Today, Legos advertised their products at Star Wars Celebration at a panel. We at SWAG77 are happy for Disney Lucasfilm Star Wars. It is a fun concept. And while there are shifts in their ad campaign, SWAG77, a little guy fan group, started a similar campaign in 2020. We created T-shirts, merch, fanfic stories, headcanon, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for a parody campaign for Grand Admiral Thrawn. We conceived the idea and organized the artwork for optimal presentation. For a small operation to function as a fan group, we monetize the activities that we feel would not infringe on any copyrights of intellectual property by fair use parody.
The character Thrawn is classified as a villain who would NEVER consider a beach for fun times during the summer. So we find it comedic that we would put a surfboard into Thrawn’s hands, and he learns how to surf as his “Zen” for stress relief.
We know Disney Lucasfilm Star Wars has iron-clad IP copyright rules and found ideas. That is why we did not seek to request permission to do what we did as a fan group. We would rather ask forgiveness on this issue.
But it is cheaper to circumvent our idea as well as other fans ideas and do it better than us with their powerful and huge resources. And we must say, the Legos campaign is done well. Better than any small guy side group barely managing to make it into black.
But our problem is the takedown notices to our 3rd party on demand providers, threats to servers holding our art and absolutely ZERO SMALL TOKEN OF APPRECIATIVE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA of what we did. At least use our initials. Would that be asking too much?
Star Wars fans and some workers have accused SWAG77 not attributing Fan Artists and ideas. As if we did not have a brain trust first and considered thinking of our proprietary ideas first. Hence, the merch monetization, the paywalls to access to our ideas, and now NFT minting. We are NOT competing and yes, based on law, we could be misconstrued that we are violating IP copyright. We are uninterested in fight back with lawyers for rightful claims because we recognize that is an uphill battle.
But Star Wars would be nothing without the creativity of all fans and if Disney Lucasfilm is going to skim ideas from the fans, then at least a group initialing acknowledgement at one siting would be nice. It can even be fine printed, but at least at minimum something otherwise, toxic fans who harass us over ideas tease us.
Since, I as the owner am in my 50s, the harassment is irrelevant to me. But what if this was a teen to 20-something that works very hard with a dream to be shot down by big corporation skimming ideas from them? For a fandom they love and devoted themselves to doing. It hurts.
So this is a plea. SOME minimal recognition and acknowledgement.
Here is the Disney Lucasfilm Star Wars Legos campaign:
“There’s a direct connection to inflation and the multigender alien issue”
KRICH ELIAR (HOST): So, one of the reasons why we take such a strong stance and opinion on the multigender alien issue is it’s an issue of reality. You do not get to determine your own reality. You do not get to suddenly say, I’m rich or I’m poor. No, we must look at some evidence as to whether you’re rich or poor. Now, some of those are relative terms – rich according to who? Rich according to what? I understand that. But relatively, some of the terms we use — pincher, claw – you can’t just make them up and say, oh wow, that Harch has pinchers for hands than that human, that Hutt glides faster than that human, that Twi’leks are stronger than that humans.
And one of the reasons we’ve been so insistent against this idea you can be multigender, or change human dimorphism is that when you start to indulge in the belief that you could become whatever you want and reality is subjective, not objective, you’re going to have ramifications that nobody anticipated or intended.
So, there’s a direct connection between inflation and multigender alien issue. You say, Krich, come on. They couldn’t be further apart. No, they’re the same. They’re the same in this aspect – when you believe that Hutts are hermaphrodites, why wouldn’t you also believe that you could print credits? If you believe that some aliens can be multigender, why wouldn’t you also believe that credits are wealth in the Empire?
Now there are very simple laws of economics. Just like there are laws of nature. There are laws of physics, laws of thermodynamics, and laws of biology.
We must – we must live according to those laws. We believe there’s a lawmaker and a designer and being Imperials, we believe those laws were made to be followed for our flourishing and our prosperity. The law is a teacher. The law is a guide to how to properly live. You live in defiance of the law, you lie steal or cheat, and you won’t flourish. You’ll be miserable. You’ll be unhappy. You’ll get further from Emperor Palpatine’s wish for you. Now outside of the Imperial Grand Plan component of this, we also believe there are laws of economics. There are laws of economics just like there are laws of physics.
As one reviews the screenshots from the website, one can see that entertainment, consumer guests, and families are a central theme to the corporation.
To us at the Star Wars Actors Guild 77 Fan Group, the themes mean that particular creative storytelling, concepts and entertainment has to be geared to an audience of all ages.
Thus, diverse characters and their development can be created through a dictum than a vague, loose and random chaos. And the characters must be accessible to all diverse people of all ages.
When certain original characters that were created before purchase of Lucasfilm by The Walt Disney Corporation in 2012, the characters still had to be accessible to all diverse people of all ages. Some original characters were with particular contracts. Some contracts had to be re-organized. And some characters and story arcs needed archived. But for those original characters and story arcs, the fact still remains, these elements had to be accessible to all diverse people of all ages.
That means families and family entertainment, which includes children’s programming.
Fans who force and menace others in the fandom about the way it should be do not understand the basic tenets of The Walt Disney Corporation and if they hope to effect change, they must address each of these tenets and why perspectives should change for this billion dollar worldwide corporation.
Does the fan idea fit the confines of The Walt Disney Corporation?
If the fan idea does not, the menacing fan vitriol and demands will go unanswered.
The Star Wars Actors Guild 77 fan group want to uplift Star Wars fandom through positive action to create change in The Walt Disney Corporation with mutual respect and collaboration than contention and vitriol.
We feel we have done that with our “Team Tano”, “Across The Stars: Reylo” and “Get Thrawn In” campaigns.
We have endured tremendous amount of menacing by some fans and amid all these issues, the corporation gave us some of our desired outcomes.
Such as the return Ahsoka Tano to animation and live action, a soft glance at an anthology for Reylo, and re-canonizing Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Since the Star Wars Actors Guild 77 fan group focuses on Star Wars Expanded Universe (SWEU) and later called, Star Wars Legends characters and stories, we chose Thrawn as a focal point and ran activities that we felt would have some influence on future programming. We accomplished our desired outcome through animation in 2016 where we saw Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Star Wars Rebels animated show.
Now, we hope to see Thrawn in live action and hopefully in cinema.
What we see some fan thinking is an ignorance about The Walt Disney Corporation’s tenets and what will work, and what will not work.
Some fans will same fan groups are meaningless in some programming decisions and we understand that. And we think that if done in a professional matter, at least The Walt Disney Corporation and their affiliates will hear us out. We will continue for positive action process in our campaigns.
I am tearful as I write this information because I fear no Star Wars fan hears me. I feel I should bow out, but I have FOMO and the minute I stop my creation will work. These facts depress me. I feel useless and less important each day. When I should be proud of my work. How and why do I keep going?
What hurts the owner the most about The Star Wars Actors Guild 77 is the time spent on lifting vague inklings to fulminant profitable ideas, such as:
Star Wars Celebration 2017, 2015 and 2012
SWAG77 commissioned the REYLO art by the fan artist Panda Capuccino. Today, I have not been able to contact her, anymore.
My idea for Star Wars Celebration is to legitimize online Star Wars fan groups on social media. I had no idea how to put that together. I had not done that before. I asked for help and received no input.
So, I read business magazines, read some business aspects of Facebook and Twitter, and set it up that way. I had organized major Health Forums in my city with vendors, such as Pfizer and the Komen Breast Cancer organizations. And I gave it up because it because taxing for me to do. They gave me funding to organize Health Forums for diverse women.
But, to put together Star Wars Celebration fan tables for online Star Wars fan groups was not frequent activity in 2012.
I spent a lot of money each time.
I had Star Wars fans walk out on me and then bad-mouth and lie about me behind my back. It hurts. But my Star Wars fandom was undeterred. I had worse in my Ph.D. program and that was in my face.
I did not give up my Star Wars fandom. I decided to create better programming for SWAG77 beyond fan-fiction writing, reading and review of the literature, and creating fan art for the stories we perform.
I started with creation of a campaign. One where Disney would at least hear us. It was not Lucasfilm Limited we had to convince. It was the Disney Board of Directors and programming that asked questions.
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm Limited, there were a lot of loose ends. Most of those ends in terms of contracts were frayed. Disney lawyers do not allow that. So all those loose ends had to be tied together.
Unfortunately, that meant that Disney had to cut some of those ends and one of them were the Star Wars Expanded Universe that many longtime fans knew.
This issue is about budgets. Disney reviewed the numbers with a fine toothed comb and discovered inconsistencies that caused the loose ends. The inconsistencies are a drain to move projects forward. To stop that headache in terms of creative control that can become costly, that meant converting most of the previous material to “Legends” canon.
Since SWAG77 consists of online social media roleplayers, where most roleplayers at the time knew the SWEU now Legends, it was a blow to our hearts to hear our beloved stories were meaningless after spending thousands of dollars on ideas. Many longtime fans that includes roleplayers either left the fandom or became real-time Star Wars fans.
Some fans fought back and put up billboards and harassed fans that took a wait and see attitude. SWAG77 had several of its Facebook paged dedicated to the new Star Wars content claiming we were meaningless. It is not their criticism we disliked receiving, it was their profanity and their offensive meme arts. It is not their dislike of the new characters that is at issue, it is their pointed attacks on specific characters because of their immutable differences, such as being Black, a woman or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
It is fine by SWAG77 to dislike and criticism that the material is disliked. It is wrong to use profanity to describe one’s criticism. But on social media, fans do not care. It is fine by SWAG77 to dislike the new characters and prefer the old characters, but it is wrong to use diverse immutable difference to justify one’s hatred of the new characters. How does a person change their skin color? Or decide to remain their assigned gender? Or transition into their preferred gender or love someone of the same gender? Why hurt people based on looks that cannot be changed like a television channel?
Why does SWAG77 care? Because the owner is a Black woman – a member of BIPOC – and will choose love over hate every single time..
Based on a last attack in 2014 over these issues, SWAG77 pursue an active social media campaign that was organized just like a political cause campaign since the owner had lots of experience in political causes, such as marching and protesting with Hosea Williams in Forsyth County, Georgia who ran out all the Black people who wanted to live there. Such as ending Apartheid in South Africa through Amnesty International. Such as voter registration activities, health care initiatives, fighting for the Affordable Care Act because she had three family members languish in pain in skilled nursing care.
The owner just thought, that if these Star Wars fans truly wanted some of the Legends to return, the hear is how to get Disney to listen. And to listen is all about “THE ASK” for corporations. We started in 2014, but launched in 2015 after hearing quotes from a voice actor for the Star Wars Legends character, GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN.
I thought rallying fans would be easy. I was wrong. Everything done got disparaged. Fortunately not in any known podcasts or blogs like our roleplay stories and scripts were. And even now, Star Wars fans have the audacity to belittle all the work it took to GET THRAWN IN BACK INTO CANON by saying Disney Star Wars sucks and Star Wars Rebels Thrawn is a clown.
Look: Disney HEARD US BECAUSE OUR ASK WAS ABOUT THE PROMOTION OF ART. And as any Thrawn fan knows, ART is central to this character and its development. FANS ARE LUCKY that Disney Lucasfilm Limited HEARD what we said.
Because in 2015, NO FAN that currently pops off like a fruit knew who THRAWN was. Only a FEW DEDICATED COSPLAYERS and fan artists did.
We broke a part the campaign into 3 programs: The overall attributes of Thrawn that we wanted; how the children can be included, and the art evaluation program.
The overall attributes were “blue papers” – like white papers but for Thrawn in blue. The art evaluation — appreciation of fine art and criticism 101 was a great idea until I learned that many fans had no clue about the fine arts and that exposure was more important. But the inclusion of children took a turn into ysalamiri and one member took over than process because I was inundated with the overall attributes and paying for the social media to operate the campaign.
It became SAVE THE YSALAMIRI. I created it like “Save the Whales” after reviewing several “SAVE” animal websites. The member told me an idea, and I took it a step further based on the campaign. I needed funding, but the member was fine doing it for free. So, I allowed it. When a business takes a donation without set up, it is reviewed by the IRS in such a way that gets a business audited. I was not set up for donations. The IRS wants to know who are these people giving me money — i.e. are they drug dealers laundering money and is your business a front? I don’t have lawyers to where I can afford the protection like companies. So that is why I let things go, but at least have some acknowledgement of my business’ involvement.
The issue is this would have never happened if I did not pursue GETTING THRAWN IN as a campaign to make Thrawn canon.
And maybe Lucasfilm considered the possibility of Thrawn back into canon. From the rumors, I don’t know to be true, there was a list of characters and Thrawn’s name was somewhere in the middle. Our Star Wars Celebration 2015 fan table shoved Thrawn’s name to the top, especially with that simplistic video. And the fact that Dave Filoni came by our booth early and I was so sick (I had caught a cold where my tonsils swelled and I had to go to the ER at 3 AM) and had to get treated in another city.
I would not slog through a serious health issue if I did not think GET THRAWN IN would not work. My health is more important than this fandom.
And let me tell you why.
At the end of Star Wars Celebration 2012, I saw a cosplayer dress as a Sith, rather heavy-set man, spalled out on the floor where the paramedics were reaching for their AED (automatic external defibrillator). The paramedics and police were racing to save this man’s life. I do not know who he was or what more happened. But as a health professional, I knew this Star Wars fan, and many like him for different conditions, needed improved health activities at conventions. To use the fandom to encourage healthy behaviors.
I CAN DO THAT. I HAVE BEEN TRAINED FOR THAT.
That is the main reason why I have not left Star Wars Fandom. Because, I never want to see some dude have a heart attack when these conventions are meant to be about fun. I never want to see a fan raging in a mental health issue when there are fans to talk other down. No one should suffer in any fandom healthwise, and my fandom happens to be Star Wars.
So when fans bash me, I remember than man, a cosplayer on the floor of a con slowly dying from cardiac arrest when probably he just wanted to have fun.
And I can do something about that.
But, I should have left a long time ago. I am not going to Star Wars Celebration 2022. I am immunocompromised and COVID19 would kill me, even though I am fully vaccinated. I cannot risk it. I have gotten sick at Anaheim Convention Center before and all though crowds make me nervous these days.
I can be online, from afar, I’m not a metaverse person. I just want to be a part of the fandom
Currently, I have to fund rase to bring forth better programming. I am doing that by capital investments. We would like fans to help us with a purchase of a NFT or t-shirt. With better programs, we can help influence Disney for more Star Wars content.
Each piece corresponds to a story on SWAG77 Patreon: Surfer!Thrawn and Snowboard!Thrawn. We say Thrawn likes to surf and snowboard. He’s into extreme sports. This is another of SWAG77 programs.
There is also Death Star Putt Putt at our booth were fans can compete for 5X T-shirts. These shirts would be our 5X sized shirts. We have a story about how we came up with that idea.
We have done the SWAG77 Podcast in the past. We will pick it up in the future. But the market is saturated.
Our main commission of Thrawn X Sabine fan art created by Elthien, is based off the silent movie “Forbidden Paradise” from 1924. It is about a royal woman who falls in love with a foreign soldier who discovers a revolution in her country. It stars Pola Negri and Rod la Rocque.
By Elithein Art
Our NFT location shows all our artwork we have created
Following the tropes of these kinds of stories, I support Sabine Wren.
The Darksaber called to her. She didn’t have to pick it up.
She could have:
Ignored it
Pick it up, realized what it was, then drop it
Pick it up realize what it was and hand it to a wielder to the Force.
Sabine discovers the Darksaber Maul left behind, picks it up and realizes what it is.
Which she did.
Sabine has to decide if she wants to be trained to use the Darksaber.
Then she refused to train, but it was Hera that talked her into it. Kanan allowed Sabine to train with the Darksaber despite how dangerous it was.
Din Djarin (Mando) CONFISCATED the Darksaber from a non-Mandalorian (dar’manda). Confiscation is NOT being called to it. Now we find out the Darksaber has become too heavy for him. Why is it heavy for Din Djarin is up for speculation.
WE speculate that Din Djarin may have fought for the Empire as a Mandalorian like Gar Saxon. Then, his mind was erased by the Empire and dropped him off somewhere to find himself as a bounty hunter. Din Djarin’s forced amnesia causes a block to use the Darksaber and requires Din Djarin to break through it.
Maybe Luke Skywalker can break Din Djarin’s block. Fans will have to see.
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