#this has come up in the comments on reddit so for the record
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DDADDS as Content Creators (headcanons)
I don't know why I had this idea, but here you go!
have some content-creating DDADDS :3
Brian Harding
technically Brian doesn’t have a channel. Daisy just records him and posts it to TikTok.
it is all camping, fishing, and general outdoors videos. except the lawncare videos, which are actual tutorials.
Daisy actually makes these tiktoks look really nice and high-quality, even if Brian is not that good of an actor. he’s trying his best, but it actually works. surprisingly, she never really shows up on camera. it’s all Brian here
has a lot of fans of his fishing for… aesthetic reasons. yeah, aesthetic reasons. the aesthetic reason being that he is shirtless in almost all of them. and that he is obviously very confident in his body.
his lawncare videos get the same amount of views, but for vastly different reasons. all of the lawn-caring dads enter his TikTok comment section whenever he posts and they either compliment him or start discourse on which weedwhacker is the best.
surprisingly, Brian has some of the most followers out of all of the dads. he even ends up doing some lawn equipment giveaways.
Craig Cahn
it’s all fitness all day with Craig. he has a TikTok and an Instagram.
he posts a lot about his business, softball coaching, healthy recipes, and once again fitness.
he has fallen for the “can you fitness dick in your mouth” joke at least 12 times by now. he keeps falling for it. help him please
completely avoids drama not only to keep away extra stress, but also because there’s literally nothing you can really yell at him for. unless you hate his recipes
probably has a series where he tries out a bunch of popular healthy recipes and rates them on a 5-star scale.
he has a LOT of followers for a LOT of reasons. good video quality, good recipes, he’s entertaining, a good father, and all of the softball moms\dads love him.
Damien Bloodmarch
plenty of Victorian recipes, fashion, and general taxidermy. he’s got a Youtube channel and a Tiktok, but he’s more comfortable with the YouTube format.
he edits all of his videos and he’s Really, Really good at it to the point where he offers to edit videos for other dads. so he’s both a YouTuber and a freelance editor.
probably gets the most sponsorships out of all the dads
has a very welcoming and kind community that he interacts with over Tumblr and Reddit. he has a Twitter but he just doesn’t use it
his space is 100% drama-free. unless you are arguing about historical accuracy.
he has an entire series rating the historical accuracy of anything Victorian; from clothes to books to recipes and more. it doesn’t stop. he will post these forever.
he manages to make a LOT of money off of this, to the point where he gets to quit his IT job altogether and gets to have more fun.
Damien really loves getting recognized by fans and always expresses his appreciation in his videos whenever he can.
Lucien shows up in his food videos sometimes, but only to eat the food and to mildly bully him on-camera. the comments call him low-rent Gerard Way and he does Not appreciate it.
Hugo Vega
he has a small YouTube channel that consists of book reviews and nothing else. until he eventually gains more popularity, that is.
there is very, very little editing on the earlier videos and it shows. Ernest refuses to help him. all of his students refuse to help him. dadsona cannot help him. please help him. he cannot edit
he uploads very rarely (once a month, maybe twice during summer months), but his videos are actually very well-scripted and well-performed. sometimes Ernest comes in to purposefully ruin his recording session, and it works every time.
eventually he somehow manages to bag Damien as his editor, and the video quality goes up significantly from there. Damien even buys Hugo better equipment and gives him advice.
he started out covering just older lesser-known works from the 18th century. somewhere along the way, he made a single video on poorly written YouTuber books and it Exploded in popularity. that’s when he started shifting towards being a bit more of a commentary channel, with Damien’s technological help of course.
some people have called him “the old librarian version of Kurtis Conner” and he doesn’t know what it means until he looks up Kurtis Conner. then he understands.
somehow he becomes well-versed in internet discourse and makes videos about it, with full-length video essays of a pretty high quality.
he doesn’t forget his literature roots, though — he still makes plenty of content on literature and art history, even if they make less views. he enjoys doing it and that’s what matters.
he always blushes when he gets recognized in public and he is way too polite to turn down a signature or photo. one time a wrestler he likes recognized him and he almost fainted from pure joy.
Joseph Christiansen
by far the most controversial of all. (\j its Robert)
just kidding it’s all baking. his TikTok is just a gay tradwife’s dream.
the man is just trying to be hip with the kids. he even dresses up as Ken after the Barbie movie premiere and makes a cake about it. this is actually his most popular video and it gets millions of views & likes
his community is Christian. mainly because he’s Christian. just that sometimes he attracts the mean Christians. he gets a lot of hate comments from them but he just deletes them and moves on with minimal worry or stress
besides that, his community is pretty supportive and full of a combo Christian mothers and Christian queers. most of his audience are 25+ but there is a sizeable portion that is under the age of 25, so technically he got what he wanted
the videos are of a fine quality, even though he’s not really an editor. like everyone else who can’t edit themselves, he just asks Damien very nicely to edit for him
he shows his kids in videos semi-often, but it’s really just because they either mess with him while he’s recording and he doesn’t know how to edit it out, or he has them try the food afterwards. it’s a win-win scenario for the kids
Mary refuses to show her face in any of the videos whatsoever and steers clear of the kitchen whenever Joseph is recording in there.
the kids at church all know him from his TikTok but either say nothing about it or actively make fun of him for it.
Mat Sella
posts baking and recipes to TikTok, along with promotion stuff for The Coffee Spoon. it was Carmensita’s idea and he just ran with it because it’s fun for both of them
Carmensita is the one behind the camera (or tripod) while Mat bakes, and sometimes she appears on camera when she wants to try the food. Pablo helps him edit and do other promotional videos. sometimes Pablo is seen helping in the videos too.
he always gets really anxious after posting it but the second that the positive comments and likes roll in, he’s completely relaxed.
any food he bakes on TikTok he sells at the Coffee Spoon, so it’s actually extremely useful at getting people to come and buy stuff. eventually people are mostly coming over for the food but also order a coffee because “may as well”
has a very positive comments section that consists mostly of people really wanting to go to Massachusetts just to order the food and give him a kiss on the forehead.
he has been called a babygirl at least twice and he has no clue what it means. Pablo and Carmensita refuse to tell him.
has done multiple collabs with Joseph and Damien, along with sharing tips with them. they’re all internet besties.
is recognized pretty often, and he’s always in-between being an anxious mess and being a really cool chill guy about it.
Robert Small
by far the least consistent and most unhinged out of all of them, for obvious reasons. he’s a TikToker solely because the format is easy for him, but he also just uploads all of his content straight to YouTube
he either posts 5 times a day or twice a month. there’s no in between.
it will be of the most random shit. one day you get him rating brands of whiskey, and next week there’s a 12 part series of him going cryptid hunting. all of it is unedited and of very poor audio quality if he’s outside
he probably visited the Goatman’s Bridge after the Buzzfeed Unsolved and also bullied the Goatman and took the bridge for himself. the only difference is that he’s drunkenly yelling at the Goatman and calling him a bitch.
he’s always at least a little intoxicated in all of his videos, and some cases he is fully drunk. he doesn’t really put an act on for the camera, he’s really just himself, completely unfiltered.
90% of his YouTube videos are either age-restricted, demonetized, or both. some of his TikToks get taken down but he always reuploads them because he is a very stubborn old man and he refuses to stop.
Robert probably has a maximum of 200 followers. he does not respond to his comments unless someone insults his whiskey or pineapple on pizza. he also responds to weird internet slang.
he doesn’t get any sponsorships. and he never will. and he doesn’t want them. the sponsorships also don’t want him. he has made multiple videos where he goes on rants about ads and how much he hates capitalism.
whenever someone in his TikTok comments calls him a blorbo he responds with a video of his honest reaction. he is confused. they also call him a poor little meow meow. he is confused. they also call him babygirl. he is still confused.
when he gets recognized in public he has no clue how to act. mainly because he very, very rarely gets recognized. his own neighbors are surprised when they find out he is a content creator.
eventually he will get recognized more, because his content is a comedy goldmine, albeit very unintentional. most of his fans are actually Gen Z, because his humor fits in pretty damn well. he is always slightly unsettled when teenagers recognize him because sometimes he forgets that young people do in fact watch his content. even though most of his viewers are half his age or less.
eventually Val finds his channel and dies laughing and confronts him about it (post reconnecting), because she never knew about it and she wants to be in those videos too because it’s fun. just some father & daughter fun: getting drunk and taking a walk in the forest being silly.
--
I actually really love doing these headcanons and i hope you do too :3
#ddadds#dream daddy a dad dating simulator#dream daddy#game grumps#ddadds headcanons#dream daddy headcanons#headcanons#general headcanons#ddadds fanart#hugo vega#robert small#brian harding#craig cahn#joseph christiansen#damien bloodmarch#mat sella
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Jeronica Endgame Analysis
I wrote this on Reddit and have been meaning to bring it over here. But commenting on @elizacinnamon's tumblr is what convinced me to do it. Buckle up because it's a long one!
Okay so, looking at all of the easter eggs in the episode, to me, it's heavily coded that Betty and Archie do end up together and that Jughead and Veronica end up together. The first thing that should be acknowledge is that everything in this episode is done with a purpose. They couldn't definitively say who Archie ended up with because Archie comics is predicated on the unanswered question of "Betty or Veronica?" so they had to make things "ambiguous" so people could come to their own conclusions.
When we hear of Veronica's life, Jughead says that she was known for her "impeccable taste" and "produced some of the most iconic movies of our time". So, right there, that's huge. That's a lot of heavy lifting. While he is complimentary and sensitive to everyone else's ending, the way he describes Veronica's life is just more. Take Fangs, he doesn't describe "Pixie Girl" as a "timeless" or "iconic" song. He just says that Midge and their daughter were taken care of and that his gold record will hang as long as there is a Riverdale High. He doesn't mention if Kevin or Clay won any awards for their work, but he says that Veronica won two Oscars. He goes out of his way to note the importance of Veronica's achievements.
The scene at The Babylonium is where I've found the most clues to their shared future. Jughead says "I always loved this theater". He doesn't say that about any of the other places they visit. Throughout the show, they regularly used characters to represent overarching themes. For example, Archie = Riverdale. I take Jughead's declaration to be a euphemism for Veronica. It's not that farfetched to believe that they fell in love while in high school. They were together for a year and a half before graduation. So, in the scene, he says "I always loved this theater. But it had a good run." At this time, in reality, both Veronica and Jughead have passed. Their run ended. He then lifts the seat and HIS CROWN is drawn under it! Why? This is a quick visual cue that he and Veronica are connected. If the Babylonium is a physical representation of Veronica (which is what the episode frames it as) then she essentially has a Jughead tattoo on her (a bit of a dramatic way of putting it lol). But, also this is not the first time something like that is in the show. In season 1 and 2, Betty wears a sweater with a yellow three pronged crown. It's universally recognized as Jughead's crown (she wears it on his birthday and in the Heather's musical episode). So, he makes his statement and BAM Veronica appears. Every time we see a character that isn't in the "relived day", it is a clip of them in the future. Veronica is the only character to essentially be an apparition. They didn't have to include her, but they did. And seeing as it's Narrator!Jughead (the real/angel Jughead is in the Pop's in the Sweet Hereafter, and the show literally ends with typewriter sounds) telling Betty all of this, Veronica's appearance can be taken as a clue that she is ever present in his mind/life.
When we see her in her office, she has four "The Comet" posters behind her. Hanging posters of the movies you made is very common. What isn't common is that one franchise has such a place of honor, so that means it's incredibly significant to her. Her clothing is in the style of the early 80s (the creators had an idea to bring everyone through time with each episode but it wasn't feasible so this is kind of a nod to that. Cheryl is seen in the late 60s, Betty in the 70s, and Veronica is the early 80s). We know that Jughead adapted The Comet into a comic book, and he was the one that introduced her to WEB DuBois' people. The artwork of the posters is the same as the comic he created. Making movies at that time was very time-consuming. Also, franchises like that were not common. The whole "Saga", "Trilogy", and "Universe" collections of today were not done to the same extent back then. So, not only was "The Comet" incredibly popular (because it got four movies) but it spanned over a large time frame (again, she still has the posters up decades after graduation via her clothing style), meaning that there was a consistent dialogue between Jughead and Veronica.
Outside of the Babylonium is a poster for "The Big Sleep" (It's also on the Marquis). This is a direct reference to the episode "The Red Dahlia" (3x14) where Veronica enlists Jughead's help. It is one of the main "Jeronica" episodes of the series. In that episode he says that he'll be her "Philip Marlowe". In The Big Sleep, Philip Marlowe is the main character played by Humphrey Bogart. In the same episode he says "Nice hat... Bacall." Lauren Bacall is the female lead of The Big Sleep. Bogart and Bacall were a huge draw for audiences. They were a power couple of their day (and they were also married... hint hint lol). They were the Bennifer and Brangelina first.
Now, moving onto Jughead. He doesn't talk much about himself. Everything that Betty says can literally be read on screen in his obituary. There are two main takeaways from this scene. The first is he barely talks about himself. When he does, he focuses on talking about his career and there's no mention of his personal life. This is a parallel to Veronica's description. He only describes her career and not her personal life. What is also a parallel is that in his summary of Veronica's life he says that she was known for "taking risks on young, raw talent" ie Jughead. Jughead tells Betty that he "put all of his eggs in one basket". That turn of phrase is to mean that you did the riskiest thing possible. When Betty asks if he ever regrets not getting circled he says 'sometimes'. It's a very ambiguous statement. BH shippers will say that he is talking about Betty. But his relationship with Betty ended in high school (both times) and were never rekindled later in life. It doesn't have to be that regrets not marrying Veronica, but it can be taken that way.
The second is on the artist easel in the Madhouse offices. There is a picture of Veronica. It is not a photograph it is the canonical comic book portrait of Veronica (Pep Comics IS Archie Comics). And it is smack dab in the middle of the easel. This is another parallel to Veronica's future. She has "The Comet" posters and he has her portrait. Remember, his first comic book line that he created was "Veronica: The Teenage Witch". So this is a clue that he has used Veronica's likeness IN his magazine for most, if not all of, the run. There's no picture of Betty or Archie. Why still have Veronica's portrait and use her likeness if they weren't still connected in real life?
Now we come to the final scene. So, throughout all of Riverdale (with a few exceptions) the milkshakes that the core four drink all correspond to their hair color. Betty = Vanilla, Archie = Strawberry, Jughead and Veronica = Chocolate (double chocolate to be specific - which can be extrapolated to represent them. It's a stretch but it can be made). In the final moments, we see that this formula has been flipped. When Betty sits in the booth, Archie is drinking a Vanilla milkshake and he hands Betty a strawberry one noting it's "her favorite". What are Jughead and Veronica drinking? Double chocolate milkshakes. If in the Barchie Endgame theory Strawberry being Betty's "favorite" is to mean "Archie" then we can apply that same logic to Jughead and Veronica. Then there is their seating arrangement. The girls on one side and the boys on the other. Betty is sitting directly in front of Archie and Veronica is sitting directly in front of Jughead. Again, because they had to keep the "Who will Archie choose?" answer ambiguous they use this blocking technique to show the pairings without the pair sitting right next to each other. (Couples either sit next to each other or across from one another.)
That is my analysis of the finale using clues to prove that Jughead and Veronica were "endgame". I hope you liked it! If you have any corroborating theories let me know!
#riverdale#jughead jones#veronica lodge#jeronica#vughead#Endgame#riverdale season 7#7x20#Riverdale is so bad it's GENIUS
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Sarah Z released a new video on Buffy Season 6 - looks like she isn't the only one doing a recent Buffy binge, great minds Sarah! Given her long track record as a Buffy lover I give her props for finally going all in and making a project of it. As is going to be a surprise to no one, I am pretty middling on this video - lets go to the random thoughts:
--- My first comment on this was going be a bit of a question mark around its title, "In Defense of Buffy's Most Hated Season". Season 6? Most hated? Sure you not thinking of Season 4? Or Season 1? Season 6 is very consistently ranked as a higher Season by most - no Season 5 or 3, sure, but normally top 3 or 4. Its a bit of a "cultural baggage" idea - because of, hm, reasons, it was an extremely controversial season back in the day. But removed from its airing that drama faded away, and particularly given that season 6's musical episode is one of the most lasting legacies of the show, now it stands on its merits and is generally liked. Sarah even almost accidentally cops to that with one of her example reddit posts, from a Season 6 hater but who frames that as a hot take:
However, looks like we agree, because Sarah changed the name of the video! Now its called "You Should Watch Buffy Season 6". I respect and empathize, honestly, realizing the cultural consensus has changed can take some time.
--- For a movie review about defending Season 6, it actually spends half of its analytical run-time criticizing it. And I was not swayed by these - which I am sad about, I have my critiques of the season too. Just trying to explain why the following thoughts are about criticisms, given the title.
--- Does anyone out there interpret Riley's departure in Season 5, and one-episode return in Season 6, as Buffy "losing a good man, and being shown the life she could have had married to him if she didn't screw up"? Because that is what Sarah thinks, and that to me is a buck wild take. Riley is not a subtle character, its pretty much a defining trait of his. Pretty sure his departure in Season 5 is him leaving a bad relationship, that is bad for him and Buffy, and Buffy realizing too late that she was letting pride and self-involvement get in the way of fixing it. Not that it necessarily could be fixed, or should be, just that that was the source. And in season 6 - this to me can't be any clearer - Riley's point in returning is to highlight that he, who was in an awful place in Season 5, got better. He got over it. He's strong even when he doesn't look it. And Buffy is too. She will get over it. Its why she breaks up with Spike at the end of the episode - Buffy realizes she is still strong, she can be way she 'used' to be. It does not forgive Riley's mistakes, or is even about any of that? This is a very weird take. Honestly I want to know if others have this take, tell me if you do.
--- This very weird take by the way comes from the "misogyny" moments that the video constantly alludes to, which tie back into Joss Whedon's behavior, which I want to flag here. I'll admit that from what I have seen of the evidence, while Joss does come off like a huge asshole on set, I actually haven't seen much of a case for a lot more than that. Some people see him as this like uber-predator and I don't know where that is coming from. So I might be biased a bit here, lacking that heft of conviction.
But I still think this is generally correct - someone's personal behavior is an extremely imperfect reflection of their writing chops. Some of the most insightful prose of all time was writing for crass monetization; serial abusers have written, in spades, the most complex and well-realized victim protagonists. Writing is a skill, not a morality trait. Personal action impacts writing, sure, but not in ways that *align* with morality. The fact that Joss Whedon was an asshole on set does not mean the writing on Buffy reflects misogynist abuse. Xander isn't a misogynist - when he is mad at Anya for sleeping with Spike he is portrayed by the narrative as a clear asshole. Riley isn't portrayed as a perfect boyfriend, dude fucking pays vampires to bite him! This all in your head! You don't have to like prove Joss Whedon is a bad dude through textual analysis. His work can still be #girlboss feminism, there is no contradiction there.
--- This will be brief, but I feel like we are past the weird 2010's hiccup of thinking "fridging" is a problem, right? This is about Tara's death, ofc. Stories aren't real life, in stories some characters are way more important than others. Side characters exist, very often, to further the arcs of those main characters. One of them dying as part of a main character's arc is completely normal. Its weird I feel I have to explain this; I don't really, right?
Tara is not killed off on a whim; she dies because Willow has a season-long arc of tipping over the edge on magic power, its a lot about her relationship with Tara, and her death pushes her over the brink. I'll admit I find Dark!Willow's execution to be a bit weak, but that's its own problem; the motive is solid. This is how stories work.
--- Additionally, I think there is a big, but a bit unnoticed, shift in what "works" in media around character deaths. When Joss Whedon killed Tara in Buffy - and more notably killed Wash in Serenity - he was doing a deliberate "no one is safe" thing. It became a meme, actually!
Meme-ing about Joss Whedon man, right there in the garbage dumb of the past alongside Harry Potter memes shitting on Twilight thinking its the better franchise; life comes at you fast. But anyway this was a "big thing" to happen - audiences were shocked by it! It had dramatic impact.
Then Game of Thrones happened and this got turned up to 11, and the general plot twist even more of a meme. But meanwhile, TV changed in the background; entire seasons were getting dumped at once on streaming, everything was becoming "high context" with actors live tweeting their own set experiences, fandoms got more involved and contextual, "water-cooler" shows everyone was talking about faded due to audience separation, all sorts of shit. Which meant that the "kill a main character" thing stopped being powerful - it was overplayed, spoilers were more common, it didn't "air" as a standalone episode everyone talked about. The reason to kill off a character to raise the stakes faded away.
Which means when people go back and say things like "oh I loved Tara why kill her", its...well for one Amber Benson wanted to leave the show. But additionally you can't see the power it had in 2002. TV was different then, it wanted different things.
--- To give something positive, while I think Spike's attempted rape of Buffy is a strong writing choice - very in character for Spike, and its fine that it is primarily about his arc and not Buffy's because its a story, that is how these things work - I do agree that Buffy's response to the event is just not explored enough. It comes up multiple times of course, even in Season 7, but it also gets swamped by plot events in Season 6 with Willow, its not given room to breathe.
This imo relates to the fact that the pacing of the event is a bit wonky - Spike & Buffy had been on the outs for many episodes at that point, there wasn't this strong inciting incident for it. If it had happened much closer to their breakup, in a more focused arc, it would have had more narrative impact and allowed time for both of them to respond to it. I get that they had a lot of plot balls to juggle at that point, but still, missed opportunity I think.
Okay I had more thoughts but I am tired, I think that covers my most interesting complaints/observations anyway.
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author self-recommendation
thank you so much for the tag (quite a long time in the past...) @ashesandhackles!
when you get this, reply with your five favourite fics that you've written. then pass it on to five other writers. spread some self love.
did i laugh at self love? the answer is yes.
these are my five (and by five i mean six) favourite complete fics - obviously i’m sufficiently fond of my wips to keep coming back to them, no mean feat for someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - and i’m hyped to get to showcase them.
bookbinding
tom riddle/myrtle warren
teen | 35k words
lord voldemort and moaning myrtle in a rom-com - and especially a rom-com with a happy ending - may not appear to be the instinctive response to a prompt from @ladiesofhpfest asking for heartthrobs and heartaches. and yet, when i started writing it i couldn’t stop. my profound affection for dear old tom marvolo riddle is well known, but i’ve also always been very fond of myrtle, and i really dislike the way she’s treated in the canon narrative - especially, as i’ve said before, the fact that she is one of the worst victims of jkr’s tendency to use a lack of conventional physical attractiveness (and, in particular, fatness) to indicate characters the reader is not supposed to root for.
i like the fact that the glimpses of myrtle we see in the series - when she’s not shrieking (behaviour, may i say, i find relatable) - show someone who has lots of admirable traits, which are only poorly expressed because she’s forever fourteen (can you imagine). she’s kind, she’s perceptive, she’s strong-willed, she’s sensitive, she’s assertive. on the other hand, she’s clearly very lonely, she can be extremely clingy, she’s unhappy at hogwarts, she’s insecure. she’s also someone with a bit of a cruel streak, who clearly understands the impulse to externalise one’s own self-loathing onto other people.
in other words, she’s tom’s dream girl. once she’s worn him down a bit.
i loved writing this, i made myself chuckle self-indulgently on multiple occasions, i have teared up at dozens of the comments i have received about it (someone made a reddit post recommending it at exactly the moment i was leaving a horrendous day at work and i was on the train howling like myrtle in her u-bend), and i like to imagine the two of them are still happy nonagenarians in some universe somewhere.
everlasting ink
harry potter/ginny weasley
teen | 6k words
this was a gift for @whinlatter, because she is a sweetie-pie. it was also a gift for me - not only because it was lovely to write, but because it enabled me to indulge in one of my favourite emotions: spite.
i am on the record as not being a fan of hinny. there are several reasons for this, some sillier than others, but one major one is that harry’s idealisation of ginny within the seven book canon into a place of comfort and safety is pretty fucking condescending. harry never acknowledges in the text that ginny spends deathly hallows as a resistance leader in her own right, he's constantly trying to direct her away from the fighting despite acknowledging generally that she is a talented duellist, he associates her primarily with the safe-space of the burrow, he breaks up with her ‘for her own protection’ without offering her a choice in the matter, he doesn’t welcome her into his intensely co-dependent relationship with ron and hermione, and - and i think this really is the kicker - he's incredibly dismissive of her experience with tom riddle. indeed, harry separates the voldemort of canon out into two people: there’s tom, who is an orphan, and is hot, and whom harry pities; and there's voldemort, who has red eyes, no nose, and killed his parents. but ginny can’t have these two separate people in her head. the horror she experienced came at the hands of the pretty, charming, sympathetic voldemort - and harry really doesn’t get that. and sure, by the epilogue harry and ginny appear to have ended up in a happy, equal marriage. but the text never shows us how they get there, and i think it’s perfectly plausible to write stuff in which they don’t.
which is to say, i published an extremely tongue-in-cheek post saying this, and several hinny fans were amusingly passive-aggressive about it. undoubtedly they thought my position as a tomarry defender had scrambled my brain and i couldn’t see the beauty with which the complex parts of their favourite ship could be written.
so i did it. six thousand words on ginny and harry learning to function as a couple among the dust of war and grief, featuring ginny’s complicated feelings on how harry sees her, voldemort, being a daughter and a mother, relating to ron and hermione, heredity, love, and what being a family really means. i enjoyed writing it, and the chance it gave me to think from the other side about what hinny would need to work, how the characterisations of harry and ginny (and voldemort!) i typically write could be nuanced, and what trauma looks like in the immediate aftermath of the battle of hogwarts. and i also enjoyed writing it to prove that i could.
that i have received no reciprocal tomarry in return has been noted…
leather
nymphadora tonks/multiple
explicit | 3k words
this was something which spiralled out of a conversation with @evesaintyves around the blind-spots many of us have as authors when thinking about sexuality and gender identity - and especially how those blind-spots become particularly pronounced when they come up against canon compliancy. initially, we were talking about hinny - and the fact that keeping them as end-game has absolutely no reason to prevent either of them identifying as queer, either of them exploring their sexuality or gender identity within their relationship, or, indeed, either of them still understanding themselves as cisgender by the time the epilogue takes place - but we then moved on to talking about tonks, and how the readably queer aspects of her canon characterisation (at least in order of the phoenix) are treated within many of the popular ships which feature her, and, in particular, how both her and lupin’s (potential) queerness is sometimes obscured within end-game remadora. there are numerous reasons for this, and the vast majority are - of course - the result of gentle, human fallibility rather than maliciousness, but it set me to thinking…
so here we have a canon-compliant look at tonks looking at herself, exploring her sexuality, becoming comfortable with her gender, and thinking about how her metamorphing would impact how she understands both of those things, shot through with the hedonistic paradise of the lesbian bar and the tight hold of leather.
lux aurumque
sirius black & james potter
teen | 3.5k words
sirius’ last days of normality, before he is betrayed by wormtail, haunt me. the idea of this poor lad, who is absolutely convinced he’s pulled a blinder which will keep the man he loves safe - even if it results in his own death - having that certainty pulled out from under him is just devastating. no wonder he couldn’t stop laughing at the grim absurdity of it all as they carried him off to azkaban.
one of the things i find most fascinating about sirius as a character is how he embodies the value of choice - and, above all, how he does so far more than james, whose brief appearances in canon set him up as someone with a much more self-righteous certainty about the path he will take than his best friend. sirius chose to leave his family, and fight, and protect the potters, and he also made a choice which would prove to be disastrous and lives with the consequences.
so, here we have seven dawns which change sirius black - or, red and gold for the man who chose those colours and earned them several times over - featuring harry being a mashed potato fiend and maybe the tiniest bit of prongsfoot if you squint.
there’s basically no lupin though, because he is - i fear - irrelevant.
nor all that glisters gold
sirius black & bellatrix lestrange
teen | 9k words
i am definitely a committed james & sirius (or james/sirius) girly, but another dynamic i love to explore is sirius’ relationship with his cousins, bellatrix chief among them. in fact, i always think that sirius’ choices become all the more impressive when we consider that he’s - let’s be honest - quite a lot like his dear and deranged relative. they have a shared arrogance, a shared ruthlessness, a shared deranged jealousy, a shared dogged loyalty, and a shared complicated relationship with their role in their family, which i can see leading to an incredibly intense and codependent friendship, despite their age gap, when sirius is a child.
but this, of course, is then utterly torn apart when sirius enters his teens. this piece asks why. is it just the inevitable drifting which happens when one of you is married and the other is in gryffindor? or is someone else the cause? the dark lord, perhaps?
remus lupin is once again irrelevant in this. sorry to him.
the shack at the end of the lane
merope gaunt & voldemort
general | 4k words
death is something i think about a great deal. not because i’m unusually morbid - nor, at the risk of protesting too much, because i’m a killer - but because i’m a doctor, in a speciality where death - and often death in traumatic circumstances - is ever present. obviously, one way of coping with this involves quite a lot of dissociation from what’s in front of you, but another is trying to treat the dead with as much dignity as possible, which is often more dignity than they had when they were dying. the cadaver is a colleague, as one of my professors was fond of saying.
spending so much time trying to offer this fundamental dignity is the cause, i think, of my fondness for attempting to write meaningfully about people who are in no way the heroes of pieces. the violent, the sad, the lonely, and the unlikeable appeal to me far more than the good. our star, merope gaunt, and the combined forces of the horrifying things she did to tom riddle sr. and the horrifying things she endured herself within a world which didn’t give her the tools to know any better, is all four of those things. and i have built her an (after)life here where she can try to make up for what she did on earth by acting as the ferrywoman for a procession of other lost souls on the other side of the veil...
i have taken so long to bother doing this that i’m sure everyone’s done it. if not, please consider this a blanket tag.
#asenora fic recs#hp fic recs#bookbinding#everlasting ink#leather#lux aurumque#nor all that glisters gold#the shack at the end of the lane#tom riddle x myrtle warren#hinny#nymphadora tonks#sirius black#bellatrix lestrange#merope gaunt
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Are street interviews more like… respectful in China? Because I know in America street interviews are usually just like a guy harassing random people on the street without permission but is it different on douyin? Because you’ve posted a couple street interviews and people seem way less awkward and uncomfortable in them
Idk I don't really watch American street interviews. The purpose of douyin street interviews is generally to be funny or ask pop culture questions, not to create gotcha moments or offend people, plus Chinese netizens would tear someone to pieces if they made those awkward off-putting interviews (the ones I think you're talking about? Like from tiktok? With the fuckboy or reddit types doing the interviewing?).
Funny street interviews have been a trend this year (or last year, 2022) although some people still find them rude to be honest.
Since the douyins are supposed to be funny and are probably clipped to just include the best moments and the people who provide the most accommodating reactions anyway. Some of the interviews are slightly scripted as well—usually the interviewer + interviewee agreeing on a question & responses ahead of time, or the interviewer interviewing someone they actually know. Some viewers still find the interviews offensive, but I've yet to see any interviews that are actually mean-spirited (imo)
🍵 relevant douyin drama time (no, i am not above this 🍉👀) (finally, an outlet for my gossip)
This guy I've posted a couple times got in trouble in November (iirc) because he interviewed some girl and she got offended and it turned out she was also a douyin user with a moderate following (i don't remember her username but it was Princess soemthing or other) and she sent all her followers to his channel to attack him 😵💫. He had asked her if she was a Calabash baby because she was wearing a tiara crown headband thing that sort of looked triangular like what they wear:
she was evidentally insulted and made a whole video bashing his conduct . Mostly I'd say he got some rightful criticism because it turned out he hadn't had her sign a release or didn't get a verbal agreement filmed although he apologised under her video and then posted an apology on his channel as well, also promising he would always get a release agreement in the future and basically saying he didn't realise in the moment she was so deeply insulted the way she described in her video because her friends that were with her were laughing (💀) so he thought it was fine to post. (she shit talked him in the comment of his video which was a notes app slideshow LOL and accused him of continued bad behavior (basically didn't read his apology ); sort of a childish follow up but maybe being asked if she was a calabash baby was really that violating. I try not to make light of such things but she was a grown woman so I have to 🙄 a little. i mean the calabash brothers kick ass, first of all?? also I did see that video before it got deleted and her clip just seemed like whatever. i remember that originally the interviewer went up to her friend to ask a question and then she said something so he turned the mic to her and asked the infamous calabash question. and then she sort of gave him the stink eye over her shoulder while her two friends laughed and pulled her along.
side note tea was that in the douyin lady's follow up video about the drama some of her followers tagged this guy i have also posted before and said his were the only non-offensive street interviews because his were scripted (for the record I seriously doubt all of his interviews are scripted) and that all street interviews should be scripted otherwise they were taking advantage of people. and enough people tagged him that he showed up in the comment section and said something (sort of greasy imo) about how what the first guy did was wrong and he would never offend mei-nvs like that which was really rich coming from him imo LOL.
anyway all of this stuff has been deleted. the first guy privated a lot of videos for a while bc the comment sections were just that lady's followers attacking him for being a horrible person and finding issue with other interview clips where he asked women questions (even ones where the interviewee was laughing and not giving him an instant stink eye like the one girl). he went back to posting stuff after a week and hasn't had any other issues.
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Internet Hcs About the Evans
i don’t know. read it
warning: like everything language mentions of porn idk dont read it if ur gonna be like ew stop being lewd
Tate: Knows the fnaf lore. Specifically watched Markiplier play it and also a Sally Face fan like hardcore and kins both Sal and Larry equally. Has a Tumblr acc but it’s only to interact w fanart of fnaf and sally face and like idk follow other fan accs he’s one of those empty accs with some random ass username no posts no bio no prof pic just his name in lowercase. has a deviantart?? again doesn’t post just to look at fanart he’s really into fanart and almost gets into reading fanfiction about his various interests but ultimately decides against it cuz i feel like violet would clown on him for it if she ever found out
Kit: Has an insta but it’s private with like 27 followers and it’s all like just his family and friends and sometimes when his friends post he’ll comment something like ‘Looking good bud ��’ and then disappears from the internet for another month or two until he gets a notif that his wife posted or something. too scared to go on twitter and i don’t blame him. for the most part he just doesn’t understand how the internet works and has no intentions of finding out so he leaves it alone. he also has a facebook but same rules apply with the instagram only ever goes on to hype up his wife and kids and sometimes friends
Kyle: frat boy sorry cuz i don’t imagine frankenkyle can fathom the internet anyway i feel like kyle gets into debates online like way too much and he sees nothing wrong w the fact that he’s like actively searching out bigots to give a piece of his mind to. he’s got a tiktok and only follows like racist sexist ppl so his feed is full or opportunities to curse someone out digitally. he’s also got a twitter thats almost been banned a lot. he’s completely anonymous w it tho and his insta is completely regular he’s got like maybe 900-1000 followers just of like his friends and frat guys from his own or other frats and a bunch of girls who asked for his insta cuz they thought he was cute even though he never replies to flirty dms. he WOULD have several white boy went fishing posts and you guys can’t argue w me on this ok i wrote too much for him. he definitely has a lot of girls commenting every time he posts and i think his brothers would give him a lot of shit for not ‘jumping on that shit’ but he’s all like ‘oh i’m old fashioned u know i’m not like that’ has an active snapchat that he adds stories to all the time but once again never responds to messages
Jimmy: he has an account on instagram, twitter, probably facebook but they’re all mostly like linked to the freak show ykwim like he’d have like a verified checkmark but he only ever posts like freak show related announcements or like every now and then a little video that he records of him and some other ppl in the show behind the scenes and it’s captioned like ‘come see us (enter date here)’ and that’s pretty much it he’s not super big on being active in social media because he claims he has plenty of friends irl he doesn’t need fake robot friends. also may not know how the internet works
James: i mean sally runs the hotels official instagram page and all other socials and he probably has no idea that she’s doing that until he finds out she posted some image of video of him on one of the accounts and then some guests recognize him at the hotel and say like ‘omg ur that guy!!’ and he has no idea what it all means n shit. I think he would get a great kick out of instagram reels like non tiktok but you know how like a month after a trend happens on tiktok then it goes to reels? right like he eats that shit up he thinks its the funniest goddamn thing like funny cat videos or someshit
Kai: right so like we all know he trolls reddit and 4chan and posts rude reviews on thatcow. the kinda guy that kyle finds himself internet battling like this is the enemy he's been preparing for. he has a tiktok to stay relevant and he's just a comment section lurker 'user17896379' type shit he just likes various biggoted comments and occasionally replies just to start fights and shit. he's got a facebook and insta where he's totally normal tho like 'hey guys vote me for senate!!' again similar to kyle but like opposite ends of the same spectrum. i would love to view his search history. searches the most despicable things on p0rn websites every time he yanks it and i just am desperate to know what shit he's looking at
#evan peters fanfiction#evan peters#evan peters x you#evan peters x reader#tate langdon#kit walker#kyle spencer#jimmy darling#james march#kai anderson#american horror story#american horror story fanfiction#the evans#fanfiction#ahs fanfiction#ahs fandom
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Reddit Interview with Everbyte
-> On the occasion of Duskwood’s third birthday, Everbyte and the moderators of the r/Duskwood Reddit community came up with the idea of making an interview as a special.
I thought it would be nice to share the interview here for those who don’t have and use Reddit. However, if you have a profile there, make sure you go to the post and like and maybe leave a comment as a thank you for the effort.
Again: I have no rights to the interview and I just share it, all credits go to the Reddit moderators and Everbyte!
-> Here is the link again!
And now, let's go!
Who is Everbyte? How did you meet? Where did everything start? Introduce yourself!
Hello reddit! We’re Vanessa, Jan & Kevin better known as Everbyte. We first met at university where we studied media informatics. In 2016, we started to release games on Google Play and the iOS App Store. Most of them were kind of experimental and none of them has been successful. However, we’ve learned a lot with every project and kept improving. Then, Duskwood happened. Since the release of Episode 1, we didn’t do anything but workon Duskwood, for two and a half years straight.
What would you say were your main influences (be it video games, books, movies…) for making Duskwood?
We’re living in a small town surrounded by dense forest… sounds familiar, right? It is a two minute walk from our office to the edge of the Blackforest - which basically looks like a fantasy movie. This obviously inspired and influenced Duskwood a lot. Another influence worth mentioning is various works by Stephen King. Vanessa, our author, is a big fan.
Where does the idea of the legend come from? Did it maybe sprout from a real legend in your (home)town?
When Vanessa was a child, she was often told stories by her grandmother. These stories were passed down from generation to generation and were often scary or even cruel. Not the best bedtime material for kids, but Vanessa and her granny loved them. The legend in Duskwood is made up and is not based on facts … or is it?
Were characters based on anyone you know?
No, not directly. However, we would enjoy hanging out with them and hoped that others would enjoy their company as well.
Did you ever think you would end up casting your family, at the start of development?
We had absolutely no budget at all. So hiring professional actors was no option, but we were convinced we needed real people for Duskwood. We ended up making a list of friends and family members that we could see in each role and started calling them one by one. Luckily everyone agreed. We think they did very well!
What character do you resemble the most?
We sit in front of our PCs as much as Jake does. We enjoy good food as much as Cleo. We (try to) crack jokes like Richy. We sometimes cross a line in order to achieve our goals just like Lilly does … it depends on the situation.
Did you have any experience in film-making, directing and editing before Duskwood?
We studied media informatics, so this kind of stuff wasn’t completely new to us. However, having heard of things in theory and doing them is quite a big difference. The production quality has gone up a lot since episode 1, as we learned on our way up to episode 10.
How complex was it recording media in two languages?
Not complex at all - at least not for us. Our actors however are not used to speak English in daily life so they struggled quite a bit. We’re happy our players are a bit forgiving in this area.
Can you tell us roughly how many people were involved in helping with the development throughout the process, in addition to you three?
We usually cover the whole development process on our own. This goes from writing, programming, video- and audio editing, graphic design to support emails. We still do everything ourselves. An exception was the ending scene of episode 10 where we worked with a film crew of 8 additional people as the sets were quite complex.
What was the most challenging thing you faced during development?
This is hard to answer as there is quite frequently something that sets a new standard. Game development is quite demanding as everyone in our small team has to fulfill many roles. Needless to say, you can’t be an expert in every field, so usually one big challenge is followed by another.
What really takes it out on us are problems that occur during the release of a new episode. On release day of a new episode, it is almost guaranteed that problems arise, whether it is a bug in the game or something server-related. The fact that there is hundred thousands of people looking forward to this particular moment and are now unable to play (or worse) hits us different. These problems need to be solved asap under heavy pressure. These days always leave marks.
What is something about the game you are most proud of?
If we need to nail it down to one thing, it is the community. We’re blown away by how many people gather online and share their theories, thoughts, drawings, songs, memes, fan fiction, love letters, … you name it. We’re especially proud of how cohesive and supportive the community is.
What made you realize that Duskwood was taking off?
At first we started to see unusual increases in downloads, followed by many more emails than usual. Players started to send in suggestions and wishes, or simply messages to let us know how much they enjoyed the game. Our social media channels (like instagram) blew up and we started to receive written letters and gifts from all around the world. It is very touching for us to see how many people enjoy Duskwood, which is a huge motivation for us. Thank you!
Were you expecting such a response and the creation of big communities around the game?
No. Never. Some of you might have read the post Vanessa did a while ago on her instagram (@hen_with_pen). We were very close to giving up on our dream of making games. No one cared for what we did, let alone supported our developments by purchasing something. We couldn’t pay our bills and it was very obvious that we couldn’t afford making games any longer. Duskwood was basically our last attempt. However, Duskwood players were different. They showed their support in many ways and encouraged us to continue. None of us expected this and we’re very thankful for that - as we already said, the community is what we’re most proud of. It’s beyond our wildest dreams and we’re still not 100% convinced this isn’t just a dream.
What was it like for you and for the actors to notice that you had so many fans all around the world?
We’ve not been able to travel a lot in our lives unfortunately. And even for people who do travel a lot, there are too many places to be able to visit them all. However, most places have at least one Duskwood player, which kind of connects all of us. The world has gotten a lot smaller - in a positive way.
Did you feel under pressure when you noticed that the game was getting more popular? Were you afraid of disappointing the fans, somehow? If so, did the pressure have a positive impact in the end?
Yes, the pressure was quite extreme and hard to handle, not only psychologically but also physically. We’ve worked for two and a half year straight without major vacation. This can be quite difficult, especially when creativity plays a big role.
With each episode, we tried something new in order to keep Duskwood interesting and pushing the boundaries of the genre. If you experiment in such a way, there is always a chance to fail and disappoint. But it is a necessary risk to take if you want to surprise even the most hardened detectives ;)
Do you remember reading theories that came extremely close to your story? What was your reaction?
We love it when this happens! It is definitely more of a ‘proud moment’ than a ‘bummer moment’. It has always been important to us, for the story to be comprehensible. However, we would like to note that this can also apply to theories that are far from the truth. As a detective, you have to make hypotheses, and being wrong is part of it. Some of the wrong theories are so detailed and well thoughtout that they impress us just as much.
How do you feel now that the game is finished? Most of the community (on reddit, at least) has been in a weird grief-like state. Is it the same for you?
When Duskwood was finished, it really shook us up. It was a bit like losing a good friend. We felt empty. It really helped that we started working on our next game right away. The desire to fill this void helped us to nail the important things, like feelings, atmosphere etc., especially in the early conceptual stages. We are very happy with the current progress, and the fact that it shares the same universe makes it already feel like home. We know everyone is on the edge of their seats and ready to play, but good games need time - there is no shortcut. We want to develop a successor that everyone agrees can follow in Duskwood's footsteps.
#everbyte interview#duskwood birthday#duskwood#everbyte studio#duskwood game#duskwood everbyte#everbyte duskwood#everbyte game
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AITA WIP Tag Game
Stealing the open tag by @winterandwords
Describe your WIP as if it were a post on r/AmITheAsshole
This one contains heavy spoilers for the Fancy Boots arc of Glass Shards. Transcript of the images is below the cut. There's also links to the images at the end, because I think tumblr compresses them.
Aaaand I'm gonna very lowkey tag: @starlit-hopes-and-dreams @boldnightmarishreverbs @antisocialxconstruct and everyone who wants to :D
I don't know if you wanna do something like this. Obviously doesn't have to be image format, I just took the idea and ran with it because I'm so very normal. It's a rather high effort tag game, so feel absolutely free to ignore it <3
I'm gonna tag some people from the Glass Shards/Fancy Boots taglist as well, just for looking at it, because I put too much fucking effort into this: @teamwhump @dont-touch-my-soup @kixngiggles
Lol guys I found a thread on reddit, it's hilarious, check it out.
Poor guy got torn to shreds in the comments.
Seems there were some updates as well. I'm having my doubts about this story, but five months is a nice commitment to the bit.
All images: The Post | First Question | Second Question | Third Question | Edits | Update
All screenshots look like posts on the subreddit r/AmITheAsshole, with several thousand upvotes and comments.
User u/ThrowRAFancyBoots posted seven months ago and has been voted the asshole:
AITA? I just wanted to make sure he's not a threat, but his wife is giving me the death glare
So I (25M) recently ran across an old acquaintance (35M). Last time we met… ok, there's no way around it, I was in law enforcement, and I arrested him for attempted murder. It wasn't pretty. Some things happened, and he was seriously injured. Wasn't my fault, but I admit I could have been a bigger help. I was informed he broke out of prison before his trial, but I moved away a short time later, and it kinda ended up in the back of my mind.
Now my new employer is in negotiations to move to this town, and while he's stuck in meetings all day, I got some time on my hands. And guess who I saw wandering around at the beach? I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was definitely him, he reacted to that stupid nickname they gave him.
Well, I did what any upstanding citizen would do, I tried to arrest him, but his wife (25F) — he has a wife now! — begged me to let him go. Ok, perhaps she didn't so much beg me as threaten me, but anyway, I just… I couldn't do it.
But I had to make sure he's not a threat anymore, I mean, what if I let him go and he kills someone?? So I told them I'd be over again to talk, and he invited me to dinner. It was an amazing dinner, this guy's a wonderful cook. We kept talking and I lost track of time, and then it was late and I realized I hadn't even asked my questions, so I told them I’d come back the next afternoon.
It's been 4 days now, and I've visited them daily, and I don't believe he's anywhere near the monster people said he is. Really, his wife seems to be more dangerous than he is. I think she's about to stab me. If looks could kill, I would be dead already. It’s making me wonder.
I just want to make absolutely sure, you know? Is that too much to ask? I didn't even come for dinner each day, so he wouldn't have to cook for me, though he still offered me something every time (it was absolutely delicious). I came along as he went shopping, and he was nice to everyone, and everyone seemed to like him. When someone asked, he introduced me as his friend of all things. If he’s an actor, he’s the best fucking actor I’ve ever seen.
So I'm asking, am I the asshole for bothering them for a few days while making absolutely sure he's not a threat anymore?
Several people have replied to this post:
First reply thread:
BurntSalad: INFO: What do you want to ask him?
ThrowRAFancyBoots: I want to ask him why he did it.
BurntSalad: YTA. It's been 4 days. Just check the police records or something, if you're too much of a coward lol
ThrowRAFancyBoots: I would have to ask. There wasn't a motive, it was straight up an assassination attempt. It doesn't make sense. Not when you get to know him. That's why I've been coming back.
UpperDogPants: then ask. put on your big boy pants and stop ruining their lives
ThrowRAFancyBoots: I will. Tomorrow.
Second reply thread:
CheeseAndPasta79: INFO: What was for dinner?
ThrowRAFancyBoots: Bean roast, mashed potatoes, glazed vegetables and freshly baked bread, why?
CheeseAndPasta79: YTA
ThrowRAFancyBoots: :(
Third reply thread:
SecretlyJealous2342: YTA you just want to fuck his wife
ThrowRAFancyBoots: No I do not want to fuck his wife, wtf.
Next comes a screenshot of the lower part of the OP, which now shows several edits and update. The thread has been locked:
Edit: Since people have repeatedly asked about the incident when he was arrested: his gun exploded, and he blew up his hand. We had to cut it off to save his life, and it… it was pretty gruesome, and I'm not proud of anything we did, all right? I didn't want to mention it, because I figured it might lead to prejudices before you've even read the whole story.
Edit 2: I don't think he's a killer. He really, really doesn't behave like one. But people wanted to know what I could possibly want to ask him after 4 days, and it's complicated. I want to know why he did it. For some reason, I can't seem to ask him that. But if I don’t know what made him do it, how can I be sure he won’t do it again?
Edit 3: Ok, after the latest edit, people seem to agree that I'm the asshole. Perhaps you’re right but can’t you see the predicament I’m in? And no, for those who were asking if his motives weren’t clear, they were not. It wasn’t a case of jealousy or revenge or anything, it was an assassination attempt, plain and simple. Perhaps he was blackmailed into it, or… fuck, I don’t know. This one day. I’ll go back one more time, ask my question, and leave them alone afterwards.
Update: I think I fucke
Update 2: Sorry, I dropped my phone and hit send too early. My hands are shaking. I fucked up. I went back today (yeah, yeah, I know) and I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. He’s… it’s not my secret to share, and I won’t do that to him in case he or anyone he knows will ever find this, but safe to say, he was treated so much worse than I had assumed. I didn’t… It wasn’t me, but I let this happen to him.
You were right, I’m gonna leave him alone, but I have to go back one last time to tell them I will keep his secret. Fingers crossed I won’t end up with a knife between my eyes. Just kidding. Hopefully.
Update 3: So, uh, things took a turn, and I don’t know what to make of it, but… I think it’s a good thing? When I went to apologize, I brought something of his, something I had kept since the day I handed him over. I told him how I quit my job afterwards, because of what we did, because I couldn’t look those people in the eye anymore. And how I had kept this object to remind me.
I wouldn’t have asked him anymore, but it was him who brought up the question, and I decided to be honest, so I finally asked him why he had done it. I was right, he had been forced by someone. Not only the attempted murder, but also the rest, which I didn’t… I didn’t mention it because it would have made his identity too obvious and might put him at risk, but it doesn’t matter anymore, because there’s no fucking chance he’ll ever do it again.
I’m sorry, my thoughts are all over the place. When I left, he actually ran after me and invited me to dinner. I went, and before you call me an asshole again, this time… it was different. They were actually at ease around me.
I’m now back in my room, and I can’t stop wondering where to go from here. If he really wants to be friends. We’ll see. I’m gonna leave it fully up to him, that’s the least I can do.
I guess the question of whether I am the asshole has been answered (yes I was, big time). It doesn’t really matter anymore, but since people seem to be strangely invested (you should try reading a book instead), I can let you all know in a few weeks how things are going.
The last screenshot is of a new reddit post by u/ThrowRAFancyBoots, with even more upvotes and awards, two months ago.
Update: I just wanted to make sure he's not a threat, but his wife is giving me the death glare
I promised an update, but things have been kinda crazy. At first, everything was going well, I was visiting more often, and while his wife still didn’t like me (I can’t blame her) she was courteous enough. I would say he and I became friends, which is… fuck, I don’t really have many close friends.
It really took her flipping out at me to realize that I was holding the threat to his life over his head. That if I were to hand him over to the authorities, they were going to kill him. That I’ve been coming into his home, basically telling him “if you can’t convince me you’re nice enough, I’ll have you killed”.
Yeah, you were right. I’m a fucking idiot.
And just when things started to settle, shit hit the fan. Turns out, he hadn’t told his brother about me (for which I also can’t blame him). Said brother wasn’t very amused to see me leaving the house and lost his temper. Not to go into details, but if my friend’s wife had taken a few moments longer to come out and check on the noise, I wouldn’t be writing this now.
I was out of commission for several weeks, which I spent at their house. His wife’s behavior took a 180 degree turn, and she’s been fussing over me ever since. Which is kinda endearing, but I hate to see her worry like that. Those two are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and it hurts my heart to think what they’ve been through.
Lost my job in the meantime, because my employer got sick of waiting for my return (I can’t… well perhaps I do blame him. A tiny bit. He could have gotten a temporary replacement, but fuck me, I guess). Not sure where to go next, I’m not quite fit to return to work yet, but there’s a chance the local headquarters will employ me directly, which would be fantastic. If not… I’ll figure something out. I could always return home to my family, but I’d really like to find a way to stay here.
Now I know my friend’s brother was just worried about him (for which I absolutely can’t blame him), so I decided to forgive him for attacking me. There’s nothing more important than family, and to think I almost destroyed theirs… I’m incredibly lucky to still be around, and to have them in my life, and for everything to turn out rather well, all things considered.
Probably not the update you expected, but that’s life. I won’t be posting again, I already put too much of their business onto the internet. Take care, and give your friends and families a hug today, if you haven’t.
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Mizumi deleted the AO3 version of her anti-komahina essay.
I can tell by cross-referencing it to other places where she posted the essay, like on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/danganronpa/comments/x80ksb/why_komahina_and_kamukoma_isnt_canon_and_never/
She first posted the essay in early September of 2022. However, as you can see in the screenshot, there is a large gap in-between other fics she posted, indicating either a long hiatus between posting, or the deletion of something that came out in-between it.
As of this point, I haven't been able to guess exactly why she deleted it. One answer I've come up with is that she finally listened to all the people telling her to stop posting in the komahina tag, but that's hard to believe, given how badly Mizumi still tries to defend that choice to this day.
But the AO3 version of the """essay""" isn't the thing I'm actually interested in. Rather, it's the comments ON the essay I wanted to see.
I made a post a while ago that contained screenshots of @officially-christy breaking off her friendship with mizumi. That conversation took place ON mizumi's ao3 essay, and now, with the essay deleted, it's no longer possible to actually SEE the comments themselves.
But that's not all. Mizumi made two posts on reddit, this one, and this one, about one or some of the comments she received on her ao3 essay. But now, tracking down the source of what she's talking about is practically impossible. Take for example, the second reddit post. A bingo card of all the insults she allegedly received on the essay. Without links or screenshots of these comments, how does she expect anyone to trust her and take her word seriously when she doesn't even have the sources to back up her claims?
Or with the first reddit post. How are we supposed to find that commenter's account and click on their profile to see if they're an actual person (cuz, yeah, some people in fandoms ARE crazy enough to fake having DID), OR just a sock-puppet/Mizumi's friend made for the express purpose of farming internet pity points? (especially since you can make a valid case for the commenter talking with the same speaking style as mizumi; same poor grammar and spelling, same feeling of superiority to others, etc.)
This is just one problem with mizumi; how willing she is to just... delete her old content, without bothering to back it up or archive it. It's such a waste, especially since it makes it impossible to actually track down and debunk/verify her claims of being "harassed and insulted" (Although, given mizumi's track-record, I highly doubt any of the people in the comment harassed/insulted her, and am more willing to believe it was the other way around, but, oh well, looks like we'll never know).
If anyone out there has a link to an archive of the ao3 version of the essay, comments and all, then please let me know so I can update you all on it.
And Mizumi, if you're reading this (I know you lurk on this blog), I'm only gonna say this once: if you actually want other people online to believe your claims of being harassed or whatever, then STOP DELETING THINGS THAT WILL ACTUALLY HELP YOU BACK UP SAID CLAIMS WITH SOURCES!
#mizumikahago#mizumi kahago#danganronpa#reddit link#ao3 link#link#ao3 fanfic#archive of our own#ao3 stuff#srsly I don't understand how are someone could be THIS stupid?!#this is the most blatant example of someone not realizing that once something is on the internet it's there forever#you cant just delete it like it never existed#it's always gonna crop back up#so what's even the point in TRYING to delete it??#and yes mizumi one day people WILL ask you to back up your claims of being harassed#don't think you can just lie about everything forever#when the time comes and you have to defend youself and NO ONE will be there to back you up#you're gonna wish you hadn't deleted all the evidence#your friends are all slowly leaving you after they find out what a monster you are#christy and violetta already blocked you#eventually you'll have no one on your side to fight your battles for you#so best to stop deleting and start archiving instead now
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Guerrilla advertising for the in-crowd? by u/Economy-Alfalfa-2241
Guerrilla advertising for the in-crowd?
So our Chip-pan Ghost has finally materialised into her true form, which is going to take over the world via boiled vegetable products. The Jam Empress rises like a phoenix, casting her beatific glow upon us, her adoring subjects. Granted, we've mostly said "woddaf? Mentalist" but whilst sending someone a plant pot with a couple of lemons, a jar of botulism and a HAndWriTtEn NoTe in notigraphy is absolutely hilariously funny, I did wonder...I assumed the lemons were just because. I'm a GhastlyPoor, we don't have Aesthetics to worry about, but didn't the nobby posh pips just do the whole declutter thing? Thanks, we needed more random crap and this is a bucket of prime random (honestly, this is all so bizarrely funny it writes itself) from who? What? Eh? Oh god, not that ghastly thirsty woman again...note to self; get restraining order. But strawberry jam and lemons are connected - iirc, pectin is needed for strorbs and the original source is lemons. No idea why I know that or how I know that. Obviously Education worked for that day.But I suddenly remembered Lemonada. Are these actually fifty desperate "please come into my podcast with this barely-there company so we can talk about me and how I'm not a friendless loser married to a comedy merkin who has been banished to the chicken coop so many times the chickens are evicting him for nuisance" offerings? Poor Clotface, all he wants is a nice quiet space for him and his bong so they can be happy being miserable, but she's got him up trees picking those yellow blobs and it's probably Willy's fault.She didn't get ANY big names after the first two of the ArchSwill tripe, and those two were on the downhill trajectory, their glory years behind them. I'm not up on slebs, but I didn't even recognise any of the others or only in a famous-for-being-famous-thirty-years-ago way, though I don't know if some of the others are names in the US? But if that was for Spotify, THE podcast company providing professionally sourced, recorded and produced material and with loud trumpets farting the Miraculous Arrival, then who is going to do the honours over an iPhone in the shed? The cleaning lady?Is this her touting for new victims to have impactful, authentic voices to lend to the conversation we need to have as seen through the dustbin lid of whatever? Are the stakes now so big - and I just rolled my eyes so hard I'm looking up my own fundament - she's out drumming up business? And if it IS Lemonada, are we just supposed to join the dots ourselves? It could be wryly clever, but bandit advertising relies on random thing going viral. I don't do the whole "influencer" (barf) thing but isn't 600k really just micro-influencer? I don't know how that compares, but I'm guessing in the ballpark of various tragic reality telly stars? But that's kind of the level you need, the types who *are* influenced, except they tend to have short attention spans and lower disposable income and the market is beyond saturated. I think I'm too stupid for this. We're not the "in" club, sinners, we're not supposed to unlock the secrets. Sorreeeee.
post link: https://ift.tt/N7dRZGL
author: Economy-Alfalfa-2241
submitted: April 18, 2024 at 07:56PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit
disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.
#SaintMeghanMarkle#harry and meghan#meghan markle#prince harry#fucking grifters#Worldwide Privacy Tour#Instagram loving bitch wife#Backgrid#voetsek meghan#walmart wallis#markled#archewell#archewell foundation#megxit#duke and duchess of sussex#duke of sussex#duchess of sussex#doria ragland#rent a royal#sentebale#clevr blends#lemonada media#archetypes with meghan#invictus#invictus games#Sussex#WAAAGH#american riviera orchard#Economy-Alfalfa-2241
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So I made a comment on reddit where I started to sorta derail and I think the information is good enough to share here and in the trans tags for people not understanding wtf is up with all us “transandrophobia truthers.”
This isn’t a particularly nuanced post. I left out how racism and ethnicity ties into trans men’s lives and “male privilege.” I think that’s an important part of the conversation and I’ll follow up with that in a reblog down the line.
Anyway, context. I follow r/nottheonion, which posts actual headlines that sound like they should belong on The Onion, a popular satire news website that has an unfortunate record of their worst and most unbelievable headlines coming true. The particular headline here?
J.K. Rowling's new book, about a transphobe who faces wrath online, raises eyebrows
I’ve included the comment that I replied to for further context:
Reddit User: Did [JKR] ever say anything about trans men? I've only seen nasty things about trans women from her.
Me: Oh yeah. Reread the manifesto. About half of all explicit trans hatred is that trans men are women and girls trying to escape the perceived shackles of societal womanhood. I did a word by word breakdown of her manifesto because I got tired of being told (mainly by women) that JKR hadn't talked about trans men at all.
Plus let's not forget she showed her colors commenting on gender neutral language surrounding menstruation and pregnancy. Something that by and large does not effect trans women.
TERFs generally treat trans men, AFAB nonbinary folks, and CAFAB intersex folks as brainwashed and confused by the patriarchy and the people encouraging them to transition. They see using HRT as poisoning ourselves (T being poison is sadly such a common talking point in trans circles that I've seen young cis boys become scared of their own puberty) and top surgery as mutilation. They like to take pictures of barely healed phalloplasty scars to scare people too (nvm the fact that again, bottom surgery for men is under discussed in trans and even trans masc circles! People don't even know you can even get the necessary tools to get an erection or the other options besides phalloplasty!)
For the above group that are "too far gone" for TERFs to scare back into the closet, we are seen as monsters and gender traitors. They actively want us dead so we can't influence younger folks with our existence.
Oh and this isn't touching on corrective rape from TERFs. At all.
And as you can see there's a lot of leakage from general radfem ideology that leaks into mainstream and intersectional feminism. It's unfortunate because already trans masc folks are one of the most invisible groups in the trans community (the only other group I would consider more invisible are AMAB nonbinary folks, especially if they're not feminine and/or like masculinity). Trans men statistics are horrifically erased because they get recategorized as women.
A lot of trans men choose to disengage and "go stealth" because there's a lot of tangled up self loathing and reactivity towards masculinity in feminist, esp queer feminist circles. Of course, this leads to misconceptions like trans men have an easier time transitioning and have male privilege and completely ignores that a lot of trans masc folks can't or don't want to go stealth. And it ignores how conditional this male privilege actually is.
I'm also ignoring here how a lot of trans men disengage with queer spaces because of how unfriendly it can be. There's a variety of reasons, from people assuming they're straight (or actually being straight) to the general hostility that can be felt in the undercurrents in most gen queer feminist spaces.
This isn't to say that trans women don't have it worse. Hyper visibility and hyper invisibility are just two sides of the same coin at the end of the day, and this toxic mindset around men and masculinity hurts trans women just as much, if in different ways. But I hate seeing the hatred TERFs spew at trans men getting boiled down to nothing more than infantilization. Because while yes that is a lot of it and it's not something trans women get a lot of (because they're seen as men, so violent and dangerous and predatory), there's so much more and it's all just as bad as what women are getting day in and day out from TERFs.
To end on a more humorous note, my favorite instances of TERFs getting owned are when they're shown a celebrity photo and say "oh that's definitely a man" when... Nope. Just a woman. Showing they can't actually tell who is and isn't transgender
#transandrophobia#transphobia#transgender#harry potter#JK Rowling#jkr#jkr discourse#transmisogyny#anti jkr#anti rowling#to be revisted at a later date
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The Afterparty: Sebastian
This week’s episode was a lot of fun and my favorite so far of the season. A lot of ground was covered and new theories have emerged so this will be another long post. Starting off with the “Not ___” clue (shoutout to the subreddit for getting it so quickly omg). SPOILERS AHEAD
“Not By Camels Milk”
I don’t know what to make of this clue because when I looked up kumis/koumis, the results said that it’s milk from a donkey and not camel’s milk as stated by Ulysses in the first episode. I doubt the writers would make a mistake while researching it so it’s hard to say what this means. Are they trying to insinuate that Ulysses is a fraud? Isabel made an offhand comment about him always boasting about his travels. But let’s say that it is koumis: Edgar refused to drink it at the rehearsal dinner and after Aniq spit it out I assumed that there wouldn’t be much if any left. Maybe later on in the evening Edgar and Ulysses come to some sort of agreement that was sealed with Edgar taking a sip of the koumis. Ulysses is kind of going higher up on my list now because this is starting to get suspicious.
Confirmed Theories
As always Reddit was on it because four long-standing theories were confirmed:
•The wedding staff were in on the heist
•Sebastian kidnapped Roxana to open the safe
•Sebastian was the naked man
•SEC4 meant Edgar, Sebastian, Connect 4 and was a record of their scores
A lot of people suspected Sebastian was secretly Australian instead of British so the reveal he’s actually American is so funny to me 😂 And omg at Yasper’s brief appearance! That was a perfect little tie in to last season. Also I knew Travis wasn’t lying about being knocked out! It just didn’t seem like something he’d lie about. After watching the episode twice these are my thoughts:
Theory 1
I 100% think that Edgar calling everyone devils in that rant was because he knew their secrets and now I see that he himself is a devil as well it will be interesting to see how this will all tie in at the end. When Isabel told Sebastian to tell Edgar she remembered everything it gave me a feeling that Edgar might have actually been the one to poison his father. And as I write this I’m starting to wonder if maybe Edgar tried to poison someone that evening and then accidentally poisoned himself instead. If he’s killed someone before he probably got too cocky this time and accidentally offed himself instead. There’s a theory that Edgar has been drugging Isabel and tbh I’m starting to believe it because if he did kill his father, that would be a good way of keeping his mother in line and preventing her from telling the truth. He and Hannah were really close up to a point so I can’t help but wonder if they did it together since it’s Hannah’s garden that has all the poisonous plants. It’s just a vibe I’m getting but we’ll see.
Theory 2
Speaking of Hannah, I still think Grace killed Edgar and Hannah is covering for her. Like I’ve said before Grace is putting on this damsel in distress act and I wouldn’t be surprised if she were manipulating Hannah because she knows she’s in love with her. If neither are the murderer I think they planned to run away together after the wedding night with Edgar’s money since there was no prenup signed.
My current three suspects:
Grace because of all the lying and her playing Zoë like a fiddle the whole time ; Whether or not she’s also taking advantage of Hannah is unknown
Ulysses because I’m starting to think he’s a liar and after Edgar’s encounter with Vivian, she may have told him. That’s a pretty big motive because of how big a family secret it is (unconfirmed theory that he’s the father of Zoë and/or Grace)
Edgar as an accidental death caused by himself since he’s been shown to have that dark side and he already got bested by Sebastian with the card so he’s clearly not as intelligent as he thinks he is
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Another interesting Star Wars history essay I saw on Reddit (yep, I'm serious)
[Star Wars Expanded Universe] A Tale of Two Clone Wars, or: The Original Star Wars "Canon" Crisis
Posted originally by the Reddit user "DocWhoFan16" on May 13th, 2022.
[Link to the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/up16zw/star_wars_expanded_universe_a_tale_of_two_clone/]
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I love Star Wars and I always have. I decidedly don't love talking about Star Wars on the Internet, mostly because I find it a chore to keep straight which parts I'm allowed to love and which parts I'm supposed to hate. It's no way to enjoy something, of course, but such is the nature of "being a fan" in the 21st century.
Nevertheless, the sad thing is that I can't seem to help but do it anyway, which is why I'm making this post (having threatened to do several times in various "Hobby Scuffle" threads) in which I have written five and a half thousand words about decade-old Star Wars fan drama that many people may have forgotten about, if they even knew it existed in the first place.
But maybe you will enjoy reading about it.
A Long Time Ago...
This is a story about the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I anticipate that most of the folks reading this will know what that was: the great mass of novels, comics, games, cartoons and more which took place in the fictional world of Star Wars, revealing "what happened next" for the protagonists of the movies, exploring its ancient history (a dark time in which the Jedi are hunted by the resurgent Sith Empire) and far(ish) future (a dark time in which the Jedi are hunted by the resurgent Sith Empire), and explaining how the extra with the ice cream machine who appears on screen for about three seconds in The Empire Strike Back was actually a Rebel sympathiser and the ice cream machine was actually a computer memory core containing sensitive information which he was trying to hide before the Empire could completely take over Cloud City.
When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm and Star Wars with it to the Walt Disney Company, the Expanded Universe found itself in limbo for a couple of years until Disney confirmed that, other than the six movies and the computer-animated Clone Wars TV series (in other words, the things in which George Lucas himself had taken an active and direct hand in creating, writing, producing and directing), all Star Wars stories produced prior to its acquisition would be rebranded as "Legends" and would not form part of the larger fictional story of Star Wars going forward.
My recollection is that most fans were more disappointed than angry. Of course, some people absolutely were angry, some of them were very, very, very angry, and many of those angry folks are still angry today, but I imagine most people had realised that this was an inevitable outcome from the moment the sale and acquisition was announced.
The Expanded Universe was now "non-canon".
However, I think the picture is a little more complex than that. I'm going to try to explain why.
Star Wars and "canon"
Oh, good grief. What a can of worms. This is a really easy topic to get bogged down in and it's almost certainly going to happen here, but I think it's pretty important to the overall story, so I'll wade through it.
My understanding has always been that "canon" in Star Wars prior to the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney vaguely operated on a kind of tiered system. At the highest level, you had "G" canon, which was anything George Lucas himself had taken an active and direct hand in creating, writing, producing and directing. This encompassed the movies, obviously, but also flippant off-the-cuff remarks ex cathedra pronouncements such as Obi-Wan's home planet being called "Stewjon", which Lucas "revealed" in an incredibly obvious dad joke when he was asked during an interview with Jon Stewart at a convention in 2010 (for the record, this is still "canon" — we shall see if it comes up in the Disney Plus series soon enough).
The lower levels of "canon" encompassed essentially everything that was licensed; in other words, everything Star Wars that George Lucas had no input on. This material was counted as "canon" to the extent that it did not contradict anything at the George Lucas level and, in some cases, some of it could even be "promoted" to that level if Lucas himself included it in one of his own productions.
The most famous examples of this phenomenon have been much-trumpeted over the years but were ultimately pretty minor things: "Coruscant" as the name of the galactic capital planet was first used in a Star Wars story by Timothy Zahn (who has always complained that nobody in the movies pronounces it correctly) in the first "true" EU novel, Heir to the Empire, and may have originated in the West End Games role-playing supplements he was provided with and instructed to use as background material for his books; the Jedi characters Quinlan Vos and Aayla Secura, who originated in the Dark Horse Star Wars comic series, made it into the prequel trilogy seemingly just because George Lucas liked how they looked.
However, I think when you take a closer look, it becomes pretty clear that this entire multi-level system was more of a Lucasfilm creation than it was a Lucas creation. Lucas's own views on the Expanded Universe and whether it was "canon" are much less complex, and I think his most succinct comment on the topic (which I believe he first used in 1998 or 1999 when he was promoting The Phantom Menace) is that he regarded the novels and comics and everything else as a "parallel universe". He claimed he had never even read any of the Star Wars novels and that he didn't really count them as "real" Star Wars, because he didn't make them: "real" Star Wars was his movies; everything else was licensing.
Indeed, one of the stock funny factoids is that Lucas apparently didn't particularly care for even some of the most popular elements of the EU. Perhaps the most notorious example is the character Mara Jade, a former Imperial agent and long-time fan favourite created by Timothy Zahn for Heir to the Empire, who subsequently becomes a romantic interest for Luke Skywalker and eventually marries him and has a son, Ben, with him. According to J.W. Rinzler, Lucas "loathed" Mara and objected to the idea that Luke would ever get married and have a family, because it didn't match his view that Luke would become a kind of ascetic monk who practised a strict life of celibacy after Return of the Jedi (something which Mark Hamill, during the press tour for The Last Jedi, also claimed Lucas told him while they were making the original trilogy).
Nevertheless, the impression I have always taken away, as someone who has enjoyed experienced varying degrees of participation in the Star Wars fandom in general and the EU fandom in particular for close to 25 misspent years at this point, is that it became a widely accepted "fact" of the hardest core of the Star Wars fandom that the EU was "canon" and on an equal footing to the movies.
If I may speculate, I think there are two really key reasons as to why this perception became so widespread:
First, for many years, the EU was in the rather unique position of being the only new Star Wars material that was being produced at all and, because Lucas didn't really express his opinion on the subject of whether the EU was "canon" or not until it was pretty firmly-established, so nobody had any reason to believe it wasn't "canon" (and in the absence of widespread Internet access, any remarks Lucas made may well not have reached as many ears as they would today in any event).
Second, I think that most people were fairly cognisant that, whatever his true level of substantive involvement, George Lucas ultimately had to sign off on all of this stuff, giving it his approval (if not his endorsement) in the same way he would approve any other piece of Star Wars tie-in merchandise, and this may have created an (inaccurate?) impression that Lucas considered all of it to be just as "canon" as the fans did, and just as "canon" as what he was creating himself.
I will say, though, I did think sometimes that most fans understood, at least on some level, that the idea the EU was "canon" was a sort of legal fiction, that Lucas would have the final say and that there was likely some distance between what Lucas probably thought and what many Star Wars fans probably thought. Still, as long as nothing Lucas himself was creating contradicted too much of what EU writers produced, or at least could be easily reconciled to and harmonised with it, the illusion was maintained. However, that position would soon become untenable.
The Clone Wars, Version 1
Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones came out in 2002 and the Clone Wars storyline, first mentioned in a single line of dialogue all the way back in Star Wars in 1977, officially began. Between 2002 and 2005, the story of the Clone Wars unfolded in a new multimedia mini-saga which took in the entire EU.
Star Wars returned to the small screen for the first time since 1986 with Star Wars: Clone Wars, a brilliantly kinetic and dynamic "microseries" from Genndy Tartakovsky which introduced a new Dark Side rival for Anakin named Asajj Ventress and debuted a new villain who would be appearing in the forthcoming Episode III, the Jedi-killing droid General Grievous. The ongoing Dark Horse Star Wars comic, initially conceived as a kind of anthology book featuring the new Jedi characters introduced in Episode I, was retitled Star Wars: Republic and spent the next three years telling stories from the Clone Wars.
Del Rey, which had assumed the Star Wars publishing licence in 1999, began a bespoke line of Clone Wars novels which really ran the gamut from pastiches of Apocalypse Now (Matt Stover's Shatterpoint, in which Mace Windu plays the Captain Willard role) and M*A*S*H (Michael Reaves and Steven Perry's MedStar duology, in which Jedi padawan Barriss Offee joins a field hospital on a remote but strategically important planet) to more conventional Star Wars adventures (e.g. Stephen Barnes's The Cestus Deception, which teamed Obi-Wan with popular background movie Jedi Kit Fisto, or Sean Stewart's Yoda: Dark Rendezvous). Of particular note was a computer game tie-in book called Republic Commando by a writer named Karen Traviss.
This will be important later.
I don't even know where to start with all the games that came out, but suffice it to say I don't think there was ever a more productive period for Star Wars games than this one, and a fair few of them (Bounty Hunter, Jedi Starfighter, The Clone Wars, The New Droid Army, Galactic Battlegrounds: Clone Campaigns, even the campaign mode for Battlefront II) were Clone Wars tie-ins.
Quality varied across the board, as you may expect. And although Lucasfilm did creditable job of keeping things fairly consistent, at least to the extent that the stories in each medium weren't stepping all over each other too obtrusively, the whole line ended up in the awkward position of having three "official" lead-ins to Episode III which didn't really fit together. The comic miniseries Obsession, the novel Labyrinth of Evil and the final season of Star Wars: Clone Wars each managed to place Obi-Wan and Anakin at three separate remote corners of the galaxy simultaneously as the attack on Coruscant which opens the movie begins, and all end with them racing to join the battle from three completely different locations! Similarly, the novel and the cartoon showed two different versions of General Grievous kidnapping Chancellor Palpatine and the cartoon and the comic showed General Grievous suffering two completely different critical injuries (Mace Windu drops a STAP on him in the comic and uses the Force to crush his organs in the cartoon) which caused his cough in the movie!
However, that was splitting hairs. At the time, between the books and comics and games and the cartoon and everything else, it really felt like the EU was telling the entire story of the Clone Wars from start to finish, with Episodes II and III as the bookends.
The story of the Clone Wars, it seemed, was complete.
"Seemed" being the operative word.
The Clone Wars, Version 2
George Lucas's next Star Wars project after Revenge of the Sith was supposed to be a live-action television series called Star Wars: Underworld, which fell through when it became clear that producing as many episodes as Lucas wanted at the level of quality he envisaged was impractical on a television budget. Thus it seemed that, just as it had been between 1991 and 1999, the EU was going to be the primary source of new Star Wars stories for the foreseeable future (although unfortunately, I think this is generally regarded as a period of mixed fortunes of the Expanded Universe; that's certainly my own recollection of the time).
However, once it became clear that the production of the live-action series had hit that roadblock, Lucas shifted his focus and work commenced on a new animated feature, which would be released theatrically and serve as the pilot for a new Star Wars animated television series, which would have a whole new multimedia mini-saga around it in books, comics and games, which would tell the complete story of a decisive era of Star Wars history.
It would be called Star Wars: The Clone Wars and it was going to tell the story of... er... the Clone Wars.
As I recall, the immediate reactions to the announcement and the first trailers were somewhat mixed. I have quite distinct memories, for instance, of people complaining that it looked "childish". When the movie came out and featured Anakin going on an adventure to rescue the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt's cute little baby son Rotta, over whom the murderous crime boss lovingly coos and to whom he refers as his "punky muffin", this initial impression was not exactly shifted. Likewise, I also recall a lot of particularly pronounced ill-feeling among Star Wars fans towards a new main character the show was going to introduce, a young female Jedi learner named Ahsoka Tano, who would end up being accused of being too perfect, too powerful and, you guessed it, a Mary Sue.
However, bubbling beneath all of this fairly predictable surface-level criticism was a certain element of suspicion: the EU already did the Clone Wars, and pretty comprehensively too! You say you're going to do it again; are you going to... replace the original one? Somewhat surprisingly, Lucasfilm actually gave assurances that this would not be the case. Supervising director and executive producer Dave Filoni, whom George Lucas had been hand-picked to oversee the new series, and other folks at Lucasfilm insisted that they wanted to take the existing EU continuity seriously, to supplement rather than supplant the existing "canon" of the Clone Wars and to respect what had gone before.
However, it was made abundantly clear that this was George Lucas's series, and his word was going to be final.
When the series began, it's true that there were a few small things which were inconsistent here and there: for example, the Jedi master Eeth Koth appears in an early story arc, contradicting a comment from an Attack of the Clones reference book which said he died on the Battle of Geonosis; but that was only a reference book, not an actual story, so that was an acceptable discrepancy and one which was easy to ignore without much fuss.
I know there were still plenty of folks who dismissed it as a disposable product for children (as opposed to the many mature, sophisticated dismemberments scenes Troy Denning was writing in Star Wars novels at the time, I suppose), but I'd say The Clone Wars found an audience who appreciated it pretty quickly. Maybe it had a somewhat shaky start, but it was and is a good show: it was able to thread the needle of tackling complex themes and plots while staying simple and straightforward; it had strong characterisation and great performances from its three lead voice actors (Matt Lanter as Anakin, James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan and Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka); it managed to add some depth to one-note characters like Asajj Ventress and did a great job of characterising the clone troopers as distinct individuals in spite of their identical DNA; and it has to be said that there were few cartoons on television that looked better at the time, because Lucas was apparently putting his own money into it to ensure that its animation would be top-notch.
Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it still have its flaws? Absolutely? Is it still kinda distracting that we're asked to accept Anakin as a basically good person here when he's already ethnically cleansed a whole village of indigenous people in the previous movie? Well... For me, it kinda is. But it still evens out as a really good and very fun wee series. And most importantly for some fans, it felt like it was siloed off in its own little corner of the EU, to be safely ignored if you preferred, not intruding on anything else and not threatening the integrity of the "canon" of the original Clone Wars.
Then, on 15 July 2009, they published The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The Drama Awakens
There's probably few Star Wars novelists more controversial than Karen Traviss. I'm not a fan of her work or her take on Star Wars and must confess I never have been, but that's a whole other thing by itself and not what I'm here to talk about, I'm decidedly not a "hater" and I will do my best to be even-handed. What you need to know is that one of the things Traviss had become very well-known for was her seeming fascination with (some might say fixation upon) the Mandalorians. After writing the first Republic Commando novel, Traviss took it upon herself to develop the history, culture, customs, society and language of the Mandalorians. I'm not sure if "Space Gurkhas" would be the most accurate way to sum it up, but that's where my mind tends to go. Again, not something I'm especially interested in (Boba Fett was always infinitely more compelling to me before we knew what was under the helmet) but loads of people love it and that's cool.
When The Art of Star Wars: The Clone Wars came out, it included some information regarding a trilogy of episodes which would be part of the then-forthcoming second season: "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation" and "Duchess of Mandalore". It explained that Mandalorian society had once been warlike in the past, but by the time of The Clone Wars had embraced a pacifist philosophy and rejected their bellicose history, with the only holdouts against these values being the mysterious terrorist gang known as Death Watch (itself an adaptation of an older EU idea from the W. Haden Blackman Clone Wars tie-in comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons) who sought to overthrow the benevolent rule of Duchess Satine and return Mandalore to the old ways. The Mandalorians themselves resided in futurustic cities amidst the barren, blasted wastelands of their home planet.
All of this, to one extent or another, directly and irreconcilably contradicted much of what Traviss had created in relation to the Mandalorians. As you might expect, Traviss was extremely unhappy. In fact, she was so unhappy that she quit Star Wars completely and left, never to return, claiming that she felt she and her work had been disrespected and disregarded by Lucasfilm and that she no longer wished to work under such conditions. (While it is understandable that she would be upset, as many have noted over the years, this was and still is regarded as a bit rich, because another thing Traviss had a bit of a reputation for was claiming that she didn't read anyone else's Star Wars novels, but would still take characters from them and use them as she pleased. More to the point, many other Star Wars EU authors - Tim Zahn, Steven Perry and Kathy Tyers among them, off the top of my head - had been pretty clear that they understood they were playing in someone else's garden and recognised that, from Lucas's perspective, their work wasn't really "canon" in the first place.)
But if Traviss was unhappy, EU fans generally (and fans of Traviss's work in particular) were probably even unhappier. Their worst fears had been realised. Lucasfilm had reassured them that the "canon" status of the EU would be respected and, bluntly, it hadn't been. One of my most distinct memories of this entire drama was the front page of Wookieepedia rather bitterly putting up a George Lucas quote on its front page, in which he denounced making changes to other people's work. Overnight, Dave Filoni became a kind of hate figure for fans, accused of being "smug" or "arrogant" or denounced for "butchering the canon" of Star Wars, for trampling over the work of other (and, implicitly, "better") creators, for being a "prequel apologist" (back when that was a mark against you), for "ripping off Karen Traviss" and then "forcing her out of Star Wars", and probably some other invective that I've forgotten.
As it transpired, though, this was only the beginning.
Begun the Clone Wars Wars Have!
It's kind of fascinating to look back at how that event seemed to open the floodgates, because in the remaining seasons of The Clone Wars, the position of the Expanded Universe was made absolutely clear: the idea that it was ever "canon" was and always had been at the sufferance of George Lucas, and if George Lucas wanted to change it, George Lucas was going to change it.
You see, according to comments from Filoni himself in later years, a lot of the stuff around the Mandalorians which had so incensed Traviss and a lot of hardcore EU fans, apparently came directly from George Lucas. Lucas, he has explained, began to become increasingly involved with the creation and development of the series storylines from the second season onwards, contributing ideas and sometimes even full outlines for episodes or multi-part story arcs. The Mandalore trilogy in season two was, from what I understand, one of the first times he did this.
They were small changes, in some ways, but nevertheless, they had a pretty fundamental impact on the integrity (for want of a better word) of the Expanded Universe, because they were changes which couldn't be reconciled to the existing EU. Here are some examples:
The planet Ryloth had always been characterised in the EU by its status as a "tidally-locked" world where one half was a scorched desert always facing its sun, the other half was a frozen desert always facing away from its sun, and the native Twi'leks inhabited a narrow twilight band around the middle; when Ryloth appeared in The Clone Wars, it seemed to be a fairly generic world of rolling plains and hilly grasslands (and all the Twi'leks were French).
The Dugs (Sebulba from The Phantom Menace is one) were the natives of the planet Malastare, and the established position in the EU was that they had been subjugated and enslaved by the colonising Gran (the three-eyed goat-faced dudes; you'd know them if you saw them) species. When the Zillo Beast story arc appeared in The Clone Wars (another major example of a direct Lucas contribution; he was keen to do an homage to classic kaiju movies), it took place on Malastare... where the Dugs govern themselves and there is not a Gran in sight.
Darth Maul, a character that George Lucas had killed off in the most definitive manner possible precisely because he knew people would want him to come back from the dead and he didn't want that... came back from the dead, apparently at Lucas's own suggestion! Not only that, but he came with a hitherto unseen evil secret brother and a whole new backstory, which tied into...
The planet Dathomir was one of the better-defined worlds of the EU: a matriarchal society of Force-sensitive barbarian witches who rode on the backs of tame rancors; the sinister Nightsisters as witches who had mastered the dark side of the Force. In The Clone Wars, some of the basic elements of this are retained, but they are reimagined so as to form the basis of the new origin story of Darth Maul (now portrayed as a "Nightbrother"), as well as that of...
Asajj Ventress, now portrayed as a native of Dathomir and daughter of the Nightsister leader, replacing the origin developed by John Ostrander in Star Wars: Republic which placed her as the daughter of murdered freedom fighters on a remote planet who was trained in the Force by a stranded Jedi and turned to the dark side and conquered her homeworld after he was killed by her political enemies.
One of the most significant changes involved the character Barriss Offee, one of the background Jedi introduced in Attack of the Clones. Usually appearing alongside her master, Luminara Undili, Barriss had generally been portrayed as roughly the same age as Anakin, featured as a main character in the aforementioned MedStar novels and was generally agreed to have fought alongside her master throughout the war and died during Order 66. In The Clone Wars, Barriss is reimagined as a younger character, closer in age to Ahsoka than Anakin, and in the final arc of the initial broadcast run in 2013, she falls to the dark side, betrays the Jedi Order and frames Ahsoka for a terrorist attack that she perpetrated herself.
Quinlan Vos, a Jedi master who walked the line between light and dark, was one of the most popular characters of the Expanded Universe, the main character of Dark Horse's Star Wars: Republic whose stories chronicled his struggle with the dark side as he infiltrated Count Dooku's inner circle, allowed himself to be guided down ever darker paths in the name of maintaining his cover and his ultimate rejection of the darkness out of love for his family and friends. He makes a guest appearance in The Clone Wars, and he's honestly kind of a surfer dude, not really feeling much like the same character he'd been in the comics at all. (This is one that I remember people being particularly frustrated with.)
Character deaths: the two most significant which occur to me are the Jedi masters Even Piell and Adi Gallia. The former is killed in the Clone Wars episode "Citadel Rescue" from 2011, when he is mauled by a nexu during a prison break... but he'd already been killed by clone troopers during Orer 66 in the novel Jedi Twilight in 2008. The latter is killed by Darth Maul's evil secret brother Savage Oppress in the Clone Wars episode "Revival" from 2012... but she'd already been killed seven years earlier by General Grievous in the Dark Horse comic Obsession from 2005!
Examples of smaller —but still significant— changes to characters include the portrayals of: Aurra Sing, an Episode I background character who had become a major villain in the Dark Horse comics as a former Jedi padawan who fell to the dark side and became a prolific Jedi-killer, portrayed in the series as Boba Fett's mentor as a bounty hunter with no indication that she has the Force; Dengar, who had been a rival of Han Solo and became a bounty hunter after a near-fatal accident in a speeder bike race against him in the existing EU, is now portrayed as having been a bounty hunter since the Clone Wars, potato sack on his head and all; and like Dengar, Greedo (seriously!), who previously in the EU had been a rookie bounty hunter with a grudge against Han Solo when he appears in Star Wars, is also established here to have been active as a bounty hunter since the Clone Wars.
And most offensively of all, now General Grievous had always had a cough the entire time!
For better or worse, the cat was out of the bag. The new Clone Wars wasn't just overwriting parts of the original Clone Wars, but entirely different parts of the Expanded Universe altogether. Filoni, to be fair, did try for a few years to make the case that it all fit together in some way, that the new Clone Wars was looking at the old Clone Wars "from a different point of view" (this is Star Wars, after all). I think it's always been pretty clear that Filoni is a fan of the EU and all of the references he made then and continues to make in his Star Wars work today reflect his appreciation for it; the many, many, many claims that he actually hated it and his fans seem completely without foundation to me. However, as the position became less and less tenable, he would eventually give an interview to Star Wars Insider in 2012 in which he came right out and said that the Clone Wars animated series and the EU "don't live in the same universe". And it was clear which one was "supposed" to "count".
Here's a clue: it's the one that George Lucas was helping to make. The creator of Star Wars was actively creating new Star Wars "canon", and this time, it seemed to the EU's longtime fans that these new additions had little to no regard for the existing "canon" at all.
Conclusion
By far the most tangible and shocking outcome of this drama was the exit under a pretty dark cloud from the Star Wars universe of Karen Traviss. I've said I didn't like her work at all, but the fact remains that many, many fans loved and valued what she contributed to Star Wars and still do to this day. In the years since Disney purchased Lucasfilm, we have seen creators walk away from or find themselves "forced out" of Star Wars for one reason or another, whether that's Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Colin Trevorrow, Chuck Wendig and others, but I don't think any departure was quite as divisive within the Star Wars fandom as was that of Karen Traviss. Karen Traviss wasn't fired over creative differences, because she wanted to take her work in one direction and Lucasfilm wanted it to go in another; Karen Traviss quit because she felt that she and her work had been disrespected by someone else's work (that "someone else" ultimately being George Lucas) and she made abundantly clear that this was why she had made the decision to exit.
But the more significant outcome was much quieter. I don't think fans had fully appreciated that it had happened at the time and (perhaps due in no small part to some of the misconceptions which I think still exist around George Lucas's own views on "canon" in Star Wars which I mentioned above) to a large extent, I'm not sure that many of them really appreciate it even today. The Clone Wars blew the Star Wars EU wide open in a very fundamental and irreversible way. For the first time, here was George Lucas himself helping to create something which said (or, at least, was perceived to say), in a very direct definitive manner, in a way that couldn't really be reconciled or ignored like it always had in the past, that all the comics and games and novels that you liked "didn't count" as "real" Star Wars, because that's what this was meant to be. Whenever people say that "Disney made the EU non-canon", it is only reasonable to acknowledge that George Lucas kind of did that first.
Of course, attempts were still made. I understand that the Fate of the Jedi novel series (which I have to emphasise I never read and never have read) gamely tried to incorporate some of the new Force mythology from The Clone Wars (specifically the Son, Daughter and Father characters; mysterious personifications of the Dark Side, Light Side and Balance of the Force respectively) into its storyline regarding the Space Cthulhu Force creature Abeloth, but I feel that it was a bit of a lost cause by that point. If Lucasfilm's decision to introduce the Legends branding was the end, then The Clone Wars, whether we realised it at the time or not, was the beginning of the end.
My own opinion on the matter is that Disney didn't "invalidate" the Expanded Universe; they just didn't validate it.
Final Thoughts
I think there are two great ironies that came of all of this.
The first is that a lot of Traviss's contributions to the portrayal of the Mandalorians were actually kept in the long term and, to varying degrees, remain part of Star Wars today. A lot of the stuff you see in The Mandalorian (a series co-created and co-produced by none other than Dave Filoni) seems to owe at least as much to some of the language and concepts that Traviss introduced as it did to the developments in relation to the Mandalorians which occurred throughout the Clone Wars cartoon.
And the second is that Dave Filoni, once one of the great hate figures of the Star Wars fandom, is today regarded as one of its heroes, the protector of "George's legacy", the "only man who really understands George's vision", the Chosen One who will "save" the series he was once accused, incessantly and often virulently, in the kind of terms that you have to literally be Rian Johnson to have thrown at you today, of "selfishly" and "arrogantly" trying to destroy. Let me be absolutely clear, I think Filoni is a talented writer and artist and I'm always keen to see what he does next in Star Wars, but forgive me if I find all the hero-worship a bit two-faced, because I remember very clearly when the shoe was on the other foot.
Perhaps the decision that The Clone Wars, alone of the EU, would be "canon" after Lucas sold to Disney was a blessing in disguise. It didn't matter if it had contradicted and overridden "canon" any more, because now everything it had supplanted was "non-canon" in a much more definitive way than it had arguably been before. You could go back to it and enjoy it for what it was rather than hating it for what it wasn't, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who did so recognised its accomplishments on its own merits because it deserved recognition, not because it was or wasn't arbitrarily "canon".
Or, perhaps, the people who rejected it the first time around, who would fill message boards with so much invective about how "the canon" was being vandalised with every new secret evil Darth Maul sibling or inconsistency with this or that comic or novel, had all left with Karen Traviss.
Whatever the case may be, that's the Clone Wars. Both of them.
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A selection of enriching comments from the original post:
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"UnsealedMTG" said:
I'm going to ramble a bunch but I want to put upfront the funniest "HobbyDrama" part of this, and what I first heard about the conflict, having checked mostly out of the Star Wars fandom at the time: Karen Traviss referred to the people who opposed her work as "Talifans", comparing them to the Taliban because liking the Jedi too much made them like oppressive theocrats; her own faction went by "Fandalorians".
Awesome post! I remember a lot of this, though I was mostly checked out of Star Wars for much of the Clone Wars era, bopping in to read some of the newer Timothy Zahn books and to watch the totally sweet Tartarovsky cartoon. (I've since seen the 2nd Clone Wars cartoon, and yeah, it's pretty great overall if uneven for sure. Shout out to Dee Bradley Baker for his awesome voice work as all the clones, balancing their sameness with their individuality.)
I agree with your takes and just want to add some notes/thoughts.
The official Lucasfilm canon system for the EU was a little more complicated than even addressed in this post, and some of that kind of relates to this dispute. Any stuff from a lower level was kind of "true unless contradicted by a higher level", at least officially.
As mentioned, the top level was G Canon, meaning "George Lucas". It referred to specifically the 6 live-action films (before the Disney buy-out), the radio dramas, the film scripts, and comments by George Lucas.
The 2nd level was T Canon, meaning "Television". That included only the CGI Clone Wars series. So, CGI Clone Wars notably was not quite officially the top level. But it trumped books.
The 3rd level was C Canon — this was your core EU stuff.
The 4th level was S Canon, for "Secondary canon". This was basically old or weird stuff that wasn't really consciously integrated into the EU, either because the EU's idea hadn't been developed yet or because it was games-related. Examples are the Star Wars Holiday Special or the MMO Star Wars Galaxies.
Finally, there was N "Canon", which was non-canon material like the comedy issues of Star Wars Tales or the Star Wars Infinities comics, which were like the Star Wars version of Marvel's What If? (I genuinely love those even if they have dumb stuff, like the one set at the end of Return of the Jedi, where Vader survives but turns Light-Side and shows up in his Vader armour... coloured white now). Sometimes, when people are like "Look at this absurd thing that was canon in the EU!", they are talking about N Canon stuff that was never intended as canon and it bugs me. Wookiepedia encouraged this — multiple times I've encountered people saying it was canon in the EU that the droid that blows his motivator up in the original Star Wars was really Skippy the Jedi Droid, who went on to protect people on Tatooine as a ghost. That comes from an 8-page joke comic by Peter David from Star Wars Tales. It is a pretty good parody of the EU's tendency to turn every minor character into a secret Jedi, but it is a parody and it is not quite fair to the EU to treat it as real.
"Nevertheless, the impression I have always taken away, as someone who has enjoyed experienced varying degrees of participation in the Star Wars fandom in general and the EU fandom in particular for close to 25 misspent years at this point, is that it became a widely accepted "fact" of the hardest core of the Star Wars fandom that the EU was "canon" and on an equal footing to the movies.
If I may speculate, I think there are two really key reasons as to why this perception became so widespread [...]"
I have a slightly different memory/perception. I always got the sense that people understood that the movies trumped the EU. And the EU stayed well clear of the Prequel era before the Prequels came out because they knew Lucas might want to eventually fill that in.
What I think was more controversial was the TV show trumping the other EU items since, even if there was some involvement from Lucas in the show, it still wasn't a movie so it seemed weird to give it the status close to or equal to a movie. It seems less weird now that the new canon has been built around the TV show, but at the time, it was all "not the movies" and it felt weird that some "not the movies" stuff could trump another.
I also have a couple of other thoughts about the why of canon expectations for the EU:
This is hard to imagine today given, on the one hand, what a cluster the EU became, and on the other hand, how used to integrated multimedia franchises we are now. But in fact, the EU was galaxies ahead of other licensed media in terms of coherence. Before Heir to the Empire, I don't know of any prominent franchise that even tried to get its licensed material to agree with each other. So when you read a Star Trek novel in the 90s, you just understood that anything not directly from a show wasn't "real" and wouldn't be referred to in a book by a different author. The fact that Star Wars made the effort was really ahead of its time, and once you saw that Mara Jade was going to be in books not only by Timothy Zahn but Kevin J. Anderson as well (not that she's all that recognizable between those two), the idea that there was a canon followed naturally.
There were plenty of reference works published that referred to all this EU canon. I remember a pre-Prequels Star Wars dictionary with a proto-version of the elaborate canon hierarchy. Anything from the movies was marked with the Rebel Alliance symbol, meaning movie material. Anything from the EU was marked with the similar but distinct New Republic symbol. Stuff like that created the idea of a two-tier system that, again, the 2nd Clone Wars cartoon seemed to upset by barging in at a second tier above the other EU stuff.
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"DocWhoFan16" (the original poster) replied to "UnsealedMTG":
"The fact that Star Wars made the effort was really ahead of its time, and once you saw that Mara Jade was going to be not only in the books written by Timothy Zahn but also in the ones written by Kevin J. Anderson (not that she's all that recognizable between those two), the idea that there was a canon followed naturally."
I think the tricky thing here is that there was a bit of a dispute right at the start of the EU when they decided that, even though the novels seemed to be the "official" continuation of Star Wars after the movies, the comic Dark Empire was going to "count" as well.
The thing is that Tom Veitch had been pitching Dark Empire since around 1986 or 1987 (to Marvel, originally, since they were still publishing Star Wars comics at the time) and it was imagined as the "what happened next" story to follow the movies.
When Bantam Spectra announced they'd be starting a series of novels, one of the options they considered was asking Veitch to write a novelisation of his comic, which he was up for doing. But then they opted to go with Zahn's story instead, because Zahn had a growing reputation in science-fiction and was under contract to them already.
Zahn developed the story for the Thrawn Trilogy completely independently of Veitch developing Dark Empire, and it's my understanding that when he was asked, he flat-out refused to include any Dark Empire references in his book, largely because he didn't like the story of Dark Empire. Essentially, the Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire were "supposed" to be two alternatives rather than stories that both "happened" within each other's fiction. Zahn gave Han and Leia a twin son and daughter in the Thrawn Trilogy; Veitch gave them one son in Dark Empire. It was never "planned" for them to have three kids: they had two in the novels and one in the comics.
The "problem" (such as it was) arose when Kevin J. Anderson wrote the Jedi Academy trilogy and, later on, Darksaber, because Anderson and Veitch had compared notes and found they shared a similar idea of Star Wars and Anderson ended up including references to Veitch's comics in his novels, effectively making them part of the "canon" of the EU when their position had previously been a bit murkier. So (just for example), whereas the novels had been moving forward with the assumption that Han and Leia had these two kids, now they had a third one to account for!
(Indeed, an RPG supplement eventually "revealed" that the assassination of Grand Admiral Thrawn by the Noghri was somehow orchestrated by the cloned Emperor from Dark Empire, which I suspect is probably the kind of thing Zahn pointedly wanted to avoid)
That's my understanding of it, anyway, though of course I may have the wrong of it.
"There were plenty of reference works published that referred to all this EU canon. I remember a pre-Prequels Star Wars dictionary with a proto-version of the elaborate canon hierarchy."
Sure, that may also illustrate an earlier, non-drama-causing example of this phenomenon: I remember devouring The Essential Guide to Characters as a child... and being confused about why none of the stuff from the old Marvel comics (which Dark Horse had reprinted and I'd read in that format) was in it!
I will say, I think that getting online circa 2002 and having rude people tell me I was wrong to think the Marvel comics "counted" was probably what started me down the path to not really caring about "canon" that much, LOL. :p
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"UnsealedMTG" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
I believe that's all generally correct. In my mind, there were some textual changes to Dark Empire to sort of make it fit with the new idea that it was later than the Thrawn Trilogy, but that might have been my mind inserting that because I already "knew" the "official" timeline which put Dark Empire well after Thrawn.
It was definitely messy from the beginning, but what was kind of novel and helped create the concept of a true multimedia franchise was that they made the effort at all. That created a kind of expectation —certainly not always met— of consistency in stuff like the timeline for Star Wars that wasn't common in other media.
I remember Marvel editor Jordan D. White, who edited the new Marvel Star Wars comics for some time, talking about the sort of culture shift from other comics fans —who are used to the sort of general handwaving of Marvel's shifting timeline that defies any real one-to-one timeline (this is how Peter Parker can simultaneously be in his early 30s but have comics with him 17 in the 1960s still be canon, or how the war during which Tony Stark was kidnapped can keep moving forward in time without a full reboot)— to Star Wars fans who want, like, a month-by-month timeline.
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"thrashinbatman" replied to "UnsealedMTG":
It is. Dark Empire was originally supposed to take place before or around the same time as the Thrawn Trilogy, but since Zahn refused to acknowledge them, they were set about a year later. Kevin J. Anderson's acknowledgement of Dark Empire in the Jedi Academy books creates a really silly scenario where, off-page, the New Republic loses Coruscant, is forced back into more of a Rebellion situation, then takes Coruscant back and reestablishes the status quo from the Thrawn Trilogy. It's really dumb, but actually is one of the few major incongruities in the EU outside of the massive ones created by Lucas and Dave Filoni that were discussed in the original post.
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"Raxtenko" said:
"literally be Rian Johnson to have thrown at you today"
Ha, maybe that's why Filoni and Rian Johnson seem to get along: commiseration over bad fan reactions.
I'll admit that I internally rolled when I saw the EU tag. I'm sick to death over all the anger and drama. But this is a very fair and neutral write-up. Good job.
I remember reading Zahn's trilogy some 20+ years ago and absolutely loving it. In the void after Episode VI, it was a great sequel trilogy and I gobbled them up. I remember how disappointed I felt when the Prequel Trilogy came out, and the slow disappointment I felt when the differences between it and Zahn's works popped up. I think I realized then that Lucas didn't really consider the EU to be canon in his universe.
I still kept reading the novels, but probably something inside me broke and I didn't really enjoy them anymore, coupled with some very silly DBZ-level power jumps. I left it behind when I saw Starkiller pull that Star Destroyer out of orbit.
I was still on my hiatus when the Karen Traviss thing happened. I only watched the Sequel Trilogy because my wife loves Star Wars. After that, we watched The Clone Wars at her suggestion. It spun off into Rebels and the live-action stuff after. I'm firmly back now in the fold for better or worse, but I believe with all my heart that there has never been a better time to be a Star Wars fan.
And looking back on it, I'll always have the good memories of Rogue Squadron, Kyle Katarn, Zahn and everything else that I enjoyed from the EU. Those memories won't go away and they can't be taken from me. A small petty part of me will always take some glee that the parts I loathed aren't "canon" anymore, though. It really doesn't matter to me, but some fans will twist themselves into pretzels if things they like don't have the vaunted canon status, so they can suffer and be miserable instead of focusing on the positives.
And I'll also always have Hera and Kanan (best Star Wars couple; fight me, Rebels haters), and The Mandalorian and The High Republic are looking pretty good too.
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"mdp300" replied to "Raxtenko":
Dude, you sound a lot like me. I was a huge fan in the late 90s, then kind of drifted away for a while, and got back into it with the CGI Clone Wars series. I was fine with Disney starting things over because a lot of the EU was bad. And anyway, I still have my old Rogue Squadron books in the closet.
I think a lot of weird contradictions about the Jedi come from the fact that, up until The Phantom Menace in 1999, we knew very little about the Jedi other than the fact they were cool. So writers had a lot of different interpretations of them, a lot of which ended up being wrong.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "mdp300":
"I think a lot of weird contradictions about the Jedi come from the fact that, up until The Phantom Menace in 1999, we knew very little about the Jedi other than the fact they were cool. So writers had a lot of different interpretations of them, a lot of which ended up being wrong."
I think the most significant one was the not-unreasonable assumption that Jedi could marry and have children and that, if you were a Jedi, chances were your parents were Jedi as well. And if you only have the Original Trilogy to go on, you'd be hard-pressed to say you had the wrong end of the stick. Who's the main Jedi of the Original Trilogy? Luke Skywalker. And why is Luke Skywalker a Jedi? Because his father was a Jedi. He says it in Episode VI: "The Force is strong in my family".
So you have a book like Children of the Jedi, which has at the centre of its premise the idea of an old Imperial battle station which existed for the purpose of tracking down and kidnapping the children of Jedi knights (collateral to this was the widely-held supposition among EU writers that the Empire had been around for much longer than would turn out to be the case and had been running the show for a while before they decided to wipe out the Jedi, rather than the Jedi purge being the start of the Empire). Or the character Corran Horn, whose backstory is that his grandfather was a Jedi knight during the Republic.
The Prequels upended that assumption, although I'd argue not to the same degree as Clone Wars Version 2 did, because they had recourse to a mostly neat workaround that characters like Corran Horn's dad had just been breaking the rules!
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"thrashinbatman" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Yeah, you mention that Lucas hated Mara Jade and the concept of Luke being married, but I don't think he always held that opinion. He was actually fairly involved in the EU in the 90s. I don't think he really read the novels, but at least he skimmed the comics and most story ideas went through him. He at the very least approved Veitch's idea to bring Palpatine back (some accounts go as far as saying he proposed the idea, but that could just be a misunderstanding), and his suggestion to the crew writing The New Jedi Order that they should "get creative" was what led to the Yuuzhan Vong. Near as I can tell, it seems that The New Jedi Order was the last EU project he was really involved in prior to the CGI Clone Wars show (and the lack of any oversight really shows with EU storylines after The New Jedi Order in my opinion).
All of that is to say that, if Lucas really didn't like the idea of Jedi having families and Luke being married, he had plenty of opportunities to nip that in the bud. He had no issue putting rules for the authors in place (no major Original Trilogy characters could die, no one could be more powerful in the Force than Luke or Palpatine, no stories could be set during the Clone Wars era) and totally could have instituted a "Luke cannot have b****es" rule, but he chose not to, as well as he didn't institute such a rule for any of the other Jedi characters: he sat by as Corran Horn(y) spent half of I, Jedi ogling the female characters and every author created a competing OC for Luke to be with.
Another thing Lucas seems to be notorious for is changing his story. Lord knows his take on how many movies were supposed to exist changed from interview to interview. I fully believe he only began to feel that way about Luke and Mara after he came up with the celibacy rules in Attack of the Clones. There's no way he could have felt that way about the Jedi in the 90s because, again, he had plenty of opportunity to establish it much sooner.
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"AdmiralScavenger" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
George Lucas answered questions for the writers of Tales of the Jedi and he never mentioned Jedi could not marry or have children. Nomi Sunrider is a Jedi knight who was married to another Jedi and whose daughter became a Jedi. Even The Phantom Menace doesn't say you can't be married, that didn't happen until Attack of the Clones. Even the Return of the Jedi novelization has Anakin, after Luke removed his helmet, think about his wife for a moment. Anakin's backstory always was that he was married.
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"cricri3007" replied to "Raxtenko":
"I still kept reading the novels, but probably something inside me broke and I didn't really enjoy them anymore, coupled with some very silly DBZ-level power jumps. I left it behind when I saw Starkiller pull that Star Destroyer out of orbit."
Okay, to be fair to Starkiller: if I remember right, the Star Destroyer was actually already damaged and crashing, he "just" made it crash faster so it wouldn't crush the entire city.
Still ludicrously powerful, of course, but at least more believable, if only slightly.
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"ToaArcan" said:
One of the funniest things about this whole saga, in my view, is that the first half of the Battle of Coruscant is still a tangled unknown.
Whereas the EU had multiple contradictory stories about what exactly went down when Grievous launched his attack on the Galactic Capital and made off with the Chancellor, the new canon has... very little. It just uses the broad-stroke attempts to marry the contradictory material together from Legends.
For all that most of the EU has been superseded by new material, the Gordian knot that is the EU's take on the Battle of Coruscant continues to linger on, being confusing.
It's somewhat understandable, though. With the exception of Season 7 of the actual Clone Wars TV show, Disney has been somewhat reluctant to revisit the Prequel era — Disney Star Wars is basically all Original Trilogy and things that look like the Original Trilogy. The Sequel era also got basically dropped off a cliff after The Rise of Skywalker stumbled into cinemas and we went right back to Original Trilogy fanservice. And with them only having so many episodes, I can see why Dave Filoni and Co. didn't cover Coruscant.
Maybe they just couldn't think of a way to convincingly show Lucas's laughably incompetent version of Grievous achieving something as audacious as kidnapping Palpatine.
(Honestly, Grievous is the funniest thing about this whole mess to me: Lucas gave Genndy Tartarovsky, the people at Dark Horse, and whoever was doing the books at the time, nothing but a character design and a vague idea of what he did, and they all decided that General Grievous was the coolest f***ing thing ever; then, Lucas came in two years later and said "Actually, he's the galaxy's biggest loser and all he does is cough and run away", and the fandom have been pissed about it ever since)
"Is it still kinda distracting that we're asked to accept Anakin as a basically good person here when he's already ethnically cleansed a whole village of indigenous people in the previous movie?"
I think I said in the previous Star Wars write-up we had that this is one of those things where the way the Tuskens are framed in older Star Wars material is extremely wonky — Everything the movies showed us gave them all the nuance that a 1st Edition D&D book would give to Orcs. All we know about them from the films is "They ride in single file to hide their numbers, they've been known to murder Jawas for little established reason, they shoot Podracers and kill the pilots for kicks, and they kidnapped a random civilian woman, crippled her husband when he tried to rescue her, and then slowly tortured her to death over the course of weeks because she was... standing right there?"
Tuskens, as portrayed by the movies, are cartoonishly evil. But since then, the "Wait, these are people" thought process has become more common, and that just makes what happened in Episode II even worse. Like, it was already bad, but now it feels more real.
I do think that the decision by the new shows of the Disney era to opt for a "These are victims of colonialism, actually" approach was probably a bit of a dodgy move, though. Nothing says "victim of colonialism" quite like torturing a random woman to death, especially when Shmi Skywalker was only on Tatooine in the first place because she'd been brought from off-world as a slave.
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"Terthelt" replied to "ToaArcan":
I do want to push back a tiny bit on Grievous being a complete loser in the 2nd Clone Wars show. There are actually quite a few episodes where he's depicted as being an unstoppable, menacing general, like the arc in which he wages genocide on the Nightsisters, who aren't exactly pushovers. It's just that he's only able to be the biggest fish in the pond when he isn't fighting any Jedi, and the minute any lightsabres kick on in his direction, he immediately starts to coward out and go for cheap backstabs.
The point is: it totally would've been possible to depict him staging a competent and cool assault on Coruscant, as long as Filoni and crew devised a way to keep every single Jedi on the planet away from Palpatine's office.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "Terthelt":
I guess it's hard to get out of the shadow of that very first appearance in the last episode of the 2nd (?) season of Tartarovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, where you have Grievous taking on four or five Jedi at once and winning until reinforcements show up and chase him off.
A tough act to follow!
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"radwolf76" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
"[...] where you have Grievous taking on four or five Jedi at once and winning [...]"
And one of those Jedi is essentially Scooby-Doo's Shaggy except with a lightsabre. Admittedly, the story was animated before the full extent of Shaggy's Power was widely understood, so he's kind of a pushover.
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"Lastjedibestjedi" replied to "ToaArcan":
I think the original Tuskens were heavily based on Bedouin tribes.
They were the original inhabitants, didn't especially like Jawas, were very tribal (no central or single group) and would steal your shit with no problem if you were in their territory.
It wasn't until the Prequel Trilogy that they were also slavers and torturers (and I believe it was implied they were rapists as well).
It was a heavy about-face.
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"OmegaPunchers" said:
So… after this and the previous EU write-up, I'm wondering: what exactly made the stuff written by Karen Traviss so divisive?
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"SkyeAuroline" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
Karen Traviss seriously does not understand the media that she writes for. Her Halo books constantly sidetrack into her railing against the parts of the Halo universe she doesn't like, and she stripped down a ton of characterization that was well-liked in favour of a creator's mouthpieces or pointless filler. On top of that, she was constantly f***ing up all the tech and political/social background of the setting. I'm less familiar with her Star Wars work (and only passingly familiar with her Gears of War work, on account of every fan I've encountered saying to stay away from it at all costs); but it's the same sort of phenomenon where she pushed the things she was interested in as the objectively best/correct parts of the setting, belittled anyone who didn't fit into that and warped existing lore to fit what she was pushing.
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"fnOcean" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
In addition to what the other commenter said about her pushing her interests and warping existing lore to fit that, her Mandalorian culture is... pretty racist and sexist. I re-found a post on Tumblr [currently preserved here: https://www.tumbex.com/notallthosewho-wanderarelost.tumblr/post/682272039920435200/] that talks about the issues with her series (and why the clones being Mandalorian doesn't make sense), but the TL;DR is: Traviss wrote Mandalorians as thinking every non-Mandalorian is soulless and needs to assimilate into their culture and forget their own, women are expected to get married at 16, women can't fight unless the men are all gone, and so on; portraying a society like this wouldn't be bad per se, but she also seems to think those are all positive things for a culture to be, and any changing that is bad.
On the non-writing side of things, I can't double-check this because I don't have Twitter, but her likes are apparently full of transphobia, COVID denial, and white supremacy, which definitely illuminates a lot about how she wrote the Mandalorians.
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"RadioactiveOwl95" replied to "fnOcean":
Despite having never read her stuff, everything I heard about her takes on the Mandalorians always gave me a bad vibe of fetishistic militarism that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Can't say her other views are too surprising in that light.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "RadioactiveOwl95":
"a bad vibe of fetishistic militarism"
You could make the case that the EU in general could sometimes be a bit... Well, let's look at it this way: at one time, the EU seriously countenanced the idea that Palpatine only created the Empire and set up an oppressive military regime which exerted its authority through terror because he wanted to make the galaxy strong enough to fight the Yuuzhan Vong, and there are many fans who embrace this idea even today.
I mean, leaving aside the fact that this kind of suggests the heroes from the movies were in the wrong for resisting the Empire in the first place, it's a bit like saying Adolf Hitler "only" set up Nazi Germany because he wanted to make Western Europe strong enough to fight the Soviet Union, isn't it?
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"iknownuffink" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
The way I remember it being talked about was that people like Thrawn were explicitly trying to make the galaxy orderly, unified and, most of all strong, enough to withstand their impending invasion. But Ol' Sheev Palpatine was still fully on the "It's all about me, and being cacklingly evil for funsies" train. He wasn't truly worried about the Vong, because he was arrogant and considered himself superior. Though it did provide another explanation for why there was always a new Secret Super-Weapon of the Week that Palpatine had his wrinkly hands in.
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"Inevitable_Citron" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Oh man, the Yuuzhan Vong. That was a trip and a half.
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"wendigo72" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
I mean... Han Solo in the books of The New Jedi Order calls out that the “The Empire was good because of the Vong” idea was incredibly stupid.
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"ThunderDaniel" replied to "DocWhoFan16":
Oh man, I'm not even a Star Wars fan, but every time I hear nerds justify Palpatine's actions as being done to unite the galaxy against a future threat outside the Star Wars galaxy... Well, I kinda laugh knowing that they take it unironically. It feels like a revisionist cop-out that is so hard to believe in if you understood at all who the Emperor is in all the movies.
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "Inevitable_Citron":
My understanding is the Yuuzhan Vong were the backup plan, because the original idea was that the extra-galactic invaders would be the Sith coming back to take some more revenge; George Lucas shot that down in the planning stages when ideas were sent to him for approval, arguing that it would be impossible for a Sith society to survive long enough to travel between galaxies because the Sith are inherently treacherous and any society they created would inevitably collapse when they destroyed each other and themselves.
Not an unreasonable position to take, though it is a little surprising, in light of this, that Tales of the Jedi, Knights of the Old Republic, Legacy, the MMO The Old Republic and Lost Tribe of the Sith were all allowed out when they all portray (mostly) functioning Sith societies!
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "wendigo72":
Sure, but it doesn't stop Star Wars fans from taking the idea at face value, does it?
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"DocWhoFan16" replied to "ThunderDaniel":
Same deal with Grand Admiral Thrawn, to be honest, though at least Thrawn doesn't have the whole "obviously evil space wizard" thing going on. Even so, I sometimes feel like cheering on Grand Admiral Thrawn is a bit like cheering on Claus von Stauffenberg or Erwin Rommel, you know what I mean?
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"GoneRampant1" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
Her Mandalorian books involved a lot of... How do I put this nicely...? Wanking of the Mandalorians and shunning the Jedi by painting them in an unflattering light. Traviss wore her biases on her sleeves and would warp canon in order to have her mouthpieces talk about how the Mandos could totally beat the Jedi in the battleground of ideas using superior Facts And Logic.
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"moorlu" replied to "GoneRampant1":
The Legacy of the Force series really showed her single-mindedness regarding the Mandalorians. They cycled between authors for every book, and while the other two would leave Mandalore behind, you could rest assured that the next Traviss book would take us straight back there to show us how flawed the Jedi were and how the Mandalorians were the only hope to save the galaxy from Darth Caedus. It got tiresome fast.
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"ReverendDS" replied to "OmegaPunchers":
To preface this, I'm a huge Star Wars nerd and have been my entire life. I've read every book multiple times (seriously, every few years I re-read the entire Star Wars chronology), I've played every game, I've watched every episode of everything. And I've been doing this for nearly 40 years. And I'm a huge Republic Commando fan and won't try to hide my bias in this regard.
The first part of the drama is that Karen Traviss, in everything she writes — in any IP she writes for, sticks to a very "things like morality aren't black and white, they are muddled and gray and shifting" approach and constantly calls out things that are objectively evil — even when the intentions are pure or for the good of all.
Unfortunately, most audiences don't have the emotional maturity to deal with things like nuance or to be able to approach a fictional work and pick up more than the most obvious and subtle-as-a-brick-through-a-window of themes.
Karen Traviss used the extremely egalitarian society of the Mandalorians to train the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic, and then further used that society to point out the inherent wrongness of the Republic and the Jedi of that time.
None of her characters are "good" people, and she doesn't shirk from showing that and the consequences of it. But they try to do right by their code, which can put them at odds with the trite "good vs evil" that is so prevalent.
She called out a lot of the hypocrisy of the Jedi, often with the blunt hammer of having Jedi characters being the ones to face the decisions and make the choices.
Due to the audience's aforementioned lack of emotional maturity, she was labeled a "Jedi hater", despite the fact that two of her characters, as Jedi, are some of the best examples of the Jedi philosophy out of any other characters that exist in universe.
She does have pieces of her books that could be interpreted as problematic, but to be honest, I've never particularly cared if there are themes and situations in a fictional universe that would be problematic in the real world — my experiences growing up have shown that way f***ing worse happens in the real world on a daily basis.
People call out the early-twenties Jedi woman sleeping with and being impregnated by the chronologically ten-year-old clone, like it's some kind of endorsement of pedophilia, instead of reading what was actually on the page and realizing that the ten-year-old clone was being treated like a full fledged adult by the military and Jedi. You can't have it both ways, and Karen Traviss used that situation (and the surrounding context) to highlight the fact that despite being literal brainwashed child soldiers, the clones that made up the GAR were also adult men and had their own passions and desires, and how utterly insanely evil it was to treat them like wind-up soldiers.
Yes, her books are often set in extremely popular IPs, and she uses her books to point a huge mirror at the universe she's writing in.
The second major problem is that Karen Traviss engaged with the public and happened to be a woman. A lot of the Karen Traviss hate at the time was coming from the same folks (and type of folks) that jumped into GamerGate with both feet.
I'm not saying that all criticism of her and her work stems from this, but most of the criticism you'll ever see about her does, present-day Twitter stuff excluded as I've not kept up with her on that front. It's very similar to some of the more prevalent hate of the Sequels. Sure, there's some legitimate criticism in there, but a lot of it is covered up in a weird misogynistic wrapping.
And the third part is, much like a lot of the Twilight hate, the vast majority of the online critique comes from people who haven't even bothered engaging with the media in question. They are primarily regurgitating the criticism of others but haven't actually read it themselves.
Hell, even on Star Wars subreddits or even people I know in offline life; and I acknowledge that it's purely anecdotal, but from the people I've talked to about it, when they lay into the Traviss hate, they haven't actually read anything she's ever written. At best, they've read a couple of snippets that include a hundred words or so, used by some Tumblr post to "prove" something while ignoring the wider point.
So yeah, is she the best author in the world? No. Did she do more to flesh out the characters and drama of the Clone Wars in a mature and nuanced way? F*** yeah, she did. Is she outspoken about her contributions to the universes that she criticises when she writes for them? Yeah.
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"superfam" said:
"Likewise, I also recall a lot of particularly pronounced ill-feeling among Star Wars fans towards a new main character the show was going to introduce, a young female Jedi learner named Ahsoka Tano, who would end up being accused of being too perfect, too powerful and, you guessed it, a Mary Sue."
Ahh, Star Wars fans and misogyny, a tale as old as time.
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"VortixTM" replied to "superfam":
This is ironic, considering that, in the Original Trilogy, while barely 2 women exist in the galaxy, one of them is a badass princess who ends up mostly rescuing herself despite the heroes, and the other was the freaking leader of the Rebel Alliance.
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"Mike_Ropenis" replied to "superfam":
I was a huge Star Wars fan because of the Original Trilogy and the EU novels, and lukewarm on the Prequels. After Disney, I'm not a huge fan of the Sequel Trilogy, but I think Rogue One was awesome and casting is the only thing they got right in the Sequel Trilogy (Driver, Ridley, Isaac, Boyega, Gleeson... Amazing cast).
I piss off a lot of people whenever I say this on Reddit, but Luke Skywalker is basically a male Mary-Sue — he literally blows up a Death Star the first time he flies a starfighter in a vacuum — like... Ok, he flew T-16 on Tatooine so he's able to navigate the Death Star trench the first time he flies an X-Wing in space? LOL. And Anakin pulls the same shit in The Phantom Menace! A ten-year-old who pod-raced on Tatooine is suddenly an expert pilot against an army of droids.
Like... The whole series is a bunch of overpowered plot-armoured main characters. Either you love all or you hate all, but picking and choosing which are unrealistic and which aren't is embarrassing and often comes from a sexist place.
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"diluvian_" replied to "Mike_Ropenis":
Capable, powerful, or gifted characters do not constitute a Mary-Sue.
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"Mike_Ropenis" replied to "diluvian_":
I mean, I essentially agree — either all those characters are, or none of them are. I just think it's funny that some loud fans think only the female characters are.
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"ToaArcan" replied to "Mike_Ropenis":
It's a term that's lost all meaning, it basically just means "Female character that I dislike" now.
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"Dayraven3" replied to "ToaArcan":
Seems to me that when the emphasis was on the character being an author-identification figure, it got applied quite freely to either gender. The shift to meaning ‘too perfect’ was accompanied by the term becoming strongly sexist.
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"UnsealedMTG" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
What are you talking about? How could the character of Luke Skywalker possibly be some sort of power fantasy self-insert in a series created by George Lucas? That's absurd!
(More seriously, I think this is a great illustration of how the concept of a "Mary-Sue" makes sense in fanfiction, where it originated: the idea that a story is being warped around a self-insert OC that solves all the problems and Kirk and Spock both fall in love with — to the point where it seems pointless for anyone other than the author. In original fiction —where the main character is the main character—, there is no similar objection. But if George Lucas were to write Star Wars as a fanfic for a serious space fighter pilot show, Luke would be the Maryest of all possible Sues.)
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"Dayraven3" replied to "UnsealedMTG":
I guess it's generally more of a glaring issue in fanfiction, but I'd say it's still quite possible in original fiction to have a blatant author identification figure who's pointless for anyone else.
Or, to put it another way, I’ve read some of Robert A. Heinlein's later novels.
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"Smoketrail" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
"I piss off a lot of people whenever I say this on Reddit, but Luke Skywalker is basically a male Mary-Sue [...]"
If you really want to upset hardcore Star Wars fans, say that about Thrawn.
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"balinbalan" replied to "Smoketrail":
Thrawn's abilities are almost magical and I'm surprised the old EU didn't make him force-sensitive, since virtually anybody with any competency ended up becoming a Jedi.
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"blisteredfingers" replied to the 1st reply of "Mike_Ropenis":
"Either you love all or you hate all, but picking and choosing which are unrealistic and which aren't is embarrassing and often comes from a sexist place."
This is exactly what we're seeing now with the Obi-Wan TV series and Moses Ingram, who plays Reva: people are saying her doing jumps and flips is "too unrealistic"; meanwhile, she's hunting down f***ing Obi-Wan, who's having PTSD flashbacks of his own jumpy & flippy fight with Anakin from Revenge of the Sith.
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"AndrewTheSouless" replied to "superfam":
Ok, but to be fair, she did kinda suck at the beginning, like "you go back to the early seasons and think '¿Oh shit, was I just blinded by nostalgia'" kind of bad.
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"DisserviceToVanilla" replied to "AndrewTheSouless":
Also, to be frank, I didn't watch the show, but my friend did and we would watch the "behind the scenes" videos put online with showrunners and others talking whenever they were especially ridiculous. The only one I really remember is one where the guy thought Ahsoka cutting a square instead of a circle in a wall with her lightsabre to break in somewhere was the height of intellectuality, and I'd swear he'd had an edible before that interview...
So, I think that's where early Ashoka was coming from, LMAO.
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"ToaArcan" replied to "AndrewTheSouless":
I kinda like that she started out a little bratty and impulsive, and matured rapidly over the course of the first couple of seasons. Her development is one of the high points of the show.
I do find it extremely funny that the same people that were calling her the worst character ever back when the show started are now among the stans. Like... I saw very few people complaining about how much Season 7 focused on her.
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"mdp300" replied to "ToaArcan":
I hated Ahsoka at first. Not because she was a girl, but because she was this plucky teenager that seemed like she was only there to appeal to tweens, and I was watching the show as a Very Serious Adult (I was like... 23 and an edgy moron).
By the end of the series, Ahsoka was one of my favourite characters in the whole franchise.
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"Silas13013" replied to "superfam":
They ended up being completely right though, at least for Season 1. I only recently got into Star Wars and watched The Clone Wars all the way through, and it was only at the insistence of my friend that I got past Season 1. Ahsoka is an arrogant brat who is good at everything without trying and a constant source of irritation for everyone around her, including the audience.
The creators took this criticism to heart and completely reconstructed Ahsoka's character in Seasons 2 and 3. She learns patience, composure and respect. She experiences loss due to her own actions which get characters killed, and grows from it. She becomes confident, not arrogant, and eventually a teacher herself, and in my opinion, goes from being the worst character in the show to the best.
Someone else compared her to Anakin and Luke and I feel the comparison is really only relevant to Anakin. People weren't upset that Ahsoka was a Mary-Sue, they were upset that she was an annoying Mary-Sue. Same reason baby Anakin is hated: he's an irritating child. Luke is at least likeable and we want him to succeed. Young Anakin could splat against the wall for all I cared about him.
(Note this is only for people who watched the show. People who made up their minds before seeing it are butts.)
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"FonzyLumpkins" replied to "superfam":
Saying the hate for Ashoka in the initial Clone Wars movie is sexism for a terribly written and annoying character is disingenuous. People loved her when she was actually written well. She was really annoying at first impressions, and it wasn't until later works that she actually had a personality where she became awesome.
The hate for Anakin having the personality of cardboard in Episode II, was that sexism as well?
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"Stanakin__Skywalker" replied to "FonzyLumpkins":
The biggest problem with Ahsoka is, and always has been, that she was way too important a character to retroactively insert into the saga. It makes zero sense that Anakin would have a padawan, who is never even alluded to in the movies and did not appear in any of the dozens of Clone Wars stories that existed at the time. She could not reasonably exist in the established Star Wars universe. That is why EU fans hated her so much, not because they were all bigots.
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"InSearchOfGoodPun" replied to "Stanakin__Skywalker":
Well, it's still happening with The Mandalorian, right? She seems like kind of an important person to have sat out all of the events of the Original Trilogy and never be mentioned here (there is probably some dumb excuse they'll make for this, but it's beside the point). This is the problem with trying to create so much content that orbits a "main" storyline (all nine movies) but cannot actually directly interact with the main storyline. The whole project often feels like Gilbert & Sullivan Are Dead!, except it's not a joke.
Edit: there is a ridiculous title mistake above, but I will leave it for humour value.
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"TiffanyKorta" replied to "InSearchOfGoodPun":
The whole project often feels like Gilbert & Sullivan Are Dead!, except it's not a joke.
I think you mean Tag & Bink Are Dead! (though you're probably thinking of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern).
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"Quintaton_16" replied to "Stanakin__Skywalker":
There's only one movie that could even allude to it, which is Revenge of the Sith, and the fact that she's not mentioned there only establishes that she probably isn't his padawan anymore by that time. Something The Clone Wars in no way contradicts.
Also, saying that you can't introduce a new, dynamic, interesting character because her appearance would contradict some tie-in comic is, in my opinion, a much better argument for nuking the idea of canon than it is for hamstringing your own ability to tell a story.
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"jaimeoak" said:
Thanks for sharing this wonderful insight into the war of the Clone Wars and the fickle nature of Star Wars canon :D
I came into star wars fairly recently, and after watching the 6 main films which were out at the time, my next watch was the 2008 Clone Wars series. It is honestly one of my favourite shows and I love its mix of character & political stories. (Although I suppose I do also prefer the Prequels over the Original Trilogy. Scandalous, I know!)
In all fandoms with "official" novelisations/comics, I've always presumed that the stories are officially commissioned but non-canon fanfiction which is just there to serve as extra content for fans to consume — I'm always surprised when they do turn out to be canon.
The Star Wars EU seems so grand it's hard to tell where to start, but I look forward to eventually making my way through it and experiencing the stories involved — With the passion people have for it, there must be some great stuff!
Thanks again for the write-up, it's a really interesting piece of fandom history!
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"page0rz" replied to "jaimeoak":
The Star Wars EU has 3 (well, 4, maybe 5?) pretty distinct eras to go through: the original Del Rey books, which are just classic space adventures starring Han Solo & Chewie or Lando and have basically nothing to do with the Star Wars canon; then, the Bantam Spectra era starting in the 90s, which is what most older fans think of as the EU, and then the Del Rey era when they picked up in the 2000s, which is The New Jedi Order and the Clone Wars
The most important distinction is that, during the Bantam Spectra era, Star Wars was just a book license. Any author was free to make a pitch to the publisher for basically their own OC that could take place at any time (except the Clone Wars) and involve any characters, with no real mandate to collaborate with other authors or their canon. Most tried to anyway because they thought it would be cool, but it's still haphazard. Someone would write a book that takes place 5 years after Return of the Jedi, then someone else would write something set 12 years later, then another person would start inserting stuff in-between or go off in a totally new direction. It got weird and messy all the time, but there's still some worthwhile pulp in there.
When the license changed hands again, Lucasarts took up a role that predicts modern EUs. Instead of having authors pitch ideas, they had editors create a long-term narrative, then hired individual authors to write books around each major beat.
Honestly, if you want to dive into the non-Clone-Wars stuff, I think it works best to look at the Bantam Spectra run as a loose introduction series, then the later series (particularly The New Jedi Order) as a crossover event. That's how the publishers went about it, as The New Jedi Order really did pull from all corners to create something "big", digging out some real deep cuts while trying to use everything from before in some way. The overarching narrative also helps them avoid the "Super-Weapon of the Month" problem that the other books had because everyone wanted to use their own personal toys and OC villains.
I think a lot of people will tell you to just stop after The New Jedi Order, to avoid that Han Solo Syndrome, but that's obviously up to you.
I picked up a trunk (literally) of Star Wars novels once and had a lot of time on my hands.
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"ToaArcan" replied to ""page0rz:
What's the "Han Solo Syndrome", exactly?
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"page0rz" replied to "ToaArcan":
Han Solo was originally meant to die, but producers didn't like losing one of their stars, so he finishes his character arc and then just awkwardly hangs around without much to do. This is an unfortunate fate for many Star Wars characters, as The New Jedi Order was supposed to be an end to the original generation, handing things off to the kids, and Luke especially had this growth and change over a dozen books, leading up to a very satisfying final act, while Han and Leia effectively fly off into the sunset together.
But because the license holders wanted more books and they thought the only way to sell them was by putting the original trio on the covers, they all had to keep hanging around in every new series "just because", cheapening their arcs and drawing attention away from the new characters.
The same thing happened when they eventually made the Sequel movies. Harrison Ford only agreed to come back at all if they would finally kill Han off like they were supposed to do in the first place.
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"iknownuffink" replied to "page0rz:
"Han Solo was originally meant to die, but producers didn't like losing one of their stars [...]"
If I remember correctly, Lucas is also on record saying he wanted a more positive/happy ending for the Original Trilogy, and killing Han would have been counter to that and made it more bittersweet (which Harrison Ford and possibly the director were pitching).
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#star wars#star wars expanded universe#star wars eu#sw eu#sw legends#star wars legends#essay#transcription#fandom discourse#fandom history#fandom culture#star wars history#star wars fandom#star wars discourse#clone wars#the clone wars#tcw#star wars the clone wars#star wars tcw#sw tcw#star wars clone wars
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Hi, i’ve been looking at your post, talking about it, and sharing it with some friends. Honestly i’d even say i’m a fan of you and your work despite how little of it there is right now. I have a couple question.
First, I was wondering if you had any other accounts that I could follow your work on, like twitter and such.
Second, I saw that you took classes in etholgy and talked about advocating for the personhood of animals. I mean, I know they’re smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. Take for example the recent study with scientist communicating with whales with their own language for the first time. But I was hoping to get your insight in what you mean by personhood of animals and thoughts on the topic. (And also table napkin thought on how anthropomorphizing can harm or help our understanding of animals)
Third but a little more obscure, is that you use humanity, personhood, and the being of « more human » a lot. I was hoping if you could expand on the differences of these terms and how they interact with one another.
Sorry for all the questions, just honest to god fascinated with your perspective of things and the topic in general.
Here’s the whale communication study I mentioned: https://globalnews.ca/news/10182116/humpback-whale-conversation-talking-to-aliens/amp/
Oh my gosh thank you so much for your kind words! This, AO3, and YouTube are actually my only accounts online that I post anything on, and I just use my YT account to reupload other people's deleted videos. I used to use Reddit but I'm trying to distance myself from that account since half a decade of hot take type comments starting when I was 15 isn't exactly the best look for anyone.
Your last two questions are linked so I'm going to address them at once. Human is simply the term used to refer to a member of the genus Homo. There's nothing all that special about it philosophically when separated from personhood, which is more or less the description of what beings do and don't fully matter morally. Speculative fiction and philosophy tend to equate it with sapience, which is more or less a meaningless term made up to separate humans (or worse, specific groups of humans) from other animals and make ourselves feel superior. There have been attempts to give it meaning, but nearly every definition uses traits that are found in at least one other species of animal and/or are not universal to every group of humans (with the notable exception of artistry but I frankly find it absurd to discount something's moral worth over that). As such, if we're going to approach the topic logically, then some animals at the very least have traits of personhood.
Language, for example, isn't exactly common in animals, but it isn't unheard of either. Bats, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), elephants, songbirds (a group that contains crows btw), hummingbirds, and of course parrots all learn different "words" that they apply meaning to and then use. Cetaceans, parrots, and some songbirds even use something akin to grammar.
Ritual behavior has been shown in chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants as they grieve for their dead.
Self-awareness, the trait most commonly held up as making humans special, is hard to measure due to the language barrier, but there is still some evidence for it in certain animals. The mirror test isn't perfect when it comes to discounting a given animal's self-awareness, but if an animal can identify itself in a mirror, it's hard to argue with the idea that it has a sense of self. Animals that passed include various dolphins, great apes, elephants, magpies, and even certain fish. Furthermore, an African grey parrot named Alex once asked a question about himself, being the first recorded instance of an animal asking anything, and bottlenose dolphins use names for themselves and others in their pod.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I don't really have a definitive list of animals that I believe should be considered "people", especially given all the legal implications of that sentiment, but you've probably noticed that same groups of animals showed up again and again. Dolphins were there in all of the different categories, and elephants only failed the grammar category because they largely communicate using vibrations which work so differently from regular sound that they're hard to meaningfully compare to human languages. Parrots, corvids (crows and relatives), and great apes all have stand out members that showed up in two or three of the categories in the African grey, magpie, and chimpanzee respectively, and the other members of those families as well as whales are all intelligent and social enough that I am of the opinion that they all deserve certain philosophical rights and even legal protections. It's so easy for us to see personhood as a black and white thing that something either has or doesn't have, but like most things, it really is more of a spectrum.
To answer your "table napkin thought", while I won't deny that anthropomorphizing real animals can often lead to a lack of true understanding of them, the harm done by people trying to avoid doing so is both more common and so, so much more horrific that I hesitate to critique it too much. I mean, I have straight up seen very influential people say that acknowledging the extremely well supported fact that other animals are capable of feeling pain is "anthropomorphizing" them because one specific area of the brain that is partially responsible for processing pain in humans is only present in primates, and that of course can, and historically has, lead to horrific abuse.
I really don't mind all the questions! I love talking about things I'm passionate about, and this topic is certainly up there among the the things I care most about.
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TW: SA, gore and death
Sorry, I just have to type out this rant somewhere. And, just to be painfully explicit about it, this is in no way supposed to make light of sexual assault, femicide or anything else. My main gripe here is purely with The Left™ and feminism and how we don't seem to notice that we're also engaging in the "the cruelty is the point" culture war we (rightfully) scold the right for and that we're doing a pretty fucking shitty job of being the more compassionate side of the political spectrum at times.
So, there's currently that trend on TikTok where women answer the question...
Would you rather encounter a bear or a male stranger if you're alone in the woods?
...with the overwhelming consensus being that a bear seems like the far safer option. And, sure, not my place to comment on that as a guy but I get why most women answer bears.
Now, along comes this video of a guy whose mom was mauled by a bear. He explains how horrible a bear attack is and that people don't really know what they are talking about. He also says that his mom's response to that thought experiment wasn't kind and the word "asinine" was frequently mentioned in response. And let's be crystal clear: He's definitely seems pissed about this particular line of ✨ discourse ✨ (but I'm also autistic so, well, grain of salt).
I want to implore you to take a second before you continue reading: What do you want to respond to him?
If your answer was either laugh at him or lecture him, you'd be completely in line with the responses on TikTok I've seen so far. And, not gonna lie, I kinda find it genuinely disgusting.
That guy brought the receipts. His mother is Allena Hansen and this is a picture of her after the attack (warning, graphic). She had to have multiple, extensive emergency surgeries taking 10 hours or more. And, because US healthcare is in the state that it is, she had healthcare expenses of upwards of $ 250 000 resulting from it.
... if you don't understand why somebody who almost LOST HIS MOTHER TO A BEAR ATTACK has a visceral reaction to people, in his eyes, talking lightly about the gravity of a bear attack, I'm seriously questioning your empathy.
For him you're looking at the worst trauma of his life and calling it "the better alternative". And at that point anything beyond "Yeah, I see your POV and why you feel that way" is firmly in the Big Lebowski category:
It's why you'd apologize to someone after saying "at least it's not X" and you sudden notice someone who suffers/suffered from X is nearby.
All of the responses I've seen have similar lines of arguments:
1. "You have no standing here - your mom was attacked and suffered, not you. So shut up and let the people with a stake in it do the talking."
I mean, if you don't get why almost losing your mother in a particularly gruesome way very much results in suffering and trauma for their children, I don't know what to say to you. But next time you go to a funeral try saying "my condolences" towards the coffin instead of the family and see how that goes over. I'm just gonna say that he very much has personal standing here.
2. "Your mom's book is titled "Chomp, chomp, chomp" so I'm gonna take this as evidence that bear attacks aren't bad because SA survivors stories don't have funny titles":
Remember the medical debt I mentioned above? His mom is on the record about how much she struggled to pay for her treatments and even now, years later, it seems to be a sore spot. Which, I surmise, might be a reason for that book with the attention grabbing title. Publishing is a ruthless industry and if you're trapped in debt you sometimes do "indignant" things to survive.
3. "Your mom did a Reddit AMA and answered that question already and said she prefers the bear, too. Your mom is on our side and you're just a clueless man":
I'm gonna admit I didn't check if this is true. I don't care. He speaks out of his own suffering (see point 1) and, who knows, maybe his mom said that back then because of the whole "marketing your book" thing (see point 2) and she felt like ppl want to hear that. Or she changed her mind since 11 years ago when she did that AMA. But you telling someone how their mom feels about the bear mauling she suffered from and disregarding his conversations with his. fucking. mom. is condescending at best.
But none of these things are what's really what's bothering me. What's bothering me is this: Did you ever have a conversation with a Republican or someone of an opposing political viewpoint and felt they are trying to trigger you? Especially if you spoke out of something that's close to your heart or connected to a personal tragedy?
I have. And that feeling is so distinct that I can recall it in an instance. The confusion and obliviousness how somebody can disregard any notions of empathy just in furtherance of an argument. That unique brand of shitty if you're in a vulnerable state and someone just shits over it and you can FEEL that none of what you're saying is going through their ideological filter.
It. Just. Feels. Shit.
And I promise you nobody every changed their political opinion because you made them feel ridiculed, disregarded and put down. It's painfully obvious that all answers to this guy come from a "No, I'm right and the beating will continue until you've learned your lessons" the right loves to employ against every poor person, drug addict and incarcerated person with.
We on the left and feminists oftentimes pride ourselves on being compassionate. Our opinions are oftentimes grounded in "we just want to reduce suffering".
THEN FUCKING ACT LIKE IT.
And that contains maybe taking a step back and letting the talking points and "no, you're wrong" take a backseat when somebody tells you their mother was mauled by a fucking canine to empathize for a second.
#bear or man#feminism#political discourse#discourse#culture wars#empathy#online discourse#the cruelty is the point
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Alright everyone, I am here to bring you something you neither need, neither want: a fairly detailed ram (stolen from Reddit) about proofs of Putin being in love with Zelenskyy.
- First Putin accepted to meet him for talks about the occupied regions, even if it would've been illogical, knowing that Volodymyr stands his ground. Furthermore Putin knew that in the past he refused a horrendous amount of money from Yanukovych (Putin's man) to shut up and let the channel he was the general director at generate russian propaganda without his Studio interfering. Not to talk that Putin is known to be watching Zelenskyy's comedy show, even though it contained anti-russian narratives, allowing him to also catch a glimpse at Zelensky's stubborn personality. So, what was the meeting for, if Putin ready knew how it would go?
- During the meeting in Paris (9 December 2019) Putin, who always acted like he is superior to "a clown who became president", struggled to even look at him during the parts of it the public has access to. Putin even avoided looking at Zelenskyy when he was right in front of him. This doesn't add up to his "macho" public image amd he clearly wasn't scared, so why was he shy?
- Later, during the pandemic, when Zelenskyy posted (2 March 2021) one of his videos to be an example to people by taking the vaccine, the leading "journalists" of Russia, the ones that are always perfectly in line with everything that comes out of Kremlin, begun openly (on National TV) describe how handsome and hot Zelenskyy is. This is not to deem as a coincidence, since this has been only done by them in regards to Putin himself and a few other russians. And it was a first one, since they had talked about Zelenskyy's physique before the very meeting in Paris, questioning why did he shave his chest and laughing at him for trying to look tough. Something changed in between those two moments and they begun to openly drool over videos of Volodymyr.
- In the month before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin made a reference to one of Zelenskyy's sketches from his show dated to 2016. Vladimir used a well known "Like it or not, bear with it my beauty" phrase, but him commenting on it a few days later during the press-conference with the president of Kazakhstan and saying it wasn't personal makes it pretty clear it was. After all the sketch from 2016 refers to Ukraine as a beauty and tells that that's the reason why Putin wants her so bad. In short: Vladimir either retained the memory of this thing for so long, or recently re-watched it, both of which make wonder why?
- After invading Ukraine Putin begun to act particularly suspicious. Why did he suddenly give the order to fine and throw in jail people who openly admit they thing that Zelenskyy is physically attractive? Just like in that one famous instance of the old lady. Didn't he let his main "journalists" say how majestic his enemy is till a few weeks earlier?
Also the duality of Putin's words begun. He looks so confident on the recorded speeches when he calls Zelenskyy a "drugged/neo-nazi/clown/puppet of the west/disgrace for jews", making sure to never say his last name. But on videos taken in moments which no one should be recording Vladimir is suddenly so different. He begins to act shyer, to say Zelenskyy's last name, to talk about him with respect (personal favourite is the time he referred to Volodymyr with the russian word that stands both for 'mister' and 'master' while waiting for Erdogan 16 September 2022) and even said that he is cool and a FINE MAN.
- Lukashenko, one of Putin's besties and his closest ally, openly refers to Zelenskyy as "Volodya", even while talking about him to russian main "journalists", just like in that one interview from 14 June 2023. So it is safe to assume that he uses the same name while talking with Putin about Zelenskyy, because Vladimir would certainly force his closest ally to not refer to their worst enemy like that. But Putin let's it slide and that is strange to acknowledge.
I know this is not true, but I needfamfics about them.
#putin Zelenskyy#putin#zelensky#volodymyr zelenskyy#putin zelensky#putilensky#I was crazy once#now I am just mentally unstable
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