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Okay, so. Star Wars has all these concepts that weirdo New Left boomer George Lucas tosses in there but because of storyteller limitations it would kill the plot to fully explain them all, so later writers have to come in for the spin-off materials and bat clean-up to fully explain all this crazy crap. And I would like to talk about something that made me actively angry at first, but which I now adore. And that is the Naboo.

So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.

Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.

There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by Padmé. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.

The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when Padmé is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but Sabé her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.

The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.

Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.

The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.

Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.

Why does Padmé dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.

Queen Amidala has that weird accent while Padmé does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.

The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.

Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.

They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!

There you go, @charmwasjess

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thinking about that post of people assuming ao3 has an algorithm and also about how bonkers persistent the view is that ao3 is social media lite. like with startling regularity I get comments saying something along the lines of "it's probably weird to comment on a fic this old--" no it isn't!!!! this is an archive I am literally just assuming you searched for a selection of specific tags or sorted by kudos or looked back on my pseud or any other number of completely normal ways to use an archive site ?? kill the tiktok ghost in your brain and comment on old stuff it's NOT weird

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Cassian was misled about mission

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general PSA to fanfiction readers of series as a writer— if you’re reading a series, even if it’s been complete for a long time, nothing makes us happier than seeing someone read every fic and giving kudos to each one. please don’t worry about spamming us, knowing our work is still being read, even the side fics to a series, makes us happy :)

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alright here we go!

if I wrote a motherfucking Star Wars mouthwashing AU would people be interested or is this a freak crossover bred by my brain. I just feel like the implications would be so interesting. In the game it’s implied that there’s intragalactic space travel at least (hence pony express being space amazon). But I feel like it’d be cool with like. Inter-species tensions of Star Wars and like. Maybe some of them being force sensitive? I could totally see swansea as the sensitive who dropped out of the Jedi academy when he was young so he’s cynical toward it but also he failed the trials because he cares about others too much at the same time. I also think Anya would be force sensitive Also like the different dynamics of obviously space is more well traveled in Star Wars than the mouthwashing universe. So the tension of that they could be found and how bad everything gets before like the police bust down the door and arrest jimmy or something. I don’t know the brain worms and worming.

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if I wrote a motherfucking Star Wars mouthwashing AU would people be interested or is this a freak crossover bred by my brain. I just feel like the implications would be so interesting. In the game it’s implied that there’s intragalactic space travel at least (hence pony express being space amazon). But I feel like it’d be cool with like. Inter-species tensions of Star Wars and like. Maybe some of them being force sensitive? I could totally see swansea as the sensitive who dropped out of the Jedi academy when he was young so he’s cynical toward it but also he failed the trials because he cares about others too much at the same time. I also think Anya would be force sensitive Also like the different dynamics of obviously space is more well traveled in Star Wars than the mouthwashing universe. So the tension of that they could be found and how bad everything gets before like the police bust down the door and arrest jimmy or something. I don’t know the brain worms and worming.

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“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”

— Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

Someone put it into words. I gotta sit down

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had many worms in my brain about yuri cherik and raven needing justice in the xmen franchise. here comes angsty sister drama focusing on raven and charles (charlie here) and everyone is a woman. that is all.

(also since i finished my megalong star wars fic i will be transitioning this blog into a general writing one :) )

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Watching Star Wars was a mistake. For years I’ve derived so much pleasure from seeing discourse on my timeline that’s like “it’s actually a pretty good writing choice that Glimbo Knutts manipulated the imbledimbians in the force to make Darth Freeble his personal jedi froogler. It gives the original trilogy more depth” and not knowing what the fuck anybody is talking about. But now I do and it’s ruined. I understand what you freak ass dorks are saying and it isn’t fun anymore. Glimbo Knutts making Darth Freeble his jedi froogler DOES give the original trilogy more depth. This sucks man

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I knew I already said it before, but I must repeat: Those who think Plo/Kel Dor is ugly have absolutely zero taste.

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just posted chapter 22 (of 25!) of my star wars longfic. this was a fun one to write. proud to say that this fic is starting to wrap up!

my favorite bit to write:

“They sent you? An apprentice? ” Grievous wheezed in disbelief. “Are the Jedi so frail that they now rely upon children?” His laugh sounded like metal grinding together. “You are not worth my time— my men will deal with you.” ... “There’s no one else but us now, Grievous. Come— face me. See how this apprentice fares then,” Ahsoka taunted. She had joined this war when she was fourteen. Now, she was seventeen. She wasn’t that scared, insecure girl anymore. She trusted herself, her instincts. And no matter how many times people looked down on her, she wasn’t going to lose this fight. She unsheathed her two lightsabers, the shorter blade comfortably in a backhand grip. Grievous growled in frustration and stepped forward. His hulking figure twitched as his arms broke into two, leaving him with four arms, all bearing lightsabers. “I have killed many a Jedi apprentice. You will just be one more of them.”

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"I'm not the person that I thought I was, I couldn't tell you where the ache came from"

aka obi-wan cuts off his braid during Melida/Daan war and makes the decision of not returning to the order

haven't actually read any book from the apprentice series so i don't really know the details, if something like this happened but well, got inspired by the new crane wives song "scars" and wanted to draw something like this as a start of an au where obi-wan leaves the order for good, hope i'll stay motivated to draw more of it

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one of my Biggest gripes with the obi-wan show is the realization of the fifth brother. literally one of my favorite designs from rebels and they absolutely butcher him design and character wise. also, the underlying racial tones of replacing a black-coded character with an asian actor?? and the general lightening of his skin (like all sw media lol). very disappointing.

I still can’t believe they went from this in Attack of the Clones (2002) to this in The Acolyte (2024) even though they’re both portraying Mirialan Jedi Masters.

Vernestra looks like they just slapped some green make-up and some eyeliner dots on the actress and called it a day. It’s awful, especially since she has so many close-ups. Twenty-two years ago they made Luminara look like an actual humanoid alien, with beautiful details in both costume and make-up. Even though she's basically a background character, she looks so much more natural as a Jedi.

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he's just a little guy

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Introducing the Star Wars Reference Wiki!

Introducing the Star Wars Fic Reference Wiki, a wiki for fic writers by fic writers!

The Star Wars Fic Reference Wiki is intended as a way for fic writers and other fanwork creators to easily look up pertinent information without having to slog through dense paragraphs or comb through categories with dozens or even hundreds of entries with few indicators of what the pages are. Do you want lists? Do you want tables? Do you want easily digestible bullet points? We've got 'em!

We build pages from common questions we or other fic writers have, such as:

All these fics incorporate events from Jedi Apprentice, but what really happened to Obi-Wan Kenobi in Legends?

How do the stories in Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars mesh together?

Which characters are LGBTQIA+? Who are some LGBTQIA+ creators who have worked on a Star War? How about a timeline of LGBTQIA+ people and content?

BBY/ABY, BrS/GrS, BFE/AFE... what's the difference between these and all those other calendars? What calendar do characters use before the Battle of Yavin?

What are some idioms or kriffing swears this character could use to sound more Star Wars-y?

Does the GFFA have its own version of a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup?

What could be used as a pack animal in one of the many, many deserts?

Why does this fic call him "Yan" or "Glamnor" Dooku? Is her full name Padmé Amidala Naberrie or something else?

How many costumes does Padmé wear? What about other SW costumes?

What are some canonical design options for a Kiffar OC's facial tattoo?

Are these the droids you're looking for?

Are you constantly losing those handy tumblr posts compiling useful resources? We have a permanent page for that!

(Swears in light mode; LGBTQIA+ characters in dark mode)

We've only recently started building the wiki, and are creating new pages all the time! We'd love help or suggestions for new pages. Have you never edited a wiki before? No problem! We have a tutorial for that. Are you not super confident about your English? No worries! Other wiki editors are here to help! We have a Discord server for the wiki, and side channels for things like SW fic recs and general fan chat.

Thank you for initial brainstorming and showing us there was an interest in and audience for this wiki, from us (facingthenorthwind and immithrax) to you: @nimata-beroya, @cacodaemonia, @elismor, @genericficerblog, @seth-shitposts, @takadasaiko, and @virusq!

Many hands make great wikis, so please, come on over and join us, and check back to see what new things we have in store! If you find our pages useful, we'd also love if you could spread the word, so other people can make use of the resources we've worked hard to create.

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everything we had, everything we did is buried in dust, and this dust is all that's left of us

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POV ur Commandant Sobeck watching the citadel's camera feed