#I think some people in Star Wars fandom REALLY understood all this in a way that many of yall don’t

[canisvesperus]

Whenever I post something nice about Eridan I feel like Rian Johnson calling Ben Solo a sweetheart in that The Last Jedi promotional poster from his Instagram on July 15 2017 and the resulting shitstorm that created in the fandom. VERY FEW WILL UNDERSTAND.

[starlightrows]

Final thoughts on The Bad Batch Finale

I’ll cut to the chase here and be honest. I am not mad about it, in fact I’m over all pretty content with this ending.

Are there unanswered questions? Yeah.

Are there loose ends? Yeah

But to be completely honest, after a while with this show, I lost a lot of real attachment to it. I stopped caring so much about how it would all shake out. And it improved my viewing experience immensely.

But I’ll still share some specific thoughts.

What I wish had been tied up

• I realize they can’t show it, because it’s a kids show. But I hope one or some of them hunted down Cid and killed her. She sold them out. Twice. I can’t fucking stand betrayers and backstabbers.

• A little bit more explanation on Omega’s M Count and how it actually affects her (who knows, we might find out later. Maybe she’ll meet Kanan Jarrus later in the rebellion!)

• What happened to Cody? Listen, I’m not really part of the Cody fandom space. But I love and support you guys, and I think you guys deserve to know what happened to your blorbo!

• Was Tech one of the winter soldier-esk operatives? To me it felt a little odd that they didn’t confirm or deny it either way. And it sort of doesn’t matter. If he was, there wasn’t going to be a way to save him and they would have had to kill him while looking at his face. If he wasn’t then he died to save them. He died a hero and they can mourn and remember him.

Most of these things, we might be able to get answers or closure to later in a future project. Fingers crossed.

Here are the things that I loved

• Omega has grown so much. We can see it in how she approaches situations and views the world. You can see little reflections of all of her brothers in how she behaves without them. And that is a beautiful thing.

• The batch has grown a lot too. They of course want to protect her, their little big sister. But they also trust her immensely. They taught her how to lead, how to think tactically, how to protect herself and others. The taught her to be a soldier.

• Nala Se knew she would not leave the base alive. And so did Omega. They both understood the importance of ensuring the empire lost all possibility of using that data. Nala Se also got to avenge her city and her people by taking Rampart with her.

• Omega leaving to join the rebellion means everything to me. She grew into an amazing young woman. She was raised by soldiers. Soldiers that didn’t choose to be part of a war. But she got to choose. She chose to become a soldier on her own to free the galaxy of its tyrannical government. There is nothing more Star Wars than that to me.

[k-s-morgan]

Hi. It's probably a silly question but I can't help thinking about it. It's not exactly about ATLWETD just Tomarry in concept.

Tom is a really smart boy/man and he is the sort of person to love mind games, riddles, and playing people (maybe like Ciel), so how do you picture his relationship with Harry? Tom needs intellectual stimulation. Not to say that Harry is stupid and doesn't have common themes to talk about with Tom, but he is not that interested in books, toying people, politics, etc. So what does Tom see in Harry? What fascinates him? I know that Harry can offer Tom deep understanding and acceptance, but these two things alone do not make a long-lasting relationship

Sorry for rambling. I'm just a bit new to Tomarry fandom and I really try to understand all nuances

Hello! Welcome to Tomarry part of the fandom! Here's my take on this.

Tom and Harry are the kind of characters who can be described as different sides of the same coin. Both orphans, both unloved, both abused in one way or another, both having to survive on scraps and seeing magic as their salvation. They are both strong and stubborn, and very determined, but while Tom represents darkness, Harry represents light. Tom’s circumstances contributed to him being cold and full of hatred and bitterness. Harry kept his purity and his love. Because of it, Harry can understand where Tom is coming from, and in canon, he empathizes with him as a child despite everything Tom/Voldemort has done to him. This is something Tom can’t understand, which just makes the dynamic all the more interesting. They are so similar yet so different; they can relate to each other in some aspects and are prepared to fight to death over the remaining ones. There is passion, there is reluctant empathy and admiration.

Harry has the power to shake Tom exactly because of their similarities. A small personal example: if someone who never lived through the war tells me how I should perceive it, I'm just going to scoff. But if I hear it from someone who experienced what I did, I'm going to pay attention. Tom will never be able to relate to people who grew up in the wizarding world, who knew who they were from the start, who didn't have to fight to survive. But he can relate to Harry, and Harry is brave, stubborn, and strong enough to keep fighting him to get his point across. This kind of passion can lead to shouting matches where an unexpected middle truth emerges; it can result in attraction, which will lead to reluctant understanding and compromises. The struggle and the opposing moral values make their relationship challenging; the similarities make it profound and unique. Everyone likes being understood and seen, and there is no one better who could do this for each other than Tom and Harry.

Interestingly, you mentioned Tom and Ciel, and when I thought about pairing them, I felt like they'd be a terrible fit :D I think they are similar and different in incompatible ways. They are both cold and rigid - they'd freeze each other to death. Ciel needs some playfullness in his life to remember that existing is actually fun; Tom needs fire to burn him and to push him out of his self-created superior comfort zone. Ciel has some morality and Tom doesn't, so I think Ciel would see him as just another intelligent psychopath. Tom, in turn, would see Ciel as another spoiled heir of a rich family who never had to fight for anything and who's nothing without his butler.

Tom and Harry are the people who can stimulate each other to be better, to try harder; they have the power to influence each other and make each other view things from a perspective they wouldn't have considered otherwise. Harry might not be Tom's equal in intelligence or magic, but they are still both big league players. Harry can think on his feet; he's a leader and a sport-star, which equips him with skills that can come in handy and which Tom might lack. Harry doesn't seem to be interested in politics in canon, but I think he would be if he felt like he has a chance to change anything. He can give Tom unconditional love without losing his sense of self-worth. Tom, in turn, can give the kind of biting, fanatical, absolute devotion that Harry needs, which would keep him feeling loved but grounded.

These are the foundations of a potential life-long relationship. Depending on the circumstances, Harry and Tom can get attached to each other and start bickering over the small, less relevant things; they can study and admire magic together; they can work on changing the society in a way that they both would consider good; they can duel for fun and just enjoy the quiet. They have a huge promise - the rest depends on a world they are thrust in.

[fancyfade]

I got into DC recently and latched onto Talia like a baby duckling. Like even before I fully understood her as a character I was ready to fight for her honor, which is when ran into your blog on her tag.

The Talia brainrot has been really rotting my brain SO you got anything Talia related? Arcs you wish were explored. If you were put in charge of a Talia run what would it be? Outfits you saw, or made up, that you think she would rock? Do you know any other blogs that are normal (as in they know Talia's OG characterization) about Talia? HCs? Your bio says you like Star Wars, so what Star Wars character do you think she would be friends with? (I think she would be friends with Satine Kryze) Who do you think she would despise? Do you think she would be a Jedi? If so what era do you think she would thrive in? What's her favorite Shakespeare play? Do you think she would have a favorite quote from him? (I think it would be Beatrice's "I will eat his heart in the marketplace" from Much Ado. Beatrice's relationship with Hero is so personal to me and I definitely think that's the type of cousin/ older sister Talia would be). Something DC brought up once about Talia, but you think it should be explored more (WHO IS AMALA DC??? WHAT IS HER FRIENDSHIP WITH TALIA TELL ME MORE).

Oh most importantly: How do you deal with comics that completely screw her up? I'm reading Tomasi's Batman and Robin and GOD I barely get through the beginning of Vol 2, and I know there are comics that do worse with her. So I know I can't just drop comics that do a nasty job with her because then I should just quit Batfam comics in general and try some other fam and I have NO idea where to start with that and ugh.

Just anything about Talia.

Also, I know I typed a lot and if you don't want to answer some of them that is 100% fine! Or if you want to answer them in parts across different posts. I just need more with her.

hmmm so talia arcs i would like to see

well probably b/c i am just re-reading lexcorp, but i would like a more satisfying end to president lex stuff and lexcorp talia. I feel like he just kind of grabs the idiot ball, unless I am remembering the end to this saga wrong. like IIRC it was due to him being stupid in batman/superman and not any of the people trying to take him down... which is SUCH a shame b/c a story of talia teaming up with the superman characters and helping them take down lex could be so interesting. like. we saw talia feed calvin carson info to get him to go to the press about lex. we saw clark go undercover* to try to find some dirt on lex after lex covered up his crimes. lois got a lot of dirt on lex he conveniently made disappear about his involvement in OWAW . i want to see this all come together in a satisfying way!!

for star wars, I think Satele Shan (from SWTOR era) interacting with Talia could be very cool! both in I just think both characters are neat, but also for some interesting mother son parallelisms and contrasts. Talia initially wants Damian but then realizes she has to give him up to avoid him being raised in the league and to protect him from his parents possibly dying on him, Satele I don't think we see a ton of reason why she gives up Theron, but in general I viewed her as a character who did not want to be a mother, and she knew that she couldn't be theron's mother while still fulfilling all her obligations to the Jedi and fighting the sith, and that's OK (Fandom hates this). I think seeing them interact and team up to stop a bigger threat could be cool.

Also would be cool: To see Talia interacting with Imperial Agent's crew (again SWTOR :P). Talia in her lexcorp era often feels very much like she'd fit in with the vibes they are going for in that story, which is that no one really trusts anyone completely, or in many cases at all. A lot of her time in Lexcorp she has no allies and has to play all her cards very close to her chest as she's dealing w/ very dangerous people. especially if you go with defector-imperial agent (who defects in chapter 2 to... that guy who's name i forget since it's been a very long time since I played swtor IA. ardun?). B/c my understanding of defector IA (I've never played it b/c Aereinys is too mad to consider it, even tho she also hates the empire at that point) would, being a double agent appearing to work for the empire and having to pull off missions successfully for them to stay useful, routinely work against people who otherwise would be on her side, while working for people she finds morally repugnant.

For Jedi stuff I think Talia would want to be one of those chill nerdy Jedi who meditate and study. But if we go with her in canon plotlines a Jedi Shadow would work well :P

I don't read much shakespeare so I can't say much for what her favorite Shakespeare play would be. if we're going w/ Talia + literature appreciation, I can see her liking Hombre Pequeñito (link) which is admittedly a short poem and not a play but :P

For dealing with comics that completely screw her up: I honestly just write my own headcanon stuff and that's my canon now. It is helped a little by the fact that new 52 created a big break in my mental continuity, b/c they messed up so many characters I care about (Babs, Cass, Jaime), so all of DC from 2011 til now is very much "I do what I want". So there is stuff to re-write but less stuff.

I got my own fanfic (link) for how pre-Morrison Talia can meet Damian, and that's what I hang my mental canons on for them.

I do know that people who are reading Ram V's TEC run say it's got pretty good Talia, I haven't read it yet but hopefully they're getting her back on the right track.

for other blogs that are good about talia u might find some in my talia al ghul tag (link)... there are a lot of good blogs tho. @brucetalias, @immortaldino, @fluffykitty149, and @arellas are often who I think of for the Talia fans!

*for like 1 issue ;_;

[daisychainsandbowties]

9, 17, 22 (fav wn character to write), 38, 42, 50

9. how do you find new fic to read?

i used to actually just browse the tag every day on ao3 but now that i write probably 80% of the time i only have a few authors i read and then i find stuff on here or i’m forever happy to have people send me stuff.

mostly i don’t have to try find fic anymore because i have so many talented mutuals on here i’m constantly being fed 🥰🥰

17. what highly specific au do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

fjdjsjdjdj well earlier this evening it was my 17776 au, especially the way i’m writing it which is riffing off of This Is How You Lose The Time War in terms of style and approach. ava and bea as deep space probes is like… an out-there concept. i definitely thought i would be the only person interested in it.

aside from that… i have another space au based on the “Swarm” episode of Love, Death & Robots (also would kind of like to do one based on “the very pulse of the machine” AND “bad travelling”. the concepts from that series are kiss forever and ever) i feel like that’s pretty solidly niche, but honestly the people in this fandom are so good about weird concepts so,,,

22. who is your fav wn character to write?

ava. hands down. this surprises me sometimes but GOD. she’s so gorgeous to write and i always have the best time writing ava chapters. especially in star wars au and pjo au and chess au and- nevermind. in everything she’s my favourite to write. my first ever fic (oranges are the only fruit) was ava pov. i just adore her.

this might sound weird because i love lilith and bea so much (and i do i do i do) but they’re… like bleeding to write whereas ava is just,,, she’s light

38. did any of your fics get surprisingly popular? which ones? why do you think they are so successful?

i don’t think any of my fics are very popular by most standards. my style isn’t conducive to it but i didn’t think anyone would read chess au, so that was surprising. no idea why i guess chess is just really sexy and makes me weird and insane. and also it’s ava pov.

42. have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for some reason?

YEAH. kei’s first comment on ligaments made me cry intermittently for three days straight. i have it saved as a pdf and as a picture on my phone. i just couldn’t believe someone had understood my intentions so well and been nice to me like,,, am forever and ever grateful for that comment

but any thoughtful comment does stand out to me, or ones where people say “i read this eating cheerios in bed” or “i saved this for friday as a treat” idk there’s something that just… makes me so emotional about how my fic fits into peoples’ lives. it’s why i write at all

50. answer any question you want or talk about something

oh. well today i was reading about Kēlen, a constructed language that sets out to violate one of the universal features or linguistic rules of human languages - namely that all human languages contain verbs.

it’s worth reading about i won’t explain it all here but i thought that was pretty interesting.

oh i can’t help myself here’s the ring verse from lotr in kēlen

the original for reference

[burnwater13]

Hi, I'm usually on this site (still very new) writing tiny stories about Grogu and a few other allied topics. I like writing and I enjoy interacting with you all.

I am taking this little bit of time to say, own your opinions. You have a right to have opinions, popular or otherwise. But own them. Don't ascribe them to "they", "everyone", "it", "you", etc.

I am a Star Wars fan. I don't enjoy every little bit of Star Wars to the same extent. I like some of it more and some of it less. For example, I really enjoy The Mandalorian. I especially like Grogu. That's why I write stories about the little guy.

But I understand that you may think that Grogu is the worst thing in the Star Wars universe. That's okay. Express that opinion. Say things like, "I don't enjoy Grogu. I find that character distracting or too comical." That's an example of you owning your opinion.

What I see many times on social media is "Worst thing ever", "They failed us", "Can't understand why anyone wouldn't love this", "Perfect episode, no notes, unless you don't get fandom X", etc.

My response to that is, really? A single character, a single episode, a single action, made something you loved into something you could no longer enjoy? Or that particular thing you love is something you believe that everyone else should love, no matter what?

I enjoy hyperbole, I do. But perhaps, when you share your opinion, start by owning it. Try it this way once in a while, "I hate that they used a celebrity in a cameo because it distracted me from the story"... or "I really enjoyed this episode because I love celebrity cameos". You see, your opinion is out there. It is known. But... you are not mocking the people who don't agree with you. You are also not implying that everyone else or anyone else agrees with you.

Your argument, pro or con, has the full weight of you and your opinion and that's great. I want you all to have your thoughts and opinions known and understood.

If you have to use hyperbole, if you have a need for the drama, and the one upmanship, then write your own stories. Tell them the way you want to. Take the same risk the people who made that piece of media took. They created a thing for you and others to see, interact with, and hopefully enjoy. But our individual mileage varies. Hyperbole doesn't help those people course correct, add nuance, or even understand your true opinion because you never expressed it in a meaningful way.

But hey, I'm not your mom. You do you. I know you will anyway and I want you to. In my opinion a fan helps the creators of content get better at creating content by sharing their opinions in a manner that provides details, not just hyperbole.

Thank you for reading this rant. I hope you have a lovely day.

[darklyndivinely]

I finished reading the shadow and bone series and I've got thoughts and some unpopular opinions so let's go. Spoilers for the books btw.

I downloaded the books back in April 2021. I saw six of crows being recommended everywhere and wanted to read the whole of the story. I remember coming here on Tumblr to scope out the vibe of the books as well as to read some reviews perhaps. What I learned then was that people hated Malina, loved the Darkling, and hated the ending. I did try to start reading the first book back then, but got distracted.

I picked them up again a week ago after watching season 2 of the show. The majority don't like Mal, albeit Show!Mal is a bit more loved. Perhaps it was the awareness of this already widely agreed upon opinion of everyone's or maybe it was just the image of Archie Renaux in my mind, but I did not hate Mal at all. I actually really understood him. I'm not saying he's the best love interest. He's not. He's got some glaring flaws. But he cares for Alina. And he's done some mistakes. He was an absolute ass to her, but he apologized. He admitted his mistakes and tried to do better. You can't tell me that you wouldn't try to distance yourself from the person that you are in love with if you realised that that is the good thing to do. He can be shitty, and absolutely terrible at communication, and he's got some bad coping mechanisms, but he's human. I don't know why the fandom doesn't try to understand him.

Let's move on to Alina, who despite being the protagonist, isn't as loved as I had expected. Many people said that she's a Mary Sue. That she just doesn't have flaws and starts and ends the same way. I'll admit it can be a bit difficult to see it, but I thought she really grew into herself. She was more confident, cunning, outspoken, understood different people's perspectives and experiences better. And she's absolutely hilarious (I was thinking of compiling all the bits from her that made me wheeze). She isn't a total Mary Sue (maybe a bit, I'll admit that). The answer is clear when you compare her to an actual Mary Sue character like Rey Skywalker from the Star wars sequels.

Her story has a circular ending. She starts as a nobody and that's how she finishes. I'm still a bit sceptical about it. I'm with it, but I'm also not. The foreshadowing for it (the soldiers of light bit) was decent. Her losing her powers made sense, cause if she hadn't she wouldn't ever be able to be at peace again, she'd have to spend her entire life shouldering the burden of being a one of a kind grisha and a saint. But I also do not like how she's being forced to live without them when it was so integral to her well being. The loss of them has been described as the loss of a limb. And I feel deeply for her.

I really enjoy Nikolai, he's absolutely hilarious. Misha is baby. Tolya and Tamar are amazing (wtf why aren't there more fics about them????).

Moving on to The Darkling. I do not ship Darklina, but I did enjoy the connection they had for the entirety of the third book. The confidence of telling Alina his name touched me a bit. What I really enjoyed, however, was the way he isn't portrayed as a complete morally black character. He's done fucked up shit but when you look at it from his perspective you realise that all that he has been through, the pain, the heartache and the betrayals have led him to shy away from attachments. He's not redeemable, and that's fine. I don't ship him with Alina, but I can appreciate the underlying intent for his actions. He did them the only way he knew how.

Overall, I really enjoyed the books. Gonna move on to Six of Crows now. If you read all of this, I appreciate it <3

[sullustangin]

Fluffy February Day 6:  Stretch

Rating: PG

Fandom: SWTOR

Time:  3676 BBY/23 BTC

Pairing: Jace Malcom/Satele Shan, unrequited

Words:  1289

~~

“So… the Force doesn’t make all that acrobatic stuff possible by itself?” Jace asked.  “Like, if I was a Jedi, I’d have to be able to do a backflip anyway?”

Satele shook her head as she continued to limber up for her morning routine.  “Not quite.  Yes, you do have to stay fit and maintain some physical prowess, but the Force helps you defy gravity for a little longer, have just a bit more endurance in a sprint, a little more strength in your swing.  Think of it as an extra set of hands or guidance.”

Jace sat on a bench just a few feet away from Satele’s gymnastic mat.  “But it’s 100% the Force when Jedi lift stuff, right?  It’s not like ‘bro, you gotta lift this much on the bench or you’ll drop that rock on your foot,’ right?”

Satele’s laugh jingled in his ear, like the tiny bell on top of an old-fashioned swinging door.  “Yes, that is more rooted in the person’s discipline and concentration in the Force.  Word to the wise, all the same : don’t put bets against Jedi in benchpressing competitions.”

“Like I’m betting against the Jedi for anything.”  Jace sipped his caf as he watched Satele finish up her stretches.  “You really put yourself through the paces.  I hurried over here because I thought you’d run through warm-ups and be swinging your dualsaber in minutes, and if I sat around eating my waffles, you’d be done.”

Satele tossed her braid over her shoulder as she stood up.  “Believe it or not, Jace, Jedi are mortals.  We get charley horses too!”

Just as Jace sputtered into his coffee – because hearing prim Satele say ‘charley horse’ was somehow hysterically funny to him – Satele launched into her routine, activating her dual saber as she vaulted into the air.  

Stars, she could fly.

At the time he’d met her over Korriban, he hadn’t had a lot of time to watch her – he knew what she and her master had been doing was beyond his imagining.  Watching her practice her katas was far lower stakes but no less amazing, here on Coruscant.

Over the last five years, since… everything… started, Jace and Satele had been pretty faithful pen pals (in a way; neither of them used pen, praise be the Holonet).  Sometimes it took awhile: she had to go through her trials with a new master, he ended up on a cereal box because it was good for recruitment and he was apparently cute enough, then she and Dar’Nala (her new master) had been sent around the galaxy on diplomatic service.  Jace understood the logic: Satele had gotten to know the battle side of the Jedi Order a lot sooner than she did the peacekeeper end.  

Then Jace got promoted and was sent off to officer school – who’d’ve thunk it, a kid form Bacaria like him? That was almost as impressive as the cereal box, according to Kal.

Kal would be a higher rank and would probably have his own cereal box if he wasn’t so dead-set on being a maverick and a joker.  He just had to defy authority in some way, even if it was just wearing non-regulation socks.  And not taking every double-dog dare his stupid company threw out there.

So, five years into this war with the Sith, and here were Satele Shan and Jace Malcom, hanging out. Like normal people.  Well, if normal people could swing a dualsaber and do backflips at the same time, Jace supposed, as he watched her.  As if they weren’t the two kids who brought news of Korriban to the galaxy.  It was a weird way to start a friendship.

Jace was coming to a pretty rapid conclusion though.  He didn’t want it just to be a friendship.

Satele was the most amazing woman he’d ever met, and he’d covered a lot of planets since he first met her.

Scratch that from the pitch; that sounded way raunchier than he thought it would.  And yeah, he’d gone out with other women but not that many.  He didn’t know every—

Ok, this whole ‘I think we should be more than friends’ skit he’d mapped out needed about fifteen more drafts before he tried it live with her.  He didn’t want it to sound like he was infatuated (he totally was), and he didn’t want it to sound like he didn’t have enough experience to make the comparison (he did), but he also didn’t want it to sound like ‘out of the hundreds of women’ (which was NOT the case; Kal would rat him out to his mother for not respecting women or himself, and then there’d be holy wrath over the holocomm).

His chain of thought broke off as Satele nailed her landing at the edge of the mat, then detached her dualsaber into two parts, so now she wielded one shorter lightsaber in each hand. He watched as she went through the movements, fighting an invisible foe –

And great galaxies, she was fierce.   There was some sort of channeled rage in her, something that might have darkened another’s soul… but instead, she pushed it out and away from her heart, throwing it into her efforts against foes, for the Jedi, for the Republic, for the Light --!

…Most of all, nobody Jace had tried to date had understood what his service meant to him. They thought it was a ‘do your time, and then do what you really want to do.’  Get that veteran’s discount.  Get a leg up in hiring.

This was what Jace wanted to do.  He wanted to be career military.  It made him happier than grunting it out on Bacaria, where physical labor with zero intellectual engagement was still a top feature of any career there.  He didn’t want to get into a rat race or be once of those inspirational talk jackasses.  Credits wouldn’t make him happy.  This would.

And Satele – as devoted to the Jedi Order as she was – would get that.  And…

He really had to draft this next part out, maybe thirty times, and wait another five years, but… he was pretty sure he could marry her if she promised to pick the Order and the Republic over him no matter what, if it came down to it.  It would sting but… valid?  

But then there was the whole “I have aspirations for having my own Huttball team, composed entirely of our children (adopted and biological)” thing he had going on.  He and Kal were brothers and it was fine, but…

Ok, scratch that entire paragraph until Satele married him.  They could talk about it then, because, well, if she didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t have kids… he still wanted to be with her.  

Because she understood duty and a calling.  This wasn’t killing time.  This was life, period.  And she understood what it was like to change the galaxy by the news they brought. What it was like to go from 18-year-old dumbass (well, maybe Satele was never a dumbass like he was, but whatever the Satele equivalent was) to galactic celebrity to the leader of tomorrow to... whatever was next for them.  If they lived that long.

It might not last.  It might not work as well as he imagined it. But Jace wanted to give it a shot, to say ‘we tried.’

For now, all he said was “Water?” and offered her a bottle when she walked over to the bench, looking radiant (or sweaty. But to Jace, radiant).

~~

@fluffyfebruary

[liveandletrain]

So I want to talk about this properly, and kind of bare my soul on the internet (because that always goes so well)

online fandom shipping, while not the ultimate straw that broke the camels back (that was actually something that I am far more ashamed of the lengths it took, but I'll get to that in a minute) in getting me out of the hyper-conservative, homophobic, xenophobic mindset that I grew up with, did a lot of the footwork. (Genuine credit also does go to my mom, who despite her own opinions, is very open-minded in some very specific ways that planted a lot of seeds in little Baby Rain's mind.)

When I was 12-14 years old and just starting to poke around the limited internet available to me, i was only barely aware of gay people as a concept. And I mean barely. (I was an especially oblivious child, and also living in the bubble of the fairly isolated conservative religious community I grew up in, where my only real exposure to the idea would have been the sort of vitriol my mom went out of her way to keep away from us. I am sure my dad said all sorts of shit, it just didn't register with me.)

And then I found the archives. The forums. The isolated fandom communities. There wasn't as much shipping at first, I think the first one I found was for Narnia. I'm not sure when I first encountered the ships, I don't really have a functioning memory. I remember fuzzy, isolated moments and feelings rather than anything concrete.

My fandom experience, until the past handful of years, was an extremely secretive and isolated one irl.

And I remember the intense guilt that I felt for years for even looking at The Gay Things. As I branched out from Narnia and Lord of the Rings into Harry Potter and several old lady drama and procedural shows. As I discovered the world of comic books and the online Star Wars fandom. LiveJournal and ff.net and fandom-specific archives. The mental gymnastics I went through to justify to myself reading and even looking for it. Somewhere in here I encountered Supernatural and the omegaverse and that one really tied me up in knots.

(Speculative fantasy has always been something I loved and the omegaverse had me hook line and sinker, both for the kink and the porn that I was genuinely too young for at the time but also for the way it opened a whole new world to me as a way of understanding humans and the ways we identify ourselves.)

I eventually (i was maybe fifteen at the time?) talked myself around to the idea that it fell under the concept of "fiction is using a lie to tell a truth" to use the words I did then. And that The Gay Stuff was the same as the idea of magic and fairy tales. As long as you understood it wasn't real or good irl, then using it to tell a story was perfectly fine. And so the guilt was still there but a little bit less so.

And I continued this way into college. I attended a liberal arts university, one that is extremely liberal politically as well. (At least at the time.) It was a bit of a culture shock for me, though not as much as it would have been had I not spent over five years deeply entrenched in internet fandom already.

And even so I know for a fact I said some absolutely horrific things to people and undoubtedly hurt them deeply. This includes one of the people I am still closest to in the whole world to this day. She has graciously accepted my apology, while denying its necessity.

I was simply unable to accept anything outside my own personal belief system.

The mindset I had was so deeply entrenched it took one very specific thing to pull me out of it.

It was my senior year of university. I was TWENTY TWO YEARS OLD. Three years into a literature degree. I was sitting in my car outside in a university parking lot, arriving on campus after my student teaching for the day. And like a thunderbolt out of the blue, I knew that I was asexual.

Let me repeat that.

It took me realizing and accepting that I, myself, was queer, and thus, part of "the other," for me to start learning how to humanize people different than myself.

And to this day that is my greatest shame.

And this is also why, despite my own frustration, I try my hardest to have compassion and patience for people who think the way I used to.

And honestly it was still a significant process from that point (one continuing still), but that was the moment that flipped it.

I had to unlearn so many things, purity culture, in all its incarnations, most of all. It was another two or three years before I accepted my aromanticism, and another two or three before admitted I am also a lesbian.

I learned to listen to people with life experiences different to my own with understanding and learning, rather than skepticism and derision.

I learned to listen to people of different races and religions and to actually hear what they had to say, instead of filtering it through every layer of my own biases before I allowed myself to think about it.

And yeah, there were lots of elements to it, but it started with people writing about gay kissing on the internet. Because sometimes those baby steps have to be pretty goddamn small for someone to be able to reach them.

i do not care if someone learned compassion from a cartoon or a comic or an anime im just glad they're here with us now a better person fighting the good fight. should it have taken something so trivial? maybe not- but it's in the past! and this is the now! and if they're objectively better for it who cares

[katierosefun]

1, 22, 25 for the choose violence ask game? (for the fandom of your choice 👀)

omg hi!!! thank you for the ask <33 i think i'll go with star wars for these, because my love for that world has been. re-ignited. can't tell why. rifling through the folders of hyper-fixation is such a trip. / from these asks

1. the character everyone gets wrong

i feel like people already kind of know this, but i wish people kind of explored more of padme's kind of helpless idealism when it comes to anakin.

like, yes, padme amidala is a badass, she came into power at an incredibly young age, she leads random spy missions on her own, yes, very cool lady. love her. but also, she can be all of that and also! maybe a bit of a fool! not that i don't think she and anakin don't make a good pair, and not that i don't even think padme falling in love with anakin was a weird character choice (because like, yeah! i imagine that after a life of politics, you're probably going to look at this unhinged little guy who just Speaks His Mind and go "wow, that's hot").

but like. yes, padme amidala is a smart woman, but she's also stupid. she sees all of anakin's stupid red flags and still goes "yes but it's <333 all fine <333 it's good <333 what are you talking about it's all under control we can be normal <33" and i frankly love that about her! and i wish more people understood that okay, yeah, some people are just like that! love makes fools of us all or whatever, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

i wish we talked more about the fact that ahsoka just casually beheaded like four people in one go. shit's terrifying but also very cool of her.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

maybe "star wars fandom is the worst"? and i think that kind of sums up every fandom experience, but like. i've always been of the belief that fandom is quite literally whatever you make of it and whoever you choose to interact with--in my case, star wars fandom is really just me and a few other people who i like to talk to, and i'm perfectly content for it to be that way.

[aerltarg]

Maybe this is a stupid question, buuuuut:

I just can't imagine a world that Rhaegar comes back from the Trident, wins the war and becomes king. No, I'm not a anti Rhaegar, matter of fact I like him very much, I'm just can imagine how would Lya, little Jon, this whole affair, would settle in the capital. The norm that fics (at least those I read) tend to follow is to make Rhaegar:

1. A douche, paranoid and destiny-obessed king.

2. Completely incompetent, aloof monarch, that deep down has a heart of gold, but can't really be understood.

I mean, isn't he supposed to be a scholar since he was a kid? What's are your thoughts about it?

oh, yeah, i can totally understand this! it's is the whole point in canon actually, "the wrong man came back from the trident". you would expect a hero win against his antagonist and have a happy ending w his lady love but it doesn't happen. instead the subversion happens to them with rhaegar being killed by robert who becomes obviously a shitty king and lyanna dying after him. they were never supposed to have happy ending, they were created as tragic and doomed and dead from the beginning for the whole plot to start, jon to have his parentage mystery and dany to take the passed baton as the last dragon, prophesied savoir and the heir who has to carry entire house on her back now.

as for the realistic rhaegar wins aus that's the difficult question. tbh we just don't know enough abt their situation, plans and wishes. you see, e.g. in agot we can be right in ned's head and see his motivations, what he was thinking abt, what he was planning, what he was hoping to do. but if his story was told the way rhaegar's was i bet he would have his own crowd of haters and ~intellectuals~ jumping out every two seconds w their "hot takes" how actually all hints abt what rlly happened (ned being a good man w his own sense of honour, justice and experiences affecting him and the deal w cersei's children) doesn't matter and he was an ambitious prick, planned to grasp the power by being joffrey's regent and make his daughter sansa queen. (you can actually insert there any bullshit and still don't reach the level of stupidity of such "hot takes" this fandom loves so much lmao). also he would be blamed to the hell and beyond for being too stupid and not foreseeing the future and actions of other ppl bc ofc after everything happened it's so easy to say what was so obvious to notice. also they would say that the deaths of his men and horrible fates of his kids are 100% his fault and even straight up say he killed them lmao. i can rant abt it for hours so yeah. this is a situation w too many unknown variables bc it depends too much on actions of too many characters we don't know enough abt. the only thing it's possible to tell for sure is the fact that there couldn't be any perfect solutions since things got too complicated at this point.

such fics as you've mentioned tho are just a part of this dumb fanon where rhaegar is "too prophecy obsessed"/"incapable of love"/shrodinger's rhaegar both smart and stupid at the same time/whatever/all of this combined lmfao. the man was notably intelligent from the early age as you've absolutely rightly mentioned, his guesses abt himself being tptwp have nothing to do w egocentrism as some parts of the fandom would want us all to believe unless he wouldn't be so reasonable abt it and later on, after so many years, wouldn't have changed his mind and thought his son could be tptwp.

and literally fuck all antis that think you shouldn't consider prophecies that hold real power in this fantasy world lol. you know, aegon the conqueror was said to be motivated (or at least partly) to unify westeros by the prophecy and still got the treatment of perfect/maximum close to perfect figure of a leader everyone should look up to from the narrative and grrm. prophecy obsessed much, huh? i don't even talk abt all these parallels between him and rhaegar grrm put there not for bitches to ignore them completely! and i will never get tired of reminding that dismissing prophecies is UNWISE for targaryens of all people. the house whose story is built on the dream of young daenys and her father aenar that listened to her despite common sense (or what local "anti magic"/"anti prophecies" clowns consider to be common sense). targs would be as dead as the rest of dragonlords if not for daenys the dreamer. who else in the world has as many reasons to take prophecies seriously as them?

yet antis out there act as if rhaegar is one dimensional weirdo whose every character trait is abt mf ~prophecy obsession~. like how can they miss one of the main points so badly?? the game of thrones distracts ppl from the real danger beyond the wall, yk, the one rhaegar was aware of and meant to deal with. there wouldn't be such a problem if he became king and had as many years of head start before ice zombies apocalypse as ignorant bobby b did. rhaegar had to die just for westeros to sink in shit and our main heroes to save everyone to make this story more epic LMAO

so yeah, too many ppl portray rhaegar as this one dimensional robotic creature without any knowledge of what feelings are idk even for what reason. it seems these ppl can't read for real bc rhaegar was not only intelligent af as well as dutiful ("it seems i must be a warrior" but "he loved his harp more than his lance") but also. ugh emotional?? my boy had constant emo sessions w brooding at ruins of summerhall, sleeping out there beneath the stars all alone and writing songs that made all women cry. does it sound as someone who "isn't capable of love" lol? folks act as if he was completely heartless from the day he was born (bc he didnt play w other kids ig??) but in reality their emotional range is less than the one of a spoon in comparison to rhaegar's lol. i'm not even gonna address the horrible attitude of demonizing him for his implied depression, vile clowns never listen to themselves when they talk abt targaryens and their "madness".

tldr; these fics are mostly lame af and suck at characterization if they're making rhaegar like that lol. anyway his character isn't abt being a good or a bad king, it's abt being a would-be-king for characters in books and readers in reality to sigh over his tragic aura and pretty aesthetic abt how it could've been. however, grrm clearly doesn't write rhaegar as evil or incapable as some parts of the fandom would want to try to persuade others. realistically speaking in the scenario where he wins there couldn't be any perfect decisions but it's a territory of speculations on thin air and lit nothing more since canon doesn't provide us with enough information to rlly theorize anything instead of building biased headcanons some ppl call "analysis".

but remember what barristan said about rhaegar while practically watching him all his life, from a literal baby to the man grown:

“I know little of Rhaegar. Only the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died. What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all. Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded.” (ASOS, Daenerys I)

“Prince Rhaegar’s prowess was unquestioned, but he seldom entered the lists. He never loved the song of swords the way that Robert did, or Jaime Lannister. It was something he had to do, a task the world had set him. He did it well, for he did everything well. That was his nature. But he took no joy in it. Men said that he loved his harp much better than his lance.” (ASOS, Daenerys IV)

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Five years ago, the women on this site who treated me like trash over loving Labyrinth and shipping Jareth/Sarah were almost always obliviously consuming Radfem propaganda, or were out and out Radfems/Terfs themselves.

They were the types of people who casually threw the word “pedophile” around against grown women who shipped an adult Sarah with Jareth, aka literally one of the most popular ships for women in fandom for 30 years.

Pretty much invariably, these women had serious sex-negative anxieties, which included a severe paranoia about any and all kink and fetish, and porn in general. I saw a lot of shocking, fear-mongering propaganda surrounding sexual expression. Pretty much invariably, their method of approach involved immediate personal shock-value attacks on anyone they perceived to be “bad.”

Today, you can look at the way some people react to other popular so-called “problematic” ships and recognize the same toxic, fear-mongering rhetoric coming from women who consider themselves regular, trans-inclusive feminists. Sometimes it even manifests in the words of very well-meaning people (including myself here), who feel the need to talk about specific issues that pertain to their own experiences of trauma and oppression.

The people who shit on Labyrinth often seem to not really be able to comprehend that the Goblin King, like the film itself, is canonically a representation of a teen girl’s psyche, a soup of fears and anxieties and desires and dreams. He’s not a literal human adult preying on a literal child, and to read the film that way seriously undermines the entire point of the film. 

When I (and people of many fandoms) say “This is fiction, calm down,” I’m not just saying it’s not real so it cant hurt you and you can’t criticize me. I’m trying to call attention to what fiction actually is - artistic representations of feelings and experiences. The Goblin King is Sarah’s fiction. Therefore, he can be anything she or any woman who identifies with her wants him to be, including her lover when she’s grown and ready for such a thing.

I once took an alarming dive into Beetlejuice fandom to see what content was there (the cartoon was a favorite when I was little). Chillingly, what you’ll find is an extremely wounded fanbase, with a sharp divide between the older women who had long been shipping BJ/Lydia because of their love for the cartoon series (and whom were previously the vast majority of the Beetlejuice fandom), and a massive amount of young people riding the wave of the musical fad who had decided that the entire old school Beetlejuice fandom was populated by literal pedophiles. 

I saw death threats. Suicide baiting. Constant, constant toxic discourse. It did not matter how the BJ/Lydia fandom dealt with any particular issues that would exist in their ship, in fact I’m certain that the people abusing them cared very little to even consider if they were trying to handle it at all. The only thing that mattered was that they were disgusting subhuman scum asking for abuse. If you have at any time reblogged recent Beetlejuice fan art or content from fans of the musical, you have more than likely been engaging positively with the content of someone participating in toxic fandom behavior.

Nobody is really sticking up for them, either, as far as I saw. It’s really hard to imagine how painful it must be to have such a large group of people explode into into your relatively private fandom space to tell you that you are evil, vile, and deserve constant abuse, and also you are no longer allowed into the fandom space to engage in it’s content. But I think there’s something very alarming indeed about this happening specifically to the BJ fandom, and I’ll explain why. 

The pop-culture characterization of Beetlejuice, which is heavily influenced by the cartoon series to be clear, has always in my mind been a vaguely ageless being who matches with the psychological maturity of whatever age Lydia is supposed to be. He’s more or less like an imaginary friend, a manifestation of Lydia’s psyche. In fact, I would argue that i think most of us who grew up with the cartoon or it’s subsequent merchandizing before the musical ever existed probably internalized the idea as BJ and Lydia as this ageless, salt-and-pepper-shaker couple beloved by the goth community, similar to Gomez and Morticia. In each version of canon he may be a creepy ghost in the literal sense, but any adult who is capable of identifying literary tropes (even just subconciously) would read cartoon!BJ as an artistic representation of a socially awkward outcast girl’s inner world. Lydia’s darker dispositions and interests, which alienate her from most others, are freely accepted and embraced by her spooky magical friend. BJ/Lydia in the cartoon were depicted as best friends, but to my memory there was always an underlying sense that they had secret feelings for each other, which I identified easily even as a small child. In fact, their dynamic and behavior perfectly reflected the psychological development of the show’s target demographic. They are best friends who get into adventures and learning experiences together, who have delicate feelings for each other but lack any true adult romantic/sexual understanding to acknowledge those feelings, let alone pursue them.

Though I haven’t seen the Musical yet, I’ve read the wiki and I would argue that it embodies this exact same concept even more so for it’s own version of the characters, in that Beetlejuice specifically exists to help Lydia process her mother’s death.

This is not a complicated thing to recognize and comprehend whatsoever. In fact, it looks downright blatant. It’s also a clear indicator of what BJ/Lydia means to the women who have long loved it. It was a story about a spooky wierd girl being loved and accepted and understood for who she was, and it gave them a sense of solidarity. It makes perfect sense why those women would stick with those characters, and create a safe little space for themselves to and imagine their beloved characters growing and having adult lives and experiencing adult drama, in just the same ways that the women of the Labyrinth fandom do. That’s all these women were doing. And now, they can’t do it without facing intense verbal violence. That safe space is poisoned now.

Having grown up with the cartoon as one of my favorites and been around goth subculture stuff for decades, I was actually shocked and squicked at the original Beetlejuice film’s narrative once I actually saw it, because it was extremely divorced from what these two characters had evolved into for goth subculture and what they meant to me. It’s not telling the same story, and is in fact about the Maitland's specifically. In pretty much exactly the same way two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood can be extremely different from each other, the film is a different animal. While I imagine that the film version has been at the heart of a lot of this confused fear-mongering around all other versions of the characters, I would no more judge different adaptations of these characters any more than I would condemn a version of Little Red in which Red and the Wolf are best friends or lovers just because the very first iteration of LRRH was about protecting yourself from predators.

I would even argue that the people who have engaged in Anti-shipper behavior over BJ/Lydia are in intense denial over the fact that BJ being interested in Lydia, either as blatant predatory behavior a la the film or on a peer level as in the cartoon (and musical?) is an inextricable part of canon. Beetlejuice was always attracted to Lydia, and it was not always cute or amusing. Beetlejuice was not always a beloved buddy character, an in fact was originally written as a gross scumbag. That’s just what he was. Even people engaging with him now by writing OC girlfriends for him (as stand-ins for the salt-and-pepper-shaker space Lydia used to take up, because obviously that was part of the core fun of the characters), or just loving him as a character, are erasing parts of his character’s history in order to do so. They are actively refusing to be held responsible for being fans of new version of him despite the fact that he engaged in overt predatory behavior in the original film. In fact, I would venture to say that they are actively erasing the fact that Musical Beetliejuice tried to marry a teenager and as far as I’m aware, seemed to like the idea (because he’s probably a fucking figment of her imagination but go off I guess). The only reason they can have a version of this character who could be perceived as “buddy” material is because...the cartoon had an impact on our pop cultural perception of what the character and his dynamic with Lydia is. 

We can have a version of the Big Bad Wolf who’s a creepy monster. We can have a version who’s sweet and lovable. We can have a version that lives in the middle. We can have a version who’s a hybrid between Red and the Wolf (a la Ruby in OUAT). All of these things can exist in the same world, and can even be loved for different reasons by the same people.

I’ve been using Beetlejuice as an example here because it’s kind of perfect for my overall point regarding the toxic ideologies in fandom right now across many different spaces, including ones for progressive and queer media, and how much so many people don’t recognize how deeply they’ve been radicalized into literalist and sex-negative radfem rhetoric, to the point where we aren’t allowed to have difficult, messy explorations of imperfect, flawed humans, and that art is never going to be 100% pure and without flaw in it’s ability to convey what it wants to convey.

This includes the rhetoric I’ve seen across the board, from She-Ra to A:TLA to Star Wars to Lovecraft Country. We don’t talk about the inherent malleable, subjective, or charmingly imperfect nature of fiction any more. Transformation and reclamation are myths in this space. Everything is in rigid categories. It is seemingly very difficult for some of these people to engage with anything that is not able to be clearly labeled as one thing or another (see the inherent transphobic and biphobic elements of the most intense rhetoric). They destroy anything they cannot filter through their ideology. When women act in a way that breaks from their narrative of womanhood (like...not having a vagina), then those women must be condemned instead of understood. Anything that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable is a mortal sin. There is an extraordinary level of both hypocrisy and repressive denial that is underlying the behavior I’m seeing now. Much like toxic Christian conservatism, these people often are discovered engaging in the same behaviors and interests that they condemn behind closed doors (or just out of sheer cognitive dissonance). As an example, one of the people who talked shit to me about Labyrinth was a huge fan of Kill La Kill, which to my knowledge was an anime about a teenage girl in like, superpowered lingere (hence why I stayed the fuck away from that shit myself). Indeed, they even allow themselves plenty of leeway for behavior far worse than they condemn others for, and create support systems for the worst of their own abusers. 

Quite frankly, I’m tired. Instead of talking about theoretical problematic shit, we need to start talking about quantifiable harm. Because as far as I can tell, the most real, immediate, and quantifiable harm done because of anybody’s favorite ships or pieces of media seems to consistently be the kind that’s done to the people who experience verbal violence and abuse and manipulation and suicide baiting and death threats from the people who have a problem.

[padawanlost]

Why do people seem to hate Dave Filoni all of a sudden? I mean I'll confess I don't really like the way some characters were changed in the The Clone Wars series, but Filoni and Lucas did do a LOT of things right in that series. Its actually really deep and explores some very important moral and social issues like the impact of war especially on young people. Is it because Filoni has been critical of the Jedi at times? Honestly, I don't see anything inflamatory in what he says, and I don't think he's just randomly pulling stuff out of the air. Some of what he says is supported in old canon materials. The Jedi aren't perfect, I fail to see why legitimate criticism is such a big deal.

Before anything else, this ask was sent before the bad batch premiered so I won’t get into *that* right now.

That being said, this fandom has had a very interesting love-hate relationship with Filoni, so allow me to provide some context before we get into the heart of the issue.

Before The Clone Wars (2008) premiered the anti-prequel movement was still strong. A lot of people still accused George Lucas for ‘ruining’ star wars forever, so when the show premiered filled with action scenes, jedi, sith, badass moments and humor, Filoni was hailed as the savior of the franchise. Finally someone who understood what star wars was *really* about had come and saved us all from the prequels boring issues.

 That mentality last for quite some time. sure, there were voices of dissent but the general vibe was that Filoni had truly fixed star wars and the prequels. It was very similar from what happened to Game of Thrones. When the show premiered HBO and D&D were hailed as these god-like superwriters who could do no wrong. As the show progressed fans started noticing the cracks but most people still believed the show and its creators above criticism. only now that some time has passed that people are becoming more objective about the content and realizing the signs that something was off were always there. Of course, Filoni didn’t have a fiasco similar to Got’s Season 7 and 8 but the long waiting period between TCW’s season 6 and 7 gave people a lot of time to think objectively about the show, which made them realizing Filoni was, after all, just a man. And TCW was not an ‘alternative’ to the prequels, it was just an extension of it.

The themes people hated in the prequels were deeply imbued into the clone wars because a show about war must be, by definition, a show about politics. Whether people are ready to admit it or not, star wars was always about politics. I mean, the OT was about reestablishing a democratic government. It doesn’t get more political than that lol

And we can speak of PT-politics without talking of the Jedi Order. And here lies the core of the issue: people’s sudden realization of this truth. Somehow, for a very long time, some fans didn’t realize the clone wars  (and sw in general) was all about poltical (anti-war) allegories.  

Here’s a Filoni interview from 2013 that discusses the fandom reaction to the jedi:

StarWars.com: I was at the Lucasfilm fan screening of the finale, and I was keeping an ear on the crowd’s reaction to certain scenes. I was kind of surprised at the reaction when Ahsoka doesn’t take her Padawan braid back. Dave Filoni: Right. StarWars.com: Because people gasped at first, and then a lot of people started cheering. Dave Filoni: Yeah! Fantastic, huh? StarWars.com: What did you make of that? Dave Filoni: I was really, really surprised by that. Really surprised. I didn’t think people would be against it. But I certainly didn’t think that people would applaud it, necessarily. I think that there’s a certain element there… I mean, we weren’t trying to paint the Jedi in a bad light, but certainly you understand her reasons for wanting to leave. We’ve kind of taken a generation of Star Wars fans and really made them reassess that whole time period to the point where at the end of it, they’re on the side of this young girl who’s like, “Yeah, this isn’t gonna work for me.” And I think people feel that right now. They are often in a situation that they’d rather not be in and they wish they could just walk away, and maybe she embodies that. Maybe there’s something going on there that we’re not aware of. But I don’t know, I was pretty fascinated by that. It was a pretty surprising reaction. George and I went over those final scenes quite a bit. One of the big things was, the whole scene with the Council at the end used to take place outside where Anakin and Ahsoka talk. And it was definitely George, when we watched the first cut of it, who said, “I want to split this so that it’s half-inside, half-outside. And the outside is just Anakin and Ahsoka.” It was very important to him to separate the two of them out and just have this conversation between them. He wanted kids to know that she didn’t blame Anakin for it and that she wasn’t upset with Anakin. And I thought it was a great call. When I re-shot the scene it was pretty phenomenal. There was a debate about Ahsoka at the end, and her just going back to the Jedi at the end of it, and that was the initial impulse. But I kind of argued, “Well, wait. We have an opportunity here with her out to change her story dramatically.” And I’m always looking for those opportunities, because you’re not sure when they’re gonna come, to just grab something and change it dramatically for her. I thought, to do that whole storyline and then have her come back would almost be expected, so why not challenge that.[x]

Unlike what the narrative sold on tumblr says, Filoni and George talked about what was going on in the show (he was reason for Maul and Mandalore, two fan favorites, being on the show). But because accepting Filoni knew what he was doing means accepting George also knew what he was doing when drawing political and social parallels between real life and star wars, it’s much easier to just hate on Filoni and/or George (depending on what they are saying).

It’s kind of like selective hate. When Anakin is being abusive or when Padmé is being assaulted Filoni is a fucking mastermind. But when he’s criticizing the Jedi Order he’s a dumbass who doesn’t know shit about star wars. Or at least don’t know as much as people who have never talked to George Lucas, talked to anyone linked to star wars or has explored the full contents of the star wars lore know.

Look, I’m not defending Filoni here. He’s made plenty of decisions I don’t agree with it, but I find quite surprising how people can’t be rational about it. or, at the very least, be critical of the things that truly matter and have an affect on people in real life like racism, sexism and abuse. Idk, I just find interesting how the fans hating on him for being slightly ‘critical’ of the jedi Order seem to have no problem with the racism, whitewashing and sexism in the show. It really shows what people’s priorities are.

[sheyshen]

Fictober ‘21: Day 3

Prompt: “ I’ve waited for this.“ Fandom: Kotor (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic) Rating: G Pairing: Revan/Carth

-

Aurea sat in the copilot's seat of the Ebon Hawk, watching the countless stars that filled her view. Countless planets on countless systems, all counting on her to stop Malak. To end the war.

A war that she started.

She wrapped the light blanket she had brought with her tighter around her. It wasn't that it was too cold, but that she just needed that extra bit of comfort, bit of warmth. It hadn't been that long since she learned the truth of her identity, something she had admittedly been suspicious of but kept herself from believing it until Malak and Bastila had confirmed it.

And now Bastila was in the enemy's hands. As angry as Aurea was at the other Jedi, how hurt she felt about learning what she and the council had done to her and her mind, she still refused to let her friend stay a prisoner of the Sith.

She wondered if they would be able to stay friends after this. She still trusted Bastila, understood her reasonings, but she also felt so betrayed, so used, by someone she trusted most. They would have to talk about things when this was over, vent and drink, and hopefully eventually move on.

So lost in thought Aurea hadn't heard the door to the cockpit open, so she nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise when Carth spoke up next to her.

"Can't sleep either?" His hair was messier than she had ever seen it and he looked as tired as she felt.

"A lot on my mind." She admitted. She gestured to the pilot's seat, "care to join me?"

He hesitated a moment before seating himself and looking out at the expanse before them. They sat in a silence that, while not exactly awkward, felt like it was full of tension. Like there were things left unsaid and neither truly wanted to face it. Still…

"I know you don't want to talk about it," Aurea said, finally broaching the subject.

"About the fact you're Revan?" He shot back immediately, his voice tinged with something she couldn't quite place. It wasn't anger, though she could tell he was still upset even though the rest of the crew had taken it in stride. Then again few of them had been as directly affected by 'Revan's' choices as he had, not to mention their budding relationship on top of it all.

"I still remember very little of my life as Revan." It felt strange connecting the identities of her current self that was created to mask the one she had been only a couple of years prior. "She and I… we're…"

"Like different people." Carth finished. He continued to look out into space, his face serious like he was debating on if he should continue or not. "Revan was a powerful Jedi and a terrifying Sith. But Aurea…" he chuckled a little, "is neither. I mean don't get me wrong you're crazy strong, but not in the same way."

"I'm different than Revan?"

"Completely." He looked over at her, "I served on the same ship as Revan, a soldier under her command, but the way she was was so… technical. More distant. Like all that mattered was the code and stopping the Mandalorians. But you. You're not, you're still a phenomenal tactician but you're not giving orders and leading a movement, you're helping people, fighting to save lives no matter if they had just fought against you." He huffed a laugh, "you feel more human."

"Thanks… I think…" Aurea hummed in thought, "that is supposed to be a compliment right?"

This time he really laughed, a sound she was worried she'd never hear from him again. "Yes, love." He smiled tiredly at her, Aurea returning it with one of her own.

"Love, Hm?"

"Ah." He looked like he hadn't meant to let that slip, and she worried he'd take it back, but instead, he continued, "I told you that I loved you once before, and I still do. It's just been difficult after learning the truth, but…"

"I love you too Carth. Whatever happens, whatever tomorrow brings, I want you to know that."

His smile returned for a moment and he looked like he was about to say something before he yawned. Instead, he said, "We should get some sleep." As he pushed himself to his feet he extended a hand to her. "Join me?"

Taking his hand she stood and kissed him, and wrapped the blanket around him in the process. "I think I can be convinced to turn in."

He smiled down at her and held her close. He looked as if he was ready to lead her to either of their quarters to get some much need rest, but a look of concern shadowed the affection his eyes had held a moment prior. "Promise you'll be careful tomorrow."

Reaching up Aurea cupped his cheek. She wouldn't lie to him, couldn't lie to him, not now, not after everything they had been through. "I've been waiting for this. For a long time. I can only promise that I know we will stop Malak tomorrow, one way or another."

"Then promise you'll have me by your side for this."

She smiled again, "I wouldn't have it any other way." She kissed him again, taking the chance they had to just be together before the storm hit.

[3416]

I’m kind of the odd one out here I think… I went the absolute different way…

I was very much OG over everything. Like OG 911 is just my show and I love it so fucking much and it has nothing to do with shipping that I refused to watch Lonestar for the longest time. It’s just that a lot of times when a really good show gets a spin off, eventually all the focus goes to the spin off and that in turn declines the quality of the OG (which I think is what unfortunately is happening with s5 of OG right now)… so I refused and refused and refused… And on top of that Texas is not my favorite place…

but then I was locked down for six months… Just staring at my bedroom wall because everything was closed and work was closed and the pandemic was raging… So I caved… Now I’m so happy I did… I love both of them equally and I ship both buddie and tarlos equally! Actually call them my “not yet gay gay himbos” and my “comfort gays” 😂 And I’ve never understood why fandoms had to fight over ships… Like, just open yourself to love and stop hating on other stuff… Maybe I’m too old… I’ve been in fandom for too long… Even if I dislike something I never post about it, I just either ignore it or if I really don’t like it I block it and then I don’t see it… I just wanna concern myself with the things that I do love! And I don’t have to shit on others for that 🤷🏻‍♀️

but Buddie is also my very first ship that is not canon… And I am suffering so much 😂 I don’t know how people do this 😂

i see why people stay away from spinoffs or franchise extensions or reboots or whatever it is that they think is going to taint or harm the original! i get the urge, truly. it wasn't about that for me personally bc i didn't start out an og fan... i saw people talking about both multiple times and just decided to start on lone star first and was hooked. i'm glad you came to a point where you wanted to give it a shot and that you ended up liking it!!

in my mind, it's not like this is a major ship war thing (stupid, i feel 12 typing that) at all. like maybe it is to some people... i honestly fkljsd am not bothered by what people choose or prefer... only by the way annoying and insane things encroach into my territory or when it bleeds into the real life people involved in these shows, that's when it gets me. i'm never actively comparing bc i genuinely don't care or think abt buddie fdskjls, but if i gotta be made aware.................. i end up talking it out somewhere. i mostly agree with you, people need to chill out. talking about things you dislike can be fun in small circles with people who agree but honestly.. focusing your entire energy on being hateful or complaining or whatever it is these people are feeling.. well. i get tired of having to see it, and it does personally taint my view of some stuff.

anyway, thanks for sharing! good luck bc non canon shipping can be a trip (but also lots of fun and a reminder that there's no real constraints when you're not afraid to say fuck it to canon tbh kfjdksl that's somethings half the fun).

[heyclickadee]

Yes! And

It completely tracks with what Kanan said about Sabine when he was trying to train her to use the Darksaber. Hera suggested that Kanan was doing things differently with Sabine than he did with Ezra because Sabine didn’t have the force, and that maybe Kanan thought Sabine couldn’t do it because of that, and then Kanan said, no, the force is in everything; Sabine not having the force wasn’t the problem.

And yeeeaaahhh, people are going to be mad. There’s a lot of well established fan traditions that are basically accepted as canon, but have never actually been canon, but the line between the two is practically nonexistent in a lot of fandom spaces. And I honestly think that a lot of the fandom traditions can continue—fanon doesn’t have to abide by canon, after all. We ignore canon here all the time. They can just continue existing alongside canon and a lot of new fanon concepts that are probably going to pop up. It could be really fun. Please, please allow it to be fun, Star Wars fandom.

Another thing I like about it is that it helps push the RPG-ificafion of the force away a bit. The force as a specific set of powers that abides by a specific set of rules is useful in a gaming setting, but it’s a part of some fandom concepts that’s never worked for me as a bit of worldbuilding. The force as something that resides in all living things and can be interpreted and utilized in more than one way, and be understood by more than one set of traditions? Love it. I feel kind of bad for people who are going to be upset by this, but also? My hard-magic-system-hating-ass is delighted.

Okay but (Ahsoka spoilers under the cut):

I LOVE the clarification that the force sensitive/not force sensitive dichotomy we tend to imagine in fanon is just not how it works. The Force binds the galaxy together, it’s present in everything. Luminous beings, and all that. It’s like the magic in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; it exists, and almost anyone can learn to manipulate it, but some people have more of an aptitude than others and most people aren’t going to learn how. Heck, it’s like making visual art or music in the real world. Most anyone can learn to create art of some kind, but it’s a lot of hard work, some people have more of a natural aptitude than others, and I imagine that in the Star Wars universe you have a lot of people assuming that they can’t use the force ever because they weren’t floating rocks at the age of five, the same way a lot of people assume that they can’t ever draw because they currently don’t know how. But then you’ll also have people, like Sabine, or like a friend of my sister’s (who had negative artistic talent starting out but eventually landed a job as a board artist at Laika), who are stubborn and throw themselves into it anyway.

And I love how this tracks with there being other force traditions in the galaxy that weren’t as focused on just training those who had an obvious aptitude for the force at a young age, and how it’s a bit of a rejection of the Sith tendency to always be trying to recruit candidates with a lot of raw power. AND it makes even more sense of why Palpatine went out of his way to wipe out cultures that had other force traditions (you know, besides the whole hatred thing he had going on). Like the Lasat; Lasan had a force tradition well outside that of the Jedi, and Zeb was 100% using the force in a traditional Lasat way to navigate the ghost through that star cluster in Rebels even though that show never gave us any other indication that he was force sensitive, and now it makes sense why. Or Baze, Chirrut, and the Guardians of the Whills. Or the Nightsisters. It always kind of struck me as odd that basically every Dathomirin woman we met was apparently force sensitive, but no—at this point, I think it was just that they had a tradition of teaching all the girls from a young age, regardless of talent. And all of them were wiped out, kids who showed any obvious talent for the force were rounded up, because Palpatine wanted to consolidate his power and make everyone else too afraid to use it, or to believe it was impossible for them to do so.

Also, force sensitive clones FORCE sensitive CLONESforcesensitiveclonesforcesensitiveCLONES Clones establishing their own force tradition outside the Jedi pllleeeaaassssseeee I need it