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ikilledmyocs · 1 year

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howdy yall! i'm coming back from hibernation with a snazzy new intro and masterlist for my wips. i'm dani aka ikilledmyocs. i've been on writeblr since about 2017/18 and founder of @welcometowriteblr and @writeblrgarden ✨ i'm 21, she/her, bisexual, and a professional character killer. i like graphic design, survival horror, speculative fiction, and kpop.

FIND ME ELSEWHERE: personal | pinterest | spotify

WE ARE UNSUPER — new adult dystopian fantasy trilogy | @unsuperhq

the superhuman revolution begins with a liar and a leader. callista is the daughter of the ruthless governor of the floating city of union that controls superhumans to keep it running, who just returned to the city after four years for unknown reasons. britta is a brutal member of the rebel group unsuper that's been working to take his operation down to give superhumans the freedom they deserve. callista is kidnapped by unsuper and given one option: help them or they'll return her to his prison. callista's been trying to escape the governor, and gladly accepts to work with them despite the risks. however, britta's been learning more about unsuper as one of their leaders and as she digs deeper, their secrets get worse. both sides have the potential to change the world, but only one will come out on top.

SEE YOU IN THE DREAM WORLD — young adult horror fantasy standalone | @bruvitscoylera

the world has been falling asleep and never waking up for the past two months. chance and his girlfriend trinity have been lucky enough to survive despite their lack of sleep and dwindling hope— until one day she fall asleep in class. without her, chance is nothing, and follows her into sleep into a mysterious world where dreams control everything and nothing is as it seems. on a mission to reunite with her, chance teams up with an untrustworthy group of others that have given up to traverse through this world that doesn't want trinity to be found.

THE FALLEN'S DANCE — adult scifi fantasy trilogy | @arityuspalithex

something happened to the moon and the crown prince of his home is determined to find out what happened to it- even if no one else acknowledges it and it means crash landing in the middle of nowhere with a defunct android. xian deta turns to the first people who believe him: the black market leader of ascryla and his team. however, xian has a price on his head, someone's out there trying to erase cieryria and the only people he can count on are the same people that want him dead. it's now a race against time as xian travels across the planet for a home he was close to abandoning himself.

THEY STOLE THE SUN — young adult apocalypse horror standalone

the bunker has kept them safe from the darkness for so long, it's inevitable that the monsters will get in. this is why they've never opened the doors to strangers.

TIME ANGEL ECHOES — young adult fantasy standalone

a fallen human meets an angel searching for her missing friends, who brings her along the dangerous unlocked roads of time and space to face a reckoning.

MEET ME AT THE BRIDGE — young adult mystery standalone

four girls turn into three. the town gets haunted by a ghost who hasn't always been dead but has always been there. it could've been her choice, it could've been something else entirely.

#writeblr introduction #writeblr intro #writeblr #wtwcommunity #file: pinned #investigator: dani

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nikkeisimmer · 10 months

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Back in 1991 I was a college student in the music program at Douglas College, 20 years old in May 1991 (a month before I turned 21). I was not finding college much fun and my educational difficulties were showing up full force.

Then along comes Timothy Zahn with a continuation of the Star Wars saga that I had grown up with. Gen X were the target audience as children for Star Wars back in 1977 when I was a kid of 6 years old at least when Star Wars came out in April of that year. And the entire trilogy (Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) were complete and released in the theatres by the time I had turned 13.

So as a young adult, what’s now referred to as the Legends series of books were a part of my life. I would save up and buy each one as they came out, reveling in the further adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa (now Solo) and their growing family. Some of the events in my own personal life (in general my luck with women mirrored that of Luke Skywalker who couldn’t seem to find a match even if he tried. I mean, look at his track record (the woman who tried to kill him back during the Rebellion days then there was Gaerial Captison, a few others here and there, Callista (the Bodysnatcher) Ming) and well, Mara… who finally in the Legends became his wife).

The relationship of Mara and Luke was one that really struck a close chord because to me Luke was the “everyman”; the hero of the story; the one everyone wants to be. And what I really wanted at the time,considering the circumstances of being in an abusive situation with my mother and her narcissistic traits, was an escape (from reality, perhaps); someway to get out of the situation I was in. So Star Wars was a way, when I wasn’t working at selling houses which frankly was no longer enjoyable by the time 1998 rolled around, to escape the abuse and BS at home.

Narcissistic parents and their enablers want you helpless and strip away your emotional supports and they did that quite well. If you’re doing the math, I was 29 at this point.

The Hand of Thrawn duology of Ghosts of the Past and Visions of the Future had come out and we saw Luke and Mara get engaged.

And well, I had met (online) my future wife and was on the phone with her a lot. This was wayyyy before everyone and their dog and cats. having their own personal cell phones. Cell phones and pagers (remember those?) were the realm of business people. I was in real estate, so I owned one of both.

I rolled a sabacc on that one. We’re 23 years together as of next month. We’ve been through ups and downs that probably would have broken up most couples including my mother’s meddling. But the choice that I made was to stick with my wife: to get away from my mother who had done nothing other than to beat me down every chance she got.

In other words my relationship with my wife saved my life.

And that’s also a reason why Star Wars is so important to me. It provided an escape and a bit of sanity in an insane situation and allowed me a bit of time to plan my escape. I left my parent’s hpuse in March of 2000. 4 months before my now-wife came up from the States and 5 before she and I got married (parents were not invited - her mother due to logistics because of her being back in the States, secondly, my parents weren’t due to my mother’s abusive controlling behavior and my dad because by now he’d become her enabler). My uncle; my mother’s flying monkey had predicted our marriage wouldn’t last.

23 years and every wedding anniversary that passes is lile another happy “fuck you” to my uncle.

This is one of the reasons why I’m disgusted with the sequel series. Everyone goes through trials and tribulations and they grow, learn from their experiences and mature to become hopefully a better version of themselves.

Rey on the other hand is a Disney’fied version of their typical Princess stories. There’s no growth at all other than the time she was on Jakku. There was the “immediate learning” of her Jedi skills with very little training - a kind of Mulan’ish immediately good at everything. There was no connection at all with Rey as a character.

But then again if one likes their stories to be all fluff and light, then fine. But don’t disrespect the original characters while doing it.

Turning the hero character into a miserable old grouch who lives like a hermit who tosses his father’s lightsaber when he originally treated it with reverence is not subverting the plot.

It’s being a dick and ruining a much loved character just for a cheap laugh. Yeah, I’m pretty angry with the sequels because when I was a kid, I idolized Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.

I looked forward to the sequels, hoping that they would do justice to Lucas’s vision, but we got a disjointed plot, “Somehow Palpatine returned”, Super Rey Palpatine and bitter old angry OT characters who were characterized as incompetent. And what enraged me the most was that we got this.

The final insult from Disney’s screwing up the sequels so badly was after filming TLJ, Carrie Fisher went into full cardiac arrest on an aircraft and passed away. There is now no way to rectify the mess that the House of Mouse has made to Star Wars; the franchise that I love more than any other sci-fi franchise. I grew up with this franchise and while I’ve grown out of what Lucas had termed as the target audience, when someone messes with the memories of your childhood, screws up your heroes, yeah, you get mad.

For me, Star Wars was my happy escape and thanks to Rian “Ruin” Johnson, it’s tainted irreparably. Harrison Ford may have wanted out but the rest loved their characters. And Mark Hamill wanted his character treated with some respect but instead of Luke Skywalker, the noble Jedi, he got Jake Skywalker - the down and out green-milk guzzling irritable hermit who “doesn’t give a shit no more!”

Disney has gone full on and said that anyone who dislikes the sequels and dislike the way Rey is written are old racists and white misogynists who live in their mom’s basements.

Well I ain’t white, I don’t live in my mom’s basement, I wish women got treated more fairly, I’m more liberal than conservative and I’m frankly pissed that my childhood film heroes got so disrespected. OK granted, I may be old and not a kid any more (my wife would beg to differ. She says I’m a 2 year old in a 53 year old body) but I still love my Star Wars with the exception of the sequels.

And Legends will always have a special place in my heart because it got me through the toughest part of my life.

#a bit of a fact about myself #non-sims #Nikkei_Simmer’s Stories #Star Wars sequel rant

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walks-the-ages · 2 years

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You said that legends Luke Skywalker is canonically a-spec, so I'd like to see the excerpts. Not in a confrontational "prove it to me" sorta way but a "I'm curious" sorta way.

I don't have the books or ebooks on hand, but it's Barbara Hambly's duology Children of The Jedi / The Planet of Twilight books with Callista.

Yes, I say Duology, not Trilogy, because the piece of shit who wrote the book in the middle of these two is a piece of crap misogynyst dudebro who wrote an entire trilogy about Luke running away from his responsibilites because Leia nagged him too much about babysitting so he went and did a little Overpowered Gary Stu thing of raising an obsidian castle up off the shores of a corscaunt beach and spent weeks just wandering around Vader's old Castle, sitting on the ceiling and Brooding(tm) about how he's so overpowered and meant for more and he's so angsty because he has a greater destiny and he can't connect to normal people and .. yeah. Anyways. Guy who wrote the shitty middle book is also unfortunately very "popular" star wars book author so he has written a lot of the other Legends book and .... It's always very refreshing to see other people rereading then and being horrified at what they thought was amazing writing when they were kids lol.

So yeah, ignore the shitty book in the middle by what might be Kevin J Anderson? My internet isn't cooperating at the moment so that either the authors name or the name of a random unrelated actor but it's something something Anderson. Ignore his book because he tries to retcon everything to make Callista a wilting wallflower who oh so scared of Luke's power and she feels so inadequate next to him and she left out of shame and Luke spends the whole book brooding about "oh I'm so scary and strong in the force I scared poor wittle Callista away boo hoo I am so sad and angsty because I'm so scary and overpowered" and then shitty author man tries to kill Callista off along with his sexist stereotype walking female imperial admiral lady character

and Barbara Hambly took one look at his shitty "sequel" to her book and said "Nope! We are fixing literally all of that and more, what the fuck is wrong with you dude, why the fuck are you treating all of the women this way"

Woops. Rambled a bit. Kevin J Anderson or whatever his name is pisses me off to the extreme, especially because he was allowed to write so many books that butchers the original trilogy characters even more than the "sequel" trilogy did.

anyways , long story short if you want to see Aspec Luke Skywalker, you can read Barbara Hambly's Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight, and also whichever book Luke proposes to Mara Jade in.

Because even as a kid I read that book and was absolutely fucking delighted at the hilariously out of left field it was and how platonic it was.

It pretty much boils down to:

Luke and Mara Jade are stuck in a flooding cave or something where they might die.

The conversation pretty much follows as such, from what I can remember reading over 10 years ago so obviously don't quote me:

Luke: "Hey Mara. We're friends, right? "

Mara: " Hmm, I mean, yeah I guess. We interact sometimes, sure. So we're acquaintances. And I'm not trying to kill you anymore so we're not enemies. And I've saved your life a few times so... Yeah. I think we're friends."

Luke, possibly after almost drowning: "Cool, cool, cool. So. Hey....... Do you want to marry me?"

Mara thought about it for a moment. "do you mean you want to get married now as the last thing we do before we die or...?"

Luke: "no, I mean even if we survive this. Do you want to marry me, even if we get out of here alive?"

Mara pondered the question, looking down at Luke where he looked like a pathetic drowned rat. "Sure." She shrugged. "I'll marry you."

Luke: "Awesome! I wasn't sure if you would say 'yes' seeing as we've never ever even in our most private thoughts considered each other as romantic or sexual prospects and we've never dated or expressed interest in each other for the years and years that we've known each other but I just feel like it's meant to be, y'know? And--"

Mara rolled her eyes. "Luke, I already agreed to marry you despite our nonexistent romantic or sexual history together, so just chill. Or don't, I don't need you freezing to death; now that we're engaged you're not allowed to die on me, I'd look awesome in a wedding dress."

And then they survived and announced their engagement to Han and Leia who came to rescue them and were met with confusion ("wait, Leia, did they even ever date!? How did I miss that!?"" / "No, shhh han, just be happy for them.") But they did go on to get married (I think they showed the wedding in one of the comics).

#star wars #sweu #luke skywalker #Asexuality #aspec Luke Skywalker #asexual Luke Skywalker #callista ming #Mara Jade #Mara Jade Skywalker #star wars expanded universe #fuck kevin j Anderson #The Planet of Twilight #children of the jedi

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thisiseditsandstuff · 1 year

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Callista trilogy, Eye of Palpatine crisis, and crucible

fun fact, those are the exact things I have not yet finished reading about so they were not on my mind when I wrote this. I will admit genuinely forgot the whole Callista thing. Crucible on the other hand, I quite literally pointed out was not included because I hadn't even touched the book yet so I didn't feel super comfortable talking about it with no idea whats happening myself:

Why make a list when I haven't read everything yet? Well ... I thought this was for fun and also ... after reading like 50+ books I believed I had a good enough grip on this to make handy guide especially for new people who have no idea whats happening in the EU at all.

#anonymous

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spockandawe · 2 years

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Wow, the first Callista book was agonizing and the second one is off to a fabulous start as well!!! Also, Jedi Academy by kevin j anderson has been my least favorite trilogy so far annnnnd guess who wrote this one. When I mentioned him to my dad, I hadn't even started ranting about how bad those books were yet, but his immediate reaction was 'isn't he known for writing really mediocre sci fi?'

Yes. Yes he is.

Anyways, it would be REALLY RAD if this franchise could stop being weird and gross about tuskens for like two fucking seconds. 1976? Okay. I hate it, but I GET it. But the nineties books won't lay off either, this is 1995 and I haaaaaate how tahiri has been presented (even though the character herself is very.... whatever, divorced from her origin story), but then Darksaber shows up and decides to set the tone with relentless wow, check out these exotic Barbaric Tribal Customs, and this book is so long and I'm only half a chapter in but I'm already so Done.

(and)

#kevin..... new enemy just dropped #mark of duneinfo dot com #I'm forgetting at least one other star wars enemy #every time an author introduces an additional sexy redhead all of them lose approval points #its a rare phenotype in our world because star wars took em all apparently #oh #alan dean foster has big enemy points just on the merits of splinter of the mind's eye #i felt as slimy as leia probably did after her sexy mud fight #spock reads star wars #racism/#time to go reread ast to bury myself in respectful takes on tusken culture

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jerryb2 · 3 years

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I mean….you all knew this was coming ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ : the Star Wars Art of one Mr. Drew Struzan.

And look, the man has done so much and has such a diverse portfolio that Star Wars is only one very small part of his career. If you want to explore some of his other works, then might I suggest that you check out his website.

As for me here, we’ll be sticking strictly to his SW art. Now, with that out of the way, here we go…

*cracks knuckles*

I have to admit that before I really started to dig into this, I didn’t realize just how many Bantam Era (and beyond) Star Wars books this man has illustrated. Nearly 50 titles, ranging from novels to comics, short stories & even an RPG supplement. 🤯

And so, after much consideration, I decided to just pull all the titles that feature his art off my bookshelf and take a few pics for you guys:

First off, I just want to point out that I don’t have every book he’s ever illustrated. Some of them are just harder than hard to find, are hilariously expensive, or I just don’t have an edition that features his art prominently - you’ll see what I mean. Right off the bat though, you can see that he was really hitting his stride in the mid-90′s, with all but a handful of these coming out between ‘94 & ‘99. One of the highlights from this time for me, is The Callista Trilogy.

I just want to stress that The Callista Trilogy is a highlight for me only because of its gorgeous cover art. 🤣 Other than that, this book series needs to go lay down.

Anyway, the designs are all really striking and even after all these years, absolutely iconic. And you can really see Struzan’s distinct visual style at play here; not a painting in the same vein as something from Dave Doorman, and not a simple trace. Rather, something that is stylized in a very particular, very subtle way, almost to the point where it appears photo-realistic at first glance. Beautiful.

Next up is this trio of trilogies (good use of words, me), collected in these Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) hardcovers:

Once again, these covers are just striking, particularly The Black Fleet Crisis. This is actually what I was referring to when I said that I don’t always have the best editions for a Drew Struzan appreciation post. 😅

Because these are hardcover collections of paperback books, we actually miss out on a good bit of the art. For these SFBC special editions, the publisher just took all three and basically photoshopped the best bits of each one together. The one that suffers the most here is obviously The Corellian Trilogy, where they didn’t even try to blend everything together, and instead just separated everything into columns. I don’t personally mind it (and I do love having the hardcover editions of these books) but if you want to see the covers as they were originally intended, just pickup those mass market paperbacks. 🙂

There’s a lot more to get through, so I’ll just hit the highlights here; even though he didn’t illustrate The Thrawn Trilogy (that was Tom Jung, who I personally think did an okay-ish job at best), he did an absolutely amazing job with the follow-up, The Hand of Thrawn Duology in ‘98 & ‘99:

I’ve always loved these covers. And narratively speaking, they really do serve as one last hurrah on the Bantam Era. Oh, and also please note, Mara Jade on the cover of Vision of the Future, just as Zahn originally described her. ❤❤❤

If you step back and look at Struzan’s work as a whole, it’s all incredibly unified. I bring this up here because even though some of these are books relatively ‘meh’ worthy, Struzan maintained a level of quality that belied the mediocrity contained within. And also to say that he was definitely busy, particularly in 1994:

That’s right - all of these released in ‘94, within a few months of one another. These covers man… *chef’s kiss*

And look I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself: The Crystal Star was a hilarious joke until we all realized they were serious about it. 😳

Alright, that’s a little on the harsh side; it’s not nearly as bad as most make it out to be, and Waru as a source for unlimited power (citation needed 👀😉) isn’t any more ridiculous than the 50 other post-Palpy, hair-brained Imperial schemes that everybody else cooked up, so I guess it fits. And besides, I really wanna be nice to Vonda McIntyre here, but this book was just so so boring. 😴

*clears throat* Moving on, here we have a couple Barnes & Noble hardcover collections of The Jedi Prince Series:

The same thing applies here; cover art photoshopped from across 6 different YA novels to get these. They don’t look bad, far from it. But rather this series has some things that people would rather forget about, namely a supposed son of Palpatine (spoiler: he wasn’t) named Triclops who had - wait for it - 3 eyes.

Like Tien. From DBZ. Yep. 🤦‍♂️

Moving further down the list, we have yet another pair of iconic cover designs, being I, Jedi (the only Star Wars novel written in the first person, and an appropriate riff on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot - yes ladies & gentlemen, that is as clever as Star Wars gets) and The New Rebellion.

Classics, no doubt….but for reals, did anybody else ever wonder why the X-Wing on the cover of I, Jedi is missing an S-Foil? Or how that one slipped through??? 👀

Ah, at last we arrive at what is arguably Struzan’s most famous work; the covers for Shadows of the Empire & The Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition.

It’s hard to overstate just how important Shadows of the Empire really was for Star Wars as a brand. In an era where SW books were already extremely popular, the Shadows of the Empire Multimedia Project basically served as a breakout hit and reignited interest in SW media across the board. This was in no small part due to the striking imagery captured on its cover - are you seeing a pattern here?

This success actually renewed Lucas’ interest in a theatrical re-release of the OT in 1997….which of course, feature more beautiful art from Drew Struzan:

These are my OG Special Edition VHS tapes from back in the day. I watched these so damn much as a kid. In fact, they’re basically the whole reason that I’m here, annoying the shit out of everybody today. 😁

After the Bantam Era concluded & the Star Wars publishing license went to Del Rey, Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for SW media. Here we see his contribution for the latter half of the Last of the Jedi YA series, and his kick-ass cover art for the Darth Maul comic:

And when I say that Struzan did progressively fewer pieces for Star Wars, I am of course omitting his turn as the poster artist for the freaking Prequel Trilogy:

Say what you will about the films, but these poster designs are nothing short of genius.

Look guys, it would be pretty easy for me to downplay Struzan’s Star Wars portfolio as just one small part of his incredible career. But my dudes, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The man has been a professional illustrator for over 50 years, and his art has delighted and inspired generations. From Star Wars to Indian Jones, and from Back to the Future to Blade Runner - Drew Struzan has played an integral part in shaping popular culture.

Here’s to you, sir. 🍻

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corelliaxdreaming · 5 years

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Leia getting hand-me-downs from the pilots? Logging that away for later.

#ficspo #katie reads star wars #legends: callista trilogy: planet of twilight #but did this ever cause ~rumors~?#or coukd she easily deflect wearing her bf’s shirt by *saying* is was a hand-me-down?

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incorrectstarwarslegendsquotes · 1 year

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Luke Skywalker: Please tell me that you're alive.

Callista Ming: I'm texting you from beyond the grave.

Luke Skywalker: I can't tell if you're serious or not. Zombies can text.

#Luke Skywalker #callista ming #the callista trilogy #star wars #star wars legends #incorrect star wars quotes #original: a hero at the end of the world

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legendscon · 8 months

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Please join us in wishing a very happy birthday to Legends Con guest author, Barbara Hambly!

Photo by Bill Purcell

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skyiovecrvz · 1 year

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character trope where they reclaim their agency and save the world at the same time >>>

#alina starkov #psyche callista #jupiter jones #<- they're mostly the ones that come into mind #I need more recs people!!!#shadow and bone #shadow & bone #shadow & bone trilogy #the grisha trilogy #s&b #sab #your throne #your throne webtoon #jupiter ascending #elle.txt #elle.txt (in tags)#trope take

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tmorriscode · 6 years

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Story Time, Younglings

In 2001, Barbara Hambly was the guest of honor at Rockcon, a literary convention that I attended in Little Rock.

Hambly did some novels under contract including a tie-in novelization to Beauty and the Beast (the show with Linda Hamilton and Ron Pearlman in lion makeup).

And she did some work for the Star Wars novelizations.

So on a panel, she told war stories about writing for media tie ins. She said she loved writing the Beauty and the Beast tie-in because she came up with a plot in which the underground sewer/cave tunnels where the street people all lived flooded. And the show’s writers were all complementary because she did something they wanted to do, but couldn’t because they couldn’t risk getting the lion makeup wet.

She was more than a little salty about writing for the Star Wars tie-ins (IMO).

Part of it was that Lucasfilm wanted a book in which Luke met the great, almighty love of his life. So she wrote a proposal and they accepted it. She was 3/4 of the way through the manuscript when she got a call. “They told me that a bigger author wanted to write the great love of Luke’s life.” So she had to change the ending. Hell, they hired her to write a whole other book to get rid of the character they hired her to create.

Which, in reading the Thrawn trilogy, I feel that Zahn was setting Mara up to be Luke’s eventual love interest. Nothing too overt, in case Lucasfilm went another way. But he definitely set plot hooks in the books that could develop Mara along those lines.

One other thing Hambly said she did in Children of the Jedi was develop the Gamorrean culture. She basically became the author Lucasfilm sent you to talk to if you were going to use the Pig guards in an EU story.

That’s something, I guess.

At the time, she’d also released A Free Man Of Color, which was a historical mystery. She’s since written 13 more books in that series, so she probably finds it more satisfying and lucrative than writing tie in novels.

#barbara hambly #callista ming #children of the Jedi #star wars #star wars eu #star wars legends #luke skywalker #writing #novelization #tie in #beauty and the beast #gammorean pig men #thrawn trilogy #mara jade #timothy zahn

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years

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Blorbo ask meme: warred stars (pick a canon any canon)

wendy i am kissing you so sweetly on the hand (also @sybilius asked this one, bless)

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most) unfortunately this is probably han solo. i would like it to be leia but i am a weak and predictable woman.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped) R2-D2 has never done a single thing wrong in his life. neither has any loth cat in the history of the universe. neither has obi-wan for that matter. dengar's cool wife manaroo seems really chill. fox from ronin has no chill but is still friend shaped.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave) MARA FUCKING GODDAMN JADE. also commander fox, bo-katan, and the weasels from one of the han solo trilogies, also koruru from ronin what the FUCk is her girlfriend's name.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week) cad bane doesn't count any more i guess. also hey you remember the time luke fucked a ghost while going insane from an infection in a decaying space station? CALLISTA MING that's the bitch. what the FUCK was that trilogy even. barriss offee got a whole duology so i don't really know if she counts either? very passe of me to pick a cantina scene denizen, but the tonnika sisters. oh also the crystal space whales from the lando calrissian trilogy.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave) darth maul. din djarin. the ronin. god this is a collection of sadboys innit

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason) FUCKIN KYLE KATARN. YOU'RE NOT FUCKIN SPECIAL, KYLE. also zahn's self-insert suave smuggler boy. karrde?

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell) The Entire Jedi Council. thrawn. most zahn characters tbh

#syb i am giving you NO context for any of these i am so sorry #answered #ty!!!#wow this franchise has driven me more insane than i already was

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jadelotusflower · 3 years

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It’s Cold in that Fridge: The Case of Nakari Kelen

Since The Case of Mara Jade has been doing the rounds again, I’ve finally gone back to this post that has been sitting in my drafts for literally years. So let’s honour this absolute badass who deserved better:

Once upon a time, the Star Wars universe was but six films (and a tv series) in the story of the Skywalker family. But beyond George Lucas’ story was an absolute boatload of books, comics, games, and other materials that made up the Expanded Universe. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to the Star Wars saga, everything in this universe was decanonised and deemed “Legends” - some aspects of this universe were retained or re-purposed, others sit in Disney’s figurative vault and will likely never see the light of day (and seeing how the ST turned out, maybe that’s for the best).

But this transition between Legends canon and Disney canon was not so simple, because the nature of publishing meant that there were novels approved during the time of Legends canon that would be released in the time of Disney canon. In particular, there had been the planned trilogy “Empire and Rebellion”, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, with each novel from the perspective of one of The Big Three.

Razor’s Edge (Leia) and Honor Among Thieves (Han) were released prior to the Great Canon Split of 2014. But while the Luke-centric novel had been planned, it was not due to be released until well after the Split. So Heir to the Jedi (so called as an homage to the Legends progenitor Heir to the Empire) became one of the first books of the Disney canon.

What does this background have to do with Nakari Kelen? Perhaps nothing, but I do wonder how the writing process was affected by the shift from Legends to Disney - was the novel a relic of the old EU with any reference the LFL storygroup didn’t like excised during editing, or was it a trendsetter for the new EU, a Sign of Things to Come?

The most salient point being, of course, that Nakari Kelen - like so many love interests before her - was not allowed to go along her merry way at the conclusion of the novel, but was shoved into the fridge.

If there was one constant of the Legends EU, it was that Luke Skywalker’s love interests couldn’t catch a break. Mara Jade naturally lasted the longest relationship-wise, with almost twenty years of marriage to Luke before some bright spark decided she had to go (as per the aforementioned case study). But before Mara there was Jem, Shira Brie, and Gaeriel Captison (who came close to escaping the curse), and in the Legacy of the Force series they brought back sole survivors Akanah and Callista, only to kill them off for good too (and rather brutally, if I may add).

So perhaps when Kevin Hearne began writing HttJ within the confines of the Legends continuity, he was merely sticking to the status quo, or perhaps once subsumed by Disney they needed to make sure Luke's slate was clean (so to speak). And I can’t put all the blame on Hearne since I don’t know whether it was his idea, or LFL mandated - but regardless it was a poor decision.

The root cause of fridging, imo, is limited imagination. How best to cause your male protagonist pain if not kill off someone they love, or at least have strong feelings for? The answer is of course, easily. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Luke Skywalker of HttJ is fresh from his victory in ANH, a lieutenant in the Rebellion: young, not dumb, and full of...

Nakari Kalen is an absolute Queen a civilian volunteer and crack-shot sniper who loans her ship Desert Jewel to the Alliance. Luke is immediately attracted to her, they bond over a mutual love of fast ships and leaving behind desert home planets, and engage in the inexpert flirting of two nineteen year olds while also risking their lives several times over.

I want to make it clear: I actually really like this book. It's a breezy read, almost serialised as The Early Adventures of Luke Skywalker, and is ofttimes genuinely funny. And credit where it’s due to Hearne, many of of the supporting roles in the novel are female. Other than Nakari, there's Soonta, the Rodian who gives Luke her uncle’s lightsaber, Sakhet the Kupohan spy, and the Givin cryptographer/math genius Drusil Bephorin. In a genre where male characters are often the default for these kind of roles, it was nice to see, but makes the regressive fridging of Nakari even more egregious.

Luke and Nakari make a good team fighting brain-sucking monsters and Imperials, but more importantly they have fun together - she encourages him to work on his Force skills, and he successfully moves objects with his mind for the first time (leading to Nakari adorably dub him "a little noddle scooter"). It's a very sweet, if brief, relationship, and a respite from the danger of the mission. They spend the night together (leaving the reader to decide exactly what happened behind closed doors), and share a kiss before splitting up to try and escape bounty hunters. No prizes for guessing what happens to Nakari immediately after she received the Skywalker Kiss of Death.

I assume there were two motivating factors for why Hearne and/or LFL couldn't let Nakari live:

1. If she survived, fans would wonder why she doesn't appear in ESB/subsequent material.

I recall this bandied about on forums back at the time of the book's release, and to that I say - so what? Fans are always going to wonder, and try to paper over the gaps in canon, to make up their own headcanons to explain any any perceived inconsistencies. It's certainly no reason to kill someone off.

It is in fact possible for two young people to have a romance that just fizzles, or doesn’t work out for whatever reason - it should not require great maneuvering or explanation. If Nakari doesn’t show up in the next book in the timeline, what about it? The reader is smart enough to assume she and Luke broke up, decided to just remain friends, whatever. But it seems that the only way for a female character to exit stage left is for her to die, which is bullshit.

And actually, there's no reason why she couldn't have shown up again. ESB and RoTJ cover a month and a few days, respectively, of Luke's life - just because there was no mention of Nakari doesn't mean she didn't exist at that time, whether or not she and Luke were an item. She could have made an appearance in a subsequent novel, or Rebels, or the comics - she could have become a recurring character, showing up when the Rebellion needed her, or - heaven forbid - even have her own comic/book/show! Her existence in Star Wars canon didn't need to begin and end with Luke Skywalker, merely to service his plotline and backstory and abandoning the richness of her own.

No, the only reason Nakari had to die was to facilitate this:

It was a blow to the gut, realizing what that sudden absence meant. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but I had felt Nakari's life snuffed out through the Force, and into that void where she had shone anger rushed in - anger, and a cold sense of raw power and invincibility...I took a step to join in the hunt but stopped, breathing heavily, unaccountably sweating even though I felt so cold inside and the power of the Force roiled within me... I shook with emotion and power, and none of it felt the way the Force had before...I saw what kind of space it was , a black hole that would always be hungry no matter how much I fed it. I might never feel warm again if I didn't get myself under control.

Luke feels the dark side and is tempted by the boost of power it offers him, but immediately identifies it as dangerous and unnatural. I can understand why Hearne wanted to include this - it is a book of firsts after all: Luke's first solo mission, his first time using telekenisis, and ending with story with his first experience of the dark side makes sense. But it wasn't necessary, which leads to:

2. How to push Luke to touch the dark side without killing someone he has romantic feelings for?

Also, obviously, shite of the bull (or nerf, if you prefer). Even if this brush with the dark side was absolutely necessary for the novel's climax, there's any number of ways it could be achieved. At this point, Luke is fresh from losing important people in his life - Owen and Beru, Ben, and Biggs - lumping another death on top of that a narrative trick for Luke to react not only to losing Nakari, but the others as well. But it's cheap, the first card in the deck, and why not show a bit of imagination? Luke is young and inexperienced enough at this point that any number of things could be the catalyst - the whole book he's struggling with his growing powers, why not try and reach too far in the firefight with the bounty hunters, his anger and frustration with himself in not doing enough trigger the dark side temptation? It would work thematically and doesn't involve a fridging that ultimately has very little payoff.

Because Nakari is killed less than ten pages from the end of the book - afterwards Luke grieves, but ultimately chooses to honour her memory and be grateful for what he learned with her, recommitting to becoming a Jedi. It's all very surface level, and once again a female character's death facilitates a male character's development. Was it so imperative that Luke lost someone he cared about as part of this story? Sure, this was a time of galactic civil war, and it's far from unrealistic that these stories have a high body count, but who to make collateral damage remains an authorial choice, and in this case Nakari Kelen was (a) a female character of color, (b) a love interest of the protagonist - not just of this book, but the entire Original Trilogy.

I don't know to what extent (if any) race had to play in the decision. I'm sure there was a segment of the fandom absolutely livid that Luke Skywalker kissed (and maybe had sex with) a black woman. Was her death LFL hedging its bets, or demonstrative of the general lack of attention/respect they show their characters of colour?

In any case this was a chance to stand out from the old EU and it's fridge full of Luke's dead girlfriends, but instead they chose to introduce and kill off Nakari for the sole purpose of Luke's manpain and character development, and that's gross.

And then there's this:

A grisly yet reliable fact about custom bounty hunter ships is that you can always count on them to have body bags stashed somewhere for the easy transport of their kills. They often have built-in refrigerated storage, too.

NAKARI IS KILLED AND LITERALLY STORED IN THE FUCKING FRIDGE I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT I WAS READING.

I really hope this was unintentional on Hearne's part, because yikes. He was halfway there, this book was full of interesting female characters who had agency - Drusil in particular was a delight with her super math and inability to understand human interaction. Nakari was full of life and fun - capable but relatable, showing a different side of the Rebellion and those that suffered under the Empire's rule. Fridging her in her first appearance is considerably more vile, because it reduces her to a footnote of Luke's story, a plot device to Help Him Grow, rather than a springboard to tell more of her own story.

Because Nakari was a compelling character ripe for spinoff potential. I would absolutely have read or watched her continued adventures, juggling missions for her father's Biolabs company and trying to aid the Rebellion, shooting her slug rifle and cracking wise, maybe even finding a way to amplify her mother's song Vader's Many Prosthetic Parts to really stick it to the Empire, or try and free the political prisoners on Kessel.

The old EU was made great by allies and enemies of Our Heroes showing up again to help or hinder them, and/or branching out into their own material. We fell in love with them, and followed their stories even as they diverged from the main saga, eager to read more about their lives.

Nakari Kelen never got that chance. In many ways, she exemplified what Disney Star Wars was to become: an exercise in wasted potential.

#star wars #star wars meta #heir to the jedi #nakari kelen #luke skywalker #fridging #it's cold in that fridge #star wars expanded universe #nucanon

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