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bcitisthelight · 10 months

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hey remember when we were discussing how weird the whole cliegg thing is in AOTC. and you had thoughts, feelings and emotions. tell me about those XOXO

(Big TW for this post - I discuss human trafficking, sex trafficking, rape, child abuse, slavery, and PTSD in this post. It's about the realities of slavery and Tatooine and how it involves the Skywalkers.) Something that I almost never see in any discussion on the Lars family is how sharply the fanon headcanons and characterizations of diverge from the ones we get in the moves. Like, particularly Cliegg and the prequel trilogy. Like - I feel like there's this automatic assumption that the Lars loved Shmi and that they cared for Luke out of dedication to her and her family, and it's this huge found family vibe but like can I be real. Can I be super real right now. It’s something that I find kind of baffling, because when I watched Attack of the Clones, and on every rewatch since (and there have been many), it always seems kind of obvious to me that Cliegg bought Shmi as a slave, presumably as a house slave, if not outright as a part of sex trafficking. And I don't mean in one of those "He bought her to free her, he's a good guy, etc etc". I mean, he bought her as a slave with the original intention of keeping her as a slave. And what's really interesting, is you can get pretty much all the clues about that from the exchanges between Anakin has with Watto, his and Shmi's former master.

Again, I want to stress that, because I think it's crucial that we see this for what it is - not an exchange between a former employee and his boss, not an exchange between a kid and a member of his former community. His former slavemaster. The man who won him and his mother in a gambling game like so many fancy necklaces. The source and object of Anakin's childhood enslavement. Watto would have beaten them. He made Anakin, a child of 9 - and I read somewhere once that Anakin started in the races at 6 - ride in a pod race that no human has ever won before, with the full expectation that he would die. This is a being whose entire life has revolved around the certainty that society is not only capable of functioning, but functions best, when sentient beings can be bought and sold like property. And, to be real with you, because this is a thing that happens to people who suffer enslavement, he very likely loaned them out temporarily for sex trafficking purposes for a quick buck - a practice that is noted historically in virtually every society that operated on a system involving slaves.

It's important to recap that, because I do think it's impossible to understand how deeply horrifying the conversation they have is without that context. Like, let's look at how he tells Anakin about Shmi -

This scene is....so telling to me. From the outset, Watto said he sold her as a slave. Like, it was a slave exchange. Watto heard about her freedom later - clearly, Cliegg bought her, and behaved in a way - intentional or not - that Watto believed he was buying her as a slave to own as a slave. That part is not subtext, that's just actual text.

"But Mikhayla" some will say "he freed her the second he bought her - he bought her in order to free her." Except....there is genuinely nothing in the movies, and off the top of my head, the wider narrative, that ever indicates that that's true. In fact it makes no sense in that case, for Watto to have not known that Cliegg was buying her in order to free her. Why would he have to hide that? Watto presumably doesnt care what happens to her, because he's selling her. In the larger materials, its said that his shop fell on hard times, and in the movies, we can see the proof. The script says he's sitting outside his shop, but at that point it resembles more of a kind of beaten down stand. He's still selling junk, but less and of poorer quality - presumably, he's spent all his money on gambling debts. And the thing is, slaves are expensive. He sold her years prior, and I bet he fed himself on that money for a very long time - he was a very motivated seller, as barbaric as that language is to use about a transaction involving a human person. He's not going to be fussy over why the person buying her wants to buy her. There's also the fact that this is a society that vastly runs on slavery, and large plantation owners would often "rent" out slaves to smaller but still profitable farms. And Cliegg is a moisture farmer with presumably a large tract of land for water vaporizers. If anything, I can see Watto having rented Shmi to her, Cliegg taking a liking to her, and then approaching Watto to buy her. I mean, if he's profitable enough to just buy a slave, then he clearly had at least some money. "He spent his whole savings!" Show me that in the text. "He loved her from the start!" Show me that in the text. "But Mikhayla," yet others will say, "he did free her! And then married her! He clearly meant from the start to free her, and only bought her to get her away from Watto. He could have never seen her as property. Who would marry their slave?" Except, in the real world, this is...another thing we see across multiple historical records, masters buying women as slaves and then later freeing them in order to legally marry them. PARTICULARLY in societies that operate so heavily on an entire caste system involving slaves - we can look to the Roman Empire, for example. Countless Roman officials, merchants, and military officials bought women, fell in love with them, and freed them in order to marry them. "But maybe she said yes!" (I know these are not your objections, but as you know, I'm an attorney, which means I constantly have to find an argument to fight against). So, to this imaginary detractor I say: I feel like it should be rather obvious, but I'll say it just in case - it is impossible for a slave to consent to any action they perform at the request of a slave master. It cannot happen. A woman who is enslaved cannot consent to marrying the man who bought her, and who has very likely been raping her up until this point, and wants to now marry her - usually, to make any children he had by her legally his children, and therefore citizens, rather than slaves themselves.

So really, whether or not Cliegg had a change of heart doesn't actually change my mind about his actions towards Shmi. I don't care if Cliegg DID love her - in fact, I'm sure he DID love her. People can and have convinced themselves of all kinds of moral superiority, people can claim to love someone while owning them as property! Shmi could never consent to marrying a man who held her as a slave. Even if he freed her, and she willing chose to stay there for a few years, and then he asked her to marry him. In my head, you can't overcome that power imbalance. Cliegg will never not be a man who once believed Shmi was a thing to be owned. He will never be a man who didn't see her as property. Like, at some point, it actually becomes kind of more and more unlikely that this is a guy who took up this transaction for non-malicious purposes. Because we simply do not see it in the movie. What I see in the movie is a slave owner saying he fell on hard times and sold his slave to a farmer who probably needed help on his land or in his house - he has no wife, so the latter is probably more likely. I see him saying that at the time of the transaction, he had no idea that Cliegg intended to free her. And for all that Cliegg calls Shmi his darling, his love, his wife - not once do we ever hear of any evidence that Shmi saw this as a love match. In fact, the only thing we find out about her daily life with the Lars family is that in the mornings, she wakes up early and goes to pick mushrooms. You know. A task for the house. An unpleasant task, done before everyone else is awake, that she does absolutely alone. I'm just saying. These implications are not good ones. I will say though, for all this, do you know what really sells me on the idea that the relationship between Shmi and Cliegg is is not a consensual one, is Anakin's reaction to it. This is a boy whose entire hopes and dreams have revolved around his mother's freedom. You have more excellent writing than me on this, but the moral injury Anakin suffers leaving his mother behind is. Intense. All he wants is to one day free her. In a way, a part of him is always that tiny boy who couldn't bear the idea of leaving behind his mom, who swore, the last time he saw her, that he would free her. And at this moment, all of his dreams have seemingly come true! His mother is free. According to Watto, she's found love, and married. For all he knows, she's had other children. Maybe that could involve SOME complicated emotions, but mostly you would expect that he would feel, at the very least, relieved. Happy. Interested, curious. Instead, this is his reaction:

He's grim, business like. He is not happy. He is not relieved. He doesn't even seem to acknowledge that she's still alive - the way he reacts is not a man who thinks his mother is out of danger. To Anakin, who grew up enslaved until 9 and knows how this society works, it seems almost immediately apparent that the Lars are just a different kind of danger. There's also this rather interesting detail:

This is a boy who bleeds, every second of every day, longing for a family. He basically begs at obi-wan's feet day and night, to be acknowledged as a son. His reaction to his wife's pregnancy is radiant joy - his reaction to know she could die, profound existential horror. I mean good god, he basically turns Palpatine aka Satan Himself into a father figure, because he's that desperate for one. And here, this man is claiming him as his family. He's talked about being excited to see him. He talks about planning with Shmi to meet him. He calls him "son". And Anakin doesn't give him another moment of his time, the second those words are out of his mouth. It's silence. For a boy who is so starved for intimacy he genuinely falls in love with the very first girl who was ever nice to him, to react to a claim of relationship this way. It's bizarrely out of character for him. Unless it isn't. UNLESS he's disgusted by that claim, instead of relieved by it. If he thinks his mother has been bought and then forced into marriage, of course he hates Cliegg. I remember when we were watching the movie together, and remember I said to you "You can just tell Anakin is thinking, 'Call me son one more fucking time'" And can I be real, I have so much more to say about this. As you know, I actually have essays of opinions and feelings about Shmi Skywalker and her horrible life, and how Anakin was the one bright point she had in that horrible life. I have feelings about how she gave away her only happiness, because she knew he did not deserve the life of a slave. I had ideas about how you could turn this into a way to actually fix AOTC and make it better, a way you could use it as an excuse to get rid of the Tusken arc entirely without losing the tragedy of his mother's death. But this post is already so fucking long and I'm sure you're tired of me talking xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

#star wars #human trafficking tw #abuse tw #csa tw #rape tw #slavery tw #all the trigger warnings #GOD THIS MADE ME REALIZE HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE SHMI SKYWALKER #BECAUSE SHE HAD JUST #THE SHITTIEST LIFE RIGHT #LIKE SHES BORN INTO SLAVERY AND SHE DIES IN SLAVERY SHE LOSES EVERYTHING HER SON IS GONE SHES MARRIED TO HER SLAVE MASTER SHE DIES IN PAIN #BUT HER LOVE FOR ANAKIN WAS SO GOOD #SO INTENSELY AFFECTIONATE AND VALIDATING #EVEN IN ALL THAT HELL #THAT WHEN ITS RIPPED AWAY FROM HIM FOR GOOD ANAKIN BASICALLY LOSES HIMSELF ENTIRELY

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fanfoolishness · 5 months

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The Music of Jedi: Survivor

Last night I went to the Grammy Museum for an event celebrating the Jedi: Survivor score! Sometimes living in Los Angeles has its benefits. It was an evening with composers Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab, as well as their recording engineer Alan Meyerson, moderated by Jon Burlingame. I took copious notes throughout so I could share them with you all :) All quotes are paraphrases, I’m not that quick a note taker.

My husband and I settled into our seats, me vibrating with excitement as the lights dimmd. I was already hyped to hear the composers talk about my favorite game and their process for scoring it, but then my jaw fell out of my head because who strolled up on stage but fucking Cal Kestis himself, Cameron Monaghan, unexpected and uncredited on the event description.

I almost rolled out of my chair. Then I frantically started smacking my husband (who’s never played the game, but loves music and production) and hissing “it’s him it’s him it’s the Jedi!!!”

Cameron’s intro was brief but lovely. He introduced himself, then paused and said something like, “Do you hear that? That’s the sound of silence. That is awful. I can hear my own thoughts! No one wants to play a game like that. Which is why we have these guys!” He introduced the composers, Stephen and Gordy, as well as the sound engineer Alan and the moderator for the event, shook their hands and exchanged some hugs, then sat down in the audience. Giddily I returned to my notes as Jon led the discussion.

Q: How did you get into scoring video games?

Stephen was a gamer and had always been interested in working with video games. They were “enticing” and the schedule was much more appealing than for TV, where you might be handed a script and told to get the music back in a few days.

Gordy hadn’t worked particularly in games before.

Alan has been mixing and engineering video game soundtracks for the past 25 years, like Gears of War.

Q: What’s the difference between scoring a film and scoring a video game?

For film, it’s adding music onto what already exists; often the composer isn’t involved until the last 6 weeks or so of production. (Fun fact I learned earlier this year, Ludwig Goransson was involved from the start on Oppenheimer because Christopher Nolan specifically wanted to subvert that.)

The film is fairly static by the time the composers get their hands on it, so things are unlikely to change.

Video games are more like trying to put clothes on someone running a race, because drastic changes can happen at any time. The timeline is also greatly extended — 2-3 years is common — so things may evolve and shift drastically in that time.

Film is also much less volume of music… they wrote an entire 8 hours!

Q: Is there a Star Wars music “house” style?

Initially Star Wars projects outside of the original trilogy were often scored as if they were B sides to the original soundtrack. But the aesthetic is evolving. There are a few standards though — there must always be that symphonic scale.

The score was performed at Abbey Road. Alan mentioned that he was actually there on 9/11 working on a movie about a terrorist attack. Stephen loves recording at Abbey Road so much he and his wife named his daughter Abbey. All three of them agreed that Abbey Road is magical and the orchestra practically blends itself; for choral performances, all you have to do is stick a couple microphones in there and they sound fantastic.

They played a clip of “Dark Times,” with gameplay footage intercut with the symphony performing at Abbey Road. They explained that they wanted to develop a new theme for the Empire. At this time, the Empire just is. You can’t use the Imperial March, because the Imperial March is how the Empire perceives itself. But how does Cal see the Empire? It’s dark and ominous. It’s everywhere. It’s a fact of life.

Gordy explained that they literally shaped the melody like the sinus rhythm of a heartbeat to indicate that Cal’s on the run, his heart always pounding, never safe. They used a full 12 tone chromatic scale to keep the track always uncomfortable and unsettled.

Stephen is such a Merrical shipper! He talked about how one of the central conflicts of Survivor is Cal struggling with his feelings towards Merrin, and what do you do when you’ve utterly lost the fight? He pointed out what the Senator tells Cal, and calls him a pretty reasonable guy. Do you stop fighting when you’ve clearly lost? “Maybe Cal should go shack up with Merrin somewhere and have a nice life.”

Q: What is it like having so much funding for the score on a game like this?

All you can really sell now is quality, and people expect it now.

Q: What is the process like?

They are brought into the game in the script phase, where they may see some concept art and get to read the script to help determine the story beats.

The collaboration is joyful! It seems like it could be really scary, to have game play testers, the game designers, and other music folks all weighing in on how the score is working or not working, but they actually really enjoyed it. They’ll usually do about half the music, then have people test play it for a few months, come back with notes, and then work on the remainder after seeing what worked and what didn’t.

They played “Flight” in its entirety with gameplay of Cal and Merrin outrunning the Trident, and talked extensively about our girl Merrin! Stephen talked about how in JFO, Merrin was important but not as big of a player. Now in Jedi: Survivor, Merrin is vital,and we can see her story arc take shape. Her small motif in JFO was expanded into an epic, heroic scale after we see her power with portals and moving on the wind. They reached for all kinds of wind instruments, from Alpine horns, Tibetan horns, and even the “most tasteful vuvuzela ever.”

Note: it’s almost as heart-pounding to watch that sequence on the big screen as it is to play it!

They both said that some music flows onto the page and is easy to write; the escape from Jedha sequence was not one of those! It wasn’t easy to write, mix or play! A hundred people worked on this song, and it was hard as hell. The orchestra musicians kept coming up to Alan and telling him they loved playing it because it was such a challenge.

They don’t always tell the studio who wrote what. They work well together as they both love bourbon and coffee! Stephen says he’s great at about ¾ of the tune but not the ending, whereas Gordy can fix that up in a jiffy. They also sometimes divvied things up by planet or emotional beats.

Q: I noticed in this last song (“Flight”) there was a choral element. How do you decide when to incorporate choir instead of synth choir?

Choir is often the first casualty of budget cuts since it’s so many people involved. Sometimes, synth choir is chosen for just a vibe or an extra layer.

However, there’s a rule that in musicals when the emotion is building to a point that words can no longer contain them, that’s when a character must burst into song. For a score, when the emotion is swelling and can no longer be contained by mere instruments, that is when to pull out the choir. So we see it in “Flight.”

Me: We also see it in “Rage,” muahahaha.

They used 120 singers for Flight and only needed 3 microphones because of how good Abbey Road sounds.

They prefer amateur choirs to session professionals since you can sometimes have too-professional singers trying to out-sing each other, and amateurs are usually more relaxed.

Q: There were a number of unusual or even invented instruments used for this score, tell us about them.

Gordy made bottle chimes. He accidentally dropped a bottle of water while playing tennis and a ball pinged off it, making a lovely sound. He ordered 20 metal water bottles and strung them in a wardrobe rack with different amounts of water in them. Because it took ages to make, they used it in loads of places in the score.

Stephen went nuts and ordered 200 containers of BlueTack for the pianos for Koboh. They wanted Koboh to sound like the old West, but not that spaghetti Western honkytonk piano sound. If you make BlueTack into a sausage shape and roll it around a piano string you can make it make these strange broken sounds sort of like a gamelan. This is called a prepared piano. The low bumbumbum noises when first getting on Koboh and meeting the pit droid? Freaking piano. I would have never guessed! They did this to 3 pianos.

They played a clip of Where the Nekkos Roam. They used the prepared pianos, an orchestra, dulcimers, Basset horns, euphoniums, tubas. They wanted Koboh to feel lived in and to have history expressed in the music. The musicians were excited to have to rent out Basset horns since like nobody actually owns one.

Q: Tell us about the cantina music.

The original cantina brief from George Lucas to John Williams was apparently, “what if aliens came down in 1000 years and found sheet music from Benny Goodman, but didn’t have the same instruments?” And thus we got the Mos Eisley cantina theme which is almost unbeatable.

They were thinking of scoring the cantina music themselves, but then thought, “what if we gave that brief to a bunch of really cool bands?”

They highly recommended Dan Mayo from Tantran. They recommended taking a few hours to watch him kick ass on the drums on YouTube.

Tantran recorded "Fields of Dusk" for the cantina first, then Stig came back and said “what if we wove this into the score? What if it was Cal and Merrin’s love theme?” Then they created a symphonic version, also partially inspired by a Joni Mitchell song.

They played part of the cantina version of “Fields of Dusk,” then they played the symphonic version with Cal and Merrin riding the spamel to Cere’s base. They gushed about being able to work with the story and the subtext.

Alan said that "Fields of Dusk” “is visceral. It vibrates shit inside of you. Mixing it was a highly emotional experience for me. Even now sitting under the subwoofer — it’s right here, over my head — it’s very emotional.”

Q: How many motifs do you have?

“Seven thousand.” - Stephen

Gordy later amended that to about two dozen, but with tons of variations.

Q: What are the interactions like with the game developers?

They get to be in the building with them, working on the narrative team — making sure to serve the story first. It also lets them practice gameplay or watch others playing to see how it flows.

Again, it’s a 2-3 year process.

They played the clip of Cal and Merrin making a campfire in the cave on Jedha. Stephen is all about the Merrical ship (not that he used those words, alas, but still)! He said this was such gorgeous writing, really allowing the technology to showcase the acting, and it’s his all time favorite scene in the game.

The whole theater clapped as he said that. Yes! A whole theater clapping while someone was talking about Merrical and calling it gorgeous. *sobbing forever*

Q: What has it been like to meet fans?

They’ve been delighted by the fans and how much they love the characters and the amazing performances of all the actors in the game.

Q: Are there plans for a sequel?

Stephen: “Are there Lucasfilm snipers out there? Look for the red dot…”

Gordy: “There’s not NOT plans.”

Fan questions!

Alan mentioned he loves doing the hardest piece first! Then it’s all skiing downhill.

A fan asked about more weird created instruments.

They also used a bunch of bamboo smacking other pieces of bamboo, as well as using little drums from other purposes or sets.

Was there anything they messed up or wanted to do differently than they did in JFO?

They accidentally didn’t loop music in the hangar on Zeffo, so if you stick around there for more than 3 minutes, it just becomes wind sound and gets very lonely. A live streamer was playing the game, talked to his audience for like 10 minutes, then wandered around almost in silence as his fans commented “why is this game so quiet?”

Gordy wanted to make JFO sound much darker and got his wish in Survivor.

I had so been hoping they would talk about “Rage” and the struggle with the dark side, but they were sort of avoiding spoilers. So when they got to the Q&A I had to speak up.

I asked, “What was it like working with darker themes later in the game, like with Rage? You see a real shift in the motifs and there’s also more amazing choral work.” Their faces seriously lit up XD

Stephen said this was one he handed to Gordy because it was very difficult.

Gordy said that this is Cal at his worst, so it had to be so over the top. Think of consonant sounds crashing through the melody, Cal trying to keep control of his thoughts but they’re twisting away, he’s trying to think straight and can’t. It’s discordant. It’s also scored to evoke a heartbeat throughout, like breathing.

It was so hard for the choir to do, going back and forth — you can’t do that with choral samples or synth!

They ended with a video they played from their Hollywood Bowl show in June, and said we were only the second group of people to see it. They played a clip where they do use the classic Imperial March, but contoured so you only get the silhouette of its shape, instead of the full sound. It ended with a clip of the Tantran band playing a wicked awesome set out in the desert. The last image they showed was a list of the 287 people who worked on the score!

We let out and I did get to meet them! Stephen was lovely and I told him it was just such a beautiful, haunting score. I actually had a sketch of the campfire scene with me and he signed it! His daughter Abbey is an artist too and she was really impressed by my sketchbook (she looked to be about 11). Gordy also got to see a bit of my sketchbook and signed Cal in Nova Garon! What an awesome night! We didn’t see Cameron again but I was so astounded to see him the first time I didn’t mind at all.

SO COOL! Sometimes, kids, living in Los Angeles isn’t so bad!!

#jedi: survivor #cameron monaghan #cal kestis #gordy haab #stephen barton #alan meyerson #grammy museum #jedi survivor #jedi survivor spoilers #jedi: survivor spoilers #my jedi posts

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antianakin · 8 months

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I think something a lot of fans of Anakin tend to forget about him is that his story is told and looked at in reverse: the effect of his actions (Vader and the Empire) were shown an written before the cause (him being a Jedi and then falling). Vader, the irredeemable monster, being forgiven by Luke, is supposed to be a statement on Luke’s character, not Anakin’s. Vader isn’t post Anakin, Anakin is pre-Vader. Framing him like that, it’s suddenly clear just how flawed and terrible Anakin was even before he took a nosedive off the diving board of common sense (if he was ever on it)

The redemption that so many fans want to give Vader, then, is framed in film less as Vader realizing he’s wrong and doing a 180. It’s Luke recognizing how close he is to becoming Vader, choosing a better path, and getting tortured for it. Honestly, as far as Vader’s actual redemptive moment, it’s a fairytale moment of “death equals redemption” that holds up in the narrative of Luke’s story, but wouldn’t actually accomplish anything for Vader.

All that to say… Anakin should be recognized as being Pre-Vader, and if someone wants to do a fixit good ending story with him they either need to kill him off or spend a LOT of time getting him to actually recognize his failures and then turn away from them.

(Unfortunately, that’s a LOT of *work*, so most people just woobify him and call it a day. Thank you for your work of correcting this misunderstanding, and sorry for the long ask 😅)

In fairness, Lucas had a pretty good amount of the story from the Prequels WRITTEN already, he just ended up having to make the story in reverse, which is why there's references to Anakin having been a Jedi who fell and the Clone War. But most of it is just that... references. We ARE focused on Luke's story and so Anakin's background is there to, as you say, highlight LUKE'S choices and struggles and triumphs. We never find out why Anakin did the things he did in the OT (aside from Obi-Wan's comments about his own arrogance in trying to train Anakin which the Prequels retconned anyway), so Anakin's choices are a reflection on Luke more than anything else because Luke is the character we actually know.

And... yeah. Anakin's redemption is difficult for me because I get why it happened the way it did in the OT. Anakin's biggest crimes within the context of JUST what we see in the Original Trilogy are against Luke himself (chopping off the arm, killing Obi-Wan) and so the fact that he dies by saving Luke means he's fairly directly addressed those crimes and made amends for them. He can die having fixed those mistakes and forgiven by the person he's hurt the most. It works. But adding in the Prequels means now there's the Tuskens he murdered, Padme who he manipulates and betrays, the Republic he's dismantled, and the Jedi Order that he betrays and genocides (and adding in TCW means we can also include the clones that he betrays and enslaves). And now all of the sudden there's a LOT more that we have directly seen him do that needs to be redeemed and a lot more amends he needs to make and a lot more people whose forgiveness he doesn't have and will likely never get. There's a lot of things that killing Palpatine can never and will never fix or undo. It doesn't directly address almost ANY of those sins. And so this sudden redemption via death stops feeling so satisfying because it just... doesn't actually mean anything in the face of what we've now seen him do.

Like you say, it holds up if you just look at Luke's narrative, but it falls apart when you look at Anakin's own.

Redeeming Anakin while taking into account everything he has done over the Prequels, TCW, Rebels, the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, and anything else that's been written for him in other media would be a difficult story to write. It WOULD take a lot of time, he may never actually completely redeem himself for what he's done because he may never truly be able to let go of some of those fears or some of his guilt and grief. He may never quite lose the instinct to react to things with violence. It SHOULD be messy and complicated, but that's not always the most satisfying story to write or even to read, so that's where we end up with woobified Anakin who just gets to do one slightly goodish thing and call it a day.

#star wars #anti anakin #anti anakin skywalker #anakin critical #anakin skywalker critical #luke skywalker #never apologize for a long ask!

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wrongcaitlyn · 17 days

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Do you plan on making the talk ur talk universe a trilogy? If you do, then YAYYY MORE FAMOUS NICO, and if you don't, then YAYY I HAVE A NEW FAVORITE AUTHOR

this is HILARIOUS bc i was actually DEEPLY CONSIDERING IT. like. just a few weeks ago. see the thing was i made this playlist, and i was super into it, and i was like, well shit, i already have the rest of this outlined- would i be willing to go on further???

i'll give the gist of it here: basically a majority of the first fic was around the start of his career. this fic is centered around this one album that will come out in a long long time toward the end of the fic + the seven memoir.

the third fic WOULD (heavy emphasis on would bc i'm still not so sure abt it) be centered around the egot.

in case you don't know what that is, it's basically like this prestigious thing where you've won an emmy (tv shows), grammy (music), oscar (movie), tony (musical theatre)

i once responded to this comment on talk ur talk asking whether i was intending on nico ever achieving egot status and i said no, because i don't really see him straying too far from what he's doing rn - he writes music because he loves it, and for the art, not for the prestige, but that i could definitely see apollo getting an egot sometime in the future bc i had mentioned him already having an emmy, grammy, and oscar, so he would just have a tony left and lets be real he would slay on broadway

but then i got into this mini hyperfixation on - if nico were to ever receive egot status - how would he do that?? grammy's are a given, and i went down this rabbit hole for how he could win the others, sticking to the fact that he adamantly refuses to act

oscar would be easy, best original song - something like "no time to die" by billie eilish (which won the award) or "yellow flicker beat" by lorde are movie songs that i 100% think he could write

for the emmy's there's an award for like best documentary pop culture or something like that (i can't find the doc where i put all this in but trust that i did the research at some point) which he could def do, or something that like he collaborated with apollo for - a documentary of some sort

and here's where the mini hyperfixation came in - the tony. now here's the thing i don't actually know a lot abt musical theatre. i was in like two musicals in middle school and that's it. so i did a deep dive on all the musicals that have won tony's, listened to a few soundtracks, found out that the lightning thief got TOTALLY SNUBBED???

and then fell down the hadestown rabbithole

so i'll just leave this info right here - i gave so much detail bc i'm still not rlly sure if i ever want to go into this?? simply bc i *do* know quite a bit abt pop music/production from watching videos and documentaries and stuff, but i'm really not a musical theatre person. so.

we'll see if this ever actually becomes a thing, because i know that greatest of luxuries covers a huge timespan and i'll likely be working on this for *quite* a long time, and we'll see how much motivation i would have to continue it after this! if nothing else, i think i would def go back into the universe from time to time to write little oneshots just bc of how this au has become such a huge part of my lifesjdf

aside from that, THANK YOU SO SO MUCHSDKF <333 i definitely intend to continue writing more solangelo even after talk ur talk is over, i have *so* many other au ideas and wip's that maybe i'd finally get a chance to start once talk ur talk isn't consuming so much of my time!! (not in a bad way, i truly do love writing it) <3 thank you for the ask!!

oh also, bonus note: even if i do end up ending talk ur talk after greatest of luxuries, it most definitely won’t be the end of famous nico!! i love me some fame au’s and wouldn’t be able to be stopped from writing them even if i tried😭 id likely just try out a different form of a fame au at some point, like my actor!nico and country singer!will fic based on so american which i swear is still in progress im working on it it’ll get there !!!

#wrongcaitlyn #talk ur talk asks #talk ur talk fic

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ineffable-rohese · 7 months

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Oh hey, I've gotten a few followers/mutuals, so I guess it's time for a pinned intro post?

Demographic info (because it gives context to my words): Early 40s white fat cis queer poly pagan woman living in the wet corner of North America. My nearest and dearest are almost all trans/non-binary.

Personal (public facing): I'm an Aziraphale-coded hobbit. Like, so cozy and wholesome you might want to puke. I rewatch just the first disc of the LOTR extended edition because I love the Shire so much. I drink Earl Grey with milk and one sugar. (Or a good scotch, cause every Aziraphale needs a little bit of Crowley inside them, right Sheenie?) I read mainly historical fiction, especially anything set in (actual, not fantasy) medieval Europe and I was at one point a medieval music history nerd. I wear cozy sweaters. I love rain on ferns and April flowers. I make soup with things I've tended and harvested. I work a Wholesome AF job. I unironically hug trees. I'm deeply in love with the world.

Personal (in private): I'm deeply kinky. I'm primarily a Sensual Sadist with a significant Dominant streak. I often play as a Panther. I absolutely love consensual violence, and get great joy from hurting people who want me to hurt them. I've only really given myself permission to be that in the last year or so.

Fandoms: I fell in love with Good Omens in 2000 when a college roommate gave it to me. It was genuinely the funniest, greatest thing I had ever read, and I evangelized about it to anyone who would listen. S1 of the show immediately became a comfort show, and it got me through a time of massive loss and upheaval. I put it on when everything was too hard and I needed something that made me feel like everything was going to be OK. S2 - well we're all here still, aren't we? It dropped when I desperately needed One Good Thing for my brain to latch on to as I got through some intense pressure, and boy howdy did it lodge itself in me.

Other fandoms in roughly chronological order: Star Wars (original trilogy made me a child nerd), X-Files (first real social fandom, and intro to fanfic!), Buffy/Angel/Firefly, LOTR, Doctor Who, Torchwood (the only other show I've been driven to write fic for), Sherlock to an extent. OFMD and WWDITS are great fun, though not obsessions.

My Writing: Writing Index Here I'm really enjoying writing right now! I don't know how long this ADHD hyperfocus will last, but I'll take it while it lasts. My goal in writing is to challenge myself, create things I'd want to read, and have fun with it (for a definition of fun).

I'm also definitely working on being comfortable expressing the things I like and want and being unashamed about that. I worry too much about how my 😈 side might reflect on my 😇 side, and honestly, these shades of grey lovelies are helping me with that a lot. It's probably why I love writing Dom Aziraphale so much, because he is just so sweet and good and bright, and also a toppy BAMF who can make demons (and their Bentleys) do whatever he wants and wields a flaming sword against Satan himself.

So yeah, every time I make Aziraphale go to a dark place, and then come back again to being a ball of delight, it's helping me create a map that allows me to do the same (to a, you know, somewhat lesser and more reasonable extent). And when others read and like the things that come from the darkest corners of my brain, it makes me feel seen.

Anyway, you made it this far. Here are my cats for tax. Yes, I have one of each of the Kinds of Cats.

#intro post #pinned intro

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 2 months

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Sorry another zoomer anon about comics

Actually I was referring to new 52 about batgirl and Starfire. Did you know new 52 stated that Starfire don’t remember people names unless she had sex with them?

Obviously that was ignored and retcon to hell and back. But comic writers, there a difference between being a sexual liberating woman vs being a hentai slut

Also about a year ago iirc, the old head of DC Dan Didio (who responsible for the mess that was new 52 and 2010’s shit) said that comics lost a generation of heroes because mines wasn’t interested in superheroes…during the height of the MCU

Pssst Didio let me tell you something, there something called the internet so my generation can look up the history of dc and marvel comics.

We are not getting emotionally invested in comics who are handle by fuckers with the mentality of a ten year old

So we went to manga and hmm, what that popular shounen?

MY FUCKING HERO ACADEMIA! YOU DIDN’T LOSE A GENERATION OF READERS BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T INTERESTED IN SUPERHEROES! YOU LOST THEM BECAUSE WE CAN SMELL SHITTY COMICS LIKE HOW A BLOODHOUND SMELLS PISS!!

Ugh, how…out of touch these fuckers are?

Also you guys made it damn near impossible to get easy access to comics so manga is far easier to get. Obviously you can….but a comic shop is a huge luxury item

Sorry for this essay rant, and I only been into comics for ten fucking years

Pssst Didio let me tell you something, there something called the internet so my generation can look up the history of dc and marvel comics.

OMG YES. THIS. FUCK.

Sorry, about to hijack this ask to go on a rant but my God I fucking hate this idea that people can only ever be interested in things that they experience in real time. It's such bullshit. Do you know what I wasn't alive for? The original run of Spider-Man written by Stan Lee. You know what my favorite Spider-Man stories are? The original run of Spider-Man written by Stan Lee. I got into Spider-Man because of the 90s animated series on Fox Kids. From there, I got a few of the comics that were running at the time, and from there I found the Marvel Masterworks collections and absolutely devoured the older stories. And even for books I didn't really have much interest in like Captain America or Iron Man, I would get Marvel Encyclopedias and learn about the pasts and presents of all the comic characters, even some I'd never heard of. True fans will always seek out the past of the things they love. You think people who fell in love with the Lord of the Rings movies aren't devouring The Silmarillion? You think the kid whose first Star Wars experience is seeing The Mandalorian isn't going back and watching the original trilogy? You think someone whose only experience with Batman is the Nolan Trilogy isn't going to find and absolutely love Frank Miller's Batman Year One? Of course they are. True fans don't have blinders. True fans will educate themselves on the things they love.

You know who won't, though? You know who just consumes the things that are put in front of them and will never go beyond that, either through laziness or because they don't want to see anything that's "old" or "out of touch"?

Tourists.

Tourists are great during tourist season, but very few come back every year. And in the off-season, it's the locals who keep the place running. You can't always depend on tourists. They'll happily move onto the next big tourist destination at the drop of a hat. But the locals, the true fans? They'll always be there. They'll be buying books, buying merch, going to the movies, generating enthusiasm, organizing conventions, and everything else that comes along with being a true fan. The only things that will drive them away are when the people in charge of the things they love attack them personally or change the things they love into something unrecognizable. And even then, most will still love the thing as it used to be. The fans who hate Rings of Power didn't throw out their Lord of the Rings Extended Edition blu-ray collections. The fans who hate Disney Star Wars didn't smash their original VHS copies of the unaltered original trilogy. And true fans aren't just old fans or original fans. The thing about being a local is that anyone can move into town. And if they stay long enough and fit into the local culture, everyone else will embrace them.

So fuck Didio and everyone else who thinks tourists are the only group that matters. Fuck everyone who thinks that "modern audiences" can't love something from a different era with different stories and different characters from what everyone else is shitting out today. It's bullshit, and it always has been.

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smalltownfae · 3 months

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Updated Top Favourite Authors

This is my current (2024) top favourite authors. The more I read about others that I considered favourites in the past the more I was aware about how they weren't favourites after all. These will probably never leave my top because they are the best of the best to me. There might be others that are close (like Joe Abercrombie, Juliet Mariller and Tolkien), but not quite there yet at least. Fair warning that all of my favourite authors have works I do not like.

Robin Hobb

The Realm of the Elderlings series had such a profound impact on me that I doubt any other work will ever surpass it. My favourite character of all time is in it and even though the series has flaws I can't help but love it in spite of that. The writing, the atmosphere, the character work, the themes... almost everything hits so right for my taste that is absurd. That said I did try the Soldier Son trilogy three or four times and I can't seem to get into it. I somehow still haven't given up because I keep thinking "maybe someday in the future". I am very delusional. Also, her works as Megan Lindholm that I tried also didn't captivate me nearly as much as that first series I read. She somehow hit the mark with that world and I still didn't find the same brilliance in her other works, but the impact of Realm of the Elderlings is so big that she is number one.

2. Oscar Wilde

The man, the myth, the legend. The Picture of Dorian Gray was not only the book that made me get into classics, it was also the book that made me get into reading. I was always an avid reader except for a period during high school where the only thing I read and reread was Harry Potter. That period of my life was filled with social situations so reading took a backseat. I went back to it and found my love for it again when I started to work, which sucked out my entire social life at the time. Reading was again a great comfort to me like it had been in my childhood and tween years and Oscar Wilde helped with that. That is also when I found out that I shamelessly plagiarized his The Happy Prince story in fourth grade because I had seen a cartoon adaptation on tv. It hit me how amazing it was that this author's works were having an impact on me that far back and without me knowing. I didn't even know what plagiarism was back then, but my teacher apparently didn't know that work because she loved my story and thought it original and emotional. Now, not all of his works are great. I think most of his poetry sucks, especially, and I don't like all of his plays. But, I recently reread The Picture of Dorian Gray in english this time (I own the complete works in english and this particular book in my mother tongue too) and I fell in love with it all over again. I also reread The Importance of Being Earnest and it still made me laugh really hard. So, just like Robin Hobb, it is this high up the list for the impact it had on me. My friends know that I am obsessed with RotE and Oscar Wilde so much that one of them brought me stuff with his face on it after she visited Ireland.

3. Kazuo Ishiguro

Somehow I think most people don't get his works the way I get them. Even from his first work that I read, that was also his first published book because it was the only one available in the library, I felt a strange connection with it. I can't explain how or why, but when I read an Ishiguro novel I feel calm and relaxed even if the plot isn't particularly that. It also always makes me think about something. I must say that I read his works translated (The Buried Giant being the only one I own in english and I haven't read it yet). But, his works were translated by different people and it always gives me the same feeling which makes me think it really is something about the author. Even if I rated his first book 3.5 stars or something like that I still think about it and I often think that I should rate it higher for that because 3 star books don't stay in my head like that. I don't know. This one I really can't say why it gets to me, but it does everytime. The only time that it didn't was when Ishiguro wrote short stories, but I also listened to those on audio so I am not sure if that is why the experience was different. Either way, I didn't really like the stories. I have been noticing that works with too much focus on music tend to be a miss for me, even though there are exceptions.

4. Terry Pratchett

Pure genius. I have only read Discworld books (and Good Omens), but even in that series it is very hit or miss. However, there are always moments in the books that make me go "oh, that was really good". When Discworld books work for me they really work. I am also one of those odd ducks that started with The Color of Magic and really liked it so I continued the series until there were no more books available in the library. I foolishly recommended people to start with that book and then they never read another Discworld book ever again. Nowadays I know better. Comedy is also hard to do because it will depend on a person's sense of humour. Since I like puns and clever social commentary, Discworld is my ideal brand of comedy. Plus, the characters can be quite charming. It reminds me of a very good cartoon.

5. Octavia E. Butler

The reason why she isn't higher on the list isn't only because Fledgling is an abomination. It is also because she always has identical themes in her works and similar main female characters. It is great that I do love those themes and the way she addresses them, but at a certain point it starts to feel almost like if you read one you have read them all, which isn't exactly true. Even though there are many similarities between her works, there are also some differences which are good enough to keep the readers engaged. I have yet to read her short stories and one of the series but I am looking forward to it. While I feel like the other authors on this list are brilliant at writing, Butler's style is simpler and straight to the point. It's her ideas that shine in her works. Plus, she is the author that made me not give up on scifi because it showed me that it can have heart and a focus on people instead of the just the science and technology.

The end

The similarities between my favourite authors is that there is a moment I realize that a lot of other people don't get it the way I do. When they read their words they don't feel the way I feel and they don't experience the wonder and the joy that I do. When I get that feeling is when I know an author is a favourite and it only becomes more of a certainty when I speak to people that felt the entire opposite or didn't feel anything at all. It didn't speak to them and that is alright. The authors that work for them probably mean nothing to me too, but I always like to hear people be passionate about their favourites as long as it's genuine and if it is it shows on their face. If you see this post feel free to tell me a bit about your favourite authors and why you love them :) I might find new favourites or get a new appreciation for them if I already know them.

#top favourite authors #robin hobb #oscar wilde #kazuo ishiguro #terry pratchett #octavia e. butler #booklr

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dalekofchaos · 3 months

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Book of Boba Fett au:actually a crime lord

Earlier this week I made a poll on what Boba Fett's fate could've been had he not fell in the Sarlacc Pit and in this au I will explore the scenario where Boba Fett takes over the criminal underworld and becomes the king of his own Empire.

Boba Fett was tasked with guarding over Jabba's Sail Barge and making sure the grand execution of the Rebels at the Great Pit of Carkoon went smoothly. Normally Boba Fett would agree because Jabba is good with credits. However Boba felt something was off and told Jabba to triple his usual wage and Jabba laughed him off. Boba decided to watch it all go down and decided to do nothing. The Rebels escaped and Jabba is dead. Boba's suspicions were proven correct, but he also saw an opportunity. If the Rebels could so easily plan an escape and overthrow the most powerful crime lord in the galaxy, so could he.

So Boba Fett gathers the deadliest bounty hunters of the galaxy. Fennec Shand, Bossk, Dengar, IG-88, Aurra Sing(kiss my ass Beckett, she's alive instead of being fridged off screen for your reputation) and Black Krrsantan. They kill all of Jabba's loyalists and Boba took the throne.

Eventually Boba Fett would've found like minded people and worked together to destroy the Hutt cartels, the Black Suns and Pykes and divide the galaxy's criminal Empire.

Now why this specific scenario for Boba Fett?

In George Lucas original pitch for the Sequel Trilogy, Maul was going to return and become the main villain of said Sequel Trilogy. His pitch has Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because, as the Empire falls, he takes over. Just replace Maul with Boba Fett and it is perfect.

After the fall of the Hutts and the Syndicates. There would be five heads of the criminal empire, much like there are five heads of the five families in The Godfather.

Boba Fett

Qi'Ra

Cad Bane

Prince Xizor

Tyber Zann

Their goal is simple. spread crime and corruption throughout the galaxy. Show how easily a Republic can fall to the corruption of the criminal underworld and while they all have their differences, they all stand with Boba Fett and under his leadership he will usher them in a golden age a of crime, profit and show the Rebels how easily he let them go and what the consequence of Jabba's death started. Boba's criminal empire.

#Star Wars #Boba Fett #Fennec Shand #Bossk #Dengar #IG 88 #Aurra Sing #Black Krrsantan #Qi'Ra #Cad Bane #Prince Xizor #Tyber Zann

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opinated-user · 10 months

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I'm very tempted, now that someone has mentioned the idea of parodying Lily, to do a parody of TSR wherein everything Aliana does is mocked and retold in a more accurate way. Nothing sexual or gross, but we shove in an OC who looks back at the audience and goes, "Kylo Ren never expressed any sexual desires in the original trilogy. Now he wants Rey and Aliana to be his concubines. Gee, who was it that said authors only put violence against women in fiction if they get off to it? Billy Smorchard? Lillian Orchestra? Something like that." Just TSR, but Aliana is stuck with a character who can see beyond the fourth wall who will not stop mocking the bad writing. He asks Rey how she fell in love with Aliana and she says, "Oh, we talked." "That's it?!" "We had things in common." "I have things in common with you, her, Luke Skywalker, BB8 and my cat, that doesn't mean I'm in love with them!" The entire story ends up with a running gag where he refers to Aliana's mom as "The Noble Black Slaver" and she wants to murder him but his two superpowers are being aware of things beyond the fourth wall and being immune to Force abilities so she's just forced to deal with his existing without ever being able to choke, maim, murder, electrocute, etc. him, which are her only means of problem-solving. I really want to do a lengthy parody thing where we start out following the plot of TSR but eventually this dude's continual interference in Aliana's bullshit totally derails her attempts to take over the galaxy.

Specifically I want to do this parody fic with comments set to logged-in users only and see what she ends up doing when she realizes she can't threaten my life without getting banned from AO3. She can't bully me off of social media, because I don't have that. Her viewers can't scream at me without death threats and suicide bait getting them banned off of AO3 for TOS violations.

Imagine how mad she would be. Imagine the glorious indignation, the swearing, the inevitable trying to frame me as [buzzwords here] and not being able to control someone enough to make them stop because she has no power. And the best part is, I could make it so, so queer and make it majority non-white and make the fourth-wall breaking OC Jewish just to piss her off. "But Judaism doesn't exist in Star Wars!" someone in the comments will say, to which I can simply reply, "Black people selling white kids doesn't exist in Star Wars and every black character having a connection to slavery didn't exist in Star Wars but y'all were fine with those additions. You'll survive this one."

I have a spare AO3 account. I could do this. Someone either needs to stop me or give me a title because that's always the hardest part to come up with. I'm thinking I want to retain TSR as initials...

you should, anon, why not? LO has officially left alaina free for the taken. if someone can grab her and do something actually interesting with her then they should.

#lily orchard

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checkoutmybookshelf · 1 year

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The EU is Forever

April 25, 2014, was a dark-ass day for those of us who loved the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon. I was literally in the middle of the end of my first year as an MA student, and 2/3 of the bookshelves in the apartment my then-fiance, now-husband, shared held my Star Wars books. I'm not here to say that every book was great (lookin' at you, Splinter of the Mind's Eye), or even that every bad book was in so-bad-its-good territory (heart eyes at Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor), but the Star Wars EU got me through high school. So let's talk Young Jedi Knights.

There is no "these were the first Star Wars books I picked up and fell instantly in love with" story with these books, my journey to the Star Wars books was random as all hell, partly because this was the franchise that really taught me how to marshall and organize a sprawling set of books, do the research to read them in something like an order, and really start to engage deeply and take notes. (There may have been a 4-inch binder full of notes. It might still live in my Dad's house.)

I actually was first introduced to Star Wars (the original trilogy) when I was TA-ing in 8th grade and that teacher needed something to keep her class occupied for a couple of days. In the last week of school that year, I basically lived in the library and read the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. Needless to say, I had QUESTIONS. Because I still hadn't figured out book research, I then picked up Vector Prime, and STILL had massive questions, once I got over *that* scene.

Young Jedi Knights wasn't the first Jacen and Jaina I picked up--I started with some of the novels earlier when they're younger--but I loved this series. This particular cohort of Jedi ended up being so crucial for so many reasons to the EU timeline, and seeing their training, their friendship, their mishaps, and how they interact with the galaxy made the later novels just so much more poignant.

There was a sense of YA speedrunning a lot of pretty common coming-of-age tropes (lookin' at you, Zekk... honestly, he and Kyp Durron needed to learn to BACK OFF and take no as a goddamn answer) and a boarding-school-in-space vibe, but there were also a few things that I thought were done particularly well. I wouldn't be me if I didn't call out with how much nuance Tenel Ka's arm loss was handled, particularly in terms of letting her have time to grieve and allowing her to adapt on her own without bowing to Ta'a Chume's frankly ableist attempt to use the incident to pull her graddaughter further into her Hapan heritage at the cost of her Dathomiri one. Seriously, for a YA book published in 1996, this was learning to live with a disability done really well. And I appreciated the hell out of Tenel Ka herself not letting Jacen do the guilty hovering and overcompensating with unnecessary and unwanted help. That was an excellent boundary to set, and quite frankly is something that people TODAY are terrible at, so this whole storyline was well done.

Equally well done was the fleshing out of Raynar and Lowbacca in the Diversity Alliance arc. Poor Raynar started so pompous and so absolutely unconsciously privileged, but watching your father self-sacrifice to protect humanity at large is a stiff price to pay to learn a little humility. (The absolute kicker is what happens during the Yuuzhan Vong War and subsequent Swarm War; poor Raynar does NOT have an easy run of life).

Lowbacca was an interesting look at friends/siblings dragging you into an extremist perepecting and RAPIDLY getting in over your head. There is also an interesting look at those who choose to stay in those organizations and those who choose to escape. And again, this was 1997, so the massive resurgence in fascism, right-wing extremism, and incel-ness wasn't the monstrosity it is in the year of our lord 2022. The Diversity Alliance arc just got more relevant the older I got, not less.

The Solo twins are, objectively, the marquee characters in these books, because the EU objective was the Skywalker/Solo show. Just straight out, Jaina is my favorite Solo kid. No contest. Her entire arc over the EU was twisty, detailed, nuanced, and never anything less than fascinating, and that began from the first books that focused on the kids. Her training on Yavin 4 in these books really solidifies her as technical. Jaina likes machines; she likes to take things apart, put them back together, and make them better. She is, like her father and uncle, a pilot at heart. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't say that both she and Jacen are a little one-note 1990s YA protagonists. They have their one major things (she's a mechanic, he's basically the Star Wars Kratt Brothers) and their things and relationships drive everything. They are arguably not the most interesting characters in these books, but they do tend to drive the books because they are the Solo twins.

That said, the plots, side characters, and general vibe of these books made them some of my favorites, and the nostalgia is strong with these books.

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moorishflower · 1 year

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I got tagged by @softest-punk to talk about BOOKS

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

Idk how we're defining non-ancient but I'm going to assume nothing pre-1400s just because people are listing Shakespeare? Which means I can't include Beowulf :< But know that Beowulf is on here in my heart

The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore. Hoo boy. Baby's first fantasy novels. I fell in love with Drizzt Do'urden LONG before I knew what being edgy or goth was, and I was absolutely fascinated by the intricate politics of Menzoberranzan, but even MORE fascinated by the Underdark. This terrifying, harsh alien landscape all in darkness, lit only sometimes by phosphorescent fungi, populated by monstrous creatures and inhuman beings with complex cultures...I was actively less interested in the Forgotten Realms books when Drizzt left the Underdark! To this day I'm really fascinated by survival literature and hostile landscapes, and I find things like deserts and cave systems to be extremely beautiful. Also, I had a crush on Jarlaxle, but so did everybody else, so.

Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha) by Miguel de Cervantes. I originally read Don Quixote in college, and I fell in love with how it played around with the idea of stories, and how we use them to view the world. I wrote an entire paper about how Don Quixote serves as a sort of trickster figure, because we're meant to learn from his mistakes, but there are honestly so many different ways you can read the text! Is he insane? Is he the ONLY person in the world trying to do the right thing, and its only the rigid outline of society that's actively preventing him from doing it? Also, has one of the single most important quotes to ever be put to a page. "There is no book so bad...that it does not have something good in it."

Dragon's Milk by Susan Fletcher. This was the first book about dragons that I read. I think it probably wouldn't hold up well if I read it again? But I remember being in love with it when I was about 9 or 10. It felt VERY gritty to me (there's death! injury! grief!) at the time, lol.

John Dies at the End by David Wong. HERE'S a book that taught me a lot about fucking around with genre conventions. I reread JDatE about three times in the beginning to make sure I was getting everything, and I still reread it like...once a year or two years or so? Horror is a really special genre to me because there's so much you can learn from it and use it to convey. JDatE was one of the first successful horror COMEDY novels I read.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I couldn't possibly choose a single book, so don't ask me to! This is meant to be read as a series anyways, even more so than other series. King is one of my favorite authors, and I've read pretty much his entire body of work, but there's something special about The Dark Tower books. They're so huge, and far-reaching, and they accomplish so MUCH and manage to entwine so many different threads into one (nearly, no one's perfect, lol) cohesive whole. I'm sure there are a lot of fantasy and scifi novels that manage to weave as many threads as King does here, but man, there's something SO satisfying about being able to go through the Tower books, and recognizing all the references to so many other books by him. <3

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett. WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN. Fuck, what a good book. About personhood, about self determination, about acceptance. Feet of Clay is definitely THE City Watch book for me, followed very closely by Night Watch.

Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Does this count as ancient? I don't care. Inferno was one of my introductions to translation and how word choice can change the entire effect of a sentence. I read it first in middle school, on my own, and then more in depth in high school and college, and I used to keep my annotated copy by my bed in my dorm, so I could go through it whenever I was stressed. I got really into etymology because of Inferno, an interest I still have today!

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. When I read this in high school, the teacher for the class warned us that it was going to be a difficult read and that we would probably need a timeline she had made in order to follow along. But I didn't need the timeline. The leaps in time and space and narration all made perfect sense to me! It wasn't actually that hard to follow along, and the story being told between the words by Benjy was horrifying and fascinating and terribly sad! And then you got to the other parts and it was CONFIRMED to be horrifying and sad! Anyways The Sound and the Fury is a really cool example of nonlinear, unreliable, stream of consciousness narration and I like it a lot.

The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Just a really cool magic system. Really interesting worldbuilding. But it's the magic system that gets me.

Across the Acheron by Monique Wittig. Baby's first feminist lesbian book. I got Across the Acheron because I was intrigued by another version of Inferno. Instead, I figured out I wasn't straight! Like all feminist literature there's a lot of ways to read this and it probably hasn't held up as well as I would like, but I am indebted to it for like, letting 14 y/o me realize that not just liking boys was okay, so!

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kaaragen · 2 months

Note

🏷🎬💎🔎🤔 for the fanfic writer ask game!!^^

Thanks for the ask! And sorry for taking so long to reply!

🏷 Is there a tag you like to search for when looking for fanfics to read?

Not particularly...I guess the one's I most often go for are relationship tags (e.g. Ahsoka/Barriss obviously XD) but otherwise there isn't any that I would regularly search. Depending on mood I might exclude some though!

🎬 If a movie or show were based on your fic, which fic would you choose and who would you fancast?

Well, a Clone Wars-style version of And if we Fell Together would be a delight - if we're in the realms of wishing for the impossible! But more realistically, a fan animation of I Give To You would bring me tons of joy!

Fancast...nope, I really don't have much idea on this one sorry XD I will say that, assuming we're excluding original actors, my pick for adult Barriss for a while has been Mandip Gil (she can do intense, emotional looks so well!)

💎 Do you often write about a relationship or focus on an individual?

That's a good one! I'd say relationships thus far has been my thing, as I do like pulling out the little conflicts and tensions that happen between people (particularly as they're trying to work out their relationship whatever that is). With that said, you can't really do that without also understanding them as an individual so they're kind of tied together in my head.

No surprises, but Ahsoka and Barriss as a relationship and individuals is the main focus XD But I am enjoying working with the mutli-directional relationships among the Spectres, and their different play-offs with each other

🔎 Does anyone beta read or edit your fics?

No, I don't have anyone beta read or edit - it's all my own work (and mess)! Partly, this is because I'm never normally far enough ahead of schedule to allow such a thing XD

The only occasion on which someone did read a chapter was when Gabby (@kirahsoka) very kindly agreed to read 'The Last Temptation of Ahsoka Tano' (which was written very early on) as I knew that chapter was going to be make or break for the fic, so I needed to be sure her fall was convincing.

🤔 Would you ever want to write something canon if you got the opportunity?

Absolutely! It would depend on how much freedom I have to do things (I know you won't get perfect freedom writing for a franchise for all sorts of reasons), but it's not something I would be opposed to. I do keep a stock of some ideas that I can put into action, if Disney ever does come calling. One of which would be a canon-compliant Barriss and Ahsoka story that would explain how Barriss gets to the point she does in 'The Wrong Jedi'. Maybe one day...

(I have, unfortunately, had to bin my post-sequel Trilogy idea because of the new announcements...)

#thanks for the ask!#ask game #enjoyed answering these!

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kittystargen3 · 21 days

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Story Summary: A time traveling Grandmaster, to the Prequel Era, trying to fix the mistakes the Jedi made, and get rid of a certain Sith too. Only Time Travel is not that easy, as Yoda will soon learn.

Hi all,

Today I published a new chapter to Time Travel: To the Past Yoda Goes. Below is a small selection. Please use the links above to read more.

Chapter 68- Darkness

30 Years ago:

Yoda looked up at the time-piece against the wall and sighed.

“Master, I won’t say I didn’t tell you this…” Dooku growled from the other side of the chamber. “In fact, the whole council warned you about his fit as a padawan.”

Yoda tuned out his previous Padawan’s lectures, and he turned around the room to pace again.

Suddenly the door opened and a teenaged boy with dark skin, and long brown hair, fastened back in dreads, timidly walked in. Unsurprisingly, he seemed to immediately sense the judgment from the masters in the room.

“Well, there you go then. I’d love to stay for the grilling, but Qui-Gon will be taking his trials next week, and I promised him to help him prepare for it.” Dooku made his excuses and quickly skedaddled from the room, making sure to glare at the boy before he left.

The other Masters soon did the same, and Yoda was alone with a youngling that refused to look up and give him eye contact.

“You’re angry, Master. I know it was a risk, but if I'd had a few seconds more time, I could have made it work. And then…”

“Angry, I am not… Disappointed, I am.” Yoda corrected. The boy’s face fell. “Recovering from severe burns, two other Padawans are. Included in their number you almost were.”

“But if Master Rancisis hadn't pulled me away, it wouldn't have exploded.” He sighed. “I know everyone thinks I’ve fallen to the dark side, or that I’m flirting with it, or something. But I haven’t. I'm just tired of everyone waiting for me to fail.”

“Padawan Windu. With me, come.” Yoda said, and the youngling looked up in surprise.

He followed Yoda down a seldom used lift to a part of the temple few Padawans had ever been to. Technically it was a part of the Jedi Archives, if anyone looked at a temple floor plan. But those who knew what it contained simply called it, ‘The Dark Vault.’

“Sense what, do you?” Yoda asked.

“Power, there’s a lot of it down here.” Mace answered. “Hey, if we have all this, why don’t we ever use it?”

Yoda glared at his Padawan, and subtly used their new forcebond to remind him why they were having this conversation in the first place.

Mace shuffled a step back and corrected his wording, “I mean the Masters, of course. The criminals wouldn't stand up to this being used against them.”

“Of the start of the Jedi-Sith Conflict, how much do you know?” Yoda asked.

“Ancient history now,” Yoda responded with a glare before the youngling could make a comment about his age. “Uh, The Jedi were the original Force-users. They used to use the whole force, light and dark, and…”

“What?” Yoda asked.

“Huh?” Mace responded with.

“Original Force-users our predecessors were. Distinguish between light and dark, they did not. Because Dark yet, the force was not.” Yoda paused to look up at his Padawan. Mace looked even more confused than he usually did during a Force-Physics class when his instructor started ranting in Rybese. “A time for living, all things have. And a time to die and rejoin the Force, all things do as well. Both, a part of the Living Force, it originally was.”

“So then what changed?” Mace wisely asked....

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cosmonaughtt · 2 years

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I think, part of the reason I’m quite ecstatic about the Hermitcraft & Empires crossover (The Great Crossover Event) is that...

It was planned and followed through.

Also this ramble got long so there is a readmore LOL (￣ ‘i ￣;)

And this little ramble here isn’t a slight against any creator at all, but I first got re-involved with MCYT content with the DreamSMP. I think that using Minecraft as a medium for storytelling is super unique and underrated; there’s a bit of a juvenile energy to it as it’s a kids game, but also as a game with infinite possibilities and worlds it really has no bounds.

What DSMP did in 2020-2021 was amazing. I think that they had such great potential with storytelling and used it without even realizing what they were doing, especially in the early days. One of the reasons I fell out of it (as I’m sure everyone has) is that, for the most part, they aren’t really that organized as they maybe used to be.

And I get it. Life happens, and you lose inspiration for stories, and with COVID-19 NOT ENDING BUT EVERYONE THINKING IT IS OVER ENOUGH TO MOVE ONTO OTHER VENTURES, I’ve been there before. Well, maybe not the last part. I still wear mask everywhere I go.

I can’t help but say that the disappointment of ccs losing interest in the DSMP storyline doesn’t hurt in a way. Call me parasocial for it all you want; but if your favorite book series or movie trilogy never had that final movie come out, or your favorite TV show never had that last season to tie up all the loose ends, you’d be dissapointed too, right? Again, this isn’t a slight against the individual ccs, just at circumstances around it.

But in come Hermitcraft and Empires; Hermitcraft was a series on my radar for years but I’ve always been intimidated by the long episode counts (except for season 8 now lmao) to ever get invested into it, but when Empires S1 came out i was hooked. People using Minecraft to tell stories! And it’s good!!!!

There’s a sort of similar energy from early Empires episodes to early DSMP lore; none of it feels completely planned out. I can’t speak for creators of course, but it feels like both SMPs didn’t intend to get as story-based or lore-heavy as they ended up getting, but they got, eh, lost in ze sauce, as one of my friends would say. They embraced it, and it just so happened that Empires, because it was strictly MINECRAFT creators and not a mix of different types of streamers who also play Minecraft, it was able to keep that storyline to the end. And with Hermitcraft, while some people joke it’s got lore-phobic people on the server who just wanna play minecraft, after the ending of Season 8? Yeah, right, buddy.

When there started to be little pieces & foreshadowing in episodes, I got really excited, but kept my expectations low. Maybe as a response to DSMP CCs, maybe as a I get too overexcited over little things and I don’t wanna over-hype myself, if it doesn’t happen I’ll just make fanfic for it lmao type of thought.

But they didn’t!

They actually went through with it! It’ll be a little mini-arc! They’d been planning it for more than four months, according to fWhip’s video. It’s one of the biggest crossover events in Minecraft history, and it is so cool to see these (grown-ass adults /affectionate) MCYT creators invest so heavily into storylines and “roleplay”. I think for a lot of popular storytellers, like directors or writers of different shows/movies/novels/etc, have become dissatisfied with how late capitalistic society has made “storytelling” synonymous with the dreaded word “content”; its so rare to find a unique work out there nowadays that isn’t just a remake of something else or relies on “meta” storytelling to be funny and original that it just oversells itself and becomes dull in the process (ahem Velma ahem).

But as silly as it is, these MCYTs are putting their all into roleplaying as lil’ block people in a fantasy world. Even less roleplay-heavy creators are finding their places in the storytelling, and idk I can’t help but be appreciative and awed at the fact that they planned something and it actually went through for once.

#hermitcraft #empires #empires smp #hermitcraft season 9 #The Great Crossover Event #dreamsmp #the stars speak #this whole crossover has just made me really happy yall

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depressed-sock · 4 months

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My Bad (1767 words) Gift for ExtraPenguin! Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Shmi Skywalker/Original Female Jedi Characters: Shmi Skywalker, Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, someone else gets sent to naboo, Angry Healer, Jedi Healers (Star Wars), Happy Ending, taking down slavery because you fell in love at first sight, and you wanted to impress the pretty girl, Love at First Sight Preview:

Ruka Spar above everything else is a healer first and a Jedi Master second. Of course there are times when this is not the case but she feels that it is an important aspect of herself that has led to this moment.

She stands in her ship, adjusts her robes, pulls back her hair so it doesn’t catch on her crown of horns and with a heavy sigh of putting off the inevitable she connects the comm call to the Jedi council.

She doesn’t really know what she wants to say to them. What she expects to come from any of this. So she leads with one of her favorites from her wayward Padawan.

“My bad.”

The problem starts with Qui-Gon Jinn because of course this is how it starts. The source of all her problems in the galaxy seem to revolve around the man and his ability to become a magnet for trouble. It’s unfortunate that his most recent Padawan has fallen into the particular curse but all she can do is mitigate the damage as much as possible.

Which means dragging the Master and Padawan pair into the halls of healing when they again attempt to leave without a checkup. May she emphasize the ‘again’ part because it’s important to know that this has happened multiple times. And is why she will eventually make the decision that she does.

“I can’t believe the both of you,” she mutters as she types something into her datapad. She doesn’t even know what she’s typing, just moving on instinct as the furry starts to build up. It’s not healthy for her, and later she’ll have to meditate to release it all into the force but right now she’s got the force of her wrath right in front of her.

Kenobi starts to rise from the bed she’d thrown him on, “Master Spar, please this is important-”

“Padawan Kenobi you lie back down on that bed or else.”

He lies right back down because he’s a better listener than Qui-Gon and is very aware how no amount of sweet talking will win her over.

Qui-Gon who is standing with his arms crossed looking at her with a tired look that says he’s already exhausted by her presence. “Ruka this is really not necessary. Our injuries are minor and we can meditate and heal on the ship.”

Ruka’s eyes narrow dangerously and Kenobi lets out a muffled groan immediately catching his Master’s mistake. “Are you hurt Qui-Gon?” Her tone taking on the edge of a very displeased healer, “How long has it been since your last visit to the halls Qui-Gon?”

She’s not his usual healer. Mostly because if she had to deal with him as often as she knows he gets into trouble she'd probably stab someone. But she’d at least thought that someone else had been regularly checking on him and his Padawan.

He shifts uneasily, as if he’s been caught out. Oh, she’s going to have words with him later but first. “Get on the bed Qui-Gon.”

“You know what, I believe I can accomplish this mission alone.” He turns to leave but Ruka is nothing if not efficient.

#swrarepairs2023 #star wars prequels #star wars #shmi skywalker #original female jedi #Shmi Skywalker/Original Female Jedi #Ruka Spar #fanfiction #my writing #sock-writes

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