Voyager should have had an episode where the command trio beat the absolute hell out of each other while blaming each other for being stuck in the delta quadrant as the fever pitch of a rising tension that was building throughout the episode.
Like, they're absolutely being pushed to do it by some outside force. Maybe it's a telepathic being - maybe it's that they're stuck in some arena or an alien court or a time loop only the three of them are aware of - no matter the specifics, the sentiment behind their words has to be true and it has to be something they've been keeping back for months, maybe years. That fear and hatred and blame that doesn't really have an actual target because it's not actually rational but 'who's to blame' doesn't have to be capital T true to feel true. If Chakotay hadn't been in the badlands, If Janeway hadn't made that choice, If Tuvok hadn't supported it...
"You trapped us here. It's your fault. If you hadn't-! If you hadn't-! If you hadn't-!" are just echoes of "I trapped us here. It's my fault. If I hadn't-! If I hadn't-! If I hadn't-!" Because at the end of the day more than being angry or hateful they're despairing in their own ways.
Episode probably has a somber end - they beat whatever it was and it's a victory! They won by working together even after they beat each other half to death! But after the celebration we see them alone in their quarters...silent. Gazing out at the stars, into a candle's flame, at that same family picture before turning away. Because even though they won they're still there in the delta quadrant. Is that really victory?
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hi :) I saw thst you reblogged that what's your main spin poll and I wanted to ask if you wanted to elaborate what yours is I love to hear about it!! <3
🥺 aw thank you!! I always enjoy having a chance to infodump a little bit (btw i love ur icon...daphne what an icon)
I do technically have a handful of spins that I consider my main spins because I'm constantly rotating between them (star wars, doctor who, moon knight and spidey) at any given moment, but my strongest spin is definitely in Poe Dameron from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy!
I kind of instantly fell in love with him when my dad first took me to see The Force Awakens when it came out, which was a huge surprise for me because Poe was maybe the character I was the least intrigued by at the time (Rey and Finn had me asking far more questions, anyway) and none of the descriptions for him really jumped out to me. But after actually seeing him, I was positively in love, and then quickly downloaded accompanying novels that featured him (Before the Awakening and the TFA novelization) to read more about him, and then in April of 2016, they came out with a comic series for him and that really helped further cement my special interest in him!
It took a huge hit in 2018-most of 2020 because of all the fandom negativity (especially around Poe) but at the end of 2020, I rewatched the sequels back to back for the first time and it flared back to life without me expecting it to and I did a huge deep dive into uuuuuuuuuuuuuh every piece of expanded material he'd appeared in 😅
Basically (I'm not super sure how familiar you are with Star Wars) Poe is one of the best pilots in the Resistance, which is lead by Princess (now General) Leia Organa, and he's her right-hand man/protégé/surrogate son. Barring the Resistance's bombing fleet (which is teeny bc the Resistance is teeny and held together by duct tape) Poe is essentially in charge of its only flight wing and (as far as we know) all* of its squadrons. On top of that, he's also an active intelligence operative, and even helps oversees the reports from the Resistance's spies so like...he's kind of already helping run the Resistance even prior to officially co-running it by the third film with Leia/when he's finally named its official leader.
Poe is super important to me for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite things about his arc is that it's not centered around romantic love/tension unlike a lot of the other dynamics in the sequel trilogy (altho Oscar did play Poe as being extremely smitten for Finn and who can blame him, and we do meet an ex girlfriend of Poe's in the third movie, I stan a bisexual king). Poe's whole arc is about his duty to the Resistance, his struggles with keeping hope because he's afraid that everything they've (and him) endured and lost will have been for nothing if they lose the fight against the First Order. If there's a love story for Poe's arc, it's his love for the Resistance and his friends, and that's so wonderful and profound in my eyes.
But also the bridge of Poe's arc, from the daring hero we see in tfa and the start of tlj, to the cautious but courageous leader we see at the end of tlj and all of tros, is Poe being forced to accept that his role in this story isn't that of a martyred hero. He's quite literally grounded (his X-Wing is destroyed) and he's pushed into the role of the leader his mentor wants him to be, and TLJ (in my eyes) is the story of someone who full heartedly believed the most he had to offer was a noble self-sacrifice realizing he actually wants to live (and that he can do far more for the Resistance/galaxy by surviving.)
I love Poe a lot because he's also very simple. He's, as Rian Johnson described him, a good guy hero. Unlike other characters, you never doubt whether he's gonna be tempted or corrupted, you know that he's going to do the right thing and remain true to the Light side, you have faith that no matter what obstacle he faces, he's gonna overcome them and come out the other side that much better for it.
The Age of Resistance comic analysis of Poe breaks it down the best, I think:
Poe's inherent humanity is what makes him a great character. He's not someone who struggles with right and wrong or good and evil. Instead, his struggle is more with his tendency to need to be the person who pulls off some last-minute, thrilling heroics in service to the greater good. Because Leia's right: you can't solve everything by jumping in an X-Wing to blow things up.
I could talk for days about Poe (I've spent the last three years doing just that) about the nuances of his character and the depths that largely go unexplored because of Lucasfilm's inexplicable disrespect and dislike of him, the fandom often reducing him to a love interest with no other personality traits, or complete bastardization wherein he resembles Hangman Top Gun more than Poe Dameron (often when people want to oversexualize him).
He has so many qualities that I adore: he's snarky and hot-headed and can throw things (metaphorically) in people's faces when he's particularly upset, he's impulsive, but also kind and compassionate and patient with people. He sees the potential for more/good in folks that most wouldn't. he truly deeply values people, and that's what makes him such an amazing leader: he inspires loyalty because of how much he believes and takes risks in the people around him. He's often the first person to give someone a second chance, or to lower his blaster, but he can also be vindictive. He's confident in his abilities as a pilot to the point he's often mistaken as arrogant, but he never puts anyone down and always lifts people up, and has a lot more insecurities than anyone would guess, and is really sensitive to rejection.
He's also kind of canonically a prince, thanks to the TROS novelization, so you know. I think that's neat and I'm so totally normal about it (when Leia passes away, she leaves her Organa legacy to Poe...the Organa Legacy would be the Royal House Organa - as well as the Resistance. So...Poe is in some ways a prince).
(*which is...three, they only have three squadrons)
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☀️ its fascinating that you say P3 has shaped your worldview because... Well not to trauma dump here but back then when I discovered the game (it was back then when p4 was already out) i was... In a REALLY bad place and wondering about unaliving myself. I wont go into much detail but kids are trash man and teens are even worse. and then this game came around. With an aesthetic I really liked. i am not a native english speaker so it was hard for me at first but somehow this game just... /spoke to me/. A game about life and death and what it means to be alive and what it means to have a REASON to live, somehow... Convinced me to go a bit longer. I mean it when I say this: Persona 3 saved my life. And no other game can ever come close to such an experience. (Even tho from a quality standpoint P5 certainly is up there)
oh dude that is so valid thank you for sharing this. seriously though, im happy that youre here! and im sure many others are too! the ☀️ brightening lives and all that :]
yea i can see why p3 just clicked with so many people since it first came out. i was always curious on why it's so beloved by fans, when p5 and even p4 are literally right there with their overall better gameplay experiences. p5 literally got the franchise mainstream to insane heights lol. im... so glad i got into persona the way i did. of course, everyone's experiences w these games are different and special to them in their own way.
i got into persona 3 as an adult and as a result the lens in which i viewed the story's themes were heightened, in a way. as a teen i just know i would have reacted more volatilely i struggle to think about it LOL but both experiences would still be pretty intense. it's just that, as an adult there's more room to digest it when im not troubled by algebra hw. i was just more equipped for it (also i played omori two summers ago LMAOO). ofc i only turned 20 a few weeks ago LOL but i get why p3 means so much to people.
because it's like... 2000s nostalgia coupled with a game that figuratively holds your hand through the uncertainty of death yknow? p3 is a friend, basically. its entire thesis is based upon companionship (exactly what i highlight in an analysis i have drafted somewhere but HHH i dont want this to get too long lmao)
in the shaping my worldviews thing... its really more like it cemented my 'philosophies' :] like i said, equipped with the stuff i learned before, p3 having the message that it did just... hit super close to home! like yeah! that's what i've been saying dude!! kindness really is enough!!
"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life... Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of."
LIKE YEA GIRL THATS EXACTLY IT!! its so cool! i actually admire people who grew up with p3 because man if i heard this line ages ago... well, again, idk if i would be able to grasp it fully at the time... but still! this is so good, poetry in motion. and like u said its aesthetics are gorgeous and aim to capture the essence of its themes - and it did.
im a p5 baby like bro i love p5. soft spot for it. thats the closest persona game i "grew up" with and it came at such an opportune time for me, being a teen stuck between a rock and a hard place. typical. and p5 validated my teenage angst bs so much. its so refreshing to see a game's theme being rebellion. that was me i thought. those characters are going through something that similarly happened to me. teenage rebellion is such a fun thing to explore!
so p5 validated my struggles while p3 did something deeper than that, somehow. i think it just made me .. stronger? like it made me move on from struggles. "by remembering death you learn how to live" so... i guess p3 taught me how to live as crazy as that sounds. but you get me
persona 5 overall is great -- everyone agrees, like its objectively just a better game. but persona 3 ends up more beloved because of its subjective value as a piece of art. there's a lot of heart and soul to put into it.
it's more simple when compared to p5 at first glance, but simple doesn't mean less. which is why more people experiencing it will be nice to see
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Abby how do you get over how sad it all ends though like esp for alicient the pain and loss ahead !
nearly all of house of the dragon's appeal to me is how everybody is dead before we meet them, there is no escape for any of them especially not the women... but that doesn't feel Sad to me it's tragic sure, horrifying yes, but i love stories populated entirely by ghosts who don't know that's what they are yet... it frees up the narrative to be heightened in pretty much every way because it's not about where we end up it's how we get there and what stories we want to tell along the way. it ends in destruction and regret and pain and death but before we get THERE we're gonna encounter people screaming and schemeing and terrorizing each other and gripping onto life in violent ways.... idk i love knowing it ends tragically it throws everything into a mythological realm and lets the narrative play around with structure and theme because they can cut out the (annoying) urge to rely on twists and unknowns and just let the characters breathe. it's tragic but for me that's the best part!
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i think one of my most fav things about putting my trev into da2 is the context. like, in dai, i feel like the Black And White thinking is very fixed, and the narrative goes very far out of its' way to establish who is Good (on a personal level) and who is Bad (on a personal level) and then uses that person's Level of Good to justify whether the concepts they represent are good or bad.
comparatively, in da2, it's very clear (to me, anyway, i guess a sig portion of the fandom disagrees) that the chantry & templars are in the wrong, but each individual is not so simple. none of them are 100% good, none of them are 100% bad, and you can see and understand each of them which allows for such complex and nuanced storytelling -- even beyond that of the kind of storytelling i could do with my wardens in dao.
everyone is doing incredibly fucked up things for fucked up reasons, either in their current life or in their past. everyone deserves some measure of understanding and empathy and, to me, the nuances of their various reasons for doing anything is exactly what hammers home the overarching plot so well. the question in da2, to me, is never is the chantry good or bad? is the mage rebellion good or bad? because that's not the particular point of the story. the story is to survive the horrors i experienced, i am doing something equally horrific to survive. and that's true for all of them, irrespective of whether the perceived "threat" is objectively dangerous or likely or real.
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