#Mandalorian discourse

[phoenixyfriend]

Don't drink the propaganda juice, learn the actual makeup of Mandalore (hint, all characters of color either died 3-4000 years prior to canon, were introduced after people got mad about TCW's Mandalore being white, or are Fett clones).

Anyway, you can't arbitrarily apply the diversity beam to Jaster's Good Ol' Boys White Man Club and not Satine's We Have Three Character Models On A Shoestring Budget City.

[infinitepunches]

“They can’t recanonize Mara Jade because they want Luke to be celibate.”

Shut up. There are ten legends books about Mara before she marries Luke. She has way more to her character than just being Luke’s love interest.

There is no nonsexist reason why Thrawn can be canon and Mara can’t.

[ranahan]

I’ve had a number of posts on my dash lately going “but did you know Jaster Mereel was a merc who killed people.” I’m more amused than annoyed, but I think this reads enough like a rant that I’m making this its own post rather than a reply to someone else’s. That being said…

Yes. I did in fact know this about one my favourite characters.

How is this any different than the faction of the fandom who simp after Darth Maul? Are they are unaware that Maul is a bad guy? Does it lessen their enjoyment of the character, or could it be that it’s an essential part of their enjoyment even?

Personally, the thing that makes this character intriguing to me is precisely the dichotomy between how he’s portrayed in the comics and also described as a honourable and pious person. There’s a pretty big gap between the reality or mercenary work and honour as we know it on Earth. So that raises all kinds of interesting questions: how would that even work? Or perhaps: what does that tell us about Mandalorian morality? And I find stories (and fanfics) that explore these questions compelling.

Similarly, the story where Jaster Mereel with his mercenary morals rules, is a more entertaining story to me than the story where Satine Kryze and her pacifism rules. Under whose rule would I rather live in real life? Kryze’s, of course. But this is not real life. Mandalore is a fictional place. Absolutely no one is hurt, if they are ruled by a bad guy.

Mandalore’s entire purpose as a fictional place is to create stories and do what stores do, whether that’s entertain, educate, engage or provoke readers. And I happen to think that stories with conflict are more entertaining. The story where Palpatine rules is a better story than the story where Bail Organa rules.

tldr: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Mereel is a fictional character, not a real person, so I score my enjoyment and what’s “good” by the metric of what makes a good story, not what I would like to happen in real life. Is Mereel a good person? Debatable. Is he a good character? To me, yes.

I feel like the fans who treat fictional characters like real people, are always going to be disappointed by the segment of fandom who don’t.

Not to say Mereel and Palpatine or Darth Maul are comparable (Mereel is more of a morally grey character whereas Palpatine and Maul are portrayed as simply evil). These are just exaggerated examples to illustrate my point. I’m similarly giving Kryze’s rule a generous interpretation to show my point does not depend on the relative morality of the characters.

[genetics4life]

If your actions contributed to the mass exodus of Pedro boy writers in the past 48 hours: I hope your botox migrates, you wake up with a sore neck every morning for the next 10 years, and you get audited on your taxes.

[beskarfrog]

i didn't expect it to be someone like you, i didn't expect you to be like me

[armoralor]

Emily Swallow’s face when d*nbo shippers in the crowd started yelling at Katee Sackhoff for saying Bo-Katan Kryze and Din Djarin have "no romantic undertones:"

Please don’t harass actors. Katee has been humoring inappropriate questions about a fictional romance for MONTHS. She has made jokes and played along to diffused awkward fan situations; ship what you want online but please don't bother actors with it (image from a different angle of this panel).

[rainybearstudio]

Been a hot minute! Coming back to my roots :)

rainybearstudio.com

[velvet4510]

See also poll 1 and poll 3.

[dindjarindiaries]

I kinda hate the outlook The Mandalorian fandom has gotten on season 3 now that we're about a year and a half out from its release.

There are people who absolutely adored it who are entirely free to feel that way, and there are people who didn't enjoy it and are disappointed by the storyline who are also entirely free to feel that way. For some reason, though, these two sides tend to constantly invalidate one another.

It's entirely possible to still love and adore a story while so many others didn't. And the opposite is true as well. Storytelling is subjective, that's the beauty of it, especially in a case like this where it's not harmful to have different interpretations.

So, if you loved season 3? I'm so glad you did, and I understand why! But that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to express their displeasure with it.

And if you hated season 3? I understand why, and I'm glad you're able to come to terms with it. But that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to love it.

It's complicated. We waited so long for that story, and having such a strong interlude in TBOBF in between really did make things weird, so of course it was going to be quite different from what many of us imagined. That worked for some, and it didn't for others. It doesn't mean we have to be going at each other's throats all the time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that as a fandom, I really wish we could be better about respecting people's outlooks on this season and the future of The Mandalorian franchise. I sure know my opinion on the season has changed in very confusing ways over the past year and a half, and that's okay.

Please, especially in times like these, be gentle with one another. We don't know how much longer Din Djarin and Grogu's story will be told, and I want us to be able to enjoy this time spent with one another even if we all don't agree on how things have gone.

[ct-hardcase]

one thing I have noticed in the last few years of discourse about star wars canon is the attitude from some parts of fandom, where when people go "hey, I don't like this problematic aspect of canon/I don't like that this canon significantly contradicts the other", others will respond, stating that star wars is a tapestry of stories, and that it's fine, actually, because you can just take the parts you want and/or to just cobble one's own canon together from whatever.

this isn't bad advice per se, and if that's someone's preferred way of interpreting canon or dealing with discrepancies, I'm genuinely happy they reached that solution (hell, I even do it myself sometimes—rey mind-tricking finn and poe in the tros novelization is something I absolutely choose to ignore on account of it being ooc and not in the movie), but the majority of the time, I like treating canon as a puzzle that I can put together, and when some of the pieces simply can't fit right, or if there's blatant disrespect to the other stories in the tapestry (hi, caleb in tbb), I don't think it's wrong to be pissed at that and expect the corporate entity managing the product to do better.

[gh0st-c0mpany]

We need to bring back Dream/Nightmare Socratic seminars from 2021. Walon Vau and Jaster Mareel are in my top pick for basically any topic

[reality-itself-but-magic]

people who were happy when din djarin took off the helmet will always be foreign to me. That taking off of the helmet, basically him being stripped of the core tenet of his beliefs - well maybe not the core tenet but rather a physical representation of his belief and like his entire religion - was meant to be a viscerally traumatic moment. Like I wouldn’t be exaggerating much if I said it tore him apart. Being a mandalorian, something he considered vital to his identity, who he was as a person, was ripped away from him, and y’all are thirsting??????

[tessa-quayle]

Pedro Pascal Podcast Interviews

These two interviews from 2018 and 2022 are lovely and showcase Pedro’s warmth, empathy, humor, and wit.  Russell+Robert (Talk Art) and Sam Fragoso (Talk Easy) do a stellar job engaging Pedro and asking insightful questions.  Topics range from art, cinema, his childhood, politics, and family (tw: grief, his mother’s death) to his years as a struggling actor and his current work at the time of the recordings.  You can listen on Spotify with a basic (free) account.  Each interview runs about 56 minutes.

Nov 2018: Talk Art interview with Pedro Pascal 

May 2022: Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso - Pedro Pascal, A Life of Dreaming

[penvisions]

dev says things

woke up to a few lovely comments on the new chapter!! thank you all for the continued support on a story i pour my entire self into!!

and a few not so nice comments on the chapter, which really hurts, to be quite honest

i worked my butt off planning out that chapter and the overreaching plot of the episode it kicks off, writing it to get it to y'all on a holiday bc it was my only day off this week and yeah, not such a great feeling to be told it's 'unoriginal', 'handled san's feelings wrong', and 'to hurry up with the smut'

i am writing for me. this fic is for me and my enjoyment, this character insert is for my enjoyment. sharing it with y'all who also love our dear tin man is a bonus, the community we have all created here is so lovely most of the time, but {of beskar and kyber} and {garnish} seem to be getting negative attention lately and it's not fun to see in my inbox or comments on ao3

please be kind to everyone you encounter, we are all people!! readers and writers alike. i just want to say that before i head into work

hope the day is good to y'all, love you

[beskarfrog]

[rainybearstudio]

Ik i sent you an ask recently but I've been looking at a lot of your dinbo art again and I'm currently watching Clone Wars and something about it keeps making me laugh bc now all I'm thinking about is Din and Obi-Wan (kind of) being brother-in-laws 😂 just about the only thing they have in common is a love for spitfire women.

I kinda rambled there but once again thank you for your service

This is a bit different from the original post, but I saw a meme about it and thought it was funny 😆 thanks for the suggestion!