Those pesky fanfic acronyms, abbreviations, and random odd terms

[polgarawolf]

Hi, all! The owner/moderator of this lovely community asked me to post about some of the more often used fanfic acronyms/abbreviations. Of course, after I agreed, I discovered that the best fandom glossary I know of no longer seems to function (though it might come back online later, in which case I suggest that those who're interested check back

Comments

Re: second half reply

[polgarawolf]

The novelization of RotS somehow manages the feat of being even more slashy than the movie while still showing how utterly fascinated with and in love with the idea of being Anakin Skywalker's wife Padme has become, by that point. The movie novelizations are pretty much considered the highest level of canon there is, for SW, right up there with everything Lucas has ever written or said, because they're based off of his scripts and he works with the writers to make sure that they're true to his saga. So he okayed a book that spends quite a bit of its time dwelling on how intimately Obi-Wan and Anakin know each other, how they're closer than brothers, how they've broken rules and risked/abandoned missions for the sake/safety of each other, etc. And the Flanneled One was okay with all of that. That's pretty darn telling, IMHO. I swear that Obi-Wan and Anakin are Lucas' tragic couple in the prequel films - and their tragedy is redeemed, in the OT, by Anakin's son, who does what Padme couldn't and finally reaches Anakin enough to let him

Re: second half reply

[polgarawolf]

It's mildly terrifying, and I shock myself every time I have to realize, yet again, just how many people that includes. I keep expecting fans to be more savvy and to pick up more on these kinds of things. I appreciate Lucas' ability to craft something that appeals to all different kinds of folks, but I keep tripping myself, somehow, over how so many of the different kinds of folks don't get that what they're getting out of the saga isn't what everybody else is getting - or even the major thing that Lucas might've hoped to get some people to realize. Sometimes I have to wonder if the Flannelled One is too clever for his own good, when it comes to all of the underlevels in the subtext he squeezes into the films, since so few seem to pick up on some of them . . .

I love Asajj. She's one of my favorite EU characters. The poor girl is just so screwed up and so smart and so unabashedly obsessed with Obi-Wan! What's not to like about someone like that, even if she has vanished from the EU in the wake of the CW?

Re: second half reply (because I went over the lj's word/character limit)

[polgarawolf]

Precisely. The relationship is based on lies and it is, in itself, a lie, because neither person involved truly knows the other person. That relationshp is about as shallow and artificial as you can get, IMHO.

Obi-Wan and Anakin are my OTP in SW. They are pretty much the one and only thing in SW that I will not be budged on. They belong together. They complete each other, they make each other better people and more than they are or could ever be if apart from one another. Just about any and every other relationship or possible pairing in SW is subject to challenge or change except for Obi-Wan and Anakin. Even when they're not together in a romantic or sexual sense (and I can accept that they aren't always together in those two senses), I cannot see them as anything other than as together in just about every other sense possible. You'll notice that even after Vader kills Ben in the OT saga, everything he does is still focused on or around or towards the idea he holds of Obi-Wan. He wants Luke so that Obi-Wan's failure will be complete

tail end of reply (Sorry!!!)

[polgarawolf]

IMHO, Padme is, for want of a better term, an addiction Anakin has to what he thinks of as the visible, tangible signs and proofs of love and regard/esteem. He uses her as a place to hide from his fears that he's unworthy and as a prop to make himself feel worthy and less alone and less insignificant as a person. His dependence on her makes him selfish and makes him vulnerable because leaning on her makes him fuel his own fear, in a way, which leaves him wide open to Sidious' manipulations. If Obi-Wan had actually been there with him, I would bet you anything that Sidious wouldn't've been able to get his claws into him like that, not even by using Padme as a way to get past his defenses.

*Smiles sheepishly* And now I'm the one ranting, so . . . I think I should probably hush, now.

Re: tail end of reply (Sorry!!!)

[polgarawolf]

*Lol!* You sound like me, working through the reasons why the Sith could never actually win in anything like a fair fight, since they always lose so much knowledge from generation to generation. (The smartest thing Sidious ever did, IMHO, was destroying the Jedi Temple and its priceless and irreplaceable Archives - but only after retreiving all of the info for himself, which I'm convinced he did, whether it shows that in RotS or not. There's enough time in between when things happen for Sidious or for his loyal clones to have essentially taken or copied the Archives dealing with the Force itself, for Sidious' private edification

Re: tail end of reply (Sorry!!!)

[polgarawolf]

*Lol!* To be honest, I always want to see what would've happened to Anakin if he hadn't had to deal with all that Chosen One shite. If he'd just been found a bit earlier and brought into the Temple in a more "normal" manner and chosen to be Obi-Wan's Padawan when he was twelve going on thirteen, like most Padawans are when they're chosen. I honestly think that Chosen One crap and all the unspoken expectations and the uncertainty of his place in Obi-Wan's affections and all the other crap he had to put up with really did a number on poor Anakin. I still think he should've been smart enough to rise above Palpatine/Sidious' blatant machinations, but sleep deprivation makes a person stupid, so I have a hard time blaming him entirely for what happened. *Shrugs, a bit helplessly* But as for swapping Obi with Anakin, well, given how much love Obi has for politicans, that tells me right there that Sidious would've had to find one heck of another angle to come at the problem, because Obi never would've given the man the time of day, just on

Re: Whole reply if it fits - 1

[polgarawolf]

Anakin wants too much to please people, when he's a child (TPM), and he tries too hard sometimes, but he's basically a good kid, for all that. His mother seems to have done her best to give him as normal a childhood as possible, all things considered. But then the Order and the Council get their hooks in him, and blammo! That's pretty much the end of Anakin's sweetness and whatever innocence he had left, because they take him into the Order pretty much to keep him from the Sith and to use him, to see what he can do and whether they can mold him into their Chosen One, and he knows it. The EU makes that fairly plain. He knows they're using him, and he knows Qui-Gon made Obi-Wan promise to take him on as a Padawan, and he knows they all expect him to vindicate Qui-Gon's proclamation that he's the Chosen One and to be their Chosen One, with all that entails. The arrogance he puts on is, I think, a reaction to the weight of all of those expectations and a lack of surety as to where he stands with the new most important person in his life

Re: Whole reply if it fits - 1

[polgarawolf]

Eh, I haven't had a hard time with the WiP (aside from occasionally being just caught entirely off guard by the characters and the kinds of relationships they've forged with each other, behind the scenes of the films), but then, it's one heck of a big AU, and it's pretty darned AU. *Shrugs* I think I probably look at the set-up of the whole saga a bit differently than some fans, because I focus more on the psychology of the characters and what drives them to do what they're doing and how just a slightly different tack or a variation in words or a hand on a shoulder at a certain time might have helped steer them away from the traps they all end up in, by the end of RotS. Even though I think Mace fails his particular gift (reading shatterpoints), I find it useful to think in terms of possible shatterpoints. Once you find the points of highest stress or of richest possibility when it comes to the unfolding of the saga, it's easy to figure out where it'll make more sense to apply pressure to start sheering away parts of the story or

Re: Whole reply if it fits - 1

[polgarawolf]

I love Rogue Planet. Even though Zonama Sekot is a pretty darn blatant tie-in to the extremely badly handled (IMHO. The ideas are good. They just screwed them up beyond belief, especially when Lucas decided to make the writers switch out Jacen and Anakin Solo's places literally in the 9th out 19 books in the blasted series, for fear fans would get Anakin Solo's story-arc confused with Anakin Skywalker's as the prequels started coming out)NJO series, Bear does a pretty darn good job at giving us an accurate portrait of Anakin and Obi and people like Tarkin, too. IMHO. And Labyrinth of Evil is Luceno's best SW book, the only one I feel completely comfortable rec'ing to other people.

Eh, he's Knighted during the war, and it's more a matter of expediency than him really earning it, actually. That's explained mostly in Jedi Trial and the comics that are set right afterwards. And he doesn't really have to call Obi-Wan Master afterwards - he just does, like he just stays with him anyway, even though Master/Padawan teams are supposed to part