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#Wise's is an unnatural clone but we love her for it!!
longlivetheclones · 6 months
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It was a strange thing to be discussing love with Ahsoka.
Ahsoka was an excellent teacher. She dove into the material of teaching him meditation with great enthusiasm.
Rex realized he was happy just to be spending time alone with her again. He didn't much care if they were discussing the best way to rewire an R2 droid. These moments alone together were exceedingly rare. He composed his face into his best semblance of 'I've listening,' and simply enjoyed the moment.
"There are many benefits to meditation, such as better focus and concentration," she grinned wryly. "I need that one." She continued on. "But, it's also good for lowering levels of stress and anxiety. Beyond that, Jedi have traditionally used meditation to focus on the present. With meditation, one can gain a new perspective on stressful situations and reduce negative emotions. Practice of meditation increases self-esteem." Ahsoka paused and waited for his reaction.
Rex blinked and realized he was expected to come up with a response. Ah. OK, well, maybe he had been a bit distracted lately. He considered her words, chewing them over carefully. "Any sort of improved focus could be a tactical advantage." He backed up a bit, replaying her other words in his mind. "I generally don't have problems with self-esteem."
She cast him a fond teasing smile that made the room seem overly warm. "No, you don't." Rex didn't know there were any Jedi with self-esteem issues, but perhaps there was a lot he didn't know about the Jedi.
He looked away from her gaze and stared out the viewport so he could focus better. "Managing stress could also be a strategic asset. If we win these battles, we can win the war."
"There's that confidence again," Ahsoka gently teased, "and I do believe you are correct. We will prevail if we work together."
He smiled back, enjoying the warm banter between them. However, he was hit with a spike of guilt knowing he was keeping things from her. Wolffe was insistent they keep their chip investigation between brothers. Rex had agreed, but it felt unnatural to keep things from Ahsoka.
"You look lost in thought. Perhaps you do need to meditate." There was a kindness to Ahsoka's tone, but also a wisdom that belied her years. Sometimes Rex felt like he could see in her the Jedi she would one day become.
Rex could hardly tell Ahsoka the clones were conspiring behind the backs of the Jedi to investigate the Republic. He used his usual tactic, the same one he did in battle, of diversion. "I hardly see why I need most of the other aspects of meditation. I'm a soldier. I'm no Jedi."
Ahsoka's eyes narrowed as if she could see right through him. But, she didn't call him out on it and patiently continued with the lesson. Instead, she turned his galaxy upside down like she often did.
Ahsoka put a hand in the center of his black, directly over his heart, and Rex cursed himself for how the simple action caused his heart to race wildly. "You are so much more than just a soldier, I've seen great compassion in you in the way you treat your brothers. The compassion we show others can win battles just as much as the fierce acts of bravery. It is because of your compassion that your brothers are so loyal to you and will follow you anywhere. That is the key to your leadership."
He considered her words. "I... never thought about why the boys follow me. They... don't have a choice. I'm the Captain."
"You're so much more. The way you command...it's a form of love. Your brothers love you.; that is why they will follow you anywhere, and, that is why you are such an effective leader."
It was a strange thing to be discussing love with Ahsoka. He nodded, a bit choked up with emotion about the topic. "I would do anything for my men."
"Yes, it runs both ways."
When did Ahsoka get so wise?
Rex had an epiphany, then, realizing why Appo had never connected with the men. There was simply no emotional connection to him as their commanding officer. "I understand," he said, looking into Ahsoka's eyes.
She smiled at him, her eyes full of warmth, and something else he couldn't quite identify. It made him feel powerful and filled him with a sense of longing at the same time. He blinked hard and looked away.
If Ahsoka detected his awkwardness she didn't show it. Instead, she reached for his hand and grasped it in her own. Rather than increasing his awkwardness, the simple touch calmed and soothed him.
Her touch grounded him and soothed him. She continued on with her lesson, lightly stroking the inside of his palm with her thumb. "Meditation can increase your imagination and creativity." She paused again, giving him time to absorb her words. Her thumb traced lazy circles inside the fleshy part of his hand.
He liked the idea of this training more and more.
"Imaginative strategies win the battle. What else?" he asked eagerly.
"If you fully embrace the practice, you will develop an ability to focus on the present with heightened self-awareness and increased patience."
His mind did have a tendency to wander back to what his brothers were doing back on Ando. Such thoughts wouldn't do much good if he were to fully commit to saving the brothers he had here in the 501st. "I'll need increased patience, I think, with the new batch of shinies we just took onboard. They're going to be a lot more work than usual."
Ahsoka's head cocked to the side with interest, her thumb continuing their soothing luxurious circles around his hand. "How so?"
He loved what she was doing to his hand. "They're different from shinies that have come through before. They have a different feel to them somehow. Like they're off somehow." He pushed out a sigh. "They don't have nicknames," Rex blurted out, "and I don't know why that is such a big deal to me, but it doesn't seem right. I assigned Fives and Jesse to work with them. And, it's more than that, the shiny we asked about it hadn't even ever heard about clones being given a name other than their designation. I thought maybe it was an isolated case, but none of them go by anything other than their full designations."
"Force," Ahsoka said, pushing out a long exhale, "I can't imagine referring to all those new troopers only by their numbers."
"There's more," Rex said, "they all have a designation we've never heard of before, a CX designation after their CT. I've asked Wolffe to look into it."
"CX? Like the moons of Coruscant?"
"What would that have to do with these clones?"
"I don't know, but on Coruscant, Centax 1 and Centax 2 are referred to by the prefix CX."
Rex pulled his vambrace out of his neatly stacked pile of armor and quickly typed a note to Wolffe with the possible new clue. He returned his armor to the stack and resumed his meditation pose. He pushed out a long breath. "As long as the shinies can shoot straight, I suppose it doesn't much matter if they're a bit odd."
"I'll drop in on their training and let you know I think. New recruits always have a very distinct presence in the Force."
Ahsoka dropped her hand from Rex's and he was disappointed at the loss of contact. She put her hands on her lap in a palms-up gesture that looked very natural for the Jedi padawan. Rex did his best to imitate the move. "For tonight, we are just going to focus on relaxed breathing. If you master this skill, we can progress to mindfulness meditation and perhaps even meditation with movement."
"Katas, right?" Rex supplied. He'd seen Generals Skywalker and Kenobi practicing these forms and admired the grace with which they did the moves. Although, when Ahsoka did the moves in front of either him or the men it was an entirely new kind of distraction. It went from graceful to something else entirely. He always ended up yelling at the men and making them run extra laps.
He had mixed feelings about the whole practice of katas.
"Even if you only master a single kata," Ahsoka continued, "you will see some benefit. Katas allow your body to enter a state of profound rest and relaxation. Your mind will achieve a state of inner peace, without needing to use concentration or effort."
"I'm not sure General Skywalker has achieved a sense of inner peace, perhaps he missed the point of exercise."
Ahsoka doubled over laughing, and Rex was very pleased he could evoke such a reaction from her. "Yes, well, I don't think he practices his forms nearly as often as he should. Perhaps you could get him to practice with you."
Rex's eyes widened. "That doesn't sound relaxing. The General is very intense."
"Yes, he is," she looked away, out the large plexiglass window, her expression guarded and saddened. She turned back to him. "But, you've always had a good influence on him. You're steady and calm." Her voice softened. and grew a bit melancholy. "He wasn't the same when you were gone. None of us were." She pressed her fingers to his arm. Rex had to admit he liked how much physical touch was involved in meditation. "Perhaps you are just what he needs."
Rex didn't like where this was headed, at all. "I hardly think I'm the right person for the job. Perhaps General Kenobi would be better suited-"
She moved her fingers from her arm to his chest in an imploring gesture. "I want you to be there for him. The Force wills it, I can feel it. He needs someone right now. He seems willing to open up to you. The two of you have a unique bond."
Rex opened his mouth to object but snapped his jaw shut again. He couldn't deny the truth of her words. He took a deep breath and measured his words carefully. "I'm still not exactly sure what I can do, but I'll... try with the General," Rex agreed, still slightly distracted by the hand on his chest.
"Excellent! I'll let Anakin know you'll be training with him, as well," Ahsoka removed her hands from his chest and placed them on her knees in a palms-up gesture. He initiated the move but preferred having her hands on his chest.
Train with the General?
Rex groaned inwardly. He was close to his General but he hardly thought he was qualified to guide him on anything other than strategic matters. It was all his training covered.
"You are more than your training, Rex," Ahsoka said, softly, her eyes closed.
"How do you-" he frowned, "did you… did I…."
She smiled and opened her eyes, rewarding him with a teasing smile. "I did not read your thoughts and this time you did not broadcast your thoughts. Your shields are firmly back in place this evening, as I suspected they would be. You and I have been friends for a long time, Rex, it was easy to guess the direction of your thoughts. You often think you are the sum of your training. You are so much more. You have proven this time and again. You are perhaps the most unusual clone in the Grand Army in this regard and you know it."
Rex stared at her jaw agape. She closed her eyes again, a peaceful serene expression crossing her face, leaving him alone with his thoughts for a few minutes. He automatically imitated her position again, palms up and found it was very easy to think in this relaxed position.
Was he more than just his training? He'd been raised for ten years on Kamino to follow a strict set of beliefs and protocols. But, for the past three years, Generals Skywalker, Kenobi and Ahsoka had been continually pushing him to broaden his way of thinking. It was not his Kaminoan training that had ultimately driven him to rescue Ahsoka and the 501st on Darkknell.
Droids were programmed. Clones were trained. Yes, that was a form of programming, to be sure. But, if he had followed his "programming," he would not have been capable of any of the actions that had led him down that path to rescue the 501st. He was a free thinker and that was what separated him from the droids of the Techno Union.
Sometimes, he felt like his bond with his brothers, and his free will were all he had as a clone.
He took another deep breath and thought more about Ahsoka's words. Could he make any sort of difference to General Skywalker? Did the General actually need someone there for him outside of General Kenobi, Ahsoka, and his relationship with the senator? If Ahsoka thought he could make a difference, he would do his best to do so. It was his duty as a Captain and as a friend to General Skywalker.
He relaxed more as he came to this conclusion and Ahsoka must have sensed the change in him. She moved on to the next part of their lesson.
They spent the next hour working on relaxed breathing. Ahsoka praised him a number of times for how quickly he mastered the skill. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't basking in her praise and trying his damndest to be perfect at every skill she asked of him. But, it was more than that, he was at peace and could think more clearly as he was mastering the exercise. The hour was gone in a flash and he was disappointed when it was done.
"Alright," Ahsoka said, as her chrono softly chimed signaling their hour was up, "that's time. We'll pick this up again tomorrow night."
Rex nodded, rising to his feet and quickly replacing all of his plates. Ahsoka rolled up their mats and replaced them in the corner of the room.
"Do you have to head back to your office and finish your reports?" Ahsoka asked.
"Yes," Rex nodded, he tucked his helmet under one arm as they walked side-by-side toward the lift.
"Want to grab a snack before you head back to your office?" she coaxed, pulling out a small data chip from a pouch on her belt. "I created a new subroutine to reprogram the mess hall droids. It should coax them into improving the quality of the food. I figured it would be good for morale."
Rex smiled. "You're always thinking of the men."
"To be fair, Rex, I also happen to like good food."
He laughed. "Alright. I suppose a bit of food might increase my productivity."
Ahsoka chatted happily the rest of the way to the mess hall, going on enthusiastically about her new subroutine and how she figured out how to subvert the existing wiring of droids without the units being aware of the changes. As Rex walked, content to simply listen to Ahsoka, he realized he was happy. It was such a rare thing in a time of war, but in these few rare moments alone with Ahsoka, he was at peace. [Read the full chapter here:]
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we-rate-tmnt · 4 years
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I request: Leonardo. Please and thank you 🙏.
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Idk if everyone loves Leo or if my header and avatar just remind everyone about this amazing blue boy. (This one’s super silly btw. I’m just sillier as time goes on. Character development I guess?) 
The iconic leador Leonardo (1987)
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Bro idk why but I loved this Leo. I have a tiny memory, especially with this version but I clearly remember that I thought he was the funniest and the coolest. I mean, he had swords, what was I supposed to do as a 7-year-old. NOT like him??? Anyway, while Raph was the best at insult comedy, I think Leo had the best puns and punchlines. I really like how nonchalant this Leo is compared to his iterations, going along with really silly ideas and having fun along the way. But because of this, his leadership is a little forced at times, he seems like such a chill and fun dude that when he gets serious, I have to squint and ask ‘are you Leo? Or were you just putting on act a moment ago?’ Or my perception is entirely warped over time. Either way, good turtle boy, could have used some work tho. 5.7/10
Here comes grumpy lad wooo this is all read very monotone btw Fearless Leader (2003)
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What. What the fuck happened. I was actually so confused when Leo turned really angry and serious and almost manic. I thought that episode when he popped into Casey’s window and was like ‘Hey bitch lets go beat the shit out of some lowlifes’ I was WOAH THERE BUDDY BACK UP BACK UP BACK TF UP. It was so sudden to me and when it was finally explained, it made some sense??? Like yeah, character development is great an’ all but this ain’t it chief. I can’t imagine what it was like having to wait for these episodes to release one at a time. Bc I watched every episode back to back on Youtube and I was genuinely bamboozled. But when you have an experience like that where guilt is weighing down on you from a situation you couldn’t control, it would’ve been HELLA HELPFUL to have at least a flashback, like a line saying ‘I was so useless!’ at BARE MINIMUM. Like right after Shredder is booted off to Planet Zula, Donnie would notice that Leo didn’t seem all that happy and would ask why and Leo would get upset and yell at Donnie saying that ‘You wouldn’t understand’, ‘You don’t know how I felt, how I feel because of that’, etc. Like you don’t even have to say he felt guilty or helpless, just give us something to grab onto. We’re merely six-year-olds who thought they could climb the YMCA rock wall in easy mode but instead the script riders harnessed us up on the hard one and wouldn’t let us come down until we rang the little bell at the top. I think that is the only problem I had with his Leo. The sudden change of calm and decisive to angry and irrational was so jarring that it felt unnatural without that crucial context. If you want a surprise reveal, at least hint at the reveal (like just about every Disney movie with their ‘twist’ villains) not wait until the very last moment. I think this might be my least favorite Leo and I think the season where he stood out the most and seemed the strongest was Fast Forward (Which was GOOD FIGHT ME), especially in scenes with Dark Leo, his clone. He sees so much of himself in Dark Leo but he also sees something he had once grasped (AKA the poorly written character arc, I CANNOT stress how bad I thought it was). Although, I honestly think he’s a really good character and he’s a pretty neat guy. However, this score is entirely held up by Fast Forward and his connection with Usagi, sword bros to the end of time. 3/10 (2 for FF and 1 for Usagi)
And now a Leo that makes me genuinely feel UWU Leo (2012)
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I cannot stress how much I like this guy! Like his design is so appealing, his dedication, his obsession with Space Heroes, like I FUCKING LOVE IT. And everyone knows, that shit with Karai, at first when they didn’t realize they were related, I can let slide but kajsdflksadf what even like why did the writers feel the need to add in more ‘love interest’ implications like yuck yuck yuck. The only two interactions with Leo and Karai that I really like are when Leo defeats her using the healing hands technique and when Leo has a goth/emo/punk/idk I’m new here phase and they team up and EXPLOSIONS. He was introduced to us as being incredibly naive and his idea of leadership is from some old cartoon that’s basically star trek but ethically questionable. After his fights in season 1, to the finale with the technodrome, you can see his growth. He’s able to formulate plans and make life or death decisions. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. When Leo got hurt, I felt like the oof sound effect mixed with some tears I normally shed at some Shojo manga bs. While the episodes following were super weird, it was a nice way to help Leo recover, not only physically but spiritually (Although I don’t remember the spirit arc at all except the epic Raph vs Fishface fight, so we’re skipping that). When Master Splinter really died, you could tell there was a huge impact on Leo, but he had to remain stoic and lead the family now. A lot of heartbreaking moments in this series came from Leo and I’m glad they took at least some thought into developing him. Tiny head Leo will haunt my nightmares, but the giggly fanboy will warm my heart constantly. 6/10
I only have one word for this Leo (Heroes in a Half Shell: Blast to the Past)
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This is a super crazy bad idea accent on the super crazy bad part have I mentioned it’s also a really terrible idea/10
Okay, spoiler alert, didn’t really think this Leo was that grand Leo (2014/2016)
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Painfully average. He didn’t stand out that much, Raph was part of the focus and had that touching scene at the end, Donnie was ICONIC and Mikey (with his weird-ass eyes) was super lively and funny! Leo? Uh, I don’t remember a single line he said. Because he never really grabbed my attention, I don’t have too much to say on this version. The Raph and Leo fight felt forced and the whole ‘keep this stuff that could turn us human a secret’ was pretty pointless and was added just to cause drama, I don’t even remember what that Splinter and Leo conversation was about. Design-wise, really neat! You can see some more traditional Japanese clothing/style mixed with modern (I’d feel a lot better about this assumption if some could tell exactly what the heck he’s wearing, but I get traditional Japan warrior vibes from it) in his look which was super neat! Other than that, if you like him, please tell me why because I don’t get. He was just kinda eh. 5/10
AHHH MY BOY YASSS WHOOO!! Neon Leon (2018)
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Okay, I loved Ben Schwarts already from Parks and Rec but like him being Sonic AND Leo, like DUDE. He’s super funny by himself but teamed up with this shows writing and animation, it makes it hilarious. I literally love this Leo so much, maybe because we’re alike but honestly, he’s amazing. I love his design with the red and yellow crescents accenting his skin and livening up his color pallet. He has a very healthy and natural dynamic with his brothers, he’s the first to know what’s wrong and tries his best to make up for his actions. This is really prominent in the most recent episodes, along with the episode portal jacked. In both, Leo is separated from his brothers. Portal Jacked is in a more literal sense, while Air Turtle handles in more of an emotional sense. While both are brief, Leo sees his error and tries his best to make it up to them. I love his dynamic so much and it’s so nice to see something like this compared to the unnecessary drama and tension between the brothers in the previous series. It’s refreshing and this is something a younger audience needs to see; instead of fighting, it’s better to work together and improve yourself along the way. Improvement is a big theme for Leo here. He’s a goofball, makes jokes at every opportunity and isn’t quite skilled at fighting or using his weapon. But he grows over time, he learns to manage his power and he’s working on mastering it. He’s trying to put aside his narcissism more and focuses on his family. I think the approach they took with him rising to leader rather than slapping it on his forehead was the goddamn best decision they could make. He’s making plans, finding loopholes, helping out and getting out of his comfort zone. I cannot stress how well this show has handled Leo, along with the other characters. I can’t wait to see more episodes about his growth and I am awarding him with one of the greatest honors I could give... 10/10
Storytime: I drew a super cute 2012 Leo, you should look at him. Shameless self-promo, but you should follow me on my main blog bc I’m nice and I draw pretty pictures. Also. I have a little 2012 Leo Happy Meal toy??? I think??? guarding my window and he’s been there for YEARS. I need to bring him in and refresh his paint job.
Wow! I didn’t expect this many requests for Leo, so the blog will be momentarily spammed with the requests, but it shouldn’t be too much! Up next should be the last turtle (Mikey) and then we can get to some REALLY great requests I’m eager to answer. As usual, please comment and reblog! I’d love to hear your opinion!
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padmsanakin · 4 years
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Silky brown hair wound into a bun, stray strands framed her face. Her warm amber brown eyes were inviting and kind.
Anakin never wanted to let go. His eyes were locked with hers, grass surrounded them and the wind was gentle against their skin.
Her smile could light up million more stars and Anakin couldn’t help but think that this was perfect.
***
Padme’s warm amber was now a vicious yellow. Her expression hardened as she saw Anakin. Anakin looked heart-broken, shocked, surprised.
“Anakin,” Padme began silkily.
Anakin’s jaw was set in determination,”I am going to save you Padme, no matter what!”
Padme raised her eyebrows, she straightened her posture. She carried a sort of regalness as she walked towards the man she loved. Padme sensed the uncertainty and fear in Anakin. She was unflinching and headstrong. She knew what she was doing.
Darth Sidious had told her that this was for the greater good. She can bring peace, security and freedom to her Empire.
Anakin was in a defensive stance, his blue lightsaber acting as a barrier between them.
”Anakin, we don’t need to be on opposite sides. We can leave our lives behind, raise Luke and Leia together...we can be emperor and empress!”
Anakin’s heart clenched as he looked at the woman he loved. All the warmth and kindness had drained away from her, leaving anger and fear.
”Why are you doing this, Padme? I thought we were happy with what we had! We could stop this right now and return to the light side! Take care of Luke and Leia!”
”Anakin… I turned to the dark side to protect all of you! From my people to you, I can bring back democracy!” Padme frowned, her hands fingering the hilt. However, she stood tall, her chin held up.
This was for the greater good. The Jedi were ruining the galaxy. She knew what she was doing.
Padme swiftly took out her lightsaber from the holster as red and blue clashed. The lightsabers whirred and whined.
Deft strokes of red and some parries from blue, blocking the red lightsaber from cutting through. They clashed once more, locked in earnest before parting once more.
Anakin gave a pained expression to his wife. He held his lightsaber tighter.
”I can’t believe this… Darth Eeris,”
Padme’s expression darkened, her lips contorted into a frown at the mention of her Sith name.
Jedi are evil. I do not fear the dark side. I will embrace this. Only my powers can save my family, my friends and my people.
Anakin swiftly began rotating and swinging his lightsaber, Padme stepped back, dodging with her lightsaber. The contrasting colors clashed, a sharp reminder of the opposite sides they were on.
Anakin’s heart pounded. The lava roared and so did Padme’s anger. Her stark yellow eyes glaring at him, anger still very apparent.
The lightsabers begin with a flurry of movements. They whirred and they were once more locked together for a split second before Padme struck a blow. Anakin blocked it, flipping back. Their lightsabers were soon a splash of colors like a lightshow during Life Day. Anakin looked at Padme, Padme looked back.
Their lightsabers locked together for a nice few seconds, before Anakin took an opportunity to twirl his lightsaber in a daring attack
Spinning was always a good trick, Anakin had said many times.
Colors clashed as the lava crashed against the red molten rocks. Lovers to Enemies, their gazes harsh and unyielding. Their love long forgotten. The force thrummed within their veins, one feeding on anger, the other feeding on hope.
Sith and Jedi, once lovers, the concept was hilarious. The sheer irony...they were supposed to be sworn enemies.A slave boy and a queen… poor and rich, Jedi and Sith, good and evil, masculine and feminine… they all said it would never last anyway.
In a painful way, it was true.
Opposite ends, pushed to their brink. Anakin and Padme’s plasma blades locked once more, one pushing the other further away from each other. Their teeth gritted, animosity radiated from them. Pushed back as their blades parted once more.
“I loved you, Padme. Always did...why?”
Anakin’s eyes glassy, all the starry eyed ambitions and child-like hope drained away from his eyes. It made Padme rethink her actions… almost.
Padme growled, unlike Anakin had seen her before. She was seething, her eyes glowed with fierceness. She sprinted head first, her red blade pointed towards him.
“I-I won’t fight you,”
Anakin’s blue blade vanished with a whine, he clipped the hilt to his belt. He closed his eyes. This was it. He was going to die.
The Chosen One. Hero with No Fear. The Last Hope. Gone.
However, the finishing blow never came. Just a strong gust of wind, his head hit against the wall, the sweet embrace of darkness coming over him and he grasped onto it. Giving up on the remaining life-force he had left.
The last thing he heard was someone shouting at him to stay awake and he felt himself drifting away.
Blackness.
***
Luke and Leia were wailing.
Anakin’s force signature was waning.
Obi Wan stood still, feeling detached and old.
He can’t believe it was Padme.
From being the mother to Anakin’s children and a sith.
For once, he felt there was no hope.
Luke and Leia continued wailing, they probably had sensed their father’s distressed state. They were not stopping no matter what.
Their little arms and legs were kicking, their cradles shaking.
They shrieked and wailed and Obi Wan wanted to too.
He crossed his fingers and he hoped Anakin would make it.
***
Padme strode forward, the legion of stormtroopers marching behind her like the obedient little clones they were. Padme had no respect for them. After all, they were unnatural. Padme enjoyed the united clatter of their footsteps as they walked to find any remaining Jedi that might have escaped Order 66.
This is so wrong. What am I doing?
Satisfaction pooled through her as yet, another Jedi had fallen. The once bright force began to diminish, tendrils of darkness taking hold of it. Padme clenched her fists as the Jedi Padawan begged for mercy, her grip tightened and she heard gagging noises and silence. The child fell down, right onto her master.
Padme smiled sardonically.
You have become the very thing you have sworn to destroy.
Blood of millions smeared in her hand. Something about that was fulfilling. The anger, the fear, the violence...they felt...right. She felt powerful, strong, big, important!
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
No, no! NO! That was not true. This was the best she felt in years.
How about Anakin?
He meant nothing to her.
Padme walked away, she turned her lightsaber off. She motioned her troops to split and look for any other Jedi. Padme walked and walked and walked. She did not know where she was going. But, there was something about the particular path she was taking.
The Force was calling to her.
She stopped when she looked at a familiar face.
No, not Anakin...Obi Wan.
Padme did not flinch or move, her red blade still ignited. Her gaze darkened. It was him. He who turned Anakin against her. He ruined her plan. A newfound fury erupted from her very core, it made her feel powerful and rejuvenated.
Obi Wan steadied himself, in his grip was his own lightsaber. He had a tight expression on his face. It betrayed displeasure, anger and sadness. And yet, it was kind of pathetic of him for not using those feelings.
However, Padme had other plans. She disengaged her sanguine lightsaber, the man looked visibly confused. It seems as if he was not making an effort to hide his emotions. Padme stood tall in her black robes.
She looked so different from what Obi Wan had known her for. Once she was wearing elaborate, elegantly colored dresses and now, she was wearing dark robes, her yellow eyes stood out amongst them all.
“I don’t know you anymore,” Obi Wan’s gaze was steady, undisturbed.
If Anakin’s force signature was a windstorm, Padme’s one was a thunderstorm. The sheer power she emitted. Unchecked raw anger was flowing within her. Her power was raw, untamed… no wonder Sidious took her in.
“Obi Wan… I am still the same Padme you know,” Her voice was soft, sweet, enticing… Obi Wan shook his hand and yet, a small part of him wanted to believe her. However, she was the same woman who hurt Anakin way beyond what he knew.
Years of manipulation and betrayal is not something that can be forgotten within a day.
Padme was unflinching, her hand outstretched as if she was expecting him to accept her hand. Obi Wan hesitated, his eyes darting from Padme’s hand to the unmoving Master-Padawan Duo on the floor.
“I sense your hesitation,”
Padme’s voice was calm, like the wind before a tornado. Obi Wan’s heart pounded against his chest. If another Jedi was here, they would be ashamed of him. Obi Wan reached out, slowly and carefully.
His hand touched Padme’s soft and rosy palms. It was cold. Obi Wan waited for the fatal strike but it never came.
“Wise choice, Master Kenobi,” She purred. Something that she usually would have reserved for Anakin but it’s not like Anakin would know…
***
Padme’s apartment smelt of fresh violets and peaches.There was no sign of Anakin that would have given away he lived here except for one tiny detail. It could have been easily overlooked if it were not for the fact that he knew Anakin from young.
The clutter of mechanical tools and the spare parts could have been easily attributed to Padme being a natural mechanic but Obi Wan knew that Padme was not much into tinkering as Anakin was. Padme gestured to Obi Wan to take a seat as Padme poured a cup of Jogan fruit juice into a clear glass.
Padme took a seat next to Obi Wan. She took a sip from her cup as Obi Wan eyed his skeptically. After all the unscrupulous deeds she had done, can she really be forgiven?
Padme remained quiet, the lightsaber left on the top of her dresser. Obi Wan took a measured sip from the drink. It did not taste anything weird.
“It’s not poisoned if that’s what you are wondering,” Her voice was curt and professional. Obi Wan felt like a padawan all over again.
Clumsily, he put back the glass on the table, it clinked against the tray, disturbing the uneasy silence. Padme hummed to herself, something that sounded distinctly Nabooian, as if she was not a Sith Lord, Anakin was not injured, and everything was normal.
However, her dark cloak proved otherwise.
“Obi Wan, I would like to ask you...it might be a little unorthodox considering you being a Jedi. Would you like to become a Sith? You may be able to escape this Order 66 and maybe, even become the Emperor’s right hand man?”
Obi Wan stopped, his mind screaming at him to run. His fight or flight response triggered as he stood up abruptly. Padme raised her eyebrows, her lips quirked into a frown.
“I assume not,” Padme asked. She reached for her lightsaber, her thumb brushing against the button.
Obi Wan’s comm beeped, a sigh of relief escaped from his lips.
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obaewankenope · 5 years
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Mummy/Star Wars crossover, in which Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and an assorment of Clones crash on a desert planet and then there's a living mummy somehow. And for once it's totally not Anakin's fault.
Let’s try this again, shall we.
.
“I told you not to let Snips drive.” Anakin looked at Obi-Wan with a smug expression.
“If you’d been piloting we’d have ended up in that river instead of sand!” Ahsoka exclaimed, shoving into a Anakin’s side with her elbow. “At least we didn’t have to swim out way out of a wreck!”
“No, just digged,” Anakin threw back, smirking at his padawan who scowled at him.
Obi-Wan sighed. Honestly, for a master and padawan pair they acted more like two siblings squabbling over whatever reason they’d thought of now.
That probably made him the single father with a possible drinking problem, Obi-Wan thought. Well, not drinking problem. More like inability to get black out drunk ever since Garen had given him that damned alcohol the lunatic had spent a month brewing in his quarters.
“Just be glad our supplies weren’t damaged beyond repair,” Obi-Wan told them both, watching them with his best ‘I’m not amused’ expression. He’d learnt it from Mace as an initiate.
Mace hadn’t been amused with Obi-Wan a lot as a kid.
“We have another two hours before nightfall, that gives us enough time to reach those ruins we picked up before scanners died, general.” Cody — bless him — cut in before Anakin or Ahsoka could say anything. There were times when Obi-Wan could very happily kiss that man.
And times when it was very much inappropriate to think about that fact.
Anakin walked in time with Obi-Wan across the sands, the look on his face very much the look one has when they’re forced to step in something foul. In Obi-wan’s lifetime he’d stepped, crawled, dug, and hidden in all manner of foul things to the point where so long as he didn’t ingest it he didn’t care.
Anakin was very obvious in his dislike of sand. Not the substance itself, Obi-Wan knew Anakin hated mud too for its fantastic ability to ruin boots and robes in too high a quantity. No, Anakin’s hatred of the sand stemmed from his upbringing.
From before.
Before he was found. Before the Jedi rediscovered the Sith. Before Qui-Gon. Just before- before everything.
Ahsoka, the brilliant young padawan that she was, recognised the way Anakin seemed to draw inwards, distance himself from everything whenever they ended up on planets with sand. Fortunately, she’d never seen him in the midst of puberty stuck in a sand dune.
That had been Obi-wan’s honour.
“I understand why you hate sand so much general Skywalker,” Rex said suddenly, breaking the quiet silence that had fallen over the five of them. The only ones to have made it out of the airship alive.
As a group, they all looked at Rex.
“Gets right in those creases and chafes.” The captain elaborated, garnering a snort of laughter from Cody.
“Ain’t that right,” Cody agreed, shaking his head. There was sand in his eyebrows for Force’s sake! How had he even—
Obi-Wan frowned as he realised the wind was picking up, that was why Cody had sand in his eyebrows. It was slight, barely noticeable to anyone who had little experience with sandy terrain.
Cody and Rex both had only ever experienced sand on Geonosis. A blessing and a curse really.
“Sandstorm.” Anakin said, head turned away from them, nose angled up as he scented the air. Obi-Wan automatically did the same. It was dry.
Damn, I’d rather it rain, he thought, unimpressed with the way things were going. A sandstorm could kill them all.
“We have the tent in the emergency terrain kit.”
Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka. The young padawan was calm and collected, even though he recognised a spark of unease in her large eyes.
“That’ll have to do,” Obi-Wan said, instantly moving toward Rex who had the kit stowed on his back. It wasn’t a large kit, but there was a beauty in military grade packing; it was more efficient than Jedi organisation. And that was saying something.
“We shouldn’t pitch under a dune,” Anakin gave Obi-Wan an assessing gaze.
Obi-Wan realised that Anakin didn’t know how many desert worlds Obi-Wan had visited over the years. In his mind, Anakin knew more about the desert than his master.
He may not be wrong, Anakin was raised in the desert, Obi-Wan admitted, nodding at his padawan. “Or in a dip with dunes on all sides.”
Anakin’s eyebrows shot up for a moment in surprise. Yes Anakin, Obi-Wan thought, I know things about desert storms too.
They quickly found a decent enough spot, pitching the tent with extra long pikes to keep it grounded. They also used whatever they had to try and weight it but, unfortunately, they didn’t have much in the way of heavy material. Considering that they were on foot, this wasn’t a surprise.
* * *
“How long do sandstorms last?” Ahsoka asked later on, almost an hour into the storm.
As far as Obi-Wan was aware, they weren’t yet buried in the sand. The tent was holding up fairly well and there was little in the way of any real weight being exerted on the material by shifting sand. Still, it wasn’t wise to assume safety in the middle of a sandstorm.
“Depends on where you are, the climate, time of the year, how strong the wind is,” Anakin answered, eyes flicking to his padawan who stared at him. “Only thing we can do is wait it out for now.”
Four hours later, Obi-Wan and Anakin sat together near the entrance to the tent. They’d had to start using the Force to prevent the sand from spreading inside two hours ago. Ahsoka didn’t know, Anakin had insisted she get some rest with Rex so she could take over for them in a couple hours.
“This storm,” Obi-Wan began, frowning. Anakin looked at him. “It- do you think it happens to feel a little…”
“Unnatural?” Anakin guessed and Obi-Wan nodded.
“You know the desert better than I do Anakin,” Obi-Wan explained when Anakin remained silent. “I value your opinion on this.”
His padawan bit his lip and glanced around the tent at their little group.
“It feels like there’s something in the sand trying to pull the life out of everything,” Anakin whispered. “I heard stories of storms like this on Tatooine before Naboo but I only ever experienced one. It was like- like- like the whole of Mos Espa was sitting in the mouth of some hungry monster that wanted to swallow us up but couldn’t seem to manage it.”
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan. “It terrified me.”
Obi-Wan stared at his padawan, processing and analysing his words. Although the way Anakin put it wasn’t how Obi-Wan would have… It was similar to how Obi-Wan felt about the situation himself.
“How did the storm end?” Obi-Wan asked his padawan.
Anakin grimaced.
“One of the older slaves went out into the storm and it just—” he waved a hand “—disappeared. Her too.”
Ah, Obi-Wan thought, that’s a bit not good.
“Yeah,” Anakin agreed, reading Obi-wan’s expression. “Exactly.”
“We’ll have to figure something out then.” Obi-Wan looked at the others in the tent. “I have no desire to see anyone die today if I can help it.”
“Right back at you master,” Anakin said, giving Obi-Wan a slight smile. “Maybe we can use the Force to push the sandstorm away from us?”
Obi-Wan considered the idea. “I had been thinking on that possibility myself,” he confessed after a moment. “I’m not quite sure how we’d manage it however.”
Anakin watched him. “Through the Force, all things are possible,” he quoted, giving Obi-Wan a knowing look. “Right?”
Obi-Wan snorted out a laugh. “If Master Yoda could hear you now,” he said, smiling at his padawan. “He’d do a jig with his gimmer stick, I swear.”
Anakin laughed as well. “Oh I’d love to see that.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “You and the rest of the Order.”
They fell into a companionable silence then after a long moment. Silence that remained until Rex and Cody woke up to take the next shift. Ahsoka woke a minute or so after the Clones, scrambling over to Anakin’s side.
“You’ve been keeping the sand out, haven’t you?”
Ahsoka never had been one for subtly. Obi-Wan reminded himself that they’d need to rectify that at some point. Preferably before they were buried in a sand dune.
“Yes Snips. It’s not much, but even a small amount can become dangerous if we’re not careful.” Anakin, to his credit, was honest with his padawan. Not even phased by her annoyance at their not telling her earlier. “Just make sure to keep it a few feet away from the entrance and to push it to the sides of the tent, that way it shouldn’t topple on us and should naturally divert around us.”
“Should?”
Anakin shrugged.
“It’s sand,” he said, raising his hands up, “it’s not exactly predictable.”
Obi-Wan snorted. That was an understatement.
Anakin shot his master an annoyed look that Ahsoka picked up on, smirking at how Obi-Wan could sass him without actually saying anything.
Obi-Wan prided himself on that ability. It had irritated dozens of criminals to the point of irrationality in the past. Qui-Gon as well.
“We’ll rest for three hours, hopefully by then the storm will have passed.” Obi-Wan knelt down on one of the sleep rolls they had in the kit. Anakin dropped down onto another. “Do not leave this tent without waking us. Anyone.”
Cody and Rex exchanged looks at Obi-wan’s order, but nodded at him so Obi-Wan just sighed, lay down and slept.
* * *
He woke up to sand in his mouth.
“Anakin!” Obi-Wan choked, spitting out sand as he sat bolt upright. Next to him, Anakin did the same, lightsaber in hand.
“What the fuck!”
Anakin summed up Obi-wan’s feelings neatly as he looked around the tent. Or what was left of it. One of the walls had collapsed under the weight, sand spilling across the expanse of the tent and half-burying them. The entrance was clear and beyond the flapping material, Obi-Wan spied the tell-tale flash of green-blue that marked this planets atmosphere.
The storm was gone.
Unfortunately, so we’re Ahsoka, Rex and Cody.
Shit.
“Where the hell are they!” Anakin near shouted, shoving past the flaps of the entrance to the tent and storming across the sand.
Obi-Wan followed. Their supplies were ruined, as was the tent. All they had was literally their lightsabers and whatever was stored on the belts.
Two bacta kits, a half-dozen ration bars and a litre of water. Obi-Wan sighed. Great.
He turned around slowly, spotting a tall enough dune for his purpose. Ignoring Anakin kicking at the sand in frustration, Obi-Wan made quick work of scaling up the sand, making certain to keep his feet angled sideways and to climb in a diagonal rather than straight up.
At the top, he looked around the expanse of sandy desert, noting, with some surprise, that there were buildings of some sort a klik to their east. Narrowing his eyes, Obi-Wan used the Force to enhance his vision — a simple trick his master had taught him to pass the time one day on Hoth when he been freezing his balls off, literally.
There was someone there, at the edge of those buildings half-buried in the sand. Someone in white armour.
“One klik east of us!” Obi-Wan called down to Anakin who whirled round to look at him.
“What?”
“Rex or Cody are one klik east by some sort of structure.” Obi-Wan touched his lightsaber on his belt, making sure it was still functional. The soft humming of the kyber crystals within reassuring and grounding him.
“What kind of structure?” Anakin asked even as he followed Obi-Wan away from their ruined tent.
“Not quite sure,” Obi-Wan answered. “From what I could see, I would hazard a guess as to it having been a temple or palace or something along those lines for whatever people once lived in this region.”
“Great.”
Obi-Wan sighed. It was like he was back on the sandball planet with a moody teenager all over again.
Well, he thought, at least only sand has tried to kill me here, that’s an improvement.
If Obi-Wan had had any idea what lay in store for them all inside that ruined structure, he’d have happily kicked himself for tempting fate.
* * *
“What is that thing!” Rex bellowed, reloading the slugthrower he’d found in the ruins. His own blaster had died a valiant death in a bid to slow down… whatever it was chasing them.
“Don’t know, don’t fucking care!” Cody shouted over his shoulder, keeping Ahsoka close to him as they all ran.
Obi-Wan and Anakin covered their retreat, throwing anything and everything they could at the… creature with the Force. It didn’t do much but every inch of ground they gained was another second of not being strangled by some desiccated remains that had obtained sentience.
“Remind me to strike desert planets from my mission roster when we get back,” he told Anakin, lobbing a slab of rock easily as thick as Obi-Wan was tall at the creature. It dodged out of the way with far too much grace than was remotely acceptable.
“Only if I get to do the same!” Anakin replied, throwing his own slab of rock at the creature. It clipped its side and caused it to stumble.
“Seconded!” Ahsoka piped up.
Rex joined in. “Thirded!”
“All of us can strike them for karks sake! Just keep running!”
Obi-Wan found Cody’s command to be most amenable.
“Roof?” Anakin queried as they finally reached the way out of the damned nightmare maze.
Obi-Wan nodded. “Roof.”
As one they turned on their heels, stopping just outside the entrance to the temple structure. Hands raised, they focused on the ceiling and, in perfect tandem, pulled down.
The ceiling collapsed in on itself with an immense tearing of stone and wood. Sand billowed, blocking them from seeing the result of their action for a long two minutes.
Cody, Rex, and Ahsoka had all stopped a hundred yards away, panting heavily. Obi-Wan glanced at them, recognising the expression on the two Clones as the one they wore when they had to make a choice between saving one life or saving a hundred.
Obi-Wan knew they’d get Ahsoka to safety no matter what.
“I really hope we just buried that damned thing,” Anakin muttered.
“As do I,” Obi-Wan replied, shaking sand out of his hair.
They were both watching, waiting, the Force dancing in their veins as they readied themselves for whatever else happened.
The sound of an airship arriving above them almost had the pair of them throwing a stone pillar at it.
“Karking hell!”
Anakin let out a surprised laugh at hearing his master swear.
“Let’s get off this dustball.” Rex reached up and gripped one of the ropes hanging from the airship the moment they were close enough for him to grab. Ahsoka and Cody both did the same.
Obi-Wan and Anakin looked at each other. “Definitely.” They agreed at the same time.
No more desert planets for them.
Ever.
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zenosanalytic · 4 years
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THE SACRED TEXTS!!! EPISODE 3
I just finished the 3rd season of Clone Wars(2008) and I have Thoughts!
s3 is typically where I’ve seen ppl saying Clone Wars gets gud but, for the first half of the season, I was pretty skeptical. Until ~ e11 the season’s dedicated to filling in holes from the earlier seasons which, frankly, didn’t really need to be filled? Like: I’m not really sure WHO, in the audience, would be sitting around wondering “gee, I wonder what’s going on with Mandalore’s trade-policy during all of this?”?? Or “was a Republic Army sent to help Ryloth when it was first invaded, and what happened to it?”??? And most of this not only felt pretty unnecessary, but was also pretty Meh (:T There were good bits! Like, I didnt ACTL mind the Ryloth ep, and it acts as a declaration of sorts that it’s now both open-season on Jedi(yeah, technically Kit Fisto’s ex-padawan Vebb died in Lair of Grievous, but he was very much An Outlier), and more broadly open-season on named&faced humanoid characters.
To give an example: not ONLY does Domino Squad from Rookies in s1 get a fleshing-out backstory(which is... very Pat and derivative and convenient, but the characterization is ok given they’ve only got one 22min ep to do it in. & I liked 99′s whole role as basically surrogate dad to all the other clones), but pretty much ALL of them, I think, end up getting killed off during the season? Like I said it’s a clear statement they want to break with the past while building on the “hey fans: CLONES ARE PEOPLE! THEIR SITUATION IN THIS WAR IS MONSTROUS!!” message the series has been soft-peddling from the beginning, but I feel like they didnt really commit to it enough. Like: IF they had stuck with the Domino survivors throughout the season, if we’d gotten to see them in episode after episode, gotten to know them better alongside the other members of Rex’s ARC battalion, gotten to see them face dangers and survive them, only to watch, agonized, as they, and the rest of the Battalion vets, slowly get picked off in the increasingly dangerous missions of the second half of the season, then that would have made the message MUCH more effective, AND made the Citadel and Padawan Lost arcs much more tense.
And really all of the impactful deaths of the season sort of feel like that. Like: we get one episode to know Mina Bonteri(a human, of course) and her family before she’s killed off(though i did Dig how unceremonious and unsentimental it was; that really got across the stakes involved and the sorts of scumbags Amidala, and the audience, are dealing with). We get even less time with the Jedi killed by Oppress; a few seconds at most(and btw it’s kind of HILARIOUS how he just... bulls in there and wrecks em like it’s nothing, after two seasons of ep after ep of uneventful cat-and-mouse. Of course that’s undermined by him&Ventriss, then, utterly failing to be successful against Dooku, purely because the plot demands it |:T) Same with Master Piell. Ziro we know much better, but he was also a fairly annoying caricature and his final eps went out of their way to use him to introduce EVEN MORE annoying caricatures so, while his getting gunned down is successful in showing violence and violent death as sudden, unsentimental, and pathetic rather than heroic and worthy, we dont really care. And that’s further undercut, pretty seriously, by his being a caricature; pathos is hard to pull off with an object of laughter/scorn as it risks just making their suffering funny to the audience(which... is the OPPOSITE of what you want to accomplish). This isnt helped by having the Jedi who find him basically shrugging at his death before racing into a Cool Fight. The “Force Wielders” in the Mortis arc suffer from the same problems(and also: Force Dualism&”The Chosen One” Talk: BLEAGH!). The only one of these they manage to get right, to me, is Kalifa’s death in Padawan Lost which, due to us getting more time to see her sitch and hear her&the other younglings talk about it, genuinely ends up having an emotional impact(if still feeling super-convenient and a bit improbable)((also I love the inclusion of a predator ep, even if they’re cheap dime-story predators)).
The same goes for all the non-death falls and endangerments. The corruption of the Mandalorian Prime Minister falls flat because we barely know him, and he’s never been portrayed as sympathetic or, for that matter, as anything other than a factotum. The only Pantoran we know in Sphere of Influence is Senator Chuchi, and more than half the episode is dedicated to the Prime Minister, his Son, and his(interchangeable) daughters(and we never see any of these characters again in the season); the ep comes off as nothing more than an excuse to reference Greedo(and Im annoyed by him speaking common all of a sudden. Who watching CW would have a problem with subtitles?).
BUT! They’re trying!! They’re moving in the right direction!!! I’m happy about this ^v^ And the later half of the season, while I have my problems with certain episodes, and the continued non-human stereotypes, and the convenient writing, and the not-great(tho getting better!) dialogue, is actually kind of entertaining, and attention-bearing. Arc Troopers, the 2nd ep of the season, is Solid! The Mortis arc is good, overall! The Citadel and Padawan Lost arcs are Compelling!! I like the Witches of Dathomiir, even if their Arc is “Meh” because the series IMMEDIATELY undercuts their cool concept(aside from the laser-bows which are LEGITIMATELY Stupid. I’m sorry; I will not argue over this they’re Dum) by having their plans, and all the implication towards deep plots&cunning manipulation, turn out to be empty and fruitless(ie, Dooku totally should have been terribly wounded by all this, which would have also been cool re: Sidious, as it’d imply THAT WAS HIS PLAN ALL ALONG! TO WEAKEN THE GROWING POWER OF HIS APPRENTICE AND DRAG THE WAR OUT EVEN LONGER!!) Also: the Witches, rather than being “magic users” drawing from the “unique power” of their ~evil planet~(a swamp, of course, following long-established Magic the Gathering tradition u_u) should have just totally been a non-Sith(possibly Pre-Jedi) sect of Dark Side Force Users. I really like the idea of Non-Jedi/Non-Sith(since they’re literally just two sides of the SAME tradition; the Sith are literally Jedi Heretics) Force Traditions being out there in the galaxy, and this was a good chance to build on that which I felt they didnt do enough with, and hope they WILL do more with in future(I especially like the ideas of force-attuned poison? Like what if they could “poison” or “curse” people THROUGH the Force? That would be sweet as hell :3).
Another improvement is in the action in this season. It’s not at a level I’d call “thrilling” or anything, but it feels much less like stiff, rote, weightless FLUFF than it has in the two previous seasons. Frankly I think a lot of this is just their engine and how ppls joints just sort of SNAP into position during fights, and also the excessive acrobatics of the prequel-style, both of which makes it feel unnatural, predetermined, and performative rather than deadly and vital(like excessively practiced and robotically acted choreography, basically). But, having said that, you see ppl make mistakes, you see consequences FOR those mistakes, and thus there is SOME sense of danger and weight to it that makes it more compelling than it has been in the past, and this should be praised uwu
And I like that the Politics are a lot clearer and more forefronted in this season than previously! While the Corruption Arc on Mandalore did feel rather hollow, rushed, and After-School-Specially(and, I DEEPLY resent its peddling of offensive and baseless anti-Ophidian tropes >:( ), it’s core message abt the dangers of profiteering and the corrupting influence of profit-seeking(ie Capitalism) on politics and society is a good one and clearly delivered. The Amidala episodes in this season Knock it out of the park consistently, and especially on their messaging ^v^ ^v^ Also, I DIDNT MIND the very fillery C3PO and R2 ep! Yes: it was essentially a waste of an episode since Bane was working for the Hutts to spring Ziro in s1′s Hostage Crisis & there’s basically NO WAY they wouldnt have been able to provide him with a set of plans for the Senate building(and the prison, for that matter), but WHATEVER: it was Kind Of Fun and I like seeing those two be an old bickering married couple and C3PO freak out over getting praised; IT WAS FINE!
So, while there werent any standout ep that I REALLY ENJOYED like Trespass in s1 and R2 Come Home in s2, and I very much didn’t like the 1st half of the season, I think I do have to concede that s3 is An Improvement, overall. I’m actually a bit excited over moving on to s4, given the upward trajectory this season ends on quality-wise owo
Oh: and the Ahsoka redesign? Neat uwu uwu(if untentionally Hilarious since they havent been changing her model over time so she just... grows three feet and bulks out in, like, a single night, presumably. Togruta Puberty must be HELL :p :p :p)
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lycorogue · 5 years
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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 3b – Glitches Reworks)
Who’s ready for part two (er... of part 3...)?
If you’ve missed it, I’m doing a series to introduce everyone to my main OCs (and no, I’m TOOOOOTALLY not doing this to procrastinate on writing my fanfics... why do you ask?)
In Part 1, I introduced the series, what I wanted to do with it, and gave some insight on the real world inspiration for my two worlds:
Gyateara
Glitches
Then, in Part 2, I talked about the IRL inspiration for my Gyateara characters:
Amara Yori
Natalie
Connor
Jolene Crisslebalm
The first half of this third part of the series - Part 3a - I talked about how characters are created for the Play-by-Post RP X-Future; the game that birthed Glitches. I also talked about the inspiration for my main four truly original characters: my husband’s character Chayse, and My Girls: Lia, Willow, and Trish.
In this final part of the introduction series, I’m going to talk about the adult characters of Glitches, the X-Men/Marvel canonical characters they were derived from, and how I have started altering them to create original variants to use for Glitches.
If this sort of thing strikes your fancy, feel free to read about these characters below the break. If you’re more interested in the actual individual character bios, the first one will be up next Sunday. Catch ya then!
Marvel Canon Reworks:
The next series of characters were all originally canon characters for the X-Men comics. They are all significant for the X-Future characters, and therefore would need an original counterpart for Glitches. I have yet to figure out anyone’s last names....
Matteo
Emily
Ryder
Keahi
Cody
Ignatius “Iggy”
Ready to find out who they were originally?
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Matteo
In X-Future, after Xavier dies in The Reaping, Kitty (Pryde) LeBeau and James “Logan” Howlett take over as the headmistress and headmaster of the school. Wolverine has a strong presence in X-Future because of that, and also because of family created by some of the players. Now, I don't have the IP for any of Wolverine's children/grandchildren/clone's children... (it gets complicated...), but I like the idea of Wolverine being Kitty's foil. A sort of Magneto to Kitty's Professor X. So Wolvie needed an overhaul.
Matteo is half-Puerto Rican, half-African American. His Latino features are more dominant though. And, honestly, the only real reason I thought of including the half-African American part was because it was a suggestion of a friend. His character Lucas is the son of Wolverine's clone X-23. Back when I was first thinking of creating Glitches, this friend was very much involved in helping me figure out what parts of X-Future should make the cut. We jointly reworked Lucas slightly so that he is instead a kid whom Matteo rescued from government experimentation. Lucas was Black, and so my friend thought having Matteo be at least half-Black would help Lucas see a connection that would lead him to trust Matteo and bond with him. A sort of Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson sort of dynamic.
Said friend of mine sort of went radio-silent after moving a few states away, and so I no longer feel comfortable using Lucas in Glitches. Therefore, I'm not sure if I should just revert Matteo back to full Puerto Rican. It's still up in the air.
I needed him to have the feral personality and physical durability that Wolverine has, but he's now gruff and hardened less because of what had been done to him, but because his younger sister was killed in government experimentation. He is NOT a fan of humans and Glitches (my word for mutants) cohabiting. He no longer has the claws, but takes Logan's begrudging paternal personality and cranks it up a few notches.
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Emily
Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde, as mentioned above, is the headmistress of the Institute, and she's Chayse's very involved mother. I couldn't leave her out if Chayse was transitioning into Glitches. So, she became Emily. Since Chayse has both parents' powers in equal parts, it was a touch easier to manipulate both Shadowcat and Gambit so that Chayse still had the same power set, but the Glitches version of his parents SHOULD be different enough not not be blatant rip-offs.
I started off by giving Emily Gambit's powers, sorta. Instead of Gambit's ability to create kinetic energy, Emily can MANIPULATE kinetic energy. Not only can she build up or create kinetic energy out of potential, she can also instantly pull kinetic energy out of an object in order to drop it back into potential energy. This means, for instance, if she were to catch a ball, she wouldn't need to follow through with her arm; it moving with the kinetic energy transferred from the ball once it's stopped in her hand. Instead, her skin simply absorbs the kinetic energy and the ball stops instantly, as if it were gently lobbed over to her. Likewise, if she concentrates, she can make her skin impenetrable: instantly withdrawing the kinetic energy from things such as bullets, cars, blades, etc., before it can puncture or otherwise injure her skin. No skin injuries also tends to mean no internal injuries.
Of course, the main use of this kinetic manipulation is the way Gambit uses it: adding or building up kinetic energy in an object. This can be used to add force to an object, such as hitting harder with a bat or bo staff without added effort, jumping higher or running faster, or building up enough energy the object explodes. Emily and Chayse also figure out how to use the kinetic energy very similarly to The Flash from the DC comics. Namely, build up enough kinetic energy within their own cells that they vibrate fast enough to pass through other particles. This makes them intangible and capable of phasing through solid objects. It takes a LOT of practice to keep their feet particles on top of the ones that make up the floor/ground. Even more practice allows for “air steps” where they can actually climb the particles that make up the air itself. This brings things back full-circle to Kitty's phasing powers.
I have been so focused on Emily's backstory, ideals, and new powers, so I don't really have a mental image of her that is vastly different than Kitty Pryde's. I still need to work on that. The only real big thing is that Emily has eyes similar to Gambit: unnatural colored irises and sclera. Normally, Emily has the naturally occurring white sclera, and magenta irises. When she's using her powers, however, the magenta bleeds into her sclera. That's it. That's all the physical description I have thus far...
Personality wise, however, she is much more stern and focused than Kitty is shown in most canonical iterations.
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Ryder
Gambit is just as much of an involved parent as Kitty, so it's only natural that if Kitty has to become Emily, then Remy becomes Ryder. My biggest problem, though, was how to make a suave, Cajun, con-man with powers NOT feel like THE Cajun: Remy “Gambit” LeBeau himself. Granted, not having the ability to blow things up helps, but there's so much more to Gambit than just that.
I wanted to keep him suave, a reformed con-man, White with a non-American accent, and have a love of play cards. That's just TOO Gambit to not include. At the same time... it's SOOOOO Gambit to NOT be recognizable. So, I started off by changing the Cajun accent to one I find equally sexy: Australian. Next, Ryder is more a con-artist than a con-man. More of a manipulator than a thief. He still loves his cards, but he's more likely to play Three Card Monty with them than blow you up with them.
One of the side-effects to Gambit's kinetic powers is the “accidental telepathic manipulation.” He may not even realize he does this, but Gambit can mess with the kinetic energy WITHIN SOMEONE'S BRAIN! He can make certain parts of the brain fire off, making his target much more susceptible to believing his lies, manipulation, and over-all charm. Gambit also always has a kinetic shield around him that continuously shifts erratically. This makes it extremely difficult for telepaths to break through the kinetic field and attack Gambit's mind. Effectively making him highly resistant to telepathic attacks and/or manipulation/suggestion.
So, I figured I'd take this commonly overlooked part of Gambit's powers, and make it Ryder's main mutation. He has a “silver tongue” and has the telepathic ability of verbal suggestion, manipulation, and hypnosis.
Ryder looks like a normal human, albeit a gorgeous one. He has brunette hair instead of Gambit's usually auburn, and he has intense “baby blues” that helps him hold eye contact, which elevates his powers. I don't have much more by way of physical description.
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Keahi
On the one hand, Keahi is a major rework of her canon counterpart. In the comics, Amara “Magma” Aquilla is a blonde haired, blue eyed, White girl from the Roman-like society of Neo Roma. They wear togas still and everything. The Amara from X-Future is the version we see in “X-Men: Evolution” in which she's just a typical Brazilian girl of tan skin and brown hair and eyes. I shifted her again so that Keahi is Hawaiian. A bit of a change.
On the flip-side, you can only do so much with “woman who can manipulate tectonic plates and magma, can create fireballs, is immune to fire/lava/breathing in ash, and transforms into a humanoid walking ball of magma.” Lia has all of those powers, so her mother has to have them. Which means I can't really do much with Amara's powers to alter them for Keahi.
Since Keahi doesn't actually show up all that much in Glitches – ya know, since she's MIA – I didn't spend terribly too much time on her. I still need to sit down and figure her out a bit.
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Cody
Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox is too much of a helicopter parent to not have him follow Lia over into the Glitches rework. The main reason he could be a helicopter parent to such an extreme is his ability to create duplicates. That way he can literally always be with Lia, except for when she needs privacy, such as when she's in the bathroom and/or changing.
In Glitches, Jamie is now Cody, a man who can still create clones of himself out of fresh drops of his own blood. Slightly different than Jamie's impact-created duplicates. The funny thing, though, is for someone whose powers requires bleeding, he's as Edge Lord as a middle-aged man with diabetes. Cody gets viciously protective of those he loves, so he can get some of that badassery his comic counterpart has, but... it's not wholly evident.
In order to use his power, I had Keahi design a special wedding band for her husband. It's similar to (Spoiler alert?) Annie's ring from “Attack on Titan.”
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It has a spike hidden inside it that Cody can flick out to puncture or slash his skin whenever he needs blood in a hurry. Normally, he does keep a sleeve of sterilized sewing needles in his pocket, and pricks his fingers on those, but the wedding band is used in a pinch, and has helped him in the past.
Cody still needs some more work as well, but his build is mostly “generic over-protective dad.”
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Ignatius “Iggy”
Iggy started his life as St. John “Pyro” Allerdyce, aka: Devon's father. I was actually largely inspired to create Iggy after watching the anime “K.” Specifically, Iggy is largely designed after the Red King Suoh Mikoto. I mean, look at this guy!
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(Sorry, I no longer have the artist credit after my computer crashed. If you know who put this together, please let me know.)
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(Same deal; the file I had that listed where I found this fanart got corrupted when my computer crashed. Please let me know if you recognize the artist)
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(There's just something about a fit man juuuuuuuust barely showing off his stomach that is just so yummy for me.)
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Anyway... Throw in a little Billy Idol and flame-ombre hair, and you have the basic aesthetic for Iggy.
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Iggy's personality is more manic than Pyro's. He can be calm and calculated, but also be enraged out of nowhere and go on a rampage; the same qualities his protégé Trish possesses. I wanted Iggy to have a “sexy British-derived accent” still, and with the red hair, I figured: go Irish. So Iggy is an Irish immigrant. The Brotherhood is now a street gang that Iggy turned into a terrorist group. So... again, semi-inspired by Suoh from “K.”
He still has the power to manipulate flame, without the ability to create it. However, there are so many fire manipulators/pyrokinetics throughout pop culture that I'm hoping Iggy doesn't feel like a Discount Bin Pyro.
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In the end, there's not much that I've really done with these character re-works yet, but you'll get to meet them further in later posts.
Until then, thank you for taking this time to see a broad look at my character creation process. If you have any notes on how I can make these characters more distinct from their canon counterparts, feel free to drop me a DM or something.
Thank you, and I’ll see you guys again next week for the first of my individual character profiles. I’m going to start with the “most vocal”: Willow.
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themattress · 5 years
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My Opinions on the KH OCs
SORA: I adored Sora from KH through KH2. But then I became disillusioned with him because they kept making clones of him, pushed his positive Messianic qualities to the extreme, and then went too far the other way in 3D by making him into this over-the-top childish idiot who screwed everything up and was denied Keyblade Master status, all amidst proclamations that he was a "dull, ordinary boy" who "the Keyblade didn't choose" (which is an outright LIE.) For the most part, KH3 brought my old love for Sora back by usually characterizing him the same way KH2 did...and then it basically killed him off in the end, punishing him for doing good, all while Xehanort gets rewarded by being able to go to Heaven even after a lifetime of doing evil without a shred of remorse. What. The. FUCK? When Sora faded away at the last minute, so too did any remaining interest in this series.
KAIRI: Loved her in KH, she was so damn interesting and relatable, and her role in the story was a perfect twist on the classic Disney Princess role. Her role and characterization in KH2 weren’t as strong, but her new design, actions, connections with other characters and endgame development made up for it, as did the fact that she was still voiced by the lovely Hayden Panettiere. Add to this how strongly she factored into COM, and Kairi was clearly the original trilogy’s emotional heart. Then that heart got removed and never put back, as Kairi was excluded from the games to the highest degree possible, all leading up to a horrifying bait-and-switch in KH3 where she was finally returning to prominence and looked to become a stronger character than ever before, only for the exact opposite to happen, not at all helped by the voicework of Alyson Stoner. What Nomura’s done is a travesty. #KairiDeservedBetter.
RIKU: Loved him in KH, where he was like a Final Fantasy character turned Disney villain and he played that role incredibly well. I thought he was fumbled when he starred in his own story mode in COM, but I never really blamed him for that and more the writing around him that pushed him into an unnatural position that even he didn’t seem to want to be in. Despite not truly appearing as himself until the endgame of KH2 and having flatter characterization, Riku still redeemed himself excellently through being a party member helping against the final boss, along with a beautiful reconciliation with Sora. Like his other friends in the Destiny Trio, things went downhill afterwards. Riku became so overexposed, shoved down our throats, and positioned as the series Deuteragonist who phased Kairi out of existence while being given more badass feats than Sora, that I lost my liking for him entirely and consider him to be a blatant Mary Sue. This sadly didn’t change with KH3, and it only looks to be getting worse.
ROXAS: Despite falling way short of the hype, I enjoyed Roxas in KH2. He was likable and sympathetic, and he did a good job servicing one of the game’s deepest themes. But then, because he was (confusingly, IMHO) uber-popular, he got his own game featuring his time in the Organization, and he never left that bland portrayal behind, with every subsequent game he appears in having it be Days!Roxas instead of KH2!Roxas, to the point where KH2!Roxas was demeaningly retconned into having “ceased to exist” when he fully re-merged with Sora despite what was said and shown to the contrary in KH2, all for the sake of giving him a shamelessly fan-pandering perfect happy ending. Roxas thus became one of the characters whom I most associate with the downfall of the KH series, and thus one of my least favorites. 
NAMINE: Namine was a character that I loved in COM and KH2, despite being pretty confusing even back then, since she had a real humanity behind her. I was very disappointed that afterwards, she became more and more of a convenient plot device and mouthpiece for Nomura’s convoluted lore rather than a legitimate character, with her characterization regressing to and being regurgitated from her debut appearance. The scale and scope of her powers got ridiculous, the retcon of Sora having promised to thank her when that was never the case is beyond stupid, and she fell prey to the same retcon Roxas did of “ceasing to exist” when she merged with Kairi and thus needing to be “saved” in order to cure her “hurt”. Naturally, she’s right up there with Kairi as one of the most frustratingly-handled characters.
XION: I was immediately turned off by this character due to how blatantly fanfic Mary Sue-esque she was, then warmed up to her considerably as I actually played the game and saw how she was utilized, only to be turned off of her again when Nomura completely went back on her firmly established tragic fate for the sake of a schmaltzy happy ending that neuters what was effective about the character, in essence turning her right back into just a fanfic Mary Sue. I don’t actually blame Xion for this, but she’s still my least favorite main KH girl.
VENTUS: Kind of the same deal as Xion - didn’t like him at first because he was a lazy retread of Roxas and whose connection to Sora cheapened things, warmed up to him after playing the game and seeing him in action (I especially love his voice by Jesse McCartney, which is very distinct from Roxas), only to go right back to not really liking him when we ended up never hearing the end of him and how he is the reason behind so many events and character motivations, especially once he was retconned into hailing from the X time period.
TERRA / LINGERING WILL: While I’m not too attached to him, I still low-key love this guy. Yes, he’s an idiot, but an understandable, well-meaning and likable one, who also has a very charismatic-looking design and is badass in combat. Everyone loves the Lingering Will, but I don’t think it would be as effective if it didn’t come from such a flawed screw-up like Terra. It’s uplifting that even if you do nothing but fail, your will to succeed can achieve some form of success in of itself. He may have got the shaft in KH3, but he made the most of what he had.
AQUA / ANTI-AQUA: In BBS, I felt Aqua was more enjoyable than Ven but not as much as Terra, making her a pretty fittingly balanced character in my view - I loved that she was the first fully playable female character in the series and did a lot of neat stuff in the story, but I hated how devoid of character development she was compared to her male friends and how her English voice actress constantly missed the mark in her delivery. In 0.2 BBS, she was put in a lousy story, but she became a much more interesting and developed character as a trade-off. Sadly, it all fell apart in KH3, where aside from her brief stint as the terrifying Anti-Aqua, Aqua became an incompetent joke of a “Keyblade Master”, jobbing in every major fight she had and jobbing badly, with that development from 0.2 BBS amounting to nothing. In the end, Aqua wound up right back where she began - between Terra and Ventus in my favor.
MASTER ERAQUS: Love his design, love his voice-acting, love his premise as a character - do NOT love him. In a story where all the heroes act like idiots, Eraqus takes the cake, and becomes outright unlikable when he attempts to murder Ven and Terra under very flimsy reasoning. And KH3 only makes him worse, with a severe disconnect existing between his younger self and his older self, and helping to contribute to the game’s bullshit ending.
DIZ / ANSEM THE WISE: I loved him as the tragic, Monte Cristo-esque figure as shown in COM, Days and KH2, especially when voiced by the incomparable Christopher Lee. He had the perfect send-off in KH2, which made it such a slap in the face when BBS’ secret ending retconned him into having surviving, only for him to do jack shit but be a plot device, and not a very good one at that. Bringing Ansem the Wise back was one of the series’ biggest sins, and stands as a textbook example of Nomura not knowing when to just let a character go.
HAYNER, PENCE & OLETTE: I like these kids, they’re a lot of fun in all their appearances.
MASTER XEHANORT: I really enjoyed Master Xehanort in BBS, when he was just a simple Darth Sidious expy voiced by the great Leonard Nimoy, a character whose chief purpose was backstory for the villain we already knew who went by the same name. But then Nomura decided that he was the main antagonist of the whole series and retconned that everything that ever happened was part of his convoluted master plan...a plan with very muddled objectives and motivations, not to mention contradictions at many turns. This turning of Xehanort into a Villain Sue had severe consequences in KH3, where not only was he weakly voiced by Rutger Hauer, but he was written terribly: only showing up at the end, fridging Kairi for no reason, being beaten in a surprisingly easy boss fight, having his entire motivation changed, and receiving one of the most audience-insulting endings that a villain could possibly receive, especially one as remorselessly evil as him.  The final slap in the face was revealing that he was a pawn to someone else, derailing the entire point behind the stupid-ass “Xehanort Saga” decision! So in the end, Master Xehanort was pretty damn pointless.
TERRA-XEHANORT: The original Xehanort introduced in KH2. While his origin is something of a headache (he’s an amnesiac Master Xehanort possessing the body and heart of Terra), it still works, IMO, and creates a character who is much more interesting than either of the two characters it took to form him, despite (or perhaps because of) his relative lack of screentime.
ANSEM: Terra-Xehanort’s Heartless is both the original incarnation of Xehanort in the series and both me and Nomura’s personal favorite. Sadly, Nomura screwed him up when he brought him back for the “True Organization XIII”, first going too over-the-top evil when part of his appeal was that he genuinely (and pompously) believed that he was the one in the right, and then suddenly being far less evil than he should be considering that he’s a freaking Heartless! The Ansem that I adore will always be the one from the original KH and Riku’s mode in COM, the hammy philosopher who is totally drunk on darkness and is seeking it for his own sake, not for the sake of some absurdly convoluted grand plan of Master Xehanort’s.
XEMNAS: Terra-Xehanort’s Nobody is the best villain in the KH series and the most consistently good of the Xehanort incarnations. While certainly at his best as the Superior of Organization XIII in KH, COM, Days and KH2, he actually managed to still be a captivating presence as part of the “True Organization XIII” in 3D and KH3 even if his character lost a lot of its depth thanks to the bullshit retcon that he was following Master Xehanort’s grand plan all along. He’s terrifying, loathsome, humorous and pitiable all at once...he’s just fantastic!
XIGBAR / BRAIG / LUXU: Oh, what a roller coaster this guy has been - I didn’t particularly care for him as Xigbar at first in KH2, then grew to really like him thanks to extra exposure in KH2:FM and Days, then came to love him as Braig in BBS, then went right back to disliking him when he became Xigbar again in 3D, and now am hardly able to stand him in KH3 when it’s revealed that he’s Luxu. Like Namine, he’s become a total vehicle for Nomura’s bullshit.
XALDIN / DILAN: I love Xaldin. He’s badass, intimidating, and despicable, and he really stands out by being linked so heavily with the Beast’s Castle and the Beast himself. His boss fight on the castle bridge is the stuff of legends. Dilan is a bore, though, especially in KH3.
VEXEN / EVEN: Somehow, this is one of the few characters who manages to remain consistently entertaining and well-written in all his appearances, helped out a lot by Derek Stephen Prince’s performance. As both the mad scientist Vexen and the well-intentioned scientist Even, he’s someone I just can’t take my eyes off of whenever he’s on screen.
LEXAEUS / ELAEUS: Boring but admirably power as Lexaeus, with the potential to be more interesting thanks to his intellect and rapport with Zexion. Just plain boring as Eleaeus. 
ZEXION / IENZO: Everything about Zexion had potential, but it just never came together properly and left him as an underwhelming villain. He has much more success as Ienzo, being very likable and interesting; honestly one of the best KH-original characters in KH3. 
SAIX / ISA: This character is one of the more frustrating ones to me. I liked him just fine in KH2, but not as much as I would’ve liked to. I liked him more when he got more scenes in KH2:FM, and I straight-up loved him in Days for being such an effective Hate Sink as well as a really interesting and tragic character. But I did not care for his cameo appearances in BBS and 3D, even though he still carries some of what I enjoyed about him with him in KH3, he also receives new baggage that makes his character less appealing...namely, the fact that his motivation all along was based around some random girl we never heard of until now. Still, if there’s one thing that remains consistent, it is that Kirk Thornton does a phenomenal job in the role. I honestly think most of Saix’s effectiveness comes from that badass voice.
AXEL / LEA: Sigh...you oughta know this one by now. I love Axel the Nobody, I think he was one of the series’ finest villains, and think he had an effective character arc despite some bumps along the road. I can’t stand his human self, who is a watered-down, obnoxious, whitewashed Mary Sue version of his Nobody self who is only here for fanservice, only given a major heroic role and his own Keyblade because Axel was a favorite of both fans and the development team. He’s sadly one of those characters who becomes the victim of his own popularity, with what made him popular to begin with lost as a result of increased exposure.
DEMYX / ???: He’s funny, I like him. Don’t have any stronger feelings than that.
LUXORD / ???: With his slick design, gambling gimmick, classy gentleman demeanor, and English voice by Robin Atkin-Downes, I’ve always liked Luxord, but I don’t think he’s ever truly lived up to his full potential...until KH3, where he’s a standout in both the Caribbean and the Keyblade Graveyard. I especially love his respectable rival dynamic with Jack Sparrow.
MARLUXIA / LAURIAM: A lack of clear motivations aside, Marluxia is an excellent villain. I love how he’s got flower powers, a pink sycthe, pink hair and a pretty-boy face and yet has this very masculine and imposing demeanor, not to mention a diabolically clever and manipulative personality. His battles and battle themes are also always impressive in every game he appears in. And while I don’t care for him being a Keyblade wielder, I actually like him as Lauriam too. He’s surprisingly sympathetic and is a neat contrast to his Nobody.
LARXENE / ELRENA: I love Larxene, she makes being the only female member of the Organization count by being one of the most aggressive, despicable, frightening, humorous and oddly endearing members all at the same time, getting a tragic death scene in COM and some softer moments in Days and KH3 that add depth to her while never causing her to lose her edge.  And like with Lauriam, I like Elrena despite not caring for the Keyblade angle.
VANITAS: Vanitas is awesome. He’s an evil version of Sora who does evil things because he enjoys being evil and has zero fucks to give about it. Haley Joel Osment really brings his gleeful brand of evil to life, making it always a pleasure to see Vanitas in both BBS and KH3. And thus I’m really glad he didn’t get redeemed in the end - pure villainy is his whole appeal!
RIKU REPLICA: Despite being an over-the-top retread of Riku’s role in KH for most of COM and having one boss battle too many, Riku Replica was still a good character and with one of the most tragic arcs in the series, which really made his death scene stand out. Of all the characters to ruin due to Nomura not letting go of them, I thought he was safe, but nope! He was pointlessly brought back in KH3, played a worse and more convoluted role, and had a much weaker “happier” send-off that clashed with how other aspects of the story were being treated and only reinforced Riku’s Special Snowflake status. Of course, even before that happened, the replica concept that he introduced to the series had spiraled into a much more needlessly confusing state, so I guess his legacy was doomed either way. Poor Repliku!
DARK RIKU: A confusing composite of all Riku’s alter-egos: Riku when he was possessed by Ansem, Riku Replica, and Data Riku, enlisted in “True Organization XIII”. I’m not sure what the point of this guy was. Or if he’s basically another version of Repliku, why not just make him the only Repliku in the story and spare us that convoluted nonsense with the other one?
YOUNG XEHANORT: Haaaaaaaaaate....haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate....
KAIRI’S GRANDMOTHER: In the first KH, but only a real character in BBS. But getting Kathryn Beaumont (original voice of Alice and Wendy Darling, and thus a Disney Legend) to voice her was absolutely brilliant and made her single scene stand out as the game’s best.
And that’s about it. The rest are all the datascape clones I don’t give a shit about (Data Sora, Data Riku, Data Roxas, Data Namine, and Data Sora’s Heartless) and the cast of X that I also don’t give a shit about (The Master of Masters, the Foretellers, Ephemer, Skuld, Brain...the only ones I like are Chirithy and Strelitzia, but only on the shallow basis that they’re cute.) 
And I am NOT sticking around this series to properly meet Yozora...
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Why Star Wars Trilogy Editor Marcia Lucas Hates the Sequels
https://ift.tt/3zrNmhV
The divisiveness of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy remains powerful nearly two years after its conclusion. Yet, as topically wide-ranging—and, in some cases, strangely political—as debates over the Disney-dealt follow-ups to the sacred Original Trilogy became, the cold-hard metric of box office grosses confirms their status as Star Wars’ least-lucrative mainline movies (excluding the anemic Solo). Now, the camp of sequel detractors has apparently gained a surprisingly authoritative ally in film editor Marcia Lucas, who, besides being the ex-wife of George Lucas, was a crucially grounding visionary in the franchise’s formation.   
One of Star Wars’ early guiding forces, Marcia Lucas (born Marcia Lou Griffin), has offered some scathing criticism of Sequel Trilogy films The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), rife with the kind of adjectives that don’t beat around the bush. The stinging words stem from Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life by J.W. Rinzler, a recently-released biography on the legendary, Lucas-collaborating film producer. In the book’s foreword, Marcia delivers a devastating rebuke (via Inverse,) of the franchise’s most recent films and their stewardship under veteran producer Kathleen Kennedy—albeit with the rhetorical analgesic of a complimentary preamble.
“I like Kathleen. I always liked her. She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot,” says Lucas. “Now that she’s running Lucasfilm and making movies, it seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars. They don’t get it. And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories—when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, ‘You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of Star Wars.’”
Interestingly, Marcia Lucas’s role behind the scenes of the original Star Wars Trilogy—and the George-penned, Steven Spielberg-directed Raiders of the Lost Ark—as an editor and informal story consultant has only recently started to become widely known from a handful of tell-all books and behind-the-scenes television specials. However, it does seem clear in hindsight that the world-altering pop culture groundswell that was 1977’s original Star Wars was a gestalt effort that saw George’s early, allegedly-vague Flash Gordon-esque serial sci-fi designs refined by personnel such as producer Gary Kurtz and, most notably, Marcia. Indeed, as alleged, Marcia—as his wife—primarily possessed the clout to criticize George’s wilder, unfeasible ideas and constructively refine them in a way that bore pathos on the screen; the Apollo to his Dionysus, if you will.
Lucasfilm
However, the acrimony in their marriage metastasized beneath a public façade in 1982 during production of the trilogy closer eventually titled Return of the Jedi. In hindsight, this arguably affected the flow of the film, which is widely believed (an admittedly anecdotal qualification,) to be the weakest and most out-there entry of those first three films. Unfortunately, the chemistry that conjured some of the most beloved and influential movies of all time unceremoniously dissipated upon their divorce and professional split, which was announced shortly after Jedi’s 1983 release. In fact, a frequently-cited reason for the also-divisive direction of George’s eventual tenure on the 1999-2005 Prequel Trilogy was that their production occurred against an untenably hierarchical situation, in which George bore unchecked power as director, writer and studio bigwig. Indeed, notwithstanding today’s newfound nostalgic love conveyed to the prequels, conventional critiques frequently point to convoluted plots, generally dry performances and artificial green screen aesthetics—aspects that conceivably could have been neutralized and/or salvaged by the splicing and advice of Marcia.  
Contextually, Marcia’s Star Wars excoriation, is being made nearly a decade in the aftermath of Disney’s 2012’s acquisition of Lucasfilm (and the Star Wars franchise as a whole) in a $4 billion deal that notably saw George capitulate any control he had over the franchise, business-wise and creatively. So, this is hardly a case of decades-preserved sour grapes being spewed onto an ex-spouse. Rather, it can be perceived as the case of the franchise’s de facto mother watching from afar as her child makes what she believes are terrible choices. In fact, she doesn’t mince words when addressing the elephant in the Sequel Trilogy room, Daisy Ridley’s Rey. While her status as the trilogy’s clear protagonist meant that she was destined to become a powerful figure, even proponents of the films have to admit that Rey’s rise was, in the very least, unnaturally quick, going from solitude as a scrap salvager on desert remote planet Jakku to besting the powerful scourge of the galaxy at his own game—something that took Luke Skywalker three films to achieve.
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The Mandalorian Season 3: Bo-Katan’s Darksaber Story Is Far From Over
By John Saavedra
Regarding Rey, she sounds off, “And they think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is.” Marcia’s criticism is obviously destined to be met with opposition from the segment of the fandom that connected with Rey in a meaningful way. Yet, it is worth noting that Rey, by the end of 2015 sequel opener The Force Awakens, showcases an inexplicable preternatural ability in the ways of the Jedi, notably in the film’s climax, in which she—without any lessons whatsoever—picks up a lightsaber for the very first time to duel and defeat Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, who—having been depicted as skilled and powerful throughout the film—had been trained in the Jedi arts throughout his entire life before his Dark Side turn. In conjunction with that, the scenes on the Millennium Falcon in which she is giving Han Solo advice on how to repair the ship has also facilitated claims of her being a “Mary Sue,” which refers to a know-it-all character without any substantive flaws, who is often a vicarious manifestation of the author.
However, the Sequel Trilogy initially seemed destined to laugh its way to the bank with the J.J. Abrams written/directed The Force Awakens going on to gross $2 billion worldwide, having tapped the well of nostalgia hard—so hard, in fact, that film’s structure arguably renders it a remake of the original Star Wars, a.k.a.  A New Hope. Yet, as one could expect from a sequel that’s 32 years in the making, the movie manifested as a passing of the protagonist baton from returning heroes like Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 to a trio of new heroes in Daisy Ridley’s would-be Jedi Rey, John Boyega’s side-jumping former Stormtrooper Finn and Oscar Isaac’s heroic-but-cocky pilot Poe Dameron, along with a rounder-built droid in BB-8.
However, the trilogy’s follow-up films would suffer from storytelling that went in disparate directions, first with 2017’s The Last Jedi, which saw writer/director Rian Johnson make bold, but controversial changes in tone and plot developments, specifically regarding Rey, who, in that film, seemingly had her Chosen One status revoked when she learned her parents where just ordinary people. Tellingly, that film yielded a box office decline, which saw it gross $1.3 million worldwide. Consequently, upon the abrupt removal of the third film’s appointed visionary, Colin Trevorrow, Disney brought Abrams back for 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which retroactively rescinded those developments in lieu of a hastily-concocted climax that revealed Rey to be the granddaughter of a clone-resurrected Emperor Palpatine, who had been hiding behind the scene manipulating events the whole time. Additionally, she was given a pedantic, quasi-romantic connection to Kylo Ren as part of a “Dyad” of the Force. The result was a final box office whimper of $1 billion, cementing a steady decline that led to much soul-searching over at Disney.
“It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me—J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy—talk to me,” says Marcia with an emphatic stamp. Yet, whatever one might think of the Sequel Trilogy, Rey or even Daisy Ridley’s performance, the bizarre malleability of her arc certainly boosts the point Marcia conveys about the weakness of her backstory. Indeed, the accelerated skills of a protagonist across multiple films (akin to Luke’s unexplained upgrade between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,) can be a forgivable offense if said skills drive the story forward. However, in Rey’s case, it seems to be an example of a character being driven by what’s expedient to the story.  
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For now, though, the Star Wars franchise is taking a break from the big screen as the recent success of live-action Disney+ television series The Mandalorian will soon yield subsequent offerings like The Book of Boba Fett (which will arrive in time for Christmas), Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor. However, a monumental comeback is set for the far horizon when the Patty Jenkins-directed Star Wars: Rogue Squadron eventually hits theaters, the first of more films on the docket.  
The post Why Star Wars Trilogy Editor Marcia Lucas Hates the Sequels appeared first on Den of Geek.
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b-radley66 · 6 years
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Coming Soon - Thou Soul of Love and Bravery
Coming in January-ish.
Fulcrum’s Crack Recon Unit
A very large man, dressed in the armor of a recent war, watches the hive of activity near a fast-rising structure on the plains of Lothal. His eyes, a shade of medium-to-dark amber, depending on the light, narrow in concentration at the images on the range-finder of his helmet’s HUD.
Dozens of workers and droids move more and more supplies into the enclosure, as others add the supplies to the growing structure. His eyes lock on the Aurabesh stenciling on several of the crates.
Sienar Fleet Systems. The dark eyes, eyes that were once duplicated in millions of his brothers, or at least closely duplicated in his case, narrow at the sight. He remembers the intel bulletins that Mouse, er, Fulcrum had forwarded to him. He had mostly ignored them, or read them and forgot them, but he remembers a deal between Corellia, Alderaan, and the Mon Cal that basically denied Sienar a lucrative monopoly on those worlds.
Guess they are getting over it. The Imps seem to like them enough.
The man once known as Drop, now adopted into an ancient Mandalorian family, idly wonders if his General, his brother, who does not even know that he is alive, had something to do with the Corellian part of this deal. Probably. Sounded like there was chaos involved.
He sends the memories to the deepest part of his mind. His eyes move to the beautiful blonde woman who seems to be directing operations. He can see that she is yelling and gesticulating at an Imperial officer. The officer’s expression is unreadable, but his body posture reminds the former GAR trooper of a subordinate’s silent disdain for whatever the superior is saying at that particular moment.
He snaps a screen capture of the woman and sends it to the ‘brains.’ He can almost feel the small figure’s eyeroll.
He grins with pride. Not so small anymore. We could take one of the pillows on the pilot seat off just last week. His eyes grow sad as he thinks of a little girl growing up without a mother. On the edge of the galaxy. Not for the first time, he thinks of finding someone to take care of her. To let her grow up in somewhat normal circumstances.
He shakes his head. What the hell is normal, these days? Script pops up on his HUD. Baroness Asla Sienar-Rudor. Project Manager for Sienar Fleet Systems. Former Chief Operating Officer.
Stop looking at her butt, flashes on the screen.
He rolls his eyes as he thinks of the curse of being the guardian and parent of a preternaturally intelligent and wise-beyond-her-years child. The progeny of a Null-class commando clone and a Jedi Knight.
A progeny born of an unnatural, involuntary experiment, but one who is no less loved.
No less his child.
“Wiseass,” he says into his pickup. A musical giggle sounds in his ears. “I’ll tell Mom,” his daughter says. He grins at their own little joke. A growing list of things that she will tell her mother when they find her, of his misdeeds and clumsiness.
When they find her, not if.
Their way of coping with the unacceptable alternative. That Jedi Knight Elle Jaquindo died in the holocaust of Empire Day. They both grow quiet. As they always do, even after the humor of the coping mechanism.
“So does you nice little computer report say anything about her other than her former and present job titles?”
“I have a report from the Corellians,” she says. “It says she can be easily manipulated in certain situations.”
His eyes narrow. “So who wrote the report?” he asks. 
“Can’t pronounce their first name. Starts with a Dorn. Last name is Faygan.”
Drop smiles as memories cascade. “It’s pronounced DAHN-nerrun,” he says, sounding it out. But she goes by ‘Dani’.”
“You know her?” He hears the smirk in her voice. “Did you look at her butt?”
“Yep. I did. But I am pretty sure that your Mom did, too,” he says with a slight laugh. “Dani had a big heart, when I knew her. But I think she probably lost her love when Buir Elle disappeared.”
He shakes his head. “I am going to move in closer, love,” he says.
“Think you might want to come on in. Your boss is calling. The one we aren’t supposed to know who she is. She needs us to head to Stornan.”
“Shit,” he says simply. “All right. I am heading to the flats. Pick me up there. Try not to crash.”
“Right. Like I am the one we have to worry about that with.”
Drop climbs down from the roof. His thoughts are dark as he mounts the swoop.
Idiots, he thinks.
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lynchgirl90 · 7 years
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@Ringer: @Kyle_MacLachlan's multifaceted #TwinPeaks performance is astonishing to watch
Kyle MacLachlan Is Currently the Best Actor on TV
His multifaceted ‘Twin Peaks’ performance is astonishing to watch
BY ALISON HERMAN  AUG 10, 2017
When Special Agent Dale Cooper introduced himself to the world nearly 30 years ago, he was an immediately comforting presence. Unflappable in his positivity, the FBI envoy to the eponymous town of Twin Peaks was the perfect entry point to the original show’s Lynchian eccentricities: Cooper, as played by Kyle MacLachlan accepted and even embraced Twin Peaks’ many quirks at face value. Cooper doesn’t show up until 40 minutes into the feature-length pilot, well after we’ve been thoroughly discomfited by the sight of Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic; when he does arrive, narrating everything he sees to an unseen woman named Diane, it’s as a steadying force — the eye in the middle of an interdimensional, backward-talking hurricane. If this platonically square lawman could transition smoothly into a world of demonic possessions and clairvoyant Log Ladies, so could we.
Fourteen episodes into Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return, Dale Cooper has yet to arrive at all. That absence is key to the disorienting atmosphere of the long-anticipated follow-up. (Lynch directed all 18 parts of The Return and cowrote the script with his creative partner, Mark Frost.) Gone, for the foreseeable future and much to viewers’ consternation, is our dependable lodestar through bizarre behavior and existential evil. In his place are a handful of enthusiastic participants in Twin Peaks’ mournful, terrifying new landscape. All of them are played by MacLachlan, and collectively, they make up the best performance currently on TV.
Notoriously, the first Twin Peaks ended on a brutal cliff-hanger: In an attempt to rescue his girlfriend Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham), Cooper plunged into the Black Lodge, the otherworldly locus of evil from which emanated the dark forces plaguing Twin Peaks. He never made it out, and was instead overtaken by a Lodge-minted doppelgänger. In the wrenching final shot of the series, the doppelgänger looks into a shattered mirror and reveals the face of Bob (Frank Silva), the spirit who raped and murdered Laura Palmer while inhabiting the body of her father, Leland (Ray Wise). The plot of Twin Peaks is never easy to convey on paper, but the significance of that reveal was clear enough: Our pure-hearted hero had been overtaken by the very essence of malice and cruelty. And thanks to ABC, which canceled the series just two seasons into its run, he seemed fated to stay that way.
Until now. The Return doesn’t shy away from the implications of that unhappy ending, which imprisons and incapacitates its hero in an unambiguous victory for the forces of darkness. Rather, it’s about those implications, and MacLachlan is essential to communicating the themes of loss, change, and decay, in no small part because he embodies them.
By splitting in two, MacLachlan’s multifaceted performance crystallizes the series’ black-and-white divide between virtue and vice. On one side, MacLachlan plays the doppelgänger, commonly referred to as Evil Cooper. Since we last saw him (in 1991), Evil Coop has grown accustomed to life outside the Lodge. He has recruited henchmen, grown out his hair, and taken to wearing a leather jacket—affectations that would be admittedly silly if MacLachlan didn't play them with such dead-eyed seriousness. With his artificially darkened eyes, robotic voice, and imperturbable menace, Evil Cooper is chilling; it is easy to understand why Diane, revealed in The Return to be a platinum-bobbed Laura Dern, breaks down in sobs after seeing him in prison. In Evil Cooper’s unsettling confidence, MacLachlan gives us the horrible mirror image of regular Cooper’s smooth professionalism.
While the real Cooper is stranded, Evil Cooper has thrived, and worse yet, the world has allowed him to thrive. It’s a sickening state of affairs even before you consider that all the murder and violence is being perpetrated by a man who one who once bonded with Sheriff Harry Truman over their love of donuts and damn fine coffee. For many Twin Peaks cast members, the visual effects of age underscore the melancholy of a place where so much time has passed and yet so little has changed or improved. For the remarkably preserved MacLachlan, however, the reverse is true: His similarity to his younger self only enhances the differences in his characters, who appear almost unnaturally arrested in time rather than swept away by its inexorable flow.
On the other side of The Return’s Manichean split is Dougie Jones, the character who’s directly replaced regular Cooper and therefore absorbed much of the audience frustration at his continued absence. Dougie is even harder to explain than a typical Twin Peaks plot development, but here goes: At some point during his 25 years on earth, Evil Cooper created yet another clone of himself, who went on to become a Las Vegas insurance salesman named Dougie Jones, with a wife, Janey-E (Naomi Watts); and a son, Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon). When the original Cooper is finally released from the Lodge, he's supposed to switch places with Evil Cooper, but ends up swapping with Dougie instead (who gets beamed back to the Lodge through an electrical outlet, because David Lynch). Real Cooper then takes Dougie’s place in Vegas, turning one of The Return’s most significant story lines into a comedy/tragedy about a shell-shocked, brain-damaged lost soul trapped in the exurban, middle-class life of a white-collar professional. It sounds even more convoluted than the first switch-up, and it sort of is — but the genius of Twin Peaks is that it’s all show and no tell, because Lynch’s visual storytelling is so strong it obviates the need for traditional exposition. None of the Dougie-Cooper–Evil Cooper relationship is spelled out for us; we just pick up on Lynch and Frost’s nonverbal cues.
Exactly who Dougie is or how he came to be is thus less important than what he represents, which is what happens to a fundamentally decent person like Dale Cooper when stripped of all but his most essential mental functions and forcibly ejected back into the real world. This setup offers plenty of opportunities for laughs, and MacLachlan has proved himself to be adept at a certain kind of slow-motion slapstick. In one scene, Dougie’s assistant leads him from room to room with the prospect of hot coffee, which he clutches and slurps like a child; in another, Dougie obliviously devours a slice of chocolate cake while Watts aggressively comes onto him. (What follows is an interlude as bonkers as the phrase “David Lynch sex scene” implies.) Even the mere sight of MacLachlan in an oversize green blazer — the original Dougie was on the heavyset side — has a clownlike charm to it.
But Dougie Jones is more than just a vessel for the humor that’s always punctuated Twin Peaks; he’s essentially the purest, most uncut version of the goodness that’s always defined Dale Cooper and that’s managed to survive his time in the Lodge. MacLachlan conveys the pathos of Dougie as well: Dougie is a man who can barely use the bathroom properly and yells at an inappropriate volume, but he’s also a loving father who plays catch with his son and a good Samaritan who uses his winning streak at a casino to help an old woman. It’s sad to witness Cooper in this reduced state, yet moving to see him forge connections with others and make their lives better, almost in spite of himself. The best in him wins out, a hopeful sign in a world where the best largely hasn’t.
Though nothing is guaranteed with a David Lynch production, Dougie appears headed toward a confrontation with Evil Cooper, bringing both halves of MacLachlan’s performance together. Prior to production on The Return, MacLachlan was the only actor who had access to the entire script (others have admitted they had no idea what was going on outside of their own scenes, or even in them), and it’s increasingly clear why. More than any other player, MacLachlan is charged with personifying the project of Twin Peaks: The Return.
With every tic and affectation — every burst of violence from Evil Coop, every slurred pronouncement from Dougie Jones — MacLachlan further delineates the differences between the first Twin Peaks and the follow-up. At first, the tensions in this season simply seemed like a result of Lynch and Frost making the story they wanted to make, regardless of nostalgia. But heading into The Return’s final stretch, frustrated nostalgia almost seems to be the point. It’s even written into the text: The typically catatonic Dougie comes alive whenever he makes contact with iconic motifs from the original show, like coffee or cherry pie. These aren’t meta references for meta’s sake. Instead, they’re part of The Return’s larger meditation on how much or how little people, places, and things can shift over, well, almost 30 years. We see it in the diminished state of Catherine Coulson, who was dying of cancer when she filmed her last scenes as the Log Lady; we see it in Amanda Seyfried’s Becky Burnett (née Briggs) following in her mother Shelly’s footsteps by getting trapped in an abusive relationship. Most of all, though, we see it in everything MacLachlan is doing, and how well he’s doing it.
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