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acciocrzychickfics · 3 years

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2020 Remadora Fanfic Recommendations

So these are not all of my favorites because there are so many, many to choose from but these are. Also I rarely read fluff, so I struggled with that list, sorry. I have put an * next to any story that is fabulous read by has been abandoned.

MutliChapter Rec

1. If Only by LoquaciousLupin

Tonks meets a mysterious, charming and handsome man at a muggle bar, imagine her surprise when the next time she bumps into him is at her first Order meeting! Will they continue their flirtatious relationship or push aside their feelings in the name of the Order?

Rating: K Status: Complete

2. The Bureaucratic Error by Iniga

After his death, Remus finds himself 5 years in the past, having undone Voldemort's defeat and Teddy's birth. He's going to need his old friend Sirius to help him with this one.

Rating: T Status : Incomplete*

3. Chasing Grindylows by Firetoflame

She pens the note on official Ministry letterhead. Remus Lupin, it reads. You are hereby summoned to attend an Auror interview regarding case file number 713, suspect to be named, Sirius Black. You are required to attend promptly at nine o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the twenty-first. Sincerely, Nymphadora Tonks, Auror Department

Rating: M Status: Complete

4. Lycanthropy, Love and Other Curses by Thora Jane

This is the story of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks from beginning...to end.

Rating: T Status: In-Progress (last updated on 12/13/20)

5. A Marriage of Convivence? by BDA

The Ministry of Magic is preparing to pass new and extremely restrictive laws against magical beings. The Order must scramble to protect Remus, who will be greatly affected by the restrictions on werewolves. Thankfully Dumbledore has a solution. It is decided that Remus will marry Tonks - a pretend relationship to take advantage of a loophole in the laws. Will it work? How will the pair find being married to each other?

Rating: E Status: Complete

6. A Crinkle of Fate by AFaith1192

What if you were given a second chance? An opportunity to change everything... At the last minute before dying, Nymphadora Tonks makes a desperate wish; a wish to save more than one life. But changing the future has a price, and she will have to learn how to pay it.

Rating: T Status: In-Progress (last updated on 11/15/20)

7. Flying Colours Series by TauraNorma

The ‘Flying Colours’ trilogy follows Lupin and Tonks’ romance across the canon timeline, from the beginning of the Order of the Phoenix until the end of the Deathly Hallows.

Rating: E Status: In-Progress

8. Snapshots by brainyisalwayssexy

Mini scenes and moments that could’ve, should’ve been in the films, but weren’t. Movie-canon semi-compliant. Not meant to make sense from chapter to chapter, and not in chronological order.

Rating: M Status: In-Progress (last updated on 12/21/20)

9.Muggle AU Series by AyashiTetsuko132

A school teacher with a rebellious past. A punk musician with a dynamic present. They have an interesting future together.

Rating: T Status: Complete

10. Protection Detail by LoquaciousLupin

As she can't actively be involved with the search for Black, Tonks is sent to co-ordinate the protection of Hogwarts and Harry Potter whilst Sirius is on the loose. Whilst there, she befriends a charming but secretive new professor. Set during Prisoner of Azkaban. AU in later chapters. Rated for language! Remus/Tonks centred fic.

Rating: T Status: Incomplete (last updated 06/27/20)

11. Worth the Risk by HeadintheCloudsForever

AU. Odyssey-length long fic. Tonks/Remus. Following an Order mission gone horribly wrong that results in Tonks becoming gravely wounded, she meets Remus Lupin when he and Moody rescue her, and Dumbledore assigns Lupin as her new partner for the year, and during the painful time of healing as the young witch recovers from her injuries, she slowly begins to warm up to the man and falls in love with him. Remadora.

Rating: T Status: Complete

Angst/Hurt/Comfort

1. I Can't Tell Her by accio_spaceman

He couldn't tell her- it would ruin everything. But can he stop himself? Originally written about Remadora but written in such a way that you could make it about pretty much anyone.

Rating: K Status: Complete

2. In Denial by secretfanficlover

Remus and Tonks try their best to prevent Tonks from becoming pregnant, a war wasn't the time or place for a child, but Teddy was going to become part of the family whether they liked it or not.

Rating: K Status: Complete

3. The First Goodbye by couldbemoresonic

“I’m leaving. Albus,” he nodded to the Hogwarts Headmaster, who nodded in return, “has asked me to go into the Underground to help with recruiting.” A few people gasped, Molly audibly said, “Remus no, that’s far too dangerous!” Remus didn’t look at Molly Weasley though. He found himself instead, looking directly into the pale grey eyes of Nymphadora Tonks.

Remus leaves to be a Werewolf spy for the Order, but stops in to say goodbye first.

Rating: G Status: Complete

4. Clearing the Desk by HecateA

Harry inherited a certain someone's desk in the Auror Office and finds out just how many slices of someone's life can be contained in a couple of drawers. Oneshot.

Rating: K Status: Complete

5. For the Sake of the Daughter by Gilpin

Tonks brings Remus home to see her parents and it's a meeting of mixed emotions for all. Set just after the end of HBP

Rating: T Status: Complete

Fluffy, Fluff

1. The Order’s Most Eligible Bachelors by cafei-au-lei

The Order's Most Eligible Bachelors, or: the ladies indulge in some firewhiskey and gossip. Sirius and Remus stumble upon a game they're not sure they want to be privy to (okay, maybe Sirius does.) The results lead to some necessary conversation and introspection for a few of the parties involved. Oneshot.

Rating: T Status: Complete

2. Lucky Stars by Sirussly

Series of oneshots (most are fluffly haha)

Rating: G Status: Incomplete*

3. Chapter by Chapter by HecateA

Due to a mix-up in the school library, McGonagall's new TA gets the book that Remus needs, which leads to some slow and painful torture. Oneshot. University/College AU.

Rating: K Status: Complete

4. Strange Magic by ItsSoRonksItsRight

Molly comes across a pair of bright purple female short-style lace briefs, what will Remus do? Ronks. Rated T to be safe. One-shot. Disclaimer: I do not own anything relatable to Harry Potter, I'm just borrowing.

Rating: T Status: Complete

5. The Love Life of Nymphadora Tonks by miniandminie

After Tonks slips to Sirius that she likes someone, the entire Order of the Phoenix is on her case to find out who that ‘someone’ is, including the ‘someone’ himself: Remus Lupin. RLNT, Remadora.

Rating: K Status: Complete

Family (Remus/Tonks/Teddy)

1. The Talk, Or The (Lighthearted) Trauma of Teddy R. Lupin by cafei-au-lei

Teddy knew when Dad brought out the firewhiskey that something was suspicious. Then again, maybe he wasn't giving Dad enough credit for being the cool parent. AU. Remus and Tonks survive to raise their son and give him The Dreaded Talk. Oneshot.

Rating: T Status: Complete

2. Grocery Shopping with the Lupins by Deletinvthissoon

What happens when Teddy Lupin gets lost in the grocery store?

Rating: K Status: Complete

3. In Case I Don’t Live Forever by ThatHCWriter

While cleaning out her attic years after the war, Andromeda discovers a strange muggle media device. She turns it on, and when it begins, Andromeda's world stops.

"Is this thing on? Teddy! It's your dad."

Or, how an accidental discovery allows Teddy Lupin to hear a message from beyond the grave.

Rating: T Status: Complete

4. Remus, Teddy! by LadyLoss15

Remadora oneshot Tonks spends an amazing day with Remus just to realize at the end of the day that, to her horror, they have forgotten about bringing Teddy home from the kindergarten. Or have they really?

Rating: NR Status: Complete

5. The Miracle of Accidental Magic by Mills87

Teddy has a bout of accidental magic when he and his Grandma are attacked by a remnant group of Voldemort supporters on his third birthday. His magic transports him and Andromeda back in time to three years before he was born. With no way back to their time will Andromeda find a way to safely alter time to save her loved ones, what consequences may lie ahead?

Rating: T Status: Incomplete*

Smut/PWP

1. Awake at Night by Skelpielimmer

Tonks muses on her newfound obsession with Remus Lupin's hands. OotP. Rated M for adult content!

Rating: M Status: Complete

2. The Perils of Patrol by Worthfull1

Things get a little heated when patrolling undercover. Rated M for swearing and smut. One-shot.

Rating: E Status: Complete

3. Under the Invisibility Cloak by AWideEyedPhoenix84

Lupin and Tonks find themselves in a precarious situation on a mission for the Order, and months of pent-up passion come out right before the full moon.

Rating: E Status: Complete

4. Under the Desk by immahorny

Tonks pays Lupin a visit at Hogwarts. What will happen. AU - Remus is still a teacher when they have an established relationship Book 6 . ***CAUTION: HEAVY SMUT. RATED M FOR A REASON. DON'T LIKE DON'T READ***

Rating: M Status: Complete

5. Phantom Touch by Fleshisonlyflesh

Dora is unable to sleep, and her fantasies of a certain werewolf cause her to find a way to relax...

Rating: E Status: Complete

General/Romance

1. First Meeting and She’s a Piece of Work by firetoflame

He doesn't even know her, not really, and somehow she's ended up with his wand. He thinks maybe next time he'll listen when Sirius tells him his cousin is a real piece of work.

Rating: G Status: Complete

2. Remus, Interrupted by Tonkswyrda

Sirius likes to interrupt people when they're in the middle of things.

Rating: K Status: Complete

3. Things Sirius Black Cannot Unsee by HecateA

In which Sirius doesn't know how to knock, sees something he shouldn't have, and can't keep it to himself—especially not during a very serious Order meeting. Oneshot.

Rating: T Status: Complete

4. Pluto by bikelock28

A series of Lupin/ Tonks one-shots. Canon universe. Ch84 now up. "Did you send him away, Professor? Or did he ask to go?".

Rating: T Status: In-Progress (last updated on 12/18/20)

5. Girlish Giggle by failuretoland

Sirius could always tell when Remus had an enjoyable evening, and he had a bad habit of announcing it to anyone who would listen.

Rating: G Status: Complete

6. The Dawn Patrol by aegle

Mundungus Fletcher resents being dragged to Yorkshire by Remus and Tonks. He laments.

Rating: T Status: Complete

7. On First Impressions by cafei-au-lei

"'You know,' Sirius said, 'it's kind of funny. For someone who thinks Remus is so annoying, you sure can't seem to stop talking about him.'" A series of moments in Remus and Tonks' developing relationship as they get to know each other and learn that maybe first impressions aren't necessarily everything. OOTP. Oneshot.

Rating: T Status: Complete

8. Tuesday by Moreofaguestage

“Sure, Okay let's go get married” Tonks replied brightly. “Where do people get married at 8pm on a Tuesday evening?”

Rating: G Status: Complete

9. Find Us in a Week by myscribblinquill

Tonks' new case is different to those she's had before. First off, there's no crime to solve, all she has to do it collect information on the mark and pass it along to her client. But the problem is there's nothing to pass along, he's so boring and yet, somehow, Tonks can't stop following him.

Rating: G Status: Complete

10. Dora by notoriously

Meetings with the Order are long and boring, and Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks doesn't do long and boring. She takes some time out of her duties to carefully consider Remus Lupin, and he quite-significantly-less-carefully considers the name that leaves his mouth when addressing her.

Rating: G Status: Complete

#remadora fanfic recs #hp fanfic recs #remadora #its finally done #thank god this took forever for me to do haha #i will make a seperate one for the holidays

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violethowler · 4 years

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A Farewell To The Clone Wars

Yesterday was the end of an era

After 11 years and 104 days

After a theatrical movie, a novel, a comic miniseries, 8 incomplete story reels, and 133 episodes

After 49 hours and 12 minutes of incredible, heartbreaking, beautifully animated television….

Ended, The Clone Wars have.

I watched all of the existing Star Wars movies on DVD when I was a kid, but I was never particularly enamored with them the way that others are. And then in August 2008, I went to the local movie theater with my grandmother to see an animated movie that – while I didn’t know it at the time – would chart the course of my future for years to come.

While a lot of the general Star Wars fandom looks down on the theatrical Clone Wars movie as weak and lackluster, 11-year-old me loved every minute of it. I’ve been obsessed with animation my entire life, and around 2 years before the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I had just begun to explore the world of animation outside of my childhood Disney bubble, diving headfirst into SpongeBob and Avatar and Codename Kids Next Door. Whenever I saw commercials for an animated movie playing in theaters I would beg my family to take me to see it. It didn’t matter what the movie was actually about, all that mattered was that it was animated and I thought it looked fun.

So, when I saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars in theaters with my sister and my grandmother, I loved it. I enjoyed the movie so much that when I learned there was going to be a TV show following the movie, I was ecstatic. From the moment that the first episodes of Season 1 aired on Cartoon Network a few months later, I was hooked. From the very beginning I refused to miss a single episode. From middle school all the way through high school The Clone Wars became the axis around which almost all of my entertainment consumption revolved.

I started reading more Star Wars books and comics from all over the timeline. The Thrawn trilogy. Darth Bane. Fate of the Jedi. The Old Republic. Lost Tribe of the Sith. I devoured every piece of Star Wars media I could find as this show awakened in me an appetite for all things Star Wars. Whenever my parents asked for gift ideas for my birthday or Christmas, at the top of my list would be the latest season of The Clone Wars on DVD. Every summer I trawled the internet looking for news from Star Wars Celebration or San Diego Comic Con about the next season – trailers, clips, plot details, whatever I could find.

When the show was initially cancelled following the purchase of Lucasfilm by Disney, I was devastated. This show had such a staple of my life that the idea that it wasn’t going to be coming back hurt. As I started looking around at online Star Wars fandom to find someone, anyone, who felt the same way that I did, I discovered #SaveTheCloneWars, and joined the campaign. Through that first year after the plug was pulled, I wrote to Disney asking them to continue the show. I signed fan petitions and made posts on Facebook. It was my first real engagement with the wider online fandom.

Then came The Lost Missions and the Clone Wars Legacy releases – Crystal Crisis, Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple… Having more Clone Wars stories helped soften the pain of the show’s loss, but the story still felt incomplete. Hearing about future arcs that had been planned for the show only added to the sense of incompleteness, knowing that there were more stories we didn’t get to see. When rumors had begun circulating about an animated Star Wars show set post-Clone Wars, resolving unanswered questions of The Clone Wars was at the top of my wish list for a future Star Wars show.

When Rebels was announced I was cautiously optimistic. I didn’t want to get attached to a new set of characters when the loss of Ahsoka and Rex and my other Clone Wars favorites still felt so raw. After Dave Filoni and the production crew of Rebels posted videos introducing the crew of the Ghost and the core cast of Rebels I reluctantly became more interested, I still was cautious about investing my time in this new show out of fear that it too would be ripped away from me without a proper conclusion just like The Clone Wars was.

So, when the final episode of Rebels’ first season confirmed that the mysterious Fulcrum was none other than Ahsoka Tano I was out of my seat cheering. There were still questions I needed answered about what happened to her after she left the Jedi Order, but the fact that she was there, back on my TV screen once more, was a relief. And when I watched the first trailer for Season 2 a month later, the words “My name is Rex,” made me scream and cry. I was overcome with tears of joy knowing that not only would my favorite Jedi be appearing in Rebels but my favorite Clone Trooper as well.

By the time Rebels’ first season had ended, I was getting ready to graduate from high school and planning where I would go to college in the fall. Taking art electives in high school, particularly a computer art class during the airing of Season 5, made me appreciate just how beautiful the show’s art style was, and when the time came for me to plan where I wanted to go to college, I chose schools that had programs for animation. I had originally wanted to be a game designer because of Kingdom Hearts, but The Clone Wars made me realize that the passion I truly wanted to make a career out of was animation.

I continued to follow Rebels as I went off to college, and by the end of Season 3 – with Maul dead for good, Ahsoka MIA, and Rex and Hondo as the only major Clone Wars characters left on the show – I had gotten attached to the Rebels characters as well. I was just as invested in their fates as I was for those of Clone Wars characters like Rex and Hondo. Season 4 finished airing at the end of my junior year, and the knowledge in the final five episodes that Ahsoka had not only survived her confrontation with Anakin at the end of Season 2 but that she was still alive years after the events of the original trilogy had me crying tears of joy as I went to sleep.

The trailer announcing the return of The Clone Wars had me in tears for hours. Long had I been dreaming of the remaining stories of this show being released in some form. I would have been content with more novels and comics like Son of Dathomir and Dark Disciple, but to have the show return in animated form was a miracle I had given up hope for years ago.

But within the last twelve months, my interest in Star Wars cooled.

I was never the biggest fan of the movies. Revenge of the Sith was my favorite because in the absence of a proper conclusion it functioned as a de facto finale to The Clone Wars. I enjoyed the original trilogy, but they weren’t movies I considered my favorites. I saw The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi in theaters and cried on my first viewing of both films, but on repeat viewings the magic of them faded and I lost interest. While I could understand why other fans liked them, there was a spark that was missing from most of the movies released under Disney that prevented them from really having any staying power for me.

And then The Rise of Skywalker came out and completely shattered any expectations I had that Disney really knew what they were doing with the franchise. Where before I was willing to trust that there actually was a plan because of how precisely Rey and Ben Solo’s arc followed the path of the Heroine’s Journey across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, now I realize that what I initially believed to have been a carefully planned narrative arc was most likely JJ Abrams planning to set up a conventional Hero’s Journey which Rian Johnson used to try and tell a Heroine’s Journey instead. And even if there was a plan for Rey and Ben Solo that got screwed around by behind the scenes conflicts, there was clearly no plan as far as Poe and Finn and Rose were concerned.

For months after this, I started questioning and doubting my love of all the canon Star Wars media. How could I enjoy anything in the Original and Prequel trilogy eras knowing that all the hard work of dismantling Palpatine’s empire would be undone in order to rehash the same plotline with new characters and no concern given for whether the audience could follow what was happening or why these events and character decisions mattered if they hadn’t read every comic and novel and played every video game connected to this era.

Since the last trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars went up on YouTube, I vacillated between enthusiastically sticking to the shows I loved regardless of my problems with the film saga, and abandoning the franchise altogether and gifting my Clone Wars and Rebels Blu-Ray sets and associated novels to my college friend who had just gotten into Star Wars.

And then ‘The Phantom Apprentice’ Happened.

Ahsoka and Maul’s two-part duel in the throne room and the rafters of Sundari reminded me of everything I loved about The Clone Wars in the first place. The animation. The art style. The music. The attention to detail on every character and in every detail. The tragedy of what was to come. On my third re-watch of the third-to-last episode of Season 7, that was when I realized that despite my problems with the Sequel Trilogy, despite the many flaws in the writing of the Prequel movies, I could never give up on The Clone Wars, or on Rebels. These two shows have meant too much for me to ever walk away from either of them.

I have cried at least ten times in the last five days watching the final two episodes of The Clone Wars. The final of this incredible series was such a gut punch even though I knew what was coming and who would survive. I had and saw so many ideas about what the last episode would include. Would their be a montage of all the Jedi who survived Order 66 as a mirror of the death montage in Episode III? Would Ahsoka and Rex receive Obi-Wan’s recorded message from Rebels warning surviving Jedi to stay away from the temple?

But in the end, none of those things happened. The focus of the episode remained on Ahsoka and Rex. Their escape from the ship. The tragedy of their inability to save the other clones. And ending with a shot of Vader finding the ship some time later, all these symbols of the Republic buried beneath the winds of time as the empire rises. It was bleak and depressing and when the credits rolled I was holding back tears. But looking back on the entire series and the era of the war, knowing what was coming, there was no other way I could have expected it to end. The audience already knows that this is not the end, but Ahsoka and Rex don’t know that, and so the finale of The Clone Wars reflects this. The pain and despair. The tragedy and confusion over what will happen next. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite all the movies I’ve watched; the comics and novels I’ve read; the video games I’ve played; very few things in Star Wars canon or Legends have been able to match the magic of The Clone Wars in my heart. I have never truly been a Star Wars fan so much as I have been a Clone Wars and Rebels fan. The novels and comics and movies I enjoy are an extension of my love for the shows, but the shows will always come first. The characters these shows introduced have stuck with me more than any characters from the movies ever has. Clone Wars made me love Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme and Yoda, but to me, my Star Wars favorites have always been Ahsoka, Maul, Rex, Ventress, Fives, Hera, Zeb, Thrawn, Sabine, and all the rest.

So, I just wanted to say thank you to Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Lanter, Catherine Taber, James Arnold Taylor, Sam Whitwer, Nika Futterman, Dee Bradley Baker, as well as every single person involved in bringing this show to live for all the hard work and passion you have poured into this series. Your work on this show shaped the person I am today, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.

May the Force Be With You.

#star wars the clone wars #clone wars season 7 #thank you dave filoni #the siege of mandalore #victory and death #farewell to the clone wars #tcw spoilers #clone wars spoilers

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theartofmedia · 5 years

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Game Theory and the Art of Persuasion

Full disclosure from the start: I don’t like Game Theory. (I enjoy MatPat when he’s in other things (like the Random Encounters musicals, I think he’s wonderful there), but just not Game Theory.) I’ve heard a lot of other people not like Game Theory either, both personal friends and strangers on the internet, for a variety of different reasons--namely, inaccurate research, twisting of facts, and allegations of art-stealing (but we’re not going to talk about that last one for the sake of staying on topic).

Yet, it remains incredibly successful, and its fans are loyal. Many people believe the theories, or at least parts of them. Even when the top comments of the videos are critical (or even hateful) in nature, the videos still do well.

So, why?

Well, there’s no denying that a good portion of GT’s audience is young. I think we’ve all had that one creator or piece of media that we wanted to defend because we loved it, only to realize later that it wasn’t that good. (And many people still enjoy these things and recognize that they aren’t good.) Younger teens have a strong need to defend what’s important to them, regardless of however valid the criticism is--in fact, giving any negative criticism at all often just spurs them on further. Young teens just don’t have that reasoning ability (and let’s face it, we were all like this when we were that young, whether we like to admit it or not). GT is going to be successful as long as that loyal fanbase continues to thrive.

So why do people believe the theories?

I believe I have my own little “theory”--MatPat, to some, is very persuasive.

Not with well-structured arguments, but with his rhetoric. It’s in what language he uses, the visuals he puts up, his tone of voice, and how he subtly tweaks the facts in order to slant the information in favor of his argument.

(Note: I am aware that MatPat not only has editors but script-writers as well, but he has to approve all of it and read out the script. So while I’ll use GT and MatPat himself as sort of umbrella term, I do know that he is not responsible for everything.)

Let’s use the video “Game Theory: Kirby...Dream Land’s Biggest THREAT! pt.1″ and break down some of the major points. (I’ll be putting timestamps so you can check for yourself or follow along.)

Whether intentional or not, MatPat uses a lot of strong, slanted language in his arguments. At 2:14, he states “So what is Kirby? Is he hero of Popstar, or world-consuming villain? A pink puffball for good, or a fiery god of evil?” This sets up a dichotomy--good and evil, right and wrong. People are naturally drawn to definitive, clean choices. They’re easier to understand and easier to grasp. Setting up this dichotomy sets up two sides: Kirby is good, or Kirby is evil. No room for other nuances and small details that add depth, or room for any explanations of the circumstances that could lead Kirby to act the way he does.

2:22--”Surprisingly, Kirby lore does have an answer.”

2:25-2:29--”The Kirby games have slowly been revealing more and more of what the true nature of Kirby is.”

3:09--”... what the designers are intending to do with his character.”

These three statements encapsulate a common criticism of GT: MatPat exerts his theories as truth. “Have an answer,” “true nature,” and “intending to do” are all statements that present his argument as factual, as truth. He even pushes that onto the Kirby writers, saying that it’s what they were ‘intending to do’ with Kirby’s character. Now one could make the argument of him just making blanket statements and that these aren’t all calculated instances, and you’re probably right--however, regardless if intentional or not, it still plants a sort of subliminal idea in the viewer’s head that ‘what I’m going to tell you is accurate and true.’

(Also, at 3:09, he shows a visual of “kirby lore” books connected by a pentagram. Very subtle use of imagery to send a message, which once more ties back to the binary he set up earlier. It’s pretty clear what he wants you to believe.)

2:30--”And the answers they’re starting to give are shocking.”

3:16--”... after this two-part theory, I don’t think you’ll be able to look at Kirby the same way again.”

This, along with the Satanic visuals presented previously, are priming the viewer to think that Kirby is evil. It’s setting up for that assertion, easing the viewer into it so that it’s easier for them to think “oh yeah that makes sense.”

And that’s just at the beginning of the video!

Now probably the biggest criticism of GT is that he spins the facts and intentionally leaves out information, inadvertently giving inaccurate information in order to support his argument. Well--he’s basically flat-out admitted to doing so in his emails to potential script writers (as shown by this video from Inside A Mind (timestamped for convenience), where MatPat actually commented on it and talked about the incident that IAM was referring to and never outright stating that the contents of those guidelines for script writing were false.)

I feel like we don’t talk about this enough: the Game Theory script writers are actually told to omit information that contradicts the theory. Now this makes sense on the surface--omitting information that would weaken your argument--but thinking about it even a bit makes it confusing and even a bit shady. GT frames its theories as though they were scientific theories, and intentionally leaving out information that contradicts what you’re trying to say isn’t how you make a scientific theory, especially if it heavily disproves what you are trying to prove. You would acknowledge that there is contradictory information and either try to provide a counterargument, or just admit ‘yeah this exists and we don’t have an explanation for it.’ It’s okay to have holes in your argument, no argument is perfect! However, GT flat-out ignores this contradictory information, and in doing so, it actually twists the facts. (Honestly, in my opinion, him acknowledging the contradictory information would make his theories more credible.)

For example, in the Kirby video, he discusses Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star/Super Star Ultra, and how the main objective is to stop the sun and moon from fighting by summoning Nova, who can grant wishes, with the help of a jester named Marx. Marx, however, betrays Kirby to get his own wish granted because he wants to take over Popstar. Kirby has to destroy Nova in order to save Popstar and possibly the rest of the universe.

Now the way MatPat explains it...

(starting at) 6:19--“When the sun and moon are fighting up in the sky, one civilian speaks up with a solution: Marx. His proposed answer to this literal star war is to summon Nova, a giant space watch that grants wishes. [something something dragonball joke] Kirby travels planet to planet to harness each one’s star power, making him quite literally an alien invading army to the locals of that area. After decimating seven planets’ worth of creatures [something something metroid joke], Kirby successfully summons Nova. But before he can make his wish and justify all the damage he just caused across the galaxy, he is betrayed by Marx, who wishes to take over Popstar. [...] Kirby goes on to defeat Marx, but also has to destroy Nova in the process, leaving the universe one step back from where this quest first started, and ultimately invalidating all the bloodshed from all the planets he just visited.”

... he frames it as though nothing was accomplished, planets were destroyed, and everything was ultimately for naught.

Conveniently leaving out that the sun and moon stopped fighting--you know, what caused all of this in the first place--in order to work together and help Kirby stop Nova. And again, his wording frames Kirby as this monster, while also conveniently forgetting about player choice. One can choose to not hurt the enemies--and the enemies are enemies for a reason, because they hurt Kirby.

So in the end, while Marx was stopped and Nova was unfortunately destroyed, the problem that Kirby set out to solve was, in fact, solved, and peace was restored. Putting back these facts completely changes the meaning of what MatPat is trying to say, and omitting them makes them inaccurate information. He does this frequently in order to support his arguments--and the very fact that he has to twist the narrative in order to make it fit how he wants to at all implies that said arguments don’t have much to stand on to begin with.

However, if you didn’t play the game or didn’t just do a quick google search like I did it sounds plausible, because there aren’t many missing pieces there (unless you think about ‘what happened to the sun and moon?’). It seems that GT is trying to reach the people who don’t know about these games, as they would be the ones who would most readily believe it. Kirby fans would be skeptical or outright against what the theory says, but if you didn’t know about what the games actually were, then it would make perfect sense.

(I’d also like to mention how he says that Kirby’s Avalanche isn’t canon and then uses it for a full minute to support his argument it’s not entirely relevant to this but it just Grinds My Gears)

15:51--”And again, if you think all of this is a stretch, and I’m reading too much into these details, I’m not.”

And at the very end, he once again asserts the idea that the information he just presented you with is true. It’s repetition; many times if you repeat something enough, people will start to believe it. It’s similar to repeating the thesis statement at the end of an essay so that it all ties together nicely.

To the average viewer, the Game Theory videos may sound very persuasive, especially with MatPat’s charismatic voice and assured tone, the editors very snappy and visually interesting editing, and the enticing words and phrases he uses in order to grab attention and prime the viewer for what he’s about to say. However, knowing even a little bit about the source material of what he’s talking about can make the theory videos fall apart, because in all honesty, the videos don’t have much actual substance. It’s like a house of cards; one light breeze and the whole thing topples.

Despite all of this, I still have hope that, someday, Game Theory’s content will improve, and these types of criticisms will be addressed. Until then, we can only wait.

#game theory #matpat #kirby

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how2to18 · 6 years

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“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

— Walt Disney

“Dreams have started wars.”

— Walter Benjamin

“It is the manner in which the U.S. dreams and redeems itself, and then imposes that dream upon others for its own salvation”

— Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart

HOW TO READ Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in The Disney Comic landed in the United States in 1975. Printed in Hungary, the underground screed against Disney’s Donald Duck comics was immediately detained by the Imports Compliance Branch of the US Customs Department. Disney sued the book’s publisher for “piratical” use of characters.

Written by Chilean radicals Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart in 1971, How to Read Donald Duck analyzed decades of postwar Disney comics designed to indoctrinate the children of Latin America with pro-capitalist propaganda. In 1973, after the bloodiest coup in the continent’s history — a coup that ended Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, his life, and the lives of thousands — General Augusto Pinochet’s junta had the book burned, along with many other books deemed subversive.

Sill penning sharp critiques, Ariel Dorfman sees Donald Trump as Donald Duck: “We are clearly in a moment,” he writes, “when a yearning to regress to the supposedly uncomplicated, spotless, and innocent America of those Disney cartoons, the sort of America that Walt once imagined as eternal, fills Trump and so many of his followers with an inchoate nostalgia.” Today, Donald Duck lags in its appeal to consumers. Star Wars is a more effective vehicle to influence the young, whose culture has already been colonized, with ideals of freedom as well as to capitalize on our collective distress. Like Donald Duck, Star Wars is an invisible disguise, in which, as Dorfman and Mattelart put it, “protest is converted into imposture” and radical energy is digested to eliminate its power. If that means riffing on revolution or including women and people of color in the plot, the underlying logic is the same.

More Americans will see Star Wars in 2020 than will vote. The Star Wars Universe is slated to include two more films between now and then, and its latest movie, The Last Jedi, premiered last week. What we need in response is an extensive analysis of how the Star Wars films, comics, and merchandise are distributed in other countries, as well as our own. Star Wars is sacred to millions, and millions are blind to Star Wars. Inspired by Dorfman and Mattelart, here are 13 ways to read it.

1. Disney, the Guardian of the Universe

It was a movie, then a franchise, and as it grew into a cinematic universe, a black hole opened up, sucking away the popcorn and leaving something ideologically opposed to cinema itself. The Star Wars Expanded Universe — what we now call its constellation of media satellites — is made up of screenplays, films, TV shows, novels, picture books, video games, board games, comics, and so much more. By 2000, Star Wars intellectual properties were so expansive that Lucas Licensing’s Publishing Department devised a “continuity database” to keep track of the gospel of Star Wars.

Twelve individuals oversee the archive as guardians of the Star Wars canon. It is known to them — and to Star Wars superfans — as the Holocron, a self-referenced story term for a fortified library of wisdom that “contain[s] the most closely guarded secrets of the Jedi Order.” Holo, meaning holographic; cronos, meaning a personification of time; or perhaps Cronus, the Greek god who castrated his father Uranus. Unlike the Jedi archive introduced in Attack of the Clones (2002), the Licensing Department’s Holocron exists on Planet Earth and contains the most lucrative story ever copywritten. It is made up of “55,000 entries for franchise characters, locations, species, and vehicles.” What it doesn’t include is the miniscule merchandise seeping into daily life — the key fobs, tote bags, gel pens, socks, and soda — branded in the name of the Holocron.

In 2012, when Walt Disney Company acquired the rights of the Star Wars Expanded Universe for $4.05 billion — including all of Lucasfilm’s lesser holdings like Indiana Jones — Hollywood was still reeling from Disney’s acquisition of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for $4 billion three years earlier. To single out Disney, however, is not the point. In the age of corporate consolidation, sucking up intellectual property weaponizes story. Disney is perhaps the most aggressive in this regard — vertically integrating production, distribution, and exhibition wherever it can — but they are in the middle of an arms race. In 2016, Dreamworks sold for $3.8 billion to NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, which wrestled Harry Potter away from Disney. In the fog of The Last Jedi’s opening weekend, Team Disney has merged with rival 21st Century Fox, purchased for a whopping $52.4 billion from Rupert Murdoch. In this corporate cold war, the Disney Empire has retooled Star Wars into its own Death Star, capable of destroying other movie studios and their parent companies.

2. The Force

Back in 2015, opening weekend for The Force Awakens racked in $582 million worldwide. In the lead up to that opening, the cross-market saturation of Star Wars ads overlapped every medium. These ads didn’t have to advertise the movie; simply the scent of Star Wars was sufficient. Public service announcements exhorted listeners to “Avoid the Dark Side.” Tiny Star Wars–branded stickers appeared on tangerines. Facebook changed its status update prompt, which usually reads “What’s on your mind,” to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens today! Are you excited to see it? Let your friends know.” Hillary Clinton mentioned “the Force” in a presidential debate.

The Force is not, as Yoda would have you believe, “an energy field created by all living things.” The Force that Star Wars speaks for is capitalism. Disney roused this giant, conjured its spell, and put it to work. Money is the Force that balances good and evil. If used for good, money can save freedom and democracy. When properly invested, money moves us closer to class equality and racial harmony. If used for evil, fear and violence will reign. But money is rarely mentioned in Star Wars. The Universe is organized around a murky barter economy, where the cost of fuel or the construction of military-industrial starfleets is rarely discussed. Since the Empire would be an incorporated entity (granted a lax corporate charter from Wilmington, Delaware), why don’t its commanders talk like corporate leaders? Imperial commanders ought to discuss which old crony will get the bid to rebuild the planet they just destroyed. Or do these commanders represent a Cuban-style bureaucracy projected into outer space?

The Force Awakens was a game-changer, demonstrating how deeply a marketing campaign can penetrate society. Adweek has called this “relentless, but also masterful.” “Star Wars inspired product integration between brands and Hollywood at an unprecedented scale,” said the American Marketing Association. But Disney only amplified what Star Wars had already been doing. From the beginning in 1977, Burger King hawked Darth Vader special edition drinking glasses, and Kenner (a subsidiary of General Mills) manufactured Star Wars action figures. These relationships seem quaint because hundreds of other companies have since hitched themselves to Disney’s shining Star Wars and gladly pay for the host body’s advertising. Or perhaps Disney is the parasite with many host bodies. Disney’s allegiance to capitalism is a case study of the Force used for the Dark Side.

3. The Star Wars Liberation Movement

George Lucas says that he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in order to protect the mythology he created — to protect his creation from generational obscurity and to protect it from himself. Producer Kathleen Kennedy commands the liberation of Lucasfilm from Lucas. She marshaled the expanding revitalization of the Star Wars franchise with The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One (2016), and now The Last Jedi (2017). These are the big floats in the parade that we will experience as massive cultural events — they are no longer cult events — for the rest of our lives.

Disney’s stewardship of Star Wars is seen, by some, as a decolonization of the franchise, or its liberation in the way the United States “liberated” Japan and Germany in 1945. But it’s more akin to the delusion known as “the liberation of Iraq” in 2003. In Iraq, the United States was determined to open untapped markets in the name of freedom. In Star Wars, Rian Johnson will direct a new trilogy with so-called “complete creative freedom” in the name of better movies. Supposedly, George Lucas wanted Disney to be the studio to produce the original Star Wars when the films were a twinkle in his eye. This is why Disney’s liberation of Star Wars also functions as a Bismarckian unification, a match made in the boardroom.

4. Memory in the US Star Wars Political Universe

Star Wars inverts historical context and political movements, minimizing the gravity of American aggression at home and abroad. In a 2016 New York Times op-ed, US Army Veteran Roy Scranton described the irony of watching Star Wars while deployed in Iraq: “I was the faceless stormtrooper, and the scrappy rebels were the Iraqis,” Scranton wrote. Ten years earlier, Italy’s RAI Television reported a completely brutal account of “experimental laser weapons being used against Iraqi civilians.” “Star Wars in Iraq,” headlines read. There’s continuity between historical events and the Star Wars Political Universe, but there’s also a mash-up, a reversal of meaning. “Ever since Star Wars, Americans love and consider themselves these great anti-authoritarians and we look to identify with the rebels across the globe,” punk essayist Ian F. Svenonius writes. The movies remake history and as history is told and retold, the movies must be remade. In this recurring remakequel, the audience has the privilege to cheerlead for whichever side they feel.

Back in 1977, Star Wars was already a simplification of the American military intervention in Vietnam. In Episode IV: A New Hope, only one side (the Empire) has the H-bomb, which in the movie is known as the Death Star, a spherical space station that can destroy an entire planet with its super laser. By 2017, the Rebels fighting the Empire have been re-labeled as the Resistance, evoking the French Resistance, not to be confused with Yemen’s Houthi rebels of 2017. The Empire has “means of mass destruction,” says some a rebel in Rogue One, a decade after American media convinced the United States that Iraq (the Rogue State) had weapons of mass destruction which began the “Forever War.” Precisely because Star Wars exists “A long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away,” it is free to mix and match political reality: to distort, confuse, and ultimately deny history.

Despite this scrambling of history, the truth is that the Empire and the Resistance are on the same side, battling on behalf of Disney in what is known as the Content Wars. In these wars, the Big Six Studios are each beating back the streaming rebellion of Netflix, Amazon Studios, and, in the case of Hulu, which was a 21st Century Fox asset, sucking it inside the Disney machine.

5. Star Wars and Trump’s War on Journalists

The Star Wars Cinematic Universe is a universe much like ours — life-sustaining and technologically advanced — but it’s a universe importantly without a public sphere. No news, journalism, entertainment media, or even advertising. Disney reportedly banned Los Angeles Times film critics from pre-screenings of The Last Jedi. It was retaliation for the newspaper’s two-part story exposing that the City of Anaheim rents a 10,241-space parking structure (that cost taxpayers $108 million) to Disney for one dollar a year. The story also revealed that Disney financially supported pro-Disney city council members during local elections. (Disney’s punitive action was probably further incited because of another review, “How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney,” an art show currently open at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture inspired by Dorfman and Mattelart.) When the Trump White House bans certain members of the press corps from official briefings, Disney’s tendencies and actions are dismally familiar. On-screen and off, the Empire rejects the Fourth Estate.

6. Robots

A press corps, of course, isn’t the Universe’s only convenient omission. There are no tech giants or interplanetary corporations in its galaxy far, far away. Droids are open source, secure, and possibly encrypted. All techno-utopian potential with none of technology’s risks, droids are something a normal person can fix and trust. On Earth, where Star Wars is a multinational corporation, droids are still called robots and they are the horizon. They will be manufactured by Apple, Google, Amazon. It’s easy to imagine Star Wars licensing its brand to a company manufacturing consumer robots — or even acquiring a robotics startup to develop a consumer R2-D2. This is how R2-D2, a lovable droid, and its cousin the BB-8 unit will come to be. Bloomberg reported that when, in 2015, Sphero released the BB-8 droid toy — which can be controlled with a smart phone — it sold 22,000 units in 12 hours.

Drones are another market. The Star Wars brand will manufacture larger, more capable versions of the prophesied machines protected under proprietary intellectual property laws. Unlike in the films, the droid hardware will not be interchangeable, but rather soldered in place. The popular R2 unit will be a Trojan Horse. Around the house, the R2-shaped trash collector that supposedly serves you will also collect your family’s biometric data, record your conversations, and order toilet paper for you via your digital wallet. All the while, R2 will be profiling you on behalf of Disney, the Evil Empire. What a difference a universe can make.

7. “Progressivism”

Since becoming head of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy has kept her promises: she has released a film every year, pushing strong female leads and characters of color into a generally white, male Star Wars Universe. Many fans like the direction the new movies are taking. They don’t want their sense of wonder dashed. But what is the subtext of Kennedy’s new direction? Andre Seewood wrote a three-part essay in IndieWire about the “hyper-tokenism” of the new Star Wars, writing that Rogue One presented a “marked increase in screen time, dramatic involvement and promotional images of a Black character in a White film, while simultaneously reserving full dramatic agency as the providence of White characters by the end of the film.”

Meanwhile, the alt-right reacted to the newly inclusive Universe by staging a weak-sauce boycott of Rogue One. “By now, getting angry about stuff that’s progressive and inclusive is kind of the alt-right’s schtick,” Wired Magazine reported, presupposing that a multi-billion dollar movie could ever be progressive. Isn’t a movie that big, by its very nature, guilty of co-opting “inclusiveness” for financial gain?

8. Jedi as Lifestyle, Lifestyle as Copyright Infringement

To read Star Wars, you might follow the money. You might also follow the lawsuits. Disney’s battalion of lawyers, who doggedly protect Disney IP, have synchronized with Lucasfilm’s legal team. Get ready for an enlivened pace of copyright infringement suits to unfold on behalf of the Star Wars Universe, a place where there are no logos or brands. But for us, Star Wars is a brand. It does not have to be Star Wars Day, which is May 4, to don a Star Wars T-shirt because wearing a Star Wars shirt is as innocuous as wearing a Rolling Stones tee — both, by the way, are sold at Target.

The exploitation of the Jedi Knight “lifestyle,” however, goes deeper than T-shirts. If Star Wars helped to commodify a certain nerd culture as cool, Luke Skywalker embodies the nerd who became a Jedi. He’s the messianic front man of a pseudo-gypsy rock group with exotic, Orientalist undertones. He is at once Burning Man, hippy, wabi-sabi, and swordsmen. Americans consume this persona as people across the world who actually live in cultures on which the Jedi is loosely based are uprooted and saturated with Mickey Mouse tees, only to become collateral damage in the slipping grip of US global hegemony.

9. The Tea Party

In a 2006 sketch, British comedians Mitchell and Webb play two SS Officers, skull patches ironed onto their gray uniforms. They ask, “Are we are the Baddies?” Star Wars operates by a similar logic: a political system based on obvious good and obvious evil. Characters fight on the side they fight on based on psychology — often quite Freudian — inspired by a childhood trauma. By psychologizing the forces of good and evil, political debate is displaced and made apolitical in the Star Wars Universe. In our lived experience, wars are fought over access to capital, labor, over ethnic tensions and land disputes. If the Dark Side isn’t doing what they’re doing in order to advance resource extraction to secure energy for a “superior race,” what exactly are they doing?

If the United States is the Empire in the films, fans say, “So what, it’s just a movie.” George Lucas is a liberal who allegedly expressed his criticism of George Bush with a film whose budget rivaled the Battle of Fallujah. But in the homeland of the warmongers, audiences dressed in Darth Vader costumes root for the Rebels, the Terrorists. Gray-haired adults accept the franchise’s black-and-white message through the haze of nostalgia — demonstrating how one era’s defenders of freedom might allow the next era to be destroyed.

Disney’s latest purchase of 21st Century Fox further scrambles the political allegiances of the franchise. After all, Disney didn’t buy out the Rupert Murdoch–owned production company with cash; it was a quid pro quo merger. The $52.4 million is payment in Disney stock, elevating Murdoch to the second largest cardholder in Disney with a 4.4 percent stake in the company. Future Star Wars installments will therefore continue to enrich Rupert Murdoch — the man who owns the right-wing media outlet Fox News, the man who helped bring Donald Trump to power.

10. License the Myth

Will Star Wars supersede our own history? In the future, Star Wars will serve as our Greek epic. As The Economist put it, Star Wars has already “cemented its position as the market leader in the industrialization of mythology.” Disney understood the primal seduction of storytelling and based his business model on bottling fairy tales and folklore that once belonged to the commons. Walt Disney’s genius wasn’t creating Mickey Mouse; it was licensing the rights to Mickey Mouse. Not only is Mickey the most recognizable character in the world, but Mickey dictates copyright law in the United States of America. Mickey is the colonizer of storytelling. And the power in owning the fantasy and make-believe world of children’s imaginations only expands with new digital technologies.

The greatest betrayal Lucas lofted against his generation of filmmaking is his overuse of Joseph Campbell’s mono-myth theories and writings. The hero’s journey follows certain stages; the most important stage is monetizing the hero’s journey. The hero sucks away financing from different stories — stories of unsung heroes who speak up and defend the rights of people they may not even know. It blots out small stories, slow stories. Next time you imagine how a hereditary hero (somehow related to the last hero) is capable of saving whole planets from evil, think about why are we being told that there was always (even “long ago”) an evil lording over us. There always will be. Does that story give us hope to change this or reaffirm our place in the universe, conditioning us to accept such oppression?

11. George Lucas

Once a film nerd at the University of Southern California, George Lucas came of age in the 1960s, when a new wave of young white male film studs transformed the studio model of Hollywood. Suspicious of on-the-lot theatricality and big heroic budgets, these films experimented with cheaper, slower styles and morally ambiguous themes. A freaky underground film scene (16mm and 8mm) stewed in New York and San Francisco. Of this milieu, Lucas made THX 1138 (1971), a sci-fi yarn about freeing your mind and body, and American Graffiti (1973), the Sha Na Na of anti–Vietnam War messages. Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope umbrella produced both.

Coppola commented at the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2015, “I think Star Wars, it’s a pity, because George Lucas was a very experimental crazy guy and he got lost in this big production and never got out of it.” Lucas, his protégé, had sold him up the river. The young rebel George Lucas has turned himself (or we have turned him) into Darth Vader.

12. Darth Vader versus Mickey Mouse

Disney is the Empire. The Star Wars franchise is the Death Star. George Lucas is Vader. Who — or what — is Luke Skywalker in this allegorical Universe? Luke Skywalker, with his self-exiled father, is a human embodiment of Mickey Mouse.

In 1931, Walter Benjamin wrote, “All Mickey Mouse Films are founded on the motif of leaving home in order to learn what fear is,” a concept based on a story from the Grimm Brothers. Benjamin saw Mickey Mouse films as popular not because of the mass appeal inherent in the film medium, but because the public sees themselves in Mickey. Skywalker, too, leaves home to conquer that deep fear. In the marketing of Star Wars, Skywalker is deficient as an icon. But Darth Vader, who incarnates a genocidal maniac and fear itself, with his black-helmeted mask, becomes the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars. In a simple twist of brand awareness, fear now eats the soul.

13. Star Wars in the Public Domain

In a 2015 interview with Charlie Rose, George Lucas likened Disney to “white slavers” who took his intellectual property and mucked it up. But his official public apology assured us all that Disney folk were loyal “custodians of Star Wars.” Despite this apology, Lucas knows the mistakes he’s made. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could wrest back his franchise from the Empire, liberating his myth to be consumed by the people in the public domain? How far can a fair use legal defense get us? This remixed trailer imagines Star Wars as a grindhouse flick from the 1970s and gives us a glimmer of the popular mythologies and glorious camp that we’re missing. The people, free to make their own Star Wars episodes, web series, novels, and comics, may socialize the myth — or ratchet up the clichéd lines, talk over it, and piss on it. Wouldn’t it be great if Jean-Luc Godard was hired to direct the next Star Wars? Stormtroopers being interviewed in their masks about labor abuses and equal pay straight out of the factory-worker interviews of Tout va bien? If that doesn’t inspire you, imagine a Star Wars installment directed by Eric Andre, Dee Rees, or John Waters.

Featured image courtesy of Josh Hallett.

M. W. Lipschutz is a writer, filmmaker, and visual artist who lives and works in Los Angeles.

The post How to Read Star Wars appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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