youngprofesser

[youngprofesser]

Postponed by a week and 2 days but we'll get there 🫠

Yesterday I got offered a date next month(!!) for top surgery. Didn't take it right away because I had to move some final exams. Called back today and the person scheduling surgery is out for the rest of the week. I'm terrified that this will somehow cause me to lose the date, though it probably won't. Anyway, I'm very excited and also fml.

[youngprofesser]

Mace Windu: “only imposing if you see him that way”

Fuck it I’m bringing my Othello class into this again.

So we read American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb (review, full text is available as a free pdf if you look it up), which is a play that comments on the experience of black men who play the role of Othello as well as of course more generally on the experience of black men in the United States by showing the interior thoughts of an experienced black actor auditioning for the role of Othello in front of an inexperienced white director. There’s this line, it’s not even dialogue, it’s part of the description of what the actor is doing for the pre-show in the stage directions:

“He is a tall man, powerfully built and handsome, and only imposing if you see him that way.”

—American Moor, page 5

Sound like anyone we might know?

This caught my eye because I have noticed a bit of a pattern. Even very well meaning SW media—like Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover and fics that really love him—often goes out of its way to describe Mace Windu as intimidating and imposing.

And yeah on some level a tall man with muscles who knows how to fight might just be imposing, but to be honest I never remember Qui-gon Jinn being described that way, or Ki-Adi Mundi, or really any other tall, male Jedi. Dooku is sometimes described as intimidating, but it is usually framed in terms of either his Sith personality or his skill with a saber, not his physicality. Only some fics go out of their way to even describe Anakin as physically imposing.

And like I say, many of these works I’m noting are ones that have very good intentions and otherwise make mainly good, interesting moves with Mace’s character (works that take an explicitly negative view of Mace are a whole other can of worms I’m not addressing here). This is something that is being picked up from a deeply embedded culture of racism, not (in these cases at least) malicious. But that means writers, especially white writers—even if we have great intentions—we have to stay careful and aware of this. Readers aren’t off the hook either. It is through reading, and reading with a lot of love, that this pattern emerged to me.

Keep noticing these things, keep reading, keep writing, and maybe above all, keep revising.

Personally, I’m gonna be going back through my Mace Windu writing to check for this specifically.

[youngprofesser]

on my hands and knees begging ppl to recognize platonic content. sometimes 2 guys r just friends . i dont mean this in the 'stop making everything romantic way' i mean this in the 'stop calling 2 friends who bicker siblings and stop treating any remotely caring remotely older character like a parental figure' ohhhh my god . they are not siblings they r buddies . u are all underestimating the power of having a buddy

[youngprofesser]

This is one of my favorites drawing of Mace Windu (at least his face) bc the artist actually gave him clearly defined ethnic features instead of just making him "look black." As in, they did not give him an amalgamation of every stereotypically black feature to ever exist, which usually just looks off to me bc black ppl have ethnicities too idk why ppl forget that.

Star Wars Jedi of the Republic: Mace Windu

[youngprofesser]

😔

Adults: Following rules is good, not following rules is bad

Little me: Okay :] *follows a rule*

Adults: Oh my god look at this loser. He doesn't know that this rule is Secretly Okay To Not Follow. Dumbass. Let's all laugh at him

[youngprofesser]

Date secured!!!

T-minus 20 days, 10 hours!

Yesterday I got offered a date next month(!!) for top surgery. Didn't take it right away because I had to move some final exams. Called back today and the person scheduling surgery is out for the rest of the week. I'm terrified that this will somehow cause me to lose the date, though it probably won't. Anyway, I'm very excited and also fml.

[youngprofesser]

Yesterday I got offered a date next month(!!) for top surgery. Didn't take it right away because I had to move some final exams. Called back today and the person scheduling surgery is out for the rest of the week. I'm terrified that this will somehow cause me to lose the date, though it probably won't. Anyway, I'm very excited and also fml.

#top surgery

[youngprofesser]

This is so cute

LOUD.

Depa doesn’t take one look at Anakin Skywalker and wishes him to be her Padawan. She takes three.

Studying the art of Soresu has taught her many things. How to protect others, how to protect herself, how to wear someone down without being worn out in return.

While Obi-Wan had… Depa doesn’t want to call it “hop around”, but Obi-Wan had seemed rather indecisive after Attaru had turned out to be not the right choice.

Depa’s first and only choice had been Soresu. While Mace had shed a theatrical tear that she wouldn’t follow in his footsteps, she’d been enamored with the philosophy of the form.

Her first look at Anakin had been upside down.

She’d come across Obi-Wan showing Anakin the Temple when she’d seen him sign “a change in perspective can reveal what is right in front of us”. The context hadn’t mattered much, just that Obi-Wan had hugged the boy around his middle and the next thing Anakin was upside down and pointing excitedly.

“Oh there it is!”

She hadn’t thought much of it until Obi-Wan had shown up at her doorstep.

He had felt some darkness in the child. His erstwhile Master was murdered by a Sith. He had murdered the Sith.

“Everything is rather tumultuous,” he had signed to her raised brow.

Anakin needed a stabilizing presence here and all of Obi-Wan’s friends were either crazy or up to their necks in trial prep.

“I’m flattered, Padawan Kenobi,” she had replied, “let’s spar.”

Sparring was, in the end, more moving meditation but she felt his mind slowing its frantic pace, the events of the past weeks shifting into understanding.

They’d sat in silence for a long time. His cheek ended up on her shoulder and she dropped her chin on his head.

“Sleep, Master Kenobi,” she’d said softly. Much had been revealed during their meditation after all.

He had tapped a thank you on her arm.

Depa had taken her second look at Anakin after that.

A handful of a boy and she felt overwhelmed just by being near him. Only a Master’s Master would be able to train him when the time came.

Though she enjoyed his presence. Soaking up knowledge like a sponge, being deeply engrossed in tinkering with parts. The Force so close to the surface, like a maelstrom, but calming when Anakin had been given the right tools.

So bright the dark was almost unnoticeable. But Depa noticed. Wanted to help the boy overcome the darkness.

Depa had taken a third look at Anakin a few years after Obi-Wan had first brought him to the Temple, and she had realized that her wish to help him had transformed into wishing to train him.

“Yes! I feel so ready to begin my training,” Anakin had replied to her question, face alight with excitement and the jitters he couldn’t hide. “Ga’Tran said a Master chooses their Padawan but Loni said that’s…”

“Kriffing banthashit?” Depa supplied drily and felt Anakin laugh in the Force and her heart. “Anakin?” She wanted to at least offer. She wouldn’t be mad if he declined, life would move on and she’d still be there for him. But she wanted him to know that, now, gladly, with honor, she wanted to train him.

[youngprofesser]

mace window is a saint

He likes dinosaurs he is compassionate, he is actually against the extinction of a species, he is far from fond of politicians, he took a Sith Lord 1 on 1

And he manages jar jar

(no hate against jar jar just saying he can be a bit difficult to manage)

All this to say that mace windu did nothing wrong

[youngprofesser]

U get it

shout-out to me on this day, 4 years ago when I finished the novel "Shatterpoint" and sat staring into the abyss for two hours, brain chemistry irreparably altered.

#Mace windu #Shatterpoint

[youngprofesser]

Once again, Mace Windu lore mentioned, I have been summoned.

(I am also aware of the shitpost-y nature of the original post however I'm choosing to ignore it bc where else can I infodump my niche lore knowledge.)

Ok so as we know Mace's last name was taken from his ghosh, as his parents died they could name him. But it's pretty likely that his first name is also a reference to korunnai culture. (Note, all of my references from this point onwards are from the book Shatterpoint.)

We know that while the korunnai were a well known group of force users by the Jedi, to the point that Jedi anthropologists lived among them for a while to study. In fact, the whole reason that Mace came to be with the order (allegedly) is that those jedi "asked the elders of ghosh Windu to take a child with them to train in the Jedi arts."

No seriously, that's what Stover wrote.

Morally dubious decision making aside, from this we can conclude that Mace was the youngest and most long term cultural exchange student the galaxy had ever seen.

How does this relate to his name? I'm getting there. Let me cook.

Now I wouldn't say that "Mace" is a "traditional korun name," given that the names of Korunnai seem to be words specifically used for names as opposed to just nouns (examples: Nick, Besh, Keela, Kar, Pek) the one exception (Chalk) ended up having a legal name of Liane.

However the word "mace" has important symbolism in Korunnai culture.

Again, we shall ignore the problematic wording of this excerpt to focus on the matter at hand. A mace is traditional korunnai weapon renowned for both its danger and skill to master. Now if you would stretch your imaginations a bit. Surely the Jedi anthropologists knew this. Surely, being the very family and clan centric culture that they are, any korun clan wouldn't give up a child to another world so easily.

And surely, given that every single korrunai is canonically force sensitive, it is likely that either one of the Jedi, members of clan Windu, or both would have had some sort of precognition on the importance of Mace to the galaxy at large that would incite "giving" him to the Jedi. A precognition that could also inspire an appropriate name for this Korun child who would grow up to be called the "Champion of the Order" for his skill in combat.

Thus, allow me to conclude that Mace's first name was the product of a combination of force ordained precognition and overeager anthropologist just SO EXCITED to get a KORUN to be a JEDI! He MUST have a name on reference to the Korunnai or else how will anyone know what a BIG deal this is!

Or maybe it was a dartboard with an alphabet pinned on it.

The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection #25

#star wars #mace windu #star wars fanfiction #shatterpoint

[youngprofesser]

Mace Windu lore mentioned, I've been summoned

The timeline I usually go by doesn't exactly match cannon, but it makes things like up nicely so I go with it.

Since Mace is canonically called "champion of the order", I say he was knighted pretty young, like 18. I also have him finding depa as a baby around that time, as it says in Shatterpoint that she was found "as an infant." Though I know a lot of people will say he finds her when she was a toddler/child and he a Padawan, which does solve a lot of the continuity errors.

After that I have him being elected to the council at 28, then taking on Depa a year later at 29 and she being around 11. Her apprenticeship lasts about a decade, ending with her having just turned 21. And Mace being 38/39.

if we wanted to stay consistent to cannon, that would have both Mace be elected master of the order and Depa knighted and technically eligible for mastership the next year, 32 BBY in time for TPM.

However I prefer to have depa made a master at 25 because being made a council master just one year after knighting is a bit ridiculous, even for their stupidly talented lineage. Ignore the timeline and add a few extra years in between. That also makes depa around 38 And Mace being 57 at the time of the Purge, which I feel is consistent with how they look in the Kanan comics.

Either way, timeline is fun.

I was looking through Mace Windu’s Wookipedia page, right, as one does, and he was born in 72 BBY??? So he was only 40 years old and Master of the Order?

But then also, apparently he joined the High Council between 50-42 BBY when he was only like 22-30?

But Depa Billaba joined the Council by 40 BBY? When Mace would have only been 32? So either he was training her when he was still a padawan, or someone’s numbers are wrong. Like something doesn’t add up here at all.

Send help, I’m getting lost in the impossible logistics

#star wars #the clone wars #mace windu #depa billaba

[youngprofesser]

"I'm built different" I say, knowing full well that the "different" is the fact that if I experience a single emotion that does not feel nice I will be incapacitated for 2-5 minutes.

[youngprofesser]

george lucas, remarkably unsubtley, over and over again: the fall of the republic was because of corporate interests interfering with politics and increased complacency with fascist ideas in the face of a manufactured war

everyone, for some reason: so the jedi were the REAL villains because they didn’t get married

[youngprofesser]

Depa Billaba: Explosives Enthusiast does have a nice ring to it.

It is also highly amusing to imagine her as a Padawan getting super into it (I'm imagining that in such a universe where technology is so readily available it's akin to a kid having a RC helicopter phase), and her master being all "It's just another one of her phases, I'll just have to see this one through like all the rest."

30 some odd years later, he's still seeing it through.

For the Love Your Fandom Asks:

#16: a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

(Late in answering but it has been A Week. Meme questions here if anyone wants to ask more.)

From the Kanan comics: Depa Billaba knows her explosives and is highly skilled at fine-control telekinesis. She stops a bomber from killing Caleb by catching the bomb, recognizing the specific type of bomb, making sure its inner chambers never connect, and explains what she's doing while she's doing it. Studying the panels even closer, it pretty much looks like she fuses together the "doors" keeping the two liquids separate.

She either has spent a lot of time studying explosives or has encountered that particular kind of bomb before so she knew what she was dealing with. Maybe it was both.

Basically: Depa is awesome.

#depa billaba #star wars #mace windu

[youngprofesser]

Every time I see a version of this meme it fills me with such joy. Children who talk like old people are a delight.

Anakin: We need to stop leaving the Younglings around the Jedi Elders. I asked Ahsoka how old she’s turning and she said, “if the Force allows me to see it, 7 in June.”

[youngprofesser]

More stories where romance is not the point but it is a point.

We’re on a quest and I’m liking you more and more.

I’m training to be a wizard and you’re training to be a knight and I hope I can convince you we should get married when we meet again.

We’ve got lives to live and this spaceship to fly and people to help and I love you.

I’m a king and you are my loyal companion who helped keep me alive long enough to take the throne I love you and that could become more than it is.

I trust your rule and I will protect you and I think I love you.

I’m a ruler and this marriage is for heirship and I’ve got a thousand other duties but you are passionate and intelligent and understanding and we could love each other.

The world is crumbling as we know it but we always intended to get married and why should we let this get in the way

We’re both busy fighting schemes and keeping alive but I love you let’s stay alive

Love is transformative but it’s everyday. It happens while you are living. It doesn’t take you away.