Chat corner 53: Before the Awakening
Apr. 25th, 2022 06:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathecrow posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
dreamwarsWelcome to this week’s chat corner!
Optional prompt
This week, the topic is “Before the Awakening”, an anthology of three stories that show what Finn, Rey, and Poe were doing before the movie.
It’s a junior readers’ book, but it’s also written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Phil Noto, which are some very interesting names to see together!
Has anybody read this? What did you think?
Aside from that, this week it’s a year since Dreamwars started :) This is honestly so cool - and it’s all your work, folks, there would be no comm without the people who come and talk. So I want to say, you’re all awesome, whether you’re here every week or you commented exactly once.
And since I’m reminiscing, what has your “year in Star Wars” been like? Anything interesting that’s happened to you? New story you’ve found (be it canon, Legends, or fic), an event, a fandom interaction? Have you created something you’re proud of? I’m honestly curious!
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Date: 2022-04-25 04:41 am (UTC)And as always, here is your Dark Side post link, in case you need to get some Star Wars hate off your chest.
Happy 1 year anniversary!!
Date: 2022-04-25 03:48 pm (UTC)Also I have a fonder appreciation for the original saga, particularly with the prequels because I grew up watching them in theaters.
Re: Happy 1 year anniversary!!
Date: 2022-04-25 04:39 pm (UTC)Which one of the EU stories was your favorite, if you had to choose? I've picked up the OT novelizations since so many people here recommended them, but I haven't gotten to them yet.
Re: Happy 1 year anniversary!!
Date: 2022-04-25 05:10 pm (UTC)For the prequel era EU, I liked the novelization of RotS. Shatterpoint and Darth Plageuis were both good, just very chilling stories.
Re: Happy 1 year anniversary!!
Date: 2022-04-29 01:17 pm (UTC)Thanks! More material for my SW reading list :D
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Date: 2022-04-25 04:37 pm (UTC)I'm very intrigued by this book! Rucka is my favorite comics writer, and Noto is my favorite comics artist, so I'm just like "yes? For me???" Although I wonder how Rucka manages to write a young reader novel, I'd never think he'd be the type.
Slightly off-topic, but if you like reading about badass female fighters, I can't recommend Rucka enough. He does have a type, but he writes that type masterfully and it's so satisfying to read. He's the writer behind The Old Guard, to give you an example.
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Date: 2022-04-25 05:40 pm (UTC)I guess my SW year has revolved mostly around seeing Book of Boba Fett, which I had been looking forward to, and reading several long running SW stories. TBH while I'm still finishing some I'm getting rather burned out on time travel stories, although one advantage these have is that they don't tend to be ship focused. I am very eagerly looking forward to Kenobi given we won't even have to wait a full year for it.
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Date: 2022-04-28 06:10 am (UTC)"time-travel stories not being ship-focused" -- this is an interesting observation! I sort of feel that there's more gen in SW fanfic on AO3 than is usual, but I suspect it's more that I personally read more gen SW fic than I've read for other fandom. I think gen is really neat, but I do get drawn into fic through ships so that's what I gravitate to.
time-travel story burnout -- Is it more the "not interested" kind of burnout, or the "get it away from me" kind? If the second, then you have my condolences - that would make life very hard in SW fandom! :D
I think with time-travel, the stories can get a bit too familiar after a while, especially when you're reading ones that use the same character. ("Obi-Wan gets sent--" "yes love, we know. What's different this time?" XD)
Then again, "familiar" is sometimes what we as readers come looking for in fanfic, so that might be a feature not a bug. I do love finding a time-travel fic that does things differently, though! (Unless it's a "not a fix-it, break it even more" kind of story. Interesting, sure, but not what I'm looking for.)
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Date: 2022-04-28 06:26 pm (UTC)Haha, yeah, funny thing is that I rather like time-travel stories but you're right that it's a heavily used plotline in the SW verse!
"Obi-Wan gets sent--" "yes love, we know. What's different this time?"
Too true! I guess that's one way that the upcoming series may end up spawning something new to do with him!
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Date: 2022-04-27 02:34 pm (UTC)As for my year in Star Wars – I got into SWTOR over a year ago, but this year I've started interacting with the actual MMO bits of it. I think this is the year when I actually watched the prequels instead of just TCW? I recall watching TPM and AotC between the TPM-themed post and AotC-themed post, though I might be wrong.
In general fanwork news, I have 46 SW works written after 25.4.2021. I quite like ... a number of them! I shall organise this a bit. Some of this is popular, some of this is exceedingly niche. Click on what you wish.
Gen:
Daybreak (10k, Mace & Katooni, RotS canon divergence fixit), No Death, Only the Force (3k, AotC bodyswap fixit), Undertow (3k, Mace & Maul, post-Order 66), Deathless the Folk (10k, Meetra Surik & Visas & Bao-Dur, post-canon KOTOR 2), Souls Scattered on the Dawn Wind (5k, Anakin & air crash investigation, canon compliant), Sing Dead the Dark (25k, Anakin & R2, fixit), When All the Stars Winked Out as One (3k, Anakin & Nihilus, Nihilus turns up in the prequels era), and perhaps the most popular one, The Will of the Force (Mayday, Mayday) (2k, that day when Qui-Gon introduces Anakin to the Council except everyone save Qui-Gon is a time traveler)
Ship:
Blood as the Stone (4k, E, Acina/female Inquisitor, tomb exploration), Lightbringer (5k, T, Shmi/OFC), Running from the Half-Truth (T, 3k, Obi-Wan/Maul, comedy), and On a Beam of Light We Walk (5k, E, Anakin/Mace, xenomorphs)
Here's to hoping for an even more productive year!
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Date: 2022-04-29 12:58 pm (UTC)Oooh, fic! I'm gonna do ~testimonials~, I've read Lightbringer and Mayday, Mayday and they're both great (although in very different directions obviously :D). I'm definitely gonna check a few of the others.
(I'm incredibly jealous of your fic count, btw. #goals)
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Date: 2022-05-01 08:39 pm (UTC)(I think my record for yearly fic output is, like, 200+ fics, but a) those were mostly short, and b) I now play a MMO. *g* I guess it's just a matter of having A Lot of ideas and not too much else going on? Anyway, I hope you enjoy whatever you end up clicking on!)
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Date: 2022-05-03 05:23 am (UTC)"commenting backlog", you mean "well-aged comment replies"? XD
Alas, the downside of having a lot of interactions on DW is that uhhhhhh you need to actually interact. Writing comments take a lot of time! I always forget about that, and then a whole evening is gone and I've written maybe three comments total...
I suspect people just naturally have different writing speeds. Sure, skill plays a role, and the type of writing - if you need to do a lot of research, then obviously it takes longer - but I think some people are just faster to put words in a line. I'm getting better at accepting that and plodding on at my own pace. :D
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Date: 2022-04-27 02:39 pm (UTC)I havent read that anthology, but it sounds cool.
My year in Star Wars has been mostly a continued obsession with the clones and the Clone Wars, but I also pciked up the new Lego game and it has been really fun so far
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Date: 2022-04-28 06:21 pm (UTC)I'd like to rewatch Clone Wars at some point but we're still on the last season of rewatching Rebels which is a lot shorter!
Which LEGO game is it? I knew they were planning on an all-films-in-one deluxe release but it seems like it disappeared from Amazon (although I didn't pre-order so maybe not?)
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Date: 2022-04-28 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-28 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-29 01:14 pm (UTC)welcome! Prequels-era is my main corner of the fandom, although in a very grumpy way for some parts of it XD What are your favorite stories/media? TCW, the other clone wars show, anything else...?
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Date: 2022-04-29 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-29 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-29 08:30 pm (UTC)Oh, definitely! XD I've moved that to the Dark Side post though, it's ranty.
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Date: 2022-04-29 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-02 08:02 pm (UTC)What are your thoughts on the 2D animated Clone Wars micro series? I vaguely remember watching it on Cartoon Network back in the day.
I was growing out of the prequel era phase by the time the Clone Wars 3D animated movie and series came out.
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Date: 2022-05-02 09:14 pm (UTC)tbh i think i may be more in love with the fandom and the space for interpretation with all the clone related media in general? and i did see some interesting meta on tumblr that supposed each version of the clone wars cartoon was propaganda for different sides of the war, with the 3d one humanizing clones for a republic audience and the 2d one making the republic army seem either scary or inhuman or both
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Date: 2022-05-02 10:15 pm (UTC)Meanwhile with 2D micro series, the visual story telling is more condensed, which I prefer.
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Date: 2022-05-03 05:37 am (UTC)I like that propaganda theory! That's a fun idea, honestly, to try and look at the media as if they existed in-universe, and theorize how the actual universe looks. A very classic one, now that I think about it...
"i may be more in love with the fandom and the space for interpretation with all the clone related media in general" -- ha, same. It feels like all these stories are not-quite-right in the details, but the bigger shapes are so interesting I get invested anyway.
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Date: 2022-04-29 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-03 05:39 am (UTC)"a needed nostalgic break from everyday life" -- I love that :D
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Date: 2022-05-02 05:51 pm (UTC)I just couldn't get to this prompt on time, dammit.
My own year in Star Wars... it's been a lot! Randomly selected:
My favorites from the fic I've written:
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Date: 2022-05-02 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-03 05:25 am (UTC)...and by "Rogue Company" I of course meant "Rogue Squadron", thanks brain. (At least it's still a military unit of a similar size?)
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Date: 2022-05-03 10:15 pm (UTC)This community is the best so thank you for that impulse decision :)
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Date: 2022-05-06 08:09 pm (UTC)Ep III has the misfortune of being a combination of things I dislike: romance, tragedy, heavily featuring a pregnancy and childbirth. I only saw Ep II because I didn't know what it'd be like and I had a terrible time; I didn't even consider going to see Ep III.
I only started thinking about it when I read Cleolinda's livetweet series, and then when I got into SW for real this year, I decided that I ought to sit through it, at least for completism sake.
It's... eh. As I said, it checks off half of my metaphorical "movie DNW" list. I was pleasantly surprised there were some fun parts; I amused myself by remembering all the stupid SW fandom memes. At least I can say I did it :D