Loftwings and Demons

The theme of rightful anger being exploited for harmful ends is one I explore in my Star Wars story Cut Strings. I think it's a perrenially relevant topic, as I believe this dynamic to so often be involved when things go wrong in our real world. But I don't think there are actually any easy answers to this problem. If someone never gets very worked up about anything, chances are they will do nothing to stop injustice. But anger by its nature tends to close off more analytical thought, which can lead one to actions that do the very opposite of what they are intended to.

Have to say, when I started Cut Strings I never anticipated it would become my most popular fanfic.  Grievous is not a hugely popular character in Star Wars, and while the story features a large cast of characters, as most my stories do, it's hard for me to imagine anyone reading through the thing if they don't care for Grievous as a character.

I can only imagine I attracted the attention of a number of the hard-core Grievous fans who, like me, just want a nice long story that really focuses on him.  And though I actually don't think someone would *have* to like Grievous to find something of interest to them in the story, I just find it unlikely that most people would even bother slogging through a story if they didn't care about the main character, regardless of what other things in it might interest them.

I definitely appreciate the many wonderful comments I've gotten on the story.  In general I don't think I could possibly hope for better commenters.  Though not every comment I've received is kind, I've had, on the whole, many more good commenters than bad.  And the enthusiasm!  I love seeing the endlessly creative ways some people manage to express that enthusiasm!  I also love when people talk about what stands out to them and what they got from the story.  And I got so many excellent comments on the last chapter. 

Most of you probably won't see this, but I love you so much, commenters!  Perhaps this good fortune of mine will run out some day, but I will enjoy it while it lasts.

It's also nice to think that there might be readers out there who, even though they don't know what they would say, or might not want or feel able to interact with me for whatever reason, are nevertheless also enjoying the story just as much.

So yesterday after complaining about my inability to write the next chapter in any of my stories, I went and...worked on the next chapter of Cut Strings.  I've now written a draft for the last part of the chapter.  I was able to combine this with fragments of that chapter that I wrote earlier to make a mostly complete draft for it. 

So, I'm not done, but I did make considerable progress on it.  Now if I can just fill in the few missing parts and edit it a bit more, I can hopefully update a fanfic!

Maybe then I can...update more fanfic?  Maybe!

I've also been thinking a bit about my good Sith AU, which is distinct from the redemption AU I am writing because it's an AU where the Sith were never evil in the first place and are in hiding because the Jedi killed most of them off in the Battle at Ruusan. I've talked about this one before but that was a while back. In my good Sith AU, the Rule of Two doesn't refer to only two Sith existing at any one time, but to only two Sith being in any one place at a time in order to avoid detection by the Jedi.  I definitely want Tenebrous to be in that one quite a bit because I find his character very intriguing.  Part of my work writing the flashbacks in Heart of Shadow is to flesh him out more as a character, which I think will also help me to develop his modified counterpart for this other AU. 

Obviously Tenebrous (and all the other Sith) would be quite different in that AU but I tend to like to reuse ideas across AU's, for example, the idea that Sidious can use his foresight as a way to play life like a videogame and 'die' harmlessly and repeatedly to figure out what he should do next, or that San Hill is allergic to hair.  Those ideas are in both Heart of Shadow and Cut Strings.  And even though these two stories don't take place in the same universe, I find it useful and interesting to reuse elements like this. More importantly, I enjoy reusing personality elements, such as my interpretation that Sidious loves lightsaber fighting and incredibly complicated plans, especially when they involve making it look like someone else is trying to kill or kidnap himself. 

I have my own interpretations of all these characters that is sometimes not at all the interpretation that the canon creators had in mind, but that is based in certain important respects on what we see in the canon.  Because if something about a character interests me, there is something about the original presentation of the character that I want to keep (at least in the context of how I interpret it), because I'm not trying to make a completely new character, but instead to re-examine and re-conceptualize what I've been presented with.  In the case of Tenebrous, this also involves expanding considerably on his character, in much the way I've done with San Hill (especially in Cut Strings). Since Tenebrous is a character with whom the original canon doesn't give us a whole lot to work with, considerable extrapolation is necessary to give him a detailed characterization.

I started writing for Cut Strings again recently.  Working on Chapter 41 right now.  It's been a while since I've done any writing!

I think writing Cut Strings has been very helpful for me in thinking about anger.  This is a central theme of this story, and I've been exploring it from a number of angles.  The crux of this story is that Grievous has had his anger manipulated so that he could be more easily used for the purposes of others, but he also has some very legitimate anger towards the Jedi, the Sith, the Huk, and of course, San Hill.

I want to talk a bit about this theme of anger.  Too often I hear very binary judgments about this emotion, when I think the truth of how we should think of it is much more complex.  It can be important to spurring us to action, or focusing our attention, but it can also be used to manipulate us.  Those in power will carefully craft narratives to direct anger away from themselves and towards those they wish to keep disempowered.  After all, creating this anger allows them to get those they oppress to focus their attacks on each other.  Anger can be difficult to quell in ourselves even when we decide it should be.  It can be frightening to see when expressed at us or those we care about. It is a powerful motivator, and it can be directed at good and evil alike.

So I write a lot about Cut Strings Grievous trying to regain control of his anger and also to reintegrate his other emotions.  Ultimately, I think there's a lot that can be explored here.  I very much question the narrative of anger being evil regardless of context, and think there's a lot of important questions we can ask about this often unexamined emotion.