#let me be very clear too

[mmmatchasims]

Citrine: Where is my sister?

Hibiscus: With her friends back at school. She told me you've never been to a dance before, and that you probably wanted to go.

Topaz: She told you to come back and ask me? That kid is so sweet, I don't deserve her.

Hibiscus: So, what do you say? You coming with me, gorgeous?

[hinamie]

i think the designs of the main cast r more or less solidified so it's time for the first not-a-sketch piece of this au featuring past and present avatars ! and their cat

jjk atla!au:

preliminary designs first year trio gojo/choso/nanami mahito/geto(?)/yuuta

[citrusai]

taash said "they were doing it" and people ran with the interpretation of an npc that doesn't know solas or the history of the elvhenan even when bellara interjected and said, no, that's not right. that's not how it was for the elvhenan. they formed bonds before they had physical bodies. and people ran to doompost or create weird anti-solavellan shit even though mythal & solas refer to each other as old friends and when she releases him there is no tenderness or love in it. it is the act of unchaining a dog from his post, the stepping down of a general. but to each their own ig.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

saying this as respectfully as possible but. Do not put fandom content creators on a pedestal. We are also just fans contributing to a community just as you are. We have boundary on our own work and that’s it. What I say is not and should not be considered sth the whole fandom should listen to. I’m just a normal ass person ranting about things on my blog. If it does not have a fandom tag for others to engage in, do not make it out to be me trying to start fights or addressing the whole community. Because it’s not.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my art, my lore talk, is biased. I’ve never tried to hide that I view Marika a certain way and will always develop my theory following that base assumption.

Aside from translation stuffs and pointing out in-game items, everything else I say you can look at it, agree or disagree, and move on to form your own opinions. Just because I draw stuffs doesn’t mean you get to saddle me with responsibilities about managing fandom expectations. What the hell? I’m a fan artist, I’m the last person who you should look at for “leaderism” (?) WHAT?

I can and will be a hater in my own space, like I know sometimes other artists will just post their stuffs and not engage too heavily with fandom, and for a while I did try to do that here (because I’m already a dramatic ass on twitter), that’s just not me though.

You will get art and you will get my opinions as well.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

My jewish community, friends, rabbi, and educators: We are very invested in helping you be jewish. Do you want to help read the haftarah? Here's a chanukiah! You can have it!! Borrow these books! Here's some books! You need more books... Come to pesach! Come to the chanukah party! When are your classes done? We need a minyan for once!

Me and my 50000 IQ: What if I am Secretly Appropriating judaism? What if I am doing a Cultural Appropriation........

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[suntails]

MY SILVER PMV IS DONE!!!!

I've been working on this for almost a month and a half, and I'm SOSOSO excited to get to finally share it with y'all! :D it's a little love letter to his arc of the diasomnia story, and i'm so honored to get to make something special for my lil guy <3

[hualianisms]

Not father & son, not master & disciple, but a secret third thing

First of all, let me preface this by being clear that everyone is free to headcanon anything they want and like/dislike anything they like/dislike! That being said, sometimes I see international fans interpret FDB as LLH's son, or their dynamic as parent-child or otherwise familial, and as a native chinese speaker, I just wanted to share some reasons why I personally did not interpret them as familial.

Granted, at the start of the show, FDB is kept in the dark and also not up to LLH's level of skill in solving cases. However, FDB quickly catches up in crime-solving skills, intellect and maturity by the 2nd half of the show, after a well-written growth arc. I think the beauty of the characters and relationships in this show is that they grow & evolve, and are meant to do so. The dynamic that LLH & FDB had in episode 1 is quite different from their dynamic at the end of the show. By the later episodes, they are 2 adults who are very much equals.

Why I don't read them as father & son:

LLH & FDB act and speak in a manner that is far too informal & familiar with one another, which would be extremely inappropriate for any kind of parent & child, even a surrogate one. Several times, FDB calls LLH by just his first name "Lianhua", and sometimes even calls him "Damn Lianhua" when he is angry/upset at LLH. This would be extremely rude for a disciple to call a master, or a son to call a father. No son talks to his father the way FDB talks to LLH, and no disciple talks to their master like that. Unless the son/disciple hates the father/master, and is outright rejecting his father/master altogether. As we see in the show, not only does FDB not hate LLH at all, he instead cares deeply for LLH and would do anything to save him. Why, then would someone scold/curse someone they care about? Does the trope of the upset spouse/partner sound familiar?

For comparison, see FDB's interactions with He Xiaohui, who he is close to - he is informal & affectionate with her, but never calls her anything other than "娘 niang" ("mother"). I can't emphasize enough how taboo it is in Chinese culture to ever call your parent or parental figure by their name under any circumstance.

2. In ep 31, FDB himself explicitly rejects the idea of LLH as his shifu and himself as LLH's disciple, responding that he is too old to be LLH's disciple and it was merely a joke. He clearly sees LLH as an equal, and rejects the notion of their relationship being anything other than that of 2 adult equals. LLH also tells his shiniang that FDB is not his disciple, and a few episodes ago LLH told FDB that he has never understimated FDB.

Coding/hints as something other than platonic:

Zhiji/zhijiao - FDB calls LLH his 知交 zhijiao in ep 19, and 知己 zhiji in ep 34. "In this life, I, Fang Duobing, recognize you as my only zhiji." is practically a love declaration. And this bond is reciprocated by LLH, bc in a deleted line in ep 19, translated by forayuarchive on twitter, LLH is the one who first calls FDB his zhijiao.

To clarify, Zhiji is not specifically a romantic term, but it's what was used in both The Untamed and Word of Honor - both dramas based on danmei novels with canon gay main pairings - to bypass censorship, to code the bond between the main duo as deeper than your typical platonic male friendship. (See this post for a detailed explanation of the significance/history behind the term zhiji, and see this twitter thread for an explanation of the meaning of zhijiao in MLC - especially how zhijiao is specifically mutual, reciprocated).

2. Married bickering - forayuarchive on twitter has discussed in these twitter threads how the tone of many of LLH & FDB's interactions (especially FDB) is similar to how married couples or romantic partners speak to one another bc of the level of familiarity, tone and language. For my fav example, see this note (translation by forayuarchive) that FDB left LLH in ep 35, which reads pretty much like a note that a spouse/partner might write when leaving their shared house in a hurry.

3. "Xiaobao" - Personally as a native Chinese speaker, LLH calling FDB "xiaobao" in front of everyone is a level of intimacy that genuinely would make me feel embarrassed to hear as a third party. 小宝 xiao bao (literal meaning = "little treasure") is usually something you call actual babies/children AND is FDB's family nickname for him, so if you're calling a grown man that in front of everyone including his colleagues, family and even strangers, then one might assume he is likely either your biological family or your romantic partner. (For comparison, just imagine calling your s/o their parent's special childhood nickname for them at work.)

4. Deleted lines where FDB calls LLH "xiaohua'er". 小花儿 Xiaohua'er ("little flower") is very intimate and feels like something someone might call a lover. Or, at least, definitely not a platonic shifu, even less so a parental figure. (For meta on the names that LLH & FDB use for one another, see forayuarchive's twitter thread.)

5. More deleted scenes (translated by forayuarchive on twitter), perhaps cut due to censorship, which make apparent LLH's high regard and deep care for FDB. For e.g., a line of internal monologue by LLH in ep 40, translated here by forhenjun, shows that LLH thinks of FDB as the only person in his two lifetimes who has always treated him as a human being rather than putting him on an unfair pedestal.

6. Official MLC accounts act like as if they ship them.

As murderedbyhomework mentioned, there is a song in the official soundtrack of MLC called "Fanghua's Day-to-Day Life" (yes, the exact same words as their ship name). Sounds like a couple's daily domestic life, doesn't it?

The official iQiYi Romance youtube channel lists clips of LLH & FDB under the romance category.

The official MLC douyin account posts MVs with emotional captions (e.g. this one translated here by forayuarchive) that emphasize how much both LLH and FDB mean to one another. Another official MLC douyin calls LLH & FDB the person each other trusts the most.

The MLC clips posted by the official Guangdong TV weibo account also has captions such as these (translated by rice_jpg) that straight up describe FDB's feelings towards LLH as "when you like someone" (very similar CN phrasing as the phrasing used to describe romantic crushes).

7. They are subtly paralleled with a canon straight romantic couple (see fanqxiaobao's twitter thread on the parallels btwn LXY/QWM scenes and certain LLH/FDB scenes). MLC also made a distinct change from the novel by not having FDB get married to Princess Zhaoling, even though the drama could have easily given FDB a romance with her.

8. If you're familiar with chinese romantic tropes or the danmei genre, LLH & FDB fit many common romantic tropes e.g. sharing a drink on the rooftop under the moonlight, forgotten first meeting in childhood (and then meeting again properly as adults), power couple fighting side by side (they even held hands!), nianxia, protective younger ml, sickly older mc - just to name a few. Danmei even has many stories of shizun/shifu & disciple pairings who fall in love as adult equals.

There's honestly lots more but these are just some off the top of my head. Again everyone is free to interpret anything! This is just me explaining why as a native chinese speaker I personally did not read their dynamic as that of a father and son.

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[danwhobrowses]

What's this? My skin, cleared? My crops, watered!? My heart, soaring!!??

Callowmoore softness, comfort and sleeping beside each other my FUCKING BELOVED!

[dyaz-stories]

Yuta, Gojo, Geto, and does the end justify the means?

[spoilers up until JJK 269]

I've seen a post floating around about what the point of Yuta overtaking Gojo's body was, and since I haven't seen many people interpret it the way I have, I wanted to take a minute to talk about it.

First of all, I do think Gege had several reasons to do it, one of them being to give the answer to the "are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest or are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru". However, while many people tend to center that idea, it's only one aspect of it for me.

I'm also of the mind that part of it was telling the fans that nah, he really really wasn't coming back (don't necessarily assign malice to it, but yeah I think it was part of the point). That being said, there is an argument to be made that it was foreshadowed in chapter 90 by Kenjaku, so I don't think that was solely the point and Gege might have had this planned for a lot longer.

However, for me, it's not so much about the battle or about the plot, but rather about the themes it sets in place for the story, and these themes have been present for a while in Jujutsu Kaisen.

At the heart of it is, essentially, "does the end justify the means?"

That's a big theme in the manga as a whole, I'd argue. It's at the heart of the Geto thing ("does saving the lives of sorcerers justify killing every single non-sorcerer") in particular. It's behind most of the higher-ups' actions, though their 'ends' don't appear to be altruistic. It's also a question Gojo usually refuses to answer, or tentatively says "no" to — in refusing to kill Yuuji, Yuta, in protecting Hakari, and probably plenty of people before them. He does end up playing in that game, though, when he kills the higher-ups — deciding that the end might justify the means, a gamble he hadn't always thought worth taking until then. [This is my read on Gojo, but it's open to interpretation]

(I can't be brief to save my life so I'm putting the rest of this Very Long Post under the cut)

We see this not so much with the fight, but mostly in the conversations we see Yuta having in chapter 261, before taking Gojo's body. That's the whole point of the debate they're all having. Yuta is arguing that you have to do whatever to win against Sukuna,

while others, Kusakabe and Maki in particular, have their reservations. [Which is interesting considering Kusakabe does think that killing Yuuji to kill Sukuna was warranted, shows that values are complicated things]

Yuta's whole speech is about, really, the fact that you have to do whatever you can do, no matter what that is, to win. No matter whether or not you destroy yourself as a person, no matter how heinous it is, if it gets a win, it needs to be done.

There's something a little self-sacrificial, self-martyrdom, lowkey suicidal about it too imo but that's besides the point (not necessarily a criticism of Yuta btw, think it makes him more interesting and gives him a lot of depth).

Anyway, back to the point: Yuta is emphatically saying, yes, the end justifies the means. That was also what the fandom was saying when the chapter was coming out, actually. I saw a lot of the argument that it was 'not realistic' for them not to do that, and that 'this was a war and yes, it's horrible, but war is horrible', etc, etc.

Now at that point, I was seething in my small corner of the Internet because from the moment that conversation was had, I needed Yuta to lose, because I fucking hated the message it would give if he won. This is, admittedly, a deeply subjective thing — it's a personal and political opinion, and everyone's going to have their own, but as far as I'm concerned, it would have been awful. At that point I was still really worried that the story was going to go full grimdark and I would have hated it if the last message we got was that renouncing all your values is justified in war if it gets you a win.

Anyway, we all know this by now, but that's not what happened.

Geto, who ended up renouncing even his own values by attacking sorcerers in the name of building his perfect world, loses to the love that Yuta has for Maki and Rika in particular, two non-sorcerers.

And Sukuna loses, not to a Kamo, a Zen'in or a Gojo, not even to the descendant of the big three vengeful spirits, all of whom have sacrificed so much of their values to get to the level of power they have, but to a no-name kid who doesn't even have a cursed technique armed with the power of love and friendship. (Not mocking this btw, thrilled about it) Just as importantly, Yuuji has done the very opposite of abandoning his values: he's fought to keep them until the very end. Even at the very end, he offers Sukuna a hand, because his main value is not to kill people, unless absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, Yuta going into Gojo's body gets him nothing. He's committed the abominable, and it's not a decisive move against Sukuna. He's gone against some very general human values — anyone can see why what he's done is fucked up (and I can't pinpoint it precisely but I'd argue that there's a parallel between that and him cursing Rika) — and it gets him nothing. Even if it had gotten him somewhere, there was another way. A way that didn't involve that.

So that, to me, is the point of Yuta taking over Gojo's body: no, you can't just do anything to win a battle, and yes, you can refuse to do certain sacrifices and succeed. Don't abandon the things you hold dear. You can lose, but you can also still prevail, Jujutsu Kaisen says in the end.

Now for the more critical part of this broadcast, while I do think this aspect is why Gege chose to have that happen, I 100% find that chapter 269 and the complete lack of consequences the action ends up carrying really really cheapens it. Everyone was up in arms about it at first, and then Yuta comes back and we act like nothing's happened? I mean it's a theme of the chapter for sure, acting like nothing's happened that is, but it still sucks.

I think that's partly why Maki is mad at Yuta in chapter 269, considering she was the one who was most strongly against the idea, but it's not brought up explicitly. It's completely incomprehensible to me that Gege thought the chapter would be better used talking about how they could have acted differently and that whole New Shadow Style school thing than dealing with the consequences of the characters' actions that he'd prepared earlier, but whatever.

So in the end, while it was an interesting point to bring to the story, it was not used to its full potential. In a story that's all about breaking cycles, it's a shame that there wasn't more light shed on how people kept repeating the same mistake.

[leslie057]

stranger things 4 is just like yess lets give nancy wheeler some friends. and then her friends mistreat her for nine episodes straight <3

[momentomori24]

Someone on twitter said it best: The title should actually be "How NOT to show support for SA victims that don't fit your desired demographic."

"His character is reinforcing negative gay stereotypes" and it's a hypersexual gay man who died in the 30s struggling with addiction and drug abuse to get through his life of exploitation, repression, trafficking and ipv doused with fake glitter and glam so no one can see beneath the cracked surface of his tortured soul.

"I don't think I've ever come across a character so poorly represented yet so greatly praised by the general audience" Because Angel isn't "representation", but an actual character with his own unique struggles and issues and responses that thousands of people (inclusing myself) can deeply relate to and if not "relate" then sympathise with. He isn't "SA rep". He isn't "Gay rep". He's Angel Dust. He's a person, and a broken one at that. If you don't relate to him the way so, so many others do, then maybe it's not for you. I already hate you 💀

[fear-no-mort]

thinkign about how alone and unloved morty was for all his life and rick was the first time anyobdy ever put such an amount of intense attention and dependency onto him . and rick had a whole new family and losing them made him stop seeing the value in other people as a whole and morty was the one and first thing that woke him up

[bookatans]

This is probably going to be a very long post but the more I think about the rise (and subsequent fall) of the New Mandalorians, the more that I get wrapped up in not only the colonialism committed by Satine and the movement, how it began in such a horrifyingly understated way, but also how it paved the way for Mandalore to be destroyed thanks to the almost-complete erasure of their culture.

First of all, Canon verse deciding to remove the True Mandalorians (and placing the "Old" Mandalorians in a similar, though less prominent position) feels particularly underhanded and paints everything in a black and white manner. Satine: a sympathetic character who is the only one standing against Death Watch, the last shred of peace left for Mandalorians to cling to. Which. Last standing? Yes, definitely. But not the only one.

A war where Death Watch and the New Mandalorians were the major players, only to have Death Watch defeated – even with the assistance of the Jedi keeping Satine alive – makes little sense from a technical standpoint. Is it impossible? Probably not. All sorts of things can happen in history, pure dumb luck makes every difference, but it's unlikely. A party which seeks peace is not going to survive against another ultra violent, volatile party that's pissed off at you because you want to erase the culture that they so deeply value.

Which, yeah I don't buy it. Even with the Republic stepping in later on, it's fishy. But for the sake of my sanity, I'm mostly focusing on Legends, because the more you try to create a coherent timeline (seriously, how is Clone Batch Math easier than this?) for the Mandalorian Civil Wars, the harder it is not to give up entirely.

Anyways. Satine did not survive years of conflict due to mere smarts and perseverance, and did not end the war by being charismatic and having good people skills. She was the LEAST THREATENING PARTY in a three-party war, hunkering down with her Jedi protectors and playing politician while the actual warriors in the conflict weakened one another and – for the True Mandalorians – were wiped out.

True Mandalorians. Death Watch. New Mandalorians.

So, okay. The approximate dates of the beginning and end of the Mandalorian Civil Wars don't necessarily make sense with Satine’s age. She'd have been slightly younger, and Canon seems to have a tendency to just wave their hand in the general direction of a time period and deflect onto another topic.

Which, you know what? Fine. I can work with that without having to think too hard about the dates. It kills me not to delve into it further, but. No. It's not like Disney's gonna pay me to fix their broken timeline.

(But if I had to, I'd shift Jaster's death to 47BBY instead of 52BBY, and push the Battle of Galidraan a year back to 43BBY, and—)

Here's what's important to remember, though:

- There are two Mandalorian Civil Wars. The first being True Mandalorians vs Death Watch. The second being the much shorter, and quickly solved Death Watch vs the New Mandalorians.

- The massacre of the True Mandalorians happened shortly before the beginning of the second civil war.

- The True Mandalorians had already been dealing with Death Watch for years, and they were winning. Death Watch wasn't just on the run, they were weak, they had to resort to TRICKING THE JEDI into killing the True Mandalorians for them.

Who wasn't weak? The New Mandalorians, the people that actively choose to turn their back on a culture that had survived for centuries. And yes, Death Watch remained even after the True Mandalorians fell. Tor Vizsla targeted Satine and the New Mandalorians viciously after that, there was even more destruction, but it wasn't with the severity with which he'd prosecuted the True Mandalorians.

Here's what happened next: Jango Fett escaped his enslavement. He hunted down Tor Vizsla, and he killed him. Whatever strength Death Watch had regained in those few years didn't matter, because the second their leader was gone they were certainly left unorganized and at a disadvantage.

Giving the New Mandalorians the opening they needed to cement in people's minds to their beliefs and convince the House and Clan leaders that abandoning their old ways was the solution. After all, how much more of Mandalore was left to destroy? How many more had to be lost?

With the public's approval and the Republic’s help, Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians scavenged the corpse of Mandalore, and they took what they deemed fit, left the rest to rot and – given time – be erased completely.

What's worse is that Satine's activism and speeches made it sound like that made sense (because, to Satine, it did make sense); abandon what Mandalore once was because that's the reason we've been destroyed, isn't it? (Not entirely untrue.) And these people, whose world had been ravaged, who's clans and families had wrecked everything with in-fighting, were tired and desperate enough that they listened.

Actually, here's what's really worse — Satine got LUCKY! The first time! It should not have ended like that. But because she got lucky, because it worked once, she tried to do the exact same thing when the entire galaxy went to war. And she ignored the suffering of people whom she should have known empathy towards, who were going through the very same torment she experienced as a child. Because her position of superiority where peace is the only answer was so ingrained in her beliefs, because she was ARROGANT.

And because peace was the only answer, because she'd disavowed any sense of warrior culture from her people, Satine had as much a hand in dooming Mandalore as everyone who went in with the worst intentions. Does it matter that it was doomed regardless, because Maul was the great evil that came to destroy them? No. Maul was just the most convenient means to an end the resurrected Death Watch could find, but if not him it would have been anyone — anything – else.

I do feel for her. She had to experience her father's death so young and step into a role he'd left behind, didn't get a proper chance to grieve because she had to be strong for everyone else who was grieving. She gave up the possibility of love for duty. Satine was a good leader, I won't argue that, and she was the last stand between Mandalore and total annihilation, but she was also deeply flawed.

[mollysunder]

If I've said it once I'll say it again. I'd love to see Vander's memories of Silco run contradictory to Jinx's memories of him. Both their respective last moments with Silco should filter their other memories of him with bias.

Maybe Jinx's memory Silco would be slightly more whole, the sequences of events make more structural and logical sense. Maybe her memories are literally rosier in hue thanks to the pinkish glint of shimmer coloring the scene.

Meanwhile, years of torture and isolation have at best turned Warwick's memory into Swiss cheese. He can remember names and faces okay...ish, but the more it makes him angry (or just in a way he can't process) the more the memory distorts. Warwick remembers Silco, but he can't remember Silco young. He can give Silco an unscathed face, but he still adds lines of age because his most vivid memory of Silco was his last.

I want Silco to tell Jinx one thing in her memory, while Warwick's memory plays out a whole other sequence of events. But it's only fun if Silco's story in Jinx's memory is the one that makes more sense. No one is reliable narratir, still some people are more reliable than others.

Bonus points if Warwick's deteriorating memory reflects how trauma could affect Vi's own memory down the line.