Twilek headtails are basically fat storage, right? Orn Free Taa’s are engorged and he seems to have grown another two. They’re on a planet with regular food scarcity, so it would make sense too. Imagine how much they could do with that.
Twi’leks who can tell when others are regularly hungry based on the size and consistency of their lekku. Slaves and other vulnerable Twi’leks being easily identifiable, by the way they move. Their lekku movements grow sluggish, the tone changes.
For people with the observational skills and knowledge it’s easy, but Padme and Orn Free Taa once had to collaborate on a space Power Point on a famine that involved carefully pointing out every lekku marker of malnourishment in holos of settler children so the Senate would understand it.
Extra lekku being a status symbol because it means that you have literally so much wealth your body has to stretch to hold it all. Cham Syndulla brings back the lean and mean look with his nationalist fervour, and then it’s a bit stylish to have solid well built up lekku, all healthy fat, regularly fed but not overdone.
Slim lekku coming into ‘fashion’ on other worlds, even though it’s not always as healthy, and everything that would bring.
Babies with their tiny lekku being fed extra well to make sure they’ll grow up with nice long ones. Grandmothers swear they can tell who grew up in a rich family and who didn’t even when they’re adults, just based off their lekku.
Young Hera who only eats every few days and then in binges, because even if it isn’t entirely healthy for her it works a lot better for her than for a human. Then Kanan comes on board and he has to eat every single day, basically. (he protests, but she knows how humans work) and she finds it’s better for her as well, that her lekku fill in and grow stronger.
Aayla Secura giving up rations in a siege situation, because she can handle it a lot better than her men, and her lekku get limp and droopy. All the clones fuss once they’re in safety to make sure she eats enough to get her health back.
Well, lekku have muscles, too. Not just fat storage appendages.
Fair enough! I did factor in movement a little bit up there, but I wasn’t sure how flexible they were. I still hold that you can see clear dimpling on Oola and Orn Free Taa’s clearly grew to match him, so I’d still say there’s a solid chance they fill in canon as well as legends, something of the same function as (prehensile) camel’s humps, storage for lean times on a less than welcoming planet.
On that note I’d also love to see a diagram of how they work anatomically, because unless there’s some major bone structure in there they look like they’re likely to work more as muscular hydrostats than tails, which is fascinating, and would account for some major muscle mass inside the average set of lekku. (Not much of a chance of getting brain matter in there though, at least in female twileks. The skull is not designed to work like that.)
In short, I’d like to see some Twi’lek skulls and also it’s more accurate to call them head trunks or head tongues, as opposed to head tails.
A Middleground 