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@yesitsterriblysimple
Links of interest:
My most popular Arcane meta and scene breakdowns can be found somewhere in here. For season 2 here and here. And my takes on the politics of Arcane here.
Check out my fanfic (Star Wars and Arcane) here.
I have Buffy meta too, here and here
So, I Love Boosters was kind of frustrating.
Now, I am the first to say that expecting mass media to have legitimately radical messaging is a fool's endeavor. It's best to try to engage with media on its own terms, however flawed those may be, to get the most out of it.
However, Boots Riley is a self-proclaimed Communist and he's consciously making Communist propaganda, so I think I can hold him to higher standards.
My problem is this: You make this out-there, surrealist movie, you have an action-packed caper building up to a big climax, you have a literal dialectical-materialism-machine* that can push the class conflict forward, you have all that and it's building to.... a strike for a 30% raise and shorter hours.
It hit kinda weak. That the inspirational moment was the people gathered with signs. It wasn't bringing commerce to a halt. It wasn't workers' power. It was the act of a strike. Not the power of it, not the result, just the strike itself.
The dialectic-machine didn't raise the sights of the characters for a world beyond capitalism, not even a little bit. It didn't pose a vision of workers control, but merely more bearable conditions under capitalism.
It was reformism actually, not communism. It was Economism! It was Bernsteinism ("the movement is everything, the final goal is nothing) ! Riley has such low goals of what he can inspire workers to do. It's not take over society. It's simply: go on strike. That's not a communist message.
All that said, it was still a fun movie. The art direction was beautiful, I think the technical achievement on a small budget is admirable. Corvette really was a sympathetic character. LaKeith Stanfield was wiiiiild.
*Boots Riley used the term "dialectical materialism" but what he had the character describe was actually the Aristotelian dialectic, not Marxist dialectics.
Boots Riley is saying the Aristotelian dialectic is dialectical materialism 😭
I rewatched Citizen Kane recently, and I couldn't help but think that modern audiences would not be able to deal with how much happens off-screen
Young Orson Welles was hot.
HE REALLY WAS
I think my biggest unpopular jayvik opinion is that The Cottage by the Stream isn't actually a happy ending for them.
Yes, they need a vacation. But.
I cannot seriously imagine Jayce or Viktor being happy without problems to solve, without things to build, without a world to change.
Honestly suspect playing Soldier Boy was a bad influence on Jackles
Everyone who said Obi-Wan Kenobi was a bad show is wrong
The screenplay is SO solid, it hits every emotional beat you could ever want
I love how Obi-Wan inspires everyone he meets
I'm finally watching my Obi-Wan Kenobi blurays and the lighting and colour grade isn't bothering me half as much as it did on Disney+
The lighting on Nur still sucks pretty bad
where does this narrative that seeing red was a "personal vendetta" against spike and or/JM really come from? because i don't think what happened was "spike was gaining popularity AND THEN they chose to add in the AR scene"
I think it comes from something James Marsters related after shit really hit the fan about Whedon (I think 2023). He talked about an incident of Whedon physically bullying him, and said that Whedon was resentful of Spike's popularity, because it meant he couldn't do what he wanted with the character, and that the audience overlooked that Spike was evil.
Also, there are much earlier interviews with Whedon, and also Marti Noxon, iirc, where they talk about the bathroom scene, and how the intent was to have Spike do something truly terrible, to make it click that Spike is evil, and that it's *necessary* for Spike to get a soul.
So people put that together and interpret it as "Seeing Red" being revenge against Spike's popularity.
Like I said elsewhere, though, if you watch interviews, a lot of the writers, notably Noxon (who was showrunner s6 and 7), adore Spike. And Whedon has said lots of favorable things about him as well, including that he ships Spuffy. I'm not saying that the incident James Marsters related didn't happen, not at all, it seems completely in line with what we know about Whedon. It's just that when you take what writers have actually said into account AND ALSO, vitally, Spike's complete narrative arc -- he gets a redemption, he's the love interest, he saves the world -- it seems like Whedon wasn't character assassinating him, rather he was making him into something that would work with his vision. And he did that by getting him to hit rock bottom so that he could then redeem him. I don’t think Whedon tried to character assassinate Spike, I think it didn’t occur to him that the AR *would* character assassinate him. There's interviews with Marti Noxon that back this up, she says she thought that they ultimately could bring him back from this.
I mean compare that to a character he did pretty much assassinate, Cordelia, who got turned evil and then written off the show. That's character assassination.
I also want to add that Whedon's apparent frustrations with the moral framework of his show being messed up, and frustration with being dictated to by the network, and hemmed in by the demands of ratings, aren't actually a problem. And I think it's kind of weird that certain Spike stans make it out like *that's* Whedon's problem, and not *how* he dealt with those frustrations. Whedon taking his writing seriously isn't a problem. Whedon's problem was he used his power to abuse those working for him and took his frustrations out on them. He hurt real people.
And I think the impulse to push this narrative comes from stans wanting to distance their fave from Joss Whedon. So they invent a scenario where Spike exists in opposition to Whedon, instead of being a reflection of him (which ALL the characters are to some extent).
It's pretty immature and cognitively dissonant. I mean, it's not easy to come to terms with the fact that the creator of something you like and is special to you turned out to be shitty person. But if we're staying engaged in the fandom, it's something we all have to deal with and parse through. But acting like Whedon is responsible for everything you hate, and all his takes are bad, meanwhile everything you like is somehow independent of him, is just dishonest.
Also, this is a weird fandom narrative because I remember before Whedon's fall from grace, when he said he's team Spuffy, and Spuffy shippers took that as a great victory. And now that's totally flipped.
Does anyone actually have a source for the “Seeing Red was done out of spite by Whedon because he hated how popular Spike was, so he purposely ruined his character so that everyone would dislike him”?
Because I see this parroted about every other week, but a) it just kinda makes no fucking sense and b) I have yet to see a citation on this. Is there some quote or interview or literally anything to support this idea?
Lots of good takes in the replies, and i want to add: I think Spike fans simply cannot deal with the Seeing Red scene as canon, and as in-chatacter for Spike, so they have to create this narrative where Spike exists *in opposition* to Whedon. So they get to imagine their blorbo's existence is a rebellion against the creator everyone hates. Rather than, y'know, being a creation of his as much as any other character on the show.
Has anyone read the annotated 20th anniversary edition of Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith? Is it worth the price tag?
Hi !
I have a question abt jinx that i still dont rly get.
We know Silco has eating disorders, it's even confirmed by his nails (i made an analysis on them). But why is Jinx malnourished? Silco is supposed to ""care"" about her. And he's Zaun's richest man. Why would he leave his daughter like that?
I was wondering that while thinking about them. I still have no answer, so I wanted to ask u
Ooh I didn't know Silco canonically has eating disorders. If you can send me posts/sources on that I'd be interested.
And actually, if he has EDs, it makes perfect sense that Jinx is so skinny. Like, if a mom has body-image issues, she'd believe she's doing the right thing by keeping her daughter skinny, right? She's helping her look good and not get fat. You can easily imagine that mindset.
I also want to add that it seems like Jinx has a fair amount of freedom. She has her own pad. If she wanted to live differently she probably could. She might just have a high metabolism.
Hi !
I have a question abt jinx that i still dont rly get.
We know Silco has eating disorders, it's even confirmed by his nails (i made an analysis on them). But why is Jinx malnourished? Silco is supposed to ""care"" about her. And he's Zaun's richest man. Why would he leave his daughter like that?
I was wondering that while thinking about them. I still have no answer, so I wanted to ask u
Ooh I didn't know Silco canonically has eating disorders. If you can send me posts/sources on that I'd be interested.
And actually, if he has EDs, it makes perfect sense that Jinx is so skinny. Like, if a mom has body-image issues, she'd believe she's doing the right thing by keeping her daughter skinny, right? She's helping her look good and not get fat. You can easily imagine that mindset.
Your Jinx and Silco analysis are absolutely amazing and gold omg
Thanks so much! I miss Arcane-posting so much, it was such a good show. And Silco and Jinx were such a chewy, interesting relationship. A lot of the discussion about them seemed to be arguing about whether or not Silco was a good dad or a bad, and it completely flattens them. Like, we aren't required to either condemn or absolve these fictional characters actually, we can just focus on how they're weird and interesting.
What do you think of the idea that s2 regressed jinx’s mental health issues?
What was Jinx's story about at the end of the day? What did her arc look like? Her story was that she was trapped in a cycle of loss, that people she cared about kept dying because of her. And each time it happened, she was afflicted by the past in a different way: she was haunted by it, she tried to "redo" it, she was consumed by it. Until, at the very end, she was able to genuinely let go of the past — emotionally and literally.
Jinx's character development did not take a linear path, it was a series of trials and failures. And I think that's an interesting way to tell a story.
