#please please please send me more analysis of characters i’m so invested now
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I lowkey feel Ambrose's mind set and outcome could have been much different if he allowed himself to seek love from someone instead of shutting out every chance for love he has been offered and only seeing himself, his mind and body as materialistic value. Same goes with his family, I understand how little he must have felt but if he was more open with his acceptance for love and ability to show it back he'd realise how much he was valued and loved for every aspect of his existence. I can't help but sympathise with him. I feel I'm getting opinionated on his character but his death hurt me the most out of everyone's. I truly believed he had a real love for his family but his love was poisoned by envy and jealousy. I find the most upsetting part of his character is that if he got his way or not he'd still never be happy. If he got his way I feel the buzz of praise and control would wear off eventually and he'd realise it was all just performative. Yes, I know a kingdom can have a real love for their King but if you were to put them in a situation between picking a loved one or the King who would they pick? Maybe Ambrose, but that would be from loyalty, not love. Not REAL love. I'd give it a few months before he'd come down from the high and be left wondering why he hasn't been ticked off or put in a small wrestling match or debate quiz in a while. A few months before it wouldn't only be y/n who couldn't look him in the eye, but he couldn't look at her either. Her face a mosaic of their family blended into one.
I also can't avoid feeling sorrow for him because he really was just a boy who had yet to grow up. On the outside was a man but on the inside was just a boy. Kai is the one slagged the most for his childlike personality but it was always Ambrose that had it. His idea of masculinity was constantly being put on fire and constantly having to be rebuilt with fewer resources every time. It distracted him from the maturity and growth that comes with age. Keeping his feelings enclosed for so long must have spilt out and warped his mind and sadly that's what happens when our emotions bottle up and we feel we have no one to express that to. It's because of this I feel that at his breaking point, he'll go back into his childlike mentality and only then realise how dependent he was on his mom and dad. Only then will he realise he'll never get another hug from his mother or a well-needed lecture from his father. No brothers to seek advice from and mentally no sister to confide in. No family to lean on in times of dread like we all need. And he'd still keep this bottled up. He'd have no one to emotionally connect with on that level again. Maybe a wife but a wife will never be able to bring the love experienced from brothers. The type of love where you can kick and punch each other all you want but they'll still be there at the end of the day eating dinner with you and hold no grudge but love for you by the time the sun goes down. The cycle would only continue for him but this time he has no one to hurt. He got what he wanted and would be stuck in a lifetime of misery and fake smiles with the only thing filling his mind being guilt and sadness. I also believe this would make him realise the love he actually held for his brothers. Yes, I know Y/n was probably his favourite but sometimes when your glass of emotions fills too much it overflows and you are forced to sit there and analyse them even without realising or concentrating on it. That's when he'd find the real love he held for Kai and especially Elijah. The remorse he'd feel and the guilt of realising the love and compassion his older brother felt for him. He'd relive all the small moments. I think that another fault of Ambrose is he expects drastic acts of love that he forgets the real pieces of small everyday doings. He'd realise all the times Elijah probably noticed when a conversation was starting to get Ambrose agitated and would steer it away, all the times he probably realised during balls only he, Elijah was getting all the limelight and praise and would find a way to bring Ambrose's light of character into conversation. Sadly, his win would only make him lose as he'd realise all the real love he was once surrounded with, is now gone that he cold-bloodingly destroyed it. Never will the image of Elijah's lifeless eyes leave his brain or the images of his dead parents. He would only ever see Elijah's eyes before his death looking back to him in mirrors and his father's disappointment when he'd scrunch his brows or his mother's tears when he'd cry. Although he got his dream, he'd just as quickly want to reverse it. I think he'd either live a life of misery and guilt which would reflect onto his people, or end it himself.
I could say Ambrose is probably my favourite character in this story. His feelings are just so universally experienced and we all have probably once felt like an Ambrose. Whether that be with siblings, parents or friends. A lot of us have felt unwanted once and Ambrose embodies that and how its sadness can turn to envy.
As much as he has done bad I seriously just can't help but want to cry for him. He really is just a scared boy under his facade.
The saddest part, even with all the death and horror, I believe his family would still find a way to forgive him. If reincarnation existed in another universe and his loving family could be put in a room together one more time for just one day, I do believe that day would end in one big crying hug of guilt from all sides, and especially at the core of that hug, love.
I went a bit on but I just love his character so much and believe that none of this was his real dream and he never really got to find his real dream in the end. As much as he can be painted to be a monster I don't think his family could ever see that no matter what because the truth is deep down I don't believe he was. His story and life were sad and it's upsetting because he could have had a beautiful life if he stopped looking at how he was perceived by others and took a bit of inspiration and help from his siblings to find his true self. As much as we want to do stuff on our own i don't think he could find himself on his own and do believe with the accepted help from his siblings he could have found that :(
I just realised how long this is... I could have kept it to myself but wanted to kinda voice my opinion on his character because I find him the most interesting and complex!
wow, i’m honestly speechless right now. this is the first time someone has analyzed and truly broke down one of my characters before and it’s honestly sorta eye opening.
it’s always so strange to me how a fictional character i made up in my head can cause such emotional and personal understanding within someone. that they have the capability to reach the readers in ways that cause them to feel sad or empathetic for them.
ambrose personally is one of my favorite characters too. he was so much fun to write at the beginning and with time, the more deeper and complex his character became, i felt an overwhelming sadness when i was reminded of his evitable faith
i had ambrose’s plot line planned out from the first page and never intended for myself to get so attached to him, much less for readers to do the same
in my eyes, he’s extremely relatable. especially for people who grew up as a middle child and often feel overshadowed by their siblings or just in general
i agree that whether he got his way or not, he’d never be satisfied. the rose colored glasses would eventually fall and he’d see the world as it really is and come to terms with all he did to get to where he is
i believe that yn knew this too and that’s why she took it into her own hands to end that misery for him. she knew he was too far gone and that no matter what, he’d never be happy
#eldia#someone reads the absolute fuck out of ambrose#please please please send me more analysis of characters i’m so invested now
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The Bad Batch: A Crosshair Analysis
Hello, Star Wars fandom! I have just completed watching—and loving—The Bad Batch, which you know means I now need to dump all my thoughts about the first season into the tumblr void. Specifically, thoughts on the complicated drama that is Crosshair. I have no doubt that the majority of what I’m about to say will be old news to anyone who watched the show when it came out (I’m slow...), but I’m writing it all out anyway. Largely for my own sanity enjoyment :D
I want to preface all of this by saying that the above is not an exaggeration. I love the show and I love the entire cast. My enjoyment in each of the characters is directly connected to my enjoyment of the season as a whole, which I say because I’m about to get pretty critical towards some of the characters’ choices and, to a lesser extent, the writing choices that surround those. Does this mean I secretly hate The Bad Batch? Quite the opposite. I’m invested, which is presumably just what Filoni wants. I’m just hoping that investment pays off.
But enough of the disclaimers. Let’s start with the matter of the inhibitor chip. I’ve seen fans take some pretty hard stances on both sides: Crosshair is completely innocent because he’s definitely been under the chip’s control this whole time, no matter what he might say. Crosshair is completely guilty because he said the chip was removed a long time ago and he chose to do all this, no moral wiggle room allowed. However, the reality is that we don’t know enough to make a clear call either way. The audience, simply put, does not have all the necessary information. What we have instead is a couple of facts combined with claims that may or may not be reliable. Let’s lay them out:
Crosshair was definitely under the chip’s control at the start of the series.
He was able to resist it to a certain extent, resulting in a pressure to obey orders coupled with a primary loyalty to his squad. See: telling Hunter to follow the Empire’s commands—which includes killing kid Padawans—but not turning his team in as traitors when they did not. It’s an in-between space.
Crosshair’s chip was then amplified to an unknown extent. I’m never going to claim I’m a Star Wars aficionado—I’m a casual fan, friends. Please don’t yell at me over obscure lore lol—but within TBB’s canon, no one else is undergoing that experimentation. The effects of this are entirely unknown, which includes Crosshair’s free will, or lack thereof.
Crosshair then becomes a clear tool of the Empire, hunting down innocents, killing on a whim, the whole, evil shebang.
In “Reunion” he’s caught by the engine and suffers severe burns to his face. One leaves a scar that covers precisely the place where the chip would have been extracted.
Removing the chip leaves its own scar behind. If Crosshair’s was removed, we can’t see that scar due to the burn.
After these events Crosshair seems to mellow a bit. He does horrible things under the Empire’s orders—like shooting the senator—but is still loyal to his squad—killing his non-clone teammates to give TBB a chance, saving AZ and Omega, etc.
Crosshair claims that his chip has already been removed. However, Crosshair is arguably an unreliable source if he’s been lied to or if the chip is still there, encouraging him to manipulate the team.
Crosshair claims it was removed a long time ago, which is incredibly imprecise. As we can see from just some of the events listed above, precisely when the chip came out—if it came out—makes a huge difference.
Hunter realizes this and presses for clarification, but Crosshair dodges giving it. Again, a legitimate belief that it doesn’t matter, or evidence that he can’t say because something else is going on? We don’t know.
Hunter checks Crosshair’s head and finds the burn scar which proves… nothing. As stated above, they wouldn’t be able to see the surgery scar one way or another: its existence or its absence. It’s useless data, as Tech might say. I’ve seen a few fans claim that Hunter was also feeling for the chip with his enhanced senses, but 1. I didn’t catch any evidence of that in the scene and 2. Even if we assume Hunter did that anyway, the chips are notoriously hard to spot. Fives and AZ couldn’t find the chip at first when examining Tup. Ahsoka had to use the force to find it in Rex. TBB themselves couldn’t find it at first in Wrecker. If machinery consistently fails to find the chip on the first couple of tries—it’s meant to be a hidden implant, after all—why would we believe Hunter’s senses could pick it up instantly? Maybe he missed it, or maybe it wasn’t there at all.
Crosshair appears to be struggling with a headache in the finale, just as he was at the beginning of the season and just like Wrecker was for the first half.
The point of listing all this out is to emphasize how ambiguous this whole situation is. I don’t want to use this post to argue one way or another about whether Crosshair’s chip is really out. I have my preferred theory (the chip’s still in, but only partially functional), but at the end of the day none of this is conclusive. The writing takes us in what I hope is deliberate circles. Crosshair says the chip is out? Crosshair is not a reliable source of information until we know if the chip is out. What other evidence is there that the chip is gone? A scar? We can’t see if there’s a scar. Hunter’s abilities? He only checked once for a canonically hard to find implant—if he actually checked at all. And why would the Empire want the chip out? Well, maybe it has to do with that push towards willing soldiers, but if that were the case, why leave Crosshair behind and have the “clones die together”? By that point he was one of the most willing, chip or not. Did they have to take it out because of the engine accident? Pure speculation. We just don’t know and THAT is the point I want to make.
Because it means the rest of the Bad Batch didn’t know either.
The core issue I have here is not whether the chip is in or out, or even how long it may have been in if it is out now. The issue is that TBB spent 99% of the first season believing that Crosshair was under the chip’s influence… and they didn’t try to do anything about that. They abandoned him. They left a man behind. Does this make them all horrible monsters? Of course not! This shit is complicated as hell, but I do think they made a very large mistake and that Crosshair has every right to be furious about it.
“But, Clyde, they couldn’t have gone back. It was too dangerous! Hunter had a duty to his whole team, not just Crosshair.” True enough and I’d buy this argument 100% if Hunter hadn’t spent the entire season throwing his team into dangerous, seemingly impossible situations to save other people. Crosshair became the exception, not a hard rule of something they had to avoid. They went back to Kamino for Omega, a kid they’d only had one lunch with, despite knowing how dangerous the Empire was. They went into the heart of an occupied planet to rescue not just a stranger, but one belonging to the Separatist government. They helped Sid when she asked and there was plenty of compassion for the criminal trying to take her place. Most significantly, there wasn’t the slightest hesitation to go rescue Hunter when he was under the Empire’s control, in precisely the same place. Every explanation I’ve seen fans come up with—Kamino is too fortified, they don’t know where Crosshair is, they can’t risk Omega being captured, etc.—also holds true for Hunter, yet there wasn’t a second of doubt about needing to at least try to help him. And his rescue was arguably far more dangerous given that TBB knew they were walking into a trap. Going after Crosshair would have at least had some element of surprise.
I think the problem with these justifications is most easily seen in “Rescue on Ryloth” and, later, “War-Mantle.” In the former, we do watch Hunter decide that going on a rescue mission is too much of a risk, only for Omega to talk him into considering it.
Hunter: “It’s a big galaxy. We can’t put ourselves on the line every time someone’s in trouble.”
Omega: “Why not? Isn’t that what soldiers do?”
Hunter: “It’s not worth the risk.”
Omega: “She’s trying to save her family, Hunter. I’d do the same for you.”
The arguments that sway him are ‘Soldiers should help people’ and ‘Soldiers should specifically help their family.’ So… what does that say about their feelings for Crosshair? They’re willing to put themselves on the line for the parents of a girl they met once at a drop site, but not their own brother? That’s the message the writing sends. “But, Clyde, the difference is that they had an advantage here. Hera’s knowledge of her home planet tipped the odds in their favor.” Yeah… and Crosshair is stationed on TBB’s home planet. Even more than them collectively having the same knowledge that Hera does, “Return to Kamino” reveals that Omega always had additional, insider knowledge of the base: she has access to a secret landing pad and the tunnels leading up into the city. That knowledge was given and used the second Hunter’s freedom was on the line, but it never once came up to use for Crosshair’s benefit.
“War-Mantle’s” mission puts this problem in even sharper relief. Another claim I’ve seen a lot is that TBB only took risky rescue missions because they needed to be paid. The guys have got to eat after all. Yet Tech makes it clear that going after Gregor will lose them money. They’re meant to be on a mission for Sid and deviating for that won’t result in a payment. He explicitly says that if they decide to do this, they won’t eat. They do it anyway. No money, no intel, a huge risk “on a clone we don’t even know.” But that’s not what’s important, the show says. All that matters is that a brother is in trouble. This time it’s Echo pushing that message instead of Omega. When Hunter realizes that they’re about to try and infiltrate an entire facility and they don’t even know if this clone is still alive, Echo points out that they took that risk once before: for him. “If there’s a chance that trooper is being held against his will, we have to try and get him out.”
Yes! Exactly right! So why doesn’t that apply to Crosshair?
“Because he tried to kill them, Clyde!” No, that’s the easy, dismissive answer. A chipped Crosshair tried to kill them. AKA, a Crosshair entirely under the Empire’s control. The only difference between his enslavement and Gregor’s is that Gregor’s chains were physical while Crosshair’s were mental. And again, the point of everything at the start of this post is to show that no one knows when or even if that chip was removed. TBB definitely didn’t have any reason to suspect that Crosshair was working under his own power until Crosshair himself said as much. We might have been able to make that case at the start of the season, but “Battle Scars” removes any possible confusion. The entire team watched Rex reach for his blaster when he learned their chips were still in. The entire team watched Wrecker become a totally different person and attack them, just like Crosshair did. The entire team forgave him instantly and had their own chips removed. So why in the world didn’t anyone go, “Wow, Crosshair has a chip too. He was no more responsible for attacking us than Wrecker was. We need to try to get him out, no matter how hard that might be, just like we had to try for all these other people we’ve helped.”
But they didn’t. No one even considered rescuing Crosshair. They only went back for Hunter and, when they realized Crosshair was there too, they didn’t change their plans to try and rescue him as well. He’s treated as a particularly threatening inconvenience, not another team member in need of their help.
The problem I have with how this all went down is that the team treated Crosshair like an enemy despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Omega outright saying that this isn’t his fault, it’s the chip, the group seems to decide that he’s gone crazy or something and that there’s nothing they can do. “It’s fine,” I thought. “They don’t really get what the chip is like yet. They don’t understand how thoroughly it controls someone.” But then “Battle Scars” arrives and Wrecker is treated with such compassion (which he deserves!) only for the group to continue acting like Crosshair is somehow different. It’s easy to say, “But Crosshair shot Wrecker” and ignore the easy pushback of, “and Wrecker nearly shot Omega.” Up until Crosshair’s own accusations and Omega’s ignored comments, TBB’s understanding of the chip’s influence and the lack of responsibility that accompanies mysteriously disappears when the show’s antagonist becomes the subject of conversation. This is seen most clearly in how Hunter tries to frame things during his talk with Crosshair:
“You tried to kill us. We didn’t have a choice.”
“Can’t you see that they’re using you? It’s that inhibitor chip in your head.”
“You really don’t get who we are, do you?”
Hunter mentions the chip, but he acts as if it’s Crosshair’s responsibility to overcome it: “Can’t you see…” Of course he can’t see, that’s the entire point of the chip, the thing he currently believes Crosshair still has stuck in his head. But Hunter and the others—with Omega as a wonderful exception—never seem to have accepted this like they did for Wrecker. When Crosshair “tried to kill us” it’s seen as a deliberate act that he chose, not something forced on him like with Wrecker. When Hunter talks about their ethics, he subconsciously separates the team from Crosshair: “You really don’t get who we are, do you?”, revealing a pretty ingrained divide between them. Even Wrecker gets in on the action, the one brother who truly understands how much the chip controls someone: “All that time, you didn’t even try to come back.” What part of he couldn’t try is not hitting home here? Again, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn’t matter whether Crosshair was chipped this whole time or not. The point is that TBB believed he was chipped… and yet still expected him to somehow, magically overcome that programming, writing him off when he failed to do that. He’s consistently held responsible for actions that they were told (and, through Wrecker, saw) were completely outside of his control. Even when we factor in his claim that the chip was removed, TBB has ignored all the evidence I listed at the start. No one, not even Omega, challenges this super vague and strange claim, or seeks out proof because they don’t want to believe that their brother could willingly do this. There’s just this... acceptance that of course Crosshair went bad. Why? Because he was an asshole sometimes? Taking it all as written, it doesn’t feel like the batch considered him a true part of the team. Certainly not like Wrecker or Hunter. As shown, the batch will go out of their way, risk anything, forgive anything, for them. They have a level of faith that was never shown to Crosshair.
“Severe and unyielding,” Tech says and he’s absolutely right, but I’d seriously challenge this idea that any of the others would have automatically done better if the situations were reversed. It stood out to me that each batch member has a moment of doubt throughout the series, a brief glimpse into how they think the Empire isn’t that bad, at least when it comes to this particular thing. Basically, a moment that could lead to a very dangerous line of thinking without others to stomp it down. Wrecker announces that he’s happy working for whoever, provided they give him food and let him blow things up. Tech finds the chain codes to be an ingenious strategy and is clearly fascinated with their development. Hunter initially wants Omega to stay on Kamino, despite knowing that this Empire has already, systematically killed an entire group of people: the Jedi. Doesn’t matter. She’s still (supposedly) safer there than she would be running with the likes of them.
There’s absolutely no doubt that those three made the correct choice in defying the Empire, but I believe that their ability to make that choice is largely dependent on them having each other. They survive together, not apart, and it’s their unity that allows them to make the really hard calls, like setting out on their own and opposing such a formidable force. But if Tech’s chip had activated and he’d been left behind, would he have muscled through to escape somehow...or would he have gotten caught up in all the new technology the Empire offered him, succumbing to both his chip and the inevitability that if his squad no longer wanted him, why not stay? Would Wrecker have escaped, or been easily manipulated into a new life of exploding things? Would Hunter have been able to push through without his brothers, or would he have become devoted to a new team to lead? Obviously there’s no way to ever know, but it’s always easier to make the right decisions when you have support in doing so. Crosshair had no support. His team left him and yes, they had to in that specific moment, but the point is that they never came back. As far as we saw throughout the season, they never planned to come back. They all talk about loving the Crosshair who existed when life was easier, but they weren’t willing to fight for the Crosshair that most needed their help. When he says “You weren’t loyal to me,” he’s absolutely right. The same episode, “Return to Kamino,” gives Omega two powerful lines that the group rallies behind:
Omega: “[The danger] doesn’t matter. Saving Hunter is what matters.”
AZ: “You must leave.”
Omega: “Not without Hunter.”
The key word there is “Hunter.” Danger, stakes, risk, probability… none of that matters when Hunter needs help. Crosshair did not receive that same level of devotion.
Which creates a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The group is upset that Crosshair isn’t rejoining them, but they fail to realize that he has no reason to trust them anymore. He’s not joining the Empire because he’s inherently evil and that’s that, end of discussion. He’s joining it because above all Crosshair wants a place to belong… and TBB has made it clear—unintentionally—that he does not belong with them. The horrible actions that Crosshair took under his own free will (theoretically) came after he realized that doing bad things while under the Empire’s control was, apparently, unforgivable. If it wasn’t, his team would have come back to rescue him. They could have at least tried. But they didn’t, so Crosshair is left with the conclusion that either what he did under the Empire’s control is something the group can’t forgive him for, or they can forgive that (like with Wrecker) and he’s the problem here. He’s the one not worth that effort.
“The Empire will be fazing out clones next,” Hunter says. To which Crosshair responds, “Not the ones that matter.”
He wants to matter to someone and events show he no longer matters to his brothers. So why not stay with the Empire? I mean, we as the audience ABSOLUTELY know why not. Self-doubt and feelings of isolation aren’t excuses for joining the Super Evil Organization. Crosshair, if he is under his own control, is still 100% in the wrong for supporting them, no matter his reasons. So it’s not an excuse, but rather an explanation of that very human, flawed, fallible thinking. He needs to be useful. He needs to be wanted. Crosshair is an absolute dick to the regs and I have no doubt that a lot of that stems from the harassment TBB has experienced from them (with a side of his inflated ego), but I’d bet it’s also due to Crosshair’s intense desire to be valuable to someone. He keeps pointing out the regs’ supposed deficiencies because it highlights his own usefulness. When Crosshair fails to find Hera, the Admiral says that soon he’ll get someone who can, looking straight at Howzer at the door. It makes Crosshair seethe because his entire identity is based on being useful, yet no one seems to need him anymore. TBB seems to no longer want him. The Empire no longer wants clones. Now even regs are considered a better option than him, the “superior” soldier. Everywhere Crosshair turns he’s getting the message that he’s not wanted, but he’ll keep fighting to at least be needed in some capacity, no matter how small. Even if that means overlooking all the horrors the Empire commits.
“All you’ll ever be to [the Empire] is a number,” Hunter says and he’s absolutely right. But to TBB recently, Crosshair hasn’t even been that. He’s been nothing. Nobody worth coming back for. To his mind, at least being a number is something.
I hope that all of this resolves itself into a conclusion that is kind to each side (preferably without a Vader-style death redemption), especially given the still ambiguous state of the chip, but from a writing standpoint I’m admittedly a bit wary. We’re obviously meant to believe that the batch all love each other, but as established throughout this entirely too long post, this season did a terrible job imo of proving that they love Crosshair. Or, at least, proving that they love him as much as the others. If this was really meant to be just a matter of miscommunication, with Crosshair making terrible life choices because he only thinks he was abandoned, then we as the audience would have seen the batch trying and failing to get him out. Or at least establishing a very good reason why they couldn’t take that risk, hopefully with entirely different side-missions so the audience isn’t constantly going, “So you can risk everything for Gregor... but not Crosshair?” I’m VERY glad that Crosshair was allowed to air his grievances to the extent he did, but the end result of that—Hunter continually denying this, Omega walking away from him in their rooms, neither Tech nor Wrecker actually sticking up for him and acknowledging the chip’s influence during at least some of all this—is making things feel rather one-sided. It’s like we’re meant to take Crosshair at his word and accept that he’s this garden-variety antagonist who joins the Empire because yay being on the winning side… despite all these complications that clearly have a huge impact on how we read the situation. It doesn’t help that the show has already embraced an inconsistent manner of portraying chipped-clones. We know every clone has one, we know only a couple clones are aware of the chip’s existence (and can thus try to get it out), we know they enter a “Good soldiers follow orders” mindlessness once activated… yet towards the end we see a lot of side character clones thinking for themselves. Howzer decides that he’s no longer loyal to the Empire, giving a speech where a couple other clones throw down their weapons too. Gregor was arrested because he likewise realized how wrong this all was. But how is that possible? Do the chips completely control the clones, or not? Are these clones somehow exceptions? Are the chips beginning to fail? All of that has a bearing on how we read Crosshair—what were his own decisions, how much he was capable of overcoming the chip, whether that changed at all during certain points—but right now that remains really unclear.
It’s details like that which make me wonder if all these other questions will be answered. Will the story resolve all those ambiguous moments surrounding the chip, or brush them off with the belief that we should have just taken Crosshair at his equally ambiguous word? Will the story acknowledge Crosshair’s points through someone other than Crosshair, allowing it to exist as a legitimate criticism, rather than the presumed excuses of an antagonist? I’m… not sure. On the whole I’m very happy with TBB’s writing—despite what all this might imply lol. Until my brain picks over the season and discovers something else, my only other gripe is not allowing Omega to form a solid bond with Tech and Echo, instead putting all the focus on big brother!Wrecker and dad!Hunter. I think it’s a solid show that does a lot right, but I’m worried that, unless there’s a brilliant answer to all these questions and an intent to unpack both sides of the Hunter vs. Crosshair debate with respect—not just falling back on, “Well, Crosshair is with the Empire so everything he says is automatically bad and wrong” take—we’ve just gotten the setup for a somewhat messy, ethical story. For anyone here who also reads my RWBY metas, I’m pretty sure you’re not at all surprised that I’m invested in going, “Hey, you had one of the heroes suddenly become/join a dictatorship and do a lot of horrific things, but within a pretty complicated context. Can we please work through that carefully and with an acknowledgement of the nuance here, rather than throwing the ‘evil’ character to the proverbial wolves?”
God knows TBB is leagues ahead of RWBY, but I hope things continue on in not just a good direction, but one that tackles the aspects of this situation that many fans—and Crosshair—have already pointed out. As much as I adore the cast—and I really, really do—it was discomforting to watch a found family show where 4/5th of that family so completely wrote off one of the members and crucially have, at least so far, refused to acknowledge that. I want complicated, flawed characters, but that’s only compelling when the storytelling admits to and grapples with those flaws. We have quite firmly established Crosshair’s flaws in Season One. I hope Season Two delves into the rest of the team’s too.
Aaaand with that meta-dump out of my system, I’m off to write TBB fic. Thanks for reading! :D
#The Bad Batch#TBB#Crosshair#Star Wars#SW#mymetas#do I take my life in my hands#by posting SW meta?#probably lol
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hi! just gonna make an intro post for those interested~
im rewatching criminal minds from the beginning and capping every episode as i go along. ive seen rewatched every cm season at least 3 times, and this blog is mostly to avoid sending my friends the same clips with the same comments every time i watch lol. its just all of my thoughts and ramblings for my favorite moments
im 22 and i try to avoid interacting with/following minors. asks are fine, just no dms. my main is @aarcn but this is where everything cm related is. i’m not into x reader fic, especially the explicit stuff, so if you post a lot of that i probably won’t follow you back. and if i unfollow all of a sudden, its probably because of that. nothing personal! i just dont really want to see it.
i’ll tag anything you need, just shoot me an ask and i’ll start tagging it no problem. its criminal minds so the subject matter can get a little dark so i totally understand :)
currently tagging:
cm crit—anything critiquing the show itself, usually the writers/creators
char crit—anything critiquing characters (anything jj critical will be tagged here but lmk if you’d like a more specific tag)
sa mention—any in depth analysis of foyet will also be tagged here
anti jj—critical of jj specifically, only if its in the actual post. if its in the tags im not gonna bother
feel free to send asks, anons always on, or dm me! i love talking about criminal minds and hearing different interpretations of characters <3 its just a fun funky show that im way too invested in
below the read more are links to the different kinds of posts:
i have a queue currently running with character caps from random eps but other than that most of the posts are chronological. photo post limit is 150 a day and i hit that pretty regularly, but i try to upload episodes as i watch them.
cm caps - these are just screenshots so you dont have to credit or anything, but i’d appreciate if you tagged me in or send me what you made! it makes me happy that people find uses for them
cm icons - these are edited caps, so if you do use them please reblog or credit. feel free to send requests! i have lots of character caps from eps i’ve done so far
cm writings - stuff i write! i dont have much bc im really not much of a writer anymore but fics, mcs, and extended meta will go here. may not use this tag often bc i tend to ramble in tags anyway so theres usually a mini-essay below every post
cm fics - specifically fics i write! @t4thotchniss and i have our own little cm universe that i’ll write stuff for sometimes, so you may want to check out his summary for the general gist
cm parallels - caps from different moments (though sometimes the same episode) that make me crazy 🤪 probably my favorite tag
cm comp - compilation posts, usually divided by season. again these are just caps so feel free to take and use as you will!
im open to requests for any of the above post types, so feel free to shoot an ask or dm. if you want something from an episode that i’ve done so far i probably have caps already so i’ll gladly do it! if you want something from a later season (or for characters i dont cap as much like jj, reid, rossi, etc), please be as specific as possible with your request. episode numbers would be great.
for shipping stuff i’m pretty open to most things. i do have some common romantic pairings i really do not like and view as exclusively platonic: hotch/reid, hotch/jj, hotch/elle... those are his kids lol
love for criminal minds has faded, so im not gonna try to push myself until the obsession returns. feel free to send thoughts/opinions/questions, i still have My Takes that stay in my brain forever <3 for now tho the only original posts are just gonna be queued character caps. ive got 1000+ drafts so its not gonna run out any time soon
#i went back and checked post type tags.. i wanted a 'cm fav' section but honestly it was just everything i post ajksdhglksjghlas#the brainrot runs deep ig
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Gold Rush and Happiness are Sisters
Gather round everyone and witness the clown try to prove that Taylor Swift wrote songs about a married (now pregnant) woman in the year of our lord 2020.
Also this is a seven page doc in my google docs so like. Get a cup of tea and some popcorn.
Ok full disclosure this is…..mostly me clowning. Like seriously. Don’t take my words as the word of God, this is just my interpretation and how I listen to the songs. And as a (former? Idk man) Kaylor I’m going to want to make these songs about my ship. Acknowledge your biases kids.
Also like. I change my mind a lot, but for a while this theory that Gold Rush and Happiness are connected has been stuck in my head and I wanted to write it down and post it in case anyone else got something out of this.
If you read my last post on Gold Rush (here!) you’ll know I don’t think of it as a happy song. To elaborate further- I think it’s Taylor catching herself looking back on Karlie/that time in her life (Because I think Karlie is emblematic of the 1989 era for Taylor and is thus tied to the pain that came out of that, along with her ties to the masters heist) and reminding herself it wasn’t good and ended for a reason.
“Gleaming, twinkling/eyes like sinking ships on waters/so inviting, I almost jump in”
“But I don’t like a gold rush”
The sinking ship line makes me laugh. I like to think it’s Taylor saying she’s literally sunk our (dead) ship, but that’s mostly regressing to 2015 tumblr humur.
To the actual analysis, she almost jumps into these waters, maybe it’s literal (don’t text your ex kids, write a bop like closure instead) or maybe it’s more metaphorical. She almost allows herself to think the good times were the only times. Maybe there’s a desire to move back to nyc, capture the magic that she may have felt during the era.
“I don’t like that flying feels like falling till the bone crush”
But that’s the thing. It feels like flying at the time, but it isn’t a feeling that can last. These relationships built on temporary promises (we’re assuming here Taylor was a side thing for Karlie, not that serious and built not to last, even if there were genuine romantic feelings on both sides, which I think there were to some level) won’t last, and will hurt when they do end. At least, this one did.
“Everyone wonders what it would be like to love you”
Everybody wants who she’s singing about and is imagining what it would be like to be with them, they think it would be a fairytale. Hell, Taylor probably thought their relationship would be a fairytale against her better judgement. Karlie is a celebrity and a model no less, yes she has other things going for her (Koding and investments), her brand and her success in the fashion world depends to some degree people desiring and fantasizing about her.
“I don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch”
The funny thing about that, Taylor’s the only one who knows the pain of that relationship, of being a side thing and never committed to. It’s draining. It's difficult. She isn’t allowing herself to jump into those waters.
“I see me padding across your wooden floor/with my Eagles t shirt hanging on the door”
I point out this line mostly because it feels like a Delicate call back (Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs). Am I reaching though? Probably. Also as someone with parents about the same age as Taylor’s (give or take ten years), I like the Eagles reference. Stream Hotel California for clear skin <3
“At dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit”
Taylor was the first person to call Karlie out on her “I’ve tried!!” bullshit, how cute. <3
Besides this line being very iconic, it also shows to me that Taylor’s been frustrated with Kar even when she was busy giving her heart eyes. She’s a frustrating person to be around even when you are “turning her life into folklore”.
“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/With your hair falling into place like dominoes”
Damn that’s a gay couples lines you got there Tay. Wonder if you’re wondering what it must’ve been like for Kar to grow up in the model industry, and all of the pressure and exhilaration that entails. From a male’s perspective ofc.
I also take the dominoes line to be Taylor saying what must’ve it been like to have this easy idyllic childhood. Maybe Taylor is the first time Karlie’s been with a girl outside of a hookup and didn’t have to go through the pain of realizing she was into women until later in life. (Not that that’s not painful, it’s just different, and allows you to have a perfectly straight childhood/teenagerhood)
“And the coastal town we wandered 'round had nеver seen a love as pure as it/And thеn it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it could never be”
Maybe this relationship never existed in the way she thought at all. You know Carrie Fischer’s character in When Harry Met Sally and how until she meets the right guy, she spends the whole movie insisting that whatever married guy she’s seeing really loves her!! And he’s gonna leave his wife for her!! That’s what these two songs make me think about, waking up and realizing they were never going to leave their wife, you were projecting this whole story onto someone else, but that doesn’t mean there was no value in what happened.
“And the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it/'Cause it fades into the gray of my day-old tea/'Cause it will never be”
The coastal town seems an obvious Rhode Island reference, to get more specific it reminds me of when Josh and Karlie visited Taylor at her Rhode Island home in 2014 and Josh looks peeved as hell. 1, 2 Also if I remember correctly, enty has a blind where he says there was a huge fight between Josh and Taylor which ended in Taylor not wanting to be around him again. Just interesting to note. (And if anyone has the receipt, please send it my way!)
Taylor may have been projecting this fairytale narrative at the time of being able to make it work, of being friends with Josh even but it didn’t work and the fairytale is left to be folklore, never made real.
The outro is the same as the intro to the song, implying to me that while she’s telling herself it was bad, you weren’t happy, she’s still catching herself missing it and what she had with Karlie. She left a part of her back in New York see, and she can’t stop her mind from retracing old footsteps.
Now, onto how I think Happiness and how I think it connects. I’m about to audition for the national team in the reaching Olympics. Wish me luck. :)
A bit of a preamble though, I don’t take this song ~super~ literally. Depending on what day of the week it is I think it’s probably her divorcee rpg simulator or her closing the book on her ex situationship gf on her own terms ~in a straight way~. So not to discredit this whole ass post but. Take with a grain of salt.
“Honey, when I'm above the trees/I see this for what it is”
See that bold bit? That’s the main connective tissue between these songs. She’s finally woken up and now that she’s this far removed from the relationship she sees what it was. To add to the pain of it all, this is especially potent if you wonder if Karlie gaslit Tay into thinking this wasn’t a big deal, they were just fucking around when Karlie has literal Softest Love Song You Are In Love dedicated to her.
“But now I'm right down in it, all the years I've given/Is just shit we're dividin' up”
This seems to me to be a masters heist reference. Karlie since Lover, is musically tied to this event in Taylor’s life, it’s what I think is keeping Tay from making a clean break from her so to speak.
“Showed you all of my hiding spots/I was dancing when the music stopped”
This seems to be a Rep era/dwoht reference. Yes, Taylor constantly references dancing, but the hiding spots (loved you in secret! you had turned my bed into a sacred oasis!) combined with the dancing when the music stopped (I'd kiss you as the lights went out! Swaying as the room burned down!) brings out the full kaylor clown in me.
“There'll be happiness after you/But there was happiness because of you/Both of these things can be true”
This is probably some of the most gut wrenching lyrics Taylor’s ever written. Damn, imagine having that written about you. Anyway, the point here is the thesis of this whole damn post. Gold Rush is Taylor catching herself daydreaming about the happy parts, and reminding herself about the bad to make her snap out of it. Happiness is her coming to terms that both parts of that relationship were true. Things aren’t that simple.
“Haunted by the look in my eyes/That would've loved you for a lifetime/Leave it all behind”
This feels very Cruel Summer doesn’t it? “I love you ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?” These lines make this relationship read as two things to me. One, it was very one sided, and Taylor/the narrator, was obviously left behind at the end of it when she was heavily invested into making this work. And 2, it was doomed from the beginning. Again. Big cruel summer energy here.
Or it’s a divorcee rpg simulator 3000. Now with extra glamour and opportunities to dramatically drink wine in dressing gowns.
I don’t have a lot to say about the second verse of the song that. Karlie has a nice smile, Gatsby reference, dig at whoever the next person to take Taylor’s place as a side fling (or a dig at Josh, or a baby reference since that’s what the Gatsby line refers to). The only other thing worthy of note for this post is the line following the Gatsby reference.
“No, I didn't mean that/Sorry, I can't see facts through all of my fury”
is the next line, where she regrets what she just said and admits to saying overly harsh things and overlooking the truth of the matter when she’s angry, which to me feels like a big Afterglow/Me! reference.
“There'll be happiness after me/But there was happiness because of me/Both of these things, I believe”
I think a lot of what Taylor’s doing emotionally in the chorus is legitimizing this relationship for herself. Yeah, Josh and Karlie will have a happy life in Florida with Ivanka and them, but Taylor also made Karlie happy too and she doesn’t want Karlie to forget it.
It reminds me of the way she talks about August, that she genuinely loves James/Karlie, and thinks they have something. But she’s just the pit stop on the commitment highway, and the depth of her feelings for the other person will never be acknowledged. It’s exhausting you know?
“In our history, across our great divide”
“Guilty, guilty reaching out across the sea/That you put between you and me”
Nothing to see here, just a nifty parallel. Karlie doesn’t want wrinkles in her new life see.
“There is a glorious sunrise/Dappled with the flickers of light/From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind/And there is happiness”
This bit (which has some of my favorite imagery in this whole dang album!!!) reminds me of the end of the Wildest Dreams mv where she runs out to the car with the lover following her after the big charade of pretending not to care as much as she does, while knowing you aren’t the one that got picked.
Interestingly, if you look at the shot of the four characters together near the end, the outfits parallel the ones worn by Kar, Tay, and Josh at the 2014 Met Gala. This was of course the one where Tay and Kar got ready together and Karlie proceeded to spend the night with Josh and where Tay just looks. Miserable. (see here!)
The line also parallels Wildest Dreams lyrically.
“Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress/Staring at the sunset, babe”
Which you know. Worth noting.
The last line (And there is happiness) seems to point to there being happiness in leaving the bad situation just as much as there was happiness in the situation. It’s Time to Go anyone?
“I can't make it go away by making you a villain/I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven”
A series of thoughts. One, I love the first line where Taylor acknowledges anger isn’t going to make it better. There’s only so much being angry in this situation will do, and it’s not like Taylor’s record is clean here either. (I mean I assume. We know she went psycho on the phone anyway)
Two. Seven years in heaven is both a play on a famous game/turn of phrase (Seven minutes in heaven) but one of the more bold references to Karlie in her whole damn discography. Do I think they’ve been together for seven years straight? Not really. But do I think Taylor saw an opportunity and jumped on it? Yep.
“And I pulled your body into mine/Every goddamn night, now I get fake niceties”
No thoughts head empty this line is a sucker punch and I love it. If anyone needs me I’ll be watching her perform ikywt on the vsfs and crying to yail.
“All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness”
Oh look! Another Gatsby reference. Or Taylor calling Karlie out on profiting off of her association with Tay after they clearly did not end on good terms. (Folklore themed maternity shoot anyone?) I mean, whatever floats your boat.
A bit on the green light metaphor from Gatsby, because it’s worth noting even if I don’t have much more to say on it here.
“Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.”
Yes I copied that from Spark Notes. No I am not sorry. I have an exam tomorrow and I’m writing about a dead ship on a dead social media website. Sometimes we do what we must do.
I love the ending of this song, I really really do, it feels like taking in a breath of air and finally feeling free of the weight you’re carrying. It feels like a final goodbye, like Tay’s getting closure on her own terms and I truly love that for her. Bb’s stepping out into the daylight. <3
There is happiness
In our history, across our great divide
There is a glorious sunrise
Dappled with the flickers of light
From the dress I wore at midnight, leave it all behind
Oh, leave it all behind
Leave it all behind
And there is happiness
So, what was this whole seven page post for then?
Gold Rush and Happiness being connected has been a theory rattling around in my brain for forever and I’ve wanted to write it down for just as long. The tldr of it all is pretty simple, Gold Rush is about her reminiscing about the good parts of Kaylor, and pulling herself out of it, reminding herself it was bad and bad for her. Happiness is her legitimizing the relationship, and moving on while acknowledging there was bad and good in their story. It just took me seven goddamn pages to articulate that.
If you’ve reached the end of this. Damn. Thanks. Go get a snack or something, you deserve it after reading this.
#<3#hope this entertains y'all like i said been wanting to write it down for a while#hope i explained my points well!!!#kaylor lyrics#kaylor analysis#gold rush analysis#happiness analysis#oh and let me know if the links work!
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//Still lurking.
Some thoughts below the cut. A little melancholic. A little ranty. Many thoughts on how Viktor is perceived by the fandom at large. It got away from me.
I think I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but I have followers here and this is also a Viktor blog... I think it would be nice if people stopped making fun of Viktor’s accent - I saw T/BSkyen’s (I think that keeps me out of the tag) shorts video on Viktor, and it was disheartening that he chose to make fun of Viktor’s accent several times throughout a one-minute video. No other character with a hammy, over-the-top accent, as far I know, receives this treatment. No one makes fun of Caitlyn’s British accent in character analyses of her. No one makes fun of Fiora’s French accent in character analyses of her. (I just checked his videos on them, actually, and guess what - no mocking their accents by doing them! Although Fiora’s accent does get mentioned, at the least.)
Just... stop doing it? We know the accent is cartoonishly bad and not accurate to actual Russian accents at all. But why, specifically, are people - T/BSkyen, in this instance - compelled to make fun of Viktor by putting on an accent and saying “Get reed of all emotions“ and “GLORIOUS EVOLUTION” and “BEEP BOOP ROBOT BRAIN”? (The misspelling in the first is not mine. It is in the actual subtitles for the video.)
I mean, we all know that the answer is the fact that American (and other countries, but we can focus on America for now) media spent the Cold War convincing Americans that Russians and Eastern Europeans were mindless followers of ideology and/or Crazy Insane Scientists, instead of like... people with diverse thoughts and feelings who may or may not agree with their government, but like... I have to ask the rhetorical questions here because no one else is going to apparently. Anyways it’s 2021 stop conflating people and the governments they live under, I guess.
Anyways, also very disheartening that I just checked the pinned comment on that video and he is now saying that Viktor’s endpoint is the Battlecast universe, which is not a canon fact even in current lore. It’s an assumption. I can’t even say that Full Machine Viktor is Viktor’s endpoint, because that was retconned into being a janitor skin that randomly breaks into Spanish in the skin bio for a... “joke”? (Because that’s a cool thing to do. I’d ask how that got past anyone, but that’s a pointless question.) But Battlecast is not stated anywhere to be the end result of canonical Viktor, as far as I know. I suppose it’s not stated to not be the result, but... Like, what other character gets an AU skinline that people then say has to be their canonical endgoal when it is not said to be their canonical endgoal by any official source?
Quothe the loremaster... “The endpoint of Viktor's quest is the Battlecast universe. In case y'all forgot. Read between the lines of his stories even a little bit before stanning him, I'm begging you.”
The entirety of the pinned comment is frustrating. It is frustrating not only because it clashes entirely with the funny comical tone of the minute-long short, which also decides to yet again conflate transhumanism with being trans (we have heard my thoughts on this before. Please stop doing this), but because it is unfortunately true in aspects about current Viktor. He is really not a good man, even though you may be able to argue that Riot’s biased narrator choices mean that a canonical version of the Viktor-Jayce fight does not exist. (Because both lores tell their sides of the story. Biasedly.) But as the story stands, his character getting filled out didn’t make him more morally ambiguous than his original counterpart. The ambiguity that existed originally was due to us not knowing a lot about him and thus being able to interpret things the way we wished. (I’m sure that there is still room for interpretation in the new lore, but it seems lesser to me. Also, his color story is framed atrociously. It’s going for warm and fuzzy when the content of it is giving a kid drugs but this is a long enough post already...)
Riot does not know what to do with Viktor. They’re content to portray him as a Russian mad scientist and buffoon in LoR and in some other media, because... [gestures at the struck-out paragraph above]. But then they have his lore which... could be interesting, maybe, if it weren’t convinced that the way to tell a morally grey story is to have narrators more unreliable than a pull-start lawn mower. Like, they just don’t know what to do with him.
Any analysis of him needs to come with that caveat, not someone deciding that the best way to spent a minute of analysis is to make multiple jokes about Viktor’s accent being stereotypical via... feeding into it being stereotypical... and saying that transhumanism is related to trans rights in any inherent way.
Also, T/BSkyen says that Viktor only has an augmented hand and the third arm, which conveniently ignores the fact that Prototype is probably supposed to be taken as semi-canonical considering its name and the fact it was made when backstory-related skins were a more common thing. (And also because it hasn’t been retconned into being a janitor.) It also conveniently ignores the fact that Viktor’s lower legs clearly don’t look like armor on his model, but this is a side tangent that doesn’t really matter, so...
Whatever, right? I’ve clearly put more thought into this than League’s local loremaster put into that video and subsequent “no guys he really is a baddie stop stanning him and grow critical thinking skills” comment. Sorry if I sound jaded here or am taking this far too seriously or whatever, it’s just... man, it’s a lot. It makes trying to do my take in any public capacity feel kind of like shit, because it’s clear that the general perception of Viktor is currently 1) Haha Funny Accent Man, 2) Trans Rights!1!, and/or 3) He’s Evil :(, and it sucks. I already am writing for a niche audience who will accept a Viktor who never went to Piltover and who exists in old Zaun. I know that that’s niche. I’m okay with it being niche, I think.
But it sucks to build up all this character and do all this writing and try to... I don’t know, present a nuanced view of someone, and then just get another fucking joke about his accent or his design tropes or about what transhumanism is. Especially when those jokes are what people remember, right?
Sorry. This got whiny. But I think it explains why I’ve lost so much steam on writing our favorite Machine Herald, because stuff like this just keeps kind of... happening.
Thank you to the folks that send in anons about my analyses or who like my posts about my artistic endeavors or just... well, interact in general. It does mean a lot to me that you guys are invested enough to hang around and read 2k words of me doing the Pepe Silvia scene from Always Sunny as I connect dots that might not have been meant to be connected. It’s just hard to keep doing it, sometimes, and I guess this is one of those moments.
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I’m blown away by the last chapter of Bending Light!! The character depth that we got to see is next level. And you’ve got this amazing talent of getting me entirely invested even in those aspects of the story which I would’ve expected myself to be fighting against e.g. I was totally expecting my pathetic-Dramione-shipper-self to be entirely biased against the Theomione-ish aspect of BL - but I’m converted now - basking in the multidimensional depth of this plot. Anyways, I’m rambling because I love your effortlessly sophisticated writing so much, but my question is - how do you develop such depth of characters?? I’m not a writer so I have no idea, but do you have a sort of biography for each character/a personality analysis/psychodynamic assessment to which you go back to when writing? Or is it all in your head? I’m just wondering how talented people like you create such complex yet consistent characters in multichapter fictions. I’m sorry if this is a stupid/101-of-creative-writing type of question, but I really know very little about creative writing process and you make it so fascinating through your stories.
Oh man this is such high praise - THANK YOU! I love that you are being open-minded for the little bit of Theomione and enjoying the characterizations.
As for the way I construct characters, I know there are writers that do character briefs - backgrounds, personality types, etc. But I confess I do not do that myself. For one thing, I am lazy. And for another (and as you said), I just kind of have it all in my head when it comes to people. I’m a ‘people person’ not in the classic sense of the phrase, but in the sense that I observe people really closely and have all my life. I enjoy them and their stories and backgrounds and tics and foibles and word choices and facial expressions. I’m the person who will sit with you at the company holiday party and ask you about where you grew up and what it was like and listen really carefully to the response. I will notice that you say the word “water” slightly differently than I do and try to get to the root of why. If you are American, I will probably then make you take the New York Times geographical linguistics quiz b/c that shit is fascinating.
Anyway, I digress.
I’m sorry to not have a better and more technical answer about writing characters. For me, that is the part of writing that comes most naturally. Plots on the other hand...please send all ‘how-to-do-good-plots’ advice my way!!
Thanks for the lovely ask, my dear!
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*grabs a tissue and wipes at tears*
that’s the end of s5 folks
we’re just gonna do this chronologically because i don’t even know where to begin besides the start so . . . yeah
starting off with this shot
(sorry it’s such bad quality)
i almost fell off my bed
enough said
oof, okay, jamie vs mike.
i may be crucified for this, but i actually think there’s some truth in what jamie said about mike wanting him to go to hawkstone because he couldn’t.
mike has always been very invested in jamie’s football/soccer career, always helping him train, buying him equipment, offering to coach. and yes, of course, having a supportive parent/guardian is amazing and not everyone is lucky enough to have that. but as the seasons have gone on, some of the things mike says/does makes me think his intentions aren’t simply: “i want to be supportive for jamie.”
i first think of that time that jamie was planning to go to foxborough (that’s such a weird sentence, oh my god). the coaches there didn’t want their players to have any outside coaching, and mike got pissed at that. now why would someone who’s been such an advocate for jamie getting proper coaching and becoming a professional get annoyed at a club who is offering to get him to that point (now, that isn’t to say foxborough are angels. i have issues there as well)?
and what sort of solidified this for me was his reaction here:
saying that he’s supported him through everything may be true, but it’s all been in the realm of football. jamie has never been interested in anything else (whether he’s been exposed to anything else and encouraged to do anything else is unknown) and so mike really has only been able to support him in football. he doesn’t do anything else.
and now that he’s found something that he wants to do (or thinks he does, but i’ll get onto that) that doesn’t align with football, mike’s hands off. not, in fact, because he thinks jamie is throwing his career away, but because he thinks he’s throwing HIS career away. he’s lived vicariously through jamie and his successes and now that jamie is going after something that isn’t “real football,” he can’t support it. because he doesn’t really support jamie. he just wants him to do the things he didn’t get to do.
even more so, his reaction to this i thought added to this:
hearing that howard royale was going to let him go anyway, he’s shocked. and i think he’s always thought in his head that jamie’s been a literal prodigy, someone unbeatable. yes, jamie is a wonderful player. but he’s not unstoppable. and so when karen logically points out how hawkstone are not going to put all their eggs in jamie’s basket, he starts to realize that jamie’s just a kid. an amazingly talented kid, but not a medium he can reverse his regrets through. and i think that this is what inspires him to go and support him at his competition: he’s his grandson first, and a football player second.
i just have to ignore ian at this point because . . . he sucks
dillon thinking the vibes are off at foxborough, providing an opportunity for him to stay at northport . . .
(i am so sorry this is such an ugly screenshot)
i also couldn’t help but think of andi mack when dillon talked about coming out to phoenix:
soft girlfriends stretching together
i thought the moment between alba and zoe was really sweet actually - maybe in s6 they’ll get alba another girl to play with?
duncan turning over a new leaf and being not an asshole? we like to see it. also i really liked this shot for some reason
i’m really excited to see dillon at northport and see what he gets up to there. hopefully duncan hasn’t fooled us all and he’s really being genuine.
okay, guess we have to talk about the world fifa cup (i’m sorry, but i can’t believe that freaking jethro and jamie are the best in the world. but i digress)
the interactions between jethro and jamie were kind of weak in my opinion - like, you’re also a failed footballer, jethro, don’t know what point you’re trying to make with that. it just felt very . . . weird. rehashing something that really didn’t need to be brought back.
the whole auditorium and everything felt more for cinematic effect, trying to have some big venue for the finale. unfortunately, from what i know in this tumblr community, this was the storyline we were least interested in, and yet they put (probably) the most money into it. kind of unfortunate.
i think i saw someone mention this but i thought i’d bring it up again: the game switching between fake players and then the actors actually playing.
so, you know, kind of odd.
there were a lot of moments in this entire event where they were building up certain things, but i think it doesn’t have a remotely comparable intensity as to when the gang were all playing together in, say, the gothia cup. i think the issue is that we have no attachment to the video game, the players (even though sometimes they’re the characters), or jamie at this point, honestly. so while i get what they were going for (i think), i think both the way they went about it and the characters they did it with led to it being kind of a flop, at least for me.
let’s just say, i wasn’t jumping out of my seat waiting to see if a character that has been an asshole to a lot of his friends and ignored his family for multiple episodes can score a goal on a random video game.
i need to make a post about jamie (i’ll do that next) because this is way too long already to fit that in. essentially, though, i think that jamie never really liked playing this video game.
controversial, i know.
i’m sorry, but
why the fuck is karen letting ian take jamie literally anywhere
when i saw this i genuinely thought jamie was gonna jump out of the goddamn plane and break his entire body but obviously that didn’t happen
we don’t talk about the flashbacks to all of his wins because that just makes me sad and want to cry and they grew up so much and-
rewind a bit for dillon’s storyline
dillon’s dad goes from this:
to this:
which was a bit of a 180 but i also get that we needed resolution with their storyline. i guess my only criticism is that some of the things that his dad says are so intense and extreme, that a redemption arc afterwards is difficult.
i was really proud of dillon for this:
i am genuinely so excited to see what happens in s6, his storyline is something that not only i am passionate about, but i think has been done with the most care and emotion. i think this whole thing has so much more room for development so fingers crossed we get to see that in s6
i was so happy to see this as well:
he gave him TWO kisses!!!! it was just very wholesome, and while i haven’t forgiven him completely (this literally has nothing to do with me, lmao, but i assume dillon hasn’t either) i think (i hope) he’s really trying to change and be a supportive figure in dillon’s life for once.
and liam teasing him was cute
we are NOT crying
ahh this is such bad quality but that little tap on the stomach (see right)
and then this.
and then the turn of the camera from him to everyone else . . i just can’t deal. that was really beautiful actually.
we have a whole load of feelings but maybe i’ll save that for another post.
but also:
*approves in lesbian*
and then the music and the shotsssssssssss
and then
s6 finale?
i’m just a mess and i was begging to my phone, “no, don’t leave me” so at least we know where i stand
i swear to fucking god if we don’t see zoe and kat in season 6 i’m throwing hands
they’re gonna have to do some work on jamie’s character because right now, it’s not looking good
elliot please come back
follow up on boggy’s anxiety/panic attacks
we should make a list of things we want in s6 and send it to bbc
i really liked this finale and i’m just so excited for more. just a big thank you to the cast and crew on this season because it has been my favorite of this show and i think they’ve done an incredible job overall. they’ve put in a lot of effort and i think we all appreciate it a lot.
i also don’t think i did this on my 5x11 review/analysis/shit writing, but i’d really like to thank @jonnie-kimmins for his acting in especially that episode. it was amazingly done and it didn’t feel over sensationalized or anything, at least from my experience with panic attacks. it felt very raw and real and i really commend everyone who was a part of that.
i would tag the other actors but i think jonnie is the only one that’s cool enough to have made a tumblr account and then come and vibe with us hahaha
this was so long and i really didn’t analyze anything i just panicked (how on brand for me) so i hope you could bear to read it and yeah . . . let’s hope they can start/continue filming s6 soon!
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Writing, Planting Seeds, and Pixar’s “Soul”
Here is an analysis of Soul that no one asked for. (In fact, I watched it with my parents, and my dad explicitly told me not to start breaking it down until at least after the credits rolled.)
Anyway.
This essay is about planting seeds, creating expectations, and how Soul failed to do that whereas Inside Out succeeded.
Spoilers ahead for both movies.
Disclaimer: stories are a subjective experience. Please don’t take this essay to mean that I think I have the only correct interpretation of either movie; these are simply my personal thoughts.
When I sat down to watch Pixar’s Soul, I was incredibly excited. As the movie progressed, I continued to be excited. But by the end, I was so, so disappointed. Why?
I had high hopes for Soul. After all, Inside Out is one of my all-time favorite films. I couldn’t wait to see how Pixar tackled the concept of souls—a supernatural idea that is, at the same time, deeply personal and human. I started watching, both enjoying and analyzing each scene. See, part of being a writer for me means being unable to turn off the analytical part of my brain even when I’m the reader or the audience member. I’m constantly trying to figure out where the story’s going to go and what message the story’s trying to send.
As the movie progressed, I noticed Soul planting seeds. Here are the two main seeds I noticed:
Mentorship is important. Joe Gardner starts off as a high school (I think?) music teacher. He desperately wants to impart on these kids his own love of music—just as his dad did for him. <3 But there’s only one girl who seems to have innate interest and talent, although she pretends otherwise. He’s disillusioned. (Even here, though, we see mentorship paying off, since a former student is the one who gives him his chance at a big break.) But then, in the Great Before, he’s given the role of mentor yet again, this time with 22 who, like Joe’s student, is too bitter to really find joy in music…or anything.
Community is important. As 22 develops as a character, we see her acting almost like a therapist with the people she meets. (In fact, my mom, a psychologist, immediately perked up and wondered whether 22’s “spark” would be in therapy or psychology.) 22 zeroes in on all the things Joe missed because he was too distracted with his passion/obsession of music. 22 even helps Joe repair his relationship with his mom. 22 also inspires the girl when she wanted to quit music—thereby cementing the connection between mentorship and community.
Based on these, here was what I thought would happen by the end of the movie: Joe would realize that pouring his life into music to the exclusion of other people was a waste. He would go back to his classroom to discover his passion in instilling passion in others. He would invest himself in the next generation. We’d also get at least one scene showing him reconnecting with friends whom he’d neglected in pursuit of his music, and deepening his relationship with his mom. He’d get some payoffs from this, like he did with his former student, but his motivation wouldn’t be his own self-interest: his motivation would generally be helping others. 22 would reach a similar conclusion, albeit through a different path. Rather than becoming a teacher, she’d become a therapist. We’d see her using the skills she started cultivating in Joe’s body now as herself, pulling people out of their shells and helping them discover truths about themselves, inspiring them to become better people even as she inspires herself.
That’s what I thought would happen. Obviously, that’s not where the story went.
Right when 22 gets her earth pass, the movie informed us that a person’s “spark” is not their purpose at all. Rather, it’s the moment that they are “ready” for earth. I quickly changed my hypothesis: the movie’s actual message was that some of us need to be ready for life, and others need to be ready for death. (What a powerful message for a world struck by a pandemic. At least in the US, we spend most of our time avoiding thoughts of death at all costs, and I think most of us were completely unprepared to be confronted with it as we have been recently.) And the movie had already planted some seeds: after all, Joe has spent the whole movie so far cheating death. The movie hadn’t necessarily taken a stance on whether that was a good or bad choice on his part, but still. The movie seemed to support this new hypothesis, showing Joe calmly finding his place on the creepy treadmill-into-the-zapping-light while 22 flies to earth.
But no! One of the deus-ex-celestial-beings shows up and offers Joe a second chance on earth. So clearly being “ready” for death wasn’t important.
Joe ends up back on earth, and we see what the movie is really trying to tell us: that the point of human existence is to…enjoy things. Falling leaves and seed pods, the water on your toes at the beach, pizza, etc. Oh, and relationships—a few relational thoughts appear in the montage. But they’re outnumbered by sensory and experiential ideas. Life, it seems, is not about investing in others, but about enjoying things that are pleasant.
(Which raises some serious questions for me. Like, that’s fine if you live a privileged life where things really are predominately pleasant…but what do you do if you live in an objectively ugly part of the world where objectively ugly things are happening? I work with survivors of serious abuse—yes, they can find joy in ugly things, but part of their healing involves recognizing that most parts of their world are not, at this moment, beautiful at all. But I digress.)
Also note that the antagonist was not connected to any of the themes of the movie. He was not connected to investing in others, nor was he connected to enjoying life. He was not even defeated by either of our protagonists, but rather by another of the deus-ex-celestial-beings. Whatever the story’s overall message was, the antagonist should’ve been a reflection of it or foil for it. But he wasn’t.
To me, Soul was misleading. It planted multiple seeds of what I could expect to come of it, and it failed to bring any of those seeds to fruition.
As a writer, I try to be aware of this. Every detail I include in a story is creating expectations in the minds of my readers. The more I emphasize those details, the more weight the connected expectations will have. Once I’ve created these expectations, I need to fulfill them. Or if I want readers to have different expectations, I need to slowly, gently, and naturally (by which I mean, naturally within the story) create the new expectations. I can only fulfill these new expectations after I have disentangled the story from the previous expectations.
A brilliant example is Inside Out. Initially, the audience is primed to expect that the resolution to the story will come when Riley is made happy again. But almost from the beginning, Inside Out subtly plants seeds to change our expectations—even if we’re not consciously aware that it’s happening. Inside Out demonstrates, again and again (such as with Bing Bong) that sadness needs to be felt. Our new expectation eventually is that sadness will be felt, and that sadness being felt will bring healing. That is why, when Riley returns home and breaks down in tears with her parents, who then embrace her, we don’t feel cheated—we feel satisfied.
The fact that Pixar did this so spectacularly with Inside Out makes me more disappointed with Soul, but also optimistic that Pixar can do it better again. In the meantime, I’m off to re-examine some of my own stories and see what seeds I’ve planted.
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You’re analysis is spectacular how do you do it 🥺 I didn’t realise I sent the last ask as anon but I saw Tommy’s stream too and damn! I’m fully invested in mcyt atm so do tell me if I ask too much 😅 Anyway! The dream smp is sorta becoming Tommy’s smp atm y’know what I mean? What do you think about Tommy being the protagonist this time round?
thank you!!! i’m a writer so i spend all my free time either reading, watching mcyt, or writing so i’ve grown really used to deeply analyzing characters haha but seriously thank you this made my day 🥺
and please oh please keep sending asks, i love answering them and having stuff to write about!!! i’m fully invested as well so i’m willing to spend hours dissecting this plot just for an ask aahahah
now, onto Tommy.
god, I love this boy. (in a non weird way, i’m 16 too and i’d hate if people spoke about me like some people speak about tommy and tubbo)
first of all, he’s an amazing actor. like he’s so good at role playing it’s not even funny
second, i love seeing him as the protagonist. it fits everything so well. he was set up as the main character from the first war. tommy is so selfless, yet confident. he is willing to give away his discs, his most prized possessions, just to ensure freedom for L’manberg. he isn’t afraid to stand against people he doesn’t agree with, and isn’t afraid to speak up.
though, of course, his bitter tongue can be his own downfall sometimes, –i.e. challenging dream to a bow duel– he doesn’t let it bring him down. he speaks up, he uses his voice, and he doesn’t take shit from anyone.
tommy is the main character, no matter what other people may think. he may not be the most powerful materialisticly, but god, he knows how to get what he wants. tommy could be a terrifying villain, more terrifying than dream, schlatt, or wilbur all combined. that’s what makes him such a good protagonist, such a good main character. he has the ability and reasons to be a villain, but his morals keep him on the right path.
this is tommy’s smp. he might not be an op, or the owner of the server, but he has the influence and connections and mental/verbal power to be a terrifying antagonist. which is what makes or breaks every good, moral character.
i’d kill for a tommy villain arc, even though that would be entirely against the progression of the plot, and his cause.
#tommyinnit#tommy and tubbo#tubbo#wilbur soot#dreamwastaken#dream smp#lmanberg#lmanburg#pogtopia#georgenotfound#sapnap#nihachu#niki nihachu#the eret#it’s fundy#jschlatt#quackity
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Jane the Virgin 3x03 Chapter Forty-Seven
Click here for previous recaps!
Stray thoughts
1) I really hope this is not another bait...
There’s so much buildup that I wonder if this is going to be disappointing. Or if it will even happen at all…
Well, we’re back to where they got the go-ahead from the doctor, but...
2) People keep interrupting them, and I just wonder why Jane won’t just be open about it and tell her mom, dad, and grandma that they want some privacy to finally get laid!
3) “If you weren’t a singer, what would you be?”
It’s an interesting question indeed, considering she’s not really a singer and she hasn’t done much with her life so far. It’s a weird question to be asking yourself when you’re pushing forty, right? But I guess Xiomara always followed her impulse and that’s how she led her life, there wasn’t really much time to think about what she wanted to do. I’m kind of curious to see where they go with this.
4) New character, I guess?
So, this is Cecilia, Alba’s sister and the one responsible for telling everyone Alba wasn’t a virgin on her wedding day.
5) Oh, thank god!
I found the whole “You and I finishing at the same time” comment… odd? And tbh, Jane doesn’t look very satisfied. But at least she got it over with! Of course, he fell asleep right after, and it doesn’t feel as magical as she’d expected, I guess. But I mean, why should it? Expectations about the first time having sex should be very low, but culturally women are raised to make this huge deal of their “first time” and “losing their virginity”, and it’s very difficult to shed those expectations, right?
6) OMG she’s sending a sex tape of her first time with her husband to her advisor!
But… the most important question is, is she going to watch that video? Will Michael and Jane watch it? Will they do a play-by-play analysis? Will he notice that she didn’t really come?
7) “It was actually my first time” “Oh, that explains things…”
Well, the advisor (I’m sorry, can’t remember her name!) made it out to look like she was talking about her writing – which she might well have been – and how it was lacking something. I think I’ve actually mentioned this before, but It’s kind of odd for Jane to be a romance writer and to be writing sex scenes without actually having experienced sex herself. The advisor makes a good point – romance without sex is just fantasy. And I’m not saying that you can’t have romance if you’re asexual. But that’s not the type of stories Jane is writing or the audience she’s writing for. Anyway, I think the advisor was actually talking about her performance in the tape and not her writing. Or maybe both.
8) I knew it.
And of course, her friend tells her NOT TO TELL MICHAEL, and I’m like, huh? I just wish this would stop being a storyline? Both the faking and the not-talking to your partner about your feelings regarding the sexual experiences you share with them. Not having an orgasm is just part of the sexual experience and there’s nothing wrong with it, and sex can still be enjoyable even when you don’t have an orgasm. So let’s see where they take this storyline. I’m guessing Michael is going to be super supportive, and will try to make it up to her.
9) Why is this still a thing in this show? We get it, Luisa is a fucking moron, and she makes terrible decisions. I wish there was more to her character than that.
10) And I know that we crave representation for LGBTQ+, but… Rose is a fucking psycho? And this is almost a textbook abusive relationship? She’s literally kidnapped Luisa, isolated her, and keeps telling her how she’s alone and Rose is the only one there for her. (and I’m not even touching on the whole murderer/drug lord thing because that’s just part of the zaniness of this show.)
11) Okay, Xiomara is considering moving on from singing, but move on to what?
12) I genuinely laughed at this.
13) Okay, I liked this joke.
JANE: What’s the CW? Like a streaming thing?
ROGELIO: No, no! It’s a huge network! Look it up! Amazing shows! Fabulous line-ups!
Anyway, Jane is very intent on manipulating her mom into finding her passion for singing again, and I don’t know how I feel about this. Yes, Xiomara loves singing, but what is wrong with giving up? She hasn’t really made it, and there are other things she might be passionate about that she hasn’t figured out yet because she’s been pursuing her “singing career.” I know Jane is trying to be supportive, but if she truly were, she would just try to help her mom to find what other avenues she can pursue instead of tormenting her with her unfulfilled dreams. It just feels like another thing Jane does because it’s what she wants rather than being selfless and thinking of others.
14) See? This is why you should be honest with your partner about your orgasms or lack thereof…
At least it led to an honest conversation. Which led to this…
15) I’m loving this Cecilia character. I kind of wish she was the leading lady, actually. She’s so fun, even if she’s a figment of Jane’s imagination!
16) Rogelio is selling his show to the CW, but Rob Lowe will be the leading man, not him. I see how this could easily lead to an existential crisis for Rogelio, but I have so much faith in him, he’ll probably take it in stride and turn into a bigshot Hollywood producer.
17) Hm. Day two and Jane is already trying to spice up their sex life? This doesn’t bode well. And Michael is telling her not to discuss their glitch with anyone to protect his fragile ego? Because he tells her she can say they had sex, but that she shouldn’t mention how it wasn’t good? Double hm. And now Jane is with Xiomara, someone who could actually help her get out of her head and understand what she’s going through, but she keeps her mouth shut because Michael’s ego is more important.
18) And then she finds this…
I hope this sets her straight.
19) So… instead of getting on board with Xiomara wanting to move on after finding the list, Jane and Rogelio continue to plot to get her “back on track.” But why?
20) For a second, I thought Rafael had truly sent a caring, loving email to his sister, but it seems to be a ploy to get her to reply and reveal her location. Considering she’s a moron, she’ll probably fall for it, but it’s kind of sad? When she was reading the email, I was hoping it would be her wake-up call (if the fact that she literally jumped and gasped when Rose walked into her room wasn’t already a warning sign…) and that she would try and leave this toxic relationship. But if she’s being lured by false declarations of brotherly love… I don’t know, it feels wrong. Yes, she’s a fucking moron, but what makes her a moron is that she’s constantly looking for love and affection. That’s always her downfall.
21) Now, that is a cameo…
Loved the fan bit!
22) So… Rogelio got freaking Gloria Estefan to help Xiomara, but it never occurred to him that it might have the opposite effect. Because Xiomara has seen Gloria and Emilio casually sitting there and watching her show and she’s freaking out.
You bow to royalty.
23) So… Lina Has just offered to help Michael and Jane and demanded a play by play, and Michael remembered the sex tape. He’s not going to show it to Lina, though, right? He’s just going to watch it and figure out what went wrong.
24) Oh, no she didn’t!
Why is she so intent on convincing Xiomara to continue pursuing a career that hasn’t really worked out for her? She hasn’t made it, and it doesn’t look like she will anytime soon, and that’s OKAY! What’s wrong with wanting to try other things? What if she’s really talented at something else and she’s missing the opportunity to shine because she’s stubbornly fixated on being a singer? And why does it matter so much to Jane? Why does she need to control everything and everyone’s lives?
25) So… this whole obsession with Xiomara’s career is because… Jane gave up her virginity? Huh? That doesn’t make sense? How is Xiomara’s singing career a metaphor for Jane’s virginity? I’m just confused! The show is usually very good at pulling off this type of parallelism and metaphors, but this time it just didn’t work for me.
26) See? Xiomara had the right answer all along:
“With sex, it can take time to find your groove and figure out what you like, what you need. You’re just starting out. You’ll get there.”
27) So… they end up watching their own sex tape, and finally have satisfying intercourse, I guess. I kind of wish this storyline hadn’t been resolved in an episode, though, it doesn’t feel realistic.
28) So, that was the reason for the riff between Alba and her sister Cecilia…
29) Why am I always so much more invested in Rogelio’s storylines?
He apologized for the way he broke-up with her, and then they decided to embrace their artistic connection. And now he has six months to become famous in America so that he can be the lead of his own show in the CW hahaha! I feel this storyline will be lots of fun.
30) Look what the cat dragged in…
…a moron thirsty for love.
31) So… I guess Rose lied about the whole “I’m not a criminal anymore” thing. Shocker.
Rafael’s mom was on her kill list, before she even killed her. And Muter died holding a bible and clamoring for her son. I guess this will be Rafael’s storyline, then.
32) To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of this episode. Usually, the plot A and plot B are connected in a way that makes sense, and this week, it felt a bit far-fetched to have Jane obsess over Xiomara’s singing career because she had let go of her virginity. I don’t know, what are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
33) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!
#Jane the Virgin#Gina Rodriguez#Jane Villanueva#Rogelio De La Vega#JTV#JTV recap#JTV 3x03#mine#recap
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Amara, your ability to evoke emotions within your readers is truly impeccable. It takes a lot more talent and skill to do so than many might think. Your work and prowess as an author is one to be commended for sure.
One particularly tragic character is Ambrose. I’ve caught up on the story a while ago and ever since I simply just cannot stop thinking about the complexity of his character. Throughout the story, he came across as simply a womanizer who was too consumed by himself. However, his death gave me much to reflect on.
The tragedy of his character comes from the fact that he spent both his life and his death in internal suffering; he simply could not catch a break! As he was growing up he never stood out at all, he was never particularly good at many things and on top of that his siblings outshined him in many fashions. Elijah had his incredible intelligence and likeness as the future king, Kai had his humour and talent to succeed at practically everything and yn had her exceeding kindheartedness and healing abilities. Then there was Ambrose, who was always in a gray area. He was never anyone’s first thought. What he truly wanted deep down was acceptance from his family. He wanted to be seen, acknowledged, and to feel useful. This never came easy as he realized his parents would always be occupied with another one of his more prominent siblings. The realization that he would not get what he yearned for from his family caused him to develop a character that grabbed everyone’s attention in order to compensate for the attention he so badly both wanted and needed from his family. He found comfort in the temporary affectionate moments he shared with various princesses but the feelings were fleeting as it could just never quite fill that gap in his heart left by his treatment by his loved ones. It was like a leaking bucket.
That’s why he became so close to yn, out of everyone, she was the only one who could relate to his feelings of uselessness and being overlooked. When she was younger, yn’s method of bonding with Ambrose was through praise. When I first heard that I thought to myself how conceited he must have been. But now it signifies so much more— not only was she the only one who understood how he felt, but she actively worked to better his confidence and fill the void. She was an extension of himself, which is why he loved her the most out of all. This is why he made sure to incorporate her into his plan of redeeming himself. Just like he promised when they were kids, he would never leave her behind. He had his own twisted ways but in hindsight he actually did try to make her dream of healing the world and becoming a queen come true. The love he had for her was very profound and may slip past someone who doesn’t pay attention to the smaller details. Which is why his death just hurts so much more.
He spent the entirety of his life suffering internally. He finally executed a plan to redeem himself which ultimately failed in the long run, which is very sorrowful. But what’s more is that his death was spent suffering too. Yn occupied a very special place in his heart and he worked hard to get them both better opportunities. His last moments were spent coming to the realization that the one person who he truly loved above all else and sacrificed many things for stabbed him in the back, literally and figuratively. Furthermore he was scared. His mature external body had fooled people into thinking he was an adult, but deep down his severe conflicting emotions prevented him from developing past being a child. That’s what he was, a scared, hurt child trapped in the body of an adult. He spent his last moments feeling betrayal and fear. Now that I think about it, the reason he feared death was likely because he felt that if he died, he would no longer be able to attract attention and that eventually people would forget about him completely. :(
As I read on I can’t help but feel occasional guilt for the fate of Ambrose. He was mentally gone but part of me wonders what could’ve been if he hasn’t been killed, instead he was brought into therapy and treated. Ambrose lived and died in suffering, and spent his last efforts trying to obtain a better life for him and yn, which is why guilt arises whenever yn is enjoying herself, knowing that Ambrose should’ve been right by her side enjoying himself just as much.
wow wow wow let me just start off by saying I LOVEEEE WHEN PPL SEND ME CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF ONE OF MY CHARACTERS LIKE IM OBSESSED
you read him so well i’m honestly speechless! ambrose is one of my favorite characters in the book and in general. people sorta raise their eyebrow at me when i say that because well… you know
the truth is that ambrose’s faith was sealed from the very first chapter, i knew his path from the very start and knew how i wanted everything to go
as i continue to write his character, i found myself getting attached to him and dreading his impending doom that i knew was coming…
ppl either hate him or love him which i think is a truly undeniable sign of a complex character! he had such kind moments where you couldn’t help but love him, you almost hated loving him
and then there were moments where you would stop yourself and say, “why is he doing this? i just started to like him”
i have no additional comments or corrections to your post because honestly you READ TF OUTTA HIM LOL i mean everything was spot on it’s unreal
thank you so much for even taking the time out of ur day to not only read the story but to create and write out this analysis! i don’t think ppl see it from my pov but when i get simple messages about my stories or characters it’s definitely gives me motivation to continue & lets me know that my effort does not go unnoticed !! so again thank u so much 🫶🏼
also i’m so down to read ur character analysis for the other characters!
#eldia#ambrose apologist#please please please send me more analysis of characters i’m so invested now
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Congratulations DYLAN! You’ve been accepted as NEPTUNE.
Dylan, I was so excited to see you apply for a second character and even more excited to see you apply for Neptune! The cosmic metaphor that you weaved throughout the entire app is something that I absolutely loved. Making Avery be the second born and comparing it to leftover cosmic energy had me howling! I also loved that you wrote about how special twins are when it comes to mutants - their powers being the yin to the others yang was especially something that stood out to me. I’m so, so excited to see you bring Avery to life!
Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.
Out of Character Information:
NAME/ALIAS: Dylan
PRONOUNS: He/Him
AGE: 22
TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: GMT. 6/7 Days
In Character Information:
DESIRED ROLE: Avery O’Brien aka Neptune
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him
DETAILS & ANALYSIS:
Avery can take you by surprise. At first you might just see this edgy kid walking down the street, fists clenched and ready to throw them at the first person to give them a skew look. With a packet of Marlboro in his back pocket and tongue primed with his general response, ‘fuck off’, you just simply wouldn’t expect Megan the Stallion to be blasting through his earphones as he walked.
Sure, Avery definitely knew how to get himself into trouble and he had picked up a few bad habits along the way but Avery would probably be the kindest and most loyal friend you could make. He’d often babysit his neighbors kids and he genuinely enjoyed it. His aesthetic was mostly a facade, tough and ready to rumble when he’d definitely prefer to avoid a fight if possible.
He might be young, but don’t underestimate him. He’s been on the street long enough to know how things work and life has definitely taught him how to look out for himself and his sister. He’s pulled off countless jobs since their parents kicked them out and has managed to keep his hands as clean as they could be. So what gives Avery the edge? He’s cunning and smart, he knows how to work angles and get what he wants, one way or another.
As for Avery’s powers, he doesn’t really understand them, and nor does the rest of the world, to be honest. He’s read multiple essays and watched countless videos on dark matter and energy and what that meant exactly. When he uses his powers, it’s as if he can feel each individual molecule of something, measuring up its mass. He can then change how gravity affects the object, making it ‘heavier’ or ‘lighter’. He’s also experimented with dark energy blasts which seem to be an invisible force that pushes everything out of its way and constantly expands if he doesn’t control it. Honestly, his powers frighten him, as does the unknown to all humans. What really gets to him is that if Dark Energy is what causes the universe to keep expanding, should he really be playing around with that shit?
BIO:
TW: Homophobia
Penelope was born first and then Avery, like the leftover cosmic energy when a star is born. The two were inseparable and doing so would bring about the same results as splitting an atom, metaphorically. As they grew older, they spaced apart but were still always in each other’s orbits, one revolving their life around the other and visa versa. As far as Avery could remember, his early childhood was a good one, or maybe he was just far too young to really see how his family life really was. He went to school, worked hard and would come home only to spend the rest of his free time with Penelope.
As he got older, Avery was always testing his boundaries. How far could he push his luck with his parents, peers, teachers, and even law enforcement. He hung around with the wrong crowd and got pulled into things he never originally wanted to do. It was nothing serious until he was involved in the destruction of a school bus. Nobody could explain how the bus had been crushed nor who had been involved. It happened just after summer break, Avery and a group of his friends had snuck onto school campus that night just to mess around and smoke some weed. Avery was mainly there for Mitch Evans, Avery’s love interest at the time.
The night progressed and the group ended up hanging out in a school bus. The group whittled down to just 4 kids when Avery finally gained the courage to make a move on Mitch. He had tried to kiss the other and Mitch’s reaction was violent and resulted in Mitch punching Avery in the face and shoving him out of the bus. The flurry of embarrassment and heartbreak felt as if it was crushing his soul and before he knew it, the bus started to creak as the metal began to indent. The group inside had mostly been able to get out untouched, everyone except Mitch, who’s leg got stuck under a chair whilst the bus was imploding. After managing to free Mitch from the bus and getting him to the nearest hospital, the group vowed never to mention what had happened out of fear that whatever crushed the bus would follow them. Little did they know that Avery was the one that had crushed the bus and the only other person to ever know this would be Penelope. That was also the last time that Avery ever spoke to Mitch Evans.
That was just the beginning of weird events that would follow the O’Brien twins. Their father seemed to end every day with a bottle of whiskey and their mother seemed to become more unhinged every day. Avery pushed through, working hard at school, knowing that getting into college would be his escape. Having Penelope was also a blessing, having someone he could trust and open up too was a privilege he knew not many had.
Half-way through high school was when it all changed. Their parents had officially rejected them and kicked them out of the house. They had nowhere to go and started crashing on their friend’s couches. Soon Avery was given the opportunity to work a job with one of his friend’s older brothers and he took it. They robbed a yacht and got away with a bag full of expensive jewelry and cash from the on-board bar. It took a couple of weeks before the money was laundered, but Avery got his cut and a reputation. He was asked to do a couple of more jobs and started learning the ropes. It was his senior year when he pulled off his own job. He put most of his money into a savings account to buy a place for him and his sister. He finished school and was given a bursary to study engineering at a local college.
Now, at the age of 24 he is still studying engineering and lives in a decent apartment with his sister. He also works as an intern at a local high-end engineering firm that specialises in space technology. At night he works as a bartender which is mostly a cover and is where he gets approached by most of his clients to pull off jobs for them for a percentage of the cut. There’s been a change in the winds recently though and whispers of new and powerful mutant gangs coming to Miami has him watching his back.
His life is extremely busy so he’s constantly living in the now. If you stopped him and asked him what his goals were, he’d default to saying something about making sure that Penelope is safe, not that she needs his protection, but he barely thinks about what he wants these days. That’s why everyone in his life that has a ‘more than friends’ status seems to come and go, Avery doesn’t think about what he wants and always puts others first before himself, stretching himself as thinly as possible which often leaves his partners feeling neglected or toyed with.
EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:
Penelope O’Brien. It’s said that twins have some sort of special connection, and if that were true for humans, it was definitely true for mutants, especially if their powers were the yin to the other’s yang. Penelope was like the birth of a brand new star whilst Avery was the death of one. They were each other’s best friends from the second they were born. Not only was Penelope always there for him, she was the only one he confided in after the school bus incident. They spent countless nights staying up until sunrise chatting about boys and girls, school, life goals, games and so much more! Penelope was the first person Avery spoke to about his powers and he was so happy that he wasn’t the only twin with ‘gifts’. Being able to support each other was so much easier since they shared a secret. If anything weird would happen they’d race to the other and tell them, learning about each other’s powers together. Penelope wasn’t just his twin sister, they were his best friend too! Considering that Avery struggled to keep love around, this meant a lot to him. He couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without her and that’s why he’d die for her. He’d rather not be alive than live a life without her. This is where Avery’s loyalty turned fierce and where he would definitely cross a line if need be. In a sense, Penelope was Avery’s weakness in more than one way, emotionally and physically. He was sure that if there was anyone that could match his powers it would be Penelope and to what extent, he had no idea and he hoped that he’d never have to find out.
EXTRA:
Oh boy oh boy. I MEAN. What shouldn’t I put here?
I’m thinking that his reputation might get one of the groups to approach him? Maybe more than one group gets him to work for them as a freelancer?
Honestly I’m probably going to make a lot of content for Avery throughout the next week purely because I have so much muse for him, but I also kinda wanted to get this app in and this doesn’t influence decisions so… but here’s a link to the Pinterest board:
https://pin.it/3FkPGew
I might also make a mock-blog? And on there I’ll have graphics and headcanons? IDK. I’ll send it in if I do.
ANYTHING ELSE: Nope! All good! I honestly love this RP so much and I’m waaaaaay too invested for my own good.
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How to fix The Last Jedi
For context, I walked out of the movie feeling ‘meh’. There were parts that I loved and parts that I hated which led to a balanced ‘meh’. Balanced. GET IT! ...Anyway. My problems with the movie boil down to two things and after a lot of thought and much diving into metas (thank you @risquesno) and analysis I think I’ve figured out how to dramatically improve this movie with two changes that won’t drastically change the plot BUT will change the audience investment.
IMMA FIX YO STAR WARS! WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
First problem -
The original trilogy had a lot of characters but our main focus was Luke, Leia, and Han. The new trilogy introduces three new characters in Rey, Finn, and Poe. This was the most successful thing that The Force Awakens accomplished. Plotwise it was a rehash of A New Hope, but it still managed to get me excited about these new characters and I was looking forward to watching their bond grow.
Unfortunately this doesn’t happen in The Last Jedi. None of our center three spend more than three minutes together. This is a pivotal mistake that greatly affects my investment in the characters and what happens to them.
How to fix it -
Instead of Finn and Rose traveling to Canto Bight, make it Finn and Poe. I am not suggesting erasing the character of Rose. She will still play a role. Rose and Finn still meet and the plan to seek out a code breaker develops in exactly the same way with a very frustrated Poe just wanting to try anything instead of what seems to be nothing. Poe tells Rose to hold the fort and keep hope alive because they will be back. You have our boys land on this awesome scene and they’re both like “This is great. We gotta come back here someday.” And instead of the moral implications of Canto Bight being spoon fed to you, we see what’s underneath the surface of all the glitz and glamour the same time the guys do. They have some bonding and head back with DJ.
Poe is informed by Rose that nothing has changed. They’re terrified because they’re almost out of fuel and seemingly command is doing nothing. Poe is furious and tells Finn and Rose to continue with the next phase of the mission and that he will take care of command. This leads to his mutiny.
Everything happens the same on Snoke’s ship in terms of the plan failing (an important theme in the movie) but now Poe’s realization is felt all the more because he sent his friend off to die. A friendship we can buy now because it was developed. He sent his friend to die for no reason. His story arc has a lot more meaning so the meaningless of Finn and Rose’s story arc is felt a lot less.
Second problem -
Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill stole the show in my opinion. He made this movie work as hard as he could even though he disagreed with the direction they took his character. That takes real professionalism. But I agree with him. This is not my Luke. And while he understood he had to divorce himself from that, asking the fans to do the same is ridiculous. I’m not getting paid to play along. I’m paying you to deliver a product. Was he completely devoid of what I expected Luke to be? No. Like I said, Mark made it work. But it could have been so much better. When Luke explained how he briefly considered murdering his nephew, I turned to my sister and hissed “Luke would never!” A man that saw redemption in his father after all he’d done, couldn’t do the same to a young man who hadn’t really done anything yet? Please. I also agree with Mark that Luke would never have just thrown in the towel to hide.
How to fix it -
Instead of Luke going off to hide because he’s given up, he’s gone off to hide because he realizes his beliefs are not aligned with the Jedi way. Everyone wants him to be something he’s not. The Jedi way is not the right way. If he learned nothing else from training Ben, it was that. But no one was ever going to accept him to be anything other than the Great Jedi Master. This leads to Luke leaving to solidify his own thoughts on the force (leading to gray force users). He tries to pass this on to Rey but she’s constantly ‘Jedi this’ and ‘Jedi that’ and Luke’s getting really frustrated by it. Rey leaves because he’s not training her the way she foresaw her training to be (paralleling Luke’s training with Yoda) and takes off to find Ben (much the same as when Luke left his training to save his friends).
Additionally, Luke never contemplated murdering his nephew. When he saw his pupil becoming consumed by the dark side, he instead decided to end his training and send him home. Ben now feels rejected and falls more in line with Snoke and his ideals and things progress much the same as they did, with Ben becoming Kylo Ren and killing any of Luke’s pupils he couldn’t recruit. Luke still blames himself because his decision ultimately led to Ben’s reaction and maybe he should have found a different way.
Conclusion:
These two simple, but fundamental changes, in my opinion greatly fix the main issues I had with The Last Jedi. When developing a story, characterization has to reign supreme. For the audience to care about the characters, you have to show the characters caring about each other and the audience needs to recognize the characters they’ve already spent decades getting to know. The story has to revolve around the characters. You can’t make the characters revolve around your story.
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The Last Jedi
In light of such split opinion among the fan base, here are my (extremely lengthy) thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It obviously contains spoilers, so do not read past the cut if you don’t want to know what happens in the film.
Put simply, I thought The Last Jedi was great. As always, after watching it for the first time, I came out thinking it was absolutely amazing but after some time to think and in this case, a second watch, I have been able to collect my thoughts about what I both liked and disliked.
The first thing that strikes me is that many of the fans who seem to dislike the film are those who have either enjoyed the expanded universe (now legends) stories or are the type to spend time between movies speculating on character back stories and lineage, etc. Despite being a massive Star Wars fan, I am neither of those things and I think this has maybe allowed me to enjoy the film more. I did not go into the film having already enjoyed other versions of the events after ROTJ and I haven’t invested much time getting excited about a specific hope for any character’s story arc. I have generally been patient and waited to see what Rian Johnson and Disney came up with.
I will go through each of the main characters and give my opinion on their story arc in the film and then go through some other things that I both liked and disliked.
First up is Snoke. Introducing someone so powerful with the force was bound to bring speculation as to who he is and what his connection is to the characters from the original trilogy. His minimal screen time in TFA, also suggested he was going to be the new Palpatine and become the big bad guy as the new trilogy developed. So, killing him off mid-way through TLJ was a big shock, especially to anyone who enjoyed the prospect of what he might become. I can see why they would be disappointed but, whilst I was shocked that they killed him off, I was actually pleased. For me, Snoke was Palpatine 2.0. Initially mysterious, disfigured, powerful with the force, and basically Palpatine without the cloak. Snoke was a comfortable fit for a Star Wars film. He is one of the reasons TFA felt so much like a true Star Wars film. It hit all the right tropes that were needed to make fans feel nostalgic and fall back in love with Star Wars again. I suspect fans of Snoke were disappointed that Johnson wasn’t happy to let his character play out as everyone expected and have some big face off at the end of episode 9. This would have been comfortable and felt very Star Wars but killing him off so soon made things uncomfortable and left you uncertain as to who the main bad guy is. This uncertainty was a plus for me, rather than a disappointment.
The identity of Rey’s parents has been much debated over the last two years. To have them revealed as nobodies, probably left a big hole for those excited by the idea that she is a Kenobi or a Skywalker, etc. Again, as with Snoke, I enjoyed the fact that Johnson wasn’t happy to just go with the obvious and choose parents that would make everyone feel warm and fuzzy and make things fall easily into place. Coming from nothing to be a hero was a key theme of the original trilogy, so making Rey a nobody is still very much in keeping with what Star Wars is about. I would also add that, when Kylo Ren said this, he had every reason to tell her what he thought she needed to hear in order to make her join him and, therefore, every reason to lie if she is in fact a Skywalker or a Kenobi or whatever. Johnson spent quite a lot of time on the issue of Rey’s parents when she was on Ahch-To in the hall of mirrors thing and in discussions with Kylo Ren. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if her real parents become a big reveal in episode 9. As for the rest of her story arc, I really enjoyed the connection with Kylo Ren and how their uncertainty about the force and about the dark and light sides was a reflection of each other but from opposite sides and gave them a reason to feel close to each other.
This brings me neatly on to Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was my favourite character introduced in TFA. Many people thought he was a poor man’s Darth Vader then and are still saying that he’s no Darth Vader after this film. I thought it was great when Snoke said that he was no Darth Vader in TLJ. A nod to the fact that they don’t want him to be just another Darth Vader. I don’t really understand why people seem to want the old characters rehashed just with new names and different outfits. I liked the fact that Kylo Ren was an unhinged, conflicted brat in TFA. It would have been easy to switch off the unhinged brat from TFA and make him a straight down the line bad guy in TLJ, but Johnson continued his trend of not wanting to fall into easy Star Wars tropes of good and evil and continued the development of the character. The fact that he isn’t just able to choose a side easily and be totally comfortable with it is everything that Anakin’s switch to the dark side in ROTS wasn’t. I hated the fact that Anakin was so easily turned to the dark side in ROTS. It should have been the main thread of that film but it actually took just a couple of minutes after one conversation with Palpatine.
The one disappointment that I can get on board with, is the non-appearance of the Knights of Ren. With Kylo Ren having been identified as the Master of the Knights of Ren and with them shown in Rey’s flashes when she picked up Luke’s lightsabre in TFA, you understand that they are a significant part of Kylo Ren’s story. I was very much looking forward to them being introduced in some way in TLJ. The fact they there weren’t was disappointing but didn’t impact my enjoyment of the film. It was interesting that the identity of the other Knights was suggested to be a few of the other trainee Jedi at Luke’s academy. The fact that this information was included gives me hope that they might still make an appearance in episode 9.
Luke’s story arc in the film seems to have caused the most derision. Someone who was once a hero across the galaxy but ended up being responsible for the creation of Kylo Ren and subsequently the breakup of his sister’s marriage to his best friend, is bound to have issues. TFA was built around this premise. Luke hid himself away out of the shame he felt. If the appearance of a complete stranger was enough to make him forget all about that and suddenly become the hero of the original trilogy, it would dismiss the story they created for him just to ensure he is exactly the same Luke that everyone loved in the original trilogy. Having Luke be the man TFA created was by the far the best way to take his character. Having the man, who once represented everything good about the force and the Jedi Knights, question his faith made for a far more interesting story arc. I also enjoyed immensely how first Chewbacca, then Leia’s old recording to Obi-wan and finally Yoda were gradually able to bring back the hero from the original trilogy. I have read people describe Luke as a coward in TLJ. I don’t see that at all. I see a damaged man finally return to the man he once was and save the day at the end of the film. He then joins his Jedi brothers in a moving scene as his tune plays with twin moons setting in the background. I thought it was a fitting end. Some people have also said that Luke would never think about killing Ben Solo as he was the man who saw the good in Darth Vader. I don’t agree with this analysis either. Realising that a good man is losing control and turning to the dark side is the opposite side of the same coin to seeing the tiniest of light in a bad man. Luke knew what Ben Solo would become if he continued down the path he was on and it would be a perfectly natural reaction to think about killing him for the greater good for a fleeting moment. The one element that I didn’t enjoy about Luke was some of the comedy they added. Tossing the lightsabre at the beginning seemed to cheapen a poignant moment and I’m not sure milking the alien cow was necessary but these are possibly the kind of moments that children enjoy.
As for Leia, her story arc was pretty much as expected, although it did provide the worst bit of the film for me. After being thrown into the vacuum of space and suddenly waking up, using the force to get back to the ship was pretty awful. In light of her sad passing, it was an opportunity to end her story there. I can see why they didn’t though, as it wouldn’t have been much of a send-off. I just wish they had left it with Kylo Ren unable to shoot her so that we didn’t have to have that bit. They have confirmed that they will not use a CGI Leia in episode 9, so it will be interesting to see how they explain her absence in the next film.
On first viewing, I thought Finn’s story was a bit of a waste of time. I wish they could have found a better, more integral way of getting him, and the enjoyable new characters Rose and DJ, on to Snoke’s ship. I did however, enjoy their story once they were on the ship and especially Finn’s fight with Captain Phasma. On second viewing, one aspect of their story that didn’t really sink in first time round was how it wanted Finn to question if there was a difference what side he was on. Having defected from the First Order, this was a very important aspect of Finn’s character but his arc in TLJ, whilst obviously ending up on the right side, was better second time around as I was better able to appreciate the whole no side is the right side in a war narrative.
As for the rest of the character’s, Poe was great at the start and the end but was a little meh through the middle and, whilst I’m kind of glad they made Hux a bit of a joke, his character remains as pointless as it was in TFA.
This film introduced several new ways in which the force was used. Snoke connected Rey and Kylo Ren and Luke was able to project himself from Ahch-To all the way across the galaxy without anyone knowing he wasn’t actually there. Some viewers bemoan such changes in the way we know how the force can be used but when we were kids and the force went from a choking device to a mind trick to being able to guide your actions without seeing, etc we never cared that there wasn’t some additional explanation as to how they can actually do that when they couldn’t before. We just accepted it and it laid the foundation for what we believe a Jedi/Sith can do now. With these things, I think we just have to go with the flow and let our inner child accept it rather than our adult mind demand an explanation.
As for the overall story, it was a little odd that the First Order decided to wait for the Resistance fleet to run out of fuel rather than just call on more of their huge fleet of ships to help obliterate them but these are the kind of things you have to look past to enjoy any movie like this. Just like BB-8 driving the AT-ST. A little unfeasible but kids probably loved that bit. I particularly liked how the story left the Resistance in such a dire situation. Throughout the other Star Wars films, despite the Empire/First Order supposedly being this huge super power, the Rebels/Resistance never feel like their existence is truly threatened. Not so much anymore. The end shot of a just a handful of rebels left to carry the fight gave a real David and Goliath feel. It means that the starting point of episode 9 is a slightly different one to any of the other films.
In summary, despite a few niggling issues with the story of some of the characters and some of the comedy feeling a little forced (no pun intended), I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Jedi, especially for the way it was prepared to break with what would feel comfortable or obvious. By choosing not to fall into easy Star Wars character tropes and throw away some of the groundwork laid by a very nostalgic The Force Awakens, I felt Rian Johnson created the Star Wars film that was needed to ensure the new trilogy actually adds something different to the series.
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NXT Takeover:Philadelphia and Royal Rumble 2018 Review
Well it looks like i’m back..and i’ll be back for more review (or other stuff when i feel like i need to write about something) So let’s not waste time and see how Takeover:Philadelphia and the Rumble went
NXT Takeover Philadelphia:
NXT Tag Team Championship: Authors of Pain vs Undisputed Era:
Personally I would have never opened the show with this bout, because I wasn't expecting anything from it and because it wasn't the right match to start things off. They could have swapped this with Ohno-Dream and have a better opener. Sluggish and slow match even tho some spots were good, AOP keep getting better and better while Fish and O'Reilly probably are the best tag team in WWE right now with the Usos. Weird finish because I though Undisputed Era would go over but not like this and with like this I mean in a clean way. Main roster is closing in for Paul Ellering's Boys and SAnitY is waiting for the two Brits.[**1/2]
Kassius Ohno vs The Velveteen Dream:
Another really solid Match for Velveteen dream who is someone still a bit green on the ring, while ohno is a 19 year old veteran who could make a good match even with a ladder. Velveteen dream is probably the best character right now at NXT and it's really working well because you can notice how much they are investing in Him and in his character. The match and a few botches here and there but honestly they didn't ruin the match at all. Good win for the former Tough Enough Participant who is destined to do great things on NXT.[***]
NXT Women's Championship: Ember Moon vs Shayna Baszler:
Easily the worst match of the night. Slow, sluggish, not well booked and the result wasn't the one I was looking for, because I thought they wanted to have Shayna destroy and conquer anyone on NXT after the good performance for the MYC but she lost with a schoolboy and Ember kept the title. I like how they want to build Ember as a character but at the same time I still think she won't keep the title for a Long time(Kairi is waiting) [**]
Extreme Rules: Adam Cole vs Aleister Black:
I had a good hype for this match because i thought it could possibily steal the show but it only kinda did. Not a fan of the first minutes of it but it picked up the rythm and both guys went in hard and showed us a couple of really good spots, like the doubles knees on the announcers table or the death valley driver on the back of the chair. O'reilly and Fish Interference was predictable while i wasn't expecting Sanity to Help Black during the match. Black got the win and now he's probably the new #1 contender for the NXT Title at the WrestleMania weekend Takeover, unless they have other plans for the main event. Easily the second best match of the night [***1/2]
NXT Championship: Johnny Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas:
Let's start that you HAVE to watch this match, because if you don't, probably you're not a real wrestling fan (unless you don't have time to watch it and probably you've got something better to do). Personally this is what i want from any match that goes last in a wrestling event card. It was really perfect: it had a good storyline, good wrestling, good timing and it wasn't predictable at all, because at times i thought both could won the match. Gargano is probably one of the best worker in the business and Almas is litteraly very underrated by the fans and i'm so glad they gave him the NXT Title. I also loved how they involved Candice LeRae, Johnny's wife, in the match so he could help his husband to preveil Zelina (really love her character) from interfereinging in the match. Almas picks up the win with a perfect Hanging Hammerlock DDT from the top rope. I was expecting Ciampa to interfere in the match but his return happened at the end of the match, and even tho it makes a lot of sense for him to ruin his ex partner moment, i personally didn't like how he returned, only because they could have done so much more and make it better, but still i can't wait for the ex D.I.Y Showdown, while Almas will probably face Black soon for the title. Five Star and MOTY Candidate.[*****]
Takeover Event: It Wasn't the best TakeOver event i ever saw, but it wasn't the worst, because we had a solid match between Dream and Ohno, a good extreme rules and a perfect main event. The Tag Team Match and the women's title match felt very average but not as bad as some matches we see on the main roster. The Next Takeover could be huge with some potential match and the new addictions of Ricochet, War Machine and my man EC3. [7]
Royal Rumble:
WWE Championship Handicap match: AJ Styles vs Sami Zayn&Kevin Owens:
They decided to open the show with the WWE Title Match, which in my honest opinion, wasn't a good choice, because while watching it i felt that it wasn't the right match to hype the crowd after a pretty boring 2 hours pre-show(which i won't cover because i honestly don't have much to say about it). The Match was fine but i didn't liked how it was booked, because the finish clearly made Zayn and Owens look really stupid, but to be honest it's not the first time they make heels look very stupid (it won't be the first time i say this in the review). Styles got the W with a Roll-up to end a match who started really flat and started getting better in the last minutes but the finish killed the momentum of the match. [***]
2 out of 3 Falls SD Live Tag Team Championship: Usos vs Shelton Benjamin&Chad Gable:
This match or the Raw Tag Team Title Match could have been the opener and it would have been a better choice based on the kind of match these two team put on. The match was really fun untill the first finish, which personally felt really weird because usually in this kind of matches, heels get the first fall, the babyface get the second one and the decider goes either to one of them based on the storyline they are telling. In this case, Gable and Benjamin tried to be smart but instead they looked really stupid because Benjamin ate the decisive pin after a roll up, who killed a really solid match so far. Personally i would have given Gable&Benjamin the titles but i guess the SD Creative has other plans for the belts and i smell the beginning of a new chapter of the Usos vs Harper&Rowan rivalry.[***1/4]
Men's Royal Rumble:
Who would have thought that they would place the Men's Rumble in the middle of the card? Honestly it wasn't a smart choice, even tho i understand why it wasn't the main event, but at least it could have been after the other tag team match or even before the women's one. It wasn't perfect but it was for sure very fun, especially in the last part. The NXT Guys, Shane Helms and Rey Mysterio were all unxpected surprise and i'm really happy for Mysterio, even tho i'm not his biggest fan. The finish was awesome, not just because the right wrestler won, but because they kept teasing us and made us believe both could get the win and the wrestlemania main event. Nakamura win is the right choice for because because a SD Live Superstar needed to win the Rumble and this is the best way to get a Nakamura-Styles match for the WWE Title at WrestleMania. Also Guys like Roman or Cena don't need the Rumble to get the main event of WrestleMania, because they can earn it in other ways. Not a WONDERFUL (read that in Broken Matt Hardy voice) Rumble, but possibily the best one since the time Undertaker won, which if i remember correctly, was at the 2007 edition of the Royal Rumble.[****]
Raw Tag Team Championship: The Bar vs Seth Rollins & Jason Jordan
Easily the worst match on the main card, not because it sucked, but because it was very flat and they didn't much to deliver a great match, possibly because they worked the rumble before the match, which is a bit stupid if you ask me. The Bar got their titles back and i hope this won't end up with Rollins facing Jordan at WrestleMania. Please WWE, don't waste Rollins in this kind of match. I also wonder who will be the next tag team champs, because i don't think Sheamus e Cesaro won't have a long title reign. [**]
Universal Championship 3 way: Brock Lesnar vs Kane vs Braun Strowman:
It was the match it should have been: short but intense and chaotic. I wasn't expecting a five star rated match but not even a minus five star one. Braun looked like a beast, Brock won and Kane ate the pin as expected. Nothing more to add.[**1/2]
Women's Royal Rumble:
As it was the first one, WWE decided to honour their former stars so they picked more legends instead of more NXT girls for the match. For some of us, it was a good idea, for some of us it was a bad idea. I'm staying in the middle here, because part of me liked to see all those great girls i used to watch wrestle while i was younger, but at the same time i kinda wanted to see in the rumble wrestlers like the Iconic Duo or Nikki Cross. Personally they should have found a good mix between NXT and legends, but i won't complain too much. Instead i will complain on the last four, because personally i felt it was better to have Sasha eliminate Bayley and then let her challenge asuka for the win instead having the former Kana wrestle the Bella Twins. The right girl won but then Ronda Rousey came out...now, i like and always will like Ronda, loved her in UFC even tho her last fights were pretty terrible and her UFC career ended really on a bad note, but her debut seemed like WWE wanted her to steal the spotylight from Asuka and the other girls, the one who made history competing in the first ever Women's Royal Rumble. It felt like “Hey we can't compete with the SuperBowl Buzz so let's send out Ronda to steal some buzz and media coverage” I'm still interested to see how Ronda will do in the squared circle and who will face her at Mania. Going back to match analysis, the match was fine, not as good as the men's rumble but i enjoyed it. I'd say entertaining in some aspects (even more than the men's one), but booking wise there are a few thing they could have done better (like Dana Brooke eliminating Kairi Sane from the Rumble. That made no sense) [***1/2]
The event: good start for the WWE's 2018 PPV year. A Good Rumble PPV who didn't have a MOTY candidate like Takeover:Philly, but it was overall a really good and entertaining PPV who delivered, gifted us some really historic moments and for once it didn't felt like a normal mediocre WWE PPV, like a lot last year's PPVs that felt like a little better Raw or SDLive episode. Good start for the Road to WrestleMania *points at the Mania sign*[7.25]
#nxt takeover philly#Royal Rumble#women's royal rumble#men's royal rumble#AJ Styles#Asuka#Ronda Rousey#shinsuke nakamura#johnny gargano#andrade cien almas#adam cole#aleister black
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Phoenix has an announcement:
Okay, so I don’t know how many of you actually watched my video, but I rambled a lot anyway, so read this instead-
I’ve been writing fanfiction for years now. I’ve always enjoyed it because I loved the flexibility of it. I could have one idea in mind, then through someone’s comment or analysis, I come up with something totally different. Writing has been a coping mechanism for me.
I write when I’m overwhelmed, when I’m stressed, when I need a break.
But lately, writing has been more of a stressor than a relaxation method. I find myself getting angry for not being able to make a new chapter. Then I find myself panicking when I post and get no responses. No reactions, no thoughts, nothing but a “like.” And of course the mandatory, “When’s the next update?” ask. I’ve started wondering if I’m even providing decent content for you anymore.
A prime example is One and the Same. I was so invested in it, but then it stopped getting responses. It stopped getting reblogged, people didn’t send in asks with thanks or praise or comments. It was just left there. So I stopped writing to it, assuming people got tired of it.
Over my time writing I’ve had about a handful of extensive, paragraphed responses, nearly analyzing my writing and characters. Those comments made my heart soar! And every single thanks I get is just as meaningful… however they’ve also dwindled.
Fanfiction is free. And yes, I was aware of the fact that I was offering free writing when I started posting. However that doesn’t mean I or any other writer should be expected to keep pumping out chapters and stories without any encouragement. As someone who has tossed and turned until a sudden burst of writing ideas fueled me at 4 A.M or stayed awake until 3 or even 5 in the morning to provide a new chapter, someone who has done extensive research and/or planning for certain stories, I believe I do deserve some sort of payment. That’s not to say it’s supposed to be monetary.
For example, I read tags. I read them all the way through. I read added comments on reblogs. And oh my God I FUCKING LOVE when people make moodboards or fanart of my stories. The messages thanking me or praising the chapter are reassuring as they are encouraging. This is what I mean with payment.
I’ve considered posting my paypal and claiming that people donate a dollar for me to post the next chapter once I reach 20 dollars. But that just doesn’t seem fair. I’m not a professional writer to be demanding money, and it’s online because it’s supposed to be free for leisure entertainment. But I also want to at least know that people actually want more content.
Fanfiction is a complete different interaction than it is to read a published book. You read a published book, you get through it, then give all your comments and analysis. With fanfiction, it’s a conversation between author and reader. Each chapter is an opening for a new conversation. Authors want to know what you think, what you want to see happen, what you think will happen, what you think of characters. And they want to converse with you! I know I do! I love having a conversation with readers, explaining why a character does or doesn’t do something or why I wrote the plot out going one direction instead of another. And I love when readers read into my writing and start telling me all these theories and hypotheses or telling me they relate to a character or something. And this interaction fuels the story! It causes changes, it causes more to be written because it’s so encouraging.
Now…. Like I said, lately my writing hasn’t been getting reactions. It hasn’t been getting responses, comments, or even art/edits, even when I practically beg for it. When I make solitary posts asking what the thoughts on a character are, or what people want to see next. I haven’t written in a long time because I feel like I’ve lost my touch. I feel like everything I write is mediocre and that’s why it’s no longer getting responses.
With school starting back up, I don’t think it’s worth the stress to push homework aside or stay up late writing when I know I won’t even get responses or thank for it. Maybe 1 of every 50+ readers takes the time to say thank you or add tags. And lately, that anxiety has made me lose my passion to write.
I’ve actually been heavily considering no longer posting stories online anymore for the sake of my sanity. I don’t want to add this pressure to myself throughout my sophomore year and then start having self-deprecating thoughts again. I’m not trying to be selfish or self-entitled. But with the amount of effort I put into writing and creating stories, it hurts to know readers don’t even put the little bit of effort it takes to write out a full sentence in an ask. I feel like I deserve recognition for the effort I put into offering this free source of entertainment.
This isn’t to say I’d stop writing. I’d just stop posting. I’ve been thinking about this for the past week and this morning I brought it up to my friends. As a low-income college student, I’d love to get a little cash for my writing of course! But I also know there’s a lot of readers just like me that can’t spare a dollar online. Which is why I’m not trying to force anyone to pay me in money. I want to make that clear. I’d like to receive payment, but in the form of encouragement, in content inspired by my writing, in comments. Not getting that kind of thanks just makes me feel like my efforts are simply unappreciated or taken for granted.
So if you no longer see any content of mine, I thought I’d offer this as an explanation why.
Also, please note I will reblog this periodically to reach people in different timezones.
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