Chat corner 10: Critters

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

 

Optional chat prompt

This week’s topic is “creatures”, or anything alive that isn’t a sentient being. (That might be questionable in some cases!) Star Wars has a menagerie of funky space animals, from things that are basically “[earth animal] IN SPACE!”, to truly unique creations.

Also, because yourlibrarian had a great suggestion to mention it outright, what about creature-related fanwork? Have you ever read a good fic with critters in it? Seen a cute fanart? And oooohhhhh, now I’m thinking of all the toys and plushies…

 

Comments

[annathecrow]

As usual, we have a Dark Side post for this chat corner.

[fleurviolette]

Ewoks are strangely cute!! They are warrior teddy bears IN SPACE!

Unpopular opinion: I liked the crystal ice foxes and porgs in that edgy film with Star Wars characters.

[yourlibrarian]

I can see that the Porgs might have seemed a bit much but I'm surprised the ice foxes were disliked.

[fleurviolette]

I think the ice foxes were well liked? They looked like sharper, cooler (lol no pun intended) ice vulpixes. One of the very few things I remember from that era.

From the Mandoverse, I thought the lothcats looked pretty neat, tho they first appeared in Rebels.

I’d like to see the gffa equivalent of a shiba inu. I can imagine Luke adopting a few shibes haha

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I thought so too. And whether or not they had any Force connection it had already been established that some creatures do, so that would have made sense.

I'm guessing that the cats are a fan favorite because in design they seem particulary cartoon-ish so I hadn't expected them to try and translate that to live action.

[fleurviolette]

Yup to all of that. Also want to mention Grogu even though he’s sentient and Force sensitive. Grogu is so adorable!!!

[annathecrow]

I liked both! Porgs especially. IDK, maybe I'm easy to pander to, I just like a good dumb fuzzy animal. Same as the cat-things in later seasons of TCW - are those lothcats? I still haven't seen Rebels.

[yourlibrarian]

I'm afraid I don't remember if Lothcats were in Clone Wars, but we also watched Rebels first. I didn't mind Porgs myself, and I was intrigued to discover they were created in part to cover up actual birds!

[yourlibrarian]

The Lothcats were always fun to see. The space whales were neat, though they seem clearly sentient. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes what is or isn't a sentient species, such as the wolves that are avatars etc.

[annathecrow]

Yeah, that's always kinda a problem in SW. I usually think about it in terms of culture and how they're treated in-universe - so Wookiees are sentient species, while banthas are not.

Altough, specifically with Wookiees, the "treated in-universe" miiiiight be a bit iffy. I don't know all the lore, but what I've read was... not nice.

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah, that's what I recall as well from what little reading I've done. But it's hard to tell when it comes to slavery because clearly that exists for a number of species.

[extrapenguin]

No critter thoughts, and my longfic is still undergoing edits (read: I am procrastinating on editing it), BUT I did write and post two shortish prequels fics:
The Will of the Force (Mayday, Mayday) – everyone except Qui-Gon Jinn has time traveled to their past bodies. Qui-Gon is the very confused narrator.
When All the Stars Winked Out As One – planet-eating Sith Lord Darth Nihilus consumes all of Tatooine save Anakin, whom he takes as his apprentice.

[annathecrow]

Definitely checking those out! I'm a sucker for a good time-travel fic.

[annathecrow]

I like almost everything tbh, space critters are just fun. I don't know if I have favorites, but I do have a... un-favorite? Favorite pain in the backside?

Banthas. How the fuck do banthas work????

Like. They're kinda patterned after the Namib desert elephants. Cool, but do you know where those elephants actually live, but more importantly, how much biomass they have to eat daily to survive?! Those pretty pretty shots of banthas walking through the Tatooine dune seas are magnificent, but unless the planet is hiding some seriously large green areas that the creators are not covering, we have A Problem.

*takes a deep breath* I have maybe spent a few months writing a fic based in the Tatooine desert, nbd.

(I made banthas extreme omnivores and heavily suggested that it's the Force that helps them stay alive, plus some really enhanced biology. Still, let me tell you, it's been a struggle.)

[yourlibrarian]

I so agree about the banthas. It never made any sense to me that something so clearly heavy and hairy could survive in those sorts of temperatures with such a lack of water or food.

[annathecrow]

I try telling myself that it's all space fantasy and designed for coolness factor XD

Which, I love that, but it works best with things on the background. When I try to write something where the coolness-logic thing plays a bigger role, I Suffer.

[yourlibrarian]

For those who have seen Rebels, Bendu is clearly sentient but I had to headcanon that he was in that neither alive nor dead state that many past Jedi are in because nothing that size should be able to exist in a desert world so I also have to postulate that the desert world wasn't always a desert either.

[cardstockfox]

I absolutely fell in love with the massifs that showed up in The Mandalorian! Big, funky, scaly dogs are apparently my weakness. I haven't read any fic that features them, but I did recently read one that featured strill (which I had to look up, but they look very cool though they're semi-sentient so idk if they count here) as emotional support animals for Mandos. It was sweet.

[annathecrow]

Massiffs! They're great. I drew a tiling pattern of them for a project a while ago, and I had so much fun with it. Behold:

[cardstockfox]

Oh I love it! It's cute and they look very smiley :D

[annathecrow]

That's one of my favorite things on the massiff creature design! They have those smiley-face lizard mouths :D