#Star Wars Adventure Journal

[starblightbindery]

Editor's Note from The Black Sands of Socorro by Patricia A. Jackson

While researching Patricia A. Jackson’s entire body of Star Wars work for a short story anthology, I came across the West End Games sourcebook Star Wars: The Black Sands of Socorro (1997.) It’s a crucial work of Star Wars ephemera: The first creator of color writing for Star Wars in an official capacity, writing not just about individual characters of color, but centering entire cultures populated by non-white characters. A young Black woman in the 1990s wrote science fiction for Star Wars, worldbuilding with concepts like antislavery, indigeneity, linguistic divergence, and settler colonialism...while Disney-Lucasfilm in the 2020s ineffectually positions Star Wars as a post-racial fantasy.

I non-hyperbolically refer to Patricia A. Jackson as the “Octavia Butler of Star Wars,” not because fans of color need to be officially sanctioned by Lucasfilm to create Star Wars content, but because of how difficult it is to carve out anti-racist space in a transmedia storytelling empire. Challenging even in transformational fandom spaces (e.g. fan works), to broach race in affirmational fandom spaces—or while writing content for the property holder—is to be unflinchingly subversive.

And Jackson did it first. In an interview with Rob Wolf in 2022, Jackson described her experience writing race into Star Wars in the 1990s as an “experiment.” The planet, peoples, and cultures of Socorro were a way for Jackson to obliquely, yet concretely, center Blackness and racial justice into Star Wars, pushing the racial allegory constrained by the original trilogy to its limits.

Since it’s inception, Star Wars has spent much of it’s storytelling on the fringes of the galaxy (whether it’s Tatooine or Jakku, Nevarro or Ajan Kloss.) The Black Sands of Socorro is an extension of that trope, but where the Star Wars films used indigeneity as set dressing (eg. “Sand People”, Ewoks, Gungans, etc.) Jackson creates a vivid world where indigenous culture and settler colonists collide; where characters are coded with dark skin and central to the action. The planet Socorro is distinct as a Star Wars setting. As one of the only places in the galaxy where slavery is eradicated with a vengeance, Socorro refuses to let go of a plot line Star Wars media often leaves behind. Socorro is a haven from Imperial fascism, a space where readers are invited to imagine a story that does not center around occupation.

When I learned that Patricia A. Jackson no longer has a physical copy of The Black Sands of Socorro, I realized that I had the materials and the means to create a fanbound hard copy for her home library (well, and also for my own home library.) While this handmade book is not an exact reproduction of the RPG supplement, I hope my renvisioning of the supplement as an in-universe travel guide lives up to the original work.

As the idea of creating a travel guidebook based on the original material percolated, I reflected on the State of Race in Star Wars in the year since I compiled Designs of Fate, an anthology of my favorite Patricia A. Jackson short stories. In May 2022, actress Moses Ingram debuted as Inquisitor Reva Sevander, the deuteragonist in the Dinsey+ streaming Obi-Wan Kenobi series. As predicted by Lucasfilm—and any fan sick of alt-right Star Wars related “whitelash”—Ingram was promptly subjected to a firehose of racialized harassment and misogynoir.

Yep, fascist self-proclaimed fanboys complained about a Black woman Inquisitor in 2022, having no idea (or deliberately whitewashing) that one of creators of the entire freakin’ concept of Inquisitors was a Black woman writing for the Star Wars Adventure Journal three decades ago.

Then, a public facing Star Wars account (@StarWars on Twitter) broke precedent and slapped back at the trolls. Lead actor Ewan McGregor filmed a video retort, posted on @StarWars, stating “racism has no place in this world” and telling off the racist bullies: “you’re no Star Wars fan in my mind.” A few months later, Disney+ debuted it’s second flagship Star Wars streaming series of the year, starring a Latino actor as the protagonist. In the opening episode of Andor, a police chief describes Diego Luna’s eponymous lead as a “dark-featured human,” perhaps the closest the franchise has ever gotten to acknowledging out-of-universe constructions of race, to date. The series explored aspects of imperialism with more depth than Star Wars had previously done on screen, such as the Empire’s treatment of the native people of Aldhani. And, in November, the The Acolyte, a Disney+ series co-developed by Rayne Roberts, announced Amandla Stenberg and Korean actor Lee Jung-jae as its top-billed leads. Stenberg will be the first Gen Z, mixed race, Black, Inuit, queer, and non-binary actor to lead a major Star Wars series.

On the Patricia A. Jackson Star Wars front, in 2022, Jackson’s character Fable Astin was an easter egg in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Jackson will again write for Star Wars in an official capacity in From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, due for publication in Fall 2023. A series about Lando Calrissian, the galaxy’s most famous Socorran, is still in production, so I have my fingers crossed that we may soon see Socorro on camera.

I wonder if this past year will have been a fulcrum year for BIPOC fandom. Maybe Disney has finally realized it’s bad for business that the alt-right uses social media algorithms and Star Wars fan spaces as a soft recruiting ground to radicalize young white men? Maybe Star Wars as a franchise will continue to loudly disavow fan whitelash and firmly position performers of color in true leading roles? I really hope so. On the other hand, as much as I am in favor of increased representation in Star Wars storytelling, I am also troubled by Disney-Lucasfilm’s framing of the Galaxy Far, Far Away (GFFA) as “colorblind.” Recently, Star Wars fans have been asked to accept that in the (a long time ago) sci-fi futurepast GFFA, humans have always been post-racial, and it’s just a coincidence that racialized people were not caught on camera the way white characters have been for years. The galaxy is post-racial and it’s just acoincidence that the movers and shakers of the galaxy have largely been depicted as white men for the past 40 years of media.

For example, in the decade since Disney rebooted the expanded universe, fans have learned that Star Wars’s biggest galactic war criminal to never be depicted on screen is Admiral Rae Sloane, a bisexual Black woman who was the leader of Imperial remnant forces, one of the architects of the First Order, and personal mentor to General Hux. Under Disney-Lucasfilm’s post-racial retcon of the Star Wars universe, the allegorical fascists are intersectional equal opportunity employers (at least in expanded universe content like animation, video games, and novels.) Along those lines, several of the franchise’s newly introduced, prominent women of color have been part of the Empire: Imperial loyalist Cienna Ree (Lost Stars), Inferno Squad leader Iden Versio (Star Wars: Battlefront II) former stormtrooper Jannah (Episode IX), First Order pilot Tamara Ryvora (Star Wars: Resistance), Inquisitor Trilla Sundari (Jedi: Fallen Order), Captain Terisa Kerrill (Star Wars: Squadron) and, most recently, Inquisitor Reva Sevander. Once the sole purview of stodgy, very white and very British men (demonstrably so even in the sequel trilogy movies,) now anyone can be a stooge of the Empire.

That’s not to say that marginalized people can’t collude with fascism, or that there haven’t been heroic characters of color introduced in recent years. Rather, I posit that in order to sell audiences on the post-racial/colorblind GFFA, fascist-of-color characters like Rae Sloane or Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon (The Mandalorian) are created by necessity. The franchise wants to at once be racially inclusive and yet never directly address race. In Star Wars, real world oppression is primarily explored through allegory—such as Solo (2018)’s bit on droid rights, the clone army, or the myriad of non-human alien bodies that nonetheless are coded with racial stereotypes. A lot has been said about how allegory in sci-fi allows audiences to grapple with inequality from a comfortable distance, and not enough has been said about which audience is being prioritized for comfort.

What does it mean when race is supposedly a non-issue for humans in the GFFA, but creators and actors with marginalized identities cannot participate in Star Wars in any capacity without experiencing identity-targeted harassment? In the past ten years, this has been true even for white women like Kathleen Kennedy and Daisy Ridley, but the vitriol has been most strongly directed towards Black women like Lucasfilm Story Group lead Kiri Hart, author Justina Ireland and The High Republic Show host Krystina Arielle. Can the Galaxy Far, Far Away truly be “colorblind” or “post-racial” (never-racial?) if the narrative continually centers white characters and replicates all the common racial inequities seen in commercialized Hollywood storytelling? Upon the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, critic Andre Seewood aptly described Finn’s positioning in the story as “hyper-⁠tokenism,” even presciently predicting that Finn would continue to be hyper-⁠tokenized in Episodes VIII and IX. As the narrative veered away from Finn, it also left unrealized a stormtrooper rebellion plot line where Finn could have been, in effect, a Black abolitionist. Actor John Boyega’s critique of his experience in the sequel trilogy aligns with Seewald’s assessment: “Do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important to the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side.”

Published in 1997, The Black Sands of Socorro came before Finn, before Mace Windu, back when all the melanin of Star Wars could be found in Billy Dee Williams’s singular swagger and James Earl Jones’s distinctive voice. Back then, the most prominent Black actress in the original trilogy was dancer Femi Taylor, who played Oola, the hypersexualized green twi’lek fed to the rancor in Return of the Jedi. Bantam Spectra, the publisher that held the license for Star Wars from 1991 to 1999, had no leading characters of color in its’ Expanded Universe. The first full length Star Wars novel by a writer of color, Steven Barnes’s The Cestus Deception15, would not be published until 2004. Even though the book featured two protagonists of color, they would not be depicted on the cover. At Comic-Con in 2010, I spoke with Tom Taylor, a white Australian comic book writer who tried to make the lead family in Star Wars: Invasion (2009) a Black one, but was shut down during the creative process. The comic instead depicts a family of blondes, because the publishers did not think fans would embrace leads of color. All this to say, the inclusion of melanated characters in Star Wars has been so, so hard fought. It’s incredible The Black Sands of Socorro exists at all. It’s more than worthy of celebration, and I’m floored that more attention has not been brought to it.

Patricia A. Jackson is a smuggler.

This sourcebook was explicitly written to assist fans in telling their own Star Wars stories, and in it Patricia A. Jackson smuggled in emphatic allusions to the Black Panther movement and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, smuggled in commentary on indigeneity and settler colonialism, and smuggled in multiple ways for fans to envision characters of color. Her writing has consistently added richness to the GFFA, and in The Black Sands of Socorro she envisions multiple histories for multiple cultures coded as non-white. She ensured the existence of not mere tokens, but flourishing societies of people of color in Star Wars.

The coda for The Last Jedi again shows how perilously close to tokenization characters of color, particularly Black characters, are in modern day Star Wars. In this film, the franchise returns to itsprevious exploration of slavery with the depiction of enslaved children on Canto Bight. The last speaking lines of the film are from Oniho Zaya (played by Josiah Oniha, a young Black British actor) who recounts Luke Skywalker’s heroic exploits to the other children. The film then closes out by showing that one of the downtrodden children is Force-sensitive—a future hero in the Star Wars mythos. In a film where every single Force-user depicted is white, the next generation kid with the potential is, again, a young white boy. Once again, the Black character can only serve the narrative in a supporting role. A franchise depicting a colorblind fantasy continually reifies racial and gender hierarchies in America. With The Acolyte, scheduled for release in 2024, it’s possible the franchise may finally be shifting past hyper-tokenism. In the meantime, fans of color and our erstwhile allies will continue doodling in the margins.

In the end, the sequel trilogy left the Canto Bight plot line (and the overarching slavery plot line started in Episode I) unresolved. I’d like to think the Black Bha’lir strafed Canto Bight and grabbed those kids. It seems like something they would do. Out among the stars, Oniho Zaya is adventuring with Drake Paulsen, and his story does not bracket another characters’; he is central. The Black Sands of Socorro is a launching pad for stories like that. It represents how fans of color have always carved out pieces of Star Wars for ourselves.

#socorro #star wars legends #swrepmatters #star wars adventure journal #star wars d6 #patricia a. jackson #fanbinding #binders note

[legendscon]

Panel Announcement: Authors Geeking Out

Hear your favorite creators talk about all things Star Wars... except for their own contributions to the galaxy far, far away! Join us on Saturday, September 9th at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank, CA for a discussion with Michael Kogge, Jason Fry and Abel Peña on favorite stories in the Expanded Universe.

Get your tickets now at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067

#Star Wars Insider #Star Wars Hyperspace #Star Wars RPG #WotC #KOTOR #True Sith #Mandalorian #Mandalorian History #Star Wars Adventure Journal #Michael Kogge #Abel Pena #Jason Fry #Star Wars Lore #Splinter Of The Minds Eye #Brian Daley #Expanded Universe #Star Wars Expanded Universe #Star Wars Legends #SWEU #Star Wars EU #SW Expanded Universe #LegendsCon #Star Wars Books #Star Wars Comics #Star Wars Games

[archeo-starwars]

Adventure Journal 08

#star wars #gree enclave #gree culture #adventure journal

[crowofthebadlands]

Hello there and welcome to my blog!

I’m the Crow of the Badlands and I’ve been a legal adult for 68 days now. I’m currently finishing high school and finding my way through life.

I’m deeply interested in media of all sorts and I currently hope to pursue a career in film. Music means a lot to me! I have a fondness for 80s music, so you'll likely hear me talk about that.

With this blog, I hope to chronicle some of the happenings in my life and talk about my experiences. I think it might be a fun way to ask those questions we all seem to have about adulthood.

And with that brief introduction, I hope you’ll stick around and share in on this slice of my life :D

- Crow

#blogging #journal #goth #poetry #first post #intro post #personal #rambles #reading #new adult #life lessons #student life #lifestyle #ask blog #girl blogger #adventure #thinks I love #wwdits #our flag means death #star wars #lord of the rings #the hobbit #the cure #ghost bc #steam powered giraffe #nine inch nails #bauhaus #siouxsie and the banshees #music

[cammycapri]

I had a very strange dream recently and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it so i drew the part that I remembered the most vividly

#dream journal #star wars #adventure time #comicpage #drawing

[bryastar]

word salad #2

here we are, day 2!

....kinda

yes I did make a journal yesterday and am currently writing one today, but it's technically the middle of the day for me.....at midnight. yeah, working nights makes days confusing a bit (which doesn't help when I can never seem to remember what day of the week is). and honestly, yesterday's journal was only the first half of my day.... granted what happened before that was I was at work, driving home from work, and then going to bed and waking up and started the day hanging out with everyone at home. aa. maybe I should be primarily focusing on the day before when I make these entries.

anyway

so after writing my entry yesterday I spent most of my day playing sonic adventure DX on Xbox, primarily focusing on raising a power Chao for the Chao races. it's a bit of a grind because the quickest way I could do it is from the mystic ruins garden I dash all the way across the map, and pass through two loading zones to head to red Mountain. here there are not only primarily power type animals (and the random parrot like yuosdhfjkhsd no I don't need you!) but I've played this level so much I can easily get 250-350 rings in one go without getting hit once (except by those red bullet bill things that spin fire everywhere which always seem to hit me at the worst times grrr). and then after that it's going aaalllll the way back to the Chao garden, wrastle up all the animals so they don't keep falling into the pool and having the Chao sit still long enough while I'm trying to find the animal but it decided to hop right back into the pool hfuiashcjdsk aaaa...

anyway wanna see them~? lookit the babies!

afterwards Amber and I finished the main story for Mario rpg on switch. even though I've watched playthroughs of the original before, it's always nice when you still finish a game, especially with amber also playing and helping me with battle strategies while I primarily helped with the puzzles. it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I got to finally play it.

afterwards (I'm just repeating "afterwards" for now until I find more clever ways to say it x.x) I decided to play starfox 64 on the switch. before, while I had been impressed with how the SNES game was able to use primitive 3d graphic, but the game itself I had a rough time playing it without either getting bored or dying way too early on and feeling discouraged. but then I randomly decided to boot starfox 2, the formerly unreleased SNES sequel, and.......I don't know what it was but suddenly it just clicked with me and I was able to beat the game on Normal.......and that's how I realized that starfox is actually a relatively short game, heck it's literally a shoot em up, just in 3d. sometimes in my head I just imagine this and suddenly I'm less overwhelmed by the low res and choppy frame rates. heck, the walker segments used tank controls....yet I was able to work with that just fine strangely enough..... ok going way off topic but, I think I'm starting to understand the starfox series a bit better (and now I can see a bit better why starfox fans would be offput by starfox adventures on GameCube since it's practically an entirely different kind of game, altogether!

ok this entry is getting kinda long so I'll stop here oops. hope this was at least enjoyable aa

uhm

pizza 🍕

#nintendo #me #journal #word salad #sonic #sonic adventure #chao garden #star fox #starfox 2 #starfox 64 #mario rpg #lylat wars #chao

[otherworlds-inside-my-mind]

Xenofiction (& similar) Media Masterpost

PS. This list is for keeping track only. This is not a recommendation list and I won't be advocating for any Work, Author or Company listed. There will be footnotes about a work/author for undesirable behaviour or themes if necessary.

This is a WIP and will be updated whenever I have the time to. Feel free to recommend works or inform me about an author so I can update the post. Be Aware works on this list might have been cancelled or on indifinitive Hiatus and not all works are available on English.

Sections:

Literature

Comic Books & Graphics Novels

Picture Books

Indie Written Works

Webcomics

Manga

Animated Series

Live-Action & Hybrid shows

Webseries

Short Films

Animated Films

Live Action & CGI Assisted Movies

Documentary

Theather

Videogames

Online Browser Games

Table Top Games

Music

Other Online Projects

Youtubers

Gen. Videos

Worlds

Franchises

To search is Ctrl + F (Windows) or Command-F (MacOS), on phone browser you have "Find in page" (Drop menu at top right)

Literature

A

Age of Fire - E. E. Knight

Adventure Lit their Star - Kenneth Allsop

Alien in a Small Town - Jim Cleaveland

Alien Chronicles (Literature) - Deborah Chester

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Animorphs - K. A. Applegate

Am an Owl - Martin Hocke

At Winters End - Robert Silverberg

Avonoa - H.R.B. Collotzi

Astrid and Cerulean: A Parrot Fantasy - Parasol Marshall-Crowley

A Wolf for a Spell - Karah Sutton

The African Painted Wolf Novels - Alexander Kendziorski

The Alchemist's Cat - Robin Jarvis

The Amazing Maurice and his educated rodents - Terry Pratchet

The Amity Incident - C. M. Weller

The Ancient Solitary Reign - Martin Hocke

The Animals of Farthing Wood series - Colin Dann

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

The Author of Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of Therolinguistics - Ursula K. Le Guin

A Magical Cat Named Kayla: Whiskers of Enchantment -Carlos Juárez [AI Cover]*

The Animal Story Book - Various Authors [Editor: Andrew Lang]

Abenteuer im Korallenriff - Antonia Michaelis [DE]

B

Bambi: A life in the forest & Bambi Children - Felix Salten

Bamboo Kingdom series - Erin Hunter

Bazil Broketail - Christopher Rowley

Beak of the Moon & Dark of the Moon - Philip Temple

Bears of the Ice series - Kathryn Lasky

Beasts of New York - Jon Evans

Beautiful Joe - Margaret Marshall Saunders

Beyond Acacia Ridge - Amy Clare Fontaine

Birddom - Clive Woodall

Black Beauty - Anna Sewell

Blitzcat - Robert Westall

Blizzard Winds - Paul Koch

Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells

Bravelands series- Erin Hunter

Broken Fang - Rutherford Montgomery

Bunnicula series - Deborah Howe & James Howe

Burning Stars - Rurik Redwolf

A Black Fox Running - Brian Carter

A Blue So Loud - Tuesday

The Ballard of The Belstone Fox - David Rook

The Bear - James Curwood

The Bees - Laline Paull

The Biography of a Silver Fox - Ernest Thompson Seton

The Blue Cat of Castle Town - Catherine Cate Coblentz

The Book Of Chameleons - José Eduardo Agualusa

The Book of the Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin Jr.

The Book of Night with Moon - Diane Duane

The Books of the Named series - Clare Bell

The Bug Wars - Robert Asprin

C

Call of the wild - Jack London

Callanish - William Horwood

Catwings - Ursula K. Le Guin

Cat Diaries: Secret Writings of the MEOW Society - Betsy Byars, Betsy Duffey & Laurie Myers

Cat House - Michael Peak

Cat Pack - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Cats in the city of Plague - A.L Marlow

Celestial Heir series - Chester Young

Charlotte's Web - E. B. White

Chet and Bernie mysteries - Spencer Quinn

Chia The Wildcat - Joyce stranger

Child of the Wolves - Elizabeth Hall

Clarice the Brave - Lisa McMann

Cry of the Wild - Charles Foster

Coyote's Wild Home - Barbara Kingsolver; Lily Kingsolver & Paul Mirocha

Crocuta - Katelyn Rushe

Cujo - Steven King

The Calatians Series - Tim Susman

The Cats of Roxville station - Jean Craighead Georde

The Chanur Novels - C. J. Cherryh

The Cold Moons - Aeron Clement

The Color of Distance || Through Alien Eyes - Amy Thomson

The Conquerors - Timothy Zahn

The Council of Cats - R. J. F.

The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden

The Crimson Torch - Angela Holder

The Crossbreed - Allan Eckert

The Crucible of Time - John Brunner

D

Darkeye series - Lydia West

Deadlands: The Hunted - Skye Melki-Wegner

Demon of Undoing - Andrea I. Alton

Desert Dog - Jim Kjelgaard

Dinotopia - James Gurney, Alan Dean Foster

Doglands - Tim Willocks

Dimwood Forest series - Avi

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray - Ann M. Martin

A Dog's Porpoise Duology - M. C. Ross

Dogs of the Drowned City - Dayna Lorentz

A Dog's Purpose series - W. Bruce Cameron

Dolphin Way: Rise of the Guardians - Mark Caney

Domino - Kia Heavey

DragonFire series - Lewis Jones Davies

Dragon Fires Rising - Marc Secchia

Dragon Hoard and Other Tales of Faerie - Cathleen Townsend

Dragons and Skylines series - Rowan Silver

Dragon Prayers - M.J. McPike

Dragons of Mother Stone series - Melissa McShane

Dragon Girls Series - Maddy Mara

The Deptford Mice series - Robin Jarvis

The Dogs of the Spires series - Ethan Summers

The Dragons of Solunas series - H. Leighton Dickson

The Duncton Chronicles - William Horwood

The Destiny of Dragons - J.F.R. Coates

The Diary Of A House Cat - Ileana Dorobantu

Dogtown - Katherine Applegate & Gennifer Choldenko

Die schwarze Tigerin - Peer Martin [DE]

Die weiße Wölfin - Vanessa Walder [DE]

Die Wilden Hunde Von Pompeii - Helmut Krausser [DE]

Das wilde Mäh - Vanessa Walder [DE]

E

The Eyes and the Impossible - Dave Eggers

Eclosión - Arturo Balseiro [ES]

Ein Seehund findet nach Hause - Antonia Michaelis [DE]

F

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl

Faithful Ruslan - Georgi Vladimov

Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles - Clem Martini

Feathers & Flames series - John Bailey

Felidae series (1) - Akif Pirinçci

Fifteen Rabbits - Felix Salten

Fire, Bed & Bone - Henrietta Branford

Fire of the Phoenix - Azariah Jade

Fluke - James Herbert

Firefall series - Peter Watts

Firebringer - David Clement-Davies

Flush: A Biography Book - Virginia Woolf

Fox - Glyn Frewer

Foxcraft series - Inbali Iserles

Frightful’s Mountain - Jeanie Craighead George

Frost dancers: A story of hares - Garry Kilworth

The Familiars series - Adam Jay Epstein

The Fifth - Saylor Ferguson

The Firebringer series - Meredith Ann Pierce

The Fox and The Hound - Daniel P. Mannix

Freundschaft im Regenwald - Peer Martin [DE]

(1) Felidae's Author - Akif Pirinçci - is known to be a Xenophobic, Anti-muslim, Anti-Lgbt and Extreme Right-Wing guy (A N4zi by his on words). Won't be going onto details just know he has a non-fiction work called "Germany Gone Mad: The Crazy Cult around Women, Homosexuals and Immigrants." His works has been out of print ever since.

G

Guardian Cats and the lost books of Alexandria - Rahma Krambo

Guardians of Ga'Hoole series - Kathryn Lasky

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Griffin Quest - Sophie Torro

Gryphon Insurrection series - K. Vale Nagle

The Ghost and It's Shadow - Shaun Hick

The Golden Eagle - Robert Murphy

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker

The Good Dog - Newbery Medalist

The Guardian Herd series - Jennifer Lynn Alvarez

The Goodbye Cat - Hiro Arikawa

H

Haunt Fox - Jim Kjelgaard

Haven: A Small Cat's Big Adventure - Megan Wagner Lloyd

Heavenly Horse series - Mary Stanton

Hive - Ischade Bradean

Horses of Dawn series - Kathryn Lasky

House of Tribes - Garry Kilworth

Hunter's Moon/Foxes of First dark - Garry Kilworth

Hunters Universe series - Abigail Hilton

A Hare at Dark Hollow - Joyce Stranger

The Hundred and One Dalmatians & The Starlight Barking - Dodie Smith

The Hunt for Elsewhere - Beatrice Vine

Hollow Kingdom Duology - Kira Jane Buxton

I

I am a Cat - Natsume Sōseki

I, Scheherezade: Memoirs of a Siamese Cat - Douglass Parhirst

In the Long Dark - Brian Carter

The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford

Im Reich der Geparde - Kira Gembri [DE]

J

Joe Grey series - Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach & Russell Munson

Julie of the Wolves - Jeanie Craighead George

The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling

Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en

K

Kävik the Wolf Dog - Walt Morey

Kazan duology - James Curwood

Kine - Alan Lloyd

Kona's Song - Louise Searl

The Killers - Daniel P. Mannix

Kindred of the Wild - Charles G.D Roberts

König der Bären - Vanessa Walder [DE]

L

Lassie Come-Home - Eric Knight

Last of the Curlews - Fred Bodsworth

Lazy Scales - D.M. Gilmore

Legends of Blood series - Ethan Summers

A Legend of Wolf Song - George Stone

Luna the Lone Wolf - Forest Wells

Lupus Rex - John Carter Cash

Lutapolii: White Dragon of the South - Deryn Pittar

The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle

The Labrador Pact & The Last Family in England - Matt Haig

The Last Dogs - Christopher Holt

The Last Eagle - Daniel P. Mannix

The Last Great Auk - Allan Eckert

The Last Monster on Earth - L.J. Davies

The Life Story of a Fox - J. C. Tregarthen

The Lost Rainforest series - Eliot Schrefer & Emilia Dziubak

The Lost Domain - Martin Hocke

The Last Whales: A Novel - Lloyd Abbey

M

Mammoth Trilogy - Stephen Baxter

Manxmouse: The Mouse Who Knew No Fear - Paul Gallico

Marney the Fox - Scott Goodall & John Stokes

Mattie: The story of a hedgehog - Norman Adams, & G.D. Griffiths

Matriarch: Elephant vs. T-Rex - Roz Gibson

Migon - P.C. Keeler

Monkey Wars - Richard Kurti

The Mistmantle chronicles - M.I. McAllister

The Mountain Lion - Robert Murphy

The Mouse Butcher - Dick King-Smith

The Mouse Protectors Series - Olly Barrett

Maru - Die Reise der Elefanten - Kira Gembri [DE]

N

New Springtime series - Robert Silverberg

Nightshade Chronicles - Hilary Wagner

Nugly - M. C. Ross

Nuru und Lela - Das Wunder der Wildnis - Kira Gembri [DE]

O

Old One-Toe - Michel-Aimé Baudouy

Of Birds and Branches - Frances Pauli

Outlaw Red - Jim Kjelgaard

The Old Stag - Henry Williamson

The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate

P

Painted Flowers - Caitlin Grizzle

Pax & Pax: Journey Home - Sara Pennypacker

Petrichor - C.E. Wright

The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams

The Pit - Elaine Ramsay

Pride Wars - Matt Laney

A Pup Called Trouble - Bobbie Pyron

The Peregryne Falcon - Robert Murphy

Pork and Others - Cris Freddi

Q

Queen in the Mud - Maari

Quill and Claw series - Kathryn Brown

R

Rak: The story of an Urban Fox - Jonathon Guy

Rats of Nimh series - Robert C. O'Brien

Raven Quest - Sharon Stewart

Raptor Red - Robert T. Bakker

Red Fox - Charles G. D. Roberts

Redwall series - Brian Jacques

Rose in a Storm - Jon Katz

Rufus - Rutherford Montgomery

Run With the Wind series - Tom McCaughren

Runt - Marion Dane Baeur

Rustle in the Grass - Robin Hawdon

Rusty - Joyce Stranger

The Remembered War series - Robert Vane

The Rescuers series - Margery Sharp

The Red Stranger - David Stephen

The River Singers & The Rising - Tom Moorhouse

The Road Not Taken - Harry Turtledove,

The Running Foxes - Joyce Stranger

Revier der Raben - Vanessa Walder [DE]

S

Salar the Salmon - Henry Williamson

Scary Stories for Young Foxes Duology - Christian McKay Heidicker

Scaleshifter series - Shelby Hailstone Law

Scream of the White Bears - David Clement-Davies

Seekers saga - Erin Hunter

Serpentia Series - Frances Pauli

Shadows in the Sky - Pete Cross

Shark Wars Series - EJ Altbacker

Silverwing series - Kenneth Oppel

Silver Brumby series - Elyne Mitchell

Sirius - Olaf Stapledon

Solo's Journey - Joy Aiken Smith

Sky Hawk - Gill Lewis

Snow Dog - Jim Kjelgaard

Song of the River - Soinbhe Lally

Spirit of the West series - Kathleen Duey

Survivors series - Erin Hunter

Stray - A.N Wilson

String Lug the Fox - David Stephen

Swashbuckling Cats: Nine Lives on the Seven Seas - Rhonda Parrish & Co.

Swordbird series - Nancy Yi Fan

The Sheep-Pig - Dick King-Smith

The Sight & Fell - David Clement-Davies

The Silent Sky - Allan Eckert

The Silver Claw - Garry Kilworth

The Stoner Eagles - William Horwood

The Stink Files - Jennifer L. Holm & Jonathan Hamel

The Snowcat Prince - Dina Norlund

The Story Of A Seagull And The Cat Who Taught Her To Fly - Luis Sepúlveda

The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow - Luis Sepúlveda

The Story of a dog called Leal - Luis Sepúlveda

The Story of a Red Deer - John Fortescue

The Summer King Chronicles - Jess E. Owen

Schogul, Rächer der Tiere - Birgit Laqua [DE]

Stadt der Füchse - Vanessa Walder [DE]

T

Tailchaser's Song - Tad Williams

Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson

Three Bags Full - Leonnie Swann

Thy Servant a Dog - Rudyard Kipling

Tomorrow's Sphinx - Clare Bell

Torn Ear - Geoffrey Malone

Thor - Wayne Smith

Trickster -  Tom Moorhouse

Two Dogs and a Horse - Jim Kjelgaard

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa

The Trilogy of the Ants - Bernard Werber

The Trumpet of the Swan - E. B. White

The Tusk That Did the Damage - Tania James

The Tygrine cat - Inbali Iserles

U

Ultimate Dragon Saga - Graham Edwards

Under the Skin - Michel Faber

V

Varjak Paw duology - S.F Said

Vainqueur the Dragon series - Maxime J. Durand

W

War Bunny series - Christopher St. Jhon

War Horse - Michael Morpurgo

War Queen - Illthylian

Warrior Cats series - Erin Hunter

Watership Down/Tales of Watership Down - Richard Adams

Ways of Wood Folk - William J. Long

Welkin Weasels series - Garry Kilworth

West of Eden - Harry Harrison

Whalesong Trilogy - Robert Siegel

Whale - Jeremy Lucas

Whispers in the Forest - Barbara Coultry

White Wolf - Henrietta Branford

White Fang - Jack London

White Fox Series - Jiatong Chen

Wild Lone - Denys Watkins-Pitchford

Wild Animals I Have Known - Ernest Thompson Seton

Willow Tree Wood Series - J. S. Betts

Wings of Fire series - Tui T. Sutherland

Winterset Hollow - Jonathan Edward Durham

Wolf: The Journey Home | Hungry for Home: A Wolf Odyssey - Asta Bowen

Wolf Brother series - Michelle Paver

Wolf Chronicles - Dorothy Hearst

Wolves of the Beyond series - Kathryn Lasky

Woodstock Saga - Michael Tod

A Whale of the Wild - Rosanne Parry

A Wolf Called Wander - Rosanne Parry

The Waters of Nyra - Kelly Michelle Baker

The Wolves of Elementa series - Sophie Torro

The Wolves of Time - William Horwood

The Wolf Chronicles Series - Teng Rong

The Way of Kings - Louise Searl

The White Bone - Barbara Gowdy

The White Fox/Singing Tree - Brian Parvin

The White Puma - Ronald Lawrence

The Wild Road & The Golden Cat - Gabriel King

The Wildings & The Thousand names of darkness - Nilanjana Roy

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

The Wind Protect You - Pat Murphy

The Wolves of Paris - Daniel P. Mannix

Y

Yellow eyes - Rutherford Montgomery

The Year Of The Dinosaur - Edwin H. Colbert

Z

Zones of Thought series - Vernor Vinge

Z-Verse series by R.H

Comic Books/Graphic Novels

Animosity - Marguerite Bennett

Age of Reptiles - Ricardo Delgado

Legend - Samuel Sattin Koehler

Mouse Guard - David Petersen

Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon

Rover Red Charlie - Garth Ennis & Michael Dipascale

Stray Dogs - Tony Fleecs & Trish Forstner

We3 - Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely

Beasts of Burden - Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson

LOBO: Canine Crusader of the Metal Wasteland - Macs-World-Ent

The Sandman: Dream of a Thousand Cats - Neil Gaiman

Animal Castle - Xavier Dorison & Felix Delep

Blacksad Series - Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido

Scurry - Mac Smith

The Snowcat Prince - Dina Norlund

Rankless - Maggie Lightheart

Animal Pound - Tom King & Peter Gross

Animal Castle - Xavier Dorison & Felix Delep

BlackSad - Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido

Picture Books

Steve the Dung Beetle: On a Roll - Susan R. Stoltz & Melissa Bailey

Hot Dog - Doug Salati

The Rock from the Sky - Jon Klassen

Whoever Heard of a Flying Bird? - David Cunliffe & Ivan Barrera

A Cat Named Whiskers - Shana Gorian

Ocean Tales Children's Books Series - Sarah Cullen & Zuzana Sbodová

Jake the Growling Dog - Samantha Shannon

Indie Written Works

Fins Above Series - MIROYMON

Journey of Atlas - Journey of Atlas

Webcomics

A

Africa - Arven92

After Honour - genstaelens

Awka - Nothofagus-obliqua

Arax - Azany

Amarith - Eredhys

The Apple's Echo - Helianthanas

Alone - Magpeyes

B

The Blackblood Alliance - KayFedewa

The Betrothed - Kibisca

Black Tyrant - Zapp-BEAST

Blue - HunterBeingHunted

Beast Tags - TheRoomPet

Spy - Utahraptor93

Be Reflected in my Eyes - Aquene-lupetta

C

Carry your voice - TacoBella

Caelum Sky - ALRadeck

Crescent Wing - Mikaley

Crescent Moonlight - AnimalCrispy

City of Trees - SanjanaIndica

Corpse - doeprince/ratt

D

Darbi - Sherard Jackson

The Devils Demons - Therbis

Doe of Deadwood - Songdogx

Dyten - Therbis

Desperation - PracticelImagination

E

Equus Siderae - Dalgeor

Empyrean - Leonine-Skies

Enchantment - FeralWolf1234

F

Fox Fires - Pipilia

Forget me Not - Nitteh

Fjeld - Dachiia

Felinia - Rainy-bleu

G

Golden Shrike - doeprince/ratt

Ghost of the Gulag - David Derrick Jr.

H

Horse Age - BUGHS-22

Hiraeth - AFlameThatNeverDies

Half-Blood - majkaria

Horns of Light - ThatMoonySky

I

I Hope So - Detective Calico

The Ivory Walk - TacoBella

I'm not Ready - Wolfkingdom372

J

Jet and Harley - doeprince

K

Kestrel Island - Silverphoenix

Kin - Fienduredraws

KuroMonody - IrisBdz

Krystal - Nitteh

The King of Eyes - CloverTailedFox09

L

Legend of Murk - Azany

LouptaOmbra - Loupta Ombra (OngakuK, MlleNugget & joeypony)

Leopards bring rain - Kyriuar

M

Mazes of Filth - petitecanine

Minimal All You Are - mike-princeofstars

N

Nine Riders - SpiriMuse

No Man's Land - TacoBella

Never seen the Day - R3dk3y

Norra - shadowmirku

O

Obsidian Fire - SolinaBright

Oren's Forge - teagangavet

Off-White - Akreon

Out Of Time - IndiWolf

R

Rabbit on the Moon - Songdogx & Nitteh

The Rabbit Hole - Detrah

RunningWolf Mirari - Mirella Menciassi

Raptor - ElenPanter

Redriver - FireTheWolf777

Repeat - Songdogx

The Rabbit's Foot - riri_arts

S

Scurry - Mac Smith

Simbol - Zoba22

Spirit Lock - Animal Crispy

The Sylcoe - Denece-the-sylcoe

Sunder - Aurosoul

T

Tainted Hearts - Therbis

Taxicat - owlburrow

That's Freedom Guyra - Nothofagus-obliqua

Three Corners: A Kitten's Story - Lara Frizzell

Tofauti Sawa - TheCynicalHound

Two of a Kind - ProjectNao

To Catch a Star - SleepySundae

U

Under the Ash Tree - ChevreLune

Uninvited - Nothofagus-obliqua

W

Water Wolves - LuckyStarhun

What Lurks Beneath - ArualMeow

Water Wolves - LuckyStarhun

Wild Wolves - Lombarsi

White Tail - SleepySundae

What's your damage? - FrostedCanid

The Wolves of Chena - Yamis-Art

Waves Always Crash - Hellhunde

The Whale's Heart - Possumteeeth [Warriors Fancomic]

Manga

A Centaur's Life - Murayama Kei

Beastars - Paru Itagaki

Chi's Sweet Home - Kanata Konami

Ginga Series [Silverfang] - Yoshihiro Takahashi

Gon - Masashi Tanaka

Houseki no Kuni | Land of the Lustrous - Haruko Ichikawa

Inugami-Kai - Masaya Hokazono

The Jungle Emperor - Osamu Tezuka

My roommate is a cat - Minatsuki & Asu Futatsuya

Crimsons – The Scarlet Navigators of the Ocean - Kanno Takanori

Rooster Fighter - Shū Sakuratani

Simoun - Shō Aikawa

The Fox & Little Tanuki - Mi Tagawa

Yuria 100 Shiki - Nobuto Hagio

Massugu ni Ikou - Kira

Cat Soup

The Amazing 3

Cat + Gamer - Wataru Nadatani

Animated Series

#

101 Dalmatians: The series & 101 Dalmatian Street

A

A Polar Bear in Love

B

Baja no Studio

Bagi: Monster of Mighty Nature

Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel

Bluey

C

Centaurworld (2021)

Chirin's Bell

Chironup no Kitsune

D

Dokkun Dokkun

E

F

G

Gamba no Bouken

H

Hazbin Hotel

I

Invader ZIM

Inu to Neko Docchi mo Katteru to Mainichi Tanoshii

J

K

King Fang

Koisuru Shirokuma

Kemushi no Boro

Kewang Lantian

Konglong Baobei: Shiluo De Wenming

L

Little Polar Bear

M

Manxmouse's Great Activity

Mitsubachi Maya no Bouken

Mikan Enikki

Massugu ni Ikou -

My Life as a Teenage Robot

Mikan Enikki

N

O

Ore, Tsushima

Okashi na Sabaku no Suna to Manu

P

Primal

Polar Bear Cafe

Q

R

Robotboy (2005)

S

Seton Doubutsuki: Risu no Banner

Simoun

T

The Amazing 3

Tottoko Hamtarou

The Adventure of Qiqi and Keke

Tama & Friends: Third Street Story

U

V

W

Watership Down (2018) & Watership Down (1999)

What's Michael?

Wolf's Rain

Wonder Pets

X

Y

Live-Action/Hybrid show

Fantasy High

A Crown of Candy 

Burrow's End

Good Omens

Webseries

Dinosauria - Dead Sound

My Pride - tribbleofdoom

Whitefall - Chylk

The Stolen Hope - Galemtido

Dragon's Blood - FluffyGinger

Helluva Boss -

Murder Drones -

Short Films

A

Alone a wolf's winter

B

Baja's Studio

Beautiful Name

Burrow

C

Cat Piano

Cat Soup

Chicken Little

D

E

F

Far From the Tree

Ferdinand the Bull

Frypan Jiisan

G

Genji Fantasy: The Cat Fell in Love With Hikaru Genji

Gaitou to Neko

H

Hao Mao Mimi

Houzi Dian Bianpao

I

J

Je T'aime

K

Kitbull

L

Lava

Lambert the sheepish lion

Laoshu Jia Nu

M

Mahoutsukai no Melody

Monmon the Water Spider

Mushroom - Nakagawa Sawako

N

O

Of Mice and Clockworks

Osaru no Tairyou

P

Piper

Q

R

Robin Robin

Rusuban

S

Sauria - Dead Sound

Smash and Grab

Street of Crocodiles

She and Her Cat

Space Neko Theater

Shiroi Zou | White Elephant

Shi | Food

Sugar, With a Story

Straw-saurus NEO

T

The Chair

The Blue Umbrella

The Shell Shocked Egg

The Dog Door

The Dog In The Alley

That's Why They Were Made

U

Ushigaeru

V

W

With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun

X

Y

Z

Zhui Shu

Animated Films

#

101 Dalmatians duology

A

A Monkey's Tale (1999)

All Dogs go to Heaven

The Adventures of Lolo the Penguin

Alpha and Omega saga

An American Tail

The Aristocats

Antz

Animals United

Annabelle's Wish (1997)

Alakazam the great (1960)

B

Back Outback

Balto

Bambi / Bambi II

Bolt

Brother Bear / Brother Bear II

A Bug's Life

The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales

Bee Movie

The Brave Little Toaster

Birds of a Feather

Back to the Forest

C

Cars

Chance

Chicken Run

D

Dinosaur

Speckles: The Tarbosaurus || Dino King: Journey to Fire Mountain

Dumbo

DC League of Super-Pets

E

Elemental

F

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Planet

Felidae

The Fox and the Hound

Finding Nemo/Finding Dory

Free Birds

The Fearless Four

G

The Good Dinosaur

Ghost in the Shell

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

H

Happy Feet/Happy Feet Two

Help! I'm a Fish

Home on the Range

Hoero! Bun Bun Movie

Hokkyoku no Muushika Miishika

I

Ice Age Franchise

Isle of Dogs

I Am T-Rex

J

Jungledyret Hugo

K

Koati

The King of Tibetan Antelope

Kuma no Gakkou trilogy

L

Lady and the Tramp

The Land Before time Franchise

The Last Unicorn

Leafy, A Hen in the wild

Little Big Panda

The Lion King Franchise

Lucky and Zorba

Lilo & Stitch

Luca

Last Day of the Dinosaurs

M

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marona's Fantastic Tale

Millionaire Dogs

My Friend Tyranno

Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants || Minuscule - Mandibles from Far Away

Mouse and His Child

N

Nezumi Monogatari: George to Gerald no Bouken

O

Oliver & Company

One Stormy Night

Over the Edge

P

Padak

The Plague Dogs

Pompoko

Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro

Pipi Tobenai Hotaru

R

Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure

Rango

Ratatouille

Raven the Little Rascal

Reynard the Fox (1989)

Rio

Robots

Rock a Doodle

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1998)

The Rabbi’s Cat

S

Samson and Sally

Sahara

The Secret of Nihm

The Secret Life of Pets/The Secret Life of Pets II

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Sheep & Wolves

The Seventh Brother

A Stork's Journey

Stowaways on the Ark

T

A Turtle's Tale

The One and Only Ivan

Toy Story

Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987)

The Trumpet of the Swan

The Enchanted Journey

U

Unico

Underdog

V

Vuk the Little Fox

W

WALL·E

Watership Down (1978)

White Fang

Wizards

The Wild

Wolf Children

Wolfwalkers

X

Y

You Are Umasou

Z

Zootopia

Live Action/CGI Assisted Movies

Au Hasard Balthazar

Beverly Hills Chihuahua franchise

Cats & Dogs franchise

Charlotte's Web

EO

Fluke (1995) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Homeward Bound duology (1963 & 1996) - Disney

The Legend of Lobo (1962) - Disney

Strays (2023) - Universal Pictures

Pride (2024) - BBC

101 Dalmatians duology (1996 & 2000)

Documentary

March of the Penguins

Meerkat Manor

Lemur Street

Gangs of Lemur Island

Orangutan Island

Prairie Dog Dynasty

Chimp Empire

Monkey Thieves

Monkey Kingdom

Theather

Cats

Videogames

Animalia Survival - High Brazil Studio

Cattails - Falcon Development

Endling: Extinction is Forever

Gibbon: Beyond the trees - Broken Rules

The Lonesome Fog - Might and Delight

Meadow - Might and Delight

Niche - Stray Fawn Studio

Shelter / Shelter 2/ Shelter 3 - Might and Delight

Paws - Might and Delight

Stray - BlueTwelve Studio

The WILDS - Gluten Free Games

Wolf Quest - eduweb

Golden Treasure: The Great Green - Dreaming Door Studios

Spirit of the North - Infuse Studio

Ōkami - Clover Studio

Rain World - Videocult

Feather - Samurai Punk

Eagle Flight - Ubisoft Montreal Studio

Copoka - Inaccurate Interactive

Untitled Goose Game - House House

PaRappa - NanaOn-Sha

Night in the Woods - Infinite Fall & Secret Lab

Monster Prom - Beautiful Glitch

Them's Fightin' Herds - Mane6

Toontown

E.V.O.: Search for Eden - Givro Corporation

(Pretty much most of Might and Delight games)

Online Browser Games

Lioden

Wolvden

Flight Rising

Lorwolf

Table Top Games

Bunnies & Burrows

Chronicles of Darkness

Wanderhome

Mage: The Awakening

Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Pugmire

Three Raccoons in a Trench Coat

World Tree (RPG)

Pawpocalypse

Heckin' Good Doggos

Humblewood

Dungeons & Dragons (Depends on the GM)

Music

In My Eyes You're a Giant - Sonata Arctica

It Won't Fade - Unia

The Cage - Winterheart's Guild

Other Online Projects

Youtubers

Cardinal West

Xenofiction Reviews

Gen. Videos

Trope Talk: Small Mammal on a Big Adventure by Overly Sarcastic Productions

Worlds

Mirolapye - Varverine

Franchises

Sonic the Hedgehog

My little pony

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Hamtaro

Pokemon

Digimon

Kirby

Monter High

Tom & Jerry

Baldur’s Gate

Maya the Bee

The Little Polar Bear

#xenofiction #fantasy #masterlist #wip #scifi #fiction #Youtube

[furiosophie]

>> memory fragment \ not categorized

Now when he snaps awake it’s to his heart racing in his chest, sweat prickling across his skin like shards of ice, and Bridger staring at him wide awake from across the fire.

—

Thrawn reflects on his time trying to get back to Eli's side.

POST·MOR·TEM // FILE 03 [READ ON AO3]

ship: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto

words: 80 490, completed

tags: minor character death, it's ronan, sorry to all the ronan stans but he drew the short straw on plot armor unfortunately, canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, this time for real, post-star wars: rebels, thrawn and ezras whacky space adventures, reluctant bonding over childhood trauma, little bit of whump, and mentions of torture, not gore but gore adjacent, literally everyone commits murder in this, epistolary elements, pov thrawn as usual, five stages of grief but they're at war so they're only doing anger, thrawn gets absolutely dragged for his crimes, mutual pinning (angry version), i promise it's not miscommunication it's just ptsd, they'll get there eventually, somehow still canon compliant

series: pt 3/3 of  postmortem - excerpts from former grand admiral mitth'raw'nuruodo’s private journal of catalogued memories

FILE 01 | FILE 02 | BORIKA INTERLUDE | FILE 03

#thranto #thrawn #eli vanto #it's done!!!!! #i did it #the happy end for real this time #thank you to everyone who's been on this journey with me!! #honestly still feel a bit unreal about the response #and about the fact that i'm done now?? #kinda bittersweet #anyway #thank you for reading #i's not letting me post alt text again i'm so sorry

[indierpgnewsletter]

New Itch Games for April & May

Been quiet on here but I'm back now!

It’s the itch.io round-up of new games! Now coming to you once every two months because that sounds easier. Usual disclaimer: This comes from be browsing itch.io and people self-submitting through the form. I haven’t played these games and mostly am just going by how interesting they sound to me. Okay, let’s go:

The Hollow Queen: This is a GM-less horror game from Venezuelan designer, Felix Rios, about a dark force haunting the streets and the people trying to uncover it. It uses the diceless Ten Coins system and is available in Spanish.

Contact: A game where you use a music playlist and tarot cards to play through a story about trying to make contact with aliens. I think the idea is that the songs contain encoded messages from the aliens, which is a neat reversal of the Voyager Golden Record. By j strautman.

Tangled Blessings: This is a solo dark fantasy game set in a magic school. It’s a solo/duet game, building on Anamnesis by Sam Leigh. You explore the secrets of this weird school while dealing with a rival who’s making your life difficult. Designed by Cassi Mothwin.

Strike Force Omega: This is LUMEN game about science-fantasy supersoldiers coming back for one last stand, defending their homes in a time of war. By Chris Longhurst, designer of See Issue X and Pigsmoke.

Thirty Foes  (OR Once again, we are defeated): In a similar premise, but much more focused on the drama rather than tactics, this is Seven Samurai but cosmic cowboys. They sling cosmic power and defend against bandits. And they’re probably going to die. From Rat Wave Game House.

Thief and Druid: Two games from Stéphanie Dusablon. Both are solo games with an optional journaling element. Thief uses the Push system and Druid uses the Firelights system. I’m not sure if this is a series that will expand to all the D&D classes but it’s a neat idea.

Skyrealms: This is a fantasy bestiary, setting, and solo adventure game about three floating islands in the misty heights, full of secrets and strange creatures. It’s from Iko and Armanda Haller. You can also use the bestiary as a colouring book apparently!

In The Blind: This is a sci-fi horror game about working class people trying to do their job and instead facing the darkness of space. This is a free preview and showcases how good Riley Daniels, designer of As The Sun Forever Sets, is at visual design.

Queenless: This is another Firelights game from solo game blog, Croaker RPGs. You play as members of the hive, exploring the world and protecting your home from destruction.

When Prophecy Fails: Nick Wedig makes a game about cultists and what happens when their foreseen apocalypse doesn’t happen. I’ll give you a hint: they often get even more radical. Based on the For the Queen. (PWYW)

The Score: Tin Star Games GM-less storygame where you tell a heist movie in 18 minutes using 18 cards.

SDM: Eternal Return Key: Luka Rejec follows up Ultraviolet Grasslands with a full OSR-style rulset and more weird setting. It has the same much-loved psychadelic vibe from the original and there’s a free art-less version as well.

the city begins to exist: A citybuilding game with some solid prompts. I can always use more citybuilding games! Designed by kay w.

[lackofhonor]

YOU SHOULD ALL READ THIS it is amazing!

Romancing the Stone style Star Wars!

Cody was a sci-fi novelist, not some damned adventurer. His brother, Rex, was. Traveling all over the globe, his little brother had made quite a name for himself in the field of investigative journalism. But, when Cody receives a package from his kidnapped brother, he has no choice but to travel to Brazil to exchange it for Rex’s safety. Along the way, it becomes clear that whoever had his brother wasn’t the only one interested in Rex’s research. Also that Portuguese is hard. Romancing the Stone AU for me and me only because i love that movie and wanna put my blorbos in the Amazon :)

#clone wars #codywan #star wars #commander cody #clone captain rex

[starblightbindery]

Editor's Note from my bind, Designs of Fate, an anthology of Star Wars stories by Patricia A. Jackson.

Patricia A. Jackson is a criminally underrated Star Wars author.

I’ll explain.

Growing up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was challenging to be an adolescent Star Wars fangirl, particularly an Asian American one. Back then, fandom meant negotiating male-dominated online message boards where identifying as a teenage girl meant inviting a ‘fake geek girl’ grilling at best and sexual harassment at worst. Most of the published Star Wars books were about Han, Leia, and Luke. Han and Leia were in their thirties and the parents of three children...not super relatable for preteen me. As far as character development was concerned, our “Big Three” had established characterizations coalesced firmly on the side of good. For our heroes, there was no moral ambiguity as, novel by novel, they tackled the galactic Threat of the Week.

Bildungsromans, those books were not. When Jackson started writing Star Wars in the 1990s, there were no women Jedi or protagonists of color. If you wanted stories with original characters coming of age, your primary recourse was the West End Games’ Star Wars Adventure Journals and their published anthologies, Tales from the Empire (1997) and Tales from the New Republic (1999). I remember avidly poring over my dogeared paperback copies and stalking the internet for scans or transcriptions. Although I never played the D6 role-playing game, the short stories from the Star Wars Adventure Journals helped me envision that a character like me—a young Asian girl coming into her own—did have a place in Star Wars after all.

As evinced by the vitriolic reactions towards John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran during the production of the sequel trilogy, Star Wars fandom can be a hateful environment for proponents of diversity and inclusion. A small but irritatingly loud faction of fascist-leaning, cishet, white male fans are actively hostile towards fans who advocate for change; they are more troubled by the presence of queers, women and BIPOC than our absence. Because of the ubiquity and popularity of Star Wars in America’s cultural milieu, the sentiments from these self-appointed gatekeepers have been—and continue to be—amplified by right wing extremists, and, to some extent, even by the Internet Research Agency as tools of Russia’s psychological and cyber warfare against the United States. During his Ph.D. candidacy with the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, Morten Bay, PhD., studied negative tweets about The Last Jedi and found that 50.9% of negative tweets were “bots, trolls/sock puppets or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality.”

“Russian trolls weaponize Star Wars criticism as an instrument of information warfare with the purpose of pushing for political change,” he wrote, “while it is weaponized by right-wing fans to forward a conservative agenda and for some it is a pushback against what they perceive as a feminist/social justice onslaught.”

The creation and inclusion of characters with minoritized identities in Star Wars is, therefore, an act of resistance. As far as I’m aware, Patricia A. Jackson was the first woman of color and Black author to write for the Star Wars expanded universe. Jackson has described the fan environment in the 1990s thusly; like many minoritized fans of color, she would be given pithy justifications such as "Well, there’s no Africa in Star Wars, so there are no Black people." Jackson noted, aptly, "That was just translation for “’You don’t matter. You don’t need to be here.’” Jackson's work for West End Games, particularly her sourcebook The Black Sands of Socorro, is a subversion of those expectations.

Before anyone else did, Jackson showed fandom that dominant mayo masculinity did not have to be the only way to tell Star Wars stories. Her stories existed before the prequel trilogy and three decades of Star Wars publishing, before FanFiction.net, Archive of Our Own, or Wattpad. She is the forerunner for BIPOC writers in Star Wars, followed by other luminaries like Steven Barnes, Daniel José Older, Nnedi Okorafor, Rebecca Roanhorse, Ken Liu, Greg Pak, Alyssa Wong, Sarah Kuhn, Saladin Ahmed, C.B. Lee, Justina Ireland, Alex Segura, Zoraida Cordova, Greg VanEekhout, Mike Chen, Charles Yu, R.F. Kuang, Sarwat Chadda, Sabaa Tahir, and Renée Ahdieh.

Jackson had and continues to have an incredibly prescient understanding of what makes a good Star Wars story. Any of the stories in this anthology could find a home as an anime short from Star Wars: Visions (2021). Ideas from Jackson’s Star Wars short stories have appeared in later media, sometimes decades later. Whether convergently evolved or directly influenced, the parallels are astonishing: Kierra, the snarky feminine droid consciousness who inhabits Thaddeus Ross’s ship, is a spiritual predecessor to L3-37, Lando Calrissian’s snarky feminine droid companion from Solo (2018) who ends the film uploaded to the Millennium Falcon. Jackson addressed concepts like slavery and Force healing predating the prequel and sequel trilogies. In “Idol Intentions,” she created an adventuring academic on the hunt for artifacts long before Kieron Gillen brought Doctor Aphra to life. Squint and the upturned red salt on the planet Crait in The Last Jedi becomes flying red soil on the planet Redcap. Dark haired, dark side tragic emo boy starcrossed with a fiery girl Jedi?—I think Jackson understood intuitively the appeal of this trope to a woman-dominated contingent of fandom well before “Reylo” topped Tumblr’s fan favorite relationship charts in 2020.

Jackson’s work is also significant for deepening world building. Much like how Timothy Zahn introduced analysis of fine art to Star Wars with his villainous art connoisseur Grand Admiral Thrawn, Jackson’s stories introduced concepts such as the evolution of Old Corellian, the acting profession, and Legitimate Theatre. These elements added verisimilitude to the expanded universe; it makes sense that different cultures in Star Wars would have archaic languages, folk songs, and old stories of their own from even longer ago in galaxies far, far, away. More recently, the franchise has started to flesh out in-universe lore in Star Wars: Myths and Fables (2019) by George Mann. Still, Uhl Eharl Khoehng in “Uhl Eharl Khoehng” (1995) remains the finest example of mise en abyme in any Star Wars related work.

Themes from Jackson’s Star Wars works, particularly around Drake Paulsen and Socorro, also connect contemporaneously with our real world. When the Seldom Different is essentially ‘pulled over’ by Imperial authorities in “Out of the Cradle” (1994), stormtroopers lie about Drake Paulsen having a weapon as a pretense to terrorize the teenager. It’s a collision of space opera with Black youths’ past and current experiences of police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. Accordingly, this capricious encounter is the rite of passage that jars Drake out of his childhood. I cheered when I read The Black Sands of Socorro (1997) and saw that the Black Bha'lir smuggler’s guild is named for a bha'lir, depicted in the book as a large...panther. Few Star Wars expanded universe authors—particularly in the 1990s—leveraged their influence to center characters of color or to allude to racial justice movements. Jackson did both.

For this anthology, I have copy edited and also taken the liberty of, when applicable, substituting some gendered or sanist language with more contemporaneous wording.17 The stories are otherwise intact. It would be remiss of me if I did not note; however, that one of the stories, “Bitter Winter” (1995), has sanist and ableist tropes that could not be contemporized without making dramatic changes to the story. In this story, the fictional disease brekken vinthern drives those impacted to violence; while it’s real world correlate of major neurocognitive disorder can include symptoms of aggression and agitation, extreme violence is rare and people with this condition are also at great risk of being harmed by violence. The tropes “Mercy Kill” and “Shoot the Dog” are depictions of non-voluntary active euthanasia, typically from the perspective of the horrified “killer” placed in an impossible situation. These tropes frame murder and death as “putting someone out of their misery” while downplaying any alternatives (ie: sedation to alleviate suffering, medical attention, or, say, ion cannons to render a ship inoperable without killing.)

Like in our society, the societies in Star Wars have consistently framed mental illness pejoratively. There are certainly valid critiques of the utter inadequacy of health care in Star Wars. Ableism is ubiquitous in entertainment media, and even with it’s problematic tropes, “Bitter Winter” remains one of the more humanizing depictions of a mental health condition in Star Wars fiction. I have included it in this anthology as a rare example of moral ambiguity in the franchise.

With the exception of “Fragile Threads” and “Emanations of Darkness,” the stories here are presented not in published order, but in chronological order as they would have occurred in the Star Wars universe. Ordering the stories chronologically helped clarify timelines; it also allows the anthology to begin with “The Final Exit,” which was a fan favorite back when it was first published. I’ve interwoven the Brandl family stories with Drake Paulsen’s coming of age adventures, as the Paulsens are such a strong foil to the Brandl family.

Since “I am your father” dropped in 1980, Star Wars has been big on Daddy Issues—intergenerational trauma, parental relationships, broken attachments, identity development, and initiation into adulthood (or, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would put it, “taking your first steps into a larger world.”) With Drake, we see that Kaine Paulsen is a father who is gone but ever-present. With Jaalib, we see that Adalric Brandl is a father who is ever-present but clearly far gone. Drake knows his Socorran roots; he has community and found family. Fable’s identity is adrift; she was torn from her roots after her fugitive Jedi mother’s death. Jaalib’s roots are scaffolded by disingenuous artifice. There is a diametric interplay of identity formation and parental legacy in these short stories that captures classic themes from Star Wars. And, the stories challenge readers to consider how we interact with shame, guilt, and obligation. Through the morally ambiguous dilemmas that are her oeuvre, Jackson’s characters discover who they are and where they stand.

While the thrill of having an Imperial Star Destroyer drop out of hyperspace is pure Star Wars energy, Jackson’s stories also disrupted what fans had come to expect. Published online as fan fiction, “Emanations of Darkness” (2001) polarized fans of the previous Brandl stories, particularly with Fable’s decision to throw her lot in with Jaalib and his father. At the time, Star Wars fan commentator Charles Phipps noted how the story dealt with the insidiousness of the dark side by taking potential heroes and crushing them. “Star Wars, I've never known to leave a bitter taste in my mouth,” he wrote, stunned. “I don't like what it's brought out in my feelings or myself...Bravo Brandl, you have your applause.” Although the Brandl stories were written and published before Revenge of the Sith (2005), Fable and Jaalib’s relationship mirrors the relationship between Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, down to both Jaalib and Anakin selling their souls to the same Emperor in hopes that will spare the women they love.

The prequel trilogy introduces the Jedi Council’s detached approach to attachments—don’t feel it, emotions like fear or anger are to be shunned, else suffering will follow. Anakin Skywalker’s broken attachments to his mother and Padmé lead him to turn against his values; his inability to integrate or tolerate his attachments is his downfall. It’s the same in the Brandl stories where, trauma bonded, Fable and Jaalib cannot let each other go. While Jaalib credits this as how he was able to preserve a bit of himself while under the Emperor’s thrall, his inability to extricate himself from his father’s influence or to let go of Fable ends up dooming her.

This is why I was thrilled to discover “Fragile Threads” (2021) on Wattpad twenty years later. In this story, Drake Paulsen helps his lover Tiaja Moorn save her sister, at the cost of losing their relationship when she decides to remain on her homeworld. Drake doesn’t fight her decision, he accepts it. He can hold onto that connection to Tiaja, just as he knows he will always be connected to Socorro, his father, and the Black Bha'lir. Drake can love freely because he knows what Luke Skywalker told Leia in The Last Jedi: “No one is ever truly gone.” He is able to straddle the fulcrum of attachment and love without letting it consume him, and that is balancing the Force.

Contemporary fandom discourse is also a struggle with attachment; the parasocial relationships we form with characters and stories are similar in process to how we attach to the important people in our lives. We imbue with meaning and carry these stories with us. As Star Wars storytelling enters its fifth decade, the divide between affirmational fandom (allegiance to manufactured nostalgia) and transformational fandom (allegiance to iterative and transgressive fan engagement) has factionized fandom. When Star Wars is seen as a totemic object, right wing fans have agitated for a return to a mythic past where white men were centered and morality was Manichean. From where I stand, at the heart of this debate is whether or not the reader or Star Wars is permitted to “grow up”—to leave the cradle, to evolve new identities and explore shades of grey.

To me, Jackson’s stories are a reminder that characters of color and complex moral dilemmas have always been a part of Star Wars. We have always been here. No other Star Wars author has been as exquisitely aware of the significance of storytelling; how it can help people challenge existing beliefs and discover themselves. Since the beginnings of the expanded universe, Patricia A. Jackson has spun yarn, and those fragile threads have tethered readers like myself to a galaxy far, far away.

Ol'val, min dul'skal, ahn guld domina, mahn uhl Fharth bey ihn valle. (Until we next meet, may the Force be with you.)

#star wars legends #patricia a jackson #star wars adventure journal #swrepmatters #binders note #patricia a. jackson #fanbinding

[legendscon]

Guest Announcement: Michael Kogge

Michael's Star Wars Legends work includes the popular "Despotica" short story that was written for Hyperspace, and MANY articles in magazines such as Star Wars Insider and Star Wars Gamer. He also wrote for West End Games (Galladinium's Fantastic Technology) and Fantasy Flight (Star Wars: Edge of the Empire). Michael will be participating in panels and signings throughout the weekend at Legends Con!

Join us for a celebration of all things Expanded Universe at the Marriott Conventino Center in Burbank, CA on September 9th & 10th.

Buy your tickets by Tuesday, 8/29 at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legends-consortium-2023-tickets-541786186067

#The Despotica #Star Wars Insider #Star Wars Hyperspace #Star Wars Gamer #Star Wars Lore #Star Wars Adventure Journal #Michael Kogge #Xim Week #Bacta #Star Wars Rebels #Edge Of The Empire #West End Games #Fantasy Flight #Fantasy Flight Games #Oseon #flame wind #mindharp #centrality #Xim #star wars legends

[archeo-starwars]

Adventure Journal #07 (1995)

#star wars #adventure journal #alderaan #princess leia #in universe sources

[sirfrogsworth]

I am only 3 minutes and 8 seconds into Rebel Moon and it is already gorgeous to look at and it already has some annoying Zach Snyder shit going on.

The man cannot get out of his own way.

He actually reminds me a bit of George Lucas. In the original trilogy he had his wife (at the time) save Star Wars in the edit, then he hired writers and directors for Empire and RoTJ to manifest his story and vision. There was always someone to pull him back and keep him from going FULL LUCAS.

I mean, whoever convinced him to truncate "Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars" deserves half of his net worth.

But in the prequel trilogy, George was the boss. He wrote everything. He directed everything. And there are bits that are just wonderful spectacle and genius world building. But there was no one preventing him from going FULL LUCAS and suddenly we have Jar Jar and Hayden Christensen trying to make the hatred of sand seem interesting.

With 300, Zach was unproven and had to be careful. He couldn't unleash and go FULL SNYDER. He made something unique that no one had ever seen and even though in hindsight the color grading looks a bit crunchy and we realized there wasn't much of a story, the sheer novelty impressed a lot of people—me included. It was a super enjoyable popcorn movie experience at the time and showed great potential. The man knew how to make shit look cool, no doubt about it.

But then his ego got pumped to massive proportions and studios gave him a blank check and full creative control. He still made some really cool looking shit, but that novelty wore off and the lacking storytelling skills started rearing their ugly head.

I wonder if Sucker Punch would be tolerable if you put it on mute, enjoyed the pretty pictures, and maybe played Pink Floyd's "The Wall" along with it.

I don't know if a movie ever went as FULL SNYDER as that one and it revealed he could really use someone to pull him back.

If Zach Snyder were to ever find a lamp with a genie inside, his first wish should just be self awareness.

[coochiequeens]

Anthropologist Zelia Nuttall transformed the way we think of ancient Mesoamerica

An illustration of the Aztec calendar stone surrounds a young portrait of anthropologist Zelia Nuttall. “Mrs. Nuttall’s investigations of the Mexican calendar appear to furnish for the first time a satisfactory key,” wrote one leading scholar.Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University

By Merilee Grindle

Author, In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations

On a bright day early in 1885, Zelia Nuttall was strolling around the ancient ruins of Teotihuacán, the enormous ceremonial site north of Mexico City. Not yet 30, Zelia had a deep interest in the history of Mexico, and now, with her marriage in ruins and her future uncertain, she was on a trip with her mother, Magdalena; her brother George; and her 3-year-old daughter, Nadine, to distract her from her worries.

The site, which covered eight square miles, had once been home to the predecessors of the Aztecs. It included about 2,000 dwellings along with temples, plazas and pyramids where they charted the stars and made offerings to the sun and moon. As Zelia admired the impressive buildings, some shrouded in dirt and vegetation, she reached down and collected a few pieces of pottery from the dusty soil. They were plentiful and easy to find with a few brushes of her hand.

The moment she picked up those artifacts would prove to be pivotal in the life and long career of this trailblazing anthropologist. Over the next 50 years, Zelia’s careful study of artifacts would challenge the way people thought of Mesoamerican history. She was the first to decode the Aztec calendar and identify the purposes of ancient adornments and weapons. She untangled the organization of commercial networks and transcribed ancient songs. She found clues about the ancient Americas all over the world: Once, deep in the stacks of the British Museum, she found an Indigenous pictorial history that predated the Spanish conquest; skilled at interpreting Aztec drawings and symbols, and having taught herself Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and their predecessors, she was the first to transcribe and translate this and other ancient manuscripts.

A 19th-century engraving of the pyramids of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of the Sun was restored in 1910, on the centennial of the Mexican War of Independence. Bridgeman Images

She also served as a bridge between the United States and Mexico, living in both countries and working with leading national institutions in each. At a time when many scholars spun elaborate and unfounded theories based on 19th-century views of race, Zelia looked at the evidence and made concrete connections based on scientific observations. By the time she died, in 1933, she had published three books and more than 75 articles.

Yet during her lifetime, she was sometimes called an antiquarian, a folklorist or a “lady scientist.” When she died, scholarly journals and some newspapers ran notices and obituaries. After that, she largely passed from the public’s eye.

Today, anthropologists often have specialized expertise. But in the 19th century, anthropology was not yet a discipline with its own paradigms, methods and boundaries. Most of its practitioners were self-taught or served as apprentices to a handful of recognized experts. Many such “amateurs” made important contributions to the field. And many of them were women.

She was born in 1857 to a wealthy family in San Francisco, then a fast-growing city of about 50,000 people. Near the shore, ships mired in mud—many abandoned by crews eager to make their fortunes in the gold fields—served as hostels to a restless, sometimes violent and mostly male population. Other adventurers found uncertain homes in hastily built hotels and rooming houses. But the city was also an exciting international settlement. Ships arrived daily from across the Pacific, Panama and the east via Cape Horn.

Her well-appointed household stood apart from the city’s wilder quarters, but the people who lived there reflected San Francisco’s international character. Her mother, Magdalena Parrott Nuttall, herself the daughter of an American businessman and a Mexican woman, spoke Spanish, and her grandfather, who lived nearby, employed a French lady’s maid; a nursemaid from New York; a chambermaid, laundress, housekeeper, coachman and groom from Ireland; a steward from Switzerland; a cook and additional servants from France; and nine day laborers from China.

When Zelia was 8, her family left San Francisco for Europe. Along with her older brother, Juanito, and her younger siblings Carmelita and George, Zelia and her parents set off for Ireland, her father’s native land. Over the course of 11 years, the Nuttalls made their way to London, Paris, the South of France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Throughout that time, Zelia was educated largely by governesses and tutors, with some formal schooling in Dresden and London. But her time overseas shaped her interest in ancient history and expanded her language skills, as she added French, German and Italian to her fluent Spanish. All of this expansion thrilled her mind, but it also made her feel increasingly out of step with the expectations for young women of her age. “My ideas and opinions form themselves I don’t know how, and I sometimes am astonished at the determined ideas I have!” she wrote in a November 1875 letter.

She took refuge in singing and tried to be pleased with the few social events she attended. Photos from the time show Zelia as an attractive young woman with large, dark eyes, arched eyebrows and stylishly arranged hair. Nevertheless, she was unhappy. “I was infinitely disgusted with some of the idiotic specimens of mankind I danced with,” she wrote in an 1876 letter after a party.

The Nuttalls returned to San Francisco in 1876, when she was nearly 20. Two years later, she met a young French anthropologist, Alphonse Pinart, already celebrated in his mid-20s as an explorer and linguist. He had been to Alaska, Arizona, Canada, Maine, Russia and the South Sea Islands. Pinart may have led the family to understand that he was wealthy. In fact, he was almost penniless, having already spent his significant inheritance.

They were married at the Nuttall home on May 10, 1880. During the next year and a half, the couple traveled to Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Pinart introduced Zelia to a burgeoning academic literature in ethnology and archaeology, and she began to understand the theories of linguistics. She found 16th-century Spanish hardly a challenge as she consulted annotated codices—pictorial documents that traced pre-Columbian genealogies and conquests in Mesoamerica. While Pinart dashed from project to project and roamed widely among countries, tribes and languages, Zelia began to demonstrate an intellectual style that was more focused and precise.

Despite the excitement of discovery, something began to go wrong in the marriage. Hints of Zelia’s distress can be found in her effusive letters home. There was, for example, the shipboard admission that her husband was less attentive than she had anticipated. She noted that he was “so quiet and undemonstrative” that it was hard to imagine they were newly married. Some fellow passengers thought they were brother and sister—an odd assumption to make, even in Victorian times, about newlyweds.

By contrast, Zelia is nowhere to be found in Pinart’s surviving correspondence. On April 6, 1881, she gave birth to a daughter, Roberta, who lived only 11 days. To add to this melancholy time, her beloved father died in May, leaving her doubly devastated. A letter Pinart wrote to a friend just a few months later from Cuba appeared on stationery with a black border, signifying mourning, but he made no reference to his wife, her father or their child.

Zelia found solace in learning about her heritage when she and Pinart traveled to Mexico in 1881. She was eager to see her mother’s homeland and to hone her understanding of its pre-Columbian cultures. While Pinart carried out his own research, she began to learn Nahuatl, and she toured villages where dialects of the language were still spoken and ruins where the marks of the past could still be found.

The couple returned to San Francisco on December 6, 1881. By then, Zelia was pregnant again. In late January, Pinart set out to spend several months in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama, while Zelia awaited the birth of her second child, Nadine, at her mother’s house.

What finally drove Zelia to sue for divorce, on the grounds of cruelty and neglect, remains elusive. She may have felt that Pinart had married her for access to her family’s fortune. Many years later, she angrily informed Nadine that Pinart had spent the $9,000 she had inherited from her father as well as her marriage settlement. When the money was gone, and when her family was firm that he shouldn’t expect any more, he abandoned his wife and child. Once Zelia demanded a separation, he did not contest it, though obtaining the divorce was a long process that started soon after the couple’s return from their travels and didn’t conclude until 1888.

In later life, Nadine Nuttall Pinart would reflect on how much it had cost her to grow up without a father. “From the time before I can remember, he was taboo to me,” she wrote in a 1961 letter to Ross Parmenter, a New York Times editor who wrote numerous books about Mexico and developed a fascination with Zelia Nuttall. “I was frightened by the violent scoldings I got for mentioning his name. Later, I compromised with myself and when asked about him quietly said, ‘I never knew him!’ I realized that people thought he was dead and were sorry for me and said no more. In those days it was a disgrace to have a divorced mother.”

If the period between 1881 and 1888, when Zelia finalized her divorce, was fraught with tension and heartache, this was also when she set about redefining herself as a woman with a vocation. She spent five months in Mexico with her mother, her daughter and her brother between December 1884 and April 1885, visiting Cuernavaca, Mexico City and Toluca, and exploring archaeological ruins. It was during this time that Zelia made her fateful winter visit to Teotihuacan and acquired her first artifacts.

The pieces of pottery she picked up that day were small terra-cotta heads. They were abundant in the area among the pyramids. At the time, the site was still being used as farmland, and the artifacts came to the surface during ploughing. The heads themselves were an inch or two long, with flat backs and a neck attached. Scholars before Zelia—Americans, Europeans and Mexicans—had mused creatively about such relics, describing differences in their facial features and the variety of headdresses they had sported. Drawing on 19th-century fascination with the topic of race, the French archaeologist Désiré Charnay became convinced that he could see in them African, Chinese and Greek facial features. Charnay mused: Had their creators migrated from Africa, Asia or Europe? And if racial identity was a marker of human development, as many believed at the time, what might this curious mixture of features reveal about civilizations in the Americas?

This kind of thinking was typical. Mistaken ideas about Darwinism led many Western scholars to believe that civilizations evolved along a linear, hierarchical path, from primitive villages to ancient kingdoms to modern industrial and urban societies. Not surprisingly, they used this to legitimize beliefs about the superiority of the white race.

Zelia Nuttall divided her collection of terra-cotta heads into three classes. The first included rudimentary efforts to represent a human face (as seen above, far left). The second class (including the bald second head from the left above) had holes for attaching earrings and other ornaments. The third category included the rest of the heads pictured here, sporting what Zelia called “a confusing variety of peculiar and not ungraceful headdresses.” Public Domain

Zelia generally accepted her era’s assumptions about race and class, and she was comfortable with her elite status and its privileges. Yet in her research, she did not categorize civilizations as primitive, savage or barbaric, as other scholars did, nor did she indulge in racial theories of cultural development. Instead, she sought to sweep aside this kind of speculation and replace it with observation and reason.

The more Zelia examined her terra-cotta heads, the more she realized she needed guidance from someone who had more experience in the study of antiquity than she had. At the time, there were no departments of anthropology in colleges or universities, no degrees to be earned, no clear routes to building a career. To pursue her burgeoning interest in the ancient civilizations of Mexico, and to decipher the meaning of an assortment of terra-cotta heads, she contacted Frederic Ward Putnam, the curator of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and a leading expert on Mesoamerica. He agreed to meet her in the fall of 1885. The meeting was all she hoped for: Putnam warmed to her work and encouraged her to follow her intuitive grasp of how to observe and interpret evidence.

Putnam’s regard for women’s intellectual capacities was clear. He was one of a small number of Harvard researchers who gave lectures at “the Annex,” an institution established for women who had passed the college’s admissions test but were not allowed to attend classes or earn a degree. (The Harvard Annex eventually became Radcliffe College.) He hired a resourceful administrative staff of women and encouraged them to play a role in managing the museum. He also had a “correspondence school,” which he conducted through a widespread exchange of letters. As he once wrote, “Several of my best students are women, who have become widely known by their thorough and important works and publications; and this I consider as high an honor as could be accorded to me.”

Within months of their first encounter, in late 1885, Putnam asked Zelia to become a special assistant in Mexican archaeology for the Peabody. Less than a year later, in the annual report of the Peabody Museum, he wrote about her appointment in glowing terms: “Familiar with the Nahuatl language … and with an exceptional talent for linguistics and archaeology, as well as being thoroughly informed in all the early native and Spanish writings relating to Mexico and its people, Mrs. Nuttall enters the study with a preparation as remarkable as it is exceptional.”

With guidance from Putnam, Zelia wrote an investigation of the terra-cotta heads, her first published scientific report, which appeared in the spring 1886 issue of the American Journal of Archaeology. “At the first glance,” she wrote, “the multitude and variety of these heads are confusing; but after prolonged observation, they seem to naturally distribute themselves into three large and well-defined Classes.”

Each class, she theorized, had been created at a different time and represented a different stage in the culture. The first class contained “primary and crude attempts at the representation of a human face.” The second class included the first efforts at artistry. Her inspection revealed “holes, notches and lines,” suggesting ways in which tiny headdresses, feathers or beads could have been attached to the heads, and noted traces of several colors of paint and different kinds of clay.

The third class was the most important, Zelia argued, because of the quality of the molding and carving. This class had “modifications of feature sufficient to give every specimen an individuality of its own,” she wrote. “The faces are invariably in repose, in some the eyes are closed … faces young and smooth, others very elongated, some with sunken cheeks, others with wrinkles.”

By comparing these terra-cotta heads with ancient pictographs and writings, she showed that some of the heads represented children while others depicted young men, warriors or elders. Others showed the distinct hairstyles described in the writings of Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Franciscan friar who spent 50 years studying the Aztec culture, language and history. “The noblewomen used to wear their hair hanging to the waist, or to the shoulders only. Others wore it long over the temples and ears only,” Sahagún had written. “Others entwined their hair with black cotton-thread and wore these twists about the head, forming two little horns above the forehead. Others have longer hair and cut its ends equally, as an embellishment, so that, when it is twisted and tied up, it looked as though it were all of the same length; and other women have their whole heads shorn or clipped.”

These concrete observations allowed Zelia to challenge popular ideas about the supposed African, Asian, European or Egyptian origins of the “races” in the Americas. For example, by studying the ornamentation the heads displayed, she was able to identify the person or god each artifact represented and interpret its ritual or symbolic purpose. One clearly corresponded with Tlaloc, the pan-Mesoamerican god of rain, who had been shown in the pictographs with a curved band above the mouth and circles around the eyes. Another head, molded with a turban-like cap, corresponded with the goddess Centeotl; Zelia speculated that the clay turbans once had real feathers attached. She also noted the significance of various poses. “In the picture-writings, closed eyes invariably convey the idea of death,” she wrote.

The article revealed how Zelia intended to be seen as a scholar. First, she made it clear that she had read what others had written. Then she revealed that she would go beyond existing speculation to answer questions that had puzzled others; hers was to be original and important work.

In 1892, Zelia presented a paper in Spain about the Aztec calendar stone. Buried during the destruction of the Aztec Empire, the calendar stone had been unearthed in December 1790, when repairs were being made to the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central plaza. The sculpted stone, some 12 feet in diameter and weighing 25 tons, became a popular attraction exhibited in the Mexico City Cathedral, steps from where it had been found. Antonio de León y Gama, a Mexican astronomer, mathematician and archaeologist, had written about its discovery and praised the intelligence of the Aztecs who had created it. Alexander von Humboldt, who saw the stone when he visited Mexico in 1803-1804, included a drawing in his Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, published in 1810, and encouraged Mexican intellectuals to study the meaning of its concentric circles and numerous glyphs. Many others took on its puzzles in the years that followed.

At the time of Zelia’s presentation, the Mexican upper classes were carefully crafting a new national image—a story that would allow Mexico to take its place among the modern nations of the world. The Aztecs, Maya, Olmecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs and other cultures had left their imprints throughout the country in magnificent temples, enigmatic statues, gold jewelry, jade figurines and painted murals. This history was reclaimed as a national heritage every bit as glorious as those of Greece and Rome. A statue of Cuauhtémoc, the Aztec king who resisted Cortés, took its place on Mexico City’s elegant Paseo de la Reforma in 1887. The calendar stone had been installed in a place of honor in the National Museum in 1885. But little was known about the actual customs and beliefs of those ancient people.

The Aztec calendar stone, a central focus of Zelia’s research, has been on display at Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology since 1885. Alamy

With her extraordinary knowledge of surviving codices, Zelia offered a novel “reading” of the giant calendar stone that had stumped others and provided new insights into the annual and seasonal cycles of daily life in ancient Mexico, illuminating the cosmology, agriculture and trade patterns of the Aztecs. She presented another version of the paper at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Zelia returned to Mexico City in February 1902, and after a personal audience with Mexican President José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz, arranged by the U.S. ambassador, she embarked on a spree of travel to archaeological sites she had long wanted to visit. In May, she and 20-year-old Nadine joined friends at the Oaxacan ruins at Mitla, a religious center, where the “place of the dead” harbored both Mixtec and Zapotec art and architecture. On this dry, high plain ringed by mountains, Zelia strolled across vast stone patios, inspected the elaborate geometric friezes that lined and decorated them, explored temples and imagined a sophisticated society of kings, priests, nobles, artisans and farmers.

When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico in the 16th century, the Aztec Empire dominated the area. This map of its largest city, Tenochtitlan (now the historic center of Mexico City), was printed in 1524 in Nuremberg, Germany, likely based on a drawing by one of Hernán Cortés’ men. It shows the city’s elaborate network of roads, bridges and canals, complete with aqueducts and bathhouses. The Spaniards executed the last Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin, and forced his people to convert to Catholicism. Alamy

Zelia was welcomed into the international community of anthropologists in Mexico. She and Nadine traveled in the Yucatán with the young American anthropologist Alfred Tozzer, where they were beset by frequent rain and terrible roads. Arriving tired and wet in a small town, Tozzer, who would one day chair Harvard’s department of anthropology, was impressed by the women’s resilience. “Imagine the picture,” he wrote to his family on April 8, 1902. “Mrs. Nuttall, never accustomed to roughing it, a woman entertained by the crowned heads of Europe, sitting at a bench with the top part of my pajamas on drinking chocolate and her daughter with a flannel shirt of mine on doing the same.”

After a few months, Zelia and her daughter returned to Mexico City and purchased a mansion they called Casa Alvarado, in the upscale suburb of Coyoacán. The grand house never failed to impress. Frederick Starr, an anthropologist from the University of Chicago, was one of many who found the palace beautiful and restful: “We rode out to Coyoacán where we found Mrs. Nuttall and her daughter really charmingly situated. The color decoration is simple and strong. Nasturtiums are handsomely used in the patio and balcony effects. … While Mrs. Nuttall dressed, Miss Nuttall showed us through the garden, where a real transformation has been effected.”

Living in Mexico energized Zelia. In addition to her affiliation with Harvard, she had funding to travel and collect artifacts for the Department of Anthropology at the University of California. “With me here, in touch with the government and people, I think that American institutions can but profit and that I can do some good in advancing Science in this country,” she confided to Putnam.

Impressed by her knowledge of the country’s past, public officials and foreign visitors came to see her and listened carefully as she led them around her home and garden, explaining the collection she was busy assembling. Her garden, patio and verandas were home to an increasingly large number of stone artifacts, a beautiful carving of the serpent god Quetzalcóatl, revered for his wisdom, among them. She took up “digging” near Casa Alvarado, an activity one guest later recalled fondly. “Every morning after breakfast Mrs. Nuttall would give me a trowel and a bucket. She herself was equipped with a sort of short-handled spade, and we would go out into the surrounding country and ‘dig.’ We mostly found broken pieces of pottery, but she seemed to think some of them were significant, if not valuable. … She was a very handsome woman and very charming. She lived in great style, with many Mexican servants.”

The Codex Borgia, an accordion-folded document of Aztec life, was brought to Europe during the Spanish colonial period. Made of animal skins and stretching 36 feet when unfolded, the codex catalogs different units of time and the deities associated with them. It also includes astrological predictions once used for arranging marriages. Zelia drew on the codex to help her decode the Aztec calendar. Courtesy Ziereis Facsimiles

A section from the Codex Borgia

Zelia continued to travel throughout the country. She found a 14-page codex painted on deerskin, with commentary in Nahuatl, that she believed so valuable that she bought it with her own money, selling some of her possessions to afford it. “Owing to my residence here I must keep it a profound secret that I possess and sent out of the country this Codex,” she wrote to Putnam.

While she was not above smuggling treasures out of Mexico, Zelia also worked in the National Museum, contributing to its displays and archives, and she became an honorary professor of the institution.

Zelia had never owned a home until she bought Casa Alvarado in 1902. In a letter, she described the property as “a beautiful old place with extensive gardens.” Smithsonian Archives

Her Sunday teas at Casa Alvarado were a study in salon orchestration. “She would have 30 or 40 people and she would change the groups she invited,” one visitor recalled. “Sometimes they were all people who knew each other. Or else she would bring people together she wanted to introduce to each other. They weren’t like old-style Mexican parties, with all the women on one side and men on the other. The men and women were mixed together.”

According to an oft-repeated legend, at one of her soirées, she advanced to welcome an eminent guest just as her voluminous Victorian drawers came loose and dropped to her ankles. She calmly stepped out of them and proceeded as if nothing had happened. Zelia was, above all, self-confident.

Zelia Nuttall left Mexico during the early months of 1910 and did not return to her beloved Casa Alvarado for seven years. Throughout that time, Mexico was in the midst of a violent revolution. As many as two million people lost their lives in the ten-year conflict, and the country’s infrastructure was reduced to tatters. Even after the end of the most extensive violence, turmoil erupted sporadically until the late 1920s.

By then, visitors to Casa Alvarado agreed that Zelia was rooted in a bygone era. She was a middle-aged woman with thick glasses who favored shawls, laces and jet beads. Her palace was still filled with stuff only a Victorian could accumulate, but Mexico was telling new stories about itself.

The writer D.H. Lawrence used Zelia as a model for a fictional character—“an elderly woman, rather like a Conquistador herself in her black silk dress and her little black shoulder-shawl.” Antropo Wiki

The elites of the previous generation had asserted that descendants of the Aztec, Maya and other civilizations deteriorated into poverty and abandon. Young artists and intellectuals now rejected this belief. In Diego Rivera’s vast public murals, he showed the people of Mexico being ground into poverty and submission by Spanish conquistadors, a rapacious church, foreign capitalism, the army and cruel politicians. Quetzalcóatl replaced Santa Claus at the National Stadium; Chapultepec Park hosted Mexico Night.

Zelia did not like the revolution and she did not approve of what came after it. She did not celebrate the masses; she believed in hierarchy and a natural order of classes and races. Yet she was determined to be relevant to a new era in Mexico. Casa Alvarado became a meeting place for politicians, journalists, writers and social scientists from Mexico and abroad, many of whom came to witness the possibilities of change in the aftermath of a people’s revolution.

Nevertheless, the stubborn elegance of Casa Alvarado in the 1920s was clear testimony that Zelia was not willing to give up her lifestyle. When the French American painter Jean Charlot was a guest at one of Zelia’s teas, he was aghast at the Mexican servants in white gloves.

When Zelia Nuttall died in 1933, the U.S. consul in Mexico City wrote to Nadine—by then a 51-year-old widow living in Cambridge, England—assuring her that they’d given her mother a tasteful funeral. “Your Mother was very highly thought of here, as evidenced by the floral offerings and the number of her friends who came to the funeral service at the cemetery, it being estimated that about one hundred persons were present.”

By that time, the field of anthropology was dramatically changing, becoming more systematic and organized. Those who entered the field in the 1920s and 1930s built expertise in the classroom and under supervision in the field, passing a variety of tests and milestones determined by academic experts and acquiring a credential as proof of the right to pursue these inquiries. With these rigorous new standards, they asserted their superiority as scholars over those of Zelia’s generation.

Researchers thought this item at Vienna’s Museum of Ethnology was a “Moorish hat” before Zelia identified it as a Mesoamerican headdress. Alamy

Yet Alfred Tozzer, in his memorial in the journal American Anthropologist, reflected that Zelia “was a remarkable example of 19th-century versatility.” She was wrong in some of her overarching theories. For instance, she fallaciously argued that ancient Phoenician travelers had carried their culture to Mesoamerica. But she was right about many other things. Through her letters, articles and books, we can trace what she got right and what she got wrong as a scholar, and we can follow her as she moved from one research obsession to the next.

Her private life is harder to grasp. Among all the artifacts, there is little about the quips and gossip she exchanged with friends, the piano music she liked to play and sing. We cannot know what was in the boxes of papers in the cellar of Casa Alvarado that were burned in the housecleaning undertaken by its new tenants. We cannot retrieve personal and public documents lost in the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

What we do know is that she had to make sacrifices, often very personal ones. We can feel her vulnerability, uncertainty, anger and embarrassment in the letters she wrote, as well as her self-assuredness. It required unusual self-discipline to learn so many languages and to gain a mastery of ancient pictographs. Her almost constant travels imperiled her health even while they advanced her vast network of friends, colleagues and patrons. But she continued to work, and that work helped establish the foundation on which many others now build.

A single mother pursuing a career while looking after a family in a man’s world: In some ways, Zelia Nuttall was a very modern woman.

Adapted from In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico’s Ancient Civilizations by Merilee Grindle, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2023 by Merilee Grindle. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

#Women in history #Women in Anthropology #Zelia Nuttall #The Aztecs #Merilee Grindle #In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl: Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico's Ancient Civilizations #Books by women #Books about women #teotihuacan #mesoamerica #Nahuatl #Published women #Many of the first anthropologists were women #Alphonse Pinart was just another man who blew through his money #Women's careers flourishing after dumping a parasitic man #Frederic Ward Putnam #Men who encouraged women #The Annex #Lady scientist

[askbensolo]

Journal Entry #40: Trying to figure out my purpose.

I’ve been thinking about the Force lately. I wouldn’t say I’m super in touch with it, but I’ve come to understand that it’s always there. If I quiet my mind and sit in silence, I can sense it, like a humming in my chest. But…I don’t often make the time to meditate.

I elected not to become a Jedi, but I think I have a higher Force sensitivity than most. Especially since my uncle has taught me how to recognize the Force—not to wield its power, but to observe its energy passing through me.

I wonder what it means to be a Force-sensitive non-Jedi. To be a Force-sensitive working a 9-to-5 desk job in the most banal sector of corporate news media. Am I serving some higher purpose in the galaxy, with my restaurant reviews and community event coverage? Is it the Force’s will to assist me in meeting a Friday deadline, or not losing my mind when that one coworker is getting on my nerves?

I think of Luke, rescuing orphans and training them in the way of the Jedi, empowering them and sending them out to bring light into the darkness. I think of my old pal Fannie, one of Luke’s students, who went back to Ryloth to help free women from slavery. It’s no question that their lives’ work hold immense purpose.

My life runs on a never-ending loop. My alarm goes off in the morning, I get up and make caf, drag myself out of the apartment, go to the gym, go to work, come home, scrape some kind of dinner together, look at memes, go to bed, and then do it all over again. And it’s like…what am I even doing? Did my parents fight a war just so I could do…this?

Sometimes I think that, if I took some time to attune myself to the Force, everything would become clear, and even the most mundane of things would come alive with a new sense of meaning and purpose. But somehow, I’m afraid to reach out to the Force. I feel like the Force knows me…knows that I am a son of Skywalker and yet denied the path of the Jedi. And for what? To sit at a desk, churning out low-stakes articles for people to glance at for two seconds before they scroll to “breaking news.” Is there now a hole in the galaxy where I should have been?

Maybe I was supposed to become a Jedi after all, as much as that scares me. Maybe I’ve missed my destiny…

Or maybe there was no destiny written for me in the stars, and the pen lies squarely in my own hand…and I seem to have the worst case of writer’s block, ever.

My mom didn’t want me to move out and go to college. She was worried about Snoke preying on me again if I was separated from the family. If I was going anywhere else, she wanted me to be with Uncle Luke so he could watch over me. But Dad and Luke stood up for me, which surprised me, and reluctantly, Mom let me go. I think part of her was hoping I’d come back home after I finished my degree.

I wish I could prove to my mom that I’ve done it. That I’ve made my way, and that I’m happy with my life. But my life doesn’t feel quite right, somehow, and I’m not really sure what’s missing. I mean, things are okay. But I don’t think life, this grand adventure only experienced once, is supposed to be just okay.

I guess I need to spend some time thinking about this. But, like I said, my life is on a loop and now it’s time to make dinner. One plum-tomato and sardine sandwich and a blue milk protein shake, coming right up.

#askbensolo #written #ben's diary #the chommsec daily #the force #fannie #raisin man