#this is during the point where she's engaged in nefarious villainy

[delusionland]

@strikethunder [ jeanne & brandon.]

[ TEXT: BRANDON SHARPE; CODENAME STRIKER; CURRENT AVENGER; “CLOSEST FRIEND” BY VIRTUE OF PERSONALITY & CIRCUMSTANTIAL SIMILARITIES DESPITE HIS FLAWS. ] Hello Brandon. “Long Time No Talk.”To the point, there are opportunities for you elsewhere if you get tired of being a D-List Hero. I would never force you. But we worked well together as teammates. I would not mind having you behind me again.

[ TEXT: BRANDON SHARPE; CODENAME STRIKER; CURRENT AVENGER; “CLOSEST FRIEND” BY VIRTUE OF PERSONALITY & CIRCUMSTANTIAL SIMILARITIES DESPITE HIS FLAWS. ] Or would you rather we just “stick to small talk.” How are you? How is it being a a D-List Hero? How is your boyfriend? Aren’t you tired of pretending you like following rules meant to keep you as mediocre and palatable as possible? Have you engaged with any interesting entertainment lately? How are your peers?

#strikethunder #ch: jeanne #ic: jeanne #i love my terrible daughter so fuckin much #this is during the point where she's engaged in nefarious villainy #but not aim bc fuck aim just like generic bad guy stuff LOL #fandom: avengers academy #fandom: marvel #fandom: superheroes #jeanne vc: arent u tired of being nice. dont u just want to go apeshit

[countessofbiscuit]

sphere of interest

A couple posts went round a month or two ago about Riyo Chuchi being a uniquely corrupt character. That she’s privileged and participates in a corrupt system (for better or worse) is true enough, but those posts stuck with me particularly because the OP bemoaned Riyo’s portrayal as a knock-off Padmé and seemed to take issue with the fact that she’s written as humanitarian, soft-spoken, and compassionate (which I see nothing in canon to contradict) — as if those qualities cannot exist in a character alongside diplomatic cunning, ethical ambiguity, and a mastery of realpolitik. Or, that her nuance is somehow universally lost on fandom because folks enjoy writing this minor character sweetly wining and dining and fucking rather than, idk, engaging in a heated disagreement with Bail Organa about installing Rush Clovis as head of the Banking Clan. 

I can’t really speak to OP’s frustration with fandom iterations of Riyo (I’ve only written her, not widely read her); but their mention of Padmé was interesting because a) I’ve seen a very distinctively characterized Riyo badly scrubbed off a fic to be replaced by Padmé, and b) the entire premise upon which Riyo’s alleged corruption hangs — undisclosed evidence that the Trade Federation, specifically their senator, Lott Dod (though, as I pointed out, OP had confused Lott Dod for an unnamed TF ambassador), is in cahoots with the Separatists — forms a significant part of an earlier episode in the timeline featuring … everyone’s favorite do-gooder, Padmé Amidala. 

In “Senate Spy” (s02ep04), Padmé witnesses and obtains actual fax hard evidence (a data chip handed over to the Jedi Council) of Senator Lott Dod’s collaboration with such Separatist big-wigs as Poggle the Lesser, in financing and supplying a droid factory for Count Dooku; furthermore, Padmé suffers attempted murder at Dod’s hand in the form of poisoning, which Anakin and Senator Clovis both witness. 

Now, Padmé was too ill to converse with Dod and so escapes any accusations of blackmail, spying, and theft by a bad-faith actor (luckily for her character, I guess), and Anakin was too busy saving her life … but to explain how Lott Dod is still kicking around in the Senate to falsely (though perfectly legally) claim neutrality and practice nefarious misdeeds upon inhabitants of the galaxy at the time of “Sphere of Influence”, I suppose we have to assume that neither Padmé nor Anakin nor the Jedi Council reported, privately or publicly, Dod’s active collusion and attempted murder.

If we’re talking a breach in ethics, this assumed non-disclosure on Padmé’s part is a pretty egregious one; the intelligence she collected during the impromptu sting would not have been affected (given that its theft was known to the Separatists, there was no Enigma Dilemma involved). And silence on this misconduct was very probably illegal, because we can suppose Senators were technically required to report the crimes of other Senators (especially in the case of treason, which was tried in the Senate itself) to the Internal Activities Committee.

The Internal Activities Committee was a political committee of the Galactic Republic Senate that was part of the Judiciary Committee and was considered to be a spiritual partner of the Ethics Committee. Distinctively from the Ethics Committee, however, the Internal Activities Committee had the power to bring forth criminal charges on individuals. The Internal Activities Committee of the Galactic Senate supervised the affairs of senators and other ranking Galactic Republic officials, such as the Supreme Chancellor, ensuring that they did nothing unethical or illegal. If such misconduct was found, it was the Committee's duty to notify the Supreme Court and hand over all evidence of misconduct for prosecution. (x)

OR … we choose to operate under the assumption that Padmé did talk both ways and sideways and upside-down in the Senate about Lott Dod’s villainy, and yet ... there was nothing that could be done; no charges could be filed; perhaps the Supreme Court has no affirmative duty to prosecute, even when presented evidence of factual guilt; and this blatant criminality by a Senator had no practical effect whatsoever in convincing the Senate to revoke the Trade Federation’s representation, or to end that corporation’s galactic monopoly. Lott Dod himself had already denounced the Viceroy of the Trade Federation (Nute Gunray) as a Separatist on multiple occasions (even to Bail Organa), and this too was not enough to move the Senate to act. Clearly, we can expect the Trade Federation to act with impunity, whatever iota of intelligence Riyo Chuchi does or does not preach to the choir about a diplomat when she successfully negotiates for a peaceful end to a blockade that is having fatal consequences on her home planet. 

There are probably examples, too, where Padmé secretly negotiates with the enemy to end or prevent some hostility or other. If anyone can think of times she’s doing this without a blaster in her hand, I’d like to hear it! 

Maybe I’ll tackle diplomatic immunity, duty of care, and limits to public disclosure, and my other objections to that Riyo meta and its value judgements, and its application of American law to what is clearly an international incident in the narrative, in another post. 

#riyo chuchi #the clone wars #padme amidala #star wars meta #trade federation