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misscammiedawn · 24 days

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Permit me some self-indulgence to share my Favorite Character Bingo.

For this bingo I favored my fandom tags (17/24 spaces selected from my 25 listed fandom tags) and tried to round out with movies that I adore.

I wanted to diversify my range of franchises to include TV, animation, books, comics and video games and also pick characters that resonated most with each of us, though Camden's influence is felt the strongest. I won't state where the attachments lay but I'm sure those who know us can infer.

Descriptions and reasons under Read More.

Full spoilers for any character featured. Content warning for suicide discussion under cut.

1: Miles Edgeworth - Ace Attorney - Literally the last square filled in and we looked at the remaining 9 fandom tags and thought "which of these 9 have a character that we feel strongly about", it was either him or Alucard Castlevania and both for the same reason, daddy issues. I love the idea of a virtuous child of anime Atticus Finch being raised by a deliciously evil prosecutor to become everything his father would have hated. I love the conflict between two siblings raised in the house of Perfection. I love his dramatic ass (except when he pulls that "chooses death" bullshit. That was unforgivable). Plus I just adore his slowburn romance with Phoenicholas, how supportive he is of their daughter, Trucy, and how the sequel trilogy is sparing enough of him that we always miss him when he's not around. He is our favorite Ace Attorney character by a mile. Plus he's a the straight man (well, he's got his hidden eccentricities, but for comedic purposes he's the straight man) in a world of lunacy. The first game leaned heavy on that joke and it always made me smile.

2: Catra - She-Ra (2018) - Our tag for She-Ra is "Catra Did Nothing Wrong" and she is the character in all of fiction I would go up to bat for every time if I saw a debate start up on a Discord I frequent. I'll be straight. She's our (Camden's, anyway) BPD projection character. I adore watching characters with crucial personal failings get swallowed up by dramatic irony. There's something so powerful in being an audience member and knowing what a character wants, what they need, what they should do-- while understanding it's not in their nature to do it. I wanted her to stay with Scorpia in the desert where she was respected and comfortable but knew that it just couldn't be. I loved all the moments where her failings caught up with her. When Scorpia walked away from her, when Double Trouble gave her emergency therapy, the way she struggled with her hair and entire season to force herself to be something she couldn't sustain. I love Catra more than I can measure. I could write essays on how I would do exactly as she did in Season 2 and ruin EVERYTHING for just the chance of a parent proving that they loved her. To be consumed by self-doubts and paranoia and terror of abandonment. Catra is the character we are most like in all of fiction. For better and for worse. Much like her, we're trying to be better.

3: M'gann M'orzz/Miss Martian - Young Justice - Surprisingly I have two Greg Weisman shows on this bingo and no fandom tags for his work, I am using my generic DC tag here. I should change that at some point. M'gann gets so much character development over the 4 seasons of Young Justice. From a starting point of her blue and orange morality of being a Martian not understanding Earth customs causing her to break consent boundaries with her abilities and hurt people (including a fairly uncomfortable angle where she grooms Connor to be her fantasy boyfriend without him knowing what she's doing) to her learning in season 2 that a black and white morality is hardly any better (she mind crushes enemies, thinking that it's good to pacify evil until she does this to someone who turned out to be innocent) to her being a transgender allegory in season 4 (where she meshes the two cultures that she's part of and tries to gain cultural acceptance). There are elements of her story which are under baked, we know that she received a heavy amount of discrimination growing up due to her being a white martian and the arc of her embracing her heritage happens off screen between seasons 2 and 3. Her romance with Connor was well handled, though, particularly as she was not virtuous. In season 2 she was in the wrong (having tried to mind control Connor against his consent) and reacted very poorly to his rejection of her and used a rebound relationship to make him jealous (fortunately Lagoon Boy ended up in a healthy poly family and is doing great. Did I mention Young Justice has good relationship dynamics? Because it does). As with Catra I adore characters who have made mistakes and take a slow road to making up for those mistakes because it begins dialogues about their ethics and every season of Young Justice is about trust, communication, deceit and manipulation and Megan is easily the most complex character when it comes to those themes, particularly as her abilities allow her to blur those lines even in her personal relationships. She's an ethical trainwreck and I love her.

Every character in Young Justice brings something to the table and I think I should note how that deep vein of character driven story telling brings out the best in others. I had mentioned Megan groomed Connor. She was obsessed with an Earth sitcom when she was on Mars and decided to become the main character of it and then when presented with the newly born Superboy decided to start treating him as that Sitcom's love interest who was named Connor. It was a massive violation and Connor was hurt and confused when he learned and it was also in an episode where Megan lied about her racial heritage and Connor, who had been inside her mind, KNEW she was lying and told her outright that she shouldn't fear his judgment. The thing about Connor is that his arc is about finding personal identity when he is defined by everyone else's expectations and impressions. Cadmus and Lex literally programmed him, Superman put him in a box and kept distance from him, the Genomorphs have expectation of him, the team have expectation of him, even his girlfriend is trying to shape him and for much of the show he struggles with it but doesn't reject it. He finds comfort in being accepted in these windows of projection and expectation and I find that him learning who he really is and what he stands for to be one of the more compelling narrative threads throughout the 4 seasons. He and Megan are the main couple in a show about trust and communication after all and I think it should go that the character who typically displays the most raw honesty and vulnerability should be paired off with the most ethically complicated character because they bring the most out of one another while still wanting their relationship to succeed. I know much of the audience dislikes the pair and thinks Connor forgiving and eventually marrying Megan is a bridge too far but I really think they work for one another and even when they don't, from a storytelling perspective it's compelling as shit.

4: Briar Moss - The Circle of Magic - When I started this meme Daja (username relevant, yes) asked if I was going to pick Tris or Briar. They are both "Camden characters" with one being a child who has been kicked out of her biological family and the other being someone who grew up in extreme poverty adapting to moving up the caste system. I went with Briar purely because of the 4 siblings he is the one with the most interesting dynamics with his mentor and student. Evvy sticks around in the main cast while the other apprentices do not hang around and Dedicate Rosethorn is my favorite adult in the franchise easily. Briar is a streetwise kid who has to learn how to trust and rely on people and sadly in the third quartet (pending Tris' Lightsbridge book being written) he gets a painfully accurate depiction of PTSD. I wrote about my reaction to the ending of Will of the Empress a while ago and I stand by my comments. Briar building a safe place as the home he built with his siblings and staying there when he was tortured burned my heart. As did the sequence of him deciding that if Rosethorn was going to let herself die then he was going to follow her. As I'll allude later, I have experience there... and it certainly aided my fondness for Briar.

Much of the fun of the Circle of Magic series is seeing how the siblings adapt to their abundance of magical potential and I love the fact that for 3 of the 4 this is depicted via external means. For Daja Kitsubo and Sandry it is via their art, Daja bends and shapes metal, pouring her power into items where Sandry weaves it into fabric. Briar cultivates his via life. He grows plants and those plants are imbued with his magic. If I had picked Tris this would be where I note that her magic is entirely stored within her, bottled up (literally when she starts glasswork) and too much to contain. Magic is emotion, it is passion, it is a connection to life and the world and with Briar his is not giving shape to his creations, it is cultivating the growth of things that cannot be tamed, he communes with the wild of the world and aids it and heals it. Daja and Sandry give their power shape and form as art. Tris tames the raging storm inside and eventually scries the winds to connect with the world without letting it break her, Briar's power is in love and nurture (which I adores as he is the only member of the 4 with masculine pronouns- as with all Tammy's work, gender is not a box) and it's fitting that his connection to both mentor and student be the strongest due to this.

Also his tattoos are cool.

For a personal anecdote that happened while we were reading Briar's Book. Towards the end there's a sequence where Rosethorn and Briar had an argument in the afterlife and Rosethorn only chose to live again because Briar would have let himself die otherwise. That parent-child suicide gambit--- that's what I was alluding to before. I don't want to type more than is necessary about it. We have experience. It caused a switch and our girlfriend, Daja, is observant enough that she noted the shift in how we typed. Particularly in how we used the word "ain't" which apparently is something specific only to our male part, Craig. Daja was so lovely, kind and caring in accepting him, seeing him and not pressuring him when he was out that it helped us heal a part of our heart that we had pushed away. I'll always remember that whenever I read that book or think of Briar. It's a huge part of why we're fond of the character.

Incidentally if I picked from Tortall I'd have been paralyzed for choice with Numair, Daine, Kyprioth, Farmer, Kel and Alanna herself. Tamora Pierce writes amazing characters.

5: Jesse Faden - Control - Is Control an isekai? It starts with our main character talking about crawling through the hole behind a poster as if it were the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.

Anyway, there's a fantastic character analysis I read once that spoke about the relationship between the director of the FBC and the service weapon with Northmoor trying to impose his will upon the Oldest House and the items within it and Trench being a turn-key manager who simply filled the power vacuum and spent his career trying to find a suitable replacement. These represent the two extremes of Jesse's potential leadership of the Federal Bureau of Control. She could either go all in and try to claim ownership of the Bureau and impose her will upon the forces that are too strong to control or she could reluctantly attempt to maintain the Bureau without considering herself actually in charge of it. What she actually does is she finds a path of humility. She is the janitor's assistant. Neither king nor steward of the bureau but the custodian of it. She does not seek control nor does she seek to pass on the responsibility. She merely manages the messes and does so as an assistant. Ahti is the most powerful entity in the game by far and by trusting in him and following his direction, Jesse becomes the perfect head of the bureau.

I was predisposed to love her because she has red hair, she was a lot like the tabletop character I took my name from, she's got a queer dynamic with the head of research and technically she's plural. She's wonderful.

Oh and she's an oddball. I love the little hints of just how weird Jesse is beneath her protagonist swagger. I should probably write more about her, particularly as much of her depth as a character is not obvious from a surface read of the material. Maybe I will some day, but I love her.

6: Chidi Anagonye - The Good Place - The Good Place is a sitcom adaptation of Jean-Paul Satre's play No Exit and involves 4 people sent to hell and are utilized to be one another's unwitting tormentors. The thing is that part of the message of the virtue ethics driven show is that in the modern world every action we do or do not do causes additional suffering in the world and the 4 "cockroaches" are not bad souls, they just made choices that made them bad people. For Chidi he is a good and loving person who is kind and heavily believes in virtue ethics. He belongs in hell because he's anxious and indecisive and makes people's lives harder by worrying so much about how to be a good person. I love Chidi because his growth is less about becoming a better person and more about being confident enough in his convictions to know he's a good person. In every reality he will inevitably help the other cockroaches and teach them to be better people because that's who he is. But he's also selfless to a literal fault. It's one of his damnable traits. After everyone makes it to heaven people can enjoy paradise until they're ready to move on and he decides to continue past the point of which he makes peace with moving on because he doesn't want to hurt Eleanor.

The final episode of Good Place made me gross sob so much and a big part of it is the sofa scene where Chidi explains his personal philosophy after countless lifetimes of discussing, teaching and learning philosophy he gives Eleanor one final lesson on their final night and then, on request, disappears while she's asleep. Heaven knows I understand making that request of someone you love.

He's the heart of the entire experience. Truthfully I love all 4 of the cockroaches and it comes down to how I reacted to their final episodes. Chidi's final moments were the most powerful of the show for me. I love him so much and admire him.

Plus he's a philosophy nerd and as a fellow philosophy nerd <3 I love love love him!

7: Allison "Ally" Carter - Sunstone - Every character in Sunstone deserves to be on this list but I went with Ally because (much like with Chidi) when I have difficulty picking between a stacked cast of great characters I go for the love interest of the protagonist because people really shine when the perspective character is in love with them.

Ally is a god damned dork and she's also an incredible domme. Sunstone is a romance about entering the world of kink circles and navigating the troubled waters that come with consensual risks, emotionally charged play and non-standard relationship dynamics. I love the way the story is presented so much that it is my strongest inspiration for Madison/Belladonna stories.

The thing I love most about Ally is that she's not just the amazing dominant that she plays during the spicy scenes. We get to see her freaking out with nervousness, scared about having to host and live up to expectation, we see her be an absolute nerd, we see her in her element while performing.

I've been Ally and the people I love most have been Ally. Being a Top is hard as heck and you can't help but love the dork as she lives up to expectation while trying to be an adult. Seeing her and Alan literally learning the ropes in the recent GNs has been a gosh darn treat!

8: Elliot Alderson/Mr.Robot (Alderson System) - Mr. Robot - What can I say about my dear Elliot that I haven't already said in my DID Representation in Mr. Robot essay? I love him. The whole system. Though I have an affinity for protectors and so Mr. Robot himself is my favorite. He is such a protector that he will attack his host (well, the show fucks up that aspect of DID enough that it's complicated to call the Elliot we see in the show a host) in order to save him from the evils of late-stage capitalism. When pre-show Elliot wants a way out of loneliness and the evils of modern society he fantasizes about taking it all down. The Elliot in the show just wants to make the evils of the world pay, Mr. Robot is perfectly okay killing entire buildings of collateral to achieve his goals. Not because he's evil but because he's laser focused on his mission. I respect the shit out of that, especially as later seasons show that he's not even remotely as capable as he thinks he is.

The scene during the "sitcom" episode where he takes a beating so Elliot doesn't have to was the moment he won me over and then in season 4 he has the speech where he begs Elliot to understand that he is not their father and that he will disappear if it will help him out of the dark hole he's in. Just the fact that, post memory retrieval, he starts by saying "hey, kiddo..." despite that being the reminder of who he is modeled after. Mr. Robot cannot help but be a manifestation of Edward Alderson, it's who he is, it's why he is. Elliot needed a version of his father who was not a monster. I love him deeply. I love the whole system. Even Magda for all her 7 minutes of screen time.

Plus, Elliot summed up the thesis of the show in the final episodes in saying that changing the world is about living and being visible and in not backing down, no matter what.

And then there's the monologue. Fuck I love this show and these dumb hacker boy.

9: "Badeline"/A Part Of You - Celeste - Well, we're on the topic of plurality so let's stay there. Badeline's a fairly subjective character. Celeste's narrative isn't very long and she doesn't even have an official name. Even the DLC chapter refers to her as "A Part of You". But whether she is a living symbol of Madeline's depression, the doubts and fears she holds towards climbing the mountain/transition or is a protective alter in a plural system, I love her. I always have. The fear she puts into thinking Madeline wants to just get rid of her, the fact that she pushes Madeline to move past grieving Granny faster than Maddy is ready for.

Watching the pair learn to loan one another strength and conquer the mountain was lovely and then seeing Baddy try to stop Maddy from hurting herself in the DLC chapter only to be pushed away was heartbreaking. I just want these two to play nice.

I love that the entire objective of Celeste 64 was for Maddy to reach Baddy and say she's going to go on another adventure and soothe Baddy's fears. Climbing mountains is tough (happy trans day of visibility everyone!) and these two are going to continue doing it, so long as it's together <3

10: Laura Palmer - Twin Peaks (Fire Walk With Me) - So first off, read this essay for better words than we have. We could have picked Dale but Twin Peaks is a show about Laura Palmer and the community that failed her. Laura was a victim of abuse from her father and was commodified by the town who all chose to only see parts of her that they could use for sex, charity, kindness, validation etc etc. There's a meme that goes around:

and I think that at face value it's silly, but it's important to know that everyone in Twin Peaks was complicit in her murder because they used her up for all she was worth and the story works best when you consider that she had no one protecting her, no one saving her. This is why, in Fire Walk With Me, she talks about the angels not coming for her and Donna tries so hard to convince her that they can and will, because Donna, of all the people in Twin Peaks including Dale Cooper, does not want anything from Laura but her trust and friendship.

If you watch Twin Peaks and view Laura as "the victim" then you're doing yourself a disservice. She's a nuanced character and a horrifying Lynchian portrait of those who are caught in webs of abuse. But she has agency. She just has no meaningful way of escaping, particularly when by the end of her life she views the whole world as a prison full of users and abusers and when she finds someone who tries to offer her kindness, she rejects them at first and when they refuse to leave or back off, she tries to drag her down with her. It's only when she realizes that she's so far gone that she'll bring Donna into her personal hell that she decides to become the angel for her and save her. The Pink Room sequence in the movie may well be my favorite part of all the Twin Peaks saga. Laura Palmer is such a compelling character. I love her.

11: Lady Bird/Christine McPherson - Lady Bird - Lady Bird is a phenomenal movie and one of my all-time favorites. I'll split this one up into character and then personal attachment.

For the film, Catherine/Lady Bird is a young woman raised in Sacramento in 2002. She goes to a catholic school because her parents are afraid of sending her to the local public school. Well, I say her parents but the movie is entirely about Lady Bird and her mother. In that regard it is a tough movie to watch because the pair clash so much. Lady Bird and her mom are both willful women and care a lot about what other people think about them. They see one another in the other and hate what they see while still loving one another.

The conflict between Marion and Lady Bird typically displays itself in Marion's refusal to refer to Lady Bird by the name she has chosen for herself. In the Opening Scene she says that "it's stupid and it's not your name" and continually talks down to her daughter, saying that she cannot get into a New York college because she couldn't pass her driver's test (which Lady Bird argues was because Marion refused to let her practice). These clashes continue throughout the movie and any time Lady Bird figures out a way to reframe a critique against her mom she just pivots away. Another example is the "Name a number" scene where after being told that she has no idea how much money it takes to raise her and Lady Bird responds by demanding a number so that she can pay her back; Marion just says "you'll never get a job that earns that much money".

All of this squabbling makes the most sense with the scene in Goodwill where Lady Bird confesses "I just wish that you liked me" to which Marion, dodging again, says "Of course I love you" and Lady Bird calls her on it with "But do you like me?"

Marion pauses and says "I just want you to be the best version of yourself you can be" and Lady Bird, hurt and knowing she won't make a connection says "What if this is the best version of me there is" and Marion gives an incredulous look before letting it sink in. The fact is she is trying to be the best mother she can be and is confronted with the vulnerability that maybe neither she nor her daughter is failing to be their best, maybe this is the best and she has to make peace with that.

That's why I love the movie so much. Two women who want the best for themselves and thus each other but are completely unable to understand one another or connect and speak different emotional languages. It's such a powerful and honest narrative about growing up and becoming your own person. I find the conclusion a little too forgiving on the mother's side, but I love Lady Bird. I love how willful she is, I love how cultured she wants to be. I love how she just wants to be part of the world she feels connected to while knowing she is on the outside of it. Legitimately one of my favorite film characters of all time.

For personal attachment. Camden Dawn is the name of one of my OCs, I first wrote her in 2001 but the version I consider "Camden Dawn" started off in tabletop games that began in 2010. Camden was a raised catholic by two parents who were obsessed with optics and how Camden's behavior reflected on her and their household and she successfully emancipated herself from them after managing to get them to fund her to go to college in Chicago. Over the 7 years I wrote that version of Camden she was always special to me. More than I think I could display to my tabletop group at the time. I considered her my "trainwrecksona" the fantasy version of what we would be like if we were allowed to express our anger, frustration and pain. Camden smoked, she had an alcohol problem, she made bad relationship decisions and was a mess. Watching Lady Bird was like seeing a film version of everything that I was trying to do be done by a masterful actor, director and screenwriter. There is no amount of language I can put into how powerful it is to pour so much of yourself into a fictional character you created, enough of yourself that you adopted her name as your own and to see someone take all the passion and soul that you tried to convey through fiction and do it better. It was awe, admiration and connection.

I'm not Camden (the character) and I'm certainly not Christine. But I understand what emotions go into writing a character like that. How can I not love her when she's the culmination of everything I love about my favorite original character?

12: Bill - It's Such A Beautiful Day - Three heavy movie characters in a row. Bill suffers from an unspecified psychological disorder that messes with his perception of reality and his memories. The movie is an outside view of his life and the narrator becomes so attached to him by the end that it cannot bear to let him go. "He lives and lives until all the lights go out." is such a powerful line to end the production with because that's it. That's all any of us get. The world may continue on without us but our capacity to perceive this beautiful trainwreck is only within us and there's no grander design than that. We live and then the lights go out. Even our memories may die before our ability to perceive. The movie talks about how we start looking forward, start looking back and in the end... all we can do is look around.

Which makes the bus ride so unspeakably poignant, long before the titular Beautiful Day. As the narrator says early on in the experience, life isn't the big memorable experiences, it's all of the tiny little things that happen in between. That bus ride, Bill looking at the raindrops and admiring the world. That's far more true than any moment in the film and what Hertzfeld wants the audience to pick up through the experience.

I became attached to him during the runtime. The mundane thoughts of a person who begins the story with the news that he's going to die and ends up finding the sentiment that gives the movie its title.

Hertzfeld does such an amazing job with Bill. The subtle gestures like how he wrings his hands together or the wrinkles under his eyes betraying his fear and worries. He's a stick figure in a world of stick figures and all he has to differentiate himself is his hat. We cannot even hear him speak because the movie is conveyed only by the narration and yet the animation gives him so much personality.

There are so many scenes which just connect so well, like when he meets his father despite both men being so incapable of understanding the relevance of what is happening.

Bill lives until he doesn't anymore and we share the journey of life with him. It's breathtakingly beautiful.

13: Susan Sto Helit - Discworld - Susan is really three characters. Soul Music Susan, Hogfather Susan (goth Mary Poppins) and Thief of Time Susan (goth Ms. Frizzle).

I love her. I love her more than I have words for. Especially Thief of Time Susan.

She's almost human. Part of her will always be a deity. She is the granddaughter of DEATH and much of her character in Hogfather and Thief of Time is attached to her wanting to embrace her human side. But it's in Thief of Time where she learns that what she's looking for is not to be accepted within humanity, but she wants to find someone who is like her. That's why I adore her connection to Lobsang. She puts up a ward of sensible Susan and tries to be practical and put together but she's a deeply emotional woman and she's lonely because no one else shares her experiences.

She loves her grandfather very much but she cannot abide by "the family business", she is kind to him but wants to be her own person and she ends up finding herself more attached to children because they haven't lost their curiosity yet, in many ways she finds they are more sensible than adults because they haven't decided how things are and closed their hearts and minds to ideas outside of what they think and expect.

Susan is important to me. I love her dearly.

14: Ben Reilly - Spider-Man - We're unapologetic in our love of the clone saga. The thing about Ben (and Kaine) is that he's a fantastic character study into the nature and nurture of Peter Parker and the writers had so many fun and cool ideas for how to handle a version of Peter who had 5 years to not be Spider-Man.

One of my alltime favorite moments in comics is when Aunt May died and Peter is embraced by MJ and Anna, he's surrounded by family. Ben is on the roof, alone. Ben's has no one because he's a clone and completely broken off from others. He slowly builds his own family over time and considers Peter (and Kaine) his brother(s) but it takes time.

The lost years are where he exemplified himself in my eyes. We get to see how he grows from finding out he's not Peter Parker until he returns to New York. How he tries to walk away from responsibility, how he tries to live a normal life. He's a tragic character because no matter how much he wants to be a different man, he still has Peter's memories and cannot help but have the drive that makes him Spider-Man.

15: "Sunshine" Joe Fixit (Banner System) - Hulk - So I did two whole essays on Banner's system with the second part entirely about Joe and Betty's relationship. Fact is Joe is what happens when a man is so repressed and ashamed of himself that he cannot act out. Joe is all of the things that Bruce wants, lusts for, desires but cannot allow himself to act out upon. He's capable of lying, cheating, stealing and killing in a way Bruce can never allow himself to believe he is capable of. The period of time that Peter David was writing Joe as the main front of the system gave us some incredible insights into the widening chasm between his morality and Bruce's as well as what Joe finds himself wanting. There was a period of time where changing into Banner was the greatest fear of Hulk(Fixit) and it worked remarkably well to see the two having their day and night battle for dominance.

But what really made me love him more was the Immortal series where he's in Banner's body and needs to keep the body safe the way that only he can. The latter half of the comic Bruce is not even in the system and it's just Joe and Savage against the world. Joe's a reluctant protector. He used to be a hedonist but over time his affection for the system

Look at this page (first panel especially) from a 4 page side-story where Joe is talking to their therapist and briefly remembers Brian Banner beating the shit out of him and how he would take the beating so Bruce didn't have to.

Joe's attachment to Mike was evident in Peter David's run and solidifying that Joe just wants a father figure is such amazing characterization. With both Mr. Robot and Hulk I love how these adults are driven by childhood notions of safety and comfort. I even hint on it a bit with Catra too with how she sold herself out to get a chance of Shadow Weaver's affection. Good trauma representation is showing how a character carries their past into their present and Joe is a manifestation of Bruce's repressed anger and childhood trauma just as much Hulk himself is. Joe just wants what we all want, to be loved and protected in a world where the person who owed him both those things failed to do either. In lieu of being loved himself, he's damned well going to love his inner family, especially the kid.

16: Kimberly Wexler - Better Call Saul - Kim is a phenomenal character in a character driven drama. Again, when surrounded by amazing characters I go for the protagonist's love interest. But here it's different. In the final season Kim is approached by Mike. Mike is the most level headed guy in the canon. He's the one who is objectively right about everyone and has a good eye to who people are. Enough that Season 4 of the show only makes sense if you consider they needed a season long plot arc for why he didn't execute Walter where he stood in during BrBa.

Mike approached Kim because he judged that she was the one who could be trusted with the information that he had about Lalo Salamanca, another incredible character in a show full of them. Kim is headstrong, crafty and hates being talked down to. She is attracted to Jimmy because they are equals and she typically acts up when Jimmy doesn't display the trust and respect that he owes her.

Throughout the show we get glimpses of her childhood and there are some gems with her mom. She refuses to be picked up from school when her mom shows up late and drunk and ends up walking home miles on her own. There's a scene where she steals from a store and her mom picks her up and acts up the punishment she would get only to laugh about the store manager after leaving the scene. Kim had a tough childhood and bad rolemodels and yet still clawed her way up to being a lawyer.

We get to see her realize that the system is inherently broken to its core and no amount of pro-bono work within the system will make a difference, she is reduced to constantly being hit with "did Jimmy put you up to this" levels of disrespect for her agency. Kim is fascinating because she was always the capable one and Mike and Jimmy are about the only people in the show who can see it and even Jimmy can't when his ego gets in the way.

Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you want to go apeshit?

Kim is best girl and Rhea Seehorn should be given every Emmy forever.

17: Johnny Truant/Pelafina H. Lièvre/The Book Itself - House of Leaves - This one is a total cheat. The fact is I wanted to type "anyone who types in Courier or Dante fonts" but the book is a mind worm and the mere act of trying to communicate about it is a bottomless pit that will make you look like you're in front of a Pepe Silvia wall. The fact is nothing inside of the book House of Leaves can be said to have happened in any meaningful sense. It's a journal of a man reading an analysis of a film of events that likely didn't happen and the person at the top of that narrative pyramid (well, under The Editors, I suppose) is an admitted liar. Which means that I cannot say The Whalestone Letters are true or not. I can say that they are my favorite part of the book and judging from my interaction with the only fandom, this makes me a little unhinged. Johnny's panic attack at seeing purple ink, the back and forth on whether Pelafina attempted to strangle Johnny as a child or not, why her secret decoded message mentions Zampano, how her letters can refer to events after she died... as I said, it's a bottomless pit and the more you think about it the more insane you become. Fact is, Johnny is an interesting character and there's a lot to him and part of that IS the fact you cannot tell if he's lying and that means that if he forged his mother's letters they are his words and if he didn't she's equally compelling in her complexities. We have an unknowable psyche of someone who is both inviting us in to see the innards of his soul AND pushing us away so we can not know him, see him or judge him. It's brutally honest AND guarded. Deceptive while bearing everything. I tend to feel strongly for characters if they go through something I've been through because I get to see someone else deal with the thought processes I went through, I don't need to see myself reflected in that, just empathize with the fact they're dealing with it. A parent being put away in a mental care facility is fucking tough shit and as I saw Johnny's trauma unfold through his journals I cared more about him and wanted to understand him more.

Which brings us to the end of his portion of the narrative and his big "fuck you" to the reader. I'll admit it. Upon first reading I was hurt by Johnny's betrayal of the reader and then I realized, much in the same way HBomb's described during his analysis of Pathologic, that I knew the entire time I was reading a book and Johnny wasn't real, that by feeling betrayed and hurt by his lies it just showed I cared and that he had made me care. No character has ever violated the attachment I form with fictional characters in such a way that really made me understand how one-sided and false that connection was and it was a unique experience. Certainly one that makes me love the character, for all I know they are an unknowable wreck and I cannot ever truly understand them. House of Leaves is a mirror and it reflects everything you put into it and that's why I love it so much. The experience of reading that book is mine and mine alone. My relationship with the book and its characters is unique. It cannot be replicated. It can barely be described.

18: Puck/Owen Burnett - Gargoyles - Seems I posted without writing about Puck! Better edit it in. I LIKE FAE AND BUSINESS MAN OWEN AND I'LL EDIT THIS IN LATER I PROMISE!

19: JJ MacField - The Missing ((JJ Macfield and the Island of Missing Memories) - Beating this game made me come out the closet. I'd known I was trans for almost 20 years before playing it but when I beat it I told the support network in my life at the time that I couldn't stay in the closet any longer and began formally socially transitioning.

The Missing is about two girls going to an island. JJ and Emily. Emily tried to initiate intimacy and JJ pulled back and soured the mood, when she wakes up the next morning Emily is gone and JJ has to puzzle solve through themed areas of the island to find her. As you progress text messages fill you in on JJ's life.

So. Being honest? I thought it was a game about being a lesbian. I thought that it was about JJ coming to terms with her sexuality, even when her mother is controlling monster (literally in terms of the game) and sent her to conversion therapy. Nope. Turns out JJ is trans and I didn't see it. I didn't know.

I played the game on release day and just... didn't figure that out.

JJ is a cutie who loves donuts, she loves her stuffed plushie, she loves Emily, she loves flowing fashion. The game sadly is a nightmare from her trying to kill herself and being saved.

The thing is, though, the game's aftercare is so healing. After beating the game you have the opportunity to play the game without JJ's "idealized" dream form. You can play as socially transitioning JJ with her developmental voice, change her wig, let her experiment her look. Here's some gallery items showing the differences between first run and second run versions of JJ.

and I think it's beautiful to show her as being the same person no matter what she appears on the outside. Because she's JJ. Voice, wig, eye color and outfit do not change the fact she's a sleepy donut gremlin.

I could write more. Like how the themes of the game are the amount of pain one must endure to actualize as their true selves and how learning to live with that helps you pull yourself together and become endure more (not to fetishize suffering, but well, learning to endure pain can be virtuous if you cannot avoid it) or how the player becomes the final boss themselves and lashes out against Emily to show how her attempted suicide was a harmful act.

The thing I adore most though is that the final secret in the game, the reward for everything is photographs of JJ and Emily going clothes shopping and buying the outfit that JJ wears during the game.

Fuck that story makes me so happy. Especially from the perspective we were in when we were closeted.

As a sidenote, I own a F.K plushie and love it very much.

20: Korra - The Legend of Korra - Running low on steam but I'll be quick and say "Avatar is the story of a normal little boy finding out that he's the chosen one and having to learn how to save the world. Korra is the story of the chosen one who was raised to save the world learning to become a normal woman."

I find the latter so much more compelling than the first. Especially when season 4 spends so much time on her rehabilitation after Season 3 left her disabled. The depiction of both recovering from a severe injury and the PTSD was well handled.

Anyway. She's rad.

21: Hal "Otacon" Emmerich - Metal Gear Solid - He's the spiritual child of Dr. Strangelove and The Boss. Huey was a sperm donor and nothing more. Hal's an idiot. He's a geek. He's a hopeless romantic who makes dumb mistakes. He's also Snake's husband and Sunny's father and he saved the world. I love him.

22: Adonis "Donnie" Creed/Johnson - Creed - Gosh I wish I wrote about him when I had more in the tank but I'm 22 characters in, the end is in sight and I'm tired. The Rocky franchise is a special series of movies. We get to see the same man through 50 years and even in the first film they were talking about him being past his prime. I chose Donnie over Rocky though because Creed is my a contender for my favorite movie of all time. Ryan Coogler said about it

"[My father] used to play [the Rocky movies] before I had football games to pump me up, and he would get really emotional watching the movies. He used to watch Rocky II with his mom while she was sick and dying of cancer. She passed away when he was 18 years old. And so when he got sick he was losing his strength because he had a muscular condition. He was having trouble getting around, having trouble carrying stuff. I started thinking about this idea of my dad’s mortality. For me he was kind of like this mythical figure, my father, similar to what Rocky was for him. Going through it inspired me to make a film that told a story about his hero going through something similar to kind of motivate him and cheer him up. That’s how I came up with the idea for this movie."

"If I fight, you fight"

It's about a father being a hero, it's about being strong enough to live up to legacy, it's about passing down knowledge and inspiration from one generation to the next. Donnie is a conflicted character. On one hand he is the foster care kid who got into fights in juvie. On the other hand he is the son of world famous Apollo Creed and raised in a mansion. He is Adonis Creed and he is Donnie Johnson. Both of these are true and that conflict burns within Donnie because he burns for a father he never got to meet and connection to a world he's not part of anymore. In being rescued from his group home situation by Mary-Anne he left behind all he knew. We learn more about his childhood prior to juvie in Creed III. Point is, he's hurting to make a place for himself and prove he belongs. The armor piercing quote in the first movie is when he says "I gotta prove it - That I wasn't a mistake."

I cried when I first saw that scene and just loved him. Rocky movies are about underdogs putting their heart into what they do and overcoming the odds and winning the moral victory. Donnie isn't a perfect person. He's kind of an arrogant jerk at times, but I adore him.

The second and third movie are heavily about his growing relationship with his wife, Bianca, who is the star of her own movie that should exist too, about becoming a performing music artist while her hearing is fading. His daughter is born deaf and he has to adapt to her hearing loss. Watching Donnie learn ASL and just exist with his family is one of the highlights of the movies because though there's a brief scare in Creed II where Rocky asks if he's going to love his daughter if she's born deaf, the franchise never treats Bianca or Amara's disability as anything more than a part of who they are.

Creed movies are the best. I hope Michael B Jordan makes them as long as Stallone hung with the Rocky franchise.

23: Parker - Leverage - She was a side character who became the star of the show. Parker is brilliant. A foster kid who tangled with a brilliant gentleman thief and learned to be the best there ever was. She's autistic, she's brilliant and she's an oddball. Her relationship with Hardison was the emotional backbone of the show and throughout the entire show her need for a family is one of the threads that ties seasons together. Season 4 includes an episode where she needs to learn to dance from Hardison and he says "I've got you, I've always got you" and prepares an escape route for her at the end of the episode only for the finale to have a callback where she saves him on an elevator wire with the "I've got you". If you watch Leverage through the lens of her rising to become the new mastermind you have a 5 season show (and ongoing revival) about a girl who never fit in everywhere, prickly and defensive and unable to understand other people creating a family for herself, building a better world and being the best version of herself she can be.

Also she really hates it when people are mean to kids and I love that about her.

I love Parker. Häagen-Dazs!

24: Asuka Langley Sohru - Neon Genesis Evangelion - Why did I leave her until last? Asuka prides herself on being the best EVA pilot. She is not the best EVA pilot.

She wants Kaji, a grown man who will never be with her.

She wants her mother to have not succumb to mental illness and projected all her maternal affection onto an inanimate doll who she hung alongside herself, leaving Asuka alone in the world and so thoroughly rejected that when her mom killed herself she took the effigy of her daughter with her on the way out.

Asuka doesn't get what she wants.

Instead she gets Shinji. Someone who, while complaining the entire time about how much he hates and doesn't want to do it, is a better EVA pilot than she is. Who in End of EVA...

Well.

Y'know.

Asuka is a cautionary tale of what happens when you pin all of your personality, your reason for existing, your pride and passion onto a single thing that you do not control. It can be taken away from you and it will leave you with nothing.

Asuka needs to put others down to feel good about herself because the source of her self-esteem is in her ability to perform a task that may not always be there, that others may surpass her in. She needs to learn to create worth from within, not from external praise and validation. Shinji shares that flaw.

EVA is a show with a lot to say about isolation and connection. About drive and purpose. About the reason why we exist and what we do with our the time we're given. Hopefully through looking at the other 23 entries and seeing the themes, you'll see it's pretty clear she's just my type of character.

I love her.

BONUS

Because I didn't do all my tags, here's the remaining tags with my favorite characters:

POTO - Erik Castlevania - Alucard Umineko - Beatrice Sonic - Fleetway Super Sonic Persona - Aigis Sailor Moon - Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter Scott Pilgrim - Kim Pines Pathologic - Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky (the fact I do not have to justify this down here is a big reason he's not on the bingo)

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soul-dwelling · 10 months

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With how Soul Eater is a kitchen sink of horror, fantasy and sci-fi stuff, do you think that there still could have been stuff adedded that wouldnt have "fitted"? Like for exampel things like aliens that actually come from another planet and arent just some monsters that look like extra terestials?

If you’ll indulge me in a bit of a diatribe…

This is why I thoroughly enjoy getting to make headcanon and worldbuilding with people like elliotthezubat, who just combines so many various elements from a range of genres and works…

…and why I was so pissed that Ohkubo reduced the world of Soul Eater to just “a 17-year-old remade our real world into a cartoon.”

The approach I prefer taking in fan creations or interpreting Soul Eater is similar to what Greg Weisman did with Gargoyles or what a game like Smite does: if it exists in legend, if happened. Before Fire Force, Excalibur and King Arthur existed. Before Fire Force, Poseidon was in Soul Eater.

But after Fire Force? Excalibur is not the legendary Excalibur: he is just some sword made from a spaceship metal and got imbued with life by extradimensional shenanigans. After Fire Force, Arthur Pendragon doesn’t exist--it’s just Arthur Boyle. After Fire Force, given how many characters there are named after godly figures (Vulcan, Charon), someone named “Poseidon” in Soul Eater is probably just some person named Poseidon, not the literal Poseidon. (Granted, maybe I should have figured that out when some guy named Tezca Tlipoca just showed up and wasn’t(?) the actual Tezcatlipoca.)

That diatribe out of the way, to answer your question:

Before Fire Force, I thought just about anything short of extraterrestrials and extradimensional beings could work in Soul Eater. (Yes, we can debate whether in canon witches count as being from a different dimension.) Ohkubo in Soul Eater was pulling so much from religions and mythologies and legends (Anubis, Poseidon, Arthur Pendragon), horror movies (the designs on some of Noah’s monsters, Blair’s name), magic (witches), the occult (Lovecraftian references), that it seemed just about anything could fit in this setting.

It’s why, when Ohkubo decided to bring in aliens and other dimensions into Fire Force, that felt like he was going in a new direction and trying to make that work distinct from Soul Eater as its own thing, to add elements that weren’t in Soul Eater and, as I am trying to say above, would not really fit well tonally or in terms of worldbuilding.

Then we saw how Fire Force wrapped up, so now aliens and other dimensions are canon in Soul Eater--and I don’t think it fits. Suddenly all of this magic in Soul Eater was just aliens all along.

Either you set this up early on, like in the first few chapters, so that people don’t freak out and panic that you’re just tossing in anything from the kitchen sink (how Eastman and Laird just tossed in the Utroms to the Ninja Turtles’ origin story in the first few chapters of that series--and, hey, like Ohkubo grafting Fire Force onto Soul Eater, this was how Eastman and Laird grafted their Fugitoid outer space story onto their more popular but Earth-based Ninja Turtles series), or you spend a long-ass time setting that up (ironically, going with the same Ninja Turtles story but a different spin on it, it took an entire season before Laird and the team at 4Kids with the 2003 Ninja Turtles series before introducing the Utroms, and numerous episodes before they started to introduce other genetic mutations, extraterrestrials, time travelers, alternate dimensions and alternate timelines, monsters, and gods).

(Or, how the Arrowverse managed to shift gears from “Arrow is a gritty crime story rooted in realism” to “Arrow takes place alongside wacky sci-fi shenanigans in The Flash along with magic that we took by grafting Constantine onto Legends of Tomorrow.)

To make that incongruous stuff fit, you have to pick a strategy to get there. I think creators like elliotthezubat figured out how to add aliens and other dimensions very well--and some of that owes to really thinking through headcanon, lore, and narrative, and some of that benefits from building your world not just out of Soul Eater but also through crossovers with it (how elliotthezubat writes Soul Eater is by making a lot of cross-franchise works--so, if you want some detail, bit of history, lore, tone, or emotion that isn’t already in Soul Eater proper, boom, just toss in characters and settings from Madoka Magica or Blue Exorcist until you get the characters and settings that give you that history, lore, tone, or emotion you’re looking for but couldn’t get out of Soul Eater by itself).

Could Soul Eater have added more sci-fi stuff like other dimensions and aliens earlier? Yeah. But it never felt like a science-based story--so to suddenly add more sci-fi stuff, for me, would have felt tonally off. Even Stein is someone whose scientific pursuits are taking what we think of as spiritual and turning it into an actual science: like the titular character from Shelley's Frankenstein, Stein struck me more like a magician than a scientist--we never learn how Stein made Sid into a zombie, it just happens, like magic. You’d need to have introduced characters earlier who are into more traditional sci-fi stuff to make that sci-fi stuff easier to tackle and not feel tacked on.

And, honestly, aside from Gen making the airship towards the end of the manga, Buttataki in the anime making the Death City Mech, and Stein making the robotic duplicate of Eternal Feather, there wasn’t a lot of typical sci-fi stuff in Soul Eater--and even what I pointed to just now was either introduced too late into the story, introduced in the anime that was part of a controversial gecko ending, or introduced in a spinoff that is contentious amongst some fans. Even some machinery in Soul Eater like the golems and Eibon's inventions are presented as pretty much just magic.

#dwells whines about fire force #spoiler #spoilers #fire force spoiler #fire force spoilers #long post #EDIT: I mixed up responses so edited the Smite part for clarity

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yjwhatif · 2 years

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SPOILER NOTES FOR YJ EPISODE 20… only six episodes left 😕

Well I’m happy to see Rocket trying to work out her problems with Orion - or at least making an effort to - I’m not so happy to see it was M’comm in disguise as Orion… STOP PRETENDING TO BE ORION M’COMM!!

“How does the Lord of Apokolips tolerate such disloyalty?”… oh this boy needs some serious therapy!

TIME SHENANIGANS!

“Can bugs eat Ruction Cell?” 🤣 I love this line and appreciate getting to hear it again! 🤣

THERAPY!! I was starting to think Gar must have actually quit since it’s been a month or two since M’gann gave him the ultimatum and we hadn’t seen or heard anything - but I guess not - they still gave him the control to make the decision instead of actually forcing or rushing him into go to therapy or kicking him out. Gar needed to make the decision for himself otherwise he might have just closed himself off further - the threat of having his team (family) taken away from him fuelled him enough to realise what he doesn’t want - to have anymore of his family taken from him. YAY FOR GAR FINALLY GOING TO THERAPY!

“I just don’t wanna be an actor when I grow up.” - that line really hammers home how young Gar still is

NO! You cannot have Halo or Cyborg!

Okay so the misgendering of Halo/Violet is a serious shame - it really was jarring to see no one correct the New Gods. At first I did wonder if there was a narrative reason - like Violet hadn’t come out to everyone or Raquel hadn’t heard yet since she’s not as closely associated with Violet — but they’re reasons that don’t track very well. Violet is close with Forager who would absolutely correct anyone who misgendered them and with the amount of time that’s passed since Violet first questioned their gender identity and has now chosen their pronouns - it makes such ‘reasons’ not so reasonable. The only person I can imagine Violet maybe not immediately telling is Gabrielle’s mum - just because there seemed to be some hesitation when they did bring up the topic of gender and then quickly moved away from discussing it further with her - but that’s it. There will be people that won’t know, but these heroes work together and socialise with each other - even if it’s not by violets own lips - that information would have gotten passed on to ensure Violet received the same respect as everyone else within their hero sphere. The other thing that should eradicate any ‘narrative reasonings’ given by anyone is the fact that Greg Weisman himself has explicitly said there are none because it was a mistake that got past him. Those ‘reasons’ being given are really just excuses which attempt to lighten the blow of the original mistake - though instead of actually lightening the blow they really just poke extra holes into the narrative unnecessarily… or at least that’s my opinion on the matter anyway. Now, here’s the thing, Greg didn’t have to make the statement taking responsibility for the error - he just as easily could have made up a reason/excuse to avoid the negative backlash - something A LOT of media creatives tend to do in deference of poorly handle representation. But he didn’t, he showed his respect and compassion for those his mistake hurt by actually apologising and taking full responsibility without giving any excuses — which I can personally appreciate - though it is perfectly understandable why anyone might not be since it was a bad mistake to make.

I love seeing Orion’s heart! He knows the importance of a supportive family unit and wouldn’t take Halo from theirs - this moment shows him going from the logical thinker to an emotional one

BEAR IS IN THE HOUSE! And I love Orion’s reaction to him - they are chaos and order.

Sad times as everyone continues to grieve Conner

“By Rao!” I don’t know who Rao is but the name gets mentioned three times throughout this episode?

Mantis speaks!

Gar’s wearing his Outsiders top again - he’s really trying to reattach himself to those ties he cut. He now understands the difference between choosing to push loved ones away and having others take them away from him.

“Conner’s hanging with Wally now” - it’s interesting that he only says Wally and no one else who’s been lost - guess it could just be because Conner and Wally were good friends…

One thing I’ll put here about the concept of bringing Wally back from the dead - it kinda warps the perception of death for us and the characters - we know Conner’s not dead, we know Jason’s not dead, if Wally’s not dead part of me wonders if it takes away from moments like this with Gar coming to terms with these deaths. Same with that moment with Kaldur at the end of his arc, or all the time spent with Dick and Artemis last season as they struggled with coming to terms with Wally’s loss specifically. At this point, I really don’t know if I want Wally back… or maybe just not right now. 🤷‍♀️

“It’s all my fault!” - oh Gar you are breaking my heart right now!

Bear slapping Forager affectionately is both shocking and hilarious every time I watch it

I like that Bear genuinely seems to look on Forager as a friend and is apparently invested in his love life… that or he just likes the gossip

Forager contemplating whether to stay on New Genesis with Forager after only knowing her for two days to me is such a Disney princess moment - though my cousin informed me it’s actually a Romeo & Juliet reference… which makes a lot more sense considering the end credits

DON’T LEAVE US FORAGER!

Orion grumbling about all the love talk that’s distracting everyone from what they’re supposed to be talking about… is it concerning that I feel I can relate to Orion a lot this episode… I can understand his frustrations towards wanting to get something done whilst everyone else just wants to talk about anything else

Back in ep 18 I was gonna make a comment about Jay calling Orion “Kid”… but since I ended up talking about other things I never said anything about the irony of Orion being called a kid considering he’s A HELL OF LOT older than Jay. Anyway, I like that they brought it back up with Bear informing Jay that he’s well over 16,000 earth years - who’s the kid now Jay!

Kilowog went toiling his suit?! I am both disgusted and slightly amused

Orion just wants to get stuff done — stop giving him evils Rocket!

Monotoned conner is not fun - give my boy his emotions back!

Remember who you are Conner!

I do not know what that eye is but I’m guessing it’s not good

Lor certainly seems loyal to his team by not ditching them and pulling them both to safety

Why does the line “I can’t punch a cloud” sound familiar? Either way I like that line

“Mantis sure as Roa can’t do anything” - oh just you wait Lor, Mantis will show you just what he can do.

Dinah just randomly ticking a blank page - well played Lance, well played… also it’s great seeing her do what she does best in the actual animated episode part and not just as a voice in the credits

“Last year, you and I talked about losing Brion” - I like how this establishes that the therapy/check ins have been happening for a while - and Gar has previously gone to them.

“BRIONS NOT DEAD!” “No but we’ve lost him” - I am really looking forward to finally seeing Brion’s return and the effect it will have on those who were friends with him

And my heart is officially broken 😫

Gar finally breaking down is both painful but also a huge relief - he’s finally letting go and with the guidance of Dinah he can finally find his way forward towards healing… also I just realised the parallels between Gar and Conner’s plots - both have reached rock bottom and are given two very different kinds of ‘support’ - Dinah provides guidance while Zod is simply manipulating.

“Dinah I need help”

I like the callback to Dinah’s final talk with Conner in Disordered - I’ve realised there’s a few Conner references in the last few episodes - Orion’s claustrophobia is similar to Conner’s disliking of being podded, both the rage issues of Razer and Orion are reminiscent of Conner’s early rage issues, and there’s probably others I can’t remember right now.

Dinah is seriously awesome - though this does make me wonder who she goes to to talk through things - she’s not immune to her own mind and emotions - she’s doing the same hero work as everyone else, as well as doing all these mental health check ins and having her own civilian life — how does she do it? How does she listen to all that emotion - it must get to her sometimes? Surely there’s more than just her with the role of superhero therapist? And on a very different note - what do you think therapy/mental health check in with Batman would be like - because I now wanna see that!?

See Metron, it’s not nice being tortured by someone, is it?!

ANOTHER SONG?! They’re spoiling us now - gotta admit though, it is a bop

NO CONNER, DON’T KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!

Did M’comm purposely out that Lor is a kryptonian to tip Metron off? He does know about kryptonite from M’gann after she confronted him for killing Conner. There’s something shifty about M’comm - I feel like he’s planning something against Lor.

Trailer shot!

Mantis out strengthed the Martian and Kryptonian - dudes got some serious will power to fight through the suneaters attack and save Lor & M’comm - and prove he’s not as incapable as everyone credits him as. You go Mantis - prove your worth! (Even if you are doing a bad thing by helping Lor)

I like Forager speaking Shakespeare - it’s in keeping with the s2 moment where he referenced Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Forager’s a literature nerd and it’s cute. He’s also a romantic. Also I know Jason spisak has some relationship with Shakespeare works so it’s cool hearing him perform it here as Forager… One question I do have though - is that supposed to be our Forager in the shot or mountain Forager? Because I thought it was the latter - but then where’s our Forager if he’s supposed to be speaking his monologue in her presence - she makes a sound so she’s somewhere nearby, right? I’m a bit confused…

Anyway. Another episode done - this one felt very different to the last two - it felt rather quieter with more talking than action - though still enjoyable. I’m guessing we’ll be getting the conclusion of the arc next episode so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens and what learning more with the plots that will be continuing beyond the arc. ALSO I’d like to see Lightray return before we leave New Genesis please - don’t think I’ve forgotten about him - I’m still yet to see him converse with Jay and be best buds with Orion! If you ask me, I don’t think that’s a lot to ask for… guess we’ll see.

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wuekka · 2 years

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" Fanfiction is the ultimate example of fans interpretating (and extrapolating upon) what they've seen." -Greg Weisman apparently said this (as a bigger answer to the question does he read fanfiction and what does he think about it), and I can't stop thinking about it, that's the best explanation of fanfiction I have heard.

#Greg Weisman #fanfiction #fandom #random ramble

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stairset · 3 years

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Society if the Bad Batch opening scene just used some new Jedi characters or maybe brought back one of the Gathering younglings or something

#i thought i was over this and then i watched a video comparing the scene to the comic version and now i'm about to become a red lantern #it's not even as emotional now because the scene isn't ABOUT kanan anymore #now his backstory is just a subplot in the bad batch's show when they previously had nothing to do with one another #and they changed the scene to the point it's barely recognizable #depa's saber is different grey's rank and armor are different the planet's climate is different the time of day is different etc etc #it happens after a battle instead of by a campfire and they inserted five characters who previously weren't present #it feels like a slap in the face to those of us who read the comic and it makes the bad batch feel out of place in their own damn show #how did filoni let this happen he created kanan surely he knows the basic plot of the comic about his own character #and what does greg weisman think of this #if i wrote a comic for a company that has a whole group of people whose job it is to maintain continuity #and they just let some spin-off show no one asked for overwrite a crucial scene from my comic for no reason #personally i'd be pretty pissed #like WHAT was the point WHAT was the purpose HOW does any of this benefit anyone in any way shape or form #bad batch spoilers #shut up tristan

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maizethecorn · 2 years

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Gargoyles anyone?

Anyone remember the 90s Gargoyle cartoon? The cartoon where the gargoyles protected Manhattan by night and turned to stone by day? I was thinking about cartoons I had nostalgia for and this cartoon came to mind. The first two seasons of Gargoyles directed by Greg Weisman was really dark and edgy. The third season was a hot mess and lots of people don’t consider the content to be cannon. I didn’t really remember anything about the third season other than seeing it briefly advertised on abc. From what I understand, the third season came out when Disney bought ABC. Greg Weisman was offered a demoted role of being a story editor of sorts to work on the third season.

Previously, Greg was producer and had control over how the show was done. Greg said no since no one was going to listen to his ideas for how season three should go. Greg supposedly said the team of writers and whoever else made the third season were really talented so what went wrong? ABC and Disney pushed the people who made the third season to meet really quick deadlines. These people had no time to review their content to put together any animation of good quality. Enough said about season three other than to say the story sounded like really bad fanfiction when I briefly reviewed it online.

Now, back to why I liked this cartoon. This cartoon was really cool. The police detective chick named Elisa sporting jeans and a red jacket top first grabbed my attention. She was running around with Goliath the purple gargoyle who I thought was her boyfriend at first. Goliath is a tall handsome, brooding guy who is shirtless mostly. Spoiler alert: they become a couple later on. The evolution of their friendship blooming into romance is paced out really well. I loved how Elisa was an action girl who could handle herself in a fight. Goliath wanting to protect humans reminded me of Batman. I barley remember the other gargoyles in Goliath’s group except for Brooklyn since he had funny lines. Often, Brooklyn made silly comments targeted towards kids watching the cartoon so that’s probably why I remembered him more.

The other two characters who stood out the most were Demona and Thailog. Demona’s character stood out because she really was her own worst enemy. She used to be Goliath’s mate/wife (whatever gargoyle spouses are) but their relationship ended early on. Her hatred of humanity was what drove them apart. Demona stood out because she never took responsibility for her mistakes which is what a lot of people do in real life. She hurts a lot of the other characters and blames everyone else for her actions. She hooks up with a clone of Goliath named Thailog. Thailog was cool because he was an evil version of Goliath. He does all the self-centered things that Goliath will never do since Goliath cares about humans. There were humans in the cartoon such as the billionaire Xanatos and his red headed wife Fox who had some interesting side stories.

Xanatos was an on and off antagonist since he always seemed to be attempting to use the gargoyles in some way. Fox started out as one of his henchmen but begins to quickly date Xanatos. Fox’s dad is a rival businessman/scientist (from what I remember) who doesn’t care for Xanatos. Possibly, Fox started out dating Xanatos just to spite her dad. Eventually, the two of them marry since they both love money, power, enjoy playing chess together and are just super smart. There are other characters but these two humans were the most interesting outside of the gargoyles and other nonhuman characters. That’s just my opinions and I know everyone has favorites of who they liked on the show.

Now, unto what has been with this show I liked since season two ended. Greg teamed up with some other artists to create a comic book series that follows season two continuity. The series ran from 2006 to 2009 with just twelve issues. The issues are supposed to have nice artwork and the story seemed pretty good. Unfortunately, the plot of the comic book series has hung in limbo since 2009 which disappointed many fans. You can read all twelve issues of the series for free at this link: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Gargoyles-2006.

Gargoyles the Movie: The Heroes Awaken was a five episode pilot that gave the backstory for how season one started. The movie came out on VHS in 1995. Gosh, does anyone miss VHS tapes? I do. I remember recording cartoons and other shows I liked on VHS tapes from my VCR. Later the movie was released on dvd. The movie is really good since of course it’s what started the cannon story. Many fanfic writers have their own take on what could happened with the story. There is fanfiction located at this link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/Gargoyles. Some of the stories are complete and some of them aren’t due to writer’s having lives outside their stories. You will just have to pick through the treasure trove to see which fanfics have a decent story. I enjoyed writing this post to get some of my nostalgia out of my system. Hopefully, someone enjoyed reading this post! Have a great day!

#gargoyles #elisa maza #goliath #demona #xanatos #Fox Thailog

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noddytheornithopod · 3 years

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Before I get to writing about the actual Bad Batch premiere, time to write another weird ranty post. This time... about overwriting canon. If you know what I mean, click the readmore to see what I have to say. If you don’t... well, don’t click, duh.

Yes, I’m talking about Caleb Dume’s inclusion.

Is canon something we hold too sacred? Yes. Am I still going to ask why they change things and wonder if it’s justified or not? Also yes.

I’m not super attached to the Kanan comic like some people are, but even as the episode played, I still took issue with the decisions they made? The reason ended up being surprisingly simple: I just preferred the story that was told in the comic than what we got on screen.

I definitely get why Filoni and co decided to feature this moment. Having a major character from one of your other shows get one of the most formative moments of his life portrayed is an opportunity too tempting to pass up. Honestly, when they made that Caleb model for the Siege of Mandalore opening, they were probably already thinking to themselves they should use it for something else.

As a scene in general, I do like what we got. I do like that we got to see Depa and Caleb together, and that we then saw everything go down, and how Caleb was already panicking and reacting to any clone with intense fear. Only real issues I have are that Freddie Prinze Jr (as great as it is to hear him again), as much as he tries to pitch up his voice clearly isn’t a 12 year old so it’s kinda distracting and even unintentionally hilarious (does anyone else think he even sounds a bit like Ezra at points?). That and, uh, the fact that Caleb’s design is whitewashed for some reason, but I talked about that before. The reason I’m not too into the scene and prefer the comic version though? Well, to put it simply, this isn’t Caleb’s story here.

Kanan: The Last Padawan is a story about Kanan Jarrus, back when he was still Caleb Dume. It’s focused on him and his relationship with Depa Billaba, what he’s like as a padawan, how he got along with clones like Grey and Styles, and of course how all of that comes together to impact him during Order 66. It’s a story about him.

Aftermath on the other hand isn’t a story about Caleb. It’s a story about the Bad Batch. This could’ve been any Jedi padawan escaping, any master that could’ve died, and it would’ve been the same story because it’s about how the Bad Batch react to Order 66 and what decisions they choose to make. They just chose to feature Caleb escaping Order 66 because they wanted to show that scene for Rebels fans. As a result, I was more focused on Hunter and Crosshair’s feelings and motives than what Caleb was going through.

Like, it’s not that it’s wrong to not feature Caleb here (...whitewashing aside, yeah sorry I’m gonna be salty for a while), it’s just that the more personal and impactful version of the story is I feel the comic for the reasons I stated, and now the more “official” version of the story is the one that’s less focused and personal for Caleb.

Oh yeah, there’s another thing that bothers me, but I find it more hilarious than anything: so much is changed from the comic, like yes putting the scene in new context is one thing, but changing things that wouldn’t even impact the story is another. Allow me to explain:

Captain Grey? He’s a commander in the comic, and there’s no Styles. I guess this was to be more efficient but you couldn’t be bothered to paint one more clone in some re... wait, green?

Yes, Grey’s armour is green, but in the comic it’s red. I’ve seen people suggest that it could be to avoid confusion with the shock troopers or even the Bad Batch themselves, but like... is it really that hard to discern? The red is a different shade and pattern. The shock troopers have WAY more red. Eh, what do I know.

On the topic of colours... why is Depa’s lightsabre now blue? It was not only green in the comics, but in freaking live action too (well, at least for promotional photos, IDK if they count as full canon). Let me guess, it’s something like Grey’s armour now being green means we can’t tell the difference now. Is there something I’m missing here? Something as small as a lightsabre colour feels like it’s changed for the sake of it.

Kaller is completely different: much snowier, and we see everything happen at daytime.

Like, stuff like this I just don’t get? Why make such insignificant changes when they don’t really impact the story? Did Kanan talk about how snowy it was when he watched his master die or something? :v I am aware this stuff that doesn’t matter, but that’s EXACTLY why I’m confused as to why they’re changing this stuff.

I think a lot of my confusion at this also comes from the fact that Lucasfilm promised when they rebooted canon under Disney, they would make a more unified and cohesive one to follow, one where everything would feel connected and that any errors would just be that, small mistakes that can be corrected or overlooked. But like, Filoni is clearly doing his own thing. The Siege of Mandalore is different to the Ahsoka novel (and implies some retcons to Son of Dathomir for that matter, an actual TCW story adapted lol). There’s differences with Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian to his story in the Aftermath books.

The reason I wasn’t as concerned there was because well for one, Cobb Vanth’s written material is something I haven’t read, so I can’t really compare. But for the stuff in the final Clone Wars season, it’s either small things, but even for bigger stuff like how events play out it’s because they told a better story, I felt. That, and all the changes I felt made sense or were at least justified (for example, Ahsoka now having blue lightsabres adds character to her and Anakin). I also felt I was able to reconcile what didn’t fit through unreliable narrators - something I’ve seen suggested for the Kanan comics because those ARE his flashbacks, but again, the issue I have with Kanan is I prefer the story in those comics to here. If it is how they justify things then fair enough, but that’s still gonna make me wonder about things.

Something I also find kinda weird was that the comic was written by Greg Weisman, who was a writer on the first season of Rebels, and for that matter the story editor (a position that in some cases is equivalent to head writer, even if I don’t know if that’s the case here) on said season. So not just some random comic writer, one of the main writers who helped get the show off the ground wrote it. I just feel like it’s really weird that you’d have one of your main writers write this origin story, only to then go and overwrite it yourself like it never existed? IDK what Greg Weisman feels on the subject, but it’s an odd situation. It’s basically taking your co-worker’s work and going “okay but we’re gonna do it MY way instead just to serve my new story because I’m in charge even though you worked with me and you have insights and discussions with me that make your contributions not that of just any writer”).

So yeah, even if canon is something we fixate too much on in fandom, I don’t blame people for sometimes feeling like they’re told the stories they like matter less, especially when you’re being told things are SUPPOSED to be more connected now. Even not being strongly attached to this story as much as others, I feel like making this version more prominent can’t help but bum me out because I feel the story in the comic was more in-depth and impactful.

#star wars #the bad batch #kanan jarrus #caleb dume #tbb spoilers #sw spoilers

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Easter Eggs Explained

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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch article contains spoilers.

While the Star Wars Original Trilogy has been explored thoroughly for more than 40 years, the period between the Prequels and the Originals is less well-trodden. Following in The Clone Wars and Rebels‘ footsteps, The Bad Batch takes a deep dive into the rise of the Empire. This means we get to see familiar characters, planets, ships, and technology in a moment of transition, as a Republic becomes something more twisted and sinister in the hands of the Sith.

Unsurprisingly, “Aftermath,” which is directed by Steward Lee, Saul Ruiz, and Nathaniel Villanova, and written by Jennifer Corbett and Dave Filoni, is full of connections and nods to other parts of the Star Wars universe.

Here are all of the Star Wars easter eggs and references we spotted in this episode:

Caleb Dume/Kanan Jarrus

– Jedi Kanan Jarrus was introduced and starred in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, where he was a maverick Force-user fighting for the good guys while rediscovering what it means to be a Jedi in a time when they’re persecuted. His previous name, before he changed it to hide from the Empire, was Caleb Dume.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

– The character’s origin story was first explored in the 12-issue Marvel comic book series Kanan by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz. While “Aftermath” only gives us the very early part of this story, the comic series goes into way more detail about how Caleb eventually became Rebel hero Kanan Jarrus.

Interestingly enough, The Bad Batch‘s version of events is slightly different to the opening of Kanan. However, the broad strokes are the same, including the presence of his Jedi Master Depa Billaba. In the comic, Caleb, Depa, and their clone troopers are resting around a fire when the Order 66 call comes in, not fully engaged in battle as they are in The Bad Batch. In both, master and Padawan become separated such that Caleb doesn’t know what became of Depa, which enables an early plot point for Rebels.

– Kanan is once again voiced by well-loved Star Wars voice actor Freddy Prinze Jr.

Omega

– Since she was first introduced in the trailers, mysterious new clone character Omega has been the subject of much speculation. Is she a new kind of clone? Does her name signify that she’s the final clone? No to the latter, since we see Tarkin examining a lab growing more clones in the episode.

But what we do know is that she’s the last of the enhanced clones. Like Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, and Crosshair, she was born a bit different, and we see that she’s ostracized by the other clones for it. The episode also suggests that Omega’s “genetic mutation” might be something the Kaminoans are trying to keep a secret. On the surface, she is simply Lama Su’s “medical assistant.” The locket on her head contains something of importance, but we don’t yet know what is.

– Omega is voiced by New Zealand actor Michelle Ang, whom you’ve previously seen on Fear the Walking Dead, The Twilight Zone, and Xena: Warrior Princess.

Order 66 and Revenge of the Sith

– “Aftermath” overlaps with events first established in Revenge of the Sith. The episode mentions Obi-Wan Kenobi’s final fight with General Grievous on Utapau, and even recreates part of the scene where Palpatine creates the Galactic Empire. Based on this timeline, we know the first episode of The Bad Batch also takes place around the same time as the series finale of The Clone Wars.

– The episode also directly addresses Order 66 and its aftermath. Order 66, which saw the Clone Army turn on and exterminate their Jedi commanders, is one of the most tragic events of the Star Wars saga. We wrote way more about Order 66 and how it worked here.

– The inhibitor chips that force the clones to execute Order 66 and become more aggressive in the aftermath don’t affect Hunter, Tech, Echo, Wrecker, or Omega. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for team sniper Crosshair, who quickly turns into the villain of the episode, as he tries to first kill Caleb and later betrays his friends at Tarkin’s behest. These control chips were explored in season six of The Clone Wars. Clone trooper Fives discovered their true nature but was killed before he could foil Palpatine’s plan. Captain Rex and Ahsoka Tano also discovered the chips and removed Rex’s in the final arc of season seven.

Shaak Ti’s Lightsaber?

One of the darkest scenes in the episode happens when the Bad Batch arrive back on Kamino. As they’re walking through the halls of their base, a group of clones pass by carrying a stretcher, a dead Jedi’s body covered by a sheet. Out of the stretcher falls a lightsaber, which some fans have speculated belongs to Jedi Master Shaak Ti, who died on Coruscant during Order 66.

The lightsaber doesn’t really look like Shaak Ti’s, but we don’t know who else might be in that stretcher. Let us know what you think in the comments!

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Kamino and the Clones

– The Bad Batch are also known as Clone Force 99, named after 99, a clone with “genetic mutations” who eventually gave his life in the war.

– Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su and administrative aide Taun We both appeared in Attack of the Clones as representative of the cloning industry, while Scientist/doctor Nala Se debuted on The Clone Wars. Their primary motive in their conflict with Tarkin in The Bad Batch is financial, but it does seem like Nala Se might also be trying to protect Omega.

– They’re still making young clones, as evidenced by the kids visible in the background. It’s unknown whether Omega ages at a normal rate or has the accelerated growth that brings most of the clones up to fighting form unnaturally fast.

– We see many different ranks and roles among the clones in this episode, including the green-armored sergeants and red-armored captains.

– In one scene, we see clones working on an E-Web heavy repeating blaster, which appears throughout the franchise, and was recently called out by name in The Mandalorian.

J-19 and Other Locations

– The Bad Batch come up with a plan to meet an old friend in Sector J-19. That sector is also known as the Suolriep sector, which is largely populated by desolate planets. Unsurprisingly, it is located in the Outer Rim of the galaxy. The sector first appeared in Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars.

– While Kamino is front and center here, the episode also visits the lush (and dangerous) jungle world of Onderon, Kaller, and briefly mentions Felucia, a beautiful planet that first appeared in Revenge of the Sith during the grim Order 66 montage.

Other Cameos

– Wilhuff Tarkin, later Grand Moff, has appeared in animated form before. He showed up in The Clone Wars and Rebels. Whether his CGI iteration in Rogue One counts as animation may be up for debate, but he’s certainly there.

The villain first appeared in A New Hope, where famous horror actor Peter Cushing played the man who “held Vader’s leash.”

– Saw Gerrera, who also appeared in Rogue One, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, is a radical freedom fighter who will go on to have a tenuous but helpful relationship with the mainstream Rebel Alliance. He previously helped his home planet of Onderon shake off Separatist rule with Republic help.

– Darth Sidious appears briefly in a hologram, as he declares the formation of “the first Galactic Empire, for a safer and secure society.”

– Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and General Grievous all appear in flashbacks in the episode.

– Grey is the clone commander who executes Order 66 at the start of the episode, killing Depa Billaba and attempting to do the same with Caleb. He first appeared in the Kanan comic series.

– Comic relief medical droid AZI-345211896246498721347 first appeared in The Clone Wars.

Ships and Technology

– The Imperial probe droid that stalks Clone Force 99 in the episode is derived from the Republic ones also seen in The Clone Wars. They’re already more outwardly ominous by the time of The Bad Batch, with more oddly-placed eyes and insectoid limbs instead of the rounder Republic version.

– The Batch’s ship is a modified Omicron-class attack shuttle named the Havoc Marauder.

Creatures

– Wrecker’s stuffed animal is a tooka, the cat-like species of which the Loth-cat that features often in Star Wars Rebels is one variety. They first appeared in The Clone Wars (also several cat-like species mentioned in various corners of the Expanded Universe preceded them) and were named after Star Wars animation executive producer Dave Filoni’s late cat.

– At one point, you can also see a Pikobi, a half-reptilian and half-bird species native to Onderon, Naboo, and Dagobah. The Pikobi first appeared in The Phantom Menace.

The post Star Wars: The Bad Batch Episode 1 Easter Eggs Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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dascarecrow · 3 years

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Space Jam A New Legacy Wishlist

This here’s a list of properties and characters that I want to see in Space Jam A New Legacy and some explanation as to why or how they can even appear. And I am well aware these would just be cameos. That doesn’t bother me.

RWBY (Warner does in fact own RoosterTeeth and RWBY is just about their most well known original work. Plus Warner seems to have some interest in expanding the RWBY brand, what with a Justice League crossover comic and all)

Mortal Kombat (Owned by Warner and if they’re willing to include the Droogs and freaking Pennywise this franchise has no reason not to appear. Plus it is getting a movie and cross promotion never hurt anyone)

Birdman (There are already Hanna-Barbera super heroes appearing and this one is a personal favorite of mine)

Mightor (Again with the Hanna-Barbera superheroes)

Jonny Quest (Hanna-Barbera and honestly has gotten a bit more of a push in recent years than most of that brand has gotten)

Speed Buggy (They got Jabberjaw so why not)

Freakazoid (The only one of Spielberg’s 90′s cartoons that isn’t up for a reboot. Also it got a crossover episode with Teen Titans Go so it clearly isn’t forgotten)

Beetlejuice (I just like Beetlejuice)

Loonatics Unleashed (I actually enjoyed this show. It wasn’t groundbreaking but it was a pretty fun superhero show that tried to put an original spin on the Looney Tunes. I would just like to see an appearance by them that wasn’t a potshot)

Xiaolin Showdown (This was actually a pretty decent show that seems forgotten nowadays. Would be nice to see something to show it isn’t forgotten.)

Teen Titans (The original cartoon. I just want something for Teen Titans that doesn’t remotely involve Go at this point)

Swat Kats (This is definitely a fan favorite that has gotten jack squat done for it for years. Would be nice if this is where they made a return for a quick moment)

Road Rovers (A personal favorite of mine and also Warner Bros. Would be hilarious if they met the Swat Kats)

Ricochet Rabbit (A personal favorite Hanna-Barbera character of mine)

Venture Bros. (Got screwed over big time with it’s cancellation. An appearance could be a good way of saying “No Hard Feelings”. Also makes the most sense for anything from Adult Swim appearing because they aren’t going to do the HB revamp stuff from Coast to Coast or Attorney at Law for that)

TOM from Toonami (Would just make my day if I’m being honest)

Tom and Jerry (We’ve never actually seen those guys with other Hanna-Barbera characters. Would like to see it happen.)

Lego (I would take anything for this one given how much Warner Bros. has done with Lego media. My personal choice would be Bionicle given that it was hands down Lego’s best franchise but I don’t know if they could legally do that. There were plans for Takanuva in The Lego Movie sequel so it may be impossible.)

Captain Planet (Would just be fun. Especially if he met Don Cheadle’s character face to face)

Big Bird (Just want a Sesame Street character and he’s my choice)

Sam and Dean Winchester (Supernatural got 15 seasons. I think their popularity speaks for itself)

The Banana Splits (This is Hanna-Barbera’s only real stab at live action work. They deserve a spot for that alone)

Godzilla (The Monsterverse is on an upswing after GvK. Plus Kong will appear. Plus it’s Godzilla and we would be there just for him)

Osmosis Jones (If you want a real obscure pick here’s one)

Rick and Morty (The biggest deal on Adult Swim. Need I say more?)

Powerpuff Girls (Due for a live action show. If any Cartoon Cartoons get chosen it would be this one)

Samurai Jack (Still freaking popular with folks. Would drive all of us insane)

Courage the Cowardly Dog (My personal favorite Cartoon Cartoon)

Ed, Edd, n Eddy (Would just be fun)

Johnny Bravo (Very popular Cartoon Cartoon)

Dexter’s Laboratory (Same as above)

Cow and Chicken (Ditto)

I Am Weasel (Michael Dorn would be a good win for the movie)

The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (Just think of the jokes this one could be used for)

Codename Kids Next Door (Really just want to see these characters again)

Gremlins (Due for an HBO Max cartoon so why not)

Adventure Time (Started the Renaissance age for Cartoon Network so it deserves a spot for that)

He-Man (If Thundercats have gotten in than he deserves to too)

Steven Universe (A personal favorite and Warner Bros isn’t done with the property yet)

Regular Show (The chance to see Mordecai and Rigby’s “Whoa” is too good to pass up)

Young Justice (Love this show. Greg Weisman is the genius who gave it to us. And Phantoms is still a ways off)

Mucha Lucha (Pretty off-kilter and could be a visual stand out)

Speed Racer (I am pretty sure that Warner Bros. has the rights licensed out like the deal they have with Godzilla. I just think it would be fun and awesome)

#Space Jam A New Legacy #Just some craziness I had to write down

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trishyeves · 3 years

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Poorly Planned Halo Post

TO START WITH: SPOILERS FOR ALL OF YOUNG JUSTICE SEASON 3, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT. NOT PLANNING ON SPOILING THE WHOLE SEASON, BUT WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS WILL GO

So, because my brain is weirdly cyclical and I’ve randomly gotten back into Young Justice, I’ve been trolling through Tumblr regarding the show. In doing so, I’ve run into a lot of posts that deal with Halo, and they inspired me to write this poorly planned, probably a trainwreck post.

Before I say anything else, I feel like I should make something clear: people react to media really differently (obviously), especially if the material is personal to them in some way. For a lot of people what was done with Halo is season 3 of Young Justice isn’t just hard to watch, it was a travesty that completely ruined the show for them. That is totally fine. I would never pretend I have the authority to tell people if they should or shouldn’t be outraged by something, or mediate their reaction to a show. This is all just a splattering of my thoughts and feelings on this messy as hell lump of topics. If you read this and think my point of view is bullshit and hate what I have to say, I can totally understand why. This is just my two cents, as someone who is genderfluid/non-binary and queer. (Though I am not a person of color, I do not identify as a woman, and I have no connection to the Muslim faith.)

To start with the smaller issues: how Halo does at representing nonbinary people, women of color, Muslim people, and Bisexual/Pansexual/Queer people. I 100% agree that they could have done better in all of those departments, full-stop. In the scene establishing her as nonbinary, it would have been much better if they had established what pronouns she prefers (I’m using she/her throughout because that is what is used in the text and she/her nonbinary people are valid), how she wants to be seen, and it should have been brought up more often. The fact her only brush being interested in a girl/feminine person was a kiss that made her feel guilty for cheating on her boyfriend sucks, as it conflates her kissing Harper with shame. I don’t really feel qualified to wade into the area surrounding the portrayal of her wearing a hijab or the fact that she wasn’t really Muslim, Gabrielle was, but I have heard a lot of people’s thoughts on those topics, and I think they’re important to hear and consider.

On all of those points, I don’t think it’s possible to not consider them at least partial failures. That said, I do appreciate the attempt to give us this intersectional character who can be so many different pieces of representation at once while also being a lovable and well-developed character. I know for a lot of people the failings of her portrayal invalidate any good will their attempts at representation could have fostered, but that’s not how I feel about it.

Onto the big thing: Halo dying, graphically, a lot. It is, to say the very least, a bad look. A lot of people are upset about the fact that one of the handful of queer characters on the show, a woman of color, one who is associated with the Muslim faith, is shown being violently killed episode after episode. They have every right to be. I find it pretty abhorrent too.

It was a bad idea, a really bad idea. BUT I also don’t think it taints the entire show, and I don’t think it signifies that the people creating the show wanted to show women/queer people/poc dying graphically. That was the effect, but I highly doubt malice, sadism, or bigotry was the direct cause.

From here on out, I am talking based on my understanding of worldbuilding, character writing, television production, and what I know about the development of this show in particular. But I am not an insider with special knowledge of what went down behind the scenes, and I could be totally full of shit on a number of points.

First off, Halo is basically a completely original character. The Outsiders comic series had a Halo character who was also a gestalt entity created by a being related to the Source taking over a dead woman’s body, but from what I can tell on the whole they have little to do with her. They made the decision to change her host body’s nationality to Quaraci, probably for better representation, and changed the entity in her body into a Mother Box’s soul, which I am fairly sure was to tie her in better to the overall season’s New Gods focus, the same way they did with altering Cyborg’s origin story.

Second, they changed some of her powers, but one of the ones they kept was the idea of healing and being able to resurrect herself from death. Now, the only way to really make that work in a visual medium is for her to die sometimes, then resurrect. That does create a weird narrative element, since no other characters get badly injured/fatally wounded at the rate Halo does, but it’s a way to show her using her abilities. Of course, a lot of people have said, rightly, that there’s no need for those deaths to be so graphic. They could have been off-screen, or hinted at, or a number of other things. If the season was aired on Cartoon Network, as was originally planned, I am certain that’s what they would have done.

Thirdly, and this is the big one, I am fairly sure the decision to make her deaths as graphic as possible was tied in with it being aired on DC Universe. Sure, the platform means they could do it, but I also think it’s related to why they did it. It’s possible that Greg Weisman wanted to show off some gore thanks to the liberties granted him, but I think the more likely option is this was studio interference. They looked at the audience Young Justice had developed, one that tended heavily towards older teens and adults, and made it a condition for the show being brought back on the new streaming service that they needed to up the age rating of the show itself to match. Specifically, they probably requested more violence and for it to be more gratuitous where possible. After all, this is DC, and we all know how much they adore making things far more graphic and violent than they have any right to be, all for the sake of making their properties look more ‘grown up’.

Now, clearly some of that violence went to other characters. Victor Stone’s transformation into Cyborg is easily the most gruesome version of that story yet, and several characters throughout get pretty terrible deaths. (Baron Bedlam, for example.) But Halo got the brunt of them. After all, they needed to have more violence on the regular, but Greg Weisman hates killing characters, especially in this show. It’s a huge sandbox with as many DC characters from various eras as they can possibly fit inside it, so they don’t want heroes or villains dying when they don’t need to. But they do have this main character, one who can die again and again and again, and who can come back every time. So, Halo became a gore magnet.

I’d also wager that her being non-binary was a late addition to her character, something they only threw in as a scene once they realized that, as a living machine in a human corpse, there was no reason for her to have an attachment to any gender, and when they realized they could use that to bump up their LGBTQ+ representation, they did the scene.

None of this makes what they did good, or right, or acceptable. It still isn’t. I really, really wish it hadn’t been in the show, it turns my stomach. But at the same time, I don’t think they wrote that element for the season in an attempt to sadistically torture a marginalized character. They absolutely should have hired some sensitivity writers to look things over and catch these things, and I hope the controversy all this caused means they’ll be more careful in the future. But I am still happy they created Halo as they did and gave her to us as a fanbase, even with those disgusting death scenes. If Season 4 does actually happen, I think there is a chance they’ll have heard our voices and work to do better. This is a case where ignorance, rather than cruelty, was the cause, at least from what I can see. If you still hate that part of the show, or the show itself, I’m not expecting this to change your mind, and I don’t want it to. I just wanted to throw out my thoughts, before I collapse into sleep from a long shift at work.

#young justice #season 3 outsiders #halo #spoilers

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kibaes · 4 years

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Does the Speed Force exist in Young Justice?

So Greg Weisman has mentioned before that he doesn’t understand or like the idea of the speed force and doesn’t get why the speedsters need to ‘get’ their powers from somewhere and not just be meta humans like the rest. Despite this, he didn’t deny that the speed force exists on Earth 16 (where YJ is set) by saying that even if it did exist, no one knows about it. Important to note that he said this before season two came out, so his opinions on the speed force might’ve changed since then, but he does make a fair point and I believe he still find it ridiculous.

Anyways, from what it sounds like, Greg sees it that either the speedsters use the speed force or they are meta humans, so I’m going to assume that if I can prove the speedsters are meta, there’s no speed force.

The first scene that pops to my mind is when The Outsiders, which includes Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Static, El Dorado and Cyborg, are trapped in the Ghost Dimension by Granny Goodness in season 3. Its known that non-meta humans suffer way more than metas in the Ghost Dimension (as seen by Dick and Jefferson when they were trapped and said by Granny afterwards). Using this information and the scene with The Outsiders, we can check Barts reaction in the Ghost Dimension. If he’s affected more than people that are canonically meta/like people that canonically aren’t, he isn’t meta, meaning the speed force probably exists.

Thankfully, Bart is trapped with metas and non-metas, so it’s easy to compare. The only confirmed non-meta character that is trapped is Blue Beetle. It’s not hard to tell that Jaime suffers much more than the rest when Scarab unfolds, Bart even mentions that Jaime almost died in the aftermath of the event. Barts ‘suffering’ is much closer to the other characters’, including confirmed metas like Static and El Dorado. Seems like we have our answer, right? Wrong. There are a few things that are preventing me from saying this proves Bart is a meta. The first problem is Wonder Girl. Cassie got her powers from Zeus, so does that make her a meta human? Aren’t metas just people who have and activated meta-gene? We have the same problem with Cyborg- he fused with a father box, that doesn’t sound like ‘active meta-gene’ to me. You also can’t say that every super powered character is considered meta since we later see Elongated Man is as hurt as non metas (Nightwing, Tigress and the Green Lanterns), meaning that he isn’t a meta (what is he then?), meaning that not all super powered characters are metas. Putting that aside, when they get out of the Ghost Dimension, Cassie is the first to be recovered from its effects and lassos Granny Goodness. Then, Bart says he’ll feel fine soon thanks to his super healing and wraps Granny with the lasso more. Bart mentioning his super healing is what’s got me thinking here- maybe he isn’t meta and was healing himself in the Ghost Dimension itself, making it so he’s in less pain than he should be. This wasn’t the first time Bart mentioned his super healing in this season, which makes me think it’s important. In conclusion, I’m just left more confused about what exactly classifies as a meta human and nowhere closer to finding an answer.

Other than that scene, there’s a part in season one where Lagoon Boy, Impulse, Blue Beetle and Beast Boy are captured by The Reach and experimented on. Lagoon Boy is put in a room with completely normal humans because he isn’t meta, just super powered (proving once more that super powers don’t equal meta) while Bart and Garfield are tested seperatley. This leads us to believe that Bart is meta, but actually, this just means The Reach believe he’s meta. This again doesn’t prove anything, since Greg has already said that no one on Earth 16 knows of the speed force (if it exists), so of course they’re going to assume he’s meta.

I kind of reached a dead end following this lead, so I’m going to take this in a different direction. In a since deleted tweet, Christopher Jones (artist of YJ comics) quotes Greg saying that the speed force doesn’t exist in YJ. Greg replies by saying it isn’t exactly what he said. This happened after the first half of season 3 was released, meaning Greg should have a pretty clear idea of wether the speed force exists or not (for Wally). He’s constantly going out of his way to make sure we don’t think the speed force doesn’t exist, but he sure does seem to dislike it anyways, saying ‘if it makes you happy to think it exists anyways, I’m fine with it’ (the anyways in regards to the fact no one knows about it). Important to note he seems pretty sick of people talking about the speed force, and especially about Wally West coming back, having said multiple times he’s dead (I hope I remember this correctly, tried checking his twitter since I remembered him saying it but didn’t bother scrolling too far since it’s 1am). So again, didn’t get anywhere since we knew this already, but it does make it seem there’s a good possibility the speed force exists despite his hatred towards it.

Finally, there’s the fact we have no confirmation Wally is really dead, which is honeslty the only reason we care about the speed force. There’s no body, and honeslty he had the most ‘got trapped in the speed force’ death I’ve ever seen. But more importantly, the writers had a perfect opportunity to crush all our hopes of Wally coming back when Artemis asks Zatanna to bring his soul so she could get closure. They could’ve easily just made it so that Zatanna did do it, and seeing Wally (‘s soul) meeting Artemis in limbo would make it pretty clear he’s dead. But instead, it was all a ‘Martian mind trick’, meaning still no proof that Wally died! In addition to this, Wally was mentioned a lot in season 3. Obviously all the mentions made sense and could be seen as a way for the writers to try and make up to the viewers/showing us how everyone is dealing/moving on, but I like to see it more as a way of them showing us they haven’t forgotten about him. Wally not being dead would prove the speed force exists since it’s the best way to explain how he’s alive, but I think this point would be much harder to make, so I’ll just finish this by saying that wether the speed force exists or not, I do believe Wally will come back (Legion Of Superheroes introduced == time traveling == worst case they go back in time to save him!)

#yj #young justice #dc #dc comics #kid flash #wally west #flash #i got way off topic towards the end #my true intentions surfaced

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soul-dwelling · 1 year

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While you already mention troops that you dislike, be the considered "fanficy" or not, which one specifically are they? And I dont mean broader things like the author being bigoted or ignorant

Maybe "trope" wasn't accurate.

And it's not like I'm not guilty of these behaviors in my own writing or just imagining how a story could unfold differently.

But one things I think is fanfic-y in a bad way: overdoing it on worldbuilding.

I love worldbuilding. I love creating these back stories behind how cities were put together, the history of a place or a person, or how whatever you add to a story that is in that story but not in our world (superpowers, new technologies) altered how those places developed and how that history unfolded.

Then there is worldbuilding that drags a story to a halt--because it's no longer about the plot or the characters.

I could point to the various iterations of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics--and I don't just mean the pre-Ian Flynn stuff, because I think Flynn is guilty, but in a different way, of forcing so much worldbuilding and pre-plotting for future stories instead of just giving us those future stories. It's not like One Piece where you still get a good story--even as it is setting up three to four more stories in the future.

But the more recent problem with worldbuilding has been My Hero Academia.

It's not as if every time the franchise has tried to worldbuild that it has been bad. A good example of worldbuilding is the spinoff series, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, which slowed down the plot to naturally come off of a string of recent stories all about giant villains, before naturally easing into some worldbuilding details that shows the aftermath of those fights, and how those giant people now are trying to make lives for themselves--but, due to their large size, lack the infrastructure they need to survive. Any housing that can accommodate them is not conveniently located: it's a NIMBY, something the neighbors don't want near them, so giant people are kept to the outskirts of town, in industrialized areas, without access to most public transportation, groceries, and other amenities that are vital to living. And the problems these giants face lead to new problems that then lead to new stories that impact where the plot of the entire series goes next. It's not a tangent into an unrelated story: it is still building on the main story itself. That is great worldbuilding.

Then My Hero Academia, in its latest arc, takes so much about being giant, or animalistic, or a mutant or heteromorph, and throws in so much back story and new history all at once. I'm not saying any of the information provided necessarily conflicts with pre-established canon; if anything, MHA is finally building on stuff already tackled in Vigilantes. And it's not as if the back stories to Shoji and Koda come out of nowhere and are not a natural fit: they do get revealed in a natural enough manner that I enjoy the revelations. But stopping the story in its tracks to toss in some random details is inartful.

It's like when Star Wars or Star Trek mention something that was just a placeholder (so that the character doesn't say "that place," "that person," "that event" but actually names a proper noun)--only to shoot themselves in the foot because now the fans want an entire encyclopedic entry about what Jedha is, what the Clone Wars were, who Boba Fett was.

Sometimes a really skilled writer takes that name and conjures up a really good story that, on its own, works--and that should be the standard: if you didn't need to see any other Wars or Trek, does this new story work? Or is it just to answer a question no one ever asked? It's how you overburden a film like Solo with so many mythology gags that it comes off as pandering.

Heck, Greg Weisman (inadvertently?) even did a gag around this when having a future iteration of Brooklyn in Gargoyles have to hastily explain away some detail by saying "Clone Wars," with little intention on explaining what that was. It was a joke--you quickly make up a fake name, then move on. It was a meta joke about how much of the lore in these series really comes down to, "A creator just needed a name for a thing to keep the story moving, gave the thing a name, and moved on, not interested in developing the thing further."

Not that Weisman hasn't gotten my rancour up with some fanfic-y things, too. I love Spectacular Spider-man--but sometimes the coincidences of who knows who and how one thing leads to another thing are too convenient. Yes, this is fiction, you are making an artifice to make the plot progress and the characters progress--but it stands out as too coincidental. I'm guilty of this in my writing, too: sometimes you want the story to be neater and let one thing lead to another, even if that's not how it was in the original. Weisman did that with Spider-man: he took disparate details in the comics, that Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and others didn't intend to ever connect up, and he made them connect up--to the point that it felt force rather than, forgive how repetitive and unspecific this word is, natural.

(That lack of a natural fit is also why the connection between Fire Force and Soul Eater still remains so fanfic-y to me: there is so much of the one that doesn't match the other, in terms of history, tone, geopolitical divisions, or pre-established canon. I know, "canon is secondary to plot"--but when the new story you tell not only defies canon, but defies logic, its own message, the message of the other story you are linking it to, and does disservice to your characters, then congratulations, now it's not only forced and fanfic-y, it just sucks.)

And that convenience problem persists with another thing Greg Weisman worked on, Young Justice--as does another fanfic-y thing that can get bothersome: the need to pair up everyone. And don't say, "They're teenagers, of course they hook up!" Aromantic, asexual, or just "not the right time": not every teen hooks up, not every person is interested in finding someone or will find someone.

I imagine some of this is due to changes in demographics and network: Cartoon Network evidently was not fine with a same sex relationship, but once you have an older audience and are now a primarily streaming series, you can have Kaldur be bi/pansexual. And it's not like there aren't stories in the original comics of the characters dating...which is why it is so bizarre the choices made. It seems less like adapting a work and more like making your own fanfiction: "What if Superboy and Miss Martian were instead an item?" It was allowing the plot to do more of the work--as if Weisman really wanted that pairing to happen to perpetuate a lot of the plot--but I would be lying if I didn't say it fit those two characters, too, or at least this version of those two characters--two characters who don't feel like they are a complete person of any species or racialized identity, who don't feel like they fit in, but who accept the other for who they really are, however they look or whatever their origin.

Then again, for how much I decry fanfic-y stuff, there are places where I like the too-convenient, too-clean linking up of everything. For example, Ninja Turtles 2003 did a pretty good job of linking up everything--because it lent more weight to what unfolded, and metatextually was a brilliant way to get around censorship. You want to behead the Shredder but you know 4Kids won't let you? Then you make things way too convenient so that you can get away with Shredder being beheaded without killing him. You want the turtles' origin to tie into the Shredder's, even though that's not how it worked in the comics? You go ahead and connect it, have three out of your four turtles literally laugh at that idea--then have the fourth one point out how that is not only fated but means that their existence is owed to a horrible person who killed so many just for these four to exist as they are now--and suddenly that moment of laughing at how bad the writing was turns into a moment of realizing how such a connection can pose an existential crisis. That is excellent writing: you do the cheat, acknowledge it's a cheat--then take it completely seriously so that you show the audience why you did this cheat for the sake of making that audience feel something.

In other words, something is fanfic-y when the artifice seems obvious--when it seems obvious how the author was doing all of this to get the plot to unfold exactly how they wanted it to, even if it makes no sense--while the best parts of fan fiction, and hence of fiction writing overall, is when the details don't come across as something the author did but just something in the story that naturally unfolded as it should.

#long post

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gffa · 5 years

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hi! i really want to get into the EU stuff, but i have absolutely no idea where to start. can you point towards a few good books, maybe? thank you, and i absolutely love your account btw!

Hi! Thank you for the kind words, I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog. ♥ Recommendations for EU stuff often depends on what you’re interested in, because there are a lot of books I really enjoyed, so I’ll organize them by era, since that’s how fans are often divided. I’ll also include comics, because often times the comics are some of the absolute best stuff!If you haven’t watched The Clone Wars and Rebels yet, those are absolutely the places to start as they’re key to the fabric of the bigger story, imo. Not that you can’t understand the movies without them or anything, but TCW is especially important for understanding just how grueling the clone wars really were. And Rebels is important for showing the fates of a lot of the TCW characters and seeing the Empire vs the Rebellion (it does a lot to flesh that out, too).PREQUELS:

Any of the Star Wars Adventures comics that contain the prequels characters are great. Well, ALL of the Adventures comics are great, but the prequels ones are adorable, funny, and yet really well-told. They’re light-hearted and largely oneshots, but the IDW comics have been incredible for still being some of the absolute best SW content out there. Especially a not-miss is #12-13 and the 2019 Annual for the Padme&Leia&Breha story.

Obi-Wan & Anakin comic by Charles Soule. A five-issue mini series that has the most stunning art of all the comics I’ve ever seen pretty much, it’s also a really good look at the time of Anakin’s apprenticeship and provides some interesting glimpses into their early days together.

Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic by Charles Soule. This comic was an absolute phenomenon to read month to month and one of the comic series that I’ve spent the most time analyzing and felt it’s really held up to scrutiny, which shows just how much thought went into it. It’s 25 issues of Vader fresh off Revenge of the Sith, over the span of a couple years, and really does an AMAZING job of exploring Anakin Skywalker as Darth Vader, all the choices he made and the themes of the comic are all about showing he can’t admit to the HUGE mistakes he’s made. It was incredible.

Choose Your Destiny: An Obi-Wan & Anakin Adventure by book Cavan Scott. I’m not usually a fan of Choose Your Own Adventure style stories, but this one was worth it to me to get an absolutely DELIGHTFUL book with Obi-Wan and Anakin, who are cranky with each other, but ultimately show that they can come back together and obviously care about each other. Sprinkle in some other cool stuff (Jedi details, Bant Eerin being recanonized) and it was lovely.

Dooku: Jedi Lost audiodrama by Cavan Scott. If you’re interested in Dooku, Asajj Ventress, or the Jedi at all, this drama was pretty amazing, it gave a ton of worldbuilding detail, but also did a lot to fill in the backstory of Dooku and gave us a long look inside Asajj’s head as well. Qui-Gon makes some appearances, he has an amazing dynamic with Dooku, and my heart as always skips a beat for how much I love the Jedi.

Age of the Republic comics by Jodie Houser. Holy shit, these comics were SO GOOD. They’re a series of oneshots about the various heroes and villains of the time, a glimpse into the lives of all of them, and Houser really nailed it here. My favorite is the Obi-Wan one, because the conversation he has with Anakin about Qui-Gon is a must and delves deepest into the characters’ stuff, but all of them are worth reading.

Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu comic by Matt Owens. A five-issue mini series that, okay, the art is Like That but the storyline really worked for me because it’s a really good look at Mace’s character and his belief in the Jedi Order and how he came to master himself and how the galaxy looks at Jedi. It’s woven around a fairly typical action plot, but one of the things that always strikes me is the compassion the Jedi show one of their own, even when they’re falling into darkness, as well as this is a comic about Mace Windu’s faith and his work to master himself and it’s SO GOOD.

Kanan: The Last Padawan comics by Greg Weisman. Stunning art plus a look at some of the characters/relationships that I want so much more of (TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT DEPA BILLABA) and more glimpses into life at the Jedi Temple, as well as telling the story of how the character went from Caleb Dume to Kanan Jarrus, all of it heartbreaking and so, so good.

While the Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover is no longer canon, but it does an absolutely phenomenal job of breaking your heart all over again for the characters and expanding on everything that was going on during that time and really, really gets into the headspace of Anakin’s character in a way that was line-edited by George Lucas himself, so I think of it as having a lot of emotional truths to it, rather than being part of canon (which it’s specifically said as not being).

ORIGINALS:

The ongoing Star Wars comic (by Jason Aaron, then Kieron Gillen) + the original Darth Vader comic (by Kieron Gillen) are the absolute best place to start, they’re an incredible addition to the characters’ journeys between ANH and ESB. The two comics are meant to be read concurrently, so I recommend them together, they often show the same scenes from different points of view, but you can roll with either of them if they’re going well for you. They’re my favorite for what they add to the story.

Star Wars Battlefront II’s storyline can be watched on YouTube like a movie, which is about two hours long, has some fantastic characters (Iden Versio and Del Meeko are amazing, but also the brief storylines the OT trio have in the game are fantastic) and it does a really great job of helping to bridge the gap between the OT and the ST, explaining a lot about Jakku’s significance and how the First Order popped up.

From a Certain Point of View novel by various. MY FAVORITE BOOK IN THE EU, FULL STOP. A series of point of view stories from various supporting characters during A New Hope is exactly what it sounds like and, okay, not all of them worked out for me, some of them are very skippable if you’re not enjoying it, but the Obi-Wan one, the Qui-Gon one, and the Yoda one are all must-reads because they are HEARTBREAKING and fill in so much of what’s going on with those characters in the OT with regards to the PT events. Also the Motti one is the single funniest thing Star Wars has ever put out.

Lords of the Sith novel by Paul S. Kemp. While I’ve only read about a third of this one so far, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, as it’s a look at some of the worst parts of SW’s timeline, where Vader and Palpatine are at their worst, where Ryloth is suffering, but it’s done with deftness and gravitas, imo. Possibly better after you’ve seen TCW and Rebels because Cham Syndulla’s character will have more weight then.

Legends of Luke Skywalker novel by Ken Liu. This book came out around the time that The Last Jedi came out (or at least that’s when I read it, iirc) and it was a balm for my soul that needed Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. It’s an in-universe series of myths, so it’s not literal, it’s stories told about Luke Skywalker as he travels the galaxy trying to understand the Force and the Jedi. It’s lovely!

Thrawn novel by Timothy Zahn. I still think the first Thrawn book was really good (even if the shine came off the apple after that) and it does a fantastic job of setting up the character’s backstory, intro into the Empire, and creating the character of Eli Vanto, WHOM I LOVE. It’s a great read and some of the best of Zahn’s Thrawn work.

ROGUE ONE + SOLO:

The Rogue One novelization by Alexander Freed. I had trouble connecting to Jyn Erso when I first watched the movie, but the way Freed wrote her as this messy, complicated, thorny person who was trying to do the right thing was perfect for making me fall in love with her. (Freed is really, really good at writing messy, complicated, worthwhile women, imo.)

Most Wanted novel by Rae Carson. I loved this book a lot, where it’s a young adult novel set before the events of Solo and helps tell Han and Qi’ra’s backstory and is a great space adventure at the same time.

Catalyst novel by James Luceno. This does a really great job of bridging the Republic era with the Empire era, how the galaxy went from the Clone Wars to what we see in Rogue One, AND expanded a ton on Galen Erso’s character, his relationship with Orson Krennic and Lyra Erso and Jyn, so it made the R1 experience just a ton more valuable for me.

SEQUELS:

Bloodline novel by Claudia Gray. This book still does the absolute most to bridge the gap between the OT and the ST, to explain the events of what happened in that time period. Gray’s writing is best when she’s writing Leia as a character and this book works as a novel for her and as a story about the rise of the First Order and some of the problems of the New Republic.

Spark of the Resistance is a young adult novel (so about 200 pages) by Justina Ireland. I only recently read this one and I just thoroughly enjoyed it, it was Rey and Rose and Poe off on their own adventure, which was typical cute Star Wars stuff, but the chemistry and adorable banter between these three was so good I could have read an entire series for them! (I also liked her Lando’s Luck YA novel, if you’re interested in his character.)

Poe Dameron comics by Charles Soule. Soule’s writing is some of the best stuff in SW so far and he does an absolutely phenomenal job of capturing the charisma of Poe’s character, while also giving him an actual character arc to work through. The comics just fly by, they’re so good and so smoothly easy to read and so damn charming.

Cobalt Squadron novel by Elizabeth Wein. If you get the audiobook of this, it’s narrated by Kelly Marie Tran, who does a love job of reading it, and was a book that helped me just utterly FALL IN LOVE with Rose Tico. It’s a book that does a lot to explain her back story and who she is and it’s just absolutely wonderful.

The Last Jedi novelization by Jason Fry. If you really, really hated TLJ, this might not be the book for you, but I found it to be a book that helped fill in some smaller details that made the movie work better for me and got inside the characters’ heads just enough to help grease the wheels to put me in a better place with the movie, so I always really like it.

#fic recs #(not really but that's my tag)#novels #Anonymous

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