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atomicpalacedragonpeach · 2 years

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I am all of four chapters into the Clone Wars books by Karen Traviss and I already know she is NOT a jedi fan. I mean, holy shit. I don't think I've read a single star wars book that is so terrible about the characterization of both the Jedi and the Sith. I mean, some of the stuff she brings up is valid and I can see where she's coming from, but seriously? I'm not usually overly critical about authors, but it's like she really wanted the jedi to be as awful as she could make them without flat out making them the bad guys. To start, there's the whole thing with Jabba's son. The jedi are diplomats, even if they didn't want to save the kid for the kid's sake, they would've understood the strategic value of gaining an ally who controls outer rim hyperspace lanes. And seriously? Having the Sith Lord aware of the child being an innocent and not the jedi? Are you kidding me? That whole scene should have been reversed. Like, may i just remind people that, regardless of how blind and even corrupt (if thats how you view them) the Jedi have become, at their core, the Jedi try to do good. They might not always succeed, hell they may even botch things completely, but their goal is always to do the most good they can. And before anyone tries to point out Krell or Barriss, i would argue that they were both fallen and had no inclination to repent or try to go back to the Light, and therefore they werent Jedi. In all honesty, the jedi should have been arguing to save the kid and Palpatine should've been thinking of the war effort. Second, that whole scene with Anakin thinking that his enemy is just a bunch of dumb driods when he is literally know for loving droids? How does that fit in with his character at all??? The scene with Dooku actually kinda fits, thank goodness, because it give insight into his motivations and it shows his thoughts on the Jedi being little more than the Senate's attack dogs, but his expounding on fucking YODA saying "feel, don't think" is basically the opposite of what the little troll would've taught. How many people bash the Jedi for putting aside their emotions and feeling in favor of what amounts to neutrality? I mean, that's a large part of many people's argument for why Anakin fell (which really doesn't make sense to me, but that's a whole different rant). Just no. The Jedi emphasize putting aside feelings (which makes sense bc they are diplomats and empathy and it might not even be their emotions they are feeling... just saying) and encourage their members to trust the force and their thoughts to come to a conclusion. Come on, people! And then, Ahsoka saying that Rex and his men are "just clones" and they were "bred to be fearless"??? Reeeeaaaallllyyy??? That's what you're gonna go with???? Also, can I add that I ind it hilarious that she has Anakin saying that war isn't a game?

However, I do have to say that the way Rex and Jabba have been written has been really beautifully done. The descriptions of the war on Cristophsis or however you spell it is pretty well done as far as I can tell, so at least the shoddy characterization of the Jedi and the Sith isn't really extending beyond them.

I have no idea if anyone is gonna ead this, and i dont really care, but I get the feeling I'm gonna have more rage-fulled writing rants in the future, so I might be adding onto this.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #anakin skywalker #clone wars #commander rex #ahsoka tano #count dooku #jedi order #sith #sw #swtcw #sw tcw

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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years

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Your death is a number but I cannot count that high (11/16)

In which Death Watch enter the enemy ship, and Asajj gets her shot at freedom.

Zombie Savage AU | 2.5k | warning for body horror

For the first time in weeks, Asajj feels light. It’s almost offensive, how quickly she slipped from world-devouring grief and heartburn and eternal nightmares into mission planning and execution mode, but then again: she enjoys bounty hunting. Pursuit and infiltration are basically her comfort zone, and even the present company cannot spoil her thrill.

She finally has solid ground under her feet again. The swamp that broils and laps at her with every dream and with every wriggling fleshworm that fucking Savage Opress sends her way is receding, and soon enough, when she gets her chance, she’ll kill it off—kill him—for good.

Asajj’s sisters and Mother Talzin may have accidentally landed her in a malignant trap when they tried to help her fight Dooku, but Asajj will chew her way free.

That’s why she volunteered to be ground troop today. She needs to rescue herself. She needs to cut off this bond, cut off the mate, cut off the drowning boulder. She’d been prepared to argue and fight for the opportunity, since it’s not like anybody trusts her here, but it was surprisingly easy. Not even a doubtful look—no, the only response she’d received was appreciation for her fearlessness in the face of certain death. Well, maybe it is. Maul keeps insisting that Savage’s torture is a trap laid by Sidious, his past shadowy Sith Master, and that setting a foot on Entralla means getting fried and disappeared and tortured. He himself is going down still, obviously—by now it doesn’t even appear to be bravado or tending to his image before his following but genuine mushy affection for that dumb creature, and if Asajj wasn’t busy she might almost be curious—Maul is coming down with her, as are Kast and Saxon and three dozen other supercommandos. That’s what they’d settled on, once their advance droid surveillance footage yesterday had revealed their target to be a small spaceship surrounded by a hundred medium-sized tents.

Maul, Kast and Saxon at once, who as far as she’s observed are the three highest-ranking members of Death Watch, and on what all of them believe is a suicide mission—Asajj would call them brain-dead, but actually, she doesn’t care. Either Maul is every inch the scared wretch of a cast-off Sith plaything he appears and is making mountains out of skrant-hills, or she’ll, most likely, be dead too. Looks like that gamorrean sow Kast likes to suck face with will soon inherit the whole sorry rest of their terrorist crew.

Most of Death Watch, though, is inside three hundred small Kom’rk-class fighters or the two stolen Separatist dreadnaughts, standing by to intercept any fleeing ship with gravity wells or sheer violence. Well. That’s one of the reasons. Every ground Mando is in periodic radio contact with one of their motherships, and should they go silent when Sidious gets them… if the mission goes sour, dead man’s switch. Asajj doesn’t know about the exact logistics of how many have to miss check-in before the omnicidal aerial bombardment begins… but she’s starting to understand Maul’s paranoia regarding this ‘Sidious’ well enough to know they’re going to risk killing their Mand’alor sooner rather than later. It’s reassuring, almost. They’ll kill Sidious no matter what.

Well. And her, too.

But Asajj knew when she allowed that Mando to think she’d captured her that this wasn’t going to be easy. Up until know she’s always found a way to make it out alive. She’ll manage. And Sidious killed her sisters. Killed Talzin. Killed Dathomir.

Sidious will die, and so will Opress. Anything else is secondary.

She’s wearing a set of scavenged armor over her clothes and a jetpack and a gas mask, nothing more. Most of the ground team have massive tanks mounted on their back, too, full of some quick heavyweight airborne soporific Death Watch managed to procure on short notice.

(“If it’s taking this long to cook something up, we could just use poison,” Asajj had suggested, entirely not for selfless reasons. “We’re using the weedkiller tanks you Mandos use for farming, after all. We could just keep the weedkiller.”

“This is still a rescue mission,” Kast had replied severely. Unfortunately, despite being a fanatic terrorist and obeying Maul of all people and a habit of throwing tantrums about the horrible plight of Savage Opress, she wasn’t entirely braindead. “Damage is acceptable, but we won’t kill our brother.”

Maul had looked on, silent.)

Maul and Asajj are going to enter the ship first. That makes sense—both of them are assassins more than soldiers, they’re better than the Mandos at keeping quiet—and even if Maul will be a hindrance when they find Savage, she can use him as a distraction before that.

It feels weird, somehow, touching ground in front of the enemy’s ship. The unconscious guards on the ground are wearing clone trooper armor, which means that—yes, it means Death Watch got the drop on them and it means the soporific gas is effective, which is great, but Asajj didn’t expect this mission against Sidious to include a Grand Army of the Republic protection detail, and neither did Maul, though he appears far less perturbed by this information than Asajj is. Nothing before has linked Sidious to the Republic. She trusts the magicks she used to find this location, though. This is where the bondmate is being held.

Maul opens a control panel next to the ship’s door and plays around with a couple of screwdrivers, while Mando supercommandos direct their sedative gas into the ship’s pried-open air vents.

And… they’re in.

Too easy.

This was far too easy for a secret prison of the illusive Sith Lord, and Maul, apparently, thinks so too. He keeps glancing sideways at her while the supercommandos tie up the sedated soldiers outside and while they enter the ship’s galley, and he insists they shouldn’t split up.

“This location does not appear my Master’s—my former Master’s style,” he whispers in his clipped accent. “It’s neither desolate, nor are there plush red carpets. It’s not a torture dungeon.” Maul looks at Asajj, and his eyes gleam with suspicion. “If you have lied to me, you are dead. If this hurts my brother, you’ll wish you were.”

“This is the place. My sisters’ magicks are never wrong,” Asajj replies haughtily. It won’t do any good if both of them admit to their unease.

(Maul’s been vibrating faintly ever since Asajj broke into his brain to find Opress. It’s probably fear and anticipation, and most of all the superfluous awareness of him that she’s gained ever since exploiting both their bonds. Maybe he was always this high-strung.

“Someone’s attacking him,” he’d whispered to her just minutes before they reached Entralla, as if by joining their minds she had proven she cared. His eyes had been dark, agonized. In a movement that appeared entirely involuntary, he’d gripped at his neck as if looking for a pendant, and then he’d hugged himself, holding onto his torso and stomach as if his slippery entrails were ready to leak out.

Asajj had looked down and realized she was mirroring him.

When she slid her eyes half-shut, she could see the shadows of undulating metal cables.)

The ship, on the inside, just appears a standard Republic cruiser. It has a single long hallway that Asajj is pulled down by the worms in her gut, and Maul, frowning and broadcasting dread, follows.

They pass unconscious Republic clones at uneven intervals.

It’s so—ordinary. Asajj knows these ships. And there are no traps at all, just that pulsing connection drawing her forwards, shading and twisting, the memory of desolation and grief and that orange boy getting chocked (Kast’s eyes were so hard when she said, “He tried to give me his lightsaber, too, so I would have an easy time of killing him, if—when, he said, when he was used again to hurt his little brother,” that Asajj almost felt guilty) and everyone on Dathomir is dead and—

There.

She stops, and Maul comes to a halt behind her, ‘saber raised.

An open doorway, half-blocked by an armored redhead that seems vaguely familiar, and the beckoning hand of her sisters, and if Sidious doesn’t have the heart to provide a distraction for Maul then Asajj will just improvise.

“Back there, I think,” Asajj whispers, pointing at a random closed door to her left. “I can feel your brother in there.”

Maul’s eyes are wide. “I do not feel—are you sure?” he whispers, and he looks so young and hopeful bathed in the green glow he doesn’t understand and never had a right to wear that Asajj almost dares to believe her plan will work.

“I know these magicks,” Asajj drawls. “I don’t mind double-checking, but I thought you wanted him as alive as possible. He’s not doing well. Might get deep-fried at any moment, that’s not healthy for such a weak brain.”

It works. Maul bites back whatever kind of response he might have had, and he starts frantically working on slicing the door that was—her sisters are smiling upon Asajj—thankfully locked.

Asajj, meanwhile, tiptoes hurriedly forward and past the redhead—almost a decent glimpse of his head, why does she feel she knows him and—and inside the room she looks at a monster. The scene is arranged as if to mock her, a single bare cot in the middle of the room approximating a stone slab and the dimmed red electric lights a stand-in for the fire on the day she was tied to the boulder that tries to drown her. On the cot, as he was supine on the slab back then, lies unconscious Savage Opress.

Well. The used dog toy formerly known as Opress.

He’s always made her uncomfortable, even when they met. First, it was his silent bruised obsequiousness and the glances he’d shoot her after that arena fight, like he expected her to ravish him then and there just because she’d beaten him up. The sense that she’d stumbled into a world she didn’t understand drawn in silent rules and violence and sex—and Asajj has never liked that anxiety born of ignorance though she can and will tough it out and persevere, and only with the bond strangling her did she realize her stupid mistake—the sense that there was something hiding below her feet ready to devour her. He only got more obsequious and annoying after the ritual that tied Asajj to him, with his empty brainless eyes that somehow simultaneously said do whatever you want with me and I’ll kill you. She was happy to use him, if it got her traitorous ex-Master Dooku off her back, but she was at least as happy that the plan included Opress staying at Dooku’s side, not hers. Well, in the end, he was as useless as he was stupid and creepy, and Asajj had to fight Dooku on her own while Opress escaped his leash and used the power gifted to him by Talzin to harass innocent villagers and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He doesn’t have the body that Mother Talzin gave him anymore. Not that he ever deserved it.

Savage Opress, who is bound by ancient magicks to Asajj, looks like someone took his corpse and stuffed it full of a crashed spaceship debris in a desperately poor attempt at covering up an accident. The body Mother Talzin’s Dathomiri magicks gave him was stout, forceful, architected and executed with a keen eye and deep control, while whoever did this was a careless butcher. Asajj has seen carnage and pain, she’s fought and killed and maimed, and yet she has never seen anything as bestial as the body before her.

Savage Opress, who is making her share his torture through a telepathic bond, looks like a gutted carcass. This is what became of one of the three last survivors of Dathomir: worms writhe in and out of him, the things she’s been feeling like phantom maggots burrowing into her heart made real and she can see them feasting and seaming up his raw mottled shoulders and lap at the empty spots where someone tore out his hearts. He’s still conscious, though, just asleep. She can feel him feeling the worms. She can see him breathing, though he doesn’t need to, not without an intact torso. Not without hearts. She feels sick. So this is what has been calling out to her. What has been sliding into her mind, unstoppable and unwanted. This has violated her dreams.

Savage Opress, the bondmate Asajj came here to covertly murder, looks like death would be a mercy.

“Ventress, what are you playing at? The room was empty and Kenobi is here,” Maul hisses from somewhere behind her. “I told you. You’ll die for your betrayal—Savage…”

Asajj turns, expecting a fight, but Maul looks like the air was punched out of him, and he’s rooted to the doorway. The air around him tastes of abhorrence and dawning dread. He could have reached Savage before her, in her stupor—he could have jammed his ‘saber into her back—but now she’s jolted loose and ready to take her one chance at freedom.

To take mercy on Savage, for once in her life.

She drives her lightsaber into his right eye socket.

Maul’s scream behind her is vile, deeply inhuman and guttural and echoing over and over and over in the small room. It’s so loud her eye starts to hurt. His howl is the storm and the cave and the first drink in a lifetime. It’s green. It’s gentleness and sympathy he thought his Master had long driven out of the apprentice, but in teaching Savage he can’t help but refrain from using the techniques he once had endured himself. He doesn’t understand the reason—he is Sith and if he does not teach his apprentice to draw power from pain, he will have failed him. He doesn’t understand, but he feels something quake when he is called brother and when he notices he turned his back to Savage and never even expected to get hurt—he doesn’t understand, but somehow, he does. He loves Savage. Savage loves him. Maul was never meant for love, was made a weapon to be used and abused and discarded by a Master wielding power he’ll never attain, but somehow, Maul found this one person who loves him. Maul lost the person who loves him. Maul just lost him again. Maul won’t lose the person who loves him. He won’t. He can’t. He refuses. He loves—

And desperate love paints the room acid green. Greedy love tears the cot to tiny metal shreds. Unconditional love presses hot and painful into Asajj’s right eye, and she’s taking tiny measured steps toward Savage, in rhythmic unison with Maul and unstoppable no matter how hard she tries to take back her body.

Love, no matter what it takes, and both their green-bathed hands touch Savage.

All goes black.

#asajj ventress #darth maul #savage opress #savage oppress #dimtraces makes things #zombie savage au

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Establishing an Ethical Dilemma: The Clone Wars’ “Downfall of a Droid” vs. RWBY’s “Gravity”

On today’s episode of Metas No One Asked For we’re going to talk about how The Clone Wars’ sixth episode “Downfall of a Droid” managed to do everything RWBY’s seventh season “Gravity” failed at.

(Apologies in advance for the very shitty picture quality.)

In each show we start off with an incredibly difficult situation: if Anakin and his troops leave then the Separatists will gain this area of space. If they stay and fight they’re likely all be killed. If Team RWBY leaves a good portion of a city will perish. If they stay and fight they (including that city) will most likely all be killed. Now, in comparing these episodes we need to acknowledge that RWBY is setting up immediate consequences whereas The Clone Wars is setting up long-term consequences. It feels like Team RWBY has less of an option to retreat because their immediate consequence is that a good portion of Mantle will die. It feels like Anakin has more of an option to retreat because the impact of letting the Separatists gain a foothold won’t be seen until later in the war. Those long-term, mostly invisible consequences simply don’t resonate with us in the same way that the deaths of large swaths of minor characters we’ve seen throughout the volume does. It feels worse for Team RWBY to retreat because we’ve seen the Mantle citizens on screen throughout the season. They feel more real to us than the nameless, faceless people who will die later on if the Separatists gain this advantage. But both situations require sacrifice in order to keep the war going and both situations require sacrifice in order to save the immediate people around you. Ironwood wants to save everyone in Atlas and the people he’s evacuated from Mantle. Obi-Wan wants to save Anakin, Ahsoka, and the who knows how many clones on these ships. Both situations ask the question, “Even if you’re personally willing to take a nonsensical, terrible, borderline impossible risk to save others, how can you doom those around you in the process? The people you’re speaking for - as civilians or as subordinates - do not get to make that choice for themselves. In the name of the unlikely possibility that you’ll save people in the future you’re taking the far more likely risk of killing others here and now.”

Despite taking up only six minutes of screen time (the real emphasis is on losing R2. This battle is just the setup for that) The Clone Wars manages to provide a more complex and balanced account of the ethics of this situation than RWBY managed in multiple episodes. It is made abundantly clear that, despite coming from a noble place, Anakin is in the wrong here. He’s trying to risk too much on the basis of nothing. He’s in the same position Team RWBY was in, just insisting loudly that they have to fight because it’s the right thing to do, and he’s called out for that by the story itself. Obi-Wan, Anakin’s Master and superior, tells him not to go through with this.

Ahsoka, his padawan, agrees. This is how you have a much younger, much less experienced character being better than their elders, by actually allowing them to act as the more mature party in a scene. If Ahsoka, who thus far has been characterized as equally reckless and desperate to push the war as far as she can as fast as she can, thinks this is a dumb move, you know it’s a very dumb move.

“Suicide is not the Jedi way.” We could also say that “Suicide is not the huntsmen way.” Doing the “right thing” means absolutely nothing in the face of your own death and the death of everyone following you. What have you achieved here? Satisfaction of some sort for being a Good Person? Congratulations, you can feel smug about that in the afterlife while ignoring the deaths/detriment to the war weighing on your conscious. Here Anakin’s superior and his subordinate call him out on this selfish behavior. He’s not a bad person for wanting to defend this sector but, as someone in a position of power, he does need to do better. He needs to make the harder choice here, prioritizing the lives he can realistically save over the Happy Ending he wants.

However, in the face of their criticism Anakin just digs in his heels and, to be frank, comes across as delusional at best, downright dangerous at worst. Again, despite this choice defending (some) others, he’s being selfish: “I can’t let them do that.” He’s prioritizing his own conscious over the logic of the situation and the lives of his men. And he’s appropriately called out for that too.

This is a flaw that Anakin needs to work on, not something heroic the audience is meant to praise. So far he’s in nearly an identical position to Team RWBY, insisting on a suicide mission despite everyone else around him laying out precisely why that’s a death wish and, therefore, a very bad move. Emotionally we understand why Anakin wants to fight, but the story reminds us that what we want is not necessarily what we (and everyone else) needs, even if it seems so at first glance. The generalized “defending this sector is a Good Thing” simply can’t hold up against the undeniable danger of choosing to fight. To him. To his men. To his padawan. To the war. Anakin’s noble desires mean nothing in the face of an impossible situation. He simply has no way to win.

The difference between this scene and RWBY’s - the key, crucial, AMAZING difference - is this line right here:

At the very end of the scene we establish that Anakin does have a plan. He’s not risking everyone’s lives on the illogical hope that they’ll win because they’re the good guys, he’s banking on an actual strategy he’s come up with. Now, in a show where this dilemma is more central to the story we’d want to hear precisely what this plan is and weigh it against the established dangers. However, as said this fight only takes up about 5 minutes of screen time in a 7 season show. This dilemma is only setup for the primary conflict of finding R2, so we’re able to skip the explanation and instead have the plan function as a fun reveal for the audience. How will Anakin get them out of this situation? We’ve already established that he can, now it’s just a matter of showing how. Unlike Team RWBY, Anakin is able to justify this choice to everyone around him. The people he’s asking to fight beside him and risk their lives. He’s able to prove that this battle isn’t as impossible as it seems.

Crucially though, even the audience isn’t investing blind trust in Anakin. Later on, his strategic nature is worked into the surrounding plot. We’re shown how good he is at coming up with plans, thus lending support to the audience’s belief that he’s truly come up with a way to beat Grievous here as well as providing in-world support for why others would trust him to this extent. Not only did Anakin provide a concrete, smart, doable plan to justify going on this “suicide mission,” he has a track record of using this sort of strategy successfully in almost every battle. In contrast, the last time Team RWBY implemented a plan was... volumes ago? They don’t use strategy to beat the Ace Ops. They don’t fight together at Haven. They kept hitting Tyrian head-on until they lost. The closest thing we’ve gotten to strategy lately is the Nuckelavee battle which amounted to “Hold him down so we can hit him as opposed to just hitting him.” There’s been very little lately to convince us that Team RWBY can get themselves out of tight situations via intellect like Anakin can. More significantly, Anakin didn’t just rely on his reputation as a smart guy. There was no, “Trust me because I’m just that good” which, again, is what Team RWBY demands of Ironwood: trust us despite our disloyalty and our lack of a plan. Trust us despite everything telling you you shouldn’t. Anakin has been faithful to his allies, proven his ability in the past, and - though it happens off screen - is able to lay out logical reasons for taking this risk. For all his playful arrogance, he knows he’s not going into that battle unless he can provide a persuasive reason as to why he’ll win.

Despite having a plan, despite successfully pulling it off, Anakin still makes mistakes and still needs a great deal of help from others throughout this episode. His impulsive move to go after Grievous means Rex has to rescue him and results in him losing R2, a MAJOR consequence for him. Later on, Anakin needs to be rescued by Ahsoka and Rex again. At no point does the story insist, “Anakin is capable of soloing everything because he’s one of the main characters.” Or worse, show us how much help he needs and then retconning it later (looking at you, “We don’t need adults” scene).

Anakin is not only shown to have flaws but exists in a story that continually calls him out on them, allowing him to grow. In his despair over losing R2 he starts threatening this ship captain. In a story like RWBY that behavior would be excused because the audience knows the captain is a bad guy. AKA, the sort of situation we got with Cordovin: it’s totally fine for Team RWBY to steal from her because she’s racist, attributing a connection between these two actions when, in reality, there is none. Here though, Ahsoka reminds Anakin that he can’t treat people this way simply because he’s upset/doesn’t like them. The captain acting like a slimy asshole does not justify threatening him with a lightsaber, in the same way that being a racist asshole doesn’t justify taking headshots at Cordovin and destroying her city’s primary means of defense. Here, The Clone Wars allows for even main characters to make mistakes and acknowledges those mistakes in a way that neither demonizes them nor acts like those mistakes don’t matter. Or tries to present them as heroic.

At the end of the episode we get to see precisely how much R2′s disappearance is still eating at Anakin,

but crucially he’s not risking his life, the life of his padawan, his subordinates, and the war efforts in order to search for him based on... nothing. Anakin has nothing here. Nothing to go on except his personal belief - “I know it” - that R2 survived and him hearing a droid beep on the ship. Which, as Ahsoka points out, sounded just like any other droid. Logically there’s no reason for anyone to believe that R2 survived and thus no basis for risking so much in order to find him. When Anakin is told to continue the war efforts, he does. He might not like it, but he follows orders. He recognizes that these orders are smart based on their current information. Up until there’s proof of R2′s survival, he can’t drop all his other responsibilities to go on an aimless search for him.

Why is Anakin heroic here? Because he has faith in R2 while likewise continuing his duties as a Jedi/war general. His conflict is that he wants to go looking for R2 yet knows that he can’t. He has a duty to those around him and he’s made promises he has to keep. A less responsible, less mature group - like Team RWBY - would ditch their superiors and follow that hunch of theirs, risking a great deal in the process, which the story would then reward them for by revealing that, of course, the character they assumed had to be alive actually was. But that doesn’t mean they were right to be reckless in the first place. Or that their faith was well-founded and not just denial. In the previous five episodes we have seen Anakin disobey orders, most notably in “Rising Malevolence” when he teaches Ahsoka how to do the things she believes in (like searching for survivors) without outright butting heads with her superiors. They find a middle ground. A compromise, searching for survivors in a pit-stop fashion and then agreeing to catch up with the rest of the fleet when they don’t find anything. It’s only Ahsoka suddenly sensing Plo Koon that changes their minds. Now, with evidence, they have a reason to continue their pursuit, disobeying orders in the process. Even then we end the episode with Anakin joking about how if he’s going to get in trouble for this, so is Ahsoka. Their easy-going banter implies that their superiors are level-headed people - they understand the emotional reasons why they searched for survivors in the first place and are no doubt persuaded by their reasons for staying - but they still disobeyed orders. That comes with consequences and everyone involved will shoulder those consequences together.

We get a similar situation regarding searching for R2 at all. Once again, Anakin’s personal feelings are at the forefront of his decision making. His emotional investment in R2 as an individual blinds him to the larger picture. Indeed, that investment is presented as both a flaw and a strength. Allowing R2 to keep his memory is a HUGE threat to the war effort and (again) Anakin is called out for risking so much. At the same time, Ahsoka establishes that this choice isn’t entirely selfish one - I personally want R2 to stay as he is because he’s my friend, no matter how many lives that risks - but a practical one as well. R2 having that information makes him a great asset, demonstrated beautifully when he’s chucking assassin droids out of airlocks (established as deadly a few minutes earlier) and R3, the newer model with faster computing, can’t even open a door. Admittedly, Goldie’s competence is complicated by him being a traitor. We don’t know how much was a mistake and how much deliberate sabotage. However, Ahsoka is still correct that R2 is far more competent than the average droid and that’s at least partly due to him developing via maintaining his memory. Ahsoka’s words invite Obi-Wan to weigh the pros and the cons here. Is R2′s assistance and his individuality worth more than the threat he poses if they lose him? Obi-Wan, who previously claimed he was “just” a replaceable droid, implies that it is because he doesn’t order Anakin to wipe his memory if he finds him. He may still order R2′s destruction later because, as established, they’re not on a rescue mission, but he is starting to see this droid as more than just a tool. The main take-away though is that the story skillfully creates a situation where, for a time, the same action feeds two different motivations. Obi-Wan wants to find R2 for the Republic’s safety. Anakin wants to find him because R2 is his friend. Here he’s allowed to follow orders while still doing what he feels is right and we get to see how happy that makes him.

Then when the situation changes and Anakin’s orders no longer align with his desires... he puts those desires aside. A least for a time. Because he’s a Jedi. He’s a general. He’s in the middle of a war that’s far bigger than himself. Obviously the story eventually rewards his faith/desires by returning R2 to him, but that’s not because Anakin immediately risked everything else in the process. He took no action until he had evidence that R2 was nearby, very conveniently held in the same place he was ordered to find. The end of “Duel of the Droids” is very explicit about both sides of this debate: Anakin did risk the lives of everyone under his command (indeed, two Clones died) and Ahsoka agrees that he was reckless in disobeying orders, even if it was done under the expectation that they’d finally found R2. Anakin pushes back that R2 is more than just a droid, he’s a friend, and he had faith that Ahsoka would carry the mission without him. We as the viewer can push back further with Ahsoka taking on Grievous alone and nearly dying: she never would have been put in that position if Anakin hadn’t left the mission to find R2. And on and on. They’re both right in regards to some aspects and wrong in regards to others, and still other parts have no “right” answer, providing a complex look at this highly debatable situation and allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. For all his (uh, rather massive lol) mistakes to come, here and now Anakin is a great protagonist, someone who is heroic while also allowed to be flawed. To me that’s far more compelling than giving us “heroes” who continually harm others in the name of “what’s right” and only get by via the grace of the plot.

TL;DR: I’ve only watched six episodes of this series and already, from a writing perspective, RWBY could only hope to be half of what The Clone Wars is

#RWBY #rwde #the clone wars #TCW #Star Wars #mymetas

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medleyofswag · 6 years

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Rant time!

Probably huge unpopular opinion but I need to vent and it's what I use tumblr for, so-

I am genuinely sorry, but Detroit Become human did not live anywhere near up to my expectations.

I'll even say I am dissapointed.

If you love the game more than life itself, I urge you to NOT read this, becuase you will only get pissed at me, probably, which is dumb to put yourself through.

I do love a lot about it- but there is too much I don’t like about it, and I need to rant becuase I’m sad about it, AND NO- I have not played it with my own two hands, but I have watched and analyzed it several times and this is a review of the story/script, which is key for me in any game. (and this review explains why I’m starting to wonder if I even want the game.)

Here’s also my favorite youtube reviewer, Angry Joe, makes several great points about both gameplay and story- [x]

×SPOILERS AHOY×

I saw the trailer of Kara being put together when it first came out, years ago, and I just... expected something... mindblowing.

Let me also say- Me, personally- fucking love, I live, I thrive off of robots with personaleties. Ever since being a kid, I have such a humongous amount of weakness and love for tech that can talk and feel, just having a mind of it's own.

Examples of fave little roboes, for good messure;

The cartoon Transformers probably started it off

R2D2, C-3PO, BB8, K-2SO (Star Wars)

Iron giant (1999)

B.E.N (Treasure planet)

Jarvis (Iron man, Marvel)

Sonny (I. Robot)

Baymax (Big Hero 6)

Transendence (2014)

Wall-e, Eve (2008)

Atom (Real Steel, subtle personality)

Literally every little fucker from Tales from the Borderlands (Telltales)

Carl (Meet the Robinson)

Aaaaand those are just from the very top of my head as I'm writing this, there is such a huge amount of robotic and tech-characters and I adore them all.

My point is- put a robot with a mind and personality of its own in anything- and it'll become my favorite character automatically. (huehuehu yes pun)

And so, my expectations for this game might have been unrealisticly sky-high from the get-go, becuase of the pedestals I put robots on, I'm not sure exactly, but In any case-

The dialog is good enough, the graphics are obviously fucking insane- and the characters are a mix of amazing and just... plain confusing- but the story???

Well, I don't know, I was expecting...

Better imagienation, I guess. Not to mention some type of damn red thread?? (-partly a hint to the red ice, wtf was that)

The only thread is Jericho, which, originally starts as a part of Markus story- as some sort of fucking religious awakening for him??

In all honesty, the fastest way to make me lose interest in literally anything- shove some religion into it. And this is even worse becuase they’re suppose to be freaking robots. Being spiritual? Sure! They seem to have souls, so that makes sense! But straight-up full-on religious all of a sudden???

The whole rA9 thing????? What??WhY

The fact that he became a goddamn massia of some kind, is just??? dumb??? He ressurected like some damn Jesus and saved his people like Mose, but the androids basically moved from being slaves of the humans to being slaves of Markus. There was no way for me to actually trust that every individual android just gained free-will becuase Markus layed a hand on them???

And there’s the damn Lucy-bot who’s a damn oracle of some kind????wAT

He could’ve had a similar story without having it being so... religious.

And who the fuck is North and why does she have a romance option??? She’s so fucking violent- she responds so easily to hurt humans instead of being peaceful and why would Markus relate to that and like her?? Sure, you can choose for Markus to be violent as well but that doesn’t make sense becuase Carl taught him to fucking chill and treated him well-WHICH ALSO makes it odd that Markus, of all androids, should be the leader of an android-freedom revolution??

I cannot be the only one confused about it??

Yes sure- He learned about empathy, so even tho he had it good with his owner, he was quickly shoved in the garbage and then he felt that his fellow androids were treated like shit and they all needed to be free. STILL doesn’t explain how he got out of that garbage as if he knew exactly what to do. He should’ve stumbled around like bambi on ice, confused and upset.

SO, The whole revolution thing, It's simply a concept that doesn't hold up, not on this type of platform anyway, not in a three-parted story. The pacing goes to shit becuase of it and if I expected anything- I expected a lot of logic in this game.

I was expecting a lot more human-android interaction, but all I get is android vs humans.

The best part is definitely Connor's story. (I do love me that boidroid, very much) He has character development that makes sense- for the most part- and the whole concept of androids joining the force is logical, not exactly original, to have a type of super-human on the side of the police, but atleast it made sense. And also- in this part I did get consistent human-android interaction.

The only one.

And yet- that’s mostly provided that you don't actually die as Connor, becuase he resets as a new copy, which is cool as a gameplay but it fucks up the realistic pacing if you want a friendship with Hank. (yes I'm bitter)

Connor is also the only one who acts like a robot-that is becoming human. This is still testing the limist, as he has potential to die in every damn sequence.

Markus is starting off pretty good, but it’s like he’s becoming more robotic instead? Is it suppose to be a war-thing? becuase it’s not believeble.

And Kara, to me, just feels like a very awkward jittery human. I can’t really find her droid-yness.

Kara I feel like, she was all over the place, I can't even...

I don't even know where to start, her story had pretty good pacing I guess... kind of... sort of... almost. I don't know, Luther was amazing, but he seemed so random, I don’t know why. BUT GUESS WHAT?? THE ONLY FEMALE LEAD WANT TO BE A MOTHER??? Come the fuck on, are you fucking kidding me- I assume they wanted to appeal “to the most human part of a woman” for a female android, but it’s just bad imagienation for me.

I mean, Alice is adoreble but, why would she not even know she’s an adroid and fucking TELL KARA???

And please, for the love of games- I can’t be the only one who immedietly thought about Madison from Heavy rain in the creepy phsyco’s house when Kara went to Zlatko?

Quantic dream really love to put women in a creepy-fucker situation, don’t they. (even starting too seem unoriginal, innit?)

Alright so, if you read this and hate me- well, I warned you. If you read this and see what I mean, thank you! I love not feeling alone!

Thank you for reading!

I hope I didn’t steal too much if your time!

There are probably some points that I have missed but these are the most frequantly coming to mind.

DBH, My summery-

Superb desgin

Insane and amazing multi-ending concept

Bad imagienation

I love Chloe, the main menu lady, so much.

#detroit become human #rant #connor #markus #kara #androids #game #script review #story review #what #dissapoint

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fymeetrasurik · 7 years

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Star Wars: Screaming Citadel Roundup

So I just finished the event, and I got to say I was not prepared for the decent helping of feels I was just handed. Like I was excited for this thing sense they announced it. Star wars meets gothic horror? Yes please and may I have some more. So if you want the short and sweet version of an opinion, was good, read it.

Now for the long version. To me this was a great event comic, or crossover however you look at it, and I wish more comics of this nature took a page from it. Cause at the end of the day, this was about character. About interactions between them and even a nice helping of growth for some of them. It just has a crazy vampire queen in a screaming castle surrounded by space bugs as the background. And actually, because of this, there’s really one thing I want to focus on in talking about the series. And that’s Aphra and Luke which are really like the heart of the story. But quickly, I’ll just mention a few things I really dug besides them, cause it’s worth mentioning.

I really dug the queen. I love villains, in fact probably too much. And what I always do, is wonder and come up with backstories as to why they are the way they are, and that sort of thing cause i’m a sucker for history and character. Now in star wars, i don’t have to do that that often. Cause every single villain has like an entire catalog of backstory and history to them. But with the queen here, I really would like to have learned more about her. How she found the bugs, how she first took control of the planet. Just details give me details. Doubt we’ll ever get those, so I’ll say she was a fine vamp antagonist. Threatening, sadistic, and finding giddy joy in it. I especially loved the weird kind of ethereal they were doing with her. How smoke and mist would always trail from her, and she would vanish into it. Classic vampire, but the art depicted it as more tech based as the mist would almost pixelate around her. Thought that was an interesting touch.

I also loved her confrontation with Luke, and Luke’s inner strength he finds. I liked the fight cause it was just a psychic battle so to an onlooker they were just intensely staring at each other. And I like that Luke found his own strength rather than submitting to the bug or to the ancient Jedi’s words. It’s a good lesson for him in the force.

Loved that Leia got to knock around a mind controlled Han. That’s just perfect for them lol.

And oh my god beetee and triple zero are just delights. Like I can see how they’d get on other peoples nerves, but for me they just hit the sweet spot, and I grin with every line they have. Okay now onto the main course.

I wanna talk about Luke and Aphra, cause they’re interactions and growth are at the core of this story. I already talked about loving their dynamic when i talked about the first issue, how it was like a wolf leading a sheep she was cool with and it was adorable. That dynamic sort of continues into the series, only it’s gets more close and friendly as it goes, which I love.

When he stops Sana from shooting her, that was my first bag of feels. And I wanna use this moment to talk about the art. I really think they do a good job with expressions, especially on Aphra and Luke, you can tell what they’re feeling and really understand why just through the expression. But yeah, Luke is such a awesome, and lovable guy. Like at this point he knows she’s kind of led him into a mess, but still he’s going to protect her because that’s just who he is, and he’s already formed an attachment to her, almost like he has with Han or Leia. A sort of adopted family sort of thing. And on Aphra’s end I especially love this cause i garuntee this was the first time anyone had ever protected her just because they cared. Then he feels kept on coming. I will say analysis of this is easy cause the comic mostly does it for me. Put it pointed something out i hadn’t thought of.

Luke and Aphra are kind of two sides of a coin. They both come from very similar places. Aphra lost her mother in the clone wars, and we all know the barbecue the empire threw at Luke’s place. They both start relating to each other in a very personal way. And the talk they have allows you to see the different perspectives of the people in the empire. Aphra says, “Son’t be naive. The empire’s not for people like us. I don’t need anyone and you’re a basically nearly bursting balloon of the force loves me! the force loves me! But for normal people? For them pretty much any peace is better than war.” This feeds into the trend going on in the series of kind of humanizing the empire and I love it. This was what surprised me the most about the comic cause I didn’t expect this link between them to form. It developing to the point where Luke flat out calls Aphra his friend hurt my soul, cause again Luke is just the best, and Aphra probably never had anyone say that about her either. But then Aphra is Aphra, and she pulls a double cross. But her relationship with Luke has effected her. “He’s dumb, naive... and everything I’m not” In a way, I’d say this was mostly Aphra’s story. She learns the most, grows the most, and with the activation of her crystal she gains the most. But at the same time, she realizes I think how much she doesn’t have.

Like her and Sana were a thing. And it apparently ended bad enough for Sana to try to shoot her on sight. Aphra seeing Luke Han and Leia, and Sana and seeing what they all have. I think that effects her. She says she doesn’t need anyone, and she probably believes that, but seeing the gang makes her possibly wonder what life could have been like is she did have someone, anyone who she trusted and whom trusted her in return.This leads into the resolution which hurt my feels the most. So Aphra pulled a double cross on Luke, and for once again one of the first times, she felt guilt enough to go back for him. But all the connection she built up with Luke was gone. Since she led them into this, and tried to walk away, Luke realized she was just using him. And so he tells her to stay the hell away from him and his friends. I think this is a very good character relationship turn, cause usually when something like this happens it’s a mistake or misunderstanding and you know it’ll be resolved. But here, Aphra genuinely was completely in the wrong, and made terrible mistakes and decisions. She did start this out, just planning on using and discarding Luke. Aphra isn’t a good person. Yet. And so the two part, and maybe they never will reconcile. It’s tragic but makes total sense given who both characters are. I love the last scene with Aphra on her ship. Again analysis is easy cause triple zero outright says the theme. “He went through an experience just as traumatic as yours and remains a positive delightful person devoted to a better existence for all sentient life. And you realize how special he is too late to retain his respect. That must be an awful reminder of your own failings of character.” Lol thanks comic, though he is a droid so being blatant is kind of they’re thing. But yeah, Aphra walks away from all this technically haven gotten what she wants. But how must that eat away at her? That here’s this guy whose really just the best, most optimistic and trusting person in the galaxy, and she was such trash that she managed to make even him turn his back on her. That’s the kind of things that makes you reevaluate a few things. And reading this scene, I am so excited and interested to see how her character progresses. I have an idea, but it’s basically my same idea with every character who, because they’re in this timeline of star wars, has to either die or leave the story entirely but I’ll leave that for another day. But in truth, in star wars right now, I think i’m more excited to see how her story goes than I am with the movies. Don’t worry I’m sure that’ll change as we get closer to Last Jedi. Focused a lot on Aphra in this recap but the story kind of does too.

So all in all, this was a darn good read. Especially if the premise of horror in star wars interests you. But honestly I’d say the fans who would get the most out of this are Luke and Aphra fans. If you are into either character, I’d say this is almost a must read. This was one of my favorite crossovers in the new canon and I can’t wait to see where the comics go next!

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