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fenristheorem · 3 years

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My OC, Fenris

... and the Eldarya AU that she’s in, because I just can’t see her in the original Origins storyline with her differences from Guardienne/Erika. And I think my AU has some pretty interesting ideas. I’ll explain it after I introduce her.

Yea, I know, Fenris Theorem, Fenris, it all connects, huh? Hehe. I like the name, that’s all.

(This page is informational, so it’s written in a bit more of a note-taking fashion rather than a story fashion. It’s written in a very choppy manner but it’s comprehensible despite not having any stress on having it beautifully written.)

This page just introduces you to my OC. I decided to create a page on her for the poll (now ended) because I think some people will really like small excerpts on her story with Lance, but obviously you need to know about her before deciding that for sure. You’ll notice that some theories I may have posted on Lance in the past are a part of this AU - these theories have been in my mind and I posted them only because I thought they could exist in the actual plotline (it’s where a lot of my theories come from, and then some ideas fit into the AU, and then some ideas could exist in the actual plotline as well based on what I observe), so this is where some of those theories come from.

For the poll - if anything, I would recommend reading the paragraph titled “*Her story in Origins (where many things are explained in moderation, because if I went in-depth I wouldn’t need to write stories on this):” above all else because that describes what I will be writing if the poll results shows that that’s wanted. Everything else is just extra information for you to know my OC and the AU better. The paragraph is at the bottom of the post.

Above all else, this is an AU, and a fantasy world. I like to try to give rationality and logic to a lot of things, so you’ll read a lot of me explaining things, but at the end of the day it’s all fantasy and can be perceived - and therefore approved or unapproved of - in a multitude of ways. If you like my AU but find it illogical in some ways, that’s no problem! Just enjoy reading about it if you enjoy the ideas within it. 😊

~ This is long so continue below the cut ~

A lot of this information can be a bit vague at first but it comes together when I explain the basic plot.

Her basics: She goes by Fenris but her actual name is Dakota. However, people usually call her Kota, or occasionally Ko (Fen is used later for Fenris, first by Ashkore / Lance, but later when she was discovered by the guard as well). She was 18 when she came to Eldarya via mushroom circle (like Guardienne/Erika). The guard test placed her in the Obsidian guard - she’s very happy with that outcome. Was in a relationship with Valkyon before leaving him for Lance (*explained later).

Physical Appearance: Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of her and nothing in Eldarya describes her and her clothing very well, so you’ll just need to imagine the physical features that I describe on Eldarya’s Guardienne sprite. Also, she’s pretty flexible with how she styles her hair and dresses, so I don’t think a single picture of her would describe her well.

Fair and light in skin tone, perhaps a slight tan-ish tone. Thin, but broad shouldered. She’s well-muscled (later on, less so when she first arrived), which gives her a bit of thickness, but not too much. Nicely curved. About 5 ft. 5 in. (167.64 cm). Dark hair, but not exactly black, with brown-hazel eyes. Her hair is medium-length and is usually braided in a multitude of styles. Her eyes occasionally glow a brilliant gold (explained under ‘abilities and genetics’ and ‘her story in Origins’).

Usually wears dark, ancient / tribal-like clothes (think Norse Vikings) with thin, form-fitting but strong armor around her forearms, lower legs (below the thigh starting from knees) and chest/midriff. She wears a good amount of red, blue, gold, silver or dark green clothing and accents with the black base for color. Usually nothing over-the-top, she likes to have her own unique style and express herself but doesn't like to draw unnecessary attention. Doesn't like most faux fur as it doesn't look nice in her opinion, but may wear some that she likes occasionally. Is more likely to wear real fur from hunted animals, but doesn't wear it too often. She wears a sword on her hip, and has a few semi-concealed daggers placed on her body (thigh, boot, torso) for quick use if needed.

Personality: She has a wide spectrum of how she acts depending on people, situations, what she knows, and her current mood. She's typically quite calm, and doesn't seek for trouble or drama, however, she does like to hear the recent news/gossip from around the guard; to stay updated on things, know what may effect her, try to think ahead and just for the sake of knowing. She's very curious and typically observes the situation around her, but in a very subtle way. Is a planner and likes to think ahead, and usually knows how to react to anything because of her observations and forward thinking. Around friends, she's very kind and welcoming. They can talk about anything to her and she'll keep her mouth shut - she has a good loyalty streak (but it does have a limit). However, she doesn't have any friends that are like family to her, but on the day she does find friends like that her loyalty will truly be endless. It's ride or die, and she'll always stand by their side. She has a major independent streak and can’t be around people for too long, otherwise she’ll crack and get a bit irritated more easily. She likes her alone time. In general, she's very cordial with people. Again, she doesn't like to cause unnecessary trouble or drama - she's had a rough past (discussed under ‘history’) and quickly shuts down anyone doing so in a professional but aggressive, don’t-argue-with-me sort of way. She can be harsh, cold and withholding - especially with people she genuinely dislikes - but doesn't like to act this way. On the note of people she dislikes- it's hard to get her to truly dislike someone, but it can be a bit easy as well. In general rule, as long as someone is conscious of the reality of the world around them and doesn't seek to cause issues, she's fine with them, but the instant someone starts continually spreading rumors that are clearly false, or acts (especially in a way that hurts others) solely in their selfish interests, or takes part in willful ignorance (purposely ignoring an issue that you know shouldn’t be ignored), she keeps note of that person and reminds herself to be wary of them in the future. They could be a source of trouble or misinformation that may need to be stopped, and she won’t be very forgiving. However, this is just a general rule, it doesn't always apply - remember she can change based on the situation and what she knows. She recognizes that sometimes people dislike things that are good for them, or like harmful things, and sometimes the villain is actually the hero, history and set rules are created by the winners and anyone against it is considered the villain, and sometimes you need to be cruel to be merciful. She's fully aware that sometimes the bad of life is good, and may defend that, but she's always sure to think long and hard about it before giving a decision like that. A lot of terrible things have happened to her, so she tries to avoid being a source of those terrible things for the world. She feels emotions very deeply and can be a bit impulsive, but fortunately she’s not typically hurt or gets others hurt due to her impulsivity. Again, she is very curious and observes things a lot, so she can usually get a good read on anything new she comes across and work from there, or she can use other information she knows and apply it to the situation. That being said, she won’t drag her friends or anyone else into her occasionally dangerous impulsive decisions. She’ll offer it if they’d like to join her, but she won’t pressure them. Their safety is their decision, and she’ll do her best to protect them although she can’t truly guarantee it. Being in the Obsidian guard, she can’t really condone anyone to risk their safety for fun, especially if it’s her idea. She has a good sense of responsibility when she works for what she believes in, and will sacrifice some of her comfort and fun making sure that she follows her responsibilities if needed. On the topic of her guard - when she first came to Eldarya and joined the Obsidian guard, she wasn’t too bad of a fighter upon basic training, but it was when she started training with Ashkore / Lance where her skills greatly improved until she was perhaps the best fighter in the guard, rivaled only by a few other warriors - including Valkyon. She’s not against helping others improve, but she’s very careful with what she tells the guard - if anyone knew her skills were due to Ashkore, she’d be in massive trouble and may be treated as a complete accomplice. She doesn’t like to lie unless truly necessary, so she’ll usually withhold lots of damning information, and she thoroughly thinks over everything she says, any possible answers to theoretical questions, how her words can connect with other things, and how it might be taken from someone else’s perspective, before revealing any information. Did I mention she’s very cunning and smart, especially after knowing Lance? She has prior knowledge in how to utilize sarcasm and wit, but that’s also improved after meeting Lance.

She changes in time to be quite a bit more harsh and unforgiving when she starts working with Lance.

(For media reference, think of Lagertha from Vikings and Octavia from Netflix’s The 100. She’s a bit of a combination between the two, both in personality and appearance, although Octavia represents her a bit better in appearance.)

Abilities and Genetics: When she first came to Eldarya, she had no idea of her faery genetics. She never felt as though she belonged with humans and always felt that something was off, but she truly thought she was human genetically - until the guard had her take a test and realized she apparently had some faery blood in her (like what actually happened in the original plotline). She went a good while not knowing about what her genetics were, until Lance told her she was a dragon. She learned her abilities under his mentorship, and found that - to be more specific - she’s a shadow dragon. Her shadows appear usually like a pitch black fog, but can be manipulated into almost any form; hard or soft, thin or thick, curved or straight. It has a bit of a cold feel, but she can’t actually control the temperature of her shadows. She can adjust the color of her shadows along a grey-scale until it looks like any grey or silver, even looking like normal fog, but she can’t make it lighter than silver. She can also make pre-existing shadows darker or lighter depending on what she wants. Being a dragon, she also has a dragon form and can shift into a half-transformed body (like what’s seen with Tia). She has premonitions and prophecies as well. This ability typically manifests in dreams and can come to her the night before it manifests in reality, or even sometimes years in advance - there’s really no way to know. She struggles a lot trying to learn this - and to learn the difference between a premonition dream and just a normal dream - and has some basic understanding of it’s rules. She has absolutely no control over when she has these dreams, but she can occasionally put herself in a bit of a calm, meditative state where she can observe her surroundings enough to faintly feel energies, and from there she can receive some premonitions. When she receives premonitions or prophecies while awake, her eyes glow a brilliant gold - this stems from a more spiritual side of her genetics (*explained later). This ability to very hard to control, though, and can rarely be done despite her persistence in it.

History: She... didn’t have a very peaceful life. Since her birth, her parents had basically been at war with each other. She grew up under a distinct combination of good influences and bad influences from both parents, but for the most part her mother was her major support as her father failed to be there for her. Neither extended family had much impact, but her father’s family knew of the terrible things he did and didn’t do anything. She continues to hold a grudge against many humans for being forced to live an endangered upbringing when she and her mother were so clearly crying for help. However, she’s aware that this is also what drives her some days, as she didn’t live through all of that just to die shamefully with an unlived life. In time, her grudge against humans has calmed, but it flares back up whenever she’s reminded or learned about something terrible that humans have caused or do currently - it’s a continuous battle and she has a hard time giving an honest opinion on humanity due to her complex emotions. She came to Eldarya when she was 18 (like Guardienne/Erika) and the rest is history (*and is explained below).

Relationships: Miiko is... alright. It’s a bit of a love hate relationship sometimes, but Fenris is usually quite cordial with her. Nevra and Ezarel were irritating at first, but Nevra’s lovableness and Ezarel’s humor slowly grew on her. She liked Valkyon when she first arrived and somewhat quickly pursued a relationship with him. She didn’t mind Leiftan - he was always very kind and left her alone while being cordial (remember, she’s not an angel in this so Leiftan wouldn’t be into her like how he was with Guardienne/Erika). Karuto is like the good father she never had, but she puts her foot down with him on occasion - she doesn’t like to be told what to do, scolded, treated like a child or anything. This is only because she views him in a bit of a fatherly way, and doesn’t want a repeat of her original father. She makes sure he knows that she truly appreciates him, though. Jamon is a bit of a brother if anything, but he’s really just a close friend / colleague that she likes a lot. She appreciates his gentleness and protectiveness for everyone. Ewelein is basically a second mom, she reminds Fenris a lot of her mom back on Earth and has a deep respect for the Elf. Chrome is a bit like an irritating little brother, but she also has a sisterly affection for him. Ykhar and Kero are the panic colleagues; she has a hard time seeing them doing anything else than panicking. She worries a bit for their health as long-term stress is destructive and tries to be as comforting and as nice as possible with them without betraying her personality and morals. Karenn and Alajea are close friends, almost sisterly, but not exactly so. She’s a bit closer with Karenn than she is with Alajea. Cameria is similar to Karenn in the way that she has a bit of a sisterly relationship with Fenris, but in more of a battle partner way. They have a tendency to train together a lot, and they heavily trust each other to have their back in war. Huang Hua is a bit of a friend / leader - she respects the phoenix a lot and has a bit of a close friendly relationship with her. Feng Zifu is a bit of a father figure in the manner that she respects him a lot. She likes to listen to his advice and appreciates his formality.

The AU: So before I explain the plot of the AU, I need to explain a few basics of how I set up the world. In this AU, the crystal breaking could destroy Eldarya, but if it’s shattered in a certain way with certain spells and chants, it’ll release the spirits of the dragons (who sacrificed to create the crystal) and allow them to retain a sort of half-living form - basically they’re alive but... not? It’s weird to explain. Why does the crystal breaking in this way not destroy Eldarya? The sacrifice allowed a release of energy that originally created the world and then primarily manifested into the shape of the crystal that maintains that world, so this ritual that would be preformed upon it’s shattering would basically allow the energy of the dragons to maintain the world while allowing them to roam around in a different form - hence why they’d be half alive in a way. They’d be physical, but they have additions and limits on what they can and can’t do because they’re still technically dead. However, this isn’t common knowledge (because the guard protects the crystal, they’re the ‘only’ source of ‘accurate’ information on the crystal and both Yonuki Kaze and Miiko have stated that if the crystal breaks Eldarya will fall), only Lance has figured this out (and many of his mercenaries believe him or are working with him because of his destructive habits), so due to this, his ambitions are sort of split in two; destroy the crystal to revive the dragons, and destroy anyone who may try to stop him. In terms of history, Lance in this AU witnessed Miiko (and Nevra - there’s a history behind that that I won’t go into right now) sacrificing dragons to the crystal when he was a part of the guard to try and maintain balance and confronted her about it, only for her to threaten him (in basic; she was convinced sacrificing was the only way to keep balance, and that’s because Yonuki Kaze influenced her into thinking that, so from her perspective Lance coming along and saying it was wrong and had to stop was basically him saying to let the world die) to not tell anyone and stay out of it. Lance then spent a while researching and devising an idea on how to actually balance the world and this included destroying the crystal in a specific way to release the energy (technically there are two ways; the sacrifice was supposed to happen with dragons AND angels, so the ritual was devised to work with the two, but a ritual originally for two races used only with one is basically a ritual preformed improperly, and therefore bound to yield improper results - hence the infertility of the world and shiftiness of it. Undoing the ritual would allow the world to stay while “canceling out the sacrificial imbalance”, but if an angel or demon were to willingly sacrifice - preferably alongside a dragon at the same time - then it would be solved in that way as well). Lance tried to explain this to Miiko later, only to barely get past “I have another idea” before being shut down again. He kept quiet because he feared for himself and his brother (and the only reason Lance could have known that dragons were being sacrificed - without being a dragon himself - is that Miiko said it during the sacrifice he saw, so he didn’t want to raise suspicion onto him and his brother). Later on, Lance is sent to lead an army in a foreign land and is nearly killed, but he saw a chance to escape the guard and took it. From there he’s been Ashkore.

Basically this AU - instead of being “oh no, he’s trying to destroy the world because he’s angry and hurt” - is actually more like “if you had listened the world could be stabilized and also a powerful race could be revived.” It takes the trope of hero and villain and twists it, so the villain is actually a bit of an underdog, villainous hero while the hero’s are - in a way - villains who are heroes because their damning stories haven’t been revealed in a wide-spread manner. Overall, it’s supposed to blur the lines of good and bad, and right and wrong - showing that both sides have good and bad within them, and which side is ‘good’ can depend solely on perception and one’s life anecdote.

*Her story in Origins (where many things are explained in moderation, because if I went in-depth I wouldn’t need to write stories on this): Dakota came to Eldarya by accident via mushroom circle and was placed into the Obsidian guard. She adjusted in time (and willingly took the potion in episode 13 to ease her family / mother of pain and worry) until she got used to things and entered into a romantic relationship with Valkyon. She was sent on basic missions and such and met Ashkore a few times in war (and around the guard), and then she met him accidentally while alone later on outside of the guard. He offered to train her (more like threatened if she didn’t?) and she accepted in time. They trained at night, which was a bit of an issue as she now shared a room with Valkyon and, therefore, had to sneak around. Her skills quickly improved, and her relationship with Valkyon began to decline as he began to become a bit confused / suspicious about her sudden and seemingly random upturn in skills. There were feelings of neglect as well. This carried on for many months and Dakota learned more about Ashkore as well as herself. He eventually admits that she’s a dragon and that he’s investing some of himself into her because of that, and she does her best to explore her abilities with him after that. Eventually she accidentally discovers his actual identity, but keeps quiet about it. As they grow closer, she begins to ask more about him and his reasoning, and he explains his motives for going after the crystal while brushing on the topic of why he’s ruthless to some, but leaves others alone. As she discovers the truth about the dragons and Lance, she realizes that her feelings to the guard were based on lies and false implications, and she begins to grow mentally and emotionally closer with Lance. She becomes less empathetic / sympathetic with Valkyon and eventually sleeps with Lance. This happens a few more times and they enter a sort of limbo where they don’t talk about their relationship with each other but know there’s something heavy going on. Back in the guard, she’s still with Valkyon, and she begins an internal war on what exactly her plan is knowing that she’s sleeping with two guys on the opposite side of a war and that it can’t continue. Her and Valkyon break up in time and she invests her full time into training with Lance, expressing interest in joining his cause. They begin to work together and he gifts her with a specific outfit / armor (that can alternate between identity concealing and revealing for her comfort and safety) so she can go on missions with him. They develop an elaborate scheme to allow her to go on long-term missions with him without suspicion from the guard. She’s eventually sent on a mission and it’s on that mission that she discovers her relation to an ancient dragon named Fenris, and then expresses her interest in taking that name to Lance and the rest of his allies that she’s met (from then on she’s known as Fenris with Lance and Dakota in the guard). Back at the guard, she continues training with Lance and maintaining some sort of odd relationship with himin secret. She’s found elaborate ways to get out of the guard without their suspicion so she can spend many days at a time alone with Lance in a cabin he has hidden in the forest. Over the span of many months / years, she goes on missions with the guard to foreign towns / establishments that are attacked by Ashkore - whether she knows that prior or not - so as she trains she also has actual encounters where she needs to truly fight Lance without actually hurting him while looking as though she’s truly trying to hurt him. When she’s allegedly away on some missions from the guard, she wears the armor that Lance gave her to campaign with him and this occasionally leads to her fighting against the guard if they’re around. In this time and when they’re alone, Lance and allies calls her Fenris as she’s requested them to do. Eventually they go to Memoria together and find out that they have a deeper connection than they think - Fenris (who was an ancient dragon that Dakota took the name of due to her relation with him) and Tia actually knew each other and had a complex history that carried forward to Lance and Dakota / Fenris, and there’s a prophecy of sorts surrounding them. Their relationship after that is still complex, but is more stable as they confirm an attachment to each other. Lance’s identity is eventually revealed to the guard, and sometimes later Fenris is revealed as well, and Lance - in very short, important seconds - offers her to join him completely outside the guard’s walls. She accepts and they flee the guard for a while and plot. Eventually they attack the guard in a final push and get to the crystal, successfully breaking it with... some losses. From there is the skip to ANE, but New Era is... complicated. I haven’t yet thought how she fits into ANE, as many things would be different. Maybe I won’t put pressure on creating her story in it, but if I do I might list it here. Her story in ANE would need to be based off of her story I have here in Origins.

If I write excerpts of this, there may also be many more adventure scenarios that are written but aren’t mentioned here (Lance offering to “help” the guard bring down another greater threat and then turning his forces on them in the midst of war for his own gain, sending them on a wild goose chase, the guard tracking them through rough, unforgiving landscapes trying to catch them, etc.) depending on how the details of her story manifest.

I apologize; that’s a lot to read but I can be very specific and this AU has a lot of important detail that separates it from the original Origins storyline. And this talks over my OC’s details and an AU, which is a lot since there’s not a lot of referencing because I’ve never talked about either before... However, if you’ve read all the way through this post - congrats, and I hope you’re interested in it!

Again, writing excerpts about my OC and her storyline in this AU is an option you can vote on in my writing poll that determines what I’ll write now so I can post later when I can’t access my Tumblr for a few weeks, so if you’re interested in reading about this then please read the info I have about the poll here and feel free to vote!

#eldarya #eldarya oc #oc #fenris oc

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fizzingwizard · 3 years

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blast from the past but i remember as a teenager that I never understood how Gilmore Girls season six ended. It’s funny how time clears things up, I feel like I get it now.

My dad always says Lorelai is flaky and that’s why. I don’t really agree. Bear with me. I think Lorelai is a control freak. Out of necessity, kinda. She lived in that household that constantly tried to control her, and getting out of it was her asserting her independence of their expectations. That meant she was a single mom starting with very little and working her way up to create a life of freedom for herself and her daughter.

The show itself is all about Lorelai struggling with giving bits of her control away. It begins with her giving some control of her relationship with her parents back to them when she needs to ask for money for Rory’s school. Then, of course, little by little, her control over Rory erodes as Rory gets older. (Not that Lorelai was a controlling parent - she valued freedom, not bossiness - but that’s just the parent-child dynamic: to some extent parents do control things because kids are still learning how to take care of and protect themselves. It certainly shouldn’t go farther than those basics and I don’t think it did for Lorelai - but she still felt it whenever Rory did something that was contrary to what Lorelai would have wanted. It’s also why “You sound like your mother” was a truly insulting barb to her lol)

In the meantime, she’s not only risen to being in charge of the inn, but she even goes and opens her own inn business with Sookie. Total independence. She dated Max, but balked when he wanted to know what his role would be in Rory’s life and realized she wasn’t ready to share control of their life with him. She dated Digger who to me always seemed the type way too set in his own ways for her, so I wasn’t sad to see him go. Finally she dated Luke, we all knew it would happen, but the question was always would these two very independent types be able to make it work any better than they had in the past? Because Luke’s also always gone his own way. The things both he and Lorelai had going for them was chemistry and similar values. And of course the show seemed to be rooting for them from season one :P

So while Lorelai and Luke are together, there are a number of control-related problems that crop up. We mainly see Luke give in to Lorelai. It’s never anything damaging - these are small things that are important to her, but still small, and he gives them to her out of love, not because she demands it. She does make concessions to him as well, but they’re mostly off screen (like the purple wallpaper thing). And the thing with the Twickum House... on the surface, it look like Lorelai crapped on Luke’s dream for the house because she selfishly wanted to keep her own, buuuuut he bought it without asking or telling her, and she has a right to not want to live there same as he has a right not to want to live in her place. Fortunately, he was cool with living in her place if it was expanded. So they did that. Look, a compromise!

So basically they get over every hurdle that could compromise their individual needs to feel in control of their lives... until April. April is Luke’s thing. It’s not his fault he didn’t know about her for twelve years and it’s to his credit that he wanted to be a part of her life after the fact. While I’m not super fond of season 7, I always felt it was weird that season 6 Luke never seemed angry that Anna didn’t tell him about April. It doesn’t seem like Anna had a reason to think he’d be violent or controlling of her or their child, she just thought he didn’t like kids much. That’s not a reason. People often don’t like other people’s kids but adore their own. Anyway.

Luke doesn’t want Lorelai involved with April because he’s the type to take his time with things. He needs his space. So he needs time and space to adjust to the concept of April and get to know her and feel confident of his own role as a father. He’s also a bit jealous of Lorelai’s easy rapport with people, especially young girls, but I think that’s minor in comparison to the other reasons. And Lorelai understands those things and lets him control how things go with April. Allowing him that control, though, means he’s also in control of other things: when they get married, for one, and what his relationship with Lorelai is. i think she has reason to be upset about how he didn’t make an effort to involve her in things with April (like, I definitely get that April’s mom was concerned about who was in April’s life but everyone else in the town got to meet April, there’s no reason Lorelai couldn’t have met her now and then as a townie rather than Luke’s fiancee, as long as Luke was physically there as well)

So I can see why Lorelai blew up after the wedding was postponed indefinitely (even though, if we’re talking real life, it hadn’t been all that long). She felt she’d finally found someone she felt comfortable sharing her life with, but then he started to need more patience and submission from her than she was comfortable giving. Up till then in her life, waiting for things just meant she waited while other people got what they want. To get what she wanted, she had to go take it, consequences be damned. So she takes the same route with Luke as she has with everything else in her life: she makes her own decision and lets him figure out how or if he wants to fit in with it, rather than the other way around.

In terms of whether she really needed to go that far at that point... It’s hard, rewatching it, not to feel like a sudden ultimatum in the street when you’re highly emotional is not the way to decide to break up with someone. She should have been willing to talk later, when he came back. I mean, he came back twice. But relationships are rarely about should haves. People aren’t perfect. Lorelai’s the type who rips the bandaid off fast because it may hurt more, but slow hurts longer. When she’s out, she’s out. And I think I get it in the sense that the two of them had, in canon, built up how serious their relationship was VERY fast - like from their first official date - and that comes with all kinds of expectations. The higher they climb the harder they fall. So, yeah, I think things could have been fixed the next day when Luke came back, but I do think it’s Lorelai-ish to not be willing to fix them.

There was a great bit of foreshadowing just prior where Liz and TJ have a fight and it’s due to Liz’s trauma scaring her away, and Luke is the one who goes to TJ, tells him it’s not his fault, but that in a relationship sometimes people can’t say how they really feel and that’s when you have to try to understand them out of love etc (something like that lol). He saw it clearly with Liz and TJ but wasn’t ready for it with Lorelai. Lorelai’s fear of commitment, the way she values her independence, her history with relationships gone sour, it all came to a head and Luke’s preference to take time to sort things out and decide how he feels couldn’t cope with it. It’s not that Luke was wrong. He’s entitled to be the type who needs time. But it’s not that Lorelai was wrong either. They weren’t wrong individually, but they were wrong together. It could have been avoided, but people aren’t perfect.

I still hate that they broke up and we had to spend season 7 with Christopher, but at least they got back together in the end. Season 7, man... The above is how I feel about season 6, but I think if I knew season 7 wouldn’t have the same producers, I’d never be on board with ending season 6 with such an explosion. No way could the season 7 team pick up from there without being absolutely ridiculous about it.

A Year in the Life picks up with Lorelai and Luke still together, living in her house, but not married. These days lots of people partner up but don’t get married and that’s fine - real commitment isn’t something that a piece of paper decides. But it was also kinda sad because I think every Gilmore Girls fan looked forward to Lorelai and Luke’s wedding. So I really enjoyed that AYITL dealt with that - and also dealt with the way Luke usually lets Lorelai decide various things, and that she becomes self-conscious about it, wondering if her strength of will has meant he had to give up things he wanted. He takes his time - he’s Luke, after all - but eventually he figures out how to tell her. He’s his own man. He’s independent. He lets her make decisions about things he’s okay with her making decisions on. If he really didn’t like her choice, he’d say something. Basically, you don’t have to worry about Luke. He’s strong enough for himself, and he’s strong enough for her. And vice versa. That’s why they’re a good couple. It’s when they give in to doubt that things get shaky. And then we finally got our very pretty wedding. I loved that scene and I loved the song that played (which was also used in Liz and TJ’s wedding, I believe).

Emily, of course, is just as much a control freak as her daughter even if she doesn’t realize it, but I loved how in AYITL, the way she asserts her herself is no longer in the context of the role she feels she needs to play and becomes about choosing what her path will be. She’s as “eccentric” as Lorelai, if eccentric means being yourself and doing what makes you happy. *eye roll* That’s why I don’t agree with my dad that Lorelai is flaky... I do see where it comes from but I always just thought she’s not bound by what other people think she should be. That’s hardly eccentric, it’s just strong.

And I wish we had some sort of follow up for the last four lines... I’d read a Gilmore Girls novel as a sequel if the show can’t come back again.

#gilmore girls #loooong

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for The Long Song.

The Long Song is the first miniseries featured in PBS Masterpiece’s 50th Anniversary season, and it’s U.S. arrival nearly three years after airing on BBC One is highlighting themes that some viewers may not be ready to process but that remain incredibly important.

The show is an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s 2010 novel recounting the story of how Jamaican slaves gained their freedom in the 1830’s. Levy worked with white screenwriter Sarah Williams on the script for The Long Song before her death in 2019. Although some may want to criticize Williams’ involvement for removing the Own Voices status from the series, it is important to note she successfully worked with Levy to adapt Small Island into a TV miniseries which aired on Masterpiece in 2009. Critics and the Black British community alike praised the miniseries for featuring the Windrush Generation. Overall, the script of The Long Song maintains Levy’s vision without any evidence of the white gaze or other forms of editorial interference.

Each of the three episodes follows July (Tamara Lawrance), born into slavery, and how she later gains her freedom. She was taken from her mother Kitty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) who worked cutting sugarcane to serve as the ladies’ maid for Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell from Agent Carter). The Christmas Rebellion in 1831 followed by the subsequent Parliament bill banning slavery in Jamaica two years later and the changes to society that came as a result are told from her point of view. The story is told with a frame tale, as Older July (Doña Croll) narrates the events of her life in order to publish a book.

It is highly likely that, when the series first aired in the UK, decision-makers did not believe a story wholly focused on slavery in the Caribbean would be relevant to US audiences. Vice President Kamala Harris’ family background brings Jamaican history to the forefront. It is entirely feasible to imagine someone like July somewhere in her father’s ancestral line. Black History can’t be confined to just what happened in America when we’re discussing Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Although I haven’t been able to trace my own family tree from the nearby former British colony of Trinidad and Tobago, I am reasonably sure my own ancestors have a similar story.

Masterpiece executive producer Susanne Simpson said in an interview that she is working with the UK and international production companies to address concerns that PBS series do not feature enough racial diversity. Some may see The Long Song as a step backward in that regard because it is a slavery-driven story, but this misses two important factors. First of all, The Long Song was not originally intended as a co-production with U.S. networks or streaming services. The primary target was U.K. readers of Levy’s book and Anglophone Caribbean audiences. Secondly, this is the first time a PBS scripted drama has centered slavery as the main plot point. Thirdly, new racially diverse scripted series that avoid and/or address those concerns are still at least a year or two from distribution.

Atwell’s Caroline, along with her relatives and guests, abuse July physically and emotionally. She is threatened with the lash for extremely minor offenses. Caroline calls her “Marguerite” most of the time because she refuses to see her as fully human. There are scenes where slaves are whipped and families separated. As July is the ladies’ maid, she has some power over fellow slaves such as Hannah (Jo Martin from Doctor Who). These aspects are not what makes The Long Song unique in comparison to recent TV series, such as the 2016 Roots miniseries as well as the 1970’s miniseries, The Book of Negroes and Underground. How the series highlights both Jamaican culture and how British colonialism affected society is what sets the show apart.

Since this show is set in the 1830’s, there is strong evidence of Black culture that is separate from the norms imposed by slaveholders. Although the language is at times dated (“pickaninny” also shortened as “pickney” is now an offensive term, for example), you still hear the accent unique to Jamaicans today. Lenny Henry’s voice as Godfrey is not entirely realistic for a slave who never left Jamaica, but this does take some prior knowledge of what a typical accent from the area should sound like. The soundtrack incorporates the musical styles unique to the island and the separate Christmas party the slaves held also brings this culture to life.

The racial caste system in Jamaica plays a huge role in the life of July and those around her. Her father, Tam Dewer (Gordon Brown), was the Scottish overseer of the plantation which gave her a higher status than many of her fellow slaves, despite her darker skin tone. Her friend and first romantic interest Nimrod (Jordan Bulger) is a free man but he ends up losing his status because white people decide he is guilty of a crime. Miss Clara (Madeline Mantock) is described as a quadroon (one-quarter African ancestry) and uses that background to secure a marriage that guarantees a higher status in society. Marriage as a form of social mobility would have been impossible in American slave societies because consensual interracial marriages or relationships were outlawed. July’s decision-making in Episodes 2 and 3 regarding the new head of the plantation, Robert Goodwin (Jack Lowden), is entirely influenced not only by her own desires and past trauma but also by the society around her.

Some may regard these plot developments as enforcing trauma-bonding stereotypes or problematic ideas about love under systems of oppression. July’s narration is tinged with romantic ideals that do not undergo serious scrutiny until later in the story. However, it is important to note that marriage was the only way a woman during this time period could secure financial stability that didn’t depend on agricultural labor. The color-based caste and class system did prevent some individuals from moving up in society, but intermarriages between whites, Africans, various immigrant laborers, and indigenous groups created an entire segment of society whose heritage was mixed. July’s relationship should be seen as an element of historical truth, likely from Levy’s ancestors. The conclusion of that part of the story drives home that many of these relationships between Black women and white male planters (plantation owners) were inherently unequal and exploitative. Any children from these relationships were also the property of the white men.

The last two episodes of the show discuss the fallout from the official end of slavery in Jamaica, a semi-equivalent to the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War. Abolition did not mean the end of the white-dominated rule in Jamaica, as the British Empire ruled the island until 1962. Although Black plantation workers were paid wages to cut the sugarcane, they owed rent to the plantation owners. This was used to force workers to work longer hours for reduced compensation. July’s loyalties are divided between Goodwin and the field workers who she knows are being treated unfairly. Goodwin’s efforts to increase production failed as the workers went on strike. After the strikes, many former plantation workers moved inland to cultivate unclaimed territory, but independent farming led to poverty and illness. July may have had dreams of rising above the sugarcane workers, but economic racism dashed this dream.

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For many viewers, July’s journey is going to be incredibly triggering and emotionally draining but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The ending which reunites her with a piece of her long-forgotten past is incredibly satisfying. Levy’s novels have inspired many Black British writers and it is very possible post-pandemic that there will be more Black screenwriters telling their own stories and forgotten histories on screen.

The post How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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dyadsaber · 4 years

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Part 6 of A New Reylo Reads TFA: In Which a Dyad In the Force Has One of the Neatest Looking Lightsaber Battles I’ve Ever Seen and I Finally Get to the End of This Novelization

Previous parts in my dyadsaber text posts tag.

I came out of the theater the first time LOVING the Rey and Finn vs Kylo in the snow as Starkiller Base falls apart around them scene. Unless I’m completely forgetting something, we’d never seen a red vs blue lightsaber fight in SNOW before, and I thought it was GORGEOUS. (I know Luke uses his on Hoth, but the Wampa doesn’t have one too, so it doesn’t count.) I just watched the whole sequence again on youtube, you know, for research reasons, and I still love it just as much as I did the first time. (Maybe more?)

Anyway… here’s my rundown of that scene from the novel:

First of all, I HAVE QUESTIONS about which side of the Force Rey is drawing on here. TLJ kind of touches on the fact that Rey doesn’t have the “OMG the dark side is ALWAYS EVIL” indoctrination that kids at the Jedi temple (and Luke) would have gotten, and the number of times she’s described as drawing on anger and fury here made sit up and pay attention.

When Rey’s about to shoot Kylo and he freezes her with the Force, we get this:

“She strained against him, HER ANGER GIVING HER STRENGTH. But she couldn’t fire. He was struggling also, against her newly discovered ability”

Sure, she’s not able to break free, but he’s been using the Dark Side for a touch longer than she has. Not saying she is for sure, here, but I think it’s one possible reading supported by the text. (Hi I teach English just in case I haven’t said that yet). Personally, I think she was. I also think BOTH of the “sides of the Force” are both amoral and necessary, and drawing on the Dark Side out of anger and desperation isn’t always a sure path to Sith-dom.

Finn igniting Anakin’s lightsaber is still a moment that makes me love him… he’s ready to defend his knocked-against-a-tree friend with WHATEVER HE HAS, even if it’s a weapon he’s never used before and doesn’t quite understand, and that is sweet and good and loyal, and it endeared Finn to me A LOT. I remember that when Finn turned it on and stood there in that blue glow in the theater, we ALL gasped. I don’t remember if it had been in promo material or not, but seeing it on the big screen was… An Experience.

ANYWAY, after Finn does the awesome thing he does, Kylo has a line I’m really glad they cut. After the “That weapon is mine” exchange, we get…

Drawing himself up, a towering figure in the snow, Ren did not even bother to gesture. “I’m going to kill you for it.”

I mean… he almost DOES (kill Finn, that is) but announcing it is a little too MWAHAHAHA villain for my taste, and I’m glad they let him speak with actions rather than words here in the film.

So… one of the fun things about all of a sudden caring a WHOLE lot more about Kylo Ren is that I’ve gotten to fully appreciate how incredibly good Adam Driver is at the physicality of this character. (And by that I mean “I’ve watched a lot of behind the scenes clips and stared at gifs a lot.) It’s just FUN to watch him fight, so this description from Finn’s PoV made me smile.

The longer the contest continued, the stronger Ren seemed to become. It was as if he was enjoying the challenge. Feeding upon it.

Upon reflection, I know exactly why I love this. It reminded me SO HARD of Jaime Lannister, another pretty terrible (and just plain pretty) fictional character I would get in fights defending. I just like secretly morally conflicted dudes who swing swords, know how good they are, and are kind of assholes about it, ok?

Give me ALL of the confident, arrogant, Kylo Ren fights. (Fic recs always welcome. Like I said, I’m new here.)

This next bit made me wonder about how the “fighting over an object with the Force” thing works. Because this is the FIRST time we see the dyad both try to summon that lightsaber at the same time:

Ren extended an arm toward the device lying in the snow. It twitched and then began to vibrate as the Force called to it.

But… it doesn’t explode. And this made me wonder, “Why NOT? What was different?”

Here’s what I’ve got.

Maybe it went to Rey because she started trying to call it first. So even if he had more experience and wouldn’t have had to try as hard as she (probably) did since it was her first time, the Force… recognized her prior claim? Also I think what happens in TLJ is that the two of them “reach” for the lightsaber at the exact same moment, and so there IS no prior claim, and so they have to duke it out with raw strength, which goes about how you’d expect when they’re equals.

That still doesn’t explain what happens with the ship in the desert in TRoS though… Rey definitely reached for it first. But also, unlike a lightsaber, the ship had ENGINES that were trying to work against her. That might be an explanation. I wonder exactly what Kylo was trying to do there, anyway… help it break atmosphere like it was trying to do anyway, I’ve always assumed. So if I’m right, that would make the scene make more sense, and it would mean the rules are: (I’m sure I’m proved wrong a million times in media I haven’t seen yet, but here we go)

A stationary object will usually go to the first Force user who calls it.

A stationary object will go to the Force user who is “stronger” in the moment if they call it at the same time, (and in the absence of a clear winner, explode?).

A moving object that whose direction the Force user is trying to change will be more resistant and tends to negate #1.

The confidence/willpower of a Force user (and size of an object only insofar as that affect confidence) is a variable that probably throws a wrench in all three of these.

Dyads facing off probably screw with the normal course of things, too.

Thank you for coming to this episode of “I need my media to make sense and spend way too much time trying to make it do so.”

And then… Kylo Ren sees Rey….

“It is you,” Ren murmured. His words unsettled her: Not for the first time, he seemed to know more about her than she did about herself.

He doesn’t say this in the movie. He doesn’t say anything when he sees her, I don’t think. But when I read this… my heart stopped a little.

This isn’t what you say to the random girl you met in the woods and who you think has the map to Uncle Luke, even if she is Force Sensitive as Hell.

This is what you say to a girl you suddenly realize you’ve seen in that place between asleep and awake for most of your life, a girl that you’ve always been subconsciously aware of. This is what you say because you’re beginning to understand that the scavenger you brought on board and this girl you’re just now remembering clearly for the fist time are THE SAME PERSON and she is VERY connected to you.

What I’m saying is… Ben has been aware of Rey for YEARS without realizing it, and this line FITS THAT THEORY.

And then they fight. And it gets REALLY interesting.

Expecting weakness, he encountered only strength. Her skill with the device was raw at best, but it was backed by a fury that was as new to his experience as it was unexpected.

Example #2 of Rey’s maybe-Dark-Side-Use. The paragraph leading up to this talks about her being “consumed with rage,” and I can hear every (ok, almost every) Jedi master in history talking about how letting anger fuel your use of the Force is a no-no, so I don’t think I’m grasping at straws here. Poor Kylo. He didn’t stand a chance. Angry, “possibly using the Dark side without knowing it” Rey is unexpected and kinda hot, OK???

Flipping away from the Starkilling Snow Fight for a moment, there’s a line of Snoke’s that he does NOT get to say in the movie when he tells Hux to abandon ship and come to him with Kylo Ren.

He added grimly, “It appears that he may have been right about the girl.”

I. Have. Questions. Did Snoke not BELIEVE Kylo when he flat out said she was a REALLY STRONG untrained Force User? Did he not know who Rey was (Palpatine’s granddaughter)? What does this tell us about Snoke’s independence from Palpatine? (Something I’m still not clear on.) The easiest answer is, “You’re thinking about this too much, Dyadsaber. No one at DLF knew that Palpatine was going to come back yet when TFA was written, so no one worried about it.”

BUT I NEED IT TO MAKE SENSE. SO, I’ve decided that Snoke didn’t understand how much of a pawn he was. He probably thought he was Palpatine’s heir or disciple or whatever Grandpa Palps convinced him he was. Anyway, this would mean that Palpatine could give him a lot of autonomy and agency, especially when it came to corrupting Ben, while still keeping a close eye on Snoke through the Force so he could intervene when he had to. If anything in official material contradicts me, I’d love to know.

And now for a bit that made me scream a Shakespeare line at my kindle. At one point, the narrator observes,

What she lacked in mass, she made up for in ferocity.

This is basically a less poetic "Though she be but little, she is fierce," AND I LOVE IT. Someone who’s crafty needs to cross stitch this under Rey’s silhouette or something.

More lines they probably cut for time, but are really telling. When he’s got her backed up to that cliff:

Ren held his lightsaber, poised to strike. “I could kill you right now. But there is another way.” Breathing hard, Rey looked up in disgust at the man looming above her. “You’re a monster.”

Again with the threatening to kill people. Jeez, Kylo. WE KNOW. Seriously, though, I love this. It’s so HIM that he wants her to know he had the advantage and chose not to press it. It says a lot about how he wants to present himself and his intentions to her. As he does in the throne room later, he wants her to give her a choice, and for her to CHOOSE him.

Also, I can feel TLJ Rey’s MURDEROUS SNAKE energy radiating off of that “you’re a monster” line.

And instead of being DETERRED by her insult, he comes back with THIS…

“No. You need a teacher.” He was beseeching and insistent all at once. “I can show you the ways of the Force!”

“Yeah, I know you just called me a monster, but wanna be my student instead?” The arrogance and presumption of this bit of novel-Kylo is SO VERY HIM. Also, “Beseeching but insistent” is so on brand for him when it comes to her.

And the last thing I marked from the fight was THIS bombshell that doesn’t quite come across as obviously (if at all) on screen. Rey has him on the ground, face bleeding, and…

Kill him, a voice inside her head said. It was amorphous, unidentifiable, raw. Pure vengeful emotion. So easy, she told herself. So quick. She recoiled from it. From the dark side.

I mean, if you read between the lines, Rey’s been drawing on the Dark Side without realizing it for a while now. It’s understandable. She’s seething with pain and anger and a desire to avenge Han, but there’s a difference between using that anger to defend herself or try to just GET AWAY from Kylo, which one could argue is mostly what she’s been doing, and killing him when he’s bleeding on the ground.

And she doesn’t do it. TAKE THAT, TLJ LUKE (Note: I love TLJ Luke. I just also love yelling at him). Rey has a CLASSIC opportunity to make a choice that would send her down a truly Dark Side path - striking down an unarmed enemy in anger - AND SHE DOESN’T DO IT. She RECOILS. (And then Starkiller takes the choice away from both of them by literally crumbling away and leaving a chasm between them. If I believed the Force was sentient, this would be a moment where it was saying, “You children are not ready to play nice, and I don’t want to kill each other, so you I’m going to separate you.”)

And that’s that. The next time they see each other, they’re Forcetiming, and I cannot WAIT to read how that goes in the TLJ novel.

Some last thoughts:

Because it would have been hilarious, I’m sad we didn’t the fact that Hux...

followed the troopers carrying Ren into the nearby shuttle.

CARRYING. REN. We were robbed of two (four?) poor storm troopers trying to carry gangly, bleeding, passed out Kylo. I am OFFENDED.

Right before Rey leaves for Ahch-to, she and Leia have THIS fascinating exchange…

“I’m proud of what you’re about to do,” she told the girl.

Rey replied in all seriousness. “But you’re also afraid. In sending me away, you’re—reminded.”

Leia straightened. “You won’t share the fate of our son.”

“I know what we’re doing is right. This is how it has to be. This is how it should be.”

I REALLY wish they’d left this in. I like that it makes explicit that this is the second time Leia has sent a Force user she cares about to Luke, and that choice WEIGHS on her. (And this shows how much she already cares about Rey, too… MY HEART.)

The fact that Rey is perceptive enough to PICK UP ON Leia’s concern, and that Leia reassures BOTH OF THEM that what Ben won’t happen to Rey just makes me love both of these characters so much. Also, I think Leia’s worry and Rey’s conviction sets up the conflict Rey has within herself and her own journey with coming to understand balance in TLJ nicely. She’s just… so confident and cheerful in that last line, and I know what’s coming, and it hurts so good.

And finally, the last line of this book made me laugh out loud. She’s standing in front of Luke, holding out the lightsaber, and....

She wondered what would happen next.

Luke's gonna yeet that lightsaber. That’s what.

If you read all of these, thank you. I’d love to know what you think. I never meant for this to get so long, but I’m wordy and newly shippy, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Stay tuned for hopefully shorter posts as I dive into Last Jedi in a day or two.

#dyadsaber text posts #reylo #tfa novelization #the force awakens novelization

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

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Hi. Thank you for answering my question. And I've got another one but only because I don't have anybody else to ask. But why do you think Oscar wear bandages? He's a farmboy and yet there are these bandages wrapped his wrists and neck. Those areas kinda imply something darker to me (scars) but they could be some design touches. Is there a reason, possible symbolism, anything you can think of?

Hello again fam!

Well firstly, as far as I’ve observed Oscar onlysports bandages on his neck. He wears farming gloves but I haven’t seen anyother attire on his hand to suggest he has more bandages on his wrists, both inhis concept character design sheet and his final render from the main series.

However I do share your curiosity on whatOscar might be hiding beneath those bandages of his as it’s something I’ve seendebated in the FNDM community once or twice. Some Pineheads believe the precious freckled farm boy could be hiding some scars whileothers contested that it’s just because he worked as a farmhand.

The way I see it, it’s either one of those two possibilities:

Oscar sports bandages around his neck becauseit’s a common farming practice to cover up your neck to shield your skin from the sun when tending tothe crops. For the most part, Oscar is pretty concealed most of the time. Apartfrom his face and lower arm, you can’t see much of his skin which I assume is aroutine done to help reduce his skin being burnt by the sun’s rays when he’sout in the fields back on the farm.

So for all we know, Oscar’s neck could beperfectly fine with the only thing to be revealed are more freckles. I’mcurious to know if Oscar has any other parts on his body that’s covered withfreckles like his cheeks. I doubt his freckles stop at his face so it’d be cuteif underneath his clothes, he has more freckles dotting the areas on his designyou can’t see unless he was bareback. Somehow I’m envisioning Oscar with awhole cosmos of freckles dotting his shoulders, upper arms, chest---basically all the areas thatare generally covered with a small constellation on his neck that you can’t seebecause of the bandages.

I liked this idea because I have this Pinehead headcanon where Oscar is a wee bit self-conscious about his bodyfreckles because a) he has alot especially in areas where you wouldn’t expect frecklesto be and b) he has a history of being teased for his freckles, mostly by hisfamily in good-humoured fun especially his Auntie Pine who used to call him ‘sweet potato’ because of his tanned complexion and spots, much toOscar’s embarrassment. That’s one idea.

The other possibility is yourassumption---that Oscar has scars on his neck from a past injury. I once shareda theory way back before V6 where as a child, Oscar was mauled by an allusive flying monkey Grimm (inspired by the creatures of the same name from the Wizard of Oz) thatwrapped its tail around Oscar’s throat and nearly killed him trying to whisk himaway since that particular Grimm species were known for preying on littlechildren.

Though Oscar survived the ordeal, thanks tohis father rescuing him, he still retained some severe scarring around his neckand thus wears bandages to hide the sickly scar.

As an alternative to the scartheory,my other assumption is that Oscar sustainedinjuries to his neck after one of those ‘occasionalsmall Grimm’ he mentioned to Ruby backin V5 wandered onto his aunt’s farm prior to Volume 4. I’m curious to knowif Oscar suffered a similar experience with Ozma’s second reincarnation afterhe was first brought back.

Like picture---a lonely Beowulf wandering onto Oscar’s family farm at night and Oscar bravely taking itupon himself to defend his home. Since his parents passed away during a stormthis left only Oscar and his Auntie Pine as the sole survivors.

Oscar felt it was his responsibility as the ‘man of the house’ to protect his home especially since his aunt was too frail to defendherself. So when the Beowulf came, despite his aunt’s pleas to hide, Oscar charged out to take downthe Beowulf on his own. In the past, Oscar had only offered minor backup to his father who mostly took care of things. But with his father nolonger in the picture to protect him, it was Oscar against the beast on hisown.

Though he did his best against the monster atfirst, Oscar was ultimately overpowered by the Beowulf when it caught him offguard and clawed him from behind. The Grimm then pinned Oscar to the dirt withevery intention of crushing his fragile young body under its ferocious feet.The creature then raised its paw to deal a fatal blow to Oscar. However againstall odds, Oscar still managed to put up a fight and blocked its paw doing hisbest to keep it from ending him with every bit of strength he still had left inhis body.

I wonder if there is a parallel of the statement Ruby made to Oscar in V5C5.

“…Hey Oscar. Thisisn’t going to be easy but the fact that you’re even trying says a lot aboutyou. You’re braver than you think…”

I wonder if Oscar has ever heard that linefrom someone else in life. Like perhaps it’s something his father once told him when he was giving his sonadvice about his future.

I’d like to think that similar to his second form,Ozma---who was dying as Professor Ozpin at the time---fused with Oscar just intime to help the young boy take down the Beowulf once and for all. After that,Oscar succumbed to his injury and lost consciousness.

When he finally came to, Oscar found himselfin bed and bandaged up courtesy of his aunt. It’d like to think that the Pineswere a rather resourceful family who over the generations have made themselves independent fromthe aid of the main kingdom and other villages due to living in a secluded partof Anima that was close to the Kingdom of Mistral but still far away fromplaces such as hospitals, markets and the protectionof the huntsmen.

So naturally, being a farming family, thePines grew their own food, Oscar’s father was a mechanic who handled theirrepairs on anything, Auntie Pine provided the medical assistance since she usedto be nurse in her lifetime and Oscar used to assist his mother in working thefarm. That’s my theory.

Though the Beowulf got Oscar real good,thankfully it didn’t hit any important arteries. So apart from the open woundin his back that was going to take time to completely heal, Oscar was going tolive to see another day much to Auntie Pine’s relief. I’d like to think this is how Oscarfirstly got fused with Ozpin.

My hunch is that the two souls ‘met’ during a crisiswhere Oscar got to show off his bravery and pure heart that made him the perfect candidate to become Ozma’s next incarnate orsomething to that extent.

A next hunch I have is that Oscar is hiding a scar butnot in the place where fans assumed. It’d be really interesting if the CRWBYWriters debunk the Oscar neck scars theory only to reveal that the farm boydoes have scars but on his back---a long gash from a Beowulf claw which I’d imagine isa serious injury that Oscar was lucky enough to survive especially as a non-huntsman unaccustomed to combating the Grimm. Oscar is so coveredup that it’s hard to tell if he is indeed hiding old battle injuries or not.

However I’d like to think it’d be cool ifOscar does have a scar because it could add morecharacter to him and be a lingering testament to how brave thefarm boy truly is. Who knows? Maybe this could potentially be a way for Oscar to even connect withQrow.

Perhaps…the two unfortunately get into a heatedscuffle over Qrow’s anger towards Oz that heunfortunately decides to take out on poor Oscar. But in-between the fight, Qrowends up grabbing Oscar forcefully by the back of his blouse only for the fragilefabric to tear from the force---revealing the deep seeded scar on Oscar’s backwhich stuns Qrow out of his initial rage.

The boy has scars. Scars from fighting theGrimm as just a child. Scars like Qrow.

Perhaps the Branwen Man has scars of his own, both physically and emotionallyfrom his own past during his time with the Branwen Tribe and even times after that.

Scars that Ozpinpreviously took notice of and was the driving force behind why he took such aninterest in caring about Qrow. Maybe that’s something Qrow and Oscar can bondover in an odd way.

At least, that’s my hunch anyways. Hope thatanswers your question again.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

#squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #professor ozpin #qrow branwen #rwby theories #rwby volume 6 theories #la-ugghhh

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ingek73 · 5 years

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‘Tormenting Meghan Markle has become a national sport that shames us

Once, she was a breath of fresh air. Now media critics and ‘experts’ are having a field day

Catherine Bennett

Published: 21:30 Saturday, 16 February 2019

In the period when the acquisition of the former Meghan Markle was depicted as little short of a national triumph, much was written in the British press about her various accomplishments. These are, after all, roughly as common in royal spouses as successful independent careers. Meghan, the actress and blogger and charity worker, is also, it emerged, a skilled calligrapher.

“I’ve always had a propensity for getting the cursive down pretty well,” she once told an Esquire journalist, who’d described her writing as “incredible”. “What it evolved into was my pseudo-waitressing job when I was auditioning.”

Now that tormenting the Duchess of Sussex has become a national sport, limited only by the supply of new material, this same incredible handwriting is proving a treasure trove for character assassins. Last week, after her father released sections of a private letter she had written, alleged handwriting experts confirmed what the Meghan pursuit is making increasingly clear: harassment by the press is not over in the post-Leveson era, just different, and not merely because the results are disseminated instantly, with added conspiracy, on social media.

More vigilance over physical privacy still leaves room for intrusive, but undisprovable, speculation; greater avoidance of libels does not restrict dehumanising commentary, volunteered, of course, from a perspective of strictly caring emotional literacy. Body language experts will claim, for instance, to gauge her mental state from Meghan’s deployment of her bump. Since the Ipso code of conduct proscribing harassment doesn’t cover any distress caused by amateur analysis, maybe former phone hackers and laid-off bin rummagers could yet find employment as hired gaslighters of one sort or another.

For the Daily Mirror, Ruth Myers, a handwriting expert, found, in a protractedly unflattering analysis, that the letter exposed Meghan as “emotionally insecure and self-pitying”. Also “easily provoked to anger”. It was further possible for this scholar to deduce, from handwriting alone, “an inability to forgive”, something arguably contradicted by the letter’s existence.

In the same document, Emma Bache, another expert, discovered evidence of a “showman and a narcissist”. Tracey Trussell detected vulnerability: “It’s impossible for her to forget people who have meant so much to her in her life.”

If, having got beyond her conscious, professional calligraphy, these experts could not agree on which facets, out of so many, of the duchess’s character are most concerning, well, perhaps that only confirms, to the trolls congregating on Twitter, that fellow Meghanphobe Piers Morgan is correct to feel (following his defriending by her) generally “suspicious and cynical about Ms Markle”.

Morgan is sympathetic, instead, to the emotionally abusive man who, with the unstinting support of the British press, has committed to destroying Meghan’s pleasure in her wedding, her pregnancy and, by the sound of it, her forthcoming motherhood – “her poor father”. If superficially unalike, the two older men appear to share an incredulous resentment that a young woman might, out of self-preservation, disregard them, no matter many times they misrepresent or admonish her.

The latest example of Morgan’s retribution was among several press retorts prompted by an intervention by George Clooney, who warned: “She is being pursued and hunted in the same way that Diana was and it’s history repeating itself.”

By way of correcting him, a number of royalty authorities seized this opportunity to attack Meghan, for the completely new personality defect of being implicitly compared with Diana, by someone who is probably not – her critics say – a proper friend anyway. Arthur Edwards, who photographed the teenage Diana in a transparent skirt (“the sun came out and revealed those beautiful legs”), told Meghan to “lighten up. You’re not the new Princess Diana.” In the Times, Clooney’s comment was dismissed as “utter fantasy”.

If not exactly fantasy, Clooney’s version of Diana’s persecution does, admittedly, leave lots out. Glossed over is the late princess’s well-documented habit, with the collusion of chosen journalists, of invading her own privacy; her later refusal to use royal protection officers. When secrecy mattered to her, Diana did take holidays or have long relationships, undocumented in the press. Moreover, prior to her first (initially denied) experiment in shared psychodrama, authored with Andrew Morton, in which she detailed Prince Charles’s infidelity with Camilla Parker-Bowles, the young Diana remained, to her husband’s annoyance, a cherished national pet.

Would any of this, it is increasingly asked, have happened if Meghan were not (to use her term) biracial?

So if anything, Clooney surely does not go far enough. Within months of her marriage, with zero contribution from their victim, sections of the UK press had identified Meghan as someone of whom virtually anything malicious might be said, regardless of accuracy, public interest and its potential impact on her health. Neither her advancing pregnancy nor one attempted correction has brought any respite.

Whatever privacy concessions Meghan Markle was willing (however inexplicably) to make in exchange for royal privileges, she could not, reasonably, have anticipated these sustained personal attacks, for which the sole justification is – ludicrously – that they originate in a man who should ideally be rewarded with a restraining order. Would any of this, it is increasingly asked, given the indulgence extended to most royal hangers-on, have happened if Meghan were not, to use her term, biracial?

Plainly, this affluent couple have choices and an exit from royal life could liberate them, at once, from vindictive relations and their press facilitators, to say nothing of their current destiny as lifetime specimens for bodily and other analysis. Plus we’d finally find out if anything would make the Markles happy.

That outcome might be less promising, however, for the reputations of the very news groups that, seconds after identifying Meghan as breath of fresh air, decided she was also a hardened manipulatrix, cruel to her poor stalker of a daddy, with a way of being pregnant that really pisses off newsroom executives. And leave aside plunging trust levels, and journalism’s deepening funding crisis, will no one think of the graphologists?’

• Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist

#duchess of sussex #meghan markle #uk press #tabloids #harry and meghan #duke and duchess of sussex #brf #british royal family #the guardian #royalty

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jorjathomas · 3 years

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FAS3002- Lifestyle

As we are coming towards the end of this course, this being the third project launch, I am determined to keep my standard of work high aswell as being open to new skills. I believe this course isn't independent this time around enabling me to share ideas with other students. The aim of this course is to create a brand based of trend research and present this brand to the class. It is important when creating this that we convey how the shifts in the world currently has impacted the fashion industry. This will be very interesting to cover given the global pause on normality. I think I would love to include something like this in the work I produce within this module.

Before starting the week again, we were set with an activity to complete prior to the module launch. We have been asked to research two or three brands which we find inspirational and to analyse the brand and its intentions with a customer. It took me some time to find brands that not only interested me but also reached a different target audience so I could differentiate the brands. I decided to look at the brands The Ordinary, Tesla and Etsy as these all have different messages and identities to the shopping world. Below I have discussed the different answers which we were asked on Moodle.

1. The Ordinary Skincare

quote: “Everyone ages, everyone gets their fine lines and wrinkles, and at the end of it all, we own it! We want you to own your skin and feel confident no matter what stage in life you're in. You're never too young or too old to be bold.”

What is the Brand’s Identity? -Their main focus is to deliver the best products for a persons skin. They don't spend too much money on their aesthetics and product designs as their honesty and integrity is was draws a customer in. they cut straight to the point with their products explaining what ingredients are in the bottle and why they are beneficial. I like this brand as they don't add any fragrances or other sort of junk which you could find in other products, as a customer myself they are perceived as genuine towards looking after their audiences skin. Below is a description of their narrative which I found off their website.

“The brand was created to celebrate integrity in its most humble and true form. Its offering is pioneering, not in the familiar technologies it uses, but in its honesty and integrity. The Ordinary is born to disallow commodity to be disguised as ingenuity. The Ordinary is "Clinical formulations with integrity"”.

Product - The ordinary sell a range of different skincare products and makeup such as cleansers, direct acid serums, hair care products, oils and sun care. This brand interests me as their intentions are so pure which I wish could occur with every brand. The general pricing of these products differ from £3- £30 maximum. this widens their target audience as this is quite affordable for skincare. I discovered this brand when a skin care influencer called SkincarebyHyram on YouTube rated these products and recommended some of their products. There wasn't any ad agreements which happens often with influencers, but these intentions were pure which caused a lot of these products being difficult to by as they were so popular. The iconic items would be the Niacinamide and Zinc serum and the AHA blood face mask. These products received many good reviews and I think represents this business.

Price - As their items are cheaper than the standard range of skincare which could be £30+, I was doubtful with were they sit in the market. However coming across multiple articles explaining the most popular brands, The Ordinary was always in the top 5 answers. As every other brand they have competitors which are specific to their business. As this brand is organic, it reduces the amount of other brands they have to compete with. Their competitors are brands such as Revolution skincare and The Inkey list which advertise their products in the same way as this brand.

Place - This brand sells in a range of different places. They have their own website which you can buy online but they also have a small amount of stores across the country. Majority of their products are placed in department stores which is where I found the brand. This is probably the most common place for their products to receive sales.

Promotion - As discussed earlier, they don't advertise their products as much as other brand would. Keeping things as minimal as possible with the standard white and black designs so customers can gain knowledge of the products rather than liking the smell or colour of the product. I think they are very smart with this as most brands have developed a new way of promoting their products with bright colours and other forms of marketing which could interest a customer however The ordinary strips back all of these techniques and uses its products ingredients and intentions as a way of promotion. Below is an example of their honesty which I believe is a good way of promoting their brand.

“The Ordinary, are free of parabens, sulphates, mineral oil, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, animal oils, coal tar dyes, formaldehyde, mercury, oxybenzone. If you have questions about any ingredient that we use, please reach out to us and our lab will provide a response. DECIEM does not test on animals and does not pay others to do so. For this reason, none of our brands are sold in mainland China since such sales require animal testing for registration purposes.”

Customer - I think that their target market is widely diverse due to the range of different products. Each customer has a clear intention when buying these products whether that's heathier hair or to healthier skin. I have noticed a lot of young adults use this brand as they are good products to reduce certain skin conditions which are common for this age range such as acne. I would say their audience is mainly 16-30 year olds however it wouldn't surprise me if their audience was wider than this market.

2- House of Sunny

What is the Brand’s Identity? - House of Sunny is a fashion organization producing womenswear. Majority of their clothing range are bright colours I barely see many dark pieces making this aesthetic very uplifting and ideal for the summer. despite this they state that their pieces are “Designed for an easy everyday, each product is carefully crafted to become the perfect addition to elevate any wardrobe which can transition through the seasons.”

Product - Majority of their key stock is their patterned knitwear and dresses but they also sell tops and other womenswear. Their key pieces would most defiantly their patterned knits both being cardigans and jumpers, I gained a personal interest in these pieces as they require so much more attention than a standard block knit. Their iconic item would be the Hockney dress which was grew popular when worn by the supermodel Kendal Jenner.

Price - As their brand doesn't aim to be fast fashion and doesn't create a mass amount of products, their products are much more sustainable and are on the higher end of the market. I don't know if this price range is expensive or we have just been accustomed to unreasonable and cheaper products. I think these pieces value the price they set when I read their intentions on their website. Their knitwear range from £80+ and similar with other products. I haven't seen any of their stock go over £100 despite this. Majority of their pieces are set at the same price.

Place -When researching, I didn't realise they sold their products in online department stores like ASOS and Urban Outfitters. They don't have any physical stores and all of their brand is based online which is a much more achievable way or selling clothes due to the current up rise in online shopping.

Promotion - Like majority of their womenswear competitors, they use social media as a main contribution to reaching their customers. As this is online it is important they do this successfully to achieve a good amount of their target market. With the help of ambassadors, influencers tagging the brand when wearing the clothing and other marketing techniques, they reach new customers, like me, often. I also believe they pay for social media adds based on demographics and the activity of a persons social media data.

Customer - Being a womenswear shop I should assume their audience consist of women however with new society norms, I would say this brand can be unisex also. I also think the demographics might be of a younger audience being they are online. Also because they aren't a fast fashion company they aren't as well known as easier to find if someone was browsing on the web. I think a younger audience are more likely to come across this brand as they spend a longer amount of time shopping online than an elder may be. Despite this I think House of Sunny don't cancel out any specific characteristics or data of a customer making this brand diverse and suitable for anyone who likes their items. This approach to fashion and their overall message is what I find inspirational about this brand which is why I wanted to research about it.

3- Etsy

What is the Brand’s Identity? - Etsy is a online marketplace website and app focused on handmade or vintage items and craft pieces sold by small business. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies. This is a great place for starting business to sell products which may not be as reached if it was elsewhere.

Product - As this is like an amazon, selling many brands, there isn't any key prices as it depends on the sellers price range. However based of what majority of my history of the site I would say the price range is reasonable being £10+ with the products I buy. This could be things like personalised gifts or handmade accessories. I would agree in saying a lot of the key items would consist of personalised items and illustration designs.

Price - As said before their price range is quite diverse, I would consider this as an advantage as they are able to attract a different class of people which more department brands might not be able to achieve. Despite this the website receives a certain percentage of the fee a business would make on their site as they are advertising it to an extent, which could cause a brand to increase their product prices so they can receive more profitable income. I would say their competitors would be Depop, Ebay and Amazon as they all allow the public to sell particular items for customers.

Place - This shop is completely online and is also accessible through the app for an audience who use the site much more frequently.

Promotion - Personally I don't think Etsy itself uses many promotional techniques as they aren't selling anything however they may have some marketing techniques which could reach a small business owner and interest them in wanted to sell their brand on the site. I think the relationship between Esty and their own customers being the business owners need to balance each other well to achieve successful promotional techniques. For example a business owner would promote their products well in which they say where to find their products, being Esty. this not only engages the customer too look at the brands products but they are now on the Etsy site so they are most likely to look at other items on the site aswell or even interested in selling their own range of stock aswell. I think this is smart way of advertising their brand and what makes Etsy so successful.

Customer - As their price range consists of both expensive and cheap items the brand reaches a wider audience. The businesses which use this website differentiate from one another creating a wider audience. for example one business may sell building tools and another may sell personalised jewelry which brings a range of different customers to the site. Overall I think this organisation is a very good space to enable businesses to grown their own platform and enable them to create their own brand aswell as profiting from their income from the purchase of their products.

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starco-conut · 6 years

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Our Thoughts on Season 3

Hey everyone!! as you may have seen...Alan and I have been just a bit let down by some of the stuff going on. Luckily, we’re both huge ass nerds so we wrote it all out in a multi-paragraph post. With visual aids! if you’ve been feeling a little offput by the new episodes but can’t place why, we probably have your reason put into words somewhere in here.

Reviews, replies, general additions to this post are not only permitted, but strongly encouraged!! :D

bold is nicole. italics is alan

Scent of a hoodie

I mean. one word summary;... Uncomfortable. it was rough to watch my girl obsess like that and honestly??? there was no clear message at the end... with the whole ‘the scent is in ur heart....’ do they mean to imply she’s getting over marco or that he’s always gonna be around in her mind??????????. yeh. not much to say here.

this episode was kind of strange and felt really awkward with star’s obsession with marco but had a sweet ending with star learning that its really unhealthy for her to latch onto marco like this and its time to move on. it felt like one of those iffy episodes throughout most of it but the end was decent enough

Rest in Pudding

Her little monologue to glossaryk was super cute and well done!! that whole bit was just. Good! felt like Old Times! but then there’s

This was... a gag? I dont know. when i saw it first my gut reaction was that they were setting up some angst about how star’s calling people on earth that aren’t her best friend Marco and THAT got me!! i was Ready To Be Hurt by that! but then like...nothing. Unless it comes up in a nearing episode this was just a bad joke. overall episode wasn’t bad at all though!!

i really enjoyed this episode! the pacing, mystery, and comedy all held up to the Star standard and only had a small amount of plot progression which felt appropriate for a halloween episode. my only gripe is that after the whole Battle For Mewni deal, i expected Moon to believe Star a bit more when she says Glossaryck is alive

oh yeah that too for sure

Club Snubbed

pretty much made me want to die and barf simultaneously. when it got to the scene above, where she talked about just needing a friend i thought, hey, thats cool. and accurate. maybe that dance scene clip, since its unfortunately not a flashback, is going to be presented as platonic!

nope. anyone in for a suicide pact?

To be fair, i should elaborate. Tomstar, in theory, is super cool. I definitely vibed with the fire and butterfly magic mix happening, back when I thought it was a flashback. But...Its been, what, 5, maybe 6 episodes since marco left and she’s already just...whoop? who’s marco? haha what? There’s not enough time.

And from what I can tell, none of their old issues have been addressed. Tom still has anger issues, but because ‘its hard’ and he’s ‘trying’ suddenly star’s all over him? sleazy ppl come to their exes like ‘i’ve changed!!’ for a reason. the ex should actually. want. to see. change. Star seems content to say ‘fuckall, tom’s here, why not’

WHICH..could actually be good? If it’s presented that way? My hope is that she’s latching on to Tom because they have history, and a bond already. Marco’s gone suddenly, she’s urging for somewhere to direct her affection- lord knows the sweet girl has lots to give. and then they’ll part as friends after she realizes whatever they are now is unhealthy and ingenuine romantically. I have no backing for this and honestly it doesn’t look like that’s the way they’re going but... I’m gonna hope.

this episode definitely throws a spin on our view of tom as an “uncaring, lying, manipulative ex boyfriend” and for the first time i felt like i really saw Tom Lucitor, a boy with anger issues and an unfortunate history with his actions. i was really glad to see this character growth for him but i feel like the writers completely skipped over the real impacts that a relationship like tom and star’s had on each other.

yes!! i didn’t say but, i kinda love tom as an independent character. his anger issues are presented as a part of his personality, he is a guy who has anger issues, not Anger Issues in a physical form. lots of cool depth on that.

realistically, star would not immediately fall back in love with tom because...why would she? we as the viewers know that Tom has changed but to Star? he has a significant history of lying to manipulate her and marco to get closer to them and star doesn’t have a real reason to believe what he’s saying is true and she shouldn’t have 100% faith in him so quickly especially when she had 0 trust in him just a few minutes prior. overall i was impressed with the development for tom but the future implications were disappointing to me

i will be talking more about my issues with Star and her trust issues later.

Stranger Danger

My only issue with this episode is that it doesn't exist outside of its own ten minutes. I literally forgot about it til i looked up an episode list of s3 to write this post. Eclipsa is sitting there, queen of darkness, in the same castle grounds as star, and shes nor the trial is brought up in the subsequent episodes. Alan goes wild on this one so I’ll let him take it away- he’s 100% on point here.

THIS IS A LONG ONE BOYS, STRAP IN,

i agree with nicole here, there is no buildup to the immense revelation that eclipsa is free and roaming the castle gardens. battle for mewni had planted the seed that eclipsa was breaking out but there was no mention of this in any other episode. and then there’s this:

what was this all about?? did no one notice that Eclipsa, the Queen of Darkness, one of the most powerful queens and magic users in Mewni’s history, and a wanted criminal, was FREE FROM THE CRYSTAL THEY FROZE HER IN?? And in BFM, Moon even visits Eclipsa’s crystal prison to check if she’s still there but now? she didnt seem worried about it AT ALL. only when Star is peacefully talking to her does Moon and the magic high comission show up because...plot reasons.

aside from that, however, i feel like the pacing in this episode was not planned very well. from the opening scene of Star taking care of Glossaryck for well over 4 minutes, it felt like this was going to be a fun silly episode with general shenanigans (there’s nothing wrong with silly episodes, it just didn’t end up being one). but halfway through the episode, eclipsa shows up and suddenly the plot is moving at a rapid pace. and while this felt like it should have been the climax of the 11-minutes, the climax just continues? there is no falling action in this episode. it continues with star being decontaminated and at one point she is strapped to an examining table and flashes through some disturbing faces

why is she smiling? who drew this? this feels really creepy, like someone is putting their kinks into the show and its really uncomfortable to watch and think about. there is a heart touching moment with Moon and Star talking about their actions and both side have somewhat understandable reasons, though star clearly has the show’s bias so the plot progresses (which is not necessarily a bad thing). afterwards, Star meets Eclipsa in her cell and still, the climax of the episode has not fallen at all with all the arguing. and then finally when star confronts eclipsa in her tower, she says,

“Just because i didn’t want you crystalized again, doesn’t mean i trust you.”

????

She literally has no past with eclipsa other than having a pleasant conversation with her. She knows next to nothing about her actual actions or personality but immediately doesn’t trust her? but in Club Snubbed she immediately trusts tom? the guy who directly had severe negative impacts on her life?? Why?! Why are the writers so inconsistent? nothing makes sense! It’s cheap, forced romance that’s why!

and after this ridiculously long climax the episode just ENDS. there is no resolution, and it doesn’t touch on it again anywhere in the next four episodes. It’s bad show writing.

Demoncism

I picked this screenshot because it was the most disgusting!!! this is just...more of an opinion here but I really like the trope where one is out of their mind, dangerous, causing magic destruction and the other defies the risk and holds them, curing the issue with The Power Of Love. it’s corny but I love it. and yet.

here. they decided to just. chuck it in. I’ve seen shows do this trope Very Very well (oddly, one example i can think of also involves a wild demon kid and a forest in blue fire.....) but to just...throw this in there. with. like 8 seconds of buildup. n-o. no. ESPECIALLY because tom and star, where they are currently in the show, aren’t ready to be romantic, and this trope always has romantic implications.

i got extremely mixed feelings from this episode. on one hand it had a great message that you shouldn’t force change but rather to grow naturally and learn from your mistakes. on the other hand, a lot of it is still tainted by this cliche, boring, romance. Star immediately barges in and claims that he’s only doing this for her and generally is untrusting of his actions.

......

are you noticing a common theme here? writers purposefully twisting characters’ interactions for the sole purpose of causing drama? give me one good reason for star’s sense of trust to be flip-flopping like this over and over again. im being serious, if you even read this far, leave a reply and call me out because i CAN NOT THINK OF ONE GOOD REASON.

“Okayy, but no tickling.” Again, more creepy bdsm, moving on.

Then later when hes doing that whole floaty, blue veined, writhing scene i will actually commend the writers for making a very good analogy of how painful and unhealthy this process is for tom to quickly force himself to change. then star comes back and hugs him and says shes here for him which would have actually been a very sweet moment if they had just been friends but of course, they’re not. its just a reminder that “uwu they’re in love now”. and then there’s this:

confirmation that yes, the show is going to do that. rush star and tom’s relationship bc #teendrama. and the worst part of it is: star and tom could actually have been an acceptable, if not role model relationship if it wasn’t written so poorly, which is what the next paragraph or so is dedicated to.

I don’t hate Tom and Star’s relationship. I don’t. i see it as a missed opportunity. Tom and Star were two people who used to be a couple in the past and broke up for reasons unknown. we can speculate that it was because of Tom’s anger issues and problems with lying, and also Star’s inability to deal with complex situations and face her problems. THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY COMMON REAL LIFE SITUATION. This was a ripe opportunity to go in-depth with Star and Tom’s issues, not just their own but also the issues between them. and it is wasted. I know that its hard to fit this into one measly episode but there’s a whole half season to develop them at a proper, realistic pace! i wouldn’t care if the entire season is dedicated to Star and Tom working to solve these issues if it meant we had this enormously important topic resolved in a healthy and wholesome manner.

But the problem is, none of this happens. And it’s not going to. The writers completely skip over all of Tom and Star’s anger towards each other and go straight to “UWU THEYRE IN LOVE NOW”. Star is just rebounding off Marco and onto Tom and there’s going to be more unnecessary drama, and someone’s going to get hurt.

And I am disgusted.

Sophomore Slump

jarco saved this ep ? the only parts of it i could really relax and enjoy was the little jarco montage it was cute. and then. and THEN. the random dumping. I get what the writers were trying to say, y’know? ohohohoh, nudge nudge, we all know who marcos REAL best friend is...hohoho...except. they shouldnt have. said it. at least not via jackie. She was used in this disgustingly common way where she’s just there to deliver a message and help marco realize something. do y’all realize the most drastic adjective i can apply to her realizing she+marco wont work is like....”bummed”. It’s realistic to cry, to be fucking mad, to show...FEELING...i don’t care how cool and chill she is. It’s an absolute travesty to her to not let her be upset about it.

AND THE CAPE. it was obnoxious, I hated his attitude about it, not because it was annoying but because he expected others to stop ‘acting weird’. I had hope when jackie knocked sense into him but then he...was then REWARDED for his obsession with it? He ended up getting what he wanted, a ticket back to Mewni, by being a stubborn arse about it. no.

god where do i begin. alright.

Marco was so out of character this episode. im not talking like “he isnt the safe kid anymore he takes some uncharacteristic risks”. no. I don’t know who this kid is but it is not Marco Diaz. He’s some plot device created by the writers to create drama. Why is he so obsessed with his cape? Why is he forcing his experience on mewni into every conversation? Why. Is he. The Croissant Girl. The dude spent over sixteen YEARS in other dimensions going on quests of epic scale and comes back home without a single issue readjusting. Not one word. but then he spends one week in the butterfly castle and serves essentially no purpose the entire time other than freeing Star from her chains one time. He was completely and utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of the BFM movie. and then he comes back to earth and feels this great pride as if he was some great part of the event. Why? what does he have to be proud of? there was no mention of this development in any of the earlier episodes. and i havent even mentioned the ridiculous forced breakup yet.

at some point it seems like Jackie’s words really do come through to Marco. He snaps out of his daze and seems to genuinely want to make it up to her. the scene with Marco and Jackie having a fun date at the pier was incredibly sweet and was generally a good experience. We got to see more of Jackie’s fun side that we were desperately searching for in season 1 and the first half of season 2. it was very satisfying to know that jackie was a character everyone would eventually come to love. but then

that. Why? Why has Marco not moved on at all and learned his mistakes? why does he not understand that he’s being destructive. why do the writers like creating unnecessary drama. you know what show had a very similar plot issue and resolved this properly??

That’s right! Everybody’s favorite racist, ableist, offensive, generally unfunny show: The Big Bang Theory. I don’t even remember this dude’s name but when he came back from space and was being annoying, his girlfriend talked to him and he realized that “WOW IM ANNOYING LET ME THINK ABOUT OTHER’S FEELINGS FOR ONCE.”

100%. if they had stopped with the callout via jackie, and he had actually taken off the cape, I would have been fine. lesson learned. but, obviously, they didnt do that.

If this show (which has an incredible track record for doing crappy show writing) can get it right then why can’t Star vs the Forces of Evil? A show that is usually praised for it’s amazing talent for intelligent, easy to understand, and great moral messaging?

Because of the writers. They don’t want to teach important messages for these kids (the target audience may i remind you) to latch on to and learn from. They want to write their angsty fanfiction and throw it into canon.

Nicole-TL;DR my lasting hope is star’s affections for tom are, and are revealed as such, a way to cope with going cold-turkey on marco and things resolve without a stupid fucking love triangle also jackie and janna start dating. aaand im just. disappointed with the show rn. something’s different and after shoving this amazing ass show in everyones face for so long just to see it kind of...well, it’s starting to peel. idk why. but im just hoping this is like...banagic incident but...several episodes long.

Alan-TL;DR

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #star butterfly #marco diaz #alan #nicole

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