#so idk maybe the middle of the road stance is more effective there

[gffa]

Scattered Star Wars/etc. thoughts: - I’m still not entirely here, I’m mostly resting and binge-watching TV (I finished The Haunting of House Hill and I really enjoyed it a lot!) and sleeping a truly ridiculous amount, because the pain makes me so exhausted.  Give me a few more days to sort this out and then I’ll be in a social mood again! - Thanks to @jerioxy, they pointed me towards this thread on reddit where the erissays person definitely straight up copied parts of lot of my various meta posts word-for-word (I recognized at least three separate ones) and it’s sort of a weird feeling to have. I’m not particularly bothered (even if I think they kind of missed the point I ultimately wind my way towards: blaming the Jedi for Anakin’s inability to deal with his ~passionate feelings~ doesn’t work because Star Wars is about choice and if it’s someone else’s fault, then it’s not about the themes of choice anymore, as well as the Jedi’s teachings were therapeutic ways of dealing with those passionate feelings, this is why 99% of the Jedi we see in canon who actually apply the teachings work out just fine, even when they’re thrown into a dark-side fueled galaxy that assaults them on a psychic level they couldn’t have been prepared for, which isn’t to say that they weren’t eaten away at with fear and the dark side, but instead that their teachings were not the root of the problem, ANYWAY, MOONLIGHT HAS FEELINGS, NEWS AT ELEVEN, BUT I’M GETTING OFF TRACK)-- as I was saying, I’m not particularly bothered by this, since it wasn’t copying entire posts and passing them off as their own, as well as, hey, if someone is out there at least somewhat trying to fight the good fight about how much fanon and Imperial propaganda is out there re: the Jedi, I’m fine with using my meta to help. Generally, as long as it’s not copying entire posts or using it to be an asshole or write screaming diatribes against it or being passive aggressive and writing shitty ~vagueblogs~ about people (which I see plenty of, I’m just not going to respond to because that kind of poor behavior really isn’t ever worth it), I’m not too terribly fussed about these things.  It’s the same with my gifs and edits--as long as someone’s not taking entire posts without credit, as long as they’re not using them for asshole purposes, use your best judgement!  Credit is great, mostly because I want to talk to more fun people, but you don’t have to ask ahead of time if you feel shy (like I very often do), etc. - I started listening to The Silmarillion audiobook again and it strikes me all over again how it really is a book you almost have to read two or three times to really get everything.  It’s a very dry book, it’s a historical retelling, rather than a story with a strong character narrative, but the sheer worldbuilding of it it always draws me and the way fandom has really run with the characters and breathed even more life into them always delights me. Also, where is my 200k+ “Glorfindel joins the Dwarves’ Quest” fic based on that one post that goes around every so often?  Because JUST THE THOUGHT still delights me! - I’ve been listening to a lot of panels from SW authors and animators and it’s always really fascinating to hear the mindset of what goes into the projects, the behind the scenes stuff is interesting for itself, but also for this sense of a better understanding of how this all works.  That we, as fans, are operating with a different mindset than creators are (see: The Rule Of Cool is often times pretty much the entire motivation for including something, not because it’s meant to say something on a character/worldbuilding level, or also see: Animation budgets are SUCH A THING about why some elements of a story aren’t included) and it further reminds me of that Gillen quote about how he keeps an aura of mystery about Darth Vader, that to do otherwise would ruin the epic feeling of the character, meanwhile I’m over here like NO I’M GONNA DIG INTO EVERY TINY LITTLE MICROSCOPIC CHOICE ANAKIN FUCKED UP BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE I LIVE WITH THE CHARACTER. Which is a huge difference between how fans and creators approach something. It always strikes me when George Lucas talks about Star Wars, so much of what went into the movies for him was about the technical stuff, the pushing the boundaries of what he could show in a scene.  It’s not that he didn’t care about the characters and the story and the themes!  He very much did!  And you can find him talking about those things sometimes!  But he spends just as much time (and sometimes more) talking about camera angles and set designs and stuff. It’s the same for author creators who talk at panels, that I’m sure there’s more than they’re getting into, especially because these aren’t their characters and they have to be very aware of that.  They’re telling stories that are incredibly dear and important to them!  But always they have to understand that, when they approach a franchise like this, owned by someone else, these aren’t their stories, they have to be willing to give them over.  And that they have a ton of freedom in some ways, but listening to the technical challenges of a series like Rebels or listening to someone talk about how, yeah, they can use Ahsoka in their book, but they should run it by Dave first, just really illustrates a lot of fascinating stuff about a multi-creator franchise and how you can catch glimpses of how it works. (I don’t pretend that I know everything, because I very much do not!  Just that a LOT of what I’ve tried to include in my understanding of Star Wars is the acknowledgement of those elements’ inclusion, while ALSO balancing it with my own desires as a Star Wars fan and a desire to understand the bigger narrative Points.)