tfa_kink | DISCUSSION/OFF-TOPIC POST

idk why people insist on having hux use phrases like "sweetie" or "darling" or "my love" outside of a crack story. i just don't see him as being the pet name type, even if he were in a romantic relationship. of course these are just my personal opinions filtered through my worldview but it kind of takes me out of the fic.

thoughts?

I suppose, I guess because people can write him that way?

Personally, I like my Hux cold and cruel and mean and in some sort of weird, probably dysfunctional and kinda unhealthy relationship with Kylo. With lots of hate sex and also jealousy and possessive on Kylo's part because that's my cup of tea, but I've never thought about pet names. Since, to me, that seems really weird.

Preach!
I used up all my shipwar anger during the Harry Potter heyday. Nowadays I sit on the siteline watching.
When they announced Legend of Korra I was like "Yeah! New Shipwar incomeing! I get my popcorn!"
I am an asshole, I know, but I keep my silence and don't bother contributing to the flames, so I don't hurt anybody.

same anon

Haha, I got nostalgic and looked back at the communities I was a part of. Yeeps, that was an experience! (Sometimes I would see my own posts but I won't fess up to them . . .Ah, LJ, how I miss when you were relevant and active and not a mess.) It's amazing how much fandom hasn't changed, long-winded discourses, meta, and becoming way too invested in general (I love 'em but 600k words in fics are an investment! That's basically like writing Lord of the Rings!)

Maybe it was my fandoms but I have never been in one where the most popular ship wasn't two men and filled with young women.

late to the party but this 100%

I was wondering if anyone recalled seeing a fic either here or on AO3 featuring Kylo and Phasma. It's basically gen (maybe with subtext). I think Kylo accidentally sees Phasma with her helmet and/or uniform off, and he tries to reach out to her but she rejects him.

SA

And then, after 20 minutes of searching, I remembered there was a delicious and found the prompt in two seconds. Oops.

Lots of people argue that in the SW galaxy there might be a group of humans that could be roughly be assimilated to Latinx people and I have nothing against this idea nor the idea of space Latinx speaking space Spanish.

But every time I read a fic where Poe Dameron speaks Spanish and say it's Yavinese it just makes me grit my teeth.
- Neither Kes nor Shara have been born on Yavin IV

- Kes and Shara settled there during the last months of the OT war. Their place is described as a "fledging colony", indicating that it has been established recently - after the Rebel Alliance left. Poe is probably part of the first generation of humans to have been born and raised on Yavin IV since the Massassi likely disappeared.

- In canon, thousands of years ago there were people - the Massassi - living on Yavin IV, and they were slaves to a Sith Lord or something. These guys could be speaking Yavinese but 1)we have no idea if they're still alive, and probably aren't 2)why would the Rebel Alliance set up their secret base on a planet full of innocent civilians when there are plenty of empty habitable planets

- Even by accepting that the Massassi are still alive, why would Shara and Kes teach Poe as his maternal language Yavinese, instead of what likely would be their first language (so, space Spanish)

- Assuming that Yavinese is actually the language called in the colony because somehow it's entirely made up of space Latinx speaking space Spanish, it still makes no sense for the language to be called Yavinese. The United States have been a thing for 400 years and people here still call the language English, not "American." Brazilian people don't speak Brazilian, they speak a dialect of Portuguese but it's still Portuguese. The dialect established itself after several generations of people being more and more removed from the language's country of origin. So for a young colony like Yavin IV it still makes even less sense to say "oh yeah we're all speaking space Spanish and live on Yavin IV, therefore now we shall say we speak Yavinese."

You make a lot of good points here. I haven't read much of Spanish-speaking Poe (partly b/c what little I have read had no translations and I only know like 5 Spanish words >:P), but I agree with the development of language part. I didn't know that it's being called Yavinese, either. I always assumed the planet was uninhabited until the rebels came.

Spanish itself has so many regional variations that I wouldn't be surprised that, even among the fans who feature Spanish-speaking Poe in their works, there's a lot of variety. My guess is that they would generally try to match the Spanish to what Oscar Isaac's family speaks, but the number of fans who can "authentically" write that must be very few. Central and Latin American Spanish is especially complicated b/c words from indigenous languages are also mixed in (and how the words are mixed in depends on the region). It'd be kinda cool to make space Spanish different from Earth Spanish, haha, but it'd take a lot of work.

Anyway, for fandom purposes, I think that noting when a character is speaking another language but still including that dialogue in English is the best way. Besides Poe's possible native language, there are hundreds of others in the SW universe, and they should all be treated the same. Unless you want to highlight a word or phrase (its meaning being difficult to translate to another character, an unfortunate mistake in a language has bad or goofy consequences, etc), then you really don't need to directly include another language at all. Real languages are hard enough w/o worrying about fictional ones, too.

Hi, I've never posted in the discussion here before, but this topic came up with a friend, and I'm curious about other opinions/experiences.

I've played around in a lot of fandoms over the years, but I was never a fan of AUs centered around radically different worlds (and I'm no good at thinking of short and sweet words for things XD).
Examples:
- school AU - teens, early twenties, teachers, etc
- vampire/werewolf/etc supernatural AU
- magic/fantasy AU
- daemon AU - maybe familiars or something to do with souls or spirits, too?
- assassin/serial killer AU
- organized crime AU
- stripper/prostitute AU
- A/B/O AU
D/s or BDSM AU
- soulmate/soulbond AU
- animal/shapeshifter/pet AU
- gender/sex change AU
- trope blends and fandom-specific AUs like Hogwarts/HP
- historical setting AU
- working in the modern world AU (they've graduated school! probably!) - throw all your athlete, dancer, musician, writer, artist, professional children's card game player AUs here

............you get the idea.

I've read a little of the more light-hearted AUs (like coffee shop and buddy cop, both of which I read here! XD), because sometimes you just need something easy to read that might make you laugh. I can't do fluffy (moments of sweet are all I want), and some AUs tend to go in that direction, but that may be more of a fandom tendency thing depending on the fandom.
I usually lean toward dark and angsty, and so many of these AUs can go that way, but I've never really enjoyed them. Granted, some squick me out or blend together things I hate and love (I avoid A/B/O like the plague, but gimme all the elements of D/s you got dude)... but they don't really click with me. I've never had the urge to read or write or draw any of it.

That is, until TFA screwed everything up for me. XD

I don't know why, but Kylo Ren works really freakin well in modern Earth AU settings to me. It's a good way to explore his character and think about how he would act if the stakes were lower. (Like dealing with one world instead of a galaxy, having no Force just good ole gravity, still using sharp pointy objects to threaten people, having all the black clothing and ways to avoid sunlight that he could ever want, etc -- in all seriousness, though, I don't like when he's exaggerated into an obnoxious caricature who never changes. It got boring very fast.) Of course, it can still end up hurting my heart and breaking my brain, but fandom does that to me all the time anyway. Kylo Ren will do that to me anyway, with or without jeans and a T-shirt (and boots -- I tried the sneakers look on him, but he only kept one beat-up pair in the back of his closet).

So! Finally, here are my two questions for anyone reading this:
(1) Do you read/write/draw radically different AUs for Star Wars?
(2) Are you generally a fan of those kinds of AUs, stick with canon-related AUs (like "what if" or change one thing), or don't like to play around in AUs at all?

I'm not counting relationships in AUs for this, so you can skip any het/slash/gen/other parts if you want. I think aging characters up or down can be included, though.

Interesting questions. So, I generally stay away from radically different settings, both in my writing and reading preferences. That said, point-of-difference AUs, where the butterfly effects are fully realised can be amazing to read, and I've even tried my hand at writing such things.

There are also some impressive different-setting AUs out there, but I tend to prefer them outside of the Star Wars fandom. One of the issues I have with modern AUs in Star Wars is that I would prefer the same stakes as the Star Wars 'verse. I feel like it detracts from Kylo's characterisation if he doesn't have the capacity to kill. Without that element of genuine threat, his actions just don't matter as much and that's something I personally find less narratively satisfying.

Funnily enough, Rey's situation can be translated into a modern AU with a bit of twisting. Her situation can be just as life-and-death if the author's deft enough at looking at say, youth homelessness (I am definitely not such an author and would baulk at attempting something like that).

On a side note, I agree one-gagillion percent about D/s AUs over A/B/O. Why make it physiological when it can be an interesting blend of psychological and societal pressures and maybe a thinly veiled metaphor for gender that doesn't map quite perfectly. D/s-verses 5eva.

Whoo, someone replied already! I was prepared to wait a while, lol.

Oh, butterfly effect AUs can be fun to read, but they seem difficult to write. I haven't tried, since my stories are usually short and something like that could be novel-length.

Interesting. What kinds of fandoms do you like the very different AUs? (Novels, comic books, TV, anime, video games, etc.) Or does it simply depend on the fandom/the characters?

Kylo can still have blood on his hands in a modern AU. I'm not sure how many people write him that way, however. I haven't been reading many fics in this genre, especially lately, but from what I've seen... Yeah, people tend to keep the personal and familial issues but not the darkness. I ran across a bunch of modern AU stories that de-aged everyone, too. Like 20- and 30-somethings aren't as fun to write or something. >:P Unless they just wanted kid Rey, lol... I agree both with your idea (and personally not being able to write it) concerning Rey, btw. She's a resourceful one, though, so I don't think it'd be all doom and gloom, even before BB-8 and Finn enter the picture.

YES D/s FOREVER. I don't have a favorite kink, but it's in my top five. XD I love psychological relationships. They don't have to be twisted in a scary or grotesque way or anything, but one or both characters hating it and hating that they love it is just A+. That, or the whole trust angle with "I can only be this way with you" feelings. I'm also a sucker for aftercare, I found out, thanks to D/s. XD The characters are what make it interesting, and each pairing can have a different dynamic. I think that oftentimes A/B/O relies too much on the uncontrollable, and as a result the characters fill the AU's roles instead of the roles suiting the characters.

Errrr I'll stop. I'm getting off-topic in my own thread.

AYRT

Yeah, agreed on the novel-length butterfly effect AUs. The shortest viable ones I've seen can clock in at around 5-6k, but usually we're talking tens of thousands for a fully realised AU.

I've seen some amazing radically different AUs in DC, Homestuck and even Dresden Files, but I think it's a matter of finding stuff by specific authors I like, more than a quality of individual characters or fandoms.

Regarding the way people write Kylo into modern AUs where he's de-aged and/or focusing more on interpersonal and family relationships, I suspect it comes from relatability in some cases. Here is a character, who underneath the space opera trappings and murder, reflects some interesting things about family relationships, hard choices, and growing up. Tweek the setting, extrapolate some characteristics and suddenly it's something that can resonate with the right kind of audience.

To a degree that's why non-Star Wars AUs *don't* appeal to me personally. A lot of my reading is for escapist purposes, and rich overblown settings with semi-contradictory world-building minutiae is way more my jam. A homeless Rey, a Finn from a terrible family background that he escapes, a Kylo struggling with family, are all things that cut just a little too close for my personal taste. But hey, I can absolutely see why people would go for that too and such stories have the capacity to say even starker things than a Star Wars setting.

I have a kind of conflicted relationship with the way D/s is presented in fic. I feel like most characters outside of certain settings probably don't have that much access to kink culture. So there's this delicate line to walk between showing good D/s without necessarily going through the proper forms like having characters knowing about good negotiation, safewords and aftercare. I like the idea of characters independently deriving those sorts of things through trial and error (hopefully without too many catastrophes along the way) and discovering kinks almost incidently. I suppose I like the discovery aspect, then, hmm.

Also I am so here for dynamic-switching where roles are flexible, or emphasis that bedroom roles don't necessarily creep into out-of-bedroom situations. I agree completely about the loss of control in A/B/O-verses potentially erasing characterisation. It's why I prefer the fuck-or-die trope to sex-pollen. Same end game, completely different characterisation and emotional tone, usually. Though some of my favourite fics have been dealing with the aftermath/fallout from sex pollen the "morning after".

Also no worries about off-topic-ness. This is the off-topic page after all (I say, while going off topic too).

how do you post a link to an image on dreamwidth so it shows up as that little notebook picture

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Star_Wars_Logo.svg/1280px-Star_Wars_Logo.svg.png

Did anyone see it? I just came back and went kinda meh with it, however I don't think I was all that much of a SW fan even though I've seen all the movies (my grandma made sure I grew up with them).

With that said, it did spark ideas for long dead fics that I just returned to. I also REALLY want to read/write something that has Hux in that fabulous white uniform the Director was wearing. (Even though I know it wouldn't make any sense because Hux is a General but...white cape...)

I also didn't dig Rogue One all that much, but the cape, THE CAPE. I'm kinda sad the "Krennic walking in the water with that gorgeous stupid useless beautiful white cape trailing behind him" scene from the early trailers didn't make it into the final movie. His outfit was the best thing about the character, really.

Unpopular opinion apparently, but I actually loved Rogue One a lot more than TFA. Rogue One is more my style of movie and I liked that it had higher, grittier, more realistic stakes than anything from the OT or TFA.

But I tend to prefer stories about the normal people fighting the war over stories about the larger than life heroes who win the final battle (and I say this as someone who adores the OT and TFA and all the characters).

I was surprised at how dark it was. But at the same time, there were so many characters, I didn't feel very sad about any of it. Or maybe I'm just dead inside.

Eh, I feel like there's different ways to get emotionally effected by stuff. I rarely glom onto specific characters for big emotional effects, but give me sad contexts for *concepts* like "the passage of time", "doing the right thing at great personal cost" and even ~the human spirit~ and whoa, suddenly affected.

It means I can look dead inside when something very sad/bad happens to some poor bastard, but it's just the way I interact with media.

Long story short, Rogue One was the right kind of conceptual narrative to hit my emotions, not for the characters that died, per se, but for the idea of the relay of revolution. Where cooperation and a thousand small instances of doing the right thing (that don't even look important to the people doing it necessarily), leading to big changes. Just. Yeah, my thing.

Hi, different Anon with two cents about AUs.

I like my AUs exotic (yes, I read a/b/o and yes, it is ridiculous),because World building. Tell my all about how this world works or how the characters fit in this roll.
That is why I like fusion fics even more.

I don't like coffee shop AUs. They are bland and over done, but I like them with Kylo Ren. Maybe because the blandness of a bland au makes him look even more like the beautiful desaster he is.

Coffee shop AUs and similar "ordinary people" AUs don't give me many feels, unless very good written.

THERE IS NO JESUS CHRIST IN STAR WARS

IT ALL HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO, IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

STAR WARS WIKI MOTHERFUCKER DO YOU USE IT????

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_phrases_and_slang

LOOK I EVEN DID THE BLOODY 5 SECOND GOOGLE SEARCH FOR YOU

Invoking JC in any sci-fi/fantasy setting that doesn't involve Earth is pretty damned stupid, isn't it?

DISCUSSION/OFF-TOPIC POST

characters using "pet names" (esp hux)

Re: characters using "pet names" (esp hux)

Re: why is the fandom like this

Re: why is the fandom like this

Re: Discussion on the Trans!Poe fics

Help finding a fic?

Re: Help finding a fic?

Space Spanish as Yavinese makes no sense

Re: Space Spanish as Yavinese makes no sense

Radically different AUs - fandoms you can and can't venture that far from canon

Re: Radically different AUs - fandoms you can and can't venture that far from canon

Re: Radically different AUs - OP

Re: Radically different AUs - OP

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Rogue One (Possible Spoilers)

Re: Rogue One (Possible Spoilers)

Re: Rogue One (Possible Spoilers)

Re: Rogue One (Possible Spoilers)

Re: Rogue One (Possible Spoilers)

Re: Radically different AUs - OP

FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Re: FOR FUCK'S SAKE