Dooku Is Haunted By A Past He Cannot Go Back To.

I fully understand that the preponderance of evidence is that George Lucas put absolutely zero thought into what Naboo’s culture was actually supposed to look like outside of what we see on screen, but as far as unintentionally effective worldbuilding goes, establishing that Naboo a. has a tradition of electing literal children as figurehead rulers of its planetary government, and b. apparently also has a tradition of assassinating these children with sufficient frequency that dressing up a bunch of other children as decoy targets has become standard operating procedure by the time of Padmé Amidala’s reign suggests that maybe the fact that this random backwater is a breeding ground for Sith Lords isn’t as unlikely as it initially appears.

Actually no, how dare Arcane force Vi to be the survivor

She’s been the protector all her life, the one her siblings looked up to, the one Vander looked to in order to keep the kids safe. Then she loses everyone in a single moment, spending the next almost decade ruminating in that guilt. Then she gets Powder back, until she realizes Powder doesn’t exist anymore. She gets Caitlyn, but loses her too.

She seemingly gets part of her family back with Jinx and Warwick/Vander and Isha, only to lose them all too.

And she was supposed to protect them. I can’t see her viewing herself as anything but a failure after having lived with that pressure and guilt for so long.

Every friend group should include:

a bimbo

a mean bisexual

an even meaner lesbian

she/theys

and he/theys

a token straight who’s on thin ice

an astrology bitch who has everyone’s birth chart memorized

and a short king

Piltover Edition

you, you get me

yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.

Jason and Bruce are out late one night in Gotham as civilians. They get cornered by a mugger and Jason nearly pisses himself, he’s so amused. He teases the would-be mugger about their hand placement, even tries to goad the mugger into a fight because he’s Red Hood. He can disarm anyone in seconds. It doesn’t matter if you have a gun — he has two.

He’s Red Hood, and he has the literal Bat of Gotham standing behind him like a wall of muscle. They’re as close to invincible as humans get, in this town. And that kind of confidence scares off their would-be mugger.

But then Jason turns around, a smile stretching across his face, and Bruce is white. Bone white and so so quiet, eyes wide and trained on where the mugger had been standing.

"born in the wrong era" but there's no particular time period i'd rather be living in, I'm just pissed af at having to live through the global resurgence of fascism

as much as i LOVE the storyboards and concept art of jayce having facial hexcorisation scars, i think the removal of it was justified from a narrative standpoint and even serves to make jayvik's ending all the more romantic

jayce falling into the ravine and being stuck there was all about stripping him of all his pride, ego, and possessions and humbling him so he can finally be selfish and do things for himself for once. he's beaten down to his very foundations and forced to reconsider what he truly values in his life and what's worth fighting for.

the facial hexcorisation scars would have added another layer of being forced to unlearn the instinct of caring about his outward appearance after being burdened by the duty of maintaining himself as the face of piltover, and would also mirror viktor's being loved despite his changing outward appearances that i love love love

however, i believe higher stakes were introduced with the removal of these scars. during the "you must go, jayce" scene, the audience is still put in a position to expect jayce could leave the rest up to viktor in favour of returning to a life in piltover and into the high position he already previously held. he'd be comfortable, he'd be celebrated, he'd be loved which was one of the aims and responsibilities of s1 mr. jayce people pleaser talis.

the implementation of the scars would have cemented the idea of "no going back" too clearly and would have made it possible to view "we finish this together" as a last resort choice, since it would have been more obvious that jayce is meant to have a doomed ending.

the truth is, jayce chooses to go with viktor in the end because it's viktor. it's literally canon. "all i want is my partner back."

it's not because there was no other choice, but rather despite the other options available to him that jayce ultimately sacrificed whatever good and comfortable life could have been waiting for him because what would it all be worth if it meant he had to give up viktor in exchange?

in every single timeline and in every single possibility, viktor chooses jayce. this we know. but it's thanks to the hesitation and uncertainty held over the audience that makes the ending of "jayce too, chooses viktor every time" all the more impactful and satisfying

Isha really wanted to go to work with aunty Sevika today

tfw the autoimmune disease makes you too tired to sit up straight but the joint/rib pain makes it too painful to slouch

Do you think about me when I think about you?