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morningsound15 · 3 years

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But like... Zuala could've been resurrected and I'm appalled Yasha didn't at least try?? Thanking the people who KILLED her (in what was basically a homophobic act!!) for burying her in an unmarked grave?? Beau thanking Zuala for getting killed?? I get the sentiment but it was just really rushed and disappointing. romanticizing trauma and violence really rubs me the wrong way.

i get why you feel this way, i do i really do get it, i feel like this moment was sort of the narrative equivalent of caleb destroying the time travel machinery in aeor. i think there was probably a time when yasha would have done anything to have zuala back, but by the time the campaign ended she had left that part of her in the past. we got so many instances of yasha learning to be someone who doesn't hold on to the guilt of her past actions, particularly around zuala. in that one vision from the stormlord right before she gets her wings back, when she decides to leave zuala behind and zuala says back to her "i'm proud of you, don't let me be a shackle." during the final battle with lucien when yasha is trapped in that nightmare and she uses the holy avenger to strike down the image of zuala "i know you're not her." i truly think that if yasha had tried to resurrect zuala it would have cheapened her ending. yasha has learned to be a person who doesn't hold on to her painful past. she mourns her, she honors her, she will never forget her and she will always love her. but that doesn't mean she wants to bring her back.

yasha isn't the same person she was when she met and married zuala. she's completely changed. she's found a new life, new family, new love. you can't just restart someone's life and expect them to return and be the same, to have things be the same. there is such a thing as accepting the past and mourning it without wanting to fix or change it

i don't talk about this much on here because i keep my private life pretty private but i am someone intimately familiar with death and loss. my best friend of 12 years died last year. i lost a surrogate mother figure just a few months ago. deep losses that have rocked me to my very core and changed everything about the way i deal with and interact with the world. i mourn them every day, and i ache with missing them. there are things i regret about our time together — mostly not knowing how short it would be, not living the fullest existence with them that i could have — and there are times, in my weaker moments, when i think that there's nothing i want more than to have them back with me. but that isn't a healthy way of coping with loss. that isn't something that i can keep in my brain. loss is part of life, and part of living is learning to live with loss, learning to understand who we are after we have experienced it, and trying to forge a path ahead either way.

i'm not going to speak for ashely johnson because idk her, but i know that she's someone who has lost loved ones (her father, i believe, when she was a teenager is something she talks a lot about). i think an extremely important part of her character choices is having yasha learn to be someone who isn't shackled by loss and tragedy, who isn't beating herself up constantly about the pain she caused and the things she experienced. learning how to be a person after that, that's what yasha's entire journey was about. to resurrect zuala after that, after everything she went through and learned and experienced... THAT, to me, would have been the disrespectful and disappointing character choice

we don't have to agree on this. stories are meant to be interpreted and experienced differently, and we don't have to like every part of a story that we get. i disagree with you that this ending was about romanticizing trauma and violence. i disagree with you about it being rushed and disappointing. i don't think that beau was thanking zuala for getting killed, and i don't think that yasha's thanks to her former tribe was what you're interpreting it as. it's like when jester was talking to fjord on the water tower, and she said "i'm glad it happened the way it did" — not that she's glad everything happened, but everything happening as it did is what allowed them all to be at the place they are now. beau is thanking zuala for being the person she was to yasha — for loving her, and being there for her, and maybe in some ways for being a symbol for her, something to drag her in out of the cold when needed. and sure, maybe beau is a bit selfish — if zuala hadn't died, yasha wouldn't have fled, they never would have met, they never would have fallen in love — but beau has proven herself to be nothing but gentle and patient and respectful of yasha's relationship with her wife. nothing about yasha's relationship with zuala cheapens what she has with beau, and vice versa.

yasha is thanking her tribe for this one small honor they paid zuala. we don't know what the tribe's relationship is with dead bodies; to me, they read as a largely nomadic people, who are used to living a harsh existence and who aren't keen on drawn-out burial rituals. i don't picture the dolorov tribe as having cemeteries or burial grounds for their dead, or taking part in sentimental death rituals. truly we don't know much about them. but they executed zuala for treason, and would have done the same to yasha if she hadn't run, and they didn't dump her body somewhere or burn it or leave it to scavengers to eat. they buried her. a small kindness, in an act of deep violence. it doesn't make what they did right by any means, but yasha, as someone who is intimately familiar with death (and with causing the death of others) can, i think, appreciate that at least there's someplace for her to go. someplace for her to visit. and of course the tribe wouldn't mark the grave of someone they executed, but yasha did. yasha and beau got to. and there will be wildflowers on zuala's grave that grow nowhere else in the world, and in the wastes of xorhas where there is no color and no life, there will be life on her grave, and that is fucking beautiful.

i'm sorry that you feel let-down by that ending. i just see it in a completely different light. stories resonate in different ways with different people. people and characters have relationships with death and loss that might be different from yours. the ending that these actors chose were the endings they felt were right for their characters, and you don't have to like it but it wasn't your story to tell, it was theirs, and i think it might be good to think about the story with that in mind. you can gain a lot of insight into these characters by what they choose to do, and what they choose not to do, and that, to me, is infinitely more interesting and satisfying than for every dead person in their backstories to get resurrected. resurrection is too neat and easy. real life doesn't work that way. i think it's good and important for stories, even stories full of impossible magic, to reflect that, too.

#why do you guys always come into my inbox to fight with me about these things?#i never get nice fandom anons....#anyway these are my two cents #i loved this ending for them sorry if that's an unpopular opinion #yasha #beauyasha #zuala #critical role #cr spoilers #anonymous #asks #long post

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juniorgman187 · 3 years

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The Bones (Reid Series) Part 1

Summary: Almost a year after Maeve’s death, Spencer reaches out to the recipients of Maeve’s donated organs to reconnect with his lost love. However, when the receiver of her heart, Reader, doesn’t write back, Spencer goes on a poorly-motivated mission to find her.

Playlist: “The Bones” by Maren Morris & Hozier (BONUS: song includes major foreshadowing)

A/N: There is an OC in this story because to me, writing “(y/n)” over and over again cheapens the story and doesn’t flow well. It was a personal decision, and to anyone it sincerely bothers, I’m sure there’s a way you can insert your own name instead. This fic is also inspired by “Things We Know By Heart” by Jessi Kirby. Category: Series, Soft Angst, Eventual Smut + NSFW content* Pairing: Spencer Reid POV x Fem!OC Content Warning: allusions to death, mourning, loss, recovery, arrhythmia (this is an intro chapter, so it’ll get more interesting from here I promise) Word Count: 2.2k

This will be a multi-part series.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

It all started that first autumn after Maeve’s death - just five weeks past a year since I parted with her. I was absentmindedly reading when, rather out of the blue, Mary Donovan called to inform me about a Mrs. Rachel Larsen.

Although we didn’t learn her actual name until later, she was first known to us as the recipient of Maeve’s liver. Not a single one of the three of us - Maeve’s parents and me - had expected a recipient to be in contact with us. That inability to predict such an event was caused by my neglect to remember Maeve was an organ donor. It wasn’t particularly relevant in the grand scheme of things, and for that forgetfulness, I was truly ashamed, but after reading Rachel Larsen’s letter together with the Donovans, it all came back to me.

Every single thing.

You see, despite the anonymity of the person writing to us, it was as if I could actually feel Maeve’s soul coming alive again, as strange as that sounds.

She was still here with me ... in some form.

Later that night, when I would return to an empty apartment, I would wonder why I hadn’t thought of reaching out to the recipients before. Even though I’d already started writing a thank you letter back to Rachel, the thirst for more of Maeve became increasingly insatiable.

While I did have fond memories of her to live by, I couldn’t thrive off of them in the way that I did with that letter. Our only moments together worth reliving were those spent over the phone, a time when I didn’t even know what she looked like. But that letter from Rachel Larsen ... it was somehow more wholesome and pure than any memory of the living Maeve that I could cultivate.

You could say I was doing this to ease my mourning, meaning it should’ve made me feel better, but that didn’t stop the guilt from eating away at me piece by piece as I wrote letters to the rest of the recipients.

The Donovans had no idea I was doing this, but I reasoned to myself that they would appreciate the surprise. Though they were still undeniably riddled with grief, smiles embellished their sullen faces when they read about Rachel’s quality of life now with a new liver. So maybe, just maybe, hearing from the rest of the receivers would be good for us all. At least, that’s what I told myself.

In one of those rare moments when inspiration strikes and it courses through your veins at the speed of lightning, I found myself being more productive than I had been in nearly a year. By midnight, I’d successfully composed five letters, each dedicated to the receiver of one of Maeve’s major organs - none of which, though, included my identity.

Given the fragile process of contacting the transplant coordinators, getting consent forms, and premeeting counseling, it would be months, if not years, before I would be able to really speak with these faceless people. Nothing against Donor Family Services - I’m sure they do the best they can - but for me, their best wasn’t good enough. So instead, I enlisted the help of someone I knew could never let me down.

“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Penelope peered up at me from her seat, her pinky finger hesitantly hovering over the ‘enter’ button.

“Yes.”

With just one click, she discovered the addresses of each one of those faceless people. This singular operation, albeit somewhat unethical, was the final piece to my puzzle. All there was left to do now was send the letters to them, with the tenuous hope they might send one back.

Luckily for me, not a single recipient questioned how I managed to find them or why this process wasn’t being handled by Donor Family Services, but I suppose if they did wonder those things, they didn’t feel comfortable asking me. Especially not after they learned who I was in relation to their donor. I didn’t intend to guilt-trip anyone with what I wrote in my letters nor did I want to take advantage of anyone’s empathy, but how could you possibly make a foe out of your organ donor’s grieving boyfriend? Exactly - you can’t. So you don’t. Instead, you send an inviting letter back, telling me you’d love to meet. Which is what four of them did.

Only one person didn’t reply, and while an 80% success rate was great, I simply couldn’t let this one go. Trust me, I would have ... had it been any other organ.

For quite some time, I was the one with Maeve’s heart.

I just needed to see where it was now.

᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

The heart has several definitions and corresponding connotations.

Scientifically speaking, the heart is a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation. However, figuratively, the heart can be seen as the central or innermost part of something. The heart of a city, for example. But in literature, the heart is symbolic of love. It is often regarded as the source of all knowledge, which is where the comparison between the head and the heart comes from. The head operates logically, whereas the heart functions emotionally, but despite the rationality the head holds, the heart is what people advise you to listen to because it holds the ultimate truth.

The heart, because it is equipped with your truest feelings, supersedes any logic and reason the head might hold.

But you see, I only ever knew Maeve’s mind. I could understand the inner workings of it - I’d probably be able to navigate through her consciousness if I entered it given the fact that our intellect matched one another’s - and I shared nearly identical thought processes with her, but that was all that I ever knew.

And if that was how much knowledge she held in her head alone, then, undoubtedly, her heart held so much more.

Science defines the heart as an organ. Figurative language uses the heart to establish a focal point. Literature likens the heart to love. But I compare her heart to the ocean. Like the sea, Maeve’s heart was 80% undiscovered, and exploration was simply calling my name.

For that reason, and that reason alone, I couldn’t abandon my pursuit of it.

That’s not to say I wasn’t ashamed of this mission, though. If anything, shame for the man I had become in the face of Maeve’s death was the only feeling I was truly capable of anymore. Any other emotions were fleeting or insincere.

Unfortunately, that slimy, disgusting feeling was only amplified times ten when I found myself driving two hours and forty-five minutes to get to Virginia Beach.

No sane man would drive this far on a weekday for even their most prized possession, and yet here I was, exactly 180 miles away from home, seeking out someone who hadn’t had the courtesy to even write me back, let alone agree to meet with me. Who knows if she’d even give me the time of day.

She being Valerie.

“Valerie Elise Bishop was born on August 5th, 1988 in Henderson, Nevada, to parents Andrew and Sara, but when Valerie turned seventeen, she was diagnosed with arrhythmia,” Garcia explained to me over the phone on the car ride here. “It’s when-”

“When the electrical impulses that coordinate your heartbeats don't work properly, causing your heart to beat too fast, too slow or irregularly,” I accidentally cut in. Realizing I interrupted Garcia, I brought her back into the conversation by asking, “I know there are more than 3 million cases per year in the U.S, but isn’t it usually common for ages 60 or older?”

“You are most certainly correct, Boy Wonder. It is more common in ages 60 and older, however, her maternal grandmother passed away from arrhythmia, so the family history increased the likelihood.”

At the sound of this news, I had to pull the car over and physically stop just so I could grasp the weight of what I was really doing.

“In Henderson, Nevada ... maternal grandmother passed away ... family history increased the likelihood …” Garcia’s voice rang in my head.

It was then that I came face to face with the gravity of reality.

Valerie wasn’t just a faceless name or a recipient of Maeve’s heart, she was a person. And her humanity only became more apparent to me the more Penelope spoke.

For god’s sake, she and I grew up in the same state. She and I saw the same sunsets from the same little corner of the earth. She drove down the same highways and byways - we might’ve even crossed paths at one point or another! Not to mention that she lost her grandmother to the same disease that she was suffering from, and if there was one thing consistent about arrhythmia, it was very likely she’d been living with it for decades, if not her entire lifetime. It’s a long term disease that takes years to improve but only seconds to kill. All it would take is just one irregular beat, and she’d be dead. How can you possibly live with that constant fear looming over your head?

She is a person. I had to remind myself. Not just a means to explore more of Maeve.

“Hey, Garcia,” I turned the car back on. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I could just feel panic begin to rise in Garcia.

“No, I’m not talking about life, I’m talking about this.” Though she couldn’t see, I grandly gestured to the location, the car, and the passenger seat that was cluttered with files on Valerie. “I don’t feel right invading her privacy like this. It’s just selfish.”

I wasn’t the only one mourning something here.

“Are you sure?” Penelope clarified. Which was ironic considering she was the one who was unsure of doing any of this, to begin with. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t have dragged Garcia into this. Something as immoral as this was totally against her character, but she did it anyway because her loyalty to her friends conquers all.

Like I said, my shame multiplied times ten. If not for Valerie, then certainly for Penelope.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m heading home.”

“Okay,” She softly returned. “Be safe.”

“Oh, and Garcia?” I asked before ending the call. “Thanks.”

“Of course. Anything for you, Dr. Reid.”

By the time I ended the call, the sun was already setting - that’s how long I’d been on the road for. The nearly-three-hour drive I would have to make for the second time today meant I wouldn’t be home in time to beat the pitch-black sky, so considering I was already in for a long night, I made a little detour for the one thing I couldn’t go home without.

A piping hot cup of coffee.

I felt something as rewarding as caffeine was well deserved for the self-restraint I demonstrated minutes ago. And maybe it was my exhaustion, both mental and physical, that brought me to the near conclusion that I would truly let this go, but I was honestly feeling like I could accept this. An 80% acceptance rate. Not bad, right?

Though I was basically half-asleep while waiting for my coffee, I could not miss the barista when she said, “Valerie! Your order’s ready!”

What are the chances?

A jolt of energy surged through my body and brought me back to life, causing me to whip my head around at the slightest semblance of movement. On instinct, my gaze gravitated to the woman walking towards the front counter. My pull to her was so strong that even if I hadn’t studied file upon file on her that included pictures of what she looked like, I still would’ve recognized her in a heartbeat.

I just knew. That’s her.

I had no plan whatsoever for how I should approach this, and yet I still rose from my seat, motivated by nothing more than the single belief that I needed to.

Was this the universe telling me that I was meant to run into her after all? That I needed to meet the woman with an oceanic heart?

But when I finally got to where she was, she glided effortlessly past me, not paying any mind to my presence. Why would she though? To her, I was no one. To her, I was the faceless person.

“Excuse me!” I bolted to the front counter after realizing I might’ve just missed my opportunity. The barista, stunned and concerned, furrowed her brows while she waited for my question. “Is that girl a regular here?”

“Valerie?” She pointed in her direction, to which I nodded rapidly. “Oh, yeah. She comes in here all the time. She works just across the street.”

When I came to this coffee shop, it was simply by chance. It wasn’t even the closest cafe, but it was the one I chose to go to for some inexplicable reason.

I’d like to think it was fate. I was meant to be here after all. Because right behind me stood the storefront of a building I had only briefly read about in Valerie’s file.

The Bones, Art Gallery & Studio

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

PART 2 HERE!

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#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #the bones #the bones pt 1 #juniorgman187

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fisumisu · 4 years

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ALRIGHT! I’ve now seen the new Cats movie!

My first thought?

”That could’ve been a lot worse, actually.”

Even if I didn’t absolutely love it, some of the songs really brought me glimpses of the happiness and excitement I got from the original musical, and dare I say it, I would actually like to see the new movie again.

I went to see it right after watching the old version with my friend (she loved it btw!) and so, the contrast was pretty big.

My general thoughts and some shameless ranting with absolutely no order *spoilers ahead*:

- I got used to the designs of the characters quite quickly, there were some I liked more than the others but my mind numbed to it eventually. "You get used to anything, except an icicle up in your asshole", as the age old Finnish saying goes (and that's a rock fact).

- However, I did not like Jennyanydots the Bodyhorror Cat and I am pretty sure the person behind every decision regarding her might be an alien.

-Bustopher Jones lost all his dignity. In the musical he is very respected and completely fine with being a ”bounder”, yet in the movie they make a joke about him being sensitive about it. I also could’ve done without seeing cat men and women wolf down garbage.

- Apparently falling and tripping on things is still concidered to be peak humor in Hollywood.

- (maybe thanks to that) Instead of the humor coming from just their body language, they relied more on the spoken gags. Most of them are pretty meh. However, I’ll never forget the ”Is he neutered? That note was kiiinda high...” line, ’cause, whoa... wow... damn... Didn’t expect that. Lmao.

- Speaking of the Rum Tum Tugger... well, let’s just say John Partridge will probably keep the mantle of being the best Tugger forever. Derulo has a good voice but the whole design given to his character and the way they had downgraded his importance in the movie made him a tad forgettable.

- Also, Jellicle cats do not have cheerful faces, actually Jellicle cats seem rather mean.

- The ”Touch me!” Part of Memory lost most of its meaning since the importance of touch was never implied in the movie. I’m also annoyed that the directors didn’t tell the actor of Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) to go a bit easier on her first two appearances and do the full blast crying scene at the end when she’s pleading the other cats to accept her. Her emotion was seriously amazing, but because it was too strong right from the start, she lost the wow moment she could’ve had at the end. It wasn’t her fault, Memory is supposed to be an emotional roller coaster, but she should’ve been directed better.

- I prefer Grizabella being much older looking overall, even in the musical productions, since the comparison between how the Jellicles behave towards Gus and Grizabella is quite an important point to me. If they are both older cats, it’s easier to see and the decision to send her to the Heaviside layer more justified. Yeah, Grizabella’s coat was a bit dusty and the corner of her eye a bit scarred in the movie but she was waaaaaaay too fine to think she’d need a whole new life to fix herself. Nope.

- Very important note: There definitely should've been a rule that cats with clothes should KEEP THEM ON during the entire movie. The whole deal with clothing was utterly baffling altogether. Some cats had cat sized shoes, hats, jackets and they seemed unable to decide if they should keep them on or be in their birthday suits most of the time. Plus, if some cats have clothes and others don’t, it’s just going to look odd. And hey, why is that one cat otherwise naked but wearing shoes? I don’t know man, nobody knows.

- Thankfully, Skimbleshanks the Railway cat decided he rather liked his pants and never removed them. His tap dancing number was one of the best scenes in the movie. He also had a proper excuse to wear cat shoes. Good job Skimble.

- Ian McKellen (the cat) had the kind of fur around his head I wish every cat on the movie would’ve had. I’ll never forget him saying ”Meow, meow, meow!” Or dunking his head into a bowl to lap water with his tongue. I actually got a bit teary eyed watching his number.

- I don’t feel that Taylor Swift’s Bobalurina was... well, Bombalurina. She was just some hench cat whose only purpose was to get everyone high on catnip and preach about Macavity.

- Honestly, I actually thought the whole Macavity song part was pretty neat! Hear me out (don’t scoff, lol). Yes, it was odd, but the way the dancers started moving when the golden flakes touched them was fascinating to watch. It was almost like a reference to the beginning where the cats couldn’t help but dance under the Jellicle moon and their movement showed that clearly. Storytelling, but with dance! Can you believe it!? I’m just sad that the CGI cheapened the dancers’ amazing performances during the whole movie since their movement looked odd at places thanks to the added fur. When there’s so much digitally added effects on screen, you can’t help but wonder, is this real or just animated?

- I haven’t said anything about Munkustrap, I notice. Maybe because I like complaining too much and had to get all the whining out of the way. Good news, Munk remains a good, good cat and he was definitely my favourite character, alongside with Skimble (who kept his pants on, as you might recall). Thank the Everlasting cat or the Maker for small mercies.

- Also, to people talking about Munk and Misto in this new movie, I see ya. My poor heart is quite confused since the song Mr Mistoffelees is, and will always be, to me (and many others) Tugger and Mistoffelees' song, and therefore can have that kinda romantic vibe. Since they threw Tugger out of the window, going as far as to make the two interract as little as possible, I’d rather eat my right leg than accept the romance they cooked up with Victoria and Misto. Since Munkustrap sings the first parts of Mistoffelees’ song in the movie, I can see why Munk and Misto could be seen as a new pairing.

I don’t mind if you like Victoria and Misto together, it doesn’t itch my bum what other people enjoy, so have fun! Victoria x misto is just not for me. If I had to choose who I ship in this movie, I’d probably ship Skimbleshanks with his hat. It’s a very good hat. You can’t see the CGI ears under it. Oh, did I mention Skimble's pants? They were red and he kept them on throughout the whole movie.

- (just remembered) Victoria singing Beautiful Ghosts to Grizabella immediately after Grizabella ended her second part of Memory, reminded me of that Tall Girl meme from last year. Like, “You think your life is hard?" *bursts into song*

- Macavity being so desperate about getting to the Heaviside layer was actually pretty hilarious and the whole thing about him vanishing all the other “contestants” was something new and unexpected. Didn’t really mind it. I just wish the big finale would’ve been Mistoffelees making all the vanished cats appear again.

- Judyteronomy teleporting behind everyone after Mistoffelees song made me laugh.

- Mistoffelees believing in himself at the end of the movie was pretty wholesome.

- Hey! Macavity’s fur actually looked a bit red when the light hit it from just the right angle and the stars aligned! I wonder if that was one of the features they added when they did the updates. Maybe that's why they couldn't afford to give people cat noses. Oh well.

And that’s all for now!

This is already pretty long and got kinda outta hand. Thanks if you read this whole thing! I just wanted to vent and gather my thoughts about the movie. I love to nitpick and poke at stuff. I hope I didn't come across too negative or say only things everyone and their mothers have already talked about. The movie was far from perfect but in this nice safe bubble of ours no one should feel ashamed of liking something Cats the musical related. I'm actually itching to see this again, in all its horrifying glory, because despite all its flaws and things I wish they would've done differently, it's still Cats and some of the songs and scenes absolutely, quite positively slapped.

If you, for some unthinkable reason, would like to know my thoughts on a specific scene or thing in the new Cats movie, or just anything Cats related, feel free to ask me!

Toodle pip!

#Cats the musical #cats 2019 #cats 2019 review #Kinda #cats musical #the rum tum tugger #mr mistoffelees #munkustrap #This was a pretty mindless review and I'm sorry it was so messy #The 2019 version is what it is #But i am happy I was able to get this much enjoyment out of it

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silentasagrave · 4 years

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Tempting Rage

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It was the time of day he liked best to be in the graveyard, evening. It was cold and wet out which he was fine with. It made him think of the north. He missed Lordaeron and Gilneas. He wasn’t sitting on his tombstone, he was staring at it. He growled and a furry fist gently punched at the tombstone. He stared at the words on it for a long moment and growled again.

He was in worgen form. He had been since he had gotten back from up north with Risri. He hadn’t had this sort of problem in years. Rage and hate made it difficult to not be in this form. It was like a reflex. It was more than a reflex; it was instinct. Even more than that it made sense he could do the most with the anger in this form. The problem was there was no real target for this anger. He killed the undead at the farm that should have been enough, but it wasn’t.

He shook his head and his furry paw slammed the tombstone a bit harder. Target, no that was the old way of thinking that was the type of thinking that made him ashamed of his past. That was the way a killer would think. He growled again and lifted his head to give the air a sniff.

A pop sound followed his last punch to the tombstone accompanied by a high pitched cackle. Perched atop the stone was a grey imp, his yellow eyes glowing with mirth as they fixated on the worgen.

“Long time no see my furry friend!” Pipqua said, his spiked tail flicking back and forth. “What has this nasty rock done to you?”

Dragaur stepped back and growled at the imp. He wasn’t really surprised by the interruption of his thoughts since people always seemed to come by here perhaps looking for him. It wasn’t exactly expected either which made it all the more annoying “Who said we were friends? Why would I need a filthy fel pustule like you as a friend?”

Pipqua’s mouth broke into a cheshire grin. “It’s always nice to have friends.” He sat down on the tombstone and spread his arms wide, at least as wide as they’d go for a two foot tall demon. “You have lots of them, but they aren’t great conversationalists.” His gaze flickered down to the stone between his legs and he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Did this one insult you?”

He looked at the name. “Yes, yes he did...now what do you want? You here to deliver a message cause you got a good chance of being caught by a guard and killed. They like to patrol around here. They have the good sense at this point to leave me alone, but ya never know.”

“No message.” The imp tilted his head at Dragaur and then used his long tapered fingers to peel back his eyelids on one eye, significantly widening the yellow orb. “Mistress likes to see you aren’t dead every once in a while.” He dropped his hands and let out another grating cackle. “This one thinks she misses you.” Pipqua made a kissy face at the worgen.

Dragaur stared blankly at the imp and leaned in closer. “I doubt she misses anyone. She probably wants to see where I will fit into her next scheme.” He crossed his arms and turned away slightly. “Does she need some help kidnapping young girls to sacrifice to keep her good looks or something?”

For once the amused smile slipped off the imp’s face. He made a raspberry noise. “Wouldn’t that be delightful? No. She is cataloguing her collection...again.” His eyes swiveled back towards Dragaur. “You could convince her to kidnap some children.”

He turned back to the demon with a snarl. “What? Why the hell would I do that? I don’t care what she does...she's been doing whatever on her own she doesn’t need me to convince her to pull off crazy plans. Besides I don’t hurt kids she knows that…”

His eyes looked away again and he took half a step away sniffing at the air. “So she wants to keep an eye on me. I don’t see what that has to do with you talking to me watching doesn’t involve talking.”

Pipqua groaned and rocked back in his seat. “You’re both so boooooring.” He whined. “The last fun we had was forever ago with that silly boy and his dead guard. Why can’t we have the good ol’ times again? It’s cause you’re both old, isn’t it?” He stated this last part matter-of-factly.

“Silly boy and…” He paused as he turned to stare at the imp. He shook his head. “That boy was more than silly, he's an idiot.”

He took a breath as he seemed to consider the rest as well. “I’m hardly old...older maybe would be a better way to put it. If the good old times mean just killing and kidnapping people you might be out of luck though I don’t think I have any interest in those kinda things again. I’m trying to live life without mayhem and murder and...listen I don’t have to explain myself to you. Besides whats the point in the good old days? Gold I have that...power...not worth the trouble and...”

He stopped seemingly mid-thought but didn’t complete it, just stood looking up at the trees and then the stars.

“Power, gold,” Pipqua threw his hands up in the air and then leaned forward again. “You have not mentioned pleasure. Perhaps the lack of it is why you are so…” He made a growling noise and snapped his teeth. “Do not lie to me, Graves, I know your type.” He pointed a long finger at the worgen, a grin plastered back across his face. “You feed on the chaos like the rest of us. It’s only a matter of time before any hope of a fulfilling life goes…” he retracted his finger and snapped, sending up a puff of smoke.

Dragaur turned to the demon and bared his fangs. “You don’t know anything about me. Pleasure in what chaos and death? Yes they gave me pleasure but in the end all it does is cheapen your own life and make you feel empty. The same goes for any kind of pleasure...food, women, booze all it does is leave you feeling empty. I’m tired of feeling nothing but rage and hatred and pleasure there are other things to feel ya know. The man who felt all that stuff is dead just like his father who taught him all that.”

It was only slightly true that his father was dead but this imp didn’t need to know that.

The yellow eyes gleamed with curiosity. “And is your life now making you feel these ‘other things’? I should think not, with your booze and your food and your woman.” As the last word was spoken, the demon’s voice shifted to that of Risri’s before quickly switching back to his normal cheeky tone. “Perhaps it’s time to do something that doesn’t bring on the emptiness.”

“You don’t know anything about me, demon...your kind is only ever interested in chaos and temptation. I don’t need you telling me anything about feeling empty. It’s my whole point… the things I did in the past didn’t make me feel anything. At least now there’s something.” He looked away again, his red eyes glowing as they shifted back and forth. “You don’t know anything about Risri. She's the only person that accepted anything about who I am and...just leave me alone.”

The imp tilted his head at Dragaur. "Are you sure about that?" There was a brief smell of smoke and the creature was gone.

Dragaur growled quietly and then slightly louder until he tipped his head back and howled. At the other end of the city he could hear another howl. He snarled at the anonymous howler and shook his head as he padded his way through the graveyard not sure where he was heading next..

Written with @veyka-sythan

References: https://risrielthron.tumblr.com/post/618602717407051776/when-the-wolfs-away

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casually-inlove · 5 years

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aah i agree im vry disappointed in this chapter ! like its good like usual, but its kind of a let down after the last 5 chapters... ht rly exposed himself minutes before, and comedy aside, MGS answered him by ignoring him, and then saying "were not friends, were not as close as you think we are". it must have been hurtful for HT, its basically a rejection of recognizing HT vulnerabilities. and its totally In character for MGS to say this, so im not disappointed by it 1/?

i mean HT lay his heart down for Mo to see and theyve known each other for 15 DAYS, its too soon for anybody and especially for Mo who have mistrust problems to respond in the same way ? so running away and deflecting the declaration is cool, i wasnt excepting a "ill never abandon u!!" lol. but then HT being cool with this rejection and having a slapstick comedy just after doesnt feel right. mb show HT swallowing and being disheartened, and then put his usual facade and only then have comedy 2/?

would have been good, bc we would have known "oh ht is actually hurt by MGS reaction but doesnt know how to say it, so he plays it cool and change the subject bc hes still not at ease with being vulnerable". a realistic situation would have been "ht tried to be vulnerable but it was too soon, too much for mo who rejected him, so it confirmed ht biased thinking that showing vulnerabilities is bad and it will prevent ht to be vulnerable in front of someone in the near future". 3/?

i mean it could have been a nice although sad conclusion for this mini-arc, especially since ht have been grieving (?) his mother just this morning. a little step back, and then smth else happen and cause ht to crack completely but then mo is able to respond present and its a step forward. ok im daydreaming but that would have been climatic lol. instead this..ah i dont know i feel cheated, i know its ox' work but still haha ! like when they do an abrupt change of scene after an emotional page 4/

its a trick ox use often and after 300 chapters it feels old n cheap. when u engage in a emotional scene, u cant just do "oops i change my mind!!" and put slapstick comedy or ignore totally what just happened and dont have a progression. u have to stay on this road : u cant put traumatizing backgrounds and mafia affairs and mature problems (kidnapping, mother being threatening into prostitution,etc) n just.. not stick with it and making ur characters not traumatized by it and just 'lol comedy'.

sry im kind of monopolizing ur askbox lol, i guess im kind of frustrated ! it just the last chapters were so good and it was a while since ox use this cheap trick of not going through an emotional scene that i kind of forgot how terrible they were at handling transition between drama and comedy. theyre a good artist all in all (or i wouldnt be this disappointed!!), but they have this failing in their writing an it drives me nuts each time lmao. haa i hope next chapter will be better...5/5

Hell yeah, DEFINITELY, that sums up my thoughts. Also, you don't have to apologize, it was an interesting read and I can tell that you feel strongly about it. While I can’t say that I’m flat-out disappointed, as I wrote in my original post, I’m definitely feeling lukewarm and indifferent about the recent ch.

OX touched upon a few serious matters a couple of chapters before: namely She Li’s fucked up goading and the way it unsettled He Tian -- unsettled in no joking manner as follows from his reaction. Then we get He Tian swearing to beat up anyone who dares bully Mo, and the whole profound monologue from the previous chapter. Just as you say, He Tian truly laid himself bare there. One could argue that He Tian listed the reasons he was enamoured with Mo, or one could argue that he subtly commented on the milieu he grew up in, or one can even read it as He Tian admitting/reflecting on his flaws out loud. There are many ways to construe this scene, each of them is extremely meaningful. Not to mention it took HT visible effort to say these things out loud.

The problem which both you and I noticed is that OX left this mini-arc/mini-subplot unresolved. Instead, they abruptly switched to comedic relief. Much like you, I wasn’t expecting a big reaction from Mo -- no grand verbal declarations at very least. What I expected was a panel (maybe a close up of Mo’s face as I mentioned in my original post) that indicated he actually HEARD what HT told him, that it gave Mo some food for thought.

As you mention, Mo getting disconcerted and doing the tsun-tsun escape is fairly in character for him. Still, a panel like this would have been very welcome to emphasize his confusion and to justify him not gracing the other boy with an answer, ignoring HT showing his underbelly (which is something that doesn't come easy for him, as we readers know). Okay, sure, OX handled it differently this chapter -- we get Mo silently running away and blurting out the first comeback he could think of. No problem. It works to show that HT’s words had an effect on him, albeit it’s much less pronounced, than, say, the Aquarium scene -- again one would have to wonder why: HT’s “don’t abandon me” is just as strong, if not stronger, than “I’m afraid you’ll forget me”, so it follows that Mo should have been just as affected.

The problem is the way an emotionally charged moment quickly fizzled out into comedy. As you said, Mo blurting out “we are not friends, we are not familiar enough, so I don’t care what you think (of me)!” SHOULD have hit HT harder. Just minutes before we had HT being genuinely disturbed by the idea of someone looking to intentionally hurt Mo, seeking physical comfort, being disquieted by the idea of getting abandoned and losing someone he likes, confessing that he admires the other boy -- yet when Mo utters yet another curt rejection of sorts, we are not shown HT’s reaction, which, logically, should have been there.

And all of that emotional build-up is cheapened by an accidental dick slap comedy.

Indeed, showing HT being hurt (disquieted? deflated?) and then putting on a cool guy mask, and ONLY then switching to a slapstick humour would have been more appropriate. It wouldn’t have taken a big or an overly dramatic scene either -- just, IDK, show HT’s eyes widening, or his throat clicking, or his posture slumping, anything to indicate that Mo’s words affected him -- that the whole thing mattered to him. Otherwise, it leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth: “so Imma confess to the person I like and swear to protect them and beg them to put up with me -- oh! forget anything serious that I said, Imma touch some dick now”. While I don't have an issue with comedy coming into focus again, I do wish it hadn't been this abrupt. Had there been a better transition between these scenes, there wouldn't be this "lol jk" vibe that I’m getting.

So yeah, I, too, feel a little cheated. OX certainly has an issue with drama-comedy transitions, which are sort of hit-and-miss for me. Sometimes they work well to alleviate the grave mood, other times they appear to be out of place. The recent chapter is the latter case. Dangling a possibility of climatic resolution for the subplot and then intentionally subverting it just doesn’t work in favour of the plot here. It cheapened the emotional part and made the comedy feel much less fun for me. Of course, no one says that writing is an easy task. Plenty of mangakas, for instance, work with writers to strengthen their script and plots, so it’s challenging when a single person is responsible for both drawing and planning the story. OX is undoubtedly doing a tremendous job. Still, I wish they wouldn’t stick to using the old trick this monastically because it's becoming a trite writing device and works against them on occasion. It’s totally fine to keep the comic light-hearted yet it’s not good to ignore the needed dramatic development.

#19 days #long post #anonymous #ask #q&a time

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jesterlady · 4 years

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Rise of Skywalker review

After Watching Episode IX for the second time, I feel like it’s finally time to make my feelings known regarding the sequel trilogy and to vent some of the negativity by getting it down in somewhat rational fashion.

If any one recalls the 6k I wrote on Avengers Endgame, you’ll know what to expect.

Now it’s been a while since I saw either Ep VII or VIII, so my memory is likely rusty on details.

My feelings on this trilogy in general have been extremely negative. It’s interesting, but after I saw Force Awakens, I actually had a very positive reaction at first. It felt like a Star Wars movie (following the New Hope formula). But after a while, even before Last Jedi came, I realized that I actually was disappointed, not necessarily in the movie as a movie or the new characters, but the direction the whole trilogy was likely to go.

I must confess a great deal of this feeling probably arose from watching Clone Wars and Rebels in the meantime and becoming very caught up in those time periods and what they represent for Star Wars. And that’s just it…the sequel trilogy takes what came before, what those people bled and died for, and basically said it didn’t matter. They didn’t actually save the galaxy. The victory at Endor has become incredibly cheapened by the First Order’s existence…and it doesn’t even matter that apparently it was Palpatine all along so it’s suddenly very connected in a haphazard fashion.

They could have told a much more interesting story about the struggles of rebuilding a galaxy. They could have had the same characters, they could have had the same arcs (terrible ones mostly), and the galaxy could still be in danger. But starting off with a brand new evil empire like destroying the old one didn’t even matter, not even letting Han and Leia stay together…like, that’s just creating drama for the sake of drama. We have to destroy everything that was built before, because we’re really unoriginal and don’t know how to create new stories or build on top of a good foundation.

Say what you like about the prequels (I am a fan in general) they had a very cohesive story, building toward a single point. The sequels…did not.

Now, we must all acknowledge the elephant in the room. That of the atrocious planning and divided directional control that went into making these movies. I don’t know what Disney was thinking! The MCU for all its faults is a cohesive whole. With a franchise infinitely more popular and lucrative and with a fraction less of the movies, you couldn’t pull off having a story that makes sense?

And I’ll just say that even if JJ didn’t like what Rian did with TLJ, basically completely doing a 180 and trying to go the other direction, was selfish. It destroyed further rather than fixed the problem. I don’t have anything else to say, other than the lack of unity is probably the ultimate problem after the initial direction in the first place. I didn’t really approve of TLJ. The Rey/Ben parts…sure, but the slowest chase scene known to man and completely superfluous side ventures to a gambling planet were utter drivel. So it’s not that I’m a Rian vs JJ person. I think the lack of unity and that they both screwed with each other’s narratives is the problem.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about TROS. (And how about that, coming up with a title that is super confusing since we already have Revenge of the Sith. I guess that’s ROTS…but come on!

So…this will be fairly chronological but as I get deeper into character arcs and plot points, it will delve all over the place.

The intro of a Star Wars movie is usually fairly jarring. We’re dropped into the middle of a situation and all we know is three paragraphs long, to tell us what’s going on and what happened. But this felt even more jarring than usual.

Suddenly knowing Palps is alive in the credit titles is so off course. Knowing he was alive at the end of TLJ would have been preferable, leaving us time to stew over how he was still alive and giving them time to come up with something more coherent than the absolute zero explanation we were given. The return of an essential character/villain like that deserves way more gravitas and planning than the shock value we were presented with. The idea of him being alive is not so shocking to those familiar with the EU, but that was explained and explained well, whereas how long he’s been planning this, Snoke, the ships, how…it’s all completely ignored and I guess we can come up with explanations on our own. So…is Snoke his clone? Or a part of him? How many Snokes were there? There are so many questions regarding their relationship…how it relates to Kylo/Ben, how it relates to Rey, how it relates to their bond, but I’ll get more into that later. And more on those ships.

Pretty sure a blow no one can be faulted with is Carrie’s death. If she had been alive, I have to believe so many things would have been better. She uttered the only sensible line in the movie…never underestimate a droid. Something everyone else went on to ignore even though droids made the whole movie possible. Ugh. I do think it’s funny that since TFA we’ve all been told to call her the General now…no more princess cause princesses are apparently weak, but she was suddenly a princess again this movie.

The Jedi texts, I’d like to know more about that. Very plot device-y really, if you think about it. All this info about new and improved powers and places and things and considering how much lore we know as an audience who actually have been exposed to when the Jedi were still around, opposed to Luke onward…it’s just an excuse for story. Same thing with the Sith wayfinders and that dagger. I guess you could make the argument for Palps having them made after ROTJ, but…that makes no sense. But it’s the only thing that makes sense since how could anyone make a dagger the exact shape of a crashed Death Star before it crashed? But the Jedi texts…super old texts…reference the wayfinders. And it was already in the vault of the crashed DS. All I’m saying is that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense and someone needs to explain it to me. And to stop making mysterious keys and clues to things. It makes sense the Sith loyalist would have it since he needed to go back to Exegol to deliver Rey, (though he had clearly already left Jakku and killed her parents, so was he just going back to say, oops, I messed up? Palps clearly got the message somehow) but maybe it would have been better for them to keep all the Oracle stuff in and explained all this stuff properly. Like I’m confused about Palpatine’s plan and he’s usually the master of strategy.

Okay…Poe is so unlikable in this movie. And he really doesn’t have an arc. Maybe a little one, struggling with the burden of leadership. But he mostly seems to be there to argue with people and be rude to Threepio. This is a waste of a good character. He was barely in TFA, he was a total mess in TLJ, and here he’s just a jerk. I got nothing good to say for him. Which is a shame because he could have been awesome.

We will talk about Rose and her complete lack of presence. Up front, I never cared for Rose in TLJ…didn’t see the point of her. She brought nothing to the story in my opinion and whether she was supposed to be a love interest for Finn or to symbolize hope or just be representative of WOC, I don’t know. But her being shifted to the sidelines of this story is a blatant statement of disrespect. The actress has been very publicly discriminated against online and instead of taking care of her, the director and studio pretty much stated they agreed with that by what they did with her character. Aside from that…makes zero sense for someone who was so built up and had such a big part in TLJ to be so downplayed and have her story just stop in the middle. It’s bad storytelling. Especially while you’re bringing in a troop of new female characters to do…what? Basically things Rose could have accomplished and would have made more sense doing.

Along the lines of pointless things…what is the point of the Knights of Ren? They were so built up…such an ooh, scary prospect and they play zero role in this. They have no point. They have no purpose. We know nothing about them unless we hunt for backstory in comics and things like that. But you shouldn’t have to do that to understand the point of someone in a movie. I’d also just like to point out, if they’re really Force sensitives who were Jedis in training…maybe? Then they should be a lot harder to defeat and why don’t they have light sabers? And…why are they the Knights of Ren if there isn’t at least a discussion about what their leader is doing when he comes to Exegol. Like they’re just trying to kill him from the second he enters. I’d be like…hi, boss, so why aren’t we killing the girl…or something like that. And if they’re the Knights of Ren, his…family for lack of a better term, people who trained with him since boys, I’d like to think he at least would have some compunction of striking them down…would try to reason with them first. They might still be brainwashed like he was, but he would know that better than anyone. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s my knee jerk reaction. A waste of possibilities.

Want to talk about another waste? Hux! Never liked him and his Hitler youth attitude, but really he was not important in this trilogy, like at all. DG is too good an actor to not have his talents used better. He, Phasma, and Kylo were built up as this villain trilogy to stand against the Rey, Poe, Finn good guy trilogy, and basically none of them got any kind of development other than Kylo. I knew Hux was the spy and I believe it is funny that he is the spy solely because he hates Kylo so much, but other than that…he was a waste of space. Better to have him finally rise and become the commander he’d always wanted to be instead of Pryde suddenly being there and being all evil and competent for some reason. Having him be significant for having followed Palpatine before would only actually be significant if we had seen him serve Palpatine before. It’s just another instance of this brand new character suddenly taking the place of an established one for no reason.

We can talk about Finn now. Finn, who also suffered from lack of actual character arc and purpose in the movie other than running after everyone and being worried about them. The whole Force sensitive thing is old news…we all knew about it a long time ago. And this way of revealing it…such poor methods! As far as I know the only reason you’d start thrashing around and declaring you never told someone something is because it is going to be a declaration of love or like a super big confession of guilt. I mean, that’s what they wanted us to think by keeping it in suspense for so much of the movie and it’s just…not that big of a deal. Like it’s not a surprise, it’s not a death confession topic. It was just stupid.

As for the idea that he only left the First Order because of the Force, well, that just implies that only Force sensitive people know right from wrong and can make moral decisions…it’s just not a good message. Now whether Jannah’s whole platoon is Force sensitive is not clear, but it’s strongly implied. And the fact that it’s what he wants to have told Rey is also not clear. Like you have to figure that out (possibly with online help), it’s not inherent in the narrative. Also…could have been told to Rose, Jannah not needed. In fact, this whole storyline would have actually made much more sense and been better if it’s something Finn had been dealing with in TLJ and perhaps came with an army of defectors or been out convincing people this whole time. Potential storyline wasted. Plus…for someone who’s an ex Stormtrooper, watching Finn run down hallways and strike down troopers is pretty insensitive and OOC if you ask me. Just a super bad way to take the character. And he really didn’t do that much else other than be the main person who does the thing that destroys the thing so everyone else can do the main thing they’re there to do.

Wow, and can we talk about Threepio’s treatment in general and in this trilogy in particular? I will be the first to admit that Han and Leia especially weren’t all that great to him all the time. But it was how they would have treated anyone, I think. Poe particularly just laid into him all the time for no reason, even after he sacrificed himself for them. Like…just really made me mad at Poe and really mad at everyone the whole movie. It appears that Threepio, one of the two original droids of the whole franchise, gets the least respect out of any of them. With all the fanservice going on, you’d think he’d be treated better. I love the HISHE part where he talks about taking a last look at his friends and it certainly ain’t none of this trio! You want to talk about underestimating a droid! I know he’s not everybody’s favorite and I’m probably biased, but if we’re ranking droids in the SW universe, which we all do, Threepio’s not at the top for me either. That spot belongs to Chopper. But I’m still going to accord Threepio the respect and dignity he deserves for seniority if nothing else. Because he tries so hard and no one ever thanks him for it. I like BB8 and all, but he goes under Threepio and R2 both in ranking! And let’s not forget if not for a droid’s knowledge of Exegeol (so convenient) and the way to get there, you resistance jerks are all toast, so respect!

Zorii, Zorii, Zorii, frankly another superfluous new character. But I liked her best out of all of them. I can see that little something something with her and Poe and I think it would be cool for it to flourish now that the war’s over and they can put the really convenient past and betrayal behind them. Poe being a spice runner isn’t bad but isn’t good either. It’s just convenient, because they suddenly needed black market stuff. Also…like how’d she survive? Really. Because it’s such a big deal for her to have gotten that thingamajig and it’s not like people have warning when the bad guys blow up your planet. There is no evacuation time.

I’ve mentioned her a bit so Jannah, again, other than it’s cool there are more women in the galaxy, just took up screen time for other characters to develop. Were they trying to insinuate she could be Lando’s daughter, because that makes zero sense! And why all of a sudden he’s champion of finding the lost families of the galaxy is super weird. Also, it was cool to see him flying the Falcon and all, but did he really add anything other than gravitas from the original trilogy? I’m usually a huge fan of fanservice, but I didn’t really feel like a fan being serviced. I felt like someone constantly having nice things thrown at me so I won’t notice the murder being done in the other room. A nice shot of Wedge, too.

So many extra resistance people always there. Like I love Dom, but why was he there?

But talking of other people really who the heck is Maz? I mean she just shows up out of nowhere and knows everything about the Force and the Jedi and people’s pasts and what their decisions are and we don’t have a clue why. Like who is she? How does she know these things? Where does she even come from? Like why does she talk about Leia trying to reach Ben and why does she smile when Leia dies, what does she know that we don’t and why?

I guess now for the really hard stuff. Rey and Ben.

They were the only ones who really got developed and even then, I think Ben got robbed out of his ending.

So Rey’s heritage. Being a Palpatine, very disappointing. If there’s one good thing I liked about TLJ it was the idea that you didn’t have to be part of some great bloodline to be special in the Force. The Force doesn’t care who your parents are. Most of the great Force users we know have literally nothing to do with who their parents are. If anything, it has more to do with their lineage of training. So JJ basically saying screw that idea and forcing Rey into that was very disappointing. And apparently electricity is very genetic…Dooku aside, of course! It also implies the Dark side in her is because of the Palpatine heritage. But the Dark Side of the Force exists for a reason, for balance, and provides something important to the galaxy. It’s already proven even the Lightest of users and bloodlines have that pull.

Rey has been alone and searching for family this whole time. Having someone to belong to was important to her. But…the message of her finding a family and joining one, I think is a lot more important than her finding out her past and heritage. Just being Rey at the end instead of having to say she was Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo would have made more sense! Of course…I also think Solo makes more sense for her anyway given her connection with Han, her training with Leia, and her bond with Ben. She did train under Luke as well, granted, but she had more Solo connection than Skywalker. They just wanted the cool name. But also doesn’t make sense since Palps calls Ben the last Skywalker in the movie as well. But whatever, I don’t really care.

Let’s talk about this whole dyad in the Force thing and the grand plan. Because I can’t logically reason it out myself.

So Palps apparently has a plan to bring Rey to him as a girl so he can have her kill him and his spirit can go into her body and he can reign through her because his old body is like super fried and the clone thing ain’t working so hot. Doesn’t happen, but he’s also working on his other plans to corrupt Ben and bring him to the Dark side, under the influence of Snoke, to do what? Like what is his plan there apart from just general evil and revenge and nasty stuff? But all along there’s apparently been this Dark prophecy against Ben (and we all know Palps is the manipulator of the Dark). Luke said Leia gave up her Jedi training because she sensed that at the end of that journey was her son’s death. You’d think then they’d honor that sacrifice by not killing him, but whatever.

Palps created or controlled or was at the back of Snoke (however he was at the back of Snoke) and so he’s pulling the strings during TLJ. He knows everything Snoke knows. So if Snoke created the bond between Rey and Ben, then he’d be very aware of that. So how does the whole dyad thing work? Because it’s made very clear Palps doesn’t know about the dyad, otherwise he likely wouldn’t have tried to do the dark ritual/strike me down plan first when it would have been so much easier to get them both together to drain them.

So…have they always been a dyad from birth? Was the dyad created separate from the bond when Snoke created the bond? A Light balance to the Dark bond? Regardless of how, clearly they are one soul and connected more powerfully than anyone else in generations.

But Palps and his plan…he tells Ben to kill Rey. What was he actually trying to do since it’s clear he didn’t want Rey dead?

My only thought is that he thought Rey would actually kill Ben and thus give in to her Dark side and be more ready to be Empress…

But Leia’s sacrifice and all of that still confuses me. Palps said that Leia interfered with his plans.

Now in that fight Rey was the instigator, was the one trying to wreak damage (freaked out by her vision and revelations, I’m sure) and Ben was the one winning that fight. Like he was going to win until Leia stopped him. But was he going to kill her? Because I think it’s pretty clear that Ben has never wanted to kill Rey even if he was trying at first before the bond really started. Either way, Leia stops him from doing something and Rey stabs him instead. Then Leia dies and snaps Rey out of it. Was it the reaching out to Ben or the death that Palps was talking about interfering with his plans? Because again…he didn’t want Rey dead at that point.

I don’t know. Having a fleet full of ships hidden for how long, when did those weapons go into place, who’s manning the ships? Because apparently there’s the regular First Order fleet still out there conveniently being taken down by the rest of the galaxy after this fleet burns, so have these recruits just been sitting out there, chilling at Exegol for years, waiting for this order and attack? Total side tangent and question really, but it all makes no sense.

Leia’s death…so much speculation on why her body didn’t vanish until Ben died. There has to be something significant there and I’d really love to know if it’s a future plan or if it was part of the original end of the movie since clearly it was changed. Maz smiles, remember. Also…is she somehow giving her life for Ben’s to bring him back? She’s clearly a Force Ghost at the end of the movie.

Okay…so Han memory. I did like that and I did like that Ben could get absolution from his dad and have that be the final thing that turns him from Kylo to Ben. I wasn’t sure I could forgive Ben ever after TFA. I cried so much and I was so mad. That’s Han Solo, y’all. HAN FRIKKING SOLO. I mean how do you even kill Han Solo?

Granted, I think we were all robbed of a story where Han and Leia are a united front raising their kid and trying to protect him from danger, but that’s just me. I mean we could have had The Mummy 2 in space, guys. ROBBED! Someone write that AU, please.

And can we just talk about Adam Driver’s acting for a moment? I mean, the boy is phenomenal. He goes from being one person to being a completely different one effortlessly. From the moment he throws the light saber in the sea, his mannerisms and physicality is so different. It’s amazing. Kudos to him. Absolutely. Oscar worthy! He does it without having any lines whatsoever apart from ‘ow.’ And I like Ben Solo and I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of him. He’s so Han’s boy, so Han’s boy. Love that! He’s an awesome character in his good boy sweater. (Love the sweater and while we’re on the subject, could him and Chris Evans have a sweater off with the good boy sweater and the white knit sweater please?)

Hey, Luke got to raise a X Wing finally. That’s the kind of fan service I’m talking about.

One of my favorite parts of the movie actually was the whole Jedi from the past bit. Mostly because I saw my boy Kanan getting his recognition and rightful spot as one of the great Jedi, up there with Obi Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka! I also loved Ahsoka being there and the other Clone Wars greats. Really cool. I do kind of wish they had included Ezra, too, but that’s just me loving on my Space Blueberry! And wishing James Arnold Taylor who put so much into Obi Wan could have at least done Plo Koon since Ewan took his place as Obi Wan. Either way, that was the only homage and respect paid to the other two trilogies and the Star Wars legend in general. The only acknowledgement of how much sacrifice and history went into this franchise before now.

Now…can Rey kill Palps now and not have his spirit go into her because he’d already made himself revitalized with their dyad energy or was it because no ritual had been done? Just wondering. Or was it a loophole since all she did was defend herself and his own lightning killed him?

There’s a lot about energy and healing and the Force in this and so you can speculate all over the place about what the rules are. (You’d think in the Clone Wars healing each other would have been a thing!) And since we’ve never deal with a dyad before, we don’t know how it works. But it really kind of feels like even with how drained both of them were after Palps took their bond…it either should have been returned to them when he died or their combined energy should have been able to keep both of them alive. Or something. Two in one means connection and honestly, I feel like both of them should have died or both of them should have lived.

I know a lot of people think it was the perfect end for Ben because he redeemed himself (like Anakin) and there would have been no place for him in the galaxy after all the evil Kylo had done. (Much less if you read the comics!) But I’m a sucker for a redemption story and I think the hardest punishment always is to face your past and work through what you’ve done instead of taking the easy way out of death (not having to actually atone). I think it’s a beautiful potential for forgiveness and grace and realizing none of us can really save ourselves.

And whatever you think of Kylo/Ben or his ending, it’s clear something was changed at the last minute. There’s a whole lot of editing done on that last scene when he revives her and they kiss and on Tattoine. There are apparently screen tests people swear they saw where he didn’t die. I won’t go into the scene analysis some Reylos have, but jaw moving and talking on Rey shots that were cut, it looking more natural for her to have been pulling him back up rather than him falling down, it looks like his hand is the one in the burying lightsaber scene… He was obviously supposed to live at some point and why they changed their minds, I don’t know. He is one of the most popular characters and they lost a cash cow when they killed him off. Silly idiots.

As far as Rey goes, I also think that’s terribly unfair, to give her the connection she’s been yearning for her whole life and instead of giving her a future, you stick her back on a sand infested planet, sliding down in a parallel to TFA, and burying the past sabers, and being alone. I know she’s still got friends and stuff but I think she won’t know her new place in all of this and she’s going to feel very lonely.

Also, where did the yellow saber come from? Did she cleanse Ben’s saber? Did she find a new kyber crystal of her own? Come on now…don’t be mysterious and weird. Normally I can take mysteries being unsolved if great care is taken to resolve relationships and characters and this trilogy and story did neither, so no love from me.

As for shipping them. I didn’t really through the first two movies. I was curious to see what would happen, but I could have gone either way. I did ship them after this one. I do love two broken people finding solace in each other. And I think there is such potential there for these characters and as a relationship that could have been done so much better and wasn’t and that’s what is the saddest thing of all.

I really have an urge to write an AU…Luke Skywalkers’ Academy for Sensitive Younglings (title patent pending) and rewrite the whole stupid thing. I fear I have neither the time nor inspiration for that. But I would dearly love to see awkward teenage versions of these characters growing up and learning and being stupid and given a chance to become the best versions of themselves. My vision of the future.

Probably in another 30 years there will be a fully formed, all ready to go evil Empire that no one has done anything to stop anyway…

So there we go. I probably have more to say but that’s all I got and that’s with taking notes!

#star wars #spoilers #text post

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callededie · 4 years

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𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐛𝐨𝐲 . i still don’t get it right sometimes , i just don’t get it as wrong . / a STARSCREECH playlist ! now streaming .

title sequence : brothers & — the wonder years ( no closer to heaven ) / edie will likely never forget that he was the one who was with pendulum when everything went wrong. to a certain extent, he knows it cannot be his fault, but there’s a voice that finds volume on dark nights or lonely mornings that are a bit too quiet. the lyrics ‘ we’re no saviors, if we can’t save our brothers ’ puts the word post deluge into context. he’s more determined than ever to make sure that those around him are safe, and that this new world he’s found doesn’t meet the same fate as the one he was born to. / we’re no saviours, if we can’t save our brothers. we’re no saviours, we’re no saviours.

personal theme : be more kind — frank turner ( be more kind ) / while it doesn’t always appear as such due to a calm and patient nature, edie is highly aware of the threats any future might bring, he’s seen a world break and knows how little it takes. his home world was not always at war; he was a hopeful kid with a decent childhood, and then things changed. he wants to help keep earth from the same fate, but the truth is he doesn’t necessarily know how to. that fate was never avoided for his people, so he has no guide or blueprints, he is only trying his best. he thinks perhaps just a little bit of kindness, however, might go a long way. / history’s been leaning on me lately, i can feel the future breathing down my neck, and all the thing i thought were true, when i was young, and you were too, turned out to be broken and i don’t know what comes next. in a world that has decided that it’s going to lose its mind, be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind

preparation [ before the battle ] : go get your gun — the deer hunter ( act ii: life and death ) / edie is a soldier, and has the mindset of one. he’s good at taking orders and will do what has to be done, and retains faith that it is all for a greater purpose. he feels guilt for those they are unable to save, but truly believes that the exemplar are doing the most good that they can. he’s never truly considered the moral implications of having justice placed in the hands a few ( albeit a few that are so carefully guided, but not with the true consent of the public ), as all the villains they’ve fought he’s seen as true threats. / go get your gun, get your gun, imposing penance one by one, you’ve got a virtue in a vice, it forces fate, you’re taking lives, with all the history to guide, you’ve got passion in those eyes, so aim it straight and true, and to those who’ll die, please try to understand, that for those who die we’ve tried the best we can

realization [ adjustment period, part i ] : dream boy — waterparks ( fandom ) / when the american public loved starscreech, edie felt like he belonged on earth. maybe he struggled with the delicacies of human interaction, but people seemed to care for him anyway. when the exemplar disbanded edie came to realize that the world loved an image that had been constructed for him, and the true version of himself was not one that garnered friends in the way he hoped. people had different expectations of america’s first alien, and those expectations were usually that he was a little more human or a little more alien. / build your expectations, saturated and inflated, ‘cause i was born to be your favorite. make me complicated, i’m modern and i’m dated, because i was born to be your favorite. build - a - boy, pick my pieces, overjoyed, never leave your heart destroyed, i’m your boy.

rationalization [ adjustment period, part ii ] : figuring it out — swmrs ( drive north ) / edie still hasn’t completely come to terms with what exemplar is, something to inspire and, more than anything, be a source of palatable nationalism. he wants it so badly to be something, for it’s what he’s hitched his identity to. he spent his time in isolation hoping for a return because it is within the context of exemplar that he understands himself, even if it is “made for mass production.” even if it was because “everybody want[ed] to be somebody” that they cared, at least they did. edie continues to rationalize the team as something great and believes a return is what he needs. / we’re just scapegoats all too dumb, body paint and day glow, where do trends go when you’re numb? when everybody wants to be somebody, they all care, and everybody wants to know themselves. we’re too scared, we’re still figuring it out. made for mass production, is it hard when you want more? was i made to function, or create, or just get bored?

promise made : fortress — mat kearney ( crazytalk ) / edie was quick to adopt earth, and more specifically america, as his purpose. this song is his promise to his new nation and its people when he arrived. when he arrived in the 70s, he was as hopeful as he was still hurting for the world he had lost, and if he could stop needless war and violence from taking even just one planet, he’ll feel as if he has done something meaningful, what he was unable to do when he was younger. however, america adopted him as much as he did it, and they were what allowed him to become the hero he wanted to be. / let me be your fortress, i’ll let you in. hideaway your secrets, i’ll carry them. you’re the one i’ve wanted to defend, if you let me be the hero i’ve never been. let me be the war already won, you can be the nation where i come from. we can be the kingdom yet to come, if you let me be the one.

the alien : burning man — dierks bentley ( the mountain ) / the most human thing about edie is how badly he wants to be, perhaps more human than anyone sees. he’s, at his core, a man who’s trying to find himself and help others. he’s calm and obedient, but he has a passion behind his somewhat robotic exterior. he’s constantly trying to both understand and emulate the human condition, without realizing that his desire to fit in is the most humanizing aspect to him. / i still don’t get it right sometimes, but i just don’t get it as wrong. i still go a little bit crazy sometimes, yeah, but now i don’t stay near as long. i’m a little bit steady, but still little bit rolling stone. i’m a little bit heaven, but still a little bit flesh and bone. little found, little don’t know where i am. i’m a little bit holy water, but still a little bit burning man.

controversy / conspiracy : made in america — waterparks ( double dare ) / for the most part, edie has been unaware ( either actually or by sheer force of will ) of the “ conspiracy ” that the exemplar were only puppets. however, that doesn’t mean that those ideas don’t impact the way people see him. to some the alien’s promise of defense and aid was cheapened by his donning of a skintight colored suit and red cape. even he thought that the team was a bit showy at times; however, to him it was a sacrifice that was made to do real good. / counting back down from showtime, and selling you a filtered frame. we, we’re made in america, we’re classic hysteria, we’re culture clashing, hazard smashing, maybe someone’s. we, we’re made in america, we’re fucked and don’t care at all. aesthetically, yeah, we’re so pleasing.

genesis : superheroes — the script ( no sound without silence ) / while it is often not seen, it is what edie experienced on his home planet that made him into a hero. it’s not that heroism is innate in his form, but something he grew to see as necessary after seeing such total destruction. / ‘cause he’s strong than you know, a heart of steel starts to grow. when you’ve been fighting for it all your life, you’ve been struggling to make things right, that’s how a superhero learns to fly. everyday, every hour, turn the pain into power.

rejection [ adjustment period, part iii ] : save myself — ed sheeran ( divide ) / between being separated from the team and the strange series of attempts at connection after the exemplar was disbanded, edie found him on unsteady ground. it was a choice to keep himself save to isolate. yet, even as he kept himself separate from the world, he hoped a new one would call to him, or ( even better ) that he would be recalled to the team, taking up the mantle he had come to wear. / and all the ones that love me, they just left me on the shelf, no farewell. so before i save someone else, i’ve got to save myself. but if i don’t, then i’ll go back, to where i’m rescuing a stranger just because they needed saving just like that.

family : one of us — new politics ( lost in translation ) / when the team was together, they were like family to edie. he had traveled across the galaxy and was alone when he came to earth. while he had taken the entirety of the earth under his wing, at least in his mind, living with the members of the exemplar was the time he felt closest to those around him. a new family to make him feel less alone, and ease the lost of his own family, his own people. edie is loyal to the team, almost in excess. he has their backs no matter what. / is this your staring role or just a cameo? who are you living for? when can’t take no more, cause when it rains, it pours. i don’t got much, but i got heart and soul. everybody needs a place to call their home, everybody needs someone to call their own, every when you’re lonely, know you’re not along. you’re one of us, one of us, one of us.

isolation : over my head ( cable car ) — the fray ( how to save a life ) / there was a small feeling of betrayal that edie felt when he realized he didn’t quite pass among humans in the way he thought he did, wishing that someone would have told him sooner. maybe then he would have been able to learn the intricacies better before he was on his own again. / i never knew that everything was falling through, that everyone i knew was waiting on a cue, to turn and run when all i needed was the truth, but that’s how it’s got to be. it’s coming down to nothing more than apathy, i’d rather run the other way than stay and see, the smoke, and who’s still standing when it clears.

return / reunion : get better — frank turner ( positive songs for negative people ) / when edie returned to hq, it was with a feeling of hope. he was sure that this was what he needed. any problems that occurred while the team was on hiatus could be fixed. he’s ready to take on whatever the world throws at them with a brave face, and he’ll encourage his teammates to do the same. / i got no new tricks, yeah i’m up on bricks, but me, i’m a machine and i was built to last. i took a battering but i’ve got thicker skin and the best people i know looking out for me. i’m trying to get better because i haven’t been my best. try and get better and don’t ever accept less. take a plain black marker and write this on your chest, draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness. come on now, let’s fix this mess. we could get better, because we’re not dead yet.

nostalgia : lost in nostalgia — the maine ( lovely little lonely ) / even though he was never sure he would answer a call that took him from earth, it was the hope that he would hear one that kept edie from focusing too much on the past. he knew he had to keep looking forward, even if that meant looking somewhere else. yet, there were certainly moments when he slipped back into thinking about the good old days, probably more than he would like to admit. / don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no, turn something softer and lighter, yeah. don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no. it’s not too late, it’s not too late.

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justatiredghost · 5 years

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Unsolved Academy Ch10

Klaus purchased a ring, never mind that it was one of those cheap candy rings, and he was determined to find a way to propose to Dave. Now he just needed a plan.

The candy ring was metaphorically burning a hole in Klaus’ pocket since he got it and he desperately needed to propose. Especially before he lost his nerve. Not that he expected Dave might turn him down, it was just that all of this still felt like such a heavy thing that it was a little terrifying. He knew with Dave it wouldn’t be, but sometimes he still felt like he could only screw all of this up. But Dave deserved this so he was determined to push through.

The only question was where he should actually ask him. It wasn’t like they had many options with their limited funds. He didn’t want to just do it in his room, their room, that just seemed lazy. He’d briefly considered proposing on camera, but he didn’t want to do that to Dave. There weren’t many things Klaus would consider private but this definitely counted. Maybe they could do a dramatic reenactment for the fans or something.

A fancy restaurant was out, there was no way Klaus could afford that. Maybe a park? What about those Botanical Gardens? It was kinda fancy, a bit cliche, but maybe it could be considered romantic. He wanted to do nice things for Dave, he deserved it, and this seemed like a pretty good excuse to try to do something new.

Unfortunately you usually had to pay to get into those. He knew it went towards maintaining the place and he was all for supporting it, but they didn’t have the extra cash right now. He gave a silent apology to all the people working there, resolving to support it when they were able, but right now he was going to break in and propose to his boyfriend in a pretty garden.

Maybe not the wisest plan but it sounded fun at least. Klaus had stolen Ben’s laptop and had spent the last few minutes reading everything he could about the closest garden. He was more the type to jump in and see how it goes, though, so there was no point in putting it off. He closed the laptop and set it on the bed beside him. His feet were in Dave’s lap and he was currently so engrossed in his book that he didn’t even look up at the sound so Klaus raised a foot to shove gently at his shoulder.

“Hey,” Klaus said. “You up for an adventure?”

That got Dave’s attention. He looked up, grin on his lips as he tossed his book aside.

“Always,” he said. “What’s the plan? Lay it on me.”

“Okay,” Klaus said, hands raised as he laid out his plan. “We’re gonna sneak into a place, but you can’t ask why.”

“Oh, a mystery,” Dave said, indulging him. “I’ll do my best not to ask too many questions, but you know I’m down.”

“Great, grab your coat,” Klaus said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and jumping to his feet. He tried to surreptitiously check the pocket of his jacket to make sure the ring was still in there. The plastic it was wrapped in crinkled and he quickly pulled his hand away, hoping Dave hadn’t noticed.

“Now?” Dave said, glancing out the window at the darkened sky but he followed suit, pulling on his coat as well.

“What are you talking about? The night is young, we have hours before sunrise,” Klaus said enthusiastically. “Let’s get this party started!”

In anticipation for this, Klaus had packed a small bag full of essentials. Well, things he thought would be fun to have at least, to enhance the whole espionage feel to the evening. Sure, he’d broken into places before and knew none of it was necessary, but that wasn’t the point. The point, as it usually was, was to make Dave laugh.

“I want to ask maybe about a million questions,” Dave said as they walked through the forest, cutting through away from the road so no one would see them. “But since you said I can’t, can I at least ask what you’ve got in the bag?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Klaus said enthusiastically. He was feeling uncharacteristically nervous and this was a welcome distraction so he stopped for a moment, dropping the bag to the ground and unzipping it, holding up each item as he talked. “I’ve got some water, gotta stay hydrated while committing crime. There’s some rope, always important, although I’m not sure why. There’s some matches because apparently I haven’t really used this bag in ages. And then we have–”

“Where’d you get a grappling hook?” Dave asked, laughing in delight as Klaus held it up.

“I’m prepared for everything, babe,” Klaus said, grinning back. “Just don’t tell Diego. I didn’t actually ask before I borrowed it.”

They continued on, but when they finally brushed through the trees at the back of the garden and came across the fence, Klaus groaned in disappointment.

“Chain link? Aww, come on,” he said. “Fuck it, I’m gonna use it anyway.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Dave asked.

“Not at all.”

Klaus spun the grappling hook around like he’d seen on TV and tossed it up, but it came in low and bounced off the fence.

“These things are harder than they look,” he grumbled when Dave laughed.

He wasn’t laughing at Klaus, though. Dave was just thoroughly enjoying the evening and the show he was putting on so Klaus decided to try again. This time he managed to get it up and over with a triumphant cheer and Dave clapped enthusiastically. Klaus pulled the rope back until a hook caught on the top of the fence. He went to try to pull himself up, but it didn’t exactly work well, the fence bending in too far and he nearly lost his footing and fell.

“I mean, it is a chain link fence,” Dave pointed out, trying not to laugh, extending a hand as if ready to try to catch him if things went bad.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Klaus waved him away as he tried to readjust his hold on the rope.

“Suit yourself,” Dave said and he ran at the fence, jumping only to smack into the side of it still practically at the bottom. He probably could have gotten higher just by stepping up onto it. The force of it caused the fence to wobble and he nearly bounced off onto the ground as well.

“Good going,” Klaus laughed.

Reluctant to give up on his grappling hook entirely, he held the rope in one hand, pretending to use it as he simply climbed up alongside Dave. They were gasping when they finally reached the top, gracelessly dropping down to the other side, but they were still laughing. Klaus staggered to his feet, shoved the grappling hook back into his bag. Then, grabbing Dave’s hand, they stumbled off towards the garden path.

Walking hand in hand, a canopy of stars above them with the full moon lighting their way; it did feel special. Mostly just because they were together. They knew they should be enjoying the view, taking in all of the exotic plant life, but they were both a little too preoccupied watching each other, talking and laughing about any little thing that came to mind. And when they did pay attention, neither of them knew anything about plants so mostly they just pointed out the funny-looking ones.

It was all so incredibly pretty, though, Klaus was beginning to doubt his plan. He had no idea where he was supposed to do this. Or when. Nothing looked right for them. Not that he disliked flowers, and maybe Dave had gone to places like this back home, but Klaus was used to crowded cities and dirty back alleys, not nature. Dave was much the same and maybe proposing in a place like this would cheapen it, make it feel less genuine because it just didn’t seem like them.

He wasn’t opposed to visiting places like this, he wanted to do all sorts of things, experience all manner of places with Dave, but this proposal was about them so maybe it should happen somewhere that was already special to them. Not that there were many places like that. They’d been through hell together, seen the ugliness that the world held, and they’d gotten through it together. But he didn’t exactly want to do it somewhere grim either. It wasn’t the bad times he wanted to celebrate, it was the getting through.

Maybe he should have just proposed back at the house, something to commemorate the quiet moments, the love and joy they’d worked so hard to build out of the hand they had been dealt. Proof that they had survived, that they had helped each other through the hard times. That was what he wanted to remember, and that was what he wanted to build towards.

“Hey,” Dave said suddenly, pulling him out of his thoughts. “You’re doing it again.”

“What?” Klaus asked, wincing at how guilty he sounded.

“Thinking too much,” Dave said, moving in close, placing a hand on Klaus’ cheek as they both stopped walking. “I don’t know what’s going on but you went through all this to get me here, you should enjoy it too. Be here with me.”

“It was nothing, really,” Klaus objected.

“No, take credit for it, it’s great.”

“Well, if you insist,” Klaus said and he knew he had to be practically beaming when Dave chuckled, his breath ghosting across his skin as they kissed.

Maybe this was okay. Maybe it would be fine to do it here. They’d worked hard, right? They deserved some peace, some beauty. They deserved to walk under the stars amongst the flowers and to be happy for a change. Things weren’t always going to be hard and they should be able to acknowledge and celebrate every bit of goodness they could find.

He should do it now before he misses his chance. Klaus had a fistful of Dave’s coat, pulling him close, so he only had one hand free to surreptitiously fish around blindly in his pockets for the ring. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he searched, suddenly feeling much too nervous again. Reaching awkwardly to the opposite side, he finally managed to find the ring but was interrupted before he could pull it free.

“Hey!”

The voice caught them by surprise and they jerked apart, startled. Off down the path was someone with a flashlight. Did this place have security guards? Klaus supposed it made sense. He probably should have looked into that beforehand.

“Who’s there?” the figure called again.

Still holding onto Dave’s coat, Klaus pulled him off the path and into the bushes and flowers, laughing. Dave was tense at first, but as the two of them sprinted through, Klaus heard him join in on his gleeful

“Life with you really is an adventure,” Dave said, leaning his head against Klaus’ shoulder as they stumbled down the sidewalk, laughing and out of breath. Thankfully they’d managed to lose the guard so they didn’t have to run anymore and were still giggly after the high of adrenaline.

“I honestly can’t believe we got away,” Klaus said, squeezing Dave’s hand.

“It was kind of a close call,” Dave said. Klaus could tell he was itching to say more, but he’d agreed not to ask questions.

“Hey, you hungry?” Klave asked. He knew he should just hurry up and ask, but now he really didn’t know where to do it. Maybe he’d just wait until they got home.

“Starving,” Dave said.

“McDonalds it is!” Klaus said, pumping his fist in the air. “How are you doing, by the way? I’m pretty used to trespassing and 3am trips for chicken nuggets, but I’m not sure how much of that you’ve done.”

“I’ve done my fair share,” Dave said with a smile, swinging their clasped hands back and forth in a gentle motion. “But with you? I’m doing great,”

They fell uncharacteristically quiet as they walked and he knew Dave had to be wondering what was up. Klaus should have been talking to distract him, but he just couldn’t help it. The closer he got to proposing, the more he felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest. It was stupid but the more time went by, the guiltier he felt keeping secrets from Dave too, even if it was supposed to be a good surprise. He just hated having something he couldn’t talk to him about. They shared everything.

At least the food would be a nice distraction and would hopefully help Klaus recover his nerves. McDonalds was locked this late at night so they walked through the drive through before sitting down in the parking lot to eat. They talked about nothing in particular, joking and laughing, but they were both more subdued than usual.

“I’ve had such an amazing time with you tonight,” Dave said eventually into a particularly long pause, and he sounded so earnest.

“But?” Klaus prompted, because these things always seemed to come with a ‘but.’ Even after everything they’d been through, his gut reaction was to expect the worst. Was this it? Was he going to break up with him? He berated himself for always jumping to that but maybe it was better than being blindsided.

“No!” Dave said, quick to reassure. “No, no ‘but’s or anything, it’s just– since I met you, every day has been an adventure. And I don’t just mean when we go out and do random shit like this, I just mean you constantly surprise me and I’m always finding more reasons to love you and to love this life we’ve built together. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, I just wasn’t sure how but this seems like a good a time as any, so–”

Dave got down on one knee and Klaus covered his mouth as a surprised strangled sound escaped him. Dave’s words got faster and faster as nerves took over, obviously in a hurry to get to the end.

“And I know marriage is an institution and it doesn’t really mean anything beyond a symbol of the things we’ve already talked about creating in a future together, so it’s not necessary, but–”

“Yes! Oh my god, yes,” Klaus said, unable to wait in his excitement as he launched himself forward, nearly knocking Dave down with the force of his hug. “I haven’t even asked yet” Dave laughed into their kiss.

“Oh, right, yes,” Klaus said, standing back up and composing himself, wiping at an eyes he was so close to crying with joy and he didn’t care that he probably just smudged his eyeliner.

“Klaus Hargreeves,” Dave said with a deep breath, readjusting so he was on his knees again. “I’ve known that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you since Vietnam. I never thought I’d meet someone as wonderful as you, or that I could ever be so happy–”

“Oh my god, hurry up,” Klaus said, waving his arms, starting to tear up again.

“You have made me the happiest man in the world and I would be honored to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

He pulled out a small plastic package with large yellow writing across the front.

RingPop.

This one blue with red dye crackling through it like they’d mixed the two colors.Klaus almost started laughing, he couldn’t believe his eyes. How had he been lucky enough to find someone this amazing?

“Oh my god!” Klaus exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I can’t believe you!”

“What?” Dave said, looking a little alarmed and Klaus felt a bit guilty for that. “I thought you’d find it funny.”

Klaus sat down beside him as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his own RingPop.

“Wait,” Dave said. “Wait, wait, wait, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m totally not,” Klaus said, laughing now. “The whole reason I took you to the garden was because I wanted to propose. How are you this perfect? I fucking love you.”

“I fucking love you more,” Dave said, laughing as he leaned into Klaus, kissing him.

“Impossible but I’ll let you believe it if it makes you feel better. Fuck, though! All that work and I can’t believe you beat me to it.”

“Wait, no, you have to propose to me next,” Dave said excitedly.

“No, no, you won fair and square,” Klaus sighed in defeat but he was still grinning.

“Damn right I did, which is why you have to now,” he said as he jumped to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting expectantly.

“Shouldn’t I at least wait until you’re least expecting it?”

“I will not have you barging into the bathroom when I’m trying to pee just so you can catch me off guard. Just do it now, I can’t take the suspense!”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Klais said, laughing as he got down on one knee and took a big deep, stealing himself. “Fuck, I had this whole speech lined up but I can’t remember any of it. Just, I love you and I love this whole ‘us’ thing we’ve got going on. And I want to keep being an ‘us’ for the rest of my life. So, David Katz, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” Dave said with barely contained joy.

He dropped to his knees and the two of them crouched there together, a surprisingly intimate moment as they removed the rings from their plastic wrap and slipped them on each other’s fingers, leaning into each other just for an excuse to continue touching.

“Would you look at that jewel,” Klaus said, holding his hand up as if to catch the light. “Give me your hand for a sec, I want to see how it looks on you too.”

Dave obliged and held out his hand. Klaus took it and raised it up as if to examine it. Instead, though, he stuck the RingPop into his mouth.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Dave objected, laughing as he pulled his hand away. “Besides, shouldn’t we, I dunno, save them?”

Klaus shrugged as he started sucking on his own ring, making an ‘I don’t know’ sound around the large lollipop in his mouth. Dave shrugged as well and started sucking on his as they both sat back down on the curb.

“Hey,” Dave said, wrapping his arm across his shoulder and Klaus did the same, hand resting on his back. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Klaus said, leaning into him.

“Let me try yours,” Dave said and Klaus snatched his hand away.

“No, it’s mine!”

“Fine, then, I’ll just eat your fries.”

“Looks like I’ll have to eat your chicken nuggets then.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

(Next chapter)

#Klaus hargreeves #Dave Katz #klave #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #fanfic #unsolved academy #my fic

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humanspacesuits-blog · 4 years

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How To Treat Infectious Diseases: OZONE

Wondering how you can treat and even prevent communicable diseases?

Today’s medicine you should always have in your cabinet is: Ozone.

If you knew of a molecular compound that was anti-inflammatory, an anti-oxidant, an antitbiotic, boosts the immune system, boosts the gut microbiome, boosts the metabolism, aids proper circulation of the blood, increases cognitive function, increases stem cell production and tissue reparation, provides food/energy for every cell in the body, repairs the endocrine system, heals nearly all infections, heals a variety of illnesses, relieves a variety of ailments, and more...would you use it? Most notably in today’s topic at hand, it is scientifically proven to be an extremely efficacious treatment against all bacterias, fungi, viruses, yeasts, and protozoas, including antibiotic resistant infections.

This compound is O3 (a compound of three oxygen molecules,) or ozone. We usually find oxygen compounds with just one or two oxygen molecules like carbon monoxide, CO, and hydrogen dioxide, H2O, because O3 is incredibly unstable and readily parts with its extra oxygen molecule, eliminating free radicals as it absorbs into the bloodstream. This means ozone is a highly reactive and extremely fast acting medicine. Ozone therapies available for your medicine cabinet come in two methods of delivery: ozonated oils and ozonated water. (There are more ways for administering ozone therapy but if you want to look into them, make sure you have a quality medical provider on board with your journey and the advanced therapy’s administration.) Using ozone is easy, affordable, safe, and error proof, without the laundry list of side effects and unavoidable mutations that pharmaceuticals cause. If you’re only able to afford one tool in your medicine cabinet, this is The One.

“Starting from the demonstrated evidence that our immune system produces O3 by antibodies to dispatch their bactericidal activity, it is clear the importance of its anti-pathogen role against bacteria (both Gram-positive and Gram-negative), fungi, virus, yeast and protozoa. In bacteria, O3 disrupts the integrity of the bacterial cell wall through oxidation of phospholipids and lipoproteins. As this occurs, the stability of the bacterial cell envelope is attenuated. In fungi, O3 inhibits their growth interacting in the same way as bacteria. In viruses, O3 damages the viral capsid and breaks the reproductive cycle by disrupting the contact between the virus and the cell through the process of peroxidation. The cells vulnerable to the invasion of viruses are coated with weak enzymes, susceptible to oxidation and can be eliminated from the body when interacting with O3.”

This excerpt is from a great study that was just published a few days ago, I highly recommend you read it for a full overview of what all ozone does.

Ozonated water is arguably the best form of delivery for most treatments. You can buy an affordable, quality, small machine online. Our ozone generator has supplied my family with years of medicine and clean water/air for less than $75. Get one! Making the water is as simple as plugging the machine in, putting the diffuser stone into a glass or jug of cold water, and selecting the time setting needed. (For my generator) two minutes will get you a glass of ozonated water, thirty will get you a gallon. You can then drink this water, apply it to or soak a target area, clean and sterilize objects, apply it to burns and cuts, treat plants with it, treat animals with it, use it on your hair, soak your produce in it, and more.

I have this ozone generator.

Ozonated water alone is sufficient to kill almost all pathogens after 30 seconds. In a world of constantly developing infectious diseases, noninfectious diseases, antibiotic resistant infections, and antimicrobial resistant infections, ozone is an irreplaceable tool. What is more accepted and utilized in the body than water and oxygen? Utilizing O3 in the body is the natural aid for reparations. There are nearly no known side effects from use of ozonated water and it does not damage most anything else that isn’t damaged by water, either.

Putting this in a real life perspective: when you go to the doctor for a Staph or MRSA infection, they will prescribe you an antibiotic to take for 30 days. The CDC recommends antibiotics that in over a handful of options, no more than 87% efficacy is expected. These antibiotics also have a long list of side effects and are perpetuating the issue of Antibiotic Resistant Threats. When I got a staph infection, the doctor prescribed me a bottle of pills for me to take one a day for the next 30 days, and if it didn’t work, I should come back and get more. Ozonated water is clinically proven to heal staph infections in 60 seconds. I was camping at the time and used ozonated oil. Ozonated oil is clinically proven to heal staph infections in 15 minutes. My large infection in several different areas was entirely cleared up in 3 days of bi-daily ozonated olive oil application, maybe a total of 1/2 teaspoon used and my skin looked better than before I got the infection even.

Ozonated oils are good to keep on hand in cases such as camping and on-the-go when you don’t want to (or can’t) prepare ozonated water. Yes, there are machines that you could buy to ozonate your own oil but quality machines cost several thousands of dollars and until you’re fully familiar with this medicine, its probably easiest to just buy a jar of ozonated oil from a quality supplier. Smaller machines (like the one I have) are technically able to ozonate oil but in order to get the concentration we’re seeking, they would be heavily overworked even just to get close. I can’t emphasize enough how important sourcing integrity is for ozonated oils - you don’t want to be paying for diluted ozone masking as miracle products (ozone is a superior product in itself, additives cheapen it) and you don’t want to be paying for unsaturated/partially ozonated oils (a red flag for this poor quality is when a company lists how long their oils are ozonated for.) A good company to avoid is Ozoned Organics.

I use this ozonated olive oil, ozonated coconut oil, ozonated castor oil, and ozonated hemp oil.

The different oils used do make a difference in how saturated the ozone is, so sensitivities should be taken into consideration when using different strengths. Ozonated hempseed oil has the highest level of saturation/strength so I like to consider it for use as a very specific as need basis. Ozonated coconut oil has the lowest level of saturation/strength so I like to consider it great for nearly anything, especially with small children/babies, the elderly, and sensitive parts like the genitals - keep in mind coconut oil is also the most agreeable flavor for oral use or ingestion. Ozonated olive oil is a good “medium” level of saturation/strength so I like to consider it my basic go-to and you’ll find our family using it daily, which is great because a 2oz jar still always lasts us longer than a month. You can also use specific oils for their individual benefits, such as castor oil is great for hair and jojoba oil is great for skin.

A couple of things to pay attention to when you’re first using ozone internally is that you may experience parasite die-off, which is never fun for anyone. Thankfully, parasite die-off from ozonated water is generally very brief and lasts about 15-30 minutes after your first glass of water and doesn’t happen again. So actually this is a great option, in my opinion, and I would recommend using ozonated water to boost any other parasite cleanse treatment! The parasite die-off from ozonated oil is different and the headaches in particular can last longer and continue with continued use until the parasites in your body are entirely dead/removed. After your initial use, you’ll notice fairly immediate effects of die-off if you are going to have them. Your reaction will correspond with the location of the parasites; if you have parasites in your intestines, you will vomit; if you have parasites in your colon, you will have diaherria, if you have parasites in your brain, you will have a headache. Again, these are usually mild and brief, but its still good to be aware of so you can properly prepare and have some time set aside in a comfortable place before the first time you ingest ozone.

Another note is that yes, this ozone is the same as what is surrounding our planet and yes, it is not safe for us to breathe as a gas. When you’re using a machine, you want to set it up in a room that you can leave while the machine is running. The escaping gases will clean the air in your room, so this is particularly beneficial for those of us with sensitive respiratory systems. I like to have a more permanent ozonation station setup in the bathroom but also an easy station to setup in every room - ozone is way better at making a room fresh than aerosol sprays, wax melts, essential oils, and the like.

On the other hand, ozonated oil is extremely beneficial to breathe. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is by applying ozone along and into the nostrils. A quick swirl around and into the nostrils will instantly aid with most breathing related stresses. You might have ozone boogers for a while, which is just a sign that you’re receiving residual benefits. As an asthmatic, I use this to help stop wheezing and whenever there is wildfire smoke or poor air quality where I am. We also apply this to our noses anytime we’re feeling in the slightest bit sick as well as whenever we know our breathing could use a little boost, like when its particularly cold out or if we’re adventuring in higher elevations. Its also really fantastic to put on before exercising, stretching, or meditating.

I like to oil pull with ozonated oil and brush my teeth with ozonated water (making sure to spit it out afterwards so all of the inactivated gunk goes down the drain instead of into your body, and into the trash can if using oil so it doesn’t clog up the drains.) I like to soak my produce in ozonated water for 30 minutes to remove any residues, kill any pathogens, and better preserve the produce so they last longer before going bad. I like to clean with ozonated water, and am constantly amazed at how ozonated water will lift stains like a fake commercial. I like to use ozonated oil on wood products that require oil treatments like cutting boards, wooden utensils, and handmade goodies. I like to pour ozonated water in my hair during a shower and use ozonated oil as a regular treatment on all hair (including my pits!) I like to use ozonated water as a genital rinse for adults/children for any sort of funk going on down under, and ozonated oil is a great diaper rash or genital ointment for any use. I like to fill up a sprayer with ozonated water and spray down plants just once right before they transition from the vegetative state to the fruiting/flowering state to ensure the plants are healthy and able to easily achieve maximum production. I like to soak my medical equipment (i.e. my nebulizer parts) in ozonated water for 30 minutes. I like to apply ozonated oil onto any cuts or scars I have to watch them disappear after a handful of applications (this includes stretch marks!) I have gotten chronic stress rashes since I was a child that have never been treatable for me but now I like to use ozonated oil any time I have any sort of rash and it is always cleared up within a few days - its actually recommended to use ozonated oil to treat adverse reactions from pharmaceuticals even.

Whenever I hear of an ailment, my first thought is “does ozone help that?” Most of the time, it does, and it is always the answer when considering any of the communicable diseases. You can know, with confidence based on published and peer reviewed unbiased science, that any of the fad diseases projected by the media or the CDC are treatable with ozone. You can assume that after 1 minute under ozonated water a target area will be disinfected - shoot for a 30 minute soak and you’re invoking some of the most the powerful self care possible. You can assume that after 30 minutes under ozonated oil a target area will be disinfected - shoot for applying a thin layer of ozonated oil two or three times a day (or anytime a target area feels dried, itchy, or uncomfortable) until all signs of infection are gone. Pay attention! You will likely be able to see this stuff working before your eyes. I kid you not that you can be bleeding, apply this stuff, and watch yourself not only stop bleeding but the red blood cells get reabsorbed into your circulating bloodstream. This is scientifically demonstrated! Its phenomenal and you can rest assured your family’s health is protected as long as you have ozone on hand.

We also drink ozonated water daily, anywhere from a glass to a gallon or more per person depending on how we’re feeling and what’s going on with us. The most exciting part of drinking ozonated water is the burps as you can literally feel your body breathing from the inside out, almost like a fish, as the extra oxygen is expressed through your lungs. You’ll enjoy knowing your immune system has an extra strength booster that is entirely beneficial for your body. Ozone is safe for you, safe for your children, safe for your pets, safe for your neighbors. It’d be a shame for the CDC and the pharmaceutical industry to lose all the money they make off the general public from all of their drug sales but give yourself the power of your health back and start using ozonated water and ozonated oils. You can easily achieve medical independency regarding infectious diseases and much more.

Don’t take my word for it! I do have anecdotal experience to share my own personal experiences that myself, my family, and my friends have had but I am not a doctor and I cannot legally provide you medical advice. Check out these published medical studies, learn up on the subject until you have a good understanding of the full concept of ozone, and then do further independent research of your own. I’d love to hear what you think if you do try ozonated water and/or oil out, what your experiences have been if you already use it, if you have any questions before you try it out, and if you have anything at all to add to this discussion!

Until next time, find me in the moon, fellow time traveler.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31982474 “Molecular mechanisms in cognitive frailty: potential therapeutic targets for oxygen-ozone treatment” Scassellati C, Ciani M, Galoforo AC, Zanardini R, Bonvicini C, Geroldi C. Mech Ageing Dev. 2020 March

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20802424 “Antimicrobial activity of ozonated water” Białoszewski D, Bocian E, Bukowska B, Czajkowska M, Sokół-Leszczyńska B, Tyski S. Med Sci Monit. 2010 September

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31986325 “Topical Ozone Therapy Restores Microbiome Diversity in Atopic Dermatitis” Zeng J, Dou J, Gao L, Xiang Y, Huang J, Ding S, Chen J, Zeng Q, Luo Z, Tan W, Lu J. Int Immunopharmacol. 2020 March

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29207120 “The Antibacterial Effect of Topical Ozone on the Treatment of MRSA Skin Infection” Song M, Zeng Q, Xiang Y, Gao L, Huang J, Huang J, Wu K, Lu J Mol Med Rep. 2018 February

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23579036 “Topical ozonated oil versus hyaluronic gel for the treatment of partial- to full-thickness second-degree burns: A prospective, comparative, single-blind, nonrandomized, control clinical trial.” Campanati A, De Blasio S, Giuliano A, Ganzetti G, Giuliodori K, Pecora T, Consales V, Minnetti I, Offidani A. Burns. 2013 September

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925969 “Oxidizing Effect of Ozonated-Water on Microbial Balance in the Oral Ecosystem” Razak FA, Musa MY, Abusin HAM, Salleh NM J Coll Physicians Surg Pak. 2019 April

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32024131 “Spraying Ozonated Water on Bobal Grapevines: Effect on Wine Quality” Campayo A, Serrano de la Hoz K, García-Martínez MM, Salinas MR, Alonso GL. Biomolecules. 2020 February

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30996448 “Application of an environmentally friendly preventive measure for the preservation of fresh vegetables” Paulikienė S, Raila A, Žvirdauskienė R, Zvicevičius E. J Food Sci Technol. 2019 April

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30896566 “Effect of ozonated water on normal vaginal micro ecology and Lactobacillus” Zhang QQ, Zhang L, Liu Y, Wang Y, Chen R, Huang ZY, Lyu T, Liao QP. Chin Med J (Engl). 2019 May

#coronavirus #aware #notscared #healthcare #selfcare #ozone #ozonatedwater #ozonatedoil #natural #medicine #science #antibiotics #infectiousdiseases #prepared #informed #healthy #happy #humanspacesuits

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myassbrokethefall · 5 years

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OK, my GoT thoughts under the cut. Summary: Motivations technically understandable/justifiable; execution bad/dramatically unsatisfying/anticlimactic/baffling.

Essentially: I can buy what happened to Dany and I can accept the ending for Jaime, but the way the show got to both of those points makes no sense to me, and undercut the effectiveness and the meaning severely for both.

Dany: Was I expecting this character to just fly into King's Landing with her giant terrifying dragon(s), roar at Cersei, peacefully take the kingdom, and have a parade thrown for her as she happily fulfills her destiny? No.

Am I mad that we got a "mad queen" arc? I am not. One might almost say it was inevitable and has been foreshadowed with every word of the show and the books since the beginning.

But I was expecting SOMETHING redemptive, not just "Dany goes crazy and kills everyone for no reason." I also was looking forward to clash of the two queens, both crazy for power and increasingly unstable in their attempts to hold onto it, and for it to become clear that Cersei was irretrievably gone to the dark side, and Dany was not. I was expecting Dany's reckoning with her "mad" side to involve her somehow overcoming it, or trying to overcome it, even if in some small symbolic way that ultimately ended in tragedy for her. Not just her...becoming evil, full stop.

This entire season has felt super rushed, and I also am annoyed that we have had TWO hour-and-a-half episodes almost entirely dedicated to battles. When there is so much shit to get done!!! Character arcs are getting short shrift but we gotta have all the gore and destruction, not just in one episode, but in two episodes, directed by the same dude who is their “battles” guy I guess. Having this battle almost cheapens the other battle. I was like, remember when we all united against the ice zombies and humans finally prevailed, and it showed all these other conflicts to be ultimately petty and meaningless in comparison to the fight against death and existential (and literal, lol) darkness? That de-escalated quickly.

So it's not that I didn't want Dany to go mad or I think that was impossible. But it felt very pointless the way it was executed, and felt like it happened because it's the end of the series, not because anything particularly organic made it happen in this moment. (Yes, she lost two dragons and Missandei and Jorah, and Jon froze her out. Her changing her whole personality into a crazed murderer of civilians -- in the face of a victory, no less -- still made no sense to me.) Like I could see her going crazy on the city if they threw rocks at her or something after she was like "I just killed Cersei, you simple dumbasses! I LIBERATED YOU! LOVE ME!!!! I'M THE GOOD RULER!! OK FUCK YOU THEN!!" But to be flying around, basically accomplish her goal of taking the city, and then suddenly be like "Rarrr, Dany go crazy! Because Targaryen blood! Kill all humans!" It's not like Cersei even likes the humans; we spent a long time establishing that she doesn't give a fuck about the people. There was no reason, to my mind, that Dany snapping would involve her burning the whole city that she's fought to get for so long. It felt like it was for shock value, both at the loss of life and at us going "omg Dany was the villain all along!" But it did not, to me, feel earned. Just baffling and disappointing.

If anything I thought CERSEI would do some huge evil gesture to pointlessly fuck the city just to go out in a blaze of glory, and Dany would fight AGAINST her own nascent rageahol Targaryen feelings and experience character growth and transcend her fate in order to try to prevent that from happening. Or NOT ultimately be able to do that, but at least make a gesture towards such a thing. It was just weird the way it happened. And I don't see how Dany can come back from this, as a character, and that is disappointing because we've invested so much in her. It's really deflating. It's just like, oh, I guess Dany is bad now. She was a crazy Targaryen after all! Everybody thought she might go mad, and now she did. D'oh. But it's a weird and oddly anticlimactic ending for such a character. (I realize it hasn't ended yet, but I don't think redemption is in the cards for her after this episode.)

(Also, what was Varys, etc.'s basis for suddenly deciding that she bout to go crazy and we can't trust her? Her being impatient to get to King's Landing and get going on the sacking last week? Arguably she should have let the armies rest, and I took Sansa's side in that argument, but you could make a case for Dany’s side as well, which was essentially "sure, we're tired, but if we wait longer they'll also regroup and it will be even more difficult, let's just get this the fuck done already." That to me doesn't say "I'm dangerously unstable and everyone knows it!" so much as "Our military strategies differ!")

OK. So what I was expecting was Dany versus Cersei, both power-mad, both not wanting to back down, but one of them at her essence having a heart that truly does care about justice (the beat of these warring impulses within her has been struck MANY times with Dany's character) and managing to see through the power-lust fog to remember that. Whether too late or not, for that to happen in some capacity. And this also ties into Jaime's arc.

I wasn't upset when Jaime heard about shit going down in King's Landing last week and decided that his happy chill Winterfell life with Brienne wasn't going to be that easy and he had to go back to fix the mess he helped make and sever his connection with his twin once and for all. (I mean, I kinda was, but I was like, yeah, I can see that this has to happen.) And he was fucking pissed about it and he was all, this is my shit too, I'm an asshole who has done bad stuff that I have never really atoned for, as this jaghole in the rolly chair keeps reminding me, I can't be with you until I get back in the mud with her and end it once and for all. That is where I ASSUMED they were going. And I think they sort of were, but it didn't end up that way at all.

So what I thought was going to happen was Jaime would get to the city, insinuate himself in somehow, get to Cersei, and talk her down. Or make an attempt. That this was how Jaime would finally cement his redemption, as the only person who could reach Cersei. I thought all the "I'm bad, I've done bad things, I'm as bad as she was" was him essentially being pissed that this was his task. When Tyrion was going on about you can escape and get in a dinghy and start a new life together with your incest baby, I thought, oh dear sentimental (perhaps not in an entirely in-character way) Tyrion, Jaime is going to go and KILL her ass and not a moment too soon. He knows that the blood on her hands is on his hands as well. He doesn't want to start a B&B with her in Europe; he needs to cut the cord, to use an apt metaphor. He doesn't want to, and he's dreading it, but he's the only one who can make it happen because he's the closest to her and she trusts him and he's the only hope of saving the city. He may hold her and TELL her that they can escape, and might even say "oh yeah babe there's totally a dinghy waiting for us if we can just get through the tunnels," and then he's going to stab her in the gut and avert that battle that I dumbly thought they would not stage an entire second one of after they just had one two episodes ago. Jaime the kingslayer, who slayed the queen as well, his own sister, but he had to do it and now he's finally fully redeemed. Even Dany who didn’t trust him will see that he was ultimately the only one who could do what had to be done.

If Jaime died in THAT process I wouldn't be surprised. Like if Cersei fought him and he had to somehow sacrifice them both (a la the Cleganes) in order to get her to die, he would do it, and that would be tragic but meaningful. Or if he dispatched Cersei and THEN got buried by the collapsing castle or whatever, he had accomplished his mission but it was too late for him. Hell, maybe they even make it to the fabled dinghy of redemption and he's talked himself into the idea that he can control her, and then he has second thoughts and drowns her or something because he knows he will never be free if she's alive, and neither will the world because she will always lust for power. OR EVEN if, at the last minute, he gets sucked back into her orbit and he's like "bitch we ARE gonna escape!!! WE CAN START ANEW, IT'S ALL LIKE WE DREAMED" and then she kills him or something but at the last second some shit that he puts in motion causes her to die and the city is saved that way.

But what I was NOT expecting is Jaime to be told "go get her, put her in a boat, start a new life together!" and just like, DO that, or try to. To just apparently shrug off the whole Brienne thing and get to Cersei and be like "hi baby! I missed you" and "let's hug" and then they just die in the castle FOR NO PURPOSE. It didn't redeem Jaime, it didn't tragically NOT redeem Jaime, Jaime just sort of went back there just in time to die with nothing resolved. What is the point of watching this character grow over the seasons and then be like "well I guess he realized he had to go back and die with Cersei because THEY ARE TWINS" (pretty much what the showrunners said). Yes, They Are Twins, which is why it's tragic to have one kill the other, or for him to outgrow her, or for him to give up a promise of happiness to go back and put a stop to her evil deeds because he's the only one who can. What I'm saying is, it's not the tragedy per se that I object to! But to just be like, well, he came back to her because remember they were incest twins and they love each other! They died, the end, is just...such a weird anticlimactic way to do it. “He couldn’t escape her orbit after all; that’s the tragedy!” I guess, but to me that was not supported at all in the rest of Jaime’s arc. It felt like we were pointedly amassing evidence that he WOULD be able to escape her orbit in the final inevitable confrontation. And then that just didn’t come up at all.

And I love Brienne and I loved them together but like, I don't care THAT much, this isn't a shipper thing. I'm not surprised that Jaime ended up dying. It just makes no sense for the character for it to happen the way it did. I kept thinking we were going one way and then something would happen where I'd be like "huh??" As with my old friend Christopher Carter, I can't tell if they just didn't convey what they were supposed to be conveying (maybe Jaime WAS supposed to be intending to kill her, or to do SOMETHING other than just go back to hang out? and it didn't come through?) or if they just legit wrote it like that. Like the Brienne storyline was just a way to pass the time before the timer went off and they had to cut all that short and dump it in a drawer and get Jaime back to King's Landing so he could die with Cersei because once they thought of that ending scene 5 years ago or something.

I mean: Jaime was the Kingslayer. We were reminded of that A LOT, and also of the fact that the king he killed was Dany's father, and that Dany's father was "mad" and evil, and Jaime killed him ultimately to protect the city, and then got shit for this for the rest of his life.

And we are also shown that Dany is becoming a Mad Queen, who may be about to follow in her father's footsteps after all.

And Jaime goes to all this trouble to get back to the city, where almost these same events are playing out all over again. And...

...Jaime just goes to hang out with Cersei? And then dies? How is there not a whole situation where there is SOME parallel to the Kingslayer thing that we keep being reminded of and that is repeating itself? Such as:

Jaime slays a Mad Queen, but it's Cersei, not Dany.

Jaime has a chance to slay a Mad Queen, Dany (we've literally already had a conversation about this a few eps ago, that she was worried this would happen), but instead he is able to reach her and show her that she is different from her father and it DOESN'T have to play out this way.

Jaime has a chance to slay a Mad Queen (either could work) and prevent the destruction of the city, again, but this time he makes the other choice and doesn’t do it, and it results in tragedy.

Jaime, transformatively humanized and experiencing non-incestuous love for the first time and no longer at the top of his fighting game, no longer has the killer instinct to pull the metaphorical trigger on slaying whichever queen, and Tyrion pops in to do the job for him.

Like any of these things would have made more dramatic sense than what happened, which was, NOTHING. Jaime doesn't even get near Dany and once he gets to Cersei he's just like "hi! time to die I guess" and then they die.

(Maybe something along these lines will happen in the finale? Again, I'm not sure how at this point.) (I suppose it's not IMPOSSIBLE that Jaime could be pulled out of the rubble, but if he is Cersei might be too, and I am REALLY done with Cersei and do not want to dedicate the finale to trying to kill her YET AGAIN.)

Anyway. I was being flip about male showrunners yesterday but honestly, it feels like they are like, let's just wrap this all up fast so we can have 1.5 hours of battle scene. THE PEOPLE NEED A(NOTHER) BATTLE EPISODE.

It WAS cool seeing Drogon FINALLY destroy the Iron Fleet, but literally, why didn't Dany do that last episode. I couldn't enjoy it because that continues to be so baffling to me.

This is longer than I intended; oh well.

#got #got spoilers #game of thrones spoilers #lol i put dividers in to attempt to impose some structure on this because it's as long as the waste land #also: i still maintain that the fact we can discuss this in such depth puts it above the incomprehensible nonsense of chris carter #in which there is no 'there' there #which is not to say i'm not feeling grateful again today that m&s both survived the series finale #(cc does have a sentimental streak that i appreciate) (though also a vindictive streak)#at least in a top-level sense of the characters not being written as having died #if not in the sense of the fictional world holding sufficiently to make it feel that it was all real and they existed #the neverending stooooryyyyyy da da da da da da da da da #i don't know what i'm talking about it's time to get back to work

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ryanmeft · 5 years

Text

What Not To Do in Avengers: Endgame

There’s a lot of theories floating around about what might happen in Avengers: Endgame, the just trailer-ized sequel/part II thingy to Avengers: Infinity War, and the end of the line one way or another for a lot of MCU characters. Some of these theories are wishful thinking and some are a little out there, but few are talking about the biggest issue concerning this movie: it would be very, very easy to ruin it. The hype is huge at this point, and Marvel and the Russo brothers need to deliver a movie that feels like it has impact, even if it IS all grown adults in tights punching other grown adults in tights.

To wit, here’s what needs to NOT happen in Avengers: Endgame. Don’t... Return the “really” dead characters to life

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos managed to accomplish his most cherished goal: figuring out which insurance provider really does offer the best choices for himself and his family. He was so happy about this that he was all eureka and snapped his fingers, and half the population of the universe died. This included most of the heroes in the MCU. A few people, however, died without being subjected to The Decimation (that’s what Marvel’s calling it, a fact we know because apparently two or three people actually read tie-in novels). Of those, Idris Elba’s Heimdall will certainly not be back; he’s become a big star since he took the role, and a scepter through the chest was his ticket out of a bit part he’s outgrown. Vision will probably return in some capacity; the planned Scarlet Witch mini-series would be kind of bland without him as her partner, and his death came near the end of the movie, anyway.

Loki and Gamora had a bit more dramatic exit. Loki was choked to death slowly in front of his brother Thor in a surprisingly gruesome scene, having just made a brave-but-poorly-thought-out attempt to assassinate Thanos. He’s got a mini-series coming, too, but it really needs to be set in the past: his death was the perfect ending for his popular character, who always made the cold and calculating decision but ultimately died due to an act of emotional anger for his people and brother. Tom Hiddleston’s been seen on set, either because Marvel is faking us out or because a younger version of him is seen via time travel, but to undo his perfect demise would irreversibly cheapen his character arc. A lot of people expected Loki to eat dirt in Infinity War, as he’d been taken about as far in his story as he could be. Gamora was another matter; pretty much nobody expected the death of the second-in-command of the Guardians of the Galaxy (she’s really the boss, of course, but it’s better to let a guy who calls himself Star-Lord have his fantasy). Even as she fell, we were all expecting a last-minute rescue. That it didn’t come shocked audiences, and should be left that way, especially considering her presence factored into the surprisingly emotional finale of IW.

Get too lazy with the time travel stuff…

Sure, the idea that the remaining Avengers will pull a McFly and go back in time to reverse the Decisnappation COULD just be what Marvel and the Russo bros want you to think is happening…but it seems likely it’s a factor. There’s no realistic way to fix what Thanos did, and time travel is the least bonkers unrealistic way, at least by movie logic. Now, pretty much everyone wants a cameo from Doc Brown. Right? No? That’s just me? But you could make a joke with Thor and the clock tower and the lightn…ok, moving on.

Maybe Chris Lloyd popping in is unlikely, but what is indisputable is time travel could really wreck the already sort-of-thin idea that we should care what becomes of these characters on a long-term basis. If Marvel isn’t kind of careful with the rules they set up, what’s to stop the characters from just bobbing around in time and undoing any serious failures? The extent to which the Avengers can toss time’s salad should be controlled within the narrative, so that they can’t just freely re-write the script.

…but don’t spend a ton of time on it, either

The time travel aspects should be both limited so as not to royally screw with the sense any of this matters, and not overly complicated. This will be the last appearance for Iron Man, Cap and probably Thor, Hulk and Robin Hood. While we don’t want their last bows to take a wheat thresher to the continuity, we also don’t want to get mired down in psuedo-science.

Give us a lame explanation for why Hulk is absent

I think it’s fair to say that Marvel has played incredibly loose in the way Bruce Banner’s relationship with his big green inner metaphor works. In Avengers he switched from the equivalent of a premature orgasm to total control when it was convenient to the plot, and “because the script says so” has pretty much dictated when Banner is and isn’t at the wheel ever since. I actually see this as one of the few really lazy weak spots in their characters: Hulk at his best has always been a metaphor for the monster inside, but the MCU has dropped the ball on that one in favor of more rah-rah moments.

In IW, you may recall the Hulk was turned into the equivalent of a stubborn turd, refusing to come out no matter how much Banner pushed. I speculated that it may be due to Hulk’s animal instincts telling him something about the situation Banner’s more controlled mind doesn’t know…but either way, there needs to be an explanation in Endgame, and it needs to be better than “because we said so”. There’s no indication of any more solo Hulk films or series, so this might be the last we see of the Jolly Green Giant. If Marvel were ever going to make his character halfway consistent, now’s the time.

Spend too much effort on the romances

By far, the most consistent example of “We don’t know where the hell we’re going with this” in the MCU has involved characters gettin’ it on. Thor’s Jane Foster got unceremoniously dropped because she was a very meh character and the person playing her realized she was Natalie Portman and had better things to do, while Valkyrie showed promise as a tougher lover for the Thunder God only to be written out of the movies off-screen. Hulk and Black Widow made enough sense but was poorly set up, came out of nowhere, and nothing was made of it in IW. Cap’s thing with Peggy Carter’s niece was forced and a little weird. And if you can tell me the name of Black Panther’s woman, you officially know more about this stuff than a guy who writes about it on the regular; she was so barely there they didn’t even bother to mention her in Avengers, and no one cared. Only Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have had anything like a relationship that makes sense, and they nearly dismissed that with an off-screen explanation, as well.

The next iteration of the MCU, with younger, fresher characters, should put more effort into developing lasting character relationships that aren’t bromances, and in fact could stand to give the female supporting characters a lot more development, in general. For now, though, they should write off the romantic histories of most of the old guard as a loss. I doubt anyone will notice.

Overemphasize Ant-Man and Captain Marvel

It’s always been clear, and the post-credits scene made it more so, that Captain Marvel, who will make her debut in her own movie in March, will be important in whatever plan is in place to stop Thanos. And the trailer for Endgame lets us know Ant-Man, or at least his access to the Deus Ex Machina that is the Quantum Realm, will also be vital. And both should be vital---to get the other heroes where they need to be. Although I like Anty Boy, he’s not the biggest name in Marvel, and Captain Brie Marvel Larsen is likely just starting her arc in the universe; there will be plenty of time for her later. This movie needs to focus on the last stands and swan songs of characters who have been with us almost since the beginning.

De-emphasize Hawkeye

If you’ve watched the trailer, by now you know Jeremy Renner’s Robin Hood (I think I made that joke already), who was totally absent from Infinity War, is back with a new, darker costume and what looks like a serious hate boner. In fact, he seems to have straight-up murdered the holy crap what is this out of a whole bunch of Yakuza goons in the middle of the street, which judging by Black Widow’s expression is either terrifying or shockingly arousing. For many, including myself, it was the most interesting reveal in the trailer, and the conclusion was immediately reached that his wife and children must have been Thanos-snapped. What else could cause the normally unflappable special forces dude to go goth and start shooting down people like dogs? He’s always been the most under-appreciated Avenger (check him in the first movie; he’s way more bad-ass than the others despite having no super-powers). This one needs to give him a proper send-off.

Avoid the consequences

Throughout this column, I’ve been emphasizing that the classic Avengers need to have a proper exit from the franchise. The most important aspect of that is to make sure that exit involves a heavy toll. They aren’t fighting for this city or even that planet, but for the whole of existence. Although most-if-not-all of their snapped friends will be returning, they need to pay the price to get that done; otherwise, this whole Thanos thing is basically a cartoon with no permanent consequences. This is completely essential to doing this movie right. Don’t chicken out, guys.

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megamanxfanfics · 5 years

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The End of Season V

Happy Independence Day!!!! Season V is finally Finished!!!!!

As we close out this last arc, I wanted to make some final thoughts, before I say goodbye to X5 forever!

----------------------------------Ep. 13--------------------------------------------

I said just about everything I want to say about this one already. [See previous entry] The only thing I’ll say is that it was really hard to keep any of the original narrative without making X & Zero’s relationship irreparable.

----------------------------------Ep. 14------------------------------------------

This was interesting! Having a true Aftermath episode, after years of wondering what I might write next.

X needed to recover, and the world needed.. rediscovering on our part. We know that the World was heavily damaged from X5 and the X6 intro, but we never get to explore just how much, from the games.

I had some fun exploring this through some final Dynamo continuity and of course, I took advantage of this with some final Gate continuity. In Dynamo’s case, he won! This is it!! He got everything he wanted. But now he’s left with this empty feeling inside. ‘Now what...’

As for Gate, he’s just happy he’s alive and surprised at Isoc for keeping that mysterious barrier tech from Serges. [The irony of this statement is not lost on me.] There is a lot more that Isoc knows, that he isn’t letting on. Gate remembers that Isoc liked to dumpster dive for parts after a fortress would be destroyed in the past. We saw this in Xtreme 2. That is why he suspects nothing of Isoc having X-Hunter tech. Moreover, now they can continue to rebuild his reploids and take over the Research Community. By force!

I love how at this point, everyone wants to reshape the World. Not so much, Dynamo. He just wants to enjoy it. But Gate & Isoc have the Elite Reploid vision. We find out Zero’s motivations later. And X, we know wants a World where reploids and humans co-exist in peace; this would later be called Elysium.

Back at Hunter Base, while X is asleep and recovering, I had a.. tough time dealing with Alia and the Rescued Reploids. A little bit of Pre-X6 spilled in here, but the dialogue was all over the place. I had Reploids reacting very aggressively, or Alia being too bossy and I recall having to edit it down a lot. I attempted to keep the reactions as real as possible, because absolute strangers wouldn’t just automatically volunteer to be Maverick Hunters. No matter how grateful they are for being rescued, they don’t owe you anything.

When we cut back to Zero, I had a blast writing him fly through the Zero Space 1 level. There is no threat, and as far as Sigma is concerned, he is Home. So of course there would be no lasers, firing at him. But then I saw an opportunity at the boss lair that I couldn’t pass up. This gave me a new writing motif for Ep. 15.

Back to X, he’s back up! And sooner than expected!! This was the first time I had to write an item-grab episode. And honestly, it was kinda fun! This part of it woke the episode up a little bit. It was fun to write nostalgic settings like, Adler’s Lab and Dr. Glow’s Fortress. It was also neat to explore X’s new Gaea Armor in a more peaceful way. As we slowly warm up to the idea that X can traverse through spikes and bash through unbreakable blocks, like a Mech.

I had to give us some kind of stakes at the end of X’s item grab mission, in Dino-Rex’s well. X reverts to his base armor and tests out the Speedster chip, as he needs it to grab a heart-tank before lava can hit him.

That was fun. But then, when X got home it got complicated. The job well done was short-lived, before he was introduced to the new recruits BY NAME. [Yes, I spent some time looking up usable names from the X6 Rescued Reploid list.] That conversation itself, reminded X of Zero which makes him cry... Then, it got weird. Emotions were a little all over the place, so I edited it as needed, but Signas was the saving grace here. He introduced the idea that X might not need to kill Zero, but just save him. The same way he did in X2.

Either way, X is nervous, but he goes in after Zero to finish what he's started.

---------------------------------Ep. 15----------------------------------------------

This was an awesome episode, that covered more ground than I thought it would. X explores all of Zero Space Stage 1, with all the bells and whistles. Lasers and mechaniloids are flying after him left and right. X needs to use the Dark Hold and go in his base form, because the Gaea Armor is too slow. [This caused enough of problem IRL when I was doing my research playthroughs.]

But once X got to the first boss, I had fun. I took us back to 2 hours ago, while X was sleeping. This is where Zero tore up the Shadow Devil like he was nothing. And due to his clear knowledge of crammed Megaman History, he knows exactly who the Shadow Devil is, and it’s legacy to Wily Creatures.

When X learns that Zero destroyed this creature, he is instantly optimistic that he can bring Zero back, but Alia warns him not to feel that way.

Then we stay in the past with Zero for Z-Space Stage 2. [At this point all the Mavericks were spawned by Sigma and Zero cleared them all, so for X these stages were a breeze, barring the first one, where Zero wasn’t a threat to Sigma yet.] Despite Zero having to deal with Mavericks, this was not your average stage direction play through. Zero had all these game breaking powers that I could use to my advantage and keep things interesting, and I did!

I really wanted X to fight the Rangda Bangda though. So I came up with something for Zero to get through the room. Sigma just introduces himself in that room and taunts him, letting him through. “Welcome home, boy! I'm gonna enjoy working with you...”

Meanwhile, X deals with SIgma’s death trap. Only, the Gaea Armor easily lets him get through it without too much trouble at all.

From Zero’s perspective, we find out a lot of his motivations and realize that he gets more and more tired every time he uses his God-Virus powers. With a final flight to the gate, he is exhausted and all of the fighting he's done with X, the Shadow Devil and the mechaniloids up until now has finally taken it’s toll on him. As he enters an empty room, Zero is confused, but also takes this moment to rest.

Meanwhile, X catches up to him, about 2 hours later. Zero has now gotten a nap in, and the two are locked in the room together.

-----------------------------------Ep. 16-------------------------------------------------

The fated duel was upon us again!

The whole point of Battle of 2 Fates in the first place, was to skip this part. But years later, my narrative has changed, and here we were.

I decided to turn it on it’s head though. By this point, my version of Awakened Zero was really starting to come into his own. He has revealed that this is His life and he is going to do what he wants. The Old Man doesn’t control him, and neither do the Maverick Hunters. And Sigma is still his target.

2 out of 3 ain’t bad. X just has to work on that last part and maybe they can salvage this friendship. Minus the whole controlling thing.

So Zero tells X this. He has his own dreams. Zero wants to live in a World where he rules over the survivors and guides them into a new era where the word Maverick doesn’t exist.

While, not terrible, this is too impure for X. There’s still something evil lurking in there, and now his data is untraceable like Sigma. It doesn't help that Zero wants to make the Fallen Colony his home and is willing to align with whomever survives, Maverick or not.

It is not only for this reason that X decides to take him on. He does want to save Zero. Like I said, 2 out of the 3 things are there. If he can just do what he did in Season II, maybe it’ll all work out.

Well... that move never gets to happen.

I had a lot of fun making new fight choreography for this. I pulled out all the stops, this time. I even kept old fight choreography from the remainder of Battle of 2 Fates, but in all honesty, it wasn’t much. And what was kept was already shaved down into something completely different.

So with that said, I really went for it. Charged X4 & X5 weapons alike, using that Ultimate Buster chip like Alia & Douglas suggested in episode 14. It was all happening, now. And then... it was over!

11 pages too soon, too!

But fuck it. I didn't need to pad this. And I wasn’t going to cram and rush 2 Sigma fights in this chapter either.

I really enjoyed having Sigma enter the room after the battle was done. This happens in the game, but what also happens canonically is that he inexplicably LEAVES THEM when he HAS THEM. He could’ve killed them right there, while they’re both comatose on the ground. Or taken them in for re-programming. And that is what I opted for.

Since Xtreme 2, I’ve really been thinking, what would Sigma do if he actually won. And I’ve been honestly thinking that he’d keep X & Zero around, but in his own image. Maverick Minions to do his bidding. An Awakened Zero and a Maverick iX. That would be his dream team.

----------------------------------Episode 17--------------------------------------------

And here in Episode 17, I finally got to explore this!

I didn’t want to cheapen the stuff that comes later, but I really needed to show us that this plan wasn’t going to work. Despite the fact that he HAD them!!!

Sigma uses his virus specters to enter into their pores. It works with Zero, even giving him some final breaths of life, but it does not work with X. In fact, he has some mysterious barrier, protecting him from any infection.

This frustrates Sigma, who reveals that he just wants to make him iX.

From there, X wakes up and I’m not gonna write the whole episode again. lol

We get our much deserved fight, but keep in mind X has not recovered yet from his insane battle with Zero. And he’s already used one Sub-tank.

So now X is going in, half-drained and with 1 Sub-tank!? Yeah, that’s a death wish.

Still. I worked with it. It took away the Ultimate Buster Chip advantage, explaining that Sigma removed any chip enhancers he already had. Armors are internal, however. Sigma wasn’t able to get in there [clearly].

I’m really proud of the Gaea Armor fight. Specifically the “Predict this!” bit with the Giga Attack.

Using the 2nd Sub-tank during Sigma 1 was risky, but necessary. X was now fully recovered, while Sigma was down, and he easily transformed into his Force Armor to discover Sigma’s weakness - the Tri-Thunder.

Once that was in play, this fight was practically in the bag. Still, I needed a dramatic finish with the charged Tri-Thunder. A Force Armor Nova Strike was in there, too, which only makes the stakes more desperate, because those moves really kill X’s stamina.

Now in Sigma Fight 2, it was hard to keep this interesting. Dialogue, aside, X’s fight with him is a lot of back and forth, pattern memorizing, shoot the giant head nonsense.

I kept this up, however and even had fun with Sigma climbing over his shoulder, and shooting him at close range with the Spike Ball. I also enjoyed how he used the radar one last time to find out his weaknesses.

But when I had enough, and narratively, when X was angry enough, he was able to transform into his Ultimate Armor with a hard Nova Strike to the face. This does not kill him, but it definitely dwindled his energy way down for like, 5 more hits. [I didn’t count.]

And theeeeen, I finally got to add in a line I created for Zero, basically at the beginning planning stages. Zero makes a surprise Z-Buster shot, indicating that he is indeed alive, and still on X’s side, or at least.. his friend. To the very end.

“Some things... go beyond our programing...”

I’ve had that line forever and now I finally got to use it!

X needed a final cool thing, besides just a Nova Strike, so I shoe-horned in this new attack, which is basically an Uppercutting Nova Strike.

The idea was that the hadouken evolved into the shuryuken, which evolved into the Hyper Aura, which evolved into the Nova Strike. But now this was like a combination attack. A blue flamed uppercutting Nova Strike type thing. There is no name for it, because I made it up. I probably won't use it again, either. [But never say never...]

And there it is. Sigma died, and we got our endings.

I owe TheGreatClement, from YouTube a huge thank you for already putting this together in his LP years ago. I would’ve done the same thing, but his compilation made it so much easier to throw this together.

Then came inserting the bad ending.

1 Week Later, X forgets stuff. And he HATES Zero!

I had to change that. This was a challenge. I didn’t want X to get mind-wiped at all by Dr. Light. But now... I have room for gray area in X6... So I compromised with the non-canon. If X6 must indeed be a combined scenario of Good and Bad ending. And in X6 he does indeed remember Zero fondly... Then, I needed Dr. Light to mind-wipe something else. “...all the Painful Memories.” The painful memories of fighting Zero, himself. [Whether that includes Season II or not, is up in the air.]

But as Alia explains, there’s a ‘Protection’ on X’s memory data now. He can’t remember anything related to the Colony. I went a step further to say that he remembers Zero destroying it, and then fighting Sigma together with him. That’s it. And even that memory is hazy, because Zero’s legs were missing during that fight.

So now, we have a firm compromise. X can remember all the best parts of their history. He can remember palling around at the base, and their proudest feelings together on good missions. He still has his Best Friend in his heart.

The 2nd part of the bad ending doesn’t deal with this as much. It introduces the idea of Elysium, which is just the name of the idea he has already had since X1. But now he wants a Paradise. His idea is fully formed, rather than.. a hopeful philosophy, I suppose. If X gets his way, he will Do this! They have a broken world they have to rebuild, but first they need to rebuild their base.

Also, before I leave this part, I need to mention something irritating. I chose... X6 Reploid names, specifically to replace “Hunter A” and “Hunter B” in the ending. Specifically, Araki & Batsu. Those were the names. I placed them both in this scene, and it felt great. (At first.)

Then when I got to the good ending, I gave names for those 3 cooler ones that he talks to. Iso, Cody and Tekk.

I could’ve left it at that, but from here, I decided to look at the X6 sprites of Rescued Reploids, including Hunter 1 and 2 from the intro stage, and assigned more names. When I looked at what these guys actually looked like, and compared it with those I have chosen, Hanse & Hal just stuck out like a sore thumb.

The fact that there were only 2 reploids rescued from Dr. Glow’s fortress cemented this decision. They were gonna be the only true Yellow Reploids that are rescued from X5. And therefore... Araki & Batsu, the true Hunter A and Hunter B had to be replaced with Hanse & Hal, due to just being cooler and getting better designs.

It’s not the biggest thing in the World, but it’s just weird how planning works out sometimes. It’s my own hangup, I know, and it might not make sense, but there it is.

ANYWAY.

Then the good ending kicks in, 2 weeks later.

[I really wanted to put 3 weeks later, but that 1st week with the bad stuff had to happen.]

X stands with Iso, Cody and Tekk as Alia lets them know that there is a new Mechaniloid in HORIE block, or whatever.

This scene will be expanded on in X6, and this isn’t the place for it, but you can only imagine what HORIE Block is. - That’s right. The intro stage to X6.

I already alluded to 2 other Hunters being in trouble - Data and Batsu, so there ya go. [Yay, Hunter B is in there after all.]

But more to the point, we get our Good X5 Ending. With X gripping the familiar saber in hand, and feeling stronger than ever, knowing that Zero is still with him.

---------------------------------tl;dr-----------------------------------------------------

My final thoughts on X5. I really hate that game, man. X4 was so solid, and honestly... if the text-based cut scenes were anime cut scenes, that would already do a World of Difference for me. But gameplay mechanics wise, the introduction to the wire hook was interesting and the duck was necessary. But otherwise... I dunno. Some enemies were too strong, I hated the boss level up system, and the timed mission - while different, set a whole different tone for the game. Gone was the chill exploring, even though you could go wherever you wanted to. Alia would reprimand you if you were in an area that you didn’t belong in yet.

Still, the things that I like are that you are not really fighting Mavericks here, but instead visiting Reploids who could be infected, or in one way or another have a grudge with you.

And it’s those things, plus the prior Zero motivations that carried me through this Season. Zero hating on the Repliforce turned into an evil ugly monster that threatened to ruin his friendship with X.

Also, Dynamo was a class act. Not quite, Deadpool 4th wall breaking, but fun enough to really add life in places that were already tense and nerve-wracking.

Gate & Isoc’s sub-plot was pretty neat. It turns out I had a little more for Gate to do than just brood in his own trailer. I didn’t think Isoc would interact with him as much as he did, at first.

Showing a vulnerable Sigma whose dreams are falling apart before his final battle with X was risky, but one worth taking in my opinion. Despite all these games, I feel like I don’t show him enough, so it was nice to delve into his thoughts a little bit.

And lastly, of course - the 3rd Arc roll call.

Ep. 13 - An Epic Battle written in 2011, revised into something even better in 2019.

Ep. 14 - An awesome aftermath episode that explores the damage to the world and it’s effect on Dynamo, Gate, Isoc, Sigma, Zero and X, who must recover items before he takes on Zero again.

Ep. 15 - Zero Space was crazy! Zero fought way more than X, although, X did go through Stage 1 the hard way and they both fought the same amount of bosses.

Ep. 16 - An Epic Rematch! Probably even better than Ep. 13. That’d be a fun debate.

Ep. 17 - The Climactic Ending. It’s all come down to X vs. Sigma, again, but the battle brings surprises to all of them. When it’s all said and done, the Maverick Hunters are ready to move forward and rebuild.

And that’s all he wrote, folks.

There will be a Season Vi. Yes, I will be taking a break. But yes, you will be getting updates.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed Season V. Despite hating that game, I enjoyed writing more of this Season than you’d think. There’s a lot more in there that I didn’t touch upon, I’m sure. But anyway, you get the gist.

Later folks and as always. Thank you for Reading.

#Season V Diaries #The End of Season V #Thoughts on the 3rd Arc

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itspatsy · 6 years

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Okay, after much thought, here’s my attempt to explain how I’m generally okay with Trish’s trajectory this season in theory, but why I feel the writers slipped up in execution.

Addiction is a monster. It takes over your life, every facet of it, mind, body, and soul, and tears it to shreds. It controls you. It consumes you, fully. It leaves you lying to everyone around you, rationalizing, making excuses and justifications. It destroys your relationships. It makes you use, manipulate, and discard people, whether they be total strangers or your closest loved ones, because nothing is more important than getting your fix. It forces you to do things you never thought you would do, awful, immoral, degrading things. It twists you into someone you can’t even recognize. I get that. I get that this is what Trish’s storyline was about. And I get that none of the other characters were really in a position to help her deal with any of it, and how that shows the importance of having a support system to help you through a mental illness like this.

And it wasn’t a character assassination, because all the pieces were there. The barely contained rage and taste for violence, the self-protectiveness and need to be in control, the fear of vulnerability, the reckless self-destruction and lack of impulse control, the low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness, the undeveloped sense of self, the egocentrism and self-righteousness, the self-defensiveness and difficulty admitting wrongs, the envy of what others have, the obsessiveness, the apathy and trouble understanding others’ feelings, the overwhelming ambition to contribute something meaningful to the world, the desperate need to be someone that matters, really matters, to people. And there were shades of unhealthiness in her relationship with Jessica: codependency, envy, high expectations, the idealization, trying to live vicariously through her, pushing her into things that weren’t always best for her.

Those were all aspects of Trish, some more negative or harmful than others, and most of them very much a response to severe trauma and abuse. I’ve talked a lot about those aspects of her character in the past. They were part of her in s1, but tempered to manageable levels, because she was in a reasonably stable place in her life and was making an active effort to improve herself and to get better. But then her best friend and only support system disappeared for 6 months, she was almost murdered multiple times despite all her self-defense training, she broke 10 years of being clean with Simpson’s pill to protect Jessica, and her abusive mom found a way to slither back into her life by hanging information about Jessica over her head. That stability and any sense of safety and control she’d been able to develop was gone, all of her resistance was lowered to critical levels, and it opened her up to this relapse, which then ate away at the most positive parts of her personality and amplified the worst ones x1000. I get that.

One quick look through this blog will show that I was not one of those fans that ever thought Trish was some pure precious cinnamon role and moral paragon. I knew that under her put-together facade, she was a walking disaster that was as traumatized and damaged and desperate and conflicted as Jessica. And I did want the show to explore that damage and how trauma presents itself in many different ways. I wanted it to be clear to viewers Trish is actually not okay and is still struggling with her past. I wanted her issues with addiction to be examined. I wanted then to move towards Hellcat. I even wanted her and Malcolm to interact more and develop their own dynamic. So I should be happy, right? They technically did what I wanted. Shit, like 90% of the songs on my Trish playlist just became significantly more relevant. But no, I’m not really feeling happy about it, because I got the wishing on a monkey’s paw version.

A quick personal note: Trish means a lot to me, and her relationship with Jessica means a lot to me, and that’s something I can’t really put into words. My initial reaction to the season was just… an overwhelming sadness. And I don’t feel as bad now, but I keep bouncing between “sure, it does make sense” to “this is so awful, oh god, why would they do this???” Sometimes I feel this inspiration to write thousands of words of meta, but then it just as easily turns and suddenly I can’t stand thinking about it because it makes me nauseous. For the last year, I’ve thought about Trish every day in at least some capacity. I thought about her as I went to bed, when I drove, when I went for walks, when I had any short moment of time to myself. I’m not here to talk about whether using fictional characters like that is a particularly healthy coping mechanism, because that’s not the point right now. The point is, it was a pleasant distraction for me that helped me cope with other life things, but now it’s something that causes me pain and anxiety, and I’m stuck feeling like I have to detach from the thing that was helping me detach if I ever want to feel better.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is about all of this that’s making me feel that way. Why do I feel like someone literally died? I don’t think my problem is with the characterization in and of itself because I knew those things were sitting under the surface, and it’s not with telling this story of trauma and addiction and putting the full ugly reality of it on display. It definitely isn’t a problem with the acting: Rachael Taylor was amazing and knocked it out of the park. So what’s the problem? Why isn’t this sitting okay with me? I’m generally pretty rational, but I think most of my issues here are very perception and emotion based rather than anything obviously intellectual, and it’s hard to verbalize. I’ll try my best. And I don’t know, maybe my feelings will change if I watch again, but right now, the idea of that still hurts too much.

So. The writers deconstructed Trish, which is fascinating in theory, but I just feel like they did it without… kindness? It felt like pure merciless brutality. Even mean-spirited sometimes. They debased every part of her life and her accomplishments, cheapened them, and put her in publicly humiliating situations at every opportunity. They left her without a shred of dignity, without her heart, without one positive relationship. And, no, addiction isn’t at all kind, it is cruel and demeaning and heartless, but I didn’t feel a sense of compassion from the writers themselves in how they handled her and her trauma and mental illness. That so many viewers are reacting so negatively to Trish doesn’t strike me as purely a failure to understand the impact of addiction, but that there was a failure on the writers’ part to show it in an empathetic, understanding way. Even I, someone that loves Trish so much and spends a lot of time in her head, feel like I have to do extra legwork.

It felt as though they were prioritizing and emphasizing her motivations in a way that was intended to put her in the absolute worst light possible. Her most selfish motivations (”unholy” ambition, jealousy, wanting to be the special one) were on full display and consistently pointed out by other characters, but they often underplayed her more sympathetic, obviously trauma based motivations or the motivations that were sincerely about helping other people. She talked the talked about doing good, but there was no point where it was shown in action. It was almost always a manipulative ploy to help herself or get her fix. I know Trish does sincerely care about people, wants to make sure they never have to feel as small and helpless and voiceless as she’s been made to feel, and I think probably the writers do think of that as one of her many conflicting motivations, but they didn’t show it, they only told it and then contradicted it. It also definitely didn’t help that it felt like they were villainizing ambition, and as a result, villainizing her for daring to have it. I don’t think I need to explain why the implication that women having ambition will lead them down a road of power-hungry obsession and selfish callousness is… not great.

And I feel like they just didn’t carry over what should have been obvious threads that would’ve helped make more sense of this downward spiral. What I said above about how her behavior here connects to the events of s1? That’s all headcanoning from me. The show didn’t actually draw those lines. It wasn’t clear that she was still reacting to having her vulnerability shoved so brutality back in her face by Simpson and Kilgrave. That she’d opened herself up to relapse after taking Simpson’s pill. That Kilgrave fractured her relationship with Jessica and the cracks still hadn’t been patched up. Or even that letting her mom near her again was reviving old traumas and pressures and expectations and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I think the whole thing moved too quickly, and they decided to give us the Darkest Timeline Trish without fully adding up the elements and explaining when and how we crossed the veil and dipped into that timeline. When I was plotting out an AU where she never met Jessica, s2 Trish is actually what I pictured. But that’s kind of the key point: it was a Trish that never had anyone’s love and support. That wasn’t true here. And I think at least pulling threads from s1 would’ve added more depth to it, instead of making it seem like she was only being driven by some desperation for MORE MORE MORE.

And I don’t know, maybe it’s all just in my head, but I perceived a kind of near softening of Dorothy (not completely, obviously) that almost felt designed to pull even more sympathy away from Trish. It just felt like they were pulling back on her. There were a few points where it seemed they were trying to veer her closer to lovable asshole territory and trying to gloss over things we know she did from s1. I think viewers do need reminders sometimes, especially if you’ve been off the air for over two years, and it doesn’t help to have things completely vital to a character’s identity and formation mentioned offhandedly in a quick conversation. That Dorothy literally pimped her daughter out was sort of brushed over and the repercussions of her role in it weren’t examined. Even their body language shifted compared to the defensiveness of s1. Trish just let Dorothy into her personal space, let her casually touch her, like it didn’t mean anything, like there wasn’t years of physical abuse. And then to put Dorothy in a position to be the voice of reason was just… wow. To leave viewers with the ability to say, “damn, Trish is a selfish prick, and Dorothy is just telling it like it is,” it felt gross.

By the end, the execution of all this felt more like a grueling punishment of the character than a complex, human story told with careful thoughtfulness and compassion. It felt villainizing. It felt like darkness for the sake of darkness. And listen, I love angst. I love complicated, difficult characters sometimes doing the wrong things. I love characters failing and falling and learning and building themselves back up. But I’m just so tired of hopelessly grimdark stories. I’m tired of shows destroying their light in a quest to compete for the title of sickest, saddest world.

And yes, this show was already harsh in its first season, and it didn’t back away from cruel reality, but it wasn’t hopeless. It had its heart. And that beating, bleeding heart was the relationship between Jessica and Trish. But they chose to rip that heart out. And that’s the thing that bothers me the most. They took away the most positive thing in these women’s lives, and the most positive thing in the show and something the fandom loved, and for what purpose exactly? In s1, they gave us these broken, codependent women that could be messy and wrong, that could cause each other pain, but still shared a love that was powerful and supportive and uplifting. That’s an infinitely more valuable and meaningful thing to put on the screen than another common, cliched story about petty jealousy tearing women apart.

And I’m aware it wasn’t as simple as a petty need to be the special-est person in the room driving Trish, that this envy stems from her knowing if she’d had Jessica’s power she’d have been able to protect herself from the things that still leave her feeling empty and small, how it continues to feed into her feelings of worthlessness and lack of control, that she’s been conditioned to believe nothing is good enough and she needs to be better and more than herself and have more than what she has if anyone is ever going to love her, but I also spend a lot of time in Trish’s head, thinking about her motivations and traumas. I doubt most viewers are going to take the time to dig deeper. And I don’t know, I can’t entirely blame the fandom for failing to afford Trish the same sympathy and understanding they’re willing to offer Jessica and her fuck ups when it feels like the show itself didn’t seem to want to give it to Trish or didn’t try to paint the fullest picture of where she was coming from. So the takeaway for a lot of people is going to be that the writers took this special, well-loved relationship and ripped it apart by making one of them a jealous, resentful, toxic creep. I can’t blame anyone for feeling upset or betrayed.

I can tell myself there was a point to all of this. I can tell myself they’ll pull Trish back from the edge, that she slipped, lost the plot, but that recovery is on the way, and she will make an honest effort to get better and be better and work to become her best self, which is the thing that makes a true hero. I can tell myself they’ll repair her relationship with Jessica, and the two of them will come out of this with a stronger, more healthy dynamic because they’ll finally openly address the ugly things that were festering. I can tell myself that, but I can’t trust it.

I trusted the writers once already. I trusted them to treat Trish with compassion and kindness, even as they broke her down and took her to dark places. I trusted them to show a difficult, complicated but still ultimately affirming and unconditional love between her and Jessica. But they broke my trust. How can I have faith about what they’ll do next season? How can I believe they’ll lift Trish back up and mend things with Jessica instead of taking her down a path of outright villainy? Honestly, making her a villain seems about as likely as anything else at this point. So I can’t trust them, and because this show doesn’t follow a typical schedule, I also won’t even get to know what direction they’ll take for at least another two years. And it’s just not a good feeling to have to sit with. It sucks when you invest so much of yourself into something, and then the things that meant the most to you about it get pulled out from under you, and you can’t even trust that it’ll actually get better.

#trish walker #jessica jones #jj s2 spoilers #so yeah that's where i'm at right now #it's subject to change maybe #but i'm still kind of just not wanting to think about any of it because it makes me sad #eta because i've been asked a few times: feel free to reblog

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

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The Last Jedi: What I Disliked About One of the Most Fascinating Films Ever Made

The Last Jedi is probably one of the most controversial films ever made for a lot of reasons. This movie did a LOT of shit, a lot of shit that would piss people off. Hell, it even pissed ME off. But when I see people on the internet frothing at the mouth and calling this movie the worst shit pile to ever exist, the most offensive thing Star Wars has ever produced, and threatening the director with death and calling him a soulless piece of shit bastard… I’m pretty inclined to defend the movie. Frankly, anyone who reacts THIS negatively to TLJ is an utter braindead moron; you do realize you can dislike a film without being completely, insanely hyperbolic, yeah? Again, there’s a lot I hate in this movie too, and I’m gonna talk about it shortly, but in a franchise with Jar-Jar, the holiday special, and vast swaths of the Legends continuity, is this seriously the worst this franchise has had to offer? If you answer anything other than “No,” congratulations, I’d say you’re about the same mental capacity as people who think Watto is some sort of offensive Jewish caricature.

But as much as I would love to spend an entire post insulting all the whiny bastards in the Star Wars fandom, I have more pressing matters: criticizing stuff in The Last Jedi. And boy do I have a lot to criticize. I actually did review the movie a while back, and while I stand by my initial thoughts, I gotta go into more detail about what I didn’t like. However, before continuing, I want to make one thing absolutely clear:

I think The Last Jedi is a genuinely good movie. Maybe not GREAT per se, as I have more criticisms for it than just about any other film in the series, but excellence is just so wholly ingrained into the DNA of Star Wars theatrical films that even at their most divisive they still have some level of charm. And at any rate, this movie is a hell of a lot more interesting than Rogue One. I’d say out of the newer films, this one sits behind Solo. Anyway, let’s get on to the main event… here are all my issues with The Last Jedi, presented alphabetically, and with lots of spoilers:

Canto Bright: This is probably the most annoying waste of time in the entire film, a blatant and obnoxious stretch of padding the runtime. Nothing that happens in the entirety of this subplot is truly important in the grand scheme of things; the only relevant bit of plot is that they find DJ, and this could have been done a lot quicker. This wouldn’t be so bad if they had made Canto Bright a bit more interesting, but it just feels like another attempt to rehash Mos Eisley’s cantina. It also doesn’t help this part of the film has blatant, unsubtle moralizing and cuts away from far more interesting plotlines that get much less development, particularly Rey training with Luke.

Ditching Kylo’s Motivation: In The Force Awakens, Kylo was motivated by a sort of misaimed admiration for his grandfather, where he viewed Vader as someone to emulate and who he looked to as he struggled between the light side and the dark side. All of this helped make him rather intriguing, as well as making him a very intentional Darth Vader clone character; his whole purpose was to emulate Vader, after all. All of this is ditched close to the start of The Last Jedi, and the Kylo in this film feels almost entirely different to the one seen previously. While I did like Kylo Ren a lot more in this movie, I wish they didn’t completely rewrite his character and ditch everything established in favor of what they did. It could have easily been worked into how he acted in the film.

Finn’s Diminished Importance: After being something of the star of the last film, complete with a noticeable character arc and a lot of focus, Finn kinda gets shafted here, relegated to a shitty, unnecessary sideplot that leads the heroes nowhere. It just seems really weird, though I’m not unhappy Rey got more focus and was fleshed out better.

Holdo: While I tend to view people who write her off as “The purple-haired feminist bitch” or “Captain SJW” as inferior human beings – and they are, seriously, if you unrironically say shit like this you’re a drooling nincompoop – I really can’t deny in the slightest that Holdo was written rather poorly. She really is a poor excuse for a captain, openly lying to her underlings and keeping things secret when explaining the plan would have effected nothing except her entire crew’s compliance. It almost feels like this plot was written so we’d be on Poe’s side, but it works a bit too well by making Holdo far too arrogant, stupid, and haughty to really get behind. If not for her awesome heroic sacrifice (one that might not have been needed in the first place if she’d been more honest but hey) I’d probably list her as one of the worst Star Wars characters ever… but a heroic sacrifice of this magnitude, no matter how unearned it may seem, never fails to impress me.

Killing Snoke: I can kinda see what they were going for, seeing as Palpatine as well was killed with very little revealed about him in The Last Jedi… but we have now had several years worth of canonical prequel material to flesh him out, and it’s honestly pretty stupid to assume you can pull off the same trick in a franchise twice and expect it to go off as well. Snoke was unflinchingly cool, creepy, and badass, so his bisection comes across as a waste of a truly intriguing villain. That there may be prequels detailing who he was do little to ease the sting of Andy Serkis being built up as the big bad only to be cut down. At least in Black Panther he got more substantial screentime; here, he’s s till cool, but it just feels like there is so much more he could have been.

Luke’s Attempted Murder: While overall I loved Luke’s characterization in this film and how it tied excellently into the theme of not deifying your heroes due to the trouble that can cause, it’s hard for me to rationalize Luke’s attempted murder of his own nephew, leading to Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side. While Luke has always been a bit impulsive, this man believed he could redeem Darth Vader, AND DID SO. Need I remind you what Anakin did to those younglings? And yet his own nephew, he won’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he did stop himself, but the very fact he went in there lightsaber ready to cut down the child of his sister and his best friend just feels really jarring and out of place, even within his more cynical characterization.

Phasma: Phasma has come across as a forced Boba Fett replacement since The Force Awakens, to the point where in both films she has appeared in she has been completely and utterly outshined by mooks – Nines (AKA TR-8R) in TFA and the Praetorian Guard in this one. Despite her getting a ton of fascinating backstory and depth in canonical supplementary material, literally none of that is ever showcased even slightly in this film, and after a short, underwhelming fight scene, she apparently falls to her death. Sure, she COULD have survived, but this still feels like a rather big waste of the character. For someone they hyped up so much, the way she is handled really feels undignified.

Rey’s Parents: I’m not gonna lie, this reveal is stupid in and of itself, but the stupider thing is that a lot of people seem to be taking it at face value. When was it collectively decided we should trust the creepy, evil Sith lord who has made it perfectly clear he wants control over Rey? Why are we taking Kylo’s word that Rey’s parents were drunks who sold their kids as FACT? Honestly it just seems like a further ploy to manipulate her more than anything.

Reylo: While it isn’t canon as of yet, this movie really hammers in a bunch of hints for the obnoxiously popular ship between heroine Rey and antagonist Kylo Ren. And, quite frankly, I absolutely fucking hate this ship, but probably for a lot different reasons than most people. Do I think it’s shipping abuse? No, I don’t think it’s that any more than I think any other hero-villain ship is. Do I think Kylo doesn’t deserve to be redeemed by Rey? That’s not it either; the entire premise of this franchise is that any person can be redeemed. Kylo Ren is really no exception, though considering he killed my favorite character I’d be happy to see his ass beat. No, I hate it because I just absolutely hate the trope, if it even is one, of the hero redeeming the villain through romantic love. I feel like it would cheapen Rey’s character, and just turn the entire new trilogy into an overly long romantic drama. All the heavy-handed hints towards this pairing is just gag worthy, and frankly I’m going to be annoyed if they ruin both of these characters by going through with it.

Rose: Rose is without a doubt in my mind the worst character in the entire franchise. This seems like a rather tall order considering her competition, but consider this: her biggest contributions to the plot are the Canto Bright plotline, the absolute worst part of the film… and stopping Finn from performing a badass heroic sacrifice that might have saved the heroes a lot of trouble, delivering the stupidest line in Star Wars history, kissing Finn, and fainting. She’s just utterly pointless to the point she feels like someone’s OC from a fanfic where they get with Finn was slipped into the script.

Wasting DJ: So you get Benicio Del Toro, and you put him in your movie. Great so far, good. He does some weird accent and makes the character have a quirky personality, still good. You give him a very morally ambiguous personality and show the shades of grey in this idealistic universe that leans towards black vs. white most of the time, excellent, awesome! AND THEN… he betrays the heroes and vanishes from the film. What. DJ didn’t die, and he could come back… but he just feels shoehorned in and just doesn’t really reach his full potential whatsoever. He was such an interesting idea, and they just did the bare minimum with him.

Despite all of this crap, though… The Last Jedi still manages to be awesome. Holdo’s final sacrifice, the Kylo Ren and Rey fight against the Praetorian Guards, Yoda’s surprise appearance, Luke’s final battle… Hell, I even liked seeing Leia finally use the Force by flying through space with it; as cheesy as it is, it left me floored when I saw it in theaters. Then, of course, there’s that epic opening space battle… there’s just a lot to love here. In particular, my favorite moment is probably Luke becoming one with the Force. Maybe it’s not my MOST favorite moment, but it just feels so poignant and important, with his final moments mirroring the start of his journey, as he gazes into twin suns one last time before joining his teachers and father. It just… it gets to you, you know? I may have a LOT of issues with this movie, and a lot of stuff I didn’t really like in it, but more than any other movie I have so many issues with, I like and even RESPECT this film. You can say a lot of things about this movie, but one thing you can’t say is that it’s dull. It sparks discussion, and debate, and obnoxiously hyperbolic worst-everism. At the end of the day, whether it’s good or bad doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that this film just… IS. And one way or another people will have something to say about it. Just don’t be a hyperbolic douche about it and try and enjoy things, you know?

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #TLJ #CineMike #movies #sci-fi

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