Chat corner 61: Ahsoka

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week's chat corner!

Optional prompt

The optional topic for this week is Ahsoka, the YA novel by E. K. Johnston. It was published in 2016, and tells Ahsoka's story between the Purge and joining the Rebellion.

Has anyone here read it? What were your thoughts?

Comments

[annathecrow]

The Dark Side post link is here. Reminder, it is for:

• outright rants (no judgement, we've all been there)
• when a discussion gets too spicy for the main post (some criticism is fine, but remember there might be people here who love that thing you hate)

[kittywhite]

I read it when it came out and enjoyed it despite it being a very quick read, I finished it in less than 3 hours and had a boring bus ride home that day!

It’s a nice companion to the animated series (Clone Wars and Rebels) and has something I know people here will enjoy based on previous discussions...one of the female side characters has a crush on Ahsoka. It doesn’t go anywhere because Ahsoka is still into the whole Jedi don’t date thing but it’s written sweetly and believable.

There’s a few differences between the novel and the “new” Clone Wars episodes but I had enough time between reading this and later viewing the episodes for it not to matter to me, that might be different depending on your circumstances obviously.

[astromech1138]

I'm so shocked to hear that there's a same-sex crush! How did Disney let that slip through?

[kittywhite]

They seem to be cool with it in the novels and comics, most new canon novels nowadays feature at least one LGBT+ character. (For example the Alphabet Squadron trilogy ends with the main character (a bisexual mixed race woman) ending up with her female alien squad mate) I’m concerned though that they haven’t done a main male same sex romance yet, they had the perfect opportunity to do it in The High Republic but killed off one half of the pair and pulled a “no homo” beforehand to assert that the main character Anakin rip off for men to identify with is definitely straight lol

[annathecrow]

It feels like there's some back and forth on it. In Ahsoka it's unrequitted, in Queen's Shadow Johnston pretty explicitly says that Sabé is interested in women and then puts her in a romance with a colleague that's agonizingly hetero. I suspect the authors themselves would like to write it, but either they're not determined enough, or the execs meddle.

[kittywhite]

I’d love to know what the authors can and can’t do and what the actual planning process behind the scenes is.
Claudia Gray did an interview after The Fallen Star came out that gave me some concerns. In it she mentioned that a character that was killed off originally survived in the first draft, there were no plans for him to die but due to emotional impact it was then decided he needed to. He was a major character, it would be like killing Han so not a decision to be made lightly. So there was no storylines already planned for this character after the book that then had to be adjusted? Are they not planning the overall outline that far ahead? To be honest he was giving me death flags from day one so I wasn’t surprised he died (rare example of a male fridging too!) but I just find it weird that it wasn’t planned.

[fleurviolette]

Unfortunately, I haven’t read that book yet. It’s outside of my interest.

Thoughts or speculations on the final episode of Kenobi?

[astromech1138]

I haven't read it either!

But Kenobi--I don't know what to think! We're finally getting baby Luke? Color me anxious! The whole show is very different than I was imagining, in a good way. I'm hoping for one really good fight scene between Obi-wan and Vader, and maybe even the backstory to RotJ's "Obi-wan once thought as you do."

What do you think?

[fleurviolette]

Hmm I’m just hoping the episode doesn’t break movie canon lore. If Vader and Kenobi duel, it shouldn’t be on Tatooine?? But then, Luke….

We’ll see in a few days!

[astromech1138]

Right?! But all roads seem to lead back to Tatooine... I guess we will see!

[annathecrow]

Self-rec time!

First, I'm taking part in Vexercises, and for the first assignment I made a vid about Shmi Skywalker: Hurts Like Hell (two vids, technically, there are two versions with different music)

Second, I finished a very belated treat for May the 4th Exchange: The senator, the queen, and the disaster. Someone prompted "Bail Organa/Breha Organa/Darth Maul" and I just had to. And then it took a month to write, because it's 11k and IDK, Maul is a dramatic bastard, I guess.

EDIT: Wait, forgot this one! I drew a fanart of Female Jedi Exile from KOTOR2, for the CharactOR Exchange: Not Available. Exile runs away to grow flowers instead of saving the galaxy. I'm pretty proud of this one! It took a lot of sketching and referencing.