The usual suspects on YouTube are throwing out theories that Kennedy is on her way out, for real this time, and it was planned to be announced at celebration. Or that she's out if Indy 5 bombs. Or if she can't get another star wars film out, ASAP. It's all so tiresome.
Seriously, the only thing to celebrate is the Mara Jade black series fig that came out recently.
I bet we get Ashoka and acolyte trailers. Maybe a new video game announcement, and maybe a movie announcement for 2025 that gets canceled before the end of the year.
I bet we get Ashoka and acolyte trailers. Maybe a new video game announcement, and maybe a movie announcement for 2025 that gets canceled before the end of the year.
The only game that looks even somewhat intriguing is that open world one being developed by Ubisoft, and even then only because it is frankly criminal that we never got an open world Star Wars game till now. I guess it would be kind of cool if they got the Ace Combat devs to make a spiritual reboot of Rouge Squadron but not holding my breath for anything cool. This franchise has been dead since 2015.
The usual suspects on YouTube are throwing out theories that Kennedy is on her way out, for real this time, and it was planned to be announced at celebration. Or that she's out if Indy 5 bombs. Or if she can't get another star wars film out, ASAP. It's all so tiresome.
Seriously, the only thing to celebrate is the Mara Jade black series fig that came out recently. View attachment 4973400
-And the lanky ass republic commando figures that are based on their filoni wars appearances, not their SWRC Models. So they all have toothpick arms, paper plate kneepads and look like chinese bootlegs.
But hey, at least we get another full set of them after a decade and is somehow the only thing EAfront 2 managed to not fuckup with their own republic commando model.
Same, I'm not a huge fan of Anime. I've gotten hooked on some Manga series recently despite hating anything Nipponese back it the day, and wondered "Was I just too harsh on Manga and just being a contrarian anti-weeb?" and tried to read some older series and nope, still rancid garbage. I guess manga writers/creators just got less garbage or at least not writing for a hyper-nipponese audience.
In my experience whether an anime/manga is worth your time is mainly based on whether it's clearly part of a genre or if its trying to be its own thing since the latter are usually far more enjoyable than the former in my experience.
Weirdly enough, as much as Trekkies the world over warned me how flimsy and poorly-handled the mystical Bajoran elements of DS9 would be, I didn't find them anywhere as intrusive or tacky as I'd been led to believe.
A lot of Trekkies are fedora tippers so any inclusion of religion that isn't treated as a problem or joke will trigger them to no end, but they're probably the same people who don't like Lwaxana episodes so it's best to ignore them.
The usual suspects on YouTube are throwing out theories that Kennedy is on her way out, for real this time, and it was planned to be announced at celebration. Or that she's out if Indy 5 bombs. Or if she can't get another star wars film out, ASAP. It's all so tiresome.
Seriously, the only thing to celebrate is the Mara Jade black series fig that came out recently. View attachment 4973400
This is nothing to celebrate. It means that someone at Disney/Hasbro remembers she exists. Count down to Mara Jade being replaced with a black tranny begins.
Also, who is so buck broken they'll spend good money Star Wars plastic?
This is nothing to celebrate. It means that someone at Disney/Hasbro remembers she exists. Count down to Mara Jade being replaced with a black tranny begins.
Also, who is so buck broken they'll spend good money Star Wars plastic?
I think this figure is a Gamestop exclusive in the US? Or at least a limited time window release with Gamestop and a few exclusive online retailers. So, you know, knuckle-draggers.
It appears to be a fairly good sculpt, and Hasbro has not been great with the females in any of their lines as of late, in particular figs based on real people. I'd presume they're starting with 3d scans for their actor-based figures, so no idea why those tend to look shit, while the pulled from whole-cloth women look better.
Yeah, Hasbro and Disney are trash. IDGAF how people waste their money. Aside from the artistry involved, I will keep an eye out on the secondary market to see how in demand this figure is. I get a feeling Mara's fig will become more of a Jaina Solo than a Ben Solo.
Well yeah; Doomcuck acts like or is an anti-shill who repeats the same shit to make the hatewatchers hope. Passion of any type prevents apathy, which either props up his channel from its inevitable collapse or it aids his corporate masters' numbers. Depends on if you like rolling with that 5th column conspiracy I sometimes throw out.
He and the Rat are terrified if more fans become like me; who can't even be fucking bothered to read fanworks since I just don't care no more.
Well yeah; Doomcuck acts like or is an anti-shill who repeats the same shit to make the hatewatchers hope. Passion of any type prevents apathy, which either props up his channel from its inevitable collapse or it aids his corporate masters' numbers. Depends on if you like rolling with that 5th column conspiracy I sometimes throw out.
He and the Rat are terrified if more fans become like me; who can't even be fucking bothered to read fanworks since I just don't care no more.
You have to get content and when the people who you rely on for content aren't providing it to you and you aren't creative enough you just make it up in Doomcucks case.
That actually reminds me: If any of you thought Fallen Order was in any way safe from the machinations of LFL's internal, destructive creative forces, I have some very bad news for you.
For those of you who aren't in the know, there's a book billed as the TOTALLY CRUCIAL, MUST-READ prequel to the new game was recently released...and no, that cover doesn't lie: it was written by Sam Maggs. Yes, Sam "Getting Killed in GTA = Rape" and "WOMBAT TITTIES" Maggs, previously fired and re-hired from working on the continuously-stalled KOTOR Remake, is the writer on this new book. And, spoilers...it's absolutely fucking terrible.
This really shouldn't be news, as the new Star Wars books have had a pedigree for being unreadably bad--but what makes this instance particularly fascinating is the response it has generated. You see, the modern Star Wars Readerbase--consisting of the eight sad assholes inhabiting the barren r/StarWarsBooks Subreddit--have been renowned for lapping up every terrible new novel that Disney has shat out, praising and recommending the likes of Claudia Gray's awful YA crackfic Bloodlines, Zahn's new and woefully boring Thrawn books, the outright horrendous TROS Novelization by Rae Carson, and of course, every steaming turd rolled out of the High Republic project, which they all hail as some kind of golden age renaissance of SW publishing that they desperately claim is "as good or better than anything in the EU"...you know, in spite of it entering "Phase III" of its narrative cycle and STILL being ignored or utterly forgotten by the majority of human beings occupying the fanbase.
And the reason I bring that up is because, apparently, this new Fallen Order novel is so fucking bad, that even the fandom's biggest no-standard, Mouse-fellating, tasteless consoomer Disney Drones can't put a positive spin on it...that even they are all coming together to lament how unreadable it is, and reads like Wattpad-tier fanfiction.
What happens in the book that's so horrendous, you ask? Well...
The book essentially is meant to fill in the 5-year gap between the previous game, and the new one, illustrating the changes and happenings of those characters between titles. Fans in particular were hoping that the book would elaborate on the narrative repercussions of the previous game--particularly the trauma of Cere confronting her own apprentice Trilla, the brush-up with Vader, etc--or explore new developments, like the relationship between Cal Kestis and the Nightsister girl from the first game, Merrin. That last one in particular is important to note because, apparently, a lot of people who played Fallen Order intensely ship these two and are desperate to see them together.
Well, not only did the novel do absolutely fuck all to do flesh out any of those things, but Sam Maggs literally sidetracks the entire story in order to write a self-indulgent, sensual smut-fic.
Yes, I'm serious. And no, this is not a minor subplot of the book. This is the ENTIRE book.
The specifics revolve around Merrin herself, whose characterization in this book is being universally described by even the most charitable SW consoomers as being reduced to "a horny protagonist of an angsty YA novel". Funnily enough, the game's protagonist Cal gets virtually nothing to do and is rendered a side-character in her own novel, with all the narrative focus on Merrin as she kills stormtroopers, becomes stronger in the Force, and discovers her own latent lesbianism which Sam Maggs announces with all the subtlety of a hammer. How loud, and utterly farcical is this reveal, you ask? Well, during the characters' regular run-ins with Imperials, they encounter a butch, manly, bisexual, purple-skinned female Stormtrooper named Fret....who in prose is almost entirely reduced to her physical appearance, such as the repeated mention of her "thick fingers" and "thighs that could crush a watermelon". In typical fanfic routine, she's also repeatedly described as witty and snarky, without anything in the story to actually substantiate that. At every opportunity, Maggs details how drawn Merrin is to this new character's animalistic charm and toned body, which goes way beyond passing attraction and devolves into what numerous readers describe as "Merrin objectifying a total stranger" within her private, aroused thoughts. In fact, this transparent self-insert fetish stormtrooper character Sam Maggs created becomes--and I say without an ounce of exaggeration--Merrin's entire reason for being in this book. She spends 80% of it salivating over this character, making cringe-inducing advances that are ultimately reciprocated in dialogue that would make a Fifty Shades lemon fic look refined by comparison, before ultimately culminating in a gag scene where Merrin and this stormtrooper she literally met only a few pages ago "lock themselves away in a room for hours, only for Merrin to later come staggering out with mussed hair and a bruised neck".
And if that wasn't bad enough, Maggs also reduces Merrin to the atypical, petty jealous lesbian by introducing a part of the story where Fret the Stormtrooper reveals that her ex-lover (male, of course), is in fact alive, rendering Merin furious that a filthy cis male is going to steal her macho muffin away from her. I couldn't make this shit up--this possessive attitude becomes such a big part of her emotional focus that even casual readers were pointing it out as creepy, controlling, and so cartoonishly out-of-character and removed from her in-game characterization, it borders on parody.
Funnier still, Maggs' solution to this pressing and oh-so-vital narrative dilemma is for Merrin to feebly approach Frett and ask if she can join her and her male lover in a polyamorous relationship. And before you start scratching your head why she's suddenly willing to play second-fiddle after numerous chapters of raging lesbian jealousy, Maggs literally invents on the spot that Nightsisters are in fact all polyamorous due to a culturally-enforced tradition of pansexuality passed between them on Dathomir.
To be clear: Sam Maggs literally added pansexual polygomy to the canon Nighsister lore for no other reason than to enable her weird-ass love triangle.
And funnier still, the book ends with Merrin and Frett parting ways anyway, so this loony bitch literally broke the Nightsister lore to embolden a romance that didn't end up being realized, and ultimately won't even be brought up once in the actual fucking game. Boy, that retcon was sure worth it, wasn't it?
As for the other characters, they get fuck all to do. Cal is upstaged and rendered unconscious multiple times so Merrin can have all the heroic moments, and contributes nothing but wondering aloud where Merrin and "that new stormtrooper" wandered off to (something that happens so often in the book it's become a meme with disappointed readers). One of the more infamous scenes in this novel is where Cere, the wise and tactful Jedi Master of the game, makes a mistake so stupid by just letting an uncuffed Inquisitor aboard their ship that it leads to said Inquisitor staging an escape, and cutting off the arm of the alien pilot from the games, Greez...who is treated like such shit in this novel, they barely acknowledge his injury, and mostly use him for laughs.
One other strange aspect to this book that many readers singled out, whenever they weren't reeling from the smutfic overload of Merrin's A-Plot, is the...bloodlust on display from the antagonists. Cal and Merrin are repeatedly described as relishing the dismemberment and beheading of stormtroopers...with one scene detailing how Merrin "enjoys seeing the light go out of a helmetless stormtrooper's eyes".
(On a Personal Note, I couldn't be asked to dedicate enough memory space in my brain to recall even most of the bland and forgettable specifics of Fallen Order's snoozefest of a story, so none of this book's horrendous revelations impact me in anyway...outside of the fact that the hunky bi purple-skinned stormtrooper character is actually meant to be a member of the Keshiri alien race, lifting them out of their fascinating presence in Lost Tribe lore from my beloved Fate of the Jedi books, to make their premiere in the new continuity as the self-insert spank material of Sam Maggs.
Which makes me want to puke in my own mouth, not least of which because Sam Maggs doesn't deserve to utilize a species Christie Golden spent far more time and talent conceiving...certainly more time than Maggs puts into writing convincing romance).
As you can see, this novel reached such an unprecedented, indefensible level of awful...one that actually managed to break the barrier of blind consoomer loyalty, and allow the disgust and confusion of countless readers flow through, in a critical mauling I haven't seen since Wendig's Aftermath books:
From what I can prune from fan reactions, the bulk of the disappointment and revulsion comes from the book eschewing any possibility of a romance between Cal and Merrin, which as I've stated, was apparently on the wishlist of numerous people enamored with the game. And while the events of this book don't outright render that an impossibility, Maggs' narrative machinations have made it so that if Respawn's devs attempt to "straightify her" in the actual game, it will be seen as a "trampling over Merrin's lesbian idenity in the novels"...a very devious bit of 4D Chess by Maggs to ensure her alteration remains permanent.
A lot of Trekkies are fedora tippers so any inclusion of religion that isn't treated as a problem or joke will trigger them to no end, but they're probably the same people who don't like Lwaxana episodes so it's best to ignore them.
I find that tackling religion as a narrative device in a science fiction or fantasy setting can serve as the the bedrock for fascinating exploration of human morality, dogmatism and self-discovery. In science fiction especially, where you have a world that's defined by clear-cut rules and scientific limitations, spiritual elements can pose a daunting, even threatening presence, because
It's why the Yuuzhan Vong were my favorite species, and why the spiritual dilemma that Luke and his New Jedi Order find themselves in during that war makes for such a compelling jaunt, unlike anything Star Wars has ever done before.
Probably not, but we're well past the "Actually try to invent new quirky sci fi names for Earth stuff" phase of being creative.
@Mississippi Motorboater
That is very interesting, thank you for that. One thing I've noticed is consistent in bad writers is that they will loudly advertise that there story is about something, and then quietly change the premise partway through to something no one fucking cares about. Halloween Ends comes to mind, including the universal loathing that it earned by barely featuring Michael Myers.
I was a little taken aback by such an on the nose admitance that two characters had hot sex in a closet. That's way more raunchy than any official Star Wars or Disney content I can recall. This really was a smutfic.
In addition to being misshapen - seriously she's been in other things, can they not find a black woman who doesn't look like the "After" example of WWI reconstructive surgery? - what completely ruined FO for me was the same thing as Ahsoka: they had a perfect moment for a meaningful character death and blow it to bring them back. She charges Vader and gets yeeted into the lava. That was some utterly cold shit, and sets up Vader as 'holy shit you do not have a prayer'. They even had Trilla who could have taken over her role on the ship. It was a perfect set up and just well executed scene.
But we can't have Vader be an actual threat, and we can't kill any precious POCs.
From what I can prune from fan reactions, the bulk of the disappointment and revulsion comes from the book eschewing any possibility of a romance between Cal and Merrin, which as I've stated, was apparently on the wishlist of numerous people enamored with the game. And while the events of this book don't outright render that an impossibility, Maggs' narrative machinations have made it so that if Respawn's devs attempt to "straightify her" in the actual game, it will be seen as a "trampling over Merrin's lesbian idenity in the novels"...a very devious bit of 4D Chess by Maggs to ensure her alteration remains permanent.
My friend played though I caught some of the plot. I was pretty sure they were going to make her a dyke and do a straight cucking of Cal because current year, was surprised when they both seemed to lean to the 'budding romance' sort of thing.
So no surprise frumpy dyke writer injects her fanfic fetish to ruin that.
Of course this horny bitch would pull this stunt. None of these writers can stop thinking about sex all day. The writing in Disney Star Wars is AIDS-incarnate, but specifically the book writers. Much like Rey and Finn/Kylo (and by extension Finn/Rose, they tease a romance only to subvert expectations again and go somewhere else completely. And these types of decisions are made not to add anything new to the story, but because the writers are either stupid or just want to jerk off to their fantasies, more than likely both.
What happened to all the stories that involved two central characters meeting and developing a romance, and not all this convoluted stuff like kissing each other and never talking about it again, or “I had secret lovers in my past life.”?
And about Cal’s bloodlust…why? Cal’s aim was to escape Order 66. He didn’t take much pride in killing people, from my understanding.
What happened to all the stories that involved two central characters meeting and developing a romance, and not all this convoluted stuff like kissing each other and never talking about it again, or “I had secret lovers in my past life.”?
And about Cal’s bloodlust…why? Cal’s aim was to escape Order 66. He didn’t take much pride in killing people, from my understanding.
This is some amateur hour shit. Like without the lust there's literally nothing there. It's pathetic and doesn't even fulfill the sex angle with nothing explicit to catch onto.
Ive read fanfic more explicit then this yet oddly more wholesome in how it had two broken people find love.
If you cant show sex but can't write worth a dam I don't know what to tell you. Shit Ive read ghost love storys at the library that were more gripping then this lesbo crap.
And no I played all the way though, dude had no bloodlust or particular relish in killing from what I remembered. I enjoyed wasting storm troopers but that's about it
I was a little taken aback by such an on the nose admitance that two characters had hot sex in a closet. That's way more raunchy than any official Star Wars or Disney content I can recall. This really was a smutfic.
Allusions to sexual intimacy between characters and even flashes of lewd humor has existed in the adult-oriented SW novels in the past, but it rarely felt like the indulgence of the author's personal fetish or self-insert OC shenanigans.
Michael Stackpole would have his pseud-pet character Corran Horn be a ladies' man that shamelessly sized-up women at a glance for the sake of humor (which is why a hard-to-get character like Mirax functioned as a foil). Troy Denning was known for having a Mcfarlane/Liefeld approach to cheesecake fanservice or having innuendos, etc, and even featured seduction as something of a twisted Dark Side means of manipulating a male character (something that John Ostrander would allude to also in his Legacy comics between Darth Talon and Cade Skywalker during the latter's captivity).
But these moments were often utilized for the sake of humor or for creating personal stakes/relationships between characters, and even then, relegated the bulk of them off-page with zero explicit description. You never had a character literally complaining about a sore ass or wiping semen off their mouth, expressing: "Might say I'm burpin' 'cause I enjoyed you, and your juices"...which is what this Sam Maggs sweaty sexual aftermath scene seems to be on the verge of doing.
I can't actually think of a single instance in the EU where rough and sweaty sex was implied to exhibit the author's degenerate creative urges.
