As I get older, the entire moral arc of Return of the Jedi irks me more and more, even without getting to see Anakin's actual atrocities in the prequels or the fact that his act of defiance barely even mattered in the sequels.
I remember an Expanded Universe comic set immediately after RotJ where Leia tells Luke words to the effect of "Vader literally had me tortured and blew up my homeworld. What, am I supposed to feel kinship with him just because I discovered he's my dad yesterday?"
The important thing that happens in Return of the Jedi is that the Emperor dies and the planet-killing superweapon gets blown up. Vader spent the last two hours of his life doing something good after 25 years of genocide, mass murder and torture, and even then, it was partly out of vengeful hatred. Vader fucking hated Palpatine for a quarter century and never had the spine to do anything about it. It was only after his own son was being tortured to death in front of him that he chose to act - and he'd cut off the kid's hand like two years before that! That's not a fucking redemption arc.
Darth Vader the fucking child-killing planet-murderer gets to stand there with Yoda and Obi-Wan as a Force Ghost, give me a fucking break.
I have a whole other post I did about the original Star Wars trilogy that is relevant to this, but I'll try condense it:
So one, yes, absolutely it is entirely correct to take issue with Darth Vader's apparent forgiveness by the Force, there is no need for Leia to accept him as her father or to feel anything for him besides hate and contempt, redemption takes more than turning back for a couple of hours and then getting out of culpability by dying, all fair.
That said: the original trilogy is Luke Skywalker's story and the story of Luke Skywalker, on a meta level, is about being a young adult in the 60s and 70s who did not experience WWII or the depths of fascism personally, but who grew up with gaping familial wounds - family members who you never knew but who older people refer to or talk around, people they compare you to, figures who other children had in their lives but you didn't. Someone who as a child was given fantasies of heroes fighting daring battles, who was told it was all about nationhood and fighting for your people and the course of civilization, someone who internalized those principles as guiding lights for their own morality and who they want to be... and THEN finding out when you become an adult, and are permitted to know about the horrors, that it is not just honor and glory in your heritage, that you, 70s white boy, may have evil and darkness and the corruption of all your values as a potential to fall into just as your father did, the temptation to hate and cruelty and domination and atrocity. And the absences in your family are maybe not just because of death, of noble sacrifice, but perhaps instead because those people who shared your blood became monsters, severed from their family because of their terrible actions, and still live as awful hateful versions of themselves, enslaved to evil, and that could be you.
And what do you do with that? Will you strike your father down with all of your hatred, when the thing that corrupted him by his hate for its own ends is sitting there grinning and laughing, waiting to do the same to you? Is violence the answer against that creature, infinitely better at taking advantage from violence than you are? Or will you just die - and even just walking away here means death, sooner or later - and let the evil persist?
Or will you, privileged young person with ideals and hopes, with a family member who has done terrible unforgivable things but who still holds affection for you, make use of that affection to tempt them to just turn their back on that evil for a moment, the thing it will never expect from the person it made its slave for longer than you've been alive? Neither you nor he can pay back the crimes of those years, but perhaps you can stop the evil, here and now, from going on.
So you do that. And what is your reward? Is it appropriate for Luke, whose whole story has been about becoming the ideal he grew up admiring and defeating the evil that ideal had the potential to become, both halves of it embodied in the being of his father, to come back to his friends and then have the universe say to him 'your father was unredeemable, and had nothing good enough in him to deserve peace in death'? Or to say there was a darkness lifted from him, and a light restored?
The whole purpose of Darth Vader in the story of the original trilogy is to represent who Luke could be, and through Luke, the audience. He wasn't really supposed to have a character arc of his own, his redemption isn't for his own sake, the story isn't about him - or wasn't meant to be originally, in any case. How you depict the fate of Darth Vader is something that sends a very strong message, and there's a reason why it was chosen as the final message of the original movies, in the context of the world in which those movies were made and who they were intended to be speaking to. If you change that, you change the message. Which you can do! And you can take issue with the original message! But like, there was a message, that was chosen purposefully, and you have to lose the original message to add a new one.
This rebuttal is really good, but I actually think it also works as the culmination of Anakin/Vader’s arc… when you understand the message ISN’T “one good deed absolves years of atrocities”: It’s that it’s never too late to do the right thing, and be a better person.
It doesn’t mean people will forgive you - hell no. The things Vader did were unforgivable, and he knew that. But because of that, he believed the only path left was to keep committing atrocities, to wallow in self-hatred and anger for decades and take it out on the galaxy. He says it himself: “It’s too late for me, son”.
But what Luke shows Vader is that we ALWAYS have a choice: To be a better person, and to choose compassion. Anakin doesn’t kill the Emperor out of hatred, or even because he thinks it’ll make up for anything he did: He knows nothing ever will. He chooses to save Luke, and break the cycle of violence because it’s the right, kind thing to do.
Vader/Anakin isn’t fully redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi: He simply takes his first step back into the light. Obi-Wan and Yoda chose to give him that second chance, but that was their decision to make. The people you hurt are by NO means obligated to forgive you - but you should still strive to be better regardless.
And I think that’s the message of Anakin’s sacrifice: No matter what we’ve done, we always have a choice to break the cycle and be better, with no expectation of forgiveness.
Vader/Anakin spent twenty years trapped in a cult/high-control situation/relationship with a malignantly evil, manipulative man who has been heavily involved in his life since he was a teenager---complete with medical control, by the way---and locked up by his guilt over things he was guided to do thinking they were necessary or righteous at the time.
And at the end of his life he took the terrifying step of freeing himself from it in a desperate effort to prevent a loved one from suffering. Should he have done that before? Absolutely. Could he have? I doubt it.
Few people---thankfully---are given the necessity of enduring their own failures at such a magnitude. It is NOT always easy to be good, and sometimes someone puts real effort into making it seemingly impossible. Humans often fail in that regard. Often.
But he saved the galaxy from the NEXT twenty years of the rule of the Sith, the absence of the Jedi, the overwhelm of the Empire, the destruction of more planets by the Death Star.
The fact he didn't save the galaxy from the FIRST twenty years of it doesn't erase that.
Leia doesn't have to forgive him, or see him as her father. But the message of Star Wars is, as stated above, that you're never too late to do better. Even, or perhaps especially, if you think it can never be enough.
Hell, sometimes the previous failure is what puts you in place to be a current success at it. Just as Han Solo's departure from the battle of Yavin let him enter the battle completely unexpectedly and land the hit that saved Luke from Vader in the trench run, Vader's presence as the Emperor's second-in-command and Sith apprentice, his loyalty to the Empire unimpeachable, put him in a position to successfully kill the Emperor---and, being the other Sith himself, to end their reign.
Sometimes your failures lead you where your successes wouldn't, and sometimes that's an important place to be.
"It really has to do with learning. Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can't be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he's caused. He doesn't right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying, 'I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I have grown to love - primarily the Emperor - and throw away my life, to save this person. And I'm doing this because he has faith in me, loves me despite all the horrible things I've done. I broke his mother's heart, but he still cares about me, and I can't let that die.'
Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the Chosen One, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."
George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221
Okay but imagine being the team of Eridian scientists tasked with keeping Erid's Only Human alive for as long as possible while the whole planet's environment is literally trying to kill him. And then Rocky shows up and is like:
“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”
“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”
Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”
“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”
“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”
To celebrate Erid getting their sun back on track, Grace asks for some alcohol. There's a small amount left from the Hail Mary and Rocky offers to take it to the science Eridians to see if they can synthesise more.
“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”
“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”
“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”
Hey Tumblr friends! @alliumms and I are excited to bring you translations of a series of five short stories written by MXTX during her student days. These early stories are equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking, and contain many incipient themes that can later be found in her novels.
So far we have translated two stories: "A Three-Day Chronicle" (translated by @alliumms) and "The Seer" (translated by me). We have posted the stories on AO3 and will be updating our translation of the other three stories in the near future.
Below is the link to the stories, hope you guys enjoy!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I think that Xena, for all of its ridiculousness and cheesiness, did a better job of conveying the allure of evil than just about any other series I've ever seen. Like it understands that violence, no matter how justifiably it starts out, is addictive, and that hatred poisons you until you can't feel real joy anymore, and it's strange to me that I've never seen it laid out so simply elsewhere.
...so THAT'S what sleeper cell activation feels like. Because yes, YES, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS, because Xena is such an interesting lightning-in-a-bottle-case study! While I would never discount the work done by the writers, Xena as a show is almost perfectly positioned both historically and structurally to consistently explore that theme.
The first puzzle piece is that Xena was a syndicated show at the tail end of syndication's total dominance of a distribution model. For those too young to remember a time when ongoing plots and prestige dramas weren't the norm, syndication is big part of why older television shows almost entirely kept plots contained to one or two episodes rather than having them span seasons. See, when a show is syndicated, it is licensed out to individual television stations/affiliates to be aired as reruns. The individual station chooses when to air them and in what order, and whether to just skip episodes they don't like in favor of the ones most likely to draw eyeballs, etc etc. The more a show is licensed, the more money you make on it, so there is an incentive to make each episode standalone to make them appealing to each station by enabling them to toss on whatever episodes they like without it being a problem for the casual viewer. Also, before streaming, easy access to dvds and episode recording, and the like, a show could not assume that even its fans would have necessarily have seen every episode. "Catching up" was not an easy thing, and reserved for the most dedicated, doing shit like physically mailing bootleg tapes! Therefore, shows needed to have a consistent formula that didn't lock out the person who couldn't watch last week for whatever reason. Characters remained within more of a status quo. Xena is a "monster of the week" style show, like X-Files. I mention X-Files intentionally, because it was one of the first to really break that no-ongoing-plots structure, and that shift affected its contemporaries, like Xena, who also started to follow suit.
That alone doesn't account for Xena being so primed to explore those themes, of course. Even staying within the same fictional universe, Hercules (which Xena is a spin-off of) and Young Hercules don't even come close to Xena's complexity on the subject. But that's because Xena's premise is perfectly positioned to interact with those practical constraints for this outcome in a way those shows aren't. The status quo that syndication demands remain mostly in intact is that 1) Xena was evil and really good at it, 2) she is trying to do good in the world now as penance but can never undo what she has done. Every episode is about Xena trying to save people while dealing with the consequences of her actions as a warlord. The fact that she was evil cannot be changed or diluted nor can the fact that she must continue trying to redeem herself, otherwise the show is over or is unrecognizable to the casual viewer. But this is also an action show, sometimes cartoonishly so, so she must also be fighting consistently! The core spectacle is violence and the core story is why violence is often evil. There is an inherent tension there that the writers either needed to interrogate earnestly or ignore, and they chose the honest, interesting route. They gave Xena a costar who is innocent and principled but loves Xena, and had her always asking why and trying to understand how Xena could be that person, while being put under similar pressures herself. They had Xena continue to use the tools she has, including violence, for good ends, and wrestled with the answers as to why that was ok, why the violence she did then and the violence she did now were different—and sometimes decided they weren't. They showed Xena struggling with falling back into those old habits because they are seductive and easy.
If someone asked "are there so many episodes of Xena where you find out someone tried to get her to change her ways many years ago and failed because that is a really great standalone premise, or because violence as a tool and power and vengeance as motivators are corruptive and hard to stop using once you start," the answer is yes. The show is cyclical because violence is. But also because it is syndicated.
I WAS FUCKING WONDERING WHAT THOSE DIGITAL PRICE TAGS WERE ABOUT SUDDENLY i had hoped they were so the workers didn't have to finagle those little papers into the slider part anymore 😭
Hi, yes, that is the OFFICIAL excuse made to me by the guy replacing the paper tags with digital ones at my local Walmart, but the end goal is to remove the numbers off the shelf entirely, replacing them with QR codes that you have to scan with the app…. Which requires your login information….. and also stores your card information so even if you didn’t use your Walmart account at the physical checkout, if you used a card they recognize, they assign that purchase to your Walmart account purchase history.
I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.
Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:
Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.
No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.
So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:
Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:
Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.
Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.
POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.
When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)
If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.
In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.
Yes, call your reps. Yes, push for more legislation like this in more places. But also take an extra minute out of your shopping trip to MAKE IT HURT for companies to pull this shit.
I've seen some people in the notes express (very fair) concern that this is only going to inconvenience already under-paid laborers, and not have any impact on corporate. While I can't speak for every company or every store, I do work in a grocery store and I can tell you this is precisely the kind of thing that would have an impact, especially if people are doing it en masse. Stores absolutely track their shrink numbers, and they do draw distinctions between what gets stolen, damaged, or wasted for other reasons. If people are making it clear that the reason they're bringing things to the cashier is that the prices are not adequately represented on the displays, and rather than improving business it's wasting product, slowing down transactions, and causing confusion and mistrust in customers, that is a language that shareholders speak.
Transphobia is about to be signed into law in the UK. We can fight this.
I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.
Last year we broke the record for an LGBT+ mass lobby of Parliament. Will you help us break it again? Join us on 25th June 2026 to demand be
The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.
Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.
A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:
Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.
Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.
Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns
Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.
I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.
It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:
Worried about what to say?
Bring your personal worries about transphobia being signed into law, and trans friends being excluded from public spaces. You are a living person who deserves dignity. Remind your MP of that. You will also get guidance and brochures from Trans Solidarity Alliance that outlines our demands. This is mine from last year.
Money issues?
Trans Solidarity Alliance provides a travel bursary that you can sign up for via the link.
Got a refusal or no response from your MP?
Come anyway! You can request a same-day appointment with your MP through a process called greencarding. They will come and see you if they’re already in Parliament. Even if they don’t, they’re made acutely aware of your cause because you showed up in person. This is my greencard from last year.
Here is the EHRC Code of Practice in full. It's a tough read, but some highlights are:
Organisations can’t provide trans-inclusive, single-sex services, or they risk being sued for discrimination.
e.g. domestic violence support for women including trans women, men’s rugby group including trans men (12.68).
Trans people will have nowhere safe to pee.
If you’re a trans man, businesses can't allow you to pee in the men's, and you can also be ejected from women’s bathrooms if you’re perceived as a man. Vice versa for trans women. EHRC suggests a ‘third space’ bathroom, which is discriminatory and unworkable for most businesses. (13.130-133)
Sports organisations must exclude trans people from single-sex competitions (13.73).
A women’s only sports competition must exclude trans women because of their biological advantage or face potential lawsuits (13.74), but a trans man who has undergone testosterone treatment can also be excluded based on fairness rules (13.81).
Trans women are stripped of the legal definition of ‘lesbian’, and therefore no longer have legal protections if they’re discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. (2.50, 2.92).
Here is the Good Law Project's better explanation of the EHRC Code.
I have also made a PDF printout of QR codes for the government petition, email your MP tool, and mass lobby link to pass around your communities. DM me and I'll send it to you.
It's also important for us cis allies to show up and support our trans community members, so think about joining this if you're able no matter your gender identity.
I'm not going to be able to go, but I do have some experience with lobbying my various MPs over the years, so here's some quick advice off the top of my head:
If you're resident in the UK but not a citizen you still have the right to go to Parliament and be seen by your MP.
If you don't know who your MP is you can look it up by putting your postcode into the Find My MP page on Parliament's website (pro tip if you are a uni student, check your MP for both your family home and your uni, one may be a better option for lobbying than the other, you may even be able to Green Card both of them, but I don't know if that's possible, ask on the desk when you ask for the card).
And everyone needs to remember that while officially you're not required to show photo ID to get into Parliament the official guidance from the House of Commons is "you don't need photo ID to get in but we suggest you bring it anyway" (which is just unhelpful)
You will also be required to pass through airport style security which obviously may be a stressful experience for some of the people taking part in the mass lobby. That can take anywhere up to half an hour, the staff are usually pretty nice, but the entry into the security check is a sloped metal ramp with zero shade and nowhere to lean or sit so plan accordingly.
If your MP is not in the building to come and meet you they are required to respond to your Green Card as soon as possible via the contact details you put on your Green Card. While meeting them in person is the ideal you will get a response so it will be worth it even if your MP is unavailable.
Have a safe, productive lobby! Proud of all of you who can go and support the cause.
Yes! This is also a good point! MPs are traditionally expected to spend their Fridays in their constituency and to hold regular opportunities for you to meet with them to discuss issues. This is called a constituency surgery. If you are unable to make it to London you can look up when your MP is holding their next surgery and make an appointment to see them in your home town to discuss it there. Maybe even reach out to local pride groups in your area and do a local mass lobby of your MP in order to show them this is an issue that matters in your area too.
Original link: Author: Tang Jiu Qing / 唐酒卿 Genre: danmei, historical fiction, romance Content Warning: body mutilation, cannibalism, violenc
I'm not the most versed in t97's writing, so it may take me a few chapters to get used to it. Once again, I'm just doing this for fun; anyone else with more experience can feel free to start their own translations at any time!
To be clear. Shane's whole thing about Ilya being a Sex God is because of the limerence. Ilya is nineteen and he can get a rhythm going and that's about it. He was throwing shit at the wall when he hit that 'Get on your knees' in Nashville but only he knows that because Shane's brain turned OFF. Ilya said "Let's do a little experiment here" and the results were "Oh my god oh my god oh my god." Shane came hands free because he was that obsessed with the idea of Ilya Rozanov being inside him. Ilya said "Do you like that do you like that" because he's nineteen and he needs the validation and Shane was like "YES YES YES I LIKE IT OH MY GOD YOU'RE SO DEEP YOU'RE SO GOOD" and objectively. It was okay. Ilya fully did not know where to put his hands a couple of times. He forgot about Shane's dick. Luckily, Shane is God's special angel who can come from the idea of Ilya's cockhead being in proximity to his prostate a few times. Mind over matter, says Shane Hollander's dick. And then Ilya said "Oh God Hollander" because it was also, objectively, one of the hottest things that had ever happened to HIM, Ilya Rozanov. Shane sits on that step afterwards plotting about how he's gonna get this over and over and over again for the rest of his life and he has no idea that there are women in Boston who have Ilya listed in their contacts as "Hockey Guy 6/10". Shane Hollander cannot fathom a world in which Ilya Rozanov doesn't lay the maddest pipe this side of Lake Michigan. "Ilya Rozanov is a some kind of nineteen year old sex God" No Shane honey he was just designed in a lab to score goals and make you cum and he's done scoring goals for the night.
This is the episode that finally got me through the last of the I-chord bind-off on my blanket! Welcome to MST3Knitathon, where I am/was knitting my way through time-sensitive projects while watching the fan-voted top 100 episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from bottom to top, and we're finally in the top 10! Tonight, a safety tip: When confronted by a werewolf, it's important to immediately leave your car and run out into the open.
A list of the Top 100 Episodes of MST3K was compiled based on a survey taken of backers of the Bring Back MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 campa
8. Episode 904 Werewolf
Content Warning: film contains scenes of racism against Native American characters, half-assed appropriation of Navajo culture, and the casting of white actors as Native Americans
Summary: So there's a Hitchcock film where one of the big twists is that the protagonist switches half-way through the movie in order to shock even the genre-savvy audience by having the former main character die in the middle. The closet thing Werewolf has to a main character doesn't show up until a third of the way into the film, but it never establishes a faux-protagonist prior to that and doesn't develop any character's story in either part of the film, so this seems to have been an accident rather than a ground-breaking defiance of cinema conventions.
Joe Estevez is back as a "Native American" archaeological digger who uncovers a human-wolf hybrid skeleton that he and his compatriots identify as a skin-walker, but the white archaeologists in charge call a lycanthrope. One of the diggers turns into a werewolf after being cut by the skeleton during a fight with the most racist of the archaeologists, and despite theoretically being Navajo who interpret the skeleton as a skin-walker and not a werewolf, Joe Estevez and companion shoot him with a silver bullet and all three leave the movie. (Hey, guess which of the three "Navajo" diggers is played by the only actually Native American actor? Go ahead. Guess.) The racist and violent archaeologist has stolen the first werewolf's blood from the hospital in order to make more werewolves in a never fully explained quest for grant money, but in an unintentionally very funny sequence of events, the first guy he turns transforms while he's behind the wheel of a car and dies in the ensuing accident. Meanwhile, this random dude named Paul shows up, having inherited a house from his mother that he intends to use to write a book in. Hey, does this make him Paul the real estate novelist He falls in love with Natalie, the female archaeologist, at a random party and plans to help them get some grant money by writing - something? A publicity piece maybe? They don't actually say. But the violent one is so protective of the project that he bashes Paul with the werewolf skull the first time he visits the lab. Paul was clearly cast because someone behind the camera thought he was hot, and most of the rest of the film's run time is devoted to him writhing shirtless on his bed as he tries to control the urge to transform. Between fits of shirtless writhing, we learn that Paul's house comes with a "comedy-relief" doomsday-prepper groundskeeper and a real estate agent who wears bizarrely short miniskirts with her suits, and there's an unfunny scene of werewolf Paul attacking two teens in lovers' lane where the joke is that the girl sees the werewolf but her boyfriend believes that she's screaming because he's doing such a great job fingering her. Eventually, the violent archaeologist gets killed trying to capture and study Paul, and the final frame reveals that Natalie has contracted lycanthropy from Paul as a sexually transmitted disease.
MST3K lore or notable moments: The most significant is that despite the movie taking place in Arizona, most of the actors have notably European accents, and Natalie's actress in particular cannot pronounce the English word "werewolf" despite being in a werewolf movie. Mispronounced "werewolf" and the riff, "Paul, you is turning into a warwilf" are famous callbacks to this episode. Also notable are an escape attempt by Mike: after another trip through the wormhole, the Satellite is now in orbit around present-day Earth again and the Mads have settled in to Castle Forrester. Mike gets the nanites to built him a ladder long enough to reach the surface, but must retreat when the ladder lands him in Castle Forrester. Mid-episode, Mike cuts himself on Crow and becomes a Werecrow, including during the later theater segments.
And in my second-favorite bit from the episode, Mike and the bots become a fifties girl group to sing one of those bizarrely popular songs about teen lovers dying in tragic car accidents, "Where oh Werewolf:"
What do I think about its place on the list? I was genuinely surprised to see Time Chasers at number 10 - I hadn't known that that one was such a fan favorite episode. I was not at all surprised to see that Werewolf had made the top 10, and I understand completely why it's so beloved: the terrible acting, bizarrely meandering plot, Joe Estevez's presence, Natalie's highly imitable way of never pronouncing "werewolf" the same way twice, the sketches with Werecrow, the incredible "Where oh Werewolf" song, and some really top-notch riffs, including the entire sequence when the car-driving werewolf appears to be repeatedly circling the same gas station before the accident, and my favorite bit from the episode, the sing-along medley Mike and the bots do to the inappropriate Native American drum music over the closing credits. And yet, I always think of this episode as good, but not quite as good as everyone says it is. It lacks the ineffable charm of Cave Dwellers, or Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. My final verdict (and highly personal opinion) is that Werewolf is indeed a great episode of MST3K, but it is a top 25 MST3K episode, not a top ten. I totally get why this one would be someone else's favorite, though. (And definitely check out "Where Oh Werewolf," it's a treat!)
sometimes i think about the progression of Tortall heroines' power levels and am super amused
Alanna: I have an incredibly powerful Gift of magic, a magic sword granted to me by the Old Ones, and the blessing of the Goddess herself
Daine: oh yeah? Well I have Wild Magic that allows me to sense and communicate with mortal and Immortal animals, heal them, and transform into any animal I choose. I am also a Demigod myself, the daughter of Weiryn, God of the Hunt, was once granted additional powers by the Graveyard Hag, and am under the protection of the Badger God.
Keladry: ...i have autism
murderbot and arts first meeting is literally so funny. like imagine you meet a biblically accurate angel and instead of being all 'be not afraid' it says actually you SHOULD be afraid. and then when you are in fact afraid it goes oh shit oh fuck. not THAT afraid, sorry. wanna watch tv? and then you watch tv with it and it keeps telling you to pause it when its favourite characters are in danger so it can calm down. and then it asks to do surgery on your bones. Asshole Research Transport character of all time
aint it crazy how many people realize they're queer when they have the language to express how they feel and a support system to encourage self exploration????
right at the beginning when she's like how do I help my son feel loved and accepted I'm here shouting
"QUEEN YOU ALREADY DID THAT BY TAKING HIS SIDE AND LEAVING THAT NO GOOD HUSBAND FOR HAVING THE AUDACITY TO KICK YOUR BABY OUT!"
And Good for her! this is the only response to a man who kicks out a child.
jacobvanloon
prguitarman
janainaart
annaxmalina
gummygunk
