#fundamental tenets of her character

[violent138]

I wonder how many arguments a week Lois "the truth at all costs" Lane and Clark "fabricates interviews with himself" Kent had about journalism and the inherent issue of being someone that uncovers the truth while purposefully deceiving people. About the ways that "truth, justice, and the American way" representative Superman violates the rules and ethics regarding evidence, hearsay, bias in the news, and anonymous sources.

Or how many times Clark has tried to get her to bury a story (a few times at least canonically), and Lois had to consider it because he told her the fate of the world relied on it, or that it maximized public good.

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[odo-apologist]

Every ENT character is the most character ever. Archer is a bitch he plays a fundamental role in the creation of the Federation he brings his dog on away missions which once causes a diplomatic incident he likes water polo he commits war crimes he saw a gazelle giving birth and implements it into his rousing speeches he had a wet dream about his first officer that included his dog's funeral he had to carry the soul of the creator of the main tenets of Vulcan philosophy in his head he gives a lecture on Tycho Brahe while getting his ass beaten during an interrogation scene. T'Pol is strict in her Vulcan beliefs she doesn't believe in time travel even as she's presented with irrefutable evidence and remains somewhat skeptical after experiencing it firsthand she is the funniest person on Enterprise she is more emotional than average Vulcans to the point that she had to have memories erased for causing her too much distress she could canonically pick up any of her crewmates and carry them bridal style she has Vulcan HIV she has it cured by the woman that later watches Spock and Kirk roll around in the sand in Amok Time she is technically canonically trans she is a recovering drug addict. Trip is a perfect gentleman he undergoes incredible emotional losses his favorite movies are Frankenstein Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein he gets pregnant five episodes in he dies in the worst episode of the entire series (and the entire franchise) only to have that death retconned in the following tie-in novels he ran around the ship in his underwear he leaves the ship for a couple weeks only to come back after one person had been kidnapped another thrown in jail and the engines are on the verge of destruction and reacts like :/. Malcolm is gay he has 50 ex-girlfriends he has only had one friend in his life his own sister barely knows anything about him he dies alone he likes pineapple even though he's allergic to it he gets spacesick he worked as an agent for a top secret organization he's afraid of drowning he whined about getting a cold he had a spike driven through his leg and didn't complain at all he has a psychosexual obsession with a man he thinks is after his job and grows to respect once they had a homoerotic fight scene before witnessing him die. Hoshi is a linguistic prodigy she's the greatest contributor to the universal translator she has a panic attack on one of her first missions she ran a gambling ring she has a black belt in aikido and broke her superior's arm she has never been to the principal's office in her life she is afraid to use the transporter she became an empress in an alternate universe she is the only one who gets laid on Risa making her the first human to do so she reacted to the threat of getting worms injected into her brain to make her reveal secret information by spitting in her interrogator's face. Travis is the sweetest man ever he loves rock climbing he gets injured whenever he tries to use those skills he's a fan of ghost stories he grew up on a small freighter he gets neglected by the narrative his counterpart helps Hoshi become empress he works out when he's horny he dies in a alternate future where Earth is destroyed he's a movie buff who would probably love the Criterion Collection he likes to chill in a part of the ship with zero gravity which he calls "the sweet spot." Phlox grins like the Cheshire Cat he breaks doctor patient confidentiality to help figure out Malcolm's favorite food he goes crazy when the rest of the crew have to sleep through part of space because of how social his species is he has three wives who in turn have three husbands he responds to the news of one of his wives propositioning a crew member by being like "cool! have fun :]" he once nearly vivisects Travis because he's being affected by radiation and gets obsessed with knowing why the guy has a simple headache he has a menagerie in the middle of his sickbay. And they're all my best friends.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Watching Miraculous, I feel that the show is written that no matter what Marinette decides to do, she would be in the wrong - she is in the wrong for not telling Chat about Chat Blanc (ignoring her own trauma in the matter), but if she told him, the show would make it the wrong choice...

The head writer has publicly stated that one of the show's guiding rules is that Marinette has to do something wrong in every episode, so I'd say that you don't just have a feeling. You've actually picked up on one of the show's not-so-subtle core tenets. It's also a core tenet that I strongly disagree with because - as I said in the linked post - when it comes to shows like Miraculous, the only characters who are always in the wrong are the villains.

If Miraculous was a different type show and Marinette's blunders were more comedic, low-stakes, sitcom-type stuff, then it could work. Two examples that come to mind are:

That's So Raven - this is an old Disney Channel show where the main character was a psychic who randomly got visions of the future. A lot of the episodes focused on her having a vision, interpreting that vision wrong, and then doing something foolish as a result. So Raven was usually in the wrong, but she was wrong in a way that rarely hurt others. If memory serves, she most just caused herself unnecessary stress.

Phineas and Ferb - another Disney Channel show about two imaginative and inventive young boys who have fun doing crazy things like building a roller coaster in their backyard. They do these things without parental permission so their older sister - Candace - is always trying to get them in trouble. In spite of this, the general viewer feeling towards Candace seems to be one of amusement, not hatred. This is probably because she never causes pain for anyone but herself, making it hard to look at her as a negative force. If Candace was written more like Marinette, then people would probably hate her, too.

While we're on the topic, it's worth pointing out that, while Candace isn't a villain, she is the antagonist. Her presence causes much needed tension. Since she's always out to ruin her brothers' fun, every episode has the low-key stakes of, "Will the boys get caught this time?" Without Candace, you lose those stakes and Phineas and Ferb becomes a lesser show because even sitcoms need stakes.

Semi-serious magical girl shows don't need characters like Candace to add stakes to the story. This is because semi-serious magical girl shows have built in stakes from the presence of villains and evil magic. It is the height of absurdity to make a rule like "Marinette is always wrong" in a show with an evil villain who is out to steal Marinette's magical earrings and use them to rewrite the universe.

The presence of the "Marinette is always wrong" rule shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the type of show they're writing. You only make rules like that in low-stakes shows like the ones I listed above. And even those shows understood that, if you have this rule, then you also make sure that the only person who usually suffers is the one making the mistakes. The writers of Miraculous really haven't done that because of course they haven't! This isn't a low-stakes teen drama. Marinette has too much for responsibility and the narrative stakes are far to high for her mistakes to come across as minor.

This is especially true because they keep picking mistakes that should lead to character growth and then not actually writing any character growth. Once again, that style of writing can work in sitcoms*, but Miraculous has way too many serious elements to be written like a pure sitcom. That doesn't change the fact that the writers are writing it like one, but it does explain why the writing leads to so much frustration for fans.

*I wanted to note that even sitcoms often make the audience hate the leads because it's hard to write anything where the leads keep making endless mistakes without making the leads look awful and sitcoms run off of every episode containing a mistake. This is why long running sitcoms tend to have a good number fans who hate at least one member of the core cast. Ted and Lily from How I Met Your Mother are great examples of this and it happens because the mistakes they make usually effect others. If the show had only been two seasons long like originally planned, then they would have been fine.

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

The damage inflicted on the nation during Donald Trump’s first term in office pales in comparison with what he will do if he is elected to a second term.

NYTimes: By Thomas B. Edsall 8/21/24

How can we know this? The best evidence is Trump himself. He has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to tear the country apart.

“Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters,” Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton, writes in a forthcoming article in Liberties,

have made it clear that they will not accept defeat in November any more than they did when Trump lost four years ago. They believe that Trump is the one true legitimate president, that those who refuse to accept this fundamental fact are the true deniers, and that any result other than Trump’s restoration would be a thwarting of history’s purpose and a diabolical act of treason.

The authoritarian imperative has moved beyond Trumpian narcissism and the cultish MAGA fringe to become an article of faith from top to bottom inside the utterly transformed Republican Party, which Trump totally commands.

Like Wilentz, Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, does not mince words, writing by email:

All the dangers foreign and domestic posed by Trump’s cruelly vindictive, self-aggrandizing, morally unconstrained, reality-defying character — as evidenced in his first presidential term and in his unprecedented refusal to accept his 2020 electoral loss — would be magnified many times over in any subsequent term by three factors.

First, he has systematically eroded the norms and the institutional guardrails that initially set boundaries on the damage he and his now more carefully chosen loyalist enablers are poised to do in carrying out the dangerous project to which they are jointly committed.

Second, their failures to insulate themselves from electoral and legal constraints during the dry run of 2017-21 have led them to formulate far more sophisticated and less vulnerable plans for their second attempt at consolidating permanent control of the apparatus of our fragile republic.

And third, their capture of the Supreme Court and indeed much of the federal judiciary has put in place devastating precedents like the immunity ruling of July 1 that will license a virtually limitless autocratic power — if, but only if, they are not stopped during the epic struggle that will reach one climax this Nov. 5 and another next Jan. 6.

The most important reason a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than his first is that if he does win this year, Trump will have triumphed with the electorate’s full knowledge that he has been criminally charged with 88 felonies and convicted of 34 of them (so far); that he has promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”; and that he intends to “totally obliterate the deep state” by gutting civil service protections for the 50,000 most important jobs in the federal work force, a central tenet of what he calls his “retribution” agenda.

Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, contended in an email:

The question is how much the Supreme Court presidential immunity decision will undermine institutional guardrails against Trump’s anti-democratic behavior. If there are no repercussions for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, intimidation of election officers, and casual handling of classified materials, then Trump will be emboldened to partake in such activities again.

Trump has made clear that norms of governance — e.g., civility, accepting electoral defeat, and treating members of the political opposition as legitimate holders of power — do not apply to him.

While Kamala Harris has pulled even with, if not ahead of, Trump in recent polling, Republican attacks on her have yet to reach full intensity, and the outcome remains very much up for grabs.

Bruce Cain, a Stanford political scientist, voiced concerns similar to Wronski’s by email:

Trump is more erratic, impulsive, and self-interested than your average candidate and is much bolder than most in testing the boundaries of what he can get away with. In political insider lingo, he is a guy who likes to put his toes right up to the chalk line between legal and illegal activity.

There is some evidence that his bad traits are getting worse with old age, but the more serious problem is the lowering of institutional and political guardrails that constrained him in the past. The decision in Trump v. the U.S. entitling a former president to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts” seems to me particularly problematic. The court left open the question of how to distinguish between official and unofficial acts. Trump’s personality is such that he will without doubt test the limits of this distinction.

Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale and an expert on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler, wrote by email in reply to my inquiry: “It would be closer to the truth to think about a second Trump administration beginning from the images of Jan. 6, 2021. That is where Trump left us and that is where he would begin.”

Unlike oligarchy and tyranny, Snyder argued,

Democracy depends upon example, and Trump sets the worst possible one. He has openly admired dictators his entire life. He would encourage Xi and Putin. The Russians make completely clear that a Trump presidency is their hope for victory in Ukraine. Allowing Russia to win that war, which I think is Trump’s likely orientation, destabilizes Europe, encourages China toward aggression in the Pacific, and undermines the rule of law everywhere.

Charles Stewart, a political scientist at M.I.T., warned in an email:

A second Trump administration would escalate the threat of authoritarian governance, most notably, by sanctioning politically motivated prosecutions. Even if the courts resisted the baldest of efforts, doing so will be costly to political opponents and also continue to silence dissent among conservatives who wish to have political careers.

In 2016 and for much of his first term, major elements of the Republican Party viewed Trump with deep suspicion, repeatedly blocking or weakening his more delusional initiatives. That’s no longer the case.

“The Republican Party is fully and totally behind Trump — the epicenter of election disruption — even after two impeachments, an insurrection and a criminal conviction,” Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton, pointed out in an email, adding:

The support that Trump received after Jan. 6, and the entire effort to overturn the election, demonstrates that much of the G.O.P. is fine with doing this. Now that the party knows what insurrection looks like and has given its stamp of approval by nominating Trump, we know that this is officially part of the Republican playbook.

One thing is clear: Trump would assume control of the White House in 2025 with far more power and far fewer restraints than when he took office in January 2017.

Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, argued that Trump’s near-dictatorial rule over the Republican Party and the absence of intraparty dissent will play a crucial role if he returns to the White House in 2025:

Democratic backsliding rests heavily on the absence of contrary messages within the party undermining democracy, because (a) this further radicalizes sympathetic voters (who take their cues from in-party politicians) and (b) makes the battle into an “us” vs. “them” partisan fight that is easily used by demagogues to justify further democratic backsliding.

Both Hacker and Frances Lee, a Princeton political scientist, pointed out that even with solid support from fellow House and Senate Republicans, Trump’s power and freedom to act will depend on partisan control of the House and the Senate.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. As Hacker put it:

The scale of the threat posed by a Trump presidency will rest far more than commonly recognized on the exact balance of partisan power in D.C. If Trump has both houses of Congress — along with, of course, a highly sympathetic Supreme Court — the pace and extent of democratic backsliding will be much greater than if Republicans “merely” hold the White House.

Given its role in appointments and its greater prominence, the Senate is the critical fulcrum. We saw in 2019-20 that Democrats holding the House helped keep the spotlight on Trump’s misdeeds and blocked some of Trump’s most egregious potential legislative moves. But House control is worth much less than Senate control, and a Democratic House may not be enough to prevent serious democratic backsliding.

If Democrats win a House majority, Lee wrote by email, “their control of the House would foreclose any opportunity for one-party legislating, such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.”

In addition, Lee argued, “Trump’s proposals and priorities still do divide the Republican Party internally. Even though Trump has improved his position with the congressional wing of the Republican Party relative to 2017, he still faces pockets of intraparty resistance, especially but not exclusively on foreign policy.”

As a result, Lee wrote, “the remaining Trump-skeptic Republicans in Congress will have pivotal status in a narrow Republican majority. So the bottom line is that we don’t know much about the influence Trump can wield until we see the outcome of the congressional elections.”

Even accounting for Lee’s caution, however, Trump’s base of support has grown over the past eight years to encompass not only the MAGA electorate and the network of elected officials who have learned dissent is politically suicidal, but also the individuals and interests that make up the party’s infrastructure, especially the donors and lobbyists.

Just three and a half years ago, in the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, this wing of the party threatened to become a major roadblock to a second Trump term. Leaders of Wall Street and big business voiced seemingly deep concern over the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his followers, with many of these leaders vowing that they would never contribute to a Trump campaign.

“Many of the nation’s richest people said after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that they would never again back former President Trump,” David Lauter of The Los Angeles Times reported. Those concerns have dissipated.

In March, The Washington Post reported: “Elite donors who once balked at Trump’s fueling of the Capitol insurrection, worried about his legal problems and decried what they saw as his chaotic presidency are rediscovering their affinity for the former president — even as he praises and vows to free Jan. 6 defendants, promises mass deportations and faces 88 felony charges.”

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of Trump’s increasingly strong ties to his party’s financial establishment. His ability to shape the flow of campaign money is second only to the power of his endorsements, making obeisance to his authority even more crucial to political survival.

Trump’s shifting relationship with the Republican establishment’s major-donor community can best be seen in the changing composition of his financial backing from 2016 to 2024.

In 2016, many of Trump’s top backers, according to OpenSecrets, could best be described as marginal figures in the world of campaign finance:

McMahon Ventures, a consulting firm founded by the owners of World Wrestling Entertainment, $6 million; Mountainaire, a chicken producer, $2.01 million.

In terms of money, Trump today is a very different candidate. The corporate qualms that surfaced in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection have been subordinated to the prospect of billions in tax breaks for business and the rich if Trump returns to office.

According to OpenSecrets, of the $472.8 million Trump and allied PACs have raised through the middle of this year, a quarter, $115.4 million, has come from the securities and investment industry, the financial core of the Republican establishment. In 2016, this industry effectively shunned Trump, giving him a paltry $20.8 million.

“The leaders of major industries’ decision to back Trump suggests that the economic benefits of staying on the team will outweigh principled concerns about democratic norms should push come to shove in a second Trump term,” Eric Schickler, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote by email in response to my query.

There are several other factors raising the level of danger posed by a second Trump term in the White House.

When he took office in 2017, Trump had no clear agenda, just a collection of grievances, impulses and prejudices; no carefully prepared list of prospective loyalists to appoint to key posts; and in essence no understanding of the workings of the federal government.

These deficiencies kept many, but not all, of his destructive impulses in check as top aides and key party leaders repeatedly steered him away from the cliff.

If he wins this year, those checks on Trump will be gone.

Trump’s advisers and allies have put together a detailed agenda along with lists of men and women who are ready to do his bidding — developments that have been detailed in this column and elsewhere.

In his email, Schickler emphasized the crucial role played by Trump’s successful efforts to drive Republican opponents out of elective office. Now, Schickler wrote:

“Each Republican member’s own political survival depends on being loyal to the team.” He continued, “Republicans will stand by Trump in any potential impeachment battle — as result, there will be no chance for a conviction, essentially making any attempt to enforce accountability into just another partisan showdown.”

During his first term, Schickler noted, Trump “raised the possibility of taking a threatening action — such as sending in troops to arrest or even shoot protesters,” but he was held back by his own appointees and senior government employees.

“The big difference in 2025,” Schickler cautioned,

is that there is a much more built-out political operation supporting Trump. Appointees will be carefully vetted for their loyalty. When it comes time to implement an order that, for example, removes civil service protections from most federal workers, the top layers of executive agencies will be filled with people eager to follow through and weed out those with “bad” views.

Not only will Trump be more robustly protected if he returns to the White House in 2025; a key institution — the Supreme Court — is more likely to back his initiatives now that it is dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority, half of which is made up of Trump appointees.

That conservative bloc has already signaled its willingness to unleash Trump in its July 1 immunity decision, Trump v. United States.

The ruling gave Trump new grounds to challenge the criminal charges and convictions he faces and suggests broad approval for future Trump policies and initiatives. The president, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the 6-3 majority opinion, “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”

Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, wrote by email:

Trump says he wants to replace the bureaucracy — part of the “deep state” — with political appointees. He wants to go after his political enemies, lock up refugees in camps, and implicit in all this he will appoint cabinet members and high-level officials who support what he wants to do instead of the “grown-ups” who constrained him at every turn during his presidency.

In this context, Shapiro continued:

The above threat to democracy has to be seen, on the face of it, as real, given that the Supreme Court has opened the possibility of immunity on any presidential actions, however criminal they might be. What Trump has said he will do, and what the Supreme Court has opened the door to — what he can do in terms of what would be criminal and not just impeachable offenses — pose an enormous threat to the nation and American democracy.

Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, summarized the risks raised by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in an email:

The court’s decisions have made it harder for the judiciary, Congress or other institutions to hold Trump in check. The immunity decision certainly enables an authoritarian presidency far beyond that envisioned by the people who wrote the Constitution.

The biggest difference if Trump is re-elected, Jacobson argued,

will be the absence of officials in the administration with the stature, experience, and integrity to resist Trump’s worst instincts in such matters. A White House staffed with sycophantic loyalists or white nationalist zealots who share Trump’s ignorance and contempt for norms and institutions will give him freer rein than in the first term.

As Sean Wilentz warns:

Trump, who does not speak in metaphors, has made it plain: “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath.” This is a time for imagining the worst. Not a single loyal Republican official has objected to that statement or to similar MAGA warnings about an impending civil war.

Yet, Wilentz writes, “many of even the most influential news sources hold to the fiction Trump and his party are waging a presidential campaign instead of a continuing coup, a staggering failure to recognize Trump’s stated agenda.”

I am going to give the last word to Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian:

Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/opinion/trump-second-term-2025.html

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

Satine and the Resol’nare

Okay, I will warn you in advance: this is an entire essay complete with introduction and conclusion, feel free to scroll on if you can’t be bothered listening to me ramble :)

So, one of the criticisms of Satine and the New Mandalorians that I see quite a lot is "but what about the Resol'nare?" This is a difficult question to answer because much of Mandalorian culture, including the Resol’nare, is found in the Legends Extended Universe, and was discarded along with the rest of that canon after Lucasfilm’s complete overhaul of the Star Wars canon, so much of it is not relevant to a discussion of Satine because she exists in a separate version of the universe. But let’s put that aside for the purposes of this debate

In the Legends EU, the central tenets of Mandalorian culture could be found in the Resol’nare. According to this, the core of what it meant to be a Mandalorian is to wear armour, speak Mando’a, defend oneself and one’s family, educate one’s children as Mandalorians, be loyal to and support one’s family, and to obey the Mand’alor. So let’s break this down piece by piece in regards to Satine.

First of all, she obviously does not wear armour. However this does not necessarily mean that she has disregarded this element of Mandalorian culture altogether. Beskar’ta emblems can be found throughout Sundari, from Satine’s own throne room to the tunnel leading from the docks into the city. Furthermore, beskar’ta emblems are prominent designs on the clothing of several Mandalorian characters: the shirts worn by Almec, Korkie, and others feature them in the same position on the chest as they would be on a breastplate, Ahsoka’s dress in the Siege of Mandalore is patterned with them; and Satine’s own dress in the Clone Wars episode ‘Corruption’ appears to have a beskar’ta-like pattern sewn into the very fabric. Essentially, the most recognisable feature of Mandalorian armour is everywhere in her city even if the armour itself is absent, indicating that, far from being erased, the heritage of their armour is fundamental to Satine’s Mandalore. While we’re on this point, there is an assumption that Satine banned the wearing of armour on Mandalore, but there is nothing explicit in canon to confirm or deny that accusation - it simply never comes up. It is possible to argue that she did, because no one on Mandalore wears it, but it is equally plausible that no one wears armour on Mandalore simply because they no longer need to.

So, we have established that, while Satine does not exactly follow the first of the Resol’nare, she cannot be said to have wholeheartedly disregarded it either. But what about the others? Let's move onto speaking Mando’a. Satine is the only named character in the Clone Wars to speak any dialect of Mando’a onscreen (specifically Concordian), something that none of her opponents ever does, and Mando’a script can be seen across several episodes on screens in Sundari. This demonstrates that Satine's Mandalore continues to utilise Mando’a in day-to-day life.

In the Clone Wars episode ‘Voyage of Temptation’, she asserts that ‘just because [she’s] a pacifist doesn’t mean [she] won’t defend [herself]’, which covers the third tenet of 'defending oneself and one's family'. Satine has no children, so we have no information with which to assess the fourth on a personal level, and we also don't have enough information about the New Mandalorian school curriculum to examine this on a city-wide level either. In terms of loyalty to one’s family, the only example we have is of her and Korkie, most notably when she was willing to concede to Almec’s demands rather than allow her nephew to be tortured.

Finally, we come to obeying the Mand’alor: there is no indication that there was a Mand’alor during Satine’s rule, as “Mand’alor” by definition means “sole ruler of Mandalore”, a position Pre Vizsla did not achieve (despite his possession of the Darksaber) until 19 BBY, and which he subsequently lost to Maul.

What we see here is that Satine follows three of the Resol'nare, doesn't follow one, and we simply don't have enough evidence for the other two. From this, we can deduce that Satine isn't actually as far from being a textbook “good Mandalorian” as she is often portrayed. The no-armour thing appears to be the exception rather than the rule.

Furthermore, based on canon evidence, we cannot confirm that any other Mandalorian adheres to the Resol'nare any more than the New Mandalorians do. We don't see anyone in Death Watch speak Mando'a, not even Pre Vizsla, nor any character in the Mandalorian (except the Armorer). Which of course is not to say that they don't, only that we cant confirm it either way. Sabine Wren does, and she wears armour, but she certainly doesn't seem in any rush to rally to the Mand'alor and struggles a lot with how far loyalty to her family should actually go. Bo-Katan doesn't speak Mando'a either, she refuses to obey the Mand’alor when Maul takes the title, and she sure seems to pick and choose when to follow the "loyalty to one's family" part.

Essentially, when it comes to the Resol’nare, Satine is no less a Mandalorian than any of her opponents are.

[utilitycaster]

7 and 8 for veth and/or essek?

7. For Veth, I like a lot of art of her as a halfling. I feel like people capture her style and her body type really well, and while this is outside the scope of this question I have a lot of complicated negative feelings about how fandom often headcanons in fully fanon representation to characters they don't actually care about, and so it's wonderful to have a canon fat character who is very happy with who she is and who people like for that.

For Essek, I think there's so much fanwork out there that it's possible to find something you like but I specifically like a lot of the meta about his motivations and his arc, and I like fic about his and Caleb's relationship that engages with it being a long-distance thing that won't be lifelong for Essek but will be significant.

8. For Veth: a bunch of things but notably, anyone who is like "I liked her better as a goblin" is boring and can fuck off; that is her core story. You do not like Veth if this is your opinion; you just want a goblin character to project onto. Also people who downplayed her relationship with Caleb. Many people who shipped Caleb with other party members (probably some people who shipped him with Essek too, but I saw this far more with those who shipped him with one of the tieflings) often attempted to downplay how much Veth meant to him. This keeps coming up, but if the core tenet of a ship involves low-key isolating the characters from any other meaningful relationships in your fanon conception of the show, it is a bad sign. Cody Christian was right and should be meaner to shippers.

For Essek: I cannot stand when fans constantly whine about him not appearing in materials or one-shots with the Nein. Yes, he is a member. He also did not appear until a third into the campaign and did not join them until very late in the campaign. He is on the run, in disguise. He is an NPC. The way he exists within the actual play story is fundamentally different. Also, he doesn't physically appear in Echoes of the Solstice but the plot hinges on him and others have written brilliantly about how screentime=/= importance. And I generally hate shrieking "HOW CAN I EXIST WITHOUT BLORBO/HOW CAN I WAIT FOR NEW EPISODES/WHEN WILL I GET NEWS OF SHOW" posts anyway and frequently block people who do them constantly and boy have I blocked no shortage of Essek fans for this specifically.

[thecinemarattifilmclub]

Join us as we celebrate the films that we love starting with Movies That Make You Want to HUG the Weekend! The List, in no particular order:

Tenet In Her Shoes John Wick Chicago It's Complicated Train to Busan Honorable Mention: Call Me By Your Name, I Am Legend

Tenet, 2020 From the opening scene, Tenet is an electrifying blend of heart-pounding action and mind-bending science fiction. Director Christopher Nolan delivers a captivating and visually stunning film. The Protagonist, portrayed by John David Washington, is a complex figure who moves through the film asking the same questions we have as viewers. The cast is fantastic, and there's this one unforgettable scene towards the end where The Protagonist has a revelatory, emotionally charged moment with Neil, Robert Pattinson's character, that leaves you heartbroken. I love this movie and will watch it again and again! -Alana

In Her Shoes, 2005 Often overlooked in the flurry of rom-coms released in the early aughts, director Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes exists as one of the most endearing films of the genre. In this 2005 gem, the film’s leads, Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, and Shirley MacLaine, each deliver performances that are beautifully nuanced in telling the story of two estranged sisters finding their way back to each other, and themselves, after reconnecting with their estranged grandmother. Yes, this is a story about love - the unexpected ways we might find it, learning to permit ourselves to experience it, how it profoundly changes us, and what we are willing to do to rebuild it after it’s been broken - but this film is about so much more than that. In Her Shoes pulls the curtain back on how grief and mental illness change our relationships in ways that can reverberate through generations and how we might be able to pick up the pieces and build something beautiful for ourselves. This movie fundamentally changed me when I first watched it. I love watching movies exploring the depths of sisterhood, both loving and complicated, and this one just means so much to me. -Victoria John Wick, 2014 Keanu Reeves, a fan favorite, is dynamite in the John Wick series. The movies are action-packed, well-acted, and feature a simple yet intriguing storyline. Whenever I'm in the mood for an exciting film with snappy dialogue and an interesting cast, I always turn to a John Wick film. Among the series, the original John Wick is my go-to because what's more exhilarating than a grieving hitman seeking vengeance for his puppy and his car? I mean, if "you've effed with the wrong one" was a person, it'd be John Wick. I'm here for it! -Alana Chicago, 2002 Based on the 1926 play and 1975 stage musical of the same name, 2002’s Chicago is a soaring accomplishment from director Rob Marshall. This musical crime dramedy tells the spellbinding tale of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, both inmates on Murderess’ Row at Cook County Jail, as they chase celebrity and notoriety while awaiting trial. What is at once a tour-de-force of its own merit is also an enchanting homage to its source material, this film is one I simply cannot get enough of. The performances from Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah are electrifying and completely mesmerizing, each wholly embodying their lauded characters. Aside from the spectacular acting each delivers in this film, the musical performances are simply out of this world, with credit to the original music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb respectively, of course, but the production comes to life in a whole new way on the big screen. I watch this film a few times a year and highly recommend keeping the soundtrack in your rotation. -Victoria It’s Complicated, 2009 Oscar-nominated writer and director Nancy Meyers followed up a legendary four-film run (The Parent Trap, What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give, and The Holiday) with 2009’s rom-com It’s Complicated. Starring Meryl Streep, with charming supporting performances from Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, this film follows a 10-years divorced baker as she navigates life as an empty-nester and discovers what might be next for her - which appears to include an affair with her now-married ex-husband (Baldwin) and a blossoming romance with the architect remodeling her home (Martin). This film explores the complications of divorce and moving on, while highlighting the joys and pits of rediscovering yourself, especially in your golden years. While this film was met with mixed reviews from critics, there is an undeniable sense of the Nancy Meyers charm that makes it the cozy and beloved film it is to me. Like any Meyers film, the set design is a character and story to discover in itself and perhaps one of my favorite elements of this movie - it’s an aesthetic feast! I have loved this movie for years and it’s one of those movies that pulls on your heartstrings, tickles your funny bone, and makes you feel hopeful for the future by the final scene. -Victoria

Train to Busan, 2016 Train to Busan is an electrifying and almost unmatched zombie film. Like any good movie, it has emotional depth. Your investment in the characters and their survival catapults you from scene to scene. Yeon Sang-ho’s directorial choices build the tension and suspense required for the film’s propulsion, but he also incorporates space for you to catch your breath. And with this plot, you'll need it. Gong Yoo and Ma Dong-seok are a great pair, using their ingenuity and sheer power to fight their way through zombie hoards. Whenever I'm looking for something exciting to watch, this film never fails to deliver. -Alana

[jellogram]

Every time I watch Black Swan it gets funnier that the first time I saw it, as a repressed teenager, I did not understand that Nina was gay. Yes that is a fundamental tenet of her character. Yes she has weird dream sex with Mila Kunis. I simply related to her too hard to understand that she was gay. I was like "Yeah this is a normal relationship to have with sex and girls. Of course she wants to bang Mila Kunis, that's normal."

I literally saw a woman onscreen fuck another woman but because I was projecting onto her and also wanted to fuck the same woman, and I clearly was not Gay, the idea that Nina might be queer completely went over my head. That's like some quantum denial right there. Meta shit. Ever been so deep in the closet that you have to deny a fictional character's sexuality because it's too much like yours.

[katie-the-bug]

Tribulation Force: The Continuing Drama of Katie Getting Angry at a Book

As promised, we immediately return to Tribulation Force. In case you missed the first post, our cast: Rayford Steele, allegedly the greatest pilot in the world; Buck Williams, allegedly the greatest reporter in the world; Chloe Steele, Rayford's daughter and Buck's girlfriend; Bruce Barnes, pastor and expositor; Nicolae Carpathia, Antichrist; Hattie Durham, girlfriend of Antichrist.

The beginning of Chapter 9 is concerned with Buck and Chloe talking themselves in circles about their relationship or lack thereof before finally clearing up a misunderstanding that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Rayford and Buck promptly blame Chloe for making problems out of nothing and generally being a woman unreasonable. I hope somebody dies soon.

Buck: "The issue was the difference in our ages. Then I realized that with only about seven more years ahead of us, that becomes a nonissue." It's official: Buck thinks that the impending end of the world permits being creepy.

NOW Chloe thinks BRUCE wants to date her based on some mysterious flowers that arrived on her doorstep and is talking about how she's going to talk to him about THAT. I'm going to throw myself off a coffee table.

In Chapter 10, Buck has a single, blinding moment of common sense. "The UN signs a peace treaty with Israel and you think it's bigger than the disappearances of billions all over the globe?"

Somewhere in between all the nothing that was going on, Rayford has been offered a job flying Nicolae's plane. He doesn't quite take the job, but he does agree to fly Nicolae to Israel for the treaty signing. In a better story he would be grappling with the possibility of crashing the plane en route, killing himself but possibly killing the Antichrist and saving the world as well. Even if he didn't go through with it, the fallout of his decision would take his character in an interesting direction. Unfortunately Rayford is nothing but a bystander, and the story remains uninteresting.

"Buck laughed, not because the joke was any funnier than the first time, but because it was theirs and it was stupid." Congratulations, authors. You have captured one (1) relatable human experience.

In Chapter 12, a bunch of religious leaders under Nicolae's influence announce their desire to create "an entirely new religion, one that would incorporate the tenets of all." Meaning, for example, a religion that simultaneously believes in one god in one person and one god in three persons and millions of gods and no god and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, all at once. This only makes sense if you, like the authors, believe that the world only has two religions to begin with: True Christianity and Everything Else. The authors believe that Everything Else is fundamentally the same, and thus will eventually come together into a one-world-religion. The authors are crazy.

In Chapter 13, Buck interviews a rabbi during a cab trip, at the end of which the rabbi asks him to pay for it. Buck jokes that he'll do anything short of funding the rabbi's upcoming flight, and the rabbi says, "Now that you mention it-" The greedy Jew stereotype: you hate to see it!

In Chapter 14, Buck goes to Jerusalem to see the two witnesses, who are promptly attacked by a screaming man with a gun who claims to be on a mission from Allah. The violent Muslim stereotype: you hate to see it!

The two witnesses are not killed, because prophecy says they will preach for 1260 days. I think it would be really funny if they died only a few weeks in and threw the prophecy into chaos, but I suppose if I want to see that I'll have to write it myself.

Our new friend Tsion Ben-Judah says of Jesus, "His very name is as profane to the Jew as racial slurs and epithets are to other minorities." The authors have convinced themselves that the only reason Jews aren't Christian is because they hate Jesus personally. Just in case you still thought they had any respect for Judaism at all.

In Chapter 15, it's mentioned that Nicolae will be buying most of the world's media, and we get a list that includes Disney. This has no bearing on the plot, I just find it funny.

We get this in Chapter 16, while the characters are attending the treaty signing: "The Antichrist was on a course foretold centuries before, and the drama would be played out to the end." Followed by: "No one could stem the tide of history." The authors are now trying to convince us that our "heroes" are justified in not doing anything about the impending apocalypse. This book is so dumb.

"The seven-year 'week' had begun. The Tribulation." Wow, what an endi - why are there three more chapters?

In Chapter 17, Tsion goes on TV to discuss the messianic prophecies and criteria he's been studying for years - most of which are only messianic in nature by Christian reckoning. Unsurprisingly, he comes to the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah and is promptly chased out of the studio. Nicolae remarks, "I would have liked him saying he was the Messiah better," and cements himself as my favorite character.

Chapter 18 begins with the words, "Eighteen months later." You guys realize you're supposed to put the time skip BETWEEN books, right? And with the number of things that have changed in the time skip, I feel like I'm starting another book anyway!

Rayford's narration mentions one "Amanda White," who had been mentioned exactly once before in the story as an acquaintance of his wife's. She is introduced as a good-looking, fashionable woman with a "servant's attitude." An entire romantic arc between her and Rayford is crammed into a summary of the preceding eighteen months, and I'm pretty sure the authors just want to give Rayford a second dead wife in a couple books.

The world has changed in many ways during this time skip - for example, the new world religion is now "Enigma Babylon One World Faith" and Nicolae is now the "Potentate" of the "Global Community." Terrible branding all round.

"The one-world religion was headed by the new Pope Peter..." That'd be Pope Peter II, ya Protestant.

Buck is devising an "anti-Global Community Web site on the Internet." Ah, the 90s.

In Chapter 19, we get the news that Nicolae and Hattie are expecting a baby. I've read enough summaries of this series to know that their relationship won't work out, but I want so bad for them to live happily with their little hellspawn. Hattie deserves it after all the shit these books are putting her through, and having a kid would open up some interesting characterization angles for Nicolae. I would love to see this giving him a genuine motivation to oppose God, as opposed to just being evil for evil's sake - he wants the world to go on so his child can grow up, and if he thinks taking over the world and wiping out Christianity will help, so be it. Excuse me while I outline a fanfiction...."Son of Rome and Babylon," coming probably never!

As of Chapter 19, WWIII has broken out, and it occurs to me - none of these major world events are connected to each other in any way. The Rapture doesn't contribute to the rise of the Antichrist, it merely heralds it. If the treaty with Israel has any bearing on WWIII, the book doesn't say. There isn't even any lead-up to WWIII in this book - we get a minor warning of it a chapter before it happens, and that's it. Jenkins and LaHaye aren't writing a story - they're writing a very elaborate checklist.

On the last page, somebody - Bruce - finally dies. I feel no emotion other than slight disappointment that it took this long.

And that's it for Tribulation Force. It's all downhill from here for characters and reader alike.

[frankensteincest]

this book series is fascinating. forcing sex workers is punishable by law and violates one of the fundamental tenets set by their gods but also every sex worker is taught to flirtatiously but securely untangle themselves from a patron who gets too handsy. there are so many contradictions like this but the main character narrating them is blind to it all bc she was conditioned into being such a ‘bond-slave’. then again, in her narration, she addresses an audience, presumably mostly her own countrymen – like a chronicle. so there’s an added dimension of does she truly adhere so thoroughly to her conditioning, i. e. the dominant ideology of her society, or is it a veneer she feels necessary to adopt.

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[volunteerismandanarchy]

One of the greatest challenges human beings face is how to tease apart a bad act from a good character — or, conversely, a toxic personality from the good and worthy things he created. How do we separate the long-time childhood friend from his insane Facebook polemics? The good neighbour from his bad politics?

“People are thoughtless all the time,” writes Alexandra Hudson in her new book, The Soul of Civility, while arguing that the best way to depolarise our society is to recognise that good people can have bad ideas. This idea is classically Christian, but also fundamentally American: even after the Civil War, a central tenet of Reconstruction was that those who fought for the Confederacy should be given grace for having chosen the wrong side. But that’s a principle it’s easier to hold to in the wake of victory than in the fog of war — or, as this past week’s events have reminded us, War Discourse.

[chocobothis]

Character Questions: Solus Ve’tra

Crap Cutting Core Characters

(The current plan is to do this for my various Fandom OCs.)

Internal

1. What do they want and why do they want it?

More than anything in the Galaxy she wants the simple life she had imagined for herself as a child. Back then it was to get married, have children, and prepare to eventually lead her clan when the time came. She would do so beside Ursa of Clan Wren because they would become the next Wren-Ve’tra Set. Based upon her hobbies and interests she would likely become the clan’s personal historian but also serve as one for Mandalore Sector itself. Her grandfather trained her in the arts of politics and spycraft, including assassination, to potentially serve as an aide and advisor to the Manda’lor. It was something he, and others before him, had done because, “Clan Ve’tra serves best from the shadows.”

She wants it for the simple reason that that's the life she dreamed of and frankly deserves. Every hardship that’s been thrown at her she’s handle with dignity and grace; all while sticking close to the tenets of the Resol’nare and the Mandalorian Creed. When she was thrown to the Jedi Order she knew it made her dar’manda. When she was led to Jabiim then back to Mandalore things changed significantly for her. Her place within Mandalore itself was larger, and more public, than she had wanted but it was crafted for her. Still, she wants (and deserves) that beautiful, simple life after all of the work she’s done.

2. What scares the hell out of them?

Something happening to those she loves when she should have been able to stop it. It’s a very real thing that has happened to her numerous times throughout her life. Knowing that she’s capable of surviving it (or in some last second cases managing to alter it) does nothing to fully soothe her. Because the danger prowls unseen and unknown at the edges of her senses.

3. What did they believe by the time they were 10?

The Galactic Senate, and therefore large swathes of the Republic, were even shitter than she’d been led to believe. Meeting them, even as a tiny initiate, doubled down on the negatives of classism, xenophobia, etc. The Senators played nice with the Jedi but they had favorites; Solus knew she was not nor would ever be one of them. They didn’t want an Outer Rim, Mandalorian Savage handling anything for them that wasn’t war. Her value would be as a soldier instead of the politician she was trained to be.

The Jedi Order was more diverse than she originally thought but had a lot of Core Worlder Decay. There were many good people she met among them. She also met people who dislike that she was one of a small batch of exceptions to become an Initiate. They wouldn’t like her and they didn’t have to. But, she would make damn certain they respected her and her skills.

Mandalore would have to have another war to grow to its full potential. Whatever was happening with the New Mandalorians was a pause in conflict. There were things she did not yet fully understand at ten but she had enough Special Dreams to look for the patterns. She also knew seeing what was happening to her home hurt. No one followed the Resol’nare.

4. What is their fundamental truth?

Love is the most powerful force in the galaxy be it love of clan, planet, power, etc. People would fight and kill and die for what they loved. They would do impossible things with a strong enough conviction born of love. Beautiful and heinous acts came from what someone believed. Hells, her strongest uses of the Force were born by digging into love; not fear, not anger, not calm, but love. Every act she committed, every supposed vow she broke to the Republic and the Order, happened because she loved her Mandalore above all else.

5. What makes them happy? (What do they think makes them happy?)

Her Mandalorian community because they are her everything to here. She felt comfortable enough within the chaos of Death Watch during The Clone Wars to get pregnant. There would be no perfect time to have children, she had the support around her, and she believed in her own skills. It was difficult but she managed to have twins and raise them while running from the Empire for being an ex-Jedi/Enemy of the Empire. 

Mandalorians are stronger together.  

A Mandalorian is never truly alone.

Those two beliefs are the backbone of Solus when stripped to her barest qualities.

External

1. What are their family relationships like?

Complicated. 

That is like the nicest, most diplomatic way to say because her blood family is a dumpster fire on Mustafar. I wouldn’t say they’ve got Iron Throne Successor Level Drama because they aren’t going to just knife each other as the first option. But, under the right circumstances it could happen. 

Her paternal family is entirely out of the picture; she’s a one night stand baby. All she knows is he’s full Sephi, has shit taste in women, and has weak genetics. She and her maternal grandfather, Jai, are so similar that Clones could place them as related from minor observations only. She wasn’t even using Ve’tra as her surname at the time.

Her maternal family is a bullet affair and that’s just their relationships with or around her.

Jai Ve’tra (Maternal Grandfather): He loves Solus more than anything within this life or the next. But, he fucks up his familial and romantic relationships enough that it’s Profolific among the True Mandalorians and Others. When he panics he resorts to Spycraft therefore acting without sharing many, if any, of the details for the whole picture. He’s certain he’s doing the right thing for the best outcome.

 + Solus spent about sixteen years under the assumption he was ashamed of her. That he exiled her to the Core World and Jedi Order because she was so unfit to lead she wasn’t worth putting down.

 + When she learned he disappeared for a decade with the Cuy’val Dar her first response was to call him “A coward who wouldn’t clean up his own messes.” If she wants to get really pissy at him she’s bringing in the Manda’lor Fett Problem. (Hint: She’s not fond Mandalorian Blood making and training the Republic’s Army.) Because look at the coward he followed into hiding? 

+ There’s a special level of pissed about the New Mandalorians he helped stay in power. Not sticking around to see the fallout and/or not acting is still an action. Because he’s Jai Fucking Ve’tra who was Galidraan and survived against all odds. A name some Jedi know to cower from. He’s the Jai Ve’tra who served as advisor to multiple Manda’lore: Jango Fett, Jaster Mereel, and further back. People would have listened to him. Hells, his the one who taughter her a Ve’tra served Mandalore from the shadows with plans and actions. He’s a fucking politician, spy, and assassin. Live up to their name and their Ancestors and clean up the Sundari Mess.

 + Her joining Death Watch tore his heart apart and she doesn’t care. If he won’t act then she will. Pre Vizsla is Manda’lor and isn’t a Ve’tra’s place in shadows to the Manda’lor’s left? An advisor, spymaster, and whatever is required of them. She knows her duty as a Ve’tra and as a Mando’ade. Rally when called. 

 + The part where she marries Pre out of love has him screaming into the void. Remove the Manda’lor Title, the Death Watch Debacle, and everything else and he just finds Pre to be an intensely irritating person. He was around for the “Younger Vizsla who is fond of speeches.” A older teenager with a well-formed political opinion is a goddamned nightmare.

Harti Wren (Maternal Grandfather): He’s her second grandfather by virtue of being Jai’s most stable romantic relationship through out there lives. Yes, this includes the ex-wife with whom he had children. He and Jai raised Solus between the Wren Stronghold, Ve’tra Stronghold, and honestly war camps. She’s the light of his life and his granddaughter/daughter. He didn’t know Jai was handing Solus over the the Jedi Order until after it happened. After being forced to swear on their Ancestors, the Manda, and the Ka’ra, he left Solus in the Order. Instead, he fell back to working with the Journeyman Protectors of Concord Dawn. He did keep a fund set aside for Solus when she came home because she would. 

 + Solus owes part of her love of flying to him. He was the first person to have her up in a fighter with him. It wasn’t during combat but she was there. Due to living on his hip she also was around the mechanics too.

 + For the first couple of months, Solus told herself that Har’ba’buir would rescue her. He’s not as sneaky so she’ll know he’s coming. But, he’ll come for her...right? When it didn’t happen she broke down in little ways. It meant that she was exiled and a failure. The most impulsive person wouldn’t break the rules to save her.

 + He does work to mend the fences with Solus when she’s back. It won’t be the same but he wants his kid back. The fact he personally met Tor Vizsla adds fuel to why he hates Death Watch. He also remembers Pre when he was a younger pain in the ass.

+ One of the things he admits is he understands why Solus and Ursa picked Death Watch. People failed them both at every turn. They were made into soldiers and leaders painfully early by even their own standards. This option gives them the a sense of control because if they’re going to war it is on their terms. It’s a gross oversimplification of events that has caused shouting matches between him, Solus, and Ursa. But, he’s trying and it means so much. He also apologized sincerely to Solus.

Seraphine Farr (Maternal Grandmother): She’s a staunch New Mandalorian from Kalevala. There’s never been any deeper explanation for why she’s picked this party for her entire life. Satine’s ascension was good to her and that’s all that matters to Seraphine. When her son died, she doubled down on protecting her daughter from harm’s way and indulged her. It was part of what made Jai feel suffocated enough to kidnap their first grandchild when she was an hour old. Seraphine barely had the chance to hold her but more or less recovered. 

 + Here and Solus would have never seen eye to eye on anything. Solus was the worst of her husband’s traits intermingled with defiant streak. Pre would’ve been someone she was less thrilled with but he’s a New Mandalorian Governor. The whole Death Watch thing would’ve been “Ah, that’s why she liked him.”

 + She’s dead to Solus. An impressive sort of dead that would have implied decades of hate. But, it’s because she’s dar’manda. Not even a regular one but one who wants to be a Core World Noble so badly she’ll roll over to show them her unarmored belly. It’s disgusting.

 + Honestly, she liked Solus better as a Jedi because there was Prestige (to Outsiders) with having a Jedi in the family. Now, she’s a goddamned disaster hellbent on taking the world apart  

Bijou Farr (Mother): Having a child when she did really wasn’t her plan. But, there’s a community around so it wasn’t like having a baby would’ve been the absolute worst thing. There was a certain ease with bouncing back from Solus being kidnapped because of it. Jai using her own child to shut her out of ever leading Clan Ve’tra stung.

 + Should she have tried to “raise” Solus it would’ve been a disaster. Her daughter would’ve appeared more as a rival than her child. Jai would not have been subtle about preferring Solus. She’s the future of Clan Ve’tra; not the child he’s described as “incapable of even leading a dollhouse”.

 + Solus has the same “You are dead to me” toward her mother. Maybe a little stronger because this woman isn’t even competently using her political power.

 + There’s a huge disconnect where she straight up forgets that she technically has a daughter. It’s a very abstract thing because she never had to care for a child. It’s more like she had a growth that people celebrated then missed a little when it went away.

Aymeric Ve’tra (Uncle): He died at least a decade before Solus was born. It happened on a mission away from Jai.

+ Solus calls him her “favorite relative” because he’s never been a pain in her ass.

2. Who do they look up to?

There’s been several people over the years. It started with Jai and Harti. That grew at points to include Jaster Mereel, various Ancestors, her Jedi Master Leska, and people from legends and myths. History was her stories more often then not. For a period of time there was Jango Fett because Jai made their Manda’lor sound larger than life. That made Geonosis a whole Experience beyond watching most of the Jedi die in a meat grinder. But, the only two that have came around and stayed, flaws and all, are Ursa Wren and Tarre Vizsla.

Ursa is seven years her senior, the leader of Clan Wren, and half of their generation’s Pair. Their clans have been allies since Krownest was inhabited by them. Eventually, a sort of tradition evolved with the presumed future leaders growing up together. If there was too much of an age difference then one would would serve as a teacher and mentor to the other. Not that she needed that tradition to be on Ursa’s heel as soon as she could walk. Even the vast changes between her being pushed to the Order and leaving, that early relationship stuck. Ursa is the person she turns with questions or to help. She’s effectively led Krownest since she was fourteen; the respect Solus has for her is immense. It makes her feel way better that she has Ursa for motherhood questions.

Tarre is an exceptionally weird case that happened because the star aligned, the Force thought it was funny, the Ancestors wanted to play a joke, whatever it took. But, Solus’ exceptional prowess and connection to the Force (and honestly kyber) along with the Jedi Temple being a Force Nexus forged a bond between them. Those factors mixed with her having a very, very solid run in with the Darksaber cemented a connection. So, she has a several millennia old Mandalorian Jedi as a sometimes mentor. It just requires some weird meditation or a sorta of séance to chat. Even when she complains about the Force Bullshit, she does appreciate having this connection at all. Existing between the two, conflicting world messed with her mind. He’s someone who understands to a degree.

3. Friends - people typically hang out with others who are like-minded

The best part of the Jedi Order was that she met her three best friends: Lumi Kirrin, Jazari Naaji, and Alijah Kastor. Nothing else there was anything but an extended trauma conga line.. All four of them were Age Exceptions (the other three were six years old to her seven) the Order made, in Katarn Clan, and ultimately being shortlisted as potential/future Jedi Shadows. They became Padawans at the same time because of the same event, got black beads as their first beads, and mostly moved through the Order and Galaxy on similar paths. 

By The Clone Wars they had all sort of realized that ultimately they didn’t want to be Jedi for various reasons. When the war was over they would leave as a foursome too. That plan changed because Solus left dramatically not even a year into the war. Lumi was on her heels, as her own memorable explosion, a month later. Jazari knew she would leave when Clan Skirata left the Republic. Alijah became the only one who knew she would wait out the whole thing; Order 66 ousted her.

Even now they’re close while standing on their different, if at times intersecting, paths.

Within the spheres of Death Watch and Mandalore she makes new friends that she has some things in common with. Her own little group becomes the people she married (Pre and Bo-Katan), Ursa, and Alrich. Axe Woves occupies a weird space at the edge because she’s never too sure how close she wants him to be. later on Koska Reeves occupies that same space. Others are varying levels of friends but not to this degree.

4. Is there anyone they do/don’t trust? Why?

Solus had training from Jai and the Order on how to exist within the shadows as a sort of assassin. If there is trouble happening she needs to not only anticipate it but neutralize it before it happens. The way she operates is to strive to be the smartest person in the room but consider herself the second smartest; it keeps her from growing lax or allowing ego to take over. She completely trusts so few people (Jazari, Alijah, Lumi, Pre, Bo, Ursa, Alrich) that one would assume she’s lonely. It also seems like it would be the antithesis of someone who values community. She’ll trust them with her and her children’s lives but not her secrets.

5. How do they talk?

Her natural voice is a lower, honeyed tone; something warm and comforting. People tend to enjoy listening to her speak because she’s just got one of those voices. Anyone unaccustomed to a Manda’o accent likely thinks she sounds scary or mean. Her word choice changes by need but she tends to lean toward a lighter intellectual. Expect a lot of swearing at times because she’s a seasoned warrior, starfighter pilot, and Rallymaster (no matter how hard she protests the title).

There’s also her Advisor/Leader Voice that comes out when she wants people to get their shit together. It’s one that’s dripping with the tone that tells someone to do what she asked the first time. Or, that she sounds like she knows exactly what she’s doing so they should fully trust that she does.

Otherwise she becomes whoever she needs to be in the moment. A lighter, higher tone to add to a sort of doll-look to be disarming. Highly formal to keep appeal to egos well stroked. Husky and low to lean into the seduction to get someone alone. The possibilities are endless because she’s whoever she needs to be.

+1 Do they have any medical conditions that would have an impact on any of the answers above?

Well, she’s got so many different traumas leading to PTSD her therapist would need a therapist to sort it out. Independent of that is a whole anxiety disorder that should make her look like a malfunctioning vibroblade in the Force. It’s a wonder Mace Windu doesn’t name Shatterpoint Induced Migraines after her. A degree of compartmentalization that should scare people because she’s very, very good at “Helmet on, heart off” and “It’s just pain”. One of her Force “Gifts” is a sort of Past Vision that’s made up her dreams more or less since birth; she does have some control and focus on them now. Somehow she is both functioning and thriving.

[lonesomedotmp3]

it's not even that big a deal it was just so obnoxious (also this isn't relevant to anything but I've lost my retainer and I'm seconds away from losing my mind about it. but whatever.) but the thing I was gonna complain about was basically that an old friend of mine (HISTORICALLY a friendship that was never difficult per se but not something I enjoyed experiencing for longer than a few hours because we are both way too similar and fundamentally different people. especially politically. but anyway) told me today that she's gotten into supernatural and that I should watch it and I was like. first of all did I hear that right. second of all respectfully I will not be doing that <3 and she was like why not and I gave all my reasoning this and that and THEN. when she kept pushing. I was like idk I'm just not interested in a show where all the main characters are men. and oh my god you guys you would've thought that I demand those actors be publicly executed. you would've thought I said we should take away men's rights to vote and let women have dictatorial control over every state and every country on earth. it was ludicrous. she couldn't get her head around it. "but their gender is irrelevant!" absolutely not fucking true do not pass go do not collect 500$ on SUPERNATURAL. you're telling me it doesn't matter that it's a show fronted entirely by men written by men with at least initially a male audience in mind. the show that I haven't seen but also know from being on here is supposedly about tenets of masculinity and (and I don't know if I believe u people but it's what I've heard) deconstructing the myths that surround it? that's not relevance? it's not relevant that I've been told all the women we're introduced die? "well everyone except the main characters!" YES. THE ALL MALE MAIN CAST DON'T DIE. it's literally tiring to get stories about men all the time. all the time. and not a single woman in sight in that one. so no I don't want to watch it at least not now. because I'm so tired of watching a story entirely about men. that's not a crime. and she was like yeah but they're not homogenous archetypes due to gender they're all different like the brothers' relationship is the heart of the show and they're so different from each other. and I fully just had to be like yes I understand how characters work. I still don't care. It's not that I think all male characters are the same it's that I'm tired of all stories centring men. in fact I'm tired of men getting varied and complex stories and characters while women are pushed to the side and ignored! so no! I don't care about those men! and then she went "you realise you're making no sense right now" (direct quote she actually said this verbatim to me) which just proves there was no point attempting to get her to understand this at all because she's so stuck in the mindset that equality means never thinking about how gender impacts things at all (this type of thing has happened before. anything more leftist then "women can do whatever men can do!" is too much for her apparently. and she hasn't budged on this in several years) that she'll never consider for a moment that it is not deranged nor evil of a person to want to see more women on their tv. wow I had more to say about that than I thought. but isn't that fucking insane?

[thosemintcookies]

I think the worst crime of the current DD run is that it reads really liberal. It sets up interesting stuff about prison abolition and the spectre of personal guilt in matters of justice and even race issues and whatever but it doesn't follow through with a real statement on it, not to mention i really don't think a white man should be like. THE face of these conversations? We already have Luke having all these conversations. I think the fact he just sort of chose to go to prison is a certified white girl boss moment it's literally the set up to orange is the new black where the lady realizes she's the least interesting person there. It sets up fun stuff about the community, how to spend money in ways that are actually helpful to community interests etc. Idk we could have had Elektra learning to take an interest in the city beyond her ties to Matt, who she hasn't dated in 20 years. You have the best annual ever (Mike!) But then you barely utilize him and just make it petty family squabbles until he legitimately dies. I'm being a stinker hates but I have siblings and as much as I hate them we've endured the same traumas and also I love and support them. I wanted to see them connect.

Idk matts character is previously established to be one of narcissistic self interest and extreme guilt but I think also that he's naturally violent and vengeful. He's extremely self-justifying and he thinks his sadness absolves him of his selfishness. But in this run his intentions are more or less justifiable in a vague "moral goodness" kind of way and not "this is what I want" kind of way. I know a lot of people are coming from the Netflix show where they sanitized his intentions but the most annoying parts of him were his white saviour complex even then.

Also I don't get the impression there's any input from real religious people in this run all the dialogue about religious morality read black and white when in religious communities I've been in (other than cultish fundamental groups, whose faith I found rather shallow to be fucking honest) It's been about growth and development and complexity. A core tenet of Christianity is the fundamental worthiness of everyone. It's love at the core of the universe. It's personal guilt over one's own sins but these arise from goodwill and love of those you've wronged. What kind of freak only feels guilty about murder because God told then it's wrong. I don't know. There aren't easy answers in atheism or religion. Philosophy hasn't been solved.

Like in studying criminology the hottest take and the biggest takeaway is that community connections and love drive people away from violence and addiction. We could have been having the story where Matt realizes that the connections he has redeems him, that guilt is an emotion of inactivity, that using the prison system as his way of absolving his guilt rather than restorative action with the people hes wronged is silly and useless.

Maybe it's because I think white people telling me about their guilt is annoying. Maybe it's because people have talked down to poc for their "backwards" beliefs and a lot of the talking points feel similar. Everyone is an annoying liberal and no one knows how to embrace each other.