#like in star wars there’s an in universe reason for the prequels being so much crisper than the original trilogy

[spirkbitch]

everyone else might already know this but i just think it’s funny that canonically The Cage takes place in 2254, so over 10 years before the start of Kirks first 5 year mission as captain. while SNW takes place around 2258-2260

(with the reveal of Carol Marcus being pregnant it would make most sense for it to be 2259 seeing as TSFS takes place in 2285, which would make David Marcus 25 at the time that movie takes place)

anyways, then the beginning of TOS is in 2265, and here’s a visual representation of why i find that funny (using spock as an example because he’s my favorite)

Spock and Pike circa 2254

Spock and Pike circa ~2258

and then back to Spock looking like this in TOS circa 2265 (Where No Man Has Gone Before was the second pilot but The Man Trap aired first so idk which takes place first in canon so here’s both)

also i know most people are probably just gonna ignore it but i would love to see an in-universe explanation for why the hair and clothing styles changed so much between snw and tos.

[antianakin]

Am I the only one who just lost any and all love for newer Star Wars material due to Jedi hate ? Like- the only merch or show or even FANDOM topic I get involved in is clone wars stuff and MAYBE TBB. Like- why would I want the watch shows who attempt to rewritte canon and portray the very heroes of Star Wars as the bad guys ?

Why would I want to watch shows that assassinate characters left and right (looking at you, Ahsoka and Sabine) ? Why would I want to buy merch of characters who I not only NOT care about, but who also are used as meta mouthpieces for stupid Jedi hate ?

I think there's TONS of good newer Star Wars material, to be honest.

I loved the Kenobi show and it is arguably one of the most pro Jedi pieces of media to have existed since the Prequels films. Aside from one itty bitty somewhat awkward word choice in one line of one episode, there is absolutely NOTHING in that show that can be used to indict the Jedi or blame them for anything and it is arguably one of the only shows to really spend time MOURNING the Jedi and recognizing the horror of what was done to them. Rebels comes closest after this, but its structure makes it a little less visceral than the Kenobi show was to me.

I really adore Visions and I recognize that this is sort-of Star Wars adjacent more than anything else, but SO LITTLE truly understands what makes Star Wars compelling as a story and really hits on those primary themes the way that Visions does. There's SO MUCH Jedi content in Visions and I remember people complaining about how much Jedi content was in Visions and other people responding that if you were given free reign to just play in the Star Wars sandbox with near zero restrictions on what you could make with it, you would probably ALSO immediately go for the psychic space wizards with laser swords. Who WOULDN'T? Visions also just genuinely has some of the most engaging and heart-wrenching stories to come out of Star Wars in a LONG while and it does it in these beautifully animated 15 minute packages. It's such a gem and I am so glad to be alive at the same time as Visions.

Rogue One is older now, but both Rogue One and Andor, despite having zero actual Jedi in them, really hinge on the themes from the Prequel trilogy about the tragedy in the Star Wars universe, stepping up when no one else will, choosing to be selfless and compassionate for the greater good, etc. Faith and hope are MASSIVE themes within these two works and even though there aren't any space wizards, good or evil, in either story, they feel like some of the most pro Jedi things Star Wars has come out with in a while based on thematic messages ALONE.

The Mandalorian's first two seasons actually have this absolutely BEAUTIFUL story about the selfless sacrifice of one man as he gives up everything in order to help this child find his way back to the culture he'd been ripped from. Everything AFTER that regarding Grogu and Din's storyline is a piece of shit (it's not explicitly anti-Jedi or anything, but it undoes a lot of the things that made their story so compelling and beautiful), but the first two seasons are genuinely GOOD and very pro Jedi in a lot of ways despite the lack of many actual Jedi characters.

The Book of Boba Fett is a terrible show for a LOT of reasons, but shockingly none of them have anything to do with its treatment of the Jedi. If it ever ends up with a season two, I desperately hope they leave Mace Windu's name the fuck out of it, but at this point it is a pretty Jedi neutral show if you're willing to deal with the rest of its bullshit.

Rebels is also somewhat older now, and it has a few lines here and there that are a tad more Jedi critical, but it is by and large VERY Jedi positive and does also follow a lot of the themes of selflessness and sacrifice that go along with being a Jedi. It also has themes of mercy and patience and facing your fears in Sabine's storyline that got entirely thrown away in her later storyline. Just thought that was worth pointing out. For reasons.

TBB is also fairly Jedi neutral, but its treatment of the clones is basically the clone version of being anti Jedi, so I'm not sure it's actually any better. It just traded hating on the Jedi to hating on the clones, and I find that just as distasteful.

I can't really speak to things like comics and novels much since I don't tend to consume them really. I've read a few of the adult novels in the High Republic Phase I and the first one was genuinely very good, but there were some relatively heavy-handed Jedi critical themes within the third book of Phase I (The Fallen Star) that put me off of it a little. I haven't continued into Phase II or III at all, so I have no idea if those themes got continued in later books. I've heard generally good things about the Padawan book, I think.

The Cal Kestis video games, Fallen Order and Survivor, also have their small Jedi critical moments, but much like Rebels, it has these massive overarching themes and messages about compassion and selflessness and sacrifice and facing your fears and mercy. They are immensely Jedi positive in a lot of ways and I really enjoyed both of them.

So out of everything I have seen (and know about) the only stuff that's truly heinously and insultingly anti-Jedi is the Ahsoka show, the Acolyte, and Tales of the Jedi. Three shows and like 30% of one book. Out of a list of like ten different shows and one film and some books and video games. It's not even really HALF of the content we've been getting recently.

A lot of people talk about the Disney era like it's ruined Star Wars, or like nothing it releases has ever been good. But it just straight up isn't true. It's a little insulting to all of the genuinely wonderful work that is being done by all of these other creators to just brush aside everything that's been coming out recently as awful and bad because some of the MOST recent things have been pretty explicitly hateful towards the Jedi. It's not fun that we had the Ahsoka show immediately followed by the Bad Batch followed by the Acolyte. I hate that, too, it feels like we're on this neverending shitshow of stories explicitly aimed at hating a group of characters for no obvious good reason. But I don't think that the last 6 months or so of bullshit should overshadow some of the really beautiful stories we HAVE gotten within the last several years.

If you feel like things are getting difficult, maybe do a "good Star Wars" marathon of sorts. Watch the Prequels, followed by the Kenobi show, then Andor, then Rebels, then Rogue One, then the Original trilogy. This one long beautiful story of people stepping up to fight against selfishness and greed and darkness no matter what.

Or go rewatch Visions or read some of your favorite fanfics and remember all the things about Star Wars that are just universally cool and compelling across the world. Hell, you can try writing something of your own! Anything! A lot of my AU concepts stemmed from spite and really helped me feel a little bit better about Star Wars when it sometimes felt like I was just surrounded by the parts of it I liked the least. Go buy yourself a cool t-shirt or some fun jewelry. Find some pretty stickers and put it on a water bottle or an enamel pin to put on a canvas tote bag or a corkboard.

Curating your fandom experience goes beyond just the internet. There's a reason I am boycotting the Acolyte and it isn't because I think Disney or its creators are going to care at all. I'm doing it for ME, because I had such a shitty time watching the Ahsoka show and it made me so miserable each week that I seriously think I will be better off just leaving it the hell alone and just absorbing whatever ends up crossing my dash from a distance. I only participate in Star Wars fandom servers that I feel safe in and only really get into discussions with personal friends who I know well. If participating in Star Wars fandom is making you sad, maybe take a step back or find a way to create your own corner of fandom that feels better. Ignore the damn Ahsoka show, pretend it never existed. Ignore the Acolyte. Ignore Tales of the Jedi. Ignore Filoni-related bullshit. Focus on the parts you DO like, or give yourself the space to remember why you liked it in the first place.

[david-talks-sw]

George Lucas & Karen Traviss' visions of Star Wars are NOT the same...

So whenever I come across this image:

I keep in mind that it's from a book written by Karen Traviss, who is a brilliant author (I adored Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines and Sacrifice) but whose stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars morality is this:

As opposed to George Lucas' stance on Anakin, Yoda & the Jedi and Star Wars' morality, which is this:

In a children's story about Light and Dark, good and evil, selflessness vs selfishness, George Lucas marks the Empire as absolutely evil and the Rebels as absolutely good, in the Original Trilogy.

In the Prequels, the situation is more complex (the Jedi are drafted into a war and forced to do things they know they shouldn't be doing, but have to for the greater good; the Sith bring about order to a corrupt government) but the morality stays the same... the selfish, greedy Sith are absolutely evil and the selfless, compassionate Jedi are absolutely good.

That's George's thesis.

And, as a character, Yoda's function is to deliver that thesis. It's no wonder why Lucas treats Yoda's words as absolutely correct:

Yoda is Lucas' mouthpiece in the Prequels, his self-insert.

George Lucas' narrative frames Yoda as objectively right.

So when Karen Traviss questions the Jedi, particularly Yoda's character and wisdom, she's disagreeing with George Lucas' thesis.

Which is fair. Traviss, is a different person than Lucas, she's an ex-journalist with a more "grey" view of the world and a different philosophy re: fiction aimed at children. "Death of the author" and all that. Again, fair enough.

And if you like Travis' interpretation and philosophy more than George's, if her read resonates with you more... also fair enough.

But the EU is not a reliable source on Lucas' vision.

I've talked about this in MUCH more detail here, but if you do care about George Lucas' vision, then maybe don't draw from the Expanded Universe, which includes content written by authors who expressly disagree with him, like Traviss.

Sounds logical, but for some reason people will read the above-posted Dooku quote and treat it as reflective of Lucas' vision, when it's not the case.

George Lucas' Dooku doesn't have an issue with Yoda or the Jedi (at least not openly, as Darth Tyranus, the Sith Lord he wants them all dead). Dooku's issue is with the Senate and the Republic.

George Lucas specifically added that most Jedi share Dooku's concerns. Before he's revealed to be a mass-murdering, Sith who enslaves neutral systems, the Jedi think he makes a good point and are even reluctant to consider him a murder suspect.

But let's not start saying that Lucas' Prequels are meant to be about "the Jedi's failure" and "Dooku being right that the Jedi are corrupt.

Because that's not the case.

If that's how you see them, great. It's certainly how Traviss saw them. To each their own, authorial intent be damned.

But it's not what they were about, to Lucas. Stating the contrary is... I dunno, lying? Rewriting history?

It's as if I got hired to write a Lord of the Rings prequel seen from Gandalf's POV. And y'know what, maybe I don't like Gandalf. So I write him as a scheming asshole going “myahahahah, fuck hobbits! I’m gonna let them keep the One Ring so a bunch Nazgûl will swoop through the Shire and murder them!” and suddenly, everyone starts writing posts about the notion that “Growing up is realizing that Tolkien always intended for Gandalf to be the secret villain of LOTR!” as if that had always been the case and I didn't just reframe him that way retroactively.

Finally, I'd also encourage you to read @rendar-writes' well-made point here about the fact that, while claiming she "doesn't give the answers", Traviss nonetheless shows a clear anti-Jedi bias.

[2stepadmiral]

So I’ve been getting back into Bionicle lately, I loved it as a kid and I’m on a whole nostalgia trip right now, rebuilding my Toa and Bohrok and rereading the comics/watching the movies, and as much as I still love it, it makes me sad for anyone who didn’t get to experience it as it was coming out.

Like take the MCU, for example. If you weren’t old enough to start watching the MCU before the first Avengers came out, you could still experience the MCU in its golden times. And if you have young kids, who are just getting to the age, where they can start the MCU, they can still kind of experience that by watching the movies in order and building up to Endgame. It obviously won’t be the same, but I feel like if you do it the right way and paste it right, you can kind of re-create that experience in a reasonable proximity.

The same goes for Star Wars, you can have your kids, watch the original trilogy, then show them trailers for each of the prequels before letting them watch those to get them. Excited, then let them go back and watch clone wars and rebels, and let them read the expanded universe books at their own pace. It won’t be the same as growing up with the prequels coming out and being excited to see new Star Wars movies after seeing the original trilogy when you were little, but it’s still a fairly decent facsimile.

But with Bionicle, that feeling cannot possibly be re-created.

You can’t recreate the feeling of being 11 years old and finding out that Mata Nui is dying, and that the Toa Nuva, your traditional heroes, were defeated by the new villains, and that the six Matoran you grew up with since the franchise started are the new Toa who have to pick up where the Nuva left off.

You can’t recreate the shock of finding out that the eccentric village elders who have advised your heroes for three years were once Matoran themselves who became a team of Toa a thousand years earlier, defeated the main antagonist, went through a Jekyll and Hyde mutant phase, and then turned into the Yoda type elders.

You can’t recreate the horror at finding out that Makuta won in the end, his convoluted, millennia long plot resulting in himself gaining control of the universe. You can’t recreate the disbelief that the story abandoned the Matoran on that dark note to explore an entirely new planet with entirely different characters, species, and culture. You can’t recreate the relief when Mata Nui showed up, his presence, carrying the promise that the original storyline would tie into the new one sooner later, and the grim ending was only a temporary pause. You cannot re-create the excitement at seeing the story climax with the final showdown between Mata Nui and Makuta. A final battle that you had never imagined possible, but one that only feels right and full circle.

You cannot re-create the horror and sorrow when Matoro failed to reach Mata Nui with the Mask of Life in time to save him. You can’t re-create the disbelief and terror at wondering where the story can possibly go after that point. You can’t re-create the disbelief and sorrow and morning as you read the pages of that comic, as you see Matoro put on the mask and start to become part of its energy. You can’t re-create the stunned, heartbreaking silence that you felt as the death of Matoro, who you would known for six years, who you had at least peripherally grown up with, whose journey you had watched unfold as he went from a simple but well-known and even iconic Matoran, to a new Toa of Ice, unfolded on the pages of that comic in that curious new art style that you would never quite gotten used to. You can’t recreate the feeling of mourning you share with his friends as they learn that Matoro has died, that feeling of almost being part of this universe as you share in the sorrow of the characters (Matoro’s sacrifice was way better than Tony Stark’s, sorry but not sorry).

And above all, you can’t re-create the feeling of having to wait two months for the next comic or the next book, or the movie to find out what happens next, and filling that time by making up your own storyline, and acting it out with your own toys.

Largely because the story unfolded through books and comics, and through the new wave of toys, and through the movies in some years, trying to re-create, even a close facsimile of that feeling just isn’t possible. And it breaks my heart for any kids I might have one day that I’ll never truly get to share this wonderful franchise with them.

[aethersea]

📓!

There’s an atla au of star wars that I have tried so hard to bend into a shape that I can actually write, but alas, all I have are ideas. This is the one that’s in the wips folder as Everything Changed when the Clones Attacked, which is ironic bc I cannot for the life of me figure out what to do with the clones. Maybe they’re being brainwashed at Lake Laogai? Or something???

Anyway. The story has two parts, prequels and sequels. Details under the cut, because this got a bit long.

In the prequels, the elderly Master Yoda of the airbenders is Avatar, and in his old age he’s stopped traveling the world and instead dispenses his wisdom from one of the great Air Nomad temples, nestled deep in the mountains where only Air Nomads can reach. He’s unofficial leader of the council of Air Nomad elders, which is….not great, really, not how things should be, but it’s mostly been okay. He’s been a good avatar overall, and it’s only in later years that he’s leaned so heavily toward the Air Nomads, and really none of this is enough to push the four peoples truly out of balance. 

Our story starts with Qui-gon Jinn, an airbending master traveling with his apprentice, helping a besieged queen from a minor Earth Kingdom escape her city. (I saw a post once asserting that the Earth Kingdom is actually a collection of largely autonomous kingdoms that all loosely recognize the authority of the Earth King in Ba Sing Se, and I like that a lot, so that’s the worldbuilding I’m going with here.) Qui-gon agrees to take Queen Amidala to the Avatar’s council to beg their aid. 

Along the way, they encounter a young boy living with his mother. The boy can do a bit of earthbending—and also a bit of waterbending, and a bit of airbending, and a bit of firebending. Which is impossible, because Avatar Yoda isn’t dead, but there he is, bending all the elements anyway.

I don’t think there’s slavery in the atla universe, but we could probably get away with indentured servitude of some kind, and Qui-gon acquires Ani in much the same way as he does in canon. He takes him to Avatar Yoda—and Yoda rejects him. Says, essentially, “This is weird as hell but it’s also not my problem.” (Frankly I can’t come up with an actual good reason for Yoda to do that, but just go with me here.) So Qui-gon angrily responds that if the Avatar won’t take responsibility, he will, and then gets himself enmeshed in Amidala’s political problems to boot. 

And then he dies.

Something something evil emperor, yadda yadda you know the drill. (Though I think the empire isn’t going to be the Fire Nation, despite the thematic appropriateness of fire spreading unchecked to consume all in its path. Palpatine is gonna usurp the Earth King, I think, and I do feel the prequels’ themes around entrenched systems with deep flaws, which are too big to fight as individuals and too implacable to change, will fit well with atla themes around earth.)

The sequels portion of things is even less plotted out. All I know is that Luke grows up in the same nameless patch of Earth territory his father grew up in, and he doesn’t actually discover he can waterbend until he’s practically an adult. It’s a shock to everyone—except, somehow, weird Old Ben who lives in the desert, who tells him that the next Avatar is supposed to be a waterbender, and won’t explain why he’s so convinced Luke is that Avatar given that he’s pretty emphatically not from the Water Tribes. 

Luke is finally convinced when he manages to airbend, under Old Ben’s suspiciously skilled tutelage. He can’t pull off any other elements, though, so they go off on a road trip to that swamp where you see spirits, to try to reach the past Avatars and get some guidance.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to both of them, Leia has grown up knowing she can firebend. This is kind of an alarming skill for the princess of an Earth Kingdom to have, and even more alarming given that she’s already an earthbender. So she’s kept it secret, and no one but her parents has ever known.

They can meet in some way analogous to the Death Star raid in A New Hope, idk I have zero plot in mind here. The point, as far as I’m concerned, is that the Skywalkers have fundamentally broken the Avatar cycle. Anakin shouldn’t exist, and yet he does, and he was born while Yoda was still alive. If he hadn’t existed, the next Avatar would be a waterbender, and that’s Luke—except he’s from the Earth Kingdom. If Anakin is a true Avatar, then the next one would be an earthbender, and that’s Leia—only then she shouldn’t have been born until after Anakin’s death. Nothing makes sense! Even Yoda and all the other past Avatars together have no goddamn clue what is going on!

Imagine their consternation when they discover that neither Luke nor Leia is the Avatar: it’s actually both of them together. Luke has air and water, Leia has earth and fire; Luke can visit the spirit world and be the bridge between humans and spirits, and Leia can speak to kings and maintain the balance between the four nations. The two of them, together, can defeat their father, defeat the emperor, and restore harmony to the world.

[pknn18]

A blog post about South Park, Chef, Issac Hayes, and Scientology

I'm already kind of preemptively looking for things to focus on for my next video while I'm still working on another script. And so I think "Oh yeah, Exploding Rabbit, what the hell happened to that guy?" It could be explained just by looking at his small Wikitubia page and his YouTube. And while there's obviously.a way to turn it into a short video, it honestly was just kind of lame and even deflating seeing what happened explained so plainly.

Now, I have a better idea for a essay and an excuse to be a dork about something other than video games. Issac Hayes, South Park, and his exit from South Park along with his character's exit. Because upon kind of reluctantly revisiting the episode where Chef is killed off, "The Return of Chef"

Holy shit, this is one spitefully made episode, like Matt and Trey don't just assassinates Chef's character for the plot and thinly veiled Scientology reference, they fucking nuke it until it's turned into ash and soot. Like, this is probably more of their more vitriolic driven episodes besides "Mecha-Streisand" and "The Biggest Douche in The Universe". They're very clearly mad at Hayes' departure from Scientology, perhaps they found it insulting considering the show Hayes was signed up for. 

In the episode, Chef had left South Park, depicted in a "Previously on.." sequence that doesn't actually continue off of anything, very funny. Some time later, he returns to the town, but something's off about him. For starters, they didn't get Hayes to record new audio for Chef, for obvious reasons. Instead, they make him speak with comically spliced archive audio from over the years. Oh yeah, also he's a pedophile now. He joined a club named the Super Adventure Club, which is a club for: pedophiles. And also a less than thinly veiled stand-in for Scientology, with Hayes being Chef.

 Later in the episode, Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny manage to undo Chef's brainwashing from the Super Adventure Club, but SAC - I'm calling them that now - manages to re-brainwash him. This pisses off God, aka Matt and Trey, and as Chef crosses the bridge back to SAC, a lightning bolt hits the bridge, causing it to break and for Chef to fall to his death. 

This death is probably one of the most brutal and vicious in the entire series and is pretty much the peak of this episode’s treatment of the Chef character. However, It is followed up by a rather touching eulogy from Kyle at Chef's funeral that serves as a message that although Chef, or rather, Hayes, is no longer on the show, his character will still be remembered by the townspeople and by extension, the audience. Then they cut to a Star Wars prequel parody and SAC turns Chef into Darth Chef so he can diddle more kids.

This is a really harsh way for them to depart with the character and Hayes and I have the suspicion they didn't immediately know the truth behind his departure at the time.

He suffered a stroke in 2006 which left him very shaken mentally to say the least. Scientology, the absolute fucking scumbags they are, took advantage of them and basically told him to quit, which he did while not in sound mind at the time. This all comes from his son, Issac Hayes III, who revealed all of this information ten years after The Return of Chef aired in 2016. This information would also reveal that Matt and Trey were aware of some funny business, though whether they knew as they were writing the script for The Return of Chef, I couldn't tell you. Tragically, Issac Hayes passed away in 2008. And just as bad, it's unfortunately, it's quite likely Scientology had something to do with Hayes' death. 

When his body was found, it was next to a treadmill that was still running. A victim of a stroke running a treadmill raises some questions. Ordinarily, one would see a neurologist and a psychiatrist for a thing like a fucking STROKE. But one of the things that we know about Scientology that we probably weren't supposed to know initially is that they make you sign a form prohibiting "psychiatric or mental assistance". This specific quote is from Roger Friedman's article where he explains Issac Hayes' history with Scientology, but this was also common knowledge by the time that article was written and published. Not only that, but Scientology even has a page discussing why they're against psychiatry, but I'm not giving them traffic. Anyway, most likely Scientology placed Issac under some strange kind of workout routine just so he wouldn't run to a neurologist or psychiatrist.

It is absolutely depressing what cults can do individuals as it did in this instance. They try to chip away at that individual's personality so that they act in only the cult's best interest. This can affect relationships, personal or business, which of course ruins the individual's life. But that won't matter because if all goes well, their life belongs to the cult. Yeah, this is a "no shit" string of texts but I just wanted to reiterate: Scientology' fucking suckssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I do apologize if this blog post isn't perfect - this swelled from what happened in the beginning and I just kinda kept going. This was done in a day, and not in a very long period of time. This is essentially just a organized infodump. If you actually fucking read this however, thank you.

Also yeah I watched the hbomberguyvideo I might've absorbed some of his style in the process OOPS-

[batshieroglyphics]

[FIC] To Be Free Once More (That's Worth Fighting For) ~ Star Wars: Prequels ~ Fox/Obi-Wan ~ Mature ~ Ch 10/15

Title: To Be Free Once More (That's Worth Fighting For) Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Era Author: Batsutousai Rating: Mature Warnings: Alternate Universe, Qui-Gon survives, Jedi Shadow!Obi-Wan, Jedi culture positive, Coruscant Guard deserve better, clone trooper dehumanisation, institutional abuse, discrimination, learning to trust, Jedi and clone trooper relationships, strangers to friends to lovers, idiots in love, trans/nonbinary/agender clone troopers, trans/nonbinary/agender Jedi, character deaths (Palpatine, some Corries, offscreen Jedi OCs; more detail in notes of relevant chapters) Summary: As a Jedi Shadow, Obi-Wan hadn't expected to have much to do with the clone troopers. Until, suddenly, he does.

CHAPTER TEN

Qui-Gon sat his cup down, then asked, "And how is Commander Fox?"

Obi-Wan couldn't stop himself from flinching, hadn't expected Qui-Gon to bring them up so easily, even though he should have, especially given Fox was the whole reason they even knew about the chips. "They're fine," he managed, voice diplomat-steady.

Qui-Gon straightened, bleeding concern into the Force between them. "Padawan?"

Obi-Wan swallowed, tried to figure out how to explain the churning sensation of sickness that sometimes flared in his chest, when he remembered that Fox was so close to Palpatine all the time, that Obi-Wan had been forced to steal memories that had made Fox happy.

That he couldn't even bring himself to comm the commander, both due to the uncertainty of his welcome, and the continued avoidance of Temple that the Guard were still enacting, according to rumours from Coruscant. He didn't want to insult or endanger their valiant attempts to protect the Order by comming at the wrong time, especially since Palpatine knew he was a Jedi, given both his part in the Naboo Invasion and his being close to Anakin.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said carefully, "did Fox get their chip removed?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "We didn't know what they were," he admitted, because they hadn't received any sort of confirmation that the chips were the source of Fox's blackouts, until they'd reached Kamino. "The only members of the Guard who have their chips removed, are on this ship."

Qui-Gon opened his mouth, scowling, and then he froze, a sick, uneasy realisation spreading through the Force. "Someone," he said quietly, "on Coruscant, has activated Commander Fox's chip."

Obi-Wan stared across the table at him, half afraid that Qui-Gon would figure it out on his own, half hoping he would, because a part of him desperately wanted to be able to confide in his former master.

Read it on Archive of Our Own!

Comfort Obi-Wan by reblogging, not just liking, this post.

[spindrifters]

Okay, so, continuing our discussion from ao3 comments re: Domestic Dystopia as a genre-

Mel and I compiled an incomplete list of examples from books that we had read (literally I just stared at my library for like 10 minutes this morning waiting for it to revel the secrets of the universe) and this is what we have so far:

Never Let Me Go

Nona The Ninth

House of the Scorpion- have not read this since I was 12, but I remember this being the vibe

Number the Stars- this is a holocaust book, so like, real world dystopia, and I have not read it since middle school as well, but I remember major DD vibes and liking it for this reason

The Book Thief- another WW2 book, this one is also different because of all the POVs and an omniscient narrator, but still very much counts to me. Once again I am faced with the fact that genre eludes strict definition and comes down to mostly vibes!

Avatar the Last Airbender

Maybes:

The Giver?- I think it’s been too long since I’ve read it to make a fair assessment, technically it should fit into this category but I just don’t think it does?

Enders Game?- borderline to me because all the kids in this are little prodigy geniuses and while they are still kids idk if it messes up the DD schtick. But I do feel like parts of this book give me a similar feeling to others on the list.

That’s what I’ve got so far, I’m obsessed with this concept and still feel like I’m missing an obvious example, idk, maybe it will come to me later!

Anyway, dying to know your thoughts.

Ohhhh, this is so, so good. Literally bless you and Mel.

For context to everyone else: wrt the Tedromeda prequel, we were theorizing a potential subgenre with the working title Domestic Dystopia. Pulling some choice quotes from the commentary, though the time has probably come to synthesize this into something more cohesive:

A child’s perspective is so effective as a means of exploring dystopia in a way that doesn’t feel contrived.

[...C]hildren growing up in what they consider to just be normal circumstances.... Because kids just tell it like it is. Or at least, they tell the facts as they understand them and an older reader can generally parse the subtext.

[...S]tories that introduce us to really dark world building and very adult topics like War and Death through the eyes of children... the twisty feeling when the dystopia starts to feel almost cozy and lived-in.

Given the above, I want to suggest that a central tenet of this subgenre is that through a child's perspective, the reader is actively learning the rules of the dystopia and how it's built.

I've read/seen/am at least familiar with most of the titles you've mentioned, and I think you're both bang on the money. (Unfamiliar with Enders Game and House of the Scorpion, but input from followers?) In addition, I'd like to suggest:

Noughts & Crosses - Malorie Blackman

Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

The Broken Earth Trilogy - NK Jemisin

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (ymmv on how much this actually qualifies as dystopia but given the Magisterium's reach I think there's an argument here)

Outlawed - Anna North

Everyone, please feel free to add.

[space-ship-earth-crew]

Just finished the excellent 4th season of the science fiction television show For All Mankind, helmed by Ronald Moore. (screen writer for Star Trek The Next Generation) It is basically an alternate universe that begins when Russia lands the first man on the moon, and 2nd woman, taking the lead in the Cold War by coming across as the most progressive nation. This means America must double down even harder, investing billions more in the space race than what we are familiar with in our real timeline.

Because the new timeline sees Earth collectively spending more money to explore rather than prepare to wage the next World War, we see incredible tech advancements that lead to things like mass production of electric cars in the 1980s and improvements in space travel that can carry humans to mars faster than the 3 months it would take us. There is also improvements of international relations, with Russia and America close space partners, along with a very unlikely 3rd partner; North Korea.

This is one of the really beautiful things about this show. The North Koreans are befriending and finding common ground with Americans, being part of a cooperative on Mars that brings them much closer than they are on Earth!

Ronald Moore has stated that For All Mankind is an exercise in imagining how we get to Star Trek. Here is an excerpt of an interview he did for Collider in which he discusses this.

https://collider.com/for-all-mankind-season-4-ronald-d-moore-star-trek/

“We certainly talk about it thematically as the Star Trek prequel, like, how do you get to the optimistic kind of world that Star Trek lives in? You know, that kind of future. And that matters to us. Like, Star Trek posited this amazing future that we all kind of want to be a part of, but how do you get there? And so the show set out to sort of lay out the groundwork of how you get there.”

During my childhood, I sat through doomsday sermon after doomsday sermon at church, making me depressed about our fate. But through the advancement of technology, new visionaries came into being, showing US our potential of preventing doomsday to build a brighter future. Elon Musk came on the scene and revolutionized space travel, making me hopeful the masculine side of our being could inspire US to explore rather than wage the next world war, bringing a future like Star Trek closer to reality! And incredibly, Elon Musk shares the vision of For All Mankind and Star Trek, devoting his company Space X to making humanity a multi-planetary species, bringing plans for a permanent settlement on the moon and Mars closer to reality.

This is the progressive side I always hoped would win the race for our future. Elon’s Dream gave me freedom to travel America in the most amazing electric car I’ve ever had, and now he’s helping our species find freedom to travel the stars, so we can build a future and a starship without World War hell, before techno utopian heaven, visualized in the Star Trek timeline.

So please help me understand this! Among many of his progressive accomplishments, what is the intelligence and reason behind Elon Musk using the power of his social media platform, to empower Trump’s MAGA base, by promoting conspiracies like Pizzagate, and replacement theory, while restoring the megaphone of Donald Trump and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones? Why is Elon egging along the religious extremist right wing outrage machine, feeding grievances of those who can’t wait for civilization’s end, & think Trump is sent by God to guide US towards the battle of Armageddon? 🤔 It just tears me up inside that this could be happening! Cognitive dissonance of the worst kind is not how we get to Star Trek! 😣 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/star-trek-stars-sign-letter-934197/

We can’t empower end of the world religious extremism and expect to explore Mars for very long.

#ForAllMankind #ElonMusk #StarTrek #Trump

[anghraine]

For no particular reason: a grab-bag of answers to questions I've gotten, usually more than once, on my SW fics. Austen ones later!

Lucy Skywalker:

1— Why did you use "Lucy" for your female Luke Skywalker instead of something more space-like/Star Wars-y?

Because "Luke" itself isn't that kind of name. It's the perfectly common English form of a real, old, familiar name. I was looking for something analogous—a name with a common English form, something that's been around for a very long time, ideally with a similar appearance to "Luke." I stand by my opinion that "Lucy" is the closest fit, not something "spacier."

2— Why are Lucy and Leia seventeen c. ANH instead of the canonical nineteen?

Because Star Wars "canon" is a shape-shifting void beast and I stick firmly to the films and sometimes scripts. The movies don't give Luke and Leia's ages at any point in the OT, but the ANH script says Luke is eighteen and Leia is about sixteen. For the Lucyverse, I averaged them out to seventeen.

3— Why is the wampa episode different, with Wedge Antilles captured first?

The pervasive misogyny of most GFFA societies in the Lucy fics led to Lucy being ultimately accepted into Rogue Squadron but not as leader; Wedge occupies Luke's role as commander and even gets his shifts. Consequently, he's the one in place to get mauled by the wampa, but he has less options for escape and would have died if not for Lucy and Han's impromptu rescue mission.

The other reason is that the changes to the sequence made it more interesting to write about than just ... novelization-style with a pronoun switch, which I'd already done through much of the first fic.

4— Speaking of the pervasive misogyny of the GFFA in the Lucy fics, why is that a thing?

When I look at the roles of women in the prequels and then at the near-total dearth of them in the OT, the difference is very glaring. Maybe this is just a relic of the respective times in which they were made, but idk, it feels like the domination of white human men during the Emperor's reign has a certain resonance with Imperial era politics. That includes the fact that (as depicted in the OT) the military arm of the Alliance is scarcely better in this regard. It genuinely feels to me like there's been real, in-world, large-scale change from the PT era.

And I generally prefer to lean into fucked-up aspects of a canon and underscore what's wrong with them rather than to headcanon them away. So that's what I was doing there.

And the idea that the particular misogyny of the Empire flows down from Palpatine and this minefield changes Anakin/Vader's approach to Lucy (and hers to him) was far more interesting to write about than "everything is basically the same, lala what systematic misogyny." The events of The Jedi and the Sith Lord were always part of my plan for the fic and one of the main things that made it interesting to work towards.

SW: Rogue One

1— The idea of Cassian being from Alderaan is, um, interesting, but according to the Expanded Universe—

The extent to which I do not care about the SWEU can hardly be overstated. Please feel free to stop correcting my fanfic with SWEU/TV show factoids.

(Sidenote: I only wrote Alderaanian!Cassian in the ad astra verse, though he speaks Alderaanian in all of them.)

2— Will you ever finish per ardua ad astra?

Yes. I'm sorry it's taking so long, but I will if it kills me.

3— You've talked about Leia/Jyn/Cassian, but ...

I do actually have two fic ideas for it. I've written some of one, but not the other (and of course, I prefer the scenario I haven't written). I do hope to write some, someday.

4— Will you ever finish the Persuasion fusion with Wentworth!Jyn and Anne!Cassian?

Probably not. ;_;

SW: Other

1— Your Skywalker headcanons about Tatooine slave culture are interesting. Are you going to do more with those?

My Skywalker headcanons are not Tatooine slave culture headcanons. The enslavement of Shmi and her surviving people happened in her young adulthood in nearly all my fics.

I will do more with my headcanons about the Alsarai, though!

2— Will you ever write the sequel to Revenge of the Jedi?

Probably not. I had it planned and outlined, but a lot of the ideas got absorbed into other fics, and I'm not feeling it these days.

3— Will you ever continue the one-shot fic where Vader defects with Luke in ROTJ?

Yes and no. I can't really say more.

4— Is Anakin really Leia's stepfather in Redemption?

Yes.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

So yeah... That totally unnecessary Nelson Peltz proxy fight saga of current-day Disney is finally over.

Thank goodness. Peltz seemed like he was acting on behalf of former Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, another guy who is bad news bears to say the least. Peltz just looked like another old man who plays to the crowd that loves to call everything "woke". While it doesn't take rocket science to figure out that The Walt Disney Company is having some trouble across various divisions, their solution wasn't even a solution. Nothing remotely near that.

Interestingly, Disney finally released their first *new* theatrical movie this year, a $30m prequel to THE OMEN that got solid reviews but struggled on opening weekend for whatever reason. It's looking to perform more like last year's new EXORCIST movie than 2018 HALLOWEEN (both films directed by David Gordon Green), I guess not all horror legacy sequels (lega-sequels) are destined to make coin. No matter, $30m isn't steep, it should make it back eventually if not in theaters. It's a 20th Century Studios movie, so it's no big deal really.

Weirdly, POOR THINGS is one of their few box office successes released over the past 12 or so months, outside of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 and - by a hair - ELEMENTAL. 20th kinda came to the rescue there, too: A HAUNTING IN VENICE doubled its budget, THE BOOGEYMAN did pretty good.

All I know is, Disney's probably never going to relive 2019 again... And I feel like they keep trying to make that year happen again... But it won't, because that was a case of the planets freakin' aligning...

I extend that to the 2010s in general, honestly, but I'll focus on 2019...

That year saw the billion-dollar releases of - in order: CAPTAIN MARVEL, AVENGERS: ENDGAME, ALADDIN, TOY STORY 4, THE LION KING, FROZEN II, and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER... They got a moderate success out of the MALEFICENT sequel that year, too, while the live-action DUMBO didn't recoup its - ironically - massive budget. (The original 1941 DUMBO was a low-budget picture belted out during the war.) Some 20th titles came out that year, too, most of them not doing great, like the X-Men movie DARK PHOENIX and Blue Sky's penultimate SPIES IN DISGUISE (I call it penultimate because I consider NIMONA a partial Blue Sky movie, their swan song).

Even then, that was a year to die for. But that's the rub... ENDGAME was the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's whole Infinity Saga. 11 years in the making, it's astounding it was able to have juice for that long! Yes, yes, I know, SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME was the *actual* end of Phase 3... That functions more like an epilogue, while ENDGAME was the big finale event everyone waited for... and of course, CAPTAIN MARVEL benefited greatly from being the movie that preceded ENDGAME. By less than two months... TOY STORY 4 was locked to be big, because TOY STORY 3 made a billion nine years earlier. ALADDIN and THE LION KING were remakes of some of Disney's biggest animated movies, and FROZEN II was a sequel to another one of Disney's biggest animated movies. RISE OF SKYWALKER ended the entire Skywalker Saga... And ending the main story of one of the biggest franchises- You get the idea!

Suffice to say, Disney's not going to have that year again. They'd have to acquire like another 2-3 franchises, and release their finales all during the same year in addition to two other favorites. The MCU isn't the must-see event with each and every film anymore post-ENDGAME, Star Wars' future is probably in serialized shows still, the remake well has run dry and all the biggest Disney animated movies were pretty much covered (SNOW WHITE - from the one that started everything - is on its way, but I see that performing more similarly to DUMBO and not LITTLE MERMAID), and... Well, animated movies that aren't sequels are more of a gamble nowadays.

But it seems like in 2025 and 2026, Disney's looking to keep trying this usual platter of movies that would've been a killer line-up in 2017. Not today. That's how I felt about their offering last year, too.

It's a lot of reliance on the brands. New Star Wars sounds like box office gold, right? Well, two new Star Wars movies in 2026 after all those movies Disney did from 2015-2019 in addition to what seems like a ton of Disney+ shows... And Grogu was super-popular back when he first appeared in THE MANDALORIAN back in 2019... Yeah, like, who knows how those will do... In addition to all the Marvel movies planned, not all of them are gonna get everyone packing the auditoriums - as we saw with QUANTUMANIA and THE MARVELS. (And on the Warner Bros./DC end, SHAZAM! 2 and BLUE BEETLE, even AQUAMAN 2 didn't make half of what the first one made, THE FLASH fell sharply after its opening.)

And then you have the animated sequels, which seem like safe bets. Disney only missed with Pixar's LIGHTYEAR, which was a spin-off that went a totally different direction that seemed to have alienated the audiences that made all the TOY STORY movies the big hits that they were. TOY STORY 5 likely does way better than that, but I expect it to be a box office come down from the last two. It would have to have a real banger story, I feel, to get people to keep coming. I think MOANA 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, and FROZEN III - all from Disney Animation - are locked to at least open big. If they're very unsatisfactory movies to the public - like STRANGE WORLD and WISH were, then they have weak legs... And smackdab between this sequel-frenzy is one original Pixar movie: Space adventure ELIO.... Which got delayed, supposedly because it was a big mess and it needed another year and a half to be reconfigured. Not that that really means anything, but it's sure to balloon its probably already-big budget. ELEMENTAL had to climb and climb to somewhat eke out a profit, ELIO might have even more trouble as an original movie. It's also not known what Pixar's other 2026 movie is opposite TOY STORY 5, though I suspect it is another original, which will make it stick out as well. WDAS' original movies seem missing in action at the moment.

20th Century Studios and Searchlight continue to have the interesting stuff, which I think will last longer than more Marvel and Star Wars movies. Both studios really did become a replacement for Disney's former adult movie label Touchstone, didn't they? And they too have their franchise biggies, more for Disney, with the likes of PLANET OF THE APES and ALIEN... Whose new installments come out this year and are sure to do okay. Plus, more AVATAR... And yet those franchise don't feel - to me - as overdone as Star Wars and the MCU. It's been 7 years since the last APES and ALIEN movies, weirdly enough (WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES and ALIEN: COVENANT), and AVATAR took a long break before returning with a cluster sequels all reasonably spaced out from one another. PREDATOR/PREY looks to keep going. I also wonder if future KINGSMAN movies are still in play.

Again, it's the little stuff that matters, because wells always run dry... And I think that's Disney's problem at the moment, ditto them playing things way too safe in other areas... I've said that before, but they - specifically on the "Walt Disney Pictures" end - need to just let loose and let a filmmaker just make something dynamic and cool and new. Something that takes the audience completely by surprise, not just another "Disney movie". Something like PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN or WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. And make more smaller movies, too, and not relegate them to streaming. Little movies like THE PRINCESS DIARIES, HOLES, etc. We're in that scene in RATATOUILLE again where the patrons of Gusteau's ask if there's anything *new* on the menu...

The time is now, Disney. With a new head of your live-action division, let's see what you've got. We're past calendar years locked and loaded with 8 tentpole movies...

[whilomm]

personally im never gonna outright say about a piece of media "oh this universe doesnt need any more stories told" for a lot of reasons but i do absolutely think a lotta ppl in charge of getting the Stories Told are dogshit at choosing which ones to tell. like yes there is sooo much to do with star wars but they always wanna do the jedi and not some random ass bullshit that could be really fun like zooming in on some "nobody" like a space janitor at a space restaurant in a story that has nothing to do with the resistance or the empire and is just fucking "heres life for this random schmuck in the star wars universe"

okay honestly i think you could sell me a story from fucking any franchise thats just "here is a story about this random fuck and it has literally fucking nothing to do with the main plotline besides being in the same universe" bc so long as its done fucking WELL thats just. so fucking good. but noooo they always gotta do prequels and sequels and reintroduce fan favorites and all that fucking bullshit

...but also idk maybe im just a weirdo who loves minutiae like. the more fucking tiny and random the details you pull from the more im into it. bonus points if you also bring the logistics and drudgery of the universe into it.

[otnesse]

@allronix Replying here since it's impossible to reblog for reasons I'm not too sure about:

"

@asocial-skye This. Very much THIS.

I honestly put little stock in Word of Lucas because he is a seat of the pants writer and changes his mind like he changes underwear (Did Han shoot first or not? If he intended Luke and Leia as siblings, then why the weird ship tease?) What he intended back in 1976 when writing the OT was probably forgotten by 1998 when he was cooking the PT.

To be blunt, Disney also has a big stake in filing off all the uncomfortable edges to their fairy tales. Need I point out the original versions of Little Mermaid and Hunchback of Notre Dame or what happened to the REAL Pocahontas?!

What I go with is what I see. And I knew very little Legends going into the Prequels (just enough to play the party's medic in the West End table top). Now, what I saw with the PT left a very bad taste in my mouth, especially given my niece was the same age as young!Anakin when TPM was launched and the situation of my niece and her ma was uncomfortably close to Shmi and Anakin's (so @writerbuddha called that one right in that personal, RL circumstances certainly did color my view).

By the time the alleged good guys were shoving deadly weapons into the hands of small children and cheerfully leading a group of enslaved ten year olds into a bloodbath at the end of ATOC, I didn't CARE what Lucas had to say. I was about ready to walk out! Usually, the faction that uses child conscripts cut off from all love except love of the organization (despite some rather insincere sounding stuff about "universal love" that sounded like Anakin was reading from an HR manual), training kids to kill, and taking charge of an army of slaves is the faction you root for getting their asses kicked. (Hell, even in universe, the First Order is all over this, so why do the Jedi get a pass when it's rightly treated as an atrocity with muggles do it?!)

Mind you, even though the Jedi had few redeeming qualities at this point, the Empire always did have NONE. So instead of the white and black morality Lucas aimed for, we have some gray and black at best.

Now, at this point, I wanted nothing to do with Star Wars at all. But it was Legends that brought me back to it. Namely, KOTOR and Karen Traviss, who leaned fully into the fucked up. (Yes, Traviss is not the sanest of writers with more enthusiasm than talent, and the Jedi jammed her personal berserk button. Still love what she did with the Mandos and I share that berserk button.) By saying "Yup, it is every bit as terrible as it looks like, but this is the kind of callousness, paranoia, and hyper militancy you would get with a universe that's always on fire," they didn't waste time trying to convince me that my own damn eyes were wrong.

Like, take the argument about Jedi children. A Jedi-Positive person would argue that all the children are all given up with consent from their parents; this is what I am sure Lucas was intending to portray. A Jedi-Critical person will look at this and go "wait. how much 'consent' was in this encounter? the government can legally take these kids and have a representative show up to a farmer's house and tell the farmer they can technically say no? that is some bullshit." And there is real-life evidence for this. It's more on the execution. Did you read some of my rants? Because that's definitely the biggest red flag. Okay, if you are of age to know what you are signing on for and read the fine print, and you still want to dedicate your life to being a servant of the Republic with no love other than that of the Order and duty, then you do you. You made that choice knowing the full picture. Luke, Rey, Juhani, Nomi…they all knew what they were signing on for and I can admire "Jedi" as a choice they made.

A nine year old? Laser sword goes buzz. So of course they aren't thinking of big picture. A two year old? They can't even say a full sentence, much less give full consent! Add how the Jedi conscription looks an awful lot like RL cases of exploitation and abuse on the behalf of state and religious authorities (Janissary "son taxes", Catholic "residential schools" and "foundling orphanages"), with the power imbalance between the Jedi and the common person, and it looks lousy.

And again, in universe, the First Order uses child conscription. How do we know Finn's parents weren't good patriots happy to give their son for the cause of imposing order to a chaotic galaxy? And the one "Jedi adoption" we see on screen was arguably exploitive and unethical, the Jedi taking advantage of the mother's poverty and enslavement so they can get a boy they will shape into a living weapon for THEIR benefit."

Yeah, fully agreed with that bit. Well, save for MAYBE the bit about Disney (personally, I felt that Disney's take on The Little Mermaid and Hunchback if anything were a lot DARKER than the originals despite the main characters surviving the story. Let's not forget a major theme of the Disney versions was racism, with Triton coming across as being VERY close to going all genocidal on humanity with some of his talk when confronting Ariel over saving a human, not to mention how the racism was even MORE apparent in the Disney version of Hunchback to such an extent that an explicit genocide plot was added to the Disney version. Oh yeah, and Ariel was basically manipulated by Ursula in a manner that if anything was EXTREMELY similar to what Palpatine did to Anakin, nearly ended up damned as a result and had to REALLY clean up her mess big time to save the day alongside Eric [something that's REALLY underappreciated about the film and if you ask me a definite improvement over the original tale where the mermaid up and out committed suicide and made no attempt at actually FIXING the hell she subjected everyone to, even AFTER saving the Prince and effectively was rewarded with an opportunity to go to Heaven after everything]. They actually ADDED uncomfortable edges to those movies in other words. As far as Pocahontas, I'd argue that's less filing off uncomfortable edges and more Katzenberg trying to push Howard Zinn's bogus teaching material into the movie, especially with his rather insulting depiction of John Ratcliffe as basically a greedy racist miser when that's actually the exact opposite of his character in real life [if anything, like Anakin, his actual fault is that he was WAY too generous for his own good, and if anything Powahatan took advantage of his kindness and then killed him brutally when he had nothing left to give them like a mobster.], not to mention adding the search for a gold mine in the plot that had absolutely NO basis in reality [my cousin is on the liberal side of things, and she genuinely HATED that movie for a variety of reasons, INCLUDING having the title character be far older than in reality in a manner similar to Abigail Williams in The Crucible]. Besides, the guys who did the Sequel Trilogy and the stuff you alluded to are also the same guys who tried to turn a definite Complete Monster like Maleficent into a woobified rape victim and outright demonized King Stefan by turning him into a cartoonish supervillain the crassest manner possible, so it definitely wasn't an attempt at black and white morality in Disney's case.). That's one reason I actually intensely DISLIKED George Lucas's handling of the Jedi, since it's clear he had a very bad moral compass with how he painted the Jedi as good despite them doing stuff that is more in common with villains than heroes. And as much as I want to blame the Prequels for this, the problem is that even the Original Trilogy had been guilty of this as well, like Return of the Jedi where Obi-Wan justified his manipulating Luke into committing patricide by effectively claiming truth and by extension morality itself was completely relative. Usually, the ones making such talk are the VILLAINS of the story, NOT the heroes. It's actually quite sad when the VILLAINOUS faction of Force Users had more in common with classical comic book super heroes than the ACTUAL heroic faction in the same franchise.

[depizan]

Okay, here's my question related to fiction: Imagine Disney puts you in charge of Star Wars, tells you Star Wars stuff needs to keep coming out, but you get complete creative control (including freedom to reboot anything if you want). What do you do with that universe?

Ha! Well, there are a whole lot of things I'd have done differently if I were in charge of Disney!Star Wars from the beginning, but I don't think going back and redoing those things would help.

So, onward it is.

One thing I think the Star Wars universe desperately needs is something that shows Jedi being what they're supposed to be: the guardians of peace and justice. I'm not the right person to write that, but I'd want to find someone who is, who could do a show about Jedi helping people and being a force for good. So we can see why the Jedi were once so valued and respected. This could be set at any time before the prequel era.

Sticking with the Jedi side of things, the Knights of the Old Republic comic books--the ones about Zayne Carrick, disaster Jedi--would make for a fun series. I'd be tempted to change some parts of it I'm not so fond of, especially in the second story arc, and I'd definitely write it so mentions of Revan don't give them a canonical species or gender.

Those were my reasonable suggestions. Now for my wildly self indulgent suggestions.

Screw current Disney!Canon, the sequel movies were a depressing disaster. Do-over time. Or AU time. Or whatever. Let's steal all the best stuff and give the galaxy a better sequel era! We're going to use parts of the Heir to the Empire trilogy as our base, steal the best characters from Disney!Canon and a few other places, and do a sweeping epic of the galaxy post Return of the Jedi. Rebellion in the Corporate Sector with Fiolla of Lorrd and Odumin and other characters from Brian Daley's books (Jessa? Bollux and Blue Max? Skynx?). The stormtrooper rebellion we deserve with Finn, Poe, and Rey (who is not related to anyone, much less Palpatine). The original Thrawn stuff, only with no (or a significantly redone) craaaaazy evil clone Jedi (but everybody else). Let Sinjir and the others do stuff in a less depressing and fucked up version of the galaxy post RotJ. Maybe we can wedge the Hand of Judgement in there somewhere. And the better parts of the X-Wing books. Basically, we're just kitchen sinking all the stuff I like into an epic series or interconnected series. Empires don't fall with the destruction of one battlestation, or even the death of the Emperor. New Republics take time and effort to rise. But there is hope and there are heroes. And the galaxy will get to be a better place.

On the complete opposite end of things in both scale and time period, I want the goddamn small scale group of heroes story that Disney periodically offers and then promptly fucks up. To that end, we're going to round up some people who can write the kind of stuff I love--and write--and we're going to adapt my fics and have the crew of the Wayfarer's Luck be wandering do-gooders in the Old Republic.

And, hell, there are other SWTOR fics and fic series that would make excellent Disney+ shows. I shall release them all! Mwahahaha!

And maybe adapt Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy as a prequel to the original movies and the epic series(es) up there.

Let there be Star Wars!

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you think so many people nowadays ask about Twilight (at least in your and Vinelle's blog) more than other fandoms based in how much caos opportunity the setting (and your meta) allows, or you think there is(are) other(s) reason(s)?

I say this because you have asks like Jasper and Squishy's saga, or the Twinscest debacle, but I don't recall something similar caliber and quantity for HP or Star wars. But that may be me not being knowledgeable enough about your blog

I feel weirdly flattered that this blog is prolific and long lived enough that people are asking why it is the way it is.

As for your theories, at least from my perspective, that's not the inherent issue.

There Once Was a Beginning

Almost all of my posts are in direct response to a question. Paranoid Bella, Torgrim, Squishy, etc. all started with a single question that required a kind of thought experiment.

The difference between the people who send me asks is the ones who send them for Twilight, for lack of a better term, pounce on these already answered questions.

I have a post where Bella had sex with a clone? Tell me more, Muffin. What was their dating life like? DID THEY GET MARRIED?! WHAT IF SHE WAS DUDE?! WHAT IF SHE EXPLODED?!

(No, readers, this is not an invitation for these specific question, please don't send me these.)

For the HP/Star Wars asks, typically a) people don't ask me the sort of "what if X happened?" questions or b) if they do they're relatively in the world of the universe "what if Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sorted in different houses?" or "what if Harry was actually smart?" and c) they don't double down on "alright, we have this world where Harry is a deer, who invites him to the Triwizard Tournament ball and how does it go?"

My point is that this all started somewhere, and HP and the gang are in the same position the Twilight part of the blog was. It's just that people don't ask about it and we've sort of run through the gambit of "Muffin, what do you think about x character we saw for two seconds?" "I thought they existed?"

My Inexpert Conclusions?

The Twilight fandom just sends more asks than the rest of you guys. They send more of the "what do you think of x character" and "okay, but what if x character was an alien who ate goldfish from stat fairs?"

My guess would be that the Star Wars fandom hasn't heard of this blog (and why should they, I'm not big in that fandom and my opinions would be considered... inexpert at best per my Prequel Trilogy/Original Trilogy exclusionary opinions) and the HP fandom is so divided in on itself that you tend to go to whichever blog best supports your niche (the various stans do not cross HP streams, it is forbidden).

But like the field of dreams "If you ask it, and they will come"

[thats-it-im-fallingdown]

I’ve finally reached season 7 of the clone wars. it’s been an awesome ride! here are my thoughts as a first time watcher of all things prequel-era. after this, I’ll watch revenge of the sith (yes, for the first time. yes i live under a rock. no there is no room for anyone else. find your own.) and Star Wars rebels, and I’ll have finally watched all of the main Star Wars stuff!

Ahsoka’s walkabout arc

-i love the martez sisters. i have an older sister myself, and while our dynamic is pretty different, they didn’t do too bad at capturing the feel of sister duos.

-español subtitles, my beloved. it is so good to have you back in my arms after being without you for season 6. I missed you more than you will ever know. you may not be a perfect translation of the audio, but i love you flaws and all

-I’m definitely skewed from coming to this straight after crystal crisis on Utapau, but the animation is really improved. Rafa’s hair actually moves and people’s lips move more naturally.

-I’m glad that ahsoka left that tube top behind. i hated how impractical her clothes looked in the early seasons

-I’ve reblogged a post about this a bit ago, but i wanted to say this myself. the way the jedi have taken the reputation hit for the senate is interesting to see from the perspective of your average citizen of coruscant. To trace, the war is just life getting harder for her and her sister. she wants to escape to the stars— but that’s where the fighting is happening. and the burden of blame shouldn’t fall so heavily upon the jedi. the Jedi order and it’s principles are themselves victims of the war.

-seeing Bo katan make an appearance was surprising, but ig she had to come back in eventually

-ahsoka’s plan in the final episode was so satisfying to watch. usually saying one thing to an enemy and another to a friend dialogue is super obvious, but it was done well here imo

-how could maul almost see her through the hologram? usually you only see other people, not their surroundings on the other end

-it’s really unlikely, but perhaps leaving her bike with them means the martez sisters will make another appearance. star wars loves cameos, i think it’s reasonable for me to hold out hope

The bad batch story reels

-I’m fond of the design of Anaxes. crunchy, crunchy glass. and a sky so pretty it was hard to focus on the dogfighting

-the way the bad batch pointedly makes fun of “regs” is interesting to me. it isn’t super mean spirited, but it’s biting and frequent enough to make me wonder how clones are perceived by civilians, and how they see themselves. from the clone bar on coruscant, we know there’s some, though admittedly little (because wartime) interaction with civilians who aren’t inhabiting the planets they fight on. you know philosophers in the gffa would be having a field day with the ethics of cloning soldiers. see, there’s some things in this universe you have to write off because of context— like the padawans technically being child soldiers. we can write that off because it’s a show that includes children in its target audience, and kids deserve to see themselves going on adventures. but this isn’t the case with clones. pong krell, for one. the famous “we’re clones sir, we’re meant to be expendable” among other lines, make it clear the essential humanity (lack of a better word) of the clones is in question by the inhabitants of the in-universe. in a roundabout way, I’m suggesting it’s possible the bad batch’s jabs at “regs” come from a place insecurity about their own individuality as much as it does a reaction to being shunned for not fitting in with their brothers. since they’re mutated, different, they have biological proximity to naturally born people. they’re similar to their progenitor, jango fett, but very distinct in personality and appearance, like how I’m similar and distinct from my parents.

-man, i don’t get why people rag on mace windu so much. he’s a generally good dude and a cool character. he’s firmly lawful good, which can be boring when it’s played wrong. windu is not played wrong. his character works, and i like the episodes where he’s gotten more screen time, and this is one of them.

-no disrespect if you like them, but i am. not sold on the bad batch. maybe things are different in the bad batch show, but here, they don’t feel like complete characters. like, this is a fine foundation for a four (five after echo joins) man band, but you’ve got to put those guys back in the oven they aren’t done yet. as I’ve rambled about above, I’m not averse to the concept of mutated clones because there’s some really neat potential to explore how clones and non-clones view one another and each other. the 100% success rate thing is pretty corny even for Star Wars, but i also don’t think tbb undermines the regular clones individualities, provided there’s some follow up on that how-does-clone-prejudice-work thing. what i am averse to is changing their facial features (mainly tech, but also crosshair) to be more typically white, like thinner noses, in an attempt to make them more visually distinct. the other aspects of their designs, physical and character-wise, make them plenty distinct. let them look like Morrison dammit! this is why I’m probably not going to watch tbb show. it was hard enough to sit through a four episode arc with them, i don’t think i can make it through a whole season.

-oo, foreshadowing anakin’s fall to the dark side when he kills trench. i love a good tragedy

-obi wan definitely knows padme and anakin are boning, right? who doesn’t know that they’re a couple at this point, honestly. and the ones who don’t should be able to figure it out pretty quick when padme’s pregnant and the father is ~unknown~ cmon.

Siege of Mandalore arc

-man hang on a minute. i need a minute alright

-i see potential for a short that follows what bo-katan and ahsoka have gotten up to in between oba dias and the siege. they’ve clearly gotten to know each other a little, and while it makes sense that we don’t waste any time on their relationship, it could be cool to see how their partnership developed. would also have the benefit of filling out how Bo-katan has progressed as a character.

-maul is so obsessed with obi wan and kenobi just.. doesn’t care all that much about his arch nemesis. yeah I killed him once, it didn’t stick. have fun fighting him ahsoka!

-you really don’t notice how much a character has grown on you until you realize you care about them deeply even when they have plot armor huh? yeah, ahsoka and rex have entrenched themselves in my heart.

-now, I only know revenge of the sith from cultural osmosis, but that’s enough to not only understand what’s going on off screen at the same time, but to effectively be in darth maul’s place. everything is falling to pieces and nobody but you can see it yet. the jedi, the republic, the separatists, all of it

-this arc got allll the crunchy visual effects. breaking glass, embers, smoke, the works. wish they didn’t make maul’s lightsaber bizarrely skinny

-I especially loved maul and ahsoka together in this. they parallel each other in a way that I hasn’t noticed before, how they’re both apprentices who failed (from a certain pov) in a way that saved themselves

-maul’s dialogue and voice acting is mwah mwah. he’s gentlemanly without being aristocratic, or becoming a cliche mob boss kind of character

-katee sackoff is truly perfect as bo katan, and I’m not just saying that because I had a crush on Starbuck in battlestar galactica. i cant imagine a better (voice) actress for the role

-hello, ursa wren. how have you been holding up among the hordes of aggressively blond blue eyed whites? there surely must be better ways to add Viking influence that aren’t making the mandalorians look like Swedish racists

-ahsoka technically isn’t a jedi, but in this arc it’s really obvious that she had the skill to be a jedi knight. she would’ve become one if she hadn’t left the order. her skill at adapting under high pressure and at combat (she’s a match for maul himself!) don’t let you forget that she is well past being at padawan level

-i’m sure i violated so many viewing guides by watching this before revenge of the sith but it worked out fine, so •_•

-the painted helmets….

-hey, hey. don’t cry. Fives saved rex and ahsoka, okay? think about that. his death wasn’t a complete waste in the end at least

-I’m looking forward to seeing what rex gets up to after this. i know he shows up in rebels, ahsoka too, which will also be interesting to watch