Chat corner 45: Silver Dawn

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

Optional prompt

This week’s optional prompt is “The Vow of Silver Dawn”, which is… a canon Chinese web-novel??? Written by someone with the pseudonym “His Majesty the King”???

I suspect not many of us has read it (or even known about it), especially since as far as I can tell from Wkp there isn’t an official English translation, but still, interesting and worth talking about!

Comments

[annathecrow]

The usual link to the Dark Side post, in case you need to vent.

[annathecrow]

Since it's almost the end of February... anybody has SW femslash recs? Any rating is okay. My collection of SW F/F is paltry. I am a picky reader, but I always welcome more to pick from!

(I'll hustle up some links myself later.)

[astromech1138]

The Rare Femslash Exchange just wrapped up and there are a few SW fics.

Speaking of, I just finished an "essential episodes" watch of TCW and I was shocked by how delightfully gay the Ahsoka/Trace episodes were. Why isn't there more fic for that pairing?! They are so perfect together.

[annathecrow]

Ahsoka and Trace are adorable! And yes, such a strong WLW vibe.

I haven't gone through the ship tag on AO3 before, and there's definitely a few fics I'm going to check out. Thanks for the tip!

Although judging from the summaries, I do see why there might be so little. There is a very narrow canon space where the ship seems absolutely obvious, and then you have the complete downer that is Order 66 right after. So most of the fic end up pigeon-holed into the same space and it all looks sort of same-y.

... then again, that's an explanation, not an excuse. I've seen weirder ships get more fic in this fandom. *shrugs* Oh well! I suppose that if I'll end up enjoying the ship, I'll just need to write some fic myself XD

[astromech1138]

Honestly it's so hard to write femslash for SW because there aren't a lot of really well-developed female characters, or at least not a lot who are operating in the same time/place where they could cross paths. As much as I love it, SW so often does not pass the Bechdel test ;_; I used to think the DinLuke ship was totally crazy--they look at each other and nod, so what?--but then I realized that they're great foils for each other, and that each character is well-developed that it makes sense for fic shippers to take the ship in any number of directions. It's so much harder to do that with female SW characters.

I can't wait to write some Ahsoka/Trace fic! But I'm definitely one of those writers who feels like they need to know the characters really well, so I need a few more rewatches under my belt first. And I think Trace comes back in Rebels?

If you write a fic, share it here! :)

[annathecrow]

My reply is here. (I ended up posting it to the Dark Side thread - it's not that ranty, I just don't want to bother everyone with the endless "Y NO FEMSLASH" discourse here.)

Also, hmm. I got an idea for a post for March Meta Madness out of this! Something like a sampler of potential SW F/F ships and why I think they're cool. Might be fun to read...

[yourlibrarian]

No idea but always learning new things 🙂

[annathecrow]

Yeah, I figured this will largely be a "hm, mildly interesting" type of prompt XD

Or, perhaps, that some people who like Chinese web-novels and tv shows would be into this kind of stuff, I know I've seen people talk about those on DW.

[extrapenguin]

maythe4thbewithyou is in sign-ups! I might sit out this year, but let's see.

[annathecrow]

*FANWRITER PANIC INTENSIFIES*

[extrapenguin]

*eggs on*

[kittywhite]

Vow of Silver Dawn was an attempt to cosy up to the Chinese Audience and increase popularity of the Star Wars brand in a country where it’s traditionally not been very popular.
It’s set in the High Republic era but conveniently 100 years after the main books and has no ties to the ongoing series.
There is an ongoing fan translation out there but I haven’t bothered to read it, I’m not interested and probably wouldn’t understand the Chinese Cultural aspects present.
Interestingly, Japan has always enjoyed Star Wars and there seems to be a push to get them more involved too, newer books are getting translated into Japanese and there’s an ongoing manga collaboration.

[annathecrow]

Japan and SW -- oh yeah, and there has been SW: Visions as well. I wonder if all this support isn't also because The Powers That Be are into Japanese media in turn? I mean, the inspiration in The Book of Boba Fett is pretty obvious.

[kittywhite]

Something novel related, I’m hosting a read through of the classic “Heir to the Empire” on my Journal and the first post went up today.
(https://kittywhite.dreamwidth.org/10089.html)

If you’re in the mood to join in it’s not too late, the posts go up every fortnight and it’s a no pressure environment (I’m a pretty chill host :D)