gffa

ღ - I spent most of yesterday napping because of shark week and then today being all hermity and making a crapload of gifs. Oh my god my main blog is getting so overrun with gif posts, but I just can't stop myself, I want to gif everything.

ღ - I used to think, "Look, I don't write that much meta, it's not that hard to organize stuff." but I think maybe it's more that I'm decent at finding the posts I want to reference, because as I'm trying to organize this for posting onto DW, it's been very, "Oh, shit, I do yell about a lot of things." and quickly getting overwhelmed. (I miss the ability to schedule posts!)

ღ - Even if I don't actually ever get everything archived, I'm at least having fun with the conversations here and I like the more laid back pace! So, I'll keep going as I have. And onwards to more crying about the GFFA!

I had a conversation with @skymurdock about Jedi clothes that basically went like:
skymurdock: Now I wonder about the Jedi who pops up like "I WANT TO PUT SEQUINS ON MY ROBES". Anakin went the emo route other Jedi go the GLITTERY EUROVISION route.
darthluminescent: They might be gently discouraged from it, but if they really wanted to, I bet they could easily. The Jedi seem to be VERY FIRM about letting cultural traditions be kept or just wearing whatever, if that's what you truly want to do!
skymurdock: So like technically you could make an excuse for wearing glitter-covered robes as a cultural tradition of your people.
darthluminescent: YEP. Or, like, I guess if you really want to wear a bright red tube top and a mini-skirt, well, all right, Ahsoka, go ahead.

AND THEN I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT JEDI CLOTHES. Because, yes, there are a lot of beiges and browns in Jedi clothes, but we see other colors plenty of times and very few outfits are actually identical. Plenty of Jedi wear dark clothes like Anakin does. Plenty of Jedi (including Anakin!) seem to be wearing not necessarily a brown, but possibly a dark maroon. Some Jedi have patterns on their clothes! We see cultural details in the Mirialans and Tholothians and Togrutas and Zabraks!

Nothing about the Jedi clothes seems to indicate that there’s any one single way to wear them, that it’s any kind of mandatory uniform. If that were so, Ahsoka’s outfit would never have happened! There are obviously themes with the Jedi, they’re a living and breathing culture (though they’re limited in scope the way everything is in Star Wars, like any one planet seems to have only ONE culture and it’s often extremely limited in what they show of variations of it), which means they have a style of clothing that’s common. But you really can’t swing a lightsaber in the Jedi Temple without hitting someone who deviates from the “norm”.

A few examples of the “basic” Jedi outfit, what most people think of:

(Larger version here.)

Is there a lot of beige and brown in there? Yeah, sure. But no two outfits there are the same, each character has their own individual set of clothes. For example, Tiplar and Tiplee also have individual designs, despite similar coloring. (Though, in some lights they can look downright peach/orange.)

But sometimes colors can be deceiving! Just look at Anakin’s outfits:

(Larger version here.)

On the left is Anakin as a Padawan, on the right as Knight. Sometimes the tunic underneath his tabard looks brown, sometimes it looks maroon and sometimes it looks like it could be either. And more where it really looks red/maroon to me (if a bit more towards brown, as the light weans).

And then two comics images where, one time it’s very much brown (from the Dark Horse Republic series), and other time it’s almost pink (from the Dark Horse Clone Wars series, iirc) even despite it being contrasted against Ahsoka’s very much red outfit.

And then there’s Anakin as a Padwan:

In The Phantom Menace, he’s wearing lighter colored robes, but in the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic he’s wearing darker colors in the comic itself, but the lighter colors on a variety cover. The Republic comics had him in darker colors, the Jedi Quest novel covers varied between dark colors and lighter colors. Given that variants and novels are probably the lowest on the canonicity scale, I generally go with Anakin wearing darker colors from probably as soon as he got back to the Jedi Temple. (But you can also go with just that he changed his mind sometimes!)

He’s not the only one who wears DARKER COLORS:
- Evan Piell wears straight up black clothes
- Plo Koon seems to be maroon in color (and another), but can seem brown in other lights
- Saesee Tiin is brown with maroon as well
- In The Essential Readers’ Companin, Siri Tachi was drawn in dark colors
- Tholme wore black and dark gray
- Yarael Poof’s colors can seem very red at times
- Shaak Ti wore browns and reds
- Cin Drallig could be brown or maroon (he definitely looks more maroon in the Saga Films photos)
-

Finn Ertay wore a dark maroon dress as well
- Aayla Secura wears black or dark brown
- Depa Billaba wears dark brown over a white/beige shirt
- Ima-Gun Di wears maroon as well

OTHER COLORS:
- Rig Nema wore slate blue/gray (and her character design) in TCW, along with a unique headdress and design
- Tahl wore pink and blue in The Essential Readers’ Companion, though, in the comics she wore pink and blue and gray (and had a completely different design)
- Bruck Chun was drawn in blue in The Essential Readers’ Companion
- In the Dark Horse comics, Depa wore brown, blue, and grey
- Pong Krell wears orange

OTHER DESIGNS:
- Sifo-Dyas had some pretty fancy clothes
- Jocasta Nu wore typical colors, but in a unique design and had patterns on her tabard
- Shaak Ti’s outfit was unique to her as well and there’s definitely a good amount of red in her design
- Ima-Gun Di also has a pattern on his tabard

CULTURAL DETAILS:
- Luminara and Barriss both were Mirialan and had tattoos on their faces and hands, headdresses that covered their hair, dark clothing, patterns on their clothes, and accessories. (From The Clone Wars and again, some close up detail from the Saga Films and full length.)
- Eeth Koth had Zabrak tatoos
- Finn Ertay and Vokara Che and Aayla Secura all wore headdresses
- Aayla Secura’s outfit seems to be influence by Twi’lek culture
- Adi Galia and Stass Allie and Katooni all wear Tholothian headdresses
- Shaak Ti and Ahsoka both wear Akul-tooth headdresses

JEDI KIDS:

(Larger version here. Sources: The Phantom Menace, The Clone Wars, Kanan: The Last Padawan.)

- In The Phantom Menace, the younglings are all wearing basically the same outfit, with some mild variation in color
- In The Clone Wars, there’s much more variety! While the colors are in the same earth tones genre, no two of those outfits are alike! Even their winter coats are all different styles! (We see them again later in The Wrong Jedi wearing different outfits.)
- In Kanan, Caleb and Tai Uzuma and Sammo Quid are all wearing the same basic outfit, but they’re initiates at this point and it’s not really clear how much it’s a uniform vs how much it’s three kids choosing the same outfit. (Since it looks very much like what Anakin is wearing, as you can see in that panel.)
- But of note in the Kanan panel is that Sammo has a Twi’lek headdress and Tai has either tattoos on her face or some sort of jewelry, to go along with her hairstyle and circlet.

AND THEN THERE’S AHSOKA TANO:

(Larger version here.)

I decided against including Ahsoka in any of the other sections (aside from the cultural one) because I think she’s really the most telling case and I wanted to address her all at once: She wears red in all three versions of her Jedi outfits, all very bright red, not just possibly dark maroon. Her style is very unique, it’s not really like any other designs we see. Hell, her first oufit is a tube top and mini-skirt over leggings!

And she best illustrates the point I’ve been ultimately rolling my way towards: Nobody says shit to Ahsoka about her outfit. It’s not just Anakin saying she can wear whatever she wants, because he first meets her and she’s already wearing her first outfit. Do most of the Jedi tend to wear earth colors or blacks? Do they tend to have similar-ish designs? Yeah, because they’re a culture, that’s how the canon chooses to show it visually.

But are Jedi required to wear any of those things? NO THEY ARE NOT. They can wear whatever they hell they want to and nobody will give them shit about it. :D

If a Jedi wanted to wear a glittery, sequinned outfit, THEY COULD. If they wanted to wear a mirrored discoball tabard, THEY COULD. If they wanted to have a train of space peacock feathers, THEY COULD.

(Just, generally, they don’t, because this is fiction and colors are used to help add to underlying meaning and signify group culture, so you can’t just go with only in-universe explanations.)

[originally posted here]