#but it's never really expanded on and kinda forgotten about as the story progresses

[sskk-manifesto]

This is quite an odd wording. Is he implying that ordinary people aren't familiar with the existence of ability users... ?

#I've seen quite a bit of talk on this recently and it feels like a very teased concept in the first season #but it's never really expanded on and kinda forgotten about as the story progresses #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd s1 #bsdrewatch2023

[kosakashuntaro]

for some reason, i became obsessed with this irrelevant filler character from izumi tsubaki’s lesser known series, oresama teacher. he’s consistently forgotten by fans and ranked 2nd to last out of the student council members, but despite that, i still think he’s a great and well-written character. also, he’s super cute!

and so without futher ado— here’s my stupidly long lovemail/analysis of shuntaro kosaka. a pure 1.5k word ramble about my favorite boy!

kosaka first appears in chapter #43, introduced alongside the rest of the student council members. he’s in class 1-3, the same as yukioka komari. the first major scene we see him in is him having a bad relationship with fellow council member, kanon nonoguchi.

not gonna lie, i forgot this scene existed and i don’t like it since he touches her forcefully. it’s a setup for their relationship later on, though. at this point, kosaka and nonoguchi are both closed off and cold towards each other; aside from their animosity towards each other from their interactions, they have their own personal issues for not being good with interacting with others. nonoguchi has her problems with men stemming from childhood and kosaka just seems bad at understanding how to act properly with people in general.

kosaka’s main arc is the student festival arc, where he plays the villain, but honestly, he’s just cringy as fuck in it. i think it’s good in that it shows how damn extra he is, though-- imo, he’s the most realistically extra of the characters. he’s a 15 year old kid who thinks he’s smart just ‘cause he gets good test scores. of course he’s going to be that bitch who smiles sneakily and thinks of himself as the grandmaster of the chess game, even when his partner in crime, kawauchi, knew all along of his betrayal plan.

we don’t see much of his motivations or personality in the student festival arc as it focuses mainly on okegawa and kawauchi. all we know so far is that he’s smart, manipulative, and sneaky. seems like a typical bad guy.

until the last chapter of the arc, #51. for the first time, we see the previously cool (lol) and cunning kosaka shuntaro... nervously fretting over how to kneel in apology to his superior, miyabi hanabusa.

we learn that kosaka is obsessively reliant on instruction manuals, ever since his childhood. he’s ridiculously good at studying and always gets first place in tests at school. however, he can’t cope with unexpected changes at all. everything has to go exactly to plan or else he comes up with a different approach to completing the original plan, that isn’t always appropriate for the situation.

he’s perfectly confident in interacting with people-- that’s obvious enough throughout the student festival arc--, but he’s bad at interpreting things on the fly, once again, prone to saying things inappropriate to the time and place. kosaka has to do things in order, step-by-step, otherwise he can’t proceed.

a while back, there was a post that talked about him being autistic. to be honest, i never considered this earlier (as in a few years ago, when i first started liking him a lot). but reading back, he really is strongly coded as such, i think. so frankly, the reason i like him might be a more personal reason, but... anyway.

like with the other student council members, miyabi helps him relax and feel better, guiding him to be more carefree and open. i have mentioned this a few times, but i think it’s really wonderful that miyabi basically helped out a bunch of kids with mental issues when their problems might’ve looked small or stupid from the outside. this is also brought up in chapter #104 during the hayasaka arc, where mafuyu and hayasaka both contact him for information about miyabi. he basically says that miyabi got him to join the student council because he was worried about kosaka’s personality and wanted to stay near him for help. 

honestly, kosaka is probably the one who’s most grateful to miyabi (outside of nonoguchi?) simply because he recognizes his own issues. there’s a reason why he’s the only student council member whose face you can’t see during the scene where miyabi graduates; he’s the only one of the guys who cry.

kosaka’s problem is that he can’t cope with his plans going off at all, so miyabi sends him to prank mafuyu. even though he tries to get her by making many elaborate plans, he eventually learns to just attack without plan. it ends with him stuck in a ditch and miyabi unexpectedly pranking kosaka himself.

here we see kosaka’s first genuine smile. and it’s beautiful!!! he’s a sweetheart!!! i think that the story of kosaka could’ve worked even without the student festival arc, but that establishes him as an dramatic kid who’s super smart and cunning-- and here we see him just relax for once, and be truly happy.

after this, there aren’t any more kosaka focused chapters. however, he does appear once in a while, usually with the other student council members. (he’s in the very next chapter using yui’s equipment to cross the lake. but since he usually feeds the fish, they all come to him for food...)

kosaka's bad relationship with nonoguchi is reiterated in nonoguchi's arc, chapter #71 where she beats him up for saying that all girls want a prince. it's a stereotypical thing to say either way, but nonoguchi's response about "men wanting to be princelike is self-serving" is more due to her own issues rather than about kosaka in particular. anyway, this is just to highlight that at this point, they both still have their own problems and don't get along.

the next time we see him is during the school trip arc, where, although he’s still being far too overprepared by carrying too much luggage, he seems to be getting along with his class very well. kosaka organizes his class’s schedule and accommodates for changes on the fly (when his teacher wanted to stay longer to see the sea otters), even if it annoys him a bit. it’s an improvement! he’s able to assume a role where his pedantically organized personality is a benefit. mafuyu also notes that both he and ayabe have become more carefree and open with others, with kosaka becoming “the center of class 4″.

i think this chapter, #82, is also the first time kosaka talks about yukioka. since yukioka doesn’t talk to anyone aside from miyabi, he had never heard her voice despite being a close friend. there’s not really any significance to them being besties (does there need to be?), but it does show his sense of responsibility for others since he basically takes care of her. he has more scenes with yukioka in various arcs, mostly in the miyabi graduation arc where he helps protect yukioka from aki.

speaking of that arc, like the other student council members, he gets something precious to him stolen. in this case, it’s the books that he always reads. we find out that he’s actually surprisingly good at drawing from memory despite him believing he doesn’t know how to draw without instructions. this may be partially may be some juxtaposition of him truly being ‘creative’ even though his methods are so ‘academic/scientific’ (even though i don’t believe ‘drawing well’ is what ‘creativity’ is). in my opinion, this represents his progress in general. it’s probably not just art/drawing, but he’s actually gotten better at doing most things without manuals without realizing or being aware of it.

this idea is also expanded upon with the protection of yukioka i mentioned earlier. because kosaka doesn’t have his books, he doesn’t act so formal and is instead more forceful and ‘manly’, making it easier for him to communicate with classmates. by the way, kosaka’s actually popular with the girls in his class (shown in school trip arc 1-koma), but doesn’t realize it because he can’t understand things not directly stated. what a guy...

here is a short break to talk about kawauchi. i think their relationship is hilarious. from kawauchi getting him to dig holes to kawauchi stealing his math books... i feel really sorry for kosaka, but it’s so funny... he just can’t escape him. even in the very last student council saga arc, it was kawauchi behind the scenes all along...

really they’re two characters who are heavily associated with each other and yet... i don’t think kawauchi’s relationship with kosaka says anything about his personality since kosaka was such a one-bit character during the majority of the arc where they interacted (plus kawauchi is awful to everyone). all kawauchi did was give kosaka more trust issues and broke his phone. i feel kinda mean for saying this but it’s so funny how he caused kosaka to be absolutely terrified of delinquents.

honestly kosaka like... doesn’t have a reason to be associated with kawauchi beyond the student festival event. imo it’s just a way for tsubaki to make kosaka relevant or appear once in a while since the other character he’s associated with (yukioka) got a boyfriend and doesn’t appear as often (kawauchi’s common appearances is due to his surprising popularity with fans).

enough about kawauchi though, we’re finally at the end of this long and loving post. at the conclusion of the miyabi graduation arc, the very first conflict of kosaka shown is finally resolved: he’s made up with nonoguchi!

i really love this scene so much!!! i know it’s kinda just a set-up for the next joke, but tsubaki still dedicated over a page just to nonoguchi and kosaka, so it’s genuine to me! it’s so lovely to see that nonoguchi and kosaka have both resolved their own issues with the help of miyabi and the public morals club. they both acknowledge that they weren’t the best in the past, but now they can become friends... this is a relationship that’s been developing in the background of oresama teacher for over 80 chapters... it makes me so happy that tsubaki gave a resolution to it in the end. she truly does care about all her characters no matter how unpopular they are, and i love her for that.

(by the way, i just found out that this can badge released in the same year as the miyabi graduation arc. they’re so cute!)

the story of kosaka and the student council as a whole ends here. everyone’s finally improved, and they’re all happy... people say “oresama teacher has no plot”, but there’s so much to the story of the student council. if i can write so much about one minor character who rarely appears, i think there’s plenty of plot and plenty to say about the others.

that’s all i have to say on this topic for now.

actually, i started writing this back in 2019 but i forgot about it until recently. my thoughts haven’t changed, though... i hope this post shines some light on why i like kosaka and tsubaki so much. to be honest, though, i’d probably just say that he’s sooo cute and i wanna protect that sweet smile of his... my 174 cm tall son.

#oresama teacher #shuntaro kosaka #text #please read it i simply think izumi tsubaki is a genius #i'm ignoring everything past miyabi graduation arc btw i forgot what happened there so </3

[magicalgirlpropaganda]

Whatever your opinion on Melanie Martinez, i just can't pretend that k-12 is a good movie. It's a pretty movie with good aesthetics, its an enjoyable movie that could perhaps be good if done right, but it's. Actually pretty bad writing. Im not gonna talk abt the controversies or drama bcs thts been done to death, im just gonna talk abt the movie. Also i haven't seen the movie since 2019 and don't know much about anymore and may have forgotten some details

My biggest gripe is the random "progressive" stuff trying to be controversial but they didn't make it fit and nothing ever came of it after it was mentioned. Like the guy being dragged out out of the classroom after refusing to stand for the pledge? Never heard from again and never rlly expanded on that. Felt rlly random and out of place. Same with the trans woman teacher being fired and the "tampons should be free" scene. It just had nothing to do with the story. And the actual story didnt come in until the very end.

Also the songs were very random and had nothing to do with the plot of the movie. I feel like the movie and the album should have been two separate things.

Also, the friend group just was kinda random. It started with crybaby and that other girl but then a bunch of random girls came in, which is fine but they lacked character development. Also there was this interesting fantasy aspect that could have been expanded upon but never rlly was? And i know it was supposed to be 3 times as long and had to be cut down but if thsts the case i feel it should have been delayed because as pretty as the movie is, its a pretty bad movie writing wise. And it's so dissapointing because i love the aesthetics and i love the surrealism but god the writing is really not good, im sorry

#cw melanie martinez

[nat-tea-n-coffee]

Criticism, Critique, and Respecting Creators

So this is kinda coming off this post by Adam Ellis that I just reblogged, and I've seen a lot of similar responses made by other content creators I follow irt unsolicited criticism on their work.

As someone who has yet to be beaten down by the internet, I'd like to expand on this in a way that supports those creators and hopefully educates some of the good faith actors out there.

So let's start out with some DEFINITIONS, w00t!

In every day language critique and criticism are interchangeable, while in professional/academic parlance they very much are not.

Critique is not JUST criticism. It requires taking a good faith view of an entire body of work, including the context and previous author's works, change over time, technique, balance, 'effectiveness' (I'll come back to that one later), and a whole host of other things. A critique involves evaluating the work for both it's successes and failures. Think long form journalism, academic reviews, well done movie/restaurant reviews. Think Lindsay Ellis's work, or Bob Chipman does good movie reviews (his Really that Good Series is one I highly reccomend).

None of that is satisfied by a tweet, comment, or yt rant. That is the privilege that comes with being an expert or a peer in the field.

So to review, a good critique involves a LOT of work, acknowledgement of good and bad aspects of a piece, is done by a peer, and most importantly ACTS IN GOOD FAITH.

Trolls cannot give critique because they are not working in good faith.

Random commenters cannot give critique because they are not peers even if they are acting in good faith.

So much of what people try to defend as "critique" or "valid criticism" tends to be bad faith interactions. Those comments aren't meant to help the creator expand their art and consider new perspectives, more often than not they are personal preferences that have little relation to any kind of genuine critique. This is one of the most difficult things to learn in giving good critiques, and you'll notice that good reviewers will be open when their opinion is personal rather than a professional evaluation.

All of this comes back to *Effectiveness*. Thought I had forgotten about that one, but nope. More definitions! In this context, and in the context of good faith critique, the first thing you do is figure out what the author was trying to do and then you decide how effective they were in their efforts. Does it seem like they were trying to make you laugh, cry, seethe? Did it work? What bits can you pick out that made it work or not work? Is this a pet peeve or a technical issue?

So shifting gears into the realm of metaphor, let's put it this way:

Content Creator Adam is getting coffee when he runs into an old colleague and friend Andrew. They chat for a second, sit down, and work comes up. Adam asks Andrew for feedback on his latest round of work, and Andrew (being familiar with his friend's work over the past several years in the same field) provides a thoughtful critique of the latest piece, praising the progress he's noticed and mentioning an aspect or two that could be tweaked in the future. They both part, content and excited to work on new ideas.

The next day, Andrew returns to the cafe, orders his regular, and goes to chill in a booth. A random person he has never met before comes up and compliments him on his work. Uncomfortable, but pleased to have a fan, Andrew says thanks you and goes on about his day. When he leaves the cafe, someone comes up to him on the sidewalk and rattles of a list of every cliche he's ever used before calling him a hackand walking away. Andrew, confused and uncomfortable now, keeps going. A lifted pickup truck with crude spray paints of nude women and flags slows down and several of the dudes in the truck bed start yelling about how Andrew is a cliche artist and they're gonna have mountains of porn sent to his house cause they know where he lives. Andrew calls Adam and asks if he can crash on his couch and they spend the night venting about similar experiences.

Feedback that is not requested can easily turn into harrasment. Remember the number one rule of internet content.

DON'T LIKE DON'T READ. THE BACK BUTTON IS RIGHT THERE.

Yes, even if you think the creator is a Bad Person™️, that doesn't give you a right to send them hate mail. You haven't put in the work, you are Anakin and you do not have the high ground, you are bringing a spoon to a sword fight, and you are noy the hero of this story.

If you aren't gonna put in the time and effort it takes to properly critique something the you gotta follow the politeness rules. You wouldn't yell shit at them on the street so don't do it on the internet.

TL;DR If you are not a friend or a peer in the field you are not qualified to give critique.

#nati writes #nati speaks #content creators #does this count as #riding the disk horse? #cw long post #wtf raised some of yall really

[bow-woahh]

Chapter 1. Just... chapter 1

Send me your favorite scene/chapter from one of my works and I’ll post a DVD commentary on it.

okay I'm gonna assume you mean chapter 1 of bloom since it's my latest fic haha.

Originally, bloom was literally meant to be a little one shot based on this post someone sent me, which very quickly spiralled out of control. So even though I left seeds of things in that first chapter, I never thought they'd actually be explored. But I loved it so much that I wanted to expand on the world and began properly outlining after either this chapter or like chapter 2.

First of, the title of the whole fic and every chapter is a different song lyric. Some of the songs (all in the playlist) really accurately describe mainly Catra's feelings or what she's going through, while other ones are just more of bops that although had one or two relatable lines, they're not as meaningful and are there to more or less fulfill the vibe/feeling I'm going for. you showed me your smile and my cares were gone fits into the latter category.

Now onto the chapter itself!

She'd been dancing when she’d run into her ex’s friends. Then her ex.

So I know it was a big question in this chapter who Catra's ex was, because it was never revealed since it really wasn't that significant and isn't in the rest of the fic either. Initially I thought of having her ex be DT but decided against it just because it didn't feel right. Because she probably won't make any appearances in the fic (besides mentions), I think it's only fair that I tell you guys a little bit about her.

So, her name's Roxanne and she just graduated high school (she went to Bright Moon High) when Catra finished her sophomore year so she's 18/19 now. They met at a party when Catra was still back at Horde High (when she was 15) and after a couple of months of knowing each other they got together. She was Catra's first girlfriend which...other than serving to reaffirm her sexuality to herself it was not a great relationship and definitely did more harm than good, especially towards the end. 

So she put in her earphones, chose her late night vibes playlist and scrolled through Twitter.

Someone once asked me to also make a playlist of what Catra listens to and I would if finding all the songs for every chapter didn't traumatise me but after thinking about it, in this playlist she'd have some Frank Ocean songs, Bruno Major, Harry Styles, some X songs on this playlist. Oh songs by this one artist called keshi - very chill and I can imagine she'd jam to that.

Adora Grayskull: the captain of the lacrosse team, adored by many, quite possibly the whole school, teachers and students alike.

I don't know why out of all the sports I chose lacrosse. But I did. So. More work for me.

Maybe she added all her classmates. Yeah—that was probably it.

Okay so this is in reference to Adora adding Catra to her private story and while, yes, she'd be fairly liberal with who she added to her private story, she also specifically added Catra hoping that she'd get added to hers (to no surprise, Catra doesn't have one) or that it'd somehow start a conversation. It did. Eventually.

There was, just not what she’d expected—a picture of her ceiling and the caption: skipped out on party, bored at home - smbdy hmu?

Adora is the type of teen who cares more about the food at a party and the company rather than the drinking culture and dancing. Combine that with the fact she's also just a workaholic and I can imagine that if Glimmer and Bow didn't drag her out to most parties she'd go to slim to none of them.

Catra was sitting on the bench still, bopping her head side to side, only slightly tipsy and now listening to her guilty pleasures playlist—mostly consisting of pop music—when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Taylor Swift is 1000% on this playlist.

Taking a step closer, Adora opened her mouth, then closed it, opened it again and settled on saying, “I...was I not meant to? Because you did kind of ask, and then I responded, so I—”

Adora is such a dork here, I love it. Like she's just so awkward but she's also simultaneously radiating himbo energy and I love it lmao. As the chapters progress, she does have less moments like these because she's obviously gotten more comfortable around Catra but there are times when this energy comes back and it so much fun to write.

Catra was widely known in school, which she supposed was similar to Adora, but for all the wrong reasons.

Although Catra is super smart, she was obviously held back by being in an environment like Horde High and it got to a point (near the end of her time their especially) where she didn’t really care and was really acting out. And even though she wanted a fresh start at BMH, her reputation massively carried and it only got worse when she broke up with her girlfriend and she outed her and started spreading even more rumours, some of them completely untrue just to stir the pot. Basically, fuck Roxanne, all my homies hate Roxanne. 

Adora held out one of the sweatshirts she had under her arm. Briefly hesitating, Catra took it, muttering a ‘thanks’ before putting it on. She wasn't sure if Adora watched her as she did. Unsurprisingly, it was a size or two big, as Adora was a little taller, and definitely had more muscle. But it was warm, and it smelt like it was fresh out of the laundry, and it’d been worn by Adora Grayskull—Bright Moon’s star athlete. 

At this point, Catra very much only sees Adora as this popular girl who everyone loves, because that’s how everyone else sees her. And even though she prides herself in not caring about that kind of thing, she still can’t help but be a little star struck that she’s wearing Adora Grayskull’s clothes. Because how many people can say that they have? Also, pretty girl, she gay.

They got to her truck, with Adora getting in after shutting Catra’s door for her (apparently it shut better from the outside) and went to put her keys in the ignition.

This is kinda true, but also kinda bullshit. Adora is just chivalrous. Also, I’m surprised I haven’t written this in yet, but her truck’s called Swift Wind.

“Really, Grayskull?” Catra asked again. Adora gave her a blank look in return, so she continued with a sigh. “Okay well, not only was she just a shitty person, but she pretty much outed me, to the whole school. Ring any bells?”

Bright Moon High is definitely not the Horde, so most people aren’t dicks, or raging homophobes, but after a slew of bad experiences Catra had witnessed and some she’d been apart of at the Horde, she obviously wasn’t ready to come out of the closet there and being at BMH didn’t change that. But because she was outed, she didn’t really have a say in it and being from a Horde High, some people who aren’t even necessarily homophobic would use that against her. 

That was when Catra looked down and realised she’d forgotten to take off her sweatshirt.

The sweatshirt is definitely going to make a reappearance. Maybe in a different form. Like I just love this trope, it’s so cute and you can’t convince me otherwise so.

Anyway, that’s the end of this commentary thing, I had a lot of fun, and if you guys liked it, feel free to leave another in my ask box! Chapter 8 is coming I promise, I’m just finding it hard to find time to write now that I’ve started A-Levels but hopefully it can be out this week! (:

#bloom asks #micah answering asks #asks and answers #bloom #send anons #spop #catradora #thank u anon #i had a lot of fun

[incarnateirony]

"The real Sam and Dean" sure does point to the main world being there *before* Chuck, doesn't it? Interesting. God can't create souls (like the show has told us for YEARS), so, yeah, WTF are the people in the other universes? WHAT ARE SOULS???? (Lesser question, what is Grace? God's attempt at making souls? Since he made the angels? DOES CAS HAVE A SOUL?) 🤯

Wow multi part thing here

1. Not necessarily but I’ll expand on that.

2. Other souls even in similar bodies? Soulless constructs and duplicates like Gabriel’s grace worlds? (seems less likely with AU Bobby and Charlie). I’m going to go with an educated guess of “other souls in identical meatsuits” for now, expanded on more in the post below.

3. There’s also an answer for that, but no, not really souls.

4. IMO yes, and I can expand on why I believe Cas does.

—

So bundling an answer to all of these.

I’m going to need you to break your brain a little on this, dear reader. I know it’s difficult for some people, and some are just now even coming to grips with the idea that Chuck’s world is a simulacrum to the point I’ve seen based people belatedly go, verbatim, through the same existential crisis Dean spewed at Cas in 15.2. It’s gonna take some nonlinear thinking from here.

Let’s talk about, say, The Empty. What is Nothing? I want you to think about that. 

Congrats, you’ve already failed.

The second you try to define oblivion, you fail. We can try to speak it as closely as possible, but oblivion before creation is itself a paradox. It is timeless, shapeless, colorless – best depicted, perhaps, by a black screen to communicate the idea to the human mind, or sometimes a white one, but people tend to affiliate that with light, rather than the absence of light; so a starkly lit (on actors) black background is our most efficient way to do it. But realistically? Black doesn’t exist yet. White doesn’t exist yet. Light nor dark exist. Nothing is there.

And yet somehow, Nothing birthed Everything.

This is the paradox humans struggle with eternally. The idea of the Big Bang, for example, still comes down to there being an infinitely dense mass that asplodied at some point and everything just kinda raveled itself together from there. Where did the dot come from in nothing? What is the dot? What is this paradox of Nothing Making Everything?

Hermetics propose, essentially, various grades of creation. Depending on the denomination and thought form this may manifest several ways at the upper levels, “Chicken or the Egg” as SPN death put it. Some will say death itself birthed creation and life, for example. Others say it’s a direct result of the human soul, and others say it’s grace.

Real familiar to our current Atomic Monsters, isn’t it?

So anyway, what I’ve been seeing out of SPN since about S13 is that souls themselves, in our structure, are the paradox of creation. After all, there was a “Before God, or Amara”, so how did God simply come to be? Good question, ain’t it?

So let’s take a look at the Shadow. Hermetics variably address The Inky Man or The Shadow (as Jung himself was part of the art) as a primitive aspect of the self, and also address the concept of a sort of group mind, a collective unconscious from which we all come and go, a First Man, or sometimes addressed as Anthropos, the collective spirit of man.

So The Thing That Rules The Empty, The Shadow, existed before God and Amara. God is Light. Amara is the absence of Light.

But God is also Grace. And The Word.

Does it really matter, respectively, how he branded his stuff? He might call it gak in another world for all we know. But Grace is the essence by which Chuck *does* create.

So let’s do another mental exercise here: If one were to remove all human souls from any of Chuck’s constructs, what makes them any different than the realms Gabriel makes where people mindlessly follow scripts he wrote? What makes them any different than the headspaces archangels have shoved their hosts down into? Or the place Sam went to inside his own head in Man Who Knew Too Much that was an entire expansive world, even with a few random hiccups here or there in it?

Chuck installed the world with aspects of himself to keep it tick tick ticking if he offworlded. I’m going to guess he had an oopsie or two in random worlds before he figured that one out KSJDfksjdf but that’s an aside.

But angels are tied to the divine spheres, and to grace. They were given minds and consciousness, but not souls. He can’t create nor control those, after all. And while in almost any form of study the mind is capable of Doubt and Question with or without a soul, I mean, plugging an angel with an installed soul just seems like a super bad idea.

After all, they are wavelengths of intent. HIS intent. They are the editors of his story that keep it running in lines. They are arbiters and heralds of his messages. They are the programs in the matrix that keep it running, until they corrupt and unplug from the central code and then fuck off into the operating system with the rest of people, even if they can never LEAVE the operating system. Except Cas. Cas can. Which I’ll address below.

“What is grace?” Well, we’ve been using storywriting metaphors in canon this year. Grace is the page on which the ink is set. The Word is the letters etched into it. Collectively, with some imagination, the end product, especially when run through your editors, is a complete and fairly cohesive story, with arguable interpretation of validity or merit.

So you’re probably realizing I haven’t really explained *how* then God or Amara came to be, yet.

Okay, so let’s think Big Bang, metaphysical edition. There was absolutely jack shit all nothing that defines our reality, be it light, dark, space, time, dimension, much less material or immaterialism. But somehow, at some point, Nothing woke up and went “Dafuq?” and then all kinds of shit happened. For example, it might have even Dafuqed its own paradoxical nature and birthed duality in it, of Presence and Absence. These, then, would be Light and Dark. So now, there’s Nothing Dafuqing and just wanting to go back to napping/not fucking existing alone, and then two ancient things crop up out of nowhere. And with the Shadow all but absent, they only have themselves and each other.

So Chuck builds his toy soldiers and Amara destroys them as his antithesis. But what does he build his stuff from? 

Grace as a word even falls into several hermetic constructs as one of these cornerstones. If Grace is the page Chuck writes on, and his thoughts/intent are The Word, the result is that what he imagines is what is to become. Be that good or “evil”, though we find now just like in hermetics that evil isn’t really a thing, as much as the absence of good, and the absence of good comes with the absence of a soul.

So now we’ve got Chuck making a library of things trying to find something okay enough to do in non-eternity. After all, he can hop worlds, revert time, go when and wherever he wants, make whatever place he wants to go to, come up with spiderturtleducks if he gets bored enough, what the fuck ever. I totes have it on good sources that there was a universe somewhere with turtlemonkeys with eight arms. Don’t @ me.

Either way, hopefully that clarifies the idea of “What is Grace?”; the page was first proverbial, but made literal and manifest in the world defined out of the nothing, and by Grace are all things made, and by the Word all is known. 

The idea of Anthropos, the Inky Man, or The Shadow – the First Man, the Great Adam, whatever the fuck any given denomination’s term is for it – varies slightly in perennial thought. Our humanistic show, however, and all signs seem to be pointing to an interpretation in which the shadow predates them and yet doesn’t in this ambiguous time space. It is simply a shadow of a place that did and didn’t exist yet at that point.

And that paradox is, very likely – I’d call it a *very educated theory based on the theology that inspires our mytharc* – what defines humanity. 

So am I saying humans don’t even exist? Absolutely not. But they are the thing outside of and beyond creation while living in it, from which we do not truly understand the idea of in eternity if you believe in it. But whether it’s gnostic thoughts that say god like threw man into the universe and trapped him in a machine, bodies included; or the hermetic one where the forefather yearned for a meaning to its nonexistence, and by it made the demiurge we call YHVH or Chuck, respectively, in SPN – and by it found a world to fall in love with and fall into, much as angels fall into man – perennial thought aligns with humans being something far and beyond this cage, and the show supports it, as the most sought powersource that could even end God Himself – as the thing he can neither create nor destroy, just shove in boxes – as the thing he can not control.

Humans are a paradox in definition, and that paradox seeks a meaning to life, and in it, it essentially – by a chain of progress, mind you – creates the world. After all, He Who Has The Most Souls Are Become God, am I incorrect on SPN canon here? Be that S6/7 Cas’ Big Mistake (including not making any sort of chambers of contentment to keep them from fighting back, no leviathan mental headbars, no greatest hits of heaven tucked inside of him), or them recalling this in 15.3 /from two directions/ and by which Rowena became the authority in hell even after Cas beat the shit out of Belphegor to stop HIM from becoming that kind of king – if Chuck didn’t have souls, would he even actually have power? And why else throw men, now forgotten of their source and thrown into bodies, into places like heaven and hell? In hell human souls that went against Chuck’s will destroy each other until they lose their light; if Chuck can’t destroy them, let them destroy each other. In heaven, like in MichaelDean’s headbar, they’re given contentment and also cease fighting back. They don’t return to a source, they don’t amass, they’re carefully segregated and processed.

So anyway back to the Shadow. I’ve mentioned the hermetic ideas of Nous I and Nous II. They’re both God in a way, but completely independent beings. Nous II is what people commonly think of with “God.” The christian god, the creator of the universe, but also a spiteful god by his own words, in the bible itself. To many christians it’s even sacrilege to think of there being anything before God, he created the universe so clearly he yelled FIRST and licked it or whatever, and That’s That. But Nous I is the Forefather, the Shadow I’ve spoken of. And while it doesn’t necessarily dictate the world, it also manifests forward as Anthropos to experience the world.

If there was a collective vat of souljuice in oblivion, and those pieces fell into bodies by force or choice, it is the development of the id, ego, superego, and general self that then defines who we become as individuals. Until “The real Sam and Dean” line I was in conflict, wondering how the AU selves sorted out in mechanics. It seemed in conflict with the very nature of individual souls for them to be simultaneously across worlds but pent up in heavens. But then the answer became simple and remained true to form: we are what we make ourselves, and bond with who makes us complete as a great work that help us master ourselves. The very idea of mastering ourselves, however, is one of great relativity as we are, in the end, just trying to find a meaning to our existence, or nonexistence, or whatever else even if it’s by running through a matrix in a million billion parts that become a million billion different people with different stories, experiences, relationships, personalities all subject to it, but in the end, souls find each other, especially partner souls. 

I hate the term soulmates, really. In the scale of it, it’s more like a 10000000000000000000000000 (or infinite) piece soul puzzle, but some pieces click together more than others and by it we find better selves.

*takes in a deep breath*

So aNyWaY

I still haven’t answered why I feel Cas has a soul, but it required getting that proposal out of the way first, and it’s simple really: minding what I’ve said, anyone notice anything? The Shadow didn’t reflect Lucifer. It didn’t reflect soulless Jack (though it did try to communicate with a creepy smile which lends me to believe there’s a smol soulspark left in Jack to compliment him touching Mary’s name on the table), it didn’t reflect Death. It only reflected Castiel. And in the end… Why Are You Awake? Nothing in the history of Ever has woken up here. You’re outside of the book. There is no book. Why is this page floating around in my Nothingspace, get the fuck out, stop littering.

The entire construct of this breaks out that existential crisis in fandom as much as Dean – does that mean none of this is real? No. Dean answered that in 5.18 long ago, even if he reflected his own words in his fear, terror, and panic.

You want to know what’s real? People. Families.

Nothing about our lives is real.

We are.

Castiel never forgot the reason he fell for Dean, that fateful day, and that fateful discussion. Chuck’s machinations are nothing new to Cas. Cas used to be part of that machine himself really.

How, exactly, he acquired a soul is a whole other topic for another post which has never been answered overtly, but it was either developed on or before the season 8 finale when Metatron referenced it. This later is augmented by the Shadow and by Cas NOT recognizing what it feels like to lose a soul and instead deferring to Sam for the experience, meaning he probably didn’t entirely lose it which also removes some of the old alien stick-in-assedness. There’s plenty of material that could be read as Cas having a soul, but the one that SCREAMS to me the most is The Big Empty, for entire like… cosmogenic construct reasons.

Hermeticism addresses the idea of three principles that, while they have many names, boil down to Mind, Body, and Soul. Soul is the Prima Materia, the essence by which All Things Come, even Mind and Body, and Mind and Body return to Soul and build them as well in this paradox. But the soul creates the prime material, and the mind perceives the material, which then becomes the body. This can be the literal human body or the idea of physical creation as a whole, eg, body of the world. The soul and mind are beyond these things and exist without them, even if the soul and mind are developed and fostered into individuals by the experiences they gain in this manufactured reality.

After all, Eileen’s ghost wasn’t suddenly Hearing, even though it’s not a matter of blown out eardrums anymore. We can just handwave it and say it’s being politically correct, which it also is, and bless them for it – but also, her mind and by proxy soul never really grew and perceived the idea of Sound as defined by the Created Universe as part of her experience. After all– sight, sound, smell, touch, taste – these are all things defined within our universal bubble. We can enjoy the trip through these worlds and learn from them and make memories and meanings, but … there’s no reason to “fix” that. Eileen was her own complete person as she was, hearing or not.  WHY would her ghost even know what it means to Hear? 

Why can cas, theoretically just a program, wake up in oblivion? Humanity. For agent smith to leave the matrix he had to corrupt and acquire a human body. But the perennial thought aligned with matrix symbolism makes that synonymous with a soul.

Cas has a soul.

So bigassed long answer but yeah– hopefully that– answered everything?

When it comes to id, ego, superego, etc– or in older hermetics shadow, animus, anima, self – I tried to break down the show’s use of it, and constructed realities, in this video here. Watch it a few times if you have to. It also includes both primitive shadow and individual shadows as well as Animus (the masculine ego, with daddy issues reflected through their designated archangels) or Animus (the more evolved feminine superego, as given to us by Dumah/Sam’s bartendress [same actress–] or Pamela).

Y’all are probably sick to death of me plugging that but I swear to god if you watch it through and think, even after a few attempts, you’ll start getting it – and what parts you don’t, just send me an ask like this.

And mark my words. Just as Cas figured out both the Empty and Michael were full of shit, the look he had after Rowena declared She Took It tells me he’s going to be key, if not THE key, in their resolution, mirroring her choice. Fight me. Which is one of the many topics I addressed in the new video (including divine masculine vs feminine, paths, lessons, the phases of awakening [black/shadow, white/animus, yellow/anima, red/self], whatever)

On an aside, I might propose dreamwalkers, born on identical days in different worlds, and able to travel across them, may actually somehow share a soul while living duplicitous lives and sharing experiences, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

But if Chuck built himself into the Body of the World to keep it together, well. It’s his one weakness, sure. But also the world itself on removal. Now the real question is how much of this TFW as parents, Cas especially, is going to let fall on Jack. Because they can’t be like the forebearers that made their cursed paths. chuck may be the key but he does not need to be the answer, these are not the same. So yeah, I’m still stuck on my Goddess/Empress-unbirthing-in-Binah-to-make-the-new-aeon spec. Hell, maybe it really just takes unplugging Chuck and sieging heaven and loosing all the souls in a giant rebellion, sure, but what then retains the balance? I’d stare into the camera, but I’m too busy looking at Cas.

It’s worth noting that depending on denomination, the variables may change in this; eg, Chuck and Amara as thoughts spawned from the Empty also mean a Return To God is completion in some Hot Takes, which would be for example going to heaven, whereas Amara removes them from chuck’s light/creation and theoretically drops them back To Live As One within, say, the Shadow again. But our structure does not seem to be pointing to the read of Joining God In Heaven As The Big Goal as much as I Am Become God.

#supernatural #spn #souls #pagan life #meta #my meta #the shadow #chuck #amara #paradox #long post for ts #amaah #cosmogenesis #shadow #demiurge

[rumours-spiral]

i’ll be safe in your sound- anna x katherine

(kinda loosely) based off of this wonderful post by @you-need-a-jello-shot. thanks again for letting me use the idea! 

note: this 100% ended up turning into an anna x kat fic but after what genesis put on her story earlier, am i really to blame? to the user who said they’d like to see more of these two, here you go! expect more bc writing this made me fall in love with this ship

(also to the people who asked for the parrlyn fic, its almost finished) 

summary: anna and katherine are very cute & very in love. pure fluff 

words: 1306

warnings: very brief hint to past sexual assault 

Anna’s eyes drifted open lazily, only to be met with the beautiful sight of Katherine. She was sitting up against the headboard, sleepy eyes trained on the landscape-turned phone in her hands. A headphone wire could be seen running from where it was connected into the phone. It rested on her girlfriend’s chest before running up her neck and to her ear. Anna realised with a dopey grin and an amused exhalation that Katherine had only put one earphone in, leaving the ear closest to Anna free. Her suspicions of why this had been done were confirmed when the woman turned to face her immediately at the noise. She gave Anna a breath-taking little smile.

“Morning,” Kat whispered, her voice husky with sleep. It gave Anna butterflies to see Kat like this- long, chestnut and pink-tipped hair messy and free, cascading down her shoulders and staining Anna’s white sheets that delightful colour; her eyes lidded and sweet. Everything about Kat always seemed soft, but something about feeling the warmth she shared under the covers and seeing her in the muted light made her outright heavenly. Whatever she was watching was completely disregarded, the phone now resting on her lap. Anna felt that dopey grin worsen.

“Morning.” She leaned up slightly and Katherine tipped her head down to give her a gentle kiss. They pulled apart slowly. Anna felt something too powerful for such an early morning expand in her chest when she looked at Kat’s brown eyes, so she turned her gaze to her hair, snaking an arm out from under the duvet to hold a lock of it. Katherine gave her an amused look at the near reverence in Anna’s eyes at it.

“What?” Anna looked up at her voice.

“You’re pretty,” Anna said simply. Kat felt a blush spread in her cheeks and she, too, averted her eyes from the brilliance that was her girlfriend. She looked at the dark hand that held her hair, remembering faintly a dozen similar scenes from a different life. The hand she watched now had skin as soft and pure and safe as its movements; it wasn’t muscular, or calloused from instrument strings or stained with ink. It was a hand of giving and holding, not of stealing and possessing. She smiled down at it, lifting the hand to press a kiss to its knuckles. She looked back up at the other woman and found eyes that seemed to know exactly what Kat was thinking. They always did.

“You’re pretty, too,” was Katherine’s bashful little reply. It felt quite pathetic, and not nearly adequate enough to describe Anna, yet a smile spread across her face anyway. The hand was still held up to her face and she looked to be almost trying to hide behind it. Anna’s smile turned into a playful grin, and she pulled her hand away to place it on the bed on the other side of Katherine. She pushed herself up into a half-sitting position, leaning partly over her girlfriend so she could have their faces close. She was ever watchful of the brunette’s body language and reactions, but found only amusement dancing in her eyes.

She hooked a leg over Anna’s waist suddenly, and flipped them so that Katherine was hovering over the other in one swift movement, her victim letting out a yelp. She captured Anna in a slightly less-than-innocent kiss, silencing her, but pulled away after a second, leaving Anna’s head still reaching for her. She let her head fall back to the bed dramatically, pouting up at her. Katherine let out a breathless sort of giggle.

“Your breath smells too bad to do that right now,” she whispered it like she was in a pantomime, playing along with Anna’s dramatic reactions. Anna gave a gasp, trying to look indignant, but she knew it failed when she felt her mouth curving into a smile anyway and saw Katherine’s eyes go incredibly brighter.

“Your breath doesn’t smell incredible, either,” it came out as a laugh, the theatricality forgotten. Kat giggled as well, and rolled off of Anna to lie on her back. She stretched her hand out, feeling for Anna’s, and laced them together wordlessly. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, listening to each other’s breaths and the muffled sounds of their housemates moving around.

“Anna?”

She received a hum.

“I really want a cookie.”

Anna laughed again, soft as the pillow beneath her head.

“Come on, then,” she said. Kat tackling her had tangled them in the sheets, so when Anna tried to stand on the half-covered leg she swung onto the floor, she ended up only yanking Kat across the bed and almost falling onto the ground herself.

Kat let out a peal of laughter, a musical sound that Anna didn’t think she’d ever tire of hearing. Anna turned around to face the bed, chortling even harder than she had been when she saw half the duvet had been pulled off the bed in her trip. Kat’s legs remained on her original side, though her torso and arm (that was still connected to Anna) were on Anna’s side. She was tangled, too.

They unlinked hands- Cleves to unwrap the sheet winding around her leg and Kat to get out of the mess she was in. Kat had somehow freed herself before Cleves, so when she looked up to check Kat’s progress, she instead saw her opening the curtains. Her back was to Anna, and she was wearing one of her shirts- a red and black flannel that stopped just at her mid-thigh. That same powerful, consuming feeling fluttered in Anna’s chest at the sight. She looked away before Kat turned back to her.

“Anna? You go down before me, I need to find my phone.” She was currently attempting to lift up the duvet and shake it in her search. Anna was going to argue that she should stay and help, but decided to get Kat’s cookies and tea started before she got down there. She gave a temporary farewell.

She found all the girls already in the kitchen. Anne was standing next to Cathy at the table and eating cereal. Her back was turned to her but she could tell from the glare Aragon was currently shooting at her from where she stood next to the toaster that she was dropping it everywhere. Cathy was reading a newspaper, and Jane sat across her, nursing a steaming cup of tea.

Jane smiled when Anna walked in, greeting her with a “morning, love”. Anna replied to her as she moved through the kitchen, walking toward Aragon and her ever-hardening stare at Anne when she heard the girl warble her own greeting with a mouthful of coco pops. Aragon paused from this one-sided glaring contest to inform Anna of the general plan for today.

Anna listened half-heartedly, rifling through a cupboard to find Katherine’s cookies. She turned around in time, packet of the biscuits in hand, to see Katherine walking into the room. She was so distracted by her that she hardly saw the doubletake Jane took at the woman. Anne (who looked comical with a spoon hanging from her mouth, abandoned in shock) tapped Cathy’s head and all three of their heads followed Katherine’s trek. She heard Aragon choke slightly on her water from beside her.

Anna realised what they were shocked at with a broad smile. She handed Katherine a cookie when the woman neared her, and in return got a very confused look from.

Kat stood there, eating her cookie, with everyone still staring at her.

“What?” She asked, slightly defensively.

Her cousin pulled the spoon from her mouth.

“Your hair’s down.”

Katherine raised her cookie-free hand up to feel, as if she didn’t already know. And, of course, Anne was right.

“Oh.”

“Your hair is never down.”

“Oh.”

#six the musical #six the musical fanfic #fanfic #anna of cleves #katherine howard #anna x katherine #fluff #tw

[brandxspandex]

Thor: Ragnarok review of sorts

So I just went to see Thor: Ragnarok for a second time and I think that I’ve collated my thoughts enough to give an overview of my opinions on it. Under the cut because this got really long…

Firstly, what I didn’t like about it:

I wasn’t crazy about the way they killed off the Warriors Three with so little ceremony, especially Volstagg and Fandral (Hogun’s death was a bit better). Volstagg in particular is a pretty major and beloved character in the Thor mythos so to see him done away with like that was unpleasant. It’s made even worse by the fact that The Dark World implied that MCU Volstagg has a family with a bunch of little children like 616 Volstagg does.

I similarly didn’t like the way they wrote off Thor’s relationship with Jane Foster with the same casual disregard. I didn’t even like the Thor/Jane plotline and kinda wished they’d never taken that particular path in the first place, but it really irks me when a story sets up a particular relationship or character or plotline or whatever as important and something we should be emotionally invested in, and then proceeds to write it off as though it never mattered. It weakens my trust in the narrative, as it makes me wonder why I should get invested in anything else it pushes me to care about, if there’s a chance it’s just gonna act like it was never important later on. Plus, even if I personally may not have particularly cared, it makes me feel bad for people who did. Sure, more often than not people’s ships don’t work out in canon, and you just have to live with it, but it’s a whole other level of insult to have your ship just tossed away as though it never meant anything. Contrast this with how they dealt with Bruce/Natasha in the movie; I don’t really care for that pairing whatsoever, but I’m still glad they acknowledged it in a way that was consistent with the way it was presented in Age of Ultron. Ultimately, while certain relationships don’t do it for me and I personally think they drag down the narrative, I think that if they’re going to be done away with, it should be nonetheless done in a manner that is respectful to way the relationships have been presented up to that point.

While I enjoyed Hela, as I will expand upon a little further on, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat underwhelmed by her character, knowing how much cooler the comic book character she’s based on is. As keen as I was for Hela, I knew that there was no way they were going to manage to make her as interesting as her 616 counterpart, but I nonetheless hoped they’d chuck in some little reference to the clusterfuck of factors that make her so fascinating in the comics, but there wasn’t really anything like that. On that note, I was hoping that there would be some interesting Hela and Loki interaction, given they have such a major relationship in the comics (not to mention the connection between their mythological counterparts), but they barely interacted at all. I was also really hoping that Hela was going to survive in order to act as a substitute for Mistress Death and Thanos’s object of obsession, and whilst that still isn’t completely off the table, it honestly didn’t feel like they were setting that up after all. Still, I can hope.

On a more minor note, I was a bit irked that the after-credits scene from Doctor Strange ended up being a scene in the film. It felt a bit like being retroactively robbed of an after-credits scene since there is no longer any point in watching it on its own at the end of Doctor Strange.

As for the things I was more ambivalent about:

I had mixed feelings about the humour in the film. On one hand, I love comedy and levity, especially when it is mixed with other genres I’m into. In fact, the humour that runs through the MCU is a big part of why I love it so much. On the other hand, when the humour of an established setting is suddenly amped up, particularly when it smacks of a very particular (and new) style of comedy as it did in this film, it can feel rather discombobulating, almost like the rules of that universe have spontaneously shifted to make this string of funny things happen. So while I found the humour in the film to be a lot of fun, I did feel that sense of discombobulation.

On a related note, Thor’s characterisation in particular felt like it shifted quite a bit to fit the style of humour in the film. I enjoyed his characterisation, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was quite the break from how he acted in previous films. I guess I’d have to watch this movie back to back with some of the previous ones to determine whether or not this is a valid feeling. It is something that does seem to happen quite a bit, I find; certain creators have a very particular way of handling characterisation that causes a lot of characters to take on a certain…tone, when they are written by said creator. I got the sense that was going on in this film.

I’m not sure how to feel about the destruction of Mjolnir. On one hand it was a bold move, but on the other it takes away the most iconic thing about Thor.

They didn’t show Thor and Loki hugging at the end, and while I’m sort of outraged, I also have to wonder if cutting away actually made it all the more impactful, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Things I thoroughly enjoyed about the film:

While I found Hela’s overall character rather underwhelming, I certainly can’t fault the stunning way she looked or the overwhelming amount of swag she simply radiated; it was glorious. I would have liked to have it wrapped around a more interesting backstory and/or character motivation, but I can at least relish this shining beacon of sassy goth villainy.

It is also good to know that Hela is at least still a dog person in the MCU, and Fenrir was a very fine example a death goddess’s best friend.

How fricking cool was that seemingly ROCKET POWERED DRAGON at the beginning???

I found myself endeared to Valkyrie the moment she drunkenly staggered off the walkway of her spaceship and then proceeded to mow down a gaggle of scavengers with gauntlets that controlled her ship’s turrets. It was a good first impression.

Both the Hulk and Bruce Banner were fabulous, funny inclusions in the movie, and I really enjoyed their interactions with both Thor and Valkyrie. Honestly, if either Bruce or Valkyrie end up romantically involved with anyone, I think I’d most prefer for it to be with one another.

Doctor Strange was also a fun inclusion from start to end.

I also loved how Thor had Mjolnir disguised as an umbrella during those Earth-bound scenes, in reference to the old comics where it would transform into a walking stick. They even had the detail where he taps it against the ground to transform into his Asgardian garb.

The Grandmaster (and his fricking orgy ship) was just a whole lot of fun.

As was that bloody Kiwi space rock (and his ant friend)…but let’s be real, the mere existence of New Zealand is funny in itself.

While the revelations about Odin and the royal family weren’t explored nearly enough for my liking, they certainly provided a goldmine of worldbuilding and fanfiction possibilities for fandom to play with.

Finally, the things about the movie that I loved:

When I first became invested in the MCU one of my favourite things about it was the bond that formed between Bruce Banner and Tony Stark in The Avengers, so I felt a bit bummed by some of the more recent films in which that relationship seemed to fall to the wayside. Therefore, the way Bruce kept mentioning Tony in this film, even if they were little, incidental mentions, made me very, very happy. I really hope this means their relationship hasn’t been forgotten after all.

Personally I was never truly convinced that Loki killed Odin at the end of The Dark World, but I was very glad to have it confirmed that Loki just dumped him on Earth. Loki’s desperate love for Odin was the thing that ultimately won me over to his character in the first place, and I think that would have been ruined for me if it turned out that he had killed him. I think the way the movie dealt with Odin overall was pretty spot on actually; it introduced the darker elements of his character that have been apparent in the comics for some time, but kept his characterisation nonetheless consist with how he was portrayed in the former films. I was quite satisfied with how his arc played out.

Out of all the characters in the movie, I feel like the tone suited Loki the best. After all, it makes sense that a god of mischief would be at home in a bizarro comedy. Whilst I felt that a number of the other characters had shifted their behaviour slightly to suit the film’s comedic tone, Loki’s characterisation felt completely natural to me. Now that I think about it, I think Loki’s been growing progressively funnier over the course of each movie he pops up in, which is great since he absolutely should be funny. Don’t get me wrong, I loved angsty little Loki from the first Thor movie, but he really needs to have a solid dose of mischief served up alongside all that angst. Honestly, what are the more quintessential ingredients of Loki than angst and mischief? I feel as though that scene of Loki masquerading as a suspiciously fruity Odin, building statues of himself and watching dramatic theatre about his life would seem like absurd Flanderization for most other characters, but for Loki it felt as though he was finally becoming the character he was always meant to be.

I furthermore loved the character arc Loki undertook in this film; it felt like a really organic progression from his character growth in The Dark World. What really got me was that scene where Thor tells Loki that although he refuses to change, he could be more, because if that isn’t a Journey into Mystery/Agent of Asgard reference then it’s a hell of a coincidence.

On that note, Thor and Loki’s interactions were wonderful; a fantastic blend of funny and heartfelt, antagonistic and cooperative. Basically their relationship in this film was everything I want to see from their comic counterparts that Marvel keeps refusing to show me goddammit.

I loved the unique aesthetic of the film both visually and aurally; such a cool combination of the high fantasy thing the other two Thor films had going on and the synthy, 80s Kirby-esque sci-fi element that they introduced. Seriously, what other movie looks and sounds like this one does?

Admittedly I’m only really familiar with 616 Skurge from the Walter Simonson 80s run, in which he doesn’t have that many appearances, but of course it does contain his most notable appearance, and I loved the way they adapted that into the film. It might even be my favourite scene in the movie. Skurge’s whole character arc was really the cherry on top of this film for me.

LOOP ZOOP

But fricking seriously how the hell did we get to the third movie in a Thor movie trilogy and only now they’re playing Immigrant Song?

I did not see that twist on the Ragnarok thing coming and honestly I was pretty impressed by it; I especially liked how they subverted expectations in regards to Loki being responsible for instigating Ragnarok by indeed having him directly responsible, but for reasons I never could have anticipated.

While Infinity War is probably gonna screw it all up, I loved the promise presented by set-up at the end with Thor being the Captain King of a starship of homeless space fantasy gods traversing the stars, with Loki by his side. Holy shit I desperately want to watch a sci-fi series spinning off from this premise.

SAFE PASSAGE THROUGH THE ANUS

#Thor: Ragnarok #Marvel #MCU #Loki #Hela #Valkyrie #Bruce Banner #Hulk #Warriors Three #Volstagg #Fandral the Dashing #Hogun the Grim #Fenrir #Grandmaster #En Dwi Gast #Tony Stark #Loki: Agent of Asgard #Journey into Mystery #Odin #Jane Foster #Korg #Miek #Doctor Strange #Stephen Strange #Mjolnir #Skurge the Executioner #thor: ragnarok spoilers

[odanurr87]

The problem with Star Wars Rebels

At the behest of several friends and acquaintances I decided to start watching the animated series Star Wars Rebels. I had previously watched The Clone Wars, but eventually gave up on it for a variety of reasons that I may explain in a separate post. I am currently on episode 14 of the second season of Star Wars Rebels, yet I feel I am able at this time to try and pinpoint some of the issues I’ve been having with this series.

Let me preface this by saying Rebels is not a bad show, at least I don’t think so. I think all fans, both old and new, can agree it’s entertaining, there’s a lot of humour, and voice acting is very good. Some might even delight in meeting familiar characters from the Star Wars Universe, like Leia, Lando, or the droids, or learning new bits of lore, such as the origin of the Rebel B-Wing starfighter. I do believe that someone (relatively) new to the Star Wars Universe will find more to enjoy in Star Wars Rebels than an old fan like me, but I am trying and I will keep on trying.

Speaking for myself, I come with a lot of Expanded Universe (EU) baggage, and retcons are not something that I take to lightly, especially when they’re gratuitous or badly done. My head is filled with details that fleshed the Star Wars Universe, details provided by the EU, so when I see something in Star Wars Rebels (and in The Clone Wars too) that overwrites that data an alarm goes off at the back of my head and I’m taken out of the experience even if for a tiny bit. The Clone Wars is perhaps the most egregious culprit as Dave Filoni messed with continuity (LucasArts wasn’t owned by Disney then) resurrecting already-dead characters (e.g.: Darth Maul) and completely altering Mandalorian culture, among others.

However, retconning is only (a small) part of the problem with Star Wars Rebels. I believe there are more basic issues with the series that I’ll do my best to outline in this post. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what happened a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

The origins of the Rebel Alliance... kinda

Star Wars Rebels follows the adventures of a young group of mercenaries turned freedom-fighters 5 years before the Battle of Yavin (BBY). The show starts as a young thief by the name of Ezra bumps into a group, led by Kanan, a former Jedi-turned-mercenary, in the process of stealing supplies from the Empire. These will be our heroes for the remainder of the series. Besides Kanan and Ezra, we have: Zeb, a Lasat male honor guardsman who acts as the muscle; Chopper, an astromech droid that’s in charge of opening every door and repairing everything that doesn’t work properly; Sabine, a Mandalorian who has a penchant for art and blowing stuff up; and Hera, daughter of Cham Syndulla (from TCW), top-notch pilot and sharing the lead together with Kanan.

From left to right: Sabine, Zeb, Hera, Kanan, Ezra, and Chopper.

Comparisons with the gang from the Original Trilogy (OT) are self-evident and are not the focus of this post, nor of this particular point. As the show progresses, we come to learn that his group, while operating independently, does strike against the Empire every now and then. Circumstances eventually force them to make a stand, and thus we learn that they were actually operating as a cell, and that there are other Rebel cells operating throughout the galaxy. In short, what we have is a small window into the origins of the Rebel Alliance.

Putting aside the (non-canon and Force-powered) story of The Force Unleashed, which also depicts the origins of the Rebel Alliance (and is incidentally very good at it), one obvious question comes to mind, do we really need this story? Do we need to know exactly how the Rebel Alliance came together to stand against the might of the Empire forged by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader? To my mind, the answer is no. History has shown us that rebellion is commonplace in empires that abuse their power and oppress their people. Therefore, that a rebellion would surface in the span between Episodes III and IV doesn’t come as a surprise. Would I want this story to be told though? If executed properly, the answer is yes.

Planting the seeds of rebellion.

George Lucas tried to show us some of this in Episode III with a series of meetings between Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Padmé Amidala, and a few other senators, where they discussed the future of the Republic and what they might need to do to save it. Unfortunately, those scenes got cut for the theatrical release. Maybe they were a tad too on the nose, maybe Lucas thought it would remind people of The Phantom Menace’s politics. I am perhaps one of the few who finds that politics are an integral part of the tale of the Republic’s downfall and who believes they don’t have to be detrimental to a story. Just look at the excellent The Legend of the Galactic Heroes for reference. Whether you’re a fan of the light novel series by Yoshiki Tanaka, or the (superior) anime version, it’s a story fraught with history, politics, economics, religion, and warfare, that finds the right balance between all these elements. If Star Wars Rebels were to combine these elements half as well to tell us how the Rebel Alliance was formed, it would make for one hell of a story.

Unfortunately, so far Rebels has made no attempt to do so. There are many basic questions that remain unanswered. For instance, if Hera’s (she’s their commanding officer now, right?) band of freedom fighters is just one cell out of many, does that mean that there’s some sort of centralized power structure? The story seems to suggest the rebels were disorganized before Hera’s group rallied them into action but it’s never really clear. At the same time, it also suggests Hera was already taking orders from some form of command authority back in their early ‘independent’ days. Which one is it? 

If there is a commanding body to the rebel movement, is there a larger plan beyond ‘sticking it to the Empire’? How exactly are the rebels planning to overthrow the Empire, if indeed that is their goal? Are we even at the point of calling it the Rebel Alliance? It would appear that at least the rebel group working with Hera is mobile and doesn’t have a base of operations. Is this the same for other cells? 

My head is filled with dozens of questions that scream (a bit of hyperbole, okay) to be answered, but the show remains oblivious and chooses to plunge through regardless. To be perfectly honest, I doubt the creators themselves know the answers. It is this internal confusion that throws me for a loop. Perhaps they believe these are trifle questions not worth pondering. I beg to differ. If you choose to tell a story about the origins of the Rebel Alliance, thoroughly exploring said origins is a must; at the very least I would expect it to be internally coherent and not sow confusion every two episodes.

This ties neatly into my second point, which is...

The Force is too strong with this one

When old Ben Kenobi tells Luke how the Jedi were once the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, one has the sense that he’s talking about a distant memory, something that happened a long time ago. Indeed, watching the OT, you get the feeling that most of the galaxy believes that the Jedi were nothing but a myth. General Motti went so far as to question Vader’s sad devotion to that ‘ancient religion.’ Tarkin is adamant that Vader’s the only Jedi left. Even though he’d be proven wrong minutes (and an episode) later, the universe of the Classic Trilogy has all but forgotten the Jedi.

When Luke picks up the Jedi mantle it’s an incredibly boon for the Rebel Alliance. Not only have they now a powerful symbol to rally behind, for the Jedi were considered bastions of the Republic, they also have someone to stand against the powerful Darth Vader. This was further reinforced by the EU. Sometimes a story would feature people who would dabble in the Force, or people who pretended to be Jedi, but in the end, the notion that Luke was the last of them was ever present.

Luke Skywalker, last (hope?) of the Jedi.

The Prequel Trilogy (PT) was the first to create problems for this narrative. After all, the events of Revenge of the Sith take place 19 years before the events of A New Hope. I would hardly think that 20 years is enough time for the galaxy to forget about the Jedi. Even less so when you consider that the Clone Wars would have spread the Jedi throughout the galaxy, making them known even in the most distant Outer Rim worlds.

20 years ago there were thousands of Jedi. Now there are none. Revenge of the Sith tried to explain this through Order 66, just one in a long series of orders drilled into the clone army that instructed them to eliminate their Jedi commanders and every other Jedi they could get their hands on. The film shows us they were mercilessly efficient at that and very few Jedi managed to survive the betrayal, the most notable examples being Obi-Wan on Utapau and Yoda on Kashyyyk. But as the film also shows us, not all Jedi were killed by the clones, either on the battlefield or back at the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan managed to get a message out warning any surviving Jedi of the fall of Coruscant and the clones’ betrayal, and instructing them to stay hidden until... whenever. There’s a very funny deleted scene from Episode III where the clones dress up as Jedi to trick Yoda and Obi-Wan with predictably bad results.

Anyway, as I was saying, no matter how efficient the clones might have been, it stands to reason that some Jedi other than Obi-Wan and Yoda would have survived the purge. Again, going with EU material, the Dark Times comic series show us as much as Darth Vader begins his quest to eliminate any and all surviving Jedi, and he’s very good at it. Any Jedi that might have survived that second purge where probably in hiding during the events of the OT, right?

Wrong. In Star Wars Rebels, Kanan notices that young Ezra is strong in the Force and undertakes the daunting task of training him. So now we have a Jedi Master and Padawan, fighting together with the Rebel Alliance, five years before the events of A New Hope. In fact, the events of season three of Star Wars Rebels take place as close as 2 BBY. 

What?

It gets better. Joining them in their struggle in season two is none other than Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan, Ahsoka Tano, who’s also working with the Rebel Alliance! As if that weren’t enough, we also have the Inquisitors, an organization of Force-sensitive agents working for the Empire to hunt down Jedi. By episode 14 of season 2 I counted at least 3 Inquisitors and there are probably more if the “fifth brother” and “seventh sister” quotes are any indication.

Um, well...

There’s more. Darth Maul makes an appearance at some point in season two and definitely returns in season three. Kanan and Ezra travel to a Jedi Temple where they both receive guidance from Yoda himself. Holocrons pop up, and the Bendu monks get transformed into Bendu, a Force-sensitive individual who represents the center of the Force.

...

Where should I begin?

If it was hard for me (or anyone, really) to believe the galaxy had forgotten about the Jedi over the span of 20 years, you can imagine it’s even harder for me to believe they’d forgotten about them over the span of 2 years (and that’s if Rebels ends at 2 BBY, it could end at 0 BBY!). I suppose one could argue that the galaxy is a big place, and that even dozens of Force-powered individuals running around waving their lightsabers like mad might get unnoticed by the galaxy at large. I can see myself conceding this point. There could’ve been Jedi rebels spread throughout the galaxy waging their own personal little wars against the Empire, careful not to attract undue attention to themselves.

Unfortunately, Kanan and Ezra seem to do everything in their power to stay in the Empire’s spotlight. Furthermore, they’re irrevocably linked to the Rebel Alliance, to the point that Princess Leia Organa herself saw the pair wielding their lightsabers and using the Force! Such a tale would’ve certainly spread like wildfire throughout the rebel cells, reaching both the Core and the Outer Rim. The Rebel Alliance had found not one, not two, but three Jedi (so far) to rally around and bring the fight to the Empire... 5 years before they found Luke Skywalker and 9 years before the Jedi, um, returned? Revenge of the Jedi’s starting to sound awfully better now, isn’t it? Pity the Sith got there first.

To further compound the problem is the matter of Ezra’s training. At the rate this is going, he’ll end up having more training than Luke ever did in the OT. He’s had access to a Jedi Temple, two Jedi who’re around almost full-time (Ben died fairly soon and Luke cut short his training with Yoda on Dagobah), two holocrons, and there may be other things I’m not aware of yet. Perhaps Marvel intends to fill the gap of Luke’s training with novels and/or comics? My point is that Ezra seems to be turning too powerful too easily and Disney will have to pull off another Order 66-like stunt if they’re going to get rid of him, Kanan, and Ahsoka by the time Luke arrives. 

Will this be Kanan and Ezra’s fate?

We already had an episode in season one where Vader fought more eager, less experienced, versions of Kanan and Ezra and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) defeat them. I believe there’s a similar episode in season two with pretty much the same results. Do the creators intend to go The Force Unleashed route with a final showdown between the Emperor, Vader, Kanan, and Ezra, where Palpatine wipes the floor with the Jedi? The Inquisitors are useless after all. Will they instead go into hiding like their fellows? That would be quite the reversal given everything that’s happened on the show but it wouldn’t surprise me. Not anymore.

A galaxy without stakes

The struggle between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is more than well documented, at least under EU material. Even if we’re talking canon sources, only recently we had Rogue One, a new Star Wars movie set around 0 BBY that tells the story of how the Rebels got their hands on the Death Star plans that Darth Vader is so keen on getting back in A New Hope. 

Rogue One is, in essence, a war drama in the vein of the old World War II films I used to watch, like The Guns of Navarone or The Dirty Dozen, sharing more similarities with the former than the latter. It’s a film that attempts to show us the Alliance’s darker side and the lines they’re willing to cross to defeat the Empire, all the while driving the point that war is not a clean and clear-cut affair, with multiple rebel groups having different goals and methods to go about it, and civilians often getting caught in the crossfire. This movie does not shy away from death, having the largest body count since the Death Star blew up Alderaan in A New Hope. Okay, maybe not that high.

In Rogue One, war is hell.

Perhaps more so than A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, Rogue One succeeds at making the Empire feel powerful and menacing, to the point the Rebels actually consider giving up on the entire endeavour. Indeed, the Rebellion in Rogue One, while an organized force, is no match for the Empire, less so when the Death Star is put into play. 

Far superior at showing this was The Empire Strikes Back during the Battle of Hoth, when the full force of the Empire was brought to bear on the Rebel base. A blockade around the planet was enforced by Star Destroyers while AT-ATs under the command of experienced General Veers led the ground assault against the Rebel forces. The Rebels put up a valiant effort but the outcome had been clear from the start: this battle was already lost; all they could do was delay the Imperial forces long enough for the evacuation to be completed. Even then, the evacuation was no simple affair. The Rebel transports could not evade nor outgun the Star Destroyers around the planet so they had to use Echo Base’s powerful ion cannons to disable them long enough to make the jump to lightspeed.

This is what it took to (temporarily) disable a Star Destroyer in Episode V.

Even our heroes are not safe from the Empire in Episode V. Luke learns a painful lesson when he hastens to rescue Han and Leia at Bespin, losing a hand in a duel with Vader that nearly cost him his life. Han is tortured, frozen in carbonite, and handed over to a bounty hunter. Later, in Return of the Jedi, a more seasoned Luke Skywalker pays the price of underestimating the dark side of the Force, something both Ben and Yoda warned him against. Had Vader not turned against the Emperor right there and then, Luke would’ve been toast. Of course, the Rebellion would’ve won the day nonetheless, right?

It is true that the depiction of the Imperial forces is uneven even among the movies of the OT. For the excellent Battle of Hoth we also have the (underwhelming) Battle of Endor, where the Empire’s forces are defeated by a small Rebel strike team working together with the primitive Ewoks. To be fair though, the size of the garrison on Endor is a lot smaller than the forces deployed during the Hoth battle and the terrain is a lot trickier and particularly well-suited for guerrilla tactics, where the advantage of numbers can be severely hampered. As a side note, there’s also a deleted scene from Return of the Jedi where we see Commander Jerjerrod’s conflict at being ordered by the Emperor to destroy the Endor moon, thereby killing friend and foe alike. No doubt Palpatine intended to use this to leverage Luke into submitting... or forcing him to use the dark side to strike at him. Quite the deviously cunning fellow Palpatine.

Well, that looks impressive.

Still, the sense that the movies and the EU convey is that the Empire, at the time of the OT, has a vast and fairly competent military, but suffers from corruption and internal power struggles, as does any large organization given enough power. Why would anyone expect anything less? The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was perhaps the most effective and efficient military at the time of the Clone Wars, comprised mostly, but not excusively, of highly-trained clones. I’m uncertain whether the clones’ rapid-aging is something that’s still canon (I somehow doubt it), but in any case Star Wars Rebels tells us that the Empire started phasing them out after the events of Episode III, replacing them with regular people, probably drafted from the many worlds of the Republic/Empire. 

I’ve seen many people use this argument to explain away things like why the stormtroopers have such bad aim but that’s ridiculous. With the right training and the right tools/weapons, the Empire could still have the most powerful army in the galaxy, and guess what? They do have the right training and the right tools and weapons. Rex himself admits that the Empire did use the clones to train new recruits and pass down their knowledge. The Empire also obviously kept all the vehicles, weapons, and technology they used to fight the Separatists, acquired some new ones, and upgraded others. 

There’s a popular, misquoted I believe, phrase that says, “There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.” Possibly a re-interpretation of a quote attributed to Alexander the Great, “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” Regardless of the exact wording and of who said what, the point is clear: soldiers can only be (shown to be) as good as the person commanding them. 

Yang vs Reinhard: Two sides of the same coin.

This is a point that the excellent Legend of the Galactic Heroes illustrates time and again. For all his clever strategies, Yang Wenli cannot help but follow the orders of the corrupt and self-serving, but duly elected, government of the Free Planets Alliance, with disastrous results. All Yang can do is stave off defeat and live to fight another day. On the other hand, the Empire’s own master strategist, Reinhard von Lohengramm, has carte blanche to deal with the Alliance as he sees fit, and surrounds himself with officers that have the talent and skills to defeat his enemy, regardless of their background.

Which is the case in Star Wars Rebels? Well, I guess it’s neither. The Imperial forces in Rebels are depicted as grossly incompetent, there’s no other way around this, hardly better than the battle droids from The Clone Wars. The stromtrooper effect is brought to bear in full force in this show, so much so that even the main characters are forced to comment on how bad the stormtroopers’ aim is. Officers fare no better, being made a mockery of, like missing a shot at point-blank range, and falling into the usual tropes of caricaturesque villainy, like having a fat Imperial officer steal a fruit from a vendor and daring him to stop him.

If I had a penny for every time I’ve seen this scene...

Rebels tries to revert this by introducing mildly competent characters like Agent Kallus, Tarkin, the Inquisitors, Vader, and even Thrawn in season three. Unfortunately, the more these characters are foiled (and they’re foiled a lot), the less effective they are at trying to reinforce the notion that the Empire is a force to be reckoned with. Halfway through season two, Kallus and the Inquisitors are more of a bad punchline than anything else. Tarkin and Vader are better off since their appearances have been few and far between. The only fear that the Empire seems to have sowed so far is among its own, as Imperial officers are made to account for their failure with their lives. It’s difficult to take the Empire seriously if it takes so little to foil them.

Only recently I watched an episode where Princess Leia tries to indirectly deliver ships to the Rebels. The plan is for Kanan and company to steal the freighters while Leia’s delivering supplies. The Imperial officer on the planet, in what shall hence be known as “that time that the Empire did something smart,” aware that Alderaanian ships have fallen into Rebel hands under similar circumstances, secures them with gravity locks and adds a pair of (old?) AT-ATs for further security. The Rebels are initially stumped and grimly reach the conclusion that, at best, they’ll be able to steal one of the freighters but not all three. However, as is the case with the show, they manage to steal all three. The gravity locks are easily disabled by Chopper working together with an escaped Imperial prisoner who just happened to build gravity locks while in captivity; the AT-ATs are easily destroyed by the Ghost (that’s the name of Hera’s ship by the way), while Kanan chops off their legs with his lightsaber; and the stormtroopers are their usual useless selves.

Guess Luke forgot that trick in Empire Strikes Back, and Dark Empire, and pretty much every other story ever.

The Empire’s ineptitude on its own is enough of a problem but there’s another that adds to it, and that’s the familiar trope of plot armor. Yes, our main characters have it, a lot of it. Our small band of freedom fighters can do no wrong or get seriously injured. They can easily defeat the toughest of enemies and they always get away with anything no matter what. 

As an example, in that very same episode I mentioned above, at a certain moment a Hammerhead-class cruiser fires at the spot where the Princess, Kanan, and Ezra are standing still. My initial thought was, “How are they going to make it out of that? ‘cause that cruiser is bound to pack a punch.” The end result was nothing but a bit of smoke, a punch no more powerful than if a couple of stormtroopers had fired their blasters. The Hammerhead-class cruiser is not equipped with blasters but turbolaser cannons, and their discharge on ground troops should feel like artillery was raining down on you. However, this is far from the only example where the rules bend around our protagonists.

Perhaps the most egregious example though is the one I saw recently. I was watching episode 13 of season 2, “The Protector of Concord Dawn.” The Rebels are searching for new hyperspace routes not monitored by the Empire and they come upon the idea of using the hyperspace corridor through the Concord Dawn system. While the system has no apparent Imperial presence there is a Mandalorian colony on the planet Concord Dawn and so the Rebels try to negotiate safe passage with them. To make a long story short, the Mandalorians aren’t keen on the idea and shoot down a bunch of Rebel A-Wing fighters. Sabine’s the only one who makes it back to the fleet in one piece whereas Hera also makes the jump to lightspeed... with a half-destroyed A-Wing.

I mean, take a look at that. Are you seriously telling me an A-Wing managed the jump to lightspeed in that state and wasn’t torn apart in the process? Give me a break! And you know what the worst thing is, worse than that even? It was completely unnecessary! Indeed, having Hera captured by the Mandalorians would’ve been the perfect excuse for Kanan to mount a rescue op and return. Hera didn’t need to be safely tucked inside the belly of a Rebel frigate recuperating. But then Sabine wouldn’t have had a reason to seek revenge, would she? More on that later. 

At the end of the day we have an Empire that’s less of a threat and more of a joke with every passing episode, and protagonists who can get away with anything with no consequences. A perfect example of this happens early on in the series when Sabine infiltrates an Imperial airfield to blow up its TIE fighter contingent. The reason behind this is unclear, or maybe that’s what I’d like to think, because otherwise the show would suggest she did it for the lolz and because she’s an artist. Right, an artist of death, there’s nothing disturbing about that.

Anyway, the stormtroopers are soon alerted to her presence and, in typical Rebels fashion, she toys with and taunts them until one stomtrooper notices something odd on the wing of a TIE that looks a lot like a bomb. Sabine promptly makes her escape while the bomb blows up on the stormtrooper’s face. I’m not kidding, look, here’s how close the stormtrooper’s face was to the bomb:

And he lived. Yup, he and his buddies lived to tell the tale in their next encounter with Sabine in the airfield where she again blows up the TIEs, thereby reassuring us viewers that Sabine’s actions are completely harmless and that the stormtroopers will live to get blown up again. Isn’t that funny? I’m guessing that showing the shockwave from the explosion chopping the stormtrooper’s head off in a kids’ show would’ve been too funny, right?

All of this, the fact that the Imperials are useless, that the Rebels are invulnerable, that actions have no consequences, it all adds up to one simple, inevitable, truth: there are no stakes in this galaxy. Sure, a rebel fighter will be blown up from time to time, but who cares, you never knew him anyway. But wait, a protagonist gets captured! So what? Getting him out is as straightforward and repetitive as going to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters. It’s no big deal, just send in the A-Team, they’ll extract him and blow up half the Empire while they’re at it. There’s a blockade around the planet where the Rebels are at. So what? The A-Team will blow stuff up and escape with no casualties. Who needs a planetary Ion Cannon?

But there are AT-ATs! 

Made out of paper apparently.

Inquisitors! 

They sure don’t live up to the name.

Darth Vader himself! 

One appearance so far and he fails to capture or seriously cripple the Rebels in any way.

Um, Thrawn?

Look, I’m sure the creators thought that they were upping the stakes every time they introduced a new villain but I would question whether there were any to begin with. Like I said before, are we going to go all the way up to the Emperor to finally get things done? For all its faults, the Empire wasn’t that useles in the OT.

In a galaxy without stakes there’s little reason to care about its characters or their struggle and eventually you have to wonder, why is there even a struggle at all? When the show makes me ponder why the Rebellion hasn’t beaten the Empire already you know there’s something wrong somewhere.

What the Rebellion stands for

There’s a traditional narrative that the Rebel Alliance are noble idealists who rise up against the tyranny of the Galactic Empire to deliver peace and freedom to all peoples throughout the galaxy. That’s no secret, the opening crawls of the movies reinforce this by describing the Empire as ‘evil’ and having ‘sinister’ agents, and that ‘dreaded’ Imperial Starfleet, whereas the Rebels are ‘freedom fighters,’ and they have a Princess. Nobody doubts that the Empire are the bad guys here and the Rebel Alliance are the good guys.

Recently, Rogue One attempted to tint that narrative with shades of grey, at least on the part of the Rebels. Yes, the Rebels had spies, and assassins, and bombers, and they did terrible things in the name of the greater good. Our own history tells us that sometimes even the good guys can take extreme measures to end a conflict. Just consider the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The U.S. used a superweapon to raze two cities to force the Japanese Empire to surrender. There was a reason behind the madness though. Oblivious to the development of the atomic bombs, the Allies had been working on a plan, codenamed Operation Downfall, for the invasion of Japan. Projected casualties for this plan were high and some estimates even reached the millions of fatalities on each side.

Depending on how you look at it, where you stand, war can be seen as an abstract, white vs black, a fight between the forces of good and evil. But from the battlefield, things aren’t always so clear cut, it’s not always easy to tell what’s the right thing to do and what’s the wrong thing to do.

Welcome to the harsh reality of war: she’ll be fine.

As I was watching “The Protector of Concord Dawn,” I was struck by Sabine’s anger at how the Mandalorians cut the Rebels to pieces. Hera almost dying now convinces Sabine that the Protectors are bad, what hardens her resolve to seeing them killed. Maybe it’s not said in so many words but the subtext (to be honest, there isn’t much sub) is there. After all, how dare they shoot at Hera when all the Rebels wanted was to negotiate for safe passage... and bully the Mandalorians into submission if that didn’t work. In fact, if memory serves, that was the original plan proposed by Commander Sato, a show of force meant to say, “you mess with the bull, you get the horns.”

Even Kanan, who initially suggests to try the diplomatic approach, soon changes his tune once the Protectors make it clear they won’t help the Rebels. But let’s explain exactly what the Protectors’ role is, shall we? The Protectors of Concord Dawn are a small group of Mandalorian warriors, led by Fenn Rau, who helped train clone troopers during the Clone Wars and even fought with the Republic in a few battles. Disillusioned by the result of the war, Fenn Rau has opted to bend his knee to the Empire, what I guess amounts to making sure no Rebel ship passes through Concord Dawn unscathed. The Protectors don’t have many resources, maybe as much as two dozen fighters, so it’s doubtful the Empire expects a lot of results from them. This means the Protectors are no direct threat to the Rebels unless the latter insist on using the Concord Dawn hyperspace corridor, which they do. As a result, the Rebels blow up most of the Mandalorian starfighters and kidnap Fenn Rau who, out of the blue, decides not to pursue the Rebels nor report their presence to the Empire. That doesn’t get him out of cuffs though.

Using blackmail to get things done. The Empire would be proud.

How was the Rebellion any better than the Empire here? Aren’t they abusing their power as they accuse the Empire of doing? The fact that Sabine was so eager for the Mandalorians’ blood is equally disturbing. What does she think happens to the stormtroopers they shoot or the fighters they destroy? The stormtroopers aren’t droids, the TIEs aren’t unmanned. These are people, good and bad, who are serving the Empire for a variety of reasons. But Rebels isn’t keen on exploring this, is it? Worse, it seems the writers are oblivious to it. Perhaps they expect us to go along with everything the Rebels do just because they’re the good guys?

When Anakin Force choked Poggle the Lesser in The Clone Wars it didn’t make his action any less bad because he was fighting for the good guys and we knew it. Everything in that scene suggested he was doing something bad, that he was drawing closer to the dark side. When Cassian shoots that man at the beginning of Rogue One you know he’s doing something bad, everything in that scene plays to that effect. Cassian’s momentarily disturbed by it and later brings up the subject of all the terrible things he’s done in the name of the Rebellion. At least he acknowledges it, Rebels doesn’t even try to ponder the matter. Kanan and company don’t even stop to consider that perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to do. That perhaps they could’ve left the Protectors alone, that perhaps they could have tried to recruit them at some other time and continue to look for another hyperspace route. What happens the next time the Rebels ask for something and they’re told no, do they take it by force regardless? 

These are questions that should naturally occur to any of the protagonists but, sadly, don’t. If they did, it would certainly elevate the show’s value in my eyes. To clarify, It’s not the fact that the Rebels do questionable things that I find disturbing, what I find disturbing is the fact that they don’t find anything questionable about them and that we, the viewers, are not meant to regard them in such a light. They’re the Rebels and their cause is just or, in other words, the ends justify the means.

To be fair, this was just one episode and it may very well be the only one. Turning out script after script for each new episode is probably no mean feat, and some episodes are bound to be tighter than others, but it had me asking all the wrong questions about Star Wars Rebels.

Conclusion

Having written all of this one might be led to believe that Star Wars Rebels is a terrible show, a stain on the popular franchise built by George Lucas and now owned by Disney. But like I said at the beginning of this post, it’s not. Rebels is far from the only show where its protagonists have plot-armour, or the villains are incompetent. It’s not the first show that suffers from narrative issues and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s certainly not the first one to mess with Star Wars continuity, oh no, Lucas was doing a fine job at that before Disney, with as recent an example as The Clone Wars.

What Star Wars Rebels is, is lazy. Its depiction of the fight between good and evil is one we’ve seen countless times before, and one we’ll see countless times hence. It’s easy to show the Imperials as incompetent bullies and the Rebels as invincible do-gooders, and it gets tiresome to watch the same tropes repeat themselves over and over again. One can go as far as saying it insults the viewer’s intelligence when the good guys’ actions are never challenged, even when they may be morally (or otherwise) reprehensible, or when the laws of the universe are knowingly ignored, damaging the narrative for the sake of drama.

There are no consequences to speak of that invite discussion, no stakes to make us care about the protagonists’ struggle. And it’s important that we care, if not for them, at least for the fledgling Rebel Alliance in their struggle against the mighty Empire. But if our protagonists don’t take the Empire seriously, why should we? Why should I? Might as well be just another day at Tosche Station picking up power converters.

#star wars #star wars rebels

[captainignatiuspigheart]

Last week was very short as I managed to squeeze two days off into it. These have largely been spent outside in my garden office sorting and tidying LEGO. It’s very time consuming and satisfying, but does leave me slightly wondering where the time has gone. With a very warm and sunny Friday and Saturday I moved my watching of Agents of SHIELD outside along with dismantling and washing the LEGO Detective’s Office set. It’s a lovely little thing, but it had become very grubby. I’m now trying to rebuild it with a tray overflowing with parts. Inevitably, it’s becoming a quicker process the more of it I’ve built. Feels kinda exponential, as if by the end it will be assembling itself… Marilyn and I have also finally begun a shared build, the LEGO Brick Bank, which has been languishing on my “to be built” shelf for some years now… It’s pretty ace, and is a fine accompaniment to season two of Elementary.  

A busy day…

Brick Bank ground floor

  In dismantling the Detective’s Office, I re-remembered that I’d built a little half-modular some years ago, but they’ve been joined together for so long I’d somewhat forgotten that it wasn’t part of the set. I snapped a few pics from it before I dismantled it, for posterity, or whatever. The concept was a coffee shop on the ground floor and a bottle shop above. I’d do almost all of it differently now, of course, but I think it did look pretty good. I was very happy to use the Indiana Jones poster tiles to good effect!

On the right is an impostor

Never finished the roof…

Good banister though

Indy!

Booze

Coffee shop action

Alcove!

We’ve started to enjoy strolling around Beeston late at night. I adore the peace and quiet (I’ve been watching bats in our garden!) and I’m in urgent need of more exercise. I’m looking at you, beer… We’ve met up with a couple of our pussy cats pals too, which has been especially lovely. Given the utter clusterfuck of Bojo’s latest update on the UK’s progress with coronavirus, I suspect I’ll be working from home, getting fat, and taking late night walks for some weeks yet.

Hopper’s Beeston

Foxy Loxy

Despite the week’s brevity, I seem to have taken part in two podcast recordings and read some books! Victory all round. 

Watching: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D season 3

Fuck me, I love this show more and more. We’re finally getting into the stuff I remember a little better. It’s getting so hard to summarise… I guess this season is properly focused on the fallout of the Inhuman explosion and on the truly epic and dark history of Hydra! First we have to recover Agent Simmons from the creepy monolith that whisked her away from Fitz’s arms at the end of season two. Turns out its part of an ancient Hydra tradition, who’ve been feeding the terrifying alien entity within on fresh young Hydra enthusiasts for centuries. Their ultimate aim is to unleash the monster on the world! The team do manage to rescue Simmons, but doing so reveals to Hydra that the doorway can indeed be bridged. There are some pretty tense moments, and Daisy/Skye gets to assemble her own team of Secret Warriors, comprised of some of the Inhumans now emerging. The first half of the season focuses on Hydra getting into the alien planet, with former agent Ward becoming the host of the Inhuman ancestor. That’s bad news for everyone… and gives us the second half, in which Ward sets about subsuming other Inhumans and advancing a plan to dominate the whole world. Bad guys with big plans! Mostly though, my heart continues to beat for FitzSimmons, and for Coulson and Agent Mae. Honestly, it’s hard to make any sense of this season if you haven’t seen the previous two, but if you have it really is a gift: long form deepening of relationships, expanding on the major MCU story threads from Civil War, and getting into the backstory of Hydra to a massive extent.

  Doing: The Improv Boost “Happiness” podcast

All round lovely fella, David Escobedo, one of our It’s A Trap: The Improvised Star Wars Show cast members, and rabid user of social media for promoting improv in all its forms, invited me to join him and a few friends for a very short podcast talking about things we feel passionate about. The challenge was to narrow it down to a specific thing to expostulate on for eight minutes. LEGO would be too broad, as would Star Wars, so it sent me down a little rabbit hole of figuring out what I do especially enjoy, rather than the general everything of science fiction and stuff. One of my gateways into SF, or at least one that has cast a lengthy shadow, is the work of the great John Wyndham. Picking The Day of the Triffids was an easy next step. That’s why I read both the abridged US edition then the UK/Penguin edition in a week. The latter is about 10% longer, and just has a little more depth. It’s startlingly apt for our current situation, and I’d recommend it for anyone who finds reassurance in someone else’s words managing to neatly sum up existential and ethical crises. Also, triffids are ace, and plainly the ancestor of all zombie fiction. 

Alas, whatever software David was using to stream Zoom into Facebook fucked us over and we lost the last five minutes. Which means you get all of Jac’s enthusing about calculus (whatever the hell that is… :-} ) but lose Vanessa’s final thoughts on our topics which neatly wedded our themes together. Essentially (I think) we’re both talking about aspects of community and how people deal with the situations they find themselves in. Enjoy!



Reading: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

Having cheerfully chugged down a double dose of The Day of the Triffids I moved straight on to what’s generally regarded as his “best” novel. It’s not my most favourite, but it’s quite a read. Far future post-apocalypse, humanity is struggling to rebuild itself after what appears to be nuclear catastrophe with radioactive fallout causing widespread genetic mutation. As a result, a renewed fervour for purity and the importance of the human (and all other creatures and crops) matching the design laid down by God / government. The consequences of deviation from the norm are severe: death, destruction, banishment to the badlands. None of it’s very appealing.

Our viewpoint is David, a perfectly normal boy: somewhat lazy, chafing a little under the religious intensity of his father and the demands of being in a small farming community in the newly reclaimed lands of Labrador. Only… he’s telepathic, and that makes him a very serious deviation indeed. In the novel we find a lot more of the social awareness and interest in community and individualism that Wyndham show’s in all of his work, and it’s very thought-provoking while being beguiling easy reading. It’s quite a neat trick to cover abominations and socially-mandated murder with such a breezy and familiar writing style. Ultimately, of course, David and his friends have to go on the run from their peers and family. When his younger sister, Petra, who turns out to be an incredibly powerful telepath makes contact with someone in “Zealand”, the whole of David’s world (and ours, since he’s our only view of it) is turned upside down. Moments of bleakness and fear fight with equally delightful epiphanies and hope for true acceptance. It’s great! Read it! 

Doing: We Are What We Overcome podcast Special Episode #3 Self Care

Our fortnightly Facebook Live podcast recordings continue to catch me unawares! Mondays are not a good evening for me to have my brain in gear, but I’m trying. Last week we talked about self-care some more. It’s really important to look after yourself at the moment. Divorced of much meaningful in-person human contact, I think we’re all fraying away at the edges. We talked about some of the things that frustrate the act of self-care, and some of the tools we use to keep ourselves as sorted as we can be.

Doing: MissImp’s Virtual Improv Drop-In: Duncan Carty – Artist’s Eye for the Improv Guy

This week we got a really special and different take on improvisation and creativity from our Duncan Carty, combining artistic expression, y’know, like drawing, with how we take inspiration for our scenes and performances. It’s a very good workshop, and I implore you to get out your crayons and walls and go at it. Phew, that’s the eighth improv workshop Emily has wrangled onto our website, and it looks we’re gonna be providing them for the foreseeable future. Enjoy!  

Last Week: Sunday 10 May 2020: lots more LEGO, John Wyndham, two podcasts and general bumbling around… podcast fun with We Are What We Overcome and @improvboost talking about Day of the Triffids! #tv #podcast #improv #books https://wp.me/pbprdx-8Ed Last week was very short as I managed to squeeze two days off into it. These have largely been spent outside in my garden office sorting and tidying LEGO.

#Agents of SHIELD #art and thought #Beeston #David Escobedo #Duncan Carty #John Wyndham tribute #keeping it together with COVID #MissImp: Improv Comedy Theatre Nottingham #The Chrysalids #The Day of The Triffids #The Improv Boost #TV review #virtual improv #We Are What We Overcome