#has that bitch EVER read any of the canon thrawn books

[spicysucculentz]

someone needs to keep dave filoni AWAY from thrawn at all costs please and thank you

[milfglupshitto]

Writing Masterpost

Canon-Compliant Original Fiction

albatross: my longest fiction piece to date (6-7k words). link is the info post with all chapters, description can be found there.

bonus: visual profiles and notes for the original and not-quite original characters introduced in albatross

Canon-Divergent Original Fiction

burn it: not as long as albatross but still lengthy! same deal, link is the info post with all chapters and the description can be found there.

Canon-Adjacent Short Writing

the snare: technically can be read as speculative for Thrawn (2017) but accessible to those who haven’t read the book or have no familiarly with Star Wars at all

still on patrol: about a Star Wars vessel but you could probably read this without knowing any context beyond ghost ship cool.

Rebels Sequel Content

rebels sequel script: it’s in the dropbox link. ask me about the free program I used!

rebels sequel skeleton notes: more later-season plotlines and more discussion of themes

rebels sequel rogues gallery: breakdown of the thematic importance of various villains I would include given full creative control and permission from original creators + ability to adequately compensate them

more on bakokin tell: an original villain warrants more explanation

In Which I Describe the Content of a Thrawn-Adjacent Book Austistically

gender systems in Zahn’s books: long-ish brief look at fandom behaviors in relation to original text

deuteragonist meta: she’s even color-coded. I got diagnosed like a year later btw

outbound flight and survivor’s quest: I read some books in apparently the wrong order and made some themes about it

In Which I Describe the Content of a Thrawn-Adjacent Book Comedically

hand of thrawn duology: what it says on the tin

more of that but blended canon and EU this time: can you guess which books and characters I’m talking about? find out by clicking on the link!

alliances: hey it’s darth vader this time! everybody look at darth vader

alliances again: I think this one was actually the first like chronologically

Stand-Alone Content

thrawn gender rambling: approaches incoherence with astonishing speed. still, important to me

thrawn terrible childhood rambling: I’ll never pass up a chance to make him thematically better and emotionally worse

x files comparison: have you ever wondered what would happen if fox mulder had net zero swag? wonder no longer.

eli no bitches??? rambling: I think he genuinely has never had any friends. click the link to see me make my case

chess and checkers: more eli. checkers is very swagful to me

semiextragalactic force sensitivity rambling: brief speculation on support systems for parents of force sensitive children in communities detached from the Jedi Order

bonus: theoretical clone wars episode based on similar concept

hey so what’s the deal with the grafs actually: I read the whole adventures in wild space series and I’m still very skeptical of the whole everything

hey more wild space stuff: I see Lysatra and I put my looking eyes on

thoughts on modern vs classic star wars evil: on the heels of kenobishow, I had some thoughts

an interesting line construction in the Ronin novel, catalogued: also what it says on the tin

review of Shadow of the Sith: in short, there was a good bit I didn’t like

my Lesser Evil theory: so I was wrong. what about it?

the force as an overwriting pen: two small blurbs about being toyed with by something inconceivably more than you

luminous beings: a series of blurbs about non-force-sensitive acquiring force sensitivity

similarities between the Chiss and the Romans: I’ve been studying Latin for six years and I have problems about it

Hey, This Isn’t Star Wars

monsters vs aliens is a transgender allegory: you know I’m right.

you know surf’s up? the penguin movie? trans. gender. allegory: YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT. also, I know it’s not really writing. sue me

[getthrawnin]

Guess you want me to tell you how I felt about the holonovels (Novels) about my life in the Empire?

Meh. I mean my creator in totality added and changed aspects of my life that now seem more in line with the Disney canon than before. There is quite a bit of continuity clarity from Book 1 - 3.  There was with Legends after the war, but that’s over, allegedly. The Thrawn Trilogy of Legends valor is different from the direction that Disney Lucasfilm wants to pursue in Star Wars. Who knows what they really want and aiming for. But I suspect helping this Kylo Ren’s character out to explain his supremacist nature that the First Order allows. When we find out Rey’s true heritage, how she wound up on Jakku, well, it wasn’t by space whales. I know that much.

Poe Daemeron he needs more story.

Finn 2187 needs more story, too.

Hux, his father abused him. I see why he behaves like he does. I’m glad Grand Admiral Rae Sloane stopped him. She stood for something. She needs more of a story.

Oh, you want to know more about the holonovels. I do not like my hair long, ever. That’s my brother, Thrass. He likes his hair long. Me, on the other hand, I just like its military regulation. I was not difficult for me to figure out the threats in the known galaxy. I mean we aliens are after all snatching our humans, but they are not like the ones important for Palpatine’s Empire. I ask if they want to go, first. They should be grateful.

Grysks. They are clumsy. I prefer an all-out battle with the Yuuzhan Vong if you’re going to do silver shiny and bring spray on my body with that Anakin. And let me just say, Sith are sensitive. Lots of emotion. They whine. But Palpatine said it was just the way Anakin/Darth Vader is. Like walking around eggshells. And I do not look to being Force choked. Just because my logic surpasses yours, you getting huffy does not solve the situation. I don’t have to be conniving at the last minute. I figure that out at the start. If I were going to do a “gotcha” moment, I would have done it already. No sense in beating around the bush with the bullshitting. Oh, no profanity...I am in the Navy, so what did you expect.

HoloNovel 3...It was nice to be around Chiss again and speak Cheuhn. Being on bitch duty with Admiral Ar’alani is the highlight of my career. But they all seem on edge to me, emotionally? Even Vanto.  I’m not sure why. Ar’alani and Vah’nya should have taken a vacation with me in the known Galactic Empire. Mission Specialists. Not sure if Admiral Ar’alani would have enjoyed the Royal Imperial Academies way of education on Coruscant and its slower, lackadaisical pace. She also doesn’t like to study and read other languages too much, but half the words she thought she would have heard would have kept her laughing. They are the language of buffoons on Csilla -- mainly the Ruling House Chaf.

Why come back to Chiss space? I like this slow pace here that the Galactic Empire provides than that of the Chiss Ascendancy Defense Fleet. You can hear yourself think in the Galactic Empire. You can prepare for battle without all those dalliances. Their anxiety at pre-battle preparation will not be to Chiss benefit when we have to fight the Grysks. It is not like the Chiss Defense Fleet has super-advanced technology beyond that of the Empires. Admitting to Chiss being subordinate is NOT because as a people we are less than what we achieve. That is an arrogance we can ill-afford. Chiss are still mighty warriors that chose to segregate ourselves from the rest of the galaxy to our detriment. Xenophobia never is fitting to any group of people.

I do appreciate the Steadfast accepting that responsibility with the humans. We need to find more ways to work with them for mutual gain, along with other groups of aliens. One group is the Mandalorians. More on Thrawn Star Wars blog

Purchase your novels here: http://bit.ly/ThrawnStarWars

[iainwrites]

The Rise of Skywalker Likes and Dislikes

This is going to talk very bluntly and blatantly about things that happened in the movie.  So if you’ve been holding off on seeing it, here’s your warning.  Or if you don’t want to read someone criticizing something you enjoyed.  Skip past everything.

Likes:

-Finn at the beginning.  It’s nice to see his character growth from oblivious and try-to-hard former Stormtrooper, to still a little blundering Resistance fighter but still shows he’s capable, to a man confident in himself/in himself/in his friends and allies.

-When Chebacca learns of Leia’s death.  That’s the look of someone who has lost their oldest friends and don’t even have the strength to be angry.  There’s just loss.  THAT is one of the most powerful moments in this whole movie.

-Fine.  Ben’s “Okay bitches.  Now we can do this.” shrug before carving through the Knights is a great bit of physical acting and (I guess) comedy.

-The new main trio meet at the end and… hug.  No kissing.  No pairing off.  Three people who just survived a war and are happy that each is still alive.  Especially Finn.  This is his family and they’re okay.  Not everything has to end with hook-ups or resolved love triangles.  

Dislikes and Opinions:

-Palpatine.  Why?  He did his bit in the prequels, died in the OT, had no bearing in either TFA or TLJ.  So why bring him back now?

-What was the point of Rose in this?  She gets limited screen-time and doesn’t move the plot along.  The movie could have used this as a means to continue its slow show of representation, but apparently that’s a bridge too far.  But we did get Naomi Ackie as a supporting character of color with screentime and lines?  So we… traded?  Maintained?

-The fuck was with that Finn “I have something to tell you” line?  There was no lead in from any of the prior movies at all.  And no, it doesn’t count if it was revealed in the novelisation of either of the previous films.

-So Rey can sense Chewie is on a ship… but can’t tell that he’s on a different ship than the one she blows up?  Or that he’s not on the ship that she’s telekinetically fighting over?

-D-O is cute factor and nothing more or better.  Add onto that: Babu was there for cute factor.  And people shit on Jar Jar (me included) because he was written as something to entertain children.

-Rey is a Palpatine.  Why was that a choice that was made?  Why does she have to be related to anyone pre-existing in the Star Wars canon?  And why did things have to be explained not in the movie, but in tweets, interviews, the novelisation, etc?  Like the fact that Rey is a Palpatine.  Movie made you think that one of her parents was Sheev’s child, right?  Which one?  Sorry, didn’t tell us.  Oh, and it was her father, by the way.  Oh, and he wasn’t Palpatine’s child; he was actually a failed clone of Palpatine.  And that’s just one part.

-How does the blade work in the grand scheme of things?  Was it made after the destruction of the Death Star (because how else would it be able to line up so well with the wreckage)?  Who made it?  Why didn’t they pillage Palpatin’s hidden room of important shit?  Why didn’t they pass it on immediately to Kylo if he’s the second coming of Vader?

-Leia’s death.  Yes, all they had was archival footage.  So you mean to tell me that they couldn’t have done anything with that miraculous CGI technology to create a facial/vocal facsimile?  That they had no point of reference of ever doing that?  That there was absolutely no budget?  Or that rewrites were an impossible thing?  Because “Leia lays down, dies, and gives her son a moment to pause and get stabbed” isn’t doing right by Carrie Fisher or respecting her legacy.  That’s “Well, this is what we have.  Guess all we can do is use only what we have to make something and not put any more effort into it.”

-”We have no source material!” Except the whole “Emperor trying to find a new body” thing was done in Dark Empire.  As was the fact that the Emperor we saw was a clone that decayed rapidly without a Force-strong host.  And the fleet of ships to turn the tide of things was done with the Katana Fleet.  And Force Heal has been done in games like the GBA version of Revenge of the Sith.  And and and.

-Han Solo forgives his son!  Except it’s not Han, or a Force Ghost of Han (because Han wasn’t Force sensitive or trained to become self aware in the Cosmic Force after he died because that’s the explanation that they’ve been establishing in the Clone Wars TV series since the end of Season 6), but a figment of Ben’s imagination.  So Ben imagined that his father forgave him for murdering him.  … That’s not how it works.  If you’re imagining your murder victim forgiving you, there’s probably some deep psychological shit to deal with.

-People have talked about it, so I’ll hop on the train: how in the hell did Lando travel quickly enough to get that many ships when a distress call put out by Leia herself couldn’t shift asses?  How can he cover that much area, gather all those ships, then get through the mists or whatever the shit surround Exogal when one of those tracking beacon/map thingies have been set up as the only way a ship can travel through?

-For everything that Abrams did to negate TLJ, Palpatine’s monologue of Rey’s actions is very similar to Snoke’s monologue of Ren’s actions.  Down to the “HAHA PSYCH!” moment.

-The Knights of Ren are just a shit-show.  The name sounds cool, though, right!  Aaannnddd they’re killed off without a single line said or them proving to be any sort of threat representative of their “feared” name.

-Here’s something: when all the past Jedi are talking to Rey, you’re told who the male voices belong to (including stuff like Young Obi-Wan and Kanan).  But you only get Female Jedi 1 and Female Jedi 2.  That’s kind of fucked up and sexist, right?

-They set up Rey’s anger throughout the trilogy as being her path to the Dark Side (going as far to show what she could be like if she gives into those darker urges)... and never really do anything to resolve it.

-They REALLY lean into the idea that Finn is Force sensitive in this movie, don’t they?  Despite no evidence of it in any other movie.

-The random scene of just revived Rey grasping Ben’s hand and the frames drop (maybe that’s just my copy, but it's still a standout).  If it’s something everyone gets… then why the hell is something that glaring still in the movie.

-The kiss.  The novelisation said that the kiss was one of “gratitude,” but seriously?  Rogue One had a moment of gratitude where Jyn and Cassian are together and they… hug.  That’s it.  Piss off with your gratitude; there was a kiss because this movie substitutes sense with forced fanservice and they knew that people wanted to see Rey and Kylo together at some point.  Just like they likely kept Rose out of the movie because people gave Kelly Marie Tran shit.  Like that could have made the movie even possibly worse.

-Ben dies and fades away… and Leia’s body fades away at the same time.  Even though she’s been dead for a day+ at this point.  Because… she connected her spirit to her son?  See, that’s something I pulled completely out of thin air, but wouldn’t it be nice if that was the truth and the movie actually explained that was what happened instead of just giving random ass coincidences?

-Rey Skywalker.  Why does she have to be Rey Anybody?  There could have been such a positive spin to what she said earlier in the movie.  “Just Rey.”  Have her say it with pride and ownership now.  She’s her own person, unburdened by the names of those who have gone before.  She doesn’t have any name to live up to.

-Fuck you for your obvious, blatant and unecessary fanservice and self pleasing imagery where the twin suns are arranged to look like BB-8.  He’s not so important that one of the last lingering moments has to be of your new creation, Abrams.  You’re not so essential to Star Wars that you have to make a “HEY LOOK AT ME THE GUY WHO MADE THIS MOVIE” made-for-screenshots image.

Meh

-There’s no meh.  There are just rare moments of contentment amongst a constant feeling of disappointment and frustration.

Random Asides

-Kathleen Kennedy did an interview with Rolling Stone in November of 2019 leading up to The Rise of Skywalker.  You may have seen it float around, but she said “Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels.”  It’s in relation to how difficult it is to write and direct the movies, but come on.  There’s TONS of source material, dating as far back 1977 for the comics AND the novels.  There might not be 800 page novels, but there are trilogies, doulogies and massive story arcs that exceed those numbers (NJO and Legacy of the Force may not be your thing, but they’re there).  Rebels went and borrowed Zeb’s look from the original script AND took characters directly from Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy; Clone Wars pulled from Legends while Legends were still considered canon and afterwards.  Not all of it is good; it’d be difficult to translate a lot of it to screen without heavy edits these days.

“I love that we have these amazingly passionate fans who care so much. And I know sometimes they may think we don’t listen, but we do, and I thought it was fantastic that people got that engaged. It just showed me and everybody else how much they care. And that’s important for all of us that are doing this. We really look at them as the custodians of this story as much as [we are]. We look at it as kind of a partnership.”  Except when we’re not happy with a product that turns out to be sub-par.  Piss right off.

-Billie Dee Williams seems like he’s dropped in from a different movie entirely.  Not a bad thing; his delivery and presence is just so different from anyone else’s.

All In All

-It’s my least favorite of all the movies.  Worse than any of the prequels.  And say what you will about the prequels: at least they had a connecting story and the director didn’t try to kneecap something that happened in the middle movie before burying it in a shallow grave while taking a dump on the things left behind that didn’t fit in their vision.  It’s worse than Solo.  No amount of fanservice can fix the fact that the movie was by-and-large unenjoyable.   

[ibmiller]

I hate the fact that I’ve become this fan, from 2004. When I first read the essay, I still had the books to cling to as a source of shared universe, values, stories, and characters. Now, all I have are fading memories, hundreds of dollars of things that have lost their value in connecting me to other fans (though thankfully, my siblings and father have been reading some of the best Star Wars books from the 90s, which has been an intense and sweet joy for me), and only serve as a bitter but irreplaceable reminder of that which still holds great power for me.

People say that the de-canonization of the Expanded Universe doesn’t destroy my books. And it doesn’t. But I don’t read only to make myself happy.

I read to know I’m not alone. And when something doesn’t matter to anyone except myself anymore, I’m just reading by myself.

Which is one of the saddest things I know.

Why Star Wars fans hate Star Wars

Leave a reply

Several years ago there was a funny post about Star Wars making the rounds on the internet. The original source seems to have disappeared long ago and it now only exists preserved by other people who felt the need to share it with other. (I once read a report that a study found that on average, any content on the internet has a 7% chance per year to disappear.) Being the big but also critical Star Wars fan that I am, I want to also do my part in keeping this pamphlet of historic significants preserved for future generations.

With the new movies (or “Nu Wars”) being approaching swiftly and some people saying that the Extended Universe is gone, this feels like an appropriate time to share this wonderful manifesto of true Star Wars fans.

By: Adam Summers 5/23/05

My girlfriend doesn’t understand what I see in Star Wars. We’ve had several soul-crushing arguments about what exactly makes this series so important to me, and every time I have found it more and more difficult to argue my case. As the maddening years have wound on, I think I finally understand the reason for this crippling handicap.

There is a diabolical twist to Star Wars fandom, you see, that defies comprehension, and yet is the life-blood of all Star Wars fans. It is this:

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

The primary fulcrum for the Star Wars fan’s hate (including my own) is George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. Unlike Trekkies/Trekkers who adore Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Star Wars fans hate the father of their obsession. We hate the fact that George Lucas got it wrong from the beginning, creating incest between Luke and Leia. We hate the fact that he wrenched Return of the Jedi off of Kashyyyk and set it on Endor with those tiny, furry Hobbit bitches he called “Ewoks”, which is a syllabic anagram of Wookiee if you’re obsessed enough. We despise the entire existence of literally half of the Star Wars movies, blaming George Lucas’ greed and flawed ‘vision’ for everything.

We believe George Lucas’ ideal death time was 2:07am, 14 November, 1990.

Star Wars fans also hate the original Star Wars trilogy. We think Mark Hamill’s acting was whiny, the pacing was flawed, and Empire was better than Jedi, making the end of the series a let-down. We hate the way Boba Fett died, and we hate the cantankerous, arthritic duel between Vader and Obi-wan. We don’t understand why the storm-troopers can’t shoot worth a damn, and we don’t get why “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops”(ROTJ, Palpatine) can be overpowered by a tribal society of midget teddy-bears armed largely with rocks and twigs. Star Wars fans hate omnipotent war-machines that get their legs tangled in strings, or slip on logs. They hate Darth Vader’s face and that stupid harmonica thing he was playing. Star Wars fans hate the original Star Wars trilogy.

There is also, as you probably know, a series of Special Editions that have replaced the original Star Wars trilogy, and these are also hated by Star Wars fans with an even more scorching fervor. Star Wars fans hate the glaring CG changes made to scenes we already hated to begin with. We hate that Han Solo now killed Greedo in self-defense, and then stepped on Jabba the Hutt’s tail (which we liken to Carrot Top stepping on Fidel Castro’s tail). We hate the fact that the ghost of Alec Guinness (whose name is an anagram of Genuine Class, by the way) now stands next to Hayden Christensen (whose name I tried to re-arrange into a flattering anagram myself, but only came up with “Nn…Dense Chest Hair”). Star Wars fans are unsure if Fidel Castro has a tail or not, but we hate the Special Editions of the trilogy just the same.

There is of course also a prequel trilogy to Star Wars. It is newer, more epic, more expensive, and more visually stunning than the original trilogy. Star Wars fans know this, and so we hate it even more. We hate it with the burning passion of a setting pair of twin suns. Jar Jar Binks, Midichlorians, technology that is blatantly more sophisticated than the “later” original trilogy…we despise all of it. There’s nothing a Star Wars fan hates more than a Star Wars prequel. They demystified Boba Fett, contradicted countless lines in the original trilogy (Obi-Wan: “He was our only hope.” Yoda: “No…there is another.” Obi-Wan (not in script): “Oh, right, I f*cking held both of these kids as they were born in Episode 3. Sorry Yoda, I just plumb forgot!”)

Star Wars fans think Mark Ha…uh…Hayden Christensen’s acting was whiny. And the pacing was flawed.

Beyond the movies, there are also various television-related Star Wars endeavors which Star Wars fans despise. Starting with that abysmal “Holiday Special” in which Carrie Fisher appeared drunk and tried to celebrate Christmas through song in a Jesus-less galaxy, Star Wars fans have watched and hated everything. We think Droids was a waste of time, Ewok Adventures was an extension of everything we hated about Return of the Jedi, and we’ve seen both seasons of Clone Wars which we hate because we believe them to be immensely inconsistent with the prequels we also hate.

Star Wars fans think the Star Wars comic-books are a stockpile of contrivance written for marketing purposes by people who know nothing about Star Wars. Every gimmick imaginable to bring back super-weapons long destroyed and token bad-guys long-beaten is spewed forth from these comic books, and Star Wars fans want nothing to do with it. Star Wars fans have read the one in which Han Solo works in tandem with a giant rabbit and we are not impressed.

Then, naturally, there are the videogames. Star Wars fans hate LucasArts, and the opportunist drivel that comprises most of the gameplay-less apertures known as Star Wars games that they vomit up every fiscal quarter. Star Wars fans know that there is no such thing as a good Star Wars strategy game, we yelled at our PS1 when Masters of Teras-Kasi came out, and we kind-of liked the Jedi Knight series, but not at first and definitely not towards the end. Star Wars fans did not like Knights of the Old Republic, unless they were RPG fans. This does not count. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars videogames.

The final main elixir of Star Wars folklore is the ever-growing library of Star Wars books. These have managed to make a complex main character our of practically every background alien seen in the movies, and expanded the universe into a colossal, self-contradictory maze. Star Wars fans hate this. We hate how trite and tired the books were getting before the New Jedi Order series, and we hate the New Jedi Order series for being so radically different, and not nearly trite or tired enough. Star Wars fans hate it when previously-deceased characters are brought back to life, but we also hate Timothy Zahn for not bringing his characters back to life. Star Wars fans did not hate Grand Admiral Thrawn, but we do now, because he is always dead. The Star Wars movies also contradict and completely ignore droves of information within the Star Wars books. Star Wars fans now know that George Lucas has no idea who Jaster Mareel is, and it makes us very angry. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars books.

Now that I have covered all of this, you can finally begin to compute why I can never prove to Emily that Star Wars is a monumental event worth devoting one’s life to. The very nature of the argument means I have to defend Star Wars, and since I am a Star Wars fan, I don’t actually understand how to do that.

Maybe I’ll put it like this. To be a Star Wars fan, one must possess the ability to see a million different failures and downfalls, and then somehow assemble them into a greater picture of perfection. Every true Star Wars fan is a Luke Skywalker, looking at his twisted, evil father, and somehow seeing good.

My earlier statement needs slight revision. We hate everything about Star Wars.

But the idea of Star Wars…the idea we love.