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thornescratch · 3 years

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Alright, I'm here with mandalorian thoughts. So, up until now we've technically been following Din, but like really, we've been following Din and Grogu. So now there's 3 options: We follow just Din, we follow just Grogu, or they somehow end up together end and we follow both again. I think it's reasonably obvious we won't follow Grogu, because uh, it's called the mandalorian... (1/?)

It, to an uninvested disney exec, seems logical to follow just Din. We've set him up perfectly for another plot arc. He's got the darksaber, his covert is dead or scattered; there's definitely a story that can be made there. But I hope that they won't do that; because they'll probably quickly realise that people aren't all that in invested in just Din alone. People are here for him and Grogu. (2/?)

So, we're down to one logically option: somehow reunite Din and Grogu. But we have problems here. The one that first comes to mind is Luke. I looked up how the young luke thing was done (given the credits have Mark Hamill), and it's all CGI, not good makeup or prosthetics and a bit of CGI, or a double and a bit of CGI. That means having Luke is time consuming (because of all the CGI needed) and expensive (Mark Hamill + people doing the CGI). So logically, you want to cut down on Luke time

But if we cut down on Luke screen time, how do we reunite Grogu and Din? Yeah I dunno about that one... Maybe Luke decides he can't take Grogu? Or maybe that isn't actually a problem. The other slight problem is that Mark Hamill talked about this as a cameo, not as a cameo before a proper role. (Maybe there's stuff out there saying he's confirmed for season 3? idk I didn't really look).

Other thoughts I have: I can't imagine Gideon just being left. This can't be a tidy end to his arc. He's coming back. If he doesn't, what's the 'bigger, badder' enemy? Also, we haven't actually seen Luke leave the ship. We know 1 additional ship of dark troopers arrived. Do we really believe there's only one? Also there's still those TIE fighters out there.

So, my predictions are: We start on the ship again. Luke and Grogu go to leave. More dark troopers, or the TIE fighters, or both, or something else arrive. Luke returns to the bridge with the rest. They fight. Din either leaves with those two, or takes Grogu with him. Something happens and either Gideon reveals he's been working for someone and they're on their way, or he gets free or gets rescued. And then idk, I'm not that good at predictions

Now watch me be completely wrong about everything I just said...

I’m with you in that Grogu and Din and their relationship is not just the heart but also the bread and butter of the franchise, so I doubt they stay separate the entire season. (And since I think Disney is hopefully cognizant of the optics of implying that their cutest merch moneymaker gets brutally slaughtered by Kylo Ren some years down the line, I also doubt they go down that path to indicate that’s his future.)

I also agree they’re not likely to have a ton of Luke Skywalker because of the difficulty of the CGI needed for his appearance and because I don’t think they’re quite ready to pull the trigger yet on recasting him with a younger actor like Sebastian Stan or any of the other names tossed around. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that they would recast-- they did for Han Solo, after all, though that film was a bit of a dumpster fire-- but you’re talking about one of the most iconic characters of the franchise and fans already have, uh, strong opinions about how the character was handled in the most recent franchise sequels. Maybe whenever Luke does show up it’s in holograms or whatever; you could probably fake a bit more of the appearance that way; the deepfake wouldn’t look quite so uncanny, then.

(I’ve been spending way too much time on wookipedia figuring out the timelines of everything and how old everyone is, and while I’m sure Luke’s complete solemn frozen face act was mostly the CGI issues, it’s also kinda hilarious to think Grogu is his first padawan/force sensitive child pickup, and he’s been psyching himself up, all, “OKAY LUKE, ACT SOLEMN AND DIGNIFIED, BE A REAL JEDI, YOU GOTTA SELL THIS HARD, YOU’RE THE LAST ONE, YOU GOTTA MAKE THIS ENTRANCE DRAMATIC AS FUCK SO EVERYONE WILL TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN DO THIS, NO SMILES. I SAID NO SMILES.” I kinda hope Grogu is the first, as that would work better, in my opinion, if he doesn’t have his school/temple set up yet-- it’s only, what, five years or so after Return of the Jedi. Given the almost foregone conclusion Grogu will be reunited with Din at some point, I kinda like the idea that Luke is just getting started there.)

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Gideon either; though I imagine he goes on trial. Maybe he plays into the whole “Din trying to get out of being Mand’alor” by yammering about it and ruining Din’s ability to just hide the dark saber in a closet and sneak out the back.

ANYWAY. See, I’m going in the opposite direction for how they start season three; I suspect we’ll start season three with a time jump, and that way they kick the can down the road on showing Luke (and if you show TOO many cameos, they can lose their impact, though Favreau/Filoni have been pretty good at hitting the sweet spot of original SW nostalgia, Western vibes, and new shit) and they also don’t have to explain Gina Carano’s absence. I mean, she’s been fired, so they’re not gonna go right back to the bridge. Like, she’ll maybe just get handwaved as either back on Nevarro doing shit, or trying it out somewhere else.

My bet is that season three is going to be about Din either reluctantly becoming the Mand’alor, Din trying to get out of becoming the Mand’alor, or probably some combination of the two. I bet that’s the main plot line for the season, plus potential crossover with the Book of Boba Fett and maybe the Ahsoka shows. So, probably more Bo-Katan and her group, and more exploration of the different factions of Mandalorians, and maybe more on the culture.

Or maybe (I hope, anyway) they also plan to explore more with him reconnecting with his old covert, and part of the season is about him tracking them down, since now he’s technically fulfilled his mission with Grogu and I feel like it makes sense for him to return to that as his focus. Plus, with the whole helmet removal as a sort of Chekov’s gun thing, you gotta figure that’ll come up in some kind of confession/confrontation with the covert. (Of course, as stated, I doubt that his arc with Grogu is completely done, and we’ll see that come back into play.)

Favreau in this article seems like he has a pretty good handle on plotting things out in advance, so I’m willing to trust he knows what he’s doing. And those are My Thoughts on what’s ahead, I guess.

(obviously I also think Din and Luke should go through a weary bounty hunter/cheerful space twink courtship, get married, and raise a chaotic blended Jedi-Mandalorian family that could take over the universe and erase vast chunks of the sequel movies but that is a rant for another day)

#Anonymous #The Mandalorian #Star Wars

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prince-toffee · 3 years

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So I’ve wanted to write a post like this for a while now. So I’m actually extremely surprised by how many people really hate Hordak. Like they really hate him. And that was unexpected to me. Because first of all - it’s totally fine to hate a character, hell I despise certain characters- well one, I truly despise only one character. Whether it’s disappointment when it comes to the storytelling or more likely as we see when people hate on villains, the character’s actions that negatively affect the character you like.

Proximity.

That’s what it’s all about, about how the character you hate has hurt the character you like, the character you identify with. The anti makes it personal. Or... so I thought.

You see the way I logically looked at the hatred of villains in fandom was that the hatred could be categorised, put into bands. Stay with me here:

For example let’s take Gorgon The Warlord of the Quartex Nebula, Scourge of the Elite Wars - they are a ruthless space overlord that commands armies and has taken over half the universe and has conquered hundreds of thousands planets... Now... that kind of villain is usually explained in the intro exposition info dumb, right? They’re in the background. They’re far off in the distance, they’ll only show up at the season finale, maybe shown for a few seconds sitting on a throne in one episode to remind you: ‘oh shit, this guy is coming’. That kind of villain is the trigger word that makes the hero push themselves further as they prepare for the fight.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of villain isn’t hated, or there is no reason to hate them, they’re a villain that’s probably ignored and not cared about. Oh they conquered a million planets, they’re evil incarnate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, can we get back to the hero I identify with. You know? You’ve heard that stuff a million times over, yeah, yeah the emperor of the galaxy that feeds off of people’s essence or something. Nobody cares (I care) it’s all so cliché and stereotypical and over there *waves his hands violently* there, far away, who cares we’ll get there, but have you seen this cute headcanon about this character? You know? No one cares about poor Gorgon Scourge of the Elite Wars and how they prepared for ten thousand years and that they get power from The Great DarknessTM - they’ll probably be defeated by friendship, who cares.

They enslaved Bulovakz-3 and lay waste to the Strawberry Kingdom - yeah but who cares? None of the Bulovakzian slaves are the protagonists, we don’t know anything about the citizens of Starwberryville, those aren’t characters, they’re just DND words to have the hero morn over and swear to defeat Gorgon The Warlord of the Quartex Nebula no matter the cost! HaZa!

You’re just sitting there like, okay, cool, nice, the hero is awesome and a good person.

But. But! There is another type of villain. Meet Evil Step-Mother Martha Monta-Carlo. And Martha has tormented Alice CrystalHeart all her life, she actually killed Alice’s real mother by poisoning her. She then abused Alice all her life, lied to her and made her do everything she wanted and Martha says a lot of vague evil things that could be interpreted as [that thing we the viewer are insecure about]. Martha is manipulative and an asshole and makes Alice stay inside and doesn’t allow her to have friends.

You see we spend a lot of screen time with Alice so we grow attached to her and see her grow as a person, and in turn we see a lot of Martha Monta-Carlo both in present time, and in flashbacks. Monta-Carlo is always in close proximity to the audience as they’re connected to the character they like, they tortured a main character we know and care for - I like this character, I feel a connection to this character therefore it is personal now. Proximity. You hate Martha far more now, but you have a reason to, you have a narrative reason for this, an important one, it’s a plot point that was explored and focused on.

And so I summarise that the audience who hates villains, hates Martha more than Gorgon, that’s what I logically deduced, and believed.... until I met the spop fandom.

That’s why I understood why people hated SW with a burning passion, but when it came to hating Hordak, I- I was like: Really? I mean the worst, most personal thing Hordak has done to Catra was the suffocation machine, and Catra was fine afterwards, and Catra after that hurt Hordak far worse, and ordered him around, it’s not like Hordak held something over her. Hordak was literally never a threat to her. Hordak doesn’t even know Adora, or any other princess.

So I was so confused as to why people hated Hordak so much. This rebooted Hordak has virtually no connection to the characters you like, there is no close proximity. 80s or comic Hordak, maybe, because he is Adora’s father, but this Hordak? Dress, heels, goth make-up, mohawk, thighs on displace, a character in a show full of and written by LGBTQ+ individuals so he clearly is an allegory for one such individual, Hordak - that Hordak?! Really?!

So either antis still hold a grudge against Hordak from that season 2 choking machine, and just never let it go. Or, the more likely option, which I’ve seen and find hilarious, which is they make stuff up. Well how could you not hate Gorgon?! They personally tormented Alice CrystalHeart and is responsible for all the pain Alice has experienced and so that is also an attack on me. So anyone who likes this fake, not-real, fictional, moving picture, that isn’t real, is evil and hates me personally.

That is not the case villain-haters, not the case. I can love Hordak and Shadow Weaver, and respect you.

There’s also of course option three, which is said hater wants to feel morally superior to others and wants people to like and praise them so they take the role of self-appointed messiah and saviour, behind which more people would rally and hate on other people to feel bigger.

#salted toffee

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shinylitwick94 · 3 years

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Results of Star Wars reading month!

A while ago I mentioned that I had, first accidentally, then on purpose, turned january into a sort of “Star Wars reading month”, meaning that the only things I read this month were Star Wars books, and I read quite a few of those.

Overall it was a pretty fun experience. The quality of the writing and my enjoyment of the stories definitely varied, but most of these were very easy to read, and relatively short, which is why I managed to read so many in such a short period.

I did have some issues, of course. Sometimes the writing felt very weak, some books have very flat characters and some books suffer from problems with how closely they’re stuck following the stories of the movies.

But overall, I think I liked it and I might pick up some more of these later.

Disclaimer: Obi-Wan is my favorite SW character. So there will be a lot of Obi-Wan in this.

So, here are my thoughts on each of these, in the order that i read them in:

(under the cut because this is looong)

Revenge of the Sith (Novelization), by Matthew Woodring Stover (status:Legends)

After a bit of reflection and reading recommendations online, I decided to start with this one. I think it was a good move. RotS is one of my favorite Star Wars movies and the book does a lot to combat its worst issues. The dialogue sounds more natural, more time is spent on exploring Anakin’s messed up state of mind before he falls, and a few nice scenes are added to give extra context to the actions of certain characters. I didn’t love what it did with Dooku and some of the tools it decides to use (this is... or Anakin’s fear dragon, for instance) become repetitive pretty quickly, but all in all I enjoyed this one a lot. The opening with the republic citizens watching the Chancellor’s kidnapping on the holonet was especially nice and really makes me wish we had more of that in the movies themselves.

4.5/5

Master and Apprentice, by Claudia Gray(status: Canon)

Master and Apprentice follows Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan before the events of the saga, at a moment where their relationship as master and padawan is at a crossroads. The story itsel is fairly simple and not that engaging on its own, but what I like about this one is the time it takes to explore these two characters. It’s pretty solid and I liked it, but I wouldn’t call it a must read.

3.5/5

Lost Stars, by Claudia Gray (status: canon)

I think I enjoyed Claudia Gray’s writing much better in this one than in the previous one. Lost Stars is a bit special, in that it doesn’t follow any main characters. Instead, it follows two original characters in their journey through the galaxy at the time of the OT. It’s part love story, part “let’s see the OT through an outside perspective” and it works pretty well. I quite liked the new characters and their friends and I think they fit in pretty well with the established universe. A few of the main characters have cameos, but really, this isn’t their story. I also appreciated some moments where it calls out a few of the absuridities of the OT, such as Lando leading the attack on death star II and Vader chasing after the falcon so obsessively, both of which look extremely weird from an outside perspective. The only thing I don’t really like is that the story feels really restricted by the OT canon, so you can kind of guess where everything is going after a certain point.

4/5

Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller (status: legends)

Obi-Wan has adventures after arriving on Tattooine when he really, really would rather not get involved. I absolutely loved this one. I liked the writing, I liked Obi-Wan’s character, I liked the new characters (although I had trouble keeping track at first), and I liked the plot. It has a slower start than most of the others here, but it definitely pays off. Without going into too much detail, I particularly appreciated Obi-Wan’s issues with having to let go of the “let’s help everyone” jedi mentality, the exploration of the Tusken raiders, and the fact that it didn’t actually focus on Luke and the Lars’ at all, which I admit I had rather been dreading.

5/5, and my favorite of the bunch

Darth Plagueis, by James Luceno (status legends)

This one started off really strong, but then fell a little flat by the end. It tells the story of Plagueis’ rise as sith lord, and later his relationship with Palpatine. I enjoyed Plagueis’ character and the writing was pretty solid throughout. all the political machinations were hard to keep track of at first, but after some time and a little help from wookiepedia my brain began to make sense of things. Its strongest moment by far is an event halfway through the book when the two sith lords are attacked by another faction that shows us both their ruthlessness and the fact that they can, in fact, be caught off guard. Plagueis is wonderfully sinister, but Palpatine comes off as even more coldhearted, which is fitting. The one thing I didn’t like, and the reason I felt the ending was a little flat, is that it tries too hard to tie into the Phantom Menace at the end. I think the story would have benefitted from letting Plagueis die earlier and not have its final events tied up in the movie’s plot.

4.5/5, and my second favorite

The Rising Force (Jedi Apprentice #1), by David Wolverton (status:legends)

This one is aimed at kids, and it shows. But because I can never get enough obi-Wan, I decided to read it anyway. It focuses on young Obi-Wan, at risk of not being able to become a jedi knight, and his difficult first meetings with Qui-Gon, and the little adventure they accidentally end up on. As a kids’ book, the writing is easy even by SW standards, and that’s saying something. Like, an 8 year old could probably read this just fine. The story is also pretty simplistic and works on building the foundations for the later development of these characters. It’s the first in a pretty long series, so it doesn’t get that far, but it was fun enough, I guess.

3/5

Heir to the Empire (#1 in Thrawn trilogy), by Timothy Zahn (status: legends)

I had high expectations going into this thing and none of them were met. I’ve read a bit on the side, and I can appreciate how it was an important story for the franchise as a whole, but it really did nothing for me. This is partly, I think, because my expectations were so high in the first place. Everyone seems to think that the Thrawn trilogy is the best thing to ever happen to Star Wars, but from my impressions of this first book it was just...meh. It takes place in the years following the fall of the empire, where the new republic faces threats from the imperial remnants, one of which is lead by Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn as a character is adored by the fandom, and I really don’t get it. He’s dispassionate (pseudo)rational, supposedly very Smart and apparently can predict how people will act because he studies their country’s art (which...stinks of 19th century “scientists” measuring skulls, but whatever let’s pretend this doesn’t bother us). He doesn’t really have any particular outstanding character traits outside of this. What I’m trying to get to, is he’s a bit of a Sue and not very interesting to read about. Then there’s Mara Jade, who is also introduced in this, and who I also didn’t particularly like, but yeah. The story told in this is actually pretty short - the trio is having issues, Luke get’s captured for a while and then there’s a big battle at the end. It’s fine, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, the writing is ok, and maybe the characters are a little flat sometimes, but overall it’s ok. I just don’t get why people adore this so much. Personally, I’ve no interest in the rest of the trilogy.

3/5

Path of Destruction (#1 in Bane trilogy), by Drew Karpyshyn (status: legends)

This one tells the story of the rise of Darth Bane, he who would establish the rule of two for the Sith. The early parts of this felt quite interesting, and I liked how Bane’s character was different from what we usually get in SW, especially in terms of background. But once the story gets to the sith academy, it just stalls. There’s a lot of back and forth between Bane, the masters and the other apprentices, a lot of musings from Bane on the nature of the dark side, and theoretically all this should work, but at some point during this part of the story I just stopped caring about any of the characters. Maybe it’s because I find the whole dark side philosophy thing quite silly, or maybe I just didn’t find the writing all that engaging, or maybe it was that I already knew what was coming so much of this felt like padding. In any case, it’s a decent enough read, but doesn’t make it past meh for me.

3/5

#shinylitwick reads books #star wars #phew #this was fun but let's take a break now

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bpdanakins · 5 years

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I think all the time about Pop Culture Detective’s The Case Against the Jedi Order and how it points out one of the things I, myself, noticed when I started examining one of the reasons so many people have negative opinions around the Jedi.

Part of the flaw is that George never deep dives into why the Jedi give advice against emotion within the movies, why he intended for it to mean “don’t let your emotions control you” and not that people can’t have any. (And the advice is not worded well, either.) So it comes across as everyone encouraging Luke and Anakin to not have emotions or empathy, because it’s a weakness.* Part of that cause, I think, is the fact that the movies are a medium focused on space battles, laser swords, and wars with a fascist regime. For the most part, you have to go into interviews and books and comics, etc, to get the full picture.

However, this also doesn’t demean the fact that many enjoy consuming all the extra bits of the SW universe, and how that points out or shows what George intended all along. So if people see the Jedi in a positive light, then this also makes sense. They were meant to be the good guys.

And there is the very important fact that a great many people critical of the Jedi seem to also forget that there’s a literal Sith Lord in the room who is such an amazing manipulator he set up the game for years to make himself the leader in a dictatorship. One of the main plots is the exploration of how a democracy can slowly but willingly turn itself into an empire, to ‘thunderous applause’. Not to mention he was directly manipulating and grooming Anakin, with an extremely singular focus, since he was a child.

Then there are also a few points and criticisms that are put upon the Jedi that are wrong, despite the answers actually being in the movies, so it’s not entirely upon the fact that the movies can be a medium that don’t always work perfectly well for building upon lore.

There is, also, the problem that many people in fandoms can and do follow each other’s opinions without deep diving into extras that give a different picture, and thus have the anti-Jedi belief constantly affirmed by others who agree.

People aren’t wrong for noticing these flaws from the Jedi, which some were fully intended considering in the prequels it’s meant to be the fall of the Order as much as the Republic and then there only being two Jedi in the OT, and some that aren’t intended but completely there.

People are also not wrong for liking the Jedi. It’s not them being ignorant or whatever, it’s them going deeper into extra content and also listening to Lucas’ intentions and beliefs behind the story, which were meant to ultimately be about good vs evil, selfishness vs selflessness, mindfulness & control over your emotions vs disarray and emotions overwhelming you/your judgement, and also Pay Attention to Your Government Lol. They also look at the story with different perspectives, read between the lines and learn to sympathize with Jedi other than, say, Obi-Wan.

So... mainly it’s about how many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view, except in a smaller, mostly harmless way. It’s also kind of a really interesting thing to look at, how so many of us interpret one story in various ways.

Anyways, tl;dr: be nice to each other bc both sides have good points.

---

* There is, of course, the very good point that probably was also not intended, but within our society still leans into negative beliefs: the leads are white men, and they only seem to engage in their great emotion - anger - when it comes to the women in their lives, which is partly a separate issue and partly not. PCD’s explorations into the sociological implications and many unintended flaws in the first six movies are very good and important ones.

#liz.txt #long post #really just me thinking and making it into a text post no one wants #gotta be honest tho guys the jedi fans are mostly the really polite n kind ones in the fandom #so pls be nice if you happen to not like the jedi bc there's no need to be mean they genuinely are in the minority #this is a jedi fan support blog #but also a Exploring Sociological Themes in Movies is Important support blog

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smuthuttpodcast · 4 years

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Name/Handle/Alias

rlogarbagech1

About how long would you say you’ve been rooting for Reylo?

I tend to dive into things intensively, so while I knew there was an intriguing dynamic to Rey and Kylo's TFA interaction and I enjoyed what was teased in TLJ when it came out, I think it was a random wading into Reylo fanfic circa Aug 2019 that really got me into the fandom in a deep way. (Throwback to me thinking: eh maybe I'll give Reylo oneshots a try? And BOOM four months later I'm in a daze wondering how I've read like 80 fics, ended up in a writing discord - shoutout to The Writing Den! - and have five stories cooking in my head at one time.)

I like that the fandom takes what was on film in TLJ and expands the contours of that universe, stretching it into all sorts of configurations that somehow still made sense thematically for what Rey and Ben were going through. Whether that's in the context of warring lawyers (eversoreylo), Kyril Ren and Irena (voicedimplosives), archaeology Rey and Ben (disasterisms), a Harry met Sally AU (slipgoingunder), or Canadian politics (saint_heretical)... the creativity of the fandom and how it grapples with SW themes through all these different lenses of interpretation blows my mind. IMO it shows how SW's story themes can be individually interpreted, yet utterly universal.

What did you think of the way Rise of Skywalker handled Rey and Kylo’s relationship?

It felt like a backstep/retcon to what had happened in TLJ. I think CT and JJ wanted to make certain narrative choices but couldn't fully commit to them for whatever reasons, and the story suffered overall in a big way 'cus of that.

TRoS clearly went into the enemies -> lovers arc but leaned way too far into 'enemies', making the arc to 'lovers' within 2.5 hours way very weirdly paced, so it didn't feel like it was earned. The reaction of the audiences I was in for both screenings validated that. At the first screening, there was awkward laughter because it felt so left-field in the context of the film. In the second screening, the GA people I was watching it with felt 'this is really unnecessary' which I can understand because of the lack of buildup in TRoS to that moment.

Reylo in TLJ was at its best because there was time for it to breathe. I rewatch the force skype scenes often and the complete silence, the subtle acting, and the framing of those scenes, is so unusual and bold for a blockbuster at that level. There was also so much gorgeous subtext in what was going on, you could read into it what you liked, but there was definitely an attraction or a pull there for both characters.

You could tell that Adam and Daisy were delivering equally layered acting work in 9, but it was extremely rushed and weirdly edited. The ensemble could also have been a greek chorus for the audience/a bellwether for how we should be feeling towards Rey and Kylo in 9 but they didn't really utilise them that way and Palpatine ended up overshadowing the entire story as the big bad. The more interesting choice obviously was Kylo as the conflicted big bad and a redemption arc, but maybe Disney just isn't ok with that or was pushing for a different direction.

Overall, 9 made me wish we had more time to live in the push-pull dynamic between these two characters and the longing they have for each other despite all the odds, but luckily we have fanfic and art for that, which is why it's so great. Just a shame the film couldn't line those pieces up well enough for a satisfying landing.

Do you think the film understood why you, and other people, felt like Rey and Kylo had something together? Did it get their chemistry?

I'm sure they understood it on some surface level but CT was the wrong person to write that story imo. And JJ on some level disliked RJ's choices so he was trying to wind it back to the TFA dynamic which was more enemies-enemies with a subtext of them being compelled by each other, but not necessarily with a romantic resolution.

I think it's testament to the intelligence of the fandom that we saw the train tracks being laid in ep8 for a more interesting ending, just that whatever story-wrestling/behind the scenes drama/ego was going on at DLF meant nobody was able to actually able to execute that story with the justice it deserved. Locking out the story group also seems like a huge mistake and would've avoided a lot of the larger plot holes they seem to have ended up with, the dissatisfying Reylo arc in ep9 being just one symptom of it.

What about the handling of Kylo’s redemption? Was it something you had to think through in your stories?

How I envision Kylo/Ben's redemption and Rey's response to it is summarised by a lot of the fic that's already out there! And in the fanfic thread I've pinned on my Twitter. e.g. Starstuff by voicedimplosives, Morning by disasterisms, Astrometric Binaries by pontmercy44, Tactical Surrender by Trebia... there are a lot of ways it could have gone. A recent comic (08 Jan?) by Miss Bliss is also a great example and she distilled it down to 15 simple panels, not to say she simplified the ethics of the redemption arc of course.

The biggest effect that TRoS had on me as an aspiring creator/writer is because the film DIDN'T give me the redemption arc, I'm interested to explore how that looks like in fanfic. So maybe that will become a theme in my writing. Let's see!

I'm still laughing about how they yeeted Ben into the pit though. Can't believe those leaks were actually true.

What did you think of where Rey landed at the end? There had been a lot of excitement around Star Wars having a female protagonist. Do you think she lived up to the promise of her character?

A lot of the discourse has already covered this but my take is: in TLJ Rey was the centre of the story, all of her actions were driving the plot and it was a female-centric story about incredible themes like self-discovery, belonging, loyalty, 'lightness', 'darkness', attraction, sexuality. And TLJ was very nuanced in presenting how Rey's role shaped the overall story, the symbolism in the film (all of which had meaning or at least tried to), and her clear growth through it.

With TRoS it felt like her needs took a backseat and were kind of ancillary to the action of what was happening. Or that she was a lot more of a passenger to the story. I guess that's how I would sum it up. If I think back to how TRoS ended I don't think there was a satisfactory character conclusion for ANY of them... and don't even get me started on how they did Rose completely dirty.

There’s criticism of the movie that argues it’s akin to “fan fiction” and that is has too much fan service. As fans and fan-fiction writers, how do you react to that?

It doesn't actually bother me that much. I think it comes from a place of negative stereotyping and misunderstanding of what fandom is all about, especially for the Reylo community – because apparently believing in romance, redemption, and love is meaningless, simple, and weak.

The people that are in the fandom and know it well know that the fandom has a lot of diverse views in it, different perspectives, and some of the most startlingly intelligent and thoughtful people across the spectrum including creators, readers, analysts, community organisers etc.

The fact that there's a WHOLE ECOSYSTEM with fanfic and fan art and discord servers and gift exchanges and comedy memes and metas and all of this stuff just enhances my enjoyment of it overall. And it's an ecosystem that despite critics' attempts to dismiss it since 2015, continues to thrive.

I challenge those skeptics to look at some of the novel-length Reylo work on Ao3, the detailed sketches and concept art, the hours of thoughtful podcasting and REVIEWS OF FANFIC and say this community's not worthy of credit or attention. Even if you don't like Reylo, there's a discussion worth having about why people want to engage with it on a deep level and the transformative work that's come out of it.

We are doing this for free. Out of enjoyment and fun and discovering meaning. The level of artistry and engagement in this fandom is really astounding in that way.

I wish people would talk more about *that* side of the Reylo fandom rather than dismissing it as 'fluffy romance 50 shades in space y'all are rabid crazy' or whatever.

TLDR the question of whether Rey and Kylo have/had toxic and abusive dynamics is an interesting one to ask and we need to continue having the discussion, because from my POV it wasn't 100% clear cut from TFA, and it evolved in TLJ and in TRoS. BUT it should be situated in the context of the broader fandom and the range of views within it, + the many other interpretations of the Reylo relationship through fic and art, which The Atlantic's article missed.

Are you still writing any Star Wars fanfic? Tell us about it! (Don't forget your Ao3 handle!)

I'm late to the game but am interested in writing SW fanfic as a way of exploring my own capacity to write and create, so yes! Did my first drabble in mid December and have a few ideas cooking, the first which looks like a two-chapter modern AU oneshot. Watch this space…

Thanks to rlogarbagech1!

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gffa · 6 years

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There are a lot of STAR WARS novels out there and that’s a really great thing, I would honestly be happy reading 90% nothing but SW books, given how good they are! But it can be a lot to navigate and sometimes you just want to know if one is worth putting at the top of your To Read list or not! SO HERE’S SOME CRYING ABOUT SW BOOKS. BECAUSE THEY ARE SO GOOD. STAR WARS NOVELS RECS: ✦ The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu, luke & ocs, 432 pages As a cargo ship rockets across the galaxy to Canto Bight, the deckhands on board trade stories about legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. But are the stories of iconic and mysterious Luke Skywalker true, or merely tall tales passed from one corner of the galaxy to another? ✦ From a Certain Point of View by [various authors], a new hope cast, 496 pages Every scene is told from the point of view of a background character. Whether it’s the X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star or the stormtroopers who never quite could find the droids they were looking for, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View places the classic movie in a whole new perspective. ✦ Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy by Pablo Hidalgo, entire cast, 112 pages Whether it’s a Star Destroyer hovering over a planet or an X-wing delivering a message of resistance, propaganda images have become synonymous with life in the galaxy far, far away. This in-world art book explores the creation and stories behind these images of power and persuasion. ✦ The Last Jedi: Cobalt Squadron by Elizabeth Wein, rose & page & leia & cast, 224 pages New characters from The Last Jedi, including mechanic Rose Tico and her gunner sister Paige, get the chance to shine in this hardcover adventure. ✦ Forces of Destiny: Daring Adventures, Volume 1, Volume 2, The Rey Chronicles, The Leia Chronicles by Emma Carlson Berne, rey & leia & padme & ahsoka & sabine & cast, ~120 pages each The choices we make, the actions we take, the moments–both big and small–shape us into forces of destiny. ✦ Episode I Journal: Anakin Skywalker by Todd Strasser, obi-wan & anakin & padme & qui-gon & cast, ~112 pages My name is Anakin Skywalker. This is my story. ✦ The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition by Jason Fry, rey & luke & leia & kylo & poe & finn & rose & cast, 336 pages From the ashes of the Empire has arisen another threat to the galaxy’s freedom: the ruthless First Order. Fortunately, new heroes have emerged to take up arms—and perhaps lay down their lives—for the cause. ✦ Star Wars: The Last Jedi: A Junior Novel by Michael Kogge, rey & luke & leia & kylo & poe & finn & rose & cast, 208 pages A junior novel retelling of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, with deleted and extended scenes, as well as exclusive scenes you won’t find anywhere else featuring Rey, Chewbacca, R2-D2, Finn, and more! ✦ Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind by Travis Langley + others, luke & leia & anakin & obi-wan & yoda & cast, 320 pages This essay collection offers a fascinating psychological analysis of the compelling and complex universe of George Lucas’s richly rendered Star Wars series. A group of expert contributors examines such topics as family ties, Jedi qualities, masculinity, girl power, and the values embodied in both the “dark” and “light” sides of this psychologically spellbinding world. ✦ Last Shot by Daniel José Older, han & lando & cast, 368 pages It’s one of the galaxy’s most dangerous secrets: a mysterious transmitter with unknown power and a reward for its discovery that most could only dream of claiming. But those who fly the Millennium Falcon throughout its infamous history aren’t your average scoundrels. ✦ Most Wanted by Rae Carson, han & qi'ra & cast, 348 pages Han and Qi'ra don’t have a lot in common other than not having a lot. They’re street kids on the industrial planet Corellia, doing whatever it takes to get by, dreaming of something more. full details + recs under the cut!

STAR WARS NOVELS RECS: ✦ The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu, luke & ocs, 432 pages As a cargo ship rockets across the galaxy to Canto Bight, the deckhands on board trade stories about legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. But are the stories of iconic and mysterious Luke Skywalker true, or merely tall tales passed from one corner of the galaxy to another? If you’ve checked out my tumblr, you’ll know I’ve done a fair amount of blogging about this book and one of the reasons it hit me so hard is that it came at exactly the right time I needed it, when The Last Jedi was coming out and I really craved some good Luke Skywalker characterization. I’ve always enjoyed his character, but this book really hit exactly the right notes for me in a way that was above and beyond what I expected! It’s a canon novel, but the way it’s told–as a handful of people telling second or third hand stories about Luke–means you can’t take everything quite at face value, but some of them are so Luke Skywalker that I could have cried with how well Ken Liu gets the character. All of the stories are at least reasonably fun to read, but “Fishing the Deluge”, “I, Droid”, and “Big Inside” are the three stellar stories that capture the heart and spirit of who Luke Skywalker is. The main theme is Luke going around the galaxy, learning about it and the Force, trying to uncover lore about the Jedi after it was lost, and getting into adventures along the way. There’s a ton of great detail in there, some things that connect to other stories (the fishing he learns on Lew'el that we see in TLJ, the compass that’s been making appearances in various bits of Star Wars), as well as we get to see other cultures’ connections to the Force as Luke interacts with them and learns more. But it’s really that he’s so good and kind and noble, that he’s eager to learn and yet has such a strong sense of self, that he’s bright and brilliant and so very Jedi. It gave me so many feelings about how the Jedi’s spirit absolutely lives on through Luke here, as well as just plain gave me feelings about the character himself! It’s one of the absolute must-reads for those who are looking for anything with his character or to feel better if TLJ disappointed you, because this shows that Luke’s life wasn’t all misery. There is so, so much joy to be found here, especially in those three stories. (As well as some great Luke & Artoo friendship moments that had me crying over them again!) ✦ From a Certain Point of View by [various authors], a new hope cast, 496 pages Every scene is told from the point of view of a background character. Whether it’s the X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star or the stormtroopers who never quite could find the droids they were looking for, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View places the classic movie in a whole new perspective. I will warn ahead of time that not every story in this collection worked for me, that probably half of them were ones I could have done without reading (though, only a handful were ones I felt weren’t worth the time), but that’s a very, very subjective thing–any stories I haven’t liked I’ve heard from people who did love them!–and the ones that I did love? I love so much that I would have read this book just for them. The whole concept is a really neat one, where it’s 40+ different authors taking on different points of view from the various characters of ANH, whether a Stormtrooper or a mouse droid or a bartender or a bounty hunter or a familiar Jedi, all who add something to the tapestry around the movie that started it all. Some of them are just intriguing, some of them made me laugh out loud, some of them made me think, but all of them combined together to really make me feel like this was a living, breathing galaxy of actual size! But, yes, my favorites were the Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Yoda stories, because they come the closest to the heart of the story, because they bridge the gap between the OT and my beloved prequels, because they are the one with the strongest sense of character. I have spent so much time talking about those three stories especially on tumblr because they’re richly written and have a ton of little details for me to pull out and Obi-Wan’s point of view, how his life and his death are so defined by his love for Anakin and Luke, how Qui-Gon looks over on Obi-Wan and where he’s at just before the movie starts, his views on all that have happened and what’s coming, Yoda’s story with the little things he kept with him (I DID NOT AS FOR FROG GRANDPA FEELINGS LIKE THIS) and what he can feel from Anakin when Obi-Wan dies. All of it is so, so worth picking up to read and crying over! But also, for real, read the Motti chapter, because I fuckin’ cried during that one, I laughed so hard. It’s the most glorious thing I have ever witnessed in my life. But also-also read the whole thing! Breha’s story is heartbreaking, the Wedge chapter was actually really engaging and exciting, the Beru story is weird and artsy and I really liked it, etc. There’s a lot that’s just really, really cool here and stuff you might not get anywhere else in Star Wars! ✦ Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy by Pablo Hidalgo, entire cast, 112 pages Whether it’s a Star Destroyer hovering over a planet or an X-wing delivering a message of resistance, propaganda images have become synonymous with life in the galaxy far, far away. This in-world art book explores the creation and stories behind these images of power and persuasion. I did not expect to ever get something like this or for it to be so incredibly fantastic, it’s exactly what I wanted, where it’s an in-universe meta book about the history of art as propaganda which is used to show the course of the plot from the Rise of the Empire era all the way to the First Order era. It sounds like a bit of a flimsy premise to stretch so far, but it’s really more that the art is the lens through with the book is telling the entire galactic history over those ~60 years of time, so you get all this history and reference and context about how things came to be. You get a sense of how the Clone Wars came across to the public, you get the sense of how the Republic failed the people it was supposed to represent and protect, you get a sense of how the Jedi were victim to this terrible war, you get a sense of how the Empire came across to the public, you get a sense of what the Galactic Civil War was like, you better understand the First Order. It’s a book told through the perspective of art history, how that swayed opionin, but it’s so much more than that, it’s a history of the GFFA. I originally read the digital version, but then loved it so much that I also had to go buy the physical copy of the book (which looks really gorgeous in a way the digital version doesn’t quite match) because it balances being like an actual relic from the GFFA with being a great Star Wars merchandise book. I love that it’s structured the way it is, like I’m reading actual in universe essays and history papers, but also it’s coming from an author who is one of the best people at keeping the history of the GFFA in view and so it’s great on that front as well. It’s a book that I had a hard time putting down because it’s just so well done and so cool and so informative and actually gave me a lot of feelings (let me cry about all the Clone Wars-era stuff it gave us!!) and is one of my favorites out of everything I’ve read from LF. ✦ The Last Jedi: Cobalt Squadron by Elizabeth Wein, rose & page & leia & cast, 224 pages New characters from The Last Jedi, including mechanic Rose Tico and her gunner sister Paige, get the chance to shine in this hardcover adventure. I listened to the audiobook version of this one and I really recommend that way if you can, because Kelly Marie Tran narrates it and she does an absolutely fantastic job! This is another book I recommend if you want to have greater context for The Last Jedi, if you want more of Rose’s character, or you just want more Star Wars stories with female-centric stories! It’s not super plot heavy, the action is pretty standard, but it’s a great look at the characters, including some really lovely Leia moments, it’s a great look at the relationship between Paige and Rose, to give context to why Rose is so devastated by her loss in TLJ and why Rose has the views she has, given her history, and it’s a great way to care more about them, to feel like there’s more depth to them than the movie had time for. It also brings in some more context to just what exactly is happening with the First Order and so I liked it for filling in detail in that sense, too! But mostly it’s just a really, really good Rose Tico story and I adored it for that. ✦ Forces of Destiny: Daring Adventures, Volume 1, Volume 2, The Rey Chronicles, The Leia Chronicles by Emma Carlson Berne, rey & leia & padme & ahsoka & sabine & cast, ~120 pages each The choices we make, the actions we take, the moments–both big and small–shape us into forces of destiny. I’m going to collect these books together because they’re all pretty similar to each other–they’re largely just retellings of the Forces of Destiny shorts, with occasional bits and pieces of extra moments added. There’s not a lot that’s added for character insight (of the ones out so far, the Rey ones are the best, I found the most to be excited about there–though, the Sabine one had some stellar lines about her and Ketsu!) or things that will surprise if you’ve already seen the shorts, but I did enjoy reading them! They’re very cute and would be great for younger readers or those who just want something cute and fun to read that won’t take a lot of time. There are also audiobooks (which I haven’t listened to) if you’d rather, and it’s all just a really cute, fun line-up that, while I wish they were telling more stories instead of the same ones over and over (though, the comics have more stories, which is fantastic!) they’re adorable and fun. ✦ Episode I Journal: Anakin Skywalker by Todd Strasser, obi-wan & anakin & padme & qui-gon & cast, ~112 pages My name is Anakin Skywalker. This is my story. I wanted to wait until I’d read more of this series to write up a review of them, but honestly they’ve been dropped down on my list of things to read, because I was hoping for some interesting character insights, but they’re really aimed more at young readers who just saw the movie and wanted to read it in novel form, so there’s not much that’s really new here, not much character insight or any added scenes. There are some cute Anakin/Padme moments, there was one moment that seemed to maybe imply that Anakin Force-whammied his mother without even realizing it, and one really nice Obi-Wan&Anakin moment at the end, but even with those, I struggled to find moments to talk about. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s a really, really straightforward retelling of the movie, just from the first person pov. But that’s what it’s meant to be, so it achieves what it sets out to do! Just that it wasn’t what I was looking for, unfortunately. ✦ The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition by Jason Fry, rey & luke & leia & kylo & poe & finn & rose & cast, 336 pages From the ashes of the Empire has arisen another threat to the galaxy’s freedom: the ruthless First Order. Fortunately, new heroes have emerged to take up arms—and perhaps lay down their lives—for the cause. My judgement of novelizations is largely based on the Rogue One book that really contributed a ton to my understanding of Jyn Erso’s characterization, that it gave depth to understanding her motivations and insight into how she thought, in a lot of ways it recontextualized her character in a really, really good way for me. So, my definition of what makes a novelization stellar is when it can do that for me, which most of them don’t. That doesn’t make them bad novelizations! And this one is perfectly functionable, it tells the story and adds small bits of character motivation here and there (nothing earth-shattering, though, nor does it fix some of the logic gaps I found TLJ to have) and I certainly had a ton to say about all those little differences on tumblr, especially because it was a good way to basically liveblog my feelings about the movie as well. There are moments where I think the book did well (adding the moment of Luke and Rey dancing or Rey realizing in her thoughts that Snoke is just trying to manipulate her), but other times it highlights just how much chemistry the actors brought to the roles to make things fun (I think this is especially true for Finn, but the Luke and Leia scene felt much stronger in the movie, too) because the scenes read as very straightforward and plain. The prose is solidly readable, I never had trouble picking up the book and sliding right back into reading it, but neither does it elevate the story. There are lots of little details, fun shout-outs to various other bits of canon, and the gaps there (like the vagueness in referring to “their allies” in the Outer Rim without specifics) are often the fault of the structure of the sequels (ie, you can’t reveal too much because they’re always saving it in case the next movie wants to use it), but it is on display here. It’s a book for fans who like novelizations, who like little bits of trivia or brief moments of cool additions (I’m not knocking this type of fan, this is exactly the type of fan I am!), but otherwise it’s about 95% a straightforward retelling of what was on the screen. ✦ Star Wars: The Last Jedi: A Junior Novel by Michael Kogge, rey & luke & leia & kylo & poe & finn & rose & cast, 208 pages A junior novel retelling of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, with deleted and extended scenes, as well as exclusive scenes you won’t find anywhere else featuring Rey, Chewbacca, R2-D2, Finn, and more! My feelings about this novelization are basically the same as the expanded novelization of TLJ–there are a handful of things to pull out that are interesting to talk about (and, boy, have I!) but that 95% of it is still a straightforward retelling of the movie. It’s a perfectly functional junior novelization and I have absolutely no regrets about reading it, because I like reading novelizations and I enjoy hunting down those handful of things that are different. But also I was at a point in time where I wanted to have something to pull out my TLJ thoughts, to give them structure, so much of the enjoyment I got out of this was an active blogging about it, rather than enjoying it as a passive read, which I don’t think it would be as strong for. What I mean is–if you’re reading this book to liveblog it, I think it gains something, because there are jumping off points to talk about! But if you’re looking for a book that will fill in the gaps that you felt TLJ had or to recontextualize the story for you, this isn’t going to do that, it’s a direct retelling aimed at young readers. I do have some characterization caveats (most of them can be explained as unreliable narrators, though) but I did feel that the Kylo Ren characterization skewed too hard towards evil in the wrong way, that he laughed at things he should have been conflicted about, that he didn’t care about things he obviously did, etc. It felt like the author really hated the character and that bled through to the writing, so he was off or else it was written based on only the script and assumed things that later were given a different kind of depth by Driver. It’s not anywhere near enough to ruin the book for me, but it did feel like something was missing–however, reading it at the same time I was reading the adult novelization, switching off between the two, it was really kinda cool to see the way they each seemed to trade off points of view. If one book got the Rey pov, the other got the Kylo pov. If one book got the Finn pov, the other got the Rose pov. Given that each book didn’t have that much new material, it helped feel like it fleshed things out and made a bit more of a complete picture. So, do I recommend this book? Depends on what you’re getting it for, honestly. ✦ Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind by Travis Langley + others, luke & leia & anakin & obi-wan & yoda & cast, 320 pages This essay collection offers a fascinating psychological analysis of the compelling and complex universe of George Lucas’s richly rendered Star Wars series. A group of expert contributors examines such topics as family ties, Jedi qualities, masculinity, girl power, and the values embodied in both the “dark” and “light” sides of this psychologically spellbinding world. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get when I picked up this book, what kind of essays, what kind of focus, what kind of writing it would be. But I got caught up in it pretty early and found that I just enjoyed the absolute hell out of the various topics, that it fit with a lot of how I viewed Star Wars, but as seen through much more professional lenses. There are essays around various topics, looking at various characters (but the usual ones are those that get the most focus, of course), things like how Anakin Skywalker’s nueroses led and inform his actions as Darth Vader, what the Jedi teachings say about how to handle various situations, the way role models influence us as we grow up, etc. Some of them are more generalized looks at topics or groups, some of them get much more specific (the Anakin ones are my favorites and felt very in line with the way I see him, especially as someone who is haunted by anxieties), but all of them are well laid out, well explained, and may be just the foundations of various psychology aspects, but are fascinating for it. I wound up quoting a lot of the book (and will probably quote a lot more over time) because it does a great job of explaining things, like why Jedi mindfulness is a really good thing, why faith and religion can be so helpful for us, depending on our motivatons for it, why having a role model like Leia Organa was so important, why Luke’s journey is set up the way it is, why the Sith are not actually a stable force, etc. It’s a great place to start if you want to learn a bit about psychology through the lens of Star Wars OR a great place to go if you want to read about Star Wars through the lens of psychology, as well as that it’s clear that a lot of thought has been given to the characters and what George Lucas was putting into the story, so that one flows really well into the other and back again. It’s a great book to read and a really great look at the whys of behavior and meaning to us as complicated humans. ✦ Last Shot by Daniel José Older, han & lando & cast, 368 pages It’s one of the galaxy’s most dangerous secrets: a mysterious transmitter with unknown power and a reward for its discovery that most could only dream of claiming. But those who fly the Millennium Falcon throughout its infamous history aren’t your average scoundrels. I have a lot of conflicted feelings about this book, because there’s a lot it really did wonderfully well, but a lot that was ultimately really unsatisfying. My two biggest problems are the tone of the book (there’s a lot of meme-speak that feels off for a galaxy far, far away) and the way Han and Lando seem to really lack any thought of how their significant others have internal worlds of their own. What I mean is that Lando is getting ready to Maybe Settle Down For Real, but Kaasha is someone we know practically nothing about, we learn almost nothing about her or have Lando think about what her wants and desires are. Whenever he thinks about her, it’s about how he feels about her. The same is true of Han with Leia–it’s not until three fourths of the way through the book that there’s anything touching on what Leia is going through that’s entirely her own, rather than it being about Han. Previous to that, all of Han’s thoughts about Leia are about her understanding him, her reading between the lines of his terrible way of expressing himself, her packing his bag because she knows he needs to go, her comforting him about his fears on being a terrible father. He misses his family, but there’s little sense of them that’s beyond being extensions of his character. To a degree, that’s fair enough, this is a book about Han (and Lando), but we can tell that Leia clearly does have her own world (she’s rushing off to meetings for the New Republic, she’s mourning Alderaan, she’s probably still dealing with the blow about Vader being her bio-father) and clearly thinks about Han’s internal world, but he doesn’t do the same for her even within his own thoughts. And I’m not sure if he’s meant to come off as that self-centered, despite that he’s genuinely trying to be a good husband and dad! The book does seem to try to say something about various issues, like one of my favorite things is that there’s diversity in gender and body types (there’s an explicitly non-binary character–a dark-skinned nb character!!!!–who is simply part of the narrative, they’re just there, and it’s fantastic, they’re a stellar character, also Lando is clearly attracted to a heavily curvy woman and it’s not a joke, it’s legitimate “that lady is hot” and the narrative agrees, which is also wonderful! and there’s an apperance by a m/m couple who got married!! like, all of this could make me cry from how happy I am to see Star Wars inching its way forward in progress in such wonderful ways!) as well as it seems to touch on the idea of droid rights. But then that doesn’t really go anywhere, it’s brought up and then never really finished. Or there’s a Gungan who is offended that Han thought he spoke with a Gungan accent–is this a commentary on racial stereotypes or a dig at the prequels (as the author definitely had some anti-prequels things to say a few years back) or just a quirky thing to add? How am I supposed to take that, when just a few pages later, there’s a different character with a similarly over the top accent? I’m just never quite sure what this book was trying to say. That said, I’m glad I read it, there’s some really stellar stuff in it–L3 is great, I love that Lando is a fashionista, that he’s dramatic and Extra about it, but in a way that’s delightedly charming and clearly a great thing about him. I loved the brief mentions of baby Ben showing up, there was some SERIOUS cute going on there, but also a great quick peek into what his early life was like, how he was difficult, but still such a sweet kid at that point, how loved he was. I loved “Uncle Wanwo”, like, holy shit, worth the book right there! I was absolutely delighted that there was a very strong sense of this being placed in the Star Wars galaxy, from droids to aliens to planets to tech, it was recognizable (though, I could have done without almost all the aliens being described as ugly), and the plot was a solid action chase plot. Ultimately, while I find it easier to talk about the things that didn’t work for me (but isn’t that often the case with most people?) I don’t want to discourage people from reading this, because I’m genuinely glad I read it, I thought there was a lot of good stuff here and I really enjoyed getting to see Lando, who was still a gambler and a bit of a scoundrel, but with the good heart he’s always had. That there’s progress made on giving him character depth! That Han genuinely struggled with having a family and how to deal with that, that it doesn’t do a disservice to that part of his character or that he genuinely loved them and wanted to be there with them and support them. There was a lot done to make these characters more relatable and human, which goes a very long way with me, so I’m glad to have gotten this book and I’d love to see more about Han and Lando again! I also plan to listen to the audiobook after seeing the Solomovie, as I think more familiarity with the updated versions of the characters might help, but even without that, I thought this was a solid read I’m glad to have gotten! ✦ Most Wanted by Rae Carson, han & qi'ra & cast, 348 pages Han and Qi'ra don’t have a lot in common other than not having a lot. They’re street kids on the industrial planet Corellia, doing whatever it takes to get by, dreaming of something more. I wish I’d had more time to read the rest of this book before seeing Solo (and I would have swapped the publishing order with Last Shot, but I also recognize that there wasn’t time because the author had other committments that pushed this one back and am totally sympathetic to that) because I think reading the first handful of chapters did an amazing amount to help me with Qi'ra’s character in the movie, as this book dovetails so very well with who she is there. She made perfect sense to me, someone who was genuine about being glad that Han got out, who genuinely had feelings for him and kept those feelings close to her, wasn’t going to betray him if she could at all help it, would have probably died to help him, but also wasn’t going to stay where she was, that she knew shutting the door on the possibility of more was what she had to do. This book really does a fantastic job of showing who these characters are prior to the movie and gives a lot more depth to the opening scenes on Corellia, a lot more meaning to the White Worms and Lady Proxima and just how desperately hungry both Han and Qi'ra were to get the hell off that world. It also does a fantastic job of connecting it to the rest of the GFFA, that there are recognizable aliens amongst the new ones, that there are references to the rest of the galaxy, that this fits with Han feeling isolated in how he grew up yet it’s not unrecognizable as the galaxy we know. So I would have enjoyed the book and recommended it for that alone, but it’s also just a fun book, one of the most enjoyable ones I’ve read of canon! It has a good blend of action with character insight, it very obviously kept the future in mind (working up towards Han’s characterization in ANH especially, what with his saying the Force is a bunch of mumbo jumbo or why he doesn’t join causes, as well as the book felt aware of Qi'ra being similar to Leia, except the more you get to know her, the more she’s not really Leia 2.0 but instead her own character, one that I adored) and yet was legit exciting. I knew things had to work out reasonably well, given that it was set before canon events, but the path to how it would work out, how they’d get out of this seemingly impossible mess (and I loved the how of how it worked out!) to put them in place for the movie, all of that was great. I legitimately cared about these characters, Han was this great character who is smart but somewhat naive even as he’s street smart in other ways, you can’t help but fall for his entirely genuine charms, Qi'ra was wary and closed-off, except she was a person who had respect for others, she had a core of strength that you could feel, no matter how hungry she was, she was someone I hope we get to see more of. And having them run all over Corellia and running up against crime syndicates and droids and rich people who may or may not be truly helping them, all of it was just pure Star Wars fun! One of my faves, especially ones tangent to the Solo movie!

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #luke skywalker #leia organa #han solo #yoda #rose tico #finn #rey #qi'ra #lando calrissian #ben solo #kylo ren #paige tico #novels #fic recs #long post under the read more

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permian-tropos · 6 years

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The Last Jedi and Immersion

Forget the specific arguments about why people disliked TLJ for a minute. For every argument, you can point to another plot element in another SW film that does much the same. Eventually I’ve just heard people say, “it just made me feel awful, what can I say, how can I like a movie that made me feel awful? I couldn’t engage with it. Obviously all these problems I have with it are problems with the film.” Seems pretty legit.

Overall, People who hate TLJ seem unable to suspend disbelief. It’s “not their Star Wars”. But I don’t think this isn’t a problem coming from the facts about what happens in the plot, to the characters (since so many things that people disliked are things people have suspended disbelief for in other circumstances). I think this is something caused by the overall aesthetic tone of the film.

This could mean the film has bad acting, bad cinematography, bad editing, and so on, and I’ve seen people try to argue that. But only Star Wars fans have tried to argue this in large numbers. Bad filmmaking should be apparent to anyone with a background in film studies or film appreciation. But this is a movie that mainstream and independent critics generally had a good reaction too. It was also a movie that got good reactions from the general audience. Not everyone has a Rotten Tomatoes account, but polls of audience members as they were leaving theaters gave it something like an 89% approval rating, iirc. So… what the heck. How can only Star Wars fans be experts on film?

They’re not — but they’re something like experts on Star Wars film. Star Wars is their (our?) standard for what a good Star Wars movie is. This is even more specific than judging a movie by its genre — for a space opera film, The Last Jedi is really freaking good (sorry that’s just blatantly true). But it’s not being judged as space opera.

There are elements to the genre “Star Wars” that are highly specific and I don’t even think that’s a bad thing. I’m a big Star Trek fan, and I’m not a fan of things using the Star Trek property that don’t keep to its genre. Because I think it’s a good genre. But I think TLJ does something really funky clever with a foundational aspect of the Star Wars genre. I think it’s a good movie because it evokes reactions that are not all positive and are also not unintended. It’s a cunning little bastard.

Punch it, Chewie, let’s do more of this hardcore meta shit:

Star Wars is supposed to be inviting you in. It’s an immersive experience. The fact that it’s full of all this aesthetic detail, the reason why things like the cantina scene are so iconic, is because it doesn’t just serve to move the characters’ arcs along, or the plot. It introduces you to a setting that could be explored from a lot of angles. It’s a place you could imagine experiencing for yourself. That’s why I think the prequels have been rehabilitated after all these years — because they’re full of settings with details that spark the imagination. And one thing I think people felt disappointed by with TLJ is that it is very tight and sparse with its settings. Even when it comes to its parallel movie, Empire, this is distinct. In Empire, the settings are not just places where things happen, but they’re locations where you know tons of other things happened you never saw. The Hoth base was built and manned by tons of Rebels. Dagobah might not be settled, but it’s full of weird alien creatures you just know are lurking somewhere in the swamp. Bespin is a whole city. And even isolated asteroids might have giant worms in them. Now, Empire got mixed reception when it came out. And it’s also a lot more sparing with its settings. If you think about all the other movies (ie. come up with examples for yourself this is already too long), they’re far more inviting. They tantalize you with things that aren’t really conveying plot, or are maybe overcomplicated or weird, but that you’re happy to have the protagonists interact with because it’s just a cool place. You want to imagine having your own adventure there.

But TLJ has locations that are intensely focused on the plot purpose they serve — Ahch-To is a small island with just a few residents, the Resistance fleet is claustrophobic and dwindling, Crait is visually similar to Hoth but it’s not a fully manned base, it’s abandoned, and once its broken down equipment is used, it’s abandoned again. Snoke doesn’t have a whole castle to lurk in, he’s got a minimalist throne room on a big ship, and those Imperial/Order vessels can spark some imagination, but they have kind of repetitive architecture, and everyone dresses the same. They don’t feel as big as they are. The only location that has that kind of expansiveness is Canto Bight, and the movie deliberately denies you the wonder and excitement you’re usually supposed to have. Finn is in awe of all this ostentatious wealth, and Rose immediately shuts that down. Even the fact that they get busted by the po-po for parking wrong is so exclusionary. You’re not allowed to enjoy this, first of all it’s full of evil rich fuckos, second of all you’re not welcome here, you’re riffraff and you’ll be spotted instantly. The only people we can project onto for our own adventures are — and this is VERY VERY INTENTIONAL please remember this for later — the slave kids.

The Last Jedi is not being willfully ignorant about what people enjoy in their Star Wars. It’s paring down that feeling of adventure on purpose. Everything is bare and small and contained. You don’t have a place to slide your original Star Wars character in. You can’t join up. You are excluded. If you want be Luke’s padawan, too bad, his academy is gone and you never even saw much of it besides a burning building. And he hides on this tiny island until Rey comes along, and shortly after, he dies. If you want to be playing the craps table at Canto Bight, too bad, they’re all gross oligarchs, there aren’t even any familiar aliens in the crowd, and none of the patrons of the city get any characterization. Only DJ, and he’s deeply underwhelming and ordinary, like he wandered in from the wrong movie. If you want to be with the First Order, too bad, they all look like asshole chumps. They don’t get to look cool in this one, unlike in TFA, where Hux’s super fascist speech and the enormous scale of Starkiller Base were at least sort of thrillingly evil. I had First Order OCs after I saw TFA. I imagined them on SKB in this remote sector, having fascinating adventures. There was room for them. Not anymore! If you want to be with the Resistance in TLJ — too bad! Most of them die! You don’t want to be on one of those ships, as they’re being blown out of the void. There are so few people left at the end of the film that they all fit inside the Falcon. And you know you’re not on the Falcon with them. A lot of people were instinctively, deeply perturbed by how many Resistance members died, the fact that it’s just a few people left. And you know what, I wouldn’t be surprised if a big factor in this is because it doesn’t feel like Star Wars. Star Wars has always had settings and organizations and factions that you can imagine immersing yourself in, that’s kind of its biggest appeal. But this movie doesn’t let you in.

THAT’S FUCKING BRILLANT

What would you say is the central conflict the main characters from TFA goes through in this movie? — they struggle to feel like they belong. And by main characters, I mean Rey and Finn. Rey and Finn were the main characters that in TFA we got to journey alongside as they faced strange new worlds and people. They are the outsiders to this universe. Rey never left the barren Jakku until TFA. Finn had never left the confining, dehumanizing ranks of the First Order. We wanted to see more of the galaxy through their eyes.

But in TLJ, Rey struggles to feel like she has a place in this universe, and makes some bad decisions while pursuing a heroic destiny. And Finn doesn’t feel at home with the Resistance; he only wants to find Rey, and then later save the fleet so that Rey can return safely.

The fact that the movie conveys that feeling of not belonging, of being locked out, of being an outsider, of not having a place in it all, by subverting the most common Star Wars experience of feeling included and swept up in the magic, is REALLY REALLY AMAZING. People feel horrible from this film, they feel like it betrayed them, they feel like it isn’t Their Star Wars, they feel like they’ve been shut out. And that’s incredible, because it’s exactly the angst that the characters were enduring. It puts you through what they went through. You have to feel that alienation. And people who loved Rey and Finn are not less invested in those characters after the film. They’re really fucking invested, that’s why they’re super pissed that it felt like Rey and Finn weren’t treated right. The movie didn’t kill people’s investment. It heightened it deeply — and that was a negative emotion! It felt awful! And it was a deeply powerful aesthetic experience. Which is good art.

But remember the fact that the only people you can project onto are the Canto Bight slave kids? They’re the only group that is vaguely defined enough that you could imagine being a kid and being one of them.

Why do you think, having painfully restricted you, the viewer, to this one tiny group, the movie ends on them? Why does it end showing these kids retelling the events of the film with cute handmade toys in a language you don’t understand, so you can imagine them saying anything? Why does it end with one of the kids walking out onto a shallow incline pointing up at the stars, like the slope of the opening crawl of Star Wars, call his broom with the Force, and wistfully watching a ship jump into lightspeed?

The Last Jedi shuts you out the whole way through until that final scene. You aren’t invited to join, just as the characters are grappling with their sense of place and purpose (arguably Luke also grapples with this, and he used to be our POV protagonist too). But then it finally, FINALLY, invites you back. It makes you wait the whole fucking movie to see a place where you belong. And it shows you a completely random little kid using the Force.

That’s you. You’re Broom Boy. You have something special and wonderful inside you, and you are important, but you don’t know it yet, and the universe doesn’t know it yet. You are latent. You aren’t ready yet, but your time is coming.

But the thing is, this ending doesn’t fully resolve the anxiety of being shut out. It doesn’t make you feel like you love this movie. Every aesthetic choice leading up until this point hasn’t felt like Star Wars. One scene isn’t going to change how you see this film. But this isn’t the last film of the trilogy. The next film will be about closure, and resolution — for the characters, but also for your anxiety. You will be invited back in (I hope). The Last Jedi doesn’t position itself so you know exactly why you felt wrong about this whole affair. It just induces that feeling in you, to prepare you for Episode 9. Because you are definitely going to buy a ticket for Episode 9. There are people who expect Ep9 will somehow rebuke TLJ, and undo everything it does. I sincerely hope it doesn’t. That would be undermining the flow of a whole trilogy. But if it gives you this feeling of belonging again, that doesn’t mean TLJ was a mistake. Maybe if TLJ was exciting and satisfying and pleasing without a hint of anxiety, it would sort of fizzle out by the time Episode 9 comes around. I think we’re supposed to be agitated and angrily hungry for more.

#my post #the last jedi #more FUCKIN G META OH MY GOD SHUT UP ME

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sethnakht · 7 years

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sw fics i love (vader + leia-centric)

because it’s helpful to organize one’s thoughts. a work in progress.

long post is long.

old but memorable (written before 2013)

ebony and jade by brendon j. wahlberg, with illustrations by ian mcintosh (gen, vader + mara). lord vader & the emperor’s hand team up against a jedi and his psychedelic plants, and it’s glorious.

father’s heart by fernwithy (gen, vader + leia, series). vader befriends young princess leia. the fic that shaped me as a child. politics, corruption, betrayal, handmaiden culture, unspoken affinities, and fire.

the penitent by bellebayard, fernwithy, jediskysong (mostly gen, some anakin/padmé). begun in 1999 and now only available in its original form*, it seems - the jedi council forums, where so much fic was written back in the day - and only incompletely, this post-rotj anakin redemption story is the sprawling product of collaborative authorship (and a follow-up to “father’s heart”). ymmv on some of the plot devices and characters as a result, but it had an enjoyable take on skywalker family dynamics and a riveting, fully-realized trial for vader. *if you find a better copy of this, please message me!

the smart one by fernwithy (gen). written in 2002. excellent outsider pov on vader, who has taken especial interest in a particular piece of naboo art. a meditation on art and politics.

by the grace of lady vader by fernwithy, ami-padme and alderaan21 + the ascension of the queen by fernwithy, ami-padme (vader/dark!padmé, han/leia). written from 2000 until right after aotc on the jedi council forums (original posts + comments here & here). this story has remained with me as a set of unforgettable scenes and images - amidala in blood-red veils, praising schoolchildren for their talents and services to her empire, luke the obedient child, leia the freedom fighter, vader at once gratified and disturbed by what they’ve all become.

dark labyrinth pt 1 | 2 | 3 by Shayne1 (luke, han, chewie, vader). luke’s in trouble. vader kills the best lead on his whereabouts, and has to team up with han to find him. terrific voices all around.

various one-shots (also here and here) by MjMink (gen, mostly luke + vader). these were incredibly influential back in the day, and still manage to surprise and delight.

tamarisk by Arco (vader gen). splendid little vader adventure with memorably gory imagery and one hell of a bizarre twist

about turn by Mina / Mina1 (gen, vader + leia, vader + luke, luke + palpatine, background han/leia). written in 2001. vader & leia work together to save luke from the emperor. creepy luke-emperor interaction plus some nice scenes on tatooine. see also: legacy (vader + leia), a lovely short where vader survives rotj and leia has to come to terms with him, and in plain sight (vader, luke, leia), a variation on the theme.

deep as you go by @garnettrees / Meredith Bronwen Mallory (vader/padmé). written in 2002. vader creates a clone of his wife. a terrifying glimpse into his psyche - and the ethics of cloning. “but she’s not the painting, she’s just the print – no texture.”

return of a jedi by JHMLYNDALE (gen, vader + leia, rotj-legends cast). written in 2005. luke, han, lando and mara jade all die in the attack on jabba’s barge. leia, vader, and their allies take on the emperor. if you can stomach the character deaths, this is one hell of a ride.

equally cursed and blessed by Mina / Mina1 (gen, vader + luke, rotj-legends cast). written between 2005 and 2008. epic luke + vader story with a vividly-portrayed full cast, particularly leia, lando, chewie, piett and palpatine.

the protege by jedinemo (gen, vader, luke, obi-wan, leia). written in 2007/8. vader discovers a familiar clone skulking around the imperial palace. vader’s personality issues are on full display.

missing in action by cwbasset (gen, vader + luke). written in 2008. my favorite take on the ‘luke and vader crash-land together’ trope. includes grade-a vader-artoo bickering. fantastic author, see also: shattered (wip, luke + legends & prequel cast, time travel AU)

omelas by Deja Vu (vader, luke, xixor). short story from 2009 that packs quite a punch.

interregnum by PlaidButterfly (clone trooper + vader). written in 2011. short and chilling story showcasing just how desperate vader is to believe he’s still the hero.

canon-compliant

and there I shall find by ambiguously. lovely take on post-TFA General Organa in a whump/survival scenario, speaking - listening - to her father’s hated ghost for the first time. Anakin is insufferable, jealous, smug and sullen and somehow still unable to understand why his children were kept from him - and yet also knowingly deploying his worst traits to keep the daughter so like him alive. Leia has no reason to forgive but is listening, and not only to his engineering advice. Hopeful, with flashes of humor, and crawling with sorrows that would never end

the black buzzard by @jerseydevious (vader + luke). sweet, sweet body horror and father-son banter. see also gleaming in the wreckage

bursts of stardust by @redrikki (anakin/padmé, assorted cast). set of insightful shorts, including AUs, that lend shade and nuance to anakin, padmé, the jedi order, even palpatine.

the funeral pyre by anendda_rysden (gen, vader, piett). superb story showcasing vader’s struggle with his own body from an outsider pov. vivid, powerful writing. contains sci-fi/horror elements.

liberation by redone (gen, vader + luke). vader’s walk with luke from the throne room to the end. written in 2002, as lovely now as it was then.

PRojects IN Controlled Environments, version Sith by Beth Winter (vader, ocs). clever imperial outsider pov on vader, showcasing his engineering skill. ketha, the female protagonist, picks up on fascinating little details, my favorite being: “The handwriting was atrocious, a combination of two different styles - one with romance holo titles flourishes, one absolutely primitive - and cramped enough that she needed to zoom in.”

the sith who brought life day by ophelia_interrupted (vader, ocs). vader is often at his best when one has to guess at what’s going on behind the mask, a job all the harder for imperial underlings without access to the force. very nice outsider perspective made all the richer for how believable it remains while mixing the serious and humorous.

speak to me by @cyberdyke-industries (kylo ren, anakin/vader’s force ghost). read this now. this gets what makes kylo and vader monsters, what makes them pull at us - a way of being vader both understands and condemns. cinematic, mythical, chilling down to the level of syntax. the ending is less a cliff-hanger than an image to think through, a powerful allegory..

AUs

everything, including in the valley, by @darth--nickels (many wip, vader-centric, be aware that you need to be logged into AO3 to see them). gems, all of them, even if some may never be finished. my go-to for insights into vader’s psyche. vader is hilariously and horribly unstable–suicidal in one moment, megalomanic and full of bluster in the next, and yet deeply compelling through it all.

> timetravel / parallel universe

of queens, knights and pawns (wip) by @chancecraz (vader + leia, han/leia on the horizon, full cast). tfa!leia ends up reliving her life as anh!leia, and comes to terms with both her past and future. this story is currently my life. come for leia yelling at vader, stay for the lovingly realized cast, their constant miscommunication, and deep-seated psychological trauma. see also scenes from the middle game, encounters in queens told from the perspectives of other characters, starting with a harrowing vader pov, and of dreams and other whims, a au re-write of chapter seven with old man luke!

queen’s gambit by @bedlamsbard (anakin/padmé, padmé/obi-wan, tcw!cast), sequel to wake the storm. this swept me away. ymmv on the pairing(s), but the opening scene alone deserves an essay, and there’s so much to love here: incredible world-building, a full and well-realized cast of characters, political intrigue, media critique, and finger-biting tension.

out of the dark valley by @irhinoceri (anakin/padmé, eventual luke/mara, leia, ahsoka, cast). riveting au where vader is able to return to his rots!self with his consciousness intact, and make slightly different choices. things still go downhill, and the author is unafraid to explore those dark and frightening places, especially with leia.

stand the hazard of the die (wip series) by KeelieThompson1 (anakin/padmé, vader + luke, TCW!cast). young luke is sent to the past, but his mind is marked by a sith lord’s magic and the trauma of what he’s seen. anakin and padmé have to deal. lovely exploration of a situation where anakin does not fall (yet), but vader is still a factor and palpatine still at loose. leia’s story here is at once highly tragic and highly amusing.

edges of the world (wip) by @glompcat (leia, vader, ahsoka, anakin/padmé). leia organa and leia skywalker switch places, de-stabilizing anakin and shocking vader. a brave and important story about the struggles of identity, growing up, what family means, and finding acceptance.

reflected legacy (wip) by DAsObiQuiet (han/leia, anakin/padmé). legends!leia and han are sent back in time to when anakin still dreams of his mother. terrific characterization. see also hindsight is not perfect + the dangers of foresight (wip series), where vader’s consciousness is sent back to his tpm!body, and his emotional stuntedness is both a boon and a problem.

old man luke (wip) by @scarletjedi (luke, obi-wan, anakin). tfa-era!luke - and possibly his sister - ends up in the middle of the clone war. enjoyable exploration of how age contributes to perspective.

> canon divergence before ROTJ

afterimage (wip) by @garnettrees (vader/padmé). vader pursues the promise of resurrection. for those who enjoy clever metaphor, games with myth, linguistic invention, and a shot of gothic horror. “The first word she says is, ‘Help’. ‘I am here,’ says the thing in the dark.”

betrayal of the finest sort (wip) by @cadesama (vader/padmé, vader/obi-wan, ahsoka). relentlessly bitter, spiteful dysfunction at its best. fantastic author, see also: if blood be the price (padmé/anakin, obi-wan, AOTC!AU) and lost things that are never found (adult!ahsoka/anakin, leia, rebel!AU).

echoes of mortis by @sunshinedaysforever (anakin/padmé, cast). powerful what-if with palpable, believable character growth. see also time to change the road you’re on (wip; anakin + ahsoka, timetravel).

flesh of my flesh by @igrockspock (vader + leia, gen) - when precocious eleven-year old Leia is taken from her home on Alderaan to live with her birth father in his lava castle, both understandably have to adjust. An absurd situation that the author mines for its humor and the humanity it can reveal while never forgetting what Vader is and what he ultimately wants.

how the other half lives (series in progress) by @reedroad (luke + leia + vader, OT + Rebels + comics cast). gorgeously written switched!au, with prince luke and jedi leia. and while much remains the same, the devil’s in the details. vader steals his scenes: angry and awful.

in loco pirates + palpatine ad portas (wip) by @izzythehutt (gen, vader, palpatine, luke, leia, aphra). vader, driven by his fear of weakness, and luke, who sees right through him. lovely father-son interaction offset by an utterly compelling and terrifying palpatine. leia’s in for the ride, too. also: hondo!

in which vader discovers he’s a father by @glompcat (gen, vader + luke + leia). vader kidnaps or discovers one or both of his children, in situations varying between the harrowing and humorous.

the light you leave behind (wip) by @laventadorn (anakin/padmé, anakin/obi-wan, ahsoka, tcw!cast). great author in many fandoms. this particular story features vivid action and even lovelier domestic scenes - wonderful characterization especially of the female characters, from padmé and ahsoka to ventress.

masquerade (wip) by PlaidButterfly (gen, vader-centric). vader is forcibly taken out of the suit, only to find that the emperor has his hands on luke. memorable for the physical description of vader as a kind of grey-haired shaggy bear, his chilly interactions with leia, and his attempt to survive unnoticed in the lower levels of Coruscant by returning to what he knows best: fixing things.

on the day ... by @cacchieressa (vader + leia, series in progress). vader discovers his daughter and comes to an agreement with her parents

the tyranny of kinship (wip) by @amarielah (mostly suitless!vader + leia, cast). vader and anh!leia come to an understanding. leia shines in particular, bringing across that astuteness and political savvy she’s often said but not shown to have. see also precious illusions (wip; vader/vision!adult!ahsoka), an unsettlingly lovely take on vader’s contradictory impulses.

slipping by radioboca (gen, vader, leia, luke, bail, breha, han, etc.). leia gives in to her hatred for her biological father. leia is so, so young in this story, and painfully, palpably afraid. vader just thinks he’s doing the right thing.

violence in the library (wip) by @radioactivepeasant (gen, vader + luke). alien meets star wars. a heady mix of uncompromising gore and father-son shenanigans, with a great supporting cast and lots of humor.

> canon divergence after ROTJ, i.e. vader!lives

wounds by @azalea-scroggs (han/leia, vader + leia). luke dies in the battle of endor - vader acted too late to save him. leia is left with her grief. mesmerizing take on vader and leia, their struggles to hold on to reason despite overwhelming emotion. a powerful statement on mourning. see also: black squadron (wip, vader + luke), a take on the ‘luke becomes an imperial pilot’ scenario where luke is faced not only with vader, but also his own morality.

love thy enemy (series in progress) by @threadsketchier (vader + luke, leia, cast). vader survives rotj, but luke may not. body!horror, angry!leia, lovely prose and quality angst.

the trial of darth vader by The Librarian (ocs, vader, luke, leia). brilliant examination of vader’s crimes and legacy from the perspective of his prison interviewer, the kind of man vader would not have hesitated to kill. while this might seem like the lead-up to a trial rather than the trial itself, the reader is invited to be a juror of sorts. vader is dispassionate and alert, reciting information with cold precision, warming only to artoo and luke in his prison cell as his suit wastes away, unsure if he can use the force again - some incredibly memorable scenes here.

the smell of burning by deaka (luke + vader). luke saved vader, but at what cost? short but searing conversation between luke and vader about selfishness, about the costs of getting what one wants, about forgiveness, about whether we change so much in a setting as telling as it is metaphorical.

unvadering (wip) by @cadesama (vader, ahsoka, luke, leia, cast). vader loses the suit and works for the alliance now, but what does that really change? a conundrum nicely played-out in a scenario where ahsoka hadn’t known what he became. features glass-smashing leia.

untitled by @jerseydevious (vader + luke). vader survives rotj and is subjected to probing questions from an alliance doctor. poor luke plays interference

untitled by @sith-shame-shack (vader + luke). vader survives rotj and surgery, slipping in and out of consciousness. panic over loss of the suit, consuming awareness of touch, exhaustion tempered by luke’s presence.

#star wars #darth vader #fic rec list #leia organa #luke skywalker #ahsoka tano #padmé amidala #stories that shaped me #long post

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saranel · 6 years

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The Last Jedi review, sorta

I don’t think I’ve talked enough (if at all) about what a huge Star Wars nerd I am on this blog, mostly because I didn’t love TFA as much as most people seemed to and I just never joined in the renewed fandom frenzy.

TL;DR on my views on TFA: It was fun enough, some interesting new characters, beautiful visuals, but I’d seen that movie before. It came out in ‘77 and it was much better then. Homage is one thing, rip off is completely another. Mostly, I guess I was just disappointed that they didn’t dare to try and move the universe forward a bit, beyond the already trodden path.

Say what you will about the prequels, but I will always, always maintain there’s nothing wrong with them a better script and director couldn’t fix. George tries, bless him, but he can’t write dialogue worth a damn. Not even Meryl Streep could’ve made the line “So love has blinded you” any better than Natalie Portman did, and both she and Hayden have proven themselves to be much better actors than they were in Star Wars. I’m not bothering with Ewan because he was one of the few really great things about the Prequels.

That having been said, what George can do is weave a decent background story, and the Prequel Trilogy’s story is much, much richer than the OT’s. Taking off our nostalgia-colored glasses for a moment, let us be honest: the OT was so successful because it did a very simple thing, and did it well, and had a cast with wonderful chemistry. The story itself is nothing to rave about: just your simple Evil Empire vs Plucky Rebels story. But the Prequels actually got political and much darker than the OT did, they just did it clumsily. Still, it was something new in the Star Wars universe and George always tried to expand the known worlds by giving us even small glimpses of other cultures and planets. Don’t forget that Star Wars was never meant to be high-brow Science Fiction a la Philip Dick, but a space adventure. This doesn’t mean that the story can’t have nuance, but the point of Star Wars was always to be a fairytale exploration of a fictional galaxy.

Compared to that, the new trilogy seemed extremely lacking to me. And seeing The Last Jedi a few days ago really cemented that. Never before have I seen so many things happening in one movie while nothing really happens at all. It makes Attack of the Clones look interesting in comparison, and that’s saying a lot. ALSO LUKE, WTF HAS THE MOUSE DONE TO MY SPACE SON, THE FUCKING GALL.

So yes, surprise-surprise, TLJ manages to rip off Empire (with a dash of Battlestar Galactica thrown in for good measure) and does so poorly. It was not a terrible film by any means, but I honestly thought it was no better than Phantom Menace. And Phantom Menace had the Duel of Fates. So.

(okay, to be fair, TLJ didn’t have Jar Jar so that’s one point in its favor)

In a nutshell:

(cut for spoilers)

THE GOOD

- Poe. Poe was good. Moar Poe, there was a serious lack of Poe in TFA and it has been rectified, this was a very good decision.

- The silent scene. Y’all know the one. People in my theater literally gasped in unison. I was bored outta my skull up until then and as soon as I realized what Holdo was about to do, I sat up, all ‘oshit’ and it was amazing. Beautifully shot, beautifully clever, and the most badass hero death in the SW universe. Only comes in second in terms of best scene in the movie because the other one involved a more established and beloved character.

- MY SON LUKE KICKING HIS NEPHEW’S ASS LIKE IT AIN’T NO BIG THANG. In full disagreement over how shit went down between them in the past, but Luke showing Kylo who’s the most goddamn powerful Jedi in the galaxy (which Luke did canonically become in later years btw) was such a rewarding scene. Also, he was dressed in black. Like in ROTJ. Because fuck yeah.

- Rey’s parentage. Most people probably hated that she’s not a Skywalker but I just... kinda loved the suggestion that she was the Force’s answer to Kylo? It’s happened before with Anakin, so this isn’t exactly new, and Anakin, too, came from ‘nothing.’ I liked it. She doesn’t have to have illustrious parentage to be important in the series, and as much as I love my Space Drama Queen clan, it’s time the universe moves on from the Kardashians of the galaxy.

- Luke’s death. I don’t agree with 99% of what went down with Luke in this trilogy, I think it was deeply out of character, but his ending? That was spot on. Did I want more out of his storyline? Obviously, but examined in a vacuum, his ending was beautiful to me. Especially that last scene. Best scene in the movie from start to end.

- Yoda manipulating the goddamn heavens to rain thunder upon the ancient tree. Ilu Yoda

- Leia and Holdo discussing Poe. This was an A+++ short scene. Get it, ladies.

- Snoke is gone, thank the heavens. Worst-named villain in movie history, I couldn’t stop laughing every time someone said SUPREME LEADER snoke.

- CRYSTAL FOXES OMG

- Luke getting his kicks in that boring-ass island via EXTREME ROD FISHING, lmao the nerd

THE MEH

- So, um... Kylo and Rey? ....ew? (did they not think Finn and Rey were super cute or)

- So, um... Finn and Rose? ....ookaaaay? (did they not see Poe biting down on his lip when he saw Finn in his jacket or)

- I don’t really care for ships in this trilogy tbh, whatever. Guess I’m steering clear from attachment until I know who’s related to whom (THIS IS A DANGEROUS UNIVERSE TO SHIP IN OKAY). Plus, not really feeling particularly strong toward any couple, just... not Kylo and Rey, ew.

- Rose. I liked her, but... they hardly gave her anything to do. That casino storyline was such a mess, made it seem like she was there just to be there.

- Finn’s storyline. Snoozefest. I like him, but... see above.

- lol wtf happened to Chewie...? He was just... there?

THE BAD

- SPACE-WALKING LEIA. I’M SORRY, OKAY, I know this scene will be big with many people, and lord knows I wanted to see Space Mom use the Force beyond that Spidey Sense shit, but this was just so dumb.

- All the ‘humor.’ My god, just... no. Not every scene needs to be steeped in Whedon-speak, please stahp. I will admit the first scene got a chuckle out of me, but the rest...

- The ‘plot.’ This was literally an extended car chase scene in space with some Sense8 type shit thrown in. Rey hardly even did any training, ffs.

- so the force-sensitive member of the trio goes on to be trained by a wise, isolated mentor and finds herself drawn to a place steeped in the dark side and ends up seeing only herself reflected in there, meanwhile the rest of the characters are involved in a chase across the galaxy, running away from the evil empire, and at some point decide to ask for help form a well-known swindler who betrays them and in the end everything seems bleak with just a tiny glimmer of hope. HMMMMMM. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

- quite frankly, I’m still in shock Rey finished the film with two fully biological arms

- O hei, look, it’s The Salty planet Hoth. With pod-racing.

- Really? Rey blushing at shirtless Kylo? Really

- WHERE IS FORCE GHOST ANAKIN TO GO “BINCH I REDEEMED MYSELF IN THE END STOP THIS SHIT, ALSO I DID THIS FIRST AND I DID IT BETTER” TO HIS WANNABE GRANDSON

- The whole damn Casino storyline. I don’t care if it’s meant to set up something for the last movie (probably not) but it was long, boring, and a clumsily written attempt at a storyline that could’ve been more nuanced and a good addition.

- why did we have to see Luke milk that alien Y

- NOT ONE DECENT LIGHTSABER FIGHT THE FUQ.

- Leia (and Han in TFA) giving up on her son instead of beating some sense into his ass with a space slipper. Y’ALL KNOW SHE WOULD. Baaaaad characterization. Space Mom would never.

- Also, fuck whoever decided that Leia, who canonically has the exact same force potential as Luke because they’re twins, never developed her powers beyond Force Sense or whatever. If you’re not gonna give the woman a lightsaber, at least have her Force Push fools out of her way.

- Wtf Rey you obliterated that nice alien’s cart and didn’t even apologize they work hard every day you should be ashamed

- why was it meant to be funny when porgs were slapped around wtf

- “what’s that canon?” “Basically a small death star” kjashKLAFJSHSAJKDFSADFHSAK

- Kylo. Can he just die, plz, the expanded universe did the Evil Solo son storyline so much better. Yet another way in which this trilogy is totes an ~*homage*~ No shade on the actor though, he did a great job. It’s just the violent manchild character I cannot stand.

- So like... we’re never gonna learn what Snoke’s deal was...? Or how he got to Kylo...? ....Okay then.

- This movie was 2 and a half hours long.

#star wars #the last jedi #tlj spoilers #I bet y'all wish George was still at the helm now #VINDICATION FOR THE PREQUELS AT LAST

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Star Wars: Best Bounty Hunter Stories

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With the release of The Mandalorian, it's time to take a look back at the best Star Wars bounty hunter stories!

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With The Mandalorian exploring a lawless corner of the galaxy far, far away, bounty hunters -- the scum of the galaxy -- are now at the forefront of the Star Wars universe. Certainly, it's been a long time for fans of the most famous bounty hunter of all, Boba Fett. But, as the famous scene in The Empire Strikes Back shows, there's a whole stable of bounty hunters working across the galaxy for the highest bidder.

Besides Boba Fett, the other intergalactic scum only had a few seconds of screen time in The Empire Strikes Back, but those brief ticks of a clock were unforgettable. The image of a few alien toughs, some truly salty looking armored humans, and even a few droids fueled the imaginations of Star Wars fans for generations. So we thought we’d take this opportunity to spotlight some of the coolest Expanded Universe tales featuring Dengar, IG-88, Boba Fett, Bossk, Zuckuss, and 4-LOM.

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Now remember, most of these stories were wiped out of continuity when Disney took over the galaxy far, far away, but that doesn’t make them any less readable and awesome. And yeah, we may even have a few that are part of the current Star Wars canon.

We promise there will be no disintegrations as we turn back time and examine the coolest bounty hunter stories of the Star Wars galaxy:

Dengar

Ah Dengar, we know kids of the 80s probably referred to you as Diaper Head, but you are still badass. Dengar was front and center when Vader gave the bounty hunters their marching orders and could also be seen chilling out in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi. Dengar was played by Morris Bush, an actor who also appeared in Hammer’s Scars of Dracula (1970), the Christopher Lee pot boiler Creeping Flesh (1973), and the bizarre Ringo Starr musical comedy Son of Dracula (1974). Interestingly enough, Bush worked as a stand in for David Prowse in Star Wars (1977). According to Prowse, that is Bush’s foot you can see kicking Obi-Wan’s cape after Luke’s mentor is struck down by the Dark Lord of the Sith.

But where can you read about ‘ol Diaper Head? In the 1996 Kevin J. Anderson-edited Tales of the Bounty Hunters anthology (get ready, this isn’t the only time I’m going to mention this collection in this article), author Dave Wolverton related Dengar’s origin in a short tale entitled "Payback." In this piece of essential Dengar fiction (yes, such a thing exists), Wolverton details that Dengar used to be a swoop bike racer who was injured as a teenager by his racing rival. Of course, that rival was none other than a young Han Solo. Wolverton makes Dengar’s vendetta against the captain of Millennium Falcon very personal.

Read More: Star Wars Movie and TV Release Date Calendar

But Wolverton’s hyper-readable story isn’t our Expanded Universe essential Dengar pick. That honor goes to the season four episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars entitled "Bounty." In this toyetic installment of Clone Wars, an aimless Asajj Ventress joins up with a band of roguish bounty hunters that includes a teenage Boba Fett, Bossk, and the grizzled, weathered Dengar. Dengar plays a secondary role in this episode (doesn’t he always) to Fett and Ventress, but when Dengar springs into action, he truly shines. Better yet, Dengar is voiced by lifelong Star Wars lover Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek), and you just know that when Pegg was a wee lad he took his Kenner Dengar figure on many adventures. Pegg’s Star Wars enthusiasm shows as he fills the once tabula rasa Dengar with a salty, badass personality. "Bounty" was a Dirty Dozen-like adventure through the underbelly of the Star Wars galaxy and finally gave fans a sense of who the bandaged badass of Star Wars truly is.

IG-88

With a scant few seconds of screen team, IG-88 showed the world that not every droid in the Star Wars universe is cutesy. Yeah, we saw a few black imperial R2 and R5 units and a smattering of Death Star sroids, but IG-88 was a different mechanical animal all together. IG-88 was all sharp edges with a surreal design and multiple big honking firearms. Fans only got one quick glimpse of this death machine, but it was enough to emblazon this oddly shaped engine of destruction in fans’ minds forever. IG-88 was built and operated by puppeteer and effects guru Bill Hargreaves, and by operated I mean that Hargreaves moved IG’s head a tiny bit in Empire. But, damn, what a creation!

So we’re going to take IG-88’s chosen chronicle from the aforementioned Tales of the Bounty Hunters. In a short story entitled "Therefore I Am," it was revealed that everyone’s favorite murder droid had a great deal in common with Marvel’s Ultron. You see, in this tale, it was revealed that there were actually four models of IG-88 that shared the same malevolent consciousness. The IG master intelligence wanted to kick start a droid revolution and conquer the galaxy, but when it was activated, IG-88 murdered its creators and then built three duplicates of itself. One of those duplicates answered Vader’s call for bounty hunters while the others began plotting for the droid uprising. After Vader gave his marching orders, IG-88 stealthily downloaded Imperial files off the ships’ computer. Through this data theft, the assassin droid discovered top secret plans detailing the construction of a second Death Star.

Read More: Star Wars Movies Disney+ Streaming Guide

After IG sent that info to his duplicates, it tracked Solo to Bespin where it had a violent encounter with Boba Fett. Hey, remember the IG carcass in the background of the Ugnaught smelter sequence in The Empire Strikes Back, the one where the little pig people played keep away with Chewbacca? Yeah, this short story explains that carcass, as Fett blasts the IG unit to oblivion. But there were still three IG-88s out there. Two of them went after Fett but the last remaining IG-88, get this now, downloaded itself into and took over the freaking Death Star. Yes, according to Anderson’s "Therefore I Am," at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Death Star gained sentience thanks to IG-88. Of course, this was right before Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antilles, and Nein Numb blew the sucker up, but still, a malevolently intelligent Death Star is about as badass as it gets. That certainly would have led to the droid uprising, if not for fate and a fateful, last ditch bid at freedom by a desperate band of rebels.

IG-88—from a blink and you’ll miss it first appearance to a bee’s eyelash away from wiping out all non-mechanical life in the galaxy. Awesome.

Boba Fett

Can you imagine Star Wars without Fett? Honestly, the whole saga wouldn’t have been much different on screen, but it certainly would be fundamentally altered in the hearts and minds of fans, because Boba Fett’s legend lives in the Expanded Universe, or fans’ own personal expanded universes at least. There is a mystique to Fett. Maybe it’s because Boba Fett was the first mail away action figure which signaled to SW fans everywhere after 1977’s Star Wars that there would be more adventures in a galaxy far, far away to come. Perhaps it’s the fact that the Fett figure was supposed to feature a rocket-firing backup until Kenner grew worried that kids would choke on Fett’s spring loaded missile. Dude, Fett is so dangerous he was considered a threat to real world children before he made his film debut. Take that Dengar!

Perhaps it’s that badass souped up Stormtrooper like armor that Fett wears or perhaps it is because every inch of this gravelly voiced outlaw is covered in dangerous armaments. There are countless reasons that the whole world has a Boba Fettish and the stories we are about to list take advantage of this rarified adoration. It’s hard to narrow down just one great Boba Fett Expanded Universe story, so we won’t. We’ll hit you with a few.

Boba Fett was played by Jeremy Bulloch in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. For years, no one knew the lethal bounty hunter’s origins until George Lucas detailed Fett’s clone birth in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002), but before that, Fett was a mystery than many Expanded Universe creators tried to shed some light on.

Read More: Who are the Mandalorians?

First up is a yarn entitled "Prey" that appeared in Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars Tales #11 (2002). This flashback story written and drawn by Kia Asamiya features Fett being dispatched by Moff Tarkin to retrieve Han Solo after the future hero of the Rebellion defects from the Imperial Navy. Darth Vader disagrees with giving this assignment to a bounty hunter and goes after Solo himself. This leads to Fett and Vader engaging in an eye popping lightsaber battle in the middle of the Mos Eisley Cantina! Fett, who had procured a lightsaber from a dead Jedi (awesome), held his own against Vader, proving that this bounty hunter backs down from no man. Solo escaped by attaching his ship to a Star Destroyer and floating away when the warship dumped its garbage. Hmm, that sounds familiar, huh? This battle also built that subtle grudging respect that can be felt when Vader addressed Fett aboard the Star Destroyer Executer in Empire.

From the Dark Horse era to the first Marvel Comics era, let us go back in time to Star Wars #81 (1984) by Jo Duffy, Ron Frenz, Tom Palmer, and Tom Mandrake. There have been a number of Expanded Universe accounts of Boba Fett escaping the Sarlaac Pit, but this semi-classic published by Marvel just happens to be the first. The issue was entitled (get ready for it) "Jawas of Doom!" Let that sink in for a moment.

The story takes place just after the Battle of Endor and sees Han Solo searching for some extra cash. Han, Chewbacca, Leia, R2, and C-3P0 fly to Tatooine so Han can withdraw his credits from a Mos Eisely bank. Sadly, Han’s credits were frozen at the same time he was (in carbonite, natch!). Meanwhile, Boba Fett was spat out by the Sarlaac Pit and picked up by aggressive Jawas. It seems that since Jabba the Hutt’s demise, the Jawas have become more and more aggressive. In other words, the only thing that was keeping these hooded desert rodents in check was a mob boss, and now that Jabba is gone, the Jawas have become a gaggle of little murder bundles. So the Jawas droidnap R2-D2 and Boba Fett, whom they mistake for a droid due to his strange armor. Boba Fett has amnesia because comics and becomes the Jawas hapless prisoner (this is like an action figure adventure I would have had with a 103 degree fever).

Read More: Star Wars TV Series Disney+ Streaming Guide

Han, who sets on a rescue mission, boards the Sandcrawler and is shocked to see Boba Fett. The two former enemies work together to defeat the Jawas (no, really) until Fett regains his memory and takes a pot shot at Han. Han leaps to safety just as the Sandcrawler plummets into, you guessed it, the Sarlaac Pit. Wahh-wahh-wahhhhhh! What a strange little must-read story. First off, it featured the first post-Return of the Jedi appearance of Fett and, secondly, it then almost turned Fett into a kind of tragic hero before depositing him back into the same pit of death in which he met his ignominious film demise. One has to wonder if Marvel was under marching orders by Lucasfilm to make sure Fett stayed in the Sarlaac, and if so, what kind of plans did Lucas have for the fan favorite hunter killer back in 1984? And what about those killer Jawas. How are you not eBaying this right now?

Let’s move on to some alternate escapes from the Sarlaac Expanded Universe fiction, shall we? We have discussed Tales of the Bounty Hunters ad nauseam (and we will again), but now, let's take a look at Tales from Jabba’s Palace (1996), another Kevin J. Anderson-edited anthology. In "A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett" by J.D. Montgomery, readers get to experience Fett’s time in the Sarlaac. This short story features the most backstory that was ever revealed about the mysterious bounty hunter pre-Attack of the Clones, as fans are welcomed into Fett’s thoughts for the first time. Most of these thoughts consist of “Oh my lord, I’m slowly being digested over a period of a thousand years. It hurts. It hurts. Solo is a dick!” but there is also a great deal revealed about the heart and spirit of the hunter.

This tale mostly takes place within the Sarlaac, as a trapped Fett is able to converse with the Pit’s first victim, a being named Susejo. Through Susejo, Fett learns how hopeless his plight truly is—but guys, this is Boba Fett, the most lethal bounty hunter in the galaxy, a walking weapon, the first mail away action figure! Fett isn’t having any of that noise and tricks the Sarlaac into digesting his rocket pack. Well, Kenner was right, that backpack was dangerous, and when the thing explodes, Fett is freed of the Sarlaac. Pretty intense and much better than dying while fighting rabid Jawas. Montgomery’s tale really highlighted what Star Wars fans new all along—that nothing can stop Boba Fett, the most lethal bounty hunter in the galaxy.

Boba Fett is so badass he couldn’t even be stopped by the The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). For real, the haphazardly animated nine-minute animated short featuring the introduction of Boba Fett is the only watchable part of the infamous Christmas special. In this short, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker fall victim to a sleeping virus and Chewbacca and the droids must team with a mysterious armored figure named Boba Fett to save the heroes.

Over the course of the stiffly animated feature, Fett fights a lizard dragon thing and is still a menacing presence despite the fact that he barley moves in this unbudgeted production. Now imagine, kids everywhere sending away for the Kenner figure and encountering Fett for the first time in the Christmas special. Even though the rest of the special is unwatchable, Fett’s animated debut must have been pure magic for Star Wars fans of a certain age. And that’s why we love Fett and his mystique, because his uniquely marketed pre-The Empire Strikes Back introduction into the Star Wars galaxy introduced the very idea of an Expanded Universe. Expect more Fett very soon, possibly in his own feature length film in the next few years.

Bossk

Bossk, possibly the most fearsome looking bounty hunter to gather on the Executor in The Empire Strikes Back, has long been an iconic but minor adversary in the Star Wars saga. Like Fett, Bossk was a Kenner mail away action figure, which just adds to the aura of this Trandoshan villain. Bossk is so tough, he doesn't have time for footwear, and his arms and legs barely fit into his famous yellow space suit. You just know that Bossk ripped apart some poor pilot to score his flight gear, and the lizard-like bounty hunter really pops in the few seconds he is onscreen in Empire.

Played by British actor Alan Harris, Bossk also pops up in Return of the Jedi and has appeared in many Expanded Universe tales. By the way, that Bossk’s famous space suit was a leftover costume used in the 1966 Doctor Who episode "The Tenth Planet Part 1" is pretty cool sci-fi synergy, huh?

Read More: 10 Emperor Palpatine Facts You Need to Know

To find our Bossk highlight, we look to the recent past and to the young adult Star Wars Rebels novel Ezra's Gamble by Ryder Windham (2014). Before this EU tale (which is part of the new Disney canon), Bossk was traditionally portrayed as an almost mindless, cannibalistic brute. While this has added to the infamous legend of Bossk, it didn’t leave room for character subtleties. Windham took care of all that by portraying the Trandoshan as a morally ambiguous hunter with a unique sense of honor.

In this recent prose Rebels adventure, Bossk is depicted as a reluctant anti-hero with a conflicting sense of right and wrong. Bossk helps Ezra Bridger and is presented to fans in a heroic light for the first time. But in Empire and in other Expanded Universe fiction, Bossk is a flesh-hungry monstrosity who uses his personal ship, the Hound’s Tooth, to track his prey across the galaxy. So whether you like the new, more complex Bossk or the slavering, blood hungry scum of yesteryear, you've got to admit that with a few short seconds on screen and one garbled line that almost caused ‘ol Admiral Piett to poop his Imperial trousers (Res luk ra'auf!), Bossk has long captured the imagination of Star Wars fans.

Zuckuss and 4-LOM

Before we delve into our final pair of bounty hunters, let us play the name game. When Kenner produced its last two bounty hunter action figures in 1982, the toy company made a bit of a boo boo. Kenner used the Zuckuss name for a character that was clearly a droid and used an alpha-numeric droid designation for a character that was clearly an alien. Yes, according to Kenner, 4-LOM was an alien and Zuckuss was a droid, but history now tells us that Kenner done screwed up. In recent years, 4-LOM has been correctly identified as the bug eyed droid aboard Vader’s Star Destroyer in Empire, and Zuckuss has become the robed, bug eyed alien and all is right with the galaxy.

But this name confusion just adds to the mystery of these two strange beings. The two bounty hunters in question appear in the same shot together and thus, have always been associated with each other. So when the two made their first appearance in the Expanded Universe, they did it as partners, as the Lenny and Squiggy of the Star Wars universe, but with an intense blood thirst and lots of guns. Before we delve into our 4-LOM and Zuckuss highlight, let us mention that 4-LOM was played by actress Cathy Munroe while Zuckuss was played by Chris Parsons (who also played the white protocol droid that appeared on Hoth, K-3PO—because if we’re going to go SW obscure, we might as well take it all the way to the extreme).

Okay, of course our 4-LOM and Zuckuss tale comes from Tales of the Bounty Hunters because quite frankly, neither of these scums has made many Expanded Universe appearances. You would have thought that with their really awesome costumes 4-LOM and Zuckuss would have popped up in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi, but nope, it was one and done for this pair of assassins.

Read More: Star Wars Episode IX Predictions

In the Tales of the Bounty Hunters story, "Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM" by M. Shayne Bell, fans learn the complex histories of both of these blink and you’ll miss ‘em bounty hunters. 4-LOM and Zuckuss ambush a group of Rebels as the freedom fighters are attempting to escape Hoth during the first act of The Empire Strikes Back. The pair planned to sell the captives to Vader and the Empire.

During the mission, fans learn of the background of both bug-eyed bounty hunters. 4-LOM was once a simple protocol droid whose programming became compromised. At first, 4-LOM began stealing from passengers of a luxury liner he worked on and before long became proficient in all sorts of mayhem. Eventually, 4-LOM embarked on a career as a thief and a bounty hunter and became so infamous, that even IG-88 considered recruiting 4-LOM into the droid revolution but thought better of it because the former protocol droid’s personality was too unstable.

As for Zuckuss, this diminutive killer was a member of the Gand species, a group of insectoid aliens that breathed pneumonia and had to wear specially-made breathing apparatuses or suffocate in oxygen rich atmospheres. Gands also used special chemicals called the Mists to help them reach precognitive trance states. Whether Zuckuss really had mystical powers or just kind of got high and hunted people is unclear, but it was clear that this alien and droid made a formidable pair.

In Bell’s tale, Zuckuss and 4-LOM are also shown to have a sound moral compass as, after the bounty hunting duo capture the Rebels, they free them and help the fugitives escape the Empire. So there you have it, according to the now out of continuity Expanded Universe tale, two of our infamous bounty hunters in question possessed the heart of heroes even though they looked like things that crawled out of an H.R. Giger fever dream.

Most of these Expanded Universe tales are now expelled from the Star Wars canon, but the wonder that surrounds these six bounty hunters remains. As we move towards countless more Star Wars films, books, comics, and cartoons, you can be assured that these six characters that captured fans imaginations in about six seconds will continue to fascinate Star Wars fans of every age. Happy hunting.

Marc Buxton is a freelance contributor. You can read more of his work here.

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Nov 13, 2019

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fyrapartnersearch · 5 years

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An everlasting roundabout

Hello internet friends,

I extend to you my warmest regards. You may call me Gil. I am a 20+ year old writer by hobby, a full-time student at a university and soon to be management assistant in sports and fitness. One of my greatest hobbies are roleplaying and drawing, sometimes even doodling my own characters for my book or the roleplay itself. A few things about me: 

I am a mature writer with no inhibition when it comes to adult themes, meaning that I will only accept partners at the age of 20+ and up. Though if convinced, I am also willing to take 18+ partners as well, depending on how compatible we are or not. I have been writing for ten years or so and made my fair share of experiences. My timezone is CET in case you are wondering, though I couldn’t care less which timezone my partner has. I am happy to accept anyone who is able to uphold a stable partnership with a steady replying rate, someone who puts in an equal amount of effort and dedication. My tastes vary, though what I find most fascinating are dark, supernatural, thriller and sci fi themed plots.    What I’m looking for is someone who shares great passion and love for roleplaying and creative writing. This is very dear to me, so if you’re someone who’s in for a casual run, you might out of luck.

 I have a strong penchant for original characters and ideas that could be added to a pre-existing canon plot. But I am also open to something original in case we aren’t able to find any suiting fandoms for both of us.   Before I go and include the fandoms and topics down below, it would be greatly appreciated if you’d read through my set of rules, guidelines and limits.  What it takes:

I write in third person perspective. Concerning length and frequency, my writing is wide-ranging and flexible, which means that frequently the word count can rise to 1000+ words per reply. But it is also very reliant on the given situation and my partner’s length. There should be a balanced outlook on quality vs quantity. I love both, so there’s no need in keeping things curt. Detail in description is a definite. If you are someone who rather glosses over things, you are talking to the wrong person here. I am actively seeking someone of the same infamy. You should have a basic grasp on grammar, punctuation and a bit of an interest in knowledgeable writing. With that being said I am by no means a cunning linguist, rather a simple mortal who enjoys venting in a creative way. I also prefer to double, so I hope this is something you are also okay with.

This entails a lot of mature and adult content. If you are rather squeamish or someone who is not comfortable with gore, violence, physical brutality, foul language, horror, monsters, sexual as well as erotic content, do not contact me. I respect my partner’s boundaries, however, I am not someone who is interested in fluff or slice of life stories, sorry. But what I do love is good dialogue, strong chemistry, drama and intrigue, sometimes even political intrigue. Usually I do not fade to black, unless it is a scene of little importance that we can skip to further the plot. My only limits are pedophilia, necrophilia, toilet play, the list goes on.

My line of interests are quite dynamic and colourful when it comes to genres. I love conceiving my own lore inside a story, be it an original or a canon universe. Gothic fantasy among others are one of my favourites. I am not opposed to tapping into some science fiction, action, romance, crime, action or thriller genres, in fact I encourage it. Sometimes I draw my inspiration from Lovecraft for the most part, but there many other authors I have grown to adore. Perhaps we could have a conversation about our favourite authors and share some inspirations.

It should be very character driven, that in itself is self-evident. However, this doesn’t mean the world around our characters should be neglected as a result. We should both take equal parts in shaping and building the world, making sure the environment they interact with feels lively and large. Discussing plots and such during and before the roleplay itself is always welcome! However I am also always happy to be surprised by my partner. There’s no need to lay out all the cards on the table… keep it a little mysterious and suspenseful. Just enough so we can work with the given ideas, but not completely kill off the suspense.

One thing that has come time attention quite frequently is the communication between partners and compatibility. I encourage chatting outside of the roleplay as I always love making new friends and getting to know the person I am sharing with. If there is something that does not fit with the roleplay setting, may it be an uncharacteristic behaviour, a senseless situation or over and all, some issues that need fixing, I happily like to discuss and give some constructive criticism. And I love to receive vice versa! If there is something that is bothering you, TELL ME. It won’t be taken personally, by all means, if there’s something on your mind, share it with me. We can discuss matters in a rational manner. Too many times I’ve had encountered the issue of someone taking it as a personal attack when it really wasn’t. When there are flaws inside of the RP’s logic, story or character, I would like to point that out or have it pointed out to me before it is too late. I am very chill about it. Another thing which is pet peeve of mine, is when people ghost you without warning, may it be because of the previously mentioned point or other reasons outside of the roleplay. If you need the put the RP on hold, or if you are simply busy for a longer period of time, I fully understand. I myself have a life outside of the roleplay, so there’s no need to be shy about it.

Pairings and romance is an open book for me. I am fine with all sorts of pairings, be it purely male romance, female romance or the classic m x f relationship. Though I have more experience with m x f pairings, I am happy to take on any role, be it male or female. However it also highly depends on the chemistry between the characters, and if they compel me, I ship them as much as I can. Concerning sexual scenarios and intimacy, I’d like it to be tastefully written and not have it fall into the vulgar category.

So I hope you survived my tedious guideline paragraphs, lol.

As promised, the various cravings and fandoms I am aching to roleplay:

Jojo’s Bizzarre Adventure: This anime surely has made it’s impact on me. Especially the vast world and endless possibilities, it offers a great hotbed for original ideas as well as OC’s. I am willing to play every season up to part 5 which I haven’t watched yet, sadly.

Castlevania: I am open to either the Netflix version or the game series. Castlevania is so beautiful and intricate, yet so mysteriously dark and dripping with style.

Star Wars: Okay this one is bit of a tricky one. I am not interested in the latest SW films. I find the film / cinematic universe rather boring and have found more interest in the Clone Wars series, but even more the The Old Republic series. I am also very much craving something original! Somewhere set a thousand or a hundred years prior to the Skywalker saga with purely original characters. This could be a fresh new concept that we could mould and experiment with!

Devil May Cry: One of my favourite games of all time! Honestly, I would love you to death for this! I have played through every game instalment there is, and even read a few of the mangas. Yes, I am that kind of nerd. I don’t care which version rather suits your fancy, as I am eager to explore every version and willing to play any character.

Harry Potter: Perhaps a next gen? And no, I am not talking about the cursed child saga. I find it rather interesting to have the next generation of characters be our OC’s. For further discussion, let me know what your inspirations are.

Marvel / DC: Although I have pretty much distanced myself from the superhero genre after seeing Endgame, I am still open to accept some partners. (Although I am not as enthused about it as I used to be.)

Other mentions (my lesser cravings):

The Witcher

The Tudors

Supernatural

Game of Thrones

Dragon Age

 As for roleplaying method, I mostly rely on Email or Googledocs. This is non-negotiable, sorry. Other platforms have proven to me to be a bit of a hassle.   We can also chat on Discord after establishing everything else. To contact me, use this email address here: [email protected] Give me a little introduction of yourself, what your cravings, pet peeves as well as fields of interest are. You can be descriptive about it, it would only stoke my excitement, making me want to get to know you even more.   Should there be any further questions, ask right away.   Till then, I am looking forward to meeting you!    

Cheers, -Gil

#indie rp #independent roleplay #oc rp #multiple paragraph #para #long term #email #marvel rp #avengers rp #harry potter rp #marauders rp #spn rp #mcu rp #dc rp #aou rp #submission

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mugglelissa · 7 years

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WIP Meme

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. This can be writing, art, vids, gifsets, whatever.

I was tagged by the lovely @shiftylinguini and @carpemermaid. Let’s go!

SW: Stand Inside Your Love. Currently been working hard on this long, slow-burn “regency” AU. (basically regency vibe but set in an alternate universe...aka homosexuality is not illegal). I have all 20 chapters plotted and am posting chapter 3 later today. I have up to chapter 9 written right now! Gotta get moving if I want to keep updating bi-weekly!

SW: Fated Series. I had this idea for ages before I finally started to plot, write and post. Inspired by a gif-set and quote/article, this series explores all the many verses where Hux and Kylo meet, fall in love and have their happy ending or open ending or sometimes even a tragic ending. They all can be read as stand alones but do tend to have a connecting thread. I have a canon-verse, street magician!Kylo verse, and western verse already up and coming in the next few weeks we will have a bookshop au, fantasy au, and escort!Hux verse.

SW: Art/Creation. I have a very dear friend in the Kylux fandom who has already done so much for me here and I’ve been wanting to do something special for them for some time. I haven’t even decided on the art form yet (since I am far from an artist) but I am thinking a drawing or baking a cake or... aasdfasdf I don’t know! But I shall do something for this wonderful person inspired by their incredible story!

HP: Crossgen Fest. Not only am I co-modding this fest but am also still trying to decide which prompt to write for! I can’t say too much because this is an anon fest but I am waffling between two pairings right now.

I tag: @kyluxtrashcompactor , @nerdherderette , @glass-oceans , @letmeputitinyourbutt , and @gracerene09 and anyone else who wants to do this!

#meme #tagged #wip meme #wip #kylux #fic #art #series #fated series #standing inside your love #regency #au #slash #harry potter #star wars

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thebookbeard-blog · 7 years

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December is for Star Wars.

At least that's what I decided at the end of 2015 after watching The Force Awakens, a movie that re-kindled a love and passion that had been dormant since my teenage years. I went back to the theater three more times. I left each showing feeling like a kid, in the best of ways. I was, at almost thirty years old, Star Wars trash once again -- a label that I happily and readily accepted. I began to consume more SW-related pop culture. I started watching Star Wars Rebels, which in time I came to realize captures the spirit of the original trilogy better than almost anything else. I started reading some of the comics being put out by Marvel at the time, chiefly Kieron Gillen's Darth Vader run, a brilliant piece of storytelling on its own. Then I started to explore some of the books set in the Star Wars universe.

The trash of the thing.

The first SW book I ever read was Claudia Gray's Lost Stars. My expectations were low: Star Wars is such a visually rich setting, after all, and I had doubts as to how well it would translate to the written word. If anything, I only expected a fun romp through the Star Wars universe. I certainly didn't expect it to be an arresting and heart-wrenching piece of fiction. But it turned out to be both. I loved it enough that it was the first book I picked as a favorite read for last year. And I loved Gray's writing enough that I would eagerly pick up whatever she wrote for the expanded universe next. The fact that this happened to be a story that focused on Leia increased my interested only by a hell of a lot.

Bloodline features and older, wiser, slightly weary Leia, still serving in her function as a Senator for the New Republic. At the beginning of the story, tired of all the ceremony and hypocrisy of politics, she's determined to retire from it all, but not before engaging in one last diplomatic mission which she hopes will do some actual, genuine good for the galaxy -- not to mention serve as one final adventure. That this adventure should prove to uncover a vast and deep conspiracy that threatens not only her personal safety and reputation but the fate of the entire galaxy should really come as no big surprise -- this is a Star Wars story, after all.

Gray's portrayal of Leia is beautifully nuanced, and balances the political and personal aspects of the character with grace and aplomb. This is a Leia that is a brilliant and savvy politician, as well as a bad-ass who knows how to handle a blaster and is ready to throw down at a moment’s notice.

Leia lifted her blaster, losing her sights on Rinnrivin’s guard — and targeting the central strut of the tunnel support directly overhead. One bolt held the entire thing together. That bolt was no larger than a child’s fist. At this range, in semi-darkness, perhaps one shot in a thousand might be capable of destroying that bolt. But Leia made the shot.

In short, the very same Leia that we all know and love. The same Leia that the late, great Carrie Fisher brought to life. Gray's capable prose does her more than enough justice.

The story is made all the more interesting by the fact that it deals heavily with politics, something that the prequels tried to do with very mixed and muddy results. It’s one of the more fascinating aspects in Bloodline however, and the intrigue and West Wing-like drama of it all carries the story through. That the political landscape of the novel happens to look very much like our own just adds a more surreal and slightly ominous layer to it all.

Gray has gone on record to say that Bloodline wasn’t written as commentary, but it's pretty hard, especially after the events of last November, not to view the story as a reflection of our current reality. Part of the reason that Leia wants to retire has to do with the Senate devolving into a two-party system -- parties that are themselves fragmented into conflicting fractions. She laments how "every debate on the Senate floor turns into an endless argument over ‘tone’ or ‘form’ and never about issues of substance." And try to read this bit of dialogue and tell me it doesn't sound like something you’d find on a recent think piece.

“Surely you won’t deny the New Republic is committing mistakes of its own.”

“Not the evils of tyranny and control.”

“No. The evils of absence and neglect.”

And, of course, there’s the now viral quote at the close of the book that has gained new relevance in light of yesterday's marches:

“The sun is setting on the New Republic," Leia said. "It's time for the Resistance to rise.”

Indeed.

Bloodline is both a brilliant character portrait and relevant social commentary. Claudia Gray can write Star Wars like no other and I will read anything she writes in this universe.

After dealing with the heady but heavy themes of Bloodline however, I figured I was due some for some warmth and comfort. At which point I usually turn to a Rainbow Rowell book.

I love Rainbow Rowell. I love her quirky and clever and passionate writing (if there was a book equivalent to Gilmore Girls, it would be a Rowell book). I love her amazing and uncanny ability to make you fall for a character in almost no time at all.

This same talent is brilliantly showcased in Kindred Spirits, a slim novella that, over the course of sixty-two pages, manages to have more character development than most sprawling, brick-sized novels.

It's an unfair gift, really.

This is a story about three Star Wars geeks camping out in desolate line in front of an Omaha theater for the premiere of The Force Awakens. It is lovely, and it is charming, and it is so wonderful. I finished the story in one sitting, desperately wishing there was a full-length novel featuring these characters that I could immediately pick up. Heartwarming and beautiful.

And so December rolled around once more, and with it another Star Wars film, because Disney will never be stopped.

But of course I loved almost everything about Rogue One: I loved its beautiful and beautifully diverse cast, I loved its relentless and brutal pace, I even dug its CGI missteps. It's a dark, dark film, to be sure, but it also seems very apt and timely. Rebellions are built on hope, etc.

I picked up the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story novelization by Alexander Freed because I kept coming across good reviews. I was skeptical -- I had tried to read Alan Dean Foster's adaptation of The Force Awakens and found the writing style so tedious that I couldn't get past the first chapter. Thankfully though Freed doesn't seem to suffer from this: his writing style is relatively spartan and straightforward, which serves this kind of story well. Even so I was still very much surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this, and even more surprised at how much more depth it managed to add to the story.

One of the main criticisms about the film is that we don't spend enough individual time with the characters too feel much of anything when they meet their ultimate fate. Which is fair: movie's are all about the external after all, whereas in books and comics you can delve more into the character's feelings and motivations -- literally get inside their heads. This is what Freed does in the novelization, and to great effect. We get so many details regarding each character's background, personality, and motivation.

Cassian stashed his paranoia in the back of his brain -- out of the way but within easy reach.

Jyn knew the sounds of occupation well. They were the sounds of home.

Baze did not limit his targets to those who might spot the blind man, but he kept Chirrut under observation nonetheless; where the Force would fail Chirrut, Baze would not.

And it does affect how you feel about the characters as the plot happens to them. This is made most evident in K-2SO's final scene, an already heartbreaking moment in the film, but here Freed adds one last final touch that makes is all the more tragic and all the more beautiful. Totally evil stuff, but good nonetheless.

This device isn't limited to the characters either: for the more technical aspects of the plot we get things like communiques and log entries interspersed throughout the story, and they are also used to great effect. In a particularly brilliant entry, we get to find out just how Galen Erso, with the help of sheer bureaucratic nonsense, ensures the flaw he engineered in the Death Star reactor remains in place. A detail that is both morbidly hilarious and also incredibly realistic.

I do think that one of the things that makes the movie such a visceral experience gets totally lost in the translation, however, and that is much of the action. Freed does a serviceable job, but the action still very much slows down and lack urgency and tension. Darth Vader’s big scene is an absolute show-stopper in the movie, for example, whereas here it reads as very much anticlimactic.

But that is admittedly a minor criticism that applies mostly to the third act, and I do think that the material and information that was added to the story more than makes up for it.

Highly recommend reading this before you watch Rogue One for the eight time.

It was raining. It didn’t rain in L.A. It was raining in L.A. and I was Princess Leia. I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia.

And then there's Carrie. Oh Carrie.

December was a particularly tough month in a particularly tough year. Too many artists I admired passed away, and then halfway through December I went a personal loss that left me dazed and numb. Then Carrie Fisher died, and it all struck me as once, and I was just sad for a long while.

I had downloaded The Princess Diarist shortly after finishing the Rogue One novelization. It seemed like an appropriate follow up, and I've been meaning to read Fisher's stuff for years anyway. It stayed unread on my tablet for a bit (the aforementioned personal loss took any desire I had to read much), but I picked it up immediately after learning of Carrie's death. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

The Princess Diarist is about Fisher looking back on diary entries she had penned in the late seventies, during the filming of Star Wars. It's a meditation on fame and growing up in Hollywood and being young and growing old. It's a wonderful read. Raunchy and hilarious and clever; whimsical and melancholy. Brutally honest and full of life truths. I highlighted a great many passages:

The crew was mostly men. That’s how it was and that’s pretty much how it still is. It’s a man’s world and show business is a man’s meal, with women generously sprinkled through it like overqualified spice.

I looked at her aghast, with much like the expression I used when shown the sketches of the metal bikini. The one I wore to kill Jabba (my favorite moment in my own personal film history), which I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.

Back then I was always looking ahead to who I wanted to be versus who I didn’t realize I already was, and the wished-for me was most likely based on who other people seemed to be and the desire to have the same effect on others that they had had on me.

I don’t just want you to like me, I want to be one of the most joy-inducing human beings that you’ve ever encountered. I want to explode on your night sky like fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong.

Because what can you do with people that like you, except, of course, inevitably disappoint them?

I wish that I could leave myself alone. I wish that I could finally feel that I punished myself enough. That I deserved time off for all my bad behavior. Let myself off the hook, drag myself off the rack where I am both torturer and torturee.

I was sitting by myself the other night doing the usual things one does when spending time alone with yourselves. You know, making mountains out of molehills, hiking up to the top of the mountains, having a Hostess Twinkie and then throwing myself off the mountain. Stuff like that.

Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love -- I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me -- how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?

I call people sometimes hoping not only that they’ll verify the fact that I’m alive but that they’ll also, however indirectly, convince me that being alive is an appropriate state for me to be in.

I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven).

Time shifts and your pity enables you to turn what was once, decades ago, an ordinary sort of pain or hurt, complicated by embarrassing self-pity, into what is now only a humiliating tale that you can share with others because, after almost four decades, it’s all in the past and who gives a shit?

This is a joy of a book, but it still made me sad. Sad that I never got to read and appreciate her written work while she was alive. Sad because the beautiful gem of a person who wrote these true beautiful things was now gone, drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra, and we'll never, ever see her like again.

“Carrie?” he asked. I knew my name. So I let him know I knew it. “Yeah,” I said in a voice very like mine.

Good night, Space Momma. Thank you for you voice. Thank you for being so unabashedly you.

#the reading list #the princess diarist #carrie fisher #rogue one: a star wars story #alexander freed #kindred spirits #rainbow rowell #bloodline #claudia gray #star wars #the trash of the thing #thebookbeard #tbb

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daveywankenobie · 7 years

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My last post was deep and reflective. It was an effort to deal with some very deep feelings, and it did.

I felt somehow purged after writing it – and the feedback both publicly and privately was both humbling and heartfelt. I can’t thank those who took the time to reach out enough. Your words (and sometimes tears) meant everything to me.

In a very buoyant frame of mind I’ve taken some time today to look through the photos that I FORCED myself to take and keep – regardless of how they made me feel at the time. Many of them I felt showed me in a poor light and I was intensely embarrassed when I looked at my own image.

However I don’t regret taking a single one because today I’ve been able to look back over the feelings and thoughts that I experienced on my journey and milestones so far and see the progression thats happened over the last year – starting on the 26th January 2016.

However from my blog’s perspective it really started on the 10th February when I began writing and shortly after tried to walk somewhere and use my exercise bike.

The walking distance I was capable of (which at the time tore both my calf muscles and the plantar tendon in the base of my right foot) was roughly the end of my street or just past the beer garden at a local pub (the Saxon Mill). On my bike I managed around 0.4 miles before I was in agony and couldn’t breathe.

However I’d stopped drinking and was beginning to think about improving my health. It took a while though as I’d decided that I needed to be certain that was a thing of the past before I tried to diet.

My brother took a sneaky photo following this in mid March – which (if you take into account the picture above my head) says much about our mutual tendency to take the mickey out of eachother, but even more about how far I’d fallen health wise. My face, arms and stomach are swollen and bloated – just like the rest of me.

However, quietly sitting on my wrist (although I didn’t know at the time) was my new best friend.

On the 14th April I finished an intensive four week recovery programme which used Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness to help me explore my relationship with alcohol, food, and the recent death of my mother.

I’d promised myself that As soon as this was complete I’d start a diet plan of some kind – so I did. On the 16th of April I joined Slimming World.

This was a truly terrifying and horrible day – but also the start of something wonderful. I was 34st 8.5lbs when I stepped on the scales, and could hardly fit on the little red chairs in the school hall.

I cried myself to a standstill writing my blog later that evening.

Two weeks after starting I’d lost eight pounds. In many ways I was still a little in denial about the task at hand – but feeling more positive. In early May I tried to walk small distances again – and found that I couldn’t do even 1/3 of a lap of the park near to where I worked (Arrow Valley in Redditch) but persisted and also started trying to walk around St Nicholas Park in Warwick.

This started twin addictions – one for walking in the park, and the other related to a group of cygnets that I spotted. Ultimately only one of them survived – and that day (forgetting what a baby swan was called) I christened it ‘The Swanling‘ – but please don’t ask me which one is which!.

I’d also started collecting certificates and stickers. This too would become something of an addiction…

However I was initially struggling to understand the SW plan. I’d begun to eat things in the wrong quantities and had my first blip quite early on – which knocked my confidence. For the first (and last) time I stomped out of the group without staying for the talk. It was a big mistake.

I spent the week hating myself needlessly.

At this point I started realising that the Apple Watch on my arm might be more than just a toy – and began (hamfistedly) trying to track my walking progress. I still couldn’t walk far – but by the 3rd of June I was able to do a single lap of Arrow Valley or St Nicholas.

The crappy app I used gave continually unreliable stats – but I was (with a LOT of sitting) beginning to gradually improve.

Sometimes I found the whole process really demoralising though and at times was in near constant pain – tearing muscle after muscle as well as still suffering badly with plantar heel and tendon problems.

Slimming World however seemed to know just when I needed picking up, and around this time I quite unexpectedly got an award. On the 18th June I was voted my group’s man of the year – and also picked up my 2 stone award.

At this point I was still taking 5 pills a day for my type 2 diabetes – but for the first time on the 12th of July I had become fit enough to walk down the hill near my house to a diabetic retinopathy screening and back up again.

It was a massive milestone for me, but also an annoying reminder that chairs with arms were still my natural predator.

On the plus side all the extra activity meant the certificates kept rolling in during July and by the end of it I was 3.5 stone lighter. This was a much needed morale boost, because by then I’d also been made redundant…

However, despite no small degree of sadness I tried to see it as an opportunity and a new beginning rather than an end. The weather was good in August and I was loving my walking!

It was around this time that a chance photo with a friend who was exhibiting at the Leamington Art in the Park festival (she’s very talented) made me realise just how far I’d come. All of the extra notches that I’d had to make in my belt suddenly became really apparent when it slipped out of it’s loop.

At the time I realised I’d lost around 8 inches from my waist.

This REALLY spurred me on – and I began to test myself more and more.

In August I returned to Aberystwyth (my university town – and somewhere I love) and climbed constitution hill which was followed by a bath for the first time in around a decade. On the way home the next day I then walked around the medium difficulty trail at Nant Yr Arian’s forestry commission which was something I never thought I’d be able to manage.

Until I did.

I finally rounded off the month by conquering a fear that had been with me for ages. I caught the train to Birmingham and left my car behind. I had to make my way under my own steam – and there was no backup plan.

My trip was enjoyable, but also a mixed bag, and my shirt was embarrassingly soaked with sweat from the heat in the museum that I had wanted to visit. Although I’d done it I still felt like I stood out in a crowd and was very self conscious.

However I did do it – and a friend pointed out to me around this time that I had (in a week) walked the length of the English Channel. Filled with enthusiasm from this I rather whimsically set myself the goal of walking the slightly longer channel tunnel length (31.5 miles) the following week.

August also heralded more certificate successes and by the end of the month I’d lost over four and a half stone…

In September the idea of walking virtual geographical distances mushroomed a little when a lady at Slimming World casually suggested that I expand my horizons and track my progress across the globe on a larger scale.

I decided to run with this idea and plot my walking progress from the moment I joined SW – mapping it onto a virtual walk from Lands end to John o Groats (847 miles). I realised that (thanks to the friend on my wrist tracking everything that I’d done since buying it) that I was already a good way toward my goal and that I now walking around 134 miles a month!!!

I also tried to conquer my (still) nagging negative feelings about travelling to Birmingham under my own steam and not long after made a trip to the Electric cinema (something I’d wanted to do for many years but couldn’t) which was still a squeeze – even with their front row premium seats.

Thanks to around another stone being gone, September heralded a noticeable increase in mobility and I found myself exploring all over the place – often with four legged companions!

Unusually the English summer just kept on going in 2016 and October was also a great month. I spent some time exploring Hay Wood locally, got re-acquainted with canal walking, took home my six and a half stone certificate – and also managed to make it around the whole of Cardiff Bay!

To put a cherry on October’s cake I also managed to get the group’s ‘Mr Sleek’ award (and a fetching tie) as well as a seven stone award – which happens to be THE WEIGHT OF A FRIDGE FREEZER!!!

November started to get a little chillier – and since I’m getting thin on top I embarked upon a new relationship to keep me warm in the cold winter evenings. Me and peaky are still very happy together and have yet to fall out!

Peaky kept my head warm as the leaves fell from the trees and winter drew nearer and (despite a pretty epic episode of shin splints in my left leg which is frikkin painful!!!) I managed to get some more bling, walk across the completely unmanaged and overgrown Ryton Woods (making my leg waaaaay worse like an idiot) play with a cute puppy in group and take a small fortune’s worth of huge clothes to charity.

By the time December arrived I was still motivated – but probably somewhat unsurprisingly given the time of year things slowed down – both mentally and physically. I became obsessed with the idea of reaching a ‘plateau’ and that somehow I would fail.

In reality (looking back) I was always moving forward – and just occasionally admiring the view.

Thanks to my Slimming World group and friends I stayed largely on plan throughout Christmas – even walking six miles to my brother’s house for and back for dinner on Xmas day (with an epic blister all taped up) just to ensure I wasn’t naughty.

Christmas had no bottles of Southern Comfort as was traditional for me for many years past and was powered only by the magic of weaponised caffeine.

And so we come to January.

It’s not over yet – but by the end of it I’m hoping that I’ll have my ten stone certificate.

So far this month has seen me hit my target of walking from Land’s end to John O Groats, have my first (unsuccessful) job interview in a decade and a half, meet more dogs, start to massively increase my cardio based exercise and walk the length of the Stratford Greenway.

To make me even happier, the swanling in St Nicholas park has survived, and is flourishing. It gets a bit more beautiful every day.

So – that’s my year, and you know what? For the very first time in nearly a decade I can look back on the last twelve months of my life and feel a sense of pride.

Furthermore I feel something else to. Hope.

I no longer take medication for my diabetes (which appears to be in full retreat) and I’m far less likely to die a really early death. I’m fitter than I think I’ve ever been at any time I can remember.

I love life at the moment internet – and I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store. I hope you’re here to find out with me!

Davey

Year one retrospective My last post was deep and reflective. It was an effort to deal with some very deep feelings, …

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