effdragonkiller

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Imagine the academic papers from the Star Wars universe

- ‘An Analysis of the Economic Conditions Contributing to the Clone Wars’

- ‘Economics and Injustice - Why the Republic Turned a Blind Eye to the Slavery Problem in the Outer Rim Territories’

- ‘Jedi - A Force for Stability or a Force for Stagnation, A Sociological Analysis’

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GAR Flagships in the Clone Wars

I don’t think I’ve seen one of these but I was looking them up for a fic so just in case anyone else also needs this, here’s a quick reference of the known Republic flagships in use during the Clone Wars, listed by Jedi. These are all Venator-class Star Destroyers.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Negotiator

Integrity

Vigilance

Anakin Skywalker

Resolute

Dauntless (not listed as a flagship but was part of the same battlegroup as the Resolute)

Pioneer (not listed as a flagship but was part of the same battlegroup as the Resolute)

Luminara Unduli

Tranquility

Aayla Secura

Liberty

Intrepid

Saesee Tiin

Impavid

Prosperous

The Endurance was under the command of Admiral Kilian but this is the ship that Mace had been using when Boba Fett tried to kill him.

Yoda used the Tranquility for the Battle of Kashyyk (and Luminara was there with him).

There’s more ships listed here.

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 hi everyone I actually made a google powerpoint on my theories about clone development a while ago, if you’re curious. Its unfinished, but still most of the information is there.

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Title: You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate

Song: “You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate” by Zoey Van Goey

Fandom: The Mummy series

Summary: “I do the dumbest things for you.”

My Festivids 2020 assignment for @always-theocean. Vid also posted to AO3.

See my other videos here or on Tumblr.

And as always, thanks to @unattainablesky for beta magic!

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the sheer offensiveness of rereading something you wrote, discovering that, hey, it’s actually pretty good, and then reaching the end, wherein you realize that if you want more you actually have to write it

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Leverage: Supers

They don’t have superpowers. They don’t. Or at least, they don’t have super powers.

Sure, Nate jokes that he’s psychic. It’s a con he’s played on more than one mark, not counting the times Sophie (or, memorably, Tara) picked up the role. The rumors of precognition floated around him as an investigator no matter how much he insisted otherwise. As his reputation as a thief grew, so did the rumors. Being assumed as a seer of some kind has been a help as much as a hindrance, really, but it deters more trouble than it attracts, so Nate’s let the rumor lie.

But there are times, once in a while, when Nate pauses. His voice will get raspy. Usually it’s just a word: duck, stop, run, wait. The team has learned that you don’t argue when he uses that voice, because he’s always right, and it’s saved their lives more than once. Nate calls it a feeling, or an instinct, and then changes the subject. One time, when he was drunk and pressed, he slurred, “It didn’t save my son.” After that, they stopped asking.

Sophie isn’t actually a shapeshifter, not like in that 1970’s footage of the person changing, one face after another sliding across their body like a slideshow. They know Sophie can’t do that, because she’s a good liar but they know she cares, and if she could do that, she would have, when they were in a few tight spots where a change of face would have stopped the violence.

But there’s something just slightly too good about her performances, sometimes. Even though it’s her skills that sell it, her features never betray her. Her skin is always just enough of the right shade. Her eyes are always just close enough to the right shape. It could be written off as the mind playing tricks, except that Hardison keep having to update his facial analysis algorithms, because they keep getting Sophie wrong. People who have met her before swear they haven’t, and vice versa.

Eliot is easy to pin down, if harder to prove. It’s just not natural for anyone to take that much damage and never need a hospital. He always waves it off, insists it’s not as bad as it looks, but that doesn’t explain why he has smooth skin in places where he absolutely should have scars, given the injuries he’s acquired during their work.

One day Hardison cracks the right server and finds a photo he recognizes on a list in a military database. After that, he notices the way Eliot reacts to mentions of super soldiers and government experiments. It’s subtle. It could be mistaken for the general dislike many army grunts have of superheroes, if he didn’t know better.

Parker also has instinctive reactions, though she denies them even while tensing, just enough for her teammates to notice, around large men in lab coats when they tower over her, around needles and syringes. She doesn’t know why because she was far too young to remember anything before the endless foster homes.

When she trusts them, eventually, they get glimpses of Parker dislocating joints that shouldn’t be able to dislocate and popping them back into place without blinking or bruising. It’s a bit too much for even the most limber double-jointed acrobats. Hardison thinks of cats, who can fold their collarbones to fit through tight spaces, and deliberately does not go looking for Parker’s past.

And Hardison? Hardison doesn’t think he has anything at all above baseline. Sure, he’s always talked to his tech. He names his computers, the vans, the robots. He whispers soothing encouragements or desperate pleas off-mic. Like any good programmer, he’s irrationally superstitious, but he doesn’t really, logically, objectively think much of it, until the day when Parker thrusts her phone in his face, cracked and probably irreparably dead, and tells him to ask it to turn on for just a bit longer so they can call for help.

He does. It does. Parker seems completely unsurprised. Haridison starts being more aware of how he talks to things, starts leaning how to feel the connections that he’s been tapping into unconsciously his whole life.

They don’t have superpowers. But then again, none of them ever claimed to be normal.

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The gamestop drama just got fuckin better and by better I mean the wallstreet shit may be more evil than anyone thought.

TLDR: redditor asked himself: Squeezes have happened before, why are they freaking out so bad over this one?

Numbers Indicate: this might unveil a bunch of counterfeit stocks that the hedge funds and brokers were in on.

(Will put the text version in a reblog)

Counterfeiting Stock Paper

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i’m so proud of anyone who writes fanfic.   i am immensely proud of anyone who types out stories they want to see for characters that are not their creation, or their property, but that inspire them to delve into a difficult medium with which they likely have little experience or comfort. i have to be proud of that because fanfic is ultimately a thankless line of work. and it is work.  it’s work for people who’re good at writing, trained in it. so imagine how difficult it is for beginners, the impaired, those with even a modicum of self-doubt?  in that way, they are no different from any other author. writing, literature, is an art form with an ugly legacy of snobbery. academics and laymen alike still argue about what sorts of writing should and should not be considered ‘canonical.’  add to that odious environment the level of disdain, apathy, or ignorance most non-fannish people have toward fan works and you have a near-permanent, repugnant shroud of You’re Not Real encompassing the whole endeavor.  a shroud under which, miraculously, fan works are still produced with vigor and regularity, and largely without access to agents or editors who’re paid to polish. just as miraculously, these writers often receive, from their friends and peers and strangers, the sort of praise one associates with bestselling authors.  it’s miraculous because fanfic writers have been obliged to believe, from the moment they set finger to keyboard, that what they are doing is a sideshow. at best, they are hobbyists with some talent but no real standing. at worst, they are self-indulgent amateurs, muddying the waters of a true craft.  like many authors of original work, fanfic writers will never have a millisecond of calculable fame for their efforts. they may step out of their borrowed sandbox and create original work, or they may not, but there is no scenario in which they emerge feeling like an accepted member of a celebrated tradition.  even in the rare instance of pop culture turning its eye on some speck of scintillating fan work, it’s still mocked.  it’s still a sideshow, just with a brighter spotlight. so, yeah, i am proud of anyone who can absorb the reality of all the above…and still write. 

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Being friends with content creators and artists/authors is such a strange thing, because you can be moved by a piece of art, and absolutely enamored with a story–sobbing into your pillow at 4am because you can’t put it down–and then, just randomly remember that the person that created this incredible thing, is someone you send shitposts to at one in the morning, and exchange recipes with, and flail over your faves with, and talk about all your ridiculous ideas with.

Knowing the people whose talent brings you such joy is such a surreal and beautiful experience. Getting to hold in your hands something that was created by someone you know and care for is amazing.

But also, there chance to know that that incredibly talented person is a fellow Disaster Human is the most comforting thing?

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[insp]

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if you would be so kind as to reblog this if you feel insecure about your writing skills.

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Jetii as an insult and why it might not be so bad.

I read this post by kaasknot last night and it literally consumed my brain.

It's an excellent examination of the linguistic quirk that differentiates Mando'ade from Jetii and why that might be.

Except, I had a seriously hard time dealing with the ramifications of Jetii being a slur. Because kaasknot was right, the vast majority of fanfiction that ships a Mando with a Jedi is going to be pulling their Mando'a from mandoa.org without any context. The implications it left for fandom were uncomfortable. So, I'm writing an argument why 'ner Jetii' as an endearment is okay.      1- I mean so long as you ignore that it's like calling your significant other by their political or religious affiliation. So, calling someone 'my Buddhist'.

1) The -ii suffix in Jetii is probably from the word aruetii, meaning traitor, foreigner, outsider. But instead of focusing on the definition as traitor, I would like to use it for outsider, because here's what I think: Mando'ade are a clan based people who have a habit of holding themselves distinct from the rest of the galaxy. This isn't rare, the Jedi do this as well, but consider the additional evidence of the civil war between the traditionalists and the New Mandalorians.

There's a lot of evidence that culturally, Mando'ade aren't good at seeing other perspectives. The New Mandalorians tend to look down on anyone who follows the old ways and the traditionalist tend to see the pacifists as having given up everything that made them Mando'ade. In fact, the adoption rite for Mando'ade is called the 'gai bal manda' which literally means the 'name and soul'. Implying that by not being Mando'ade that you don't have a soul.

That's some next level othering, right there. Not uncommon in human history; there is a large body of evidence that supports the fact that many tribes and clans in human history are only known by what other people call them. There own labels for themselves often something like ‘the people’. This is the same difference between Mandalorian and Mando'ade in canon. I don't think that there's any evidence to contradict the idea that the only people Mando'ade might refer to as 'the people of' are themselves.

2) kaasknot talked about how 'traat'ad' might be a less insulting term than Jetii, but I have some objections.    1- I think that the Jedi would be more uncomfortable being called the children of the force than being labelled an outsider. The Jedi are outsiders. They know, understand, and perpetuate their status as outsiders so that they can more effectively work as a neutral authority. But in Mando'a the 'traat' in 'traat'ad' comes from the same term used in special forces, squad, and army. The force denoting physical violence, and I think that Jedi, who hated being Generals and who praised those who could come to a non-violent solution, would shudder at being called 'traat'ad'.   2- Regardless of whether the -ii suffix is insulting or not, Jetii is closest to what the Jedi call themselves. There is more respect in trying to say the right word with the wrong accent than calling an entire group of people something else.        A- Let's not even get into the fact that 'Egypt' is 110% the wrong name for the country with the ancient pyramids and why, in an era of being politically correct and emotionally inclusive, has it not been changed?!?

3) Language changes, and different words mean different things to different people. There are a lot of excellent examples of this in English. Chuffed, for example, means two completely contradictory things at the exact same time. And to be gay originally meant to be happy, merry, and joyful. It had nothing to do with sexual orientation the way it does now.

Linguistic drift happens in real languages. It's not even particularly rare. If Jetii was originally a slur against the Jedi formed from over a thousand years of conflict between Jedi and Mando'ade, that doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

Additionally, context is also important, because while the Clone Troopers are raised with the Resol'nare as much as possible they aren't actually Mando'ade. They were created by Jango Fett as part of a plot against the Jedi by the Sith and were trained to revere the Jedi who would lead them into battle. That is an enormously different context than almost anyone else saying the term in canon.

So in summary, basically, if you want to use 'ner Jetii' as a term of endearment, go for it. Just, you know, maybe think about the fact that it's like calling someone 'my Buddhist'.

- In case you got this far, no I don't have footnotes or references. Yes, I know this is bad essay-form. 

I made a lot of assumptions in this about canon or based on evidence from what is now the Legends universe and therefore no longer strictly canon... I don't really want to hear anything about it.

If you have made it all the way to the end and still haven't read kaasknot’s much more well written post on Jetii as an insult, it can be found here.

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Mando’paru (Part Two)

[Part One]

***Disclaimer once again: I am by no means an expert in martial arts, and my knowledge on Mandalorians is a work in progress. Please only take my words as they apply to Jate’kara ‘verse and/or my fics***

My imagining of what Mando’paru looks like is, of course, inspired by Temuera Morrison and the martial arts of the Maori. 

See: 

Martial arts of the Maori

Part about their Weaponry School

About the Taiaha

Temuera Morrison with a prop lightsaber

Youtube is a friend for more videos! :D

The actual teaching part:

My headcanon is that Mandalorians begin combat training at 5 (or the equivalent in non-humans). Whether they start later than that is totally up to the purview of their buire, but the consensus is around 5. 

(Aside: let me tell you tiny five-year-olds learning martial arts is the cutest thing in the world.)

Keep reading

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This goes right along with this article about how writing fanfiction is basically more helpful for learning writing skills than sitting in a classroom. https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/27/131111/online-fan-fiction-learning-communities/

And I just can’t wait for the day when I can tell someone that I’m really very enthusiastic and passionate about my writing without getting embarassed that it’s fanfiction.

my dad–also a writer–came to visit, and i mentioned that the best thing to come out of the layoff is that i’m writing again. he asked what i was writing about, and i said what i always do: “oh, just fanfic,” which is code for “let’s not look at this too deeply because i’m basically just making action figures kiss in text form” and “this awkward follow-up question is exactly why i don’t call myself a writer in public.”

he said, “you have to stop doing that.”

“i know, i know,” because it’s even more embarrassing to be embarrassed about writing fanfic, considering how many posts i’ve reblogged in its defense.

but i misunderstood his original question: “fanfic is just the genre. i asked what you’re writing about.” 

i did the conversational equivalent of a spinning wheel cursor for at least a minute. i started peeling back the setting and the characters, the fic challenge and the specific episode the story jumps off from, and it was one of those slow-dawning light bulb moments. “i’m writing about loneliness, and who we are in the absence of purpose.”

as, i imagine, are a lot of people right now, who probably also don’t realize they’re writing an existential diary in the guise of getting television characters to fuck. 

“that’s what you’re writing. the rest is just how you get there, and how you get it out into the world. was richard iii really about richard the third? would shakespeare have gotten as many people to see it if it wasn’t a story they knew?”

so, my friends: what are you writing about?

[effdragonkiller]

Andromache of Scythia

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Important things I’ve learned from fanfics:

- Pay close attention to the local coffee shop’s barista, chances are they are the love of your life

- Pretending to be in a relationship to make someone jealous will probably work, just maybe not in the way you expect it to

- If you are going to listen to people’s conversations behind doors, LISTEN TO THE WHOLE FREAKING THING

- Make sure the person you are talking in your way to a job interview is not your future boss

- Shower sex is actually possible