wanted to believe Marvel intended to do better by her from that point onward.

Except I was right.

For two years, Marvel kept her in forced limbo. No appearances. No cameos. Nothing. The absolute most she got in that time was Sabretooth talking about how she smelled. Marvel looked at interest in Lorna, and for two years said “Fuck her, let’s use literally anyone else.”

Oh, but she’s back now, so it’s all fine! Right?

No. It’s not.

Beneath Men On Return (X-Men Blue)

Her first appearance this year was an alternate future in Deadpool and the Mercs for Money. There, she wore an all green costume with Magneto’s helmet and Magneto’s chest element. At the time, I made the mistake of supporting it. I should have seen and treated it as a bad omen of things to come.

When she finally got re-introduced with X-Men Blue #8 and #9, I was pretty damned jaded by Marvel. After everything I explained above, after two years of forced limbo, I expected she would briefly appear and then get thrown back into forced limbo. It turns out, how she’s been written and still being written makes me wish Bunn would stop writing her.

X-Men Blue #8 spends a ton of time building up Havok. He gets to be a threat to the teen X-Men. He gets to lead a brand new team of his own. He gets to interact with Briar Raleigh and get introduced as working with Emma Frost. He gets to establish connections. He gets all of this.

Then Polaris gets introduced. And how is she introduced? With dialogue exclusively emphasizing that Havok is her ex. And a description text box that describes as only one thing: “Daughter of Magneto.”

Think about that. Imagine Havok bursts into a room Polaris is in and all he says is “I know you were my girlfriend, but I won’t let my feelings for you hold me back.” Imagine Magneto shows up, and the only thing Marvel thinks you should know about him is “Father of Polaris.” Nothing else.

X-Men Blue #9 proceeds to reinforce this. It takes great pains to re-frame Lorna’s long-held “Mistress of Magnetism” title into looking like something she’s only allowed to have because Magneto is her father. When Lorna uses her powers to make two team members leave, one of them says it’s a sign she’s definitely Magneto’s daughter.

Because, y’know, a silly woman like Polaris couldn’t possibly want to do that of her own accord. It must be because of her daddy. Right?

Then, in a future issue (I think the next one), Bunn writes Lorna acting surprised by an attack on the team’s base - just so he can write Magneto “correcting” her about how attacks can come at any moment.

This is Polaris. A woman who’s been attacked out of nowhere repeatedly for decades. She survived a genocidal massacre that came out of nowhere and killed millions, for fuck’s sake. There’s no way in hell she’s going to not expect an attack while in a base of operations. She wasn’t safe in the heart of Genosha, she’s not going to think a piddling mansion will somehow be safer. I found this very insulting as a whole.

In the latest event, Lorna is put in the Malice costume at one point. Her reaction can be summarized as “Oh wow, this is one weird costume alright! How strange. Oh well.” While the scene is designed to heavily emphasize Mutant Massacre, the horror of dead mutants in the sewers, and Magneto’s outright about it.

Here’s the thing. Malice possessed Lorna and used her body to hurt and kill people, including those she loved. She was a passenger in her own body, forced to witness the horror of it all. For Lorna to have no kind of real reaction at all is insulting. The book plays it like it’s just for fun and thrills and doesn’t care at all about how Lorna would actually behave.

And something that doesn’t help is occasionally forcing dialogue where Lorna says ‘father’ or ‘dad’ in spots that are completely unnatural, just to remind everyone that he’s above her in that fashion. As I write this, I’m trying to remember if I saw Magneto refer to Lorna as “daughter” like this at any point.

The consistent pattern in everything Bunn’s done with Lorna so far is this: “Magneto and Havok are great, Lorna is beneath them and that’s the only value she has as a character.”

Odds and Ends

I’ve said a lot here, but there’s some pieces throughout the years that didn’t fit above.

The X-Men franchise had its anniversary in 2013. Marvel made covers meant to combine into one big image. Polaris was on none of them. Yet, Marvel included Havok alongside four of the original five X-Men on one cover.

In general, Marvel has been forcing Havok into every major development for Lorna while never raising her profile when things happen for Havok. When he went to Uncanny Avengers, the most she came up was unnamed as a “crazy girlfriend” he’s glad to be away from.

Yet, when Lorna’s origin story was told, Havok got to be involved. When Lorna led a team of her own, Havok got to be forced in as spying on her via Quicksilver with the reason being that Havok in sum thinks she’s not smart enough to avoid being taken advantage of by Harrison Snow. And then X-Men Blue, where he got to be the primary focus of what was being played up and promoted as Lorna’s big return after 2 years of forced limbo.

With regard to Avengers vs X-Men, Brevoort did technically relent to include her... as a nameless cameo. Who gets mind-controlled into submission by Emma Frost. And who Magneto completely ignores being treated that way after having gone into space to help rescue Lorna just a month prior.

When Occasional Good Isn’t Enough

As you may be picking up here, Marvel did allow some good things for Lorna during these past 8 years.

She returned from space. Magneto is her father. She got to interact with Wanda and Pietro. She got her origin story told. She got to lead a team of her own. She got her first playable appearances in video games. She got a figurine after a decade without one and lots of fan demand in top 10 lists. Arguably (cause Nix took the initiative to ask to use her), Marvel allowed her to be a star on Gifted, which is the best writing she’s had in a long time.

A person might look at the good stuff she’s managed to get in the past 8 years and think: what’s the deal? Why be pessimistic and negative about Marvel when they’ve done good things for her in that time?

Here’s the thing. Doing the occasional good thing does not undo massive heapings of bad that happen at the same time. If you burn down my house, giving me a brand new car isn’t going to bring my house back, nor is it anything close to a replacement for what I lost.

I’m not “ungrateful,” I just don’t let the rare nice thing from Marvel blind me to all the times they’ve screwed over the character I care about and keep doing it. I don’t let the occasional nice thing make me forget that Marvel’s spent most of her nearly 50 years of existence cheating her out of everything she can be.

My attitude toward Marvel is a reflection of Marvel’s attitude toward what I care about.

Some people are quick to play nice over that occasional good. I see doing so as a mistake. It’s giving Marvel permission to keep treating Lorna poorly as long as they throw a tiny breadcrumb over every so often. I think it’s part of what’s allowed Marvel to hold her back for literal decades. They don’t have to do anything more than the bare minimum if the bare minimum looks like it’s enough for Polaris fans.

Some people are afraid Marvel will at some point “punish” demanding more from Marvel after the occasional good. My stance is this: if Marvel is genuine, if they really want to do right by Lorna, then they’ll try to do right by her no matter what I say. If they try to tear down Lorna for things I’ve said, then they were lying any time they said they support her or that they said they try to be a good writer/editor. At which point they require more criticism and complaint, not less.

This post was long, but necessary for me. I needed to say all this.

[hetamavi]

Did England Raise America?

(NOTE: I have spent so much time reuploading this only to find apparently linking sources is a no-no. If you want to know where I got the historical information from, do not hesitate to ask!)

It’s widely accepted in this fandom that England raised America. If you’ve ever seen or, unfortunately, got caught up in a shipping war concerning UsUk, it’s an argument I can guarantee you’ve seen be thrown around.  

However, that argument is one I want to call into question. Because, the thing is...England DIDN’T raise America.

Throughout this analysis, I will cover why the two don’t qualify as an adopted family relationship. Both Hetalia canon and historical information will be used. I will also use this perspective to analyze the two as separate characters. All translated images used here are from hetarchive and hetascanlations.

One more thing! This analysis is not intended to convince you of anything as far as shipping is concerned. Whether England raised America and whether the UsUk relationship is romantic are two distinct topics. I have many motivations for writing this analysis. Trying to tell you what to ship is not one of them.

LOOKING AT IT HISTORICALLY

The first American colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The American Revolution started in 1775 and ended in 1783. If we were to say the American colonies were still considered colonies until the very end of the war, this would mean that Great Britain and the United States had a colony-colonizer relationship for 176 years. A relatively very short time period for a society to be established and then grow until finally declaring and winning Independence. So.  

How did this happen so quickly?

The answer lies in the fact that, from nearly beginning to end, the British left the colonies to take care of themselves. Which makes sense logically when you think about it. Britain had its own regional issues and the distance provided by the Atlantic Ocean wasn’t making governing the American colonies any easier. So, Britain neglected to do so. The biggest British presence in the colonies came in the form of Royal Governors, but even their power was more theoretical than actual thanks to the power over the purse assemblies (which consisted of colonial elected officials rather than anyone appointed by the King) wielded over these governors. If a Royal Governor didn’t comply with the needs and wants of the those in the colonies, their paychecks were cut short. In they were compliant, they would get bonuses. This power over the Royal Governors only increased as time went on until the Assemblies were the main governing power in the colonies. 

The most significant attempt at having any form of British policy came in the form of the Navigation Acts which were passed in the later part of the 17th century. The Navigation Acts were an attempt to regulate colonial trade, but what can I say other than they were very poorly enforced policies that failed on every level? Again, due to issues such as distance, it would have been more trouble than what it was worth to actually enforce the Navigation Acts so smuggling became a pretty common thing in the American colonies.

Unintentional neglect evolved into a degree of intentional neglect starting in the 1720s with the appropriately termed period of “Salutary Neglect” (though Great Britain started to loosen up its control even more than it already had starting back in the 1690s). Edmund Burke, who served as a member of British parliament, can be credited with naming this unofficial policy:

“That I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me.”

Starting in the 1720s with Robert Walpole’s (Great Britain’s unofficial first Prime Minister) rise to power, Great Britain intentionally started to turn a blind eye to colonial activity, particularly the already mentioned smuggling. The idea was that if the colonies were left alone to flourish, Great Britain would profit. This “let them do whatever” mentality lasted until the end of the French and Indian/Seven Years’ War, when heavy taxation started to take place in the colonies to pay for the war. And, thanks to the poor reception (to say the least) of the heavier taxes, Great Britain, for the first time since the colonies were first established, made more serious attempts to have a prominent presence in Colonial America (with things such as the “Intolerable Acts” and more taxation). This heavier presence combined with the previous long-time neglect is what led to the American Revolution that kicked off only 168 years after the first colony was established. 

To sum this all up, Great Britain had a glaring lack of presence in its American colonies that led to a strong sense of autonomy. This sense of autonomy led to the American Revolution.

SO WHAT ABOUT HETALIA?

Now that it’s been established the notion of England raising America doesn’t make much sense from a historical perspective, it’s time to move on to Hetalia itself. After all, Hetalia doesn’t always perfectly match up with history so I can’t just end this on nothing but historical facts.

So, what about Hetalia then? What is the pre-Revolution relationship shared between America and England?

It’s one of absence and rapid growth. Let’s start from the beginning.

Here’s something from one of the earliest canon portrayals of colonial America. The strip starts out with England thinking of all the responsibilities he’d have to take on as America’s guardian. But the strip ends with England coming to the realization America is perfectly fine by himself, alluding to how the real-life colonies were self-sufficient without any British supervision. It’s a quick reference to colonial history, but one telling of what’s to come.

Here’s something a bit more telling. England leaves America and returns to find he’s developed into an adult or almost adult physical appearance. The first thing I want to talk about is young America’s reaction to England leaving him. While it’s not abnormal for a child to be upset when left alone, America is upset to the point of sobbing and begging England not to leave. Is that the type of reaction a child would normally have to being left by someone who was constantly around? No. Because normally the adult figure would return very shortly. But that’s not the case here. America is upset because he knows that once England is gone, he’s not going to stop by again any time soon.

Moving on to the second part of the strip, my first point seems to be proven right. Even with America’s quick physical growth, England must have been gone at least for a few years for such a dramatic physical change to have taken place. Speaking of, there’s that rapid colonial growth I was talking about earlier! We’ll get to see more of that later.

Now we move on to the Davie strip. The comic starts in Davie’s childhood and ends after his death. While I can’t say for sure, I’d guess this was a time span of 60-70 years and, judging by America’s appearance, took place during the earlier colonial years. Which leads me to suspect America’s growth started to REALLY speed up starting in the late 17th century, early 18th- around the time when Salutary Neglect was most prominent. Not long after the likely time Davie passed away.

So, 60-70 years. And America was a colony for only 176 years (less if you want to end at the beginning of the Revolution). And England has only two brief appearances, with each being many years apart going by Davie’s changing physical appearance. I think that information makes this comic the most telling in how often England was around colonial America.

It also makes thing a bit more tragic doesn’t it? The America I see here is that of a very lonely child who craves attention and company. So, he latches onto Davie, who is unfortunately a human that quickly passes away.

Moving on, we get a strip that shows America’s unusually fast growth. By the time he has a teenage body, Canada is still around toddler age. Also, worth mentioning is that America is seen with a book in both latter two panels and Canada’s way of approaching America and his wording in the very last one implies America is constantly busy. This is the diligent America I needed to see to completely match him up with colonial America in reality.

Here we do NOT see England holding his hand throughout this learning process. America is shown taking on the task of learning politics on his own and of his own free will. This is where the “England raised him” argument becomes extremely frustrating to me. Combine this strip with the one with the buffalo from earlier, and we get to see a hard-working, self-sufficient America that brought upon his own quick growth in the absence of his colonizer. A reminder not to take his modern obnoxious personality at face value. He is, in fact, VERY competent.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

And with that, it’s time to talk about the American Revolution. I want to bring attention to the “I’m no longer your brother” line. This dialogue if often disregarded, since you can’t actually cut off familial relationships with words. However, I don’t that gives the full picture of what he means here. This is NOT a declaration of a sudden, immediate change.  

Think back to everything I’ve talked about up to this point. America showing a capability of handling himself at a young age, England’s absence throughout his growth, America growing up extremely quickly, the diligence and dedication he showed in teaching himself throughout that speedy growth…

Again, he is not making any sudden declaration of cutting familiar ties. He’s acknowledging something that has already happened. America has proven he’s more than capable of being fully independent by raising himself up into someone capable of taking a stand against England in under the time span of 200 years. The child England found is gone and England needs to acknowledge that.

With that said, let’s talk about England for a moment. Particularly his state of mind throughout all of this.

In Europe, England had NOBODY. He was the black sheep, the guy with no friends. So, he turned to America, or rather the idea of America, as a source of comfort.

America became his emotional crutch. But, besides such a thing being unhealthy, his relationship with America was, for the most part, not something represented in reality. He liked the IDEA of there being someone there for him. Once you get attached to at least the idea of a person always being there for you, you don’t NEED to constantly be there with them. As long as America is there waiting for him when he does have the time to stop by, his imagination can do the rest with sugarcoating reality. This is an accurate take on the different perspectives of the British and the colonies, with more emotional investment thrown in to make England seem more sympathetic and human. The British thought of the colonies as an entity completely subordinate and loyal to Great Britain. But the colonists didn’t really see things in that way. All the time they had spent left to their own devices had built up a spirit of autonomy.

When the Revolution breaks out, he reacts to the possibility of abandonment violently. Of course, there’s practical reasons to not want to lose the American colonies. But in England’s case, he seems to be driven by his emotional investment and reliance on America. Everything builds up until England finally breaks down in the end.

It’s not the cutting of familial ties that makes this scene so tragic. It’s seeing reality catch up to England. It’s seeing his loneliness and fear of abandonment completely exposed. It’s seeing that he kept fighting even when he had no Army behind him (possibly because everyone else had already given up). It’s seeing even some of America’s soldiers giving England looks of pity. It’s seeing America looking down on him and commenting on his fallen image.

As sad as this is, it needed to happen. Being under another nation’s rule was becoming a hinderance to America’s further growth, and England had become unhealthily attacked to something that amounts only to a fantasy. The bond was a toxic one.

MODERN TIMES AND CONCLUSION

Keeping this section brief, I’ll end this analysis on this scene.

America says he’s jealous of the kids specifically. Because, these kids have something America himself didn’t get the chance to have: a fulfilling childhood loaded with consistent affection.

America didn’t have an affectionate childhood, he was mostly alone. Or put more accurately, he didn’t have much of a childhood AT ALL. His early days weren’t anything you can attach much familial love to. He was more like an orphan than someone under the loving care of a father/brother figure. He was alone, so he had to grow up and raise himself (in this case, that happened on a more literal and physical level).

Saying England “raised him” is a dramatic misrepresentation of what happened and it’s a dramatic misrepresentation of the depth both characters have.

England wasn’t upset over losing a son. He was upset over losing an emotional crutch that he rarely even got to see. He broke down, because of insecurities that were an issue far before the Revolution happened. His miserable appearance during the Revolution wasn’t just apart of some isolated event. It was a look into England’s very troubled and lonely mind.

America wasn’t just some kid who decided to rebel against daddy. He was someone who had thrown away his own childhood, so he could raise himself. Nobody was there to help him. What he accomplished was through his own hard work and he, understandably, wanted that to be recognized.

And to those of you who are still put off by the title “brother” being used in America’s colonial days, remember that it’s a title that’s used very loosely in the series with the biggest perpetrator being “big brother France”. In this way, having a “big brother” indicates having a friendly relationship with an older male, especially one in a higher position of power. Another example of non-related characters using “brother” to describe each other are Norway and Denmark (with Denmark also addressing Iceland as such and overall thinking of himself as a “big bro”).