So like . . . if I was the sort of person to write a DC version of Lilo and Stitch . . . like just if I was . . .
Kon is, obviously, the rude and temperamental and poorly-socialized and destructive alien experiment who just crash-landed in Hawaii. Is Tim "weird little stalker child" Drake Lilo? How is that even a question, come on.
(his version of Scrump is almost definitely named either Robin or Spoiler)
Dick is Nani, Babs and Wally can fight it out for who's got fancy enough hair to be David and get swept by Kori, Grand Councilman Kal-El is very stressed about the living weapon that just escaped the Galactic Federation, and professional evil genius Lex Luthor is absolutely exasperated that he's been sicced on his own masterpiece with, of all things, a pair of children as his backup. Cassie and Bart just think he's weird and stupid but whatever, at least they're on a Federation mission, and Earth is cool and full of things!!
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Visual depictions of women in the Thrawn Trilogy comics; or, how much I hate the effing catsuit
As you may have noticed, I bought digital copies of the Thrawn Trilogy comics, and reread the series (though honestly? I skimmed a lot. Most of Dark Force Rising).
I HAVE NO REGRETS.
The thing about the series that interested me the most was the art. There are three artistic teams across the series, each with a slightly different style. Here's the gang:
I can't say enough good things about the background work the first artistic team does. Gorgeous planets, interesting interior design, fun page layouts. BUT. I have some of issues when it comes to the way the artist who drew the issue draws people. ESPECIALLY with their depictions of women. Get ready for my feminist killjoy rant on how comics are terrible.
Let's start with Leia.
Part I: PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON LEIA.
Leia is one of our lead characters, obviously. And how she's depicted isn't all that bad, most of the time. In Heir she seems to be wearing some sort of black catsuit covered with a weird yellow vest, but she's more clothed than a lot of the other characters. But thennnn the comic will put her in situations in which she isn't wearing anything at all.
Of course you had to manufacture a situation in which your female lead wouldn't be wearing any clothes.
Then there's a whole scene where she runs around wearing only her underwear:
This goes on for six pages.
She INTERROGATES A PRISONER IN HER UNDERWEAR. There is no good reason this should be happening.
WHY. COMICS WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.
It’s less of a problem in the following books, especially in The Last Command, where she wears a variety of formal and casual outfits, and doesn’t loose her clothes for no reason at all.
And then we come to our second female lead, Mara.
Part II: THE EFFING CATSUIT
According to what I've heard from fandom, these comics are the first appearance of Mara's catsuit. I have no proof of that, but the catsuit is never described as what Mara's wearing at any point in the original novels (in fact, if described at all, she tends to wear long sleeves to cover her holdout blaster).
I don't know who's to blame for that decision, if it was the artist's choice or someone on the creative team or at Lucasfilm. I wouldn't be shocked if it was the artist's decision, especially the lack of sleeves, considering the fact sleeves are pretty scarce in general:
Space is cold! Don't these space people want to be cosy???
Like I said, I don't have proof that the sleeves catsuit originated here, but ...I would not be surprised. I am fully prepared to lay the blame on this anti-sleeve artist.
(side note: Luke looses his sleeves a LOT in these comics, and you could argue some level of objectification there, but not at the same degree as the women, and the context is different, anyway.
Know who never looses his clothes at any point? Han Solo.)
The first appearance of the catsuit:
(she’s a charmer!)
It's not just what she's wearing. She's nearly always posed in ways that bring her boobs and butt to attention.
She's literally reduced to tits and ass in this frame:
I'm like ....really? REALLY?
The art team switches in Dark Force Rising and again in The Last Command, but the problem remains consistent.
She's a barbie.
Just...look. Breasts don't do that in a skintight suit, unless she's wearing a push-up bra underneath, and why would she do that????
We don’t see Karrde’s ass featured in every frame!
She even assembles weaponry... without her clothes on. OH COME ON.
There's the pose again.
And yeah, I know, this is how women in comics look. That doesn't mean I want it in my Star Wars, or that I can't go into a frothing rage every once and while. I know I’m probably overreacting, but this is the image that’s defined Mara for so long, and I resent that.
First of all, the catsuit is meant to objectify and over-sexualize a female character. That's straight up what's going on here. Someone looked at this complicated female character who had a prominent role in the series and decided they needed to make her more palpable to male fans by making her "sexier." It's misogynistic.
(yes, women can enjoy looking at other women in catsuits, but the machine behind star wars has always been more interested in catering to what they perceive the male fans want.)
I hate the catsuit so much.
Not only does it objectify Mara, it drives me crazy how out-of-character the catsuit is. Mara was trained to operate from the shadows, and not to draw attention to herself. She blends in. A skintight catsuit is way too flashy, in a universe where skintight catsuits aren't the norm. It just doesn’t make sense for her character.
Most of all, Mara’s practical, something a catsuit is not. How is she supposed to move in that thing? How does she hide her holdout? How does she pee?
You know what's practical and pretty common in Star Wars? A flight suit! But that doesn't seem to be what they're going for here.
A practical flight suit! With pockets!
This is what I imagine Mara wearing a lot of the time, or the pants/shirt/jacket/boots outfit that a lot of the other characters in the movies wear. You know, to blend in!
(I might buy an argument for her wearing a black jumpsuit when running secret missions, but not so much working as a smuggler on the Fringe!)
That first appearance of the catsuit in the panels above? She's having a meeting with her boss. A business meeting in which she makes clear that she won't use her body as leverage to gain a promotion. She holds positions of authority throughout the books, and I can't help but suspect that that catsuit is undermining that authority (something Mara would never stand for!)
The catsuit might be justified if Mara was the type of character to use her sexuality and physical appearance to get what she wants, but that's not something she ever does in the novels. (In contrast to Shada, for instance, who does use her physical appearance as a smokescreen).
And the lack of sleeves just BUGS me. Mara's signature weapon is a holdout blaster that she hides up her sleeves. It's a plot point! GIVE HER SLEEVES.
The catsuit isn't mentioned in her debut appearance in the Thrawn Trilogy, and isn't described in most of the books (it starts to show up in one or two books written long after it was established as her signature visual).
Relatedly, Mara's figure is often compared to that of a dancer's, and if that's meant to evoke a ballet dancer, which I think it is, that's a very distinct body type that tends to be lean and muscular, and very much not voluptuous. Apparently the artists of the comics didn't get that memo. (Can we stop with the balloon boobs? please?) She's also usually depicted with her hair down, which also doesn't strike me as very sensible, especially going into a combat situation!
Almost all art of Mara features the catsuit. It's all over the place, in official and fan art. When people google Mara, that's what they see. Occasionally, the suit is rendered in a way that isn't too objectifying, but there are some pretty egregious examples of the opposite. I won't post any examples; they're easy to find. Many of them are of her during her career the Emperor's Hand, when Mara was about 16-21. She was a teenager.
Ew.
Obviously, there's nothing I can do about the catsuit and the fact that it's permanently linked to Mara's image. I just try to keep it off my blog (I don't reblog images of Leia's slave outfit either, for the same reasons). I would love LOVE to see new art of Mara that didn't feature the catsuit. There are so many good artists doing fantastic new Star Wars art out there! Give my girl some love.
PS. Club Jade has a similar article on the catsuit, with a little more detail on the catsuit's history and some discussion in the comments worth looking into.
Hello! I really love ur writing and you’ve inspired me to write a Young Just Us fic! I was wondering if u have any advice for writing the core four? Or any common misinterpretations I should avoid? I hope you have an amazing day and something really good happens!
Thank you, that's awesome! I hope it's a fun write for you! ❤️
My best advice for writing the Core Four is "no one here is the straight man, it is all a giant game of 'yes, and?', and they are all SO much weirder than you think", haha. Full-stop ride-or-dies who are all fully batshit about each other and canonically WILL try to clone each other and join death cults when they die and will also break time and reality for each other. Or just all go evil together. The bad timeline is in fact the timeline where they all go evil together.
Also one Christmas they did a suicide pact and then saw Santa die together. That is also a canonical thing that canonically happened.
I really need more fun Kryptonian biology to mess with in fic but I'm short on ideas right now.
Common-seeming fanons I've seen and liked:
purring
happiness = literal floating
either intersex or just sexes/genders that don't translate into standard "human" versions
inhumanly bright eyes
Also I still really love the whole "Kryptonians psychically soulbond with just literally anyone they love" thing, though alas that is not a thing I see on the reg. ALAS.
Anyway all of these are fun but I need mooooore and I also need to make them all Kon's problem. Like, just all of them. Possibly also Match's. Meanwhile Kara facepalms in the background and Clark gets reamed by Karen over how he didn't think to give his teenage clones sex ed. CLARK WHY THEY'RE LITERALLY YOUR CLONES.
Clark: technically Match is Kon's clone--
Karen: Go talk to your kids about sex.
Clark: I would rather go to the Phantom Zone, thanks.
And Jon probably got The Talk from Ultraman, the poor bastard. Ughhhhh.
Also if you want, I'd love for some headcanons on Pepa's kids! How do they view each other, how do their interactions look like? Etc etc
god I love Pepa's children, Pepa's children are my FAVES.
Dolores cannot keep a secret to save her goshdang life, ESPECIALLY not from the family. She sometimes attempts to mitigate this by telling Camilo things, but Camilo is actually also terrible at keeping secrets and yeah, yeahhh, there are No Secrets In Encanto. If Dolores doesn't say something about it, her fifteen year-old little brother with the evil grin is gonna, oh NO.
Camilo actually knows a lot of town secrets even without Dolores's assistance, mind, because he so frequently looks like someone else that people just tell him stuff or say things around him. Antonio immediately starts learning town secrets as well, because every animal in the place wants to tell him everything they know. Basically, these children are the local gossip circle, they know all your dirty laundry and they WILL talk to each other about it.
I feel like Dolores and Camilo don't always get along as well because they're a tiiiiny bit closer in age, but they were both older and more mature when Antonio was born and both ADORE him like he is the most precious little cinnamon roll that they could possibly have. Who's their fave sibling? Antonio, obviously, how is that even a question? Antonio does not have a favorite sibling, because he is not ridiculous like these two, but Mirabel is definitely his favorite cousin.
When Dolores gets overwhelmed/overstimulated, the boys distract or silence whatever's setting her off; when Camilo can't QUITE keep his face on right, Dolores and Antonio help him focus; when Antonio can't handle a thing because he is still five and very smol, Dolores and Camilo DESCEND LIKE AVENGING ANGELS AND DESTROY THE PROBLEM. Again: Antonio is their fave sibling, and they both are like "naturally" about the other one sharing this opinion.
The three of them are all very good at not upsetting Pepa more than a light rain might imply, so bad news usually goes straight to Felix. Lightning-causing things are a Dad Problem. Lightning-causing things are DEFINITELY a Dad Problem.
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If you're still playing the fic ask game, I've got one: I wish you would write a fic where Jaskier is half-dragon or half-fae but none of them know until it comes out in a *really* surprising and/or inconvenient way, ends in Geraskier or Geraskefer.
You know, I actually had a fic concept for "Jaskier is secretly a dragon" where I was gonna rewrite "Rare Species" under that assumption but I never got around to it, alas. Basically all I really had was him being a brat to Borch and trying to woo Téa and Véa even harder while Geralt oblivious-ed on in the background being distracted by Yennefer. Just a brat dragon who doesn't know how to make his human form age yet, doesn't appreciate hanging around a giant dragon hunt, and is extremely territorial about his witcher.
And, like, it's me, so of COURSE it would've ended in Geraskier or Geraskefer.
When you were creating her, were you going through that process, trying to really create her as an individual but balance her against the character?
Timothy Zahn: You’re right. It was set up to be slightly Luke’s Han, as it were. The way Han and Leia do it; it would be Luke and Mara with the flip side. Luke is the upstanding farmboy type, Mara is the one with the shady past. She started out as a connection between the rescue of Han in Return of the Jedi and the main Rebellion storyline, which is the main part of the three movies. I wanted somebody to link those together. It seemed logical that Palpatine might not like Vader offering to overthrow him with Luke, so he would send somebody to kill Luke. So that was her origin. Then she developed out of that. I want readers to identify and to connect with her, and you can’t connect with a totally amoral person. At least most readers can’t, and we don’t want to. So she’s got the shady past, but she has an ethical core. (x)
Your characterization of Palpatine seems a lot more cerebral and self-controlled than some other authors' interpretations. Is this a reflection of your view of the character, or does it tell us more about the people through whose perceptions these opinions are being mediated? Mara, Kinman Doriana, and (although he's never directly a point-of-view character) Grand Admiral Thrawn?
Timothy Zahn: It’s more the latter, combined with what I assume would be Palpatine's natural craftiness in trying to make himself All Things to All People. Mara, Doriana, and certainly Thrawn are themselves cerebral types who value self-control and would be rather disconcerted by someone who appears as either a wild-eyed maniac or a vicious control freak. Ergo, for them Palpatine casts himself as someone they can respect and work with.
