#like??? the prequel bit might be interesting but other than that its just the same storyline?

[moghedien]

Silly but serious question. If someone were interested in WOT due to your posts about it/the Forsaken, do you think that person would probably enjoy the books? Assuming that person already enjoys fantasy and all the usual bells and whistles.

Its hard for me to say definitely without knowing you or your personal tastes and whatnot. I am one that won't just blanket recommend wheel of time. It's my favorite book series, but its also like 4 million words long so I know that its not gonna be most people's thing, ya know?

If you're already interested though, I don't really see a reason not to try the books, so long as you're aware of its length and the fact that the overarching story can take a bit to get into. It's also got some dated tropes and things that will seem unoriginal and overused (partially because it is, partially because a lot of modern fantasy is inspired by WoT). Its a product of its time and the author had hangups. It came out over 30 years ago and all that. I dont' think its as bad as some people make it out to be though. I've read some "progressive" fantasy from around the same time period that I think handles some issues waaaaaay worse than WoT. but you know, just be aware that things in it aren't perfect.

Also if you're specifically interested in the Forsaken, there is a whole lot of Forsaken nonsense throughout the series, but it does take a few books to really get into that aspect. You see some of it in the first books, but it doesn't really get going until a few books in.

If you haven't watched the TV show, you might get some more immediate forsaken gratification there,, but the show hasn't gotten to the point where they really start being a thing yet either (next season tho!) so there's that to consider. it just makes certain ones more present and in your face than the early books, which I do enjoy.

Basically, my answer is just: idk but it doesn't hurt to try the books. Just know that the first book is kinda intentionally formulaic and meant to resemble other fantasy series, but it sheds that by book 2 and sort of becomes the Wheel of Time in book 4 imo

If you're gonna read the books, start with book 1, not the prequel. You can read the prequel after book 5 but probably better placed after book 10 when it was published (in my opinion). If you've watched the show, you can read the prequel whenever you want though. If you wanna read the books before the show, read through book 3 before doing so

and just a word of warning/advice if you are going to read the books, which will contradict itself but listen: do not go looking at "new reader" advice from fans. Even well meaning book fans have this bad habit about "warning" new fans about certain things in the series which has a tendency to dishearten new fans and shade their opinions in negative ways. I'm not talking about content warning or things that a reader might need to know about for mental health or comfort reasons. I'm talking about books fans trying to warn people about the "boring" and "bad" parts of the series. I've done this in the past and I've always regretted it, and people that aren't warned ahead of time tend to have a better reading experience. Just don't go listening to fans

and also never ever ever ever google any characters name, I am being dead serious, everything about the series will be spoiled for you that way its happened to all of us learn from our mistakes. Like literally would rather gets asks with random questions about characters than for someone google a character's name

[darkstarofchaos]

Ten years ago today, I posted Chapter One of my first real Transformers fanfic: a delightful little G1 story in which Megatron finally had Starscream reprogrammed, at the behest of Soundwave. It started out okay, but eventually I found myself getting tangled up in plot threads, and every chapter was increasingly more difficult to write than the one before it. In 2020, I finally decided to do what I'd been tempted to do for a while, and discontinued the story - albeit with a promise of a rewrite.

I started this year hoping I would have the rewritten version finished and ready to start posting for the 10th anniversary. When that became an impossibility, I'd hoped I could finish a shorter prequel that I had lying around in my drafts in time. Unfortunately, that didn't work out either. And now this post is what I'm left with for commemoration.

The first version of the story had a lot of issues in the background. One of the biggest, which might not seem like an issue at all to some, is that I knew the characters better from fanfic than from canon. I was inundated in Starscream redemptions where Megatron was an evil rapist and at least some Autobots became sympathetic the moment they discovered that Starscream was being abused. In fact, one of the earliest ideas for the fic in its conception stages was for Starscream to eventually get help from the Autobots (and, yes, for Megatron to be the main villain. Minus the rapey bits, I had no desire to do that).

The thing is, I love canon, and I love rooting my stories in canon. Even in the early chapters, when I had only seen most episodes once, I was making references to Starscream's Brigade, The Revenge of Bruticus, and of course, Fire in the Sky. After Hook inserted himself as a supporting character, I started planning a retelling of events from The Secret of Omega Supreme. A whole minor plotline involved the Decepticons planning to steal the Matter Duplicator from Cosmic Rust. Taking a bunch of unrelated one-shot episodes, some of which contradict each other irreconcilably, and forcing them to exist in one logical narrative, is one of my favorite things about writing fanfic.

Which is why, the more time I spent with canon, the harder it became to write characterizations that no longer felt right.

Starscream, of course, is an example of this. While I don't regret his portrayal after being reprogrammed, the few scenes beforehand take a fairly flat, if admittedly canon-typical approach. He fights with Megatron, he wants leadership. And there's not much to him beyond that. Canon-compliant in the most soulless way possible. But while my approach to him has changed considerably, he's not the one whose characterization feels the most off to me.

I mentioned that Megatron was originally conceived as the main villain. That plan changed early on, with Soundwave taking the role, but Megatron was still meant to be a major antagonist. I leaned into emotional abuse over violence, but he was still terrible to Starscream. He still had him reprogrammed, and still enjoyed having control over him. He cared a little, in his own way, but he was still abusive and cruel.

Here's the thing. I was not comfortable writing Megatron back then. He was freaking intimidating, and I actively avoided writing his POV for three chapters. Every time he interacted with Starscream, it felt too intimate. And this wasn't an erotic story. It wasn't even (explicitly) gay. But he was just not capable of being in the same scene as Starscream without my wanting to depart the premises. And it took me literal years to get past that.

Turns out the solution was to throw up my hands and let them be gay. Yes, your honor, the evil alien robots have an abusive, mutually destructive relationship. They also care about and trust each other in ways that would make no sense to anyone else.

I don't think I need to explain why this creates an issue with the core premise of my story. Figuring out how to make this work has been. Interesting.

Getting anything ready to post for the anniversary didn't happen. But as I mentioned, there's a short prequel in progress, and I plan to have it out sometime before the end of the year. Y'all can find a little sneak peek under the cut if you're interested.

Megatron turned his gaze to Bruticus. "Once we finish reprogramming Bruticus to obey only me, he will be unstoppable." The look on his face as he surveyed his prize said everything. He didn't care about having Starscream back. All he cared about was his powerful new toy. That was all he ever cared about, and Starscream knew that. It had been made so painfully clear on so many occasions that it hadn't even occurred to him to hope for anything else. So why did it still hurt? Starscream looked at Bruticus as well and wondered if he should even bother saying anything else. It seemed pointless. Besides, Megatron had indirectly told him to get back to work. To do otherwise would only make him mad, and Starscream was tired of people being mad at him. If he returned to Earth, everyone would be mad at him. Mad at his actions against the Decepticons, at his being taken back despite those actions, at… everything. He couldn't think of a single bot who wasn't mad at him right now, unless Megatron had truly decided to forgive and forget. And they would stay mad for a long time, in all likelihood. He already deserved it. But he was about to deserve it a whole lot more. "I should get to it, then," he muttered, sinking back down next to Bruticus' head. He hoped Megatron would take the hint and leave him alone, but the warm weight of a hand on one air intake told him he wasn't going to be that lucky. "I wonder," Megatron said, as though the thought had just occurred to him. "How can I trust you to actually do what you're supposed to?" Doubt? He had been praising Starscream for a successful plan not even ten seconds ago and they were already back to doubt? Maybe Starscream should have expected the crumb of approval to be taken away immediately, but like the realization that all Megatron wanted was to control Bruticus, it hurt. "And who would you assign to the task instead?" Starscream asked bitterly. "Shockwave?" "Still jealous?" Megatron said. His thumb slid along the edge of Starscream's intake. "Have you already forgotten that your jealousy is what got us here in the first place?" Starscream hunched his shoulders, staring at Bruticus' exposed processor without seeing it. He hadn’t forgotten anything. Their argument about Shockwave and his own subsequent attack on Megatron was all he’d been able to think about since being cast out from the Decepticons. And he still didn’t understand why he’d been cast out. They argued all the time, and he’d attacked Megatron on numerous occasions. What made that last fight different? What had he done? His chest throbbed. But it wasn’t just emotional hurt this time, or the anxiety that still threatened to build into panic. This was a phantom pain. A reminder that the last time Megatron got mad at him before all this, he’d torn a hole in Starscream’s chest. Whatever had changed - whatever Starscream had done - it had happened a while ago. “Fine,” he muttered tonelessly. “Let Shockwave do it. Who cares.” He made to stand, but his legs buckled, spilling him back to his knees. He caught himself with trembling arms and shut off his optics, head swimming from the sudden drop. Humiliation prickled over his armor, or maybe it was just neural lines shutting down to conserve energy. At this point, he couldn’t tell. Metal creaked beside him and Megatron’s hand settled on his back, gently rubbing along his spinal strut. “You blasted fool,” Megatron scolded, though without much heat. “When was the last time you even had access to fuel?” Starscream was tempted to comment on the barren nature of most asteroids, such as the one Megatron had seen fit to dump him on. But it would be a waste of energy he didn’t have, so he settled for turning his face away, silently rejecting the false concern.

[wondereads]

Weekly Reading Update (06/23/24)

Reviews and thoughts under the cut

Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler (8/10)

This was my first ever Octavia E. Butler book, and it didn't disappoint! The way this story used Anyanwu and Doro's relationship to comment on power dynamics and issues in the world at large blew my mind; I found the discussion of eugenics particularly interesting. They were both such intensely flawed yet compelling characters. This book skirts the line between fantasy and sci-fi (something I'm looking into for my thesis as a peripheral issue), and it definitely made me wonder about the world. I wasn't aware going in that this was a prequel situation, but even then I do think I was a bit dissatisfied with how things left off. That's just my personal taste though.

Haikyuu!! Vol. 41 and 42 by Haruichi Furudate (10/10)

It usually takes me around half an hour or so to get through a volume of manga, but these took me a couple of hours. Why? Because I had to keep putting it down because I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. As someone who has read a plethora of books ever since I was young, it takes a lot to get me to cry, especially that hard. I was sobbing. Furudate has created such wonderful characters and then puts them through so many struggles that I can't even be mad about because it's highly realistic that someone pursuing a sport would run into this! Seeing Hinata break down followed instantly by the third years graduating and the Brazil arc had me miserable in the best way possible. I usually never rate manga or graphic novels five stars because they're usually super fast-paced and so much relies on writing style for me when I read novels, but this just broke me.

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter (46%)

This is a very cute book so far. I could probably tell you exactly what's going to happen from this point onward, but it's a genre convention for romcoms to be predictable. Liz is a fun protagonist; she's quirky in a way that has a reason and isn't annoying. There's good chemistry between the leads with some great banter, and you really can't ask for more than that. However, I will say the constant song references are starting to irk me, especially with the lyrics included in the writing --I don't know, it just reminds me too strongly of my early fanfiction years.

Moon Rising by Tui T. Sutherland (45%)

If there's one thing about me, I love a mind-reading protagonist. Moonwatcher is probably my favorite perspective of the Wings of Fire series, even if I wish she'd speak up sometimes. Sutherland did a great job making her similar to Starflight, since they're the same tribe, without being a carbon copy, and while mind reading might seem a little too omniscient, her inexperience and general social ineptitude keep it from becoming overpowered. I'm thrilled to see the return of Peril, whose story is left open from the previous arc, and I'm excited to learn more about the other new characters (Winter, Qibli, and I believe Turtle) who have their own interesting introductions.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (43%)

Despite my fantasy obsession, this is my first time reading The Lord of the Rings (though I have read The Hobbit). While it is definitely much slower-paced than the average modern fantasy, I'm enjoying myself so much. If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know I'm a worldbuilding nut, so this is like my dream book. There are so many tangents to tell stories about the history of Middle Earth and all the goings-on of the world, and I keep noticing little details and wishing they'd talk about those too. Tolkien is also a rather funny writer; Bilbo's passive aggression in particular made me giggle. While this a bit of a dense story, it's definitely living up to its reputation so far.

Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell (42%)

This is a project for my part-time job, so I'm not sure how much I can actually divulge, but let me just say this: this book is compared to The Raven Boys in its summary, and it's living up to that.

Her Wolves by G. Bailey (7%)

I won't lie, the writing of this book so far does not give me hope. However, it could still be a fun read even if the grammar and syntax aren't the best. Also, funny thing, this book is set in the future on Earth. I did not know this. I thought it was a high fantasy. So imagine my surprise to see a landmass labeled "America Court" on the map. My misunderstanding was cleared up soon, but it still made me laugh.

[okaystoptellingmetomakeanaccount]

Some pics of the new topolino have been posted on the papersera facebook. Alex Bertani writes a really beautiful introduction about the 75th anniversary of the magazine and probably tells us the meaning of life

but tbh, who cares about that? I MEAN LOOK AT THIS

Ignore the boring sciencefiction saga from Gervasio. LOOK AT THE PAGE COUNT OF THE SECOND STORY

Chapter one has 33 pages! That’s A LOT for a 4-part story. (For reference, the current Darkwing Duck comics saga are 22 pages per part/issue. We have 50% more Magica in one chapter of a single story than Darkwing gets every few months) The huge page count from last time is true! It is just gonna be massive.

The coloring is likely gonna be normal, which is completely fine by me.

Look at this its Magica on the cover next week aaaaa

She has a doctor strangeass cape now i guess. We’ll see how it works in the comic itself. It also reminds me a bit of PK. It has the exact same colours.

But let’s look at the previews because there’s something very interesting there. Or a printing error. And also nice to see that we dont have to wait another month for the Pete developments.

Okay the interesting/maybe error, look at the Magica part. First in white we have the ‘Il mondo di ghiaccio’. Last time I assumed that was the name of the story with ‘Amelia oceanica contro le streghe vulcaniche’ being the title of the first part. But here the second part has the same name. Il mondo di ghiaccio is put in the column above it like it’s the title of a series… This might just mean that this 132 page story is not the world of ice. ‘Amelia oceanica contro le streghe vulcaniche’ is not the name of a part, but the name of the entire story. A single story in the subseries that is ‘Il mondo di ghiaccio’. This 132 page comic might just be a prequel or the first half of a larger series that will continue later a la Gli Evaporati, that Enna also wrote. This might just mean that we are confirmed to have at least 1 other huge Magica comic coming this very year.

Or like y know its a printing error WELL TIME WILL TELL THAT WAS THE MAGICA UPDATE OF TODAY SEE Y’ALL NEXT TIME

[pixelchills]

What’s up, Current content & Original story starting point

Hey guys! I’m getting back on track with the move now over, and I have my full focus on art and writing again! 

I know many of you are getting a bit impatient with the lack of updates on my fics - which is fair, they’ve been without new chapters for a few months now! However, I have been very busy with a lot of other stuff (travels, moving, crafting the dolldrops), and my focus seems to always be on one thing at a time, which hasn’t been the stories of ANSSW or MDD for the moment. 

This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning them. The updates will just be a little slower since I write those stories when I feel like it. The reason why the Prequel was written so quickly, was because it was my main focus at the time. I have ADHD, I tend to hyperfocus on one thing for a while, then move to the next. Right now, my focus has been on the Helper Bot AU, commission work, and my original story of Dreamflower. 

I might be able to go back to hyperfocusing on ANSSW and MDD, but as for now, they’re getting updates whenever I feel like it. The fics are content I give you guys for free, as art and writing is mostly just my hobby (excluding Patreon and commissions). And since I’m not working this summer, I’m doing commissions. So technically they’re my summer job, lol. So work comes first, and fanfics a bit later.

I am a disabled person with long-term fatigue. There are many days when I can’t make content at all because of how tired I am. And since I have so many projects and AUs and interests (most of them circling around Sun and Moon though), sometimes I’m more focused on other projects than I am on the others. So sorry about that!

This is not what I wanted to talk about, though. Just to give a little heads-up on what’s going on behind the screen! 

My genuine wonders lie within the original story of Dreamflower right now, and I would love to hear your opinion on this. 

I know most of you follow me for my Sun & Moon stories and AUs, but I can genuinely tell you if you like my storytelling, LGBTQ+ themes, with angst and fluff; I think you’ll enjoy the story of Luan and Solros a lot, since they are based on my Animutant Moon and Sun after all! 

While building the story and its characters, and besides a few Tumblr ask answers and drawings, I am really eager to tell their story and work on the universe with you. But right now it all seems to be still stuck in my head and drawers.

I really wish to make Dreamflower into a Webtoon one day. But to get there, I need to get faster at drawing, and figure out the story fully before I can start drawing it. Besides being a visually driven person, I’m also really wordy (ADHD trait, I talk even more than I write). So writing a comic script from scrap, where I need to keep the story moving at a good pace, seems like a lot of work to my wordy brain. 

So, I wondered: what if I write first and then script the comic from there? 

This way I would be able to get the story out and delivered - with as many words as my heart desires - while also being able to publish content about my original story. 

Of course, this would push back the actual starting point of the comic itself, but I have realised this story and its universe are a passion project of mine; I don’t really care how long it takes, since I’m mostly doing it in my free time anyway. 

So I have a few options I’d like you to help me pick out from:

Write the story of Dreamflower in the order it should be told, and publish it to AO3. Currently, there wouldn’t be an ending point, since the story itself continues far after where the Webtoon would end. 

Same thing, but publish future scenarios/oneshots to Tumblr or AO3 separately too (usually these scenes take place after Solros and Luan have started dating, and they would appear in the main story if you’d like me to keep them secret until in that part of the story.) 

Most likely, similar to ANSSW & MDD, I would include art in each chapter for visuals. I’ve found this type of content creation very appealing to myself, as it allows me to both tell a story and draw a scene from the story without it becoming overwhelming like a comic. 

So, any thoughts on this? Which way would be a good way to go?

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re having a good summer! (Or winter if you live on the other side of the globe! c:)

I'll be taking a little break again next month when travelling again, but I'll mention that again a bit closer to the date! Just wanted to give a little notice of what’s going on at the moment!

-Chill

[thelreads]

The thing about Vig, to me, is that it's connection to the main story is probably it's biggest weak point. On one hand, it gives Furuhashi a lot to pull from and means he doesn't have to set up a lot of parts of the world. On the other hand it means he has to play by BNHA's rules.

And he's not very good at that.

Some of my favorite moments end up creating contradictions or plot holes when weighed against the main series. Why is that how X works? What is Y doing while this is happening?

By being connected to the wider world, Naruhata is opened to scrutiny, and questioning of why the rules it plays by are so different.

Personally, I think this whole fight is really cool. I like the symbolism, I like 6's escalating insanity, and I like 6's increasingly absurd final forms. But when you take a step back from the spectacle and remember that this is supposed to happen in the same world as Izuku Midoriya, a few years prior, no less, the cracks start to show, in the spots where Naruhata ends and U.A. begins.

Still, Vigilantes holds a larger place in my heart than the main series, and I think that might be why I'm more accepting of its flaws.

Yes, you put this precisely into words my friend. This is what I've been saying for quite some time, being a BNHA prequel is detrimental to both of them. Vigilantes should've been about its own thing, about its own plotline and its own characters that just so happen to take place in the same world of BNHA, not trying to tie back to the main series with every passing panel. A lot of the events would be interesting as stand-alone, but trying to fit them into preexisting molds of the main series is completely dumb.

I keep hearing about how Furuhashi's current work, the doc octopus little girl one, is actually pretty damn good both in storytelling and in general consistency, so perhaps there's a bit of executive meddling in here, but it could be that he just improved on criticisms of Vigilantes. Regardless, I like this story, and this is why I need to be direct about the things that are wrong with it.

[beevean]

The post SOTN stories (except OOE and maybe PoR) have the nasty issue of wanting to look more story driven but without putting in the effort

Yeah sure the characters talk more, we have an official timeline detailing canon down to a t, but the actual story beats were almost always the same just presented in a bit of a different light

Oh no the good guy has turned bad except not really he was being controlled!

Oh no the local Belmont is unavailable!

Oh no my wife died and this gives me motivation to do the things I do!

The actual stories, when you go beyond the interesting ideas and premises, were pretty damn paper thin and CoD is the worst offender of this because 90% of the backstory is secluded to 2 pretty obscure mangas that are so different in general writing style when compared to the game itself that I find it pretty much impossible to connect the two, if not downright dishonest to, say, call Hector a compelling character beyond his general idea because the manga did this and that while the game itself aka the main material

It would be like Sega releasing a Mephiles centered side manga that miraculously does a great job with him, but with there being such a huge disconnect between the 2 medias and their respective interpretations can you really make a generalizing judgement on the character which includes his secondary yet superior iteration? Or isn't it better to just consider them 2 different versions of the character that, while officially canon to each other, might as well be two different versions of the same character?

You really come into my house to stab me like this :P

I agree that the stories in the games are paper thin, and rely on clichés. There is a lot of work that you have to put in when it comes to interpreting characters and finding parallels. Sara is maybe the most blatant example of this: I see how her fans go insane over the idea of her becoming unhinged with hatred when stuck in the VK, forced to kill demons for a millenium and feeding on their dark force, holding a grudge over Mathias/Dracula. Which is great! What an interesting idea, the holy weapon being powered by a woman's rage, herself being the driving force of the Belmont who cursed his descendants to hunt the night for the rest of time! But then in canon she's just the girl you have to save and then the girl who died to make Leon angry - somehow she's both the Damsel in Distress and the Dead Motivational Wife. So yeah. There is a shitton of potential for analysis, but canon only gives you the barest hints. And if you're here only to play as the badass protagonist and don't really want to put in the work, yeah the plots are weak at best and annoying at worst.

As for CoD... I half agree. I can't say that the mangas don't count only because they are separate, but I wish they were more easily available, because without them, the story in the game doesn't have the proper emotional impact. Both LoI and CoD are so obviously rushed and low-budget for their scope, and I guess the mangas were the easiest solution to include stuff the devs couldn't in the game proper (I still believe Joachim was meant to be much more than a mere boss). LoI is even worse because its prequel is pretty much lost, which shows why these mangas should have been preserved better.

I don't really understand what you mean with the writing style being too disconnected. I think the worst part of the mangas (aside from their obscurity lol) is that, while they overlap in the general sequence of events, they're obviously written by two different people and so the shades of the characters' personalities are different. Was Isaac a smug BDSM king with one hell of an inferiority complex? Or was he more levelheaded and proper before losing his mind? You decide which version is your favorite one, because we don't know which version is "more" canon. You can mix and match if you want, but again, that's you putting in the work.

And well, I am super biased but I do see a connection between the Hector of both mangas and the one from the game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ both of them, especially the PtR one, flow nicely into what we see on screen. I just wish the game was a little clearer on how Hector is normally vs. the effect that the Curse has on him. I can infere that his real personality is how politely he speaks to Julia... but was it intended, or am I once again working for the writing?

[alex-the-moss]

Two days ago I’ve posted my analysis of the children in need special and changes regarding Davros character.

Now I feel the need to talk about what’s going to happen next. Me, because there aren’t a lot of artists actively interested in the "Davros audio-s" and at least half of my blog relies on said prequels.

First of all, I’m not sure if there’s a point in writing a letter to the bosses of DW, but I’m considering it. Maybe a petition could also change something, but I have no experiences organising those. If you are concerned about what’s happened to the iconic villain of Doctor Who your suggestions are more than welcomed! If you know or follow any other people who are actively concerned about this please let me know pls help

Second, I want to focus on how we can deal with the changes emotionally and what’s going to happen to the blog. The best way to keep the character alive is for their fans to stick together. So I’m going to be active online and I encourage you to do the same and be chatty. It will at least be fun if we’re in this together. One of the few good things about this situation is that our fandom has the rule saying we can that choose our own canon and after "the timeless child" people have already started applying it not only to the audio dramas and books but also to the filmed series. And I suggest we just do the same for the Davros retcon. Additionally fiction is not a real life, so some self-induced neglect of reality or self-deceiving won’t harm anyone nor anything. We can convince ourselves those changes have never occurred. Davros doesn’t appear in the show that often but when the new "Davros" does we can use our imagination (and a bit of my drawing skills🌚👌) to perceive him like he is the Davros we know. Because, you know, our minds are only ours to operate. And I’ll continue posting pics of characters we love as usual.

Next I’d like to recommend an additional coping strategy, which is fanfiction. Note: I’m not a native speaker of English language, so I can’t review on the use of language in fanfiction. And I know very well how poor use of words and grammar ruins the experience. So if English is your first language - take my advice with caution)) I present you the one and only fanfiction at least of those I found dedicated to the kaled nation: Damnatio Memoriae series by Mary Pseud + some other works of the same author.

This series was written after the "Davros" audio drama have been released but before the "I, Davros" was. The Author has strange attitude to sex, but if you’re able to choose for yourself you can find nice stories that have nothing to do with it (also sex scenes I’ve read were good). The Author has some interesting ideas and from the very beginning you feel like they’re onto something. It’s also pretty obvious how much Author respects the original universe and how they cherish each character they get to work with. And they have some great non-au fanfiction!

I used to be too insecure to recommend it to you, but now, no matter how strange and cringy stories of the series may seem from time to time, they feel much more home-like than the "original universe”. And Davros’ trauma is treated there with much more respect than it is by official writers, even tho Davros eventually "gets his legs back". Also I’m planning to do fan-illustrations for some of those fanfics, so you might want to know what’s going on there)

I advise you to give it a try because it’s an au fanfiction, and thanks to some of its stories, viewing the mini episode through the lense of this au can be useful for easing the emotional damage!

Take care everyone🩵

[bonesandthebees]

theres so much stuff to talk about im getting overwhelmed (/pos) idk what to focus on first and its not even about the chapter itself yet lmao

latin series and chapter titles? oooh cool, more stuff to look into

like "we keep the names bare"? thats metal as fuck

"so it happens" in itself is interesting and very fitting but in latin its just so much more fancy

I love how their official names are different (and unusual), like wilum, nikanna, tomys, alecs

once again you have something special about names and looking back to the series name I have a feeling there will be moments where the choice between formal name and nickname will be important

(the lengths stories in english have to go to show the border between formal/informal addressing /hj, names have a different beat to them but the technique is actually similar

its a bit sad actually, I feel like so many english texts could go bonkers if "thou" and "ye" still existed and didnt get merged into you)

I mean we already saw something similar in the prequel with phil calling wilbur wilum to show importance of the situation

gotta say, the importance of names is always a bit different and never boring and I love it

origins characters and character traits oh my that opens up so many possibilities i love the sound of this

also just the phil we see in the prequel has some "harsh" qualities, setting kids up against each other which fits o!phil much more than c!phil, so many new traits to play with

excited to see how this might change the characters and relationships and stuff (sandduo is bound to be interesting, not that they werent before, but yk)

looking at tags there's no major character death, should I probably not mention that in comments as not to spoil anyone? or spread fake news

there are other tags that sound really fun tho

before reading the summary I havent even realised that we havent heard about tommys role in all this before in neither the prequel nor the snippets we got

hes thirteen and a problem? oh its going to be a blast

cant wait to see the worldbuilding and fashion in this, youve been so excited about it for so long and I havent seen hotd so im ready to be impressed

the latin series title is one I like quite a bit :)) also the only latin chapter title i think we're going to have is the first one (it also translates to 'so it begins' which I just thought was fitting). maybe the last one too to round it out but i dont plan chapter titles ahead of time so we'll see lmao

oh I had such a fun time coming up with the names. I also struggled so fucking hard LMAO. I think Nikanna is my favorite of the names I came up with, although I thought Alecs and Tomys were clever since it's just alternate spellings. also it hasn't been mentioned in text yet, but Sam's full name is Samuel Aswyn and I'm pretty happy with myself for coming up with Aswyn as a surname equivalent for 'awesamdude'

but yeah there's always going to be an element of importance given to names in a fic like this. like, it's one of my favorite tropes to use. it definitely isn't going to have the same weight as names in glass and stars did, but it'll be there for sure.

you get it though. like, we would benefit SO much if we still used thou and ye because we could go insane in the membrane with the way we write interactions between characters. but alas i just have to create convoluted worldbuilding rules about the roles of names to get my point across instead...

yeah I mean stars!phil definitely had elements of o!phil in him, but it'll definitely be more obvious in rose. also, ngl, a huge part of why I decided to throw osmp in the tags was because I just wanted to write o!sneeg. I fucking love o!phil and o!sneeg's dynamic they're so funny together so when I was like "holy shit I could put sneeg in rose" I knew I had to do it

bestie I don't know where you're looking because major character death is 100% in the tags. like, go do a double take it's in the archive warnings.

yeah a part of me wanted to keep tommy's role entirely a secret until his character got introduced in ch 2, but then I realized I couldn't really write a compelling summary without throwing him in somewhere so I had to bite the bullet and ruin the surprise a bit lol. but yeah he's gonna be GREAT

aaaa thank you so much I'm so glad you're excited for this!! I really hope you guys like this journey we're gonna go on

[mashounen1945]

An interesting Star Wars history essay I saw on Reddit (yes, really)

[Star Wars] The Rise and Fall of the Expanded Universe: How Disney's buy-out of Lucasfilm brought a 22-year era to an end, and split sci-fi's biggest fandom in half.

Posted originally by the Reddit user "TheMightyHeptagon" on February 23rd, 2022.

[Link to the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/szvovy/star_wars_the_rise_and_fall_of_the_expanded/]

--------------------------------------------------

How did we get here?

Unless you've been frozen in carbonite for the last decade, you've probably noticed that Star Wars is currently bigger and more ubiquitous than it's been in a very long time. You also probably know why that is: the Walt Disney Corporation bought the rights to the franchise in 2012, and Disney subsequently reignited the series by producing a 7th, 8th, and 9th episode—which seemed nearly inconceivable when the prequel trilogy concluded back in 2005. And you've also probably noticed that the Star Wars fandom is (to put it mildly) a bit divided at the moment. For various reasons, the various Star Wars films and TV shows of the so-called "Disney era" have their fair share of both supporters and detractors, and some recent works are more widely beloved than others.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

If you're a relatively casual Star Wars fan who's generally just content to watch the movies (and there's nothing wrong with that), you might not realize that Disney's buy-out of Lucasfilm in 2012 was also effectively the end of an era for the franchise; the effects of that are still rippling through various Star Wars works to this day, and many fans still have strong feelings about it.

So why is it so hard to talk about Star Wars these days without getting into an argument? Why did the Disney buy-out start hundreds of online screaming matches back in 2012 before Disney even released a single film? And what does it all have to do with the European Union?

To answer that last question: absolutely nothing.

See: when a Star Wars fan talks about "the EU", they're probably talking about the "Expanded Universe". So... what's the Expanded Universe?

"A short time ago, in a sci-fi section not so far away..."

The short version:

In the context of the Star Wars franchise, the "Expanded Universe" is a loosely connected series of officially licensed Star Wars works released in various artistic mediums other than live-action films, which provide information that isn't in the movies that make up the core of the franchise.

Technically, the Expanded Universe is the same world as the Star Wars universe—or rather, it was until Disney declared that it wasn't anymore (but we'll get to that).

More broadly speaking: in modern fandom discourse, the term "Expanded Universe" generally refers to works in a popular franchise released in a different medium than the works that initially made the franchise famous, which may or may not be considered part of the franchise's "official" canon. It's most commonly applied to franchises that began as movies or TV shows, where particularly devoted fans might eagerly consume novels or short stories or comic books featuring their favorite characters while awaiting the next episode or installment.

In general, such works tend to act as a supplement to the main story, and they serve to expand the story beyond its primary medium (hence "Expanded Universe"). When writing such works, however, creators generally avoid writing particularly dramatic or pivotal plot turns that would drastically affect the world of the story—since that might alienate relatively casual viewers who don't necessarily have the time or the inclination to hunt down every work in a popular franchise, and the creators generally don't want to make those casual viewers feel like they're missing out on important plot points.

For a while, the Star Wars franchise was famous for being especially prolific in that regard, which probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise. After all: the Star Wars films are set in a whole fictional galaxy filled with hundreds of unexplored planets, and they're brimming with enigmatic references to thrilling events that the audience never sees. The world that George Lucas created is the perfect playground for sci-fi writers.

But when sci-fi fans talk about the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" (or "the EU" for short), they're usually specifically referring to a series of novels published by Bantam Spectra and Del Rey Books (and a few comic books published by Dark Horse Comics) between 1991 and 2013.

So what was it about that 22-year period that made it such fertile ground for Star Wars stories?

Well, that's where it gets a little complicated...

"We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life..."

According to most accounts, the Star Wars franchise has a bit of an odd history because George Lucas' plans for the series were in a constant state of flux for nearly all of his career. Originally, he didn't even plan on Star Wars being a series at all: he just wrote a single screenplay, but had to drastically cut it down at the studio's behest when it turned out to be way too long for one movie; conveniently, that left him with plenty of material for two more movies when the first film turned out to be a surprise hit, and the studio expressed interest in sequels.

And once he started to make plans for continuing the story after the Original Trilogy, he similarly waffled on how many more movies he wanted to make: some sources claim that he wanted to make a full nine movies (or possibly as many as twelve) before the arduous production of The Empire Strikes Back convinced him to trim it down to just six. Even after that, Lucas still considered taking a crack at making his own Sequel Trilogy a few times after the Prequel Trilogy wrapped, and he didn't completely give up on those plans until shortly before the Disney buy-out. Some plot points in Disney's sequels, in fact, were supposedly based on Lucas' own story notes.

But by the early 1990s, Lucas finally seemed reasonably sure that the Star Wars prequels (which were in pre-production at the time) would be the last Star Wars films, ending the series at six movies. Some fans didn't take that news well—at all.

On one hand: the original Star Wars trilogy does tell a more-or-less complete story with a beginning, middle, and end. On the other hand: it also sets up some rather intriguing questions that easily could have been the basis for a whole new saga.

Did another Emperor rise to power after Palpatine died? Did the Rebels win the war? Did Luke become a Jedi Master? Did he ever train an apprentice of his own? And if the Rebels did win the war, how did our heroes handle the responsibilities of running the galaxy? And did the Jedi ever make their glorious return?

Understandably, some fans were bummed that those questions (and dozens more) might never be answered, and they were really bummed that they might never meet the next generation of Jedi.

With all that in mind, you can imagine why it was a really big deal when fans suddenly learned that there would be a new chapter in the saga of Star Wars after all.

No, I'm not talking about when Disney announced the release of The Force Awakens in 2015. This is a different chapter in the story of the Star Wars franchise—and it begins well over two decades before Finn, Rey, Poe Dameron, Rose Tico and the rest of the gang ever saw the light of day.

See: by the late 1980s, the Star Wars franchise was facing an uncertain future. Once the Original Trilogy wrapped up in 1983, and nobody knew exactly when a new trilogy might make its way to theatres, it seemed entirely possible that Star Wars was finished for good. Sure, Lucasfilm managed to tide young fans over with a pair of made-for-TV films in 1984 and 1985 (both of which were inexplicably all about Ewoks), and a couple of Saturday morning cartoons (one of which was... also all about Ewoks) that both ended in 1986. Even Marvel Comics' popular Star Wars comic book series was cancelled in 1987 after running for a full decade. After that, Star Wars basically went into hibernation. There's a reason why the final years of the '80s are sometimes jokingly called "The Dark Times" by fans.

And then, in the dim twilight of the 20th century, something happened.

"Never tell me the odds!"

The year was 1991. The Soviet Union had just collapsed, Boris Yeltsin had just become the first President of Russia, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were negotiating an end to the Apartheid in South Africa, CERN scientists had just unveiled "The World Wide Web", Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had just won their first NBA Championship, The Simpsons was on its second season, Nirvana had just achieved mainstream superstardom with Nevermind, Will Smith was still the star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the Golden Age of Hip-Hop was in full swing... and there hadn't been a new Star Wars movie in theatres for nearly a decade.

And then the news broke: Lucasfilm had just reached a deal with venerable science-fiction publisher Bantam Spectra, allowing them to publish an officially licensed Star Wars novel written by Hugo-nominated author Timothy Zahn, widely considered to be a rising star in the world of sci-fi literature.

On its face, the simple existence of a Star Wars novel wasn't that big a deal. After all: Lucasfilm had been allowing the publication of tie-in novels since the 1970s, when they hired prolific sci-fi writer Alan Dean Foster to write the novelization of the original film, and later tapped him to write the original Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (which was based on a proposal for a low-budget Star Wars television film that never got made). There were also a handful of pulpy sci-fi adventure novels in the '80s following the adventures of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian before the timeframe of the movies. So what was so special about this book?

Simple: unlike every other Star Wars novel published up to this point, this one was going to take place after the epic conclusion of Return of the Jedi. In fact, it was going to skip forward a full five years after the deaths of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine—because it was going to be all about the beginning of a whole new era in the history of the Star Wars galaxy following the Rebels' pivotal victory at the Battle of Endor. Instead of telling the story of a plucky band of outmatched rebels striking a desperate blow against the forces of tyranny, this story would portray Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa as the idealistic leaders of a reborn Republic locked in an epic power struggle with a resurgent Galactic Empire.

Even better: the novel was going to be the first in a trilogy of novels. And in a time when many fans had given up hope that they ever get to see a 7th, 8th, and 9th episode on the big screen, that was exactly the kind of news that they'd hoped for. At long last, fans were going to get to see the next chapter of the Star Wars saga—and absolutely anything could happen.

Within a few weeks, Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire shot to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List as fans across America rushed to their local bookstores to grab a copy. And within the first few pages, they were introduced to the story's new antagonist. His name was "Thrawn"—and in nearly every way imaginable, he was the complete antithesis of everything that fans had come to expect from a Star Wars villain.

Instead of a sinister Sith Lord dressed in a dark hooded cloak or a fearsome suit of black armour, he was a Grand Admiral in the Imperial Fleet dressed in a crisp white naval uniform. He was also an alien (specifically: a member of a newly introduced species known as the "Chiss"), instantly identifiable by his striking bright blue skin and glowing red eyes. Instead of relying on the vaunted power of the Dark Side, he was determined to best our heroes through good old-fashioned ingenuity and cunning. Instead of brutality, he relied on his strategic genius. And instead of earning the obedience of his men through fear and intimidation, he inspired their loyalty through his unmatched charisma—which made it easier for some fans to root for the Empire without feeling too guilty. To this day, Grand Admiral Thrawn remains one of the most popular characters ever to come out of a Star Wars work, and his fans love him just as much today as they did in 1991.

But with every new chapter, the story introduced more twists and turns, taking every opportunity to flesh out the world that fans had come to love. Readers got to see Chewbacca's home planet of Kashyyyk for the first time (since everybody knows that the Star Wars Holiday Special never happened), they got to meet the slippery information trafficker Talon Karrde, they got to see the galactic capital of Coruscant for the first time (the name "Coruscant" originated in the book, in fact), they got to see a clone for the first time in an official Star Wars work, and they even got to meet Emperor Palpatine's alluring Force-sensitive personal assassin Mara Jade—who was teased early on as a potential love interest for Luke.

(Yes, Luke finally got a love interest who didn't turn out to be his sister. It was pretty exciting at the time.)

All of those thoroughly intriguing ideas (and many more) kept fans hooked all the way through Heir to the Empire and its two sequels Dark Force Rising (released in 1992) and The Last Command (released in 1993). Those three books, retroactively titled "The Thrawn Trilogy", helped push the Star Wars franchise back into the cultural spotlight for the first time since the halcyon days of the Original Trilogy, and they showed that demand for a new series of adventures was just as strong as ever.

But were they any good?

Honestly, most fans will tell you that the answer is a pretty resounding "Yes". The Thrawn Trilogy managed the difficult task of feeling like an authentic entry in the Star Wars saga while fearlessly exploring the aftermath of the movies. It had memorable new characters and thrilling action sequences, it explored poignant themes, and it combined a genuine reverence for the films with an earnest desire to build on them.

The Thrawn Trilogy wasn't a perfect story—but in the areas where it delivered, it delivered big. And even though George Lucas wasn't personally involved in writing its story, he took its success as a sign that audiences were eager for more Star Wars movies. According to some accounts, it was the success of the Thrawn Trilogy that convinced Lucas to fully commit to making the Star Wars prequels. So if not for those three novels, Star Wars might never have returned to theatres.

But as fans soon discovered: the Thrawn Trilogy was just the beginning.

"This is where the fun begins!"

Around the time that Heir to the Empire came out, Lucasfilm also reached a deal with comic book publisher Dark Horse Comics, allowing them to publish officially licensed Star Wars comic books. Thanks to that deal, Dark Horse's officially licensed Star Wars miniseries Dark Empire also hit shelves in 1991, becoming the first new Star Wars comic book since the cancellation of Marvel Comics' Star Wars series in 1987. Telling the story of Han, Luke, and Leia battling a resurgent Galactic Empire commanded by a resurrected Emperor Palpatine, it also jumped headfirst into exploring the aftermath of the movies, officially taking place one year after the Thrawn Trilogy.

Meanwhile: Bantam Spectra, eager to build on the success of the Thrawn Trilogy, soon contracted a murderer's row of prolific sci-fi novelists to churn out even more novels exploring the aftermath of Return of the Jedi.

And then, well... Then the dam broke.

Between 1991 and 1999, Bantam Spectra published nearly three dozen Star Wars novels. And that's just the novels aimed at adults; if you count the ones aimed at teenagers and young readers (and there were a lot of them), the full tally is closer to five dozen. And if you also count the numerous comic books published by Dark Horse during the same period, it's even more. The sheer number of Star Wars works to come out of that decade is honestly kind of awe-inspiring, and even the most ardent fans often have trouble keeping them all straight.

There was The Courtship of Princess Leia, which told the full story of how Han and Leia got married. There was Crimson Empire, the story of a former Imperial Guardsman on a mission of revenge against his treacherous former comrade. There was the Jedi Academy trilogy, which told the story of Luke training his first Jedi apprentices. There was The Corellian Trilogy, where we finally got properly introduced to Han's home planet. There was the X-Wing series, where we got to follow the continuing adventures of the brave pilots of Rogue Squadron. There was the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, where we got to meet Chewbacca's family for the first time (since everybody knows that the Star Wars Holiday Special never happened). There was Shadows of the Empire, where we learned the full story of what happened between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. There was the Young Jedi Knights series, where we got to follow the adventures of Han and Leia's children as they studied the ways of the Force under their uncle Luke.

... There were a lot of freakin' books, is what I'm saying.

So were they any good?

Well... That question's a little harder to answer. Most fans agree that the Thrawn Trilogy started the Expanded Universe off with a bang, but the general consensus is that the subsequent novels and comic books varied wildly in quality. Some were good, some were decent, some were tolerable, and some are widely agreed to be just plain God-awful. To reiterate: Bantam Spectra and Dark Horse published nearly five dozen of the damn things in the 1990s alone, and they were written by a rotating stable of more than a dozen different authors. It shouldn't be too surprising that not all of them were equally great.

But regardless of how good they might have been, they succeeded in bringing about a massive resurgence of interest in Star Wars, which paved the way for the saga's return to the big screen 16 years after Return of the Jedi. The original film may have been a product of the late '70s, and "Star Wars mania" arguably reached its peak in the early '80s, but the franchise's renaissance in the '90s was nothing to sneeze at.

Little by little, the novels exploring the aftermath of Return of the Jedi had blossomed into a vast and epic saga in their own right, with their own expansive cast of characters and their own vast array of original concepts. Fans came to call that saga "The Star Wars Expanded Universe"—or "The EU" for short. By the end of the '90s, the EU had gotten so big that its timeline officially covered more than 15 years worth of stories set after the original Star Wars trilogy. To put it in perspective: the original Star Wars trilogy itself (as epic as it might be) only takes place over the course of about four years. So in effect, the Expanded Universe had grown even bigger than the film series that it was based on.

You probably know what happened after that:

The Phantom Menace hit theaters in 1999, officially kicking off the much-anticipated Prequel Trilogy. It was followed by Attack of the Clones in 2002 and Revenge of the Sith in 2005.

And yet, even as the new movies were hogging most of the attention, the novels just kept coming.

In 1999, the same year that The Phantom Menace made its way to the multiplex, famed sci-fi publisher Del Rey Books (who'd published the first Star Wars novels in the '80s) reclaimed the license from Bantam Spectra. With the publishing rights to Star Wars in hand, the company kicked off the biggest and most ambitious project that the Star Wars Expanded Universe had ever seen: a massive 19-book epic called The New Jedi Order, which told the story of a full-on invasion of the Star Wars galaxy by a hostile race of aliens from another galaxy beyond the Outer Rim. It continued the ever-evolving story of the Expanded Universe, steadily moving its timeline further into the future.

The New Jedi Order was a huge story that saw the deaths of numerous longtime characters and the permanent transformations of many more, and it took the Expanded Universe into progressively bolder and stranger territory as it continued to diverge from the movies. But as imaginative and ambitious as it may have been, it was also one of the most divisive series in the history of the Expanded Universe up to that point, with many instalments getting a tepid reception at best. The series reached its conclusion in 2003, just two years before the Prequel Trilogy concluded in 2005 with Revenge of the Sith. And yet, just as the entertainment press was reporting on the "end" of Star Wars, it soon became clear that the continuing story of the Expanded Universe was still far from over.

Yep: the novels just kept coming.

By 2006, when Del Rey unveiled a new nine-book series called Legacy of the Force, the timeframe of the Expanded Universe had reached a point more than three decades after the events of the movies. By this point, the core trio were well into middle age, Han and Leia's children were nearly twice as old as Luke was in the original Star Wars, and the war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire was a distant memory. Out in the real world, the Expanded Universe had been running more-or-less continuously for 15 years, but book sales and critical reception were starting to falter noticeably.

And still, the novels kept coming.

Legacy of the Force, which ended in 2008, proved to be (arguably) the single most divisive series in the history of the Expanded Universe, largely because it took one of the main characters in a bold new direction that proved to be highly controversial among long-time fans. Del Rey's follow-up, the nine-book series Fate of the Jedi, was somewhat better received—but it proved to be rather divisive for its own reasons, and many fans didn't like how the writers handled certain aspects of the lore. Fate of the Jedi, which concluded in 2012, proved to be the very last multi-part series in the Expanded Universe.

And... then everything fell apart.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

So what happened to the Expanded Universe?

In short: Disney happened.

In 2012, the year that Del Rey's Fate of the Jedi concluded at nine instalments, George Lucas announced his retirement from moviemaking, planning to step down as President of Lucasfilm after more than 40 years. Before stepping down, he reached a deal with Disney CEO Bob Iger and agreed to sell Lucasfilm to Disney, along with the rights to the Star Wars franchise. He agreed to that deal with the full knowledge that Disney would commence development on a 7th, 8th, and 9th episode of Star Wars as soon as they had the rights to the franchise, and he gave his blessing to the new trilogy with the understanding that he wouldn't be a part of making it. Lucas' longtime colleague and confidante Kathleen Kennedy took over as President of Lucasfilm, now a fully owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation.

It took a couple of years before fans learned anything concrete about the plot details of the hotly anticipated Episode VII (eventually titled The Force Awakens), which would take place roughly 30 years after Return of the Jedi and feature a full reunion of the original cast. But Disney was clear about one thing from the beginning: their new trilogy would tell a wholly original story—and the new films wouldn't be acknowledging any stories from the old Expanded Universe as canon. Instead, the sequels would be presenting a whole new interpretation of what happened after Return of the Jedi, effectively starting with a blank slate.

As far as the new creative team was concerned: Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade never existed, the Yuuzhan Vong invasion never happened, and Jacen and Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker were never born. And Kyp Durron, Corran Horn, Kyle Katarn, Prince Xizor, Talon Karrde, Tycho Celchu, Jagged Fel, Tenel Ka Djo, Allana Solo, Mirta Gev, Natasi Daala (and dozens more) were just figments of the fans' imaginations.

After more than two decades, the Star Wars Expanded Universe had officially come to an end. The 2013 novel Star Wars: Crucible—which was announced as something of a "swan song" to the series—proved to be the very last Expanded Universe work, bringing its story to a close. All subsequent Star Wars novels and comic books would take place in a whole new universe with a whole new continuity.

So... what happened to the old ones?

Simple! They didn't vanish from existence—but in all subsequent printings, they would be released under the new imprint Star Wars: Legends, which served as a reminder to fans that they were no longer canon.

As soon as that announcement went out, a certain contingent of the Star Wars fandom went absolutely berserk.

Keep in mind: not only had the old Star Wars Expanded Universe been around for twenty-two years (which was even longer than many fans in 2013 had been alive), it covered four decades worth of stories. Not all of those stories may have been equally great, but some fans had devoted a lot of time and effort to following them through all of their ups and downs. And to some of those fans, being told that many of their favourite stories never happened was a massive slap in the face.

But as Bart Simpson once reminded the Comic Book Guy: "None of these things ever really happened..."

"I've felt a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced..."

Considering the Star Wars Expanded Universe was around for twenty-two years, it's pretty understandable that some fans grew pretty attached to it over time. But if you look at the big picture, it's also pretty easy to understand why Disney retired it.

It's important to remember: part of the reason why the Expanded Universe grew into such a big and ambitious saga was that most people had every reason to believe that there would never be any Star Wars sequels on the big screen. Because of that, the writers at Bantam Spectra, Del Rey, and Dark Horse effectively had a blank check to go nuts (within reason, of course...) telling the story of Han, Luke, and Leia's continuing adventures without ever having to worry about their stories conflicting with the stories of the movies. Since, y'know... everybody was absolutely certain that there wouldn't be any more movies. (Until there were.)

For his part, George Lucas always made it pretty clear that he didn't consider the Expanded Universe part of his artistic vision. As far as he was concerned, Star Wars ended when the final credits of Return of the Jedi rolled, and the numerous questions about what happened afterwards were destined to remain unanswered forever. The novels and comic books of the Expanded Universe effectively just presented fans with one hypothetical answer about what might have happened next.

So when the Sequel Trilogy was greenlit, the creative staff at Disney were left in sort of an odd bind. Sure, some fans were inevitably pissed when they announced that the EU was no longer canon. But if they'd (theoretically) done the opposite and kept it canon, it would have made it incredibly difficult to make a trilogy of sequels for a general audience.

There's really no getting around it: the old Expanded Universe might have had plenty of fans—but compared to the full-blown cultural phenomenon that was the original Star Wars trilogy, its following was... Well, all things considered, it was pretty niche. And the number of people who successfully managed to keep track of all forty years worth of continuity in the EU is pretty paltry compared to the legions of people who know the story of the original Star Wars trilogy by heart. If Disney had somehow tried to make a trilogy of Star Wars sequels that actually fit into the continuity of the Expanded Universe (which was designed for a completely different artistic medium than the movies), it would have been pretty alienating for the vast majority of people who hadn't spent 22 years keeping track of it.

Seriously, though: can you imagine trying to recap 22 years worth of sci-fi novels in an opening crawl? Exactly.

Disney tried to have it both ways by at least keeping the old Expanded Universe novels in circulation and declaring them an alternate continuity, but a particularly vicious sub-set of the Star Wars fandom continued to loudly insist that Disney had "betrayed" the proud legacy of the Expanded Universe by erasing it from canon, and that refusing to acknowledge the Expanded Universe was the ultimate act of disrespect to the fans.

Because if they really respected the fans, then they "obviously" should have just spent millions of dollars on a trilogy of movies based on a loosely connected series of moderately successful sci-fi novels of wildly varying quality that came out during the Clinton administration, right?

... Right?

What's the Big Deal?

By now, hopefully you've gotten a decent idea of why it sent tremors through the Star Wars fandom when the old EU was officially retired in 2013. For the most part, the arguments that resulted from that development have mostly just amounted to fans yelling at each other on message boards and posting the occasional angry YouTube video. But you could also make a pretty good case that those arguments (as petty as they may be) actually open up some intriguing questions about the enduring legacy of Star Wars and its place in American popular culture.

Even if they're not a fan, most people probably know that the release of the original Star Wars in 1977 was a defining moment in the development of the "geek" subculture. And everybody knows that geeks and nerds love Star Wars. As many disagreements as people might have about Star Wars, everybody knows that it's a "geek classic".

But here's a surprisingly difficult question to answer:

What is a geek? And what is a nerd? And what actually makes a piece of media "geeky" or "nerdy"?

In theory, everybody knows the answers to those questions. But in practice, most of us just sort of know geeky and/or nerdy stuff when we see it. And like with most modern neologisms, the definitions of the terms "geek" and "nerd" have been in flux ever since they were first coined.

Case in point: a "geek" was originally a type of carnival performer, and a "nerd" was originally a fictional creature from a Dr. Seuss book.

(Yes, really. Look it up if you don't believe me.)

Probably the most consistently agreed-upon definition of "geek" is "A person with esoteric interests" ("esoteric" meaning "Not enjoyed or appreciated by the general public"). And one of the most consistently agreed-upon definitions of "nerd" is "A person with an obsessive devotion to their personal interests". So in theory, geeks and nerds are people who like stuff that most people don't appreciate, and get really obsessive about that stuff.

When people talk about "geeky" or "nerdy" hobbies, they're likely to mention stories about Star Trek fans devoting hours of effort to learning the Klingon language, or fans of The Lord of the Rings spending hours learning the Elvish dialects of Quenya and Sindarin. Part of the reason Dune and The Lord of the Rings are considered "geek classics" is that they include 100+ pages of appendices fleshing out the workings of the worlds where they take place, which is perfect for fans who don't mind spending hours diving into the nuances of the lore.

So that settles it! Star Wars is a geek classic because it's esoteric, and most people just don't appreciate it.

... Is it, though?

Lest you forget: adjusted for inflation, the original Star Wars was the second-highest-grossing American film in history at the time of its release, second only to Gone with the Wind. All three movies in the original trilogy were extraordinarily successful, and a lot of people really loved them. So from a certain perspective, they weren't that geeky.

You could also make a case that they're not really that nerdy. After all: at this point, it's pretty well-documented that even George Lucas barely knew anything about the finer points of the Star Wars universe when he first started making the movies in 1977, and he mostly made that stuff up as he went along. In the early years of Star Wars, even the most ardent fans couldn't claim to be "experts" on the lore, because, well... For the most part, there wasn't any. There were just... three very popular movies, which practically everyone in 1980s America had seen.

For better or for worse, the Expanded Universe changed that forever. Thanks to the EU, there was suddenly a hard and fast dividing line between "casual" fans and "serious" fans, and "serious" fans could justifiably claim that they knew more about Star Wars than everybody else. And even at the EU's lowest points, many of those fans took comfort in that—and some of them let it go to their heads.

The unfortunate prevalence of "gatekeeping" in geek culture has been a pretty hot topic for the better part of the last decade, and the evolution of the Star Wars fandom between 1991 and 2012 is often cited as a classic example for good reason. For a while, a vocal minority of Star Wars fans earnestly and unironically believed that the movies were just the tip of the iceberg, and you weren't a real fan unless you had the patience and devotion to keep up with the Expanded Universe too. The movies might have been universally beloved cultural touchstones, but the hardest of hardcore fans had the Expanded Universe all to themselves.

When the Expanded Universe ended in 2012, there were many reasons why some fans weren't happy about it. Some of them were just nostalgic for the Star Wars novels that they'd loved growing up, and were sad to see their favorite original characters go. Some of them truly believed that the sequels would have been better if they'd been based on the Expanded Universe novels from the '90s and the 2000s. And, well... Some of them were angry that their license to gatekeep had been revoked—and for the first time since 1991, they knew just as much about Star Wars as the "casual" fans that they loved to look down upon. Unfortunately, smug superiority is a hell of a drug.

So if you've ever wondered why it's so hard to talk about Star Wars these days without getting into an argument, hopefully that gives you a good idea.

Ghosts of Paperbacks Past

Bottom line: the Star Wars Expanded Universe was a massive undertaking that meant a lot to a lot of people. Love it or hate it, a lot of people put a lot of work into it for a very long time. It's pretty hard to believe that a series could run that long without leaving a legacy behind.

Which is probably why it did leave a legacy behind.

See: when Disney announced in 2012 that the Expanded Universe would be ending, they announced that the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars would still be acknowledged as canon alongside the movies. And in an interesting little footnote: a few storylines in The Clone Wars prominently feature a planet called Dathomir, which is home to a group of Force-sensitive "witches" known as the "Nightsisters".

As any EU fan will happily tell you: Dathomir and the Nightsisters were first introduced in the 1994 novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, which was one of the first Expanded Universe novels ever published. So even though that novel wasn't considered canon anymore, some of its more iconic and fondly remembered concepts were saved from the dustbin of continuity, just because they were included in The Clone Wars.

Similarly: the interstellar crime syndicate "Black Sun" (first introduced in the 1996 EU novel Shadows of the Empire) also showed up in a few episodes of The Clone Wars, meaning that Black Sun still existed too.

Thanks to those little details, some fans were able to cling to the faint hope that their favorite EU characters were still out there somewhere in the newly reshaped Star Wars universe, even if they hadn't been properly introduced yet. And sure enough, their prayers were soon answered.

In 2016, Disney released a promotional video for the then-upcoming third season of the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, unveiling the character who would serve as one of the main antagonists of the upcoming season. He was a Grand Admiral in the Imperial Fleet, and he dressed in a crisp white naval uniform. And as soon as they saw his striking bright blue skin and glowing red eyes, fans instantly recognized him.

It was Thrawn! Exactly 25 years after his introduction in 1991, it was confirmed that Thrawn had survived the demise of the Expanded Universe, and he was still hanging around in the new continuity after all. Even better: Disney soon announced that they had contracted Thrawn's creator Timothy Zahn—the man who effectively birthed the EU—to write a whole new trilogy of novels about the character, which would introduce him to a whole new generation of fans.

He's not the only character who's made a comeback since 2012: just two months ago (as of this writing) the comic book series Crimson Reign name-dropped the fan-favourite character Prince Xizor (the leader of Black Sun), confirming that he also still exists in the new continuity.

For various reasons, the end of the EU remains a touchy subject among Star Wars fans—but now that it's been confirmed that some of their favourite characters from the EU could (and might) still return, many disenchanted fans are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. I don't know if that'll be enough to stop the online screaming matches, but it's something.

And if it ever turns out that Mara Jade is still around too, it'll probably break the internet.

(Personally, I'm still holding out hope for the one-armed space princess. But that's another story...)

--------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------

A selection of enriching comments from the original post:

--------------------------------------------------

"TheMightyHeptagon" (the original poster) said:

Hey guys. Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read this post! As you can probably tell: this is a big subject to cover, and it took me a while to write. Due to space limitations, I had to cut a lot of stuff out.

For the benefit of anyone who's curious about what actually happened in the 40 years' worth of stories that I discuss here: I also wrote a short(ish) condensed summary of the story of the Expanded Universe.

Please note: this is by no means an exhaustive account of everything that happened in the Expanded Universe between 1991 and 2013 (that would take hours...), but it should at least give you an idea of the highlights.

Beware spoilers ahead.

So... Beginning shortly after the end of Return of the Jedi, the story goes a little something like this:

The war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire drags on for another 15 years, but the Rebels rebrand themselves as "The New Republic" shortly after wresting the Galactic Capital of Coruscant from Imperial control. A full-blown power struggle for control of the galaxy swiftly ensues, and the Empire falls into chaos as various ambitious power brokers vie for the vacant Imperial throne in the wake of Palpatine's death. Numerous would-be Emperors come and go, some more memorable than others. In no particular order, the big ones are:

Carnor Jax, leader of the Imperial Guard.

Ysanne Isard, director of Imperial Intelligence.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, commander of the Imperial Fleet. Notable for being of the few non-humans to rise to a position of power in the Empire, he's a member of a reclusive and xenophobic race of aliens known as the Chiss, who dwell in the Unknown Regions beyond the Outer Rim (like I said: for various reasons, he's a huge fan-favourite).

Natasi Daala, an ambitious admiral in the Imperial Fleet.

Warlord Zsinj. He's, um... a warlord named "Zsinj".

Little by little, the New Republic retakes the galaxy from the Empire. Rogue Squadron becomes a top-notch X-Wing squadron under the leadership of Luke Skywalker's old friend Wedge Antilles, and numerous brave space pilots become widely renowned heroes, with Corran Horn (who turns out to be Force-sensitive, and eventually becomes a Jedi) and Tycho Celchu (a former Imperial pilot who defects to the New Republic, becoming Wedge's wingman and best friend) being among the most notable. Things get a little complicated when Wedge's sister Syal Antilles falls in love with his greatest rival—ace Imperial TIE pilot Baron Soontir Fel—but Fel eventually joins Rogue Squadron after having a crisis of conscience and defecting to the New Republic.

The Empire briefly bounces back after Palpatine rises from the dead with the help of cloning technology and dark Force magic, and even manages to turn Luke to the Dark Side—but Leia manages to save his soul and redeem him.

On a more personal front: Leia and Han finally get married after resolving a brief love triangle involving a filthy rich space prince from a kinky matriarchal planet ruled by women (long story...), but things end happily after Prince Isolder falls in love with a sexy space witch from a different kinky matriarchal planet ruled by women (again: long story). The pair celebrate the births of their twin son and daughter Jacen and Jaina, eventually followed by their second son Anakin.

Also: Luke meets Palptatine's sexy Force-sensitive apprentice and secret personal assassin Mara Jade, who was previously assigned to kill him. Naturally, the two of them fall in love and eventually get married.

Also: Han's asshole cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo starts a rebellion on his home planet, and we learn that Corellia is technically a system of five planets artificially kept in close proximity by a mysterious long-abandoned space station built thousands of years ago by an unknown alien race. Since Centerpoint Station is capable of controlling the orbits of entire planets, it has the potential to become the galaxy's deadliest weapon if it falls into the wrong hands—but it's so old that only a handful of people know how to control it (one of whom is Anakin Solo).

Also: it turns out that Boba Fett survived falling into the Sarlacc's pit, since the fans wouldn't tolerate him staying dead.

Luke also starts his own Jedi Academy and devotes his life to training a new generation of Jedi, including the three Solo kids. There are a few bumps along the way—most notably when a troubled Jedi apprentice named Kyp Durron briefly turns to the Dark Side and uses a lost Imperial superweapon called the "Sun Crusher" to murder millions of people before coming to his senses. Kyp returns to the Light Side, but remains the New Jedi Order's resident brooding bad boy, advocating a more violent approach to protecting the galaxy from evil.

Also: Leia's would-be suitor Prince Isolder and his sexy space witch wife (remember them?) have a daughter named Tenel Ka, who turns out to be Force-sensitive and joins Luke's Jedi Academy, where she eventually falls in love with Han and Leia's son Jacen. Jacen also accidentally cuts off her arm in a tragic accident during lightsaber training, but she gets over it.

After a long string of losses, the former Empire is whittled down to a tiny fraction of its former self, and the Imperial Remnant (now led by Thrawn's old right-hand man Gilad Pellaeon) is forced to give up the ghost and sign a peace treaty with the New Republic, finally bringing the war to an end.

Naturally, the peace proves to be short-lived, and the galaxy is soon invaded by a race of horribly nightmarish alien religious extremists from beyond the galaxy called the Yuuzhan Vong, who practice ritualistic body mutilation and treat torture as a religious sacrament. They also believe that technology is an abomination (all of their spaceships and weapons are organic), and exist entirely outside the influence of the Force. The war against the Yuuzhan Vong kicks off with the death of Chewbacca (yes, really) after they use gravity manipulation to crush him to death with a moon (yes, really). Despite the best efforts of the Jedi and the New Republic, the Yuzzhan Vong unleash untold death and destruction across the galaxy, and countless people are killed—including Anakin Solo.

Finally, the New Republic collapses after Coruscant falls to the Yuuzhan Vong, forcing the fugitive leaders of the New Republic to join forces with the Imperial Remnant to drive them off and retake Coruscant. Thus, a new government called the "Galactic Alliance" rises from the ashes of the New Republic, and eventually manages to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong after the Skywalker-Solo clan finds the Yuuzhan Vong's missing home planet—which is sentient, and can travel through hyperspace (don't ask...).

Amid the doom and gloom of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Luke and Mara have a son named Ben, and we learn that Syal Antilles and her husband Soontir Fel (remember them?) have a son named Jagged (yes, that's really his name...), who's grown into a world-class starfighter pilot after years of training among the Chiss (remember them?). With a name like "Jagged Fel", it probably goes without saying that he's a sexy and mysterious bad boy. So, naturally, he and Jaina Solo eventually fall madly in love.

Things briefly quiet down after the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, with the exception of a brief war with a race of insectoid aliens called the Killiks, who turn out to be the creators of Centerpoint Station (remember Centerpoint Station?). In the intervening years, Ben Skywalker becomes a Jedi, and Jacen has a secret love affair with his childhood girlfriend Tenel Ka (remember her?), the one-armed space princess who's also a space witch. One thing leads to another, and the one-armed space princess gets pregnant with Jacen's daughter.

Years down the line, the galaxy is plunged into civil war yet again when Han's asshole cousin (remember him?) leads the five planets of the Corellian system (remember them?) in a bid to secede from the Galactic Alliance, causing a rift between the Skywalker and Solo families when Han temporarily sides with his home planet, and the Galactic Alliance government takes some rather draconian measures to quash the Corellian independence movement. Amid the chaos, Jacen—who was never really the same after the Yuuzhan Vong war—does some pretty morally questionable things in the name of ending the war and preserving peace, eventually going whole-hog and turning to the Dark Side. Along the way, he forms his own special squad of secret police to root out Corellian terrorists, he kills Mara, he unsuccessfully tries to corrupt Ben Skywalker after taking him under his wing as an apprentice, and his relationship with Tenel Ka permanently breaks down. He also accidentally kills Boba Fett's long-lost daughter Ailyn Vel during an "enhanced interrogation" session gone wrong, giving Fett ample reason to want him dead (which generally isn't great for a person's life expectancy).

In the end, Jaina is forced to save the galaxy by facing her brother (now known as "Darth Caedus") in a duel to the death with a little help from an aging Boba Fett, who has a little experience at the whole Jedi-killing thing. We also learn that Boba Fett has a wife named Sintas Vel and a granddaughter named Mirta Gev who are poised to carry on his legacy.

Things mostly go back to normal after Jacen's death, and Jacen and Tenel Ka's daughter Allana thankfully escapes unscathed. Years after that, the Jedi find themselves plunged into a war with a Lost Tribe of the Sith led by an evil entity called "Abeloth", but the good guys win once again, and Jaina and her sexy ace pilot boyfriend Jagged (remember him?) get married.

In the end, Jagged apparently starts a new Galactic Empire with Jaina by his side and declares himself Emperor, it's implied that Allana may or may not be the real Chosen One destined to bring balance to the Force, and Ben Skywalker carries on the Skywalker name as he continues to train as a Jedi. And 100-odd years after that, Luke's descendant Cade Skywalker (a disillusioned former Jedi turned bad boy smuggler) helps save the galaxy from a reborn Sith Empire led by the evil Darth Krayt, a fallen Jedi raised by Tuskens on Tatooine (don't ask...). The details about what happened in between those events are pretty vague—but the important thing is that the good guys win, and the galaxy is safe and at peace. And the Force will be with us, always.

--------------------------------------------------

"ToaArcan" said:

A lot of the most bitter online fighting centred around the missteps the EU had made, with regard to the post-movie timeline. Look into any pre-2014 article about the weirdness of the Star Wars novels and comics, and you'll see a pretty interesting list of things that fans and casuals alike took issue with.

Han and Leia's son turning evil. A million superweapons that make the Death Star not remotely special. The deaths of iconic movie characters. Cloning the Emperor. Luke turning to the Dark Side.

When the EU was jumped, there were people who were looking at the silver lining. Sure, we'd lost Thrawn and Mara Jade and all that good stuff. But we'd also dumped all the really stupid shit like BDSM 40K rejects that whip people with eels, or that time Darth Vader totally had a Buzzcut McWhiteboy apprentice who could kick every other Jedi and Sith's arse one-handed, you guys. Karen Traviss would never again touch Star Wars!

Of course, the dismissal of the EU as a load of trash with one or two bright spots only made the diehards angrier, and that, at least, seemed to be justifiable. It also got pretty awkward when the dust settled on the Sequel Trilogy and we had an evil Solo spawn, an even bigger Death Star and a whole fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers, all of the original trio dead, an Emperor clone, and a Luke who, while he didn't turn evil, definitely ended up going in a much darker direction than most fans liked.

On the whole, post-Disney buy-out Star Wars has been slow to reintroduce the elements of the EU that fans actually liked, like Thrawn and Boba Fett's survival, but sure as f*** did rehash a lot of the things people used to mock the EU for in the first place. Fortunately no eel-whips yet, but we're never truly safe. And of course, the Disney canon is rapidly becoming another self-referential bloated beast of a franchise, just like its father before it.

--------------------------------------------------

"TastyBrainMeats" replied to "ToaArcan":

[Mention of Karen Traviss]

Beware, lest you summon her weird fanboys.

--------------------------------------------------

"ChristmasColor" replied to "TastyBrainMeats":

I was a fan of her books. I enjoyed her pointing out the Jedi were weird for using slaves.

What makes her so controversial?

--------------------------------------------------

An unknown Reddit user replied to "ChristmasColor":

I think her stuff for the Clone Wars era is mostly liked. She tends to go a little overboard with her "the Jedi were the real villains" shtick, but Lucas is the one who made them weird dogmatic virgins with no compunction whatsoever with using child slave soldiers that some mysterious benefactor just sort of left on their doorstep with no explanation, so it's hard to blame her. She tends to take more of a gritty military fiction approach to Star Wars, which can be somewhat divisive, but I really like that aspect of her work, and I think the EU could have benefitted from a little more diversity of style honestly.

The main reason she's hated is her contributions to the Legacy of the Force series, where her "Mando" fetish really got out of hand. The Mandos got thrown into the centre of the story, despite playing almost no role in the EU after Return of the Jedi up to that point, and Traviss spends half of her books talking about how awesome and better than everyone else the Mandalorians are: they can beat up Jedi without breaking a sweat, their ships are indestructible and specifically described as faster and having more firepower than X-Wings, their culture is loving and inclusive and family oriented but also everyone is trained to be a super-awesome warrior from birth, and so on. It comes across as forced, unmotivated, and disrespectful to the existing lore.

And to cap it all off, it often seems like the only way she knows how to build one of her self-insert characters up is to tear some other character down. The way she shows that Mandos are awesome at hand-to-hand combat is by having them repeatedly beat the s*** out of Jaina Solo when she's training with them, and having Jaina's inner monologue read like "Man, I wish I was a Mando. These guys are so cool and I'm just this pampered Jedi princess who's never had to work for anything in my life" (despite fighting on the front lines of a brutal war since she was like 15 years old and by this point being a 30-year-old decorated fighter pilot, fully trained Jedi, and galaxy-wide famous war hero).

I've never read her Republic Commando books (I've never been all that interested in the Prequel era), but her Legacy of the Force books are full of obnoxious Mary-Sue author inserts, mean-spirited characterizations of beloved characters, and a petty refusal to make her stories flow together with the ones written by Allston and Denning (though she's far from alone in that last sin, as the authors of Legacy of the Force did not play well together for some reason). Apparently, Traviss also had a habit for a while of getting in online flame wars with fans and calling the Jedi "nazis" and shit like that, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but I never heard of any of that until years later.

--------------------------------------------------

"ZeitgeistGlee" replied to "ChristmasColor":

"I enjoyed her pointing out the Jedi were weird for using slaves."

The issue is that Traviss was hilariously one-sided in her criticism, she mischaracterised, picked at or overplayed minor faults or outright wrote new ones in the Jedi Order and their characterisation to justify her (character's) positions, and then handwaved or whitewashed or lionised the toxic behaviour and culture of her Mandalorians and their history.

The "Jedi use slaves" is a good example of that: they didn't "use slaves", they were ordered to take command of the Republic's Clone Army and fight the Separatists, and better authors than Traviss specifically paralleled the experience of the Clones with Jedi (both groups being made up of children raised into service culture segregated from the rest of society).

If I remember correctly, the Revenge of the Sith novelisation specifically has Palpatine monologue that the entire Clone Wars conflict was constructed to destroy the Jedi whether they participated or not. If they fought, then the horrors of a galactic-scale war would break them down psychologically, spiritually and literally, as well as spread them out so the remainder could be killed all in one swoop by Order 66 once Palpatine had seized power; if they'd refused to fight and withdrawn to the Jedi Temple or one of their alternate academy worlds, then they'd have been painted as cowards/traitors who could be executed all in one spot at the end of the war without complaint.

--------------------------------------------------

"ZeitgeistGlee" replied to the unknown Reddit user:

"I've never read her Republic Commando books (I've never been all that interested in the Prequel era), but her Legacy of the Force books are full of obnoxious Mary-Sue author inserts, mean-spirited characterizations of beloved characters [...]."

Her Clone Wars novels after the first one or two are exactly the same as her Legacy of the Force stuff. Kal Skirata was a particularly obnoxious version of her Mary-Sue Mando culture, and then there's Etain, her pet Jedi who dies defending one of the clones assaulting the Jedi Temple from Padawan trying to escape.

--------------------------------------------------

"mxzf" replied to "ToaArcan":

"On the whole, post-Disney buy-out Star Wars has been slow to reintroduce the elements of the EU that fans actually liked, like Thrawn and Boba Fett's survival, but sure as f*** did rehash a lot of the things people used to mock the EU for in the first place."

This is really the crux of it. Disney got rid of all of the EU material and then pretty much only brought back the worst parts of it.

In theory, they were house-cleaning and were able to bring the better parts of the EU back into the fold. But instead, they took the worst parts of the EU and chose to bring them back while leaving the best material abandoned.

--------------------------------------------------

"ToaArcan" replied to "mxzf":

There's been good stuff too. The aforementioned return of Boba, and him being re-canonised as a Mandalorian. Thrawn's still kicking, and while the Old Republic continues to limp on in Legends, they've at least started referencing Revan in canon again. Delta Squad are a thing again, Filoni got them into The Clone Wars and Scorch showed up properly in Bad Batch.

But it's taken a lot longer for those pieces to come back into play, while the movies were quick to jump on some of the worst ideas. Not all of the things they did opt to bring back were bad, but a lot of them were, and the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The Force Awakens played everything extremely safe, too safe. The Last Jedi was bold and challenging, and I enjoyed it very much, but bringing Abrams back for The Rise of Skywalker and having its script mostly written by the comments section of a MauLer video retroactively made it a whole lot worse. And then The Rise of Skywalker itself is just a trainwreck of epic proportions. I still had fun seeing it in the cinema, but I'm in no rush to watch it again.

--------------------------------------------------

"UnsealedMTG" said:

This is a fun memory lane journey as a 1980s-born Star Wars fan. For that generation, Star Wars really did feel like a more niche, albeit common, interest. For our formative years, no movies had been released in theatres since either before we were, like, 3 years old or (for me) before we were born. So Star Wars was just a finished "thing" in a way that it wouldn't have been to people who were born earlier—or to people who were born a little later and had the Prequels and The Clone Wars and everything else come out while they were in the real target age bracket.

Sure, "everyone" had seen Star Wars but being into it was more akin to being really into comic books or fantasy novels than, like, the MCU or Game of Thrones when it was on (to name cultural phenomena that would have seemed practically unthinkable in the 1990s).

And of course as one of those people I have to push my glasses up and make one comment—not a correction, but just another reframing to put you back in the early 1990s:

"(specifically: a member of a newly introduced species known as the 'Chiss')"

It was actually much more mysterious than this! Thrawn's species was pointedly not named in the original. He's just blue and has glowy eyes and is an alien. What species he comes from and how he come to be highly ranked in the human supremacist Empire is left as part of his mystique at that point.

It wasn't until Zahn's much later Visions of the Future—released in 1998, towards the end of that core EU era in the 90s before The Phantom Menace in 1999—that Thrawn's species got a name.

--------------------------------------------------

"TheMightyHeptagon" (the original poster) replied to "UnsealedMTG":

Ah, thank you for the correction! I must confess: it's been a while since I've actually read the Thrawn Trilogy.

I can relate! As a Star Wars fan born in the early 1990s, I was sort of tangentially aware of the EU just as it was taking off, but it was all pretty mysterious to me since I was way too young to read most of it at the time. I have distinct memories of seeing all the Star Wars novels on the shelves of my local library and bookstore whenever I went there with my parents when I was about 4 or 5 years old and wondering why I didn't recognize half the characters on the dust jackets. That sense of befuddlement eventually inspired me to take a deep dive into the EU when I was a teenager.

--------------------------------------------------

"UnsealedMTG" replied to "TheMightyHeptagon":

I think that also speaks a little bit to the "geek culture" thing about Star Wars in the 1990s, too. I mean... Now there's Wookiepedia. Anyone with any amount of interest, a smartphone, a few minutes, and the ability to get through Fandom's intrusive ads can know anything about those mysterious characters in the books. There's no barrier of effort.

In the 1990s, if you wanted to gather that knowledge about the Star Wars galaxy, you had to go out of your way and either read the books themselves or go get one of the dictionaries or encyclopedias that they published to dig out that information.

I think that makes it more understandable how people reacted to the transition, even if the transition was clearly inevitable and a lot of people on the "Pro-EU" faction were kind of toxic gatekeep-y dicks. This old EU information was something people had gathered through effort that creates a feeling of meaning. To them, saying it "doesn't count now" isn't just saying that some things that didn't happen... extra didn't happen. It's taking something that they worked to collect and invalidating it.

Now, I'm personally a person who is much more interested in the history of how the stories were told in our chronology than in the details of the actual in-universe world so the canon status/non-status is not a big deal emotionally to me.* But it's at least something that follows logically from the sort of information collector mentality that the Star Wars EU and properties like it really encouraged.

(*Which is why I'm interested in stuff like how Thrawn was originally a "unique blue alien guy" and only later did they introduce a "whole species of Thrawns", and why I get annoyed when finding the history of how the words "Sith" and "Mandalorian" got used in Star Wars is so much harder than it is to find the cobbled-together and retconned in-universe histories of the Sith and Mandalorians)

--------------------------------------------------

"DocWhoFan16" said:

The Courtship of Princess Leia is absolutely ludicrous, honestly a very stupid book, and it is also genuinely one of my favourite Star Wars stories in any medium ever.

In this book, Space Fabio shows up to try and woo Princess Leia. Han gets jealous and tries to win her over by... winning a planet in a card game where she can re-house the refugees from Alderaan. Leia isn't too impressed, so Han's response is... to use the "gun of command", a blaster which essentially shoots mind control, to kidnap her and fly her off to this planet he's won: Dathomir.

Dathomir, as it happens, is deep in the territory of the Imperial warlord Zsinj, but Han doesn't let that perturb him. Then they get to Dathomir and learn that it's this matriarchal society of Force witches. Also, Zsinj has an orbiting network of satellites which, for all intents and purposes, allow him to turn off the sun. Space Fabio and Luke follow them, crash-land on Dathomir and get picked up by one of the Force witches, who has this weird Mills & Boon romance storyline. I'm pretty sure it's implied that Yoda might have shagged a witch when he visited years ago.

All the while, C-3PO becomes this weird matchmaker trying to set Han and Leia up. He tries to prove that Han has royal blood so he can marry a princess, only to discover that Han's supposed royal ancestor is a notorious pirate who was actually a pretender to the throne.

(The most frustrating thing about that last point is that one of the tie-in reference books from years later actually went ahead and revealed that, yes, the ancient prince of Corellia who once dominated the ancient Republic was called... Solo. To me, that sort of missed the point, but I admit I had long since grown out of Star Wars novels by then!)

Is it especially well-written? Not really. But it's creative. It's interested in what Star Wars can be, far more than what it should be (and if I have one criticism of Tim Zahn, it's that he often seemed to lean a bit more in the latter direction). See also: The Crystal Star, in which Space Hitler kidnaps Han's and Leia's children so he can feed them to a gold-plated meat monster from another dimension who has promised to increase his Force powers, and the galaxy is full of centaurs and werewolves and stuff like that.

I think after 1999, when the licence leaves Bantam Spectra and goes to Del Rey and Lucasfilm starts exerting a lot more top-down control (and this is across the board in all media, not just with novels), the Expanded Universe lost a lot of that. I think it became a lot more homogenous, at least aesthetically.

Consider something like the Knights of the Old Republic video games. Those are fairly good games. But they look like the Prequel movies! They're set four thousand years ago, but they look like the Prequels. Compare that with comics like Tales of the Jedi or (my personal favourite) Jedi vs Sith, which look properly ancient while still looking like Star Wars.

--------------------------------------------------

"Lastjedibestjedi" replied to "DocWhoFan16":

You leaving out the Rancor riding in the middle of all this other madness is a war crime.

--------------------------------------------------

"DocWhoFan16" replied to "Lastjedibestjedi":

Yes, and I also forgot that the creatures in The Crystal Star are actually called "wyrwulfs" rather than "werewolves", sorry.

How about the half of Children of the Jedi where Luke falls in love with the computer on a lost Imperial super-weapon which was designed to kidnap Jedi children, except it's not really a computer, it's really the disembodied spirit of an Old Republic Jedi which is trapped in the computer, and at the end of the book, she sort of reincarnates in the body of one of Luke's hot young Jedi students.

Barbara Hambly was specifically instructed that, in that novel, she had to introduce the perfect love interest for Luke Skywalker. Then a couple of books later, nobody likes Callista, and Hambly is back to write Planet of Twilight (the one where Leia has a lightsabre fight with a Hutt) and she's told that this time her job is to get rid of the perfect love interest for Luke Skywalker, which she does in a couple of pages right at the end of the book.

How about the time the Young Jedi Knights met a group called "the Diversity Alliance" whose ostensible ideology was anti-racism and opposition to human supremacism in the New Republic and who are led by a former Twi'lek slave (and because this is the Star Wars EU, this Twi'lek was the sister of Oola from Return of the Jedi BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE WAS), but their real plan is to commit genocide against humans using stolen Imperial bio-weapons. Because the anti-racists are the real racists (IT MAKES U THINK).

Seriously, I appreciate that Kevin J. Anderson in 1998 or whenever it was had benign intentions to do "racism is bad" stories in the YA series, but... Look, it's a faction of villains called "the Diversity Alliance" whose opposition to racism is actually a cover to kill all white people humans, and it's up to Han and Leia's kids to stop them. That sounds like some kind of parody of nerds on the Internet in 2022, doesn't it?

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy the pre-1999 novels a lot (don't really like the ones on the Del Rey era, but that's neither here nor there; the comics are still good after that point, though), but it's very much a "warts and all" thing.

--------------------------------------------------

"bhamv" said:

"(Personally, I'm still holding out hope for the one-armed space princess. But that's another story...)"

Ah. Ah ha. I am glad that someone else shares my fondness for Tenel Ka.

I was a huge fan of the EU. I didn't read every book, but I read a lot of them, and the sheer depth of the lore was amazing. It was like swimming in a vast ocean that always threw up something new and fascinating for you to see.

In particular, I thought Xizor was a great antagonist, and I'm glad to see that he might reappear in the new canon some day.

EDIT: Also, one of the plot threads suggested in Legends that has unfortunately been abandoned is that the Emperor foresaw the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong, which is why he took over the galaxy and had the Death Star built. The galaxy had to be united to fight such a foe, so it needed a weapon capable of taking out the Vong's moon-sized world-ships. Stuff like this adds so much depth to the motivations of existing characters, and I much prefer it to the simple "this space station will help us rule by fear" motivation in the movies.

--------------------------------------------------

"Coronarchivista" replied to "bhamv":

Or in Heir to the Empire, where Thrawn speculates that the reason the Imperials lost the Battle of Endor despite far outnumbering the Rebels is that Palpatine was using "battle meditation" to coordinate the Imperial fleet, and when Vader threw him down the shaft, the Imperial fleet was thrown into chaos and routed.

--------------------------------------------------

"FuttleScich" replied to "bhamv":

I always thought the "Palpatine just wanted to help" thing was the worst part of the old EU, and I’m glad it’s dead.

--------------------------------------------------

"DocWhoFan16" replied to "FuttleScich":

It did get a bit of "Hitler just wanted to make Europe strong enough to fight the Soviet Union" some of the time.

[bearpillowmonster]

Top 5 Books I've Read 2022

Hunchback of Notre Dame: Honestly I bought this because I read somewhere that it gets pretty dark and while what was described didn't happen, it was still a really good read, a lot of differences from it's Disney counterpart. A bit of a tough read too but this might be top out of this whole list. (Also that cover looks good on a shelf, so there, now I'm cultured.)

Cress: I started the Lunar Chronicles in 2021 and this has been the best one so far, it just gives it meaning. Even on its own I feel like there's enough progression that it can stand on its own legs and not have to use a followup as a crutch.

Sword Art Online Progressive: Yeah, this is the outlier but yes, this is the light novel. I fell into a slump with SAO because each thing that comes out with the anime gets worse and worse as time goes on but I keep up with it anyway. I thought GGO Alt was the exception and gave me more hope that just hasn't panned out since. So when I saw a movie that seemed to be targeted at me, I jumped in and oh boy was that the worst yet. I couldn't understand why it had such high reviews versus the other movies/seasons and I read somewhere that the light novel was very different so I gave it a leap in one last attempt to salvage my love for this series. And there it was, all along. So this takes similar beats from the movie but is in no way the same thing, everything I complained about is either different, gone, or justified in this book. For once I related to Asuna as a character and found a lot of what it had to say really deep with the bread rolls and all that but you can read my goodreads review if you're interested, enough rambling.

Dawn of Yangchen: This is a nice reserved story that connects to the Avatar universe in some compelling ways without using it as a crutch. I was honestly up in the air with a few different books, this one included because I liked it in the moment but breaking it down, there wasn't a whole lot to it, it just did so tastefully I suppose. Also the only one on here that was released this year.

Revenge of the Sith Novelization: This is arguable since it's an adaptation of a movie and I could've put The Last Command on here but I feel like many of the things it described were leagues better than the movie, giving me little contexts here and there that just reinvented it. I liked this consistently, while I wished that TLC had a little bit more. It gave me a newfound appreciation for the story. I just wish that the other prequels were given the same treatment.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #619

Top Ten Things That Might Happen in 2024

January is always the time I do kind of “year-end” style lists about the year just gone and the year that we’re all getting used to. After my mini review of 2023 last week, now I’m turning my gaze to the horizon and thinking about all the exciting-seeming things that I’m going to end up being disappointed by in 2024.

I think these lists used to be a little bit easier as there were huge “things” hanging over the horizon – an Avengers, a Halo, a bunch of comics – but whether it’s just fatigue, time, or my interests narrowing a little bit, I tend to be happier to wait and see. This is also because a lot of the things I really end up loving are ones that kind of come out of nowhere – Everything Everywhere All at Once, Only Murders in the Building, Driver’s Licence – and I couldn’t have predicted how much I’d fall for them beforehand. The big franchises tend to rumble on and I love them to bits – well, the MCU at least – but I’m happy just taking them as they come.

Despite all that, there are quite a lot of things that I’m excited about this year. I’ve tried not to just say “everything that’s on Game Pass” or whatever, and look in the nooks and crannies for things that really seem like they’re going to be incredibly cool. I remain, of course, a basic bitch; there’s Marvel stuff on here, Xbox games, a bunch of movies… same stuff as always. But it looks cool!

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Here we go, gazing into my Palantir of futureness to see what there is to see. Catch you on the flipside!

I’m Seeing Hamilton!: I’m a very big fan of the musical Hamilton, which I’ve only ever see on Disney+, and listened extensively to its soundtrack. So I’m obviously incredibly excited by the fact that next month I’m going to see the show here in Manchester. It’s going to be weird hearing the songs sung by people other than the famous Broadway cast, but I can’t wait to actually see it live and for real.

Great Films Set in Deserts: the two biggest films of the year to me are Dune: Part Two and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, follow-ups to two of my favourite films from their respective years. Dune I adored as a huge-screen epic adaptation on the scale of The Lord of the Rings – and in its own way just as earnest and successful an adaptation. The second half of the book is when things really kick off so I’m expecting some audacious IMAX action and Josh Brolin playing a baliset. And then Furiosa, the gonzo prequel to Fury Road, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a young Charlize Theron, and an almost unrecognisable Chris Hemsworth. Fury Road is a landmark, stunning achievement in action cinema, so whatever George Miller wants to do in that world is of tremendous interest. And, yes, both these awesome films are set primarily in the desert. Who’d have thunk?

Doctor Who Continues to Return: pretty much my favourite thing about 2023 was the return to form of Doctor Who, one of my favourite shows which I felt had gone off the boil a wee bit. Ncuti Gatwa has already impressed in the Christmas special episode, and now we get to see a full season, with nice, enjoyable arcs and mysteries and weirdness. Russell T. Davies’ social conscience continues to ensure Who remains a terrifically progressive, forward-thinking show, which is also very nice; and we might even get some sexy spin-offs too.

Deadpool 3, aka The MCU’s Year Off: the MCU took a bit of a kicking last year; partly at the box office but especially from critics OD’ing on schadenfreude. This year is almost a bit of a reset, as the various strikes of ’23 have pushed back almost everything that was due out in the next twelve months. As such we have one film to look forward to, but what a doozy: Deadpool’s MCU debut, the first R-rated movie in the canon, with Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine to boot. And it appears it might be making fun of the entire Fox buyout and the end of their X-Men universe. True, there will be some shows – Echo, Agatha, maybe Daredevil – but it does feel like a chance for the studio to exhale, take stock, and kick everything down again in 2025. And Deadpool 3 could be utterly fantastic.

The Rohirrim Ride Once More: I’ve already mentioned the Lord of the Rings movies in this list, and here they are again. Basically, I think they’re the best movie trilogy of all time, the best literary adaptation of all time, and in general are just flippin’ fantastic. So I’m beyond excited for The War of the Rohirrim, an animated prequel focusing on my beloved pseudo-Celtic horse lords. Brian Cox is playing Helm Hammerhand, the visuals are based on Peter Jackson’s trilogy, and Miranda Otto narrates the whole thing as Eowyn. The Ride of the Rohirrim scene in The Return of the King is a stunning piece of cinema I rewatch time and again; I hope this can be just one-tenth as good.

Spider-Man Gets Hitched (Again): I don’t often talk about comics on here anymore as I’m not going into comic shops that regularly, so I just feel a bit out of the industry, so to speak. But this year we do get a new comic about Spider-Man that touches on one of my favourite aspects of the character: his married life. Ultimate Spider-Man – which launched this week but which I have yet to read – is a whole new universe and new take on the character; but as I do really like it when he’s a bit older, married to MJ, and has a kid, it’s definitely right up my street.

Great Games Incoming: last year I think I was most excited about Starfield, even if maybe it didn’t quite live up to expectations (I still really like it though!). This year I don’t think there’s one “big” game that’s frothing me up; but all the same, there’s a lot on it’s way. Next week, for instance, we’re going to see more of Hellblade 2, Avowed, and Indiana Jones just for starters; and personally I can’t wait for Ara: History Untold, Xbox’s Civ-a-like. And that’s before all the weird and quirky games that just look damn cool: Plucky Squire, for instance, and hopefully Lightyear Frontier, the Stardew­-meets-Transformers game that was delayed from ’23. Despite having more than enough to play already, I think 2024 is going to drip-feed a steady stream of excellent games throughout the year.

…And a Whole New Console (Probably): the games are exciting enough, but it looks almost certain that we’re going to get a sexy new console too. The Switch 2 (Super Switch? Switch U? Switcheroo?) is probably coming out in 2024; I doubt I’ll be getting one right away, but it’s always incredibly exciting to finally see what Nintendo have up their sleeves. I imagine a refined, sexier, more umph-y Switch; how it lands price-wise and with issues regarding backwards compatibility really determines how crazy it’s going to make me. And on the subject of hardware, we may be getting a cool new Xbox controller, with haptic triggers and all sorts; that’s Christmas 2024 sorted, then.

A Good Year for Star Wars: I’ve gone a bit lukewarm on Star Wars recently; although it’s been in the news this week with the announcement of The Mandalorian and Grogu movie and it’s really made me want to catch up with the series I missed. Anyway, 2024 is a big year for the franchise; presumably we’re going to get at least one film finally in production, and on TV we should have (I believe) the second season of Andor and Skeleton Crew, the intriguing Jude-Law-is-a-Jedi-mentor-to-a-bunch-of-kids thingie. If that wasn’t enough, Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws looks like a bit of wish fulfilment in game form, and we’re getting an amazing-looking remaster of one of the best games in a galaxy far, far away, Dark Forces. More did you spake?

Transformers, at Last: I finally started reading Transformers by Daniel Warren Johnson, the new iteration of the franchise published by Skybound and Image. As it’s only three issues old, I’m really intrigued to see how its story plays out this year; its interesting tweaks on the old G1 Sunbow/Marvel storyline have enough contemporary wrinkles and the artwork is excellent. Yes, obviously, it’s nowhere near as good as the highs of IDW; but, really, we’re looking back nearly ten years to those fascinating stories. This is an intriguing start and I wanna see where it goes.

[haroldgross]

New Post has been published on Harold Gross: The 5a.m. Critic

New Post has been published on http://literaryends.com/hgblog/rebootquels/

Rebootquels

If it feels like you’re getting a lot of the same these days in broadcast and streamed entertainment, you are. Studios are consciously digging into their licensed properties and rebooting them to various degrees of success. But a few have really surprised and proven that while there are a limited number of plots, good writers can make their stories sing.

Quantum Leap

This has been the most surprising of the reboots. It manages to embrace the social Pollyanna of the original show, but layers in today’s TV sensibilities. It even has multiple plots and a great arc to the first season that both fully resolves and leaves it open for going forward on its own terms.

Raymond Lee (Top Gun: Maverick) takes on the lead of our lost and forgetful leaper. But unlike the original series, we have a complete view of the control room and a collection of other characters and stories to follow in addition to him. Caitlin Bassett brings her real-life military background to bear on the series, while Mason Alexander Park (The Sandman, Cowboy Bebop), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), and Nanrisa Lee fill out the rest of the homebased crew. If you enjoyed the original series, you’ll love this one. It takes the same ideas and expands on them in very unexpected ways, building a more complete world and self-perpetuating adventure.

Winchesters

A solid and clever hand-off from Supernatural. And it even resolves some of my frustrations with the end of that long-running series. It is distinctly aimed at a younger audience and has much more of a Scooby gang vibe than the earlier series, but the cast work well together and the snarky dialogue keeps it all rolling nicely. Drake Rodger (The In Between) and Meg Donnelly are the core story we know (Sam and Dean’s parents as young adults). They aren’t exactly what you might have imagined from the original show, but they are close enough and work well together. Backed up by Nida Khurshid and Jojo Fleites, the foursome are an entertaining group of monster hunters…all with demons of their own. Demetria McKinney (Motherland: Fort Salem) and Bianca Kajlich add a little returning adult perspective throughout the series, but the focus is really on the core of younger players.

There are, of course, many cameos and nods to the original series, but never too heavy and, in the case of this first season, just enough to give it legs. It isn’t brilliant, but neither was Supernatural at the start. This prequel has enough gas to find its own way and travel forward. It has even learned the most important lesson and added humor from the start.

Fantasy Island

Now in its Sophomore year, this show is proving it can change and shift to keep it vibrant. It is still light fare, but it remains fun and with complicated relationships and rules. And, to its credit, it got me to come back, which I didn’t think was going to happen. Is it overly simple at times, sure…but it is Fantasy Island after all, not Reality Island. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel absurd at times, but the quick resolutions are built into the idea. Much like Quantum Leap, the shift of the show to “behind the scenes” of the main action is an interesting and compelling change. For generally light fare at the end of an evening, it does just fine.

Night Court

This is the least interesting of the reboots. It does less with the material and veers less from its progenitor. It doesn’t make it unentertaining. Heck, a 22 min bit of fluff, especially with John Larroquette (The Librarians) returning as a nicely evolved Dan Fielding in the mix, can certainly fill a bit of an evening. But Melissa Rauch is no Harry Anderson, and the crew as a whole isn’t quite the ensemble it needs to be yet. It may still get there, but it isn’t much different from the the first series, and even with some of the good bones to work from, it still doesn’t know quite how to land the humor the way the old show always could. I’ll still give it some time, but it isn’t top on my list on any night yet.

[spacebugarts]

It makes me really sad to say this but I just watched the trailers for Hocus Pocus 2 and Disenchanted and I was WAY more excited for Disenchanted

[shurisneakers]

harmless (iv)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, guns, mention of war, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader

Word count: 1.5k

A/N: good evening i’ve never been to any of the places i mention in this series so dont come @ me

if you have any ideas for future inventions/evil plans, lemme know! i might actually end up using them 

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Series Masterlist

He spends the weekend doing nothing. It’s supposed to be relaxing. He finds it nauseatingly boring.

“No mini mission this week?” Steve asks him from across the couch. 

They’re supposed to be catching up on Star Wars but two prequels in and Bucky could feel himself lose his sanity. Anyone could present him with a random assortment of alphabets, call it a Star Wars species and he would have no reason not to believe them.

It’s not like he doesn’t like space. It’s just that he’s had enough of it and everything and everyone who came from it for the foreseeable future.

“No. Someone else is taking care of it.”

“Didn’t you volunteer for this?”

“I pulled myself out of the case.”

“I thought you were having fun.” 

Bucky’s head slowly turns to look at him. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know,” Steve shrugged. “Looked like you were.”

Well, he wasn’t. He likes it here at home, glued to the TV. Popcorn beside him, sweatpants on. Refreshing, calming, slow, mundane, and Jesus Christ, so fucking boring-

His spiralling is interrupted by the dinging of the elevator to the common floor. No one was allowed up there unless it was extremely urgent. Guests were barely allowed into the Tower as it was. 

It reveals the receptionist from downstairs, Marie. She’s always a little reserved, a little shy. But Bucky had seen her chew and spit out trespassers or anyone who dared to get on her nerve. He adores her.

“Hey, Marie,” Steve says while Bucky sends her a friendly wave in greeting. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a hostage situation downtown,” she informs them. 

“Okay...” Steve drawls, waiting for a reason why this was an Avengers level threat.

“They’ve asked for Mr. Barnes by name.” She makes a mention towards him.

Bucky sits up straight. Bits of popcorn fall off his chest. 

“What?”

“They said, and I quote-” she looks down at her notepad. “‘Tell that grumpy motherfucker that I’m waiting for him and that he’s not getting out of this so easily because we have come too far.’ End quote. They’ve also told me to include a kissing emoji. And a skull.”

Steve and he look at each other.

“Well?” Steve prods. 

Bucky sighs and gets up to go get ready.

The entrance of Chuck E. Cheese is more crowded than he’d ever seen. He wasn’t even sure he’d seen people in the store before. If there were, they probably only came up till his waist. 

There are a few journalists, a few policemen standing together outside. Whispers of confusion and curiosity reigned free. 

Bucky gently pushes his way to the front. He gets a nod from a police officer who opens the door for him after a quick briefing. 

The place is darker than it usually would be. A trademark, it seemed. The blinds are drawn shut and most of the light is coming through whatever sneaks in through the crack. 

“Hey, Barnes.” Your voice is muffled by a mask that looks suspiciously like it was made out of classroom craft supplies.

There’s a person in a loose chokehold in your hand with a gun pressed against his head. Once again it looks straight out of a cartoon, purple with round disks lining its barrel. 

“What’s all this now?” He gestures around monotonously. 

“A hostage situation. Didn’t you get the memo?”

“Got that part down, genius,” he bites back. “But why?”

“Fucker kept harassing me when I was walkin’ down the street.” 

The guy’s helpless gaze met Bucky. 

“Catcalling me, stalking me.” You tighten the grip you have on him. “Call me darlin’ one more time, you son of a bitch. I dare you.”

He wasn’t impressed with his pleading eyes. He kinda felt like he deserved it. 

“Why’d you do it here?” The bright colours were starting to give him a heading. “And where are the staff?”

“It’s symbolic, Bucky,” you emphasise, “He deserves to be among other rat bastards.”

Of course.

“The staff?” he asks again. 

“Gave them thirty bucks and told them to leave. I’m not a monster.”

“Right.” He doesn’t bother refuting you. “Why’d you call me here?”

“Dunno.” You shrug. “Thought it’d be fun. You having fun yet?”

You shake the guy you’re holding. He gives a small whimper. 

Bucky doesn’t want to stop you. He had chugged enough Respect Juice in his lifetime to know that this guy probably deserved a threat or two.

Hell, he’d even help but you were more than capable of handling this on your own.

“Listen,” he sighed. “As much as I’m sure he deserves it, this is technically illegal and I’m required to stop you.”

“Sorry sarge, I thought you weren’t interested in playing this stupid game with me,” you mock, voice dropping to imitate him.

“I’m not.” It wasn’t entirely true. One Saturday with Jar Jar Binks had convinced him otherwise.

“Okay, so before you leave, do me a favour and call Hawkeye. I hear he looks mighty fine when he’s annoyed.”

His face involuntarily scrunched up. You were going to replace him with Clint? Clint?

He probably took it more as an insult than he should have.

“I’m not doing that.” Bless his foul mouthed friend, but he was a little shit who was too sarcastic for his own good. At least twice a week he’d say something stupid to Bucky and then take out his hearing aids when he tried to argue back. 

“You’re leavin’ me with no options here,” you groaned, using your thumb to flip a switch. The gun looks like it powered up, lights along the side turning red.

If he let you have this, it’d be a bad look for the Avengers.

New York man dies in Chuck E. Cheese lone hostage situation, unable to be saved by same superhero who tried to fight Thanos with a machine gun.

“Tell ya what,” he says instead, “If you kill him, there won’t even be a slight chance that you’ll see me again.”

Your grip on the gun falters.

“If I let him go...”

“I might consider coming back next week.” He’s trying to spin it, make it look like he’s the one with the upper hand here. “But you gotta let him go.”

You search his face for any signs of dishonesty.

“Let him go or you’ll never see me again.” It sounds too much like Clint’s arguments with his dog who brought a live squirrel into the house. 

“Fine,” you relent, a glint in your eye. “but say goodbye to this fuckface.”

Before Bucky can open his mouth to shout in protest, you pull the trigger. The man clenches his eyes shut, face red.

He expects blood to be splatter across his face.

Nothing happens.

A barrage of bubbles floats into the room.

“I meant it literally,” you say, pushing him off you. “Say goodbye. He’s leaving.”

The man stumbles to the ground and Bucky doesn’t make any attempt to catch him. He scrambles to his knees, picking himself up and scurrying out the door to a hoard of reporters.

The door shuts behind him with the chime of a bell.

“You’re annoying,” Bucky states, giving a small sigh.

“I’m well aware of that.” You pull off the mask, wiping the sweat off your brow.

“Where is the agent assigned to your case?” 

“Dunno. Last I saw he was crying on the driveway of my lair. I just figured he’d pick himself up later so I left him there.”

Bucky’s nose twitches. 

“You weren’t actually going to kill him, were you.” He shrugs with his shoulder towards the door. It wasn’t a question, more a statement. He knew you wouldn’t. 

“I could have.”

“But you weren’t going to,” he repeats. 

“No,” you admit. “I wasn’t. But I’m glad to see you showed up.”

“You held someone hostage as leverage.”

“No, no. I held someone hostage and then asked to see you. They were completely unrelated.”

“You’re evil.”

“You jumped to conclusions,” you point out. “Would you like a trampoline next time? Maybe a pogo stick, you clown?”

He has a very real gun in his holster. His very real metal death arm aches to use it. 

“No one else agreed to come,” he deflects. 

“We both know that’s a lie. You were going to come back anyway.” You stuff the bubble gun back into the bag. “I’m deliciously irresistible.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Then beg.” You give him a smirk and he rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, you win this round, sarge.”

He doesn’t say anything. He watches you remove your heist gear, revealing normal civilian clothes underneath.

You walk casually to the kitchen, intending to leave through the back door.

“But I can’t say I lost either.” You send him a wink before swiftly pushing open the door and leaving him behind.

He only watches you leave.

It doesn’t hit him until a few seconds later that he let a criminal out of his hands when there were several policemen and journalists outside.

He entertains the idea of chasing you down and handing you over. 

It takes him only a few seconds to decide that if they wanted you, they’d have to try themselves.

Next part 

[sixeyesgojo]

Pictures of You

Summary: prequel to I’ll Be Your Enemy - fluffy!

Characters: IBYE!Reader, Gojo, Yuji, Megumi, Nobara

Word count: 2,3k

Content warning: none

A/N: requested by @thecaptainsbride

If anybody got the reference Gojo made when he was late; congratulations, you have been successfully hurt (but this time it was not me).

Since I left the relationship between Gojo and the reader up for interpretation in IBYE, I will do the same here! Consider this piece me trying to mend your hearts <3

Taglist applications open for anyone who is interested!

“A trip to an amusement park or something like that doesn’t sound so bad,” you mused in front of Satoru. “It serves as relaxation and maybe the first-years can get closer to each other, you know, bonding and so on. They will see each other many times from now on, so getting along with each other is important,” you reasoned, your eyes almost sparkling from the thought of a day off.

“But Jujutsu Sorcery is an individual–” he began.

“Satoru, I think you should see this as vacation. A vacation where you can eat sweets until your teeth rot and absolutely nobody will hold you back,” you interrupted him.

“Okay, I am sold. Am listening now.” You just knew how to convince him. Sweets.

So that was exactly how the first-year students and you ended up at a fairground somewhere in Tokyo; it was quite neat, not too small but not too spacious either. None of you could get lost in it. Still, it was buzzing with life and all kinds of people mingled. The colorfulness was a refreshing sight to take in, compared to the dark world of Jujutsu Sorcery where seeing people suffer was your daily routine. The pleasant smell of food wafted through the air, making your mouth water, as you walked past the different booths with them. Waffles sounded like absolute heaven on earth right now.

Jujutsu Sorcery certainly was a draining sport, mentally as well as physically. Therefore it was only right to take a break at times, right? Self-care days were just as important as working.

In order to wind down a bit, you had suggested a one-day trip – just you, Satoru and the three first-year students you had adopted in your mind right away after meeting them several times.

“Sensei, you look very pretty today!” Yuji complimented you. Even Megumi noticed: “Did you have a haircut? Your hair seems a little bit shorter.”

“Yeah, Nobara had a field day with me. Cutting my hair.. or more like trimming the ends, choosing my outfit, doing my make-up and so on just for today,” you gushed as if you were a high school girl again. “Leave it to master stylist Kugisaki Nobara and nobody will ever look bad,” the brunette girl commended herself. Yuji was affectionately patting her on the back.

Undoubtedly, Satoru was late – nobody was surprised about that. You already went ahead and generously treated the trio of students you loved dearly to some food.

“Thank you for the food, sensei!” As usual, Yuji and Nobara were in perfect harmony with each other, seemingly sharing a brain.

“Thank you very much,” Megumi also expressed his thanks sweetly. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought the way his lips seemed to twitch was unintentional. “Absolutely no problem, kiddos. You guys enjoy it while I try to contact Gojo-sensei, yeah?” you shot them an apologetic smile, already fishing out your phone. The three of them nodded in perfect synchronization. They’re as cute as little ducklings, you thought.

You didn’t even need to bother calling.

You were about to dial Satoru’s number on your smartphone when Yuji’s voice boomed, “Oh! There he is! Gojo-sensei, we are here!!”

The boy waved at his teacher.

Satoru immediately spotted the pink-haired student and skipped over to where you all were standing. “Sorry for the wait! I’m afraid I got lost on the path of life!!”

“Nice of you to finally join us, but sadly, the fun is already over and we decided to go home. Just wanted to call you to let you know! We’ve been here since morning,” you deadpanned as the white-haired man arrived, looking Satoru dead in the eye – if they weren’t covered. “Wait, wha– Hold on, I am very sure I am not that late. MY MOCHI?” Satoru sounded frantic, facing his students who just shrugged their shoulders. “Serves you right,” Megumi stated calmly. Nobara, being the sassy girl she was, also joined in, “Losers don’t get to have fun and that’s a fact.”

It was such a wholesome and funny moment for you to see the students playing along with your prank without being told beforehand.

You broke out in laughter, not being able to contain it any longer, “You should have seen your face, dumbass! I was just joking!”

“Phew, I almost thought I had to kiss the idea of eating sweets today goodbye. What a horror that would be, my day would be OVER this instant,” the blindfolded man pouted, “so where should I buy my sweets? I’m gonna buy the entire place anyway, but where do I start? Any suggestions for Great Teacher Gojo?”

“Hold up, Satoru! We gotta take a picture together to commemorate this special day!” you suggested, bouncing up and down with enthusiasm. “I swear I just saw sensei’s eyes sparkle but I might be wrong,” Yuji remarked, looking at his dark-haired friend for confirmation.

“Sensei, if you want to take a picture, we have to take it at the right angle!” Nobara chimed in, the secret Instagram influencer in her on full display. She continued to explain, “It would come out great if Gojo-sensei took the pic, long arms privilege and so on.”

The female student almost seemed more into it than you were, it was adorable to you to see the usually bold student be this into taking pictures.

You hand the tall man your phone, but not without shooting him a “if you drop my phone, I’ll make you drop dead” look.

“Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation,” the male teacher commanded loudly. Upon hearing that, Megumi immediately slapped his hand in his face and turned away in embarrassment. Why was this man like this?

“...Ladies?” Yuji asked, the expression on his face screaming ‘confusion’ “Gojo-sensei just referenced a Beyoncé song, Itadori,” the dark-haired boy explained in a hushed tone, turning back slightly as if he did not want to get caught.

“And it’s not just any song!” Satoru happily chimed in. “Yes, yes, the good old Formation,” you added, nodding in satisfaction. You remember how you showed him the album when it dropped.

“Can we all just ignore Gojo-sensei and take our pic?” Nobara inquired as she shoved everybody into their respective spots. “Alright, everybody, smiiiiile for the camera. Say cheese!”

Click, click, click, click.

Finally, Satoru had gotten his share of sweets. Complying with his sweet tooth was always an effective way to calm him for some time. Almost like feeding a baby, in a way.

Now it was time for fun rides!

...or at least that was what you thought… until Satoru dragged you along to ride a freaking pendulum ride with him. The three students had managed to talk themselves out of stepping foot on that monster of a ride but Satoru didn’t even give you a chance to refuse, he simply gripped your arm and walked towards it.

Stopping only when you were already standing in line, you nervously eyed the metallic behemoth with its iron arm. The monstrosity was seemingly ready to make you throw up from the way it would spin you through the air repeatedly, going back and forth and back and forth again. Why did you have to do this?

“Satoru,” you called his name timidly and tugged at his sleeve, the strange feeling not leaving your gut, “do I really, really have to do this?”

“Absolutely! I promise it will be very fun,” Satoru replied with a signature grin you wanted to wipe off of his face at that moment.

No, it was not fun. At all. You were dizzy and your fear of height was kicking. The blasts of air hitting your face left, right and center were not helping at all and you were sure, if anybody took a picture of you right now, you would look horribly green.

“I– can’t do this anymore!” you shouted mid-air, right before the ride swung to the other side. The force knocked the air out of you once again.

“SATORU, PLEASE GET US OUT OF HERE!” you begged and squeezed his arm with an iron grip. The height was too overwhelming. “Mid-ride?” Satoru asked and you nodded frantically. “Now that’s what I call reckless! Sounds like fun. I’m in!” he declared with a grin.

“Domain Expansion: Infinite Void.”

That was the last thing you heard the tall man say before he touched your head with his large palm.

Your eyes widened in horror as you realized this man used his domain this recklessly, for fun. Maybe it was a side effect of being able to use it multiple times a day.

The infinity gently wrapped itself around Satoru and you. Almost movie-like, you watched as the entire, vast universe beautifully unfolded in front of your eyes. Each star being created separately, then abruptly flashing by as a sea of stars – as if you were in a wormhole. You perceived the entire domain within a flash of a moment, yet tasted eternity in it. Everything but nothing at once.

Despite being touched by Satoru himself, the sensations weren’t without merit. If this was how it felt to be in the safe space of Satoru’s touch within his inner world of Limitless, you would rather not fathom how it felt to be the one hit by this powerful domain.

It took you some time to process things and recollect.

“When I said I wanted you to get the two of us out of that thing, I didn’t mean ‘send me to your domain’,” you scolded him.

“Well, it was convenient,” he defended himself and you could almost hear the grin on his face, “Bet you’ll hate me after this though.”

“Hating you was never really an option I’d ever consider but okay, we’ll run with it this time. Now undo your domain, please, while I am asking nicely.”

“Your wish is my command! This time at least.”

“Satoru.” A stern last warning fell from your lips.

“Yes, yes, boss. On it.”

“I thought you said it’ll be fun but I am absolutely not riding that thing ever again,” you took deep breaths to calm down as your feet securely touched the ground again. Your legs were still trembling a bit.

“And it was fun! At least for me! I like seeing you struggle – it’s so funny – and the way you clung to my arm? Adorable! You are so tiny compared to me, like a bug I could crush between my fingers!” The annoying sorcerer laughed merrily.

“Gojo fucking Satoru, the only thing that is about to be crushed here are your balls. With my leg. You are very lucky to have that damn Infinity of yours or else,” you threatened.

“Ouch, you really do know how to hurt an invincible man,” he snickered and flicked your forehead lightly.

Rejoining with the students was easy as they all saw the barrier Satoru’s domain created.

“You are lucky there was some kind of show going on down here. That barrier above would have freaked people out if they weren’t distracted,” Nobara said, looks shooting daggers at her weird teacher. Innocent and as nice as ever, Yuji pitched in as well: “Yeah, Fushiguro also tried to distract children with their wandering eyes! I think he did a good job.”

“Okay but what did he do though?” you asked curiously and looked at the boy in question.

“...Shadow puppets,” Megumi slowly admitted, looking anywhere but at the people in front of him.

“Oh? You love your foster-dad-turned-great-teacher this much to embarrass yourself out in public? That’s new!” Satoru teased the poor boy. “Someone has to be the voice of reason around here or you’d all be in jail. That includes preventing civilians who are able to see curses from seeing you use Jujutsu while floating mid-air,” he justified, ignoring the tall teacher’s mockery completely. 

“As much as I love slandering Gojo-sensei, I’d rather spend my day actually having fun,” Nobara pitched in, reminding everybody of why you were here in the first place.

“So, let’s go ride the ferris wheel!” she added excitedly.

More fun rides.

Before you knew it, the day passed by. You could already feel the heaviness in your legs from walking. The swirling feeling from all the rides boded in your chest – you probably would not be able to sleep well tonight. It was definitely worth it though, you thought.

You had already brought the students back to their dorm – Satoru had ran off to the school because he remembered he had to do something – and were on the way home yourself.

You were in some sort of trance, completely immersed in your phone, so you hadn’t registered when Satoru called your name until he gently tapped your shoulder, falling into step with you.

“Yeah?” you looked up to Satoru, snapping out of your train of thought.

“Just wanted to tell you; ‘Operation: Relaxation Day’ was a great success.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Satoru.” A genuine smile graced your lips and for a moment, he softened at the sight.

“You know what? It was amazing, I really should start listening to you more often,” he confessed with a smirk.

“Well, it’s thanks to your amazing power of persuasion that we got to spend it like this, so thanks for today,” you half-heartedly complimented him.

“You do know I only said we’d not be available today and then dashed, right?” he asked you, the usual playful tone lacing his voice. “Exactly what I meant by saying ‘your amazing power of persuasion’.”

“I think I’ll frame the picture we took,” you murmured softly, fondly looking at the screen of your phone. The picture from earlier was displayed on your homescreen.

Surely, you would hang it on the blank wall in your home as well. It was a personal treasure now.

Taglist (dm me if you wanna be added): @assbuttbaek​ @megumifushi​ @bleueluna​ @gojos-mochi​ @delammi