#‘clone wars is SO good’ that’s not what you said in your 2 hour essay abt how women ruin star wars

[bumpscosity]

“These star wars shows need to be more like season 1 of the mandalorian” oh you mean like chapter 6 which you bitched about bc it didn’t contribute to the story? Or chapter 5 which you bitched about because of like everything abt it as far as I remember but specifically fennec just existing? Or chapter 4 which you bitched abt because it showed mando had emotions? Or literally the second episode that you bitched abt because ewoks was canonized?

[untilenglandisnomore]

PadMay 2021 – Day 2: How should Padmé be remembered?

(rocks up a week late with a chai latte) Played fast and loose with the word “should” here and ended up thinking a lot about Imperial propaganda.

Summary: Imperial Supreme Commander Darth Vader is sent to investigate accusations of a university lecturer spreading treasonous Rebel propaganda. A class on the life and work of Naboo’s former Queen Amidala brings back painful memories.

As far as punishments go, it would appear on the face of it that Darth Vader had lucked out. Being sent to assist the ISB might be painfully boring but at least it wasn’t painful. It seemed almost incongruous to the Emperor’s rage at his apprentice, once again, letting the Rebels slip through his fingers.

Vader knew better. Pain, he was used to. Pain, he could tolerate. Wasting his skills and time on pointless political suppression, investigating academics for spreading Rebel lies irked him immensely. The Emperor’s way of reminding him that he was replaceable, disposable.

And to rub salt in his wounds, he was commanded to investigate the faculty at the University of Theed. To be mere clicks away from his beloved’s final resting place was a pointed twist of the knife.

The quicker he got it over with, the quicker he could get back to hunting down the Rebels, so the Sith pushed all thoughts of her out of his mind.

Or at least, that was his intention. Begrudgingly, he followed the ISB Agent into the lecture hall. The Agent was to lead the interrogation, Vader was there to provide leverage.

The class had already started. Fifty pairs of eyes turned on them and the lecturer stopped abruptly.

“Can I help you?” she asked, a strong voice despite the fear spiking through her blood at the sight of Vader.

The Agent gave her shark-tooth smile. “Agent Elliot, ISB. We’ll just be sitting in your lecture today. Making sure everything is up the standards of our great Emperor.”

The way he cocked his head towards Vader made it clear it was not a request.

The lecturer stiffened. “What does education have to do with security?” she asked.

“Sedition,” said the Agent, “is a crime.”

She gave them a flat look. “Fine. Take a seat. Be sure to let us know when the truth runs up against the Emperor’s delicate sensibilities,” she snarked.

Vader felt a brief bit of surprise at her insolence and then almost amused. He really did not like Agent Elliot. There was something about the steel in her eye that made him wonder if all the Naboo were just like that.

They stood at the back of the hall, Elliot pointedly taking notes on his datapad, and Vader glowering, and the lecturer got back to her class.

“Okay hopefully you’ve all read chapters five, nine and ten on the Invasion of Naboo and the Clone Wars.”

There was some half-hearted murmuring across the room. The lecturer rolled her eyes.

“Come on guys. Fine. Does anyone in this room not know who Queen Amidala was?”

There was a smattering of laughter and snorts of disbelief.

Darth Vader didn’t hear the lecturer’s reply because what was left of his body went numb and a distant ringing filled up his ears. He stood frozen as the lecturer set up a holoprojector and suddenly it was her. Her face, lit up and larger than life before his eyes. Her voice breaking through the ringing in his ears and bouncing around his skull.

“Like so many of the people that we tell ourselves we're here to serve, Teckla lives in a district that rarely has electricity and running water as a result of the war.”

Vader could feel his heart stop in his chest. His mind went completely blank. He watched, as if from a very far distance, as the holoprojector floated up off the desk, crumpled up like a piece of flimsi, and then shattered into dust.

Stillness fell over the room as all the students and the lecturer stared at the spot where the holoprojector had sat seconds prior.

The lecturer seemed to recover first, giving herself a little shake and pointedly not looking at Vader.

“Well,” she said, “I’ve got printed copies of this speech on flimsi,” she handed out sheets for students to pass around while they started to whisper to each other, furtive glances in Vader’s direction.“So everyone take a couple of minutes to read the speech and take some notes.”

The students followed their instructions as the lecturer awkwardly scooped up the remains of her holoprojector and deposited them into a bin.

“Okay,” she said at last, “what does this speech tell us about the Clone Wars?”

A handful of students raised their hands, the lecturer pointed to a bothan girl, one of the few non-humans in the class.

“The war was causing lots of suffering and the Senate weren’t doing a good job stopping it. This is why the Emperor had to take over, to ensure peace.”

The lecturer glanced over at where Agent Elliot was standing and didn’t try to hide the roll of her eyes.

“I suppose it could be interpreted that way. Senator Amidala spoke out against corruption in the Senate many times.”

“She didn’t support the war,” said another student, a human boy, “doesn’t that make her a Separatist?”

“And she signed the bill asking the Emperor to hand power back to the Senate. Isn’t that treason?” added his friend.

Another disdainful eye roll in the ISB Agent’s direction as the lecturer trotted out the party line through gritted teeth.

“Senator Amidala was a close, personal friend of the Emperor. The Emperor supports democracy and free speech, but order had to be restored after the war. Senator Amidala was a great leader and surely would have supported the Empire had she lived long enough to see the excellent things it has achieved.”

“Professor?” another student put up her hand. “I was going to do my paper on Senator Amidala and the days around the rise of the Empire but there’s hardly any sources? Should I pick another topic? Do you know how she died?”

Genuine curiosity broke through the lecturer’s stony façade but as she opened her mouth to answer, she yelped and jumped back as her entire desk broke in half.

She stared at the desk. She stared at the rows of students gaping in shock. She stared at Vader.

Her eyes narrowed minutely at the Sith and then, apparently throwing all caution and good sense to the wind, she continued her answer.

“It’s a matter of some… contention,” she started slowly. “Senator Amidala was last seen at her home on Coruscant several hours after the formation of the Empire. She took her personal ship, and left Coruscant. There’s no further sources on where she was or what happened to her.”

The lecture hall felt very cold all of a sudden. Despite the ominous feeling in her gut, the lecturer continued.

“Official Imperial sources reported her death as an act of terrorism by a Jedi. They claim she died a martyr for the Empire.”

“And you don’t think that’s true?” asked a student. It was a fair question. The disbelief was clear in her tone.

The lecturer glanced over again to Vader and the Agent. She shrugged.

“Without any evidence to the contrary, it might as well be true. I think her actions as Queen and as Senator tell us exactly what Amidala would have thought of the Empire.” She ignored the twitch of the Agent’s brow at her tone, and pointed to a student. “Yes, Ilya.”

The class continued, moving on to discuss the boring, political, parts of the Clone Wars which Vader, for one, had no desire to relive.

None of it was new to him anyway, so he allowed himself to zone out the class, gingerly picking through the whirlwind of his thoughts.

Her. Somehow of all the days, of all the classes, they were discussing her.

He briefly mused on whether it was the Force, or his own cursed bad luck. Or, more cynically, if this was engineered by his Master, as part of his punishment.

They remembered her, quoted her speeches and still respected her as a leader, as Queen and as Senator. And yet they knew nothing about her.

They didn’t know that her laughter was musical when she was happy, and a graceless snigger when he made a particularly lewd joke. They didn’t know how the air in a room seemed to change when she walked into it, like all the atoms had ceased moving. Or how it changed again, when she spoke, always uncompromising and direct, like static electricity crackled between her sentences. They didn’t know all the good she could have done. Would have done.

He had robbed the galaxy of her blinding, beautiful presence. She was the only good thing left and he killed her and it was all his fault.

A blaring alarm shook him out of his reverie as students started to pack up their bags and awkwardly file out the door past him, shooting him apprehensive glances as they went.

The girl from before, who had asked… who had asked about that, was loitering behind to approach her teacher.

“Um,” she started, “so what should I do my paper on? So many of the books in the library have been taken out by the new censorship laws, it’s so hard to find good sources.”

The lecturer flashed her student a smile. “It just so happens that the Senator Amidala’s father used to work at this university, he’s an old friend and he dropped off some of the Senator’s old memoirs.”

She went to her bag and pulled out a datapad. “It’s all been copied to the holonet, and,” she rolled her eyes in Vader’s direction, once again demonstrating a remarkable lack of fear for her life, “edited to remove anything that could be interpreted as anti-Imperial. There’s lots of good anecdotes from her time as Senator, and a fair few political essays.”

They started to talk further about the student’s paper but Vader wasn’t listening, his legs moving before he was fully conscious of it, coming to a stop in front of the lecturer and snatching the datapad from her hand. She gave him an unimpressed glare and he was suddenly overcome with a need to explain himself.

“The ISB will need to review this,” he said stiffly, “for evidence.” He abruptly turned on his heel and walked out the room, nearly running over Agent Elliot in the corridor.

“Other than her having an attitude problem, there’s not much to go on here, she’s not distributing illegal material as far as we can see,” said the Agent. “What’s that?” He asked, pointing to the datapad in Vader’s hand.

“Nothing that concerns you,” replied Vader, and stalked away in a flurry of black fabric and disdain.

It wasn’t until he was back in his chambers aboard the Executor that he dared take out the datapad again, too often surrounded by nosy Imperial officials and gossipy stormtroopers.

He flicked it to a random page and at the first line he read, let out a snort of amusement, the sound odd and distorted through his vocoder.

“In a democracy, citizens have a duty to stand up against tyranny. In order to benefit from the rights and freedoms that democracy brings, citizens have an obligation to be vigilant against the rise of authoritarianism.”

This, thought Vader, was definitely not Imperial approved material. Distantly, he wondered if he should report it, this incendiary material was on the holonet, anyone could read it.

People would know what she thought. More would remember her as a traitor.

He preferred to imagine that he could have convinced her, that she would have come to see that the Empire was necessary. But. He quietly knew the truth. She was stalwart in her beliefs and a hell of a lot more stubborn than he was.

She would have been proud to be labelled a traitor by this Empire. She would hate to be remembered as a martyr for it.

She always did have the last word, Vader thought dryly, resolving to conveniently forget about the memoirs being on the holonet, and settled onto a chair to read every word she had written.

[pro-fangirls-unsocial-life]

Can I be a funky folk and ask a question??? 😋What is your favorite movie or tv show, aside from Star Wars?

You absolutely can!!❤❤

That is a tough one though. I’m a film major but like... a bad one I guess cause none of my favorites are any of the classics that we have to watch lmao. I chose my favorites based on how much fun I have watching them!

But also, because of that, it is hard to pick just one so I’m going to give you three random ones from my top ten list (excluding Star Wars of course cause those are definitely there lmao)

Movies:

1. Yojimbo (1961) This is probably the one that would be the most acceptable for my film professors. It was made by Akira Kurosawa, who some of you might know as a Japanese director who made quite a few famous samurai films. For all of my fellow Star Wars fans (and maybe other film people lmao), the episode in the Clone Wars and The Mandalorian where the small farming villages are taught how to protect themselves from bandits/pirates is based on his movie Seven Samurai (which is what The Magnificent Seven was also based on). And, the season two episode of The Mandalorian, The Jedi, was heavily influenced by Yojimbo, specifically this scene:

I highly recommend the movie to anyone because it is honestly very entertaining and for my fellow film nerds, the blocking and camera work is stunning (although Kurosawa is a fantastic director and his blocking of scenes is always fantastic)

Another little fun fact, the actor who plays the main character in Yojimbo (as well as many of Kurosawa’s films) was who George Lucas originally wanted to cast as ObiWan Kenobi. His name is Toshiro Mifune.

Another bit of trivia that probably none of you are interested in is that Kurosawa always tries to have an element in every single shot of his movies. The elements always have something to do with the shot, or story as a whole and add another interesting layer to the movie. Like in the shots above, the main element is wind, signifying the turmoil and unrest that is taking place (I won’t spoil the movie for you though❤ the plot is not at all similar to the episode of the Mandalorian so there is no need to worry). In another one of his movies, Rashomon (1950), the element throughout a majority of the movie is rain (water) and it does not change until the mystery of the murder that took place is solved, and the skies become clear. (I also highly recommend that movie as well)

2. Pacific Rim (2013) Ok, this one is just a fun time. There is nothing particularly groundbreaking about it (although the special effects are stunning), I just enjoy it. And, unlike other monster movies, you see the monsters right off the bat. They don’t hide them and the story is honestly really interesting. I just really love this movie. Its fun, the characters are well written and endearing (plus the side characters the gay scientists have a side plot that actually furthers the story, the story is interesting and the concept of drifting is beautifully unique and done very well, the score is phenomenal, and as I said before, the effects are beautiful. They did a very good blend of practical and CG effects and it really pays off in the end product.  Guillermo del Toro really put his heart into this (like he does with all of his projects I am so excited to see his Pinocchio movie) and it really shows. This movie is so good and I will defend it to the end of my days. Also for any of you that are interesting I am currently working on a Pacific Rim Clone Wars AU so... do with that information what you will

Side note, I really wish the sequel was good cause John Boyega is a good actor and deserves to be in a franchise that will use him and his talents properly.  Guillermo del Toro did not direct that one and.... it shows.

3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) I cannot shower this movie with enough praise. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It is one of the most gorgeous, beautiful to look at, piece of art in every single frame thing that has ever been put to film and I will fight people on that (fuck you professor carter). The story is fantastic. The whole movie is a visual masterpiece and you can tell that a lot of hard work and love went into making it that way. Both the score and soundtrack are amazing. It is, in my opinion, the best superhero movie ever made. I could go on for hours about what a masterpiece this movie is. Please go watch it if you haven’t seen it.

TV:

1. Criminal Minds (2005-2020) I know, I know. Everyone loves this show. I know I’m basic. But again, I judge based on my enjoyment of things lol. I just like shows like this. I watch a lot of them NCIS, Castle, Bones, Law and Order. I just find them super entertaining (even if the writing can be bad at times *cough* final season of criminal minds where they tried to do a JJ and Spencer romance *cough*)

2. Face Off (2011-2018) I know there is a Nicolas Cage movie of the same name but this show is fucking awesome. It’s a reality competition show where make up artists are given a new prompt/concept/challenge that they have to do prosthetic make up for. It is so cool to see all of the designs and the process behind them being made. The first season starts off with a bunch of drama like most reality TV, but after that, the competitors are all mostly very kind with one another and it is a very friendly environment. Still a bit stressful because of the time limits but still a fun watch!! 

3. What’s New, Scooby-Doo? (2002-2006) If there is any show that was my childhood (besides clone wars), it is this show. I love this show with my whole heart and Scooby-Doo is very dear to me. Its just a fun kids show. Simple as that. But I absolutely adore it. 

Thank you so much for this!! I really love talking about movies and TV. And if you ask me a simple question, you will most likely get a mini essay as an answer lol.

I’d love to talk about any movie or TV show that you guys ask about though!!! If you ever want to send something in, please do so!!

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 3

Alright, time for part 3! This time we’ll be talking about Hordak.

Again, I’’ll be referring a lot to the same article from Pt. 2.I also will be referring to this 2-hour video by Lily Orchard. Trigger warnings for that video (and this article) as it has some white supremacist/neo-nazi imagery. The part I’ll mainly be referring to starts at 1:38:52. I’ll also refer to this article about “space racists.”

So last time we talked about Adora and the white savior trope. I want to jump right into discussing Hordak and the Not-So-Bad Colonizers trend in animation.

2. Hordak

Season 3 of She-Ra revealed that Hordak, literal commander of the Horde whose goal is to take over Etheria and wipe out the Princesses (aka, committing genocide), actually isn’t so bad of a guy! Sure he wants to murder people, but he really just has an inferiority complex to his older brother/original clone Horde Prime and has a deteriorating body akin to a disability (oof, like really... Noelle that’s so yikes, but that’s for a separate part), so that’s why he’s so mean! :( But it’s ok! Entrapta can change him through the Power of Friendship! uwu

...hey thanks, I hate it!

There is a strange yet somewhat predictable trend in popular kid’s animation right now where Space Colonizers are set up as the villains, committing unforgivable crimes, and then are somehow redeemed anyways. Well, let’s consider the article from Teen Vogue about white saviors again: “To this day, some people still latently believe what imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling said, that colonialism was important for everyone: the conqueror and, most importantly, the conquered. That without the colonizers, the colonized had no hope of survival.”

Now does every white person wake up and think this each morning before having cereal? No, not necessarily. Is every white person still responsible for perpetuating this norm? Yeah, pretty much! 

As I noted before, white people have been raised in a society where they have white privilege. Without even being cognizant of it, white people benefit from the labor and persecution of others. America, where the three shows I’ll discuss were primarily produced (VLD, Steven Universe, and of course She-Ra), came into being by taking land and resources and lives from Native Americans, and enslaving black people. White people in America have, since the beginning of this country’s inception, been taught that they are owed privileges. Rarely do American history classes take the gravitas of the country’s colonial legacy into consideration. When confronted with that reality, many white people will claim that they are different from the rest, or that they’re really not as bad as others who openly state their fervent desire to continue spreading an “American agenda” to the rest of the world. Yet oftentimes, these people do not challenge the very ideology that colonialism rests upon. 

Ok, so what does America’s colonial history have to do with cartoons?

Well, consider this: She-Ra, Voltron, and Steven Universe all have plots that center an Evil Colonial Entity from Space. They also feature victimized characters apologizing to those associated with the Evil Colonial Entity. Take Season 2 of Voltron, where Keith is revealed to be part-Galra and Allura, a black woman, apologizes to HIM for feeling unsettled by the revelation. Remember the situation with Glimmer apologizing to Adora in Season 1 Ep. 2? It’s the same thing. This article summarizes the situation with Allura, but I want to focus on this quote: 

“When I see characters like Bill and Allura being branded as “racist” for actions their white counterparts are never chastised for, it feels like these creators are laughing at us—like they’re sneering at me and every other black person out there who so desperately want to see ourselves reflected in our favourite shows and characters, saying “See, you’d be racist, too, if given the chance.””

VLD takes it even further by making the main villain secretly Honerva, an Altean, and then making her “motive” that she just wants to go back to the good ol’ days, and THEN talking her out of her evil ways at the end and THEN sacrificing her and Allura to fix everything....... The “victims of genocide were secretly the bad guys” plot twist is EXTREMELY antisemitic. (I hate it. I hate it sooooo much.)

Steven Universe does a similar thing, where the Diamonds, who had been established as the Evil Colonizers from Space (literally, they wanted to colonize and destroy life on Earth), get talked out of being Evil by Steven; it turns out they all just had a complicated family relationship, and that’s why they were colonizers...? Yeah don’t worry about the whole Cluster situation--you know the superweapon made up of the bodies of shattered gems? Or the whole shooting a superweapon at Earth to kill all the rebels. Or the fact that they’ve colonized other planets. Or the fact that Steven’s mom had a LITERAL HUMAN ZOO. (REBECCA!!!! WHAT!) 

There is a very good video essay critiquing Steven Universe on a variety of points, (the person who made it also has the same name as me so HECK YEAH) but I want to pull out a specific quote from it: 

“The deliberate scrubbing of the elements of fascism that make it so vile and horrible in the first place is done so people don’t have to think about things that make them uncomfortable.... There are very rare instances where these issues are openly presented... Steven Universe [and Voltron, and She-Ra are] one of those rare instances.... [yet] Sugar [and Lauren Montgomery, and Noelle Stevenson] spends the latter half of the series woobifying space fascists to a disturbing degree... To so thoroughly depict a fascist regime with a disturbing amount of accuracy, only to then turn and insist that they’re just misunderstood babs that need a hug...  war, abuse, genocide, these things cannot and should not be forgiven.”

On top of this being just deplorable on a basic human decency level, the fact of the matter is that these white creators simply do not understand, or perhaps are unwilling to understand, that colonialism, fascism, and genocide are all tied to white supremacy and antisemitism. To suddenly forgive regimes where this has been the norm is to say that systemic violence against people of color is ok, and that people who support or create this systemic violence are also ok. To claim that everyone can be just as bad as a fascist is disturbing and also ignores the fact that fascism targets people of color. To say that Allura’s distrust of Keith is somehow just as bad as the Galra’s imperialism is to ignore thousands of years of history. 

Hordak is the same: his character has been established as a ruthless leader (ie punishing Catra with death and/or banishment for not doing well enough), who wants to destroy life on Etheria (including the Princesses, their allies, and the land they live in, which is a common colonialist tactic--think about the NODAPL movement, where white people continue to destroy Native Americans’ land and resources). He demands respect, and keeps his plans to himself. He does not care how many soldiers he has to sacrifice, or the amount of people he needs to destroy, to get what he wants, which is to get MORE soldiers to Etheria to more effectively take over. He is, by all accounts, a fascist leader. To claim that Hordak just needs a friend and can be forgiven for his rampant colonialism and abuse IS RACIST. 

Fantasy stories may be fictitious, but they are still shaped by real-world ideologies. No one writes in a vacuum. White showrunners’ white guilt is incredibly palpable in these narratives. They are unwilling to acknowledge their place in the legacy of white supremacy.

On another note, it’s also harmful to assume that forgiveness is the right strategy for LGBTQIA+ audiences, too. The Steven Universe narrative claims that Steven considers the Diamonds family--well, sometimes family can be awful and abusive, or, in the case of Steven Universe, they can be evil dictators who want to destroy you and the rest of your family. Does that mean that you should put yourself at risk and “forgive” them? No! The same goes for VLD and She-Ra. 

I could write about this for days, but I’ll leave it at that. I want to end with a cartoon quote that actually makes fun of woobified villains: Avatar the Last Airbender (see the video on SU at 1:50:34). 

Aang: Maybe we can make some big pots of glue and then I can use gluebending to stick his [Firelord Ozai’s] arms and legs together so he can’t bend anymore!

Zuko: Yeah, then you can show him his baby pictures and all those happy memories will make him good again.

Aang: You really think that would work?

Zuko: NO!