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The thing I regret most about telling my friend that I had romantic feelings for her is that I lost sight of her issues in the process. When she moved back to town, I put my affections to the side because I knew she had been through a lot and she just needed a friend. And then a guy showed up and tried to get with her and I panicked. That was short-sighted of me, and I'm worried that by admitting my feelings, I've broken her trust in me as a friend. I should have known better.

I think the reason I told her is because I was beginning to struggle with how I felt. I didn't expect her to reciprocate those feelings, but I needed an answer so I knew where I stand, and so I could at least commit to being a better friend. I felt really selfish about that, but without an answer, I was gonna get all twisted and maladjusted about it. But there's a lot of guilt and awkwardness to navigate now, which is my fault.

I've been speaking to a clinical psychologist since around November, and I've gotten to speak about my feelings with them and get their opinion on where I'm coming from. A big anxiety I had about confessing is that I was being selfish by doing so - what they told me in response is that there's a difference between selfishness and self-interest. When I told them about my worries about whether I had broken her trust by confessing my feelings to her, they told me that there's a balance between my feelings and the feelings of others that's necessary to having a healthy relationship.

While my tendency to act around other people's comfort and think extensively about their feelings and positions on stuff like this is well-intentioned, that doesn't leave a lot of room for me to have much of my own personality and that's not a healthy social position for me to be in. This is a matter between two individuals, so I need to focus on me and let her focus on her.

I've spent a lot of time ascribing a lot of my anxieties to my crush over my confession, and I've come to understand that in my mind, I'm turning her into a mouthpiece for my own insecurities. That takes away her agency, because I'm not actually paying attention to her - I'm basically putting words in her mouth and reacting to my own shitty insecurities through that skewed mental image I have of her. I've come to understand that the best chance of things being okay is if I get out of my own head and move forward with our friendship without twisting myself in knots.

So that's where I am now. I'm going to work on me, and I'm going to be as supportive as I've always tried to be. I want our friendship to work, and I don't want her to worry about any unrequited feelings - before I ever thought about pursuing her romantically, I cared deeply about her and her happiness, and I want to put all of my energy into being that same supportive friend I was before I saw fit to think of her in a romantic way.

But I know that's going to be a difficult process, and if my confession did damage our pre-existing relationship beyond repair, that's a reality I'm gonna have to live with. The main challenge is going to be returning to normalcy, and understanding when to give her space. I don't think I gave her enough space this week, so I'm gonna chill out and work on myself for a little while.

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Also, quarter-monthly reiteration that Finn/Rey is a better ship than Reylo

#don't @ me #respect if you ship finn/poe but I prefer finn/rey #also while I personally don't ship it I can respect reylo on a base level? #still doesn't hold a candle to finn/rey though #again - respect to your own ships #but if y'all wanna biff over this you can fuckin suck iiiiiiiiit

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who has two thumbs and wrote a list of story elements that would have made the star wars sequel trilogy better for them

this guuuuuuy

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How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

The Force Awakens:

fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.

The Last Jedi:

Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.

Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.

Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.

Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.

Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.

Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.

Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.

Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.

Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.

In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.

Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.

The Rise of Skywalker:

Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?

Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.

Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.

Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.

Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.

Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?

Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.

By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.

Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.

Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".

Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.

In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.

At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.

The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.

This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.

So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.

#star wars #finn/rey for life suck it haters

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I've been feeling pretty down lately, but yesterday was arguably the worst I've felt all year. I feel like I reached a breaking point, and for a moment there, I think I genuinely gave up and accepted defeat.

I've been exposed to a lot of shitposting on other platforms lately, and the volume of alt-right shit being thrown around yesterday about the militia shooting - shit that was patently untrue and consisted of a lot of barely disguised racism - wasn't getting moderated on the platforms I use. It felt like a turning point for the alt-right, and the thought broke me.

This post is how I vocalised my feelings on the matter. Even after denouncing doomer culture for months, I think I hit rock bottom in regards to political discourse.

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I've been vocal about resisting the doomer mentality for a couple months now. The Trumpers want you to feel powerless and to give up - every non-Trumper who doesn't vote is another win for the Republican party, because you know they're going to be out in force to vote King s***head back into office. Make everyone else feel like the far right victory is inevitable, and less people will turn up to vote - especially to hostile conditions.

It's important to persevere despite the hardship going on, but frankly I think I've hit a breaking point with the last week of s***. I think this is what the right wanted Charlottesville to be - a show of solidarity and power that cements them as the new norm, where enough people outside of their zeitgeist will support them because on a surface level they support general right-wing subjects that the average layperson believe in.

Stuff like the qanon a******s making pedophilia a hot button issue - no-one likes pedophilia, we all agree that pedophiles are bad and should be weeded out and ostracized, but they're conflating pedos and their defenders with people who support masks and believe in enforcing social distancing rules. Your average layperson hears "we want to stop child sex trafficking in the United States", but a radicalised dips*** hears "enforcing mask usage makes children harder to identify and makes it easier to kidnap them, it's enabling child kidnapping and we need to stand up to these disingenuous democrats who want to steal and rape our children". The layperson perpetuates the trend based on the former, and the extremist message of the latter travels along with it through tags like #savethechildren.

We're at a point where the radical right is taking control, and there are enough people to passionately defend it and argue away the points against it. You already had right-wing militia types with support from the police, but you now have enough onlookers who are willing to defend the alt-right's narrative en masse. I honestly think that the alt-right control the conversation now.

I feel like I have to accept that America is lost to fascism, and I have to focus my efforts on somewhere I might be able to make a difference. I need to focus on where I live, so the same right-wing dickheads don't take power in the same way America's alt-right did. I need to fight the One Nation party, I need to fight Clive Palmer, and I need to fight the Liberal party with an emphasis on Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. These groups and people pose the biggest threat to my country's integrity, and if they succeed Australia will become a mini-America with lax gun laws, even more tax breaks and less oversight for corporations and the same weakening of civil liberties that America's far right has brought into effect.

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My take on MAPs and the attempted normalisation of pedophilia

It should go without saying, but I tackle some heavy topics in this post and I use some blunt terms to describe some heinous crimes. If this is a topic that you're sensitive about, this is your warning to stop reading and engage with other content.

Also, I was having a few drinks when I wrote this, and I reflected a bit on Tumblr, the NSFW ban and the user migration to Twitter. This is because I associate the MAP shit happening on Twitter with the initial discovery and fallout on Tumblr.

I wrote topics as they came to me, not in order of importance. I talk about the bad stuff last, with most of the post's focus being on the effects of MAPs piggybacking on the back of the LGBTQIA+ community.

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It's kind of funny to see Twitter devolve into the cesspit it is today, because it lines up conveniently with the brief and ultimately lax Tumblr NSFW ban.

This whole thing about MAPs on Twitter trying to normalize pedophilia and latch it onto the LGBTQIA+ wagon - that was a hot button issue on Tumblr back in 2018 just before the NSFW ban went into effect, because that's the platform where a bunch of pedo s***heads tried to normalize it first. They've been trying to tether pedo s*** to identity politics since at least 2018. And like all of the whacked-out subcultures that existed on Tumblr before the NSFW ban, it seems to have migrated to Twitter in the years following that ban.

And the thing is that a lot of Twitter discourse today matches up with the ugliest Tumblr discourse of the last 5 years too. The "debating" style, the disproportionate amount of rage, woke posturing and attempted cancellation over s*** like LGBTQIA+ content in cartoons, fandom culture - I swear to god, it's like it all moved over. And it's not an unprecedented theory, since there was a concerted effort for a ton of users to migrate to other platforms. I believe that the MAP s*** is as prevalent on a social network as big as Twitter partly due to the Tumblr NSFW ban of 2018. Some people even say it could have been a deciding factor in Apple removing the Tumblr app from the App Store, which was the inciting incident that led to the NSFW ban in the first place.

And the thing is that the public reception of this group on Tumblr was universally negative, and people still post to this day about how MAPs are scum and that if anyone identifies as one they should immediately unfollow. This was not a welcome subculture, this was a disturbing discovery with months of fallout. I see its continued existence on Twitter as an extension of that Tumblr migration, and it depresses me that pedophiles seem to be successfully piggybacking on the back of identity politics to normalise pedophilia. It probably existed on Twitter concurrently with the Tumblr effort, and it probably would have spread regardless of the NSFW ban prompting a Tumblr migration, but as someone who was around during the initial discovery and fallout on Tumblr, through the NSFW ban and subsequent user migration, it's hard not to see the current Twitter discourse as a continuation of that.

Like jeez, when I joined Tumblr, the worst thing I found outside of like biphobic/aphobic discourse was the "lifter" subculture, where people would shoplift and post their stolen hordes online. The "lifter" community still exists on Tumblr, too - really s***ty.

I've had a few drinks, so I went on a Tumblr ramble sorry. The point was to outline how long this s*** has been going on, and to outline the context I'm approaching MAP s*** from. Here's the meat of my post:

There are people who seem cut up about this s***, who actively don't want it to be a part of them, and I sympathize with that. But even on that level, there is a reasonable amount of ostracization that should be applied to people who are attracted to kids. At best - approaching this topic with the minimum amount of good faith possible - they drew the short straw in a f***ed up genetic lottery, and that's something they have to live with for their whole lives for the sake of everyone around them.

And even assuming there is a good faith argument to be had about this topic, nothing about the whole MAP situation is in good faith. Gay people aren't defined by an attraction that is impossible to express except through rape. Trans people don't rape people to express their gender identity. The attempt to hitch MAP to LGBTQIA+ talking points, to use the decades of struggle and violence levelled against non-straight, non-cis orientations to try and normalize pedophilia, is absolutely disgusting and disrespectful to the community that they're actively trying to associate with.

The LGBTQIA+ umbrella suffered from an association with perversion, overt sexuality and corruption for decades, including being deemed as awful as pedophiles for the sole act of not fitting the cishet norm. It was all lumped together - "gay" was synonymous with "child-toucher". The way that MAPs are trying to pattern themselves after the wider LGBTQIA+ community, to normalize their attraction to children, only serves to invite this comparison back and smear the LGBTQIA+ umbrella with that mark once again. I can't reasonably take this whole "MAP" thing, an attempt to reclaim and empower the idea of being attracted to kids, as a comparison being made in good faith. All it does is invite old bigotry to marginalised people who don't invite it or associate with it, whose entire sexual identity isn't predicated on child rape.

And of course, there's what being a "MAP" signifies - that you're sexually attracted to children. And this whole MAP thing is an attempt to create a safe, PC term, so that pedophiles don't feel so judged. This acronym serves to normalize, obfuscate and downplay what it is - an inherent attraction to children. It's unacceptable. It's an attempt to rationalise and justify sexual feelings for a child. It can't be compared to a consensual relationship between two adults, because adults have experienced a physical and mental maturation that prepares them for that sort of relationship. You cannot experience that relationship with a child, because they aren't physically or mentally equipped to do those things. Acting on an attraction like that destroys a child's life. It completely distorts their development as a human being and breeds dysfunction. There is no way to act on a pedophilic attraction without engaging in rape.

And it is absolutely f***ing disgusting that this act would be justified in "uwu soft boy, I am being discriminated against uwu" terms. By attempting to normalize the concept, to foster acceptance of the idea of an adult exhibiting attraction to children, is to put sexual needs of an adult over a child's quality of life. It's selfish, it's incredibly damaging to children, it casts an incredible amount of unjustified bigotry over a group which has endured decades of harassment, assault and murder due to being lumped in with the same kind of perversion that child rape is.

There's nothing ethical, excusable or acceptable about the normalisation of pedophile behavior by "minor-attracted people". They have a cross to bear for the welfare of our future generations, and by trying to normalise the idea of an adult being attracted to a child, all they do is enable and justify the idea that adults can have adult relationships with children. And you would think that a group that supposedly cares about the autonomy of a child would care enough to stay away from them, let them live their life and grow as people without having an adult experience forced on them before they can physically and emotionally comprehend what is happening to them. Pedophilia, in all its forms, is selfish on the part of an adult and inherently harmful to the development of a child - it isn't love, it isn't respect. It's self-gratification at the expense of another person's life, and it's rape. And any attempt to dress it up in socially acceptable veneer is despicable on multiple fronts.

The only result of MAP discourse and the normalisation of pedophilia is child rape. If those pedo f***s really cared about children, they would use their power as an adult to stay the absolute f*** away from any and all children.

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2 Fast 2 Furious and the nature of sequels

Preface: I'll be calling the movie Fast 2 because 2 Fast is stupid. Also, I've covered spoilers with strike marks, like so, and the movies I spoil are Smokey and the Bandit II and Mission Impossible 2. The MI2 spoilers are miniscule, but the Smokey II spoilers are substantial - but for the record, that movie sucks ass and imo you're probably better off not seeing it. Regardless, consider this a spoiler warning for those movies.

To sum up my opinion of 2 Fast 2 Furious - while it's emblematic of the nature of forced sequels, in good and bad aspects, I would say that ultimately it is one of the better examples of a shoehorned sequel that I've ever seen.

I saw The Fast and the Furious 1 last week, and while I thought it was corny and dated - the f-slur gets used twice, there's a mesh tank top on a dude considered to be the height of badassitude, the dialogue is pretty dumb and the acting isn't great - I was very entertained. I've seen Fast Five, so I know how corny and over the top the series gets, and I'm approaching this series from an emotional standpoint - are the characters compelling, is the action good, how much am I invested in the stakes. The first movie was pretty good - I felt like it was kind of reserved, even, though that's because the budget was low and because I have unrealistic standards due to my knowledge of the franchise as a whole.

So going into Fast 2, I knew to keep my expectations level. It's a sequel that lacks a major star of the first one, it's set in an entirely new environment with an entirely new supporting cast, it's dripping in excess since the first movie did so well, and all of this is going to affect the story's plot in a way that will significantly deviate from what fans liked about the first movie.

But for a movie with those elements, Fast 2 actually managed to keep the essence of what makes this franchise so enjoyable. It's still fast - though the CGI and other car effects have aged like milk - there's still a focus on community and "family" in a way - Brian reconnects with Roman, he's made connections with Ludacris' character and he gets in good with the wider racing community in Miami - and while the villain is cartoonishly evil and the last act of the movie is basically a giant cartoon with the s***ty villain and the stunts, the series as a whole has steered towards crazy cartoony s*** ever since. And also, you can see the stupid cartoony s*** in the first movie - using grapple guns to hijack trucks, for example.

Of course, two of those are retroactive connections to the franchise. That last one applies to the franchise going forward, as it became a franchise zombie. So it's totally understandable that for its day, Fast 2 was controversial. I still maintain that for a sequel that could be characterised as an unneeded cash-grab and potential reboot, Fast 2 has actually aged pretty decently.

There are two unnecessary sequels I want to compare Fast 2 to - Smokey and the Bandit II, and Mission Impossible II.

Smokey and the Bandit II is bloated and full of itself. The first movie was a straightforward caper movie - bootleg a truck full of Coors across state lines and evade the police. There's a little bit of backstory and character development, but it's a lean, functional movie at the end of the day.

Yet despite sharing the exact same cast as the last movie, sans one additional character, the characters feel outlandish and full of themselves - which reflects in the entire product. The Bandit has drunk himself into a pit over Frog, so Cledus has to give him a pep talk and push him through a training montage to lose his beer weight - it's padding, and it's trying to build a greater emotional arc based on a character who feels more like an archetype who works well in the moment. There's an unnecessary target shooting scene with Buford T. Justice that feels like padding, the Dom DeLuise character is grating, and the cargo of a baby elephant - along with its accompanying ethical dilemma, seeing Bandit take a more altruistic, heroic position rather than being the lovable scoundrel of the first movie - is such a self-serving cop-out. And that finale of all those truck drivers coming to the rescue - while awesome in concept - comes in after a majority of the movie has been a stinking turd and is the biggest example of unnecessary excess and bloat in the entire movie.

Smokey and the Bandit II took itself so seriously that it lost sight of what made the first movie so good. The Bandit has a heart of gold, but the movie doesn't have to give him an ethical dilemma to make him an objectively decent person. While the idea of the team losing the bet in the end is an alright ending, they didn't need a moral victory on the level of preventing an elephant from a life of circus work/misery to paint them in such a good light. And worst of all, the caper sucks. It's so up its own ass that it doesn't know how to emulate the first movie's appeal at all.

Quick note: I spoilered plot details, but I genuinely think this movie is one of the biggest pieces of dogs*** I've ever seen and you're really not missing out on much by not seeing it. People seem to hate the third one, but even that was a fun watch compared to the second one imo. If you're never gonna watch Smokey and the Bandit II, by all means, disregard the spoiler tags.

Then you have Mission Impossible II, which I saw for the first time less than a month ago. And while the first movie was a goofy, self-indulgent romp, the second movie is filled to the brim with unnecessary excess, bloat and unearned emotional weight. It feels longer than it actually is, the cinematography is all style and no substance, the acting is grating and full of itself, the acting sucks and it feels so dated and out of place on almost every level.

Like Smokey and the Bandit II, it feels much longer than it really is. Sequences like Tom Cruise flirting with the main girl for the first half hour of the movie really make the movie drag, especially after the punchy and functional approach to the first movie. It's overly convoluted, even for Mission Impossible - at one point the bad guy basically nails Tom Cruise's plan down to the T, and the heist focuses more on his deduction than it does on the heist itself. Then the last act, with the main girl being infected with the supervirus, has some of the most self-indulgent and needlessly stylised action in the series to date, and it jams the forced love story into the forefront even more. Mission Impossible II is a rough watch, even today - it's a wanky mess.

What these movies share is that they're entirely detached from the movies that came before them in tone, plot and/or stakes. Smokey II has a dogs*** tone, the plot is needlessly padded and the stakes suck. MI2 has an over-stylized and melodramatic tone, the plot is poorly acted despite having the building blocks of a decent MI plot, and the stakes are kinda f***ed due to the forced romance being directly connected to the mega-threat of the movie. Smokey II bastardises previously established characters, while MI2 brings in a mostly new cast to ruin specifically for that movie - though the variable team has stuck around in the franchise at large.

Here's what Fast 2 does to stand out.

The plot - another caper involving the feds, with a new character and locale in place of a returning one. The stakes are less personal than the first movie, but they're bigger and they're supplemented by Brian and Roman reconnecting over the course of the movie. Brian and Roman's relationship reflects the values established in the first movie - community, or family if that's your bag. Ride or die.

The tone - gratuitous driving, gaudy colours, a bit more ambitious with the bad guy compared to the first movie - true to the first movie, and reflective of the later sequels. Arguably less actiony in some aspects. A bit sillier than the first movie.

The stakes - Brian and Roman's freedom, the safety of Brian's love interest and eliminating a violent criminal. More dramatic than the first movie - that movie was character-driven from beginning to end, while Fast 2 is more of a standard action movie with an unambiguous villain - but reminiscent of the first movie's values.

Smokey and the Bandit II extended a great movie past the point it needed to exist, and MI2 was a stumbling point in a widely celebrated action franchise that no-one likes to bring up. Fast 2 - while undoubtedly dated, corny and a deviation from the first movie's focus - reiterates values that the first movie shared, and which became more prominent as the series continued. It also, bizarrely, aligns with the crazy action s*** that later movies spiral into - just on a lower scale. In comparison to the first movie, the wilder, dumber action is a departure, but it's almost restrained in comparison to what the franchise becomes.

Roman isn't the best character for most of the movie - he might be my second least favorite next to the Miami cop - but I found his relationship arc with Brian over the course of the movie to be pretty solid, and it paid off near the end in a really great, personal way. And while it's not the same as Brian and Dom, it is still a strong "friends to enemies to friends" arc in the end. Complement that with some gratuitous racing action, and you have the basic formula for a good Fast and Furious movie.

And the thing about Fast 2 is that it reminds me directly of Smokey II and MI2. Near the end, there's a scene where the good guys intervene with the bad guys with a bunch of cars to help the good guys escape - the whole cavalry idea reminded me a lot of the ending of Smokey and the Bandit II, with the fleet of trucks that face off with the police force. And much like MI2, the main character has a fling with a woman on the inside of the villain's lair, and endeavours to save her life near the end of the movie. The former felt bloated in Smokey II after an absolute s***pile of a movie, while it appealed to the series' sense of style and whimsy in Fast 2. The latter felt shoehorned in MI2, with the character basically being a damsel and macguffin with entirely too much screentime dedicated to getting together with Tom Cruise, while the character in Fast 2 is a character who is intriguing and who feels essential, whose functions as a character aren't overshadowed by Paul Walker's massive boner for her.

Ultimately, the Fast and the Furious franchise is a flashy, speedy spectacle franchise. The worst thing you could do is botching the driving and making it feel slow and inessential. Ultimately, while Fast 2 isn't as good as the first one - and may or may not still go down as the worst movie in the franchise - it still feels like a Fast and Furious movie. And it's retroactively made better by basically being The Incredible Hulk to Fast Five's Avengers - the Fast and Furious movies are basically a cinematic universe unto themselves, and even the bad ones gain some entertainment points by factoring into the wider narrative. By the sheer nature of the Fast and Furious movies being pandering schlock at the end of the day, Fast 2 really isn't that bad. It feels congruent with the past and future of the franchise, even if it isn't necessarily as entertaining as the rest of the franchise. Other unnecessary cash-grab sequels gut the characters, skimp on their development and make stories that really don't need to exist - Fast 2 has main characters who gel well with each other (even if one of them kinda sucks), gives them a solid arc that plays into the wider theme of the franchise and introduces characters and plot elements which further movies build on.

Fast 2 is not a bad sequel. It's not amazing, and it might still be the worst movie in the franchise for all I know, but my genuine opinion is that as far as sequels go, it does hold up in several key aspects that make it an entertaining spectacle on par with the broader franchise. As far as unnecessary cash-grab sequels go, this is actually a pretty good one.

#the fast and the furious #fast and furious #the fast saga

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

I am very sad

I take rejection really badly and I hate myself for it

I behave like a psycho but I turn it in towards myself because even at my most deranged I understand that no-one deserves to be treated like that and my issues stem from a personal failing

but there was a time in my life where I did lash out at people for rejecting me and the things I said and the way I behaved haunt me to this day

I would never actually do something like bash my own face in with a hammer but it's a concept I vocalise multiple times when I'm feeling this upset

I swing between narcissism and total self-hate

I want to call myself manic depressive but I don't have the doctor's diagnosis

I'm so fucking mad at myself for bombing on tinder, I fucked up a conversation and then I read an earlier message on my phone thinking it had just been sent and I replied to it

it was an accident and I want to blame my phone, I unlocked it and it was sitting on that message like she had just replied

but the fact that I didn't look into it more and just typed a reply to it instead of checking first makes me so mad at myself

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

Just gonna say a quick Doctor Who hot take and get out of here:

In regards to the Timeless Children opening a massive plot hole with River Song's ability to regenerate... idk how to tell you this chief, but that was always a bad plot thread. She got regenerative powers because she was conceived on the TARDIS and got exposed to time radiation? Never liked it. That shit was contrived as fuck and it always felt like a dumb shock-value reveal with a flimsy backing.

I'm saying this as someone who writes a boatload of self-indulgent Doctor Who fanfiction - River Song's regeneration powers are one of the most contrived, fanficcy, BS things to be committed to film for a Doctor Who episode. Does the Timeless Child stuff create a legitimate continuity snarl now? Sure. Do I care? Honestly, I would rather see this particular River Song plot element gone. Retcon or handwave away, I won't feel sad that's for sure.

My take on the Chibnall criticism is that a great deal of the current wave of complaints can almost certainly be traced back to Moffat. The Doctor being a glorified plot device, put on a pedestal for the show to hold up as a great mythical being of great importance? I understand people taking umbrage to the fact that she's now tied into the history of the Time Lords themselves - hello Cartmel Master Plan - but I really have to counter that with Moffat turning the Doctor's name into a season-long story arc that heralded the end of existence should it be spoken. He rebooted the universe, and while it was a bit touch and go, we knew The Doctor was going to come back - personally I thought it was incredibly lame and on the nose that the power of love and belief in him like Santa Claus brought him back.

At least once a season, and often multiple times a season, the Doctor got a grand "I Am" speech that he got to declare in the face of whatever great evil reared its ugly head that week. The Doctor was always so self-important and full of himself, chasing baddies off with a laundry list of off-screen accomplishments and a condescending tone. If the current complaint is that "now the doctor has too much sway in the history of the universe!" - take a step back and look at the series before Chibnall came on board. A lot of Moffat's run, including making his own mysterious, interim War Doctor that we only learned about retroactively, predates the same plot threads that people are getting royally butthurt about now.

The reason I'm taking a defensive stance on Chibnall's run here is because I've already seen half this shit happen, when Steven Moffat was running the show. It was through his 5 seasons of Doctor Who that I learned to let all the bullshit go and just enjoy the show for the things I liked about it instead of being a misery guts about every little thing, because the fandom zeitgeist was primarily on the Moffat wagon and I was fed up with a lot of his earlier work. I forgave, but I didn't forget. Chris Chibnall's run hasn't been perfect, and even this Timeless Child plot has me feeling a bit tentative about where he takes the story next - but by God, it really isn't a marathon wank session like the worst of Moffat's go of it. Always making these grandiose speeches, always placing the Doctor in some incredible position of power, always radiating regeneration energy to fix something up or to heighten the stakes - even though it never matters that the Doctor is losing regeneration energy, since it keeps happening to little or no consequence well into Twelve's run. Even this snarl, at worst, clashes with one of Moffat's stupidest plot decisions - and I wouldn't be sorry to see it get retconned out in favor of the Timeless Child stuff, or handwaved away.

Much like I learned to just take what I liked from Moffat's run, I'm enjoying Chibnall's run for the plot elements that remind me of what I like most about the show. I think Chibnall's main problems involve overcrowding with the big TARDIS crew, and underwriting the supporting cast in his episodes. The Timeless Child is a gutsy move, and I understand the backlash, but I see more narrative appeal in exploring that plot thread - potentially finding nothing at the end of the road - more than I like the Doctor's name being used as a doomsday passcode that is important above all else, because he's the Doctor and he's just that important that his name would unlock a pathway to multiple forms of galactic genocide should it fall into the wrong hands.

I'm not above criticising current Doctor Who - I'm loving the fanfiction scene, but I wouldn't call it peak Who consistently. Even with the solid track record of series 12, sans Orphan 55, I can give it some breathing room. But the really big sticklers right now, about how it breaks everything and makes the Doctor too important? I cannot word-vomit enough about how the precedent has already been set. If this is a hill you want to die on, understand that it isn't a battle - the war is already over, and the territory has been divided up.

#doctor who discourse #discourse #fandom discourse #hot take

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

who has two thumbs and made a political post about the 2020 elections and the level of hope given to your preferred candidate as well as how the language used in relation to said candidate plays into public perception of each representative?

this guyyyyyyy

Basically - don't lose hope and become defeatist, because a strong campaign needs a strong base. Trump supporters are acting like he's a shoe-in, so you need to step up and support your candidate with a level of confidence that can support your own base in a similar way. Sulking now and saying there's no hope only makes it that much more likely that Trump will be re-elected.

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

Copy-pasting a post I made on a forum just now. I've been trying to find the words for this, and they finally came to me.

------

One of the biggest issues right now is the language used by Democrats and Republicans.

Right now, Republicans feel like they can't lose. Look at all the right wing dips***s saying "four more years of Trump", trolling about how the Liberals are going to cope when Donald Trump is re-elected. Not "if", "when". They're acting like they've already won, like most of the country slurps his nuts like they do. Right now, they're confident. And that emboldens them and gives them a sense of power.

Democrats are still arguing about the challenger, and this message gives off an aura of hopelessness or resignation. Of course, the Democratic party still has to decide on a leader to challenge Donald Trump, and that's proving to be a difficult task with all the different financial backers and such. But that can't be an excuse for defeatism.

Right now Biden is throwing as much s*** at the wall to see what sticks, including slagging off Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton, the woman who benefitted from biased media coverage and what might as well have been a fix on behalf of the DNC, is slagging off Bernie Sanders. She's not running, but she's using her clout to go against Sanders, who's been a big hit with moderates and progressives alike - unlike her appeal with diehard Democrats and moderates who didn't want to see Trump in the White House.

But as a voter, you can't let that s*** get to you. Joe Biden keeps f***ing up and looking like a creepy old man. Hillary Clinton is the Democrat who lost the White House to Donald f***ing Trump - who the f*** cares what she thinks? Right now, Bernie has a solid base - at least, he has a more solid base than he did in 2016 where literally everything was trying to f*** him over. As a supporter, it's important to support and uplift that base, especially in the face of an opponent who are already acting like it's a sure thing.

Republicans are already celebrating another four years of Trump. During this crucial phase of the democratic process, it's important to consolidate support for your candidate and go to bat for them. I'm gonna be pissed if Bernie gets swept under the rug again, but this fight isn't over and "oh no, Trump's gonna win again" is a statement that only further emboldens his fanbase. It strengthens their rhetoric, and that only serves to further fuel any hopelessness you might be feeling about the 2020 elections. That mood also rubs off on the people around you, which makes the problem worse.

The more that people lose faith, the better of a chance it will be that Donald Trump will be re-elected. The language used to discuss political candidates doesn't seem important, but a strong campaign is built on the back of a strong supporter base. Republicans and alt-right s***heads are using a united front of "another four years of Trump" to trigger the libs - excuse the phrasing, my phone's low on battery and this is the quickest way to communicate the effect that I'm talking about. It's important not to give in to that, because that only grants their platform more power.

#bernie sanders #2020 election

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

I think the worst part of this current Reylo discourse is that I've been defending the ship for months now. I don't ship it - I think John Boyega and Daisy Ridley have more chemistry than Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley - but with people making posts like "let's go back to 2015 so we can dump on Reylo again" I wanted to chime in with my own shipping experience in the Avatar fandom to discourage all of that. Reylo is a contentious ship for a reason, but people have been shipping heroes and villains in the same vein as Reylo for decades. I still don't believe that Reylo fans have to "answer" for their ship.

The example I always go to is Zutara from Avatar - before he showed traits of redemption (i.e. the early half of season 1) people took a moment where he held Katara against her will and recotextualised it as belligerent sexual tension. He said he'd "save her from the pirates", how romantic - except he hired those pirates to hunt the Avatar in the first place, and he used a precious family heirloom to try and get her to sell out the Avatar. I would go out of my way to say that this was a pretty straight villainous moment, and yet there were people viewing it through a romantic lens by the end of season one.

Zutara did become a more valid ship over time, even if I personally don't ship it. But people were all over that shit even before Zuko started to get better.

Plenty of people have shipped things that are downright antagonistic most of the time, but characterised it as having romantic undertones or it being a facade for the characters to discuss how they really feel. Ships like that have been successfully defended or gone unscrutinized to this day. In a similar vein, I don't think it's the end of the world for Reylo to exist.

That's been my take for months, consistent in its boundaries. But it's really fucking hard to be cool about it when Reylo fans are yelling death threats at JJ Abrams, doxxing Adam Driver to try and get him to divorce his wife and trying to get crew members who worked on TROS blacklisted from Hollywood. Honest to god, how fucking dare you.

My real brush with crazy fandom came years after I had stopped shipping Avatar. I checked out the ship tag in 2013, 5 years after Avatar has ended - and there were people my age and older still engaging in ship combat over Kataang and Zutara. Making pithy comments in the ship tags, being rude to new fans who asked about the schism between ships, basically acting like the other ship was detrimental to their mental health. A 20+ year old found it acceptable to attack teenagers over ship drama, talking about how they were being abusive and trying to gaslight fans by pretending to be confused about the ships, or how distraught they felt at the mere mention of the other ship. Putting themselves above other fans because they loved the pairing so much, so they can attack other people because it's like attacking an extension of themselves. Five years after the show ended. People my age and older slagging off teens out of their obsessive love of their fictional pairing. And I have the same opinion on that batshit crazy behavior now as I did back then.

First of all - shipping is meant to be an inherently positive experience. In my opinion, it's an expression of someone's romantic feelings, taking something lovely and wonderful and playing these feelings out between fictional characters that you like. That's fine. It's a positive experience for you to express these emotions, and it can be a positive experience to share these emotions with like-minded fans. But as much as you love that pairing and how it makes you feel, you need to stop yourself and ask whether your fandom is worth it when that ship makes you start feeling bad and gross.

That ship that you like so much should make you feel happy, whether it's canon or not. If it's making you feel sad and miserable instead, if you feel like you need to lash out at other shippers because they don't share your vision, then you need to ask yourself if that's what you signed up for. This thing that you got into because it made you happy should not rule over your emotions to the point of active harm to your mental health. You need to chill out, re-evaluate your priorities and move on.

Secondly - as an adult, do you really think it's okay to act the way you've been acting? I'm sympathetic towards mental illness, and I understand that people may grow attached to pairings as a way of alleviating the symptoms of their mental illnesses, but when you start to cope by attacking people who are younger than you? By acting like your shipping opinions are the most valuable input in the world and that anyone who disagrees for any reason is attacking you and your mental illness over it? That's gross. If your rabid obsession stems from mental illness, you need to take constructive steps forward to get better, not using fandom as a band-aid and using opposition as a chance to vent your most negative feelings.

If you're an adult and you don't have a mental illness - you know you're just unnecessarily being a piece of shit, right? An adult yelling at kids and other, calmer adults over a couple of fictional characters. This is not justifiable behavior. You are not in the right. You need to calm down and ask yourself whether your fandom is worth being such a massive pile of shit. For better or worse, you should be setting a standard of maturity in your fandom, not helping it descend into a puddle of vile, hateful garbage.

Reylo fans, you're at a crossroads. I believe that it's fine for you to ship what you want, but the doxxing? The dehumanising and disrespectful way you're treating Adam Driver and John Boyega? You need to disavow this behavior right now. You can act like you're entitled to behave like this for whatever reason, but you're not. You never were, and you never will be. And that goes for every ship, not just Reylo.

Shipping never justifies shitty behavior, and this goes beyond shitty. Cut this behavior out, reject the leeches who think this is okay and be like every other ship where people are chill, ship their pairings in a way that doesn't hurt anyone, and doesn't go out of its way to harm other people for not being on board with it. For the love of fuck, moderate your community.

Edit: using this post to validate Reylo only goes so far if you don't disown the abhorrent behavior that Reylo fans have exhibited. As much as this post can support Reylo as one ship in a sea of thousands, this post is also criticising Reylo fandom.

As we speak, people bearing your ship's name are being incredibly toxic and targetting an actor in the ship you love so much. A TROS staffer is being doxxed, and people want to blacklist them from Hollywood. That side of Reylo is just as but of a part of your fanbase as the "good ones".

Take my support of your ship if you want, but take it with the criticism of your ship. Work with your fellow fans to disavow this behavior. This isn't okay, and without the "good ones" making an example to disavow this behavior, the actions of the most extreme shippers will smear you all.

For the love of fuck, be better. I can support your right to ship, but you have to moderate your community and call out the garbage in order for this to work. Blocking your ears and pretending everything's okay isn't going to cut it - be better, and moderate your community.

#reylo #reylo discourse #star wars

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

My Star Wars Shipping Hot Takes

THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SEQUEL TRILOGY IN THIS POST

TAG "#TRoS Spoilers" IF YOU WANT TO WIPE THIS POST FROM YOUR DASH COMPLETELY

THIS HAS BEEN MY SPOILER WARNING, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ABOUT STAR WARS SPOILERS

Finn/Rey should have been endgame, or at least brought up by Finn instead of the BS non-committal "I've got something to tell you" line they play with for the rest of the movie. Bring it into text and acknowledge it fully instead of using it for a few cheap gags and leaving it hanging.

They had great chemistry in TFA. They bonded really easily and got along really well, it seemed like Finn was chatting her up a little at times and by the end of the movie they're incredibly close. Finn puts his life on the line and gets fucked up by a lightsaber to defend her. John Boyega and Daisy Ridley played off each other really well, they had really good chemistry. I really ship it.

The only hitch, imo, is the total lack of screentime they have together in TLJ. Finn's plot just kinda went nowhere and he got a rehash of his "running away" arc in TFA, and I think the Rose Tico kiss was really lame and forced. While I can appreciate their eventual reunion, and within the scope of the movie it's not unreasonable for them to not meet again until the end, I really don't dig how much time they spend apart in TLJ from a shipping perspective and I don't think the Finn/Rose pairing is very good.

To address the elephant in the room, I'm not the most positive person about Rose Tico, but I'm chill with her and I think her character would have been fine with better material than she had in TLJ. Not trying to chud things up, here. The most extreme thing I have to say about Rose Tico, within the scope of this post I'm making, is that I didn't think the actors had that much chemistry to justify a romance, the kiss was goofy with the laser going off behind them, and while I don't disagree that Kelly Marie Tran got screwed over in TRoS, I'm ultimately glad that her and Finn are good buddies in that movie instead of partners. I'm not saying her reduced role is fine, just saying I'm glad that this pairing doesn't seem to be canon. I'm glad they're still close, though. Finn is definitely the heart of the group, pulling everyone together.

The thing about Finn/Rey in TRoS is that while the chemistry isn't there on the same level as TFA - partially due to the hatchet-job editing of the first half where people are barely able to vocalise a single coherent thought before the plot ushers them along to the next point - I felt like it still existed for a while. They teased it with the "I've got something I need to tell you" line from Finn, and then they never bring it up again. Like what the fuck, wrap up the plot point instead of dragging it out for the most painful humor of the movie and failing to resolve it.

This brings me into the Reylo portion of my post.

While I don't ship it, I refuse to hate Reylo. I've got a great write-up of my Reylo opinion on my main blog which explains why, if you search for "reylo". Basic point is that a lot of the initial backlash was predicated on assumptions that people were adamant would be proven true in the next movies, and those assumptions turned out to not be the case 4 years later in 2019, so I refuse to treat it like the pariah it was in 2015 for those reasons.

I'll admit that I really enjoyed the ending with Ben Solo. Adam Driver sells the difference between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren so well, and while I understand that he did a lot of bad shit and wiped out planets and committed space genocide and stuff - Darth Vader also committed space genocide and killed hundreds of people, and his body count continues to rise in supplemental materials. And yet he was redeemed by Luke, and was able to return as a force ghost despite the genocides and mass murders he committed as Darth Vader. There is a precedent for people redeeming themselves just before they die in the Star Wars universe, even when they do some really heinous shit. As such, I am not against this happening for Kylo Ren. Star Wars is just that kind of series, for better or worse.

My opinion of Reylo is that it's kind of like fanfic mode a lot of the time. It got really wacky in TLJ, and it got way more pronounced in TRoS. That's not necessarily a detriment, but it was what it was. I don't buy Kylo Ren and Rey as romantic interests necessarily, especially when I think their relationship is really, really odd and reminiscent of fanfiction cliches, but there's enough subtext for people to read into it and I don't really care if people like it or not.

If Reylo is the endgame ship, then that's fine. I don't necessarily like it, even as I acknowledge that problematic ships will always have their audience. A ship can be used as a force for good, as long as it isn't being used to actively promote abusive tendencies or like really gross shit.

Some ships are off limits, straight up. Reylo is dicey, but I don't think it's worse than a lot of villain shipping is - there's been room for edgy villain shipping before, and I think Reylo occupies that space now and has every right to. As long as people aren't encouraging people to engage in abusive practices through their storywriting, or pushing alt-right talking points and fucked up things like that through their writing, Reylo has enough wiggle room to be a perfectly ordinary pairing in the fanfiction community.

Saying that, though - here's why I prefer Finn/Rey.

He's a close, friendly and positive force in Rey's life, they shared the start of their journeys and they helped each other grow into the heroes they became. Poe spent most of TFA missing in action, and he only meets Rey at the end of the movie. Rey and Finn spend the bulk of their character moments together, and it's the character development from these interactions - spurred along by Han and Chewie, of course - that fuels their ascent into hero figures at the end of the movie.

Why don't I like Reylo more? Because the Kylo Ren stuff seemed like essential backstory stuff, whereas Finn and Rey's characters naturally got along like a house on fire. Kylo Ren also spends most of the time getting rain on his gloves through inter-force touching in a bunch of weird, forced, fanfic-tier scenes, whereas Finn and Rey hug and celebrate and bond through conversation, not trite, rigid backstory.

I can buy Rey kissing Ben Solo at the end of TRoS. I can buy her feeling love for Ben Solo, and finding it frustrating that she can't break through Kylo Ren to get to him. Fuck, in that ending scene where Kylo is explicitly Ben Solo again, Rey and Ben have actual, honest to god chemistry, and it's cute as fuck. But that moment took a lot of catching up to get to, and before her and Kylo showed any hint of affection together, Finn was her comrade in arms, someone who shared her victories and helped to further her growth, and vice versa.

Reylo has a pretty solid conclusion, I will certainly give it that. But I feel like the Reylo conclusion is steeped in that classic "I can redeem the bad guy through love" trope like the original Star Wars, except with a romantic angle this time. Ben's redemption didn't have to be with a kiss - it could still happen without the romance angle, but the romance is added in to distinguish it from the other Star Wars examples.

Ultimately, I think having Ben's redemption spurred by romantic love is broke, whereas Rey finding a buddy in Finn, having their ups and downs together, shielding each other from harm and becoming close through mutual shared experiences and proximity is woke.

What about Finn/Poe? Ship it if you want, it's all good. I understand why this ship was initially so popular, and while I don't ship it, I'm not the shipping police and I get the premise behind it. Poe/CrimeGirl? This was shoehorned tf in, but if you think it's neato, it's neato. Poe/Rey? I think they would make a terrible couple, but whatever. Poe/Finn/Rey? Everyone wins. Add Kylo Ren anywhere into the mix and you can have yourself a party, depending on your stance on the character. Make any of the characters gay, bi, pan, ace - literally whatever, outside of a few significant parameters just about every ship is valid. I'm not a hard-ass, shipping is fun and outside of some really bad shit I'm generally down for people having a good time. I just like Finn/Rey the most.

Also, Maz Kanata is really neat and I hope she gets more screen time. If her lifespan makes it squicky to ship her with the younger characters, that's your business and I understand and respect that, but frankly I would write a romance story about Maz Kanata falling in love in a heartbeat - I just don't know who. I've written Doctor Who fanfic where a 2000 year old alien woman dates a 21 year old policewoman from Sheffield, so as long as the right boundaries are respected, I think a Maz Kanata story could be pretty fun and non-problematic like with a Doctor Who story.

Anyway that's my Hot Takes post

byeeeeee

#tros spoilers #spoilers #star wars spoilers #star wars #reylo

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

I dreamt about getting bullied last night, like full violence bullying by people who need absolute control over someone weaker than them.

I didn't do the dream justice, but I would think twice if you're sensitive to the subject of bullying.

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

I had a really intense dream about bullying last night

I was staying at TAFE for the holidays. It doesn't make sense because TAFE is a technical college that I go to every day, it's not a board school in any way - but the point is that it was there. I was actually playing a Macross-style shmup where I needed to defeat a ship to capture it, and then my ship got captured, and I was held against my will and mistreated? But it turned into me being at TAFE.

The gist of things is that my space is invaded by a group of loud, rowdy people who mistreat me the entire time, and if I interrupt what they're doing they mistreat and hit me. This happens several times, unprompted - the ringleader puts me down and hits me in situations where I can't escape or shield myself.

So wherever the dream starts out - I'm held againsty will by some absolute psychos. I have a phone - the ringleader takes it, looks through my shit, then locks me out of it so I can't get back into it. There's a subplot of me restarting the phone to get back into it, and it kinda works, but the people find out. They get me on my knees and hit me in the head with bats, while someone holds my arms back so I can't defend myself.

I eventually cross the road from my TAFE in a plot that works surprisingly well? Like they don't follow me or anything, despite it literally being across the street. And I knock on someone's window, and just kind of sob about my situation to see if they'll help me.

It was a really intense dream. It's the first dream, at least in a long time, to recapture that hopeless feeling of being bullied. It's absolutely the first dream, at least that I remember, that recaptures that feeling of not knowing why this is happening, why you've been targeted and harassed by these strangers.

I will say, though - asking for help was one of the the most cathartic dream experiences I've had in a long time.

#bullying

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

Fans & Shipping

I did a fandom post a while back that was mostly defensive of fandom and fans, while acknowledging that super-fans and stans can and do take their fandom way too goddamn far and alienate people.

But I've been a part of fandom, and with a fanfiction I'm publishing rn with a lot of ship tease in it, I'm worried that I'm going to be judged with the full fury of an active fanbase. And that's made me think about my values and my stance on fandom. Because as much as I can distance myself from fan culture due to the negativity I've experienced, I regularly engage with it. I am, for all intents and purposes, a fan. And a big part of my fandom experience has been with shipping.

So - shipping.

I understand why shipping is such a hotly contested aspect of fandom - to ship is to express a piece of yourself through a pair of characters. It's taking a piece of yourself and putting it into a character, then acting out something that means a lot to you. This can get ugly when you see this token of your self-expression being used in a way that you find jarring. I don't dislike this practice, or this reason for shipping - ultimately we're all trying to express ourselves and achieve that creative catharsis through our craft of choice. I also understand (at least one reason) why people get so defensive about ships. I get it, it happens.

With that being said, the lengths that some people go to in the name of protecting these feelings from harm? It's fucked up. Yeah, this ship may be precious to you for any number of reasons - going into a blind rage because someone doesn't share your vision of it still isn't acceptable, no matter how ingrained it is to your personality or your soul. People troll and gloat and act shitty, and that's worth a bit of backlash. But being so hurt over the thought of Person A piping Person C when you want them to pipe Person B, to the point of lashing out in anger - it's not healthy. There is a limit at which you need to step back and ask yourself if the emotions you feel are what you signed up for. There's a point where you need to wake up, shake out the cobwebs, and take a step back.

My big shipping fandom used to be Avatar: The Last Airbender. From 12 to 15, Avatar was my shit - I was around before the show ended, it was a big part of my childhood. I got caught up in shipping wars, I shipped Kataang and the "big enemy" was Zutara, and I was basically inducted into this shitty little community of shit where these two groups of shippers couldn't co-exist. But even when I was farting around this group, I was flexible in my shipping preferences.

I liked Kataang, but you know what else fucking rocked? Taang - Toph and Aang. There's one high school AU story with OCs and stuff that I ever read and enjoyed, and it was a Taang story. Another good one was Tokka - Toph and Sokka. Reminder, I was like 12 or 13 and I wasn't thinking about this like "wow theres an age gap", I was thinking about it like "I am 12 years old, and this is ~^~ROMANCE~^~". I preferred Tokka over Sukka, since I didn't watch a lot of season 2 or 3 for years. Yes, these are real ship names.

The point I'm trying to make is that even at my worst fandom periods, when I was indoctrinated with all this shipping war horseshit, I was never outright tied to a ship. I appreciated the different approaches that each ship took, I enjoyed the difference in dynamics. Yeah, Kataang was the endgame couple for me - they're sweet and they love each other and they can build a solid relationship built out if respect and love for each other. But Taang has reckless abandon being tempered by serenity, and unwavering dutifulness in turn being challenged by a selfish streak a mile wide.

It's fun to see characters affect each other like that. And Toph and Sokka were Snark Bros! Of course they'd grow up into endlessly snarking shitheads who can't fuckin spit it out already! Shipping was a way to explore and enjoy multiple facets of my personality, my tastes. It was fun.

How can you take an emotion like that - something that's meant to be sweet and good, something that's meant to make you feel good - and use it to scream at children who are half your age for not sharing your vision?

No joke - when I looked up Avatar fandom on Tumblr in 2013, there were 20 year olds stuck in the same shipping mentality that persisted when I was a kid, getting buttmad at 14 year olds for asking about the schism, for bringing fan negativity into the tag. Adults yelling at kids and treating them like shit.

When does a ship take over your life to the point that you're an actual grown-ass adult yelling at kids for not understanding it like you do? How do you become that selfish How do you stray from a path that used to make you so happy, and use it to harass and accost others?

Shipping is nice. I support shipping, I enjoy shipping. But I loathe people who take romantic pairings of fictional characters and use it to tie themselves in knots and torture themselves with grief when they're exposed to a thought they don't like. You can't keep living like that, and treating the people around you with contempt over it.

Keep in mind - I understand that ships can have problematic elements that personally repulse you or evoke personal memories that are incredibly unpleasant for you. I'm not talking about these ships, and telling you to get over the severe emotional hurdles that make the ships such a bad experience for you. Incest, underage, ships that are based on incredibly rapey undertones/overtones - all three, or any other distasteful combination of factors.

This post isn't intended to troll or shame people for hating a story about someone having sex with their siblings, for example. This is a callout post for people who see one ship, being shipped in good faith out of affection for the characters and their pairing, and have a nuclear fucking meltdown because "HOW DARE THEY WRITE HER AS DATING HIM, WHEN SHE BELONGS WITH THIS BOY INSTEAD!!!!!" Insert whichever pronouns or character names you like here, I'm speaking generally.

Also - I'm well aware that people have preferences! People find different things to love about their ships, and they can be as strict and adherent to their favorite ships as they like. Only shipping a single couple doesn't make you an asshole. It's when you see anything that dares to deviate from your one beloved path, to the point that you're feeling an urge to thrash someone over it. It's being a massive fucking douche-fuck to make people ashamed of an innocent crush they have on fictional characters, to make them afraid to express a genuine affection for what they're engaging in, because it opposes this one true path you keep bullshitting about.

In summary: fuck shipping wars, chill the fuck out. This pastime is meant to evoke positive feelings, not make you feel like vomiting. If you feel that bent out of shape over some genuine, innocent bullshit that does not, and will never, affect you outside of a small bubble of influence that you can step away from and moderate to your heart's content - step back, find something that's more emotionally enriching in your life and/or find a way to engage with your fandom on a healthy level. Getting this fucked up over shipping hurts everyone around you - but it also hurts you on a more meaningful level than you may realise.

#shipping #fandom #discourse