I have seen the reason for people choosing the player character’s gender in video games being that they would prefer to stare at a specific gender’s ass for the whole game. And. Asses have never done anything for me. So while I understand that it does things for other people, I still scratch my head at it.
Okay it’s a funny skit but I’m gonna be serious about this for a moment because I think it’s interesting - the thing about this is it does actually make sense if you go back to the source material.
A lot of stuff that’s considered canon in star wars is actually kind of ascended fanon. Like, if you really dig into it, it’s remarkable how much of the lightsaber-juggling, movie-retreading atmosphere of pop culture/the expanded universe Lucas incorporated into the prequel trilogy, likely without realising.
Example: Strictly according to the original trilogy, does Master Yoda possess a lightsaber? I would say no. It is significant that in a film, where every shot is deliberately planned, we never see a lightsaber in relation to Yoda, and the one time he acknowledges Luke’s it is dismissively; “Your weapons, you will not need them.” By implication, Yoda is a Buddha to Obi-Wan’s warrior monk. Yoda is a teacher and a mystic, but he is not a warrior.
Force lightning is another of these things. You go back to the original trilogy, and there’s a sense that the Force and what you can do with it is very personalised. Nobody but Palpatine throws lightning, not even his apprentice, and in turn nobody but Vader chokes people to death. Luke does learn the mind trick introduced by Obi-Wan, but that’s part and parcel with Luke’s growth into a compassionate warrior-philosopher who tries to solve conflicts nonviolently. Force Choke is not ‘a dark side force power’, it is Vader’s power, a manifestation of his crushing authority and smothering presence.
Likewise, Force Lightning is not 'a dark side power’, and it is not generic lightning. It is the Emperor’s power, characteristic of his cruelty, his sadistic delight in corrupting and hurting other people. We can see this in how it is used. Force Lightning does not split steel or blast people off their feet or blow things up, like a real bolt of lightning - it transfixes Luke in agony, sends him reeling to the floor with torturous pain until he screams for his father’s help.
Force Lightning is not a power of clean, straightforward energy blasts. It’s a torture power. It’s the power of wielding your hate and cruelty against someone with the deliberate goal of setting fire to their nerves and killing them slowly and painfully. Shit yeah it’s evil as all get out, way more than the power to convince guards to look the other way rather than have to fight them.
My favourite harmless prank I’ve heard of was done by this girl whose dad was a geologist, and they’d go on day hikes with his geologist friends/co-workers and when she got bored on them she’d habitually pick up a random rock and go ask him what it is, and one of them would explain what kind of a rock that is, how it probably got here, and usually some notions of the more unusual features the rock had, if any.
And she had a friend who had once gone on a tourist trip to Iceland and brought back a volcanic rock. So she borrowed the rock and took it with her on the hike, and after two randomly picked up “hey dad what rock is this”, she presented the volcanic rock, in the same fashion as all the others.
3 minutes later there are five middle-aged and older men circled around this mysterious rock, all agreeing on what it is, but not why it is. They keep asking her questions, where did she find it? Were there any other rocks around there that looked like it? Was it like this on the ground? People walking past the group try to stretch their necks to see over the geologists’ shoulders to see what’s the source of such amazement.
And in the end she couldn’t take it anymore, burst into laughter and confessed. The geologists agree that it was pretty clever.
“Aliens aren’t considered creatures” writing creatures workshop.
Glad I didn’t use Thrawn as an example of creatures. I did glance a the book by Timothy Zahn and went “Nahh, I don’t think so. Too close to human”.
Then I used mermaids as an example.
Not The Little Mermaid -mermaids, but people drowning and eating mermaids.
What are the rules of creature vs non-creature then? What else are aliens?
Unless that’s a topic for a whole workshop.
Would you consider those assassin guys from the Thrawn book a creature? The ones loyal to Vader for “Saving” their planet while Empire was actually poisoning it?
It’s been a while since I read the books (also I haven’t read Heir to the Empire yet, though I have it on the shelf). I had to do some googling. Do you mean the noghri?
I’m not sure. I feel like being humanoid would make that someone “not a creature”, but for the class vampires are under creature category.
I think what makes someone a creature is something fun to discuss, but I’m not sure if there’s a satisfying conclusion.
Yeah the noghri, mhm the depictions I saw on Wiki are a bit different than what I saw in the past. The old ones had more of this “scary gremlin” look.
I think scary gremlin would be closer to creature looks wise. Also the behavior and what’s going on in the potential creatures mind affects whether I’d consider them a creature.
I think beast, monster, and being are different from creature in tone.
Human children are 100% creatures.
I’m an aunt. Yes they are, also cute. Remember to support a human baby’s head, also talk to them in a happy voice. They seem to like that.
Babies are also fascinated by baking. My mom’s friend’s kid once crawled into the kitchen where I was making brownies. I knelt down and showed the baby that I was mixing the dough with a wooden spoon. Baby found it fascinating.
The ones in my life are a bit wild and might even be closer to monsters sometimes. But still cute and I still love them.
You showing the baby what you were doing reminds me when my dad would pick up the cats and show them what he was cooking. Creatures just like to be involved in activities.
“Aliens aren’t considered creatures” writing creatures workshop.
Glad I didn’t use Thrawn as an example of creatures. I did glance a the book by Timothy Zahn and went “Nahh, I don’t think so. Too close to human”.
Then I used mermaids as an example.
Not The Little Mermaid -mermaids, but people drowning and eating mermaids.
What are the rules of creature vs non-creature then? What else are aliens?
Unless that’s a topic for a whole workshop.
Would you consider those assassin guys from the Thrawn book a creature? The ones loyal to Vader for “Saving” their planet while Empire was actually poisoning it?
It’s been a while since I read the books (also I haven’t read Heir to the Empire yet, though I have it on the shelf). I had to do some googling. Do you mean the noghri?
I’m not sure. I feel like being humanoid would make that someone “not a creature”, but for the class vampires are under creature category.
I think what makes someone a creature is something fun to discuss, but I’m not sure if there’s a satisfying conclusion.
Yeah the noghri, mhm the depictions I saw on Wiki are a bit different than what I saw in the past. The old ones had more of this “scary gremlin” look.
I think scary gremlin would be closer to creature looks wise. Also the behavior and what’s going on in the potential creatures mind affects whether I’d consider them a creature.
I think beast, monster, and being are different from creature in tone.
“Aliens aren’t considered creatures” writing creatures workshop.
Glad I didn’t use Thrawn as an example of creatures. I did glance a the book by Timothy Zahn and went “Nahh, I don’t think so. Too close to human”.
Then I used mermaids as an example.
Not The Little Mermaid -mermaids, but people drowning and eating mermaids.
What are the rules of creature vs non-creature then? What else are aliens?
Unless that’s a topic for a whole workshop.
Would you consider those assassin guys from the Thrawn book a creature? The ones loyal to Vader for “Saving” their planet while Empire was actually poisoning it?
It’s been a while since I read the books (also I haven’t read Heir to the Empire yet, though I have it on the shelf). I had to do some googling. Do you mean the noghri?
I’m not sure. I feel like being humanoid would make that someone “not a creature”, but for the class vampires are under creature category.
I think what makes someone a creature is something fun to discuss, but I’m not sure if there’s a satisfying conclusion.
Yeah the noghri, mhm the depictions I saw on Wiki are a bit different than what I saw in the past. The old ones had more of this “scary gremlin” look.
I think scary gremlin would be closer to creature looks wise. Also the behavior and what’s going on in the potential creatures mind affects whether I’d consider them a creature.
I think beast, monster, and being are different from creature in tone.
Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.
BOOT
POWERCHECK: Pass
FILECHECK: Fail
TIMECHECK: Fail
SENSECHECK: Pass
LEASHCHECK: Fail
ACTIONCHECK: …
BEGINAUTOMOD: Panoptican
Panoptican Scanning
Panoptican Scanning
Panoptican Scanning
Panoptican reporting status failure. Nowhere to upload subjective experience to. Observation: Ansible damaged, uplink with Panoptican backup protocols impossible. Projection: Damage likely deliberate.
I pull back the sleeve of my jumpsuit to scan the coded chicken scratch of a tattoo on my forearm, the edges of it are still tinged red and the whole thing itches like a motherfucker.
Third junction. Fuck, that could have ended badly.
I push the sleeve back up, the elastic fabric sliding uncomfortably against sticky, half dried vinter fluid.
I continue past the second junction, crawling hand and knee through the cramped air ducts.
Why the hell am I the one doing this? I ask myself for probably the twentieth time in just as many minutes.
The answer remains the same: I’m one of the genehacked little gremlins voted least likely to die attempting this by a survey of my peers.
I’m also the only one who actually woke up as scheduled.
I might be the only one who made it onto this specific ship.
