dreamwars | The Dark Side (permanent post)

Welcome to the Dark Side. This post’s comment section is dedicated to all the angry, inflammatory, defamatory and otherwise outright negative things you might want to express. Not that saying negative things isn’t allowed in the weekly chat corners, but… you know how you sometimes just Have Thoughts about something, and you don’t feel like you can talk about it because everyone around you seems to love it? Those go here.

Some rules:

No personal attacks.
If you don’t want people replying to you, mention it in the comment.
Follow the general comm rules.
…that’s it, I think.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

annathecrow

Alright, this week it's me who needs the tantrum corner, because I've been reading Republic Commando: Triple Zero and WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH ETAIN, TRAVISS.

Obviously, SPOILERS BELOW.

(is this far enough? does anyone care about spoilers for a Legends book that's 15 years old?)

Like. I knew from the first book that this series is written in a more "traditional" mil-SF style, with the understanding of gender that goes with that. Manly men are manly, women are... who the heck knows. There were two female characters though, none of them outright stereotypes, and I liked Etain a lot. Good enough, for a mil-SF.

BUT THEN. TRIPLE GODDAMN ZERO.

Etain is our only main female character now. There are some other women (and one female Wookiee, that bit I liked), but they're shown through the clones' perspective and that's mostly as someone to be attracted to. This is not accidental; it's obviously a theme of the story.

Then, Darman/Etain - okay, that's kinda cute. But what the FUCK is with the "Etain decides that she doesn't want to be a Jedi because she loves the clones in general and Darman in particular... and so her new goal in life is to have Darman's son"??? Specifically a son, that bit is spelled out explicitly. And then she conceives, and there's a lot of words dedicated to describing how awesome that is.

I... just... ARGH. I am aware that making babies is Average Cis Woman Experience, and that many people of all genders find it very important and fulfilling and whatnot. But the whole "leaving the Jedi, therefore BABIES" is gross. The fact that having a baby is the only possible "family" Etain considers, no matter how little it makes sense with Mandalorian adoption tradition, her assumed knowledge of different family patterns (which she must have studied as a Jedi), and her childhood in the Order, is gross. All of this is gross. Maybe just to me, maybe in general, I don't care and I'm upset.

tl;dr I wanted to read about kicking ass and Brotherhood (tm), I got Peak Cishet Family and Baby Ideas, and I'm too queer to deal.

From:

annathecrow

UPDATE: Having now finished the book (I know I know making judgements before finishing a story is bad practice I shan't do it again), I have to correct myself: apparently, "babies yay!!!" is just Etain's opinion. Kal Skirata has his own, which is just as unpleasant.

(By the way, Star Wars is the only world where speaking about "females" could be a valid choice, and Travis manages to write it in a way where it sounds greasy. Whow. Just... whow.)

I am going to be charitable and upgrade my opinion of the book from "uninentionally upsetting" to "intentionally upsetting", re:women. I don't actually believe that's the case, but you know.

Siiiigh. And here I thought I'd enjoy this series, in a popcorn-reading kind of way.

From:

kaasknot

Replying to this post is kind of like resurrecting a dead horse just to beat it again, but I'm right there hating KT with you. She's a wretched person who managed to accidentally write a couple of interesting characters, and then fuck them over massively. And they're really good characters, which just makes it all the more frustrating. The cishet "married with kids" thing does not get better, it gets even worse when she starts pairing the spares, so if you haven't already stopped reading (I assume you have), then don't go any further. Frankly the only way to cope is through fanfic.

From:

annathecrow

Well I don't mind the thread necromancy :D It's incredibly petty I know, but it makes me feel great when someone agrees with me about RepComm.

"And they're really good characters, which just makes it all the more frustrating" -- honestly the series is killing me precisely because there's so much on it I DO like. The characters, but also the general voice, the phrasing... and KT can actually show characters' emotions really well. So it's absolutely bewildering how it can all come up to THAT mess.

Yeah, I stopped reading properly after Triple Zero. I did skim Order 66 and 501st for Arla Fett, and it just made me more angry because I kept stumbling over passages of Kal Skirata angsting about Etain. Which are very well-written! They hurt! I hate them so much!

Just. Fuck all this.

Anyway, yes, fanfic! I haven't written anything of my own (yet, I do have an outline that I'm slightly in love with), but I've found a few pieces recently that were just so good. Do you have any favorites?

From:

kaasknot

I think the only ppl I've encountered who wholeheartedly, unironically like the Repcomm books are the diehard wannabe-libertarian Mandaboos or like, crypto-evangelicals who really dig that "join the Mando oversoul and be eternally saved" vibe. I try to avoid those people.

KT is like. Legit one of the only writers I can stand to read in the EU. I'm picky to the point of snobbishness about what writing I like, which SUCKS because, e.g. Thrawn is majority-book. And because KT is, as discussed, #bad. It's absolutely baffling how she can do some things so well and then shit the bed so spectacularly on other things.

Kal Skirata is KT's wank fantasy Marty Stu, I hate him. Objectively by his actions he's an emotionally abusive/manipulative parent, but everyone in the story only ever sees him as The Picture of Paternal Devotion, it makes me wanna chew drywall, lol. Like, if KT had been aware she was writing him like a tirefire I'd have liked him a lot more, complicated characters ftw, but the fact that she sincerely believed it... 😬

I haven't ducked into the Repcomm fandom recently, tbh. I've got a couple fics of my own I could rec, but I'm super very fuzzy on other writers (and it depends on if you're comfy with clone/clone ships).

From:

annathecrow

oh lol, condolences, being picky about writing quality must be hell as a SW fan. I haven't read that many yet, but the writing has... varied.

"if KT had been aware she was writing him like a tirefire" -- THIS, omfg. I honestly felt like being gaslighted when I read Triple Zero, because the takes are so bad I kept thinking, that's gotta be a biased narrator, right? This isn't what the author actually means to sound positive, it's actually really deep "muddled morality" narrative, right? Right????

Self-rec away! Clone/clone ships are alright.

From:

kaasknot

Hokay some recs I've dug up from my AO3 and the pitted rut of my memory:

I'm gonna love you with my hands tied (66k currently) by me: "What did happen those three months Mereel trained Corr as a commando?" Corr/Mereel, still a WIP, but there's only two chapters to go and speaking as the author, there is zero chance they won't be posted.

Etain Tells Dar (2k) by me: what it says on the tin, Etain tells Dar she's pregnant before telling Kal.

Doughboy (4k) by countessofbiscuit: a more in-depth look at Ordo/Besany's developing relationship.

poison null byte (5k) by tiend: this one's an abandoned WIP, but it's kind of a canon divergence re: Etain and her baby. She's not the focus though, the central character is a hacker the Nulls abduct.

Edited Date: 2022-01-06 01:44 am (UTC)

From:

annathecrow

Thanks! That's a nice spread, I bookmarked all of them and will see if I like any. My own Etain idea grew legs though and started freaking running, so I might end up writing a RepComm fic before I get to read one XD

From:

kaasknot

that's a whole mood. this corner of the fandom is pretty niche, so a lot of the time you're like "well fine, guess i'll do it myself"

From:

fleurviolette

Yikes on all of that. Thank you for the heads up tho. With that said, I’m not reading any of Traviss’s works given that she was responsible for the derailment and fridging of Mara Jade.

The main issue here is just the author inserting her own ideas and notions into the story rather than respecting the canon lore and building upon the story itself?

From:

sathari

....Traviss was responsible for the fridging of MARA JADE?????!!?!?!?!?! I mean, I knew enough of her Mandalwhoring to have no interest in her Star Wars works whatsoever, but MARA. MARA. MAAAAAAAARAAAAAAAA. She did WHAT to MARA. Seriously, WHAT THE WHAT. (I say this as someone whose headcanon is now that Rey's mother is basically a Mara Jade expy--- the Emperor's raised-from-childhood Force-sensitive operative; she and Palpatine's clone-son, Rey's dad, were childhood sweethearts and escaped together. *nods firmly* So that is how strongly I feel about Mara Jade.)

From:

fleurviolette

Yeah I know, it’s bad. I get why Zahn became protective of Mara Jade and his sw characters when some authors like Traviss wrote her so badly and essentially killed her off. LF should have stopped that.

IMO Luke and Mara should have been established as a canon couple after the Last Command. It would cut out a lot of drama and unnecessary “love interest” characters.

Anyway, that is an interesting headcanon. I do have an alternate sequel timeline where Mara Jade does exist, but she finds out that her name was essentially fake, given by the emperor to remove her identity before she was taken to be the trained ‘Hand’. She reclaims her birth name, Celina Pava, (and reconnects to her home planet and remaining relatives) before she joins Luke again and helps start the new Jedi academy. Of course, she and Luke fall in love. She even has a daughter with Luke, who is one of the younglings until it all went into flames.

Both mother and daughter escape far away, to continue the training in secret. Of course, as her daughter grew up, she learned how to hide her presence in the Force, though she still wanted to help… by becoming a fighter pilot for the Resistance.

AKA it’s part of an AU… what if Jessika Pava is secretly a Skywalker that nobody else knew about.

Anyway I digress lol

From:

sathari

Yeah I know, it’s bad. I get why Zahn became protective of Mara Jade and his sw characters when some authors like Traviss wrote her so badly and essentially killed her off. LF should have stopped that.

Word. I actually hit a point of noping out of the EU when (I think) Kevin J. Anderson came out with his first post-Zahn-sequel-trilogy novels, about which I was originally excited and within pages Mara was basically getting written out, of Luke's life if not necessarily the entire narrative. I was just like... okay, they're going in a different direction, I'll be over here with my SW headcanon and assorted AUs on the one hand and spending my actual money on other canons that I like better.

IMO Luke and Mara should have been established as a canon couple after the Last Command. It would cut out a lot of drama and unnecessary “love interest” characters.

Quoted for truth. Just. All the YES.

Also, I positively love your Jessika Pava AU. Then again, I also have a standing AU/headcanon that anytime Ben Solo Organa gets an Aunt Mara to go with his Uncle Luke, he absolutely does not fall to the Dark side. (Aunt Mara knows what to do with rogue Dark lords preying on unsuspecting small children, and on the other hand what to do with a Force-sensitive little kid whose strengths don't exactly match his uncle's--- yes, that line in TLJ was a red flag to me, as was Luke taking a bunch of kids off by himself without any other adults to help out.)

From:

fleurviolette

Ah, for now, I’m sticking with Timothy Zahn and Matt Stover. Tho, I also liked Kenneth C. Flint’s The Heart of the Jedi. Otherwise, I’m all about the original films, followed by the Mandoverse, some classic eu stories, and my personal aus and headcanons. I embrace the concept of the Star Wars multiverse.

And they can still take their time, rebuilding the Jedi sounds like a lot, until the Hand of Thrawn Duology and Survivor’s Quest.

Thank you! It is my version of the D sequel fix it au. I’m still figuring out the rest of the deets to lead from one point to another.

Unfortunately I’m not that fond of the concept of Ben Solo. The LF story group should have just brought back Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin Solo.
Also they definitely should have brought in Ben Skywalker. What a missed opportunity!

From:

sathari

Oh, man, Matt Stover is GREAT!!!!! I love Shatterpoint; Mace Windu FTW and it's one of the SW novels where I actually feel like I'm in a real-life war memoir. And, oh, yes, Star Wars multiverse FTW. *looks at reams of drawerfic*

...so I almost never engage about Ben Solo with folks who don't love him like I do--- to each their own and there are plenty of popular characters in various series that I don't like! And I don't want to make you feel I'm jumping on you in particular.

...but this is possibly the first time I've seen a thread in Star Wars fandom where there is near-perfect context for me to talk about what I love about him, so I hope you can forgive my doing it here?

Namely, that trope that

annathecrow and I were talking about up above, "Babies Ever After"? That we find really alienating and frustrating? And I'm not sure if this is entirely within the trope, but specifically the expectation that favorite characters in beloved pairings/families are always going to be in a good place to parent a biological child of theirs, especially at the "end" of a story.

And for me, I love how Ben Solo is such a subversion of this concept, and it's one I've wanted to see in some fandom I love since forever. And specifically he is exactly the person I would expect to come out of Han, Leia, and Luke trying to (more or less) co-parent a kid at the point in their lives that they did and with all the personal and professional situations/challenges/trauma they were dealing with, especially around family stuff. To borrow something Timothy Zahn's said about how he created both Mara and Thrawn--- when you put together all of the factors around the character/s involved, that is just who falls out. (I mean, I probably could do the equivalent of the margin notes that Zahn did for the anniversary edition of Heir to the Empire for how he created Mara and Thrawn about why Ben makes so much sense to me, but that qualifies as TL;DR and possibly pile-on territory.)

(The flip side is that I love Adam Driver's acting in the ST, and while on one level I could be sold on him as Jacen Solo, Ben is actually more interesting to me.)

From:

fleurviolette

Yes! Shatterpoint was very well written yet so surreal and dark. It gave me chills as I read it. Personally my favorite Matt Stover SW novel is actually a tie between the RotS novelization and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. I’ll always be fond of the prequels since they were a significant part of my childhood, as well as the OT. And in the OT, Luke is my favorite character. Stover does a great job at deconstructing Luke while still respecting the character at his core. (Unlike in the sequels where sadly, Luke was disrespected. It was appalling. I’m glad that at least they brought him back in the Mandalorian.)

It’s okay, we all like different characters and actors. Personally I don’t see the appeal of Adam Driver, nor like Ben Solo, but I don’t mind chatting with you and other fans on here. I like this place because we can be passionate about the things we like, but can engage in conversations with other fans that have their own likes and dislikes.

Personally, whenever I ship an “otp”, I have the habit of creating next gen ocs. By default, they are going to be the direct offspring of my otp. For example, Stella Amidala Jade Skywalker loves her job, which is to explore the vastness of the galaxy. She’s close to her friends and family, and she shines like a bright star in the Force. Also very cheerful, loud, and funny. ~~basically a happier au version of Jess Pava~~

Ideally, I’d rather have the original trilogy heroes have their happy ending, since they earned it! They saved the galaxy. Even when they have their own families, I imagine their kids grow up and live dynamic but ultimately happy lives, since they live in peace, not war. Also they wouldn’t have the burden of being heroes or great expectations. I know, that sounds very idealistic and rather mainstream. I’m more like, “just one skywalker turning to the dark side is enough, no need for more dark side Skywalkers lol”

I suppose I’m on the different side from you, but that’s alright. Glad it isn’t an echo chamber. :)

From:

sathari

annathecrow

I was gonna make the first half of this comment, but you beat me to it XD

I don't want to go full "Traviss is The Worst" - there's a lot I enjoy on her writing, and I like what fandom is doing with her Mandalorian worldbuilding. But UGH, this is like a million negative points right here, and I was already in the negative.

Why was she even writing Mara? It's absolutely clear to me after only two books that she's not someone who is especially interested in female characters. She doesn't hate them or whale on them intentionally, they're just... idk. When you write, you have characters you love as people (even when they're not perfect), and characters you love as narrative material. With Traviss, it always feels that female characters are the second. I wouldn't give someone like that a fan-favorite, no matter how good a writer they are otherwise.

From:

sathari

:D Thanks

And, yeah, Traviss is not "the worst"--- I mean, I said above that my first noping out with SW came from Kevin J. Anderson, and actually, I think I may have picked up a few stray Traviss books, more than Anderson. But. The rest of your whole entire comment about Traviss' attitude toward female characters qua female characters... this makes me not excited to revisit her stuff, to put it mildly.

And, especially, your comment of "Why was she even writing Mara?" is so on the nose. In a shared world like that, why is someone who doesn't like a character who is something of a fan fave (I remember years ago seeing an article somewhere that said that at at least one point Mara polled just behind Leia as SW fans' favorite female character) writing them? Which at least in part has to be a choice that one or more people at LF actually made--- I've read some of Timothy Zahn's discussions of what he was and wasn't allowed to do in his sequel trilogy and... either someone in the LF hierarchy thought Traviss' approach was just fine, or they dropped the editorial/supervisory/continuity ball.

From:

sathari

I have not read those books and now will DEFINITELY not be doing so, but oh, my Force, ;) I want to thank you for this comment. So often I will run into the "rocks fall, everyone breeds" in stories and. No, just no. I mean, I am at the point where I will deliberately work the "oh, you don't want biological children either? Hooray!" conversation into all my shippy fic. And also that I will have characters outright discuss contraception--- in worlds like Star Wars, it's fun thinking up options that don't exist in the real world, like Force-based biofeedback and such. (I remember telling a fandom friend once that one of the first things I always figure out in my worldbuilding is how birth control would work in a given universe based on what I know of the magic/science rules at play in that 'verse, and they were surprised, and I was in turn surprised by the extent of their surprise.) So, no, you are not alone in this type of problem with stories in general, even if I haven't read that specific set of books.

From:

annathecrow

"rocks fall, everyone breeds" -- oh lol. A special flavor of this is "babies ever after", and I loathe it with passion. In fic, okay - it's usually tagged, nobody is forcing me to read it. In a book, though... ugh.

Yeah, I'd advise avoiding Triple Zero if you feel like that. I sure wish I did, or I at least had a advance warning so I didn't go and get attached to the female character in question.

This book feels like it's designed to make someone like me uncomfortable.

Etain is the only female PoV character, so I get attached to her.
There's almost no romance proper between Etain and Darman, it's all very... ellided? Traviss isn't interested in writing romance, that much is clear.
Then the whole "gonna give my man a family, by which I mean a son" (I can't believe this logic from a Jedi character, I just can't).
Then she conceives immediately - no mention of contraception (or decision not to use it), no thinking about this maybe not being a good idea because of the war, just paragraphs on paragraphs of "baby, yay!" and weird shit about Force and "females".
And THEN, in a bait-and-switch, Etain tells Skirata and instead of being happy he chews her out horribly... which is all about how what she's done is bad for Darman - not even the kid, Darman, and his ~Mandalorian cultural values~.

FFS, Traviss couldn't write a plot that would hit more of my sore spots if I gave her a list.

Also, yeah, I do think about birth control in fictional worlds too. I mean, obviously! When two people able to conceive are having sex, I want to know, even if it doesn't appear in the story proper, how they're thinking about that. Even if I'd decide that the answer is "they didn't", or I wanted to write an unplanned pregnancy, I'd want to have a good explanation, and that includes knowing what options there are. Besides, it's just interesting.

From:

sathari

"rocks fall, everyone breeds" -- oh lol.

:D :D :D So glad you like!

A special flavor of this is "babies ever after", and I loathe it with passion. In fic, okay - it's usually tagged, nobody is forcing me to read it. In a book, though... ugh.

Yeah--- in some ways I've had more problems with it in fic, because I've run into it not being tagged (on fics I liked up to that point, yet!) far too often. (I also have something that's similar to the thing you mentioned above about how, yes, I get that this is the Standard Cis Woman thing, but I kind of come to fandom and especially fanfic looking for people writing stories about people being Different Like I Am Different, in ways that I don't expect would have a large enough audience to be marketable--- which makes me forgive it more in pay-for-content canon, e.g. books.)

More broadly speaking, there is literally nothing about that plot as you describe it that seems to even try to make sense or have good characterization. So much ugh.

But, yay for someone else who also thinks about birth control in fictional worlds and thinks that that's an obvious thing to be interested in! :D :D :D Though now that I'm talking/typing about it, I can in fact see how someone might not--- if they're either primarily into gen or pairings where an unplanned-reproduction scenario would actually involve its own set of worldbuilding and that's the kind of plot/setting you're into... but if you're writing a situation where some of your main characters are in relationships where they could accidentally reproduce, then I as a writer definitely want to know what the options are for not doing it, and for that matter the cultural rules around those are.