A wild casual post appears

[gffa]

I have done largely nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and sleep in my free time, so I haven't felt very social and have barely made anything for tumblr (most of what I've posted was either scheduled ahead of time or made previously for easy posting), so I'm going to make an effort to get my head out of that space and be a little more social on this journal.

- I'm a little >:/ about tumblr pulling all these shenanigans this week, because on Wednesday the last issue of Dark Lord of the Sith comes out and I'm pretty sure I'm going to WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT A LOT. glompcat showed me Soule posted the first page of the issue on twitter and WHOA SO INTERESTING. It's beautiful, but also seeing Vader's spirit disconnect from his body, seeing it in the style of the earlier meditation, the possible implications (or is it just because it looks cool??) of what that place is--Ezra was able to step into the World Between Worlds with his physical body, to pull Ahsoka into that place with her physical body. Is it just that the Jedi who built the Lothal temple were better at it? Did they have help from the Ones? Is the Mustafar doorway still imperfect? Is this not the World Between Worlds?

I kind of doubt that we're going to get concrete answers, that's not Star Wars' style, especially not when we still have the looming question of what exactly Vader is trying to accomplish (as glompcat and sethnakht I think both have pointed out, Vader never confirms that that's what he's going there for) that has to be addressed, and to wrap all of this up with the themes that have been present in the story all the way through.

I am interested to see where this goes and I'll miss this story when it's done. Hopefully, I'll be able to spend more time catching up on the main ongoing, because I think that one gets some conversation going, too!

- January isn't that far away now, so the next Age of Republic comic will be the Obi-Wan one, which is one of the few (I think??) pre-AOTC stories we'll have and then a week after that, we're getting Pirate's Price (Hondo counts as a prequels character!), then the Jango Fett comic, then the Star Wars Adventures comic about Padme and Jar Jar, then the Age of Republic special with the three stories about Mace, Ventress, and Rex, then the Age of Republic Anakin comic, then the Age of Republic Dooku comic, then Star Wars Adventures has an Obi-Wan and Rex comic, then Queen's Shadow, then Choose Your Destiny: An Obi-Wan and Anakin Adventure, then the Padme and Grievous Age of Republic comics somewhere in there, and then Master and Apprentice. That's a really steady stream of prequels content over the next three and a half months, a lot of which focuses on Obi-Wan and it makes me wonder how much stock there was to that rumor that the Obi-Wan movie was supposed to have happened, the theory that we might have been getting it around the time all of this would be leading up to, or if it's just that the prequels are finally coming back into fashion.

All of this stuff takes years to plan out, so a lot of this would have been in the works for awhile, which means I can believe it's just that it took this long for the prequels stuff to come out, even though the tide has been shifting back in their favor for awhile OR I can believe it was supposed to be a build-up to an Obi-Wan movie that got put on the back burner because of Solo.

Either way, lots of prequels content! I'm SO NERVOUS about that Master and Apprentice book, but I guess I'm gonna have to read it anyway.

- I never watched much of Voltron: Legendary Defender beyond the first season, so I can't really weigh in on any of the discourse, I only reblogged pretty Allura fanart, but I think it's safe to say BULLET DODGED THERE.

To the point that, knowing a lot of the people who were involved in that fandom are going to head over to She-Ra fandom (along with some thorny personal experiences around the show), makes me sort of want to dodge that bullet, too.

Oh, well, Steven Universe comes back today AND I AM EXCITED. I hope to gif it when it drops, but also it might be nice to write up a reaction post where I'm not afraid tumblr will reblog it and scream at me for daring to just casually like something instead of hating it with the fire of a thousand suns.

Comments

[bell]

Hey <3

MAY THE NEW PREQUEL CONTENT PLEASE US :3

Aaand, new SU, fhkshfjshdkh!

[gffa]

Hello there! ♥

I mean, I'm terrified that it's going to be awful, but new prequels content that's not just TCW-based is kind of exciting?

HAS IT DROPPED YET? I JUST WOKE UP!!

[bell]

We still have the canon we like, no matter what, THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT FROM US

I DON’T THINK SO NOT YETTTTTTT

[gffa]

And if the new content is terrible, I can always go into hiding with you and just disengage with the fandom and go read Tolkien fic instead, RIGHT??? (Well, except for yours, of course! I'll always read your fic. ♥)

IT IS FULL ON EVENING HERE, C'MON GIVE US THE NEW EPISODE. I'm just picturing every SU fan twitching at the start of the race track, just WAITING for that episode to drop and we're all going to race to see who can gif it first. XD

[bell]

RIGHT ♥

ALSO, IF YOU SEE THE NEW SU EPISODE ANYWHERE LEMME KNOW? I'VE BEEN REFRESHING KIMCARTOON TO NO AVAIL

[gffa]

I finally had to go to bed last night and I'm still not seeing an episode link this morning--did we get the date wrong and maybe it's next Monday?? ;__;

[bell]

https://www.polygon.com/tv/2018/11/19/18103223/steven-universe-diamond-days-new-episodes-premiere-date

Kjcakidcpijc it says Dec 17th? So idek .___.

[gffa]

I think I figured it out: The episode "Legs from Here to Homeworld" was only released on the CN app previously and yesterday it aired on TV properly, so it was a "new to TV" episode. "Diamond Days" is the name of the overall bomb I think? And "Familiar" is the next episode listed on Wikipedia's episode guide after "Legs from Here to Homeworld" and that one will air next week.

Only six more days to go then! orz

[bell]

WHAAAAA

I mean, go you for figuring it out :D! BUT, MAN, /POUT!!!/

oh well, something to look forward to <3 I WILL BE ON WINTER BREAK BY THEN :D :D

[gffa]

It's so hard to go from expecting an episode right now, to waiting another entire WEEK. Bleh!

What am I supposed to do in the meantime? CATCH UP ON OTHER STUFF??

*drive by hugs for you, btw* My sleep schedule is kind of wonky and I've retreated into making a crapload of gifs, I'm not sure if it's depression sneaking up on me or just that usual go-around cycle of what captures my attention. Guess I'll find out soon enough! ^_~

[bell]

*hugs, hugs!* ^__^ HERE'S HOPING IT'S ATTENTION CAPTURED ELSEWHERE /fingers crossed!/

Like, IS there anything else??? I DOUBT IT

[thewillowbends]

It seems like Tumblr's filters at least functioned well enough to avoid any significant damage to the server or websites themselves. I suspect Tumblr will linger on longer than Livejournal did simply because there isn't any major fandom-based alternative available right now, but I imagine this is the start of a series of increasing dumber moves on their part.

The one outrage they spared their users from was enforcing the rules AFTER convincing people to do premium and paid accounts. That's really where I think LJ really was obnoxious. You don't have people pay you for your website services and then do a bait-and-switch on the TOS because it serves somebody else's purposes.

[gffa]

I am genuinely surprised that tumblr never offered any kind of paid content! From everything I've read, it's a real money pit for Yahoo! and Verizon and I could see where paying for a paid account (even just for things like different icons or the ability to lock posts or something) might have offset that. LJ offered it to get rid of ads (and we had AdBlock back then, because I never saw them even when I stopped paying for LJ) so why not tumblr, too?

LJ was easier to move from because it was easier to offer more than a primarily text-based site. How do you offer more than Tumblr's insane bandwidth and server costs?? Especially when anyone can see how much money it's losing Verizon!

[musesfool]

Oh wow, I did not know this was going to be the last issue of the latest Vader comic. I really look forward to it and will be sad not to have it to look forward to anymore.

we're getting Pirate's Price (Hondo counts as a prequels character!),

...I also didn't know we were getting Hondo content, so that definitely cheers me up a bit. *g*

[gffa]

I suppose it's better than dragging on past what the author wants (and I've seen it theorized that Soule seems like it's really kind of depressing him to write, since it's such a dark series) but it's hard not to be greedy when we see the main one still going strong at 50+ issues and still so good!

And it's doubly hard when Shadow of Vader got cancelled and the new series to replace it has not sparked much interest. I want my regular trash bag content to look forward to!

But YES, HONDO AND HAN SOLO WORKING TOGETHER, I expect great things, just IMAGINE how annoyed Han's face is going to be! :D♥

[musesfool]

just IMAGINE how annoyed Han's face is going to be!

It's going to be EPIC. I AM EXCITE.

[gffa]

Already the cover promises EXCELLENCE re: Han's face:



I mean, even if the book were terrible, which I doubt, at least we'll be getting more delightful Annie Wu art!

Edited to add a better link to Han's face, despite that apparently it doesn't want to let me link the full sized version, can't imagine why! Tumblr definitely hasn't spoiled me re: hotlinking or anything!

[theraphos]

I'm SO NERVOUS about that Master and Apprentice book

I haven't been keeping up with the information since first finding out the author and re-reading their story in From a Certain Point of View - have there been any new details, or anything in particular that's worrying about it? :o

Also extremely glad to hear about SU, if they waited any longer I'd have to do yet another rewatch just to remember what's going on lmao. It's a fun show but the schedule's killing me.

[gffa]

The author seems like a lovely person as a person, she's really sweet and enthusiastic, I imagine that I'd have a BLAST if I sat down to have lunch with her or something! She just has views that I don't agree with (the Jedi ~don't know know what family is~ and that was a ~mistake~ with Anakin and she was a big Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan shipper) and if I have to cram that book up someone's ass because those views take over the book, I'm going to be heartbroken. SO I AM VERY NERVOUS. orz (ETA: To clarify, those aren't inherently bad things, just that they're my things and I don't want them in my Star Wars, so this is half a bratty response and half, "But the Jedi clearly DO have families, Quinlan directly thinks of them as such, Obi-Wan refers to Anakin as his brother, etc." crankiness. XD)

I figure SU's schedule must be working for them or they wouldn't keep doing it this way, but man sometimes it is really hard to wait between them and not wonder why a more regular schedule isn't the way to go. But the whole binge-watching/"bomb" dropping thing is the way of the future??

[theraphos]

Oh dear, that sounds less promising than the impression I had from the FACPOV story which seemed pretty clear and firm on "Anakin had the tools and the knowledge to do better and he actively chose not to." ._. I did notice the story leaned a little extra heavily on Obi-Wan's woobie status, and that kind of thing is always a little bit of a warning sign for me in official fiction I read Wild Space exactly once, it got extremely carried away lol, but I didn't think too much of it at the time. Maybe I'll wait on reviews for this one.

Maybe it is the future - Gravity Falls did it, DuckTales is kind of doing it, and Adventure Time IIRC - but SU's schedule is definitely exceptionally bad. I saw a calendar type chart of the show's airing schedule compared year to year floating around tumblr somewhere and it basically dropped by a third each time. ( ._.)9 give us the cartoons

[gffa]

The first time I read that From a Certain Point of View story, I was over the moon, because Obi-Wan cutting off Qui-Gon about how, no, Anakin had the knowledge of how to choose better and he still chose not to, was exactly what I was looking for! And the "well, we made mistakes with Anakin" came off more as "we still feel really guilty for not doing the impossible to help him, because that's a normal, human reaction, to feel guilt for things that aren't actually your fault", but if you look at those things with a less charitable eye, I get really wary. (And, then, if she writes MORE books about the prequels, it's going to be A Lot For Me To Deal With.)

It seems like it works for Netflix as well, I think the idea is that having a bunch in a row means it's easier to hype people up for the little while it's on, which gives them more viewers than if they tried to parcel things out? But I definitely miss a regular release schedule. (Can you IMAGINE if, say, comics did the same thing??)

[theraphos]

True, and it's probably always going to be risky getting your hopes up as a prequel-era fan who likes the Jedi and doesn't like the whole...very aggressively negative bandwagon that parts of the fanbase like to joyride around in. ._. Some authors seem like they did their reading and things like Lucas' commentaries clarifying what Jedi beliefs even are, and other authors definitely did not do any of that and don't want to.

I guess that makes sense, I didn't think to compare it with purely streaming channels that do drop everything at once. Although still with Netflix, any series I've noticed, they always do the whole season in one go and not just "here, have some at random, okay bye." It's like buying a book and having all its chapters at once, and then meanwhile with SU or whatever it's more like "okay here's three chapters ending at a random point, see you in a year after you've lost all momentum and forgotten what the story even is." (/o_o)/ It is very maddening.

I definitely don't think comics could get away with it, but then I admittedly haven't kept up with many ongoing comics over time so maybe there are some series that were super messy. (I'm dimly aware of some long-running manga having disastrous schedules though.)

[shadowhive]

Yeah. I’ve been feeling very sleepy lately too

Yeah damnit tumblr ugh. I really need to catch up on comics. I think (think?) I have a few issues of fortress Vader but I’m really not sure at all. Those are so many interesting question! I guess we’ll find some out soon, though like you say likely not all.

I keep meaning to go through my comics pile, especially because your posts promote so much discussion! I hope to read some this week since I have no uni in the mornings.

I need to get the age of republic comics ordered, hopefully soon! I think I have pirates price ordered though I need to read the Lando one first. For some reason the Adventures comics are really hard to get here.

But ahh, I love all those prequel stuff! I’m really looking forward to Queen’s Shadow. I wonder if we were meant to get an Obi film too. I wonder how it woulda gone though.

Boltron is something I haven’t watched either but I hear... iffy things do... I’ve heard She Ra is goodso I’m curious.

I’ve never seen Steven Universe at all before, I’ve heard good things fhough

[gffa]

It's hard to keep up with all of the Star Wars stuff coming out if you want to have any kind of discussion about them or want to have other fandoms or idk have a nap now and again! XD Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful, it's the kind of "problem" I love to have! ("Oh, nooooo, too many good things to read! Such a terrible problem!") But it is hard to find time for it all sometimes.

I still have the two Lando minis to finish, the Leia and Han minis to finish, the Shattered Empire mini to finish, almost all of the main Star Wars ongoing, and the first Darth Vader maxi series, the Imperial Cadet series, to finish off reading the TLJ comic, and I still have probably 6 or 7 canon books to finish, never mind getting into the Legends books I want to finish!

I don't want to put too much stock in rumors, but it really seemed like an Obi-Wan film was going to happen and all this content coming out, leading up to what could have been a May release, just a year after Solo, like Star Wars was possibly gearing up for a multi-film-a-year schedule makes sense to me. But, honestly, maybe it IS good for them to pull back a little. The comics and books and novels have been SO GOOD, but they're easier to keep on track, and while I loved Solo, I don't necessarily need a movie every year, I'm more than content with the current pace.

Voltron is probably not worth investing your time in, but I really love Steven Universe so much. It's very hard to get into (the early episodes are very unpolished compared to what comes later), I had to be super casual about watching it at first, to not care about much of anything other than that it had pretty backgrounds, but you spend enough time with it and somewhere along the way it becomes one of the best children's cartoons ever!

[shadowhive]

I feel that completely! I have so many comics and books to read through, I’m so behind on everything (so of course what I do is get more of them)

Oh those are good comics to read! (Well the ones I have read of course!) you’ve just reminded me about Imperial cadet! I like the mini series because they’re nice and short, so I focus on them over the maxi series. I have what I call a pile of doom of canon books to read (which includes Lost Stars and the Thrawn books). And there’s a few of the reference books to read too, oops.

I really hope that Solo didn’t mess up any other films, I really loved Solo and hope we get a follow up at some point. I’ve liked having a film a year, though it’s felt odd not having one now. (Fab has reminded me repeatedly that one year ago was tlj, then two years was Rogue one and 3 tfa)

Yeah, I’m not gonna watch Voltron cause I’ve heard that. I’ll have to see if I can find some eps. There’s been some really good cartoons lately, Gravity Falls, Phineas And Ferb, stuff on Netflix like a The Hollow and The Dragon Prince. So much cool stuff

[gffa]

The amazing--and sometimes overwhelming--thing about all this content is that I've generally liked everything I've read so far! The closest I came to hating something was Thrawn: Alliances and even that generated a lot of really interesting discussion and had some cool things to pull out of it!

THERE ARE SO MANY REFERENCE BOOKS and they're fascinating, but they're so much harder to pore through for all those little details! Scum and Villainy is gorgeous and amazing, but it's not as easy to sit down with it and read it cover to cover, like it is with a novel. And so that adds EVEN MORE things to read!

I think we literally get something new from Star Wars almost every day? Or at least it certainly averages out to that. We're getting 2-3 comics a WEEK these days! HOW IS THAT PACE POSSIBLE???

It really is a golden age of cartoons right now! The ones you mentioned are all good, but also Over the Garden Wall and Hilda (also a Netflix show) and Adventure Time have all been stellar. Not that there weren't great cartoons before this, but it really has been rewarding to be a fan of cartoons lately. And that's even without getting into Star Wars animated series!

[shadowhive]

Oh yeah! I can’t think of anything I’ve read so far of the new stuff that I’ve really disliked (at least off the top of my head anyway). I’ve not read that one just yet, so I can’t comment that 😁 but that doesn’t surprised me,

I know right? The reference books are always awesome, there’s always so many cool little things in them. I’ve not got Scum and Villiany yet, but the scans I’ve seen look amazing. I just got the new complete visual dictionary yesterday so I’m curious about what’s new in it.

Yeah it certainly feels like it, which makes it hard to keep up. That’s kinda how I failed at the comics, it became overwhelming pretty quickly early on.

Ohh cool, I’ll have to check them out. Yeah I love what I’ve seen of Adventure Time too, but I’ve only seen random bunches of episodes. Oh totally!

[gffa]

I don't have the complete visual dictionary yet, I'm considering waiting until IX is out because you K N O W they're going to make an ultimate omnibus one for all 9 episodes and I can crib off others who have it in the meantime. ^_~

One of my favorite things is that even the reference books feel like stories these days! As much as I like objective narratives in them, we get plenty of those with the visual dictionaries and stuff. Getting some that are also in-universe unreliable narratives, but true for those specific characters? YES, GIVE ME MORE STORY! I love worldbuilding, but I understand why they're building it piece by piece the way they are, because they have to plan for decades of stories, rather than just the next five years. They have to allow creators at least some room to play!

I would absolutely recommend Hilda and Adventure Time (which is another slow starter, but it gets incredibly good and meaningful as it develops) if you have the time and inclination for them! I've heard good things about Trollhunters as well, though, I haven't sat down to watch it yet myself!

[shadowhive]

*face palms* damn you’re right. Ah well, at least this one was half off. I’ve not read it too much but there’s some updated bits (Chopper is in there, Scarif is mentioned on Vader’s page and Jedha in the cantina section). It really annoys me though that OT Leia only gets two pages. (And in general that the it bit is so short. I know it’s cause the originals only had one dictionary for the trilogy but still they shoulda added more)

Me too! That’s why I really wanna get scum and Villiany causa that. I’m love both but I agree give us more! I’m always interested by stuff like that (and I also love the cross sections books, I really wish there’d been one for rebels and the rest of the Clone Wars). I’m curious about droidography because it makes Freemakers partially canon? At least that’s what I hear

Oh cool! Yeah I sometimes watch Adventure time, but the thing is, the channel that has it puts on 4 episodes at night at 11... and yet they seem random. Like there’ll be the first part of a two parter and the next one will be random. So it’s hard to keep track of the ongoing stories. I’ve heard good things too!

[gffa]

Oh, yes, I wish we'd get more cross-sections, they're so fascinating and they're such great worldbuilding material! And not just ships, but give me buildings, too! Give me a floor plan for Padme's apartment! Give me an updated Jedi Temple crossection! Give me a canon-compliant Death Star crossection that tells me where the officer's lounge and stuff is!

I have NO IDEA what to make of Freemakers and Droidography--because I don't think it's at all possible that Freemaker Adventures, as they stand, could be canon, there's too much silliness and parody in them. But they did say that Freemaker Adventures would be canon-compliant back when it first started! So, right now, I'm assuming that whatever is specifically in Droidography is canon, but not everything that's in Freemaker Adventures. That's what I'm sticking with until the story group tells us otherwise! XD

I think you could get away with some watching of Adventure Time out of order, but not that much. Especially once you get into the later seasons, there are definite character arcs going on all throughout it. Can you record the episodes and save them up and find an episode guide to watch them in order? Though, that's probably a lot of work and it might just be easier to Google for where to watch them via Streaming.

[shadowhive]

They really are! There is a cross sections for locations, but they could always do more (for Rogue One and Solo at least) so many cool places and ships need to be done (I wish the Solo guide had more cross sections in it like the Rogue One one).

I love the Freemakers (and all the Lego shows) because they are absolutely hilarious! But yeah, so much of it is just so wacky and silly that they don’t well like they could happen. So someone is going to have a job explaining that!

Yeah some Adventure Time eps I’ve seen are clearly standalone so that format is ok, but when they jumble up seasons (like one time they had Princess bubblegum being young, but either side were eps with her as her usual age). The annoying thing is that the TV guide lists the hour long block as being a general Adventure Time so there’s no titles in the description. Finding a streaming thing might be easier (I keep hoping Netflix or something will get them but..)

[gffa]

I know the real answer is, "Don't take this stuff so seriously, don't worry about whether or not something is canon! Just enjoy the story or not!" but I can't help wanting to dissect this! Why do this at all? Why not just leave Freemaker Adventures as firmly not canon? I want to know that, too!

I don't think Netflix will be able to add Adventure Time to its lineup, because last I checked Hulu has the rights for it, which is too bad, because I think it would fit in well with their line-up! But there are probably other places online that a Google search would turn up. XD