Fan Art for SWAG77 Get Thrawn In Campaign by Panda Capuccino.
Fan art is something to behold, especially when it is in our fandomverse. And attribution is a good thing. It is upon the kindness of the sharing party to provide decent attribution from the shared art. But it is not MANDATORY and DEMANDING IT IS FUCKED UP!
Artists are taking forms they did not create and using their talents to create derivatives with their skill. Their skills COST, and that should be what is important and remunerated and by our group, we respect it. But the final completion of the art of a derivative work that the artist does NOT own the intellectual property license nor has approval from Lucasfilm to create, is NOT — NOT what needs to be attributed by law.
You can go to court to demand copyright, but you don’t own the license. You created the work out of the kindness of your heart. That’s just the final artform work.
Here is Disney Lucasfilm’s legal framework that our parent company, Ariafya LLC follows (source):
Our long-standing company policy does not allow us to accept or consider unsolicited creative ideas, suggestions or materials. In connection with anything you submit to us – whether or not solicited by us – you agree that creative ideas, suggestions or other materials you submit are not being made in confidence or trust and that no confidential or fiduciary relationship is intended or created between you and us in any way, and that you have no expectation of review, compensation or consideration of any type.
THE SKILL OF THE ARTIST IS NOT IN QUESTION HERE!
Should you want Disney Lucasfilm to consider your work as an artist or an author, you have to take the RISK to get your name out there. Do what it takes to get noticed by the fandom. PARTICIPATE IN THEIR ACTIVITIES! NETWORK! Don’t massively bad-mouth Disney Lucasfilm and their products.
Inside tracks and knowing someone on the inside is fine and a plus, but Disney is still a corporate entity that wants professionals in its repertoire. They want professionals to KNOW how to play the game and will not freeze up when it is crunch time. Disney is the big league.
If you are yelling and trolling fans for not attributing your work on social media sites, like Tumblr, then you are pathetic and not in the big leagues. No one stole your work, your game in PROMOTION of your work was sloppy and pathetic in this day and age of social media. So it would behoove you to learn this business, first.
If you are going to POST your work ANYWHERE online before the public eye, then you need a business plan of fandom social media engagement and reaction. Yelling at fans or trolling them is going to get you hated. Trolling is not Fandom.
I am not a visual artist. But I do have an official business license and I know how to work social media well enough to get my work where I need it and with commercial support. And yes, I will ask what’s in it for me because I do business, not placating sensitivities. This is not about someone’s emotional instabilities, this is adulting and there are things I have to do in order to complete my project goals that I have set for my needs in a timely manner.
You want to make friends on social media, join a dating app.
You want to take your art to the big leagues, that’s what I’m all about…
The Force has facets to it like the crystals of a lightsaber. Imperfect, blemished, clarity, cut, karat, etc. The two most familiar facets are the Light Side of the Force and the dark side. The Force is all the same one piece, that binds us and holds us together in the galaxy, according to the old Obi-Wan Kenobi Jedi Master adage.
In Star Wars Rebels season 3, those facets of a crystal will shatter and the shards will scatter like sand on a beach, since most crystals are smaller components to rock and sand.
The Star Wars Show on Youtube shows a clip of Star Wars Rebels season 3 at ~3:30 minutes. It shows what it is like before the crystal breaks through the Force.
Crystals used in the Force are responsive to the Force, and emotion of the user. The crystal and the Force user connect and share some type of bond, though imperfect. How does a rock bond to a human being? A sentient being? Life?
The basis of most life is the firmament or the soil that requires key components and nutrients to grow all other life. With a diurnal variation, oxygen and water, life will grow in a season. Seasons can vary from long to short, but the point them is to have a time to exist and then there is change. The only reliable thing about life that everyone can count on is that it changes, then it dies, which is a change.
During the time of Star Wars Rebels, they are finding what their eutectic point is as young people. Things must die so that new life can be born and evolution takes place. People can think that is not fair, and game the system and many characters do in Star Wars, but the Force is an act of nature and is fickle about its domination. It shifts like the eddies of a tiny brook to a tumultuous wave.
The key is, let the Force flow…
FYI: All this is being said because Ezra’s lightsaber (visit him on Facebook) is green and where did he get the crystal? It looks like Kanan’s but it doesn’t seem like it is from him.
To understand more about the esoteric Force, read this Star Wars Legends book.
Please. Stop necroposting on Character pages on Facebook. It’s really not smart. The administrators cannot respond because you MISSED OUT! There won’t be a rerun. Facebook doesn’t append pages past a certain date. So expecting any page response from an administrator on a post older than 3 months means you are ignorant on how to use Facebook pages. You need to learn how to do that.
The first way is to STOP NECROPOSTING!
What is necroposting:
Any post made 2-3 months ago, often associated with an image and specifically associated with a “fictional character” page – and you the post runs as fast as you can trying to put your 2 cents worth of an opinion that is IRRELEVANT to the post or discussion.
Not all pages are FAN PAGES!
FAN PAGES generally do not PERFORM or ROLEPLAY! They do not ACT IN CHARACTER! They are NOT PORTRAYING the character. Fan pages are because Fans made the page and the company, Lucasfilm, does not know about them.
SWAG 77 pages are PERFORMANCE PAGES which means page ACTS like and responds IN CHARACTER to your questions. Pointing out fan or lore related information is NOT PERFORMANCE. It’s not ROLEPLAY! It is stupid. If we behaved in character to your requests, we’d kill you. You would not know what hit you and you would not know how to respond.
Perhaps a FAN page or LORE page is more suited to your faire and questions. Consider joining those communities first before joining a full performance page.
In “Roleplay” or RP you will meet one of a Mary Sue, eventually. While mostly dedicated to girls, guys can be “Mary Sues” or “Gary Stus”.
What is a Mary Sue: think of an individual who does not want to tell a story, but be everything to everyone in every story. The lines of demarcation are blurred. They will have all their “objects of desire” fall in love with them, including her villains. Mary Sues can do no wrong, and if she does wrong, it can be easily overlooked.
They have no story and their backstory is so confusing to listen to, it will be like “Mommy and Daddy didn’t give me a pony for Christmas and so I’m mad at them”, but then the character is an orphan.
For guys it’s the “Ultimate Power of the Universe” and it I build my super saiyan powers to maximum with a COD lightsaber pistol with a grew up hard, gangster lifestyle as a Sith Lord, then no one will beat me, ever.
In essence it is a form of GODMODDING!
Example of a Mary Sue character sheet: More than 1 story & it’s the first 1 = mary sue.
It ruins storytelling. Those that delve in it are NOT RPing, hence they are not performing with SWAG 77.
What a character has to have:
A character sheet somewhere. What are their reasons for existing? What is the plot to their story? Exposition? Theme? What is here that I want to see a character.
A believable backstory based on the facts of the genre and a reasonable continuity. Making up new stuff is a flow of creativity, but not a fairytale that makes it impossible to believe.
Why do people do this? LAZINESS! They don’t care, they just want to plug and play. They have not qualms or quips about being better. All they want on social media is to be distracted from their mundane lives than to build anything positive. They are TROLLS in the RP community and when they are discovered, they resort to cyberbullying the individual who has discovered their insecurities.
These same individuals will cry foul on you, when you delve deeper into their motivations. When you review their feeds, they are of no substance.
They are fantasizing about their “character” really being with your character and they LIVE THEIR LIVES BEING THEIR CHARACTERS. They actually believe they ARE ________________ (insert latest popular movie/book/RL celebrity) — an no, not talking about cosplayers, or page or Twitter managers. If you ask them their true name, they will say their character as their name. They LIVE through their character’s lives and they want to be that. It’s a dissociation identity disorder hiding behind a mask with a mix of narcissism. It’s like, “I am Napoleon…”
What to do: If all you want to do is be distracted, there are other ways than misleading the public that you are a badass character from your favorite story, then switching your character when their popularity wanes.
You TELL YOUR STORY! If you don’t know how? We offer resources to where you can learn how to do that on our Facebook page.
OUTLINE the story you wish to tell. Be prepared to receive criticism. Don’t be afraid of that. Because if you are, it means you refuse to grow into something better. And most of the time, people are well-meaning.
Participate in writing activities. Do you blog? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? If you are a good performer, step up your performance and put in the written word. Show what you’ve got. And remember:
Say you are a newbie, and this is the first time you’ve been on any social media platform, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc. It takes ~2 months for an outsider to NAVIGATE small pockets Star Wars social media, unless you are published.
This manual is geared toward Facebook and the users of Facebook pages. But it can translate easily to other social media platforms with these steps:
YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT STAR WARS EVER! Unless you have access to the top secret George Lucas Jedi Archives with his hologram speaking to you on Facebook, and why he would chat on Facebook is beyond us — then no, you’re not an expert. You are not an expert if you DO NOT work for Lucasfilm Star Wars Story Group. Why would any of the story group members chat with you about top secret information? Who are you? If your posts are loquacious and you have been here for only a minute, it indicates to fans what you do not know and that you will never know EVERYTHING ABOUT STAR WARS EVER!
Just because you HAVE a Star Wars Facebook fan page, doesn’t mean you’re expert. But it does probably mean you did not do a search and evaluate your competition in the Star Wars fandom. Most people who know what they’re talking about, have been established in the online community for awhile. Establishing oneself takes ~4 months with advertising. Unless you have strong outside backing and support (spelled DIS on the NYSE), and in some cases, groups do have that, then okay, it is less in establishment on Facebook. Mocking other fan pages similar to yours, makes you look dumb, and your page will die in 2 months without posts for a year…
ABOUT FACEBOOK PAGES: Honestly, “share for share” requests are SPAM. But people get a ton of likes that way. However, it says very little about the relevancy and purpose of what you PUT on your page. If you want to have a page: general or performance (roleplaying), then put content that will make what you do exciting. Otherwise, you would be shutting down a 1000+ liked page.
FACEBOOK PAGES are slated by FACEBOOK for BUSINESS! Random community-based pages are “permitted” at the time being. They MAY do away with them. You are at the leisure of Facebook, which means you better be working with Facebook to understand how to USE A PAGE. Propping one up for vengeance is a BAD MOVE! Never do business to get back at anyone – it means your competition has already won…
3. How to get involved on PAGES just as a profile user:
Post under questions the pages ask. Your posts should be respectful and honorable. Be supportive to the content creators, not confrontational.
TYPING IN ALL CAPS FOR A SIMPLE POST IS CONFRONTATIONAL!
No one is here to disturb the balance of the Force, even if they’re clueless. Gauge where the conversation is going. If 10 people are saying “Yes, I agree” and you disagree, be respectful about it and state that you disagree and why. Don’t just be disagreeable for no reason. That is called trolling.
DO NOT OUT the page administrators. That’s DUMB and IMMATURE. Outing people is for “diaper babies”. Just because you cannot post what you want does not mean you have rights here. You can post what you want on your own page.
Stay RELEVANT to the topic – also called “stay in your lane”. Everyone is counting the ways how they love Jar Jar Binks and you say, “I like blue milk” is TROLLING. Just don’t post. No one cares how you feel about blue milk, it has nothing to do with extolling the love of Jar Jar.
PAGE HOPPING FOR GOSSIP. Just because we are all Star Wars fans does not mean we are a monolithic group. Everyone has “spots” that we share as a part of our fandom. Some people are into Mandalorians. Some people are into Sith. Some people are into Jedi. Some people are into the Original Trilogy and some people are into the Expanded Universe. But whatever we are into, we are all Star Wars fans. It is okay if we stick with a group that makes us feel most comfortable. Hopping from one page to gossip about another page is BAD KARMA. It will get back to the original page and they might ban you for being stupid.
If you need assistance in understanding PAGE management, we can help you in our group: First Step In A Larger SWAG 77 World. Members manage well over 500 pages on Facebook, some pages are from professional and celebrity clients. If you want to optimize your page features geared toward Star Wars fandom, then join the group.
NEVER BAD MOUTH A PAGE PUBLICLY. You privately state that in a message. That is the quickest way toward exclusion. You do not know the FULL GRAVITY of the situation, or how a page deals with misbehavior which is at its discretion. A free-for-all bashing to defame someone is silly. If you “don’t start none, there won’t be none” is the mentality that needs to be taken here on social media. Some people come from a really hard life. Some people may be gang members or might be in prison. You never know who you are dealing with when you act crazy on someone’s page that you chose to LIKE! Be cool and no one will be one the wiser. Public personal attacks means you are insecure and unprofessional. If you rant on your own page or profile, it can backfire because it is still public. You don’t have a safe space to vent unless you shut your space from all people. But then, no one will see your thoughts. That is the MATURE choice one makes in life. But you should be able to defend your point of view with facts, not because your feelings were hurt.
HAVING A PAGE IS NOT YOUR REAL LIFE! We see this ALL THE TIME! And especially on fictional character pages – people fantasizing they ACTUALLY ARE pretty princesses high up in towers waiting to be rescued. Sorry, Facebook’s minimum age requirement is 13. NOT 13 year old behavior. Roleplay is not meant for you to pretend to live your real life. Roleplay to the Star Wars Actors Guild 77 is meant to be a performance, like a play, with a script and character roles to be performed. We have studied how roleplay works on Facebook. We have optimized how we perform on Facebook. Our system shows that everyone feels better when we have our proprietary plan.
FOR REAL LIFE FACEBOOK PROFILE ACCOUNTS AND TWITTER ACCOUNTS: For Star Wars Actors Guild 77 Fictional Character Facebook pages, if you post on your real life profile account, you are NOT roleplaying with us. On Twitter, we roleplay with SWAG 77 member that are on Facebook or Tumblr. If you post on SWAG 77 page with your real life Facebook profile account, it means we might respond to your question. We are not obligated to respond to anything you post. What that means, is you can’t activate your lightsaber, even if you know how to roleplay with Facebook profile.
If you post with a page, we will delete your post. SWAG 77 has member pages that are modified and tweaked daily. A page that is not in our group, cannot interact with our pages as a part of our roleplays. We have written a story arc and campaign on how we want our pages to perform. If the character you portray is a copy of one of our pages, we cannot allow you to perform with us.
You can’t start a roleplay on ANY Star Wars Actors Guild 77 PAGE, PERIOD! This is NOT negotiable. Why? We are honor the continuity of Star Wars through Lucasfilm and Disney as directed.
ALL OUR CHARACTER PAGES POST IN CHARACTER. We like the practice. WE do it with our standards as outlined. Only members of Star Wars Actors Guild 77 can start stories. You want fan fiction, you have to join the group, and there are several rules that are involved with what we do. It is NOT for everyone. Our members are serious and our longevity speaks for itself.
4. Character Pages are not permitted to post on Star Wars Lore pages. They can technically post on Fictional Character pages. But they must be approved by SWAG 77 before engaging in any significant story. A significant story has a plot. You cannot tell our characters what to do when you are not a part of the group. Even if you are a part of the group, we train you to not supersede the exposition: A Jawa does not tell Darth Vader what to do… You will not be a Darth Ewok Sith Lord. You post on our character pages, we ban you or worse. Don’t be stupid with us.
We are a CLOSED story roleplay performance group. Unorganized, spontaneous and random roleplay breeds contempt. It kills Star Wars fandom. Most RPers do not participate in Star Wars fandom in any official capacity, such as Star Wars Celebration, The 501st Legion, The Rebel Legion, The Mandalorian Mercs, or The Dark Empire. They don’t go to cons. If they go, they aren’t doing anything beyond a casual attendee. They don’t talk about panels, they don’t write blogs, they don’t get celebrities on their blogs or podcasts.
The Star Wars Actor Guild 77 goes to Star Wars Celebration. Many of our members are members of the cosplay organizations. They plan the conventions. They SIT on panel. Some of our “friends” are authors of Star Wars books and they have joined us on the SWAG 77 podcast. That is why we are strict in what we do. If there is a group much more loose on restrictions, then by all means, join that group and have fun.
5. Don’t argue with the admins about the literature and you don’t know it. If you are unsure how to get involved with the literature, then, like Pablo Hildago said, pick an era you want to know more on, and read the information. First you go to StarWars.com, and then you go from there.
For example: Star Wars Rebels is coming out. It is between ROTS Episode III and ANH Episode IV. How do you start.
EASIEST – Pick which side you like: The good guys or the bad guys. Who are the good guys to you? Who are the bad guys to you? Search for a good book like this one: Star Wars: A New Dawn and READ IT! Then listen to our SWAG 77 Podcast.
MODERATE – Choose a character class and read up on that character first, then a specific book. Follow the same.
HARD – Jump right in to whatever book interests you from a Google search
6. FRIENDSHIPS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media is about being “social”. Being friendly goes with the territory. But Facebook Pages are for businesses. Corporate pages do not engage socially like “bffs”. Small business pages do but not like “bffs”. However, in the roleplay performance business, you are not the customer, you are enjoying the fruits of labor on social media. Stomping your feet and yelling at admins about a “product” is unwise. It disengages the business from assisting you, and optimizing their activities.
What’s the point is trying to appease just ONE unsatisfied poster who is being quite unreasonable when the rest of the posts are ameneable?
How will it stop our business from telling all their trade group members risk management of this ONE poster?
Why should a page become your friend? Should you not have real friends that you can speak to in real life?
What about the friends on your personal Facebook profile?
Is your family or friends watching your misbehavior on your Facebook profile? If they are that should tell you are and they are saying something about it, then you are out of control on social media and you may be a danger to someone or yourself.
Star Wars Actors Guild 77 has study posting activities for awhile and people have great revelations they can learn. But the first steps are to get everyone on the same PAGE, so that we can address a topic fully, appropriately and respectfully.
Should you want to join what we do, we have systems in place and you can message the Facebook page.
If your house is anything like my house, then your books look like the above shelves. How do you stay on top of reading your Star Wars Books?
It helps me to get electronic books because I read them faster than I read printed books.
What does reading Star Wars books have to do with “roleplaying” – okay, okay – performing with SWAG 77.
When you fail to read anything, you cannot perform your character/entity/planet page with accuracy or honor to the content creators of the story. How can you say you can perform Sun Guards when you know nothing about them? And while Wookieepedia is a start, even they endorse going to the literature, reading and study it.
On obscure or underdeveloped characters, sometimes new to Star Wars, pure aggressive content information grabs are what drives one to want to portray a character accurately. Such was the case of the character, Bo-Katan.
It took consistent outreach to Lucasfilm to get details on the character that one one else had. It took listening to all podcasts, reading every Star Wars Insider, speaking to some cosplayers, following outlying concepts about Mandalorians, even going over to the other side – Death Watch’s enemies: True Mandalorians (Yes, the ones we love) and reading as much relevant material.
In there real world, it is called research and what you are doing is a “review of the literature” and from there, a hypothesis can be built and specific aims can be developed. Then the rest of the “performance” is like a “science experiment” – tests on what works and what does not work, the results and what conclusions can be drawn. Then, a project can continue, or be phased out.
But the drive of a project is inherently built by one’s passion about it, and a lot – I mean A LOT – of reading and constantly thinking of ideas, hypothesis and theories to test that are demonstrable, e.g. through writing in blogs; and by performing.
These ideas are what set the standards for SWAG 77‘s entertainment and performance on social in perpetuity.
Star Wars Performance University 