#you can make solid arguments that Star Wars has fascist undertones on an aesthetic and structural level

[wordsandrobots]

Things to do during the upcoming holiday:

Finish this Yamagi/Shino fic idea that suddenly seized me. It's going to be very sweet and fluffy and not at all secretly emotionally harrowing.

Make a proper Wishing on Space Hardware cast-list post, which will likely mean attempting to draw some grown-up versions of IBO characters I don't have screen-grabs from the epilogue for.

See if folding in some stuff around IBO's depictions of violence and Gundam-in-general's approach to justified violence will be the missing ingredient for the 'meaning of the Gundams' post.

Continue working on Akatsuki's Big Adventure

Rest(?)

Things I will not be doing:

Writing a rant about how if you're going to throw around the word 'fascism' in the context of a story, you really need to be able to point to the features that separate it from standard-issue machismo, militarism, chauvinism etc etc because while these always sit on a spectrum, words do in fact mean things and distinguishing background radiation from full-throated embrace is a useful tool in critique that will help you understand why certain things gain traction in spite of their questionable nature, not to mention contextualise broader messages works may be attempting to convey (e.g. mecha anime's problem of inherently glamorising violence irrespective of textual message).

Ahem.

Like I say, not doing that.

(The Fascist Gundam Show is AGE, by the way, which I bet at least half of you reading this didn't expect [I mean, odds are you've probably not even seen it but I'm being rhetorical] despite it playing the 'all-powerful yet weak underclass proves an implacable enemy' absolutely straight for the majority of its run before attempting the limpest last-minute swerve, all while falling squarely into Great Man of History tropes. The fact it does this with the most self-consciously 'cutesy' art-style thus far used in the franchise is worthy of critical engagement but I'm not going to do it because I fucking loathe that show and all its squandered potential.)