Maybe it's a 'study finds water is wet' type of thought, but
considering it's an action movie whose overall plot is "immortal warriors Fuck Shit Up™️", I think it's significant that in The Old Guard the thing that makes Copley pull red strings through his Murder Conspiracy Board and say "[Merrick] doesn't care what [Andy]'s done with [her immortality]" is the people they save, not the ones they kill
Most of the Conspiracy Board is him circling random newspaper headlines and faces on old photographs to (more or less realistically) follow the immortals' treck through the world and big historical events. Which is, in-canon, not much different than putting portraits from different centuries next to a picture of Keanu Reeves and saying "they look the same, clearly Reeves is an immortal!"
But then there are the connections. A little girl holding Joe's hand in WW1 becoming the youngest (and first) woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine (suck it, Kozak). Or the grandchild of a family that Andy saved from [something] helping people escape from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
They are warriors. They have fought and been in the midst of countless wars, major or minor, throughout history. They must have killed as many people as they saved... and yet.
It's not them taking out a random warlord or dictator or rabidly hateful politician that has tangible repercussions in history. It's the children and families they get out of war zones, save from accidents, protect from natural disasters. People to whom they give a second chance at life, and grow to change the world (or even just their own world), like a mysterious stranger once changed theirs just by holding out a hand or patching a wound.
I don't know I just think it's particularly neat
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Obikin body swap idea: getting to see how the other half lives. Anakin just being super flustered by the idea that when he touches himself he's touching his master even for innocent things like running his fingers through his hair or getting to touch his beard.
Meanwhile Obi-Wan is trying to cope with how overstimulating Anakin's connection to the force is and even the best shields only dampen it slightly. Inner peace? He doesn't know her.
ooo i feel like when we talk about obikin body swap, this is always what we go with (overwhelmed by his master's body! anakin and overwhelmed by how anakin experiences the force! obi-wan), and it's good it's great i think these are great interpretations of the characters and i can see why it's such a popular take on obikin body swap
so what if that but also:
anakin overwhelmed by how little time obi-wan actually has to himself and how busy he is and him realizing that it's not that obi-wan purposefully doesn't spend as much time with him as he wants it's that obi-wan's body walks down a corridor and two younglings want him to give them a sparring demonstration, four Council meetings are scheduled, and one archives padawan is coming incessantly wanting to ask if he's ready for book club this week because she has thoughts on the last chapter
+
obi-wan unused to how strong he feels, how easy the Force suddenly is to manipulate; sure it's loud and i have a soft spot for that sort of headcanon about how anakin experiences the force, but i think we can't forget it wouldn't just just be overstimulating for anakin: it makes him powerful as fuck. obi-wan feels tired and the mechno arm hurts and it's straining his shoulder so he decides to use the force to call his datapaad over from its charging spot, but it zooms over so fast it shatters on impact with the wall
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anakin overwhelmed by the new and unfamiliar aches and pains of obi-wan's body, the way he hurts when he wakes up, the way long space travel makes him feel sick and stiff
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obi-wan realizing how persistent the chancellor is when it comes to comming and meeting anakin for lunch--oh lunch won't work what about tea oh tea won't work what about opera----
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anakin trying spicy food for the first time in obi-wan's body and he's.... actually fine???? cue realizing that obi-wan was just pretending when he was younger to not like spicy food the bastard. (upon confrontation, obi-wan says, 'well it just seemed to mean so much to you on a personal level that i wouldn't be able to handle the heat of tatooinian food, i didn't want to disappoint you but you should really try stewjoni cuisine')
+
obi-wan realizing quite quickly that uh. anakin was not ever faking his very low alcohol tolerance
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ooh okay I want to hear one thing you think about skimble!!! It can be a headcanon or a little stage detail or whatever! Tell me about your guy :D
THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT MY GUY YOU'RE SO NICEEE
i accidentally wrote so much it's kind of embarrassing so let me just say a little detail i like which is this lil thing skimble does in 1998 during theee "they all could reflect it was very nice" line i think??? not really a small detail but i always smile when i see it
ough he's just so happy... (this gif is from @noriseyebrow btw!)
okay i didn't want this to be so long for people who like. do not care lol so i just put it under the cut because im not even sure how coherent this is but bear with me while i rant for a sec
something that's been on my mind lately is ross finnie as skimble singing the "it was very pleasant when they found their little den" part.. this goes for both the 2002 and the 2015 productions. because they're like. so different. and i love them both so very much!! i really like 2002's because he sounds so sweet and like. his voice is very happy in the calmest way possible yknow. and i really like how he talks. oh and i especially like after the cats say "weak or strong?" and he says "oh, alright!" i just think it's so cute and it's a very little detail but you know. i get hung up on tiny details about my fav guy. ALSO i really like how he says "and" in the "you could make it dark or bright, and! a button you can turn to make a breeze" like he just remembered it and he's excited to say it
AND THE 2015 PRODUCTION. HE'S SO LOUD AND EXCITED AND IT'S JUST. he's just so fucking excited and how loud he gets because he's just so hyped to talk about trains that he can't control his voice and he's yelling and it's just!!! it makes me crazy. especially in the "you could make it dark or bright!", "and a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in!", and "then the guard looked in politely and would ask you very brightly, 'WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR MORNING TEA?'" and then the other cats say "weak or strong" and it kind of sounds like he's just yelling incomprehensibly for a second after they say that, like he's so excited he's just gotta scream. could just be me imagining it though
and these two versions of the song are so so different but they both communicate his character so well i feel!! i love you ross finnie you understood skimble like no one else
here's the clip of the two songs btw!
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US politics and history time for a moment...
The people who want to claim that voting for Biden would mean they supported genocide remind me a great deal of the people in the 1830s - 1860s in the North who wanted immediate abolition because they believed slavery was a sin and God would hold them guilty of that sin if they didn't oppose slavery. This sometimes resulted in them supporting 3rd party candidates that, SURPRISE!, did nothing but push the election toward the most rabid pro-slavery candidates.
You know what most of those moral anti-slavery people didn't care about? What happened to Black Americans. They were concerned only about their own guilt, not Black Americans' welfare.
None of these people making this a moral issue now show any signs of caring what happens to Palestinians OR to all of the other groups that will suffer if the dumpster wins instead.
Biden can't wave his hand and make it go away because the US doesn't have unilateral power worldwide (though some Americans seem to believe that, sigh.) There are limits on his powers, especially since he has to negotiate with a hostile House of Representatives. He has chosen what is actually a pretty effective route and fought for at least some aid to get to Palestinians. And currently he has *some* leverage with the Israelis.
The question you should be asking yourself if you really care about genocide is which choice will do the most to help the Palestinians? Do you really think the dumpster would do even as much as Biden? Or would he be actively helping them and every other imperialist country (*cough*Russia*cough*)? And who else will suffer if he wins that would not under Biden?
If that isn't what matters most to you, then you're no different from the moral abolitionists and other Northerners who wanted slavery restricted (because it depressed wages for free white men) but also wanted to make it illegal for African Americans to move into new states like Ohio and Indiana and Illinois (racism and fears of wage competition.) Or to ship them to Africa, no matter how many generations had been in the US?
It's not idealism. You're self-centered and egotistical and actively choosing evil if you think "punishing" Biden is the result of not voting.
Vote pragmatically. Vote strategically. Vote with the welfare of the most people possible in mind.
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"There are horrible war things in this world" He continued, stepping down yet another step, "That, through their ability to put absolute power within mortal reach, cannot be allowed to exist yet are powerful enough that destruction is not possible. We've tried to destroy some of them and only succeeded once, though that was largely by accident. Gods what a mess that was!"
After about 15 minutes of descending, and 15 minutes of mostly ignored rambling, the 2 of them finally got to the bottom of the stairs and found themselves in a small room. On the wall to their left was a grandfather clock fashioned from black stone, to their right was a small potted plum tree, and directly in front of them was a large reddish marble door.
"I want you to clear your mind and close your eyes. Picture for me a white circle. Can you see it?"
"Aye, I see it."
"good, now I want you to imagine that circle in the middle of a wheat field. The breeze is blowing through the trees and the wheat is rippling almost like the ocean. Imagine the colour of the wheat swaying in the wind."
"Now still keep that circle in your mind but concentrate on the insects flying in the field, the sound of the birds. There is something in the circle now. You do not look at the thing in the circle, it is in your peripheral vision only. You do not recognize the thing in the circle. There is a deer walking slowly alongside the treeline in the distance. You can only just make it out silhouetted against the sky as it slowly walks over the top of a hill and out of sight."
"I don't like this anymore."
"The birds have stopped singing."
"I want to open my eyes."
"You do not look at the circle, it is in your peripheral vision only. You reach into the circle. You grasp the thing inside it. You do not recognize the thing in your hands. You are not looking at the thing in your hands. You do not see its eyes."
"You pull it out of the circle and into the field."
"Please!"
"The wheat is a beautiful gold, sparkling almost in the evening sunlight. Do you see it?"
"Yes."
"Good. Keep your hand gripped tight and open your eyes."
As the two of them opened their eyes the door began to slowly swing open with an eerie silence. The junior of the 2 had blood running from where their nails had dug into their palm. The grandfather clock still wasn't moving. Neither of them commented on that as they walked through the door and into the main chamber of the facility. The man behind the front desk was busy pouring over a large book and did not acknowledge them as they walked past.
"And that is the key to the front door. You will need to do that every time you come down here for your shift. Your locker also has a lock. If you want you can come up with a key for it but I just leave mine unlocked. If a thief gets this deep in the facility they aren't gonna steal your spare set of gloves or whatever you keep in there. Once you've got your locker situation figured out talk to Alger at the front desk, you'll be working with him today."
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Okay, so a friend and I went back over a portion in the Season 3 trailer last night.
Because both of us (on separate days), after having watched the trailer a few times, essentially had the question: Is that green shatterspace portal actually Boscage Maze?
When I myself watched it I felt...idk...like the shade of green was different. And then my friend mentioned (after another look at it) that the color was more muted.
And then...we let our brains run.
Mind you, before the trailer or any summaries of the season came out, my friend and I were talking over discord. We'd decided that based on the evidence (Sonic's natural eminence of prism energy, whatever makes him special compared to Shadow, the fact he shattered the prism, etc) Sonic could theoretically have a deeper connection to the paradox prism due to the energy inside him. Then, they threw a what if in the air.
Essentially "I don't think they'll do it, but what if Sonic is the missing piece to the paradox prism. So they won't be able to complete the prism and do anything with it without risking killing Sonic"
To which I said "That would be so cool! And given that I've never believed Sonic's going to have to actually make a big choice between his old friends or his new friends existing—or at least that he'd never actually make that choice and would find a secret third choice—I think a Sonic's wellbeing versus everything he cares about makes sense. That has the potential to hurt the other characters, because if need be, Sonic would do it"
Needless to say we watched the trailer the first time and I was like "No way he was right. Like, it was a good thought, but none of us thought for sure that they'd do it"
Now, with that in mind. As I said, my friend and I decided to let our brains run after feeling that there was a difference between the green shatterspace in the trailer and the one for boscage maze. We couldn't shake the idea that the colors are different, nor the idea that the shape of the portal openings are different. And we've both seen people talking here about how it could be the last shatterspace open or something (boscage maze that is), but to me...that doesn't make sense. Without special context, it doesn't make sense why it would have to be Boscage Maze of all worlds that would be the last to collapse, or why taking Sonic to Boscage Maze of all shatterspaces could be enough to save him. Plus there are other voices talking in that scene. There are other people who would need to get to Boscage if it was truly the last, and if it's just to get Sonic to the closest shatterspace, the characters would have to be fighting in the in between space (between the shatterspaces). And my friend too, from looking at it, thinks that the green shatterspace in the trailer seems like it's farther out at the edges of the place between.
So, we rushed to the episodes to get a clear shot of the Boscage portal, and then a clear shot of the one in the trailer.
Now, turns out we were right about the color difference.
But it's the shape too.
If you've been looking in the main tag, I probably don't need to tell any of you that each portal (the part you enter to enter a shatterspace) is shaped like its prism shard. The first image is a shot of the Boscage Maze portal my friend screenshotted. The portal opening resembles the shape of the green shard, and the green is more vibrant than the more muted green in the trailer.
The shatterspace in the trailer is just...a completely different shape, both in portal opening and the crystals around it. If you need another angle of the Boscage Portal to compare to the crystals surrounding the portal in the trailer, here's another shot.
So, different green color. Different opening shape that would correspond to a prism we haven't seen before.
Let's return to the "Sonic contains the missing piece of the paradox prism and is essentially a living prism shard" theory, and let us also employ the idea that after the prism shattered and each shard landed in one of our alternate green hills, the shards gave off an outburst in energy that allowed the blue shard to fill the shatterspace with water, the green with dense forest, or the purple with mountains of crystal.
Now you're probably saying "But tumblr user hadesknockedupintheunderworld, what about the red shard? We saw a flashback. The red shard didn't just start growing buildings when it landed in what would become New Yolk"
And to that I'd say...you're right! We know based upon the Chaos Council's flashback that they used the prism shard as their energy source (whether they received it when conquering or after the fact), and that they themselves built New Yolk city without using the prism shard (after all, they only knew it as an energy source)
So, I say to you back. What if upon landing in a shatterspace, the shards were initially unstable. So they either caused a major change/addition to the world they landed in, or it's energy was properly harnessed and contained. That wouldn't be so far fetched, right? Because we know that Nine adapted the power core the council built to properly contain and channel the energy of the red shard to create his shatterdrive.
Now, the idea that the shards, while having shared powers, also have specific element based powers is not a new idea to this fandom. So let's run with this idea too, for funsies. If the blue shard corresponds more to weather (creating storms, lightning, flooding) and the green shard causes plants to grow (as examples), what, then, would Sonic be?
I'd say speed. Why? Well, besides the fact that that's Sonic's thing, let's backtrack to episode 1.
As of episodes 1 and 2, we know Sonic's body produces the same energy as the red shard. Before Nine crafted tech to attach to Sonic's clothes, the energy was not properly distributing to his body. Sonic would run and not be able to stop, he couldn't control his speed, and sometimes, he'd even start running without actually wanting or trying to run. In short, he could not control how fast he was going, how soon he could stop, or even when he would just start running. Even his shoes, which can canonically handle his usual speeds, had started to smoke after a while.
Couldn't you perhaps extrapolate from this that...Sonic became unstable upon entering New Yolk, his speed going haywire, and it was Nine's tech that properly contained and channeled Sonic's (he living shard's) prism energy?
And if Sonic is essentially a living prism shard...
Let's go back to the shatterspace from the trailer again.
A shard shape we've never seen before.
My friend and I got to this point and we thought:
"What if this is Sonic's shatterspace?"
As in, if each prism shard corresponds to a shatterspace, what if this is a secret 6th one that corresponds to Sonic?
Earlier I said that the ideas people brought up (without in season context) for how or why Shadow would speed to take Sonic to Boscage Maze wouldn't make sense. BUT
If there's a shatterspace out there affected by/created by Sonic's prism energy, it may not be a stretch for the writers (and our main characters) to conclude that getting Sonic there could keep him from disappearing.
Just...food for thought.
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