gondalsqueen

[gondalsqueen]

Tumblr, I need your advice. I’m tasked with getting a nice book as a gift for a girl who:  -writes hundreds of thousands of words of slashfic in her free time -loves shaolin martial arts Additional information:  -can’t be explicitly sexual -has to be under $50 -has to be significant enough to feel like a big gift, so not like an $11 novel -This will be given in front of a crowd, and I’m not sure she’d want to be outed about the slashfic You see my dilemma?  Help? Please? What book should I get her? 

[gondalsqueen]

i draw a lot of Star Wars art 💛 here are some of my favs !!

[gondalsqueen]

[gondalsqueen]

All of this! But don’t forget about Mary, Queen of Heaven, who holds the chief place among saints because the early Catholic church realized that you couldn’t win people over to the idea of a loving divinity that doesn’t include a mother.  Did the church co-opt a lot of native imagery for mother goddesses and earth goddesses? Did it play a large part in creating the virgin/whore dichotomy and just conveniently combine maiden and mother, while getting rid of the crone entirely? Did it remove the terrible side of these mother goddesses, the part that would wreak swift and horrible vengeance against anyone who hurt their children? Yes x 3. There’s also the funkiness of Jesus being depicted through feminine tropes in order to take on the role of the peaceful and nurturing parent who feeds his children from his own body, thereby taking the place of the mother. But growing up in the Catholic church, it was deeply comforting to have a Saint Mom to turn to--and I know a lot of Catholics feel that way.

Almost every ex-Catholic I know, myself included, still has at least one saint they like enough to keep around in some form. The number of ex-Catholics still burying St. Anthony in the back yard is not insignificant.

[gondalsqueen]

Wait, wait!  Obi-Wan Kenobi:   In a society ruled by law, we think there are rules. We think laws protect us. They don’t. Brute force can be physical (what the Inquisitors literally do) or it can be political (Vader’s carte blanche to do absolutely anything he wants to anyone without political repercussion). Poor people in out-of-the-way places (like Tatooine and Mapuzo) will sometimes be punished by the legal system, but seldom if ever protected by it.  Also: “ You want him to like you, so you repeat what he says even though you don’t really know what it means.” And this is how nasty but charismatic demagogues get their power. They’re rich and powerful. If I repeat what they say, some of that might rub off on me. Since we’re talking about whether or not it’s necessary to be polite to droids, let’s throw in how easy it is to dismiss the humanity of others when: 1) you’re in power and it therefore benefits you to do so, and 2) you’re told that it’s fine.  Also: “All I do is wave.” “Then do more than wave.”

Rogue One:  The danger of overlooking tyranny that “couldn’t affect me.” Saw is an insurgent who uses terrorist tactics. No wonder Jedha’s a target, it’s easy to say. Civilian casualties are sometimes inevitable to take down a terrorist. It’s really Saw’s fault for staying there. Sure that can happen in Jedha; it’s a dangerous place. So sad. It couldn’t happen HERE though. (How easy it is to assume that absolute power will only go after “bad guys” and that deaths are justified deaths.) (Within a week, Alderaan is gone at the push of a button, and there’s no time left for outrage.)  The danger of failing to act in order to bide your time and see what happens because it’s easy to see the cost of acting now and hard to see the cost of failing to act (Rebel Alliance, I’m looking at you). (Climate change, anybody?)  No science is pure science, detached from the world. Scientists don’t have the luxury of doing their work and staying out of politics. Others (if not they) are always ready to politicize that work.  Episode 5/ESB:  I really do want to go back to “war is always political” because the bulk of this movie is about the fighting. Two things that always struck me, aside from that:   Vader’s insistence that all he’s trying to do is bring order to the galaxy, his insistence that a pax romana is a good and necessary thing--this is the first time we see that motivation and it informs allll of the politics of the original trilogy.  LANDO. Man, when I was a kid, I thought Lando had betrayed Han and Leia to save his mining operation. Turns out he literally did not have a choice. Vader was going to come in there and do whatever he wanted anyway. Lando was not bargaining from a position of power. He was not bargaining at all. He was just trying to protect his people (including Han and Leia and Chewie and the whole city) as best he could. Understanding the position Lando was in as a leader helped me move beyond black and white “good guys always do good things and never do bad things” thinking when looking at real-life leaders. And on that note:  “I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further.” You guys really don’t read the news and then use this line to summarize what’s going on in the world?  Episode 6/RoTJ:  The Empire using someone else’s land as a staging area for building its superweapon... I’m pretty sure colonization is a political issue.  The Mandalorian: This entire show is about questioning blind adherence. First, Din takes a bounty on a target that ends up being just a child. He has to defy a pretty powerful remnant goverment (and its private sector contractors) in order to do the right thing. Gradually, he discovers that his group of Mandalorians is extremist and that “the way” of protecting people (the spirit of the law) is more important than “the way” of keeping your helmet on at all times (the letter of the law). Next up: Who will lead Mandalore? All of this is politically relevant.   The Book of Boba Fett:  We could talk about exploitation of the Tuskens and their land, but I’m tired now, so let’s keep it simple:  Can you rule as a crime lord without instilling fear? Can you rule by law with an eye to justice and not worry so much about punishment? (I would argue no, but the show disagrees with me.) 

I always giggle at people going "UGH STAR WARS IS GETTING TOO POLITICAL!!"

like,

Sweet summer child.

It's literally called Star Wars.

War...is a political issue lmao

[gondalsqueen]

Already told y’all this is The Brothers Karamazov: 

i will raise my children traditionally

the oldest will have a ruinous military career and develop a tendency to recklessness, alcoholism and anger management issues the middle one will be a brilliant student with strong atheist inclinations and casual demonic hallucinations the youngest will be an angel prone to hysteria turned tsaricide by circumstances

[gondalsqueen]

They give Richter Sypha’s EVERYTHING. The curl of the hair, the profile, even the ears: 

THEY GAVE RICHTER SYPHA'S EYES 🥺🥺🥺

[gondalsqueen]

Follow-up: If you want to die, GO TO SLEEP. If you can’t, take one (1) (ONE!) sleeping pill. Sleeping accomplishes all the things that sound attractive about dying (total loss of consciousness and not having to deal with the problem), but it’s not permanent. 

tomorrow’s gonna be just fine. that conflict you’re having with your friend will blow over. no one secretly hates you. the world is not out to get you. it’s ok to feel stressed out. it’s ok to crack under pressure sometimes. you are perfectly capable of enduring whatever life throws your way. everything will be alright. you’re gonna be ok.

[gondalsqueen]

Moby Dick is a super exciting 150 page book!  Unfortunately, it is 430 pages long.  All the good pages are at the end, unless you count that “and there was only one bed” part at the very beginning. 

"For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured."

Wait, Ahab kicked himself in the dick with his peg leg??? What a plot twist to land 82% of the way through the book

[gondalsqueen]

Hey, where are my Star Wars Celebration people at? Are there any Rebels fans who are going to Celebration? If so, message me. I’m going to try to set up a (tiny) dinner for us. 

[gondalsqueen]

Okay so I’m reading through Next Season again and I found a snippet from it that really made me chuckle in a darkly comedic way given current canon “Mandalore liberated itself, which had been a long time coming anyway”

It just, I know I shouldn’t find that funny but I do.

Eep, thank you for writing! I think you should find it funny, in a dry, eye-rolling, of-course-they-did sort of way. Give Mandalorians a halfway decent opening and they're going to start fighting, right?

[gondalsqueen]

Okay, Kanan x Hera A New Dawn-era playlist. Go!  I’ll start:  Dancing in the Dark (Bruce Springsteen)  You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)  Rollerskate Skinny (the Old 97′s)  Moon River (Henry Mancini)  What songs should I add? 

[gondalsqueen]

to be honest there has never been a fictional character i’ve actually wanted to date. like. i want them to date each other. i don’t want myself as a person to be involved in this scenario whatsoever. what would i add to this narratively? what’s my thematic purpose in the narrative? immersion breaking. 

[gondalsqueen]

so much borrowed time

[gondalsqueen]

How have I watched Rebels the number of times that I have and just now noticed that Kanan Jarrus literally wears his heart on his sleeve? That ain't an 01 on his pauldron, that's an 02.

As in Spectre 02.

[gondalsqueen]

I’m okay with Ezra being a bratty little shit in this episode because teenagers are sometimes self-centered brats, and people more generally are often self-centered shits, and he just doesn’t see it here, and I LIKE stories about heroes being assholes sometimes but still not overall bad people. I am NOT okay with the episode itself endorsing Ezra’s point of view.  (It did give me a good opening to write Hera being furious, though, which is 75% of what I really want out of life.)  This was my favorite line of your review: “Hera tells him bluntly that he's not trustworthy when Hondo's around, and Ezra stalks off, pouting.” God, I love the good parenting in this show.  Hondo is a huge dumpster fire, but he’s still my trash boyfriend.  Mostly, what I’m taking away from your recaps is that Chopper’s the real MVP. 

Star Wars Rebels season 3 recaps

“The Wynkahthu Job”

So, okay, wow. There's a lot I didn't like about that episode. It's supposed to be a funny one, but all the humor is corrosively mean-spirited, and the characterization is... hard to reconcile, with what's gone before.

So Chapter Nine of Fade to Red is very much a fix-it fic, centering the very important emotional things the episode marginalizes and skates past (like Hera, and her feelings about all this). And doing a lot of heavy lifting to redeem the characterization of Kanan, which I think is flat out broken in this ep.

Anyway, let's dig into it.

Iiiiiiit's Hondo! He's here apparently at Ezra's invitation, as is...Azmorigan? HOO boy. (I wrote in my notes "I am really looking forward to the fic of this" and for the record it did not disappoint.)

We get a (gross) recap of Hera's gross history with the gross Azmorigan, who titters "I paid a fair price! Technically...I still own you!" Oh boy I hate this. I hate how Ezra is crooning "Hera...take it easy!" I hate how the whole thing is being played for laughs and Hera is like, the overreacting one who can't shrug off a little enslavement here and there.

I hate how Kanan is just standing there and letting it happen. Zen calm, right? He's enlightened now. Sure. He'll stand back unless he's really needed. Gah.

"Actually, I'm interested in what you have to offer" Kanan volunteers and OH NO I HATE THIS. I do not buy this. I fundamentally do not accept this. Kanan is not fucking interested in working with Azmorigan now. Why is Ezra???

Hera, now. I have no problem buying that Hera would be willing to work with Azmorigan if he had something she wanted. Which is the scenario we're given here: "I am promising you all the weapons you can carry," Hondo says grandly, "...proton bombs!"

"Show us," Hera says grudgingly. So they go.

I can deal with this setup but, for the record, it should have been Hera to spring the working-with-Hondo-and-Azmorigan proposition on a dubious Kanan and Ezra. Leaping at the chance to work with a known slaver is just way out of character for both of them. But mostly for Kanan, who barely contained himself from murdering Azmorigan last time.

Anyway Hondo leads them to the planet Wynkahthu, where a derelict Imperial freighter--loaded with proton bombs, along with other valuable cargo--is slowly being sucked into something that looks like a gas giant (but apparently has a breathable atmosphere). Hera puts Zeb in charge of the salvage operation, which doesn't sit well with Ezra. "I found this job. This should be my mission!" he protests.

Hera tells him bluntly that he's not trustworthy when Hondo's around, and Ezra stalks off, pouting.

"I know what you're doing," Kanan says calmly, "but Ezra's got to learn for himself Hondo's not the friend he appears to be." Okay? Thanks, Master Dume? This is the kind of advice that is no advice at all. There's nothing actionable here. Hera IS sending Ezra off to learn for himself, she just took the very sensible precaution of putting Zeb in charge. It's not at all clear what part of this Kanan would've done differently, and obviously he didn't object enough to actually ask for anything to be changed, soooooo...what exactly is Kanan saying here, and why did he bother saying it?

AP-5 (always nice to see him) starts doing the annoying droid thing of loudly predicting low odds of mission success. "Thirty eight point five percent?" Kanan objects. "This is YOUR PLAN!"

"I have factored that in," AP-5 says drily.

Hera ignores the chatter and does the job, dropping the team (Zeb, Chopper, a pissy Ezra, Hondo, and Azmorigan) down onto the salvage ship. They immediately split into two teams, the better to be picked off by a SHADOWY ASSAILANT!

It's Terba!!!! THE RETURN OF TERBA! Or, wait, no it's just a different angry little Ugnaught who used to be in Hondo's crew and has a beef now. Okay so this ship is derelict because Hondo attacked it, but they weren't able to get into the atmospheric storm to salvage the cargo. Or, well, this guy did, but then Hondo left him to die.

"You lied to us," Zeb grumbles. "What a surprise."

To which Hondo gets a really great line: "Some of the truth is better than none of the truth, which is what you used to get, so don't try and tell me that I have not grown."

Shortly thereafter, they find the loot, and Hondo and Azmorigan promptly get to squabbling over it while the Spectres unload the proton bombs. But there's ANOTHER shadowy assailant! This one's a droid!

Azmorigan drops off coms, then Zeb gets clocked. Chopper actually stages the rescue, leading Ezra to where the sentry droid has stashed its prisoners, in the brig. Ezra however decides to take this opportunity to gloat: "Well, well, well. Hmm. This might be the last job Hera puts you in charge of for a while, big guy." Zeb actually does a really good job of holding his temper in response.

The situation deteriorates, with the ship getting sucked into the planet's atmo and a whole bunch of OTHER sentry droids waking up once the first one is taken out. Hera yells at everyone to hurry up, but various faultlines in the team begin to fracture into disaster: Ezra wrecked a hatch earlier showing off with his lightsaber, so they can't seal it against the droids, and Hondo and Azmorigan can't work together. They all manage to barely get out, even the Ughnaught, Melch...who cleverly stashed himself in place of the treasure.

The last lines of the episode are, once again, very sleazy humor as Azmorigan claims stake to fifty percent of Melch. "Kinda feel bad for Melch," Zeb observes. You think???

"Nah, he'll be fine," Ezra grins smugly and I REALLY want to know what Ezra is basing this confidence on. Slavery's now a ha-ha joke in the Star Wars universe? Gah. I hate this.

Did anyone actually learn anything in this episode? Ezra was a petulant baby to Zeb and did not particularly learn any respect. He was naive about Hondo and did not end up learning anything there either. I guess Hera got some proton bombs. She certainly deserves them.

[gondalsqueen]

I think we understand everything that’s written into Rebels. These things don’t strike me as mysteries, just imprecision in the writing. (Now, if he picked SABINE as an enemy, I might buy both the genius and the appreciation for art stuff.)  Is Phoenix Cell really, really small? Is it one or two squadrons? If so, I’d buy Hera as second-in-command, but otherwise, not so much. (Side note, the Alphabet Squadron novels are set in the aftermath of the Empire’s fall, and Hera DOES command from a cruiser rather than fly missions. Her role in those books is just sad to me, though.)  So, Hera DOES have the ability to strategize. She relies on the rest of the crew because they’re good, not because she can’t make the plans. A lot of the aerial plans are hers, and she’s presumably good at battle strategy when they’re in the air. And I think she’s got long experience with running one- to five- man schemes and is probably great at those (and, like Ezra, good at coming up with unconventional ideas to get out of tight spots). Her particular skill, though, is knowing how to use other people’s expertise--which is what makes her a good leader. Agreed--none of this would make her an equal opponent for Thrawn.  I’m going to stick with the explanation that there are two arms of this show--the Jedi stuff and the Rebellion stuff. Kanan and Ezra handle the Jedi stuff. Hera is representative of the Rebellion. Non-Jedi-villains are by default her enemies.  Maybe Hera is art because Thrawn’s favorite area of study is war and she was “forged” by war? (I could take or leave a lot of my own story, but I do really like the idea in this chapter that war isn’t ALL Hera’s ever known. She’s always known it, but she’s had so many good things in her life, as well.) 

Star Wars Rebels Season 3 recaps

"Hera's Heroes"

This is a meaty ep: more character work suggested than there's time to fully explicate on the show. Which is such fertile grounds for fic! Already left comments on the fifth chapter of Fade to Red; my recap of the episode is here under the readmore.

Watching it again, my big takeaway was wondering exactly what Thrawn's threat model looks like right now. He's doing some clear cat-and-mouse stuff, and I think he's conceptualizing Hera as his main enemy. But I don't love the part where he simply lets her get away to see what she'll do next: seems like Bad Villaining 101.

We open on Cham and Numa, scout troopers hot on their heels. They're riding cool blurrgs and they're being driven toward the edge of a cliff. Just in time, Hera swoops in for the save!

After the credits, we get a very fun action scene combining the Ryloth guerilla cavalry and the Ghost at full crew strength. The blurrgs get scooped up along with one hapless scout trooper, and Ezra gets one more helmet for his collection.

But Cham has bad news. Hera's home province has fallen and her childhood home is now the Imperial HQ for the region. Cham can't quite explain how it happened; the Imperial commander previously seemed inept, but suddenly is displaying tactical brilliance. (It's THRAWN! But they don't know that.) Cham apologizes for not being able to save the family kalikori.

Kanan, incidentally, knows enough about Ryloth and Hera's childhood to recognize the Tann province by name. He's also solidly behind the plan to go get the kalikori back, reassuring Hera when she tries to argue that it's not worth risking their lives.

So they draw up a plan to distract the outer patrols long enough for Hera and Ezra to slip inside enemy territory, under the guise of a trooper bringing in a prisoner. Chopper also tags along, repainted to look like an Imperial droid. And interestingly, he has his own issues with the place: this is where his Y-Wing crashed back in the Clone Wars, and Hera salvaged and repaired him. He takes a moment to...mourn? berate? the ruins of his derelict starfighter while the others go ahead. REALLY wish we had a translation for what C1-10P was saying here!

Anyway, Hera, Ezra and Chopper have no issue finding the artifact. The problem comes when they try to escape with it. The larger group, busy ducking Imperial patrols, begins to get uneasy about them when they miss a check-in.

Sidenote, I love the blurrgs. They're like big ol' roly poly tadpoles with T-Rex arms and legs, jouncing along and wagging their fat tails beind them. Also they are alllllll mouth and I imagine they gulp their food.

Anyway, yes, the infiltrators get spotted, but only because Thrawn is not a clown like the rest of them. Hera does her "just a submissive slave" act again but it doesn't work because Thrawn, with his eye for art, spots the kalikori and knows what it means.

He then gets a baller monologue as he slowly reveals just how much he already knows about Hera. "War. It's all you've ever known, isn't it? You were so young when you survived the Clone War. No wonder you're as equipped in spirit to fight as well as you do. War is in your blood. I...study the art of war. Work to perfect it. But you? You were forged by it."

There's swelling organ music behind this in case you somehow missed how epic it is.

And then, when Ezra tries to spring into action, Thrawn is ready for that too. "How did you know?" Captain Slavin splutters.

"Because rebels always have friends rushing to the rescue," Thrawn purrs. I think...if I were writing him in fic right now, I would assume that he already suspects the involvement of a master-apprentice Jedi team, and is furthermore certain that Hera has been intentionally deploying and relying on them for her successes. I think that much was hinted at in "Steps Into Shadow." And so NOW I would go on to assume that Ezra's action here reveals him to Thrawn as the likely padawan in the team.

And yet...he puts Hera and Ezra in a cell together. Maybe hoping to lure the master out of hiding?

Hera and Thrawn trade pointed words that gesture at a lot: Thrawn is the colonialist and literal Imperial here, plundering art and antiquities for his own edification. Hera spits that she'd rather have blown up her own family heirlooms than let him steal them for his collection. (Hera is not a fan of the British Museum.)

None of this upsets Thrawn. But a suggestion by Captain Slavin, as they're walking off, that they should just execute the "Twi'lek trash," draws his immediate, snarling fury. This is interesting? Thrawn gets control of himself quickly and tries to pass it off as "art appreciation," but what does that even mean? He has the kalikori. It's Hera's life he's so angry about now, and I don't think I buy that it's purely an aesthetic preference.

Yeah, I think I read this as Thrawn understanding that Hera is the key to Kanan. The incredible strategic genius isn't just leaving his two high-value targets in a spare bedroom with no supervision to mount their inevitable daring escape. He's *dangling bait* to lure out a Jedi master. That's my best stab at making it make sense.

Anyway, Captain Slavin is a dum-dum who can't understand strategy at that level, so he offers Cham Syndulla a straightforward hostage exchange. "Could the trap be more obvious?" Sabine complains.

"We know," is all Kanan says, but there's a warmth and a dry humor to the line reading that's a nice flash of the old Kanan.

Cham doesn't consider himself under any illusions. He won't be walking out of this alive. But he does think the Rebels will be able to extract Hera, and that she will lead the resistance in his place.

In their cell, Hera is remonstrating with herself for taking the risk despite her better instincts, when Chopper comes to bust them out. She is a bit amazed to hear that Cham offered to trade himself for her. And she immediately comes up with a plan better than simply trying to sneak out again: raid the armory, and rig the whole place to blow.

Chopper LOVES this mission. Ezra's kinda stunned. "You're...You're gonna blow up your house?"

"My home is my crew and family," Hera says warmly, with a hand on his shoulder. Yeah, it's just the entire theme of the entire show. Also Hera is a BAMF.

"All right, Captain Syndulla," Thrawn purrs, watching the Ghost arrive with Cham for the hostage exchange. "Let's see how you respond." Okay, okay, so this is interesting AGAIN, because...it's not Kanan that Thrawn seems to be interested in. Kanan won't need to mount a rescue, because Hera is going to figure out a way to escape, and Thrawn absolutely knows this. He just wants...to see how?

Maybe she is the artwork, in his eyes.

When Cham steps down the runway, Captain Slavin steps forward. In HIS deluded mind, the two of them are the important people here. "At last we meet face-to-face!" he sneers. And the funny thing is, Cham probably thinks the same. That he, and Slavin, are the two most strategically important pieces on the board.

Thrawn of course knows otherwise. And increasingly I am thinking that Thrawn isn't focused on Kanan at all, but on Hera as his equal-and-opposite in this strategic battle. (But then why did he pull back his entire forces in "Steps Into Shadow," when faced with the kind of apparent coincidences/luck that would suggest the involvement of Force-sensitives? And is he really just letting Hera go right now so that he can have the pleasure of beating her later? That's SUCH Bad Villain Strategy 101, it's really hard to respect a supposed tactical genius who architects his own loss through cat-and-mouse games.)

This exchange is really funny though:

Bang.

Hera: "I am sorry, father."

Cham: "It's all right, Hera. Even I have been captured before."

Hera: "Nahhhh...I'm sorry about the house. Chopper!"

And Thrawn's decision to watch all this play out from orbit suddenly looks...well, foresighted. "Hold your fire," he purrs as they jet off. "They've earned their victory today." Again, I just want to register how much I DON'T respect this. Neither does Captain Slavin, but Thrawn assures the good captain he's "found this whole experience to be very enlightening."

Back aboard the Ghost, Hera has shining eyes as she listens to her father assure her that he's (FINALLY!) learned not to underestimate her. Kanan just apologizes for the loss of the kalikori. But Hera knows what's important to her--people, not things. Her family is safe.