#Leilukin does meta

[lesbiannova]

I am not the first person who has said this, but it is indeed surprising that Cassette Beasts does not have a big fandom on Tumblr, given that it has just about everything average Tumblr users want:

A wide variety of creatures whose forms you can collect, so you can transform into them in battle

Multiverse setting, which provides unlimited fanfiction potential

Character creator with pronouns options, including they/them

LGBTQ+ representation, including all the human party members who are bi and can be romanced regardless of the player's gender, a pair of NPCs are an actual canon old married lesbian couple, and an NPC who is canonically non-binary and uses they/them pronouns

Romanceable party members also mean you can form a battle couple with your favourite party member

Racially diverse cast of human characters: There are visibly Black and brown characters in both the main and supporting cast, including the party members

A playable dog character

Anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist messages

You can literally beat up estate agents and their boss

Higher friendship with your companion allows you to fuse your monster forms and makes you stronger in battle

etc. etc.

The only reason I can think of is the fact that Cassette Beasts is an indie game, but Tumblr has a fair amount of indie video game darlings, such as Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium, Undertale, Night in the Woods, etc.

Another reason is that many Pokémon fans are frustratingly reluctant to try or dismissive of monster collecting games that are not Pokémon, even if they complain about the latest Pokémon titles.

So here is your reminder to go play Cassette Beasts if you have not already.

#cassette beasts #vg: cassette beasts #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: cb

[hermercifulness]

It annoys me a lot Amara gets called a boring character.

You may argue she isn’t particularly well-written, but boring? Amara has a LOT of interesting things as a character:

A queen who gets crowned and married very young (for reference, Amara was 19 when she had Nahyuta and was already a queen), only to be a target of a fake assassination attempt by her own sister, being separated from her husband and son as a result for literally years.

When she finally reunites with her husband and son and then having a daughter, only to get separated from her husband and son again and being taken hostage by her sister.

Disguising herself as her daughter's servant, so she could raise her daughter, while also teaching her daughter the wisdom being a good ruler.

Willing to go into great lengths, including risking her own reputation to protect her daughter.

How does all this make Amara a boring character to anyone is beyond me.

If anything, it is a wasted potential that Amara doesn’t get more screen time as herself outside of her disguise as Nayna as well as having to lie to protect Rayfa, and the game doesn’t explore much about how she deals with the trauma of dealing with her sister’s scheme of usurping her as well as being separated from Dhurke and Nahyuta more than once, only to eventually lose Dhurke for good.

Also, straight cishet headcanons for Amara are a slander to her character. (Edited because I saw someone headcanon her as transhet, and transhet headcanons are valid)

Honestly, Amara is one of the most criminally underrated and underappreciated characters in the entire Ace Attorney series. If we get to explore Khura’in again, I wish we could see more of Amara as well.

#ace attorney #spirit of justice #aa6 #amara sigatar khura'in #nayna #soj spoilers #aa6 spoilers #vg: aa6 #ch: amara sigatar khura'in #Khura'in royal family #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: aa6

[lesbiannova]

Cassette Beasts has become one of my all-time favourite video games, and I want more people to know about the game, so I wrote this huge essay published on the Cassette Beasts shrine of my website, about why Cassette Beasts is much, much more than a Pokémon clone.

Cassette Beasts not only executes some aspects of Pokémon games differently and sometimes even better, but also adds things that do not even exist in Pokémon games, at least the main series games as of Scarlet and Violet, and in some cases, things that Pokémon can only dream of having.

Therefore, if you want a more sophisticated monster-collecting RPG than Pokémon, I couldn't recommend you enough to give Cassette Beasts a try.

#cassette beasts #vg: cassette beasts #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: cb #finally finished writing my ultimate cassette beasts propaganda piece

[lesbiannova]

In Defence of the Ending of Cassette Beasts

I may write a proper essay to elaborate my thoughts on this subject better, but for now, I want to state for the record that I actually like the ending of Cassette Beasts and I think it fits the story and theme of the game.

Yes, it is bittersweet, but it is not a bad thing. A story being happy, sad or bittersweet does not inherently make the ending good or bad; what matters is how well the ending is set up, and how thematically fitting the ending is to the story. In my opinion, the Cassette Beasts ending achieves both.

Cassette Beasts' story has set up from the very beginning that the player character's goal is to find a way to leave New Wirral, and that the people who are living in New Wirral, including all the player character's partners, came from different worlds, with no one knows how to go back to their world until the player character and their party do in the ending. It makes sense that the player character's party expect they may never see each other again, because the game never says if there is a way to contact with someone else from a different world.

Even if you choose to romance a partner, every single romance option points out that you may have to split up when you return to your own worlds during their conversation where you choose to commit a romance with them, but they all also state that despite that, the time you spent together still matters (see my video compilation of the partner romance scenes). Not to mention, every partner has their own life before arriving at New Wirral, and it is neither realistic nor healthy to expect them to give up everything they knew in their world just for one person, even if you are the protagonist. So it makes sense that you and your romance option do not stay together in the ending, but that does not mean there is no point in romancing them.

Morgante says outright during your final battle against Aleph Null that humans have the ability to manifest their will to alter reality, to change the world and themselves, to the extent even cassette tapes are merely talismans to channel that will, which is proven immediately after when the player fuse with all their partners even though their cassette player was broken. Kayleigh echoes Morgante's words in the ending when saying goodbye to the player character that they do not need cassette tapes to manifest their will to change the world. Combined with the partner characters' growth during their time with the player character, the game opens up the hope the party can take what they learn from their time in New Wirral to make their lives better. This is the game's another way to reaffirm that even though you and your partners' stay in New Wirral may not be permanent, it does not mean your time in new Wirral does not matter, and returning to your world does not necessarily mean returning to the status quo either.

Cassette Beasts' story is not a choice-driven narrative (which is not a bad thing since not every game needs to have one); even choosing to pursue a romance with a partner does not change the story and just add some additional dialogue when you rest and a few extra lines in the ending (which is a good thing because I dislike it when the story or a character's "best" ending is locked behind a romance), so I am fine with the lack of option for the player to not returning to their world. That said, there is also an argument to be made that you, the player, choosing to continue to play the game, including the post-game is deciding that you still want to stay in New Wirral. Even Ms. Amber says after you defeat Aleph Null and discover the gateway to leave New Wirral that you do not have to leave right away. In that sense, the game's ending also serves as your farewell to New Wirral as the player.

I do not know if liking the Cassette Beasts ending is an unpopular opinion, because there is a possibility that not liking the ending is a case of vocal minority, but they are still vocal enough that I am compelled to write this post to defend the ending.

#cassette beasts #cassette beasts spoilers #vg: cassette beasts #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: cb

[lesbiannova]

Replaying Cassette Beasts has reminded me of how much I love the scene where you discover the Habourtown Station and Archangel Morgante for the first time. When I played Cassette Beasts for the first time, the Morgante encounter was the moment that made me hyped for seeing through the rest of the game.

Archangels and the mystery surrounding them are among the most fascinating things about Cassette Beasts, both in gameplay and in the story and lore, and the Morgante encounter did a great job in setting up the Archangels, making an excellent conclusion to the game's opening sequence.

Archangels' nature as eldritch beings is highlighted by them having different art styles to contrast the pixel art style of the other characters and the world, as well as the screen's glitch effects when you are near an Archangel. When you meet Morgante for the first time, she was greatly wounded with an already low health at the start of the battle. However, the fact that she is also level 100 at the same time, along with unleashing a powerful attack when her Action Points are full, still establishes her as a powerful being. The awesome and memorable battle music is the icing on the cake.

Furthermore, this battle against Morgante is also where you fuse with your party member for the first time, setting up the significance of fusion both in game mechanics and lore of the game.

The player's meeting with Morgante also establishes that the game's main plot is as much about the mystery of the Archangels as the player's goal of finding a way to leave New Wirral and return home, since Morgante's song adds more clues to the path to leave New Wirral after the player finds more Archangels.

#leilukin plays cassette beasts #cassette beasts #cassette beasts spoilers #archangel morgante #vg: cassette beasts #ch: archangel morgante #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: cb

[lesbiannova]

I wrote a public statement on my website about my stance in protecting Juhani's status as an officially confirmed lesbian character whose romance is exclusive to female characters, and opposing making Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances, including mods that make Juhani straight or bi.

This writing started out as part of the FAQ article for my same-gender romance mods for the KotOR series, which has been moved from Nexus Mods to my website, so I have more control in the article's formatting. When I was updating the FAQ article, the part about my response to the question about if I would make Juhani a romance option for male Revan in my Alternate Revan Romances REDUX mod got longer, so I decided to make it its own article, with the additional benefit of me being able to just link to this article instead of repeating my points over and over when the subject comes up.

Anyone can reblog this post, but I will block lesbophobes who try to argue with me to defend the idea of making Juhani a romance option for male characters.

#kotor #knights of the old republic #juhani #vg: knights of the old republic #ch: juhani #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: kotor1

[lesbiannova]

I have written a new article about KotOR 2 and published it on my website. This time, it is about my take on if players who never played KotOR 2 before should use The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM) in their very first playthrough of KotOR 2.

#kotor #kotor 2 #knights of the old republic #knights of the old republic 2 #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: kotor2 #vg: knights of the old republic 2

[lesbiannova]

Thrawn: Treason has established that Vah'nya is different from other Chiss navigators, also known as sky-walkers, because she somehow still retains her Third Sight even though she is already an adult (22 to be specific), while other sky-walkers lose their Third Sight as they age, which is further confirmed in the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy.

However, after Lesser Evil reveals that the Chiss Ascendancy deliberately suppresses the sky-walkers' memories of their original families, which is why former sky-walkers like Thalias and Borika cannot remember their original families, it brings up another factor that makes Vah'nya different from other sky-walkers: Vah'nya remembers her brothers, as established in Chapter 21 of Treason.

This raises interesting questions: Since Vah'nya is able to remember her brothers, does that mean she did not go through the procedure of memory suppression like other sky-walkers do? Could the memory suppression be a factor of why other sky-walkers lose their Third Sight as they age?

Thalias' character and story arc in the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy are concluded with her seeking to change and improve the sky-walker program after meeting Borika and learning the full extent of how the Ascendancy mistreats the sky-walkers. Since Thalias is not mentioned in Thrawn: Treason, we can only assume Thalias' effort to improve the sky-walker program might have started to see results, judging by Vah'nya's condition, though there is till a long way to go since the end of Treason also reveals that Eli is tasked to study Vah'nya and the Chiss navigators, hoping to find out why Vah'ya is able to hold on to her Third Sight for so long.

(It is worth pointing out that Lesser Evil establishes that when Thrawn is about to leave the Chiss Ascendancy, the Clone Wars have ended and the Galactic Empire has risen, it means there is approximately 18 year gap between the events of Lesser Evil and Thrawn: Treason)

In addition to the Grysk threat, how much the sky-walker program has changed is one of the things about the Chiss that I would like to see get explored after the events of Treason.

#thrawn treason #thrawn ascendancy #lesser evil #vah'nya #thalias #mitth'ali'astov #chiss ascendancy #ozyly esehembo #lesser evil spoilers #book: star wars: thrawn: treason #book: star wars: thrawn ascendancy #ch: vah'nya #ch: thalias #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels

[lesbiannova]

-

This is, without question, one of my favourite parts of Thrawn: Treason, because it is one of the most significant moments of Faro and Thrawn’s relationship that shows Thrawn’s enormous amount of trust in Faro.

During this part of the book, the Chimaera needs Vah’nya’s help to navigate through space to track down the Grysks. Ar’alani is wary and distrustful of Faro, and she argues with Thrawn and object to letting Faro remain aboard the bridge, because Ar’alani is protective of the Chiss navigators, including Vah’nya, and she does not trust humans to handle the navigators. In addition, the navigational technique of the Force-Sensitive Chiss navigators is top-secret.

However, Thrawn trusts Faro so much that even though Thrawn is also protective of the Chiss navigators, he allows Faro, his human second-in-command to instruct Vah’nya to helm the Chimaera by herself, despite Faro unable to speak nor understand Cheunh, and admitting that she understands Sy Bisti better than speaking it. Thrawn is also willing to persuade Ar’alani, his long-time friend, to convince her to allow Faro to stay on the bridge and tutor Vah’nya, despite Ar’alani’s protests.

I love Thrawn and Faro as a platonic pair so much for the tremendous amount of respect, trust and belief they have in each other. The development of their relationship truly shines in Thrawn: Treason.

#thrawn treason #karyn faro #thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #book: star wars: thrawn: treason #ch: karyn faro #ch: thrawn #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels

[lesbiannova]

I have so many feelings about Thrawn and Karyn Faro’s mentor–protégé relationship, and the amazing development of their relationship throughout the Thrawn novels. In fact, Thrawn and Faro are my favourite male mentor – female protégé duo in Star Wars.

Case in point, this is the first time we see Faro and Thrawn interact in the 2017 Thrawn novel:

Compare that to the final conversation we see between Faro and Thrawn in Thrawn: Treason, which happens right before the epilogue:

When Thrawn takes command of the Chimaera, Faro is wary of him and is willing to openly question him. This also establishes Faro’s character, given this part is also where Faro is introduced. However, Thrawn does not chide Faro for questioning him in public, and later Thrawn takes Faro as his protégé as he recognises her skills and quick ability to learn from his tactics.

Fast-forward to Thrawn: Treason, where Faro is wondering why Thrawn blocks her path to command Task Force 231. It turns out that Thrawn is actually working on giving her an even better promotion: command of the Eleventh Fleet, because Thrawn believes that his protégé is ready to command an entire fleet, despite Faro not being an admiral yet. Faro declares that serving under Thrawn is the greatest privilege of her life, a far cry from how she was being sceptical of Thrawn when she started serving as his first officer.

Thrawn is the best mentor Faro could ever ask for, while Faro is a competent protégé Thrawn can trust and rely on.

Thrawn and Faro’s relationship has become one of my favourite elements of the new Thrawn trilogy. It is satisfying to see not only Faro’s role gets bigger throughout the trilogy, but also how much her relationship with Thrawn develops, leading to a satisfying pay-off in Thrawn: Treason. I especially love how much Faro and her relationship with Thrawn get a lot of focus in Treason.

Thrawn and Faro is my BroTP, and a platonic pair that I can confidently say they love each other.

#karyn faro #thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #thrawn novel #thrawn treason #book: star wars: thrawn novels #ch: karyn faro #ch: thrawn #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels

[lesbiannova]

-

This conversation between Faro and Eli in the 2017 Thrawn novel is an important moment for Thrawn and Eli’s relationship, as this is where Eli truly starts to realise Thrawn keeping him at his side to train him.

There is also an underrated aspect of this conversation, which is how this conversation helps to establish Faro’s character and even her relationship with Thrawn as well, even though her role in the 2017 Thrawn novel is rather minor.

When Faro is introduced earlier in the book, she is openly being sceptical of Thrawn, but now she has come to recognise Thrawn’s capabilities, to the point she is envious of Eli for having served with Thrawn for so long.

In this conversation, it is clear that Faro despises the Empire’s tendency to promote people based on connections rather than merit, which is why she is willing to question her superiors, like she did earlier in the book when she started serving as Thrawn’s first officer. This part of the book also shows Faro’s ability to recognise competent officers like Thrawn and Eli.

It is worth noting that when Faro points out Eli is one of the few officers who can understand Thrawn’s plans, she counts herself among the few officers who can understand Thrawn’s plans as well. This demonstrates Faro’s self-confidence.

Consider how Faro’s role gets bigger and how much Faro and Thrawn’s relationship gets developed in Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason, I will not be surprised if Timothy Zahn already had plans to flesh out Faro and her relationship with Thrawn as mentor and protégé from the beginning when Faro was created for the 2017 Thrawn novel. Faro is definitely one of the characters in the current Star Wars expanded universe canon whom I would like to see more content of in the future.

#karyn faro #thrawn #eli vanto #thrawn novel #book: star wars: thrawn novels #ch: karyn faro #ch: thrawn #ch: eli vanto #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels

[lesbiannova]

Unpopular opinion:

As someone who loves Thrawn and Karyn Faro's relationship in the books and considers them a BrOTP, I really don’t like that the Thrawn shipping fandom at large only talks about Faro when they’re reducing her to a wingwoman to the Thrawn/Eli Vanto ship (or any other Thrawn ship), or when they’re shipping her with Ar’alani despite the fact that Faro and Ar’alani barely interact in canon.

A prime example of the Thrawn shipping fandom ignoring Faro and Thrawn’s amazingly developed platonic relationship in the books in favour of shipping, is the fact that Faro/Ar’alani shippers love to cite this passage from Thrawn: Treason to support their ship:

When the context of this passage was Ar’alani watching Faro because she didn't trust Faro, because Ar’alani is protective of the Chiss navigators and she didn’t trust humans to handle the navigators.

The procedure referred to in this passage was Faro instructing Vah’nya to helm the Chimaera, a task Thrawn assigned her to do because he trusts Faro, so much that even though Thrawn is also protective of the Chiss navigators, he allows Faro, his human second-in-command to tutor Vah’nya by herself, and is willing to persuade Ar’alani, his long-time friend, to convince her to let Faro handle the task despite Ar’alani’s protests.

It’s a huge shame that such a significant moment of Faro and Thrawn’s relationship gets thoroughly overlooked by the fandom. Instead, what the fandom cares about is their Faro/Ar’alani shipping goggles. While Ar’lani eventually warms up to Faro, it doesn’t immediately make them friends, especially since both are very busy with their own duties during the events of Treason, and they never talked about any personal topic to know each other more before parting ways at the end of the book.

Seeing how the fandom cares more about shipping Faro with Ar’alani, whom she meets only for like a couple of days at most and barely even talked to in canon, than talking about and appreciating her friendship with Thrawn, whom she is much closer to and has known and worked with for much longer in canon, is very frustrating to the point I’ve come to dislike the Faro/Ar’alani ship.

I totally support the idea of Faro and Ar'alani becoming friends, particularly if they get to work together again after the events of Treason, but becoming a romantic couple is a completely different story. Consider the fact that the Chiss are a staunchly isolationist society and are wary of outsiders, I firmly believe a romantic relationship between a human and a Chiss would require a lot of effort from both parties to work in the long run, especially if the Chiss partner is still actively part of the Chiss Ascendancy, like Ar’alani definitely is, so I highly doubt Ar’alani is really interested in dating humans.

The fact that most Faro/Ar’alani shippers are also Thrawn/Eli shippers definitely doesn’t help either, since I never like the idea of Thrawn/Eli as a romantic pairing mainly due to their large age gap (while we do not know Thrawn and Eli’s exact canon age, we can still make educated guesses about it, see this post and this post). I cannot shake off the feeling that for the most part the Faro/Ar’alani ship exists to be a Pair The Spares ship especially for those who primarily ship Thrawn/Eli, no matter how many shippers want to argue otherwise, especially given how many Thrawn/Eli shippers reduce Faro to a wingwoman for their OTP.

As a fan of the Thrawn novels who don’t ship anything in the these books, I honestly feel very alienated by how much shipping dominates discussions of these books in the fandom. I wish the Thrawn shipping fandom, especially Thrawn/Eli shippers, could understand that not everyone read the Thrawn novels for shipping.

#thrawn: treason #karyn faro #thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #ar'alani #admiral ar'alani #book: star wars: thrawn novels #ch: karyn faro #ch: thrawn #ch: ar'alani #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels #thrawn fandom nonsense

[lesbiannova]

Even though I think the popular KotOR 2 theory that "Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person" is well-thought-out, and I agree there is  in-game evidence to support it, I have eventually decided that in my KotOR headcanons, I'll keep Arren and Kreia as two different people, because:

1) I want Brianna to have more positive women role models, especially given her troubled relationships with her sisters and Atris. Arren was the reason Brianna wants to be a Jedi, and the Kreia we see in the game is definitely not a good role model for someone who wants to be a Jedi. Kreia might have been a better person when she was a Jedi, but we never know for sure. Not to mention Kreia doesn’t treat Brianna any better than the other party members. Brianna deserves better.

2) I like the theory suggested by an anon message I received before that Arren Kae was to Kreia what the Exile was to Atris. The KotOR 2 game itself already sets up parallels between Kreia and Atris: both were fallen Jedi who personally felt betrayed by the Jedi in some ways, and many of the things in KotOR 2 happen because of their plans, schemes and manipulation. Therefore, I love the idea that if Arren and Kreia were two different people, they had dynamics similar to the Exile and Atris.

In short, keeping Arren Kae and Kreia as two different people in my KotOR headcanons allows Arren to be a positive influence in Brianna’s life that Brianna needs. Also, there are many interesting ideas and possibilities about Arren and Kreia’s dynamics that could be explored.

#kotor #kotor 2 #brianna the handmaiden #arren kae #kreia #atris #vg: knights of the old republic 2 #ch: brianna the handmaiden #ch: arren kae #ch: kreia #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: kotor2

[lesbiannova]

I have seen a few negative reviews of Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising that focus on character bashing of Thalias, because she does not fit the reviewer's view of what a “Strong Female Character" should be like, due to her role as a caregiver of a sky-walker and her relationship with Thrawn. It bothers me a lot because I find Thalias one of the most interesting characters in Chaos Rising.

I honestly feel that disparaging Thalias’ role as a sky-walker caregiver is missing the point of showing that it helps if sky-walkers have caregivers who are former sky-walkers since they can relate to them better, as seen through Thalias' relationship with Che'ri. Thalias story also shows what being a (former) sky-walker is like, how it is like to be a Force-Sensitive child who was taken from their original family to serve as a navigator and then once their Force-Sensitivity fades, they have to end the job they were raised to do throughout most of their life and they uncertain future after their service ends.

As for Thalias' relationship with Thrawn, you may argue that Thalias' attitude toward Thrawn is hero-worship, but honestly, I cannot blame her for feeling that way. When she and Thrawn met for the first time, she was a 13-year-old who felt anxious and uncertain about her future after her service as a sky-walker ended, and then here came someone who genuinely showed her kindness in ways not even her own caregivers did, and encouraged her to choose her own path. For me, Thalias’ admiration of Thrawn is understandable.

Not to mention, the term "Strong Female Character" has become loaded that I am wary of people, and yes including other women, who insult a woman character for not fitting the mold of a Strong Female Character (TM). When it comes to representation of women in fiction, I prefer seeing women get portrayed as complex individuals with various personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and allowed to have agency and important roles in the story, instead of just focusing on how many people they have beaten up or being sassy towards. One of the reasons I love Chaos Rising is that there are multiple women and girl characters who play important roles in the story, particularly Ar'alani, Thalias and Che'ri. Obviously, the plot of the book revolves around Thrawn, but each other main character is given their own focus and goals as well.

#thrawn ascendancy #chaos rising #thalias #mitth'ali'astov #chaos rising spoilers #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels #book: star wars: thrawn ascendancy #ch: thalias

[lesbiannova]

Some friends’ conversations about the Sith, the Dark Side and “Dark Side positive“ fandom nonsense has prompted me to make this post about DS Jaesa on Discord. I want to post it here as well since this is something I have strong feelings about:

The fact that the Sith version of freedom involves infringing upon other people's rights to freedom is also why I really hate how the Sith Warrior story’s narrative and DS Jaesa stans portray DS Jaesa's arc as empowering because the dark side supposedly freed her from those "emotionally repressive" Jedi, and one of the reasons I would never acknowledge DS Jaesa's existence in any of my SWTOR verses. DS Jaesa is so desperate to fit in what DS Sith are supposed to be that not only she revels in random and pointless cruelty, she also uses her special power to hunt down and slaughter the light side Sith for being perceived as heretics by the Sith Empire.

Not to be a LS Jaesa stan on main, but frankly, I find a woman (ex-)Jedi Padawan of colour still being idealistic, a staunch follower of the light side and a good person, and still actively trying to do the good thing despite leaving the Jedi Order and being surrounded by her enemies, instead of sacrificing her morality and personality to a fascist regime like DS Jaesa does, to be much more empowering and revolutionary.

#swtor #jaesa willsaam #vg: star wars: the old republic #ch: jaesa willsaam #dark side jaesa critical #swtor critical #swtor fandom nonsense #swtor: sith warrior content #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: swtor

[lesbiannova]

Confession: I find it very difficult to get behind the Karyn Faro/Ar'alani ship, even though at first glance it looks like a type of ship I would be into: a femslash ship involving two powerful or high-ranking women characters that I like.

I would be lying if I said the fact that most Faro/Ar'alani shippers are also Thrawn/Eli Vanto shippers doesn’t taint the ship for me, since I don’t like Thrawn/Eli as a romantic pairing mainly due to their very likely large age difference*. I cannot shake off the feeling that for the most part Faro/Ar'alani exists to be a Pair The Spares ship for Thrawn/Eli shippers. It definitely doesn’t help that even though Thrawn and Faro have an amazingly developed mentor/protégé relationship in the books, most of the time the Thrawn fandom (at least on Tumblr) only acknowledges Faro if she is a prop for Thrawn/Eli (or any Thrawn ship), or is part of the Faro/Ar'alani ship. I find it very frustrating as someone who enjoys Thrawn and Faro’s relationship in the books a lot.

The only circumstances I can see where Faro and Ar'alani might become a couple is if Faro and Ar'alani get to work together again and interact with each other more after the events of Thrawn: Treason, because not only the two barely interact in Treason, but also given the time span of the events in Treason is short (taking place between the Star Wars Rebels episode Jedi Night and the series finale), so many things happen in Treason, and both Faro and Ar'alani are busy with their duties, I doubt Faro and Ar'alani get many opportunities to spend time together to know each other well during the events of Treason.

However, there’s also the question of would Ar'alani be really interested in dating humans. Given the Chiss’ isolationist policy, I believe a romantic relationship between a Chiss and a human would require a lot of effort on both parties to make the relationship work in the long run, doubly so if the Chiss partner is still actively part of the Chiss Ascendancy and loyal and dedicated to the Ascendancy’s cause like Ar'alani definitely is in both Legends and the current canon.

For the record: I don’t ship Thrawn, Eli, Faro or Ar'alani romantically with anyone, though any combination of these four are my BroTPs.

*(We never learned the canon age of Thrawn and Eli, but as this meta speculates, Eli is very likely in his early 20s at the start of the Thrawn novel, where Eli meets Thrawn. Given that Thrawn: Alliances establishes that Thrawn was already a commander in the Chiss military when the Clone Wars happened, I refuse to believe Thrawn is anywhere near as young as Eli (my estimation would be in his 30s EDIT: With Chaos Rising providing us more clues about Thrawn’s age, turns out Thrawn is even older than I originally estimated) when the two meet in the Thrawn novel)

#thrawn treason #karyn faro #ar'alani #admiral ar'alani #thrawn #book: star wars: thrawn novels #ch: karyn faro #ch: ar'alani #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: thrawn novels