What I Love Here Is That Everyone Is Excited To Go Back And Feel Casita Also, But Bruno Is The Only One

felicia telling irving the only time she ever saw burt scared was when he spent two hours fixing his hair before going to see him,,,,,, irving drawing burt over and over between the times he could see him,,,,,, felicia hugging irving the second she saw him, having lunch with him and telling him stories,,,,,,, irving's getting the "widow that's still loved by the family" treatment by o&d as he rightfully deserved

I have to say that the idea that Talon is manipulating Sigma by using the “melody” that he always hears doesn’t seem to hold weight in canon. The “the melody is a harness” whisper that people have claimed to have heard backwards in his short is actually another repetition of him saying “gravity is a harness” so that one piece of evidence isn’t correct — also, he asks “what that melody?” long before Talon ever had a hold of him. So it’s related to whatever happened to the black hole on the space station, not Talon’s manipulations.

The music he’s hearing is probably a reference to “the music of the spheres” —

Kepler wasted his entire life trying to prove this theory about the planets having a musical kind of harmony, and his attempts to map out this theory looked like Sigma’s hyperspheres.

So his weapon, that he uses rhythmically like a musical conductor is like... a reference to a life of research wasted on enormous metaphysical explanations of the universe that seem just out of reach of even the greatest minds, and the idea is that he somehow grasps these ungraspable connections by actually being able to hear this “music of the spheres”

Yeah, about that plate...

I think everybody has felt the punch of feels because of Bruno’s plate drawn on his little table, but there’s something that caught my attention since the first time I watched the movie and I wanted to talk about it: where he drew that plate.

Bruno’s table is a direct extension of the family table, it’s in perfect alignment with the one his family uses every day. And he didn’t draw the plate beside that crack in the wall to actually see his family while he’s pretending to be sat with them. He didn’t draw it at the head of his table to face the wall either, which would be like sitting right behind Alma. He drew it on the right side.

Except Alma, who always occupies the head of the table (obviously), there’s no way to know if they always sit in the same order or not. We only see them eat two times: breakfast in the morning of the fateful day and dinner with the Guzmán for Isabela’s proposal, and both times the table has a different arrangement. But I think each Madrigal has indeed a specific seat assigned, and their usual order is this:

Antonio, Dolores, Isabela, Camilo and Agustín at Alma’s right, and Félix, Pepa, Mirabel, Luisa and Julieta at Alma’s left (let’s remember that in this moment abuela had moved Mirabel to her side, but she was originally sat between Pepa and Luisa).

During the dinner, there’re guests there occupying two extra seats and altering the order, but each movement can be easily tracked.

Mariano and his mother have to sit next to Alma, and Isa has to sit beside Mariano, so Pepa and Félix move to the opposite side of the table. Julieta, as the bride’s mother, sits in front of Mariano’s mother too. Luisa could’ve kept her seat, but Mirabel has to sit in front of Dolores to keep an eye (or both eyes) on her, and Agustín sits beside Mirabel for the same reason. But everything else is more or less the same. Camilo, Dolores and Antonio remain in their side of the table, as well as Mirabel; in fact, Camilo is occupying his seat, he hasn’t moved at all.

During the breakfast outside (and during dinner), they’re not using their plates, but we can see Mirabel setting the table with them at the beginning of the movie, right before the Family Madrigal song. And she’s arranging the plates in the same order. More important: in this moment, after the disastrous dinner, we can see the plates arranged in that same order again.

Those plates are there for no reason, the Guzmán just left, everything’s a chaos, it has no sense that the family has removed the dinner to set those plates and leave them there. This is just a narrative device, because Mirabel is peeking through the crack from Bruno’s hideout, she’s seeing what he sees, and she’s seeing a table in which every member of the family has a specific seat with their name.

And what’s Bruno’s seat?

At Alma’s right. He has always sat at his mother’s right, and he has kept doing it even from inside the walls, because that’s his seat (probably the one Antonio occupies now).

To be honest, it’s not just about Bruno’s plate. What I love the most about this thing is all those combos with the rest of the family: if that was Bruno’s seat, that would mean Dolores used to sit right beside his tío; Dolores and Isa always sit together; Antonio always sit beside his big sis; Pepa and Félix always sit side by side, and Julieta and Agustín always sit face to face; Mirabel always sit beside Luisa. Agustín was the one who took care of Camilo when they were eating, and Pepa was the one who took care of Mirabel. And I think every single one of these combinations, as a reflection of their family life, is just wonderful.

So Moira’s eyes have always been a very fun but seemingly random detail about her. But it turns out there might be a myth to explain it.

The whole myth is weird and long but basically- there was a fae lady named Pressyne who married the king of Scotland. She had a very specific rule about not being seen while bathing. At her daughter(s)’s birth, he breaks this. So, she runs back to the otherworld with her daughters. When her eldest daughter (Melusine) learns he did this, she goes back and kills him.

Her mother still held some love for him, so she curses her to become a mermaid like creature on Saturdays and that, if any man sees this, she will become a full serpent. She ends up falling for a king herself and she has kids with him, all odd in some way but healthy. With the eldest having one blue eye, and one red. But he breaks the rule (because of course he does) and she becomes a great serpent-like dragon. But she still loves her children, so she returns for them. Much like the banshee, she still comes to their ancestors to warn them of tragedies.

Which means that:

Moira has A LOT of references to ancestral spirits who warn of tragedies.

Also betrayal. Lots of backstabbing.

She has more mythological justification to summon a dragon then Genji or Hanzo combined.

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

Recap of the context for the “Box” episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc…) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here… Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even… 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape… this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task…

 … and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku… why…)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you and (desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - but no, they’re orange, the color closest to red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of TPM, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas…

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

Been thinking about Lumon/Kier’s obvious disdain for nature. The aggressive sterility of the severed floor. Dieter’s connection with nature being something to be shunned. His natural sexual urges something to be divinely punished, the punishment being a violent reclamation by nature of his body.

Gemma’s “life” being unnaturally extended into Ms Casey. Gemma always being pictured surrounded by nature, Ms Casey’s office being a thin facsimile of it. She tells Irving that he’s a talented lover, she stops him from sighing in pleasure.

Irving admits that their status as people without histories is “unnatural”. He worships a man made god, and when he finds something organic to love in Burt, they make a secret space for each other surrounded by greenery. It’s as close as they can get to feeling normal.

Persephone the goddess of spring, kidnapped to the underworld. Demeter protests, throwing the earth into an eternal winter, awaiting her return.

Irving saw the outside world blanketed in snow one day. He tries to get Burt back. He wakes up almost half a year later, he’s told. He goes outside again and it’s still snowing.

I think that instead of giving Remus movie-fanon facial scars from his werewolf attack, JK should’ve given them to Snape in the books.

Imagine how much more interesting Snape would have been if he had four jagged claw marks across his face. It would also give a much greater gravity to Snape’s attack during the Marauders’ “prank.”

The first year feast goes like this:

“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Quirrel? The one with the scars?”

Percy leans in—“Oh, you know Quirrel already, do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s Professor Snape. Nobody knows for sure about his scars, but rumor says he had a werewolf sicced on him once and killed it with his bare hands. Then again, he’s so mean he likely sneered at it and the poor thing keeled right over.”

It’s not until Lupin’s term as DADA Professor that Harry realizes why Snape hates him so much: then again, the reason is quite literally etched across his face.

When Snape changes their lesson plans to study werewolves nobody argues, because they see what happened to a teacher and they know better than to argue with someone who has such obvious firsthand experience with them.

Every time Harry gets recognized for his telltale scar he thinks of Snape, and how much worse he has it.

halloween island

Though I prefer Barry and Ross’s voices for the skelebros. - this moment was just too perfect not to animate!!

it’s very wild to me that people can earnestly and sincerely say shit like “well snape fought back, so was it really bullying?” and not just like… hear how utterly gross they sound tbh. like do i have to use the “think about if this was an actual, real kid” argument to get people see that fighting back doesn’t erase victimhood or magically turn bullying into rivalry or friendly roughhousing?

idk. i feel like people say that shit really never experienced bullying in their whole damn life. bc how could they truly think that fighting back against bullies, shoving back, throwing back insults and punches, is anywhere near making things “equal”? defending yourself is not nearly the same thing as starting a fight for fun. protecting yourself is not the same as hurting someone else. like do they just like… forget how to use empathy and critical reasoning skills when it comes to snape or are they just really that clueless??