#/I wanted to be a knight/ like they literally just rewrote her entire character to bend her around Sansa cause they didn't care about her

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'm rewatching the season 8 of GOT, and it's amazing how it gets worse each time each time I notice a new inconsistency. the fact that the prophecy was for nothing, and how with arya killing the night king it made me understand that anyone could kill him, this person just had to have aegon's dagger in their hands like (???)

Why would you do that to yourself?? Forget rewatching, I haven't even watched the final episode (and I never will) 😭

The past few seasons of that show made no sense and I'm tired of people pretending otherwise. It was literally that "anyone could've killed him"; they just shuffled through characters to find one that "felt right" and even considered the Hound or Brienne. The only options should've been Jon or Dany, but Jon would've been "too obvious" (as though being able to tell where the plot is going is a bad thing) and Dany killing the Night King would've been "too heroic" for a character they desperately wanted to demonize. So we were left with...what we got, which really highlights how poorly D&D handled all of these characters. They made Arya's story all about being a fighter, erasing the majority of her development from the books, and then they didn't even make space for her to use those skills. Her face-changing skills never came up after she killed the Freys, she didn't carry out any actual assassinations (they didn't even consider sending her to kill Cersei?), and if they hadn't decided that she would kill the Night King she wouldn't have done anything significant. With the "Ed Sheeran was a surprise for Maisie's last season" thing I doubt they even initially planned for her to survive the entire time, which would've made her story even more pointless. They put no effort into writing her character and just did "whatever was most badass", but I'm supposed to believe that their writing for Arya is anywhere close to what George is writing for her 🥴

#ask #anon #arya stark #asoiaf #anti got #anti d&d #mind you the Night King doesn't even exist in the books but show stans swear that her arc in the books will be the same ✋🏾 #Arya barely even knows how to use a sword and has spent the majority of her time with the faceless men learning languages + #how to tell and detect lies + how to rule her face + learning about poisons + gathering information + using her senses etc. #but Arya haters ignore all of that and make her story all about being a warrior who can't think for herself #The real reason they cut all of that out of her story is because they wanted to prop Sansa up as /the smartest character/ #and Arya being written book accurate would've gotten in the way of that...the same reason they dumbed down Jon and Dany #everything was in service of making Sansa stand out and they ruined the show to do it 😭 #The final season being so poorly received + them being fired from Star Wars was karma #they even changed her helping with a coup at Harrenhal + planning her own escape...anything to remove her intelligence they were so hateful #and you can tell they planned this from the beginning with the changes they made to her character even from the very first episode #/I wanted to be a knight/ like they literally just rewrote her entire character to bend her around Sansa cause they didn't care about her

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Kingdoms and Empires Wiki Drop!

Sup guys, im releasing what i have done in the wiki today! In this post im only going to talk about the Wiki because I dont want to create an even more massive wall of text here than it already is. Please see the entire post on the forums thread!!! I solidified the lore (which means no more massive changes), set the foundations to the story (so i dont end up writing a shit ton and having to fucking rewrite everything anymore), and pretty much rewrote the canon lore until i reached a point where i literally cannot share it because itd be spoilers without the future rewrite (regarding the worldbuilding, all introduced characters and such are still the same, some just had minor tweeks, so nothing crazy like changing our old bodyguard Mary:

and turning her into our childhood friend lmao So the plan now is current wiki drop. A good amount of it will be hidden since alot of it is spoilers, so you get 39,174 thousand words of unlocked content out of about 50k words in the wiki. And that's without me transferring 90% of the Codex ingame to the wiki, so its ALL (okay like 85%) new words of content and lore! Dont worry, im dropping literally all extra work and focusing purely on playable updates now until i regain your guy's trust in me after being so radio silent.

I also know and recognize that this has gotta be annoying asf since what you guys really want is updates but after what happened with the Total War franchise (my beloved) and their lightning fast content pipeline and lack of upgrading their engine ended up destroying the health of the company and ruining fans trust in em, id rather invest on the long term than short term unlike them (meaning id rather have a set story, narrative line complete, and research resources so that i can use that to run wild in writing).

I made a history of the world as known to them, so much of it is subject to embellishment, lies, and "the victor writes history" trope.

Historia Mundis

If you'd rather just have the list of articles that can be found within the timeline though, here it is: The Great Disturbances, Wars of Unification, and the Longwei Empire

Reign of the Daishu Dynasty

Ecumenical Dominion and the Flight of the Belthean People.

Belthean Migrations

Reign of Emperor Garland

Reign of Emperor Daerin I

Reign of Emperor Valerion

Reign of Emperor Elric I

Reign of Emperor Cenric

Reign of Emperor Saldwin

Reign of Emperor Elric II

Reign of Emperor Daerin II

The Interactive Outdated Map Yeahhh almost as soon as i published the map for the patreons it became outdated lmaoooo Nareth is much bigger than originally imagined, Argent is surrounded by mountain and forest tribes (think Hispania’s Lusitanian Wars or the Germanic Tribes type of vibe). The empire (being Imperial Chinese and Persian Empire inspired) also is surrounded by the these tribes, and the Imperial Province of Lymark is now the “Protectorate of the Western Regions” which basically means theyre the watchdogs of Western Nareth. Its funny because theyre also across the St. Hytera River, which is much like the Danube River, and will inevitably face the same issues Rome did with Dacia when they had a presence that extended the natural borders.

Master List of Articles

The Evolution of Belthean Civilization

Veldora Duchy I may have gone too far here. I regret nothing and learning about agriculture and stuff was awesome.

Silverhill Duchy Mining is alot more complicated than I thought, though Engineering MC is gonna have equally alot to improve!

Imperial Ranks The ranks will have importance. I know that sounds weird, but I did not spend an afternoon writing this just for the lulz.

Emperor/Empress

Imperial Crown Heir

Imperial Prince and Princess

Imperial Duke/Duchess

Imperial Count/Countess

The Imperial Landed Knight

The Belthean Empire The biggest entry from the ingame Codex that I transferred over and polished. This should give you a hint of how ill do the other kingdoms in the future for their article.

Kin of Arava I experimented here and instead of making an actual article, made it a class lecture of a series of days focusing on the Kin with a racist professor lmao

Zera Arava So i had to do this in intervals as I was writing and plotting out his side stories. Honestly hope i did the homie justice, he's a fav of mine, though i think each of the ROs will be favs as I write more and more about them.

Sacred Dance I assure you the Sacred Dance isnt what you think it is.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patreons, you guys already read the below list. However ive cleaned the articles up and polished them! The Genesis of the Belthean Empire: From Invasion to Unification

Voryn Resdayn I wanted to see how i could make a character entry. It looks awesome, but holy fuck do they take time to create lmaooo, ill make the rest of them in the future.

Kin of Arava

Eastern Kin The descendants of Kin and Beltheans who mixed, that are settled within the empire.

House Resdayn Wanted to see how I could do the houses, still unsure (okay i dont like it) of how it came out. Hence why I started with a minor house that one of the RO's belonged to.

The Astute Emperor and the Imperial Provincial Rule: A Revolutionary Shift in Governance

Master-Scholars of Jelaytha The Jelaythan organization of scholars that Master Feren is from.

Post-Unification Transformations in the Belthean Empire: Trade, Economy, Industry, and Immigration in the Wake of Conquest

Imperial Historians Obviously the imperial faction that wants to get their hands on tutoring you lmao.

Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium The Jelaythan/Imperial organization at the forefront of the intellectual international community.

Tripartite Alliance Read what the empire is teaching their citizens about how they conquered the alliance.

The Satrap System and Imperial Provincial Rule

The Great Racist of the Academy: Imperial Historian Acillus Cinna

The Sword Saint

Master-Scholar Kaleb

The Gleaming Horizon: Silverhill's Maritime Supremacy The book of a writer who we'll meet ingame. Youll decide whether or not to bully him as a 12 year old lmao.

Baniel Worthton The author of above said book. He even wrote about himself. Yes, it's supposed to be an ick.

The Ulrich Cothon The second book of his that'll feature in the game.

So…I guess in basketball or futbol terms… rebuilding phase is over, and i got all the players i need for a championship run!

It was an almost year long rebuilding phase, true, but omg it was so needed.

Plus I also learned alot of fucking coding at the same time lmao. Basically a lot of tweaking around with Choicescript and knowing how to code some actions. Also there's CoG implementing a new checkpoint system so thank fuck for that because this game's gonna be huge and id hate to play it without a save system.

#kingdomsandempires #interactive fiction #announcement #choice of games #kaewiki

[myfantasyocs]

Ao3 I know this is the first chapter but I rewrote the first thing I ever written into chapter 2 since I haven’t touched it since I first started fanfiction and it wasn’t great. So want it on ao3, it’s chapter 2.  The characters of Eli and J’rakko belong to @dishonoredassassinfan and he will write the next chapter.

J’rakko admits that he enjoyed his newfound friendship with Ghi’rma, perhaps not AS much as Eli was enjoying his new friend, Reyla, but Ghi was charming enough.  The two of them shared some mead and stories of the adventures they had before arriving in Riverwood. Though J’rakko left out some of his more illegal adventures with Eli, when Ghi asked how he and Eli met he lied and said that he grew up in Bruma with him, which is so much less interesting than Eli being hired to kill the same noble he was stealing from.

Ghi was telling him about one of the Aelyid ruins she found as a teenager with Reyla when her voice trailed off. Her green scales turned pale as she stared at the guards that just walked into the Sleeping Giant inn. J’rakko eyed the black armor the three guards were wearing, J’rakko has never seen any guard armor like it.  Were they even guards? By the look of Ghi’s face, they were.  What in Oblivion did she do to look so shaken, she hardly even glanced at him as she stuttered out some excuse about wanting to show him an Aelyid artifact, that she needs to grab from her room, before she just vanished into thin  air as the men went to the bar to talk to the man running the bar.

J’rakko decided that whatever was going on he wants in, so he leaned against the bar and listened to the interrogation, as he pretends to sip on his ale.

“We are looking for a Dumner woman, with a missing left eye and a scar running down her face. Her hair was short and black the last time she was seen. She is traveling with an Argonian companion, with green scales and with lots of horns covering her head.”

"I saw a Dumner woman like that. Said she was heading to Alvor’s shop to get her sword sharpened." J’rakko told the men as he took another imaginary sip from his bottle.

“We just got back from Havor’s shop, he hasn’t seen her.”  The smaller of the Imperials responded.

“Ah, yes. I suppose it’s possible she used that as an excuse to get away from a friend of mine. Young love, am I right.” J’rakko elbowed the biggest of the three guards who was covered in scars and didn’t look very sympathetic to the plights of young love. “Anyway, the Dumner left a while ago and I would imagine the Argonian she was with is right behind her.”

“What in Oblivion are you talking about? You and her were sharing a drink together just a moment ago.” The damn tavern owner, snitched.

“Oh yeah, um, that was another Argonian.”

J’rakko risked a glance at the guards and the scarred one didn’t look like he believed him. Actually he looked quite mad. So J’rakko did the only thing he could think of and slammed his ale bottle onto the angry man’s head.

Reyla sighed as she heard Ghi calling her from outside the room. She flung on her clothes and rushed to the door, hoping Ghi’s knocking won’t wake Eli up.  She suppose after weeks of running she shouldn’t be surprised she ended up in someone’s bed, she tends to do that when stressed but she still wants to kick herself for the idiocy of it all.  She should be running, not lying in bed.

Reyla opened the door and stared down at Ghi, ready to demand why she was waking her up only to be filled with dread as she saw her friend hugging the entire reason they got into this predicament against her chest.

“They found us. I don’t know how but by the nine they found us. Unless, do the Skyrim guards wear similar armor to the Penitus Oculatus? What do the guards wear? ”

“The Penitus Oculatus, it seems you ladies did something very naughty.  But it will be okay. I’m here.” Eli stood before them bare and holding a sword causing Ghi’rma to make a small squeaking noise before looking up at the ceiling as Reyla didn’t remove her gaze from the altmer.

 “That’s great our savior is a man who can’t even figure out how to put on pants.” 

Eli dropped to the floor and as he scrambled to find the clothes he threw off last night. “First off you know I’m more skilled taking off my pants, secondly I am an expert on breaking the law and evading it. I’m the perfect hero.”

“A real knight in shining armor.” Reyla’s voice sounded deadpanned as she watched the man she slept with struggle to put his pants on.  “Can you get us out of here, without being seen?”

“Of course, just let me find my shirt and…” The sound of something crashing outside interrupted Eli causing Ghi to peak outside.  “Um, guys someone is fighting the Oculatus.”

Eli gave a small chuckle, “ By Syrabane what drunken dumbass is dumb enough to pick a fight with them.”

“Um, weeeelllll, I think it might be that Khajiit friend of yours.”

“Ah, my dumbass. Well I might not be able to sneak you out but no worries, I will get you two to safety.”

Eli pushed the door open allowing Reyla to see Eli’s friend.   A black khajiit who was being choked and lifted off the ground by a burly Oculatus, who was covered with scars. “Where are they?”

Reyla threw a paralysis spell at the man who was strangling the khajiit as Eli summoned a bound sword and attacked the smaller of the guards. Leaving Ghi alone with the daggers she always has strapped to her body.  She charged towards the last Imperial who swung his sword towards her head.  Ghi ducked under the swinging sword, Ghi swung her leg towards the guard causing him to collapse on the ground.  Ghi clambered onto the man and drove her dagger repeatedly through his heart.

“Ghi! What did I say about killing!?!” Reyla threw a calm spell at the guard who Eli was fighting, Eli let released his sword as the guard’s sword clattered to the ground.

“It was necessary Reyla, they are trying to kill us.” Ghi retorted as she plunged the sword into the guards chest one last time. “Why are they allowed to try to kill us and I can’t stab back? Most of our problems would be solved with stabbing.”

“And a new problem called a murder charge will follow.”

“Not if we don’t get caught.”

“As much as I agree with Lady Stabby Stab’s points we need to leave or we will get that murder charge, Buzz Kill mentioned.” Eli dragged the Khajiit off the ground who was struggling to stand as he coughed his lungs out. 

“BUZZ KILL! SHE LITERALLY JUST!”

Eli slapped a hand over Reyla’s mouth muffling the sounds coming out of her, “First rule of escaping consequences, Buzz Kill don’t scream the crimes you commit.” 

“Now Killer, wrap yourself with that blanket, so people don’t see the blood. We’ll say you caught something and were taking you to a priestess.”

“Yeah, we already used that blanket to hide something, and if they saw what it was, there would be no way they would believe us. Why can’t we just climb out a window? We wouldn’t have to rely on the gullibility of every patron here. “ Reyla bent down and scooped up the blankets as she waited for Eli to answer.

“Well, the reason why we can’t use the window is simple… it’s very simple. The window could be a… trap.”  Reyla started to walk towards the window at the end of the small halfway, they wasted enough time and that calm spell  will wear off soon.  And there was obviously no problem with climbing out of the window.  The inn was only one story and the window was big enough making it incredibly easy for a human to climb out of it.  Reyla walked to the front of the inn to grab her and Ghi’s horses.   If Ghi bent over far enough on the horse and if they rode fast enough maybe know one will notice the blood.  Ghi can change her clothes and they can go to Winterhold, which probably won’t have the information but her first choice would be The Mage’s College in Cyrodil but that wasn’t an option anymore. 

She was surprised to see the Khajiit behind her when she grabbed the reins of a white mare and red stallion as he grabbed the reins of two black steeds.  “Eli and Ghi are packing our bags, hiding the body in his room.  Also Eli tied the other two up. So we got time. So, Eli wants to know if you need help getting somewhere quickly, we know this land like it’s the back of our hand or if you need to sell some illegal goods because we know people.”

Reyla has to admit that spending time with a man she only planned to have a one night stand with doesn’t sound appealing at all.  But she knows that Winterhold is far away and she has never even stepped foot in this country before.  Her best chance to get there without being caught was to follow these strangers. 

“We need to get to Winterhold. But it will be dangerous and I doubt I could pay you enough to compensate for that.”

“Doesn’t matter, as far as I’m concerned the danger is part of the payment. I mean The Penitus Oculatus.  This is going to be the most fun I’ve had in awhile.”

“Fun?”

“Yes, and I owe you for saving my life.  Thanks by the way.”

“Okay, but the only time I have seen either of you help, is when you were strangled and Eli not knowing how to put pants on.”

“Yes but, the fact that you are considering it means you have no idea how to get there.  If you ask every tavern owner where you’re going, you might as well surrender yourself to the Oculatus. They would find out where you’re going before you even got out of Whiterun hold.  Me and Eli could show you short cuts and know places to hide all throughout Skyrim. Me and Eli may be dumbasses but we’re dumbasses that you need.”

“Okay, fine!”

“Yes! I promise Reyla you won’t regret it.”

#The Elder Scrolls #Elder Scrolls #skyrim #long post

[tumblunni]

Fuckinghell i got to That Part in USUM and it was even worse than i expected

Kfuckinh fuck i alreadyhated lusamine cos i hadan abusivemum like that in real life but this time i wanted to fucking stab her actual eyes out with my thumbs! How can a bad writing flub trigger such a huge ass panic attack in me!! Am i really that pathetic!! God im just sitting with my face in a fan cos im overheated as fuck i was all fight or flight mode just about hitting the A button and knowing the next scene i get will be Somehow Lusamine Was Right, in the place of the execellent callout scene lillie got in the original. So much actual detailed analysis of child abuse and now NOPE ITS OKAYMOMMY HURT U FOR A GOOD CAUSE

And what i hate so much is that they didmt even completely rewrite it! This isnt even an 'alternate universe story' where lusamine was a good mom, which would already be problematic in context but at least there'd be an excuse for it. Nah instead they just left in all the foreshadowing leading up to her being abusive and all the scenes of her being a fucl but just at the last second its ok cos something something necrozma.

Things that are still canon in this universe:

lillie and gladion ran away from their mother and nearly died on the streets and all that

Lusamine still controlled how much they acted and looked and etc that lillie has anxiety over picking her own damn clothes in a shop (and gladion mentions the same in an optional dialogue that also wasnt removed)

"Oh no its a big reveal that aether foundation is evil and working with team skull and they kidnapped lillie and now u have to fight thru an entire foundation full of evil murderous adults and also faba the fuckmeister supreme"

Lusamine wants to murder cosmog to open an ultra wormhole and laughs about it

Lusamine has an entire fuckin secret room full of pokemon corpses preserved in ice so they'll 'stay beautiful and never disobey'

Lusamine tells her kids theyre disgusting for disobeying her and she doesnt love them and never did and also they are selfish cunts for daring to want to be not abused

Then she fuckin attacks them, and you fight

Fuckin ALL THEY CHANGED was that at the end shes like 'but i do it cos necrozma bad and i was really save world'. And the writers seem to think that this somehow justifies her actions rather than just making her an equally evil equally abusive person who just has a dumb knight templar reason for why she thinks she's in the right. Like maybe you could say this would make her more redeemable in the end, i guess?? Like if she actually had a proper redemption plotline you could use this as a springboard to jump off in order to create that plotline. That she was once good and her evilness is a very specific sort of 'murder and hate is justified because my purpose is so important' kind of thing, which should honestly have led to her personality being entirely different and written entirely different. But you still actually have to write a redemption route! Shes not just suddenly good because she has a motive for being evil! And shes not even as redeemable as the other villain bosses, if we only hear about her 'good reason' AFTER we see her do everything evil! And her evil is so much more personal than the other bosses! Like maxie and archie were still likeable eveb before their VERY EXTENSIVE AND WELL WRITTEN redemption plot, because their evil plot was abstract and nonsensical ('destroy world') rather than actual detailed real life crimes to characters we care about. Abd very manipulative and deliberate ones! Maxie and Archie had it established very early on that they THOUGHT what they weredoing would improve the worls even if it was obvious they would actually destroy it. Lusamine didnt abuse her kids accidentally or because of a mistake, the only way she thought she was doing the right thing is that she thought her kids were ungrateful evil fucks who deserved being hurt because they MERELY WOULDNT OBEY HER EVERY WHIM! And we see this from the perspective of the kids who are very much just goddamn innocent kids and very much show actual realistic ptsd symptoms and relateable stories of abuse. So yeah lusamine already starts at a higher tier of villainy that would require more redemption than archie and maxie, even if you can technically say 'maybe her plan to beat necrozma via pet murder and child abuse might actually work'. (Or, in the origonal, that technically her plan was just to fuck off to another dimension of obedient mindless slave jellyfish and never come back, which is technically less wprld damaging than the hoenn guys.)

And just MANNNN what i really hate is that they didnt remove anything except like.. The parts where you sympathise with the kids. I feel like the scene of lillie at the clothes shop early on and the dramatic break in to aether paradise were just left in out of laziness more than anything. Like theres a lot of stuff that seems 'oh we have to do that cos thats how it went last time, but lets half ass it and rewrite the dialogue shorter and rush to my New Bits'. I feel like if someone played this first before sun and moon then half of the plot wouldnt make sense! But why did they choose to leave in just enough that it made lusamine still look like a monster, if she never gets her comeuppance!!!

And man i really fucking hate how they rewrote lillie and gladion during the big plot swrrve into LUSMINE HAD GUD REASONS 2 DO THE THING. Lillie says barely anything and gladion is suddenly all 'please stop because I CANT LOSEYOU ASWELL AS DAD, MOM' not fuckin please stop because you are murdering nebby and you just told me you dont love me. Andthen hebegs her to take him with her to fight necrozma becauseits type null's destiny to be a beast killer?? When just five seconds ago hehad unchanged dialogue about how he saved type null becauze he saw it was born and raised to be what its 'parent' wanted it to be, just like how lusamine abusively raised him. Like fuckin entire story about him escaping to be himself and give this lil frankendog a chance at a real normal life, just WHOOOSH right over the new writer's head...

And then THE FUCKIN WORST BIT is that they kept the same scene of lillie sleeping in lusamine's bed but changed all the dialogue to just 'i'll sleep here' *scene ends* rather than 'i remember when i used to sleep in her bed after nightmares when i was like five and thats the last time i can remember that it felt like she actually loved us, i need to sleep here again to say goodbye and steel myself to fight to save the world next time we see her'

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha nuance what is that complexity who is she never heard of her

Fuck that scene was so relateable cos thats literally what i did the day before i ran away from home.fuck you for removing it.

Fuck this game really is like a weirdass rom hack some other guy did of a game he didnt understand. It at least makes me feel better to know it was directed by a different team and isnt considered the 'final full version' like platinum and emerald and stuff. I felt practically gaslit when i was tryong to reconcile the idea someone could write a complex analysis of child abuse and then unwrite it as if it was never important. Was it never really intended to be abuse at all and i was just imagining it?? But nah no its just someone else handling the expansion pack for a game and turning it into an 'alternative story' with his different lame motiveless Bad Legendary villain cos somehow he didnt think the original was good enough. Fuck, it was the most emotional most terrifying villain boss of all time, fuckin geez what is wrong with you!

GUZMAAAA WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUUU

oh yeh did i mention that also Still Exists but the npc thats implied to be his abusive dad has his dialogue slightly rewritten to be 'my kid ran away on a pikemon journey and beat me' not 'i beat my kid but he beat me back'

God fuck u fuck this fuck EVERYTHING what goddamn motives do you have for removing a goddamn How To Spot Child Abuse manual for kids in game form. THIS ENTIRE PLOT WAS SO IMPORTANT IF I SAW THIS AS A KID I WOULDNT HAVE TRIED TO KILL MYSELF

gahhhahahahhhhh

#bunni struggles through usum #man but ive seen the vids of the new director and the old dorector goofing around in interviews and they seem to be friends? #so man i feel bad being mad at him #i bet it was probably more like just laziness in rewriting a new story and npt understandong the accidenatl implications #rather than deliberate censorship or clusamine was right' messages #ehhhh #just please dont do this again pokemon #this is the worst thing pokemon has ever done and it made me want to quit playing way more than any amount of 'bad icecream pokemon' ever #im like wow why did i ever complain about anything else before this

[busines303-blog]

5 Things Star Trek Fans Must Admit About The Film Franchise

New Post has been published on https://howtobuyfranchises.com/must-see/5-things-star-trek-fans-must-admit-about-the-film-franchise/

5 Things Star Trek Fans Must Admit About The Film Franchise

In case you missed it in the wake of all the hype for that other space movie, the trailer for Star Trek Beyond dropped this week.

Did you enjoy that? If your answer was “OHMYGODYES!” then we’re going to assume two things about you: You’re not a fan of the original Star Trek, and you probably won’t like what we have to say. We’re sorry about that, and we hope you enjoy this exciting new color in the garbage rainbow that is the reboot of Star Trek — a superfly mass-murderous series once known for its sci-fi innovation and optimistic space adventures.

To be fair, we’re not saying that the new Star Trek film is guaranteed to be terrible, considering we’ve seen fewer than two minutes of it. But it doesn’t take a Medusan to know where this series is headed, now that it’s been placed in the hands of a Fast & Furious director and peppered with a steady stream of totally relevant ’90s hip hop. Let’s be clear: In NO way does the Star Trek Beyond trailer resemble a Star Trek film. In fact, not a single installment of the rebooted Star Trek movies has come anywhere close to resembling a Star Trek film. It’s almost as if they’re deliberately trying to destroy Star Trek‘s fanbase and replace it with four-quadrant action fans.

… Yeah, that’s exactly what they’re doing. See, there’s no money in genre science fiction. The big bucks are in widely-recognized properties that can be sold to every single person on planet Earth. Which means getting rid of everything that made Star Trek what it was (heady science fiction, diplomacy, and adventure) and replacing it with explosions and running.

So what happened? Well, what we’re seeing is the end result of an unfortunately common assimilation that not even Captain Picard would be able to resist …

#5. The Franchise Was Already In Bad Shape

Back in the mid-2000s, Star Trek was in deep shit. It had been over a decade since the last film based on the original series, and Star Trek: Nemesis marked the depressing, Data-murdering final chapter of the Next Generation movies, which had started out strong and then gradually dwindled into a blight on F. Murray Abraham’s career.

“Just put enough shit on my face so nobody knows I’m in this movie.”

Enterprise, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine reminded fans that there were no more likable TV shows to adapt to the big screen. The quaint town of Treksville was in hobo shambles — an abandoned shell of a formerly glorious metropolis, left to be wandered by forsaken fans. But then 2009’s Star Trek emerged from the dust, literally glistening like a beacon of hope.

It’s so beautiful.

But that was poison candy, my friends. As fans soon learned when they saw the film and realized …

#4. The Reboots Have About As Much Understanding And Respect For Its Fans As The Star Wars Prequels

There’s a ton of money to be made in playing on nostalgia, as Jurassic World proved this year by simply filming a bunch of people saying “Hey, remember this part from Jurassic Park?” for two hours and becoming the third-highest-grossing film of all time. J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek aimed to shamelessly trade in on fans’ love for the original series by bringing us Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest, and throwing in a few fun references for die-hard Trekkies while completely failing to grasp what people liked about Star Trek in the first place.

For example, the heart of the original series is the relationship between Kirk, Spock, and Bones, who are meant to be three sides of the same person. Kirk is the central decision-making part, Spock is the logical side, and Bones is the emotional side. With very little exception, Kirk always has to defer to the two of them before making his final decision, which invariably involves seducing some manner of female alien.

“No, Jim, I said a female alien!”

Except in the reboot, Kirk is just running around shooting things and Spock is a moody asshole. Meanwhile, Bones has been absolutely replaced by Uhura, because the makers of the reboot decided that what Trek fans really wanted to see was a love triangle between her, Kirk, and Spock. Bones says a few funny things and then is barely seen. It’s even worse in Star Trek Into Darkness, in which he appears in maybe three scenes.

Speaking of Star Trek Into Darkness, that installment also sought to cash in some nostalgia chips by making its central villain Khan, the fan-favorite antagonist of the Original Series episode “Space Seed” and the titular angry man from Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, which is widely considered the best Trek film ever. But the character in Into Darkness bears absolutely no resemblance to the legendary villain. J.J. Abrams and crew rewrote The Dark Knight and changed the Joker’s name to Khan. The one thing they did manage to keep was casting an actor who is in no way Sikh to play Khan, who is supposed to be a Sikh.

… Yeah, neither of these is correct.

The Star Wars prequels absolutely ruin everything we liked about the Jedi with that stupid midi-chlorian nonsense. The Force was awesome because it was this mystical magic, not because it was a freaking mutant power. We liked Yoda because he was this small unassuming creature who was a master of this nonphysical magic Force. The prequels turn him into a break dancing, back-flipping master swordsman. That defeats the entire purpose of Yoda being an ancient, tiny puppet: His mind was his weapon. Boba Fett is a mysterious “man with no name”-type Old West bounty hunter. Giving us his backstory as a creepy orphan space clone ruins his mystique, which is the only reason anyone ever liked him to begin with. He doesn’t do anything in the movies; he merely stands there looking mysterious and cool. And the prequels gave us his entire elementary school history. And this isn’t even getting into the whole quagmire that is the Special Editions of the original trilogy, which is the clearest example of a filmmaker being completely tone deaf as to why people enjoyed his films in the first place.

Hint: It wasn’t this.

Speaking of which, neither the Star Trek reboots nor the Star Wars prequels have any idea what their tone is supposed to be. Star Trek the original series is very much for adults. There’s an inherent goofiness to everything, and some episodes (like “Spock’s Brain”) are downright farcical, but for the most part, it’s heady science fiction. Which is what the state of science fiction was back in the ’60s, before Star Wars came out and turned “science fiction” into “action movie in space.” In fact, the one thing Star Trek absolutely isn’t, is an action movie. The original series, and their subsequent feature films, are all relatively light on action and heavy on plot.

The Trek reboot was made by a bunch of people who grew up loving Star Wars, and so their first order of business was to turn Star Trek into a Star Wars movie. That meant throwing out all the heady plot stuff and replacing it with lots of running and space explosions. There’s a reason Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison wrote episodes of Star Trek, but were never contacted to whip up a Star Wars screenplay. And Richard Matheson wrote fucking Jaws 3-D.

Seen here.

Meanwhile, it’s impossible to nail down a tone in a Star Wars movie, because the tone of the original trilogy is so inconsistent. The first one was a swashbuckling space adventure, a Flash Gordon / Buck Rodgers copy. The second one is brooding and grim, and the third one is an action figure commercial straight-up designed for children (because by that point, Star Wars was an empire built on action figures). That’s why the prequels feel so uneven: They skipped the first two stages of discovery and went straight for “action figure commercial.” Revenge Of The Sith went more for the Empire tone, but after two films unabashedly made to sell toys to children, it felt out of the blue and strange when the movie’s main character ignites his lightsaber and kills a room full of children.

“Thanks for the money, suckers!”

Despite clearly failing to understand anything their fans enjoyed about their respective franchises, both the Star Trek and Star Wars prequels sold millions of dollars of tickets to loyal fans. This is because …

#3. Fans Tolerate It Because It’s Better Than Nothing

Okay, so the new Star Trek had a lot of awkward lens flare in it and brought us to an alternate timeline in which Kirk’s father died and Iowa is suddenly known for its scenic bottomless pits. But we smiled and nodded along to Beastie Boys anyway, because while it was off-putting to see Kirk introduced with a Dennis the Menace car chase, we were happy that the franchise was being given another shot. And you know what? It wasn’t bad. Despite a few missteps, 2009’s Star Trek did an amazing job at reinvigorating fans while potentially drawing in a whole generation of new ones. Now all they had to do was not screw it up by turning it into a baffling 9/11 truther allegory …

Space cocks! Paramount is starting to build a franchise out of insufferable throwbacks and references the way a hipster bar in Brooklyn might add fake graffiti in the bathrooms. And we see this in other franchises as well: glimmers of hope for fans that could easily turn out to be reckless pandering. Like these guys:

Thirty-somethings everywhere had to swallow the pale mutant shit that was Tokka and Rahzar back in 1991’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze, so it’s hard for us not to get a little excited when the new film finally promises a live-action(ish) Bebop and Rocksteady after 30 years of Ninja Turtles movies completely ignoring them. But the thing is, the Ninja Turtles are supposed to be for kids, right? That’s why we liked them — because we were kids at the time. It shouldn’t matter whether a bunch of adults want to come see your children’s movie.

Only it does inexplicably matter, because …

#2. The Studio Made Star Trek Mainstream To Appeal To Everyone

Hey, quick question: Why was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot PG-13, and why did it feature Michelangelo making boner jokes at Megan Fox?

It wouldn’t be the first time Paramount encouraged a bunch of adolescent monsters to slobber over Megan Fox.

The answer is, of course, that they wanted to somehow make a film both for the nostalgic adults and the impressionable children they would bring along. Much like how Paramount wants to make a Star Trek film that actually generates a profit.

Yep — it turns out that the original Star Trek films didn’t do great at the box office. The highest-grossing one, First Contact, only brought in $140 million on a $40 million budget. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, for an iconic series spanning ten films and five TV series (six if you count the cartoon) over half a goddamn century, it’s not exactly a space king’s ransom.

Now that Trek was being resurrected, the people putting up the money to pay for it would expect to see a return on that investment. And so it needed to be retooled in order to draw in the maximum range of consumers. In other words, if Star Trek was going to be a blockbuster (which Paramount inexplicably wanted it to be), it would have to get with the times. And that meant following the popular trends, like this dumbass rumor:

Except now that we’ve all seen the trailer for Star Trek Beyond, we know that dumbass rumor was absolutely true. Beyond looks as much like a Star Trek film as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit felt like a prequel to The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games. Which is to say, not at all. Coincidentally, both of these films were made by Paramount, and both feature Chris Pine doing sick tricks on his motorcycle.

Can you tell which one is Star Trek? Because we fucking can’t.

To make Star Trek accessible for everyone, Paramount cranked up that Beastie Boys, took out all the unique sci-fi elements and world-building, and replaced it with generic action and hollow throwback references. And the worst part is that it will totally work, despite the fact that ultimately …

#1. By Making Star Trek “For Everyone,” They Alienate The People Who Love It

Here’s a totally insane quote about the making of Star Trek Beyond:

That’s a real quote from Simon Pegg, who wrote the script after quitting the job three times during the process … presumably because the people who hired him to write it didn’t actually want him to write Star Trek. After all, now that J.J. Abrams left, any connection to the spirit of the revival was long gone. And so they were left to do whatever they wanted with the series, which apparently included making it a bizarre piece of Guardians Of The Galaxy/Furious 7 crossover fanfiction that completely alienates Star Trek fans.

That’s not an accident or an unforeseen side effect, either. This was Paramount’s exact strategy: Take a unique property, refurbish it under the ruse that they are giving it back to the fans, and then make it as generic and safe as possible in order to make a bunch of money. Because who gives a shit if a movie has staying power when studios aren’t worried about home video sales? What matters is the immediate payoff … and that audiences will be hyped enough to pay to see it one time and then leave happy enough to see a sequel, never noticing that they just watched a re-dressed Fast & Furious film with worse physics.

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