FanFic Ask Me Anything ~*~ Version 3.0 Daily Questions (See list on pg 164 or 1)

[quote=Raissa Baiard, post: 51842616, member: 236814]

I'm really only familiar with the Witches from "Courtship of Princess Leia."[/quote]
Here

 

Fanon you have about something in SW?

Architecture you would want to see/see more of in Star Wars?

To continue in the same vein

What about the shivas from the Ravine comic


Warhammer 40k's kroots


K. Burgess' akkixi


I admit that they are all more repto-avian then pure avian but it was what I could find/remember for now, not counting Ben McSweeney's garuda

 

So if the Witches of Dathomir appeared in the new canon what would you like to influence their design?

Here

[/quote]
I only posted exemplars of the nightsister part of the witches of Dathomir and now I don't have the time to create a just as good post about the normal witches.

At least I can post some of the different depictions of the witches through the years

Wizard of the Coast


Star Wars: Galaxies


Cracken's Threat Dossier


Post the Jedi Academy trilogy

 

I love the medieval arts and armor hall. The amount of work and the level of artistry that were put into them is staggering.

Yes, I've seen the miniature rooms. They're fascinating. Okay, now I really want to go back to the Art Institute. Baiard family road trip!

Not really into roughing it; my family was never into camping (unless you count borrowing my grandparents' motor home) and due to his experiences in Boy Scouts, Mr. B hates camping with a fiery passion.

 

Thanks for answering Raissa!

Just FYI, next week is going to be a break week because I'm going to be out of town and so I'll probably forget, but we will resume the following week.

This weeks victim... subject is... ThreadSketch

 

So ThreadSketch:
Who do you consider the best dressed male in SW?

Who do you consider the best dressed female in SW?

 

What's the story behind your username/avatar?

 

Who is your favourite character and why?

 

Between Luke and Mara, which do you find easier versus harder to write, and why? What about L/M (for you) makes them perfect for one another?

 

O HAI THAR, Y'ALL!

I'm narrowing myself to the films here:

Male: overall, I kinda dug Bail Organa's outfits. Regal but not over-the-top.

Female: I know it's cliché to say Padmé, because on one hand her wardrobe is gorgeous and on the other her frequency of costume changes is ridonk but it was enjoyable eye candy. Up close there's an insane amount of detail that's so fun to stare at and admire. My mind is blown at the awesome costumers who are able to replicate these garments.

My mother occasionally does hand embroidery, and I'm the one who draws or traces the outline for her on the fabric - hence Thread for her work and Sketch for mine. (This is why staring at Padmé's clothing is fascinating for me, since I'm an embroidery fan.) She did a triptych of koi fish that took her over a year to finish.

DID SOMEBODY REALLY HAVE TO ASK LOLZ?

This guy, right har.



I think it's primarily because of his resilience in the face of crazy adversity. Yes, he's Teh Heroo and he's kinda cute and in-universe he has some mad skillz of his own before he starts stepping into a leadership role and developing his Jedi abilities, but he's still the underdog, and I loved that Lucas ultimately made the character this short, skinny, slightly awkward, not-quite-flawlessly-handsome kid who still winds up pwning evil in the end because it just makes that triumph that much more satisfying. When you're a wimpy 12 year old dork who everyone despises, this means a lot. The fact that he's this gosh-golly Nice Guy also made a huge impression on me, because there weren't nearly enough "nice" people in my life back then.

I'll say it again: character flaws are necessary and important, but the reasons why I adored this character form the basis of me wanting him to avoid corruption after the films. The character arc he was given in the films is just fantastic and perfect. He's one of the ultimate Good Guys of pop culture history and I like him to stay that way for the most part. Challenges and temptations are required to keep him from stagnating, but to put it another way, this is why Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is my favorite EU novel, and Dark Empire...gets my judgey eyes. Even if they can still kinda-sorta make sense somehow, lol. Oh well.

And yes, I still remember the days when we called him Lukie on these old boards.

*hugs Lukie*

 

Hands-down favorite fanfiction of all time? Most influential on your own writing?

 

I suppose because he's my favorite character, it's oddly easy for me to occupy Luke's headspace in spite of being a woman because I feel like I've "known" him the longest and my interest in him has me most invested in developing material for him. For Mara I suffer the same issues as I do for other characters like Han - she's awesomely sarcastic and witty and I'm not. However, the difficulty in writing Luke is the danger of idealizing him too much. At the end of the day he's still just a man with the same passions and issues as any other, and he's gotta put his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.

(After Mara tells him to quit using the Force frivolously. )

L/M are excellent foils for each other. I think the idea of Luke being idolized in-universe in the EU and potentially surrounded by syncophants is a totally plausible thing - at the beginning of Shadows of Mindor, he's standing around feeling creeped out and frustrated that, despite being the youngest dude in the room, all these military bigwigs are treating him like He Can Do No Wrong. Coming from a background of bitter hatred against him, and then seeing him in vulnerable situations, Mara has no dewy-eyed illusions about him. Her treatment of him can sometimes come across as excessively disrespectful and spiteful to others, but Luke knows her sardonic manner is often a defense mechanism, and he appreciates the fact that somebody's willing to just tell it like it is to his face without worshiping him or holding back. On the flip side, his trust and mercy toward her open her up to the realization that the galaxy isn't just a horrid place full of scumbags looking to take advantage of everything. She grounds him, and he shows her how to love and serve others without feeling like she's sacrificing her own autonomy. (Although, Karrde is really significant for that latter part of her character arc too.)

As the saying goes that "iron sharpens iron," these two really do need each other, and make each other better by pairing up, even though they're still good characters on their own too.

 

For L/M, Odd Kind of Honeymoon. No contest. I was just gushing about this to JadeLotus the other day. Out of everything I've ever read for L/M up to this point, this one reads as profic to me, and I consider it at that level for personal head!canon. Perfect balance of love and romance - subdued and realistic, but still much richer than actual profic - the characterizations are so spot-on it still makes me squee my fangirl head off, and the ending just makes me... . That's a high bar I'll never reach, but it's the one I strive for. (Second place here is The Dividing Factor by Niralle.)

More generally, By the Grace of Lady Vader and The Ascension of the Queen are amazing, one of the best AUs ever, and yes, they made me bawl liek woah at the end too. I'd have probably said the Son of Suns Trilogy if I'd read them all the way through by now, but I haven't.

I have a boatload more fics bookmarked on my browser, but I'd say those are my uber-faves.

 

Favourite minor Rebel character? Favourite minor Imperial character? Favourite droid?

 

What's your favorite era of the EU (aside from Luke/Mara stuffs, that is)?

 

Favourite non-human species and why?

Favourite SW culture and why?

 

Did you lurk before and would you again LOL? I.e., what about a story just grabs you so you just have to say something?

 

Wedge is a fan favorite, but I have a soft spot for Mon Mothma, Alliance Boss Lady who just pops onscreen for a minute or two and leaves you utterly intrigued. She's dignified and soft-spoken and beautiful, yet you know she's got to be a butt-kicker on some level to lead the entire Rebel Alliance. You go, Mon.

Admiral Piett is also a fan fave for the trope-y reasons of being the one high-ranking Imperial who escapes Force-choking, lol, and somehow in fanfic he often winds up being this ultra-cool dude who secretly has a great rapport with Vader, but he just amuses me as this fairly competent but otherwise unremarkable guy who often looks supremely uncomfortable and just wants to avoid bad situations. I like him for adding that mild element of dark, absurd comedy to the Imperial side.

[Luke] ARTOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! [/Luke] C'mon, he's the awesomest droid evar. He's adorable and a secretly sarcastic, no-nonsense, do-anything friend to the heroes all at once. Who wouldn't want a chirpy, intelligent Swiss army knife at their side?

Even though it's been the most disappointing overall, I do still enjoy the post-ROTJ era the most. It had so much potential and a lot of it was wasted, but since it's all fiction anyway, I still like the idea of somebody getting this time right and doing it justice, even if it's just fanfic. Even so, the EU we did get there set up SOOOO much that we now take for granted, and even Disney is mining and reestablishing because we've all gotten so used to it.

Unfortunately, these are the questions I'm going to suck at, because my SW fandom is so narrow. Really narrow.

Wookiees intrigue me. They're such big, hairy, brute-looking folks who are yet so sophisticated and artistic. They're awesome warriors and amazing architects, and manage to be intimidating and endearing at the same time. Holiday Special aside, I'd totally dig a vacation to Kashyyyk!

Culture-wise...I wish we knew more about Alderaanian culture. I've seen WAY more done to flesh this out in fanfic than profic. I'm stoked that Marvel will be doing a Leia miniseries involving her struggle to gather what's left of her people and be a leader to them in some way. They're probably not going to explore any specific cultural elements to Alderaan too deeply, but I hope they do at least a bit. I know generically that it's the "artsy-fartsy" planet, but I'd love more detail on that. I've been an artist, so that's up my alley.

I'm a card-carrying lurker, indeed. I lurk way more than I post, even on stuff I love. I'll pop out to comment on a story that strikes me as especially superb and/or unique, or if I see that no one else has mentioned something that I noticed in the fic. Otherwise I just feel that everyone else's praise and insight is good enough, and my own words would just be redundant.

 

I am the Most Boring Person in the History of Ever, so besides writing fanfic, my free time is typically taken up by cat videos and whatever articles Mom bookmarked for me to read during the day while I'm at work. Saturdays are epic grocery shopping days, Sundays are chores for the week and bumming around here online. I'm a typical 9-5er (well, 7:45-3:45er, technically) Monday through Friday, and I take the bus to and from the office. When I want to read a book, I only squeeze it into the short rides during my morning and afternoon commute, so I only cover half a dozen pages or less each way.

I was born very sickly and grew up wussy, so I am not an outdoorsy person at all. (Seriously, going out to fly a kite as a little kid laid me up for weeks. It was either monster allergies or just being too susceptible to germs.) The only physical activity I enjoy and doesn't disagree with me is walking, which I used to do loads of in New York City and Bergen County, NJ. Now I don't need to go long distances, so this is why I was a size 0 in college, but I'm currently a size 10. That, and Mom's awesome cooking, lol.

 

What got you into Star Wars? What got you into the EU?

 

Oy. I still vividly remember, at 12 years old, sitting on the couch at home in south Texas when a local commercial promoting the theatrical releases of the Special Editions flashed on and I was like, "WHAT IS THAT I WANT TO SEE THAT MOM CAN WE GET TICKETS." That was the first time I'd ever seen anything regarding SW (I don't count the time I was 4 and got traumatized seeing Jabba the Hutt on a TV broadcast of ROTJ, LOL; I ran screaming to my room). I was so mindblown that when it was time to go see either ESB or ROTJ, and the passenger door on our rickety old Chevy Blazer wouldn't close, I said I'd just hold it shut the entire way on the expressway...and I did. The rest is history.

Because I was a shut-in child, I was a voracious reader, so it wasn't long before I realized that Waldenbooks had all these SW novels and comics. However...this is why I have a love/hate relationship with this fandom. I was an extremely selfish and materialistic girl who only viewed my mother as a cash cow. I would blow all her widow's benefits, and then later most of her very hard-earned paychecks, on loads of SW books and media, when we were almost dirt poor. Because I'd been through a lot as a younger kid and I was an only child, Mom didn't say no to me (and frankly, she should have). I accumulated more than 2 huge foot lockers' worth of stuff. After we'd been apart for 5 years and then reunited under some really crazy circumstances, I even forced Mom to drag those trunks in the back of her Ford Ranger pickup all the way from Texas to New Jersey. It was ultimately in vain, because...suffice it to say we went through some very harrowing and bizarre experiences that made me reevaluate my life (a real "look at your life, look at your choices" moment), and I sold, gave away, or threw away virtually ALL of my memorabilia. The only shame I felt about that was all the thousands of dollars of my mother's money that had been wasted on it. I abandoned my online and real-life connections to everyone I'd befriended or made acquaintances with over SW and general nerd fandom.

Between 2008 and 2013, SW was pretty much erased from my life, and that did bring me peace. It felt good not to be chained to an addiction, because that's really what it was. I sank so much money into it that could have been used for far better things and to keep me debt-free. During the time I was an initial SW fan, I was verbally and emotionally abusive toward my mother. I was off cavorting at Dragon*Con when she had a stroke, all alone in our new apartment. To this day Mom is still disturbed by the fact that I bought flowers for Mark Hamill while I couldn't be bothered to shed a single tear over my own grandmother's death, a woman who devoted herself to helping raise me alongside Mom.

When I die, I'm not taking anything with me, period. It's okay that I don't have all that stuff anymore. Over the past year, though, my focus has drifted. I was weirded out at first and then ambivalent over the fact that...people like me were still hanging on to the fandom-related aspects of their lives, instead of jettisoning them entirely. So I tentatively started coming back to SW, in spite of my shame over my earlier behavior.

At this point, I know I'm spending too much time with this frivolous stuff. There are far more important matters I should be attending to, but I'm letting them fall by the wayside and shooting the breeze over here instead. It's probably going to bite me in the butt eventually. (I'm actually surprised it hasn't already.) I don't know what's going to happen.

But...I'm here for now. Again. *awkward shuffle*

Honestly, there are days I do wish I'd never gotten hooked on SW. But then, I'd have gotten hooked on something else, perhaps something far worse. I'm not cool like Mom - NOTHING impresses her. She was a very serious person growing up (because of epic personal trauma, mainly, but I think it's also just part of her personality), so she never had crushes on actors or boy bands, no posters of anything on her walls, etc. Sadly, I didn't inherit her indifference to pop culture; I was born constantly wanting to glom onto something. First it was Barbie, then Sailor Moon, then SW, then SW + DC Comics. All expensive things. The only useful thing out of this is that I never showed interest in drinking, drugs, boys, etc. I'm an insufferable nerd through and through.

 

What fictional culture would you like to see used as an inspiration in SW and how?

What real life culture would you like to see used as an inspiration in SW and how?

 

Very well put!

Tell us about your love for Sailor Moon - manga, anime (sub or dub?)