S3E10: Just Barn This Way (GaPJaxie)
“Knock knock!” Twilight called as she pulled open the door to Starlight’s office. “How’s my favorite guidance counselor in the world doing?”
“I don’t know,” Starlight said, sitting up in her chair. She had a mug of empathy coco in front of her, along with a thick book she was halfway through reading. “How is Princess Celestia doing?”
Twilight stared at Starlight. She blinked. Then she sat down in front of Starlight’s desk, and pulled out a bundle of papers. “So! I wanted to talk with you about something.”
“Too close to home there?”
“It’s about some of the students who have been seeing you!” Twilight pressed on, subtly raising her voice. “So, you remember that portal to Equestria High? Sunset Shimmer, alternate universes, that whole thing?Well, recently, Sunset gave me a lot of human cultural material for the school. Books, movies, she thought I’d enjoy it.”
“I know.” Starlight took a sip from her mug. “The students have been passing around those little square things that play movies. Most of it is actually pretty good!”
“They are really enjoying them!” Twilight said, but she spoke through a strained smile. “So when I decided we should have a class on cultural sensitivity, I thought it would be a good idea to have the students analyze some of the films from the human world. That way, none of the students feel like their culture is being analyzed. They can all approach the problem as equals.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” She swirled her mug, looking down into the brown liquid within. “So uh… what do you need me for? Help grading the papers?”
“They turned in their papers this morning, actually! Let me read one of them to you.” Twilight pulled a single paper from the bundle in front of her. “Ahem.” She cleared her throat. “‘The core theme of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the futility of democracy. The inability of the Galactic Republic to fend off the military aggression of a rogue state serves as a classic example of the misallocation of resources under so-called ‘humanitarian’ regimes. By allowing domestic spending to take priority over the essential needs of the state, the Galactic Republic got billions of its citizens killed.’”
Twilight lifted her face from the paper and squinted at Starlight. Starlight took another sip of her coco. “Sounds about right to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Twilight pulled another essay from the pile, snapping the paper taut in front of her. “This essay is about The Incredibles. Have you seen it?”
“I have.”
“Do you think this essay says that it’s a fun adventure story with recurring themes of love, family, and the importance of honesty in relationships?”
“I mean,” Starlight waved a hoof and gave a little half-laugh. “Who knows what it says? Foals these days, right?”
“‘The Incredibles’” Twilight raised her voice, reading every word with force, “‘is the most sinister film of the contemporary era, employing bright and colorful imagery to conceal its menacing and ultimately self-serving themes. Its core story depicts a group of natural-born ‘superheroes’ as they thwart a ‘supervillain’s’ plot to give away his advanced technology and make the world a better place. Using memorable scenery, likeable characters, and gripping action scenes, The Incredibles conveys one clear message: ‘Some people are born superior and society has no right to judge them.’”
“Ha ha. Aaah.” Starlight chuckled. Her smile was wide and stiff. A long pause hung in the air. Then Starlight sat forward, resting her hooves on her desk. “You know, one way to look at this is that that’s very good use of language for someone their age.”
“Starlight!” Twilight’s ears folded back as she glowered. “Did you tell the students what to write?”
“No!” Starlight threw up a hoof. “If I did that they wouldn’t learn anything. I just made sure that they saw the movies in their proper context. So they could understand the broader cultural themes.”
“They’re all like this!” Twilight quickly sorted through the papers in front of her. “The Lion King: Hereditary monarchy whose royalty actually cannibalizes their subjects experiences family turmoil plunging the land into chaos. Beauty and The Beast: Legitimately elected champion of the people attempting to save kidnapped woman slain by unelected aristocrat. But it's okay because he was a jerk and she later developed Stockholm Syndrome. Up: An old stallion wastes helium to satisfy a foolish sentimental desire!”
Twilight brandished the paper like a weapon, waving it at Starlight edge first: “You didn’t like Up!?Fluttershy and Pinkie cried when we saw it! Plus Applejack cried on the inside.”
“Oh, come on.” Starlight waved a hoof, softening her tone. “I liked some of them! Monsters Inc was really good.”
“I noticed!” Twilight ripped another paper from the pile. “Monsters Inc is the—”
“Do you have to read them—”
“Yes!” Twilight sharply cleared her throat. Then she started to shout. “Monsters Inc is a heartwarming adventure story about two working class stallions who uncover a sinister plot by the bourgeoisie to harm a nearby parallel universe for the sake of their own profits. This surprisingly realistic portrayal of the rampant greed inherent to class distinctions highlights the need of capitalist regimes to constantly expand to new markets, harming the citizens therein. In the end, joy becomes the new energy source of the land, metaphorically reflecting the joy of the people as they are no longer alienated from their labors upon being united by the electrified collectivist state!”
Starlight sat in silence, a small frown on her face. Twilight needed a moment to catch her breath, the extended shouting having knocked the wind from her. She wheezed slightly.
Starlight filled a mug with more coco and placed it on Twilight’s side of the desk. “I can see you’re upset.”
“Yes! Yes I’m upset! You can’t tell the students these things, Starlight.”
“Why not? They’re true.” Starlight shrugged. “Come on. The Lion King has an entire scene dedicated to how the lions eat the other animals. And then we see that the other animals can talk? Tell me that’s not a little messed up.”
“They’re foal’s movies!”
“That just makes them more pernicious!” Starlight raised a hoof. “Foals learn their social cues from the culture around them. Think about Beauty and the Beast. If you had a daughter, would you want her to watch a bunch of movies about mares getting kidnapped and then falling in love with their kidnappers?”
“No, Starlight. It’s not the same. If you want to point out the little oddities in a story, that’s fine, but not to the degree that it overrides what the story is actually about. Star Wars isn’t about ‘the failure of democracy,’ it’s an epic battle of good against evil.”
“Is it though?” Starlight sat back in her chair. “Go back to the original movie. Alderaan sponsored a rebellion against the Galactic Empire before the movie even starts. That’s how Leia gets captured. Everything we see in the movie is the Empire responding to Alderaan taking aggressive action against them.” She folded her rear legs, putting a hoof up on the desk. “Basically, Alderaan shot first.”
Twilight sighed. She laughed. The threw up her hooves. “Fine,” she finally said. “Analyze them however you want. But if you don’t want to enjoy these stories as stories, you’re not going to keep getting invited to movie night.”
Starlight quickly took her hooves off the desk and sat up straight. “Woah. No. Twilight. I do enjoy these movies. Just because I interpret them a little differently doesn’t mean I don’t treasure them!”
Starlight pulled open one of her desk drawers and drew out a thick bundle of paper. “See? I wrote this during the slow hours.”
Twilight slowly took the bundle. It had a cover page. She eyed its title. “Death-Star Crossed Lovers,” she read aloud.
She knew she should drop the bundle. But she couldn't. She couldn’t look away. Dread fascination compelled her to continue. She turned the page.
“This is your fanfiction,” Twilight said. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she swallowed. “Your protagonist is an imperial unicorn named ‘Starwise Sunbeam’ who thinks that Grand Moff Tarkin has a ‘sexy voice.’”
“I mean,” Starlight laughed. “He does have a sexy voice! But don’t worry. It’s not that kind of fanfiction. Starwise and Tarkin aren’t in a relationship or anything.”
“That’s…”
“Tarkin,” Starlight spoke firmly, “would never cheat on Darth Vader.”
A long silence came over the room. Then Twilight put Starlight’s manuscript down, rose from her chair, and walked out into the hallway.
“Twilight!” Starlight called. “Oh come on, Twilight! Don’t be that way! Twilight!”
After a long pause, Starlight shouted out the empty door into the hallway: “You can’t deny there’s something there!”
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This is wonderful. Everything about this story is wonderful. If My Little Pony wasn't a kids show, this is exactly how starlight's haphazard out of the blue reformation and friendship studies would be going.
A real OTP of galactic scale.
9037624
First thing that came to my mind too.
9037650
Yeah, it might, if Starlight actually had any kind of critical analysis and wasn't just a straw leftist.
Cutie Markless: "In this episode, we see the ideological triumph of feudalism over communism."
Darnit, I want to discuss this but I already got into it in the original blog...ah well.
Please tell me you're posting Starlight's fanfic? Possibly in extended form?
9037894
It's next. Original form, but more chapters may be on the way!
I feel like this would be funnier if Twilight was a single mother raising Starlight.
"that whole thing?Well, recently, Sunset"
"that whole thing? Well, recently, Sunset"?
"You didn’t like Up!?Fluttershy and"
"You didn’t like Up!? Fluttershy and"?
9038052
Literally instead of metaphorically?
While I will agree that the Empire actually had a right to respond to the fact that Alderaan's government was outright supporting a rebellion against it (Even if there were good reasons to disagree with what the Empire was doing, especially if you were not apart of the accepted ruling class of humans or disagreed with how non humans were treated ), blowing up the planet and slaughtering everyone on it indiscriminately was a wasteful over-reaction that likely caused more problems down the line than it likely ever solved.
Terror weapons only really work short term; Their effectiveness at keeping the population under control only works while they are afraid... and as the Jedi so historically said 'Fear leads to Anger'.
Well... I don't think Starlight is entirely wrong in her assessment of Star Wars (says the Imperial loyalist), given the Empire's successor in both continuties failed dismally in about the same length of time...
I don't think she's necessarily wrong about the Incredibles either, just wrong in that her idea that everyone is or should be actually equal in ability and capability[1]. Which I hold entirely distinct to equality in society as to opportunies allowed and non-discrimination. I always say that what two or more adult sentient/sapient entities get up to on their own time is no-one's business but their own (so long as it does not cause harm to others). But when it is NOT on their own time (i.e. when something is important, that effects or imperils lives or unlives), competance at the task at hand is only metric of importance - you always use the right tool for the job - and any advantage you can crowbar in for yourself (baseline species improved capability (including making your species be a better one (e.g. Lich, machine ascention, become divine being, whatever)), bloodline gifts, sealed demon inside you when you were a baby, magic, technology, whatever) is fair game.
(That was a bit more serious than I intended when I set out, sorry.)
[1]But I feel, neither does Starlight, if she were truly honest with herself; being, in fact Evil (in canon), I feel, she is far less bothered about equality as much as that she herself is in the first among equals category. I mean, her redemption was basically a "join me and together we shall rule the [thing]" proposition offered by the good guy that she accepted - she joined what she couldn't beat, essentially.
...
New best chapter.
Ignoring the fact we've all seen the tear down of all these movies numerous times across YouTube and kneejerk websites, Starlight's way of enjoying movies matches my own only with mlp and maybe marvel and dc content. Lol
Love her shipping goggles.
Wait, haven't...
Haven't I actually read this story? @_@
...Oh wait, I just saw the next chapter.
No they’re not. For one thing, Belle displays none of the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, which is considerably more complex than merely “falling in love with your captor”, which Beast wasn’t even by the time Belle started developing any feelings for him – she systemically disobeys every one of his commands in the first part of the movie up to and including leaving the castle, which he does not stop her from doing. It is only after Beast badly injures himself fighting wolves and saving her life, and she takes pity on him and the physical, mental, and emotional state that he is in,, that she starts to give him the time of day, and from that moment forward it is clear that she is staying due to a combination of her own free will and her own personal honor code.
For the sake of argument we’ll ignore the Prequel Trilogy and either version of the Expanded Universe and focus strictly on Episode IV. Let’s take this as fact. How is the Empire, then, justified in the killing of the Jawas, or Owen and Beru? Does this justify the torture of Princess Leia?
By the way, I understand fully that the views expressed by Starlight are not necessarily indicative of Jaxie’s own. These are just familiar arguments to me and the nerd in me wants to rehash the counterpoints. I have some for the others too, but, 500 word count limit and all, and I’m including the quoted words in that limit.
Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find this entire chapter fascinating in light of certain events come 2019. Not sure if I’m the Starlight or the Twilight in this particular conversation. Little of both, I think.
And here I was expecting the surprise to be how many human students they already had in class that Twilight hadn't noticed (due to the effects of the portal).
"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vadar. Your sad devotion to that outdated religion is no basis for a system of government!"
"What?"
"Supreme Imperial power derives from the weapons of this battlestation, not from some--farcical martial brotherhood!"
"Be quiet! I ORDER you to be quiet!"
"Oh and now we see...*gack*...the violence...*choke*...inherent...inth'system..."