34. Huge dork. Bi/Abro. Fluidflux. They/it/ze. Star Wars is my thing. I have a soft spot for Skywalkers. I also like: MCU, Disney, & Doctor Who. Sideblogs: actually-enby, the-sideblog-of-blorbos
Reblogging again cause I tried this site last night and if you need background noise to focus this is perfect for that, I was locked the fuck in on a task. And it’s also just gorgeous to listen to
Elizabeth Keen (The Blacklist) vs. Padme Amidala (Star Wars)
Elizabeth Keen
Padme Amidala
Remaining time: 1 day 22 hours
Propaganda below the cut:
Padme Amidala:
Her agency keeps getting taken away so that she is either a perfect angel who never did anything wrong ever and probably got mind-controlled into making bad choices, or she's an abusive racist groomer, and there's zero in-between. And that's if people acknowledge her in any real way or not, especially since canon likes to ignore her as much as possible.
Padme is such a compelling and relatable character, she wants so badly to help people and is GOOD at helping people, but she's basically a gifted kid who got caught up in the system and now has no idea how to ask for what she wants in a healthy way and is such a people pleaser that she has no idea how to say no when anyone asks her for anything. But she's also so desperate for something of her own that she starts an incredibly toxic secret relationship with a guy she knows is bad news and then is shocked when it goes badly. She covers for him more than once when he murders people because she wants to badly to believe in the fantasy that her love can fix him. She's not a GREAT person, but she's struggling through so many of the same things a lot of girls and women struggle with these days, and I wish she was allowed to actually have that nuance acknowledged even once.
Elizabeth Keen:
Elizabeth Keen starts the show as an audience insert, being new to both the FBI - the show starts on her first day as a criminal profiler - and to the broader criminal underbelly of the show's setting. Her life is immediately turned upside down by the character of Raymond Reddington, #4 on the FBI's Most Wanted List, turning himself in and only co-operating with the government if he can work specifically with her - during which he begins to assign her cases that explicitly affect her relationship with her husband-to-be. His presence leads to her being put in an ever-escalating sense of mortal danger, to the point where she ends up being confined to a safehouse guarded by his men at all times - and while he's keeping her safe against mortal danger, the free life she had before he came waltzing into it is ostensibly gone, and this - somewhat understandably - breeds resentment over time. And as a conspiracy thriller show, there are dark, murky revelations over who Raymond Reddington is, what he's done and what the connection is between himself and Elizabeth - and despite turning her life upside down and asking for her to open her life up to him, Reddington actively keeps Elizabeth in the dark about himself. They have an unequal relationship; Liz gives everything up and Reddington keeps everything to himself, and it's that dynamic that causes the friction that defines their relationship in the later seasons.
The way the fandom reacts to Liz being upset and put out of sorts by this behavior is to complain that she's being ungrateful for all the things Reddington has done for her - ignoring the restrictive way her life has been flushed down the toilet since Reddington came into her life -complain that she's not a more competent character, complain when she IS more competent because it doesn't feel "earned" compared to the other characters (who've been in the field longer than she has), and then - as her character begins to reach her breaking point with the trauma inflicted on her by Reddington's interference - complain that she's even in the show at all. I once deadass saw an IMDB review of an episode that was ranked like 5/10 with the body of the text saying "this episode would have been an 8/10 without Elizabeth Keen in it, but because she shows up at the end it's a 5/10". She literally only shows up for the last two minutes of the episode and she has maybe three lines of dialogue.
I'll admit that Elizabeth Keen isn't perfect. I'm more entertained by characters like Aram, a tech guy working on their team, or Ressler, who's a hard-nosed FBI dickhead who gets into all the dumbass meathead fights early in the series. But Elizabeth Keen serves an important role as the audience surrogate being sucked into this world of intrigue and nigh-supernatural evil happening just under the surface of regular society.
And her life is 100% turned upside down by the arrival of Raymond Reddington, and as early as the first season there are times where he'll give her a case to pursue that fucks with her worldview as a form of manipulation. At one point Liz is about to adopt a baby, so Reddington gives her a case about human trafficking. So when she increasingly loses her own freedom over time, and she's strong armed by Reddington into sharing her personal information with him while he won't answer any meaningful questions of hers, and people in her life start dying thanks to this awful web of conspiracy and criminality he's dragged her into - it's understandable that she would be upset by all this! It makes sense that the relationship between herself and Reddington would become strained!
And I think the show does a decent enough idea of conveying this idea of like - this rapidly deteriorating relationship between them stems from a fundamental lack of trust and a double standard between them, and if Reddington could stop with the platitudes about how knowing more about him would just put her in more danger and just open up, the depths of their falling out wouldn't be reaching the point that they do! But the way the fanbase interprets Liz's growing frustration is that she's just an Ungrateful Brat who has to do everything Reddington tells her to do, because he's Keeping Her Alive and she would have died years ago without him - nevermind the materially worse condition her life is left in after Reddington inserts himself into it.
The character is imperfect, because she's a compromise that happens often in primetime television. She's the audience viewpoint being drawn into a world of danger and moral greyness. The other characters are more experienced than her, and Reddington is a VERY engaging character in the show. I really like Reddington in the show.
But the way people talk about Elizabeth Keen in the fandom is repulsive and misogynistic, and there's a fundamental lack of understanding for her dilemma in the fanbase, despite - with no spoilers - Reddington's influence ostensibly taking everything from her. Her new job becomes a nightmare world she can't escape from. She has to live in a safehouse controlled by Reddington, so she has no freedom. She gets drawn into multiple conspiracies which has her falsely labelled as a criminal and she has to Clear Her Name. Her life gets materially worse for eight years, and fans have the audacity to call her spoiled or boil her discontent down to her throwing a tantrum - and the discontent gets so bad that you get reviews like that 5/10 where she appears at the END OF A 45 MINUTE EPISODE, WITH LIKE THREE LINES, and someone performatively docks three points from their score because they're so ass blasted about Elizabeth Keen.
I think her character deserves a lot more understanding than she gets, and even if the show gets clunkier as time goes on and it's not the most well-conveyed thing in the world, she deserves more than the misogynistic, paternalistic condescension that the fans of the show level against her. Like at worst she's a 6/10 character in a cast of 7/10 - 9/10 characters, but even then she's a core part of the show's narrative and it's genuinely repulsive how she's treated by the fanbase.
Mara's wedding dress in Star Wars: Union is one of the biggest letdowns in Star Wars history and I will die on this hill
Look at this. What in the generic 90s dress catalog is this. This is a CRIME. Mara "I am a fashion icon like my mother-in-law before me" Jade would never choose something so boring and also she looks like a Carvel ice cream cake?????
Like COME ON she canonically has better fashion sense than this 😭
In the interest of correcting this grievous error, here are some more fitting dress designs that would not have her looking like a Carvel ice cream cake (this is an open invitation to fan artists I'm just saying)
Imagine Anakin absolutely losing his mind as it’s explained to him that his marriage is literally illegal because of article whatever subsection b and it’s because 400 years ago there was an entrapment scheme and that’s why Padme is being sued by the republic
Padme dragged before the courts bc you had to know this was illegal there’s literally no way you didn’t know this was illegal. Naboo under a microscope bc the former queen/current senator married a jedi – and not even a real knight jedi at the time, a baby jedi!! – and is naboo trying to entrap the jedi order??? sources say: MAYBE!
Anakin, losing his mind and opening his mouth to cause more problems, says something – on live broadcast, beamed to every corner of the galaxy –about his good buddy the chancellor knowing and saying it was totally fine🤬🤬🥺🥺🥺.
“Oh, so it’s definitely an attempt by naboo to entrap the jedi order and/or claim ownership of them and/or do any of the other things we have that law to prevent huh” says literally everyone in the galaxy, “chancellor palpatine 💯 wants to Rule The Galaxy Forever and is going to extort the Jedi to do it”
which. yes, but also, no.
something something, investigations into everything naboo has ever touched, something something, hey, chancellor, why the fuck do you have a red lightsaber in your desk actually??
I think part of getting better is complete ego death. Like you’re not above setting a timer for 5 minutes and focusing on a task. You’re not above doing a very simple 3 minute workout to start. You’re not above reading for 10 minutes a day when you first get out of your reading slump, even if you used to read for hours. You’re not above starting slow and then building up to where you want to be/where you once were. What you are above is total inertia. Doing something really is better than doing nothing. Radically accept where you are, radically accept your limits, and go from there. Don’t let your ego get in the way.
They also specifically contacted members of the leather community, used them as models iirc, and donated $100k to Outright International. They talked the talk and walked the walk and put their money on it too. I don't really care that I can't afford and don't want this merch, I love to see my community getting the respect it deserves. Levi's said, "We make jeans which gays wear lots of jeans? Oh leather daddies? Let's call them."
I think Levi's donates to Outreach International every year too, as well as sponsoring pride events and other community support. They were offering Same Sex domestic partner benefits to employees in the 90s, and have been very public about their support for pro-lgbt legislation all through the 2000s.
So, you know, a giant corporation that walks the walk pretty consistently.
To be clear, this isn't a bit. This is what they actually did. "Its too late" is the new "Climate change isn't real"... And its still a lie!
Every serious climate scientist agrees that there is no such as thing as too late, just as there is no such thing as too early. We should have done a lot more than we have to fight climate change, and the world will suffer for our inaction, but there is no point of no return. We can always work to reduce the amount of suffering that occurs, and eventually turn things around to the point where our planet is healing once again. Do not believe anyone who says it's "too late".
imagine your ex who you haven't seen in a decade (since he stole your car) shows up at your house. in the car. the one he stole from you. it looks like shit. your ex asks you to fix the broken car. then he tells you that the hot girl with him and his buddy (the one that helped him steal the car) is his new girlfriend. she is a member of the royal family and she looks capable of murdering you AND your ex with rage alone. you try to say hi. she does not say hi. no one admits it out loud, but you get the feeling that they're all running from the cops and they all want to hide out in YOUR house.
this is what happened to lando calrissian in the empire strikes back
I’m gonna propose something: if your combat/ass-kicking sequence can’t fit to a top 40 female-vocalist Banger like “Toxic” or “Mama Mia” or “I Need a Hero” you’re not Doing It Right.
I agree wholeheartedly with every point above but I watched this first with the sound off because I forgot that was an option and what struck me most is how efficient Luke's lightsaber style is. Almost every flourish he makes and all of what, 2 entire spins?, is defensive to better parry blaster fire while nearly every offensive swing he makes is basically a head or chest level kill shot. If I had to make a guess about his character I'd say this vintage twink has probably Seen Some Shit and maybe comes from a background where resources are scarce and help is far away so if you get in a fight you have to end it before it starts or you're dead meat
deeply want a time travel fic where Luke visits the old republic and the Jedi are like “that’s not a dueling style” and luke is like “yea am not doing much dueling tbh”
oopsie i tripped and spilled my link to archive dot org's downloadable copy of Microsoft office suite for 2007, which features no AI tools and is a powerful word processor that still holds up just fine on windows 10!
romaincrisis
stormborns
origamiaround
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
dededos
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
