A Random Blog

He knows.

He has always known.

Actual quote:

"I don't want some animation studio giving Hobbes an actor's voice, and I don't want some greeting card company using Calvin to wish people a happy anniversary, and I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer. When everything fun and magical is turned into something for sale, the strip's world is diminished. 'Calvin and Hobbes' was designed to be a comic strip and that's all I want it to be. It's the one place where everything works the way I intend it to"

This was in the 1990's, pre-AI, pre- Chris Pratt, pre- Cinematic Universes, and if he was opposed to it then, he sure as hell wouldn't be okay with it now.

 [ID: Digital art of a flying robot holding the intersex progress pride flag and saying, "Be gay do crime". The intersex progress pride flag has a sideways triangle with five stripes of black, brown, light blue, pink, white, and yellow with a purple circle in the center, overlayed over six stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, dark blue, and purple. End ID.]

I've compiled a list of Star Wars novels that explore the life of Darth Maul from his early apprenticeship with Sidious to his downfall on Naboo and eventually a short story during his crimelord era where he goes looking for weapons to use against the Empire but find a ghost from the past instead.

Apprenticeship Era:

Star Wars: Myths & Fables: 'An Unwilling Apprentice' by George Mann [Galaxy Edge Edition]

ISBN 9781368059305

October 2020

Plot: This short story explores Maul's childhood on Dathomir and how he became the Apprentice of Darth Sidious.

Notes: I believe the book is no longer in publication, but PDF copies can be found online.

This story fits into Disney's narrative and has replaced Maul's original story of being taken in by Sidious as a baby that was first written in the novel Darth Plagueis.

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks

Bonus feature: 'End Game' by James Luceno

ISBN: 978-0-345-43411-1

February 2012 edition

Plot: The written adaption of the film Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Including missing scenes from Mauls perspective of his first duel against Gui-Jon Jinn on tattoine and how he moves past his failure into the next step of Sidious's plan for the trade federations occupation of Naboo.

Star Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves

Bonus feature: 'Restraint' by James Luceno, 'Saboteur' by James Luceno

ISBN: 978-0-345-43541-5

January 2012 edition

Plot: Darth Sidious begins the first step into his master plan when one of the most important pawns to his mission goes missing, forseeing betrayal he sends his assasin Darth Maul to hunt down the missing Neimoidian.

Leading to a cat and mouse chase through the city streets of Coruscant, where the secrets become even more difficult to contain once they pass into the hands of an information broker and a rookie Jedi Padawan.

Star wars: Maul: Lockdown by Joe Scheiber

Excerpt: Honor Among Thieves by James S. A. Corey

ISBN 9780099542964

2014 edition

Plot: Darth Sidious sends his assasin into a covert mission on board a prison ship to find a way to access a powerful weapon to aid in his efforts against the republic. Darth Maul faces off in a gladiator touranment against the most violent and deadly criminals in the galaxy in order to complete his mission.

Notes: The excerpt is not relevant to the story but merely an introduction to another novel about a prison break organised by Luke, Han and Leia.

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno

ISBN 978-1-804-94360-1

Excerpt: Darth Bane Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn

2022 edition

Plot: This story explores the life and death of Darth Plagueis; previously known as Hego Damask II, how he rose from his apprenticeship, into being the feared sithlord and master to sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sidious.

This story includes how Darth Sidious first came to find Darth Maul on Dathomir and the early days of his training.

Star Wars: The Wrath of Darth Maul by Ryder Windham

ISBN 978-0-545-38327-1

2012 edition

Plot: This story explores the early training of Darth Maul from childhood to teenage years and how he was sent to a training school called Orsis Academy for assassins, trackers, spies, and soldiers.

It explores his first friendship, his first betrayals, and his earliest interactions with the Death watch Mandalorians.

Star Wars: Episode 1: Journal: Darth Maul by Jude Watson

ISBN 0-439-13941-4

March 2000 edition

Plot: This is a journal style retelling of the events during The Phantom Menace told from Darth Mauls perspective.

Star Wars episode 1: Adventures 3: The fury of Darth Maul by Ryder Windham

ISBN 9780439101400

November 1999 edition

Plot: Sidious send Maul out to retrieve something that has been stolen from him.

_______________________________________

Crimelord era:

Star wars: Stories of Jedi & Sith: 'The Ghosts of Maul' by Michael Moreci

ISBN 978-1-368-08054-5

June 2022 edition

Plot: Desperate for answers Maul goes raiding through ancient sith tombs and artefacts for weapons to use in his fight against Sidious, only to stumble across ghosts from his past.

__________________________________

This is not an extensive list. Feel free to add or recommend any of your favourite short stories or novels with Maul.

Side note: polonium-210 is a very dangerous isotope, however it "does not pose a radiation hazard when kept outside the body", as the alpha particle it emits have very little penetration power and cannot pierce even the outer layers of dead skin. It has still killed countless people, though, not because of children's rings, but because of tobacco. Polonium latches onto and concentrates in tobacco leaves, leading to heavy smokers being exposed to more radiation than survivors of the Chernobyl disaster.

This tumblr sexyman is your son!

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

"You left your dish in the sink." > the hidden request is "please clean your dish, preferably right now." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my housemate thinks I forgot about it. so I reply "oh, I know." housemate thinks i'm sassing her and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the dish in the sink.

"There's hot soup on the stove." > said to me while I was preparing a sandwich. the hidden request is "please eat the soup." since it's phrased as a statement of fact, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my mom thinks I didn't see the soup. I did see it, but I wanted a sandwich instead. so I reply, "I saw it, thank you." mother thinks I'm being rude and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the soup (and furthermore is offended I am eating a sandwich instead).

"Your bread is on the counter." > the hidden request is "please remove your sliced bread from the counter and store it elsewhere." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and think my roommate thinks I meant to store the bread elsewhere and forgot. when I reassure her I know it's there, she gets annoyed. only then do I realize she wants me to do something about the bread on the counter.

"You can turn up the heat, you know." > said to me while I was scrambling eggs slowly over low heat. this one really confused me because of course I knew I could turn up the heat, but I had no reason to as I was only cooking for myself. when I ignored the statement because I was focused on my task and had nothing to say, my mother added, "the eggs will cook faster if you do." sure, I'm aware of this too, but I don't want to cook them faster. I won't get the texture I want. when I reply, "I don't want to, though," mom thinks I'm being rude and gets irritated, then asks me how long I'm going to take. only then do I realize she was telling me to cook faster (because she wanted the stove), instead of simply informing me I could.

"There are donuts in the break room." > a more benign example, but similar outcome. once again I hear this as a piece of information being given to me, and thank my coworker for telling me. when I don't immediately leave my desk to get donuts because I'm finishing a task, my coworker hovers and says, "well? aren't you getting some?" only then do I realize there was actually a hidden invitation, and I was supposed to respond to the hidden part and say, "I'll come get them in a minute," or "no thank you I don't want any."

as I said, I've learned over time this is something many allistic (non-autistic) people do (as well as high masking autistic folks who have learned the social rules and wear themselves out following them rigidly). despite what I've learned, my default autistic response is pretty much always to take the words at face value (especially when I'm distracted or multitasking), before remembering I have to translate them. and while I can make a decent educated guess in most cases, sometimes I just cannot and simply ask, "what are you asking me?"

unfortunately, many allistic people suffer from an inability to take words literally just as much as they struggle to speak literally, which can further obfuscate communication. this is why I emphasize gentle reassurance that you are not criticizing them, but asking them to help you, a person in need, by clarifying their intent. people generally like to be helpful and I have had moderate success with this approach.

Here's one from my life recently. I was visiting family in Indiana and we were preparing for a small gathering at my MIL's house. My husband and I were helping to get things ready on her property and we had this exchange. (Helpful to know "the gate" is the most logical/direct path in this scenario, and "the driveway" is more out of the way.)

Her: There's a lot of mud and holes in the lawn over by the gate, so let's have people use the drive way to walk through instead of the gate.

Me (thinking this is about mud/safety=problem): Oh, it's actually not that muddy! I just went through the gate fine...the mud isn't by there.

Her: Well but still, I'm afraid someone may fall on the holes/ridges by the gate. So let's tell people to take the driveway.

Me (still thinking this is about mud/safety=problem and thinking I'm being helpful for ensuring folks can use the quickest way): Really? I didn't see any ridges over there either. Seems fine to me.

Her (now clearly exasperated): SIGH. Listen! I just would prefer if guests use the drive way instead of the gate to walk in.

Me (now FINALLY hearing that this is a want/preference of hers and she's using safety as an excuse because she can't just state her preference and doesn't really care about the safety...and cue me trying to say this next part as upbeat as possible): OOOOOH well if you wanted that all along, I just wish you would have said it! I thought I was helping you solve a problem. Got it. We will tell everyone to avoid the gate and walk through the drive way. No problem.

She was quite pissed off at me after that, commented to my husband that she must have pissed me off (lol, no) and she stewed for a bit thinking I said a bitchy version of "you should have just said that from the start" and I literally had to circle back to her and say point blank: "reminder! I am autistic! I didn't understand what you meant, I thought I was being helpful to solve a problem."

Of course I apologized bc that's what I've been conditioned to do, but I don't feel the miscommunication was on me. We could have saved a bunch of time talking and like 2 hours of her simmering mad at me if she possessed the ability to just say, "Hey I'd really prefer it if people use the driveway and avoid the gate area." [Also she later disclosed secret reason #2 she wanted the gate avoided: she was concerned that someone may not latch it and her dogs would get out. Why wasn't that said?!?!? I'll never know.]

for example, say I invite a friend to do something specific: "would you like to go on a walk with me today?" and the response is "I can't, my leg hurts." I think what's happening is they'd like to hang out if only it was a different activity where leg pain won't be an obstacle. therefore if I simply remove the obstacle and accommodate them, we can hang out!

after three or four attempts to find something we can both do together, each getting a different excuse, I start to put together that my friend just doesn't want to hang out but thinks it's rude to say so. and now i seem rude because I couldn't take an "obvious" no for an answer. but it wasn't obvious to me. my friend kept giving reasons why they couldn't and all the reasons were solvable, instead of just saying "I'm not up to hanging out today."

we both end up feeling disrespected, me because I wanted a straightforward answer and didn't get one, my friend because they wanted me to accept their refusal the first time and I came off pushy instead.

I literally taught her that replying to me with the simplest "no" possible is very very welcomed. I feel safer with blunt truths than longer statements which attempt to hide some truth in "niceness." And she's done it since that convo! When we hang out, I know she really wants to be there 🤪

true crime has done irreparable fucking damage to middle class white women

every time i see some middle class white mom of two saying “girlies! you need to get a visible tattoo because then a rando won’t try to snatch you in broad daylight in the middle of the walmart checkout to put you into sex trafficking!” i get pissed off because you are NOT the primary target of trafficking! poor children of colour in underdeveloped countries, indigenous women, sex workers, these are the people in danger!

true crime podcasts always talk about the rare instance a middle class white woman is taken and so these true crime girlies only ever hear about it happening to women like them and start thinking they’re the main target, but if there were a true crime podcast for every poor non-white child who has been trafficked there wouldn’t be enough data centres in the entire world to hold them all! the fact that white women are the focus of these things is because society only gives a shit about white women, and turns a blind eye when women of colour are the ones being victimized!

Clones in awe at the beauty of the wider galaxy but lacking the vocabulary to describe it. “It’s… it’s beautiful. It’s like… beautiful. Just so beautiful. It’s pretty. Um. It’s beautiful.”

Clones trying on civilian clothes and hating it because they’re so used to the armour being heavy and stiff. Soft stuff almost makes them feel naked, like they’re in their blacks.

Clones who chose to grow out their hair but have no idea how to look after it so it’s a complete frizzy mess that HAS to be tied back lest it go everywhere.

Clones with intensely scathing internal dialogues who are always super polite and compliant because mentally disintegrating their authority figures was the only way they could stave off the urge to go completely off the rails on Kamino.

Clones who have never figured out how to verbalise feelings (worsened by working with Jedi who can just… FEEL their feelings) making up their own terminologies. “I feel like… wet.” “What?” “On the inside.” “ew.” “No! Ok listen, not like that.”

Clones with lingering sun damage from the first time they took their helmets off on a desert world (nobody told them about sunscreen).

Clones having to learn what familial terms mean because what the kriff is an “aunt”?

Newly deployed clones being really awkward in any conversation that isn’t related to war because they’ve never spoken casually with anyone that doesn’t share their exact life experience.

An extension to the previous: clones mirroring the energy of whoever they’re talking to, to an unnerving extent, because they’re trying to learn how to socialise.

Clones in phase 1 armour with rough skin in the spots where it rubs really bad (This is canon btw. It’s not enough they’re at war, the Kaminoans also apparently can’t be arsed to tailor their gear)

Clones after the war being identifiable by the way they walk, because they still move like they have the armour on.