Being A Star Wars Fan Is So Funny Because Star Wars Sucks

the mandalorian fandom is funny because everyone's horniness level is either zero or a hundred. like there's the x reader folks and then there's the noromo mando folks and there's no in between

happy pride month! here's the aroace flag colorpicked from din djarin:

The Disasters of Sofia, Clarice Lispector // The Old Revolution, Leonard Cohen // Hans Vandekerchkhove// Kyoto, Phoebe Bridgers // Fireworks, Mitski // Insha'Allah, Danusha Laméris // Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin // True Blue, Boygenius // Report From the Besieged City, Zbigniew Herbert // Cool About It, Boygenius // Scenes from Star Wars

fans: how did padme die?

george lucas: she died in childbirth

fans: oh that's so s—

george lucas: of heartbreak

fans: ...

rescue gone wrong

me, an aromantic, whenever i realize two characters like each other before they start kissing:

[ID: The Captain America "I understood that reference" meme, except it's "I understood that romantic subtext."]

ZINE ART SHOWCASE

Thank you again to everyone who entered our zine contest! Your art will be showcased in a digital companion booklet offered at no additional charge to everyone who purchases either a digital or physical copy of the zine. See below all the contestants and their social media handles, in order from left to right.

@biorusted ⋆ @doodledraw ⋆ @treescantjump ⋆ @forcesensitivebantha

jtstv.art ⋆ densetsu1000_illustrations ⋆ @purplelapislazuli ⋆ katherineart

@evanui27 ⋆ obsessionsart ⋆ @jaderavenarts ⋆ @astragarde

malloritaylor ⋆ ohroros ⋆ constellation_salad ⋆ @worlds-forgotten

profdrlachfinger ⋆ @sarahluann ⋆ princepsed

crowleybadomens ⋆ rachelbotti

STAR WARS REBELS 2.06, Brothers of the Broken Horn

unpopular opinion but chapter 9 is definitely the weakest episode of the show. it’s not bad but in comparison to the rest of the show it’s subpar. plot-wise it’s just a rehash of chapter 2 (fighting a big sand monster in return for getting back something valuable) and chapter 4 (arming the villagers) but without adding the same emotional weight or new insight into din’s character.

most of it just seems irrelevant. it was definitely too long in proportion to its importance — really the only point of the episode was to introduce boba and cobb for later episodes. i wish the main conflict had been around boba’s armor rather than the fight with the krayt dragon because that was actually relevant to later themes in the season, while the krayt dragon was just like... big scary monster. that’s it. you could substitute any other antagonist and it wouldn’t change anything. i felt similarly about din - this was the first episode in the show where some of his lines and actions felt like something anyone would do or say. there were just a lot of things in this episode that i didn’t feel like there was strong reasoning behind their inclusion.

I think both the show and Din himself associates removing his helmet with death. maybe not always literal death (in ch8 he would rather die with his helmet on than live and take it off), but there’s a sense that he would meet a permanent and irrevocable spiritual end of some kind, something he won’t be allowed to come back from. I think in his mind he pictures it as a singularly traumatic event where nothing that happens after will matter, because whether he lives or dies, he won’t be a Mandalorian any longer. This would be the bookend moment to losing his parents as a child, which is the day he STARTED being a Mandalorian. It’s a very cinematic, very easy way of thinking about his life.

But that doesn’t happen! IG-11 removes his helmet and he has to keep on living as a Mandalorian. That transgression is a bit easier to rationalise if he’s being incredibly literal about the Creed (IG isn’t technically “a living thing”, as he says), which I don’t think Din is normally prone to doing, but it’s enough to keep the panic about losing his identity under control. In ch15 though, he shows his face to a bunch of Imperials and then has to put his helmet back on and keep being a Mandalorian, which would normally be a plain and simple End Of My Life event. but in that moment he puts his helmet back on anyway and keeps fighting, because being a Mandalorian means protecting the kid more than it means hiding himself from other people.

The common interpretation I see of this sequence of events is that Din is learning there’s more than one way of being a Mando, reinforced by his contact with Bo and Boba. And I suppose you can make that case, but for me personally I think it’s much more interesting to understand it as Din having to confront a deep contradiction in his own beliefs, which is whether to prioritise his armour and his own self, or his duty to those he loves. Din’s ties to his mando-hood have always been based in his larger community, but in the show itself he’s framed as a perpetual loner, a singular individual unit in a vast galaxy that is unconcerned with his well-being or his beliefs. And Grogu is presented as the first time he has to confront the idea that he is more than himself and his responsibilities, that he has to take care of himself for other people, and that his principles need to accommodate for that shift in priorities. It doesn’t mean he suddenly has this moment of clarity where he thinks “oh god, I’ve been living by this set of rules my entire life and they don’t actually matter”; it’s moreso “I am finally in a place in my life where I have to make real compromises, and I would rather compromise my own personal safety and comfort than my relationship with my own son.”

Which is such a great arc for him to go through!!!! It isn’t a phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes moment, nor a ledge-i-can’t-come-back-from moment. It’s a continual and subtle shift in his beliefs that he has to consciously attend to and confront every single day. Din has to practice being a Mandalorian for Grogu, which is different from being a Mandalorian for himself or his covert.