Ash Dogen

I have a bad feeling about this.

[ashdogen]

The perfect tonic to lockdown-induced stress is waking up to an alert that there are three new chapters of the incredible ‘The Rules’ by @cicfics to enjoy.

One of the few plus points of the last few weeks has been having all of the spare time I could ever hope for to either catch up on or re-read the stories of truly brilliant writers of Star Wars fic - and @cicfics is one of the very best.

[ashdogen]

So apparently, Nien Nunb actually died at the end of The Rise of Skywalker.

First Ackbar, now Nien Nunb.

F*** Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams.

[ashdogen]

Hi Ash! I hope real life is treating you alright - I sure do miss reading your wonderful fic!

Hello and a belated Happy New Year!

Thank you very much for your very kind message, it’s great to know I haven’t been forgotten even though it’s been so long since I posted or updated anything - in truth, life has been hectic enough that I didn’t realise it had been as long as it has!

My resolution for this year is to change that, so hopefully it won’t be long before I’m back in some kind of writing routine. I’ve spent the past two years planning things, so I have a lot of ideas I’d like to write and eventually post - the aim is to start working on that this week.

Once again, thank you for your message and I hope life is being kind to you too!

[ashdogen]

The Rise of Skywalker

It’s not quite as awful as The Last Jedi.

But it’s bad.

Very, very bad.

Poorly written, awfully paced, no coherent story, just a jumble of convoluted set-pieces and plot points clumsily thrown together.

If you think George Lucas had issues writing dialogue, prepare to re-evaluate that in comparison to whoever wrote this nonsense.

There’s one very welcome return of an OT character that has a surprising amount of depth and emotion, though I’d put that down to the performance of the actor rather than Abrams’ talent as a director or whoever the screenwriters are.

The title of the film may as well have been F*** You Rian Johnson, as Abrams pretty much discards everything that was introduced in TLJ; that wasn’t a bad thing for me, others will disagree.

The cinematic saga, for me now, truly ends with Return of the Jedi. Stick with the old EU, or hold on to your own head canons of what happened after the OT - they’re all better than this ill-planned out, poorly executed, incoherent mess that Disney and Lucasfilm have concocted.

Blessedly, it’s over now.

[ashdogen]

Against my better judgement, I will be at the midnight showing of Rise of Skywalker tonight and if the reviews are anything to go by, I’m going to regret it just as much as I still regret subjecting myself to the unmitigated disaster that is The Last Jedi.

TROS is currently at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes - Phantom Menace is at 53%

That’s really not good.

[chewbacca]

The Child in The Mandalorian | 1x04

[ashdogen]

That cultural phenomenon of the year, the decade, arguably this generation.

[a-hologramgalaxy]

[ashdogen]

Baby Yoda is everything that I never realised I needed and has emotionally compromised me, possibly forever.

That Mandalorian is a gift - how can a relationship between a man whose face we’ve yet to see and a green toddler be so compelling?

What a story, what a show - this is the future of Star Wars.

[han-leia-solo]

Han & Leia Appreciation Week Day 4: Firsts

[fairykam]

Inktober day 4

Freeze

If they had a few more moments.

(Also I cheated, but it would be a crime to ignore the lighting in this scene, so watercolors it is.)

[scruffyssweetheart]

😭

[theorganasolo]

Carrie & Harrison

[ashdogen]

It’s still impossible to tell where fiction ended and reality began...

[clary-jace]

you think a princess and a guy like me? 

[ashdogen]

Maybe it’s a crazy idea, but perhaps Lucasfilm should have waited until AFTER The Last Jedi was released and Game of Thrones ended before putting the cinematic future of the franchise in the hands of Rian Johnson and Benioff & Weiss.

I’ve watched GoT since the beginning and one thing is now abundantly, irrefutably clear: without the crutch of Martin’s material to hold them up, Benioff & Weiss are not good writers.  They’re actually really, really bad - arcs that have spanned the entire series are just haphazardly being thrown out of the window, the pacing of the story is all over the place and each episode has now become a case of style/spectacle over substance.

Benioff & Weiss aren’t interested in providing a satisfying or coherent ending to what has been one of the greatest television series of all times; all they care about now is shocking their audience by killing off as many characters as they can.

I don’t want to criticise Kathy Kennedy but when you look at the way that Marvel has been guided by Kevin Feige (and I am not a MCU / comic book fan), it just emphasises how badly Lucasfilm has dropped the ball.  The Mandalorian / Cassian Andor series’ might be the saving grace of Star Wars in the end - they’ll have to be IMO as Kennedy/Lucasfilm have bet the farm on two horrible choices to chart the course of the films’ future.

[ashdogen]

“As she watched droplets of her blood fall amidst the shards of broken glass that lay strewn across the galley floor, Leia contemplated the disconcerting sense of catharsis that the onset of her pain had provoked.”

It’s almost a year later in arriving than I ever intended it to be, but the first chapter of ‘Back to the Start’ should, hopefully, be ready to post fairly soon.  And this is how it begins.

[ashdogen]

“Although the galaxy around him seemed to become more and more complex with each passing day, Han Solo had always thought of himself as a relatively simple man.

He knew that many beings with whom he’d crossed paths over the course of his life would likely argue otherwise -  he could recall several who had not been reticent in expressing such sentiments quite vociferously.  But Han lived by the adage that life was only as difficult as one chose to make it and, in his own admittedly not-entirely-humble opinion, he’d done a pretty good job of keeping his own life free of unnecessary complications.”

I’ve found that the hardest lines to write in any story are the first ones.  After months of staring at blank pages and deleting half-finished drafts, I hope now that I’m finally back on track and that posting these first few lines of my current WiP will be an incentive to finish this chapter and get the creative wheels turning again. 

[kierqe-primary]

I love you.

More iPad doodles.

[ashdogen]

It’s bad enough that I’m so far behind schedule on the two AU stories I’m writing, but I’ve now got around 20 amazing stories bookmarked that I want to post comments on and just haven’t got around to it.

I really need to motivate myself and get down to some serious writing...