The thing about your very valid argument about how adjusting the timeline could have fixed most of the continuity questions of Andor and Rogue One is that it illustrates how much Cassian's premise could not have been done well in the industry that is telling the story:
It would all make more sense if Cassian were younger! But also, clearly this whole thing only got greenlit in the first place because someone went to Disney and said look, Rogue One is one of your most successful Star Wars projects to date. It is divorced from the controversial sequel trilogy and we can sidestep the rabid fanboy rage by giving them a Man in the leading role this time. And Diego Luna is passionate about the project, and both "foreign" and progressive enough to make Disney look progressive for featuring him but obscure enough (and, let's face it, probably white enough) to rabid US bigots to not have them up in arms about his casting.
So the draws were: direct connection to Rogue One and featuring one of its more popular standout personalities prominently - because they were clearly terrified that nobody was going to care about this show. I really think any version insisting on centering a younger, unknown actor as young Cassian for anything longer than a two-minute flashback would have died on the vine. They would not have taken that risk. It could have been better, and made more sense, and given them much more room to work with and breathe (and also, if we want to dream really big, this could have let them produce like four seasons at the same time, with Diego shooting stuff now that would be released as Seasons 3 and 4 without him having aged out of the role in the meantime). But they were not going to present the public with the prequel for a guy they barely cared about played by an actor nobody ever heard of. Genuinely I think this whole project lived and died with the casting and they simply decided to ignore all the pacing and story issues that came with it.
that is... all too real, actually. and it makes me so sad. the movie industry isn't interested in telling good stories anymore, they haven't been in a while. they just want a quick cash grab. and you can tell even they knew that Diego was too old for the role because that's why they aged him up. so why not just cast a younger actor?! instead of messing with the story and retconning stuff. don't get me wrong, I love Diego as Cassian, he was a fantastic choice for Rogue One, but the story and character are more important to me. and he could have 100% still appeared as older Cassian later on.
but well, I know why. you laid it out pretty well. it's just incredibly frustrating.
sooooo first of all I LOVED your fic! Thank you so much, it looked like a ton of work on the language especially <3 Any chance you can share some of those good Star Wars insults for people like me who always end up googling it and going with the same three dumb things from any given Reddit post?
first of all THANK YOUUU it was a total delight to write, so i'm glad that other people are enjoying it too :)
second of all EVERY CHANCE !! though fair warning you're in for it now...... the intersection of Massive Fucking Nerd business and language development and boundary maintenance...... my jam......
now, i do maintain a note that is just a compilation of star wars cursing that i can draw from (mostly lifted from wookieepedia); i will paste this at the end of the post.
BUT the main thing to think about when developing creative swearing is that most cuss words/phrases have to do with sex, body parts/functions, and blasphemy.
so when you're trying to think of a new insult or profanity, first think about what is ideal and what is taboo in the culture you're trying to write for. as with anything, language can be used to maintain boundaries (in this case i'm thinking mary douglas purity & danger if anyone wants bibliographiesss), and the invocation of the locally profane both reinforces and transgresses those boundaries. the greater the transgression, the worse the insult. but also sometimes things just sound funny. ANYWAY.
in the case of the ghorman language/culture i was extrapolating, the planetary economy and pride is based in spinning and weaving, so low-level insults of the kind a kid like marghîde would have used regularly might be drawn from those fields. hence "slubby" (unevenly spun or woven and therefore bumpy thread or fabric) as a word for stupid/shitty/cheap/etc. and "noudes" (from fr. noeudes) meaning knots, which would have similar force to "nuts!". for longer phrases, what would be the worst thing to experience specifically in this culture? thinking again that marghîde's vocabulary is from childhood, we can probably ignore the sex elements for now. but one would imagine that metaphorically being torn out of the cloth and having your threads trampled would be a big deal in a community that prizes unity and beauty in the craft of spinning and weaving.
if i were writing an adult using ghorman insults, probably i would try and think about which parts of the spinning/weaving process also could be euphemisms for sex (dropping the spindle, if you know what i mean) or applying features of the tools/process/etc to body parts or sex acts. maybe i would also consider what is most feared, or what different kinds of cloth imply about a person's status, and then think about what the least-respected mode of being would be within the culture (and what transgressions are involved) and extrapolate something from there. also you really can just throw the word "fuck" into anything.
moving on to the ruder ones! so in this fic these are things that marghîde learned from overhearing medics and patients. they are in basic/english, mostly, but with a few words/phrases in other languages and also references to local fauna on other planets--presumably not everyone in medbay is from coruscant or corellia, and some cussing will be one-to-one translated from its originating language, and some will stay in its originating language. i had a pretty good set going but then got very stumped on my last few, which is when i asked mel and niitza and frost for help because they are all very talented at star wars idiom. their advice was EXCELLENT, so i reproduce it here.
from @melyzard:
I mean,you could always invent an "alien" organ (i.e. make uo a random funny word) then have your character say something about it getting wrecked. "That Banga-fucker is trying to flip my gulanga, dammit! He's gonna straight up invert ALL our gulangas!!"
Alternately, make up a silly goobledygook phrase, and when someone asks "uh, what does that mean?" Have the speaker say "he's gonna, you know, kick us right in the…" and then make a complicated gesture. The pov character can simply remain baffled while feeling a sudden sense of dread.
Alternately alternately, I like to just imagine the weirdest physical problem you can imagine and then use it like a curse.
from @princessniitza:
The way I go about it is usually 1) find a figure of speech / an idiom that matches what I want to express then 2) go on a deep Wookieepedia dive to find out the most egregious Star Wars equivalent for the metaphor. In the case of an expression for "majorly fucked over" it might end up as something like "more fucked than [insert name of a small species] stepping out of a [insert name of a generously endowed / large species] orgy" or something like that. Bonus points if both species come from the same system! 8D
so! here was my final selection of Rude Phrases (i never ended up using "fucked by both ends of a dagobah python" but you know. someone should.):
claw in the cloaca (ouch!), real banthafucker, fucked worse than a chuba at a worrt orgy (thanks niitza and also tatooine!), salting your wounds with blurrg piss (an iteration of the twi'lek "salting your wounds with spice" plus animals AND bodily functions, a real bonus), shut up tighter than a gula-- (sometimes the most profane thing is the thing you don't say! in this case, someone's tight gulanga--thanks mel!--implied something Very Obscene and presumably deeply offensive), shut tighter than a lee romay (this one is not rude but is a nice idiom a la tighter than a clam. though you know. when is a "clam" not just a clam u feel), son of a krik-licking sith (wooooo religion AND sex AND bodily waste), out of his scudsucking mind, starclusterfuck (i was proud of that one).
then there were a lot of phrases that just used english or star wars cussing as emphasis. people have many different approaches to star wars swears--some only use english curses if they've been used canonically, some refuse to use star wars ones 'cause they're too silly--but i enjoy using a mix. more so, i enjoy taking compound swears in english and replacing the curse with a star wars one (motherfarking, crukhole, rodder it, etc). be free! follow your heart!
here's my notes app list with a good assortment of tame and profane (again, mostly drawn from wookieepedia if you want more deets): karabast, kark/karked/karking/kark it/surę as kark/where the kark, balls, bantha shit/piss, blast, by the stars, crik/crikking/crik-licking, cruk-hole, damn/damned, dosh/dosh off, druk/drukhole, e chu ta, fark, krike’s sake/stars’ sake/void’s sake/kriff’s sake, for the love of the light, frag/fragging/frag-head/frag it, fratz, hell/hellhole/helluva, mother of meteors, hells, krayt spit, kriff/kriffed/kriffing/kriff off/kriff it, laser brain, look what the tooka dragged in, (twi'lek) may spice salt your wounds, not the brightest star in the system, pfassk, schutta, scob, scrag, scud-sucker, scug off, sithspit/sith me/sithspawn, varp/what the varp, void/void below/void take, blast, chaos take, dag, farkled, grist, honest to entropy, koochoo, ktah (chiss curse), pifgot (gwurran), rodder (= bugger), shavit, skrog/skrogging, skrag/skragging, son of a ruskakk...
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso & Leia Organa
Characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, Mon Mothma, Leia Organa
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Tree, and being buried underneath one idek, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, in which jyn accidentally assaults her boss' legal counsel with a pine tree
Summary:
Cassian didn’t think there were a lot of ways to surprise him with violence anymore.
Until he was waiting for an elusive client in a swanky lobby and was, literally, assaulted with a Christmas tree. And, though that didn’t seem to matter much in the grand scheme of things, with the employee who was tasked with decorating it.
under starry skies (we are lost) by @ruby-red-inky-blue
She messed up on that damn factory on Listoria, almost got herself arrested. He had to come back for her, and he did; but it hadn’t been like Scarif. On Scarif, him coming back for her felt… Force, she could’ve sworn she’d never felt that ecstatically, ridiculously happy in her entire life.
On Listoria, though, there’d just been a wholly different look on his face – one that let her know that she’d let him down.
She understands that. He can’t afford liabilities.
And she’s a liability in these shoes.
Read this at guineapiggie‘s AO3 here
I am back at this project and first up is @ruby-red-inky-blue‘s wonderful mission fic with two people that just can’t figure out how to just say what they are feeling. To say I love this fic is an understatement. All of the things I love are here in one great story. Mission Fic, check. Miscommunication, check. Undercover as lovers, check. Oh no we have to kiss, check. Angst and happy ending, check. Wonderful story that you have to check out!! 11/10
just wanted to drop a line to you lovely mods to say I appreciate you and your hard work a lot and I hope you are not discouraged by people (anonymously) telling you how to do it! This blog is a big reason why the fandom is still as active as it is, and I don't get why people get worked up about the recs, I look forward to them every month! Obviously they're a collection of personal faves, there's no such thing as an objective rec list, and like you said, they're welcome to rec their own faves!
hi there!
thank you so much for your lovely ask; it means a lot to us mods!!! @mosylufanfic works hard every month to put the rec posts together, and though it might look like it’s easy, this is all something we do in our spare time. we really appreciate their dedication to making such long rec posts each month to create content for members (and though fic taste is subjective, we do hope people use the link in each rec post to send in more fic suggestions)!
we’re glad you enjoy the network, and thank you for taking the time to send this very nice ask ♥ ♥ ♥
For the RebelCaptain Network fic rec day 3: Romance/Comedy
The Running Kind by guineapiggie (@ruby-red-inky-blue)
A modern AU in five chapter where Cassian is a public defender who helps Jyn with an old case. I don’t want to spoil anything so let’s just say it’s funny and sweet and with the right kind of teasing to keep things spicy between these two.
ruby-red-inky-blue replied to your post “I've been oscillating between a handful of projects lately, which has...”
as somebody who has constantly had at least three WIPs... write down any ideas before you get them confused with something else, and anything that can keep the essence of what the story is at its core straight in your brain is good - keep separate playlists or moodboards or something. The thing that kills your inspiration for the individual fics is if you get them muddled up with one another - at least for me
Thanks for the advice!
I’ve been bad in the past about writing ideas down (“Oh I’ll definitely remember this dialogue, I’ve replayed this scene at least 3x in my head already...” NOPE.) so I’m trying to get better about that.
This has resulted in me constantly scribbling down thoughts on post-its (sometimes totally different drafts of the same scene bc I forgot I wrote it down already). Then the post-its get lost in my purse, until finally I clean that out and dump them on my desk. And I wind up with a hoard of post-its like some kind of idea dragon...
Which then requires a fair amount of time spent deciphering and sorting them... (I had them all sorted out on the coffee table the other day, then I foolishly plopped a blanket down on the ottoman and whoosh)
I am pretty good at organizing my files online once I type them up (I probably spend too much time organizing TBH), but I’m pretty horrible at doing this for my handwritten notes.
Do you (or anyone else) have a good method for keeping track of handwritten notes? If I’m away from my computer, I prefer to hand write notes, it’s much faster than trying to type on my phone. I waste so much paper on these post-its and it’s a total mess anyways, but I like it because it’s pretty discrete if a plot bunny jumps me while I’m working. Currently trying to figure out an alternative.
just read your post about Magneto's accent, and while I agree representation of foreigners/fugitives would have been nice, I personally really liked what Fassbender did (even though it was super subtle). It's like he took his own accent and filed the edges off, so it sounds British/Irish but kind of generic? I'm German and my English sounds a bit like that, because I did my best to get rid of my own accent. Which works for Erik because imagine the stigma of having a German accent in the 60's.
oh this is at the centre of Venn diagram of Josie Interests: Magneto + Languages
I remember the post you mean - there is also another post where I speculate about what kind of accent Magneto would have exactly and why it wouldn’t necessarily be a (distinctly) German one. (x) Mind you, my speculations there are based on his comic book origin story, but the general idea could easily be applied to XMCU Magneto as well - that he learnt various different languages at an early age outside a school environment and that they affecting his accents when speaking them. English lessons in German schools were pretty much all about translating short texts and reciting the same phrases over and over again (if my grandparents are to be believed) and Erik didn’t even get to finish school so that’s likely not where he perfected his English. He probably learnt it during his travels and likely not even from native speakers. So he probably would have developed a really...vague, ambiguous accent, maybe with a habit of mispronouncing words he only knows in their written form.
You mentioned stigma. On a human (sorry, Mags: Mutant) level, Erik probably doesn’t care much about that. Being unapologetically himself in face of adversity is exactly his brand and something he actively practices and encourages. He hates being liked for something he is not and has zero tolerance for nationalist bullshit. If someone was rude to him for being an immigrant or Jewish or mutant or anything else, he’d probably just kill them or re-arrange their anatomy at least a little.
I could imagine him pretending to be British if he needed to trick someone to get information out of them or something. But we know he speaks in that accent even around his friends and people who definitely know where he’s from, so it’s no charade.
Also... Erik is no James Bond. Even in that scene in the bank in Switzerland, he just walks in, tells Banker Man who he is and what he wants and starts torturing him (using his very distinctive ability to move fucking metal with his mind, wow Erik they will never find out who did this). And in Russia he just storms that mansion and starts wrapping people into barbed wire. Plus what even was his plan on Shaw’s fucking boat? He’s just. not very slick and Charles even calls him out on his habit of almost getting himself killed. So I doubt he spends much time pretending to be British when obviously brute force is the solution to all his problems.
We’re also supposed to believe he speaks fluent, accent-free Polish (suspense of disbelief) so I have little doubt that he could fake a specific accent if he wanted to conceal that he is German. Concealing an accent isn’t as hard as changing your own or perfecting one from a country you never lived in. (That’s why a “generic” accent as you say is still a good choice, because even if you perfect a language as a foreigner, you won’t naturally develop distinct regional inflection without living there.)
In the original triology, Magneto even indicates that he came to New York after the war which would even make an American accent more likely than a British one (even if Ian clearly speaks perfect British English) (In fact, of all countries we see Magneto visit with, he never seems to share any meaningful connection to Britain).
And honestly, that’s what bothers me the most about it, that he doesn’t have any connection to Britain so it feels like a really arbitrary style choice. In fact, they could have given him an ambiguous accent in First Class and let him develop a British accent over the next decades as he continues to interact with Prof X. We adopt language patterns from people we interact with and while Magneto doesn’t have a particular connection to Britain, Charles is one of the most important people in his life so it would make at least some semblance of sense.
Or they just say languages are part of his mutation and honestly, it would not even the weirdest thing about him
