#thanks for plalying!

[nny11writes]

For the fun author ask!:) Ahsoka let herself become numb. She turned her face to stare up at the Council, and for the first time wondered who had actually been on her side. From the split Council to the split jury. Her mind quiets and Ahsoka simply stares blankly instead of seeing. A split vote meant very little right now. Not when her own Master is sitting right up there and for all his insistence that he wanted to help her, for all he professed his love in his own way, her Master stays silent.

HHoooooooooooooooooo boy, you just dove right on in! :D A’ight, here we go on the sentencing scene from The Apprenticeship from the Close But No Cigar AU. 

Commentary will be in bold!

Ahsoka let herself become numb. 

For the first time ever in her life, Ahsoka Tano has given up.

She has dissociated before and is actually grateful for it now, happily surrendering to it because she can’t take anymore.

She turned her face to stare up at the Council, and for the first time wondered who had actually been on her side. From the split Council to the split jury. 

In this fic, even though Ahsoka already knew that it was split she’d never really given it thought to figure out who was in her corner. She had made a LOT of assumptions by this point and they’re all getting knocked down one by one.

Which is unfortunate because Ahsoka doesn’t actually know what happened. Over the years both Ahsoka and Yoda have made mistakes and withdrawn from one another. Yoda may have slammed the wedge between them, but Ahsoka keeps pounding it deeper and deeper.

Her mind quiets and Ahsoka simply stares blankly instead of seeing. A split vote meant very little right now.

She’s not wrong and that’s the thing that’s crazy. A split decision means nothing because it wouldn’t have mattered if the Jedi or Republic found her innocent. Palpatine wanted her gone and he needed to sow distrust for the Jedi, he would have twisted those decisions regardless. But by having it Ahsoka can jump wildly to conclusions.

Not when her own Master is sitting right up there and for all his insistence that he wanted to help her, for all he professed his love in his own way, her Master stays silent.

This is one of the most poignant moments in the whole story.

At the end of the day, this story in particular is about the familial relationship between Ahsoka and everyone else, but in particular to Master Yoda.

It’s wonderful that in canon Ahsoka doesn’t vilify Anakin for his role in her trials, even though he’d been helping to search for her. It’s also just...not the way I think that would’ve actually happened.

Master-Padawan relationships are deep and close and loving and complicated and messy and beautiful and life long. Ahsoka and Yoda are no exception.

But they were wildly different people with different ways of showing their love and care.

I’ve talked about this before, but I love Yoda. He’s a fantastic character and I think he’s a good person too. But being a good person does not mean you are always good. As such he’s written in a way that leaves his true motives unknown to Ahsoka and to the readers, and that was by design. I wanted everyone to be questioning what his role in this whole mess had really been, not just the trial but their apprenticeship.

Ahsoka can’t know that right now Yoda is literally thinking about jail breaking her out of this situation to run away as vagabonds. She doesn’t know that he genuinely regrets what he did to her, or that this whole situation has literally turned his world upside down.

This was, in part, meant to echo the earlier sentiment of “who was really in my corner”. When the Jedi trial happened, Yoda was not on her side BECAUSE of his bias towards her. Ever since then he has been. He’s been actively giving Obi-Wan, Qui Gon, and Anakin resources to find any evidence they can. He’s been staying up at night meditating by himself and with Mace to try and find a lead or an answer. He’s slept almost as little as she has, sick to death with fear and worry and the dawning realization that this whole karked up situation is his fault.

But Ahsoka doesn’t know that.

So right here? This is where Ahsoka really truly gives up on him too. Believes that there is nothing to salvage, nothing worthwhile or good left. That it was something of a farce the whole time.

And she’ll believe that for the next decade at least.

Master Yoda had once sat with her during a meditation, explaining through impressions and even some vague memories on how she should let the Force guide her. That she was not more important or all knowing, that she needed to have faith that it would do what was needed. Knowing when to speak up and knowing when to be silent, and always, always listening to the will of the Force.

BONUS TIME

Because this is where I dove into some of what I just talked about. This is Yoda’s known tried and true method, and he used it now as well. Right at this moment he is silent because speaking up would do nothing but hurt them all further and make the situation worse.

I know that this is an unpopular opinion with many fans, but the Order actually handled what happened in canon to the best of their ability. Anakin gets away with ignoring the reality of the galaxy because people like the Council take the hit for him over and over again. They could not have done anything to help her without having destroyed themselves.

Yes, even banning Ahsoka from the Order. Their hands were tied and they could not give up the life of every other Jedi for Ahsoka Tano, no matter how unjust and unfair her situation was.

In canon I don’t think Palpatine had a hand in the bombing at all, but he certainly used it to push his own agenda hard enough so the Jedi would lose and he would win.

Ahsoka hoped that he could sense something she could not. She hoped that it had nothing to do with letting this injustice stand. She hoped that he would fight.

Yoda stood, his gaze catching hers for a moment, his ears drooping, and was gone.

Again, Ahsoka has no way of knowing that Yoda isn’t abandoning her here. She’s exhausted and currently isn’t existing within her own body and mind. Her hope in this moment is the weakest hope she’s ever had. Hope with dread that she already knows what will happen.

The great tragedy of Star Wars, in my opinion, is that so many people who are so full of love never fully express it to one another. That miscommunication and misunderstanding around love is what tears some of it’s kindest people down and turns them into cold villainous people.

And it was not by happenstance that I made this particular scene go like this.

In this AU, Palpatine is still not directly responsible for the bombing, but he’s more aware of the players because he’s been trying to get rid of Tano for years at this point.

Palpatine’s plan involved him knowing about Barriss and Kalifa going to anti-Jedi rallies, but Barriss turned aside and Kalifa doubled down thanks to her trauma. Palpatine has tried for a long while now to have Ahsoka fall because of her high status and public persona, and he was hoping that if she fell he could make a case against Yoda who’s apprentices turn dark and attack the Republic. How do we know that Yoda has not done this on purpose? He wishes to destroy the Republic and install the Jedi as a military dictatorship!

(The worst part is, Ahsoka is on a knifes edge here, closer than any of them really realize to going either way. This is actually a moment I’ve considered writing an AU for, because this could be the moment this Ahsoka becomes a Sith.)

Palpatine doesn’t know who the chosen one is but he will settle for Ahsoka or Kalifa as a throw away apprentice or inquisitor while he waits. So he pits them against one another and puts himself into a win win scenario, no matter what happens he will be rid Tano as an obstacle and have her as a tool to destroy Yoda and the Order by extension.

His direct involvement makes the Force a chaotic mess, which hamstrings Yoda who is crystallized in his ways, which pushes Tano ever closer to one of two instabilities in Palpatine’s mind.

Any way it gets sliced, he’s revealed the cracks in their foundation and let Yoda and Ahsoka destroy what they had themselves.

#Ahsoka Tano #Yoda #Palpatine #Emperor Palpatine #Darth Sidious #Sidious #CBNC #The Apprenticeship #star wars #fanfic #fanfiction #director's cut #dvd commentary #ask game #thanks for plalying! #lightasthesun