The NJO came out and rocked my world, I got my first one from a bag of mixed books from one grandparents (it was Balance Point which I promptly opened up, read the first page and then “HOLD ON WHAT.” I got the entire series for Christmas and birthday after my grandparents realized that no really, that is all I wanted and that I was getting “lost” in bookstores just to actually read those books in the actual store because I was that into the ongoing plotline.
Star Wars (and Nanowrimo) also gave me my best friend (now roommate) because of a write in and an offhand comment and then suddenly there was a person there who loved pilots as much as I did. Who even had met the two authors that had written some of my favorite books ever in the EU. I found out later she actually worked for them over Labor Day weekends at this thing called Dragon*Con.
We’ve been fast and best friends since 2006 and cohabitating since 2011 and there is an entire wall of Star Wars Legends books in chronological order surrounding a smallish pilot shrine. The small collection of current canon novels is also arranged on one side.
I’d been so used to being the only fan in the city I had lived in, that meeting actual humans who geeked as much, if not more than I did, over shared stories and characters was three kinds of a blessing.
It wasn’t all sunshine, Ewoks, and fighter ships. I broke up hardcore with the fandom for a while during the time after the NJO. The Dark Nest trilogy left me cold and then the series after that…there were some deep and abiding characterization issues that led me to just fall out of the fandom for a while.
It hurt too much to go back when you had people taking a character that you loved, that you had grown up with in a literal sense and twist them into something incomprehensible with little to no explanation for how he got from point a to point zed. When just the description of the events unfolding made you so vicerally and incandescently angry.
Because this fandom was home in a way that most of my other fandoms had never been. Because this fandom and the characters and the people were one of the things that had kept me going in some really dark times.
The advent of the last X-Wing book, Mercy Kill (read by me as my roommate drove us to Atlanta so she could cackle at my reactions) was what brought me back. Sitting in the panel room, listening to Aaron Allston talk about it was engaging and there were flickers of that same spark that had consumed so many days during my pre-teen and teen years. I’ll never forget however when someone from the audience stood and stumbled a little bit over their words before getting to the meat of the question. “Is it safe to come home now?”
This was before we had an Episode VII or even really the concept of any of the anthology films and the fervor swept over all of us again at the thought of more new Star Wars movies. After the prequels, I hadn’t thought that I would see more new films in the franchise so soon. Especially given the way that the second trilogy had been scoured and picked apart and judged by everyone with a blog and an opinion.
That question from that audience member resonated with me and quite a few others in that track room. Aaron assured us that yes, it was safe to come back now. That the fandom still had room for us and while we couldn’t change what had happened in the past, that there was space to move past it.
So we came home. And glory of glories, we got more movies and more books and while there were serious upheaval moments (the movie canon becoming separate from the EU/Legends canon was one), we were still a family.
The representation in Rogue One and Episodes VII and VIII were magical. It was like walking into a dream where your favorite fanfic had just become canon. It was the Star Wars we loved with people who actually looked like us. There was more than one badass female character, there were young and old characters, and the storytelling was good.
Every third person was not a white dude and the stark change from the original trilogy was a little more magical because of it. 8pm Thursday night showings became the new midnight showings and the sheer joy of being in a theater with a hundred other excited fans all reacting at the same time to what was on the screen will never not be amazing.
You meet some of the best people at these things, especially in tense moments on screen where your right hand is being clutched by your roommate and your left is being held by the guy next you because the need for physical comfort was so high (Ep VII, you probably know the part).
And then there was the pushback from other fans, who couldn’t quite understand the need for all that diversity. For the additional women on screen or the need for the stories to evolve.
The people who grew up thinking they’d be the Rebellion and instead became the Empire. Unlike the controversies in the fandom before, this one wasn’t much of one. The people buying into that mindset were the vast minority, albeit a very vocal one. The core of Star Wars fandom is still there, glittering like our Space Mom, and eagerly awaiting whatever we get to experience next.
We have so many new stories coming out from a variety of media formats. We have amazing inclusive books and short stories written by so many amazing people, it’s impossible to name them all here.
We have an entire Disney park dedicated to the full immersive experience of being inside the Star Wars Universe.
I can’t wait to see what we’ll get next.