#rather than that being an established thing w/ them... in the aftermath of that same incident Josh is still looking to/depending on him! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thequibblah · 3 years

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⭐️ would love some commentary on that dancing scene (or really any commentary on the various parties thrown by the marauders) from the party happening next to the Potions Club party ⭐️

WELL WELL WELL

"This is...a lot of trouble to go to." "It's the Marauders. They love trouble."

i love writing party scenes (as i'm sure you all know lol) and one of the best/worst things w the marauders parties is striking a balance between their, uh, audacious plans, and what's realistically possible at hogwarts without getting caught. (aka literally why i made up the dodgy lodgings). i went back and forth so long on whether or not they could plausibly have managed that with slughorn's dinner next door, but then was like ah whatever the party has to happen for plot reasons so.... plot ex machina??

anyway, i love using parties to establish character — what a brilliant stage of teenage performance they provide. i love contrasting the hogwarts parties to, say, evan wronecki's — for instance, how lily and co. are more at ease in the former, as seventh years, with their classmates hosting, than they were at evan's nye bash

i also love that it gives me space to establish who is and isn't popular, so to speak, but also who acts or doesn't act the way we presume popular kids will act

doe, for instance, who is by all accounts a level-headed and non-wild person, has a more exciting time on net at marauders' parties than mary (drinking game, kissing remus), though she's not a big drinker and isn't really into parties. but she's comfortable in her own little social circle at a bigger event (like with michael at evan's) and so isn't bothered at all by the marauders' do, because...

She did, in fact, trust the Marauders. Her general belief in the inherent goodness of people notwithstanding, she didn't think they would do anything to harm their friends. Intentionally.

this bit always makes me laugh

as with many things, i feel very saddened that i didn't get to make more out of the fools' olympics (although one could argue that The Dance was a pro) — as in, i wish i'd been able to squeeze more of it into the story itself. i could probably come up with a list of tasks and who completed them LOL

WAIT OH MY GOD I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS it just might be my favourite part of this chapter

"How did you do that?" Gillian said, glancing between the other two girls. "Just — drink it without a second thought?" "Practice," said Mary. "Scottish — constitution," David said hoarsely. "I once drank some of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mass Remover," said Priya.

priya is all i aspire to be

can i say, too, it's hilarious to me how many people worried niamh would be a james love interest? i feel like you will not rest easy on that count until he and lily are together... but that is not where the danger lies babes

circling back to popularity/unpopularity, another fun outlier. gillian is first established, in 33, as someone with friends (we see her around sara and in the seventh-year ravenclaws' compartment) but she's not exactly at ease at the party either — recall how she hesitates when mary invites her. only later, in 38, do we realise that our opinion of her has been skewed by the narration (from doe, who naturally assumes any friendly, nice person must have a wealth of friends and be floating through life; and mary, who naturally assumes anyone she isn't bored by must have the social skills of a medieval noblewoman at court), and she's a bit of a pariah in her own house

david, on the other hand, is just flat-out not in his element. and not because of the drinking or the, er, general revelry (see: summer with mary!), even though he doesn't partake much in either. unlike doe, the company breaks rather than makes his enjoyment — he's acutely aware, the whole time, that his cooler, more liked brother is around:

"Not your scene?" "What gave it away?" said David drily. As one they looked at Chris...

...and mary has intuited as much too, even though she has a lot more in common, superficially speaking, with chris than david

so, i think while i was writing this chapter i made a post complaining about how, as much as i love juggling the constraints of historical fiction, i hate that music from the 70s limits me in terms of tracklists. i.e., when i say a certain record is playing i can't just hit shuffle and go somewhere entirely different to set the mood shortly thereafter

this problem was because i wanted, NAY, NEEDED, to have "martha my dear" playing in the aftermath of that mary and david interaction. of course, time passes in that section break, but since "come and get it," which they talk about it, is a sirius song (though it could be a mary song), and i feel too strongly about needle drops to let that conversation go without a soundtrack. germaine even correctly guesses the white album is on because of mary:

Apparently Mary got fonder of the White Album the drunker she was.

...and of course the song itself makes me squeal with how very mary it is — not that it is something she would listen to, necessarily, or identify with (it would hold up too close of a mirror, ha), but it sounds like it could've been written about her ("hold your head up, you silly girl/look what you've done/when you find yourself in the thick of it/help yourself to a bit of what is all around you," which really sums up the entirety of her portree holiday, lol)

BUT! if "martha my dear" is to play here, then i have some Serious Chronology Concerns. i knew germeline had to kiss and jily had to dance and ideally in that order. but what would those scenes be soundtracked by!!!! i was limited to side two of the white album!!!

so i did the healthy thing and panic-listened to the white album. "don't pass me by" was, right away, an easy lock for the dance, because it's danceable, but not in a way that would've scared lily off. lyrically, it feels GREAT for jily in this moment, on the cusp of lily's realisation ("waiting for your knock, dear [...] i don't hear it, does it mean you don't love me anymore?" vs OF COURSE "don't pass me by [...] 'cause you know darling, i love only you"). i feel about "don't pass me by" the same way as NYT critic nik cohn: it's "straight ahead and clumsy and greatly enjoyable, backed by a beautiful hurdy-gurdy organ," which, if that isn't everything i wanted to evoke with the dance itself!!!!!!

ok we'll circle back to this, but onward with the musical discussion

thus i had four songs to choose from, between "martha my dear" and "don't pass me by," for the germeline scene — "piggies," "blackbird," "i'm so tired," and "rocky raccoon." the latter is on my sirius playlist, so auto-no; "piggies" is, well, like that, so also a no. "blackbird" is a certified germaine classic that was written personally by paul mccartney for germaine, but it seemed too introspective for the moment. i don't think i'd ever listened to "i'm so tired" before this panicked searching, and honestly it must be some wild luck that it is. just SO RIGHT!!!! it's so lethargic and tortured and angsty and, well, a bit of a stoner song, so.... it's THERE

AND NOW for the dance! true story, i initially wanted jily to have a real conversation, after the party. i had the dance in there and then james would catch up with lily after to be like, "hey i was wrong actually, you should write to petunia." but then i realised i wanted james and sirius to have a conversation about the bike/money, and i wanted it to strike a different chord, tonally, than the jily conversation. then i realised it would be too much to have both and i'd need to condense that conversation into the dance. VERY nearly cut the dance in favour of the conversation but wow i am glad i didn't

The tinkling piano signalled the start of the next song; she extended a hand, very matter-of-factly, to James, "Come on, this is a good one."

not pictured: james having a fucking breakdown

obviously, i could have gone the route of a genuine dramatic dance, but as previously mentioned lily would have chickened out, and i wanted to have this be an experience she could look back on and pine about because of how fun it was and james totally doesn't like her back

Loath as she was to admit it, this most indelicate of waltzes suited the plodding chords of "Don't Pass Me By." And worst of all, once they had stopped stepping on each other's feet James started to sing, in the poorest possible Ringo imitation she had ever heard in her life.

by the way, attentive readers of blink three times will recall:

He finally starts to lead — thank goodness, because she’s not the one who was forced into formal dance lessons as a child...

so in 36, this is james being drunk, but it is also james being silly on purpose because not only is he JAMES and so he must take the mick, he also knows it will put lily at ease

okay, and this bit:

"Don't pass me by, don't make me cry, don't make me blue," they both shouted rather than sang, "'Cause you know darling—" Lily broke off, laughing, dimly aware that she had done so to avoid saying I love only you while staring right at him.

from the FIRST MOMENT i picked out "don't pass me by," i knew i knew I KNEW that lily would have thoughts about this line. at this point in the story if someone questioned her about it she would probably have a full-scale breakdown about her male friends vs her female friends ("but no... i suppose i wouldn't mind saying it to remus.... but that's different!" how is it different, lily? "it's different!")

anyway, the bottom line is she could NOT abide saying it. i enjoyed writing that because 1. same girl and 2. it felt like a nice bit of close foreshadowing for her realisation, which i knew was coming soon. so that's a really circular way of saying, i knew what it meant but ideally to readers it was just oh this will mean something far-off in the future!!! which is usually true for me but SURPRISE babey it was just two chapters away!!!

note btw that lily "falls for james"

Lily spun faster than she’d intended to. The room was a brief, kaleidoscope blur. Then there was James. “Jesus, Evans,” he said, steadying her as the next track began.

>:)

and after i thought tracklists would fuck me up, i turned them into my WEAPON!!

Huffing, she stepped out of his arms. (There were some songs you could sing along to with your mates, and “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” was not one of them.)

(so, you know, keep in mind that for the rest of this conversation, paul is in the background howling "no one will be watching us/why don't we do it in the road?")

also:

"...I’m not drinking tonight, but I’d better get the royal treatment after we win on Saturday."

and then what happened <3

wait jesus oh my god i really went hard on this huh

She only saw its result: the easy grin had given way to an expression so serious it was almost sweet.

LILY??????

and hey, remember when:

...because in chapter 26:

Dex’s measured opinions about the wizarding world seemed more the result of upbringing and inexperience than ill will, but Lily had not expected a radical change of heart.

...but then in 36:

He was right, damn it. And a part of her had known all along, had sought him out expressly so that he would say the opposite thing to her. He’d gone and proven her wrong. She broke the staring match first [...] “What brought on the change of heart?” “It’s a long story, and I expect it’ll have an unsatisfying end if I told it to you.” Lily scoffed, but James had on that maddening grin that meant he would not budge. “Oh, all right.” Softer, she added, “Thank you.” He began to back away, towards the bar. “It’s give and take, Evans.”

in conclusion, i never forget, besties

#i literally had to retype this entire fucking response #i hate tumblr #but anyway #be warned i talk about the beatles :/// in here #ask me #anon #director's cuts #36

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reikunrei · 3 years

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makoharu 8, 11, 25, 37, 42 for the ask meme ?

oooh lots of numbers let’s GO

8) What do the like best about their partner?

I believe they both love how compassionate and caring they each are. Makoto wears his heart on his sleeve, and can’t help being nice to everyone he meets, and Haru adores that about him. Haru, while more reserved, has opened up more over the years, and when you really get to know him, you learn he has a very gentle heart and really just has trouble sharing his deep feelings. Makoto loves when Haru shares his feelings, whether that be through words or actions, or even things like art or scrap-booking.

Other than that, I think they both love how determined they each are in their respective goals and desires. Like when Makoto figured out what he wanted to do in the future (both in s2 and how that goal evolved in s3), Haru was overjoyed, and likely loves helping Makoto study and listens to him talk about what he’s learning, what he hopes the future is like, etc. Haru feels very proud of him, and Makoto absolutely feels the same in return.

11) Do they celebrate holidays? Anniversaries?

I think they would celebrate special dates, but they wouldn’t always necessarily be a big affair. Like, they’ve been by each others sides for almost their entire lives, and while it’s nice to celebrate from time to time, they don’t really feel like it’s necessary. I feel like, if anything, they have designated celebrations for birthdays, and Maybe any sort of relationship-related anniversaries, but even those aren’t very important to them. They’d rather just spend their time as they usually would, and have sweet romantic nights whenever the inspiration strikes them, rather than honing in on one specific date in the year.

Maybe, if anything, they celebrate the first day of summer by making a point to go to the beach or something lol.

25) How much time do they spend together? Do they share their feelings, or hold things in?

They spend All Their Time together.

Not really, lol, but they really are connected at the hip in many ways. They certainly spend a lot of time together, even if they’re not really “hanging out.” A lot of their time spent is just existing in the same space, in comfortable silence, doing their own thing. They certainly do things together, like go out to eat, see movies, play video games, etc., but just silently hanging out in the same room is certainly a very common occurrence.

When it comes to sharing their feelings, I often think about how, in the actual series, they know each other well enough to pick up on each others feelings without needing to speak, but they don’t often say those things out loud, so sometimes they get lost in translation. Certainly over time they got better about doing that, and I especially think about their fight scene in s2, where Makoto said how worried they all were for Haru, that they all love him, etc etc, and then Haru really bared his soul and admitted how upset he was when he apologized. Like, I think after that point, while it’s still difficult for both of them to obviously state their feelings (Makoto maybe because he doesn’t want to burden others, and Haru maybe because he’s just stubborn like that), they really start to say things out loud. Those can be negative things, like what’s bothering them, but they’re certainly also things like telling each other how much they care about one another, how much they love one another, what they mean to one another, and so on. Haru thinks it’s embarrassing at first, but Makoto gets this sweet little bashful yet giddy smile on his face whenever Haru says those things, and he absolutely eats it up.

37) How much would they be willing to sacrifice for the other? Any lines they refuse to cross?

Oooh, first thing that comes to mind with this is Haru’s swimming career. And then my heart just leapt into my throat thinking about the infamous “something Not Good is gonna happen to Makoto” theory lmaooo.

I mean, at least in regard to that, I always feel like Haru would choose Makoto over swimming. He would sacrifice part of, or even his whole career, if it meant not losing Makoto. And that is something that the show itself has established, like the whole ending (or I guess you could say the entirety) of s3 was all about how these boys were choosing friendship first, friendship is what holds them together and gives them strength, and without it, they can’t reach their full potential. I think that if Haru were to sacrifice Makoto for his swimming career, he would crash and burn so, so quickly. We already saw that happening with Ikuya, and how he stunted his potential by convincing himself that he had to do everything on his own, without leaning on friends for support. We also saw glimpses of how Haru and Rin are going to surpass, or at least be formidable opponents, to competitors who “gave up” something in order to get better at swimming, all because they make their relationships with others a core part of their existence. You know, like all humans should lol.

And even though Makoto would probably try to get Haru to stick with his career, Haru wouldn’t listen. His bond with Makoto, and with his other friends, is far more important than sponsors and times and gold medals. And while Makoto might be frustrated with his stubbornness at first, in the long run, he knows it’s the right choice. And not for selfish reasons, either. He knows that friendship is important to Haru, and without it, he becomes nothing (talk about dramatic lmao).

42) Do they let each other get away with things that would normally bother them?

I absolutely think so, and they certainly get called hypocrites for it (in jest) by their friends lol. I don’t think they’d let the other get away with something really intense or w/e, but little things, certainly.

I’m trying to think of something specific, and one thing that pops into my head is how like... Makoto is sort of wishy-washy or indecisive sometimes. Like, he’s a bit of a people-pleaser, so he just sort of goes along with things, even if he’s uncomfortable (ie. doing the island training camp when he’s scared of the ocean). And Haru certainly recognizes this, even points it out at times, but I guarantee if someone else constantly behaved like that, he’d be a bit more frustrated with them. With Makoto, though, he’s more understanding, and more likely to help with the aftermath of the situation rather than stop it before it gets out of hand.

In Makoto’s case, I think Haru’s reserved nature is something that is a special case. It’s not that he’d be impatient or frustrated if someone else was quiet and didn’t voice their thoughts and opinions, but he certainly gives Haru a bit more room. It definitely also helps that Haru doesn’t always need to actually talk for Makoto to understand him lol.

#makoharu #free! hc #ask

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

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animorphssss.....2!

ok one L abt reading the series on my ereader is that the flipbook illustrations arent there ;_; those were my favvvvv

anyways I love animorphs still

I feel like I'll end up repeating myself a lot during these little liveblogs lmao but mannnn it’s so good. its so hardcore. like I know that that’s the whole Thing but I still get shocked by some of the stuff that happens

like a big theme in the series centers around the morality of killing your enemies - and it’s so all over the place bc in book 6 you have jake boiling a bunch of yeerks alive, which is kinda gnarly if you think abt it, but the alternative would be to leave them there and let them infest people soo...? and that’s basically the point, that there are never any easy choices in war

also I went on the animorphs wiki to look at trivia bc I love doing that and I cant BELIEVE (some of) the books were reissued in 2011 and they changed/removed some of the references to be more ‘modern’ omfg....talk about erasing 90s culture smh

likeeee I was born in 97 so I didn't exactly grow up in the 90s and therefore some of the references go over my head but its so charming and fun to have them there! and it makes sense given that the books are SET in the 90s

I don't remember ever being confused by any of the references as a kid (tho for sure a lot of them went over my head), but then again I read the books in like 2008 sooo

also some of the stuff that they change - like changing ‘recorded w/a vcr’ to ‘recorded w/the TV’ or ‘floppy disc’ to ‘flash drive’ may make more sense to modern audiences, but doesn't make sense in the context of the story still being set in the 90s

tho it is funny that the books use the phrase ‘hook up’ to mean ‘meet up’ a lot bc that is a phrase that definitely has a different meaning nowadays

alsooooo as it turns out I'm p sure I only read a couple of the spinoffs - the hork-bajir chronicles and the ellimist chronicles (which was confusing lmao), bc my library didn’t have the others :( 2007/2008 woes....

but now I get to read the spinoffs woooooooo so I read the first megamorphs and the andalite chronicles

I'm reading them in the chronological order (I think?) which is good bc part of the problem was that I read the ellimist book at a completely weird time and it confused me more lmao

megamorphs 1 basically felt like a regular animorphs book except longer, but the plot didn't feel like it needed all that extra page space tbh? even so it was an entertaining adventure

and rachel having amnesia was great, amnesia is one of my fav tropes lmao. and it was a lot of fun here, though a bit underutilized

another favorite trope of mine is time travel, so I'm gonna have a really fun time here w/that

as for the andalite chronicles, I really enjoyed that one. I thought it was a well done story about the horrors of war (which is a theme animorphs does excellently), kind of similar to the overarching story of the whole series, but fit into one book without feeling rushed

the way the story starts out with elfangor wanting to be a hero, not understanding what that entails, to the end where he IS going to be a hero, and he knows now that this is a burden rather than a reward

the horror elements are also really strong, with the taxxon morph being horrifying of course

and mannnn I loved that we got to see more of the taxxons as a species, and see that not all taxxons submitted to the yeerks - which breaks the previous theme of ‘all the taxxons are evil just because’

this book also establishes that the taxxons gave themselves over to the yeerks due to their constant hunger being unbearable, so it isn’t just that they’re evil for fun

animorphs does such an excellent job showing that each ‘side’ of a war will have good and bad (or at least sympathetic and unsympathetic) people

also loren was awesome, what a cool character. though I didn't realize she was literally like 13 until the very end of the book, holy shit. that's crazy. i thought she was 16 at the youngest....geez. her throwing a rock at visser 3 is even more iconic knowing she's a middle schooler at the time

and chapman was here! I'm assuming this must be the same chapman as the assistant principal controller... I thought it was a little strange to put chapman in that role, bc in this book he was a huge asshole basically the entire time, but in the previous (’future’) book it was revealed that he became a controller willingly only to spare his daughter, which is pretty far from this book where he’s actively trying to sell humanity out to the yeerks...people change I guess? (also he got his memory erased so I guess there's that)

alloran was a really interesting character. horrors of war again - we hear from his old buddy that he used to be a fun, witty guy, but war changed him into somebody who would do horrible things

and him becoming a controller was horrifying, obviously, but I like that alloran wasn't portrayed as some perfect, holy guy in order to make it all the more tragic when he got infested. its already fucked up enough as it is, and making him flawed was a lot more meaningful

and him wanting to flush all the yeerks out into space....oooooof the (later) parallels hurt

plus the fact that elfangor refusing to commit genocide against the helpless yeerks (even though they’re the enemy) directly contributing to alloran becoming a controller.....oof. I love that it shows that even making the morally correct decisions during war can lead to awful things happening, but not in a way that endorses evil actions - the story isn’t saying that elfangor should have killed the yeerks, it’s saying that there are no good choices in war

arbron being trapped as a taxxon was fucked up. but also really intriguing, especially how he found purpose and led a free taxxon uprising. I don't remember if we hear from him/the free taxxons again but I hope so

also the plot twist of tobias being elfangors SON...bruh. I do remember that despite not having read this book so it must come up in the main story later but my memory of that is vauge so I’m excited to see how that plays out. it’s always gonna be hilarious to me that ax is technically tobias’s uncle

and then the ellimist drops in and wacks up the time stream even more. classic. I love the crazy time travel stuff in animorphs

omfg and the bits where elfangor is a human tech guy and talked about his friends bill and steve LMAOOOOO

also the scene where elfangor drives the yellow mustang while blasting '(I cant get no) satisfaction’ by the rolling stones was one of the most iconic things I've ever read

basically I loved all the angles of war fucking people up. from loren’s dad, to alloran, to elfangor himself learning about the true horrors of war...v well done imo

ok back to the main series - so my pick for the most fucked up scene SO FAR (in my own personal opinion) - the scene where they're in the jungle and rachel passes out in bear morph and a bunch of rainforest ants start EATING HER ALIVE and like crawling into her ears and mouth and HGGGGGG that was genuinely so fucking disturbing

its a good thing that the time travel made it so rachel couldn't remember that bc that was fuuuuucked

another contender is a scene we don't actually see - erek having his capacity for violence instated and then slaughtering a ton of human and hork-bajir controllers

like damn, you know its fucked up when its too fucked up for ANIMORPHS to even ‘show.’ this is a series that doesn't pull punches but evidentially that would've been Too Much to actually portray (understandably). also i feel like seeing the aftermath/everyone’s reactions had more of an impact than describing erek killing a bunch of people would have

also I forgot that marco Literally Fucking Dies during that scene and that's why he doesn't get to see the slaughter. wow

and then in the very next book JAKE dies too. jesus

oh it was also so sad and fucked up when marco’s dad told him that he and his wife used to fight sometimes, but then all of a sudden they stopped fighting, and their relationship was basically entirely peaceful and perfect - and this is how marco knows exactly when his mom was made into a controller, bc of course a yeerk wouldn't care enough to get into petty arguments like that....ooooof

Okay and book 15 really got me...that was fucking heavy man. Geeeez. Everything w/Marco and his mom is so fucked uppppp

Like he literally has to deal with so much awful traumatizing shit. The scene where he pretends to be a controller and is face to face w/visser one and THAT HIS MOM but he can’t even do anything, and he just sees the evil in her eyes and thinks about how there’s no way she had been controlled by a yeerk that long before bc he’s never seen her look like that...that was so fucking sad.

Plus Marcos mom now thinking that Marco is a controller...aughh...and then later Marco knows he can’t even think-speak to her bc he’ll just talk about everything he’s wanted to talk about to his mom this whole time... ;_;

And the parts where Marcos humor slips and the utter rage he feels towards the situation comes through...man

Plus everything about him being understandably afraid of sharks after being nearly torn in half by one back during their first dolphin adventure

Augh oh and jake telling Marco that everyone can tell something is up bc Marco isn’t joking around and talking about how insane their plan is like usual, so Marco fakes it sand does all that even tho he’s terrified and conflicted...aughhhh

Ok and the last scene where Marco is thinking about a future where he and his parents can talk plainly about how awful and traumatizing everything is, and then eventually they’ll feel okay enough to joke about it, bc Marcos mom is the one who taught him to look at the funny side of life...Oh The Pain

There were a lot of great fucked up individual lines in this book too. I’m just so sad about these poor middle schoolers jfc

Also I do distinctly remember the scene where they collapse the shark tank at Ocean World or w/e, it was weird af reading it bc I remembered none of the rest of the book but got weird deja vu reading that scene and remembering having read it like 13+ years ago

if it’s not clear by now I have a pretty terrible memory for media which is honestly good bc then I can reread things and it’s like new

Also jake...man...I said it previously but I was kinda eh about jake when I first read these bc he’s kinda the ‘basic’ character, but now I find his story much more interesting

His conflict over being leader is really good. KAA does a fantastic job capturing the pressure he’s under bc he was chosen by his friends to be the leader, so he REALLY can’t back out, and he doesn’t necessarily feel up to it, but feels he has no choice in the matter...

And constantly having to make really difficult decisions that could get his friends killed...geez. It’s so much pressure. And he talks about wanting to go back to being a normal kid when this is all over, and it kinda strikes me as him being in denial - like, there’s no way things can ever be ‘normal’ again, but that’s his way of coping.

Especially with Tom and all that. That conflict is so compelling...jake having to play all these different roles - as leader, as a son/student, as a regular brother to Tom - he’s constantly having to act a certain way and rarely gets to be Himself

It’s actually kinda relatable in a way - that feeling of being In Charge, but in a somewhat abstract and informal way, so you feel like regular old you, but you have to carefully regulate how you act bc the people around you expect a certain standard of behavior from you...

And all the morally grey situations they’re put in are fucked up, but especially for jake who has the final say on what they do, even when knowing it could lead to his friends being killed or made into controllers

Like in the book with the cannibal yeerk guy - there’s basically no good choices there. Jake lets the cannibal live, and (at first) implies that it’s for the best that he’s cannibalizing other yeerks and therefore helping get rid of some yeerks - except that he kills their hosts too

but the alternative would be to directly kill another human being who isn't actively fighting/resisting you, which is a fucked up thing for a middle schooler to have to do

And the conflict between jake and Cassie is really excellent bc jake has to make these awful decisions, and Cassie is the type of person who can’t stand that sort of thing, so it gets left up to jake a lot, but then she’s upset with jake for doing something awful, even while knowing that there were no better options

like, her asking jake to kill the cannibal guy for her was really fucked up, but also entirely understandable for cassie as a character to ask. it was an emotionally charged situation, and cassie is an emotional person. she’s also somebody who like to Act, to do concrete good, and getting rid of an Evil Bad Guy in front of her would be a definite action

But Cassie is a great source of morality to the group - most of them are pretty jaded, but Cassie is able to hope in a way none of the rest are. It creates a really compelling dynamic between jake and Cassie that I kinda dismissed when I was like 10 or w/e

Also the scene where jake as a fly gets crushed and starts dying? Seriously fucked. And then after when he’s nearly breaking down in the airport and Cassie comforts him...that was a really good scene. Cassie is so good

And the continuity is so excellent - I love how in book 17, Cassie (and jake to an extent) doesn’t really weigh in on the moral debate abt the oatmeal bc she’s still shaken up by asking jake to murder a guy for her, and then (presumably) going ahead and lighting his house on fire when jake doesn’t kill him

And augh jake and Marco have such a good and interesting dynamic - the entire group kinda pushes each other into their respective ‘roles’ in the group, but for a few books that’s really true for jake and marco

I don't remember what book it was but at some point marco (I think) mentions that jake understands what marco is dealing with w/his mom being a controller bc of tom, but that they don’t talk about it bc they ‘don't talk about stuff like that’ or something and I'm just like noooo talk to each other :(

but at this point jake feels like he can’t really express doubt and fear and stuff like that bc he’s the Leader and they look to him to be strong (which is ironically very similar to how rachel feels), and marco feels like he can’t be serious bc he’s the funny guy.

Basically I love all the different dynamics in the group. How Cassie and Rachel are such opposites but are best friends and get along well, while Marco and Cassie are more directly opposed - as jake says, Marco is ruthless, and Cassie definitely isn’t. Rachel and Marco are also pretty different which is interesting, bc they have a lot in common, and actually agree on a lot (even if they disagree out loud) but their commonalities combined with their circumstances make them react very differently to the same situations

I also love seeing the differences between characters from each other’s POV - like, p much all the characters think that Rachel is completely fearless, but when the book is from her POV, we get to see that that isn’t true at all - she feels plenty of fear, but she recognizes that her role in the group is to be the fearless one, so she pushes aside her fear to fit into that role (which inadvertently pushes her more and more into that ‘fearless warrior’ box - something that happens to all the characters more and more as the story goes on, like jake as ‘the leader’ and Marco as ‘the jokester’).

Also I loooove the grey morality of literally everything. Like the book where ax discovers an andalite traitor - not a controller, just an andalite who betrayed them to the yeerks. This leads to the deaths of like a hundred other andalites, and that whole scene you really just feel for ax, bc he feels so awful about everyone else dying while he escapes, yet he’s also so grateful to be alive, which he in turn feels bad about...

And ax’s conflict about being torn between his home w/his fellow andalites and his new home on earth w/his friends is great

And oh man I fucking love book 19. Any of the books where it goes more into the yeerks and their side of things are so good, just like the book where jake was made into a controller.

And book 19, where we meet a sympathetic yeerk, comes right after 18, where we meet an andalite traitor - again, I love how we clearly see that no one side is completely good or completely bad

So yeah book 19 fucking slapped. That shit was so compelling. I love how Cassie made a bunch of foolish decisions based on naïve hope, but it worked out!! Things aren’t always bleak and awful!

Except there were plenty bleak and awful parts of this book. It had a great balance of moods tbh, even though a lot of the situations were extremely contrived lmao. I love the stuff that aftran says, which is basically what I was thinking when I started my reread - being a yeerk fucking sucks, you’re literally a blind slug but also completely and fully sentient, on the same level as humans and andalites - and as afran pointed out this book, the yeerks are born as parasites, just as humans are born as predators - why is it okay for the humans to kill countless animals to eat, but not for the yeerks to enslave races to act as hosts? Well, the situation isn’t totally comparable, which Cassie and Marco both point out when aftran makes that comparison - the yeerks are enslaving sentient species, and cows and chickens are not the same as the humans and hork-bajir (though the story understandably doesn’t fall too deeply into the ‘who deserves what right/animal sentience’ rabbit hole).

And I like that aftran points out that the yeerks basically have 2 options currently - stay helpless and blind in a yeerk pool, or enslave a host. It’s interesting to hear that a lot of yeerks don’t like doing this but see it as the only options, as opposed to complete sensory deprivation. It makes me wonder if there are yeerks who are so staunchly against it that they elect to stay as pool-bound slugs forever

Also maybe it’s the shounen anime fan in me but I don’t even care that much that Cassie’s entire plan was completely off the rails and hinged on only the slightest chance of success - with failure being much more likely and completely catastrophic, with the animorphs and their loved ones all being wiped out, vs success being unlikely and also achieving...a moral victory? Peace between two enemy combatants in a huge war? nothing all that concrete...anyways it was a bunch of good-faith horrible decisions on Cassie’s part, but I don’t even care? I love stories where hope and love save the day against all odds, especially when they’re wielded like weapons by a character and make everything end nicely

This is especially true here bc animorphs is generally a series that leans very far away from that type of thing, so when it does happen, it feels like a victory. Plus the David trilogy is next so we kinda need a happy ending while we can

also bc I compared animorphs to hxh last time, I now have to compare it to the other series I've (partially) liveblogged, transformers mtmte.

this is gonna be more abstract and brief but basically. mtmte is all about after the war, and everyone has so much trauma and everything just sucks, so they all go on a space cruise and work on themselves. basically.

but the series does a lot of exploration of how war fucks people up - same as animorphs, tho animorphs spans the beginning of the war (for the main characters at least) until the end, whereas mtmte starts when the war ends.

but the point is. both series do an excellent job showcasing the wide range of reactions people have to being put in unthinkable situations during wartime. all the major characters in mtmte go through arcs where they heal/change from the war, some more subtle than others

basically the animorphs needs to go on a wacky space cruise adventure with a bunch of other fucked up people and figure their shit out, mtmte style

ok this is wicked long already so I’m gonna end it here. also I feel like I should start the next liveblog w/the david triology bc I’m for sure gonna have a lot to say abt that

#i wrote like half of this in my phone notes while on vacation in the wilderness lmao #animorphs #lj reads animorphs

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herotheshiro · 3 years

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so i reread all of behind the desks today lol bc i was thinking abt it last night as i was going to sleep, and also fully read through the epilogue chapters which i don’t think i had done before. which means i read through all of the plot points all at once this time around. i think my thoughts for this readthrough might end up being the length of a regular post so i’m just writing up a new post instead of reblogging my old review of this manhwa. obviously spoilers for the story below the cut

again i like this manhwa mainly bc of 2 things:

i like the juxtaposition of young’s obviously manipulative language with taesung’s innocent language that also sounds suspiciously the same. obviously you know taesung has positive intentions and isn’t a controlling freak like young but it’s such an interesting way to depict the aftermath of an abusive relationship and the difference in intentions despite the same words even though in retrospect that probably wasn’t what the author was trying to do. unless... ?

sunny seo as a character!! on the surface he definitely seems to fall under the standard BL uke tropes of being clumsy and looking pretty and stuck in a love triangle as the shared obj of affection but from the very beginning you already know he’s not a pushover but he just seems like that bc he doesn’t really have or express strong opinions. a lot of BLs tend to have the shared obj of affection be like oh nooo i can’t pick bw the 2 of them... but i mean from the start sunny doesn’t want to be w young and his fear of backlash and change is what motivates his secret-keeping from taesung... also throughout the story they imply that he’s a good match for taesung who canonly likes action stuff by being someone who actually likes high-energy activities/vibes. tl;dr sunny is generally a good character who also has a lot of foreshadowing done for him to reveal aspects of his personality that contribute to the story

anyway onto my thoughts that i had during this specific readthrough

jaeyoon. anyone who read my prev review for this manhwa knows that i had beef w how they used him during the conclusion to young and sunny’s relationship. i now realize that maybe they DID actually give him a face reveal during his wedding when young and sunny split off to chat with a friend each and the friend who spoke to sunny was actually jaeyoon himself... BUT YOU GOTTA FUCKING SAY THAT!! i suspected they were the same guy bc of the hair color and them always hiding jaeyoon’s face until that “random” moment where they give this character who looks like him a face but like i was never sure... no offense to the author or anything but i think you have to put in-text that it’s jaeyoon and not assume readers will know based on your art that it’s him... there are too many side characters who show up so it’s not like we’ve ONLY seen taesung/sunny/young so far so now this 4th person who shows up has to be jaeyoon... i mean maybe other readers ID-ed it as him w no issue esp since he shows up being like ‘dude...’ when that other friend is like ‘well jaeyoon was in rehab and stuff’ but i personally think it should’ve been mentioned in-text esp since that face reveal wasn’t nearly dramatic enough to 100% capture readers’ attentions.

otherwise i think the fact that jaeyoon and taesung are similar is a great plot point. jaeyoon was clearly the only friend in that group who saw young and sunny’s relationship accurately so i’m glad sunny had at least one GOOD friend then. jaeyoon is implied to be someone who takes care of others similar to taesung (even if it’s only sunny he dotes over the most) too. other than young’s general possessiveness of sunny, them being similar also explains why young saw jaeyoon as such a threat. but yeah unfortunately i still don’t think it was handled as well as it could have been.

young’s explanation for his behavior towards sunny... i hesitate to say it was the standard “villain redemption” but tbf i think it was a good explanation for his actions even if it felt a little too clean of a conclusion (young letting go of sunny so easily and also apparently realizing and accepting how damaging he was to him). i say it’s partially redeeming bc it shows that young was kind of trapped in such a specific and damaging way of thinking abt life that it affected how he treated sunny but it’s also not really redeeming him bc like. be normal man lol you don’t have to be like that to others.

separate but related note but young’s mindgaming of taesung... when he was like oh everything abt sunny seo you like is bc of me... like DAMN that’s evil and good (writing-wise). although the thing is that young and sunny also haven’t interacted apparently for 5 years so i mean you do have to realize that by the time taesung reunites w him, sunny has developed enough of an individual personality so it’s not ALL young’s shit.

in my last review i said i felt like i wanted more of young and sunny’s history... tbh i think they gave us enough actually. all we really need to know is that they’ve known each other for a very long time and that young manipulated sunny enough during an impressionable time (young age, college. ppl know how college can be lol) that sunny felt that young was the only one for him. i was actually surprised jaeyoon’s story/details came up so quick in the story (i think it showed up in the 1st half of the manhwa) but i think it was a good point bc the story had to move on to the middle/2nd half of sunny and taesung trying to get their relationship to work. past me was also apparently looking for this scene in the bar apparently where young explains his “reasons” to taesung lol

not really much to say this time abt the hosung x young endgame. still don’t think they should’ve done it or had hosung have unrequited feelings but whatever i guess. tbh i didn’t really realize/connect until this time around that hosung actually was in freelancing art/publishing which was why taesung had him look at sunny’s work lol... i think last time that part in the epilogue hadn’t been translated yet so i just didn’t have the room to make the connection maybs

the epilogue ending... so i actually never read the epilogue ending or at least its eng translation, and i was like hell yea at the full circle shit w sunny being like ‘oh the cherry blossom petals are falling just like when i first met taesung in the infirmary’ but then the ch kept going w taesung and sunny on the beach... idk i think ending it literally at sunny being like ‘w you i feel alive’ was such an abrupt ending... like maybe if they added another panel of them smiling at each other it could’ve been fine but if the author was running low on time i honestly think they could’ve ended it at the scene of sunny accepting his contest award

also when sunny was like ‘yeah lol all my classmates at the children’s book program also get sick all the time’.... i was like bruh this author is prob speaking from actual experience lmao

the other thing abt the ending that was a little random was the quick aside abt taesung’s mom being against their relationship... i mean it was a reference to the mom wanting taesung to get married in the main story but then they dropped it and then suddenly brought it back up again... randomly adding that taesung had a sister who was his contact w their mom... like i get it, it wraps up the loose end of his mom but wow i was uh ok random ch abt potential family conflicts. also where are sunny’s parents lol but that would’ve been too much to get into too regardless of homophobia or not lol

overall it’s still a pretty solid manhwa. stuff proceeds at a good pace and the conflicts/misunderstandings make sense. i said before it’s kinda like a love triangle but it’s really not which works w me bc i don’t like love triangles that much (they stress me out lol); it’s also good bc young is clearly toxic for sunny and it’s good that sunny knows that rather than sunny being like “oh i know he’s bad but also... hmm maybe i can overlook it”. the manhwa’s not perfect -- i still get the sense the writing could be better even if i can’t really enunciate why -- but enough details are tied together that there’s nothing major i have to extrapolate bw (like i can overlook the jooyeon mishap even though it legit threw me off the 1st time i read through). also yes i know the manhwa is based off of a game w characters essentially already established but my understanding is that the author/artist essentially had to write up a lot of the actual story themselves even if they had a general plotline provided to follow

also the final author’s note abt the author personally preferring fucked up stories... when i started rereading i was like wait isn’t this the same artist for that one manhwa where the characters look like the k!lling st@lking? mains and even if i didn’t remember i would’ve realized w that author’s note lol. i think fortunately for them that sunny isn’t an entirely “pure” character so they had enough room to make him a little more twisted.

#reading #reread

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violetrance · 6 years

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I'm seeing a lot of people annoyed that Klance shippers are downplaying that recent Allurance moment in the clip & to compare it to the bonding moment is a reach etc. So I feel the need to explain/clear up why that moment is possibly hinting at A LOT, and why so many people are making a big deal out if it.

1. Lance has a crush on Allura. This has been known since day one, it is obvious. He has a clear infatuation with her and it has been shown throughout the course of the show. So some people immediately assume that he will end up with Allura. That’s fair, because what we’ve explicitly seen in canon is that he likes her. But what about Allura? We’re always talking about Lance’s feelings towards her and they’ve had some nice, genuine moments together, but she still as of now has not showing any romantic interest in Lance. If you compare her growing development and interactions with Lotor, they are very different to what she portrays towards Lance. Every time Lance makes a move on her, she’s either turned off or has no reaction to it. Now I’m not saying she can’t develop possible feelings for him as they go along, but it’s been five seasons going on six and we still have seen no indication that she feels that way. Which brings me to my next point.

2. In the most recent clip, Lance is clearly acting flustered towards her, saying ‘We make a great team.” But what is Allura’s reaction it? Nothing. She literally just brushes it off and says “Let’s go Lance.” So they can proceed with their mission. It’s obvious, even now, that Allura is not interested in Lance like that. Also, going back to my first point. Yes, Lance does have a crush on Allura, you can tell he genuinely likes her. That’s normal, it makes sense. But why does that make everyone immediately assume they’ll end up together? Crushes are apart of life, they come and go. Unless he’s in love with her and she feels the SAME WAY towards him, there can be no established relationship. Lance has literally said in his vlog, that even though Allura is great he’s not ready to settle down just yet because there are plenty of fish in the sea. Well???

3. No matter what you choose to believe, that scene and the scene Lance has with Keith during their bonding moment are meant to parallel each other. It’s just the truth. But you need to analyze the blatant contrast of the scenes and how they’re set up, the aftermath too to understand their impact. It was purposeful, it was done to show how Allura and Keith feel towards Lance, but how he feels towards them too. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, the bonding moment was meant to be intimate, it was romantically coded. It literally parallels a scene shared with Hunk and Shay only a bit before, it’s PURPOSEFUL. If Lance says “I think we make a great team.” to Allura to show affection, what is making people believe that he didn’t do the same thing towards Keith?? If you compare Allura and Keith’s individual reactions to these moments, you will blatantly see what the show runners are trying to display.

Lance blushes and get’s flustered towards Allura, claiming they make a good team. Her response is not really acknowledging the advance like she usually does, but instead continuing to go about the mission.

Keith and Lance are holding each other’s hands, exchanging soft smiles and looks basked in purple mood lighting w/ slow music in the bg. Lance claims they are a good team, Keith smiles obviously happy. When Lance says he forgets the bonding moment, this intimate moment between them. What is Keith’s response? He’s offended, says that he held him in his arms like that’s supposed to change something? Not to mention how impatient he was to get Lance out of the pod before. Are you really trying to tell me he didn’t develop a crush on Lance after that moment??? Don’t even get me started on s3 and other past moments that further proves this. Also the head writer of the show literally saying Lance pretended to forget the bonding moment because he wasn’t emotionally ready to face it?? If that was just a platonic moment between two buddies, would they really make it that deep? No, not at all.

Lance using those lines as a way to show affection towards both Allura AND Keith, literally shows he has feeling for the both of them. He has shown the same infatuated expression for Allura towards Keith before. They are literally similar to each other in many aspects, so he has a blatant type. Jeremy has hinted at his milkshakes bringing EVERYBODY to the yard, meaning he most likely is not straight. He’s said that something happens between two characters in terms of LGBT rep. So that means a relationship, who has been basically confirmed to have an end game romance? Lance. And if he has feelings towards both Allura AND Keith, you can basically do the math towards who he’ll possibly end up with.

The only difference between them is: Allura does not have romantic feelings for Lance, but Keith does. Now I’m not saying this about Allura to pin her as some sort of bad guy, because this is normal behaviour. You do not always have to reciprocate someone’s feelings, she still obviously genuinely cares for him as a person and a friend regardless. But it is obvious, that she does not like him like that.

3. To go further, there was a newer review for season 6 that mentioned Allura and Lotor’s closeness and growing relationship has more than one consequence over the course of the season. It leads to some REVELATIONS for another character, which feels like a natural step forward on their personal journey. It’s extremely obvious they are talking about Lance. The creators also emphasised that his personal journey has something to do with respect, and rather than being a ladies man and obsessing over flirting etc, it’s about being a good team member & appreciating a person.

Unless they’re mentioning something else, I would not be surprised if the consequences coming between Lotor and Allura’s growing relationship, is Lance’s one sided crush on Allura. Allura likes Lotor, Lotor likes Allura, it’s obvious that they have feelings for each other. Their interactions are probably the most blatantly romantically coded I’ve seen on this show. Last season you could tell this affected Lance a bit and he was kind of having trouble coming to terms with their relationship. This season, I do genuinely believe that Lance is going to officially move on from his crush/infatuation w/ Allura. He is not very fond of Lotor, but if he sees or knows how Allura feels about him, that perspective will change. He cares a lot about Allura, he wants her to be happy. Lance is the type of person who will go out of his way for others so they can be happy or comfortable, even if it affects him. We’ve seen this side of him more as the seasons go along, because he’s starting to mature more. That’s why he supported Keith so much when he became the leader, even though it was difficult for him. That’s why he comforted and supported Shiro a lot last season, even though he was probably afraid/nervous since he’s been changing so much.

Him accepting the fact that Allura has feelings for Lotor instead of constantly flirting with her or being jealous, will be a step forward for him. In the end, she’s just a crush not the love of his life. There are other people out there like he said. If they do decide to make him confess his love for her though, it would not make any sense for his personal journey. It would not help him grow as a person, because in the end she still would not have romantic feelings for him. So he’d probably get rejected and be forced to move on anyways. Also if the consequences for Lotura and Allura’s relationship is different, I honestly do not believe or hope that they don’t, write her character to turn around & jump ship to Lance if she gets her heart broken. I personally do not think they will make her character that way, because she’s had so many different love interests but so far she’s only found a connection with one. Her immediately falling in love with Lance if everything possibly falls apart with her and Lotor, would be poor writing in my opinion and be very cliche. Allura and Lance are both strong characters, and they deserve to be written as such in terms of their characteristics. Lance making the decision to put his crush on her behind him so that she can be happy and he can grow as well, will be a really amazing and important lesson for kids especially watching.

4. This is just my opinion on the parallels of those scenes and where I possibly think Lance’s storyline with Allura is going. Honestly all that I’ve written could be wrong, because we have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. But if you look at this from a realistic stand point, it just makes the most sense. I also don’t like seeing people downplay Allura and Lance’s relationship because it is very sweet, but at the same time to assume that they’re going to end up together just because Lance likes her alone is unrealistic. And people might think I’m being Klance biased or that I shouldn’t be assuming Allurance’s relationship if I don’t ship them. But you don’t have to be a shipper, to see the probable direction that this show is going in. All of the facts and info are right in our face, we just need to pay attention. The show paralleling those two scenes, is showing us something really important and it isn’t a reach to assume so. Not to mention, this is not the first time they’ve paralleled scenes in this context towards Keith and Lance. It isn’t an accident anymore, it never was, everything that they’re doing is intentional.

#Sorry for such a long post but I think it's worth the read HSHSH #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender

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izzyovercoffee · 7 years

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The thing is, I never read Legends, so I always saw the warrior mandalorians as imperialist. Both of the houses we see (Kryze and Viszla) are headed by white, blonde families and Clan Wren are the descendants of a people who were conquered, converted to Mandalorian ideals, and placed in a subordinate position under Viszla. Bo Katan, a traditionalist, rejects Maul as unfit to rule because he's an alien. And this was all decided before the reboot with Legends so....I'm confused.

Confusion is totally understandable!

For the record, because this got so long, it has to go under a cut. I apologize for the length, and if my tone is off it’s not intentional. I’m, essentially, info-dumping, because there’s a lot of extraneous information that applies to the arcs I’m gonna try to address under the cut. I’m also reading your ask as if you didn’t see Satine’s New Mandalorians as imperialist, bc that seems to be what you’re implying in the ask? If I’m off, I apologize in advance.

Also even though I say “you” in this reply, I don’t mean you specifically, I’m meaning to address a general “you,” not you you.

The short answer is that even if you are not familiar with Legends material, reading only one of the two houses as imperialist kind of misses all of the subtext conveyed purely by the information presented in the arcs themselves, and oversimplifies imperialism. It is easy to miss, though, and imperialism itself is a complex subject that isn’t discussed as well as it should be.

But, ultimately, even if we were to ignore Legends and only look at canon material, we still have what boils down to this:

The New Mandalorians, an all white faction of mandalorians:

exiled people of a differing cultural philosophy

has a society not achievable through means that don’t involve steps towards ethnic cleansing

declared pre-established nonwhite mandalorians as not mandalorian, thereby stripping any claim to that cultural identity, in the same vein as calling them the equivalent of savage

were part of a regime change backed by an outside stronger, larger military force invested in that regime change

All of these things, together, paint House Kryze and the New Mandalorians as Imperialist. Regardless of Legends material, regardless of how anyone feels about Death Watch.

And even though the writing does not really carry the kind of awareness that definitely points to a lesson on imperialism, if we entertain that as the conclusion to all of the arcs … it would have been more effective to make Sundari diverse in comparison to Death Watch, and have that diversity leverage Death Watch’s war crimes directly, rather than make Sundari the accidental genocidal Imperialist power by poor design decision.

Furthermore, as much as I would rather not bring it up as it’s always used as a straw man argument against the existence of racism, the fact is that Imperialism is not the sole purview of white people. Chinese Imperialism exists. Japanese Imperialism exists. Both are as effective analogues for Imperialism, and both are closer to actual Mandalorian history than the space!Nazi aesthetic the writers went with—not just for obvious reasons, but because the space!Nazi aesthetic implicates an altogether different type of imperialism.

And it’s a type that completely distracts from and undermines the ultimate goals of their storytelling in those arcs.

Moving on to that last point, though … that scene where Bo-Katan rejected Maul, can be read differently—as in, she did not reject him because he was an alien so much as she rejected Maul because he wasn’t mandalorian. Or it could be both of those things, but it’s an important distinction to make—it’s important to not forget all of the things Bo-Katan, specifically, was fighting for.

Bo-Katan fought to save the culture Satine was trying to eradicate — and in terms of cultural genocide, if Maul was to take up his position as leader of mandalorians, that is just trading one type of cultural genocide for another.

It is, under no circumstance, the same as framing it as a simple rejection of Maul because he’s an alien. Him being an alien literally does not matter in that moment, tradition or not, because Maul had no stake in it—because it’s not his culture on the precipice of extinction. To treat that scene like it was … well, was to miss the point.

The very long longer answer goes under the cut.

To warn you about what’s under the cut, as it’s, again, very, very long. I’m basically going into a detailed explanation about:

Legends & why/how Legends applies to the Mandalore arcs

a longer diatribe on imperialism: —To Legends or Not to Legends —Why does Legends help the New Mandalorians?

how & why the New Mandalorians are Imperialist: —A Diatribe on Imperialism

and their platform is transparent and hypocritical w/o the additional context of Legends to soften the edges: —Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorian’s Transparently Hypocritical Political Platform, and more on Jango Fett

a longer explanation on Bo-Katan and Maul: —Xenophobia versus Continued Cultural Genocide

the actual events that are contextually relevant to the Mandalore arcs: —Legends: The Aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars—Legends: The Mandalorian Excision

what I mean by the Fetts were established as mandalorian before the Mandalore arcs aired: —Why the decanonization of the Fetts matters, in the context of the story and canon —An aside: Separating “Boba Fett” from “Mandalorian” after 30+ years

As I’ve said, it’s a lot. Mostly meant to be used as a reference, I guess. I apologize if I repeat myself too much. I wrote this in chunks and threw it together, so if it’s messy or even more confusing, that’s 100% on me.

[[ EDIT:: it has since come to my attention that George Lucas was the mind behind the retcon, stated once in a special featurette for TCW DVD set for Season 2. Him being known and expected to be (hopefuly for obvious reasons) incredibly racist makes it all a little less surprising, but no less fucked up. That the writers still stick with it now, after he’s out, is disappointing, and I maintain that that tweet by Hidalgo was unnecessary. Nothing else about the argument changes except on who to blame and criticize more than the others. ]]

To Legends or Not to Legends

The Imperialism implied in the show was based off of a larger context of conquer and destroy that exists in Legends, and at the time of airing took for granted that the viewer would have at least some knowledge of that mandalorian history, but would still work overall if the viewer did not know those details.

So, even if you are not familiar with Legends the show at the time took for granted at least superficial understanding of the KOTOR series and The Mandalorian Wars that occurred 4000 years prior to the events of the show. The Mandalore Arcs make multiple references to a history of galactic-scale war and conquest, but nothing was ever established even close to threatening outside of the events leading to KOTOR i & ii. The writers, themselves, also indicated familiarity and desire to canonize the KOTOR events (writing Revan, for example, into the show and having them voiced until, ultimately, Revan was cut from that episode. It doesn’t make KOTOR canon, but what it does do is build a case and point to the inspirations of where the writers were coming from).

The Expanded Universe was still referenced even if it was obliquely—and under that knowledge, Expanded Universe / Legends material therefore matters when it comes to talking about the context of the Mandalore arcs.

I mean, obviously it wasn’t required knowledge, as anyone can watch the episodes and follow for the most part, and at this point because most of those things are now relegated to a time period that, most likely, will not be addressed or brought up in canon material from this point forward, it’s hard to gauge if it will ever “matter.”

But, regardless, the intent to reference the old republic can still be seen in there, and the Mandalore arcs make more sense, overall, politically and otherwise, when the Mandalorian Wars were / are taken into account as compared to how the arcs stand without that background.

At the time, while Legends wasn’t rebooted yet, only the highest levels of canon really “mattered,” and those were movies and TV. They both did and did not matter, because the showrunners ultimately had the final say of what they wanted to present. They could draw from the expanded universe material, even extrapolate on what was set up as a foundation—or they could do as they ultimately did and annihilate what was previously established.

To reiterate, the movies, and the shows, had the power to erase pre-established expanded universe canon, as it was canon at the time, just a “lower level” of canon. It wasn’t a clear cut line like it is today, where Legends is Legends and doesn’t “exist” in the star wars universe. Expanded Universe was canon-enough right up until the movies and the shows decided otherwise. Expanded Universe was canon right up until the show decided to outright erase some parts and rewrite it.

And that’s ultimately what happened to the mandalorians.

A Diatribe on Imperialism

So, to come back to the topic of Imperialism, Imperialism absolutely was the topic of discussion. But, again, because of the design decisions, even though they framed the New Mandalorians as the radical faction that came as a direct counterpoint to Death Watch and Mandalore’s history of war and conquest, the visual notes and hints they ultimately settled on implied a wholly different background that really … can’t conceivably be what they intended from the beginning.

Both Houses were Imperialists, and both of them carry a violent history.

I also want to reiterate: Imperialism is not the sole purview of white people. Other races, other Empires, have also expanded their respective territories, have also conquered huge territories, have forced assimilation of local peoples into their respective Empires. The Mongolians. The Chinese. The Khmer Empire. The Vikings. The Romans. The Japanese. And so on, and so forth.

Presenting imperialism = white is a very narrow, limited view of imperialism, and inaccurate (Chinese Imperialism is a real thing, Japanese Imperialism is a real thing. These things really happen today, and affect real people, and so and so forth).

Not only white Europeans colonized huge chunks of the world, but generally white Europeans did so to such a degree that world is still fucking wrecked by it even to today. (But that doesn’t make the survivors of other imperialist conquests any less significant. It doesn’t make ethnic cleansing and intra-racial imperialism and genocide any less heinous, but I digress.)

Beyond that, though, while Imperialism and its effects absolutely is an important discussion to be had, by oversimplifying imperialist = white, and “warrior white” = imperialist, we fail to recognize the other types of imperialism in effect today (and in the star wars universe) that absolutely should be acknowledged and discussed.

Contrary to popular belief, there are other visual analogues that exist outside of centering white supremacy, even when that centering is meant to be in criticism of it.

Further, Imperialism isn’t only perpetuated through physical violence—and, in fact, in today’s world it’s more effectively perpetuated through other means, through policy. Satine Kryze’s reign is, yet again, another example of how a superficially nonviolent society can still wield imperialism through policy and not be demonized because, technically, they’re not violent like those other guys, aka Death Watch.

It’s easy to defend something terrible when the only other comparison is a group of extremists already demonized by history that are marginally more obviously terrible.

But, again, if the racism inherent in the episodes is missed, then it’s very easy to miss all of the unfortunate implications tied in with it. It’s also then easy to miss how the whitewashing comes in. And, ultimately, it’s easy to miss how that decision distracts from and completely undermines the point of those arcs.

Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorian’s Transparently Hypocritical Political Platform, and more on Jango Fett

When the writers chose space!Germany, space!Nazis, they implicated Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians in a specific type of imperialism, and a specific type of genocide. And even though I cannot make any claims as to fully know what they intended to indicate, from what can be determined watching the arcs, the intention was not to paint Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as having that history of genocide. She was supposed to be a symbol against those war crimes, not a symbol whose power stems from it.

To reiterate, it was not one they wanted to implicate her and their faction in—it was one they wanted to implicate only Death Watch in, alone. But because of all the things I’ve pointed out in previous posts and above, there’s no other way to interpret the visual presentation of Sundari as anything but carrying an implied violently racist society. Because you cannot achieve a population that looks like that without eugenics, without genocide.

And if you still don’t see it now, after myself and other people have explained how and why Sundari is the perfect example of what that looks like … well.

Coming back to the white = imperialism analogue, that’s where, I think, the “well, of course they’re all white / blond / blue-eyed!” analogue falls short. Because the actual comparison of space!Germans? Space!Nazis? It just doesn’t work. It does not fit. The quick and easy analogue of Imperialism that the writers chose to go with, does not match what the apparent goals of either the longer Legends-inclusive bloody history nor the Mandalore arcs were trying to convey.

And as I’ve said before: we, the viewers, were supposed to sympathize with Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians, but for anyone even remotely familiar with the concept of eugenics, anyone who knows what the extreme conclusion of a racist society looks like, looks at the New Mandalorians and Sundari and sees them as the defacto success story of space!Nazis.

To say “it’s not that deep” is to, ultimately, pick and choose when and where one cares about visual details in a visual medium—when and where one cares about how information and story is illustrated through setting—and that’s really not an effective way to learn how to improve storytelling in a visual medium, nor learn why these interpretations arise and how to avoid (or fix!) them in the future.

On top of that, it ultimately takes away from the story. It takes away from the arc. It undermines anything Satine and the New Mandalorians could have stood for, because instead of being a Pacifist society out of a willingness to change and be better than what their history says they are, they’re a Pacifist society that had a successful implementation of a eugenics and cultural genocide program and that’s how they maintain their stability. And that’s monstrous.

It made Satine into a monster, by sheer accident and oversight.

When they made that design decision, they unfortunately implicated all of the white New Mandalorians as complicit in a specific type of genocide, one that can only be associated with space!Nazis, because that was the visual shortcut they decided on using.

We were supposed to see the monsters only in Death Watch, not in the New Mandalorians, and not in Satine. The intent was to implicate Death Watch as all massively violent criminals and murderers, not make them victims to stand on ground equally bad. Not to inadvertently make them sympathetic.

It was just not reflective of the context they were pulling from at the time, nor was it effective for the story they wanted to convey. In no way did it make Satine Kryze sympathetic, because how could it?

Their writing choice had the exact opposite effect of their intended goal.

Why the decanonization of the Fetts matters, in the context of the story and canon

Moving on from that, I, generally, would couch against oversimplifying Satine’s (and the New Mandalorian’s) position: what they were doing, in no uncertain terms, was taking a culture that was, before the Mandalore Arcs, established as a nonwhite culture and declaring them savages that needed to be colonized for their own good. Almost literally exactly how the Fetts were decanonized within the show.

That is a type of Imperialism. That, in itself, is a type of colonization that has already happened in our history in the real world, worldwide, to countless native societies and people.

Whether Filoni and Hidalgo George Lucas and the other writers liked it or not, the Fetts were still mandalorian as of the movies’ airings, and his retcon delivered through the show didn’t come until years later. So that retcon, that declaration, cannot be separated from what was established as canon beforehand and at the time of that episode’s airing—no matter how much the writers seemed to want to erase or ignore 30+ years of the larger franchise establishing otherwise in expanded materials without conflict.

And because it cannot be separated, that directly implicates Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as just as Imperialist as Death Watch, except they’re less “terrorist.” But terrorism, in general, is determined by governmental and institutional power, and because the New Mandalorians wield all the power in mandalorian space, any act of obscene violence they may or may not wield on their marginalized populations will never be called terrorism—because, again, terrorism is the sole purview of people who don’t wield institutional power.

So, to reiterate, as I’ve said before, and as someone rightfully pointed out in the notes of the previous posts, by having the Fetts identified as mandalorians in canon material prior to the Mandalore arcs of the show, it was implicated that mandalorians as a cultural identity were nonwhite.

To then introduce the New Mandalorians as all-white out of nowhere, and have them thereby declare:

the Fetts as not mandalorians, and

fighting as veneration was unconscionable

basically made the New Mandalorians echo real-world violent colonialism in the terms of the White Voice Of Reason coming to Tame The Savages and make them “reasonable and cultured.”

So on the one hand, you have white Death Watch who is obviously Imperialist, yes, but then by doing the above the writers accidentally made it impossible to separate the New Mandalorians from a different but still clear Imperialism. I say accidentally because, generally, the writing of the early arcs didn’t seem to be all that self aware in those implications for Satine.

I mean, also consider that the Death Watch of the show also had:

a white woman in a position of power who wasn’t white supremacist pale / blond / blue-eyed, and

later established that they had nonwhite people among their ranks in respected positions

In comparison to New Mandalorians? Imperialism is still present, but the ethnic cleansing and the eugenics is not.

The impression that Clan Wren’s ancestors were subjugated by Mandalorian Expansion may not be wrong, or it may be. But consider why you want to make that assumption, if it’s necessary, and if it’s coming from a place of “well, of course they’re not naturally mandalorian, because they’re not white!” And if that perspective is being used to form a complex history and relationship with their cultural identity, or if you’re only doing it for superficial flavor that adds nothing to the story nor context. Because if it’s the latter, it’s not a decision that is made in vacuum, but rather one that can contribute to racism / racist narratives.

It’s racist in much the same sense as saying that someone cannot be British if they’re Asian. That someone cannot be American if they’re Asian. These assumptions that are being made, they’re not factual statements built from nothing but racist assumptions that don’t hold up under their own weight or logic.

Which isn’t to say that Death Watch isn’t terrible—they absolutely are.

The implied Imperialism of Death Watch is very real, yes. The problem is that I haven’t seen anything to implicate DW as subjugating the Wrens or other humans, if we’re looking at the show and canon only.

I say that because … we only have the word of the New Mandalorians, who are speaking from a position I’ve hopefully explained in great detail as hypocritical at best, as well as the word of the Jedi Order / Republic, who both have a vested political interest in making damn sure the New Mandalorians keep their seats of power and would not want to undermine that stability (because the New Mandalorians are Republic-friendly and Death Watch is quite clearly Republic-unfriendly. Not to mention that both the Jedi Order and the Republic had a direct hand in the war to keep the New Mandalorians in power years before, when Satine rose to the duchy. And yes, this was stated in the arcs themselves, is canon and thereby not relegated to Legends information).

None of the people pointing fingers at Death Watch are speaking from an unbiased position—and if the writers really wanted to make those accusations clearer and from an actually sympathetic POV, they would have made Sundari not all white, and gave minor airtime to a nonwhite mandalorian leveraging those crimes against Death Watch.

But, they didn’t go down that route, so instead we have a conflict that is murky and convoluted with no right side. And as much as I detest Death Watch, the accusations towards them are not coming from a source that doesn’t benefit from villainizing everyone who contradicts them across the board.

And that’s a problem when the story arcs, themselves, expect us to just see Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as the “obvious” correct side without any kind of deep or critical thinking.

In Legends, Death Watch has always been anti-alien, but again, because of that lazy design decision … the writers relegated the anti-alien sentiment to all of Mandalorian space as a whole, as opposed to just Death Watch.

Like I said, it’s distracting from the points and sides they were trying to make.

We also have another canon man native to Concord Dawn to compare Jango’s status to, because the excuses that we’ve been given so far has been “he’s not a mandalorian but he’s native to Concord Dawn” as if that should be an easy distinction to make … yet we have someone else who is also native to Concord Dawn, who was never part of Death Watch, and yet he’s still considered mandalorian.

That man is Fenn Rau.

Canon material shows us:

Fenn Rau is a mandalorian, despite being from Concord Dawn, while

Jango Fett is “not,” when he’s also a Concord Dawn native

Concord Dawn sits firmly in Mandalorian Space, and Fenn Rau was a True Mandalorian, as was Jango Fett—also known as the Journeyman Protectors. They were a different faction who ultimately sided with the New Mandalorians against Death Watch—but unlike the New Mandalorians, they always dropped everything to fight whenever DW so much as blipped once on a radar.

We also have the now-canon information that Fenn Rau was on Kamino and trained the clones, and from what Legends tells us … Jango Fett was the one who recruited a good number of mandalorians to help train the clones. At the very least, they must have known and interacted with each other, having been of the same factions and in the same space multiple times.

Again, the things Fenn Rau and Jango Fett have in common:

natives of Concord Dawn

part of the Journeyman Protectors third faction

and the things they don’t have in common:

Fenn Rau is white

Jango Fett is not white

So.

There is no real logic involved in these writing decisions, outside of explicitly implicating the New Mandalorians as an Imperialist force complicit in racial & ethnic cleansing. That would be the most logical leap to explain why Fenn Rau is a mandalorian, but Jango Fett is not.

Literally none of it makes sense story-wise in canon otherwise—because that’s, literally, the shortest logical leap that can be supported by the information provided by canon without bending ass over head and making weak excuses.

And, well, even so … If you only look at it from what you see on the shows and movies, it still doesn’t make much sense. Canon as it stands alone frames Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians as a faction that stands on a position built on transparent irredeemable violent hypocrisy.

Xenophobia versus Continued Cultural Genocide

And once more I come back to that scene where Bo-Katan rejected Maul.

To reiterate, I argue that him being an alien does not matter. She may have said it, it may have been implied, but identifying him as an alien in that specific scene once Pre Vizsla was killed does not automatically mean xenophobia—especially when that scene was meant to be a defining point between continued cultural genocide and survival. Whether mandalorians would be willing to crucify itself on its traditionalism and be totally extinguished by accepting Maul, or by standing true to survival and rejecting an outsider from assuming a culture with which he has no stake in.

Rejecting Imperialist cannibalism, yet again.

Allowing Maul to lead the Mandalorians after executing Pre Vizsla would have been trading one violent subjugation for another—trading Satine Kryze’s cultural genocide in the forced conversion to Pacifism for the subjugation under the violent rule of a person who wasn’t mandalorian and had zero stake in what they, as a people, had to lose (once again, their cultural identity).

And that context matters. It matters. She didn’t make that decision from a position in which she was given much choice, regardless that allegiances split on that decision. Bo-Katan was fighting for traditionalism, yes, but that traditionalism is built on a foundation of mandalorians surviving mandalorian cultural genocide at all costs — first from the New Mandalorians and the Republic, 700 years prior, then the New Mandalorians and Satine a few decades prior to the show, and finally, if you take Legends context of The Mandalorian Wars, a survival of cultural genocide as brought into play by Sith manipulations.

Pre Vizsla died because his rigid traditionalism was the sword on which he was willing to impale himself on before he was willing to change. And that kind of rigid inability to adapt would have meant the death of mandalorian culture.

So … don’t oversimplify that scene. Context matters. Everything that leads up to that moment in the show matters.

Legends: The Aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars

What ended The Mandalorian Wars?

The Jedi Order was, essentially, split into two: The Jedi who would fight, and the Jedi who Refused to fight. The Jedi who left to fight followed in the steps of Revan and Alek, and the Exile.

What ended the war was this:

At the Battle of Malachor, the Jedi Revan executed Mandalore the Ultimate, and

stole the ceremonial mask needed for any Mandalorian to declare themselves Mandalore and lead the people

At the same time, The Jedi Exile, a High General, made the decision to activate the Mass Shadow Generator, which wiped out the entirety of the Mandalorian Army, and

nearly killed off all of the mandalorian people in the known galaxy in that same action

The entirety of the Mandalorian Army was, simultaneously, the entirety of the Mandalorian People. And because the majority of Mandalorians, at that time in history, served both in a civilian and a military capacity, when the Jedi Exile initiated the super weapon, she nearly wiped out the entire population of Mandalorians from the known galaxy.

From that point forward? Mandalorians, as a people, were forced to change their philosophy in order to survive. Mandalorians, as a people became a people focused on survival instead of conquest. Fighting was, is, central to their culture, but the fight stopped being about conquering and became about survival.

But later, when they eventually recovered their numbers, different factions within the Mandalorians would pop up.

There were:

Extremists, who wanted to return to their conquering ways, irregardless of the fact that conquering directly lead to their annihilation. These people would venerate Mandalore the Ultimate for all the wrong reasons.

Isolationists, who wanted to focus only on the growth and continued survival of the mandalorian people, who wanted to continue Mandalore the Preserver’s work — and never regress to the old, conquering ways, because that’s ultimately what killed them.

From these two factions, eventually, over the millennia that followed, would continuously fight each other: because Extremists wanted to return to the toxic ‘old ways’, and Isolationists saw conquer as an invitation to the Republic (and the Jedi) to finish their path of genocide.

And the thing was: they weren’t wrong.

And this is important as historical context to know, when taking in the Mandalore Arcs of the Clone Wars, because in those arcs, it’s clear that The Republic and The Jedi Order have not only had a vested interest in Mandalorian politics—Kenobi clearly references a time when he was directly involved with keeping Satine Kryze in power.

Historical context.

Because of the sheer scale of catastrophe the Mandalorians successfully caused to the galaxy during the Mandalorian Wars, The Republic and The Jedi Order would forever remember those events and continue to act accordingly to prevent them from ever happening again, no matter the cost.

THAT is why both The Jedi Order and The Republic have such a serious and vested interest in Mandalorians remaining demilitarized and passive.

And THAT is why, ~700 years prior to the events of The Clone Wars, roughly 3300 years after the conclusion of the Mandalorian Wars, The Jedi and The Republic carpet bombed the fuck out of Mandalore without provocation. It was thenceforth referred to as the Mandalorian Excision

Legends: The Mandalorian Excision

When the arcs were written, imperialism was both a direct reference not to a recent campaign, but to a literal galaxy-wide imperialism ~4000 years before the events of the Clone Wars, as well as the one ~700 years before.

The Mandalorian Excision came after the end of the Thousand Years War in which the Jedi waged a millennia-long campaign against the Sith and wrecked the galaxy, again. The Republic, weakened by the war against the Sith, could not survive another galactic wide conflict.

But, after the rise of Tarre Vizsla ~1000 years before the events of TCW, the warring Houses of Mandalore banded together to join a united Mandalore. The constant fighting and war left Mandalorian Space very, very weak, but of the factions that arose out of that peace, half wanted to regain their power and conquer the galaxy, while the other half cautioned for pacifism and peace.

Unfortunately for all of the Mandalorians, the Republic got wind of the ancestors of Death Watch — and even though Mandalorians were undecided as how to proceed, and didn’t have any power whatsoever to follow through on those desires because they were still extremely weakened from both the galactic-wide conflict and their own inter-clan and inter-house fighting, The Jedi Order led the “preemptive strike” and glassed Mandalore.

Preemptive strike is interesting language choice, because what that ultimately means, and what actually happened, is that Mandalore did nothing to provoke that attack because they were nowhere near to threatening to anyone in power, and the Jedi and the Republic still decided to base delta zero Mandalore anyway, just to be safe.

Because we can’t be having any repeats of The Mandalorian Wars, even though that was ~3000 years before.

And after they carpet bombed Mandalore, the Republic and the Jedi Order then invaded the planet, and installed a new government as ruled by the New Mandalorians, under the agreement that they would never move against the Republic.

The New Mandalorians then began the exile-or-die campaign, with the “help” of the Republic. Anyone who was unwilling to denounce “the old ways” would be killed or exiled.

Why does Legends help the New Mandalorians?

Because without the above context, without the very extreme, very dramatic, very real threat of genocide by the Republic to the Mandalorians, there is no motivational pressure for the New Mandalorians to act like they do — to force pacifism to such an extreme.

But when you’re in a position of be pacifist or the galaxy will crush you again, and this time they might wipe out everyone, then there’s a literal galaxy’s worth of motivation to force cultural genocide to kill the literal thing that has made you and your people a target for elimination if you so much as breathe the wrong way.

And that context, above, was the context in which the episodes were written. Because, like it was said, the Legends reboot didn’t happen yet — so all of the expanded materials attached to the Mandalore arcs lay out a very real, very clear wider view of why the New Mandalorians violently enforced radical Pacifism.

This isn’t to say that the implied ethnic & racial cleansing is forgivable, and this isn’t to say that cultural genocide is forgivable, because these things are literally unforgivable, heinous, and monstrous — but given the situation, given their position in the galaxy, given everything that was at stake … can you blame them?

I mean, obviously, duh. Yes. You can blame them. You should blame them.

But … it gives that extremism more sense, on all sides of the conflict.

An aside: Separating “Boba Fett” from “Mandalorian” after 30+ years

Yes, I’m back on this. I promise this is the last section. I just wanted to clarify whitewashing and what I meant when I said 30+ years of the franchise.

At the time of the show’s airing, by making the decision to make the second-highest level of visible canon mandalorians white (as TV came just under Film at that time in terms of validity) and in that same arc retcon the Films’ non-white Fetts from that same category, that was an act of white-washing. That is essentially the most obvious and easily pointed out example of whitewashing.

It was literally an act of rejecting and delegitimizing nonwhite representation on-screen when that nonwhite representation had many years of worldbuilding and detail behind him/them. Boba Fett, himself, was named as a mandalorian bounty hunter as far back as the late 70s (I apparently have official trading cards from the 80s that say this, too). Since Jango Fett’s debut in Episode II: Attack of the Clones in 2002 he was written as mandalorian.

That’s 30+ years of the name Boba Fett associated with Mandalorian.

And, decades later, when it’s revealed that Boba, and Jango, are not white, it’s mysteriously retconned in a TV show that neither of them are mandalorian? After more than 30 years of the franchise establishing the exact opposite?

TCW canon erased “mandalorian” from the Fetts, redefined mandalorians as white with the introduction of the two Houses and Sundari, and then obliterated expanded universe all in the very same arc by taking what was the capital planet of Mandalore space and glassed it, then gave it Sundari as its central city. The capital planet that was, before the show, ethnically and racially diverse with different climate zones and flora and fauna.

The mess that was the mandalorian fandom trying to make sense of it all was … even now, years later, the community is still reeling from it.

The most grievous, obvious, in-your-face racism and whitewashing done in a long time in the franchise. There’s no way to argue that it isn’t.

Unintentional? Sure. Accidental? Probably. But still, it is what it is.

The thing, though, that gets me the most? Is the out-of-context tweet to confirm it, one that was entirely unnecessary and unneeded.

Why unnecessary? Because mandalorians, as I’ve said time and time again, have a history in Legends-to-Canon of fighting over identity politics, of literally starting wars over the “right” way to be mandalorian.

To have White Mandalorians look at a Brown Mandalorian and say “THIS MAN, this man who was born in mandalorian space and taken in and raised by a mandalorian clan to become a mandalorian warrior and then elected mandalorian leader of the True Mandalorians, he is NOT A MANDALORIAN!” … is par for the course in the world of mandalorian politics in the larger context of mandalorian history. Mandalorians.

They do this shit, all the time.

It could have been left alone, to be taken as one will—and it should have been. But instead of doing that, Pablo Hidalgo, in a tweet, “confirmed” that Jango was never mandalorian at all, thereby eradicating any of the complexity that can be inferred on the in-context declaration in the show, and supporting what is, ultimately, an act of racist writing that was as I’ve already said, unneeded and unnecessary.

After 30+ years of Boba Fett established as mandalorian, and 6+ years of Jango Fett as mandalorian, suddenly … he was not white enough to be mandalorian in a show that had higher canon validity than 30+ years of expanded material.

And if you read that section above comparing Fenn Rau and Jango Fett … well. If you can’t see why it’s messed up … I don’t know how else to better explain it.

#Anonymous #asks.txt #i am so sorry about the length im just like #I want to explain why Legends applies bc this is just #it's a lot tbh #meta: new mandalorians #meta: mandalorians #izzy talks mandalorians #c: Satine Kryze #Satine Kryze #listen people this is like 5700 words long #it is LONG #it is probably gonna be moved to ao3 in the future too #but like #consider yourself warned #izzy talks clone wars #some editing done to make it cleaner / easier to read / more concise #still long as h e l l though

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quranreadalong · 6 years

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ARMED CONFLICTS OF EARLY ISLAM PT 4

The Jews are gone from Medina and the Meccans have been largely supplanted by the Muslims as the dominant force of the Hijaz region due to the whole non-battle siege event. That’s where we’re at in early 627. The rest of the year mostly involved the Muslims establishing dominance in Najd.

There’s a cute little sidestory here in the aftermath of the siege of Medina. Ibn Ishaq tells us that one of the main tribes of Medina (Khazraj) was jealous of the other (Aws) because the latter killed one of Mohammed’s Jewish enemies. That guy was one of the dead poets we saw back in the first section. The Khazraj wanted to kill one of Mohammed’s Jewish enemies, too, so with Mo’s permission they sneaked into Khaybar, killed the guy in cold blood, and then left. This appalling and very dumb affair, which literally happened solely because the Khazraj wanted to kill some Jew to keep up with the Aws, is described in a sahih hadith.

We’ll come back to Khaybar later. Another topic we’ll come back to later is one concerning a certain Qurayshi guy named Khalid ibn Walid. Not long after the failure of the siege and the subsequent decrease in Mecca’s reputation, the opportunistic slimeball--who had been fighting against the Muslims up til now--switched sides. He was joined by another opportunist named Amr ibn al-As. The two would go on to become some of Mohammed’s bloodthirstiest soldiers and major players in the Islamic conquests.

Anyway, now that the balance of power had changed following the siege, Mohammed dropped the pretense of people planning on attacking Medina and simply began ordering attacks on different clans. First was the unfortunate minor clan of Banu Hanifa, the chief of whom “converted” to Islam after Mohammed had him tied to a tree for three days. Prior to that, according to Ibn Saad, Mohammed’s men had killed around a dozen of his people and taken their animals and possessions as war booty. No reason for the attack is given. None was really needed. Mohammed was showing everyone that he was in charge now.

Next was a larger target, the Banu Lahyan, the clan whose chief Mohammed had assassinated and who had killed some of his spies in return a couple sections ago. He sent his men after them in revenge. But the Banu Lahyan had gotten word of their approach and fled; only some minor skirmishes took place.

After this, near Medina, some raiders attacked the caretaker of Mohammed’s personal camels, killed him, and took the animals. They were probably from one of the Najd clans that had tangled with Mohammed in the past. The Muslims chased after them and after a brief skirmish with single-digit casualties on both sides the animals were recovered. The camel-thieves who had killed the camels’ caretaker were later captured, tortured, and killed.

they were brought, and he had their hands and feet cut off. Then he ordered for nails which were heated and passed over their eyes, and they were left in the Harra (i.e. rocky land in Medina). They asked for water, and nobody provided them with water till they died

That seems rather... intense, but it was a way of showing everyone that anyone who messed with Mohammed was going to regret it.

Unprovoked attacks similar to the one on the Banu Hanifa are listed throughout the remainder of the year, all with no justifications other than to harass people and take their goods. They include attacks on the Banu Asad bin Khuzayma (people fled, war booty taken), who you may remember from a similar raid in pt 2; the Banu Salim, who Mohammed had also harassed in a previous section (goods and captives taken); and another Meccan caravan (money, goods, and captives taken). Al-Tabari has little to say about any of them.

A botched raid on another Ghatafan clan, the Banu Fazara, ended with the deaths of 9 Muslims. The leader of that raiding party, Mohammed’s (former) adopted son Zayd, later returned for revenge. This clan is notable because one of their leaders was a woman--a rarity in polytheistic times and virtually unheard of in Islamic times--who was tortured and killed by the Muslims in the second raid. (The reason, according to the usual suspects: Mohammed, yet again, claimed that this random person was plotting to kill him.) Ibn Ishaq:

Zayd also raided Wadi-l-Qurra where he met Banu Fazara and some of his companions were killed; he himself carried wounded from the field. ... When Zayd came he swore that he would use no ablution until he raided B. Fazara; and when he recovered from his wounds the apostle sent him against them with a force. ... He met them in Qura and inflicted casualties on them and took Umm Qirfah [real name: Fatima] prisoner. He also took one of Umm’s daughters and Abdallah bin Mas’adah prisoner. Ziyad bin Harithah ordered Qays to kill Umm Qirfah, and he killed her cruelly. He tied each of her legs with a rope and tied the ropes to two camels, and they split her in two.

Damn. A sahih hadith mentions that the women of the Banu Fazara were forced into sexual slavery either as a result of this last raid or in a separate raid around the same time under Abu Bakr.

In addition to the above were three raids on a Ghatafan clan called the Banu Thalaba, who were accused (with no listed evidence, it just says people thought they were sketchy) of wanting to steal from some nearby Muslims. A force was sent to fight them, but it was ambushed and defeated. Mohammed sent out another force to attack them but the Banu Thalaba ran away and the Muslims only took their goods and one captive. Then another force was sent out to raid them and they fled again, with the Muslims taking more goods but no captives. The Banu Thalaba were really a spunky little underdog in this time period. The Muslims also harassed a clan called the Banu Bakr, accusing them of allying with the Jewish refugees now in Khaybar, but again they fled when the Muslims drew close and the Muslims left only with war booty.

We are now entering 628. The Quraysh, having been weakened by recent events, are no longer in a position to deny Mohammed. He decides to try his luck, and announces that he’s prepared to let them be--for now--under two conditions. Firstly, they must allow the Muslims of Medina into Mecca for the pilgrimage. Secondly, they cannot help any tribe that’s being attacked by the Muslim army, or try to stop the ongoing Islamic conquest of the region. Should the Quraysh accept these stipulations, Mohammed is willing to negotiate a deal with them.

So a few months into the new year, Mohammed set out for Mecca with over a thousand of his men and told the Meccans they wanted to perform the pilgrimage. The Quraysh said, naturally, “lmao are u fucking w/ us???”. Mohammed had sent an envoy into the city to discuss the matter with them, and the Quraysh spent so long laughing at him that the Muslims outside the city actually believed they’d killed him, and Mohammed demanded that his followers all take a pledge to stand by his side in battle. At this point the Quraysh sent the guy back outside the city, presumably saying “I guess y’alls Allah didn’t tell you he was fine, huh”. But to diffuse the tension (and given the Muslims’ clearly superior military position by this point), the Quraysh were essentially forced to come to an agreement with them.

This is when the Treaty of Hudaibiyya was signed, which we have already talked about. But to recap: it said that 1) there would be no conflict between the Muslims and Meccans for a period of time, 2) the Muslims would return any Meccans who had gone to Medina without the permission of their guardians, and 3) the Muslims of Medina could perform the pilgrimage. Again, this treaty inspired controversy among the Muslims because Mohammed signed it with his regular-old name (Mohammed ibn Abdullah) rather than calling himself a prophet.

Regardless, the treaty was signed, and as we have also discussed, Mohammed violated the stipulation about returning Meccans immediately when a woman came to Medina without her guardian’s permission and when his followers attacked Meccan caravans. The histories unanimously agree that the Meccans fully expected Muslim raids to continue despite the truce forbidding it, with al-Tabari quoting the Meccan military commander Abu Sufyan as saying that “we still are not safe”. And--this is something we’ll talk about more in a later surah--Mecca was evidently undergoing a famine at this time, which may well have been related to the whole murdering-merchants thing. Still, at least for this period, no large battles resulted and the tense peace somewhat held, albeit with small skirmishes.

With the Meccans dealt with and the irritating clans of the Hijaz and Najd under control for the moment, there was one enemy left. The Banu Nadir Jews who had been expelled from Medina still lived freely in Khaybar, unlike their unfortunate Qurayza brethren. The area was far away from most of the flashpoints we’ve talked about thus far, and the people there lived a fairly comfortable existence as agriculturalists and traders. (Well... except for that whole incident where the Khazraj murdered some guy, and a later assassination evidently being referenced in this weak hadith.) After being evicted from Medina and after the death of their leader following the siege, the Banu Nadir were simply trying to put their lives back together and make a new home for themselves among other Jews.

Many scholars over the centuries have searched for a justification for the attack on Khaybar. Ibn Ishaq gives none. The reality is likely as simple as this: the Muslims were upset by Hudaibiyya and Mohammed didn’t want to lose the momentum he’d built up, and the Jews were the only enemies left to attack. The Jews at Khaybar were not fighting against him or harming Muslims in any way, but the Banu Nadir were among them, and so they had to be brought low, in the Quran’s words. Expulsion was not enough. Submission was necessary.

The people of Khaybar knew that the Muslim army was coming after them not long after the treaty was signed and asked some clans of the Ghatafan for help. There is no reputable account of them planning on attacking Mohammed’s people at this time, only of asking the Ghatafan to defend them in the event of an attack in exchange for some of Khaybar’s food. Al-Tabari makes it clear that the Ghatafan didn’t mobilize until Mohammed’s army was marching towards Khaybar, but they were unable to actually aid the Jews because they got confused:

When the Ghatafan heard that the Messenger of God had encamped near Khaybar, they assembled because of him and set out to aid the Jews ... they heard a sound behind them ... Thinking that the enemy had come at them from behind, they turned back ... leaving the way to Khaybar open

Mohammed sent Ali, Fatima’s husband, as the leader of the troops. Contrary to later apologist accounts about the people of Khaybar preparing some attack against Medina (the concept of which is ludicrous--with what army?!), Ali clearly had absolutely no idea why he was being sent to attack these people.

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) called 'Ali b. Abu Talib and he conferred (this honour) upon him and said: Proceed on and do not look about until Allah grants you victory, and 'Ali went a bit and then halted and did not look about and then said in a loud voice: Allah's Messenger, on what issue should I fight with the people? Thereupon he (the Prophet) said: Fight with them until they bear testimony to the fact that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger, and when they do that then their blood and their riches are inviolable from your hands but what is justified by law and their reckoning is with Allah.

(Ali was a true believer, but even he had his moments.)

Mohammed responded to Ali’s question by saying that he was attacking them because they refused to recognize him as a prophet. This was a conquest, not a fight. They waited until the Jewish farmers were awake and in the streets of the city to launch their attack.

when the day dawned, the Jews came out with their bags and spades. When they saw the Prophet; they said, "Muhammad and his army!" The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Allahu Akbar! Khaibar is ruined, for whenever we approach a nation (i.e. enemy to fight) then it will be a miserable morning for those who have been warned.”

After a siege involving nearly 100 dead Jews, the people of Khaybar surrendered and begged for their lives, presumably having heard of what happened to the Banu Qurayza. The Muslims got a pretty sweet deal out of Khaybar: feudalism! The Muslims took their wealth, but the remaining non-enslaved, non-dead Jews were allowed to remain on the land, working it and giving the produce that they didn’t need to feed themselves to the Muslims. One-fifth of the city was Mohammed’s personal property. (The “allowance” to remain in Khaybar was temporary and could be revoked at any point; the Jews were expelled after Mohammed’s death.)

It was narrated from Ibn 'Umar that the Prophet gave the datepalms of Khaibar and their land to the Jews of Khaibar, on condition that they would take care of them at their expense, and the Messenger of Allah would have half of whatever they produced.

Half of whatever they produced! Eat your damn hearts out, medieval English lords with your weak-ass taxation! The Muslims were thrilled.

When Khaibar was conquered, we said, "Now we will eat our fill of dates!"

Immediately after this, the nearby Jewish settlement of Fadak was compelled to “agree” to the same terms without a fight, not wanting to experience Khaybar’s fate. The wealth of the people of Fadak was given to Mohammed himself and again they were put under a feudalism scheme. They were later expelled from their land at the same time as the Jews in Khaybar. The conquest of the Jews of the Wadi al-Qura area followed. (Here’s a fascinating hadith from that particular outing in which Mohammed’s slave dies when an arrow kills him and Mohammed says he’s in hell now.)

There was one exception to the agreement: the Banu Nadir. The longtime enemies of Mohammed would not get away so easily--especially not the family of one of his vanquished adversaries. Women were taken as sex slaves. Huyayy’s daughter Safiyya was taken captive and raped by Mohammed himself less than a week after the conquest.

The Prophet (ﷺ) stayed with Safiya bint Huyai for three days on the way of Khaibar where he consummated his marriage with her. Safiya was amongst those who were ordered to use a veil.

Mohammed’s troops tortured and killed her husband, who was the treasurer of the clan and refused to tell the Muslims where the Jews kept their money. Al-Tabari:

The Messenger of God commanded that the ruin should be dug up, and some of the treasure was extracted from it. Then he asked him for the rest of it. Kinanah [Safiyya’s husband] refused to surrender it; so the Messenger of God gave orders concerning him to al-Zubayr b. al-‘Awwam, saying, “torture him until you root out what he has.” Al-Zubayr kept twirling his firestick in his breast until Kinanah almost expired; then the Messenger of God gave him to Muhammad b. Maslamah, who beheaded him to avenge his brother

Damn x2. Revenge had been taken and the Muslims were satisfied with their new food source and the humiliation of the Jews. One last notable thing about Khaybar is this. Mohammed died years after Khaybar, at a completely normal age of death for the time, but some histories blamed his death on The Jewz.

The Prophet (ﷺ) in his ailment in which he died, used to say, "O `Aisha! I still feel the pain caused by the food I ate at Khaibar, and at this time, I feel as if my aorta is being cut from that poison."

That poisoning incident is referenced in another hadith:

So a Jewess presented him at Khaybar with a roasted sheep which she had poisoned. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ate of it and the people also ate. He then said: Take away your hands (from the food), for it has informed me that it is poisoned. Bishr ibn al-Bara' ibn Ma'rur al-Ansari died. So he (the Prophet) sent for the Jewess (and said to her): What motivated you to do the work you have done? She said: If you were a prophet, it would not harm you; but if you were a king, I should rid the people of you. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then ordered regarding her and she was killed.

I like how he asks what her motive was. Can’t imagine why she’d want to get rid of him immediately after he killed 100 of her people, enslaved women, and conquered her home!

But hey, here’s a question regarding this story: since it says Mohammed thought that the sheep killed him, does that make him a prophet or a king in his own eyes? Hrm...

The next section will be the last and will involve the conquest of Mecca and shenanigans related to northern Arabia, both of which are actually relevant to surah 9. To recap, as of 628 AD:

cleanup of rebellious clans in the Najd region

crackdown on accused thieves and brigands

(but continued Muslim theft of non-Muslims’ possessions)

treaty signed with the Quraysh in Mecca; immediately violated but the Quraysh can’t do shit about it

conquest of Khaybar and other Jewish areas

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

#historylesson #quranreadalong #surah 9 #at tawbah

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cyanpeacock · 6 years

Text

Can I bitch for a while? I'm gonna bitch. This is gonna go places I definitely wouldn't talk about sober but I really need to say some things so under the cut we go

Ok so there is a lot in my life that I do not like right now and I have a tendency of blaming/criticising myself for the things I don't like when I can't necessarily control my circumstances. Like, right now I can't control my health, or my income, which are the two major stressors I'm dealing with rn, but precisely because I can't control them I feel upset and angry w/ myself. I don't like not being in complete control of my situation. Paradoxically I also don't like not having anyone to tell me how to fill my time. P much my entire life I have spent trying to be something specific for someone specific and the amount of freedom I have now is often terrifying and overwhelming. It was in a way easier to hide inside myself and let my body carry out whatever instructions were given to me. But like, that's not a life. That's being a non-sentient robot. That's slavery.

You know like the fact he picked me? He had five people in that family alone to choose from to groom that way and he picked me. Now he's moved onto another family and chosen another slave. And it really upsets me. I feel singled out as vulnerable and easily moulded and weak. I can't even warn or protect his new victim. So now I don't engage with anybody new at all because I'm convinced they can see that I'm not strong and will use my weakness to their advantage. I will not allow myself the risk of being hurt and used again, but that also denies me any chance of forming a positive relationship. I'm safe but I'm alone. Being alone hurts, but it hurts less than being unsafe.

I survived everything, but that doesn't mean I haven't been left with a self that automatically vacates the building whenever it thinks it's threatened. And a threat can be fucking anything. Somebody stands a millimetre too close? Threat. A certain make of car? Threat. Too quiet or too loud? Unspecified noise in the hallway? A miscommunication? A glance from a stranger? Something missing from its normal place? All threats. I'm either on alert or dissociating all the fucking time and it's so draining. It's stopping me from enjoying life.

It takes so much out of me to say "no, I can't do that for you." For so much of my life it has been easier to just obey quietly and not establish any boundaries around my self. You give me a direct order and I'll obey, even if I don't want to obey. It's automatic. I don't know my limits because I've always pushed myself beyond them into a breakdown. No adult in my life ever saw the harm it was doing me or helped me. Instead I got praise for pushing myself to the point of falling apart, and now I can't tell whether I should stop and rest, or whether I'm a lazy little brat who needs to buck up and get on with things.

The one adult in my life who ever showed any kind of love or care for me is the same adult who hit and kicked me more than anyone else. Do you know what it's like when a hug feels like violence is sure to follow? I'm so sorry if you do. She called me a selfish little cow to my face when I cut myself and now has the nerve to tell me, and herself, that she loves me. I don't know if I'm more fucked in the head, or if she is.

I've spent years trying to deny that there is more than one person(ality state?) inside my head, but they are not going away, and I don't know what to do about it. The boundaries are sometimes fuzzy and they might go quiet for a while but they always seem to come back, at least the same two (and me) do.

The point I'm getting at is, Marc has been loud again recently. My mother would call him stroppy, but that's a discredit to how much pain he is in. I think he holds that which I can't feel and it's all really fucked up. I think he's where a lot of the anger and despair get packaged away to, because he doesn't seem to know any happy that isn't tainted with revenge or grief. He's angry and hurt and defensive and aggressive and harbours a massive need to Protect, and a massive guilt for all the times he Failed to Protect. So he hides, because then he has no responsibility to protect, and nobody to reveal his failure to. He's ashamed and would rather take it out on himself than hurt anybody else, but he doesn't know how to do neither of those things.

There is the Kid too. To the Kid, the Kid is a nameless It, but to me he is a he and should share my name, but he doesn't, and he/it won't take those things (yet? ever?). I think he's a little boy who has been degendered and dehumanised to the point he doesn't recognise himself as a male human. He's from Before and holds things from Before that I don't remember, or only remember flashes of. Frankly I'm often scared shitless of engaging with him, more scared than I am of engaging with Marc, because I have not enough strength and no idea how to reparent a child that went through the upbringing this body did. Marc responds to headbutting, the Kid does not. I know the Kid is sad and alone and it is often far too painful to even reach out and touch that.

Once I had a visitor who called herself Amy, who was bright and bubbly and took this body to the corner shop while we(who?) were scared and watching. She came at a point where the body could not afford to care any more, but once she left she never came back, and I don't know if she is gone forever or having a very long sleep. She didn't care and she felt joyous. I miss that.

There has been at least one time this body has been seen in public and "I" haven't recognised people who are very important to me. I find that fucking terrifying. Like, I knew I sometimes went outside dissociated, but not even recognising my best friend?? That's something different to the extent I was aware of, and it's really frightening.

So I'm alone, but I'm not alone. I'm alone with at least two others who lived the same events as I did. Alone with two others whose body was hit and kicked and belittled and insulted and isolated and ostracised and groomed and made into a slave. The same body that was homeless at 18. The same body that turned to opioids for a comfort its parents never gave. And none of us have the right tools or skills to manage this life yet.

I feel like damaged goods. I feel like an Amazon order that the buyer would send back complaining of rough treatment in the warehouse. I feel like I haven't really aged since my trauma 'ended'. It's been nearly two years since I moved out of the YMCA, almost three since I moved in, and a chunk of my soul still lives there. I turn 21 in about a month, but I still feel 18. It's like the world just hasn't turned since then.

I don't know how to have a life now, like a LIFE life. I only know how to survive well enough to grind through the education system, and succeed well enough in that to be praised for at least one thing about my inferior body, but I can't keep up the pace I used to now that I'm not under threat of literal death. I got too sick and I had to stop studying and now I don't feel like I have any worth. All I was ever worth was what I could do for others, and now I'm not even sure I have that. I just want to have a purpose again. I can convince myself I'll ultimately help many people when I'm studying, but right now I am not studying, or helping others, and there are so many possible futures that I can see. It is overwhelming. Every moment, every decision, all of it is different and uncharted and very beautiful in its uniqueness but so frightening in its unpredictability.

Sleep is the closest I have to a respite without drugs, and even then I often have the nightmares. This morning I woke up punching thin air where I thought his face was. Weed stops the worst of the flashbacks and nightmares, but I'm broke, so I can't afford the illegal medicine that eases the worst of this aftermath I'm living with. I think it's fucked up that there are doctors I see who would sooner have me taking four different prescription pills instead of vaporising less than half a gram of a plant that deals with all four issues those pills are meant to manage, and then some.

Everything is just fucked. But whatever. There is nothing I can do to change my past, or certain elements of what is inside my head. But what-the-fuck-ever. I'm drinking and right now I don't care and I'm liberated and I bought a new mattress topper so I'm hopefully going to be extra confy sleeping tonight. Historically everything has been shit. I just need to figure out how to put that stuff in the box it belongs in and live the rest of my life.

#fliptext #negative #ask to tag #this isnt even. half of it #but im tired now #done talking. for now

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