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amarriageoftrueminds · 2 months

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Thinking about how great CATWS was and how Marvel dropped the ball on all the characters from that movie.

Steve? Got character assassinated beyond repair.

Natasha? Killed off, didn't even get an on-screen funeral and her only solo movie was more about introducing Yelena than her.

Bucky? Never got a prober story, was victim blamed, and will possibly die in Thunderbolts.

Nick Fury? Got character assassinated in Secret Invasion.

Maria Hill? Was killed off in SI.

Sharon Carter? Turned into a villian.

Sam Wilson? Unlike the rest they haven't completely fumbled the bag with his character but he was still screwed by FATWS in many ways, and his first solo movie doesn't look very promising either.

Also consider that their sequel to the movie where we find out Howard Stark knew about Nazis in SHIELD (the specific Nazi that tortured Bucky and killed members of the 107, and tried to kill Steve) ...was a movie where Howard is assassinated by Hydra and yet Bucky gets blamed and brutally attacked for it. Even though this is the same movie where we find out Bucky was mind-controlled.

And their sequel to the movie where we find out Peggy knew about Nazis in SHIELD is..... Uh. Nothing. They never address it. A character who died offscreen gets screen time wasted on a fulblown Royal funeral (attended by people who didn't even fucking know her!!)

They treat her like some kind of living saint, to the point where she's now a full blown Mary Sue, with yet another bloody tv show where every storyline must be about her, and her possessing Steve, and Steve is reduced to a Stepford Husband wheeled out to repeat 'Peggy. Is. Perfect' type lines. 😬 (Steve. Blink if you need rescuing.)

All Bucky's everything now belongs to Peggy.

Oh, apart from the blame of course! He gets to keep all of that! 🙂

(Oh, and as per What If, Sam is no longer part of CATWS, his own intro movie, and even Natasha's own movie is now about- guess who?? Peggy! And Peggy having Steve!)

Apparently Sharon has been turned into a villain in the comics, too. Just as they start product-synergy introducing MCU!Peggy to over-ride comics Peggy. I wonder why...

(It's so funny that TFATWS assigned MCU-Sharon MCU-Peggy's annoyance at being overlooked by men (cough the man she's relentlessly hitting on cough) and decided that this would be her villain origin story... and yet nobody has connected the dots to Peggy and her behaviour?)

Sharon and Sam's characterisation only feels like an organic continuation because, frankly, the MCU never bothered to write them being particularly nice people to begin with?

Sam being a fratbro-style dick to Bucky in TFATWS, with a side of dispensing unsound self-contradictory counselling advice, is consistent with being a dick to Bucky (and arguing against helping him) since CATWS and quitting a counselling job at the drop of a hat. (Only the 1980s movie locker-room homophobia queerbait is new.)

Sharon being a villain is consistent with being a Carter not being asked to join the 'bringing down Hydra' team in CATWS, dressing up as the same profession as Steve's dead mother to 'befriend' him while she's just spying on him (contrast: the calling-out Nat got from Steve just for not telling him something), staying in SHIELD while they were hunting down Steve and Natasha, immediately joining the CIA (aka, the people who just happen to have a superhero-proof electric chair and want to shoot Bucky on sight, who also have Everett 'ex-husband of Madame Hydra who laughs at the idea of Bucky getting a lawyer' Ross on staff), ...which is easily infiltrated by a (thinly-veiled-Hydra) villain who wants to mind-control TWS to bring down the Avengers (deja vu??), being snippy to Sam for no reason, continuing to lie about herself beyond the point of it being necessary, and also being a creep who expects a thank you kiss from Steve just for doing one basic helpful thing when asked. *phew!*

But the geniuses who inherited the job of writing her in TFATWS can't see any of that... They see no issues, so they think they've written her 'turning' bad. The writing is still shonky because it still isn't self-aware about what it's portraying. The cognitive dissonance is still dissonant.

(Same problem with Fury. They keep giving him 'bad' things to do, showing him instinctively first joining the 'bad side', eg. Pierce's SHIELD, the Kree, etc. But with the exclusion of Steve yelling at him in CATWS -- and only so that Nick gets called out, but not precious Saint Margaret, ofc -- it's never addressed. They can't do anything interesting with the moral charcoal that they've accidentally cooked up, because they aren't even aware that it's there. 🤦‍♀️)

We were mercifully spared from Joss Whedon's terrible ideas for Maria... (supposed to be a villain in A1, baffled as to what to do with a female character so obviously she should be hinted as a love interest for Steve out of fuckn nowhere in A2) ...only to end like that.

Outside of that AOU Avengers party, where she was chill and kinda gay, I feel like the best characterisation we got for her was when- was it in one of the Spidey movies?? -she was a Skrull. 😤 If only I could say the same of Steve...

#anti tfatws #catws meta #anti mcu #mcu critical #CACU: the character-assassination cinematic universe #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #imagine the captain america movie we could've got if ryan coogler directed it he's the only one who's been nice to bucky #or better yet the 3 spiderverse guys #now there's a bunch who know how to write an antifa character!#shit even quentin tarantino would've given us a better CATFA

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punkofsunshine · 3 years

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The (Informal) Miniature Anarcho-Solarpunk Manifesto

The integration of communalism into a classless system away from the main caste-esque system of hierarchy around the world is very costly when viewed from a consumer lens, but is essential in the degradation of the overbearing hierarchy that the main populace is subjected to and thusly become numb to the pressures placed upon them from an early age, spiral into endlessly consuming for a sense of being in a world that doesn’t care if you’re alive, to them you’re just a replaceable cog in the profit machine. The goal of the communalist, socialist, solarpunk, etc. should not be to live in their own bubble, but to expand their influence exponentially through participation with the outside world, turn a commune into a city as it were. Less people in a place that has dictated control by the state and the consumers within, the less control the state and capital have over people. A migration of people increases quality of life and food consumption, luckily food growth can be optimized to accommodate many people when given according to need as opposed to given to whomever has the money to afford produce. One must also keep in mind, the debt accrued is now a community responsibility, so the members will do everything in their power to keep people functioning in the community, that must include people paying off debts. Who are you if you let a fellow worker suffer on their own? Who are you to let a human such as yourself be subjected to the violence of the state in its many forms? Pushing back against such oppression is why we ascribe to this ideology, so we can taste freedom and save the earth from ourselves.

No individual is solely responsible for the pollution and poverty. Multiple corporations and their figureheads are. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Qin Yinglin & family, Michael Bloomberg, The Koch family, Jim Simons, Alaian & Gerard Wertheimer, Mark Zuckerburg, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, the Walton Family, Steve Ballmer, Carlos Slim Helu & family, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Francoise Bittencourt Meyers & family, Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, Mukesh Ambani, Mackenzie Scott, Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr., David Thomson & family, Phil Knight & family, Lee Shau Kee, François Pinault & family. Sheldon Alelson, The Mars family, Elon Musk, Giovanni Ferrero, Michael Dell, Hui Ka Yan, Li Ka-Shing, He Xiangjian, Yang Huiyan & family, Joseph Safra, Dieter Schwarz, Vladimir Potanin, Tadashi Yanai & family, Vladamir Lisin, Ray Dalio, Takemitsu Takizaki, Leonid Mikhelson, etc. (Forbes) The list could go on, but I’m not about to list four-hundred people, the people have to change what the ruling class refuses to, hijacking corporate manufacturing and removing police of their power is essential. The police are targets due to the fact they protect corporate interests and stunt progressive growth, all of the people listed above refuse to let power be taken from them, there are too few people willing to make attempts to go after them because what would happen to their favourite source of consumption if that happened? What would happen to convenience? It would disappear, they don’t want to have to make things themselves, such is the first world’s entitlement. Doing without the convenience to save the environment should be a priority, things aren’t going to just get better on their own just because you installed solar panels and an eco-friendly water filtration system. The extent of the work that needs to be done is tremendous and must be organized efficiently and with regard to equivalency of power.

The world is in the process of ending due to all the turmoil we put it through, but the fact we’re more worried about comfort and convenience is very telling of what kind of culture western society has, instead of trying to fight those who destroy the environment and oppress us, we’re eager to mimic them. Why? Because they have and we have not. Such is the downfall of the consumerist mind. A majority of Americans think like consumers, not citizens, which is very telling because the anti-communist culture moted it be after the second world war. (Vox) There’s no telling where the zeitgeist is headed, but there’s political radicalization on both sides of the spectrum, sadly the other side of the spectrum is what we fought against, fascism, nazism, and authoritarianism. 2016 through 2020 were the worst years in terms of hate crimes committed on minority groups since the 60’s which is really saying something, neo-nazi groups sprung up and made themselves the focus, where there are fascists, there will always be anti-fascists or to be informal, antifa. I, the author am a background informant for the loose collective known as antifa, our job is simply to let people know where rallies are going down, we use pseudonyms and VPNs so we cannot be tracked. So why am I telling you this? Isn’t this supposed to be about what we can do to rebel against the systems that oppress us? Yes, and I’m getting there. There’s a reason I’m talking about fascism, and that is the fact fascism and capitalism are linked together.

Fascism/imperialism has been described as “capitalism in decay” by Vladimir Lenin due to the fact that neoliberalism is capitalism functioning as normal, communism post-capitalism, and fascism is capitalism going away slowly. It is an unjust and evil way of looking at the world, but once capitalists sense danger to their power, they fund fascism just so they can keep their power for longer. Anti-fascist action is also anti-capitalist action, for every nazi destroyed, we are one step closer to freedom. For every capitalist institution raided and demolished, we are one step closer to freedom. The city isn’t made of buildings that you can buy from, it’s made of the people who live there, so when the BLM protests occurred and stores were “looted” and burned, that was a form of praxis that hasn’t happened in years it was truly inspiring to see the people of Oregon (among other places) fight the police, fight back the alt-right, give capitalists the middle finger, create autonomous zones, and keep people from getting evicted during the pandemic. That is what communalism is partly about, supporting each other in the face of adversity no matter the cost of personal wellbeing, it’s the pinnacle of mutual aid.

Revolutionary action is one-hundred percent essential in securing future freedoms for not only generation Y, but generation Z and subsequent generations. As a member of generation Z, I feel fear, anger, and dread when it comes to climate change and the fact our generation will have to clean up the messes of the former generations when it comes to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, unsustainable farming practices, soil health degradation, deforestation, the melting of polar habitats, natural disasters, etc. The weight of the world falls upon our shoulders and we realize this as a truth or we reject reality and follow in our parent’s footsteps and do nothing about it, it’s up to us, the most depressed and angry generation in the U.S.’s rather short history to right the wrongs made by former generations when most of us can’t even find motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I am writing this manifesto in my bed as I have been for the past week when I remember to write it down. It’s not enough to just write a theory however, put practice in it and it becomes more than just a talking point. It becomes a movement, how far you want to take it depends on you, but I do not condone violence against any of the people in the list above for strictly legal reasons. It is not absurd to think that we don’t have a snowball's chance in hell to stop the impending climate disaster that is about to fall onto us, because that assumption is correct. The best we can do is rebuild afterwards then hope and pray the next generation continues our work to restore the planet and maybe move outside our solar system, god willing.

I’ve tried writing a short solarpunk novel, I realized that the fiction may be important for outreach, but I was trying to add personal political theory to a narrative that’s supposed to be about a character’s internal conflicts as opposed to what I’m doing now, informal political theory, which is why I’m addressing you, the reader. I’ve read and listened to political theory in the past, and it’s incredibly dry and hard to pay attention to, don’t get me wrong, it’s important when you’re a part of various movements such as eco-socialism, communalist-anarchism, and anarcho-solarpunk, but I think it’s more important to connect with a reader or listener to make sure they understand the message before saying “do some praxis.” That is the goal here, not to be the leftist, humane version Ayne Rand, but instead instill in people a hope for the future that learns to do without mass manufacturing, that learns to make their own food sustainably, that learns that we all have a right to food, clean water, housing, medical treatment, and clean air without having to pay for all of those things. I may not be a part of the bottom percentage of people, but if I were my point would still stand strong, the notion that you have to work to get basic necessities is immoral on many levels, but in “free market” economies that’s the standard and I was as blind to it as most people before I found solarpunk, it started out by liking the aesthetic, but I started thinking about what we do to our planet and realized this isn’t just a bunch of pretty pictures, this is an idea for a utopian future entrenched in equality, sustainability, environmentalism, and anti-corpocracy.

Many people say that socialism has never worked, they give reasoning such as “Income inequality expands under socialism.” Which is just capitalist projection, during the 2020 pandemic, which is still ongoing at the time or writing, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. “. . . in the months since the virus reached the United States, many of the nation’s wealthiest citizens have actually profited handsomely. Over a roughly seven-month period starting in mid-March – a week after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency – America’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by a collective $931 billion.” (USA Today) The middle class, which skyrocketed post-feudalism/post-monarchy has been getting erased by the ruling class, which is the goal of capitalism. Capitalism is rooted in the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie and was created to have control over the masses without having a direct economic power structure overhead. Things may have gotten better for the growing middle class and the poor marginally, then the industrial revolution kicked in and everything went downhill from there. Pollution began with burning coal, the car came along, now it’s coal and oil, and so on until today where we have access to truly world-altering technologies, but what’s holding us back are the people who continue to exploit non-renewable resources for profit and solely profit. The betterment of mankind isn’t on the mind of the capitalist, they can avoid global catastrophe, they aren’t the peasants, they’re the monarchs. Why do you think billionaires fund space travel and cryogenics research? It’s not to better the rest of the world, it’s to get the hell out of dodge after global warming takes its toll and they have no more workers willing to fill their pockets by letting their labor be exploited. As I said above, it’s up to my generation to fix the mess they made. Maybe we’ll learn a lesson, or maybe we’ll die in the process, either way the situation is dire and action needs to be taken.

Who will take action? Well, if you made it this far into the manifesto without falling asleep or getting angry at the things I have to say, it’s you, me, and everyone else who cares, is tired of selling their soul, and wants freedom. Freedom, not via the dollar, but via being human. It matters not your ethnicity, skin colour, religion (or lack thereof), sexuality, gender, or anything else; you matter, the world matters, and it takes all of us to save it.

-A manifesto by Aeron Fae Greenwood

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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You really are patient Min! It's incredible tbh. Fandom drive me crazy sometimes but your blog is that peaceful corner where no one call who thinks like me(us) delusional. So thank you! That being said, this gonna be everywhere, (sorry!) it's kinda crazy how some lanes in fandom kinda miss the whole point of the show, not just then destiel portion... The philosophy of it all. It's sad TBH, how ppl dismiss the whole louder than life subtext (and text) bc they don't like what they see. (1/3)

But yeah I get how DeanCas is important and know how ever body screams bout rep in every chance they get. ( that freakin important too don’t get me wrong, but you know every story has its porpoise!) SPN wasn’t about rep in the frist place and TBH, what a whole bunch of ppl what for rep in it is kinda of no no for this kind of story and those kind of characters, (2/3)(Third part eaten twice by tumblr)

Okay, first off: Was… was porpoise an intentional typo because i–

…*clears throat*

“what a whole bunch of ppl want for rep in it is kinda of no no for this kind of story and those kind of characters,”

Winner winner chicken dinner. I don’t know how many people pay attention to Bobo. I mean REALLY pay attention to Bobo, not just as a token of convenient argument. One look at his feed will tell you that this man’s idea of representing his own middle aged male LGBT demographic is wildly different from what this female and youth dominant fandom thinks is what would seal it, or what they dream of or imagine happening.

I, too, love adorable fanart of them. I also recognize that most of this fanart looks like it could be modeled off of poses from the portraits of Buttigieg and his husband that Bobo drags to fuck and gone for its heteroconformity and polished presumptuousness. A great deal of people trying to talk LGBT culture in this fandom are more LGBT people who still live inside of het culture. And yes, you can still even be gay married while wedged in het culture.

Bobo is a counterculturist. This isn’t hard to fucking see. From his feed, to his episodes, to his articles talking about the Big Gay Window-Smashing Pre-Antifa Liberal Riots he used to partake in, and really still does if recent candids of him being spotted in ICE blockade walls is any indicator – this man wants nothing of it. Not your conservatism (even if he recognizes that in a conservative culture you have to be willing to take steps in conservative queer content to gain more liberal doses of platform [Review of “The Attack Queers” By Bobo Berens 2003]), not your heteronormativity, not your polished garbage. He. Wants. None. Of. Your. Crap. Like Open Borders Bernie Or Bust Berens.

And you know what?

HE. IS. THE. DEMOGRAPHIC. BEING. REPRESENTED.

HE. IS. WRITING. HIS. OWN. DEMOGRAPHIC.

LOUDLY.

And quite frankly, has DECADES of TRACEABLE, TANGIBLE, FEET ON THE GROUND ACTIVISM that makes all the queerbait or subtext screaming in this fandom look like a wailing daycare.

He’s written so many goddamn circles around this fandom some of y’all will be figuring out some shit in ten years, like the Dreamhunter Paradox. Congrats, a lot of y’all don’t even realize you’ve shown your asses at holding MLM to different demands than (rival-less) WLW. So either you’re biased (consciously or subconsciously) against MLM content, or you’re literally judging the content based on argumentation value with morons/finding any excuse because it’s not YOUR pairing. There is no in between. Oh wait yeah there is, “abusing socially conscious dialogues to sound respectable rather than entitled because it IS your ship and you’re pushing for more and more content past existing validity, and you don’t want to sound like you’re just complaining so saying ‘representation’ sounds right, though that still hovers close to argumentation option #2”. Next?

Now beyond my big gay rage, to address the other stuff–

*Along* the lines of ship-war fandom, which is really what most of this boils down to (eg, “it’s not valid until I can win every argument without any question from any intentionally daft idiot ever, which basically, never”) – people get so hyperfixated on singular nuances in the story, eg, Destiel as a phenomenon, that in laser focusing on it not only do they miss the overall sum of philosophy in the show, but ironically even parts of those hyperfixations themselves because they end up so tunnel visioned on a given path (IDK, did someone obsess over a random line from 3-5 years ago and decide the angel oath [that one off line used to explain why nephilim aren’t everywhere in case anyone’s confused wtf I’m even talking about] needs addressed before it counts, or that they need to address the heart tie’s mechanics before anything after it ever counts ever, or are they chasing a pipe for an Empty storyline that’s not gonna pay out in the direction they want, or–) – during this, this bizarre self-created prison the fandom has made, only to explore their own cages defining their existence and experience manufactured by themselves – they miss SO MUCH they would even be after.

Anyone I can pry a few bars from the jail cell of to let them slip out and see the world clearly and positively again, I’m happy to help.

#supernatural #bobo berens #lgbtqia

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atamascolily · 4 years

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Lily liveblogs: “Resistance Reborn,” part four

When we last left off, Finn and Poe and friends were about to go to a birthday party for one of Maz's smugger friends who has the list macguffin they're after. Please note they're not actually crashing this party for once - Maz got them actual invitations, lol.

Meanwhile, Bratt the Brat comes back to the office and beats Yama to a pulp, only to be taken aback when his superiors commend her for her loyalty in reporting Monti's theft. But he's offered a chance to prove his loyalty if he can fix the mess, even though he's still in denial about Yama and Monti's true allegiances because he’s a sexist asshole.

The party is awesome - ocean and fish and rich people and smugglers, with the First Order providing security (??). Poe and Finn eat a bunch of sea-themed canapes and banter. It's delightful and I want entire fics of this instead of, like, three pages. They had to bring presents, and one of the other members of Poe's team got the gifts, so it's a surprise to him too when the birthday girl opens it, but it's a dwarf lylek, a spiky hermit-crab/praying mantis creature that stays small "as long as you don't feed it flesh".

The guest of honor is delighted because--who would have guessed?--she used to be an entomologist! I love her, and I'm kinda sad she's a throwaway character, because she's a member of the Collective, the Corellian techie version of antifa, which sounds wayyyy more interesting than the actual book.

(I was also hoping that the lylek would start devouring canapes when the First Order inevitably breaks up the party and the shooting starts, only for the lylek to get HUGE and start going after stormtroopers... but alas, no, that doesn't happen either. DON'T TEASE ME LIKE THAT, OKAY??)

There's an auction to get the list macguffin as a fundraiser for the Collective and Poe is trying to figure out what the trick is because they're rapidly running out of cash. CorSec breaks up the party in the name of the First Order, which is weird because I thought the FO was providing security, but whatever.

Wedge, Norra, Snap, and Tasa Nasz, the ex-Imperial badass, go to the shipyards to steal ships for the Resistance. There's a Baleen-class freighter, and I love it. They run into Yama Dee, badly injured from Bratt's beating, and we learn that Yama is 15, so Bratt isn't just an abusive asshole, he's a child abuser, ughhh. Our heroes are rightly incensed and vow to help Yama, who is uniquely positioned to give them what they need.

Leia and Rey are sitting around on Ryloth, when... Rey has a bad feeling seconds before the First Order starts taking over (for totally unrelated reasons) and the Resistance forces have to GTFO.

Back at the party, the birthday girl is devastated because her husband was shot in front of her, so she agrees to give Poe the list macguffin for revenge (it's hidden in her jewelry in the form of a snake, which is a nice touch). They jump into a pool to escape the FO, and Finn hauls them out. Poe is afraid she's lost the necklace, but it turns out to come when called, which everyone agrees is awesome.

Bratt attacks the FO officer accusing him of treason and runs back to his office to track down information about Monti the Traitor--only to find Wedge and company with Yama and the escaped prisoners (including Leia's old political friend). Yama confronts Bratt, who denies everything, and Yama is appalled when she realizes she's parrotting his exact same arguments, that she is becoming the same as her abuser.

They fight, only to be interrupted by Teza, who is unsympathetic when she learns Bratt is the one who beat Yama in the first place. She tells Bratt he has a choice: either let Yama continue the beatdown, or she shoots him. Bratt is aghast at the idea of letting Yama beat him, so Teza shoots him and he bleeds out on the floor in astonishment while everyone else walks out. Leia's senatorial friend tries to offer him a hand up, but Bratt bats it away and dies alone and confused.

(Please note that the main reason the ex-Imperial comes along seems to be so she can be the agent of divine justice without our "good" heroes having to get their hands dirty. For all that ST fans like to talk about "edginess" and "grey Jedi" and "moral complexity" in TLJ, this is still Star Wars and our heroes don't shoot (usually) shoot people at point-blank range and leave them to die even when they're assholes.)

Wedge and company meet up with Poe and company, who have lost their own ship, so they steal a FO shuttle and escape with the prisoners and the full list. Since Ryloth is no longer safe, Poe makes a deal with the Collective for a safe haven in exchange for the rest of their credits.

Leia and her old friend have a tearful reunion. Poe makes an inspiring speech about scattering to the winds to become the spark that will burn the FO down. I don't know how much sense that makes in terms of strategy and tactics, but everybody is impressed. Poe has overcome all his angst about Crait and is happy to be--in charge? Second in command? I have no idea how the chain of command even works right now.

Wedge and Norra leave to do their own stuff; Snap wants to go with them, but Poe won't let him. Finn says he's coming with Poe, and that's Rey's cue to show up.

"Where are we going?" Both men turned to find Rey, looking expectant.

Finn grinned. "I didn't want to ask."

Rey grinned back. "You didn't have to."

The two friends laughed, leaning in to touch shoulders in acknowledgment. Rey looked at Poe, eyes narrowed as if unsure. "You don't mind?"

Poe pressed a hand to his heart, giving Rey a small bow. "I'm honored."

She flushed, pleased as he'd hoped she would be.

This is great, and I love it, but this doesn't have as much emotional resonance as it could have because THIS IS LITERALLY THE SECOND TIME IN THIS BOOK THAT ALL THREE OF THEM HAVE BEEN IN THE SAME ROOM WITH EACH OTHER AND REY AND POE HAVE SPOKEN TO EACH OTHER and so it feels like... it wasn't really earned??

Leia is smiling at the three of them in satisfaction because "the Resistance is in good hands" and "she's got us".

Poe slung an arm around Finn's shoulders and pulled Rey in close on the opposite side.

"That's right, Poe said. She's got us.

"Now let's go and save the galaxy."

Again, this is all A++ good, but I don't feel like any of this has been earned. At all. Like, does Poe know anything about why Leia believes in Rey, what Rey can do? They're just all friends now because of Finn even though Poe and Rey barely know each other?? Is he this affectionate with everyone?? I don't mind this closeness, but... it would have been nice to have more of this earlier so it doesn't feel so out of the blue and forced.

Also, what did this book accomplish? So the Resistance has some ships now. It has a few more fighters, they freed a bunch of influential prisoners from the New Republic that the First Order had taken into custody, and they have a list of current and future targets to warn. And they're not dead yet, so that's good.

But Leia and Rey barely got to do anything in this book, Rose is barely there at all, and Finn is only tangentially involved at the end. Most of the plot features Poe, Wedge, and occasionally other characters like Bratt, Snap, and Dross Squadron.

So despite the marketing, which makes it sound like this is an All-Resistance Adventure featuring our main trio, I would say Poe is the protagonist, because he's the only one with a character arc: moving from depressed and angsty over the failed mutiny at Crait to letting go of his failures and moving on to be a leader. There's also a smaller arc with Wedge moving from retired warrior and active farmer back to warrior again, but it's much less nuanced.

Outside of that, though, the book feels like it's tugging in too many direction and not going anywhere near the ones I find most interesting. There are lots of characters I'm expected to care about who are not in the films, and little in the narrative itself makes me want to. (The only reason I know about Leia's friend, for instance, is because I read a summary of Bloodline on Wookieepeedia.) It feels like Disney made a very deliberate decision to make all the plotlines 100% more convoluted and confusing than they needed to be, just so you'd read/buy all the supplementary material, and that is a... choice, I guess. But it makes me grumpy.

Honestly, if I wasn't writing a ST fix-it fic, I wouldn't have bothered with this. I found Resistance Reborn to be adequate, but mostly unexceptional, and occasionally frustrating. The few really delightful bits are when major movie characters are together in the same room, but that is weirdly and woefully rare, and I honestly do not understand what the story group/Disney was thinking here in not making those the meat of the book.

Question: who is Disney's target audience for this book? I'm honestly not sure, and I'm not sure they know, either, and I think this book demonstrates that. Which is... really weird for a billion-dollar corporation intent on milking every last cent out of the franchise, that's all. I don't get it.

TL;DR:

The Good:

Stormpilot feels (brotp or otp depending on your preferred ship)

the Collective (Corellian techie antifa)

Poe’s fabulous hair

fancy dress party heist

Wedge’s garden and space chickens

barely any mention of Kylo Ren whatsoever

The Meh:

loads and loads of characters that are not in the movies and therefore hard to keep track of or care

macguffin plot macguffin

cooler plot threads and story ideas are teased and never followed up on (in this book, at least)

The WTF:

movie characters barely interact with each other

assuming they have a role at all

does any of this matter?

feels like filler

#star wars #WHY DISNEY WHY #tlj fix-it #lily liveblogs #resistance reborn

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scumbagmordremoth · 6 years

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“Problematic” characters

Everyone once in awhile I see a bunch of other ppl arguing about a subject and i have opinions but not necessarily anything to add to that particular conversation, Something tangentially related as it were.

I don’t know what drama is happening int he community right now, if any, but I’ve seen a lot of posts about how “my character does this but it doesn’t mean I condone it” which ties into a lot of...less than ideal bandwagons that Tumblr likes to jump on.

Under a cut bc I like to be verbose.

People on this website have a hard time distinguishing harmless material from that which is actually hurtful.

People will interact with the things you produce in whatever way they choose. You can very clearly write something that is meant to condemn something and someone will read it as condoning it and ultimately there is really nothing you can do about that. When you release media into the wild you no longer have complete control over that media. People will co-opt your words and images to support their own agenda.

So in interacting with any controversial subject in any way at all whatsoever there is always the risk that you can further the normalization of that thing or have your words twisted. This is definitely something you need to remind yourself of if you are writing for a commercial audience and even just posting things online.

However.

Books, stories and art are about the human condition and I think that stories about controversial subject matter are very important and need to be told.

Just because some mouth breather altered a poster about domestic abuse to say some fake shit about antifa doesn’t mean we stop making informative posters about domestic abuse.

Admittedly I don’t like reading about rape fantasies, but as long as they are advertised as fantasies it’s really up to the reader to understand that rape is bad while interacting with them. My personal disgust with RPers who are always ERPing non con is more from a sense of personal aesthetic than real cultural impact bc no one with a rape fantasy actually WANTS to be raped or thinks that’s okay. It’s a fantasy. Fujoshis on the other hand are pretty gross bc they often cause actual problems for LGBTQ ppl by believing they are awesome allies when they are in fact, usually not. (Note that in that case the yaoi itself still isn’t necessarily the issue so much as how people are interacting with it.)

Tumblr really needs to learn the difference between “I don’t like this bc it’s squicky” and “this is actually part of a real cultural narrative that causes problems for people in everyday life.”

And for the record you’re absolutely free to avoid ppl who like shit you find personally reprehensible but you are not free to say Bob who RPs a child molester is a real child molester. You judge his taste in stories and let him be. (exceptions can be made for loli/shotacons who are obviously also pedophiles. You can usually recognize them for what they are pretty quickly and steer your local minors the fuck away from them.)

I am just firmly of the opinion that you should label what you’re doing and own it if you’re going too.

They guy who I RPed NMC torture stuff with once back in 2013 who kept trying to turn it into sexy torture ERP and then got all offended when I said his character raped mine really has no space to be upset about that bc it was an obvious rape fantasy. (that I honestly didn’t even want to be part of and kept trying to steer him away from.)

The multitudes of young women I’ve seen RP Yaoi shit and get all offended when actual gay men are p grossed out by it and don’t want to ship w/ them.

The ppl who RPed a rape scenario and then shipped the characters together like it was cute and true love and then got offended when ppl told them they didn’t wanna hear about it bc they thought it was disturbing. These are the kind of people I worry about.

Bc these are people who are not fully engaging with what they are doing. These are the people who are less likely to be able to fully separate their fantasies from reality. These are the people who are only half understanding the issues that they’re writing about and perpetuating stereotypes that harm others.

But someone writing a tragedy that features some “gross shit” with a fully fleshed out bad guy who’s not entirely evil but just bad enough in the full knowledge that what their character is doing is sometimes truly irredeemable horror? I’m gonna let them do them and do my hero thing over here.

#tw:rape mention #tw: CSA mention

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