#the Jedi were useless and the politicians were too naive

[wifeofspock]

people constantly forgetting that Shmi Skywalker exists will never stop making me legitimately angry.

she was so strong, and so brave, and managed to give Anakin as normal as a childhood as she could, but fans, Disney, etc. ignore her every Mother’s Day, and every time they talk about the Skywalker family.

SHE STARTED IT ALL and she’s thrown to the side like garbage.

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

Full-on disclaimer for anyone who's never seen the disclaimers on my Star Wars fics - I never saw ROTS (I've tried, I've fucking tried, but retaining knowledge of TPM and AOTC to understand ROTS is impossible when my mind just wanders the fuck away during every attempt at a marathon PT watch), I only saw a handful of TCW episodes to study Satine and Mandalore, I never saw Rebels, I haven't seen TOTJ, and my non-OT/ST/Mandoverse/Andorverse/Kenobi/TBOBF/Solo knowledge comes from getting lost in the Wookeepedia, fandom osmosis, and several years playing SW Galaxy of Heroes.

The point is, I have half-baked knowledge and I am trying really hard and I can see the little kernels of interest and intrigue and "A ha! that's a Star Wars!" and my concluding thought for the 3rd episode of Ahsoka is, "FUCK YEAH, SPACE WHALES!!!"

Can someone just.... please explain the fuck to me what Dave is doing here with Ahsoka and Sabine? I don't know if it's the "Sabine thinks the best way to honor and also find Ezra is to become like him" or the whole "everyone has the Force Actually but you need talent, training, and some other fucking thing that sounds exactly like all the times I've been scolded for not trying hard enough thanks to my ADHD brain so that's fucking cool" bit. I don't know if it's that interview press tour thingy where Daisy told Domhnall that even Hux has the Force! Everyone has the Force! The Force is in all of us! We can all become the Jedi! I don't know if it's George's original idea that everyone can use the Force but not everyone does that eventually got changed to "a certain number of midichlorians in your blood gets you into the Jedi Temple". Or is it the whole "the Force is female" campaign? Is it Disney saying, "You can be a Jedi, too!" Are we Spider-man-ing the Jedi? Is that's what's going on? What the fuck is going on? Someone please tell me how we got from "the Force is in all living things and some people are able to sense and use the Force" to "the Force is in all living things and also everyone is capable of sensing and using the Force with the right amount of discipline and training and desire/'can do' attitude" because it feels like I'm being lied to. I'm being fucking bamboozled about what I know about Star Wars.

I don't even know what to say about the spacesuit. Just a lot of hysterical laughter maybe. Cool idea and I bet the concept designs were real fun but still. Hysterical laughter.

Slap some green hair on a kiddo and call him half-Twi'lek. OKAY THEN. Brilliant character design y'all got going. I guess you'd rather invest in the Volume than practical FX and makeup and shit?????

You know that feeling where you have all these thoughts and feelings and WORDS at the tip of your tongue but you lack the vocabulary or the fucking memory to hold that vocabulary and use it well? That's what I'm experiencing after watching Hera argue poorly with Mon and the Senators (they just formed the band and it's not going well, or so they say). This characterizing of bureaucracy, politicians, government is useless, clunky, stubborn, foolish, naive, soft, obstinate for no reason other than to hinder the rogueish hero, is such a tired, cheap trope. Haven't we learned enough from American copaganda shows? Haven't we learned from watching our hero cops and detectives bending and breaking rules to catch the bad guys while the Internal Affairs people are antagonists, rule-abiding busybodies who don't see that they're only getting in the way of our intrepid heroes catching the real bad guys?! Politics is messy and it is complicated and it is hard and it does have people who did sit on the sidelines during the war but to villainize them just because they didn't fight in the war, they didn't lose friends and family and Kanan, they won't give our general what she wants? Or do these senators already have history in the GFFA that I would've already known if I already watched some other TV shows or read the 'pedia religiously?

I thought the first 2 seasons of the Mando Show explored the post-OT galaxy pretty well. I liked how Din and Greef called the New Republic "a joke" and insinuated that they were unreliable and can't be counted upon to protect little Outer Rim worlds like Nevarro from Imperial remnants. It gave the impression of a baby Republic that is trying hard but struggling and their patrols are stretched so thin because of Mon's decision to demilitarize the Republic, and that's why they're such a non-presence out here in the Outer Rim. That's why Carson went out of his way to recruit Cara. She's been out here, she's done shit, she knows shit, she knows the lay of the land, she can be the eyes and ears that Carson and the New Republic can't be. You can build so fucking much out of these little interactions and conversations... but Dave & Jon chose to make things easy for themselves by characterizing the New Republic as incompetent, feckless, nonsensible, cruel, decadent, apathetic, uncaring, utterly useless to our very active rogueish heroes. They fast-tracked the New Republic's downfall to make it so much easier to prop up our heroes, and for what? To remind us that in the end it all doesn't fucking matter because Starkiller Base blows it all up anyway?

At least, at least, make it look like our heroes fucking tried to rebuild the galaxy after the Empire fell. At least make the New Republic fumbling and earnest but ultimately weighed down by so many voices demanding that they be prioritized in the rebuilding. Mon's government inherited a really fucking bad situation but at least have them reach halfway to something that she and Leia can be proud of before the infighting started and political factions started ripping down all that hard-fought and hard-won progress. Talk about the fucking whiplash from the despair and hope of Andor to whatever the fuck Mandalorian Season 3 showed us and whatever the fuck Ahsoka is continuing to show us.

Anyway.

I get that having a droid sidekick is the Cool Star Wars Thing To Do, but should Huyang really be treated as a sidekick and an expodumper? He really fucking should have gone to Ossus with Luke but nah, leave that fucking loser to his own business ignoring Ahsoka and Hera trying to stop a new war that nobody believes is actually going to happen. I mean, if you really think about it, did Hera really sell anything to these senators? It seems to me that all they see is a general who has only known war and will only ever see war around every corner, in every nook and cranny, under every bed. Of course they're going to be fucking skeptical and of course they're going to question her request for even more resources to find Ezra and maybe stop Thrawn, and the fucking answer, Hera Syndulla, is to not question if these people ever fought in the Rebellion and shame them for the sacrifices they did not make. This is such fucking cheapsass writing and it really sucks all the fun out of the episode.

Speaking of fun, how about them space whales! Bring them back, Felony. I want space whales and I want space cats. Give me purrgils and lothcats all day, every day.

I can't stop thinking about Disney's decision to give Ahsoka a primetime slot. I can't stop thinking about why that show got a primetime slot and not any of the other ones. Is it the numbers? Are they trying to catch a particular kind of crowd? What are the numbers, Disney? Why won't you show us the numbers? Where the fuck are the numbers, Disney? What are you afraid of? What are you hiding? What won't you tell your writers and your actors, Disney? What aren't you saying?

Anyway, space whales rule and I got other goddamn shit to do like keep writing my own ideas on a post-OT galaxy through fic.

P.S. The way Ray just fucking oozes charisma even if he was only there for like 2 minutes. And Diana remains fantastic. I love her brand of villainy even if I'm still baffled by her being a human Witch. What the fuck.