i just realized something: think about padme amidala’s public image. nobody knew she was married. nobody knew who anakin skywalker was at all–he was just some random jedi trainee, and by the time anybody would have started paying attention to him in the public eye, they would have known him as darth vader. to the public, anakin became a faceless villain who always was who he was, no fall from grace needed.
so, padme. i’m sure she had supporters across the republic. i’m sure her time as queen of naboo was EXTREMELY well-documented, and honestly, based on her rotation of outfits, she was probably a full-on celebrity. she was young and brilliant and a passionate defender of her people, and even though the empire seized power in the end, i wouldn’t be surprised if the rebellion decades later directly descended from the ideals of her followers.
but think about the circumstances of her death from the outside. people probably knew she was pregnant by some unknown father, of course, but this is a universe with robot doctors–saying “she died in childbirth” would probably be like saying “she died of the common cold” today. not something that happens, especially for a celebrity politician with unlimited resources. and there must have been a child, but what happened to it? did it die too? as a media narrative, it’s flimsy at best, ESPECIALLY considering the timing of her death.
padme amidala, the woman who ruled a planet at 14 and sat stony-faced while every other senator cheered on palpatine’s rise to power, died under mysterious circumstances just as the government she’d defended crumbled. from the outside, it seems pretty obvious that she was assassinated.
if this was a universe that at all made sense, padme amidala would have been a household name among republic loyalists. her tragically short life, her noble self-sacrifice for the ideals she believed in, would have been LEGENDARY. when the rebellion rose, she would have been the name on everybody’s mind–do it in her honor, people would have said. finish the fight she started.
i know we can’t go back in time and change the original trilogy, but the sequel movies? come on. don’t tell me darth vader is the only looming icon in this franchise.
To make it extra tragic – in the EU it mentions that the coroner used some kind of hologram technology to make it look like she was still pregnant at the time of her death, to protect the twins from the emperor and Anakin by telling everyone that the children had never been born. Padme Amidala’s death would have been the tragedy of the century, the face of the lost democracy.
Okay but what if that celebrity factor got used? By, like, everybody.
To the Naboo people, she’s their beloved Queen. To much of the galaxy, she’s a loved and admired public figure and stateswoman. To the Republic loyalists, she’s their martyred supporter, the vanquished—murdered, they think—face of Democracy. To the Empire, she’s a useful idol, the Emperor’s colleague, murdered, they say, by Separatist forces or by Jedi, tragically dead and conveniently silent, beautiful and glamorous and perfect for starting a cult of personality on her behalf.
And here and there, among the various cultures, there are religious concepts like sainthood, ancestor worship, legends of dead protectors coming to life again to fight when they’re needed. And conspiracy theories, and wishful thinking turned speculation, and the Star Wars equivalent of tabloid newspapers.
The result? Padmé is the most popular and famous woman in the galaxy, a combination of Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Che Guevara, Joan of Arc, Elvis Presley, Arthur Pendragon, Chuck Norris, and the Virgin Mary.
One of the most important Imperial holidays is Amidala Day, devoted to celebrating service to the Empire, the official story of the Empire’s birth, the Emperor’s home world, and the heroic Queen and Senator whom Palpatine claims as his staunch supporter. People paint their faces and make elaborate hairstyles or headdresses and put on their fanciest clothes; there are plays, and parties, and traditional Naboo dances and foods.
Vader hates it. This is about 60% of why the Emperor has made such a production of it.
Among Republic loyalists, a different story is told: a Queen Amidala who loved peace and democracy, who opposed war and worked tirelessly for ceasefires and peace treaties, who stood silently or wept as all around her cheered the newborn Empire; a Queen Amidala who was murdered by the Empire so he could create the fiction of her support.
Vader hates this too. It feels uncomfortably true, and threatens to undermine his resolve that she would have been at his side had she lived.
Rebels paint images of her on their fighters, hang holos of her on their walls, wear icons of her as good-luck talismans. There are exhortations, penned semi-anonymously by people who knew her, that she would have wanted people to join and support the Rebellion. The minimalist image of eyes, cheek dots, and paint-split lips are graffiti’d onto public monuments accompanied by words from her speeches. “Amidala Needs You” is a common phrase on Rebel recruitment posters.
Vader hates this most of all.
Statues and icons of her are made in a hundred different artistic styles and adorn the altars of a thousand worlds’ faiths. Mythologies are written about her: she stopped a Separatist advance with words once, appeared in a dream to a slave telling her where her transmitter was hidden, shot five destroyer droids with pinpoint accuracy before they got their shields up, stormed her own palace to take it back from the Trade Federation, cheated death at the hands of the Empire’s assassin, escaped with the help of the last of the Jedi, is still out there somewhere, mourning for the Republic on some uninhabited planet somewhere, training in secret lost Jedi arts to kill the Emperor, working as a Rebel agent or a disguised vigilante.
Vader dislikes this. But he also seeks them out and reads them, when he’s in a certain mood.
The tabloids regularly claim that she’s been seen working as a roast-traladon restaurant in some backwater suburb of Corellia, or navigating a spice freighter to and from Kessel, or singing at a nightclub on Nar Shadda.
Vader dislikes this too. He has to talk himself out of keeping an agent or three just to visit the places in question and make sure.
He isn’t often in a position to see teenage girls with Padmé’s face emblazoned across their tunics, or walls with familiar face paint next to “So this is how liberty dies: to thunderous applause” printed next to it. When he hunts down Rebels with her image on a chain around their necks for luck, he can tear them apart with the Force: a quick death, which is, ironically, the luckiest outcome available to them. Tabloids and legends can be read and dismissed, and he’s never had the opportunity to happen upon the fanfiction.
But when the Emperor commands, Vader stands at his side through parades and parties and celebratory addresses to the Senate, with Padme’s image on banners and holos, with Padmé’s image on stage saying words Padmé never said, with all the women and half the men wearing Naboo royal face paint, and accepts the pain of memory almost like a form of self-harm.
And when the newly-elected Junior Senator from Alderaan with a quiet grace that reminds him of her and a fire in her eyes that reminds him of himself asks him, at some interminable party, if he knew what she was like, he troubles himself to answer honestly.
I endlessly admire fic authors who have betas and write chapters and chapters ahead of what they post because you best believe my needy ass is slapping just-finished, mildly edited and typo-laden fics onto AO3 the moment they’re done so I can get that sweet sweet validation
since this “latinx or latine” discussion is getting attention again, i’d like to point out that it’s important to know how disabled people feel about it, and why you should consider using “e” instead of “x” for making gendered words neutral.
basically, a blind brazilian and anti-ableism blogger first spoke about this issue in january 2015, claiming that words such as “latinx” and “bonitx” are actually anything but inclusive, since visually impaired people can’t understand what you’re saying, because their reading-out-loud softwares can’t pronounce these words. she then suggests that using “e” as a neutral term can be way more inclusive both to nonbinary and visually impaired people (ex.: latine, bonite). she also states that you can be neutral without using “ela” or “ele” by using instead “a pessoa/that person” or simply using the person’s name.
she stills talks about this issue on her page to this day, as well as many of other anti-ableism activists on facebook, and they ask us to spread the word by sharing their posts – so as a non-disabled person, that’s what i’m doing. i hope this helps!
I just want to add, before anyone asks, that for spanish/portuguese speakers the “x” is really hard to use because %99 of the time it doesn’t come out natural at all. We literally don’t know how to say it, like the softwares. If we use it, it usually interrumps our speech all the time because we have to think how we say it. The “x”/the sound that it makes is not usual in our languages. The “e” not only helps disabled people but also it helps us because its easier and more natural in our tongues.
On top of the aforementioned reasons to shift from latinx to latine for gender neutrality, doing so will not be difficult in oral speech even for native English speakers (instead of saying
/ˈlætɪnɛks/ = Lah-teen-ex
you say
/ˈlætɪnɛ/ = Lah-teen-eh).
If we’re thriving for inclusive language, we should thrive for an inclusive language that effectively includes everyone. The use of Latine (and -e suffixes for gender neutrality in Portuguese and Spanish), unlike that of Latinx (and -x suffixes for gender neutrality in Portuguese and Spanish), does not have ableist consequences, and does not exclude visually impaired people.
Hey guess what, the -x ending isn’t for Spain or Portugal, it’s for Mexicans who’s ancestors spoke Nahua (some of the first Nations people of Mexico who had third gender recognition spoke Nahua). The sound it makes is “-ch” as in “lah-tín-ch”, not “-ex”.
It’s spelled that way (“-x”) because it’s how colonialists decided to write that sound when writing Nahua. If you can’t pronounce “-x” or “tl” its because you’re trying to speak Nahua-based words that were written out phonetically by Spanish speakers.
As a proud disabled nonbinary xicanx (chi-kan-ch, or Mexican American) person who’s grandmother spoke Nahua, there are a shit ton of valid reasons for a person to keep using -x endings. If the speech programs can’t say it right, then the programs need to be changed to include people of Nahua and Mexica decent (pronounced Meh-chi-cah, btw).
Anyway, I love being xicanx, I love being nonbinary, and I love being a polyglot/hobbist linguist. If you haven’t heard Nahua spoken before, I highly encourage you to look videos on YouTube!
You make a valid point. Definitely people who want to favor -x endings because it ties back to their cultural heritage, are completely entitled to do so and are in their complete right to keep using -x endings for gender neutrality. We have to strive for de-colonizing language as well, and nobody should be against it.
However, this post never addressed, or was referring to, the Spanish or the Portguese. This post was tackling an issue with language inclusivity and ableism that happens throughout Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin American countries, that’s the reason why the post tackles the use of Latine to then shift to the use of -e endings for gender neutrality.
Moreover, not all Spanish-speaking countries have historical/socio-cultural ties with the Mexica, nor their respective native peoples ever spoke Nahua. There are a handful of Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America which native people have no relation nor are connected in the slighest with the Mexica. And nobody here is saying that people with native ancestry should be forced to speak Spanish or Portuguese and do not defend their native language.
The use of the -e endings for gender neutrality are more likely to be accepted and used by Spanish and Portuguese Latin American speakers, for its pronunciation comes more natural and is more in tune with the sounds of those languages, which is also another key point of this whole language change people are striving for, so we have a real gender neutral alternative to be used in our daily speech and one that, hopefully, becomes normalized in the near future so everyone can feel comfortable using their own language, even when speaking it, thus doing away with masculine endings for gender neutrality.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, if one wants to favor -x endings for specific reasons, they’re free to keep using those endings for gender neutrality. I agree that, given the chance, it is necessary to modify this softwares to be able to read -x endings for the reasons I have previously mentioned and the ones you also outlined. Yet, this should not come to the detriment of other Latines, who also have the right to have true gender neutrality in their respective languages and dialects.
story concept of the day: a “medical mystery of the week” serial set in a world with monsters and superpowers and mutants and aliens
It would be like. One part comedy, one part drama, two parts world-building. The hospital has an aquatic wing for mermaids and sea monsters. How do you treat someone who has telepathic influenza? We’ll figure it out, I guess!
Some storyline concepts:
—a woman from a telepathic race based on anglerfish shows up in the ER in a panic because her mate, who is tiny and permanently attached to her body, has stopped communicating through their telepathic link
—the air-breathing doctors have to take over the aquatic ward after a mysterious illness spreads through the water-breathing staff
—an ambulance brings in an unconscious alien from a species totally outside of medical literature, the staff scramble to save their life while flying blind
—the first outbreak of lycanthropy in 50 years occurs following protests against the vaccine, the hospital is quarantined while the on-staff pharmacists try to control the situation
If I write this, I’d want it to be like. Scrubs meets WTNV.
Character concept: a demon who works in the ER because their ability to “steal” souls means they can bring back patients who are medically dead but still repairable if you can just get them breathing again.
He has some insanely generic sounding name like Doctor Fred and has that “snake tongue, fangs, ram horns, red skin, yellow eyes, long tail, black bat wings” thing going on
He’s like 35 and the object of unrepentant longing from most of the interns and junior staff. He’s kind and patient and great with kids and has the cutest hiccupy laugh and is absolutely the guy you want overseeing your training because he never yells. Everyone wants to marry Doctor Fred.
It’s a running joke that he’s probably a literal Incubus but there’s no aura or magic at play, he’s just got a perfect personality.
I think I’m naming this story “doctors and demons” for now
Another character is just. Nessie. The Loch Ness monster is here. She works at the front desk for the aquatic ward and pokes her head out of the water to pass notes and files to the other doctors.
One of the aquatic doctors is Doctor Lagoon, who is the creature from the black lagoon. He’s very intimidating but can be immediately be calmed down by bringing up his human wife or their daughter. There’s a picture of him holding his wife bridal style on his desk.
The actual protagonist is a human woman who considers herself totally normal but actually has SOME sort of powerful telekinesis that she constantly explains away as coincidence.
There’s a character named Cadaver or Caddie who is a living corpse that constantly regenerates. She’s vital to the hospital for organ transplants but an absolute nightmare for the staff because she does things like host speed dating for zombies in the morgue and eat everyone lunch out of the staff room fridge.
Also I think the protagonist’s name is Jane Doe or Doctor Doe, as a joke on her being average but… not at all.
I think the trio of main characters are Doctor Fred (emergency), Doctor Doe (in-patient) and an alien surgeon named Doctor Hive, who is close to an insectoid Cthulhu. A running joke is her ability to keep track of her hundreds of children but not the names of any of their fathers or her coworkers except her very favorites.
AU where Minerva McGonagall has a little less faith in Albus Dumbledore so she does agree to leave Harry at the Dursleys.
But then proceeds to move right in next door with her wife because Albus never said that she couldn’t.
So Harry grows up with two grandmalike aunties next door, who basically finnagle him into living with them in all but name. It’s great, until he gets to Hogwarts because he keeps accidentally calling McGonagall Aunt Min instead of Professor.
The more I think about this the better it gets because suddenly a small biracial orphan appearing on the Dursley’s doorstep is less scandalous and gossip worthy in the
pasty ass white suburbia of Privet Drive, when it’s compared to the elderly lesbian interracial couple who moved in next door.
Rebellions are built on hope 