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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 3 years

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Me, throughout the entirety of 6x05:

And I suppose I could just leave it there but NO, we’re doing a LIST. Of all the excellent things from “Prom Night!”

SPOILERS!

AV Club reviewer giving this episode the first ‘A’ of the season: :D

AV Club reviewer still insisting that “Midvale” was filler: D:<

Forever destined to disagree with the AV Club reviews in some way or another...

Okay, so! We begin with a very helpful reminder from Alex that things are different, in this Post-Crisis World!

(I mean, on the one hand, am I slightly distressed that key aspects of the Pilot and the WHOLE of “Midvale” are now gone, along with Earth-38? Yes.

On the other, Kara remembers her lived-experiences of everything that had transpired in the Earth-38 timeline, so they still sorta happened and have informed her characterization.

So...it’s fine. It’s fine. This is fine.)

I do love that, ‘Kara punched a meteorite out of the sky’ is now a Thing That Happened, though.

(Well perhaps NOT ANYMORE but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

KENNY LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!!

“Scooby-Duo” listen, as someone who has already imagined all these kiddos in Hanna-Barbera cartoon style, running around Midvale, solving crimes and saving the day, I loved this description.

Alex being like, ‘DO. NOT. SCREW UP. MY PAST.’ ahhhhh we love to see that scary Older Sibling energy on full display.

And then Brainy and Nia are off to the past!

The only thing that could’ve made the utterance of ‘totes’ worse would’ve been the addition of, ‘magotes’. Thank goodness they exercised restraint in the writers’ room.

FORTUNATELY the terrible ordeal of reliving dated slang is offset by some truly excellent lines and line-reads throughout the rest of the episode.

For instance! Loved Brainy’s, ‘the perfect optical illusion’ and ‘off the dash, please.’ So great.

Other honorable mentions: ‘Damn it, Mitch!’ ‘That’s a LOT of exposure’ and I forget the line itself but when Cat’s like, ‘normal town my a--’ and then the cut to commercial break AAAAAHHHHHH so good.

Okay, back to the episode, Nia and Brainy, on the Legion Cruiser, AND THEN!

AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN!

OUR KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDS!!!!!

I love them. It won’t happen, but gosh, I want a Midvale spin-off so bad.

Like, the Crisis retcon made some space in the girls’ past for a spin-off to actually...kinda work.

(But sustaining the premise across multiple episodes/seasons would be tricky and there would always be the threat of running up against like. The current show’s continuity.

But hey! They could just ignore it, I guess! That’s what the Superman show is doing!) *insert frowny emoji here*

So the kids have gathered with Alex for milkshakes, which is delightful.

But ALL IS NOT WELL! As Alex reads about the ‘luckiest town’ and is like:

(Except with a lot more anxiety and frowning)

I feel as though we already knew Alex went to Stanford but I can’t remember if Kara’s (terrible) resume revealed that she went to National City University?

*Checks* Yes it did.

Another thing I LOVE is just. Alex as the Responsible One, whose anxiety is perpetually cranked to a 9.5, driving the Scooby-Duo around in the suburban mom van for super-ing jobs.

Also, ‘super-ing’ is an excellent verb, 15/10

Young Cat Grant! ....More on her later.

Nicole and Jesse did such a great job with the comedy in this episode--their initial attempt at a cover story/lie is so good.

And the masterful transition into an actual good lie that Nia knew would win Kara over...VERY NICE.

Kara being so obviously thrilled that there are OTHER ALIENS! WITH POWERS! HERE, IN MIDVALE! RIGHT HERE!

Fandom has ruined the whole ‘Kara has golden retriever energy’ as is their way but I must say...very much getting ‘excited puppy energy’ here.

Nia and Kara comparing powers was so CUUUUUUUUTE!!!!

As was the picture on Kenny’s desk of him and Kara. D’aaaawwww.

(But OH NO SADNESS...BECAUSE A BREAKUP IS IMMINENT.)

Okay in addition to all of the incredibly adorable content we also get lots of FAMILY FEEEEEEELINGS, which: Yes, good, yes.

But Eliza is only here as a PICTURE on Kara’s nightstand and a NAME on Alex’s badge, I am sad. :C

(Hope Helen Slater is in this last season at some point...need that soothing mom energy after all the Phantom Zone angst)

I think I’m out of order now but Kenny wanting to help Kara help people is just. The most adorable thing.

Spoiler alert: I use the word ‘adorable’ a lot in this list. Sorry...but also not.

The Brainy music when he’s in the school computer lab watching the printer is really great. I think we’ve heard it before, but it meshed so well with the whole vibe of both the character and the episode, just stood out nicely, I guess.

Okay, so. Do we think that Jesse could always do the baseball bat tricks, and the writers wrote it in, or do we think that he learned them for the show? My money is on the former.

Either way, very impressive.

And now for the truck situation! I kinda thought it would turn out that it was Cat’s doing, as she was trying to suss out the ‘super’, but nope, it was the blue dudes.

(Which makes more sense, since they have no qualms about endangering other people.)

And ON THAT NOTE, the blue guys! They are the perfect level of ridiculous, and they are wonderfully straightforward in ways that the Phantoms are not.

Also, I love that one of them is named Mitch?

Nia and Kara save the day!

After Kara busts the brakes and is like, ‘uhhh....they’re not working’

I noticed the Metropolis license plate and while yes it’s a little strange that plates are...apparently city-based in this corner of Earth Prime, stranger still is that Cat presumably drove clear across the country to check out this story. Right? Like, that’s the only way she has that plate out in Midvale?

Wait, wait. Totally forgot to mention Kara and Nia’s EXTREMELY OBVIOUS ‘don’t be suspicious’ sunglasses gambit at the Midvale College campus you absolute DORKS.

Right, so.

Remember those FAMILY FEELZ??? WELL!

We’ve got Nia’s call to her mom, which, oof. OOOOOF.

And then we have even MORE FEELINGS aka: The garage talk.

Okay. OKAY. So even though I’m a little sad “Midvale” no longer occurred in Earth Prime’s timeline, I am fascinated by the ways this new series of events have impacted Alex, Kara, and their past. (Also thrilled that Kenny lives, natch). Alex’s resentment and the burden of ‘protect Kara, PROTECT KARA’ have been left to simmer while Kara’s determination to help people has led to some...earnest but slightly careless secret hero work. The building blocks of the conflict introduced in “Midvale” are still there so while it might at first seem a little...repetitive, for Alex to lay all this out to Kara, it’s really just the reveal of a new boiling point; a post-crisis update on the scene in Midvale where Alex is like, ‘I had two parents before you showed up.’

AAAAAAAAAHHHHH IT’S EMOTIONALLY DEVESTATING I LOVE IT.

And then like. The new, but also not-new angle, of Alex leveraging her world-weariness against Kara’s youthful optimism/somewhat reckless desire to help, and then Kara throwing BACK that she’s explored other solar systems.

The LAYERS.

Also that Alex is like, ‘we need weapons, let’s tell mom and also call the DEO,’ classic Alex.

The garage talk ends with Kara determined to come clean to Kenny...BUT OH NO, THE HERO HIDEOUT IS SO CUTE, AND KENNY IS SO DEAR.

And the reveal that the almost-kiss in “Midvale” actually happened d’awwwww these kids.

Like. I am legitimately torn, here. I totally understand and support Kara in being honest with Kenny about the whole college situation--but also GAH. KENNY IS SO NICE AND CUTE AND EARNEST.

You know what ELSE is nice and cute and earnest?

Nia singing “9 to 5″ to Brainy to cope with stress and boost morale.

Heckin’ adorable, gosh.

Aaaaaand some other stuff occurred as the episode closed out but I don’t have them in my notes and BASICALLY I want the next hour like, now. Right now. Because this was WONDERFUL. FROM START TO FINISH.

So some Overall thoughts!

I said we’d get to Cat ‘CJ’ Grant later, so here we are: I...think I liked her? Overall? It was a performance that gradually won me over, is how I would describe it.

Absolutely wild that Cat built a media empire in a mere six years.

Also her whole, ‘I am going to find this extraordinary being and name them and kick Lois Lane into the classifieds’...I mean she eventually gets two out of three, there.

As I already started to mention, sad that Eliza wasn’t here! But it makes sense, since a lot of this, Kara is trying to keep on the DL.

Obviously, I am ALWAYS down for these flashback situations with the young Danvers. But it was also nice to take a break from the Phantom stuff. The plot here is simple/streamlined in a way the Phantom stuff...isn’t. I love the emotional character stuff coming out of the Phantom Zone arc but wow, the Phantoms are just. Needlessly complicated.

The little episode recap where Lena is explaining that Phantom Prime is like a bloodhound was like, ‘oh right, they do that too...in addition to all the other stuff that they apparently do.’

So, yes. Welcome change.

The change of scenery + type of action was nice too!

Though RIP to everyone’s hair, fighting against the moisture.

This episode also handled the Brainy/Nia relationship really well, IMO. Like, due to the whole, ‘trying to fit so much in, always’ approach to Supergirl episodes sometimes results in a bit of...one-sidedness, for various characters. Think for instance of Kelly needing to cheer everyone on in episode 2, but not having space for her own feelings/emotional needs in that episode.

I’ve felt that a bit with Brainy and Nia thus far--one will sort of take up more narrative space, so the relationship feels a little lopsided.

NOT SO HERE! They are both going through some stuff, they are both struggling to cope, they both come to rely on one another for help.

YES. GOOD. YES!!!!

Something I’m loving about season 6 overall is that so far, it doesn’t feel like the plot is stepping on character development too much. Like, it still isn’t a perfect balance, and some episodes manage it better than others, but compared to season 5? Leaps and bounds.

Everything was so nicely tied together and the dialogue was witty, the humor was delightful, EVERYONE WAS ADORABLE AND EARNEST AND DID I MENTION ADORABLE?* but they never lost sight of the themes and emotional through-lines and GAAAAAHHHHHH MIDVALE EPISODES ARE THE BEEEEEESTTTTTTTTT!

*Okay Alex was mainly stressed out but that’s to be expected.

TL;DR - Best episode of the season thus far? Best episode of the season thus far.

#SG post #long post #supergirl spoilers #supergirl season 6 spoilers #gif

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what-do-1000-swords-look-like · 3 years

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Hi, I recently came across your post talking about dark Daenerys always being the end game. I thought you did an excellent job showing the foreshadowing fans missed from the show. What surprised me on the show was JonxDany. I just couldn't wrap my head around the "romance". It felt out of character and illogical. As someone who loves Daenerys as a character and seems to really understand her, do you think they were in love? Is it tragic or political? I can't seem to reconcile it. Thank you!

Hi Nonnie! Thank you so much for the compliment, oh my goodness! And thank you for the ask!

Tbh with you, I never quite wrapped my head around the Jonerys romance either. I know a lot of people thought it was due to the lack of chemistry between Emilia and Kit on screen (I disagree, that dragon riding scene in 8x01 proved they did which makes me think their lack of romantic chemistry was intentional on the show’s part through the writing and editing), or that it was rushed (this part could be possible since they rushed her dark turn as well). But I honestly think it was meant to be tragic for both Jon and Daenerys, but more political on Jon’s side, at least in the beginning.

I know a lot of people don’t agree with the pol!Jon theory and think it’s just that, a theory, but looking at the time from when Jon has met Dany through to the end, I find it hard to think anything else. Because that certainly would have explained away the receding of Jon’s POV/character after he and Dany met. It also would have went in line with what Kit had said before the beginning of season 7 about Jon being more political that season, possibly manipulating (I don’t think he used that exact word but I’m paraphrasing for him), but doing it kindly. Even though GoT blew up everyone’s arcs at the end of the last season, at the time, we knew there was a reason that Sansa said the line to him in 7x01 “You need to be smarter than Father. You need to be smarter than Robb” and we had seen Jon listening to Sansa by him deciding to leave the North (and organizing their defense for the upcoming battle) in her hands, asking Sansa what she thought when he got Tyrion’s scroll in 7x02, and what he says to Tyrion in 7x03. So, I personally think they were gearing up for Jon to do whatever it took to get Dany and her dragons up North for the battle (while probably not feeling all that comfortable about it but knowing it had to be done), which is why I think we see him and his band of men go on that quest in 7x06 & meet with Cersei and Co along with Dany in 7x07.

There’s just too many questionable moments that happen from 7x03 to 8x06 that prove Jon was not as smitten as Dany was with him:

The way he studies Dany reuniting with Jorah, the fact that he seems almost uncomfortable when Dany says in 7x05 “I’ve grown used to him” & his response “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come, Your Grace” and he doesn’t look back once as they push the boat out into the water (I think they purposely showed the contrast between Jorah saying goodbye to Dany vs Jon saying goodbye to Dany, there was definitely a reason they show Jorah looking back and not Jon but they play Jon and Dany’s love theme in the background - x)

Jon’s “what did I do face?” after he bends the knee figuratively in the boat cabin (3:23 - x) (though to be fair, the 7x06 script confirmed this is when Jon realizes he has feelings for her after seeing Dany mourning Viserion so this reaction of Jon’s could be that he basically just gave the North away)

Jon’s reaction and looking over at Varys and Missandei after Dany blows up on Tyrion in 7x04 and says “Your family, you mean? Perhaps you don’t want to hurt them after all” (1:11 - x) - which is really foreshadowing that Jon will have to make the same choice eventually, that Dany will give that ultimatum, me or your family, which she does in 8x04 and then inadvertently continues to in 8x05 and 8x06 - then Dany pushes him for advice, he gives it to her, and she doesn’t completely follow it to the letter, and then eventually she disregards it completely when she burns down KL in 8x05

Jon not showing any emotion when he receives word that Arya & Bran are alive & back home while in front of Dany though we see his reactions in 8x01 when he’s reunited with them (7x05) (8x01)

Jon’s reaction to the Northerners’ not so great reaction to Dany that was cut (0:43 - x)

Drogon watching Jon and Dany make out in 8x01 and Jon keeping his eyes open as he kisses Dany & keeping her in front of him (a very common trope, if that’s the right word, to indicate that something shifty is afoot or there is distrust - 4:11 x)

the infamous squint Jon has in response to Dany talking in response to Tyrion (x) which they definitely included for a reason and this for me solidified Kit as one of the Masters of Microexpressions

Jon’s reactions to Dany (that she can’t see) when she visits him in his room after the Feast in 8x04 (x)

Jon’s immediate whiplash worried turn to Dany when Tormund says proudly “or a King!” to check her reaction (x) plus the framing in this scene is not only meant to show the increasing isolation & paranoia Dany is feeling but for Jon to have his back to her (after they shared that warm smile no less which she realizes in 0:45 - x) I think it speaks very loudly that he is not as head over heels as people think he is but that he is placating her while also caring about her (she is family to him, the last of his real father’s family, & he’s also still attracted to her)

his glare to Sansa while planning the assault on KL to get her to shut up for lack of a better way to put it (2:36 x) which Tyrion later confirms in the same episode with his line to Sansa “why provoke her?” which leads to Sansa realizing Tyrion is afraid of Dany and then she also realizes Jon is too (Jon’s fear is not confirmed in dialogue in this moment but the ones seeing the writing on the wall for this whole thing, it wasn’t a large leap for them to make, knowing the characters they way they do) which then leads to her telling his secret

Jon giving himself up basically, to go South, I think he’s very aware he will not be coming North again once Dany wins and that is why he asks Tormund to take Ghost with him - you see him saying goodbye to Sam and Gilly, finding out about their child on the way, to Tormund, to Ghost (I know people were mad that Jon didn’t pet Ghost, I was too, but I think he honestly couldn’t handle it at that moment and I’ve seen brilliant metas circulate that talk about how Ghost is an extension of Jon and his injuries and look echo how Jon really feels - & if you see the sliced ear, it’s very possible that they are fully correct in that reading, Jon has stopped listening, he’s doing what he thinks is right, what he has to do, his duty, he’s not listening to Sam or Tormund or Sansa or even Arya) - this whole scene is meant as a goodbye to Jon Snow as a character (his Night’s Watch arc, his Wildling arc, even his bastard/Stark arc (and his wants that he has, his response to Gilly when she tells him they want tto name their child after him: “I hope it’s a girl” is just heartbreaking, Jon wanted a family someday (5:08 - x, notice how the Stark theme starts up subtly in the background) & he always wanted to be a Stark and in his mind, he is getting neither one nor does he think he deserve them at this point) and I think that’s why they don’t have any other Starks in that scene (& plus they had the Starks in that other scene in 8x04) (x) -- this whole scene really is the proof in the pudding for me regarding the whole duty vs love debate, coming down on the side of duty

Jon’s “I love you” in the fireplace scene seems to be more an answer to not just reassure her but tamp down any growing fury after just witnessing Varys’ execution (1:11 x) immediately followed up by his usual line “you will always be my queen” and then when she asks “is that all I am to you? Your queen?” notice that he doesn’t answer but lets her kiss him which he then doesn’t return and she realizes (notice his loud breathing too, it’s not passion, it’s fear, fear of what it might mean that he is not returning her affection so to speak, sadly for Dany I think she realizes this too and that’s why she subtly shakes her head, steps back and says “alright, let it be fear”, the part of me that loves Dany truly felt horrible for her in this moment though she scared the crap out of me too lol, it’s harsh because she really does love Jon, not enough to give up the IT and her destiny, but enough that she wants their relationship to work, that she did go up North to fight for him, delaying the attack on KL, she lost Jorah and Viserion, her forces were depleted, idk I just have some sympathy for her here because I still love her, and this is before she went full on dark, and Jon’s “I love you” was said softly with some measure of warmth in his eyes I think but I don’t believe he meant it the way she wanted him to)

Kit had this to say right before season 7 aired which I find fascinating because yes while he can’t give away spoilers, he didn’t need to answer this so definitively. And while he didn’t know what was going to happen in season 8 yet, I think this lends creedence (is that the right word?) to the fact that Jon was not head over heels in love with Dany (not like he was with Ygritte)

But saying all of that, I think by the end, Jon definitely cared for her. I don’t think he wanted her to die or even go bad. I think he was ready to give himself up to be with her to protect his home, to placate her, but also so there would no longer be a Targaryen living alone in the world. I think he remembers Aemon’s words all too well. However, I don’t think he could reconcile himself to a full on romance (which I think incest did play a part into it, but I think had that not been a factor, he still wouldn’t have been head over heels for Dany, incest with cousins and uncles/aunts was common in the GoT universe, Starks in history married their cousins at times [look back at their family tree, they were no strangers to it], and we all know about the Targaryen inbreeding, but I really think it has more to do with who Dany ends up being in the end than anything, and that’s why we see some moments that could be misconstrued as romantic and some warm, I would almost say tender, like the waterfall scene in 8x01 before Drogon enters the frame so to speak). I think, like every other character in the show that came into her orbit, Jon had feelings for the same Dany that they all did, that Jorah was in love with, that Tyrion believed in and was also in love with, that Varys supported until he couldn’t: the breaker of chains, the girl who walked into a fire with three eggs and out of the same fire with three dragons, etc. But once the curtain was pulled back and the Wizard was revealed, after he was around her long enough, I think Jon knew who she really was becoming and I really believe that played a major part in the portrayal of their “romance”. I also think that when Jon left to go to KL in 8x04, a part of him planned to take up Jorah’s role in Dany’s life. Not to say that he could replace Jorah or become a full on advisor to her, but that he would join Tyrion, Varys, Grey Worm, and Missandei in helping to win Dany back her IT like he promised but also to keep her placated, maybe help steer her in the right direction. And be someone who genuinely cares about her, another Targaryen (though no one knowing he was one had Sansa not told Tyrion). Until she tired of him or decided to kill him to end the threat his birthright posed. He says as much in 8x06 to Tyrion “That’s her decision”. I don’t think he ever thought Dany would actually ask him to join her on the IT and it definitely wasn’t something he wanted.

I did mention tragic for Jon, too, and I think that’s where the tragedy comes in. He has now become the Targaryen alone in the world, he is now a queenslayer, a kinslayer, and he is exiled back to the Night’s Watch. He had to kill someone he cared about, he had to kill a woman (he couldn’t do it twice before, with Ygritte and Melisandre), he had to kill his last living Targaryen family. And he had to do it while deceiving her in that last moment (which is why I think they dialed back the whole pol!Jon thing if it was ever on the table, which I definitely believe it was at some point) and watch her die. It wasn’t something he wanted to do as we know, but he had to, and we see him questioning himself even after she’s gone. (x) So I feel it was more political (in the beginning), complex (middle), and tragic (in the end) for Jon but for different reasons than Dany.

As for Dany, I think from her end, it was meant to be more of a tragic romance. In the books, I believe, there is a prophecy that Dany will know three betrayals and love is one of them. I don’t know if they carried that into the show here exactly, but there is a common theme of betrayal among Dany’s arc as we all know. I think she truly loved Jon and hoped he would be what she could never find before, had never seen in Viserys (not that she considered him romantically but I mean since he was the only other Targaryen she knew about at the time, and she knew the Targaryen history of siblings marrying siblings), or Drogo, or Daario, or even Jorah. Regardless of her feelings for any of them, regardless of their feelings for her, I think she thought she found what she wanted, what she needed, in Jon. Though I think finding out about Jon being her long lost nephew (and rival claim to the IT) deterred it maybe for a moment (or make her at least second guess it), but she still loved him and felt just as strongly. Not enough to deter her from her goal and her destiny (after the Great War is over, I mean), but as much as she possibly can. I think she really thought Jon was it for her. I also think she expected betrayal from Jon as she states in 8x05 to Tyrion (x), and then the look she gives Jon after Tyrion is taken away to a cell in 8x06 (1:50, you can also see Jon’s shock here because he wasn’t expecting her to be watching him so closely & he realizes oh crap, don’t blink, while they play the love theme in the background, she’s waiting for him to “betray” her too and had he defended Tyrion then and there, I have no doubt she would have thrown him in a jail cell, too, waiting for judgement aka execution x) but when he doesn’t “betray” her and she’s attained her goal, she is ready to make plans to rule together and be with him completely. It is definitely tragic for her end because here she expected him to betray her (like everyone else has at some time or another except Missandei, GW & Daario) twice by then, and the one time she doesn’t expect it, he does (no matter how it might have been justified & Jon’s only option) and it means her end. I’m not justifying her actions at all but I can see where they attempted to portray this as a tragic romance for her but only for her. Dany’s POV ends up swallowing most of the show in season 8, to the point where her story line becomes basically the show’s story line. Her arc becomes the sun that all other arcs are orbiting around and this is because she’s the other Big Bad after the Night King. Plus, I also think they were planning something big with Jon and that’s why they removed most of his story (so to speak) and important moments with the Starks, etc, for the big reveal in the end (it’s common in other shows I’ve seen and they did everything the same way they did in those other shows until 8x06 when they abandoned it). I don’t know what changed in the end, but that’s what I truly believe was what they were going for when it came to Dany herself. Tragic romance. I don’t believe it was ever political for her, in any way, shape, or form. I think once she fell in love with Jon, that was it.

The love theme itself “Truth” if you listen to it on the S7 soundtrack (Ramin Djawdi is a master btw) has an epic feel to it but almost a tragic one (though tragedy takes a back seat to the epic). It’s more Targaryen theme in nature (I have no idea what specific instrument you would call it) and you can hear it coming from Dany’s side almost, if that makes sense. And I think that’s because not only does it refer to the scene where Bran reveals who Jon is, and the boat sex is happening, but also because I believe it was only meant for Dany to experience this great romance. It does start out Stark-y just a tiny bit but then turns into something more, swells, and you can hear a slight Targaryen tint coming to it. After the first swell of music, you can almost see the boat scene happening in your head, whether you’ve actually seen it or not, and there’s almost a trepidation in the beginning, a contemplation, and then it’s all in, both feet over the edge and all hands on deck, pardon the pun. (x) This music plays as we know during the bending the knee scene in another song “See You For What You Are” (x), more subtle, but it’s there. And I think not only is it because it’s the moment where Jon realizes he has feelings and this leads to opening the door for the boat bang, but also because it’s what Jon says (this song, to me, sounds even more Targaryen-y to me) to Dany after he bends the knee, “see you for what you are” not who. And I know I mentioned it above, but it also plays during certain moments in season 8 that really make you question that romance, like that scene in 8x06. I think it’s all very telling.

I have to be very honest, I’m not pro-Jonerys at all. But it’s not because I hate Dany or Jon or hate the idea of them together or get squicked by the family angle, it’s because the relationship was not good for either of their characters in the show.

I remember watching 7x06 for the first time and seeing her reaction (or lack thereof) for Viserion’s death. I think she was in shock when it happened but who does she stand on the wall waiting for after? Jon. And that bothered me so much because she was the mother of dragons and they were the only children she would ever have. (and I might be more slightly biased towards the animals on the show) Yes, she did cry for Viserion on the boat later, but it’s almost more muted I feel because it blurs with her concern for Jon in that moment. That bothered me tremendously. Little did I know this would become a recurring theme for the last season as well: Jon comes first to everything else except the IT. (and I personally can’t stand it when this happens, I’m sorry, I’m all for love, but when you lose who you are, when you sacrifice yourself, I just can’t get past that) We do see her pain in 8x01 when Bran tells her about Viserion, and her pain at Rhaegal’s death in 8x04, but this is a strong female character who has proven she doesn’t need a man to run things. She is not someone who would get so besotted with someone that she would push everything else to the back burner and allow whatever is happening with him to color her decisions (I know, we all fall in love and it can happen, especially if it’s a first love or something akin to what one can feel as true love, if they’re convinced it’s that, but damn). Daario made suggestions to her but in the end, she made her own decisions. Drogo told her how to be but in the end, she figured out a way to appeal to him to do as she wanted (as we see in that scene where she takes the women into her care). Jorah advised her, so did Tyrion, but in the end she made her own decisions.

I hate it when they do this to strong female characters (which is why I despised the whole Sansa vs Dany thing, I get it story wise but here were two arguably incredibly strong women going head to head over a man most of the time or at least they tried to show being a factor in Dany’s fall and it just... ugh). So not only did Dany falling in love with Jon lead to her fall, her demise, but it wasn’t good for Jon, either. He had to keep who he was a secret, he had to placate her, give himself up and over to duty, the table was not tilted towards him really in their relationship, not in season 8 at least, the power dynamic was all screwy (as shown in that bedroom scene in 8x04 & the fireplace scene in 8x05). I just don’t think they made a good couple to be honest, not one that could have worked out long term I think, despite what happened in KL & Jon feeling uncomfortable. Personally, not that I’m the show or GRRM, but I think eventually, had Jon not married her and ruled with her, there would have been a Dance of Dragons 2.0 with Jon possibly losing in the end. It depends really on if anyone else found out about Jon’s parentage and how much of a threat ir would have become. And I love both characters too much to see either of them go that route. But then of course, that happened so...

Anyhoo, I’m so sorry for the 100 page essay in response lol. I swear I didn’t mean to get so wordy. I guess I still have a lot of thoughts where this show is concerned. This was my first ask, thank you so much for being it and for such an amazing question! <3

#ask #what a great question!#thank you #got #game of thrones #political!jon #anti jonerys #because i'm not pro jonerys #and never will be #both characters deserved better #than each other #too destructive #look at where they ended up in the end #pol!jon #undercover lover!jon #jon snow

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hamfistedmorals · 4 years

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Rise of Skywalker: Initial Thoughts and Feelings

As a movie, it was engaging. As a Star Wars story, it hooked me. But as a conclusion to this particular trilogy? As a final chapter to the entire saga? Oh boy, was it a hot mess.

BEWARE OF SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

(Disclaimer - I’m one of the 5% of Star Wars fans that loved The Last Jedi, so that might influence my opinion, but I’ll try to keep things unbiased.)

It was all over the place, and I mean that quite literally.

We got to see so many new locations, and most of them seemed interesting. Unfortunately, because of the breakneck pace and the ticking clock, the film doesn’t spend any time developing these places apart from Exegol - and that’s only planet who’s name I can remember. Adding on to the map of a Galaxy Far, Far Away is always a good thing. But so many new locations in one movie, with our heroes jumping back and forth every ten minutes...doesn’t make this universe feel larger. Actually, it makes it feel smaller. In past Star Wars movies, it would take time to go from one planet or star system to another. But that really doesn’t seem to be the case here. If there’s one problem that’s been semi-consistent throughout this trilogy, it’s the confusion of timing. (What’s the point of the title crawl if Episode 8 is going to pick up immediately after Episode 7? But I digress.)

The Dyad in the Force is easily the most fascinating concept of the entire trilogy.

I braced myself for the movie to ignore the connection previously established between Rey and Kylo Ren, as it ignores so much of Episode 8. But no, Rise of Skywalker actually build on the bond between these two characters and gives us more amazing scenes of them interacting entirely through their connection in the Force. We learn that they are essentially a one-of-a-kind anomaly, that Palpatine can use to restore his life energy. Rey and Ben even learn how to use their bond by the end of the film. It’s a new idea that Star Wars hasn’t done before and I kinda love it - I just really wish they had explored it more, and better outlined what it is, where it came from, and how it works. Then again, after how much people hated the Midichlorians, I expect the writers are hesitant to give any answers about how The Force works.

I also appreciated the official introduction of Healing, as a Force Power.

Say what you will about some of the Force-Abilities introduced in TLJ, but this one makes perfect sense. So much so that I’m pretty sure it’s already a thing in Star Wars video games? It was well foreshadowed and it played a role in Rey and Ben’s final fight, as well as that heartbreaking climax. Honestly, I truly thought Rey was dead in that moment. I teared up, thinking that her parents’ sacrifice was for nothing. Wondering if Finn could sense that she was gone. Wondering what Ben would do without her, since he had no one else. To be honest, I almost wish Rey had stayed dead, since as it stands...we have a redeemed villain sacrificing himself to save the hero that redeemed him...sound familiar? If Ben had lived, and Rey had died, it could have been a tragic inversion of Return of the Jedi, instead of just a retread. But oh well. I had a feeling they were going to kill off Kylo Ren anyway.

It feels like they did have plans for Finn, but never properly carried them out.

Rise of Skywalker very clearly implies that Finn has discovered that he’s Force-Sensitive. Which is a good idea, it just comes out of nowhere. Apparently, that’s what he was going to tell Rey - JJ has clarified it. One problem...that’s not a detail that should be confirmed in an interview. It should be answered within the movie. There were two separate conversations about Finn wanting to tell Rey...something, but the film never comes back to that or gives it any conclusion. Likewise, the idea of Finn being force-sensitive is only ever foreshadowed, never brought to light. Overall, Finn got some great moments, like when he met Jannah and got to connect with another former Storm-trooper...but his overall character arc in this film never got off the ground.

Was it just me...or was Poe constantly angry throughout the movie?

I don’t know if this was just Oscar Isaac’s frustration slipping through, or if it was meant to be the stress of the war, or something...but Poe was in a bad mood in just about every scene. But just like with Finn, this never gets resolved or even really acknowledged. Didn’t Poe go through an entire arc in the last film about learning to be less of a hot-head? For some reason, he and Rey are at each other’s throats...even though the end of the last film hinted that they found each other attractive? He does get some backstory as a Spice Runner (though they don’t explain what that is. Maybe it’s answered in one of the books, I dunno.) and we get to meet Zori, who is truly a charming and compelling character. Even if she was only written in as a final “no-homo” to Finn and Poe, I wanted to learn more about her.

They did Rose dirty. They did her so dirty.

She should have been an official member of the squad in this film, not relegated to cameos. There was no reason she couldn't have been more involved. Her romance with Finn should have been addressed. Even if it was just him gently letting her down, they ought to have mentioned it. Regardless of how you feel about Rose and that particular pairing (Personally, I adored her) it's downright strange that she's so absent from the story when she was a main character last time. Gee, I wonder why this was done? Could it be because the character was eviscerated online by a group of hardcore “fans” who compared her to Jar Jar Binks? Who not only made racist, sexist, and body-shaming comments about the character - they drove Kelly Marie Tran off social media? It really seems like downplaying Rose in this film was a direct response to how unpopular she was, and that isn’t fair to the character or the actress. It just seems...cowardly.

The CGI on Leia...could have been better.

Not gonna lie, it might have been safer to simply reveal Leia’s death in the title crawl and open the movie with her funeral. Don’t get me wrong, I was initially quite impressed with how they managed to re-create Carrie Fisher. It was nice to see her training Rey, and we even get an answer to the age-old mystery of why she never became a Jedi. But as Leia’s scenes went on, the cracks started to show. It became very noticeable after a while that she would never adjust her standing position or really move at all. So many of her lines were shot to avoid showing her face while she spoke. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why it looked this way. I’m just saying that as a viewer, I noticed. Leia’s death scene was the worst offender of this. By the way...what exactly killed her? She apparently gave the “last of her energy” to call out to Ben, but...nothing beforehand indicated that her health was failing, so why would a simple telepathic message consume all her life energy? She’s done it before. Either way, the death scene was kinda lame...but other characters reactions to it? Hit me right in the feels. Chewie’s breakdown tore me to pieces. I wanted to hug him. And as for Ben...

That Han Solo Cameo

I’m impressed, first of all. We all though Han could never come back since he wasn’t force-sensitive, so he wouldn’t get a spirit form. But the great thing is, Han didn’t come back - not really. It was all in Ben’s head, hence the lines echoing his father’s death. I love how Leia’s death, compounded with Rey healing Ben and all but telling him that she would be with him if he wasn’t on the dark side, is what ultimately swayed him to turn back. When he called Han “Dad...” In that broken voice, and Han just said “I know...” Honestly, that was the best scene in the movie. Ben previously said to Rey that the Dark Side was in her blood, so she couldn’t escape it. It was so clear that he felt that way about himself too, which may have been part of why he turned. Seeing Han was a perfect reminder that he had more than just Vader in his ancestry.

Chewie’s “death” was the other scene in the movie that took my breath away.

Echoing the Force-Battle over Anakin’s lightsaber, Rey and Kylo Ren have a tug-of-war for the ship Chewie is on, and in her rage, Rey accidentally conjures Force-Lightning and blows up the ship, shocking everyone. It demonstrates Rey’s power, as well as her natural leaning toward the Dark Side (through anger.) It also foreshadows her lineage. Plus, the whole concept of accidentally killing your beloved friend..It’s got so much tension, so much emotion - it’s fantastic. Only one problem...Chewie survived, and we find that out not even five minutes later. Honestly, it’s the last movie. Anything goes, you can kill off main characters, even beloved main characters. All of the emotional drama that this scene brings to the table stops mattering once you find out Chewie’s alive. I would love to see Rey actually have to deal with the consequences of what happened, for the movie to explore how it makes the other characters feel about her. On the other hand, one of my first thoughts after it happened was “Geez, if the fandom hated her before...” All the fans who complain Rey is a Mary Sue (She’s not) Yeah, they’d never, ever forgive her if she was responsible for Chewie’’s death.

I can’t decide how I feel about Kylo Ren repairing his mask.

When I first realized it was happening, I was disappointed. In a way, it undoes his character growth in Last Jedi when he rejected his hero worship of Darth Vader - and even did what Vader could not, slaying his master and living to succeed him. Kylo Ren surpassed Vader once he stopped trying to be him, and that was awesome. But between bringing back the mask (with the painfully on-the-nose line about the “cracks in your mask”) and the reveal that “Snoke” is still alive, all of Ben Solo’s coolest moments from TLJ have been reversed. On the other hand... the Kylo Ren mask is, and always was, a symbol. In TFA, it reflected a pretentious attempt to be more like Darth Vader. But in this movie, it seemed to reflect Kylo Ren embracing the image of being the “Big Bad.” much like how Luke embraced his status as a legend, just before he died. And I’m not gonna lie, seeing the words “Supreme Leader Kylo Ren” in the title crawl was quite satisfying. Not to mention, at the end of the day...it’s all an act. Kylo Ren has always tried very hard to be “evil” but his heart just isn’t in it. He’s trying to be something he’s not - so maybe it’s okay if the mask comes back.

Let’s rip this band-aid off: Bringing Palpatine back was a mistake.

If they needed a greater-scope villain for the climax after Ben was redeemed...why not use Snoke? Apparently, they’re the same person anyway, and people were mad that Snoke died without having a greater story to tell. Palpatine’s return goes entirely unexplained. He just hand-waves the issue by quoting Episode 3. As a viewer, why should I feel triumphant when Rey kills him at the end, when as far as I know, nothing is stopping him from returning again? After all, he survived certain death before, and we don’t know how he did it. (This is what I mean when I say the film is good by itself, but highly flawed as a continuation of existing Star Wars.) Palpatine’s return devalues Anakin’s sacrifice. It weakens both Vader and Kylo as villains because it removes their agency - we now know they only turned because Palpatine manipulated and groomed them. They’ve made him the greater-scope villain of every single trilogy, which just feels weird. I always thought the overarching villainous force of Star Wars was supposed to be, y’know, the Dark Side and it’s tempting call. That anyone could potentially succumb. But speaking of this film rejecting the idea of “anyone” being special...

Rey...did not need to have a bloodline.

You need Palpatine to have a reason that he’s so intrigued by her? You’ve already got that - she’s part of an anomaly in The Force that no one’s ever seen before. Need a life-changing shock that pushes her closer to the Dark Side? All you have to do is let Chewie stay dead, and have it be her fault. As much as I have genuinely loved Rey’s character growth and I always enjoy watching her, I can’t help but feel like giving her a bloodline at this point was at least partially done to mitigate the claims that she’s “too powerful.” Not to mention, it ruins the reveal at the end of The Last Jedi, and it’s one more thing that makes the Star Wars universe feel smaller. Coming from a powerful bloodline shouldn’t be a requirement for changing the fate of the Galaxy. Sure, Force-Sensitivity is often hereditary, but not exclusively. Besides, there are more people out there attuned to the Force that just the Skywalkers, Palpatines, and Kenobis. Why couldn’t Rey just be one of them? If Star Wars really is going to go on forever, it can’t simply be the continuing sage of two or three families screwing up the Galaxy.

What’s up with the super-rushed tone of the ending?

So, Rey and Ben share a kiss - whether or not you ship them, this moment is wholesome, heartwarming, and so earned - But then Ben immediately, and I mean immediately falls down dead. He doesn’t get any last words or even a last moment. (Come to think of it...does Ben have any lines at all after his scene with Han? I...don’t think he does. That’s just weird.) Nope, he just fades into the Force so quickly that I didn’t even realize what happened at first. Rey makes it back to the Resistance base and reunites with her friends, but they don’t share any dialogue either. No final moments, not even Finn telling Rey that he’s Force-Sensitive. Disney gets to check off their diversity clipboard by having two nameless women kiss in the background, and Rey then visits...Tatooine, of all places, to bury The Skywalker twins lightsabers. Because you see, a Jedi’s Weapon deserves respect. Burning them? Shameful. But burying them, A-Okay.

Rey is never shown mourning Ben Solo.

Whether or not you think he “deserved” redemption, the film clearly sided with the idea that he did. It based a lot of it’s conflict on Rey and Ben being a hero and a villain who also cared about each other. Going so far as to include the Dyad, and give them a kiss scene. So it’s bizarre that Ben’s death doesn’t seem to affect Rey. She doesn’t even have any sort of reaction to it, but she does have a gold lightsaber now. Which is so incredibly cool that it baffles me that they didn’t let her have it sooner. She never gets to really use it. A random local shows up, for no other purpose than to ask Rey who she is. Rey looks on to see Luke and Leia’s Force-Spirits give their blessing (No Ben, for some reason.) And she then introduces herself as Rey Skywalker. Because they had to justify that title somehow, right? Then the scavenger-turned-jedi, who started out all alone on a desert planet but found a family through her travels...ends her story all alone on desert planet. Hey, wait a minute-

The problems of this trilogy boil down to the fact that it had two writers, with two different visions for the characters.

Perhaps the death of Snoke, the introduction of Rose, and Rey’s lack of lineage directly conflicted with J.J.'s plans for the new trilogy...but The Last Jedi happened. It's canon now. Trying to pretend otherwise doesn't "fix" that. Having moments that directly contradict the previous film, even taking intentional jabs at it (looking at you, Force-Spirit Luke) is a waste of time and honestly feels...kind of immature? As a writer, I’m sure it isn’t easy, but you've got to work with what you have, follow the ideas and plot threads introduced, or else none of it will feel organic. So many moments like repairing Kylo Ren's mask, bringing back Anakin's destroyed saber, giving Rey a bloodline...they just cause whiplash.The only arcs that really continue through each movie are Kylo Ren's redemption, and Rey's identity issues. The writing of Episode 9 does everything it can to erase the ideas of Episode 8, and as a result, the entire trilogy feels directionless. The story feels like its at war with itself. I understand if Rian left J.J. in a compromising position, but sometimes you have to let go of ideas if they can no longer work in your story, however much you want them to. And, not to pick on J.J. too much, but...if he really had a major plan for the trilogy, then why didn't he stay to write Episode Eight? He left the second chapter of the trilogy to an entirely different writer, so...what did he think was going to happen?

It’s a good movie. It really is. I was on the edge of my seat. If you’ve never seen the first two films, you’ll likely enjoy the hell out of it. But if you’re hoping to get a satisfying conclusion for the characters you’ve grown to care about...well, I’ll just say that I didn’t find that here.

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dragonofyang · 5 years

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Ok but...I feel like VLD S7-8 would’ve been a bit more interesting (jeez what an understatement...) if they had framed it as a sort of redemption arc for Team Voltron themselves. They caused the invasion of Earth by leaving Lotor in the Rift and now they have to deal with the consequences. But nope, cause Heroes never make mistakes right?

I suppose focusing so tightly on Allura should have left some holes in my analysis, and you’re absolutely right! I wanted to focus on Allura exclusively since the Heroine’s Journey model is so new compared to the Hero’s Journey and it fits it just so friggin’ well. Honestly, it’s kinda mind-blowing to me that I never learned about it until this year but it’s such a fascinating story structure. Mostly I’ll be discussing s8 in this response because the edits made to 7 would have been done prior to production completion, and they primarily were focused on including the MFE pilots and removing Lotor’s sympathetic backstory and moving it to s8e2 “Shadows”.

I suppose my biggest hiccup with my meta is that I kinda sorta ignored the majority of the cast by focusing on Allura XD because you’re right, narratively it’s interesting to see the fallout but also it’s structurally necessary for the Paladins to face consequences of a situation they caused. That would be a part of not only Allura’s arc as a Heroine but the Paladins’ as heroes (regardless of whether they fit the Hero’s Journey monomyth), as well as contextually appropriate given how this is a Y-7 and generally kids’ shows are educational in some way. While we see Allura be conflicted about leaving Lotor in the Rift almost as soon as Keith gives the order to leave, the team and the rest of the Voltron Coalition continue to applaud it as a good decision, and then in the version of s8 on Netflix either tacks in Lotor as a “big bad guy we defeated” using cut-and-pasted dialogue or simply ignores him as a character. I imagine Team V’s redemption would have begun in earnest after Allura’s descent into the underworld and her returning with the knowledge that not only is Lotor alive but that he needs to be rescued.

Having the team be in the trenches of their mistake not only highlights Allura’s conflict within herself--after all, she effectively destroyed the part of herself that she was afraid to accept in the same stroke as seemingly-killing Lotor--but it also demonstrates how the team’s biggest mistake in this is that they didn’t stop and listen. Allura’s mental health is at stake here from the very start. She’s listless, she feels alone and isolated, and none of her friends seem to notice beyond telling her to take a night off work.

Lance, much as I love what he could’ve been, would have been critical to the turnaround necessary not only for Lotor to get his vindication/redemption, but also to trigger the necessary metamorphosis of Team V from heroes who failed a challenge into true Heroes who make things right and grow. Instead, in the s8 on Netflix, Lance fulfills the role of the ogre in Allura’s Heroine’s Journey, and seems to be more possessive of Allura in the latter half of the season, rather than being given the opportunity to become quite probably the first of the Paladins to actually back her up in the proposal to save Lotor. Tbh if anything I’d wager that when it’s time to step up to the plate in the original s8, Lance more than makes up for the nonsense of the first half of s8 and probably convinces Pidge next that it’s a good idea to save Lotor. And Pidge being crazy smart would pick up on all the strategic benefits that Allura might not have elaborated on, as well as the subtextual emotional motivation.

And the cool thing about this is that it would give Paladin Allura the opportunity to redeem herself to herself. Because she shut down emotionally when she left Lotor in the Rift. Lotor represented the side of her she feared, the emotional, the feminine tempering to his masculinity, and shutting him in the Rift meant she was also shutting herself away from her own emotions and ability to temper the path her father left for her. As an Animus, Lotor encourages balance to Allura internally, but if he’s gone then so is that balance, so taking the initiative to not only save Lotor but revive him would solve this problem twofold: she would be saving him and righting the wrong that Voltron committed, but she would also be taking that critical step and acknowledging, approaching, and bringing to light the things she might not have wanted to face before. By rescuing him and effectively asking his forgiveness, she’s also forgiving herself and able to take those steps forward to unify herself and the universe.

In turn, all these redemptions and salvations would culminate in the storming of the pyramid, which would be Allura’s Heroine’s Journey climax and the point where Team V as a whole really ascends back to herodom. I mean, one key thing to remember is that since Team V has all the protagonists and serve as our lens into this fantastical world of aliens and robots, so the redemption is pretty much inevitable, but that doesn’t change the fact that they would be righting a wrong and redeeming themselves. It’s just that we see it with heroes rather than antagonists. With “Shadows”, you’re really supposed to see Team V as bad at being good, at least where Lotor’s concerned, but by righting their own wrong it gives them the ability to then move forward and help Lotor and Allura have that final showdown with Honerva and fix the universe, but only after they’ve proven themselves worthy of the title of “heroes”.

And again: this is a Y-7. It’s geared towards kids as a general rule but like a lot of DreamWorks stuff, it’s generally considered a family show. Cool as literary sex metaphors and facing permanent consequences are, you can’t mentally scar kids for life. The heroes gotta do their thing, but the important thing is that they earn it. They’re not Prince Charming in a Disney film who happens to be in the right place at the right time, they’re Hiccup and Toothless, learning to work together and fighting for the right reasons even when the odds are stacked against them, and that the dragons aren’t bad by nature, but by circumstance, and that they’re just as much victims as the Berkians. It’s a show that handles big themes and big questions that little kids might not realize they’re asking yet, but it gives them the groundwork to understand things better as they grow older. To quote Peter Keefe, who worked on Defender of the Universe, "At the end of the day, it's not about who's the most powerful, who's the most brave or strong. It's more like, who has the biggest mind, and how open can your mind be, and how important a sense of humor is and how we shouldn't take ourselves very seriously. So if they walk away with a little bit of a lighter lilt to their step, that's what Voltron means. It means ‘have a heart, have a soul’ and of course it takes place in a wild and fanciful world, but that's what people take, I hope."

#dragon's ramblings #teampurplelion #executive meddling #free vld s8 #freevlds8 #defender of the universe #vld #dotu #the heroine's journey #the hero's journey #redemption arcs #literature #beautifulmonsterseverywhere

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kicacris · 5 years

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do you ever wonder if cree had never turned evil, she would have enter the TND and maybe the AND

GATHER AROUND KIDS ‘CAUSE OLD CRIS IS ABOUT TO KND RAMBLE IN A VERY LONG POST!

Long time ago, when I was still in my 15s and the show was barely starting in CN, I used to believe Cree was another secret undercover teen operative working for KND and I was CONSTANTLY waiting for the reveal to eventually happen (pretty much what I also expected with Chad) but after the show ended and Chad was the only one who got proven to be good all along, I was 100% convinced she was really in the enemy side and I learned to accept it and EMBRACE IT.

You see, part of what makes Cree’s this cool character we all love it’s her personal vendetta against KND. If you take that element out of her character design, she would probably be just a normal teen-older-sister figure who has been somehow secretly protecting Abby/Sector V in the sidelines all this time and, although I admit that would have been pretty awesome to discover, I totally prefer the case not to be because I think a redemption arc for her would be way much more awesome to watch.

But please allow me to go into full Numbuh 101 mode for a second and ramble a bit with another of my “KicaCris-analyses-the-KND-canon-universe!” very long posts:

To me, Cree is the “Jasper” (Steven Universe) of the Kids-Next-Door, the villain who will figure out later her mistakes and rise again as a redeemed heroine.

Story-wise, I think the writers needed to show us the both sides of the aftermath of KND operatives turning 13 yrs old: the kids who accept decommission and grow up honorably (Maurice) and the kids who (for some reason) decide to rebel and betray KND upon becoming teenagers (Cree).

Now I don’t think Cree betrayed KND just because “she’s now a teen and suddenly her brain/hormones decided to turn her evil” and all that yada-yada, hell no. Cree was A LOT like Abby when she was a kid (proven in the flashback of Op MAURICE), she was Sector V’s leader, super smart, brave and responsible.

SOMETHING must have happened after Maurice left Sector V that somehow made her HATE with raging passion the Kids-Next-Door. What was it? We don’t know it yet, but we can pin-point WHEN it probably happened.

Canon-wise, it seemed to have happened after Nigel’s graduation from the Cadets-Next-Door Academy and during what I presume was Chad’s first years as a global command operative (Op TREATY flashback). The flashback definitely happens after the whole chicken-pox thing, as we can notice Abby is already wearing Cree’s red cap and Numbuhs 8A and 8B have been cured and still part of the team:

Funny enough Chad seems to have gone thru one heck of a growth spurt after Maurice left Sector V. Notice how he was a small boy scout in Op Maurice flashback and how he suddenly is towering Nigel in Op TREATY flashback:

(Bonus: he’s even taller in the present day)

Sorry I got distracted-what was I saying?

Ah yeah, the timeline! So, as I was saying, Cree was still Sector V’s leader when Nigel graduated from the Cadets-Next-Door academy and Chad was already a global command operative.

And then we have Kuki’s graduation flashback:

As far as I know canon-wise, Kuki is the youngest and last member to join Sector V and notice how by this moment in time, Numbuh 100 is STILL the Supreme Leader, Chad is a global command operative and yes Rachel is also pictured in here wearing her old uniform, but none of the old or current members of Sector V appear.

I’m not sure if there is an established limited number of operatives per KND team sector but, but either Sector V had like 8 members by the time Kuki joined in or Cree and the twins were already gone by then.

Anyway, my point is whatever triggered Cree to betray KND probably happened around this moment, either before or after Numbuh 100 got decommissioned.

But alas, we never learned what caused her to rebel…just another of the many unresolved stories in the show…*sigh

I don’t want to spoil much my headcanon, ‘cause you’ll see what is my version of what probably lead Cree to rebel in my story, but all I can say is that SOMETHING must have rubbed her the wrong way with KND right before hitting 13 years old that triggered to start a personal war against the organization (plus, recruiting decommissioned high-ranked-beloved ex KND operatives to be part of her Teen Ninjas forces seems pretty ill-intended so her desire for revenge is really intense!)

(((BONUS RANDOM UNRELATED GROWTH SPURT ANALYSIS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS LOL))) :

What really confuses (and fascinates me the most too) is that A LOT OF TIME seemed to have passed between Maurice leaving Sector V and Kuki’s addition. In Operation: E.N.D., it is stated that Numbuh 274 was the leader for 5 years, but this is later contradicted in Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E., as the flashback shows that three years before the present time Numbuh 100 was still the Supreme Leader. (This is a very intriguing mistake because clearly, the writers didn’t have Numbuh 100 in mind when Operation END was written. Numbuh 100 seemed to have been created in the production of the two last seasons and he must have had a purpose story-wise because why would you suddenly throw another Supreme Leader before Chad and Rachel’s time to the story???)

The growth spur Maurice, Chad and Rachel go thru the show is very noticeable and it’s probably the best indicator of how much time has passed if you compared them to how all members of Sector V remain physically the same throughout the show.

These three, (and Cree too) are the only characters who seem to go thru this expected puberty effect during the show either because they turn 13 or are close to reaching puberty as in Rachel’s case, while Numbuh 1-5 are all barely hitting 10-11 years canonically (Kuki reaching 10 years old in the show is my only reference).

Let’s check some facts first: Chad is canonically a few months older than Maurice and at least a year older than Rachel, BUT Chad probably had a late growth spur as he clearly looks shorter than Maurice during the chicken-pox crisis.

Let’s look at Maurice growth spur first: he clearly grows A LOT in the 3 year gap between the flashback and the time of his decommission. He now towers Abby but is still a bit shorter than Cree, who is 16 years old in the show (that means she’s 3 years older than Maurice and Chad wow).

He’s also almost the same height as Stacey:

But THEN in Op PARTY he seems to have grown even more and is now Cree’ same height:

Let’s check Rachel:

She was already taller than Fanny before becoming a global command operative.

And grows slightly taller than Nigel in Op ZERO.

She keeps growing taller as the show progresses. Look how far she has grown by the time op TREATY happens! She reaches Steve a bit under his shoulders and he’s taller than Cree! It’s very subtle but it’s still noticeable. I’m pretty sure she’s way taller than Abby by the time she passes to her the Supreme Leadership.

And Chad, boy he grows a lot throughout the show! Remember how Stacey was the same height as Maurice at first? Well look again in Op PARTY, Chad is now taller than her!

And in this other shot during the first teen attack during operation TREATY? He’s almost as tall as Cree!

I’m going to use Numbuh Infinity as my height reference but look how much he’s taller compared to him and Nigel (and Infinity is a tall alien kid mind you).

I’m guessing by the end of the show Chad is almost just as tall as Maurice. Too bad we never saw them side by side in the show, it would have been interesting to see who is the tallest between the two but my headcanon is that Mo is slightly taller.

Ok I got too carried away with this answer lmao, sorry guys! XD I’m gonna leave it here, thank you for coming to my TED talk about “Growth spur in KND”, bye!

#ask kicaCris #codename kids next door #knd #kids next door

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willidleaway · 4 years

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Star Wars, episode 9

In short: Without spoiling anything, remember how I was on about how Episode VIII was a good movie, a mediocre one, and a bad one fighting for space to each other’s detriment? And remember how this (I thought) left Episode IX with way more to bite off than it could chew?

Well, probably not, but it seems I had reason to worry. Episode IX is full of droids and spaceships and fights and explosions, but it also feels simultaneously empty and overstuffed. The plot isn’t stretched nearly as thin across so many parallel subplots as was the case with Episode VIII, but it’s still got two to three movies’ worth of story squeezed together into something resembling a supercut with just the essentials, and part of the problem seems to be it's more of a sequel to Episode VII than it is to Episode VIII.

So even though it competently hits familiar beats for fans of the original trilogy, and even though many people will like it well enough for that, it feels regressive and conservative and lazy. Good actors are wasted. Good characters are underused. Noise and nostalgia take precedence over sensible storytelling. It warrants more disappointment than anger, but maybe not a non-zero amount of anger, and it worries me about the future of Star Wars movies.

Spoiler-filled breakdown behind the Read More break.

In less short: OK, so let’s review where we were when Episode VIII ended:

Kylo Ren has killed Snoke and become Supreme Leader, with nobody to dictate his actions. Cool.

Rey’s parents are nobody and we shouldn’t be fussing about her heritage as if heroes always have chosen status or weird bloodlines. Cool.

The Resistance are basically now a ragtag crew that fits in a light freighter, with no allies to come to their rescue. ... This is a bit of a difficult spot to get out of.

Within the first 30 minutes of so, Episode IX sets it up so that:

Not only is Snoke not dead, but it turns out he was Sheev all along, and he’s still going to dictate Kylo Ren’s actions. Oh.

The Resistance is magically where it was at the end of Episode VII. Oh.

Then a bit further in—maybe an hour or so?—it turns out Rey has some kind of weird bloodline after all, namely Palpatine’s. Oh.

Palpatine being Snoke is annoying because Palpatine’s supposed to be dead and Snoke’s supposed to be dead, and when you have a long-dead Sith Lord that turns out to have been pretending to be a recently dead Supreme Leader, it seems reasonable enough to demand an explanation—none is given, of course.

The Resistance being magically reverted to its Episode VII state is understandable given the need to have Carrie Fisher in the movie through unused footage from that movie, but in view of all of the other retcons of Episode VIII, one can’t help but give this a bit of side-eye as well.

The retcon of Rey’s heritage is the real tell that

this is trying to be half of the trilogy all at once, which is a problem because it’s supposed to be the third act;

and in the process it’s also trying to erase a lot of the actual Episode VIII, which is a problem because it’s canon.

The thing is, much of what happens in the sequels could fit sensibly into three films with just a bit more work. Keep VII mostly as is; for VIII, trim the pointless safecracking subplot and the misguided mutiny subplot (and ideally replace them with a single subplot that keeps Poe and Finn in the same madness), and extend to include the reveal that Snoke was Palpatine and that Rey is his granddaughter; and then this leaves IX with enough breathing room to actually flesh out the implications of those reveals, the Force dyad, and so on, before moving on to the action of tracking down the Sith dagger and everything that ensues from there.

Of course, then it would follow exactly the beats of the original trilogy. Episode V ends with a big family reveal, and Episode VI then spends time dealing with the implications and reconciling the reveal with what was previously stated. But the sequels have been in such lockstep with the original trilogy that frankly I’m surprised that’s not what they went for to begin with.

Yet it makes sense when you take into account the completely on-the-fly plotting that the sequels have obviously been subjected to. VIII basically tore down some of the most delicious set pieces of VII—the mystery behind Rey’s identity, the presence of Snoke as Kylo Ren’s puppetmaster—and IX is basically tearing down that tearing-down. I know JJ Abrams wasn’t wholly responsible for the story of Episode IX, but it does feel quite a bit like he’s going ‘oh god no, that’s not what you were supposed to do with that from my movie! or that! or that! this is what you were supposed to do!’ and trying to build the house of cards back up. He’s not got enough time to do it right in two hours and a bit, and he knows it, but gosh darn it he’s still going to try. And maybe at some point he gets frustrated and yells ‘okay, Snoke was supposed to be a puppet of Palpatine, all right? just—just start the movie with that, it’ll be fine, because I don’t know how to even make that work with the carnage that Rian left behind’. So then facts are rapidly established and moved on from, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover—mainly a lot of ground from VIII, to cover up.

It’s funny how the themes of these movies are supposed to be progressive—VIII was all about moving forward from failure and fear and despair, IX about recognising you are not alone and facing the problems of the world with that knowledge—and yet the plotting of these movies are continually regressive, retreating to ground already trodden to death by the original trilogy (both figuratively and, in the case of JJ’s films, literally—Death Star II, Endor, ...), and in many cases retreating within itself. A regressive strategy may work for prequels—after all things must gravitate towards the ground truth laid down by the originals—but it doesn’t work quite as well for sequels.

That’s really the key thing I wanted to say—IX feels insular, like it came from a parallel universe with a completely different JJ-led VIII and only realises it about ten minutes of the way in, and it feels a bit lazy falling back on clichés that VIII tried to explicitly preclude. But I do have some more specific thoughts on a few characters.

Rose: So, there was a lot of media buzz when VIII came out about Rose because ooh look she’s the first Asian woman to get any kind of significant screen time in a Star Wars movie isn’t that nice. And then there was a lot of racist and sexist abuse thrown at Kelly Marie Tran and that’s not very nice at all. And Rose’s character arc in VIII unfortunately overall turned out a bit lacklustre frankly so that’s just a bit mediocre. So clearly, given that Rose has been held up as this point of diversity in an otherwise not-terribly-intersectionality-friendly universe, we want to maybe shore this up a bit, right? Make sure that if Star Wars is going to have an Asian woman, that she’s going to be really prominent as things start going down in this last movie?

Erm, no. We’re just leaving her at the Resistance base to do tech things. Oh, we’ll bring her back out for the final battle, sure, and she’ll be part of the ground invasion, but for most of the movie you’ll barely realise that this was almost a major character in the last movie. The droids will have more agency and screen time than her.

Good choice, lads.

Hux and Pryde: VII wasted Max von Sydow, VII and VIII mostly wasted Gwendoline Christie, and now behold: the whole sequel trilogy wasted Domhnall Gleeson.

As demonstrated by performances in films like Brooklyn and Ex Machina, Domhnall Gleeson is actually an excellent actor, not merely competent. Yet in these movies, he doesn’t seem to have actually been given a role, only a caricature of one and a set of gags. First, he’s supposed to be a sort of perpetual rival to Kylo Ren—very mad, but very competent. Then, he’s basically openly laughed at by the Resistance and entirely subdominant to Kylo Ren. But finally in this movie, the writers remembered he’s supposed to be a peer, and makes him a mole out of spite against Kylo Ren, but basically absolutely nobody involved can take this seriously because of course it’s ridiculous.

To be honest, I don’t see how they could have ever made a rival to Kylo work. Here’s a more compelling idea. How about this: a former Imperial officer, high enough in rank to occasionally report directly to the Emperor himself, obviously loses all of his power and prestige with the end of the Empire. But then the First Order rises up, and he somehow gets to head the First Order’s military forces—but has to report to this upstart, this Kylo Ren. It disgusts him to have to report to this undignified hull-tearing snot nose, but he does it because he knows that behind the mask of Snoke is the Emperor, having cheated death, and through his devotion and the devotion of many others, the Emperor will rise again and—Kylo Ren or no Kylo Ren—reclaim what is rightfully his!

Oh right that’d basically have been General Pryde if they’d thought of him back when they were making Episode VII.

And of course, Richard E Grant—star of Withnail and I, of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and of many fascinating Doctor Who stories of various canonicity—is in this role, and good god that’s even more of a tragic waste because of what General Pryde could have been if they’d actually plotted out a proper trilogy and realised that someone like Pryde would have worked a lot better than someone like Hux as right-hand man to the main villain.

Still nowhere near as wasted as Gwendoline Christie, mind.

Jannah: Yeah, Jannah and her company are all right. I just mention her because I am so glad that we didn’t get another Mickey Smith and Martha Jones situation where the black people just got coupled up at the last minute. Just thought I’d mention that.

Poe/Finn: Look, it’s like Kirk/Spock, okay? All the subtext is there, and it’s just a matter of you reading between the lines. How you read between the lines is entirely up to you—I argue there is a place for deep platonic relationships as much as romantic relationships, homo- or hetero-gender (although there may be a personal bias involved here).

But let me just say this: in the original trilogy, you had a young Jedi trainee and a pilot and his rescuee, with the latter two having this bickering old married couple dynamic. Those two are absolutely an item by the end of the trilogy, as in they have their big rotten kiss at the end of VI. (Possibly at other points too. I couldn’t possibly tell you.)

In this sequel trilogy, you have a young Jedi trainee and a pilot and his rescuee, with the latter two having this bickering old married couple dynamic. So where’s my Poe/Finn kiss at the end of IX?

As I say, though, it’s like Kirk/Spock, and like Kirk/Spock, it’s such brilliant chemistry that you can always rely on fan fiction to compensate for the cowardice of the canon writers. But it’d have been nice to have some level of canon validation.

Kylo and Rey: Yeah, speaking of big rotten kisses ... That is not the kiss I wanted at the end of IX. You didn’t have Luke kissing Anakin at the end of VI, did you?

That’s my main complaint, really, and otherwise I still think Adam from Girls (I’m sorry that’s just how I think of Adam Driver for some reason??? even though I’ve never even seen Girls???) looks a bit goofy at times. But Kylo and Rey’s arc felt like one where they were equals (possibly the bloodline reveal helps a bit there), they worked together well, it had a reasonable conclusion, etc. The Force bond thing is still creepy, and still a bit weird in how you can pass matter back and forth, but I suppose it was established in VIII, and I happen to think the way it was used in this movie on Exegol was actually pretty brilliant.

The droids: You thought I was going to talk about C-3PO, but it was he, D-O!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Overall, I'm still not entirely cleared up on what happened with the droids, actually. It seemed like there was just this whole roundabout subplot around Threepio only to return everything to status quo, and maybe D-O had some information they could probably have used to begin with???

Other miscellaneous thoughts:

How much study in the Living Force does it take to do the becoming-one-with-the-Force thing, anyway? We see that Leia and Ben both vanish into nothing after death, and Leia definitely is a Force ghost confirmed at the end. But I thought season 6 of TCW made it pretty clear that this required a lot of training and study, which is why Qui-Gon was training Yoda so that he could then presumably train Obi-Wan (as the end of III suggests) in the art of immortality. To be fair Anakin never was trained in this, but given that he’s the Chosen One, I think he gets a bit of slack on what Force powers he can use. Luke and Leia were never trained on screen, of course, but Luke had years to read all the sacred Jedi texts, and he knows Force Telepresence (still can’t be bothered to find the actual name of that), so I figure he’s a very good autodidact, and likely trained Leia at some point as well as a Force ghost. So where does that leave Ben? I don’t know, maybe the Force ghosting thing is just a thing that runs in the Skywalker bloodline.

‘The dead speak!’ is the goofiest way to open a crawl since ‘War!’ from Episode III. Another reason the Palpatine reveal should have just been towards the end of Episode IX.

Trebuchet jetpack troopers? Really? Was that meant to be threatening, hilarious, or both? Because I only found it hilarious.

Also oh hi Wedge. Also oh hi Hayden Christensen’s voice. God I wish they’d had his actual visual Force ghost alongside Luke and Leia.

Did ... did Maz do anything other than basically be at the base and then give Chewie a medal because har har we love making references to the original movies? No? ... What a waste of Lupita Nyong’o, then.

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stevenuniversallyreviews · 5 years

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Episode 92: Monster Reunion

“I have to try.”

The tragedy of Nephrite is Steven Universe’s longest side story, beginning with the very first episode and concluding five years later in the final episode of the show’s original run. How we feel about Nephrite at any given time indicates how we’re made to feel about Corrupted Gems as a whole at that point in the show. After Gem Glow, they’re monsters of the week. After Monster Buddies, they’re innocent but violent victims of...something. And after Monster Reunion, we know what that something is.

Ninety-two episodes in, we know of Yellow and Blue Diamond. We know they’re part of a a group called Great Diamond Authority, acting as Gem Matriarchs. We’ve seen an artistic representation of a third Diamond on the Moon Base. We’ve seen a four-part symbol with a white, yellow, blue, and pink diamond united as one. We got a hint of their musical cue as the Gems abandoned Earth in a flashback. And because the Diamonds are in charge, we also know that they’re responsible for some terrible things, from the forced fusion of Gem Shards to seeking of destruction of planets not only for reproduction, but revenge. The information is dripping in, and these Gems are shaping up to be the villains of the series, and thanks to that knowledge, all it takes is one sketch to emphasize their most heinous crime.

This is the episode where the horror of corruption sinks in, in the same way Keeping It Together reveals the horror of Cluster Gems. The Mother Centipeetle was a monster, and Centi was a pet, but this version trying desperately to communicate before she loses her sanity again is a person. She has memories spanning millennia but was trapped by her mind and her body by her own leaders. After a string of Beach City episodes with purely personal stakes, Monster Reunion’s depiction of a personal struggle representing an atrocity affecting a planet’s worth of Gems hits like a freight train. This isn’t just something the Diamonds did to their enemies: Nephrite, alongside countless other Corrupted Gems caught in the crossfire, was loyal to Homeworld, but that meant nothing.

Between the Cluster Gems and the Corrupted Gems, the Diamonds prove that they’re not content with just destroying the bodies of their opponents, but the souls of anyone that inconveniences them. We’ll learn a bit more about it in Nephrite’s fourth episode, Legs from Here to Homeworld, where it seems this corruption was unintentional (or at least unknown by Blue and Yellow Diamond), but Monster Reunion galvanized me against the Diamonds in a way no other episode has, and it does this by giving us a single, concrete character to sympathize with.

This is the second time this season Raven Molisee and Paul Villeco have given Steven an extensive conversation with an entity incapable of full communication, but unlike Gem Drill, Nephrite allows these artists to fully utilize their gift for character animation to tell their story. Molisee’n’Villeco episodes are distinguished by more exaggerated expressions than usual (see: the first act of Coach Steven, the climax of Rose’s Scabbard, Amethyst throughout Reformed, Steven-as-Lars in The New Lars), and that makes all the difference in enhancing our ability to relate with a growling alien cyclops bug. We don’t need words to tell us when Nephrite is scared, happy, curious, angry, or sad (we don’t even need tears to tell us that last one, but oof are they effective), and we’re able to empathize with her on a primal level thanks to her vivid expressions.

The other half of the Nephrite formula is master vocalist Dee Bradley Baker, who’s already performed as every Corrupted Gem in the series, as well as Lion. Baker’s prolific ability to give life to non-human characters make him virtually impossible to overrate, and he uses that gift to convey comprehensible communication from Nephrite with nothing but chirps and squawks. This is so much more effective than the cacophony of voices from the Cluster, allowing for an actual conversation of sorts between Steven and Nephrite.

This would be a very different episode if Nephrite was still just Centi from Monster Buddies, and we have Molisee, Villeco, and Baker to thank. It’s not enough to feel bad for an animal in pain again: we need to see, for lack of a better term, the human suffering of it all. And I feel so bad for this woman who doesn’t even get to have a real name for another sixty-one episodes.

The conversation itself centers around a terrific use of flashback. As Steven reminds Nephrite (and the audience, because it’s been a while since Monster Buddies) of their history, we get depictions of the past that fully resemble Steven’s experiences. But Nephrite can’t talk, so we don’t even get the simplified silhouettes that accompanied stories from Garnet in The Answer or Lapis in Same Old World. We get crayons and stick figures, the most childish means of communicating, that slowly gain animation as the story picks up.

Steven’s narration is a constant reminder that Nephrite doesn’t have a voice of her own, and that we’re getting bits and pieces of what actually happened. She can still sing along with him in her own way, and performs a flawless diamond salute, but can’t tell Steven the name of her commander, or how she felt about her crew, or any actual tales of the war. Honestly the most telling image is Nephrite’s very first picture, revealing that she sees herself as herself despite having never met Steven in that body. This is a sentient person, and we’re made to understand that before she reverts to a monster.

Allowing her to reunite with her crew is a brilliant move, because the show needs her to lose, but it would be unspeakably cruel to not give her anything in the process. We don’t get a happy ending, but we don’t wallow in bleakness either, and that’s a hard needle to thread when the subject matter is this horrendous. There are certainly real-world analogues to Nephrite’s plight, namely dementia and PTSD, but Monster Reunion benefits from being ultra-specific to the show’s lore instead of focusing on the same sort of allegory they did in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service and will do in Alone at Sea. When the lead character can’t talk and we’re dealing with this much character and plot work, going for a lesson beyond the general value of mercy would’ve probably made the episode collapse.

This is a fascinating episode in regards to Steven’s maturity, because beyond the use of crayons, he goes hard on the cute angle to manipulate the Crystal Gems in a way that seems to undermine his growing maturity; for reference, we’re an episode away from a story about the aftermath of abusive relationships. This childishness is especially interesting when you consider this is where he gets his healing powers back, a sign of his growing power. We see him casually float up to grab Nephrite’s bubble, and he’s an old pro at warping without assistance. All signs point to this being a more developed Steven than his puppy-dog eyes might indicate, and that might be the point.

I don’t want to speak to the writers’ intent given how far away Pool Hopping is, but Garnet’s inability to properly predict the future here is caused by the same problem she has in that episode: she’s seeing the likely outcomes of a Steven who’s still a child. True, there’s also the matter of all three of his guardians reverting to a lighter version of their stubbornness from Monster Buddies given their bias against Corrupted Gems, but I can’t help but think that Garnet would’ve been cool with the outcome we get had she seen it coming. It’s understandable that she might not have been able to predict Steven’s capacity to help, and that the only outcome of freeing Nephrite was mutual suffering.

We’re past the halfway point in Season 3, and are thus nearing the conclusion of the show’s second fifty-odd episode chunk. Major plot elements are winding down in anticipation of the life-altering story that Rose Quartz shattered Pink Diamond, and one of them is the idea of Steven acting like a little kid. This is the last time we’re going to see him act this way at length, even as a ploy, because even though he’s still a kid in Season 4 and beyond, he’s a young teenager who actually feels like a teenager somewhat consistently.

We also get a subtle premonition of Amethyst’s imminent focus, as she’s twice admonished by Pearl for making fun of Nephrite even though she’s not making fun of Nephrite either time. The feuding days of Amethyst and Pearl are long over, but there’s still a power dynamic between them that Monster Reunion quietly reignites. And Garnet is still in charge, ordering Amethyst to poof Nephrite in a way that’s frankly a bit uncharacteristic. Maybe it’s because we haven’t seen an actual fight with the three Gems working as an unfused team since Catch and Release (heck, we haven’t seen a fight against a Corrupted Gem since the Slinker in Reformed, unless you count the big crab in Rising Tides, Crashing Skies), but it sounds strange for Garnet to give a direct attack command. Amethyst is shown here to be the lowest-ranking Crystal Gem, not counting Steven, and this means everything to the season’s final arc.

There are certain things I would’ve loved to see as a fan thirsty for information, namely an actual translation of Nephrite’s writings. But it’s not as if we don’t get the picture(s) from her "conversation” with Steven, and eleven minutes isn’t enough time to tell this story and inject worldbuilding through text. It’s frustrating to not have all the answers, and a common complaint of Steven as a character is his lack of follow-up questions, but in this case he clearly knows the gist, and there’s no reason to think he couldn’t have gotten Pearl to translate offscreen if he was still interested.

So I’m glad we instead got a searing character-centric story that hurts enough that I almost never watch this episode. It takes a while, and it nearly costs Steven everything, but thank goodness we finally get justice for Nephrite.

Future Vision!

Our next chapter in Nephrite’s story is Legs from Here to Homeworld, where we finally learn that she’s a nephrite, that her commander was a hessonite, and that Blue and Yellow Diamond might not have been as intentionally malicious as we thought despite the abominable consequences. It’s crazy how important Nephrite ends up being, essentially paving the way for the Diamonds to begin reforming through Steven wanting to cure her and other Corrupted Gems.

Steven’s desire to write “I’m sorry” in Gem Scribble as he looks at the image of three diamonds, with hindsight, seems to indicate some subconscious knowledge of his indirect culpability in Nephrite’s corruption. Or he doesn’t at all and it’s just a coincidence.

Nephrite uses a white crayon to depict the Corruption Song, indicating White Diamond’s greater responsibility, and ultimately White Diamond’s key role in healing the damage.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Monster Reunion isn’t an episode I love to watch, because I don’t love to watch depictions of unbearable anguish, but it’s still an episode I love. Like Cry For Help, its sheer quality makes up for my infrequent rewatching.

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

5. Horror Club 4. Fusion Cuisine 3. House Guest 2. Sadie’s Song 1. Island Adventure

(No official promo art, but artist Jonathan Traynor's haunting sketch does just fine.)

#monster reunion #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

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nofearofwaves · 6 years

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Scheherazade

A lokaneweek fic

Prompts: Fairy Tales, Soulmate Marks, Mythologies, Historical

FF.net link

Ao3 link

It was a cold, blustery March when Odin's three children descended from the sky, stepping off of prismatic rainbows onto the black, frosted ground of Earth.

Beautiful, invulnerable, and arrogant beyond words, they brought an ultimatum. Accept their father Odin as overlord of the planet and submit to his whim, provide him tribute, and stifle all objections, or be destroyed.

Leaders of Earth, reeling not only at the knowledge that Norse gods were real and apparently from space, but also from the expectation that they were meant to surrender all their authority and turn the entire population of Earth into serfs at a moment's notice. Most, understandably, declined to do this. Even those politicians who were on the fence still nodded in agreement behind those that rejected Odin's proposal.

What no one realized at the time was that Hela, Thor, and Loki were not human. They had no interest in haggling, in cutting a good deal, or in skimming away power for themselves. They were the war machines of their father, and when they delivered an ultimatum, they meant it.

The war that followed was swift, and it was devastating.

Dr. Jane Foster woke to another day of uncut boredom. Her cot was still hard, her cell still cold, her food still processed and stale, and her fellow prisoners still paralyzed by trauma. She was little better. As part of the team responsible for putting up such a fight at the final Battle of Manhattan—which loss finally broke the back of North American resistance—she had fully expected to be executed the moment her team was apprehended.

In her darker moments, she wasn't certain that she hadn't been. This endless purgatory, day after day marinating in fear, seemed hellish enough to be real.

Like most of the survivors, she clung to routine to avoid sinking into a gibbering puddle of once-human goo. Breakfast, cup of coffee. Ten laps around the prison yard, one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups. Recite the Morgan-Keenan stellar classification system withall its subdivisions. Forwards and backwards, because why not?

Exercise again. Lunch, cup of coffee.

It was after lunch that Jane's carefully-constructed system fell apart. After lunch was when they came.

Asgard's shock troops were monstrous men, encased in armored carapaces of crimson and gold. Each one's forearm was wider almost than Jane's head, thick around with corded muscle like steel rope. They were acknowledged masters of the prison. When they told you to do something, you either did it or you killed yourself trying.

One person, once, had refused to do as he was ordered.

Jane would never forget the wet thunk of his decapitated head against the tiles, nor the businesslike way the soldier had wiped his bloody hands on the dead man's shirt before letting it slump to the floor likewise.

Jane had always known it would just be a matter of time before they came for her. Over and over, she told herself that it didn't matter, that nothing mattered, that she might as well die now as later. Earth was over; what was there to live for? Nothing, that's what. With such mantras she lulled herself to sleep at night, anticipating death with something like sick fascination.

Yet that day, when they called her name, she realized how much life meant to her, and how much she would give for just one more breath of it.

"Dr. Foster,"

Jane's knees trembled so that the soldier who brought her had to hold her upright as she stood before the throne. Two minutes ago, she had been imagining an unceremonious beheading out in the yard, yet somehow, this was much worse.

"Have a seat."

A chair materialized impossibly out of some void, nudging at the back of her knees. Though she would have liked to remain defiantly upright—in her dreams she would have spat in his face—Jane collapsed into it with no more stiffness to her than a boiled noodle.

This was bad, this was bad, this was bad. Of course she knew Loki by sight—who in the world didn't?—but she had never expected to ever be face-to-face with him. Odin's youngest son was a sorcerer of terrifying powers, the depths of which no one had managed to plumb. Thor might summon lightning and Hela might animate the dead, but Loki could make physics stand on its head and reality do a jig.

More than anyone, he was responsible for Earth's subjugation.

And there he sat, turning over a file—her file—and reading aloud.

"Doctor Jane Foster, astrophysicist. Thirty-seven years old. PhDs in physics and astronomy from Stamford, post-doctoral fellowship at MIT. Consultant with NASA, Boeing, Raytheon, Stark Industries, and the United States Science Commission.

"Most important, though," he closed the folder and grinned like a death's-head, "the creator of arc reactor-based portal technology that almost swayed the Battle of Manhattan in humanity's favor. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Jane, through a combination of focused breathing and pure denial, had managed to sit upright and still during this recital. Her eyes, however, could rise no higher than the tops of his boots.

"That was a compliment. You have my permission to express your thanks."

She should have swallowed her own tongue first. But her curiosity, long-dormant, poked its head out of the dirt like a spring seedling. She had to see where this was going, even as she knew it was her grisly end.

"Thank you."

"There. What a polite child you are," his legs uncrossed; he sat forward. His elegant hands rested on his knees as he studied her downcast face. "You should know that I have no intention of killing you right away. I have arranged for a few free hours this afternoon to satisfy my curiosity about you. Then you will die. But you have my word it will not be painful."

For a dizzying moment, Jane felt herself dissolve into atoms. The world around her faded into darkness. Death was nothing. She could face it. She would face it.

Her eyes snapped open and she lifted her head, fearless and bold. Loki's thin lips stretched into a smile as, for the first time, they looked each other full in the face.

"Well done," he nodded, "I must admit, I have been impressed by you mortals. Oh, most of you beg and plead at the instant of death, but every so often, one in a hundred shows true grit. I suspected you would too."

"Why?"

"Your work was impressive. It showed a creative, resilient mind. Such minds have no need to fear the end."

"How would you know?" Jane's courage rose with her curiosity, "You're all immortal, aren't you?"

"Compared to you mortals, we might as well be."

Not a definitive answer. Jane heaved a silent sigh; that sort of knowledge would have been invaluable, once. That these gods could bleed and die. Too bad the knowledge would die with her.

She shrugged, soughing off regret. There was no purpose to that feeling now. Feeling in general was bleeding away from her, leeched as though through an open wound. Now that her curiosity was slaked, it wanted no more and subsided along with every other sensation, physical or emotional.

"Tell me how you came to think of manipulating neutrons to tear space-time."

The question came to her from a great distance and through several layers of thick cotton. As though she were falling asleep, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, Jane's body was warm and heavy. That included her tongue, which felt like a bar of soft lead in her mouth.

"Dr. Foster?"

She shook her head.

He sighed, an elaborate bluster of disappointment. "You may sit there in silence if you wish. I will not force you to speak. But do not imagine that this show of resistance will sway me. Say what you will, if you will not answer my questions."

A twinge of anger was a taser bolt in her side. "How generous of you," she sneered.

He only shrugged, clearly intending to say no more.

They sat in silence that grew like unchecked cancer, eating away at Jane's hardened shell of shock. She checked her watch; even though the face had broken when Aesir soldiers had stormed her lab and taken her entire team prisoner, the hands had never stopped spinning. Two forty-eight. Normally at this time, she would have just finished exercising for the third time and would have been settling down to tell herself stories.

The habit began as another way to kill time, to keep herself from going absolutely batshit insane. She'd sit in the corner and close her eyes, remembering novels, movies, episodes from TV shows. She'd test her memory by reciting things word-for-word, or flex her creativity by inventing new scenarios for the characters. Or she'd rewrite the whole thing from the ground up, throwing out the established story altogether in favor of what her imagination could create.

Why not? He told her to say what she would, after all.

"Once upon a time," she cleared her throat, "there was a solar system. It was vast, full of planets, full of people." She could see each planet rising in her mind's eye, spinning like tops through a vast universe called into being by her words.

"At first, each planet and its people were individual and free. The closer planets, in the inner rings of the solar system, were wealthy and proud. They created an Alliance, to greater share their resources and centralize their power. After years, they sought to spread their government to the outer worlds in the solar system."

Through short, rhythmic sentences, Jane soothed herself. Her voice grew stronger. "There was a war. A long, devastating war. At its end, the Alliance had complete control of the solar system, and it punished all those who had fought against it. Those rebels retreated ever-deeper into space, living on the edges of society."

Now she needed a ship; she summoned it. The glow of its engine was a lone night-light in those deep reaches of space.

"One of these rebels wasn't able to let go of the war, even when it ended. He had neither power nor army, but he had the will to fight. He drew together others like him, and with the last of his money, he bought a ship. A Firefly. And he and his crew lived by picking the flesh off the Alliance."

Piece by piece, Jane told the story. A raid here, an escape there. Falling afoul of other bandits and taking on passengers to make ends meet. A mysterious man with mysterious cargo. A chase, suspicions, accusations, a fight. The cargo opened to reveal—

Breath stalled in her throat; she was parched, tongue dried and vocal chords rubbed raw. Licking her cracked lips, Jane swallowed and opened her eyes.

Light had faded from the room. She had talked through the afternoon and well into evening, ignorant of sunset as it lit up the sky, mindless of the night's early stars as they emerged from behind a curtain of twilight. Realization hit her like a punch in the throat. It was time.

Loki would kill her now.

It was of utmost importance that she not cry or beg. She would show him how a brave human died.

"Finish your story."

So wrapped up in telling herself the story of Firefly, Jane had hardly remembered her audience. And Loki was her audience. The tale, so familiar to her, was new and captivating to him. She read his fascination in the way he sat, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on her face.

"Finish the story," he demanded. She flinched.

"I'm thirsty," she whispered. At a flick of his fingers, a glass of water appeared on her knee.

She drank. Each time she drained the glass, it refilled, until at last she wiped her lips and set the cup aside.

"Now, continue."

She swallowed. Did she dare? "I'm tired."

His lips twisted, furious at her daring and at himself for allowing it. "Now."

"It—it's a long story. It'll take longer than I have to tell it. And I'm tired."

In an explosive burst of movement, Loki surged to his feet, one fist clenched. Jane, hands folded in her lap, looked up at him calmly and didn't flinch. Exhaustion was more responsible for that than bravery as, watching power arc in green lightning over his fingers, her insides liquefied in fear.

"Very well," after a moment that crackled with tension, Loki mastered his irritation and lowered his hand, "You will finish the story tomorrow night. Then you will die."

Back in her cell, Jane collapsed on her cot, heart pounding, palms sweating, and mind whirring with possibilities.

If one story had saved her life, there might be another one that could help her.

It took her ten nights to tell the story of Firefly's fourteen episodes, mostly because she couldn't figure out how to turn some of the plot points into coherent narratives. Quickly, she discovered that it didn't matter what she told, so long as she told it well. However he spent his days, Loki seemed desperate for entertainment in his off-hours, and Jane did what she could to engage him with stories that always had a little more to tell.

On that basis, she planted the seed of a Star Trek arc, introducing the idea of an Enterprise setting out to explore the frontiers beyond the Alliance's reach.

This Frankenstein creation gave her material for another eighteen evenings. Wracking her memory for episode details, she described a trial for humanity's worthiness, a lost ship trying to return home, a bloody occupation of one planet by aliens from another, a godlike race of beings outside of time...every night, Jane's imagination pushed back—by a single day—the date of her death.

She wasn't done. The more she told, the more she remembered. Movies provided her with plot: Arrival, Contact, 2001, Cloverfield, Forbidden Planet...from popcorn flicks to deep ruminations on humanity's push into the stars, she turned them all into fairy tales.

One day, about a month into her surreal existence as a one-woman Netflix to a god, she realized she didn't remember when he'd last threatened her life. Indeed, their sessions had undergone a sea-change, the extent of which it boggled her to realize. Gone was the harsh throne room; they now sat on facing sofas, with a carafe of water and a plate of cookies reserved just for her. Jane no longer faced threats when she stopped at her habitual cliffhangers. Now, Loki merely thanked her and segued into...into conversation. Personal conversation.

"My work is almost finished," he said, during one of their chats. Jane nearly choked on her bite of cookie, "My father has already recalled Hela. He will soon call me."

Jane chewed carefully and swallowed. Hope, an emotion she did her best to check, swelled like a helium balloon between her lungs. Her breath came short. "Oh. What will happen to Earth when you leave?"

"Thor has things well in hand here. He has taken a strange liking to this...planet," Loki drawled the word. "It suits him; your people are as rough and uncultured as he is. I am glad to be returning to Asgard. I suspect you will like it as well."

"What do you mean?"

"You are an astrophysicist. Surely you will enjoy traveling among the stars."

Her heart froze, a terrified rabbit watching a fox's approach. "You mean...you'll take me with you?"

"Of course," he leaned back, smiling. "You still have more stories to tell, do you not? And once those are finished, perhaps you will have yet more to give," his eyes flashed, even in low light. "I would be a fool to throw aside such an interesting woman as you, Jane."

She had an instant, no more, to decide how to react.

Taking up another cookie, Jane took a bite that crumbled in her mouth like ashes.

"When do we leave?"

#lokane #lokaneweek #christine writes #i'm a sucker for angst

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pendulum-sonata · 6 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Serena/Yuri (Yu-Gi-Oh) Characters: Serena (Yu-Gi-Oh), Yuri (Yu-Gi-Oh) Additional Tags: Short One Shot, Sneaking Around, Kissing, Teenagers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, playful romance, I couldn't stop thinking about this, once the ideo got into my head, predatorshipping - Freeform, it's been a while since i've written that ship, wanted something lighthearted with them Summary:

It means to be so taken by someone it’s as if you’re staring at the sky, to adore and idiolize...

There she was again.

He felt his eyes move to her again, as it usually happened whenever he caught any sight of her, when they finally found her it was only her back that was visible to him, even though hear a thing from this distance except the whine of the Obelisk students sprawled on the floor he could tell she was gloating at them for her victory, she was waving a card in front of them as if it was a trophy while they just looked dumbfounded.

If only he could see her face.

Yuri tried to think what was the best way to slow down his pace without being too obvious about it, but it was useless, the corner of the hallway was right in front of him and he’s wouldn’t be able to pretend anymore.

He felt the frown on his face settle as usual.

Right behind him he heard some hurried steps along with some whispers and then he saw them: the guys who got to duel her and dared to look so pitiful while losing to her... his hands itched at the thought, and now here they were hurrying past him trying to pretend they didn't see him or knew who he was.

Come think of it, they were walking a little too fast.

“Halt!” He waited to see their stumbling and the shiver running down their bodies.

“Y-yes sir?” The one who looked like the older one said. Yuri let a wide smile set as he activated his duel disk.

“Running in the hallways is forbidden”

ᴥ

It was already night when her guards finally managed to get her back into her tower.

Today wasn’t so bad, she managed to stay outside and do some dueling for almost 3 hours, it was practically a new record for her and one day when she got enough practice at avoiding all the security and was able to map better the Academy, then she would make a run for the exit.

Even as she thought about all this, she knew she was ripping another pillow in half, the feathers flying around the room, the way they all were getting stuck on her hair only pissed her out more.

Serena should know better, it always got like this, all because it was next to the sea, how she hated the humid breezy and the salty smell that it brought, she hated the swallows doings nests outside her window.

She hated this room, she hated it.

The bed creaked under her weight while she punched it with all her might, the mattress muffling her yelling.

She stopped at the sound of a whistle.

“What a spectacle.” The voice said right on time, every third day after curfew; and Serena lifted her eyes to find him perched on her window. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“I’m not in the mood for you.” Serena said lifting herself from the bed, her back out to him, only his shadow was visible on the wall, she watched it shift and lay against one of the walls.

“Are you ever?” Serena knew he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

“Is anyone ever?” It was a low blow, she knew that and her fingers drummed on her side when his shadow shifted again.

Would he stay? Would he leave? Serena told herself that her fidgeting was out of some still bottled anger and nothing else.

“Now, what have I done to deserve the jab?” Serena sighed and willed her smile into a thin line before finally turning to see him.

So much purple, that was the first thing she remembered thinking about him, made to stand out against the muted colors in the place, even against the endless sea of red, yellow and blue of rest of the students. The professor’s colors, Serena sometimes wondered, and often pictured, if he would grant her with a purple outfit to when he finally acknowledged her worth.

At the same time that she was looking at him, she felt his eyes doing the same to her; it was only fair she supposed, except that unlike her, he always seemed to focus on everything but her clothes, which she rationalized it was because there was nothing noteworthy about it, made to be lost in a crowd.

She walked to him until they were only two or three steps in between them, he never motioned to come closer.

That would be breaking the rules.

“You’re getting careless,” She choose to ignore his previous questions, noticing instead how his eyes at certain angles, glinted in the dark. “Today, in the gardens.”

“Oh, you saw me?” He said so with a chuckle, and right on cue Serena felt her annoyance rise in response, she got closer, her knees brushing against his clothes, this was his cue for him step into the room.

But he didn’t, instead he was making a great job at looking laidback.

“Someone will notice, he will notice.” She said with insistence and at that he frowned.

“Aren’t you a little paranoid? I was just walking by.” How obvious it was the freedom he was allowed even inside these walls.

Serena knew better though, she had thought herself paranoid once too, it had been easy to trust seemingly well-intended employees, only to find her stash of money under her mattress gone and a new lock on her door.

“And then you dueled those guys, right after I already wiped them clean of their best cards.” His frown deepened and she heard the click of his tongue.

“I didn’t like how they looked at me.” This time he did turned at her his boots stepping too harshly on the tiles as he got up to glare at her, his fist balled at his side. She didn’t back away not even from the glare he was throwing at her.

“Yuri…” She let his name hang on the air for a little longer, noticing the breath intake. “…are you jealous?”

If there was any moment in which Serena was sure that if it wasn’t by the clear rules they were both subjected too, that he would grab her, maybe yell in her face and try to force a duel out of her, she could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, his teeth were gritting and visible through his sneering lips and his fingers were probably digging into his palm.

Serena was not scared of it, if anything it was an almost fascinating show to watch his temper unfold from the devil-may-care attitude he had most of the time, it was something she allowed herself to be proud off.

It was shame really, that these moments were she could get under his skin where so far in between.

Even so, she lifted her hand and it was like casting a spell, he was eyeing her carefully, wondering what her next move would be, she purposefully hovered her hand above his arm, his shoulder and then his cheek.

Before going higher and with the utmost precision to not touch him, Serena removed a stray feather from his hair. She tried and failed to contain her smile at the visible shiver that went through his body the whole time, his chest heaving and his eyes following her every movement.

She knew he would give in the moment his nose flared and he sucked on his breath.

“Yes.” He said, his eyes closed. “I was; I was jealous.”

Serena rewarded his honesty by pressing her forehead to his and saw how his shoulders visibly slouched and his deep breath intake, she finally stared deep into his eyes… she had to remember herself that there was a reason she didn’t do it often.

His eyes were like a void that could swallow her whole.

“Will you stop stalling now?” He asked, she could only have imagined how much he itched to lean into her to hold her.

But he was not allowed to.

Her mouth found his before the thought was fully formulated.

ᴥ

They had met when Serena had made a run to escape disguised as one of the Obelisk Force, when she encountered him she had no idea who he was, and according to him he knew she was not one of the normal students precisely because she wasn’t scared when she saw him.

It had been followed by the actual Obelisk Force taking her forcefully to her tower and with the Professor congratulating Yuri for a well done job, his pleasant smile was nothing like his usual predatory one.

She remembers yelling a string of names and curses at him.

At first it had only been him entering her window, talking about nonsense, complaining about dumb things, and Serena did her best to ignore him until he got bored a left.

Until he started to tell her about the outside world, she made so many questions that she already forgotten about what exactly they were about, what she remembered clearly was how annoyed he pretended to be, but always yielded when she called him by his name.

Not every question was out of curiosity, part of her had hoped he knew how to get into mainland; he didn’t, in fact, like her he isn't allowed to leave the island nor does he remember a life before being in the Academy.

Then one night when he was about to leave, she grabbed his hand as reflex, Serena would never forget the look on his eyes when he realized it, as if the entire world had been frozen around him.

‘I can’t leave this tower.’

‘No place is off limits for me… but I can’t lay a finger on you’

‘Touch is not forbidden for me’

He disentangled her hand from his and left without a word after such declaration, he looked almost...scared? She was not sure and thought she would not see him again.

But it had not even been a week when he was back again.

She had spent a good chunk of nights examining his hands, despite his numerous duels they were not calloused or even dirty ever; he claimed that he had to follow a strict hygiene regime because some places he was deployed to had ‘unsanitary conditions’.

Serena remembers one night in which he had none too subtly complained about the cold and without letting go of his hand she pulled him into her room; he seemed at loss of words when she did so.

His hair is pretty.

There’s not much of reference Serena has about this, nor has she ever cared about appearance before, but she remembers thinking that on more than one occasion, she remembers wondering if t was as soft as it looked and she remembers grabbing a loose strand of hair on his nape.

She still laughs at the little jump Yuri gave when it happened, the tiny yelp he kept denying he did, and from then on to save him from his obvious embarrassment she always asks before if she can touch him.

His hands, his hair, his face, even his arms, his chest and shoulders through his clothes there’s something both refreshing and calming about being touchy feely with someone, he never complains nor does she know if he even likes it or it’s just fine playing along.

He won't ever break the rules.

One day she manages to steal something that looked like books from the female seniors when she took it to her room, she remembers being puzzled over the colorful paper, glossy at the touch and the useless images and words inside it, she couldn’t even understand half of the words printed in it.

Until she turned the page and saw a bunch of photographs of couples, sitting together, walking, laughing, dancing…

The last page had them joining their lips together, she remembers the gag feeling she got at the thought of touching someone else’s mouth with hers.

The line below the page only read: ‘The Perfect Kiss’

That night, Yuri came to her and before he could say anything else she asked if she could touch his lips, he gave her a widen look but still nodded, when her fingers brushed against them and confirmed they weren’t wet or sticky like she feared she surged forward.

Yuri broke the rule of ‘no touching’ that night.

To shove her away, looking at her as If she had grown a second head and ask what in the world had gotten into her.

She didn’t answer because she was trying to think why her lips tingled.

ᴥ

It tingles, not just her lips, all of her tingles.

Every time her breath mingles with his she can't help but search for more contact, is not just pressing against each other, it's the sliding both soft like a feather and then harsh enough to feel her lips flush, his nose and hair brushing on her cheeks.

They're both short of breath and have to stop now but even as they separate they remain close.

Serena had not noticed her hand gripping his nape and the other entwined with his.

Instead she drank into his half-lidded eyes, dazed and dark; his lips parted the slightest bit and a reddish undertone that spread out to his nose and cheek, for a while it seemed he had yet to register they were not kissing anymore.

Her fingers found their way to her mouth again, the tingling made her heart beat faster, her body warmer and she even felt slower in both mind and body after each one.

Rather than annoying it only made her repeat it all over.

When he finally seemed to recover his bearing Serena couldn’t help notice his hand not letting go of hers, his eyes fixed on her lips.

Her stomach got little flip-flops at the sight of the tip of his tongue.

“You’re getting better.” She said prying her eyes from him, he expected him to answer with some cutting comment or remark, but there was nothing but him staring at her with intent. “Still, not perfect though.” She added, his hand still didn’t loosen his hold.

“I’ve heard it’s better if you use your tongue.” He said, his smile turning an insufferable smirk again.

“…What?” Serena could swear her mind froze on spot.

“Or if you’re not into that, at least with open mouth.” He said, seeming delighted at her cluelessness, then he just shrugged, “Probably better like this, I don’t know If I could keep myself from touching you if-”

She had to cut him off before he finished.

“I’m scared to ask how you know that.” She said, trying to figure out how kissing with open mouth would even work, did people not get grossed out at that?

‘Are you grossed out?’ She asked herself, finding that all things considering she didn’t really care that much.

“We’re not the only ones sneaking for stolen kisses in the middle of the night.” Yuri answered followed by a chuckle.

“They’re not stolen, we both agreed to this.” Serena was puzzled by the very concept of ‘stealing’ a kiss and he only laughed a little more at her expense.

But then again thinking about it… she practically stole Yuri’s first kiss.

“Yes, we did, I could only think of that the entire day,” He said in a whisper.

“Still not an excuse for carelessness.” She shot back, she would make sure they wouldn’t get caught, the Professor and the Academy already deprived her of too many things, she would not add this to the list.

“Give me a break, I can’t talk to you or see you on the majority of mornings, this is the only thing I have.” Yuri sounded strange saying the last thing, as if he was somewhere far away on his mind, but it was gone in a second…

Did he also thought of moments when he wasn’t bound by strict rules?

“I broke the rules today.” Serena said attempting to sound absent-minded.

“I’m aware.”

“Maybe just for tonight, you can break the rules too.” She said taking his hand and guiding It to her cheek, she leaned in into his palm.

He looked shocked and she could feel his hands tremble as if he feared something terrible would happen any moment now, but when the seconds ticked away she felt his thumb stroking.

“…I’ll be glad.”

#arc v #yugioh arc v #ygo arc v #predatorshipping #my fics #man i sure have a funny definition of 'short' right?#hope you like it #Tima i blame you #read more #long post #under cut

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lazuliblur · 7 years

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Obirin manifesto

1) A disclaimer:

I have a huge soft spot for Rin and Kakashi, but Obito is my precious baby. I feel like the manga mishandled him at times, but whatever, that does not change the person he revealed himself to be throughout the series. I have spent a lot of time pondering the dynamics between these three and their individual personalities and I will try to be objective, but my views on Obirin are inevitably colored by my personal interpretation of them.

2) The facts:

Obirin was never unquestionably confirmed in canon. One-sided Obirin (or unrequited Obirin on Obito’s part) was unquestionably confirmed in canon. Mind the distinction. These facts are more or less set in stone and the lack of indisputable confirmation does not make the ship incompatible with canon.

3) Rin is an important person in Obito’s life and has been since very early on.

Chapter 599 shows the tail end of their entrance ceremony at the Academy. Kakashi is there too, so they were, at most, five years old. Did Rin know Obito before this point? If you want to speculate, then there is a chance that yes, she did, since she seems to know who he is when he shows up. Whether this was their first meeting or not, however, matters little. Rin took it upon herself to hold on to Obito’s Academy entrance papers, something that she was under no obligation to do (she could have left it up to the teachers) and that no one else seemed to have any interest in doing (the other children walk past Obito when he arrives, without pausing to greet him or tell him anything about what he missed). Rin does worry about filling him in and the joy in Obito’s face makes it clear that he appreciates the attention and the trouble that she has gone to.

4) Obito’s interest in Rin stems from the fact that she sees him.

Here is a lonely kid, a bit of a screw up, who suddenly meets a pretty girl who was kind and helpful when she didn’t need to be. She did not scold him for being late or resent the task of delivering the papers to him. Rather, she acted like there was nothing wrong about his being late and worked with it: “you weren’t here, so here are the things you missed.” Of course he liked her instantly.

Let’s face it, the Leaf is not a shining example of a tolerant society that protects those that are less fortunate. Obito was an orphan who lived alone and apparently had no caretaker or guardian or adult supervision of any kind (do not talk to me about his anime grandmother, that arc directly contradicts the story and is rubbish). He did not have a lot of sources of affection. We are not even sure if he had any real friends besides Rin and his rival Kakashi.

His love evolved from that foundation of friendship in the purest, most natural way: Rin was nice to him and treated him decently when others would not, so she became important to him. She eventually became his favorite person in the world. Call it a self-centered love if you want, but what love isn’t just a little bit selfish? At the end of the day, you can’t help but love people that somehow make you feel good.

5) Is it a healthy kind of interest? Kind of.

I have seen people call Obito’s love abusive and manipulative. I do not see it. I cannot even understand where the idea came from. Whenever they are seen together, he is nothing if not gentle and supportive of Rin and doesn’t press her to do anything. Just consider operation “give Kakashi a present” (chapter 599). When Rin’s invitation to meet alone turned out to be about Kakashi, Obito pushed down his disappointment and did not get mad at her. He might have been upset that Rin only wanted to do something for Kakashi, but deep down he could recognize that her idea was a good one, that it was something a good friend would do and he didn’t make the slightest effort to change her mind or undermine her plan. Proof of that was that he admits to having spent a long time thinking about what would be an appropriate gift for the great Kakashi himself, before deciding that nothing short of a sharingan would do (chapter 243).

Her friendship was freely given and Obito cherished it. He probably often wondered what he had done to deserve it (he even cries when he realizes that Rin actually listens to him and cares about his safety – see chapter 653). He does, however (and unfortunately for the whole Naruto world), have a tendency towards exaggeration and obsessiveness.

Rin was possibly Obito’s only friend, definitely his best friend, one who showed him kindness and who made him feel like there was nothing wrong about who he was. It’s only natural that he’d want to hold on to that connection and, given his obsessive nature, he held on to it hard. He clung to “the one beam of light in his dark world”. That makes him flawed, but it does not make him an offender. He did not manipulate or blackmail Rin into becoming his friend, nor did he force her to do anything that she was unwilling to do.

5) How interested in her is he then?

Before falling into Madara’s hands, I almost hesitate to qualify Obito’s love for Rin as romantic. He was under thirteen years old and they had a war on their hands. I doubt he had even entered puberty, despite the very deep voice he was initially given in the Kakashi Gaiden animation (wtf), so how could he comprehend all the dimensions that exist in the love one adult feels for another? No, I am convinced that his was a young type of love. He was probably just leaving that stage where “love is gross” and discovering that it would be kind of nice if he could have Rin all to himself. He wanted to kiss Rin’s photograph, not masturbate to it. Those feelings would have only developed as he grew older and matured.

What happened afterwards is a different story. His innocent and straightforward nature coupled with his less than stellar intellect made Obito an easy target for Madara, who used his connection to Rin to break him and reshape him as he pleased. If Rin wasn’t already the center of Obito’s universe, Madara would have had everything to gain by making her just that. He wanted Obito’s feelings to run as deep as they could, his obsession with Rin to be as intense as possible, before snatching her away – and Obito, as innocent and dim as he is (bless him), saw no reason why he shouldn’t run with his obsession. Madara exacerbated what was already there. Obito was the pawn in that relationship, not the chess master, even when Obito believed that he was calling the shots.

6) Rin’s interest in Obito is not like Obito’s interest in Rin.

In chapter 653, you can tell that Obito is already head over heels about Rin. He tries to make himself look cool, like he would be a good catch, coming up with the ludicrous idea that saving him is the same thing as saving the world. And what does Rin do? Well, she finds it as ridiculous as any normal person would but, once again, she accepts his actions and works with them: “I believe in you and in your dream, so I’ll stand by your side to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and are well enough to accomplish it,” is what she basically tells him. She is his friend.

Was Rin aware of Obito’s feelings? It’s possible that she was and never acknowledged them so she wouldn’t have to hurt a friend, but most likely not, given the way she reacted when Kakashi told her about it after they believe they have lost Obito (chapter 244). She may have known it subconsciously, but her infatuation with Kakashi blinded her to what other boys thought. Does this “blindness” make her a bad person? Absolutely not. There was a lot about prodigy Kakashi for a young girl like her to be fascinated about.

She does, however, deserve kudos for the extremely mature way in which she handled her crush. She could so easily have neglected Obito to endear herself to Kakashi but did not. Kakashi was constantly criticizing Obito for his failings, but, rather than automatically agree with her crush and put Obito down, Rin played the peacekeeper instead. She tried to convince the boys to get along and cooled their tempers when they started arguing. She continued to watch over Obito and spoke on his behalf (see: “saving you is the same thing as saving the world”), regardless of the impression that this might give Kakashi about her. She was a true friend to Obito and showed real character and self-possession in how unconcerned she was that supporting a male friend might hurt her chances of becoming another boy’s girlfriend (especially one with such an intense dislike of said friend).

7) So... Obirin?

At the time of the Kannabi Bridge mission, Obito was crushing on Rin and Rin was crushing on Kakashi. It is possible that her love for Kakashi took a hit when he admitted that he would have left her in enemy hands if not for Obito’s insistence, but who knows? Who cares? It has nothing to do with her feelings for Obito, which did not go beyond a very solid friendship. At this point, we have a one-sided Obirin.

Did that ever develop into a “two-sided” Obirin? The thing is, we don’t know anything about what happened in the months between Obito’s apparent death and Rin’s suicide. It’s possible that nothing at all changed in how she felt about Obito. She believed him dead, after all, and it would not exactly have been a healthy response to fall in love with someone after they had just died. On the other hand, it’s also possible that she had some sort of epiphany and realized that she had never loved Kakashi at all, but had merely been attracted to him – that she had been star-struck because of his genius and that Obito had been the true, good friend who had been at her side all along. Who is to say that she could not have realized that those strong feelings she had always held for Obito were, in fact, not platonic, but romantic in nature?

We see Rin again only in the afterlife, as she welcomes a redeemed Obito. I do not see here proof of anything either way. She might be the friend who has come to extend Obito a kind hand, knowing that no one else would be there for him and knowing all the hardships that he has endured (she was there for Kakashi too, when he died at the hands of Pain), or she might be there as the girl who is finally ready to return the love that she knows Obito feels for her. Both interpretations work and are consistent with what the manga shows us. The readers can choose which one they prefer to see. It is entirely open-ended. (I lean more towards the first.)

Obito’s love for Rin is not abusive or gross. Before Madara entered the picture, it was actually a very pure and sweet story about two kids trying to hold on to something good in the middle of a bad situation. Obito never spoke against Rin, to her face or otherwise, never took advantage of her and never raised a hand against her. He was manipulative and dishonest about a lot of other things, but not this – never this. Rin was sacred to him. When it came to her, he was the one who was manipulated.

tl;dr: Facts are facts (but they are not the alpha and omega of anything). Rin is awesome (but kind of blind) and Obito is obsessive (but not abusive). No one is perfect.

#i've had this for two years on my desktop #enough #i now set you free little manifesto #fly away and be happy #i have better things to do (like trying to finish that obirin fic that i started posting ages ago)#obito uchiha #rin nohara #obirin #meta #naruto fandom #lazuliblur

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INTERVIEW: Ewing’s Royals Embark on an Inhuman, Intergalactic Quest

Marvel’s super-powered Inhumans were born on Earth, but the culture and means that created them were extraterrestrial in nature. So when things become untenable for them on Earth, it’s only natural they would seek answers off-planet; first at the fallen homeworld of the galactic empire that created them, the Kree, and then further out into this galaxy and adjacent ones.

RELATED: Ewing Readies the U.S.Avengers for Deployment in the Marvel Universe

That’s the basic set-up for writer Al Ewing and artist Jonboy Meyers April-launching “ResurrXion” title, “Royals,” which sends the Inhuman royal family out into the cosmos of the Marvel Universe on a mission of utmost importance. But just how far out into space will they have to go? Which non Inhuman former Avenger is accompanying them on their journey and why? What sort of vessel will ferry them out into space? And what initial antagonists will be waiting to oppose them? For the answers to these questions and more, we spoke with Ewing about “Royals.”

CBR: For the past few years, the Inhuman Royal family has been pursuing an Earth-based agenda to advance and protect their people, but in “Royals,” they head out into space. What can you tell us about their mission? How critical is it to the survival of their people?

“Royals” #1 cover art by Jonboy Meyers

Al Ewing: Well, there’s a limit to what I can tell you without spoiling the in-progress “IvX” books, so get ready for a lot of cryptic answers… but I will say that the mission is pretty critical. It’s a quest to find answers – some lost secrets vital to the Inhumans – and it’s going to take them out further than any Marvel space-farers have gone before, to my knowledge. Hala – the dead, ruined world that was once the centre of the Kree Empire – is the first stop, but it’s a long way from being the last.

At the forefront of the mission is former Inhuman king Black Bolt and current Inhuman queen Medusa, who have been working together in recent years, though they’ve been living separate lives. How will living and working together initially impact the formerly married couple’s dynamic? What does it mean for the rest of the cast to have Medusa and Black Bolt on this mission together?

Black Bolt and Medusa are closer than they were in some ways, but there are still things driving them apart. There’s a secret between them – as hinted in “Inhumans: Prime,” which I think is out the month before – that might end up putting more distance than ever between the two of them. Can the relationship be saved at this point? Should it be? Are Black Bolt and Medusa too far apart from each other now to reconcile? We’ll have to see, but I can tell you that when the truth comes out, the rest of the cast will definitely get involved.

Your other two cast members of the Inhuman Royal family are Crystal and Gorgon. What’s your sense of these characters?

Crystal is there as one of the key Royals, and she’s proven her credentials over the past couple of years as a leader. There’s an interesting dynamic somewhere in there, with her sister Medusa as the regal, mythical Queen figure, and Crystal as a more down-to-earth leader-type who gets her hands dirty with the day-to-day. And we’re going to be getting some romantic drama from her as well, as her great lost love, Ronan the Accuser, is out in space and very much in the Royals’ way.

Gorgon was recently healed from a spinal injury by the Inhuman healer Panacea, so he can walk again – but it wasn’t a magical reset button by any means. He has bad days and some serious pain issues. But the Inhumans need him, and Medusa needs him, and he’s not going to hesitate for a second before throwing himself back into the fight.

The two Nuhumans in “Royals,” Flint and Swain, had a pretty tumultuous journey with Crystal and Gorgon over in “All-New Inhumans.” Which of these characters’ traits do you find especially interesting? What kinds of roles will they play in the book?

“Royals” #2 cover art by Jonboy Meyers

Flint’s going out there because he owes the Royals and because he needs to prove something to himself, and he’s still working out what – sometimes people do things and work out the “why” of it later, and we’re not going to get into it for an issue or two. His foster family dying of Terrigen is an element of it, and what he feels he owes the Royals is part of it. I feel like there’s a lot of complexity in him that I’d like to explore, and it just made sense that out of all the best-known NuHumans, he’d be the one to feel the tug of the quest. He’s searching for something, and out there might be where he finds it.

Swain is more driven by duty. She’s the Captain – you can’t have a starship without a captain – and she’s got a responsibility to Crystal and the other Royals that she won’t abandon. And she’s fun, which I hope I can capture in all this space questing. There’s the tug of space there, but the tug of change, as well, the need to shake things up, for her and Flint both. I’m a big fan of the “call of the stars” idea, and there’s a little bit of that at work.

Rounding out the cast is your non Inhuman character, the extradimensional Kree and former Young Avenger known as Marvel Boy. What made you want to bring him into the book? What does he add to the overall dynamic?

We were interested in having a “non-Inhuman” on the crew, and when Wil Moss suggested Marvel Boy as a possibility, I was right on board. He’s got that connection to the Kree – the ruined world of Hala is one of the first places we’ll be going – but with his other-dimensional origins, he’s also got a different viewpoint to most characters in the Marvel Universe, which puts him in a prime spot to see things other people miss. The Kree on his world had knowledge the Kree on ours didn’t – is that just from standard deviation between universes, or has a great secret been buried… maybe literally?

I realize that’s about the third or fourth “secret” in this interview so far – all of which is in aid of keeping my secrets from the readers more than anything. Not to mention the secrets of “IvX,” still ongoing. I did say I was going to be cryptic…

[Laughs] Fair enough! What can you tell us about the vessel the cast of “Royals” will be traveling on? Will it have a support staff of reoccurring characters, “Star Trek”-style?

It’s called the Astarion – named for a hero of Inhuman legend who may or may not have been a distant ancestor of Gorgon, and the inspiration for the Minotaur. That story’s one for, “if we have time.” It’s probably closer to the Millennium Falcon – it’s big, big as a building, big enough to comfortably house seven, but it’s not the Enterprise. There’s most of everything you might need – a medbay, weapons systems, what-have-you – and there’s a bridge that we’ll probably end up spending some time on, but there isn’t a support staff. I felt the mythical nature of the journey was best served by having everyone on the ship be a central part of the cast.

In the aftermath of recent events like the “Black Vortex,” and with the Guardians of the Galaxy currently stranded on Earth, the cosmic corner of the Marvel Universe is a pretty crazy, wide-open place. What threats will your cast will run afoul of?

Series artist Jonboy Meyers’ Inhumans redesigns for “Royals”

First stop is the dead world of Hala, once the homeworld of the Kree -heading there, and finding the secret buried within it, is what takes us through the first arc. On the way, they’ll encounter a couple of other enemies, some new-ish – like the rampaging Chitauri horde – some considerably older and more personal. Funny you should mention the “Black Vortex” – we haven’t seen much of Crystal’s ex-husband Ronan The Accuser since that story, or how his cosmic powers have developed.

From there, we’re heading out – to the edges of the Marvel Universe, and into uncharted territory. We’ve only seen a small part of the myriad galaxies in Marvel Space, and one thing I’m planning to do with this series – something I try to do with every book I’m given – is push the boundaries out a little further, both in terms of space–and time.

Oh, one more thing – remember the Universal Inhumans [from Jonathan Hickman’s “Fantastic Four” run]? I do.

Jonboy Meyers, who’s recently worked on a number of DC books is your collaborator on “Royals.” I’m not super familiar with his work, but it looks like it has a fun almost animated quality to it. What do you enjoy most about his work?

“Animated” is a good word! It’s wild, energized stuff, leaping off the page. He’s good when it comes to the design element, too – his ideas for the ship, and for the Royals’ “space” outfits and variations on them for different planets and environments, have been fascinating, and they’ve given me a bunch of ideas. Seeing what he’s doing with some of the bigger, weirder ideas I’m throwing at him, I’m interested to see more in the line – I think it’ll have a lot of visual punch.

Finally, going back to what you said earlier, it sounds like “Royals” will allow you to play with a number of Marvel’s established intergalactic characters and concepts as well as create a number of new ones. Can you talk anymore about some of the new things you’ll be introducing?

If my plans come together, this is going to add one absolutely huge new thing to the Marvel Universe that at least has the potential to change the entire scope and history of the whole shebang. Fans of Marvel Space, as well as Inhumans fans, would be wise to give this a look. We’re going all the way out to the far side of everything, and we’re coming back with cosmic secrets that’ll hopefully blow everything wide open.

I’ll conclude with a “thank you” to everyone following my work, and everyone who’s asking their local comic shop to put a copy of “Royals,” and a copy of the big “state of the Inhumans” one-off “Inhumans: Prime,” aside when they come out. That helps retailers gauge demand. Aside from that – stay safe, be kind to each other, and good luck in everything you do.

The post INTERVIEW: Ewing’s Royals Embark on an Inhuman, Intergalactic Quest appeared first on CBR.com.

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