Fan favourite headcanon debunked: rex is a damn good pilot
it’s from that unreleased Top Gun Rex episode
Fan favourite headcanon debunked: rex is a damn good pilot
it’s from that unreleased Top Gun Rex episode
I WOULD ARGUE THAT THIS WAS KIND OF A NECESSARY SCENE given that this season is about connecting us to Revenge of the Sith, that the previous arc was focused on giving Rex and Echo closure, but it was also sprinkled with moments (like seeing Padme pregnant, Anakin giving Rex a speech about hoping for the best but accepting that the worst might be true) that were specifically designed to understand how the characters are in the places they are for ROTS, how the galaxy is in the place they are for ROTS. This scene reminded me very much of the episode “Bounty Hunters”, where Sugi criticizes the Jedi for “failing to keep the peace” and Obi-Wan (who is one of TCW’s most reliable narrators) responds with how the war is not their fault and if more people were willing to actually stand up, they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in.
But it also reminds me of the Star Wars: Propaganda by Pablo Hidalgo book makes this incredibly clear, that the image of the Jedi is painted by other people:
The language of the book even specifically echoes these lines–how the Jedi were seen as policing everything (or not policing everything, they couldn’t win on that front), how they were failures as peacekeepers, and it’s very consistently shown to be not the truth, they were “painted as” this or “branded as” that or “claimed as” this or “imagined as” that. That’s why what Trace is saying here is so important in context–she’s speaking to a former Jedi, who cannot speak back because she must protect herself, she can’t reveal that she’s a Jedi, so she’s visibly struggling to keep quiet. She says some of it–”The Jedi didn’t start this war, they’re trying to stop it.”, which shows us that Trace is not an accurate reliable narrator in this, no matter that she’s not doing it out of malice. Ahsoka also visibly starts to respond a second time when Trace is talking, but pulls herself back, showing us further that there is a response to this, Ahsoka just can’t say it. I mean, she’s not entirely wrong, the Jedi are extremely busy with this war and don’t have time for other stuff, you know, because they’re dying in this war. So many Jedi have died, we’ve seen them die on the screen, as well as the war gets busier and busier. The Clone Wars itself makes this point in season five, when Maul is pulling together his crime syndicate and the narration specifically says, because the Jedi are being dragged into the war, they don’t have time to deal with criminals, so they’re flourishing. But there’s really no solution to that, so long as the war is going–do they just let people on Separatist-oppressed worlds die because the spice running trade is gearing up? Do they let the people of Ryloth die in a Separatist attack because there was a mugging on level 1313 that they should be patrolling for? They don’t have the numbers to do both and they were already drafted into the war. But even more importantly–Trace says she wants to go out into the stars, get away from Coruscant, get away from the Jedi and the war. Think about that, where does she think the war actually is? Where does she think the Jedi actually are? What does she think is waiting for her out there? One of the big points of ROTS and the Battle Over Coruscant is that the planet has actually been relatively sheltered from the war, the people in the Core (even the ones in the lower levels of Coruscant) haven’t seen much at all of the war, it’s barely touched them. Out in the stars? Where Trace dreams of going? That’s where the real war is. And it shows that she’s not accurate in her assessment of things. Again, she’s not doing this out of malice, she had expectations of the Jedi that they could not possibly realistically meet, given the political set-up, and that’s part of what Palpatine precisely did. He built them up to something they couldn’t–and shouldn’t and didn’t want to–live up, but they had no time and so few of them (ONE OUT OF SIX BILLION PEOPLE IS THE CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE FOR HOW MANY JEDI THERE ARE IN THE GALAXY, that’s like ONE Jedi to deal with literally all of our problems in every single country here on Earth, and then blaming them for not stopping all the wars, while also not keeping the peace in all the countries and not stopping all the crime) and the galaxy had to buy it, including people who were sweethearts but had probably never actually met a Jedi before. Because that’s what Palpatine’s propaganda did, that’s what his political maneuverings did, to get the Jedi so busy saving those people over there, that these people blamed them for not being here, too. And that’s exactly how we get to, “The war is over. The Separatists have been defeated, and the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. We stand on the threshold of a new beginning.”
This is how we get to a galaxy willing to stand by while THEIR TEMPLE WAS ATTACKED AND THEIR CHILDREN LITERALLY GUNNED DOWN. This is how you get a galaxy to accept the genocide of an entire culture, that even the good people who are just trying to make it through the day are maneuvered and manipulated into believing the Jedi started the war, that they weren’t trying to stop it but kept it going so they could gain power, that they wanted to take over for power’s sake, that they didn’t care about anyone else, to forget that the Jedi were fighting on their behalf (when they themselves wouldn’t even do as much) and dying for them. By showing us people like Trace Martez.
Geez, more Echo angst? Yeah. Yeah....
A short piece inspired by 'For Forever' from Dear Evan Hansen in which Echo speaks of how Fives always visited him on Skako Minor
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇
What kept me from going insane? Losing my marbles? Forgetting myself?
"It was Fives. It was always Fives"
When days got hard and I couldn't take it, there was Fives. Smiling at me from the doorway while cankers poked and prodded at me like their toy.
I'd scream for him, but he never helped. I hated him for never coming to me. He'd always watch me with his dumb smile. Never rescuing me. But one day, he finally did.
"You dummy, look what you got yourself into"
He'd sit by me and we'd talk. I was probably delusional, but next thing I knew we were outside enjoying the cold night. I wasn't in this mechanical body, I was me.
We'd run through the cooling planet of Skako Minor and everything was okay. We'd just talk and take in the view. I could have gone on for forever that way.
The thing I liked about the planet was the canyons. We'd climb and climb. All the way until the top. The entire light of the moon shining on us, we'd then fall asleep under the stars. But then, one day, Fives slipped, and then he would always slip. And I'd be rushing to get him, over and over. But I'd never reach him.
"You never reached me"
I never reached him. I think that's when he died. Because he hadn't ever fallen until recently. He died recently, didn't he?
I'd always snap back into the chains of the Separatists and Fives was gone. I always waited until he'd appear and we'd go have our adventure. Until he fell, shoving me back to reality.
"I could have lived in that dream for forever, I liked being with my brother for forever"
Transformers: Cyberverse - Autobots
probably gonna hate it if it’s anything like rid, but would you look at those thighs
My bros I have been doing a lot of reading about Wacky WWII Hijinks lately and I want to tell you a story because I love it okay
once upon a time there was a dude in Spain named Juan Pujol Garcia. Pujol was a chicken farmer. Pujol hated him some goddamn fascists.
See Spain had recently ended its civil war, with the fascists taking power. So when WWII broke out in Europe, Spain technically remained neutral but in practice was buddy buddy with the Nazis. Juan Pujol Garcia thought this was pretty bullshit
so soon after war breaks out Pujol travels to his local British embassy and goes “hey I wanna spy on the Nazis for you”
“who the fuck are you?” say the British, and kick him out
but Pujol is not deterred! He still wants to dunk on some fascists, so now he goes to his local German embassy instead. “hey” he says, “I wanna spy on the British for you, I sure do hate them”
“yeah okay” say the Germans “that seems pretty legit”
and just like that Pujol now officially works for the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency. They hand him some spy gear (invisible ink and such) and instruct him to travel to Lisbon, and from there make his way into the UK. So Pujol heads to Lisbon, and a little while later writes to his German handlers telling them he’s made it to England
Pujol had not made it to England. He had, in fact, made it to the Lisbon public library, where he checked out a number of English guide books and set about just wholesale making shit up
this is slightly complicated by the fact that, for example, he completely did not understand British currency and all his expense reports were basically gibberish. He also reported things like bribing Scotsmen, because the people of Glasgow would “do anything for a litre of wine” (an actual quote) because, hey, people in Spain like wine so that’s probably the same right?
Here is where it starts to get really crazy, because the Abwehr loves this. “wow this dude is a great spy” they say, because apparently none of them had ever been the England either. In fact, they are so pumped about this new awesome spy that the British start to get worried
you see, by this time the British had cracked German’s supposedly unbreakable Enigma code and were totally dunking on the Nazis by reading basically all of their ~super top secret~ radio transmissions. And, crucially, they’d become so good at breaking and reading traffic that there were literally no German spies in England. The Germans would set up a spy drop (usually dropping dudes in by parachute in the middle of the night), the British would intercept the message and then just scoop the dudes up as soon as they landed in a move that must have been SUPER embarrassing to the spies
so there are no German spies in the UK because they’re all sitting in a prison run by MI5 (although some are being run under supervision as double agents, feeding Germany bullshit). But suddenly MI5 is picking up all this traffic from the Germans talking about their super great spy- a spy the British do not have in their jail
“oh shit” says MI5, and starts rereading all the transmissions they have to and from this mysterious super spy.
“hey wait” says MI5, upon actually reading the shit the spy was sending. “someone is playing silly buggers, pip pip cheerio”
At this point, Pujol, still in Lisbon, had actually been approaching the British embassy again, repeatedly, but apparently “I am literally an Abwehr agent and would like to offer you my services” wasn’t interesting enough, because he was repeatedly turned away, again. It wasn’t until MI5 started asking around that one of the embassy staff was like “oh yeah we know that guy”
so in 1942 the British finally make contact with Pujol and he officially becomes a spy for MI5. They move him to London and assign him a case officer so he can start making up even better bullshit
and he does. Once actually in London, Pujol reports to the Abwehr that he’d recruited a whole slew of informants- from a bunch of Welsh Aryans to disaffected army officers. He ends up with a network of 20+ sub-spies, all feeding him information from around the UK
none of these people actually exist
Pujol just straight up invented like 20 people, keeping careful track of their fake personalities, names, and activities. With the help of MI5, the information he sends becomes even better- a mix of true but ultimately useless facts and actually important intel timed to arrive in Germany just slightly too late to be of any use. He and his “spy network” become the Abwehr’s most trusted agents
Pujol, now codenamed Agent Garbo (for his acting skills), ends up playing a huge role in the run-up to D-Day, where the Allies mounted a huge intelligence campaign to convince Hitler that the planned site of attack was going to be Calais and not Normandy (this was Operation Fortitude and you should absolutely look it up for more Wacky WWII Adventures). Obviously you know how this ended
crazily enough, the Abwehr never figured out that Pujol was a double agent. After the war he received both the Iron Cross Second Class (which require personal authorization from Hitler), and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (from King George VI)
unable to resist being totally fucking ridiculous, Pujol turned down MI5’s post-war offer to continue spying, but this time against the USSR. “no,” he said “just help me fake my own death and then I’m moving to Venezuela”
and that’s exactly what he did. Juan Garcia Pujol died in 1988, at the age of 76
Okay I’m just editing my reblog to add this picture of Juan Pujol Garcia because I feel that it adds so much to the story to picture him doing ALL THE ABOVE with this expression:
What a legend.
Weaponized foreign shitposting
this is my favorite post in a very, very long time.
As much as I love 2k3 Leo, the writers clearly favored him above all his brothers-not only with a lack of development for Raph or Mikey, but also the fact that they Leo got an arc to deal with his angst post exodus but Don went through hell in SAINW and Good Genes and we never got to see how he really felt about any of it. How He felt after both of those situations kind of got glossed over unfortunately.
uugh i knoow and it pisses me off
i do love 2k3 leo he’s my son and i’ll defend him to my grave but…. damn im so tireeeed please i just… wanted to see the others develop
nevermind that don got that angsty arch in btts that wasn’t handled very well - not as well as leo’s adventures in ptsd in season 4
raph clearly had some issues with leo (being him the Golden Son TM and raph trying his darnest to impress his family (specially splinter) and failing because splinter was always like AAA LEONARDO WELL DONE MY SON) and hhhhhhhhhh leaving the others in his shadow, usually
mikey also deserved better they aLL DID
in conclusion, im bitter
Looking for a random cause of death for a character? Click here.
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Helpful writing tips for my friends.
OH SHIT.
Examples of Narrative Endings
These can also be combined. For example, a surprise ending + a cliffhanger can be used to end one story/book/arc that leaves the audience in suspense for the next part and excited to see where the story goes, as they didn’t see what actually happened coming.
If you want to be friends with me you don’t have to be “Hi, um, can, ya know, we be friends?”
It is 1000000000000000000000% percent ok if you just go into my inbox can go. “Man, I am so fucking pissed off at fucking Michael.” And I’ll most likely respond with, “Oh shit! What did Michael do now?“
this is such a good post because asking ppl if you can be friends can make them feel so uncomfortable but if you approach them like this its SO EASY to start a conversation and let a friendship develop naturally
Song letters: b, l, g, v, and o?
Psssst, just remember while the tablet was fading and the others are all turning back to plastic/ wax, Ahk is literally dying all over again and I bet he remembers how it felt the first time and he was probably so scared omg
OH MY GOD NO STOPPPP D:
but it must have been even worse than dying all over again, because yeah, Ahk was probably having flashbacks to his death during those scenes (*sadness*), but this time, he wasn’t just dying, he was decaying. his skin was turning to ash and his body must’ve been failing and THAT’S JUST AWFUL, OH GOD
AND RAMI’S ACTING DURING THAT END SCENE WAS SO GOOD, BECAUSE AS AHK’S EYES START TO GLAZE OVER AND HIS SKIN STARTS TO TURN BLACK, YOU CAN SEE HOW AFRAID HE IS
IT’S IN HIS GODDAMN EYES AND, I JUST—????
[ dying whale noises ]
I was really hoping someone other than myself noticed Ahk’s horrible “re-death” experience. Cuz that’s some crazy stuff there
Ahk’s re-death experience was definitely the worst in that scene. Like, I know the movie was focusing on Dexter…but like, COME ON, AHKMENRAH WAS BECOMING A CORPSE IN THE BACKGROUND, THAT’S NOT OKAY!!!!
but then everything was okay, b/c he did that relieved dorky smile thing when the tablet was fixed AND YAY HAPPY FEELINGS!!!! :D
and it is really worth reading because
this
is
actually
perfection
AHKMENRAH HAD SO MUCH MORE SCREEN-TIME
WE COULD’VE HAD RAMI MALEK BEING A SASSY LITTLE BADASS
WE COULD’VE HAD RAMI MALEK BOUND AND GAGGED
…
…so yeah…just, READ THIS SCRIPT AND IMAGINE WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
ahkmenrah being affected by the corrosion(AKAbeing pretty whilst fainting/swooning)(◡‿◡✿) ↳ requested by anonymous
I’ve played piano for 9+ years and I can’t open a jar. But hey, I’ve been told I do good back massages.
Also, I still get scared/startled by my own hand
I want the world to understand where that scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming came from.