Sèphera Girón at the Toronto Gay Pride Parade June 2018
My brand new horoscope column launched this week along with the brand new Romance Daily News !
Romance Daily News is a daily digest that offers all kind of news and advice. They are on the lookout for book reviewers, columnists, and interns. In fact, they are looking for an astrology intern to work with me on a few projects, so please pop them an email if you're interested.
I'm still running my Lunch Time Tarot Card Reading a few times a week. I try to go online from noon to one pm EST every day but sometimes I have to work and can't come online. You can follow me on Twitch so that you get notified when I go online so you can come by and get your free "tarot card of the day" reading. You can look at some of the past recordings if you don't know what happens. It's all free so there's no excuse not to follow me and drop in when you can! You can come by, say hi in the chat room, I pull a card and read it and then you go on about your day. Or you can stay and we can also talk about writing, movies, and anything else under the sun.
Sèphera at the Toronto Gay Pride Parade June 2018
This past month saw me launching two courses for Udemy. They are both writing courses and both can be for all levels of writers. You don't have to be a writer. You don't have to know how to read or even own tarot cards to do the tarot card course. These links provide the lowest discounted price I'm allowed to offer! The price of two fancy coffees. So click away and write some stories! I'll be adding material to both courses over the next few months so if you're already signed up, you'll be the first to know when they hit.
Solo is tanking because Disney doesn't care about old Star Wars Fans, you know, the ones with money and one or two generations of children.
Star Wars fans NEVER get fatigue. There could be a new Star Wars film every weekend and it would make millions every time
IF
the writers cared about the fans.
But the Disney writers only care about themselves and how clever they can be in their own heads.
I've been watching it all from the sidelines.
I saw people upset at the Force Awakens and how it was just a safe retread of The Last Hope. Some of us gave it a pass even though we were horribly disappointed about being lied to about seeing our three icons together again.
I saw hundreds of negative reviews about Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy because of his unique writing style and his immersion of United States politics into a galaxy far, far away. And he sure isn't helping himself or Star Wars franchise by calling fans, who were around long before he was born, names and that they are angry, racist, white men.
Sorry, not true. I'm a woman and Hispanic and I'm mad at the direction of the franchise as time goes on.
Though I didn't read Chuck's Star Wars books, I saw hundreds of negative reviews. I saw hundreds of positive ones as well. It's still a best-seller.
In Chuck's defense, he's an excellent author in horror and writing guides, but his unique style was jarring and unsettling for the Star Wars franchise. Some fan divide came there as some loved his quirky narrative and some hated it. The things that the fans didn't like from what I could discern included American politics, characters who some people call "social justice warriors," earth jargon, sexual orientation, and such. This is proving to be a theme in some of the other books and the new movie saga trilogy. And the spin-offs.
Disney is trying new things. Disney is testing a new direction. Disney has often been cutting edge and certainly was in its infancy, so it's not unexpected that Disney is trying to modernize Star Wars and taking a few risks.
I went to The Force Awakens for only one reason. To see what happened to Luke Skywalker; what was he up to now? Was he married? Did he have kids? Was he a Captain or Governer or ruler of a Kingdom or teaching new Jedis? I didn't give a damn about Han Solo and was very curious about what happened to Leia.
I wasn't the only one going to see Luke Skywalker. I was disappointed. So, I went along for the ride. It wasn't the movie I hoped for but I was going to be a good sport because I liked the character of Kylo Ren and some of the puzzles that were set up. Or at least, I thought there were puzzles set up waiting for eager fans to speculate about.
Thousands of us waited with bated breath for two years to see Luke's first words in something like thirty years. Quite frankly, I was in kind of a daze after the first time I saw The Force Awakens because I had fully expected the saga of Luke, Leia, and Han to continue with all three together from nearly the first frame. I expected them to be swept off on some kind of adventure that would NOT involve a Darth Vader type person nor a Death Star. I expected some of the catch phrases and lots of lightsaber battles. I expected lots of spaceships hurtling around and some newfangled alien designs. I also expected Han to die as I knew Harrison Ford wanted out of the series.
But I accepted what we were given and played along.
In this age of social media, we all got swept up into the fun of theories and speculation. Dozens of questions were set up that we got excited about, so many teases, so many exciting ways the eighth movie could go. So many of us spent two years writing articles, making videos, going to Star Wars Celebration, Comicons, buying toys, books, rewatching The Force Awakens to mine for clues about where the series would go. We thought Star Wars was an ongoing story, a connected universe with connected players and clues. A soap opera in space. A western in space. A simple fairy tale about good and evil with space wizards and an ancient religion.
Star Wars is a comic book fun time.
But those of us who were engaged, who bought toys, books, games, were in for a rude surprise in The Last Jedi.
Fans with certain expectations set up from the narrative structure of the previous seven movies were given the equivalent of a pie in the face.
Yes, TLJ was beautiful to look at.
There was some cool stuff.
But there were huge disconnects. It was more like a Saturday Night Live episode (jokes that don't work and all).
And when we weren't subjected to thumb-on-nose plotlines, we were given ill-timed jokes and American politics. Free the animals but don't go back for the children. And how did the kid know to tell the story of Luke Skywalker as it happened and could move a broom? Am I allowed to think that he's a special force user related to someone in the universe or will I be mocked for thinking that? Now everyone can use the force and it's a galaxy of mind readers?
I'm all for experimental. I'm all for giving chances and that's why I'm being trying to be okay about The Last Jedi.
But fans are angry. Not because Luke was old and depressed but because of lazy storytelling. it's easy to toss a lightsaber away than to give an emotional moment to fans who have waited a long time to hear Luke speak.
It was lazy to make him a child abuser instead of showing Snoke seducing Kylo and other interesting backstory stuff. Maybe show how the children who escaped the destruction of The Jedi Training Camp became the Knights of Ren. Maybe show Luke running off to kick Snoke's ass for luring little Ben to the Darkside.
And why was Kylo named Ben Solo? Leia and Han never knew Ben Kenobi. I never understood that unless Leia had visions of him since she has The Force?
We had to watch a lazy slow ass chase movie instead of cool stuff like Kylo talking to ghost Vader.
We were already depressed Carrie Fisher is dead and then to just kill off Luke for no reason...THAT is why Solo is tanking.
Some of the Disney people are mocking the fans. Fans that CARED about Luke for forty years, who were invested emotionally and financially in him and the franchise, who likely spent thousands on themselves and children on Star Wars merchandise over forty years. And now they are mocked for caring that the character they wanted to see have a cool story was just humiliated with the milk stuff, fallen from a hero to a child abuser, was a coward, did a Skype call and dropped dead. Meanwhile, Snoke made other people do Skype calls and didn't die. I don't believe Snoke nor Luke are dead anyway. Anymore. I suspect Abrams will bring Luke back. He sees the backlash and hopefully will be a hero and bring back Luke.
If Disney brings back Luke, then maybe sales will pick up again. It's easy in a magical universe to make him not dead. Luke never saw Ben or Yoda or Anniken as he died though Luke saw Ben when he was dying in Empire Strikes Back, so it's very likely Luke's not dead at all. He could have just gone off to rejuvenate somewhere and come back stronger with a great plan to stop Kylo without killing him. Also Kylo hasn't seen his grandfather's ghost yet either. Why not?
These are the things fans want to see. More Luke. We just wanted a bit more time with him as new characters are introduced.
We are told all through The Last Jedi to Kill The Past and everything we loved about Star Wars was killed right in front of us, and then we're supposed to support a movie about a dead iconic character as a young man when we're not supposed to care about the past or history.
Star Wars fatigue, there is not.
How many times have the marathons been on TV in recent years? Almost every weekend and they are endlessly watched.
Star Wars fans have no fatigue. They could watch a new Star Wars every day like a soap opera, which is originally was until recently.
Star Wars is an addiction, a way of life for many people. Thousands of people. People with money.
I've been watching the unrest forming on YouTube for months now. I've seen channels like Geeks and Gamers who had less subscribers than I did in January when I first found them now grow to something like 50,000. All SW fans who love SW and are soo upset by the direction it's taking. Many in the comments sections are calling for boycotts and guess what, Disney? THAT's why Solo is tanking.
Solo is a fine little movie. I had fun seeing it. But because of Johnson and his attitude in his movie towards the original fans and towards unhappy social media fans, the rage from SW fans is being shown towards Solo. SW fans won't see Solo in the theatres because they want Disney to listen to them. They want the basic premise to return and to have good storylines for Legacy characters.
Star Wars fans are voting with their wallets so that Disney will listen. They want the franchise to get back on track, for Luke to not be dead just yet, and to stop doing stupid stuff and lame jokes.