I just really love the star war even though it doesn't love me back sometimes. Mostly in tumblr retirement. 24, they/she, nominally aroace (icon by pileofsith)
Going a little crazy thinking about Thrawn right now. Because he is just a guy filled to the brim with contradictions.
Like here is a man who has SHOWN himself to have a preference for the preservation of life over profit. Who has REPEATEDLY favoured the perspectives of disadvantaged groups rather than the narratives of their oppressors. Who has shown disdain for cruelty and corruption and inaction, and who embodies the very notion of loyalty. And YET he spends the majority of the time that we know him doing heinous shit as part of a heinous system! What the hell makes a person like that tick????
I mean, just as an example to start with: we’re given the impression at various times that he dislikes slavery and see slavers as immoral, and yet when he and Eli discover that the Empire is trafficking Wookiee slaves, he’s able to put that aside in favour of treating them as “imperial assets” who “must be treated as such”.
That ability to compartmentalise his own morals and resolve cognitive dissonance is (I would argue) key to understanding how he can be a card-carrying, uniform-wearing fascist without actually being an ideological fascist himself. Like, he’s certainly a militarist, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not a political authoritarian the way that someone like Anakin “if it works it works” Skywalker is — even though he’s manipulative and controlling on an interpersonal level, those behaviours are utilitarian and limited in scale. And crucially, they don’t seem to be reflected in a belief in autocracy or the inherent necessity of forced social homogeneity. Instead, in both the books and in Rebels, we see multiple occasions of him displaying respect and reverence for cultural diversity (see: *hiss* “i forget that not everyone appreciates art as i do”), which is actually fundamentally antifascist.
Circling back around to what I said earlier about loyalty, I’m starting to think that perhaps that’s the crux of his whole issue.
Because if you think about Thrawn as a classical tragic character, his whole deal starts to make a lot more sense. He cycles through these arcs of stability, then peripeteia (reversal of fortunes), and then downfall. It happens to him in the Ascendancy, it happens to him in the Empire. And it’s always with this sense of the results having been predetermined by either his own nature or by narrative necessity. The Bendu literally prophesies his defeat!! That’s some Oedipus Rex shit.
So if we can think about him as a tragic hero (which is not the same as a hero in the “good guy” sense — the aforementioned Oedipus was very much a questionable dude, as are most classical tragic protagonists) we’re led to the question that lies at the heart of all such characters: their hamartia, their fatal flaw. What is it about them that makes their fate inevitable?
I think that for Thrawn, his fatal flaw is loyalty. He is a man uniquely capable of boxing up everything that he is and wants for the sake of serving a cause, and remaining resolute no matter where that cause leads him. He’s indefatigable — he doesn’t stop, not if his intellect reveals any viable path to success, even if that path cuts narrowly through the absolute depths of depravity. He has very little by way of a life outside of the military, and what little he has he willingly sets aside in order to submit himself completely and utterly to the mission of serving the Ascendancy and the Empire by proxy. And because he sees that cause as more important than his own personal morals, he permits immorality as a means to that end!. He is not more important than the success of that goal, so his moral preferences cannot be either!
And we can extend it outward!! Why is he so blind to politics? Because he struggles to understand actions which are self interested, rather than motivated by loyalty or duty. Why does he manipulate and mistreat Eli, but also care for and uplift him? Because at the beginning of their relationship, Eli’s autonomy was mutually exclusive with the needs of Thrawn’s mission. But as he starts to feel a degree of loyalty to Eli himself, he prioritises finding ways to support him that are compatible with his duty.
And finally, why why why does he get so completely lost in the shits with the Empire after he sends Eli away?? Because without any strong personal relationship where he can express his own thoughts, beliefs or personality as an individual separate from his duty; he hollows out. There’s nothing to fill his mind or motivate his actions other than the pursuit of success. Because he is now without allies, his mission has never mattered more, and because he is deeply alone, he has never mattered less.
Hence, the inevitable downfall. Which in case you hadn’t guessed makes me feel insane
Thank you to The Clone Wars for a heartwrenching and beautifully made series finale, and thank you for seven incredible seasons! Wishing everyone a (very) belated Happy May the 4th!
Remember if you live somewhere where this is an option you need, you need to be keeping a healthy stock of pregnancy tests and using them regularly to catch the pregnancy early enough. It is incredibly common for people to only find out well past 10 weeks. Of course that can be expensive so look for the paper strip type that doctors use, not the bulky plastic types typically advertised for home use if you can. And dont fall for marketing gimmicks with pregnancy tests, they all work about the same, you don’t need a digital screen and if in doubt do another test tomorrow.
(Also do your test first thing when you wake up for best results)
Having worked in a doctor’s office, can confirm we just used cheap plastic OTC pregnancy tests and the dollar tree has them sometimes for $1.
As a further reminder– (loosely) once the sperm hits the egg and you become “officially pregnant”, pregnancy is calculated by going back to the date of your LAST period.
So if the date of your conception is March 29, but you got off your period March 01, congrats! You’re now 1 month/4 weeks pregnant. That’s how pregnancy is calculated.
And you absolutely cannot find out the day you conceived that you’re pregnant, because it takes at least 2 weeks before your body makes enough HCG to be perceived by a pregnancy test– so that’s another two weeks.
Which means you could have sex, become pregnant, wait the two weeks to test, and be ‘six weeks’ pregnant. That’s right– if you do everything right, and find out you’re pregnant literally as SOON as possible, you can already be 6 weeks pregnant.
“The Texas Heartbeat Act prohibits abortion when there is a detectable heartbeat, which may be as early as 6 weeks into a woman’s pregnancy.” This is why this act is genuinely evil. You could be ‘two weeks out from the date you had the sex that got you pregnant’ and be 6 weeks pregnant.
It’s not likely, but it’s incredibly possible. If you miss a period, it hurts NOTHING to check immediately. Don’t wait. Waiting a single month after your missed period to test could mean you’re suddenly 10 weeks pregnant– or more.
I went to the aidaccess website. For some states, they can mail the medicine to you directly without a prescription. For others, they’ll do an online consult with a doctor to prescribe and then mail you the medicine.
The cost can be from $110-150.
When you first start the consult, you see this.
We want to look at the second option. Because these are shipped internationally, and as sited on the website due to covid delays, the medicine takes three to four weeks to reach you.
If you find out you are pregnant at six weeks, you must order immediately in order to do a pill abortion at home under the ten week window. However, it gives you the option to buy in advance. Both mifepristone and misoprostol tablets usually carry a 2-year shelf life. The price isn’t THAT much higher than Plan B.
I researched that on my own– the shelf life thing– but was incredibly pleased to see the aidaccess website got into it as well.
[Image text:
Advance provision
1. If you live in a place with a very restrictive abortion law, it can be helpful to have the medicines for a medical abortion in advance case of a future unwanted pregnancy. In this case you should contact us again immediately when you find out that you are pregnant so that we can give you the proper guidance. Please check the expiration date when you received the medicines (most can be kept up to 2 years after receiving the package as long as they are kept at room temperature and in their original and undamaged blister packs. It is likely that they can be kept for even longer but their effectiveness cannot be guaranteed after that point.
2.If you want the medicines because you had unprotected sex less than 5 days ago, you can still use emergency contraceptives!]
The aidacess website walks you through EVERY PART OF THIS.
If you have $150 to spare, this is potentially live-saving medication. If your current plan is to drive out of state, stay for three days at a hotel to maybe get an in-person abortion after listening to a heartbeat etc, please consider that cost versus this cost. It has a shelf life of two years. I’m considering buying some right now.
I am incredibly moved to know this option exists and am currently about to share it with every social media site I can.
[ID: a digital illustration of Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars: Rebels. They’re lounging amongst the golden grasses of Lothal, content after an afternoon of training. Ezra sits with his knees to his chest, his face resting against his hand while he smiles down at the white lothcat he pets at his side. Kanan lies on his back behind Ezra, his closed eyes upturned to the sky. He has a piece of grass in his mouth, which is being eyed gleefully by the brown striped lothcat Kanan is about to pet. In the distance there are the conical shaped mountains of Lothal, and the planet’s two moons can be seen in the cloud filled sky. END ID]
