#this applies less to the ones that are literally about jedi/sith

[telltaletypist]

i partially judge star wars spin off media by how long it can they can restrain themselves from having someone pull out a lightsaber

#this applies less to the ones that are literally about jedi/sith #but anything that purports to be about a regular person like a gangster or a bounty hunter or something #star wars #especially set after order 66 #it's t minus until they run into one of the apparently billions of lone survivors just hanging out in the galaxy #ready to whip it out at a moment's notice like someone in hiding definitely would

[phoenixyfriend]

Anakin and the Jedi Babies: Where There’s a Whill, There’s a Windu

Context: original post, chrono

(Summary of the AU: Disaster lineage got tossed back in time. Anakin stayed 21-ish, but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got deaged, took new names for time-travel reasons (Ylliben and Sokanth, or Ben and Soka) and have been officially adopted by Anakin.)

----------------------

“You’re attached.”

“You’re just now noticing?”

Master Windu eyes him for a few long moments, and then joins him on the ground. Anakin can’t help but smirk. There’s something gratifying about having respect from the man, in this life.

“The other members of the council are concerned.”

“And you aren’t?”

“I am, but for other reasons,” Windu says.

Anakin doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t even respond for a long minute. He just looks out over the Room of a Thousand Fountains, spread out below them like hundreds of jungles pieced together in a jigsaw of flora. It’s been his favorite room in the Temple since he was a child, and it’s always overwhelming.

“Most of them have accepted that you adopted them because of Mandalorian customs, and that you stayed where you were due to the will of the Force,” Windu continues. “But they are… uncomfortable with how blatantly your attachments show.”

“Mandalorians are loud and refuse shame. It rubbed off.”

“You said you would kill for these children.”

“I’m their father. That’s kind of expected.”

Windu’s expression is tired. A little tired of stress, but mostly tired of Anakin’s shit. “You know what I’m trying to get at.”

“Do I?”

“Skywalker.”

“No, I’m serious. I need you to spell this out. I’ve had a million slightly-contradicting lectures on this topic, and I’ve been told pretty clearly that I misinterpreted a solid half of them. If you want a constructive conversation, you can’t be vague. I’m thirty-three years old and a father of two, Master Windu, so yes, I’m attached. What you mean by that word is going to change where this conversation goes.”

It’s gratifying to see the Master actually think it over.

“Ylliben’s tattoos have been causing the most recent stir,” Windu finally says. “They nearly all relate to family, whether new or old, and the symbolism is concerning to those who are already upset about the Mandalorian upbringing. They worry that he’ll remain too tied to people he grew up with, and unable to maintain neutrality in future diplomatic ventures, or at risk of a fall if one of the people he’s seen fit to memorialize is injured or killed. The assume a similar state of mind may be applicable to your daughter and yourself, especially given the off-color jokes about how possessive your children are about each other.”

“They’re worried about emotional immaturity,” Anakin summarizes. He offers a wan, unimpressed grin. “They do realize he’s fourteen, right? Nobody’s emotionally stable at fourteen. The hormones are out of whack.”

“I’m aware,” Windu grinds out. “And I’m aware that your histories, of war and all such things, make your ties much stronger, but you can see why the Council worries, especially those who are wary of the memories your children carry but won’t explain. I’m the only one you’ve told, Skywalker.”

“Plo and Depa know.”

“Plo and Depa aren’t on the council.”

“Yet.”

“Skywalker.”

He relents. “It’s not about Mandalore, Master Windu. It’s about Tatooine.”

Windu lets that sit for a few moments, and then sighs. “I don’t know enough about Tatooine to parse that.”

“Shmi and I are former slaves,” Anakin says, as bluntly as he can. “I was freed at nine, she at eleven, and for all that we are free, we’re not freeborn. We were born slaves, and raised slaves, and we were freed too late to forget that life. The way we think is always going to be affected by the way we grew up. That applies to all sentients, more or less, but it’s… the slave mentality is completely at odds with Jedi teachings, because Jedi teachings can only be taught in a safe environment.”

Windu nods slowly, and says, “That does make sense, but it’s… forgive me, but that’s why we don’t normally take children older than four.”

“From the perspective of teaching cultural values, that makes sense,” Anakin allows. “Teaching a Jedi child that’s cared for with communal resources that they do not need material things to be happy is fine; trying to convince a slave child of the same, someone who grew up being told they do not deserve material things, and that their owner can take anything at any time, including family? I lived that life, trying to adjust to ascetic Jedi values that coincided poorly with slave rules. I know exactly how poorly that transition can go when the person caring for the child doesn’t know how to handle the points of conflict.”

“Do you regret joining the Jedi?” Windu asks.

Anakin shakes his head. “My Jedi master, bless him, cared, and tried very hard, but he wasn’t ready to handle a kid like me and in hindsight, I know that. He needed grief counseling, and I needed therapy, and neither of us was getting it. I don’t… I don’t believe anyone in the Temple would have known how to handle a kid like me.”

“But you don’t regret it.”

“I was meant to be a Jedi,” Anakin says, as firmly as he can without getting unnecessarily bitchy about it. “My struggles with the Code aside, I was meant to be here. But the Temple doesn’t have any resources for children who come older, and I think… I think you do need that.”

“You just outlined why a child can’t follow the Code if they come from a different enough background,” Windu says.

Anakin shakes his head. “No, that’s not—I think a kid like me can learn to be a Jedi, if a little unconventional, if they’re taught correctly. The desperation to cling to anyone and anything you have can be unlearned. It takes time and effort, but it’s possible. Soka and Ben are good at balancing Tatooine care with Jedi control. If you talk to Ben, you get an entire philosophical breakdown about it, but I’m more concerned with the child psychology, because that’s what could have broken me.”

Windu frowns. “You’re building up to something.”

“I think the Jedi need programs for children found older who can’t become full Jedi,” Anakin asserts. “Even those who cannot reconcile what they absorbed growing up with the Code and Jedi tradition… they, we, need guidance. The Council tried to reject me for being too old, and now that I’m grown I understand why, but… Master Windu, what do you think would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my Master to fight for me, and had been turned away?”

“We’d have looked into placing you back with your mother and, upon finding out that she was still enslaved, secured her freedom,” Master Windu says. “Qui-Gon Jinn had taken responsibility for you, and thus you were a ward of the Temple until such a time as you were safe again. It would have been cruel to keep you from your mother if we were not to raise you a Jedi, and crueler still to allow you to return to slavery.”

“And you think I’d have been safe with her?” Anakin asks. He needs Master Windu to understand this. “You think that would have ended well?”

“You don’t?”

“Ventress,” Anakin says. “Maul. Aurra Sing, even.”

Windu considers that. He looks across the grand, green room of the garden, and finally speaks. “You think you’d have been found and corrupted by a Sith.”

“I’d already helped Naboo win a battle. I was a powerful child with no support system in this respect, eager to please,” Anakin says. “Ventress and Maul both got twisted into Sith Apprentices. Aurra Sing was just a bounty hunter, but… even if the Jedi had never found me, and the Sith remained unaware, do you think I’d have ended up better than Sing? Or would the pressures of slavery have led to my Fall anyway, eventually slaughtering my owner, the Hutts, the entire system of Tatooine’s hells?”

Windu rubs a hand over his forehead. “I understand what you’re getting at.”

“It’s not just me,” Anakin says, as carefully as he can. “Even without the Sith, there are plenty of Force-Sensitive children in terrible situations that are liable to Fall just because of how power is wielded by those at the bottom. Refusing to take on students who are already at risk… the Jedi are meant to monitor Force users to prevent Sith and other dark-aligned people from harming the galaxy. It’s one of our primary duties. If the Jedi are allowing darksiders to rise just because of an age limit…”

“I get it,” Windu says, just a little aggressive. “I understand. Give me a minute.”

Anakin tries to wait. He’s older now, he can do that. He can be patient.

He tries to convince himself that it’s true.

“You have a point,” Master Windu finally allows. “And with the knowledge that the Sith are out there, still, it’s a more salient point than most would think. The EduCorps already has a subdivision for teaching meditative techniques to low-level force users who need to learn shielding but aren’t sensitive enough to be Jedi, or are just too old, but I see your point about encouraging a program for powerful Force-Sensitives that aren’t discovered early enough to integrate into the community in full.”

“And a more comprehensive Search pattern for the Outer Rim?” Anakin suggests. He shrugs at the look he gets. “What? You’ve seen my midicount. I was on Tatooine for almost a decade, and the only reason anyone found me was that Qui-Gon had to crash a ship in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure the Force led him to me, given all the coincidences, but that’s still a solid nine years that nobody did, despite how I apparently ‘shine like the sun’ or whatever.”

“Humble.”

“The last time I took a midichlorian test on a portable counter, it literally broke the device. That’s not arrogance, that’s just absurd.”

Windu looks exhausted by the comment. Anakin can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it.

“What about Jedha?” Anakin suggests instead. “Jedi find the kids, but if they’re too old to be Jedi, we could coordinate with one of the temples at Jedha to see about having them raised in the traditions of the Whills? They’re a little less orthodox, aren’t they?”

“In some respects,” Master Windu says. “More constrained in others, but… it’s a possibility. Most of the overlooked children, yourself included, are from parts of the Outer Rim that aren’t part of the Republic, Skywalker.”

Anakin shrugs. “And many of them would have been happy to be found and collected by a Jedi, even if they couldn’t become Jedi. Not the Dathomiri, since they’ve got their own thing going on, but… from what I know about Ventress, she actually did have a Jedi Master before the situation on Rattatak became… what’s the word… untenable? He died and she was left alone, and she’d been a slave already and it just… did not end well for her. But that was a planet overrun by pirates and warlords, and would have been approved as a planet the Jedi could help without it being a weird colonialism thing… if the Senate weren’t made up of cheapskates, at least.”

“Skywalker.”

“My name isn’t actually a reprimand, you know.”

“You’re not supposed to just say that,” Windu groans, running a hand over his face. “The Senate’s choice in funding is not optimal, but insulting them in that way, even in private—”

“They’re assholes,” Anakin says, and doesn’t let his humor show. “Except my late wife, but she’s not part of the Senate in this time, so I feel no shame in accusing the entire shitshow of being cheapskates.”

Windu looks about ready to push him off the ledge.

“You’re never allowed to go on diplomatic missions, are you?” Windu mutters.

“Unless it’s to Mandalore,” Anakin clarifies. “Also, never send me to Tatooine. Ever. Please. I kriffing hate that planet.”

“I’m going to assume you have plans to kill a Hutt if we ever send you to—”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Windu sighs. “I’ll discuss this with the Council, see how they feel about reaching out to Jedha for your suggestion regarding the Whills.”

“And you’ll tell them not to worry about my kids?”

“Skywalker, they are never going to stop worrying about your family,” Windu tells him.

“That’s fair.”

#Anakin Skywalker #Mace Windu #Obi Wan Kenobi #time travel #de aging #Jedha #Jedi #Phoenix Posts #Anakin and the Jedi Babies

[transmalewife]

Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

#star wars meta #attachment #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #yoda #jedi order #mine

[cloudyskywars]

Back to December is about Anakin and Obi-Wan and here’s 2,000 words why

So there I was, listening to Back to December, you know, as one does. And then I nearly started crying because this is without a doubt an Anakin and Obi-Wan song. I roped my friend @renegadeontherunn into doing a full song analysis with me. The whole analysis is based from Anakin singing this to Obi-Wan immediately after the events of Return of the Jedi. So everyone’s a Force Ghost, and feelings ensue. Enjoy the angst! 

The analysis will be below the cut, because as I said, it’s approximately 2,000 words. 

I'm so glad you made time to see me/ How's life? Tell me, how's your family?/ I haven't seen them in a while - Obi-Wan’s family was the Jedi. And Anakin has spent the past twenty five years hunting down the Jedi, eliminating them one by one. And now that he’s one with the Force, he’s gotta be wondering, “Are the other Jedi here too?” because he may not have realized it, but they were his family as well. I’m just imagining Anakin asking Obi-Wan where everyone else is, and Obi-Wan having to tell him that not everyone stayed with the Force the way that he and Yoda did.  

Your guard is up and I know why- Obi-Wan’s guard probably wasn’t up, but Anakin would expect it to be. He rightfully feels guilty, and probably expects Obi-Wan to hate him and not trust him anymore. 

Because the last time you saw me/ Is still burned in the back of your mind - on Mustafar, Anakin literally burning, the image no doubt haunting Obi-Wan ever since. In Obi-Wan’s 20 years on Tatooine, how many times do you think he replayed that memory in his mind? You were my brother Anakin, I loved you/I hate you. (grouped with previous two lines)

So this is me swallowin' my pride- Anakin as a Force Ghost, standing in front of Obi-Wan. He’s asking, begging for forgiveness, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Anakin was always prideful for a Jedi, and this is him humbling himself and asking for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness (for so many things; Order 66, turning to the dark side, killing the Jedi, killing him)

Standin' in front of you sayin' I'm sorry for that night - the night Anakin fell to the Dark Side, their fight on Mustafar, and also probably the last 20+ years of him as a Sith and causing so much death and destruction. He’s sorry for so much, but especially that night when everything went wrong. 

And I go back to December all the time - he revisits that battle in his mind constantly, still hating Obi-Wan as Vader, but feeling deep (deep deep) down, an enormous sense of regret and guilt, and especially at the end when he reunites with Obi-Wan

It turns out freedom ain't nothin' but missin' you - We see in Episode 2 that Anakin feels that Obi-Wan is constantly holding him back, preventing him from reaching his full potential (feelings no doubt put there by Palpatine) Once he turns to the Dark Side, he believes he is stronger than ever, (“I’m stronger than the Emperor, I can overthrow him.”)and so most likely feels “free” from Obi-Wan and the duty of being a Jedi. But we know that he learned, eventually, that all the Dark Side brings is loneliness and despair. “It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith — because now yourself is all you will ever have.” 

Wishin' I'd realized what I had when you were mine - Anakin spent much of his time as Obi-Wan’s Padawan feeling less than and like he was never good enough for Obi-Wan. Then, when he finally became a Knight, he still felt held back by the Jedi. In reality, he had a substantial support system there waiting for him, ready to help him, that he never realized existed. He had the tools and the people he needed to be a successful Jedi and to have a happy life and to stay in the Light, but he didn’t use them. And now he’s wishing he had. That he’d recognized his and Obi-Wan’s friendship when he’d had it.

I'd go back to December, turn around and make it alright- Can you IMAGINE the regret Anakin is feeling right now? After 25 years of being the terror of the galaxy, Darth Vader, he has finally returned from the dark and knows all the bad things he’s done, and now recognizes that they were bad things. He slaughtered younglings, helped strike down the remaining Jedi, even took away the clones’ free will. Just imagining the pure regret that he must be feeling at this moment. 

These days, I haven't been sleepin' - REVENGE OF THE SITH ANYONE??? We know for a fact due to the Matthew Stover novelization of ROTS that Anakin was getting almost no sleep during the events of the movie. I believe when he Fell he had been without sleep for,,,, at least three days? (I think it was five but I’m not sure)  Anakin please take a nap. Nightmares!!! But also, as Vader, I’m pretty sure Anakin doesn’t actually need to sleep or at least doesn’t need a ton of it, so again he’s literally not sleeping and only sustaining himself on the Dark Side.

Stayin' up playin' back myself leavin'- Do you think- do you ever think that during his time as Darth Vader, he would constantly replay those days when everything fell apart in his head? I’m specifically thinking about the scene where he marches on the Jedi Temple. Granted, in that scene, he isn’t leaving, per say. He’s returning home, but it is no longer the place he calls home. I imagine that scene playing on repeat in his mind, because that’s the moment that he passed the point of no return. Before that, yes, he had already screwed up, big time. But he hadn’t crossed the line yet, I don't think. 

Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times- At this moment I’m sure he’s feeling loads and loads of guilt and regret, as discussed above. But I can’t help but think he’s also thinking about the good times he shared with Obi-Wan and Padme. (Padme specifically because of summer and Naboo for that one good week, where they fell in love and it was beautiful.) And although his relationship with Obi-Wan was strained near the end (and eventually fell apart) there were good times, times that they both cherished. During his time as Darth Vader, he probably looked back on those memories with hate. But now that he’s Anakin again, he is probably remembering those times fondly.

I watched you laughin' from the passenger's side- [insert gif of Obi-Wan smiling in the speeder] 

And realized I loved you in the fall - in the Fall. This could be for either Anakin or Obi-Wan. There must’ve been a part of Anakin that knew he was lying when he shouted “I hate you!” and felt happy when Obi-Wan said he loved him. And for Obi-Wan, he knew he loved Anakin, he had just never said it to him before. The only time he did was when Anakin had Fallen and was dying. And he probably regretted that with every piece of himself during his exile on Tatooine. 

And then the cold came, the dark days - There are so many instances where Palpatine is connected with the cold, with darkness, with everything that is the opposite of the Jedi and, more importantly, of Obi-Wan. The darkness referred to here is the Dark Side, when it became overwhelming and Anakin fell.

When fear crept into my mind - Anakin’s already-intense fears of never being good enough or Obi-Wan not reciprocating Anakin’s love were intensified and heightened by Palpatine’s influence and him planting even more fear and doubt into Anakin’s head. This fear and this doubt in his friendship with Obi-Wan was ultimately one of the reasons he fell. Yes, it was his fear for Padme’s life that really did him in. Anakin was known as “The Hero With No Fear.” But there at the end, he became a person full of fear, and as we know: “Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.”

You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye -Again, this is Anakin finally realizing that Obi-Wan did love him, that he was a good Master for him, and it was Anakin who hadn’t seen it, who had betrayed him. There is a quote from the book Lords of the Sith in which Vader acknowledges his betrayal of everyone he loved. Palpatine: “‘You were a traitor, were you not, Lord Vader?... To the Jedi. To Padme. To Obi-Wan. To all those you loved.’ Vader: Vader did not know the answer his Master wanted to hear, so he simply answered with the truth. ‘Yes.”’

I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind- Talking about guilt, again. Without a doubt, Anakin would go back to where it all went wrong if he could. He wouldn’t turn, he’d save Padme, he’d do everything differently if he could.

I miss your tan skin, your sweet smile/ So good to me, so right- Obi-Wan was so good to him. Obviously in a platonic sense. But Obi-Wan was the best Master for Anakin, and you can’t change my mind. Even if they had a rough start and maybe Obi-Wan should have had some time to recover from his Master dying before he took on his Padawan of his own, but I digress. He did the best he could with Anakin, and was most likely far more patient and understanding than other Jedi Masters would have been. Of course at the time, Anakin did realize this and only resented Obi-Wan. Hindsight is 2020, and Anakin would have only realized after everything went down how good Obi-Wan was to him. 

And how you held me in your arms that September night/ The first time you ever saw me cry - This one doesn’t exactly fit because apparently Anakin and Obi-Wan never hug in canon and that is a crime (Filoni and Lucas I’m coming for you). But I am pointedly ignoring canon and choosing to believe that when things got really hard or bad, (after Satine died, maybe even after Ahsoka left the Order) they hugged. Maybe it was a sad hug, the kind where one of them breaks down in tears and the other just holds them as they cry. But I am confident that they have hugged, so this line applies to them. Fight me on it, I dare you. (I’m kidding but only partially) 

But if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right - After realizing how wrong he was in becoming Vader and how his relationship with Obi-Wan wasn’t one-sided, and especially after seeing the pure, selfless love of Luke, which ultimately brings him back to the Light, Anakin is no doubt thinking of the millions of ways he could’ve done better. He wants Obi-Wan to know how sorry he is and that, yes it took him all these years, but he’s learned his lesson. If he could do it all again, which he probably wants to, he would do it right this time. He swears to himself (and to Obi-Wan) that if he just gets this second chance, he’ll do everything right. 

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't- Anakin knows he can’t go back and fix everything, no matter how much he may want to. All he can do is ask, beg, even, for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness

So if the chain is on your door, I understand - the metaphorical chain isn’t on Obi-Wan’s door, of course, he’d always welcome Anakin back. He wanted nothing more than to see Anakin succeed as a Jedi and be happy, and so of course he’s ready to see Anakin again, to forgive him. But still, Anakin doubts Obi-Wan’s love and his own worth and braces himself to be rejected, even though Obi-Wan’s arms are open. (this might be niche but think: doctor who, “You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything I ever stood for. Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”)

And, that’s it! If you read this entire thing, Fiona and I love you from the bottom of our hearts. As you can tell, we feel a lot of things about this song, and hope you enjoyed our analysis! 

#back to december #song analysis #thank you for inspiring us caroline with your song analysis #taylor swift #how do i tag this? #fiona tag! #this was a lot of fun #but also i nearly cried #so i hope y'all enjoy our rambings! #also we didn't really proofread so i'm sorry for any errors

[renegadeontherunn]

happiness by taylor swift is a disaster lineage song, sorry I don’t make the rules

okay so yes I should be writing or doing homework instead of making this extremely rambly, slightly incoherent post but it’s friday so I’m vibing and you lovely people get to join me!

this is the ultimate star wars grief song for our tcw trio and I see it in three different contexts:

Ahsoka’s POV to Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the Order after she leaves in the season 5 finale

Ahsoka & Rex during/after Order 66

Obi-Wan & Ahsoka to Vader (Obi-Wan on Tatooine and (REBELS SPOILERS) Ahsoka after her duel with him in The Twilight of the Apprentice—for reference, I’ve only seen parts of Rebels so if some of that stuff is inaccurate, let me know!)

so we go . . .

honey when I’m above the trees / I see this for what it is

on a ship, in the Force, in hindsight

but now I’m right down in it / all the years I’ve given / is just shit we’re dividing up / showed you all of my hiding spots

#1: Ahsoka’s years learning in the Order, being a Padawan, her dedication to the Jedi and her faith to their teachings (”the values of the Jedi are sacred to me”), all the years she’s given are just completely thrown away as soon as there’s suspicion against her (in the unfinished episodes, Anakin says “well what choice did we give her? the moment there were any suspicions about her loyalty the Council turned their back on her.”) they both share this anger about her expulsion, and Ahsoka brings it up later during the Siege of Mandalore when she says “and what? defend the Council’s actions? I hardly think I’m the best person for that.” 

#2: again, Ahsoka’s years fighting alongside the 501st, growing close with Rex and Jesse and everyone else to suddenly find them turning on her (this is before she knows about the chips, of course). she could also be feeling this in tandem with Rex—“those soldiers, my brothers, are willing to die and take you and me along with them!” all the years Rex has given in the 501st, with his brothers, fighting for the Republic, having to watch his brothers be killed and not be able to do anything, all his hardship just means nothing. their attempts to be themselves, to be unique, to not just be “another number,” were useless in the end. the “showed you all of my hiding spots” line points to the closeness and friendship that they had with each other

#3: again again, pretty self-explanatory, all the years Ahsoka and Obi-Wan have given to teaching and learning from and loving Anakin are just completely thrown away by his fall to the Dark Side and him ultimately trying to kill them. the same for the last line applies here, they were brothers, they were sister and brother, they were a family and then it was all ruined.

I was dancing when the music stopped

In each of the scenarios, they were preoccupied, in the middle of something else (the war, capturing Maul, defeating Grievous, helping Ezra, etc.) when everything stopped and collapsed. each situation was completely unexpected and each time, their worlds fell apart.

and in the disbelief / I can’t face reinvention

#1: all Ahsoka’s ever known is the Jedi, and now without them (without anyone to help her or any connections or support), she has to completely change her way of life, as well as lie or invent a new background for herself (”Skywalker Academy,” “my older brother taught me,” “I used to live on the upper levels of Coruscant,” etc.)

also—Ahsoka becomes Ashla, and then Fulcrum (reinventing herself over and over again) and Obi-Wan becomes Ben. obviously, they don’t want to have to change, and again with “in the disbelief,” each of these events was unexpected and a complete gut punch.

there’ll be happiness after you / but there was happiness because of you / both of these things can be true there is happiness / past the blood and bruise / past the curses and cries / beyond the terror in the nightfall

I don’t think this line needs any explanation, but I’ll give some anyway! In a meta-sense, the audience started Star Wars with the happiness after all three events, but especially Vader. the Original Trilogy showed the end of the Empire, the Rebellion, the happy endings of Luke, Leia, Han, etc. in-universe, both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan hold this sense of bittersweet nostalgia (because how can you not?), both with Obi-Wan training/looking after Luke and Ahsoka joining the Rebellion and helping the characters in Rebels. they’re both trying to ensure happiness after Anakin. 

but, of course, of course there was happiness because of Anakin, that’s what The Clone Wars shows us! we see them happy (or, at least, somewhat) in tcw, which obviously makes everything much sadder, but still. they were happy. and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both know it—we see it explicitly with Ahsoka meditating to Anakin’s holo and reminiscing in Rebels. they found happiness and love and family in the war, where there was so much death, so much destruction, so much darkness and terror. they found each other, they found happiness anyway. this can also apply to the OT, since that trio also found family and happiness in the midst of the Empire.

it’s this inherent optimism that both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan share that Anakin doesn’t (or didn’t) that’s keeping them afloat. it’s the adherence to the light, to kindness, to compassion. 

haunted by the look in my eyes

#1: going back to our three scenarios, you could say Ahsoka was probably haunted by the look in the Council members’ eyes—especially Yoda, Plo, Obi-Wan—when they expelled her. as well as, of course, the look in Anakin’s eyes when he begs her to stay and she says no. the ending image of season 5, the last image we ever saw of tcw for years—with Anakin’s sad, wide eyes—yeah. that look.

#2: overall, this context has less to it, but I’ll still argue that the look in Rex’s eyes, in the clones’ eyes haunted both Ahsoka and Rex, probably especially Rex. or even, not seeing his brothers’ eyes and instead seeing their blasters pointed at him. their final scene, with the eyes of the helmets (Ahsoka’s eyes painted on) stuck on sticks. yeah, that definitely haunted them both.

#3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both get horrifyingly clear images of Anakin’s gold eyes. Anakin’s look when he shouts “I hate you!” surely haunted Obi-Wan, as well as Anakin saying “Ahsoka” and “then you will die” with a very clear, obvious image of Anakin’s gold, scarred eye through his mask. 

that would’ve loved you for a lifetime

#1: Ahsoka was prepared to be a Jedi forever, for a lifetime

#2: Rex, more in this case, but both he and Ahsoka did and would’ve loved the clones forever. those were Rex’s brothers and it’s so clear, especially with the scene of him crying in the hangar bay, that this is killing him

#3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka would’ve loved Anakin for a lifetime—and I’d argue they did, despite everything (”you were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!” and “my Master could never be as vile as you” and “to the best of us”)

leave it all behind

#1: sorry if this is getting repetitive, but yeah, Ahsoka left everything, her entire life, everything and everyone she’s ever known behind

#2: Rex and Ahsoka leave everything on that moon, including her lightsabers that she just got back and then had to give up a second time

#3: Obi-Wan leaves everything behind and flees to Tatooine. Ahsoka tells Ezra this—to let Kanan go, essentially leave the past behind him. And she can’t “save her Master” either. she too must let him go. 

tell me when did your winning smile / begin to look like a smirk?

this is just so Anakin slowly falling to madness and the Dark Side. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan thinking about the signs they’d missed, if there was some way they could’ve stopped it, if just one thing had been different, if they’d just noticed. trying to figure out where it all went wrong. 

when did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

#1: “the values of the Jedi are sacred to me”—and then she’s expelled and told that it was part of her great trial in becoming a Knight. a foundation of the Jedi Order and its process gets turned against her.

#3: this line becomes literal—Padawan lessons, sparring, suddenly became dueling Anakin to death, for both Obi-Wan and Ahsoka

no I didn’t mean that / sorry, I can’t see facts through all of my fury

#1: you could argue that Obi-Wan is right when he said Ahsoka let her feelings cloud her judgement in leaving; that she couldn’t see the facts through the pain of being betrayed by the Council. and then, when she comes back in the Siege of Mandalore, immediately, she and Obi-Wan start arguing, and then both of them are clouded by their feelings, both feeling hurt by the other and lashing out.

#3: again, this is just so Anakin turning to the Dark Side. he obviously doesn’t realize that he’s being blinded by fury (or maybe he does and just doesn’t care, or probably, thinks that is the only way). but he is. he’s completely blinded to logic, to reality by the fury that Sidious has spent years amping up and harvesting and Anakin himself has spent years bottling.

you haven’t met the new me yet

this line is really painful if you view it from Anakin’s perspective. they both believed he was dead, but no, turns out he’s a Sith Lord, in fact the Sith Lord that’s been the Emperor’s tool in causing immense pain and destruction across the galaxy. it’s this evil, excited little line from his POV (think that ROTS comic: “please say it’s Kenobi. Lord Vader gets such a thrill from killing people who care for him”)

there’ll be happiness after me / but there was happiness because of me / both of these things I believe

again, there’s that optimism, that desire to help people, to do good in the world, and this faith that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both have. that’s why Obi-Wan helps Luke, that’s why Ahsoka joins the Rebellion. it’s all to ensure that there will be some happiness, some light after them (and maybe a little because of them. again, see the first chorus. they were happy once, and they both know it. “we’ll be fine, as long as we stay together.”)

there is happiness / in our history / across our great divide

I see this mostly as Ahsoka and Anakin (and Obi-Wan) during season 7. there’s still a connection, of course, love and happiness between them, despite the ending that’s right on their heels, as well as the great divide of Ahsoka leaving the Order.

there is a glorious sunrise / dappled with the flickers of light

Anakin does end up returning to the Light Side and his reunion with Obi-Wan is surely like a “glorious sunrise” that ended the darkness of the past twenty+ years. the second part I just see as a fun, literal line—flickers of light are lightsabers, blaster fire, the Light Side

I can’t make it go away by making you a villain

in short, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka can’t make the pain or the past happiness go away because Anakin’s now Vader. they still both remember Anakin fondly and with love, despite his fall. they loved him, still. in ROTS, when Anakin says “from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!” Obi-Wan doesn’t say “then you are evil,” or even “you are wrong,” he says “then you are lost.” lost. as in, can be found again. not evil, not unworthy, not wrong. just lost. there’s this goodness that Anakin has that he is ignoring and straying from (”there is good in him”). and in the context of Order 66, Ahsoka can’t and doesn’t make the clones villains because she knows they’re actually the victims. as much pain as it causes, they’re not the villains and she can’t act like they are. 

so I know there’s a lot of discourse about Anakin apologists or whatever, so all I’ll say is that George Lucas has said that the prequels are to show how a “nice little kind kid, who has good intentions” turns into Darth Vader. the whole point of the PT is this line—while Anakin/Vader is no doubt the villain in the OT and in ROTS to a degree, that doesn’t make everything else go away. the other stuff doesn’t excuse what he did, all the pain he caused, but we can’t make it go away, just because he’s a villain. that’s one of the beauties of the prequels, that we get this extremely fleshed out, torn and struggling kid who ends up making all the wrong choices and becoming the terrible villain we see in the OT. 

I guess it’s the price I pay for seven years in heaven

while none of these scenarios is seven years exactly, it does continue to drive the point of “all the years I’ve given is just shit we’re dividing up.” everything these characters had, individually and with each other, just gets utterly, completely ruined. 

in a more meta-sense, the ending of The Clone Wars is the price we, the fans, pay for seven seasons of the show. 

no one teaches you what to do / when a good man hurts you / and you know you hurt him too

this could point again to Ahsoka and Anakin, but also Ahsoka and Obi-Wan after she leaves the Order. when she comes back, none of them really know what to say, what to do, how to act around each other. this obviously comes out as arguments and words that are so close to what they really want to say, but just short. they’ve all been hurt and none of them know what to do about it. 

and, of course, Obi-Wan and Anakin in ROTS. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to believe that Anakin’s fallen to the Dark Side, and later on Tatooine, knowing he’s hurt and been hurt by Anakin, doesn’t know what to do

after giving you the best I had / tell me what to give after that

again again, all the years they’ve given. all the love they had. everyone they knew & loved. gone. 

leave it all behind / and there is happiness

#fiona speaks #what do i even tag this? #my writing #i guess? #HA anyway i refuse to proof read this or reread it bc WOW it's long #and if you chose to open this post and read the whole thing then you're probably somewhat used to my ramblings #hopefully i articulated all my thoughts well #bc i have so many thoughts about this song so i hope they came across!! #if yall have any additional thoughts lemme know cause this song is just UGH *chef's kiss* #wow i just said the word thoughts three times #fun fact! this song is taylor's only song in the key of b #which means she has a song in EVERY key #isn't that cool? #anyway this was so fun i get the hype with doing this #thanks to daisy caroline and mel and honestly so many others for THEIR wonderful analyses of taylor swift songs and tcw #which inspired me to actually make a post about it instead of continuing to let this doc sit in my drive #i originally wrote this on wait one sec lemme check #december 28 and then did one w more words on feb 15 #but now it's here! in one (mostly coherent) post #oof anyway #taylor swift #star wars #taylor swift and tcw #can you tell i'm procrastinating writing my fic exchange? #song analysis

[gffa]

With The Rise of Skywalker touching on the Force Spirits (Force Ghosts), it’s interesting to go back over what we do and don’t know about them, which is both more and less than we might expect. What it takes to become a Force Spirit is that you must be selfless and compassionate (which are the things of the light side, it’s basically impossible for dark siders to become a Force Spirit unless they give up the dark and do something significant that’s entirely selfless) and special training to be able to do it. Jedi don’t automatically become Force Spirits, Qui-Gon Jinn had years of training and couldn’t complete it before his death, so he could only appear as a disembodied voice to Yoda.  He does briefly appear on the planet Mortis, where he describes the place as, “Unlike any other [place], [it is] a conduit through which the entire Force of the universe flows. This planet is both an amplifier and a magnet.”  We don’t know for sure this is the actual Qui-Gon Jinn (though, I tend to think it was), but we do know that his voice is able to speak to Yoda towards the end of the Clone War, telling him to go to Dagobah, which is “one of the purest planets” in the Force. Yoda later tells Anakin of this encounter, planting the seeds for the future acceptance (Dave Filoni and Leeland Chee confirmed that this conversation is what helped Anakin later), as well as Pablo Hidalgo once tweeted re: how Anakin became a Force Spirit was, “It’s been overheard that George said he had help.”, which implies that Obi-Wan and Yoda helped him at the last minute. The reference to Mortis and Dagobah being incredibly strong in the Force as planets is important, because I think that this is precisely what Ahch-To is as well (given that this is where the Jedi started, it makes sense that it would have been a place strong in the Force, enough to awaken that part of them), hence why Force Spirits can appear there and do things on that planet that I’m not convinced they could do elsewhere.  It’s the only place where we’ve seen the Force Spirits do these things. There’s a lot more involved in all this, like the Force Priestesses are the ones who taught Qui-Gon and Yoda directly, Yoda tells Obi-Wan during Revenge of the Sith that he’ll teach him how to commune with Qui-Gon, which implies that Qui-Gon then taught him, we see the process of Obi-Wan become a Force Spirit in Time of Death (it’s a painful process that flashes over instances of the moment of his death and the various moments of his life, until he finally gathers himself back up), etc. But the really interesting part is how the canon has also shown us this is not an easy process just to hear their voices in the first place.  Obi-Wan can speak to Luke a short while after his death, during the trench run on the Death Star, but it’s not until three years later that he appears visually, which is during a moment when Luke is getting closer and closer to the border between life and death.  How much of that is Obi-Wan learning the process of appearing and how much is Luke learning the process of being able to hear?  It’s unclear. During the ending scene of Return of the Jedi, we see that Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin have all become Force Spirits and Luke can see them now--but, when Leia comes up next to him, she doesn’t seem to see them at all, to realize what Luke is looking at.  This is after the reveal that she’s Luke’s twin sister, after all the hints of her being Force-sensitive, we know she has the capability, yet she still doesn’t see them? Take it with context, though--Yoda specifically has to teach Obi-Wan how to hear Qui-Gon’s voice, not just Qui-Gon showing up and saying hi.  Even more clearly, in the Ahsoka novel, Obi-Wan struggles intensely with this process of learning to hear the Force Spirit:

This is a very long, very difficult process, just to hear them.  There’s a lot of corners that can be cut when you bring extremely powerful Force-wielders into the equation, like Anakin probably straight up cheat-coded his way into becoming a Force Spirit (with Obi-Wan and Yoda’s help) because he was the Chosen One, and the book Legends of Luke Skywalker (in as much as you can take it as canon, as it’s stories within the story) implies that Luke “argued” (he says with a smile, indicating fondness) with his teachers for years after their deaths, showing that they could have taught him, as well as in The Last Jedi novelization, Luke hears a voice saying, “Let go, Luke.” and maybe it’s one of them, maybe it’s the Force, but it would fit if it was Obi-Wan, Yoda, or Anakin helping him over. This can then be applied to both Leia and Ben as well, that they may not have needed the same formal training, because they’re descended from the Chosen One himself (aka, the Force literally runs in their veins) and because I absolutely would believe they were all cheat-moding each other after death, something that’s only possible because they’re Skywalkers. All of this answers two important questions about The Rise of Skywalker: Why does Rey have such trouble getting through to the Force Spirits? Why did the Force Spirits never appear to Ben Solo? Because it’s hard to hear them, not just hard for the spirits to appear.  Rey had to practically be at the border between life and death herself to be able to hear them, it seems pretty consistent with what we saw of Obi-Wan’s difficulties, he literally had to “break through the wall of life and death” to hear Qui-Gon’s voice.  Luke was treading that same line on Hoth when he finally saw Obi-Wan’s spirit. Once you learn how to do it, it becomes easier, you can see them without having to get back to that place, but that’s why Rey has so much trouble connecting with them, even when she’s been trying for so long. And why don’t they appear to Ben Solo?  We’ve seen nothing of him training for this (possibly he might have when he was younger with Luke, while he was training to be a Jedi, but we haven’t seen anything of that yet, as well as he didn’t know Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader until at least mid-20s or so, which makes me doubt how much Luke or Leia would have let him have contact with Anakin’s Force Spirit), but more importantly: We see in The Force Awakens, Ben was trying to reach the spirit of Darth Vader, not of Anakin Skywalker.  He’s trying to commune with Vader’s mask, of course he’s not going to hear Anakin trying to reach back to him.  If he’s not even trying to reach the real Force Spirits, they can’t just pop in unless he really focuses on hearing and seeing them. That’s part of why their lack of appearance fits for me in the movie, because Force Spirits popping up out of nowhere only happens when you’ve already learned how to commune with them.  And that process is hard as hell on both sides.

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #luke skywalker #yoda #qui gon jinn #rey #ben solo #force ghost #the force #meta #the rise of skywalker #the rise of skywalker spoilers

[kyber-heart]

Lightsaber Colour Headcanons

Literally no one asked for this, but a conversation on Dromund Kaas genchat prompted me to think about my approach to the colours of Lightsaber crystals. This is a general system I personally use for my own role play and character creation.

A Note: I personally prefer the lore ascribed to Kyber Crystals that was introduced in the Disney Canon. In this universe, all Kyber Crystals are colourless until bonded with by a Force User. Jedi tend to meditate and form a bond with their crystals. Sith use their hatred to dominate and corrupt the crystals through a process called ‘Bleeding’. It is also a rite of passage for Sith to claim a Kyber crystal from the hilt of a Jedi’s lightsaber. In the old Expanded Universe, Crystals just grew naturally and a Jedi could select any colour they desired. Red was typically synthetic, however naturally occuring red crystals existed too. While I personally prefer the new lore, I think my general headcanons for the 7 shades of colours work with both Expanded Universe and Canon lore. 

As I said, there’s typically about 7 shades of colours:

BLUE - Blue is typically the colour associated with Jedi Guardians. These are Jedi that focus primarily on physical combat, protection and defense. Examples are obviously; Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kanan Jarrus, Orgus Din, Satele Shan.

GREEN - Typically associated with Jedi Consulars, Jedi that prefer diplomacy and reasoning to achieve their goals. These Jedi are less likely to resort to violence but can fight if pressed to do so. Typical examples are Yoda, Kit Fisto, Ahsoka Tano during The Clone Wars, Luke Skywalker.

YELLOW - Yellow is the colour usually found within the Jedi Sentinel discipline. These Jedi tend to balance their martial skills and intellect to perform unique tasks within the Order. They are usually found out in the galaxy serving local systems, with investigation and infiltration of organisations and cults, working with governments to keep peace, and liaising with Jedi Order regarding potential recruits. Examples include: Bastila Shan, Atton Rand, Visas Marr.

ORANGE - There is no specified meaning behind the wielders of Orange Lightsabers however, SWTOR’s in-game codex lists them as a Sith/Dark Jedi colour. To that end, I personally tend to think of Orange as being the colour of Dark Sentinel types. One theory that has emerged is that Orange could be a colour related to Jedi and Force Users who never engage in physical combat however the existance of Yaddle, to me, disproves that. 

PURPLE - Similarly to Orange, there is no in-universe explanation for this colour, however when looking at the users of Purple Lightsabers such as Mara Jade, Mace Windu, Revan, and Jaden Korr, there does seem to be a pattern of physical combat leaning Force Users, who have turned from the Dark Side, have been seduced by Dark Side, or are generally aggressive fighters. Essentially I consider this to be the mark of a Guardian-type who is dark side inclined. 

RED - This is the colour of The Sith, at least typically. Adi Gallia utilised a red lightsaber crystal around the time of The Phantom Menace and switched to blue after the re-emergence of The Sith, no explaination was ever given that I can find. Red bladed lightsabers and their association with The Sith signify that the user has given themselves over to the Dark Side and let emotion control their actions. Typical examples would be Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Darth Malgus etc.

WHITE - There are only two notible examples of White Lightsabers in Star Wars media. The first and most iconic, is Ahsoka Tano in Rebels. The other is the Imperial Knights of The Fel Empire from Star Wars: Legacy comics. The Knights used Silver blades with simple uniform hilts. Both examples demonstrate a rejection of The Light Side and The Dark Side, instead following their own path as Ahsoka did, or swearing loyalty to another such as The Imperial Knights. Thus I infer that white symbolises a break from the strict binary of good and evil and instead dedicating life to other pursuits. 

So, to get the obvious meta reasons out of the way. George Lucas was very binary on the colours; blue are for good guys, red is for bad guys. Green only came about because Luke’s lightsaber was difficult to distinguish against the blue sky during the Episode 6 Sarlaac pit scene. Purple only exists because Sam Jackson asked for it. White and Yellow only exist in Canon because Filoni and J.J. Abrams respectively thought they looked cool. George also insinuated that the Yellow that the Temple Guards use is only for them and they might not even by Kyber Crystals.

There is also the issue of The Darksaber. Considering the uniqueness of it’s blade it can’t even be said that it’s a true lightsaber or that it uses a Kyber crystal. There are multiple instances of Lightsabers being created with a myriad of stones, gems, and even glass. The black core and white crackling effect might be the result of some unique material found in the Mandalore system. The High Republic also showcases a character with what I think is a black lightsaber core in it’s concept art. I hope that project can shed some new light on these things.

This is also something that applies to synthetic Lightsaber crystals made my Jedi and Sith. While it was typically practiced by Sith, Jedi have been known to use Synthetic crystals too. Luke Skywalker’s green lightsaber in the old Expanded Universe was powered by a synthetic Green crystal that he forged in Obi-Wan’s hut on Tatooine. 

Anyway that’s my word vomit on my personal readings of Lightsaber colours. Feel free to cyber bully me about it.

#anto's ramblings #star wars headcanons #star wars roleplay #swtor roleplay #i have not edited this #i'm on mobile and just running with this #might clean it up later #but again #this is ***my*** personal approach and opinion #i'm not telling anyone i'm right #or that they should abide by this #lightsaber colours #long post #sorry

[reliciron]

Eternal Empire After Effects

In addition to that post I made a while back about how your characters deal with either the boost in Force sensitivity or the brand new sensitivity for your smugglers/troopers/agents/bounty hunters. I want to talk about the general fucked up-ness that the Commander has to deal with post-KotET.

Like DAMN. Bare minimum, they’ve had to deal with carbonite poisoning, the general mind games of Valkorian, and then they had their mind literally broken in the last chapter. At worst, they get all that, plus taking a lightsaber to the gut. To say nothing of having to fight an impossible war for a little over a year straight with everyone’s hopes and dreams riding around on their shoulders.

A lot of the posts I’ve seen about other people’s ocs has some form of lingering effects from everything. And I just want to talk about it for a minute, cause I live for filling in the scenes we don’t see. [Take this with a grain of salt, as I’ve never played a dark side character, so my perspective will be skewed.]

Long term physical effects:

They were poisoned slowly over the course of 5 years, you can’t tell me that one little dart thing can fix that, at least not right away. This could take the form of lingering nausea, migraines, dizziness. The symptoms of heavy metal poisoning would fit well here. And I hc my consular as having some permanent nerve pain from it.

The stab on Asylum is absolute bullshit in the game. Valkorian or no, there’s no way they’d be walking out. I think I posted a pic I took before, but the stab is easily close enough for the heat transfer to damage the spine. Bone cracks and warps with heat, so you can see the problem there. The wound is almost dead on for where the stomach sits and the lungs, liver, kidney, and intestines are all in range to get badly burnt (yeah I know, alien anatomy might be different, but we’re assuming its mostly the same).

We’ve seen what a lightsaber can do to a blast door in The Phantom Menace, take that and apply it to a person, and Arcann held that blade there a loooong time.

Yes, Valkorian saves them, but I think of it more as he kept them from dying, and not, he completely stopped the blade from cooking them from the inside out. So the three days Lana mentioned are horseshit. The Gravestone’s tiny ass med-bay is absolutely not equipped to handle an injury like this.

I always figured a better way was Valkorian kept them alive long enough for Lana to threaten her way onto an appropriate station and made the doctors fix them. Even so, getting what amounts to several organ transplants, implants to bypass possible spinal chord damage, replacement ribs and vertebra, and a whole lot of skin and muscle grafts will leave your Commander pretty messed up, even with magical Star Wars tech and Force magic. And their allotted recovery time seems to be the length of the base’s construction on Odessen, so there’s no way in hell they’re really done healing by the time they have to go back out into battle.

Specific injuries aside, a year is a long time to fight more or less constantly. At least during the base game you sort of had rests between chapters. They’re gonna rack up an impressive list of injuries, alongside wear and tear like their knees and feet having trouble from the constant running and jumping. And their elbows and shoulders will break down from hours upon hours of absorbing the recoil of a gun or the constant flurry and clash of a lightsaber.

Long term mental effects:

As ugly as the physical stuff is, the mental effects are just as bad. Depending on what class they are, having the goddamn Sith Emperor riding shotgun in their head will fuck them up big time.

Classes who faced off with him more-or-less directly, like the Knight, Consular, and Warrior, are going to have the worst time of it because they KNOW what this sort of thing leads to. The warrior has seen the dead eyed puppet on Voss and knows that could be them soon. The consular had to deal with the emperors children and the First Son. They’ve seen a prominent and powerful Jedi master absolutely crumple under the power of the emperor and he wasn’t even IN there. And Knights have already experienced the emperor’s control first hand.

Not to say the others won’t have trouble with it, it’s just that the reasons will be a little less direct. The smuggler and bounty hunter are used to being their own people, not tied down to anything or accountable to anyone, and now there’s the threat that everything they have will be taken from them and there’s no amount of sneaking or shooting that will save them. Troopers built up their command from basically nothing and now they’re Republic heroes, but Valkorian now threatens the lives of everyone they’ve sworn to protect. The agent is easy, they’ve suffered mind control before, they’ve been slaves in their own body, and they’re terrified of it happening again. And inquisitors were literal slaves who clawed their way to the top, and they’d sooner die than be a slave again.

So just having that asshole there means constant stress for the whole of KotFE and KotET. Insomnia must be a given. How do you know you’ll wake up as YOU? That Valkorian won’t hollow you out in your sleep and walk around in your skin the next day? And for the Knight, Agent, and Inquisitor, I’d think panic attacks are probably a thing, even if they don’t let anyone see it.

The stab will definitely cause some trauma. Pretty sure any wound that gruesome would. And if they didn’t have nightmares before, they sure do now and I’m willing to bet that they might shy away from lightsabers for a while, which leaves an interesting dilemma considering they’re in a war with Force-users, and some of them are Force-users themselves.

Fighting a guerrilla war with an absurdly powerful adversary has to be incredibly taxing, especially for classes who’ve never had to command anything. Smugglers and Bounty Hunters are very screwed here, assuming they care about running the Alliance well. And the burden of saving the galaxy is a heavy one. I can definitely see classes who have saved the galaxy multiple times to be getting increasing bitter about always having to be the one to clean up the messes. Why are THEY the ones who always have to suffer? Why isn’t there ever a hero to save THEM when they need it?!

Agents get their own little special bit here with the bullshit that is Vaylin’s conditioning. They know exactly the kind of misery she’s going through, the powerlessness that one single phrase or word causes. I can understand that the writers couldn’t figure out or bother with a whole separate scene of the agent refusing to use the conditioning, cause then they’d have to figure out how to not have Vaylin murder them on the spot. But goddamn we could’ve at least seen them struggle with it! Maybe an extra few lines of them pleading with Vaylin because they desperately don’t want to use her control phrase. Ugh, at least behind the scenes an agent can have a break down about how they’ve become exactly like the intelligence officers who’d decided that they were too much of a liability to go without a leash they could pull. And now they’ve pulled an identical leash on Vaylin.

And then we have their mind being broken. That could be a post in and of itself. Valkorian came within a hair’s breadth of destroying them entirely, and they were so broken that they didn’t even know their own name. And in the space of 10 or so minutes, they scrape themselves together and fight a god. It’s very impressive (and I’ve got my own issues with that fight) but I don’t think you can pull yourself together that fast after being that messed up without some lingering issues.

Chronic insomnia and night terrors, full blown PTSD, panic disorders, severe anxiety; something THAT traumatic will absolutely leave marks.

And after that? They just keep going. Yeah, things calm down, but they’re still at the head of a very powerful faction now (if not ruling Zakuul), there’s no going back after this. And they’ve got a massive restoration project ahead of them as tensions continue to simmer between the Republic and Empire. The more dutiful characters must be near the end of their rope. There’s no rest, just the next fire to put out, and they continue to run themselves into the ground. And the more flighty characters are now forever shackled by the Alliance. There’s no flying off into the sunset for them. No more anonymity as a bounty hunter or smuggler. Their old life is over, whether the wanted it or not. And how can they really relax when there’s this many people looking at them for direction. They’ve become just like those asshole military leaders who they used to mock.

And for just about all of my characters, they hide it. No one can know that they’re falling apart at the seams. Either it’s about personal pride and acting unphased cause they’re just THAT good, or because they’re trying to be the leader the Alliance deserves and don’t want to disappoint or frighten them by showing just how badly they’re coping. Either way there will be a breaking point.

And even after it all comes out in the open, and they (hopefully) get the help they need. It’s never completely over. Chronic pain and fatigue, depression and anxiety, persistent insomnia; these things don’t just disappear, they’re an ongoing struggle that helps color their future actions.

I just… I really like considering things like this because it hits close to home. Seeing them struggle with some of the things I deal with makes them feel more like people. Cause god knows the writers aren’t gonna put this kind of stuff in there.

#swtor #mental health discussion #chronic pain discussion #physical injury discussion #kotet #kotfe #relicwrites

[dragonheart-swtor]

Welcome Home

Summary: In which Eris and Vector come home, and Jedi Knight Garen'ishta gets to see a new side of the Alliance Commander - if only for a moment. Just a fluffy one-shot.

Tags: No Archive warnings apply, Vector/F!Imperial Agent, established relationship, fluff, just tooth-rotting fluff honestly

Find me on AO3 at Dragonheart37

—

Eris glanced over at Vector as the Phantom came down through Odessen's atmosphere. He was sitting forward in his seat, black eyes wide as he scanned the landscape below. When he caught her watching, he broke out in a smile. “We knew it would be green, we smelled the trees on you, but... it looks almost like the lower reaches of Alderaan.” He pressed a hand to the glass of the window. “It looks like home.”

“It's not the nest,” she replied softly, “but I hoped you'd like it.”

Vector chuckled. “Anywhere is a good place to be, as long as we're beside you,” he promised, taking her hand for a moment to press a kiss to her knuckles. “And this is a good place to make a home.”

“It is,” she agreed, smiling back at him. She raised her hand to point. “Look – there's the base. It's not very visible until you're close; we designed it that way on purpose. We built it from the bedrock up.”

She took the Phantom in a wide circle around the base, letting Vector get a good look while she messaged ground control. The benefits of taking her own ship – her personal bay was always open.

“I'll show you everything,” she promised as she locked the landing gear and stood, taking his hand and squeezing it tight. “I think you'll like it. We designed it so people from both sides would be forced to intermingle while still having enough spaces they could get away on their own, to help encourage bonding and minimize hostilities between ex-Pubs and ex-Imps. Our quarters are placed so it's more or less equally easy to get to all the major facilities in the base. The cantina is -” He'd broken out into a grin at some point as they walked down the ramp to the dock. “What?”

“Our quarters,” he said, still grinning. “You said our quarters.”

Eris scoffed a laugh, shoving his shoulder lightly. “Of course 'our' quarters. You're my husband. I'm not going to make you sleep on the couch, metaphorically or literally.”

“We know. We've missed you, that's all.” His eyes sparkled with laughter and love as he squeezed her hand back. “You were talking about the base design.”

Garen spotted them walking up from the Commander's personal ship – the Commander and a man Garen could only assume was her husband, from the way Erisine was smiling at him.

And what a look it was. It stopped Garen in her tracks; Lana paused as well to just watch them for a moment. Garen had never seen Erisine like this. Her fingers were interlaced with those of the man beside her, free hand gesturing in the air as she talked. Her smile lit up her entire face and demeanor, like someone who had found a joy long forgotten in the world. There was no reserve there, no hidden layers of subtlety like usual, no calculations of every degree of smile or frown and how it would be seen by others – just a simple woman with a decade's worth of tired years washed off her face, grinning unashamedly at the man she so very clearly loved with all her heart. And he looked back at her the same way, listening to her talk with clearly rapt attention, eyes fixed solely on her even though many would have been caught up in seeing the wild beauty of Odessen for the first time.

All Garen could come up with was a quiet, “Wow. I – I don't think I've ever seen the Commander smile like that.”

Lana made a soft noise of agreement next to her, though she sounded less surprised. When Garen glanced over, the Sith was smiling too, as if relieved to see the Commander so happy. “It's been a long time.”

Erisine made it another few steps before she caught sight of them standing at the top of the path. She broke off mid-sentence to recompose herself – funny, Garen had never gotten to actually watch the emotional mask go on, and now it was the Alliance Commander approaching them rather than Erisine Ganne. Still smiling, but quieter, more controlled. “Garen'ishta, Lana,” she greeted them. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything's fine,” Lana assured her, raising a hand to stall the worry. “We just wanted to meet you and make sure everything went all right on your end.” She nodded to the man standing next to the Commander. “Hello, Vector. It's good to see you again.”

“Likewise,” he replied. “We hear you've been a great help to Eris over the past few years. Thank you for that.”

“And this is Jedi Master Garen'ishta, the Hero of Tython,” the Commander said, redirecting Vector's attention. “Garen, Vector Hyllus. My husband.”

For all her skill at masking, she couldn't help but smile a little brighter again as she said the word husband and looked up at him. Garen nodded to him as well – Human, or at least mostly, aside from solid black eyes Garen couldn't deny were a little unnerving. Vector nodded back to her, and his smile softened his eyes a little. “It's nice to meet you,” she said brightly, offering a hand to shake and then thinking better of it and offering the other so he wouldn't have to let go of the Commander's hand to take hers.

He noticed, if the twitch of laughter at the corner of his lips was anything to go by, but didn't comment as he shook her hand. “And you as well, Master Jedi.”

She made a tired noise in the back of her throat. “Oh – please, Garen. I get enough of the 'Master Jedi' stuff from everyone else. I think you qualify as part of the inner circle by association.” She grinned at the Commander.

“Very well. Garen, then.”

Erisine squeezed Vector's hand. “I was going to show Vector the base. Unless you've scheduled some council meeting directly on top of my plans, Lana?” She arched an eyebrow, smile quirking to one side.

Lana chuckled. “I thought you might want a few hours to yourselves. I have reports for you, of course, but nothing urgent. I'll send them to your quarters for you to review at your leisure. And I have a meeting of my own to get to, if you'll excuse me.”

Garen watched her go, then realized abruptly she should probably make her own excuse to leave them alone. “Oh. Yes. I'll – be in the Force enclave, if you need me?” she tried.

Erisine nodded. “Of course. Are your lessons with Darth Nox going all right?” Garen hesitated, glancing at Vector, and Erisine added, “Vector knows the basics. Whatever I'm allowed to know, assume he is as well unless told otherwise.”

Garen flicked a lek at that, but decided it probably wasn't her place to question it. “Okay. Yeah, it's – it's going. There's a lot Nox is still learning too, and it's not like he's especially cooperative, but we're figuring it out. It's easier for me to block him out now when I want to, even if I can't hold it very long.”

“That's good. I'm glad.” Erisine raised a hand. “I shouldn't keep you. Thank you for coming to meet us.”

“I'll see you around,” Garen promised, then couldn't help but add a cheeky grin and a “Have a nice night, you two!” before turning and jogging back toward the main building.

If Eris reacted, Garen didn't see or feel it, but she heard Vector laugh as she made her escape, which was good enough for her.

#swtor #swtor ocs #swtor fanfiction #imperial agent #vector hyllus #jedi knight #lana beniko #pray to the tumblr gods that the line break works #erisine #garen #fanfiction #my ocs

[ardeawritten]

Halo 4

The game-player in me is thrilled with the very pretty levels, new weapons, flashy enemies and more creative, less linear methods of level progression/interaction. Lovely soundtrack as always, though the random peppy upbeat music overlaid on a race-to-save earth battle is still hilarious. This game was fun and enjoyable to play, a great few evenings' worth of distraction and some nice catharsis for a little current-events-related attitude. The last quarter felt like a meat-grinder slog, but then, it's endgame of an FPS. What else is it going to be?

The writer in me is rolling their eyes.

(there’s an whole essay under the cut) ((I really hope these cuts work on all platforms, if not I am sincerely sorry; it’s like a thousand words long))

Ok, so the first three games were a fairly standard blank-slate FPS protagonist. Play as an armored super-soldier fighting to save Humanity from the Monsters, with a Sexy AI Sidekick and some Battle Buddies. Not what I'd call high art in gaming, but I can understand its popularity and the enduring appeal of a simple, straight-forward "if it moves shoot it" style of play. No escort missions, no puzzles, really no boss battles requiring tricks and analysis. Just "if that didn't kill it, keep shooting or use a bigger gun."

Writing-wise, there's not a lot of characterization but overall Indications that MC is well-recognized, well-liked, has a sense of humor and a camaraderie with his co-workers, is pals with his Sexy AI and is a generally level-headed person-shaped brick. It's an early 2000's Military FPS, it's not about the characters, it's about role-playing as an indestructible military hero who always saves the girl. It's the game equivalent of John Carter of Mars-genre action hero stories (books, not movie.) This does not absolve it of the crime of woman-as-sexy-or-dead, but it is par for the course.

So on to game #4. 

This game was released in late 2012, in a post-Mass Effect gaming market. #4 has a ME2/3 feel to it, which makes sense. They're both very popular flashy scifi action games with similar graphics/design feel (and with Sexy AIs but that's another conversation about the literally unreal 'idealization' of womanhood in a male-dominated creator/created space!)

It opens with the storyline revelation that MC is a brainwashed and conditioned child-soldier, alleges he's got some issues with performing basic human functions and clarifies that Cortana's existence is the "band-aid" applied to that problem. On the MC side, Cortana's expiration date has passed and she's fragging out, giving MC a personal reason to want to get home. This combines to give the player a sense of urgency- if Cortana dies, it's not just "sad," it's "MC will lose his band-aid and all his humanity will bleed out." This is also I think the first time the POV is, narratively-speaking, third-person (we know things MC doesn't or couldn't know) instead of solely first-person (I'm not counting Arbiter’s story as breaking first-person, as it's still limited to player character POV.)

As a Writer, here's my issues: 

- MC is given a traumatic backstory as a brainwashed child-soldier to what? Justify a damaged emotional state, as if emotional wounding and isolation isn't a very common, very human point to reach after having experienced and participated in war at any age? Justify being unable to function without Cortana’s hand-holding? And then the game never goes back and addresses that opening cut-scene. 

- Cortana's existence had a built-in, known expiration, but she was still (retconned?) created to provide MC his primary band-aid. Either this was extremely short-sighted of the Spartan R&D team, or MC likewise was expected to expire on the same timeline. There's no talk of planning ahead for this problem that would render an extremely expensive asset fundamentally useless. (ok there’s Cortana’s “they’ll pair you with someone else but it won’t be me” line, but that isn’t exactly smoothing the transition any.)

- We the audience/player now know Cortana's death will have personal, negative repercussions on the MC's health outside of grief and trauma over loss of a friend and partner. She exists solely for his benefit, and must continue existing for his benefit, and the plot's urgency driven forward by his need to continue benefiting. It's not about saving Cortana, it's about saving MC. This would be fine if her character existence was framed as "computer service program," but it isn't. Prior to this game, narrative and gameplay repeatedly tells the audience she's a character and not just MC's security blanket.

- The above, coupled with her "stock naked lady sexy" design, has Implications of how the writing team figured they could fit a female character into their narrative. So far we have A) woman who fails to complete a heroic sacrifice and is shot in the back and dies pointlessly, B) woman whose visual and intellectual existence is tailored solely to benefit the MC and has no autonomy outside of that existence and C) woman as 'fallen mother/evil crone' who perpetrated the brainwashing on the MC. (Female Spartan in the mammoth got a whole three lines; female scientist with a bag of nukes? She… died pointlessly.)

(I swear I did not intend this to be an analysis of female roles in the Halo main game franchise but hey, my first memorable introduction to the FPS genre was Mysteries of the Sith where, playing as female jedi Mara Jade, you save the guy by making him acknowledge the value of a non-romantic peer relationship! That game was made in 1997.)

For Cortana, in 1 I got the impression she was a shipboard AI like EDI in Mass Effect, not an AI specific to MC. Her characterization feels like it's been shifted each game from a warship AI capable of coordinating fleet-wide maneuvers and going toe-to-toe with Guilty Spark to a cowering captive of Gravemind needing physical rescue to a Pocket Pal for MC to cover for his emotional shortcomings and inability to interact with technology more complex than "a button."

Having an AI programmed to be essentially a therapy dog or social caretaker, and exploring the complexities of that role related to the invisible and unquantifiable damage violence visits on the human body and brain would be a very interesting story. An AI designed for coordinating war on a massive scale who despite "winning" each battle finds its platform systematically reduced until the only "ship and crew" left are just one person would also be an interesting story! Why are we left with "my girlfriend's dying and I'm going to starve because she's the only one who knows how to cook."

tl;dr: the opening cutscene was detrimental to the plot, characterization and world-building. The game would have been fine as a story about a soldier coming to terms with his best friend’s inevitable death while trying to save the planet, and would have preserved Cortana’s game 1 identity as an autonomous AI who lost her ship and partnered up with MC of her own free will. The ending of “we saved each other, if just for a little while, and will grieve but will continue on” would have been stronger IMO than “I’m going to save you-I’m going to save you-NOPE.”

#text post #long post #long text post #long ass essay text post writing rant #also why does she get more naked with every game #I mean I know why from a revenue standpoint but what's the in-world justification #here let me beat what I'm sure is a very dead horse because I'm eight years late to the party #don't worry there's a tl;dr in there at the end #does anyone else remember the AI in Flubber who fell in love with the MC and then gets mashed and copies herself? #because that was a more satisfying character arc #Ardea Plays Halo

[knightotoc]

I can't really rank the SW movies, but I can sort of put them in categories. I wrote a bit about each one because I've never seen a list in an order like mine, though if you're asking me to be rational that is something I know I cannot do.

(This is really long)

1. The ones I love the most: 

Attack of the Clones

🍐 favorite characters, favorite planets

🍐 my soul is anchored to early naughts high-key cheesy emo, à la Raimi Spider-Mans

🍐 most Jedi per square inch

🍐 it's pretty and it kicks ass

🍐 the romance is the A-plot for ONCE

🍐 AND it's a "dark middle chapter" that pulls no fucking punches, the whole Tatooine sequence is just hnnnnggrhhh BRUTAL

🍐 the only "dark middle chapter" in which the person explaining the Jedi way (Anakin) doesn't believe in it and the person listening (Padme) doesn't want to join but just cares about him

🍐 morally ambiguous organized religion/monasticism/chivalry are interesting and personally important subjects to me, a Catholic feminist who majored in Medieval Studies

🍐 the hinge between two time periods I love, "Obi Wan trains Anakin" and "the Clone Wars"

🍐 sets up both Clone Wars shows and both KotORs

Return of the Jedi

🐻 SO much fun, SO much imagination

🐻 like RotS, both the silliest and the most tragic in its trilogy (and imo it pulls it off)

🐻 the ending -- Luke tossing his lightsaber, Palpatine killing him, Anakin saving him -- I just -- gahhhh that's what it's all about, dude😭😭😭 It makes me love the Jedi SO MUCH!

🐻 Luke's plan to rescue Han is as bonkers as Dooku's plan to begin the war and I'm obsessed

🐻 Leia's hair down and Luke in black👌

The Last Jedi

🍸 absolute masterpiece of tragedy and hope

🍸 it's so SMART and has this wisdom that brings me so much comfort facing personal failures and societal horrors

🍸 "That's how we win -- not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" -- Rose the Queen of Themes

🍸 the cave scene in which Luke summarizes the prequels and Rey summarizes the original trilogy is so validating

🍸 "Where's Han?" [cut to Kylo]

🍸 all the transitions but that one ^^^^ especially

🍸 best visions in the movies (Rey's mirrors and Luke's twin suns)

🍸 Yoda is the best ghost and wisest teacher as he deserves😭

🍸 Leia Vader parallels are my biggest weakness

Revenge of the Sith

🔥 I can't handle this one

🔥 it's straight up Camelot and Lancelot is my favorite invention in all of fiction, and here he is as an evil space wizard

🔥 I literally can't listen to this soundtrack and drive because I get too sad

🔥 they hate each other SO MUCH ahhgggg, NO other characters come close to this level of emotion

🔥 the Matthew Stover novelization is even more beautiful

🔥 this meta-level tragedy, the dramatic irony of a guy who has been evil since 1977, a name similar to the Greek goddess of inevitability, the swirling destiny of his "prophecy" and his doom, but still I'm like "DON'T DO IT ANI" as if he ever had a chance

🔥 they play the fucking ANH medals theme at the end of the credits and it blows my mind. Absolutely brilliant

🔥 can you believe that only RotS and TLJ have shirtless scenes in them

2. The ones I also really love:

The Phantom Menace

😈 best soundtrack. All the prequels have the most thoughtful and interesting music in my opinion, but I could go on forever about TPM's.

😈 my favorite musical piece in all of SW is the Baby Anakin theme. It's so terribly sad; it sounds to me like rivers and waterfalls. They use it several times in AotC, too. The end of the melody transitions into the Imperial March😭

😈 Duel of the Fates is the actual star of the movie, of course; the words are a Sanskrit translation of a medieval Welsh poem. Ask me about how the lyrics apply to the fates of Qui-Gon, Maul, and Obi-Wan because I've FIGURED IT OUT

😈 also the cleverest piece in SW is Augie's Municipal Band, the parade theme, which is the Emperor's theme from RotJ in major key and sped up

😈 speaking of Palpatine, this is his best movie and I've basically sold my soul to him so👏👏👏we stan

😈 I've probably thought and written the most about this movie and the time periods around it, the training of Maul and Anakin. If you can believe it😅

Empire Strikes Back

☁️ it's the best one

☁️ the "dark middle chapter" that sets the standard for AotC and TLJ

☁️ "Luminous beings are we"😭

☁️ Bespin Leia is the best look in the movies

☁️ "The evil lord Darth Vader, OBSESSED with finding young Skywalker"😂 Ani has a reason to live again, oh no

A New Hope

🤖 the only one you need

🤖 an actual piece of magic on Earth

🤖 Old Obi-Wan is heartache personified

🤖 bow down to Tarkin

🤖 best droid movie

Solo

🎲 the other kissy movie

🎲 SO much fun; John Powell puts so much energy and excitement in his music

🎲 how does this random movie have the best character designs after AotC

🎲 GIRL DROID!!!

🎲 really different point of view on the central theme of family

🎲 that cameo tho

🎲 where's my sequel

Rogue One

🌠 the most visually beautiful SW movie; it fits into the tradition of beautiful 70s sci-fi movies like 2001 and Star Trek TMP, which focus on the hugeness and wonder of outer space

🌠 can Cassian and Rose please overthrow the government

🌠 I have a real theater poster of this one in my room :D (I also have one of TLJ)

🌠 does so right by Vader

🌠 makes the Rebellion more complicated, just like the prequels did to the Jedi Order

3. The ones I don't like:

The Force Awakens

The Rise of Skywalker

I want to like them, especially TFA, but I find it difficult. I feel like they lack confidence as stories, and they don't take things like death and faith very seriously. Many planets explode, but they are grieved even less than Alderaan is in ANH. And if you just pray hard enough, God will help you out. It bothers me that THAT was the culmination of Rey's spiritual journey, versus the more relatable and dramatic endings for the male Jedi protagonists Luke, Anakin, and Ezra.

I have rewatched TFA a few times and I like parts of it, like the scavenging setting in the beginning and how handsome everyone is. Some of Maz's lines justify the borrowed plot in an interesting way. And I've thought of some headcanons to make TRoS more okay, because they did so wrong by Palpatine but not necessarily by "the Sith" as a Borg-like force of evil that, I guess, consumed him. So despite JJ's best efforts, I'm trying to make this work.

#star wars #star wars movies #attack of the clones #the last jedi #revenge of the sith #i wrote this back in December but it's still true #leaning more toward ESB rn

[crqstalite]

SHADOW OF THE SITH, Ch. 11

i have no excuse for not posting this earlier other than being lazy and trying to fine-tune it. _

KHAAK._DROMOUND_KAAS.

Kaas City was the place to be. Really, it was.

Well, with a certain someone in it.

Mrs. Khaak Beniko would be the first person to admit that over Coruscant, she enjoyed it more. Raining constantly, yes, but it has a certain elegance that can't be found anywhere else. The sleek silver buildings, the gorgeous evenings on the balcony, just the entire style of the place...she was a lucky woman to even live here among the blue bloods of Sith society. Had Lana not invited her to accompany her to such a home three years ago, she'd surely still be living on the Clarity, eating gutter trash and chasing it down with cheap whiskey, watching unsavory videos in the privacy of her bedroom. Half dressed and waiting for death to claim her.

And the Clarity most definitely didn't have silk sheets. Up until five or so years ago, it also didn't have the woman of her dreams next to her in bed. Wasn't nearly as clean either, so Khaak counts it as a win. She didn't think it could ever escape it's perpetual junky state after she'd built it from scraps as a child, but her wife had managed it some how. Lifting her hand into her vision, the glint of a silver band against her deep pink skin makes her warm on the inside. Really, how had she gone from meeting pirates every other day to bumping elbows with some of most influential Sith in the history of Sith, she supposed?

Hell, how'd she even go from getting herself off on her own hand to sleeping with and subsequently marrying one of the most powerful in the Sith hierarchy? It really was a miracle, some star had shined down upon her that fateful night and had gotten her to meet one of the most extraordinary women in the galaxy.

One she probably didn't deserve, and had only happened on accident the first time they'd met anyways.

Figuring she has to get up at some time or the other today instead of internalizing the jump in hierarchy status, she groans and stretches her arms over her head, smacking the back of her hands against the headboard of the bed. Hissing out a quiet curse as not to wake her wife, she blinks a few times and pushes herself up into a sitting position. She yawns, taking note that it's still raining, just as it was the night before. Though, it has lightened up a bit compared to how it had been, which means she might actually be able to go out today and not catch a debilitating cold. She tended to run warmer than the Sith she shared the apartment with, which was the only downside of living on the cursed jungle turned city planet. It meant Lana would pay some extra attention to her nearly freezing lekku though, which also stole her away from any important work for a few hours. Wasn't all bad, in that matter.

Rubbing the offending hand over her eyes, she uses the other to gently nudge the woman awake. It takes a few tries, but eventually the Sith groans and rolls over to face her. Khaak cheekily grins as one eye opens, and then the other. Another offended grunt once she realizes who it is, and she pulls a sheet back up around her shoulders, promptly rolling back over. Snickering, Khaak gently brushes a strand of blonde hair from the woman's face. One golden iris looks back up at her, a grimace on her face. Noting the dark circles under her eyes, she lays a hand against her cool cheek, "Lana, babe, we gotta get up at some time or another."

"Surely the Emperor will wait another few hours for us to deal with him." Lana whispers almost incoherently, finally deciding to move onto her back and look at her properly with a tired look in her eyes. It'd been this way for a while, she'd been less and less easily awoken from her sleep, and was more sluggish than usual. Odd, but Khaak tries not to dwell on the behavior, "What was it you said, you ran on Rishi time?"

"Rishi time only applies to times when you're not needed elsewhere, 'ana." Khaak responds, laying back down against her will. Gently pushing Lana back onto her side and then flush against her, she kisses her softly. An almost pained grin crosses the pale woman's face, leaning into the welcome touch, "Haven't you got places to be?"

"I suppose." She answers, still not exactly either awake or responsive. A visible shiver runs through her body, and she buries her head into the crook of Khaak's neck. Inconspicously, she lifts the strap of her tank top, feeling the brushes of exhaustion against her consciouness. Lana was not going to lull her to sleep again, but there were other things that they could get up to in bed if that's where she wanted to stay. Khaak didn't have anywhere important to be, and the way she was acting, nor did her wife, "They can be taken care of another day."

But after a few moments, when Lana still doesn't elaborate upon her answer, Khaak is actually rather curious -- and concerned. Yes, she was typically quiet anyways (she preferred actions over words, something that took Khaak a while to get used to) but her long undercover mission to Rishi and subsequently to Yavin left Khaak nervous about the Sith's mental state right then. Yes, she was jittery person by nature, but she'd deeply missed her wife and the anxiety that went along with never knowing if she was alive until a few months prior. The Kaasian apartment was too empty without her presence, and there'd been at least three times officials had come to the door asking where her 'Master' was.

She'd shot one of them in the leg for that comment alone. Another almost kicked her out of her own home for being a slave without a Master in one of the most expensive apartments in the City. The next, nearly lost an eye for assuming she had broken in and entered. As soon as he'd drawn his pitiful holdout blaster, Khaak had shot him in the arm and sent him crying back to his mother, surely.

Damn Imperials were stupid and weak. At least the meager, civilian police force in the Black Sun sector had more backbone than the Captains in the force here. Lana hadn't been happy about it when someone at the fucking Sith Sanctum had told her about the infractions shortly before Khaak had managed to skirt the issue for a week or two. It wasn't the first time people had commented on her race, but it was the first time without Lana that she wouldn't hold her tongue.

Spending every moment she had with her now meant everything to her, yet she'd been so withdrawn since she'd returned. Khaak had been filled in about the high profile allies that their little coalition had acquired while watching her do her dark magic healing routine, though she was still absolutely pissed that to 'keep her out of harm's way' Lana had decided to keep her in the dark until they landed on Yavin, and then kept her off the mission entirely by her request. (She'd even attempted to land at the space station, and had been denied access by an esteemed 'Lord Beniko'. She considered shooting the operator through the holo, but resigned to sit at home like a child in timeout as not to 'bother' Lana any further) She most literally could not help being terrified for Lana's safety the entire time without a word for so long (two damn years), and even if they both went down (stars help her if someone killed the love of her life) one, Khaak would want to go down in a blaze of glory against some ancient evil, and two, with her Sith Lord by her side. Not waiting in atmo to hear whether she was dead from some stupid SIS agent, or worse, a pansy of a Jedi.

Stupid Theron Shan got to be by her side for two years, but as soon as Khaak offered to go anywhere it was 'too dangerous' and 'a horribly stupid decision to make' and 'self-destructive'. When Theron did it, it 'brave' and 'self-sacrificing'. All said through gritted teeth, as if considering if he even really deserved the compliment, but it was apparently well-deserved and earned from the tone of voice. Khaak did pout about it for a long while, yes, but Lana made a good argument about not pitting herself against an agent. A Republic one at that.

Khaak didn't have anyone on Dromound Kaas other than Lana.

Khaak didn't have anyone in her immediate life other than Lana.

Her life was Lana.

What she would do without her, she isn't sure. Drift aimlessly back into the cosmos, surely. Probably drink herself into a coma within the first three years, tops. Where the Clarity would go after she was gone, she's unsure. The Sith was her anchor, as much as she didn't want to believe it. As much as she was Miss Independent, she was Mrs. Beniko first. She'd gotten attached, and she'd though this was finally it. Finally where she sat down somewhere. Somewhere she at least felt safe, felt she could let her guard down for good this time.

Why couldn't she have come back sooner?

Why couldn't she have brought her along?

Why was a blasted mission more important than her?

"Lana..." Khaak fake whines, pushing down her growing apprehension in favor of admiring the other woman, "I've got upgrades to do on the Clarity today. It'd be a lot more fun to do with you by my side." That was only a partial lie, her small freighter ship didn't need any fixing up at the time being, but having Lana on the ship to lift the things she wasn't able to was always a good help, and at times, a fun distraction. It was never just 'a few upgrades' or 'a few things' to fix. It was their way of indiscreetly letting the other know they wanted time alone to bond with each other, "We could be on Nar Shaddaa within the hour, be back by the week starts. Get up to things I haven't done since I got off that slimeball."

"No thank you, love. Maybe another day." Lana answers darkly, rolling back over. It's an attempt to get Khaak off her case (she should know the tone, she's done it to quite a few other handsy Imperials in her day), and Khaak tries not to make her distaste at the decision known rather unsuccessfully. The other woman is apologetic at the very least once she sees her wife's reaction, a regretful smile on her face, "I apologize if I come off as lethargic or apathetic, I promise I'll make up for it sometime or the other."

"You've been over working yourself since you got back, 'ana. We don't even have to land on any planet, we could just fly around for a few hours." Khaak responds, gently rubbing a hand over the small of her back as Lana looks up at her with mild annoyance. Ignoring it, she continues on anyway, "You like flying with me, don't you? It'd get your mind off this mess for a while, you'll feel better that way."

"I have work to get done later. I just need a few hours more and we can go over to the Sanctum together later if you wish." Lana answers. Khaak shivers at the thought, she had a special hatred for the Sith headquarters. An indescribable cold was always invading her bones, and no matter how many layers she threw on it would always be there. At least on the Clarity she and Lana would be alone, talking about sweet nothings, nowhere to be and no one to bother them. In her office there was always the chance they'd be interrupted by someone, a well-hidden disgusted look if they were holding hands. Khaak stopped the little touches here and there within the year she'd arrived on Dromound Kaas, it made her self-conscious. Typically from the Council, trying to figure what to do with Arkous' old affairs, but often these little trips turned into little more than excursions where Khaak would have to entertain herself as if she were Lana's child instead of a partner. No one treated her as much more than a decorative object, some would ask her name if they were so curious. One of the Amarillis' (there were six of them, the Wrath, her parents and then her three siblings of varying ages), she thinks the oldest brother often came by and worked extensively on reports based upon Yavin.

She was continually shoved to a corner for hours at a time, and even the fanciful dates out on the City didn't ever fix that. Lana was trying, she knew that. Before her, she wasn't sure Lana had even dated anyone before, so it was a learning process for both of them. Khaak had to slow down the progression of their relationship, and that was okay. But after so long, she would've thought Lana would've caught on she didn't enjoy being treated like this, "We could eat at that restaurant you like afterwards if you're so inclined."

"Right." It comes off colder than it should as a recoil, and Lana's concern is written all over her face after she says it. She knows that she shouldn't be angry, Lana came back in one piece. It's more than she could've ever asked for, especially with the odd details of the mission. But it's been this way for months since she came back from Yavin, and her heart feels emptier than it did when she was gone. Yes, now she saw her everyday physically instead of over the holo, but it felt like she wanted to be even less known that she was while she was undercover. Working long hours at the Sanctum, rarely ever interested in running off anywhere like she was when they were first married. Khaak doesn't even bother going up to her office on her own anymore. She can accept that she's Sith and he's busy, but she did at least think Lana would leave time for them. To keep them as an us, not just a Lana and a Khaak.

It was impossible to know what she was walking into on the best of days. A Lana who needed her, or a Lana who could get by without her.

Khaak hated there was even an option.

Hated there was even a chance Lana might say she didn't need her anymore. Yes, she was gutter trash, alien trash by Kaasian standards, but she could always rely on Lana being by her side and never giving into the stereotypes.

But here she was, trusting someone she'd known for maybe two years over Khaak. Willing to go into hiding for years with him. She regrets even the thought, but she can't help but wonder if more happened between Shan and her. Wondered if there was some stupid fling between them that Lana was willing to throw everything away for.

She wishes these thoughts would just stop for two seconds. That she could be like every other Sith spouse and just accept things the way they happened. But that wasn't how Khaak was no matter how much she wished it. Neither of them blindly just trusted people, and she's afraid that it might put a real wrench into things.

Sliding off the bed, she yanks the tank top off with more force than is really necessary. It pulls up on her lekku painfully, and she grits her teeth in pain, a growl building in her throat, "I can do it all on my own."

A moment passes, Lana sighs frustratedly from behind her, maybe observing her actions. This wasn't going to end well, but Khaak doesn't care now. She's just as frustrated, maybe more, and Khaak deserves to be able to go through her own emotions without being yelled at for it-- right? If Lana doesn't care, then why should she?

"Now you're beginning to sound like Theron." The bed shifts and creaks under Lana's weight as she says it, chastisting her for her out of place actions. Khaak moves further away to the dresser that held most of her clothes. She roughly pulls it open at the mention of the name. Khaak doesn't even want to be compared to the stupid agent, and then slides an undershirt on, yanking her lekku out from under the shirt. A light, tight leatheris flight shirt over it, "There's no reason to be sarcastic or withdrawn."

"No reason at all." Khaak mirrors her, though she says it as a growl without even realizing it. Why is she even getting this upset about all of it? Most of this wasn't her situation anyways, she wasn't Sith, she didn't know Marr and had only known Arkous in passing. She was just a free trader from a dirty sector on Nar Shaddaa who'd gotten unbelievably lucky by marrying into a powerful society. She'd always struggled, never having enough credits, never being pretty enough or smart enough or strong enough. Now she was struggling to keep her own wife from self-destructive actions, and trying to keep her marriage firmly out of the hands of her self-doubt.

She almost has her trousers on, moving over to the bedroom door to slide on her boots when she can hear Lana moving towards her. Khaak tries to calm her racing heart, tries to convince herself that Lana's ineptness at even concerning herself with the possible fact that someone did care, that someone was at home waiting for her, that someone wanted her back as soon as possible, that someone did need her, hadn't flown out the viewport.

There are too many parallels to her own family. Too many parallels to the people that tried to take the Clarity from her. They tried to keep her safe, tried to keep her locked in a poorly built cell of security, tried to keep her a child forever. Now it's someone trying to make her independent in the worst way possible. Forcing her to come to terms with her demons, that have unfortunately learned how to swim through the worst of storms.

She's understandably pissed.

Right?

"Khaak...please. There are things I simply can not do for you right now, there are things beyond your understanding I can't even decipher myself." Lana pauses, leaning against her back for support, "I know I've been gone for a long time, and I apologize for that."

"Do you?" It comes out as a rough whisper, Khaak turns her head over her shoulder, still careful enough that she doesn't accidentally hit her with her lekku, "Are you really sorry, Lana? For putting me through all of that?"

"I-" She starts, but Khaak doesn't let her finish. Won't let her finish. Can't let her finish. If she just bows down and rolls over again, this conversation will be closed off again. And if it's closed off, she can forget about ever getting her wife back.

"Lana I waited for two years for even a word from you. I trusted your life in the hands of a man from the opposite faction, trusted that you'd come back to me whole, and you brushed me off as soon as I wanted to come down and help you! Those two years were a living hell for me, it was like being all alone on the Clarity again, but instead all I had were memories of you. All I had were old holos, your clothes, everywhere you used to be! All in favor of what, some stupid fucking SIS agent?!" Khaak whips around fast, a grimace on her lips as her lekku smack the blast door anyways. If she did have hair, she would've been yanking on it by now, "Now you're back and trying to act like nothing has changed, but you were the one who changed!"

"You don't need to yell, Khaak." Lana answers, her gaze darkening as her tone hardens. She's still terribly intimidating in her dark colored sleep clothing, and her hair mussed. But for now Khaak doesn't have a reign on her emotions, she couldn't care less if she was magically the damned Emperor staring her down with lightning at her fingertips, she would not be quieted again. It's all tumbling out, and screw if Lana wanted to hear it or not, "If you had an issue-"

"'I should've just told you'. Do you know just how well that worked out on this front, Lana? Do you know how many times you told me to go home and wait? How many times I did? How many times I had to chase away people who wanted to take me away because I was an alien in one of the most expensive apartments in Kaas City?" She balls a fist, not entirely sure she even wants to hear the rest of Lana's argument. Khaak doesn't want to hurt Lana, and she's not going to, but it would be a firm lie if she said she wasn't going to punch something once she got out of here. She's already heard most of it time and time again, and she isn't going to be shut down again, no matter how childish she seems, "How many times I was terrified you were dead, or worse?!"

"Don't throw yourself into a tantrum, Khaak. I had a mission to complete, and at the risk of seeming apathetic, you had my approval to stay here through my absence. Whatever they did was illegal." She answers, raising her voice to meet Khaak's tone. It wasn't unusual, but she flinches at the change in volume anyways, possibly instinctively, "The Empire was under attack, and I was going to fight for it. I had access to Arkous' files long before they did, I had to fight Revan before he killed us all."

"What about us!? Were you going to fight for us too? Or was this mission and your damned faction more important than what we have?!" She barked. Khaak wasn't stupid, she knew the Empire always came first because Lana was Sith first and foremost. She had grown up a drifter, never tied to one faction or the other. She traded with the highest bidder, not the most morally close to her own actions. She always tried her best to understand the nationalism that most on Dromound Kaas and Lana felt. But she can't help feeling hurt because of it, fuck her original faction and what they asked of her. She couldn't just dedicate her life to her and then turn away as soon as a mission got tough, "Your damned Empire was worth keeping me away from you when you knew I needed you?"

"I wasn't going to let you run out there and risk your life like you always do! That's what I was aiming to do before you tried to shove yourself into a literal conspiracy!" Lana contended back, "This wasn't your war to fight, it was mine!"

"I wanted to fight! I wanted to fight by your side, I wanted to be with you and you denied me at every turn! Your so-called protection was going to get you killed. Sure you came back alive, but that doesn't mean you can just forget about the fact that you left me here! You left me alone, knowing I needed you, knowing that I love you, and yet you turned your back on me, just like you do everyone else!" Khaak can feel herself cracking again, can feel her true colors shining through again. There were many Lana often turned her back on, and while Khaak felt bad about it most of time, she could understand. This, she couldn't and wouldn't. "Lana, what the hell do I mean to you, if not a partner next to you in battle, and in life?"

"You're blowing this out of proportion, Khaak." Lana claims stoically, crossing her arms, "It was one mission. And I'm back now. I'm here for you."

"You're more distracted than you've ever been. You work and work and work and you throw credits at me as if that'll fix the problem! You look at me as if I'm an inconvience, as if I'm nothing but a friend rather than your wife!" Her voice cracks on the last word, and if she didn't know better, she'd say she were about to start crying. But she's not, she's about to fight someone, and thank the stars she didn't have the Force or something would've broken as she tries not to scream in frustration, "I'm not throwing a tantrum, Lord Beniko, I'm letting you know how I feel about the shit you've pulled with me and I'm not standing for it anymore!" Khaak snaps, a shrill yell escaping her.

Lana's dumbfounded for a moment, taken completely aback as her eyes widen. She's visibly surprised, shocked with her reaction. But her fixed gaze doesn't waver, and she sets her lips in a thin line before responding, "Please. Continue berating me for protecting you. Continue telling me I didn't have your best interests in mind. Continue blaming me for putting your life first. As if I didn't want you alive to come home to, because apparently I don't know any better, Captain." Lana exaggerated, clearly frustrated. Khaak winces at the title, Lana hadn't called her Captain in that connotation in years.

"I-Lana I wanted to help! I wanted to be there for you, and you shoved me away. You let the Wrath and Nox fight by your side, but not me. Not the one who knows you best, but instead your fuckin' Sith friends. Is that how much I mean to you?!" Nox, Marr and the Wrath got to fight by her side, and what for? Why did they get that privelege, and not her? There were always going to be lingering thoughts of self-doubt when she compared herself to the force-sensitives that were around her, but this was just beginning to prove the worst of her fears. She wasn't good enough for a lot of things for a multitude of reasons, but not being some eternally powerful warrior wasn't one of them, "Sorry I can't lift a box two times my own weight with some power I'm not pre-disposed to, but it doesn't mean I can't protect you!"

"Khaak, I couldn't care less if you wielded the Force as I did. I didn't give myself up to you because you were force blind, I gave myself up to you because I care for you! If Revan took you from me, if the Emperor took you from me, I don't know what I would do without you." Lana quiets, unable to meet her eyes.

"What was I supposed to do without you?!" Khaak finishes, throwing her hands up in exasperation, "If we go down, we go down together Lana. It's in sickness and in health and 'till death does us part. It's not until you get tired of working with me, it's not until you decide you're too good to be working with me, and it's sure as hell not until you find some Sith partner that's better than me!"

"There isn't anyone better than you! Revan nearly killed the Wrath, one of the strongest Sith amongst us, and left us all with scars we'll never get rid of. If you'd been the one lying in a medbay bed, I don't know what I would've done. If I'd see you sprawled out in the jungle, eyes lolled back into your head and your own blood pooling out around you, you don't even understand the lengths I would go to enact revenge on your death!" Khaak doesn't think she's ever moved Lana to tears in the years that they've known each other, but the way her voice is wavering she's afraid she may have finally done it. And not in a good way either, "I could not risk your life for something I signed up for, Khaak, and I never will. Be angry if you will, but Theron had nothing to do with this! I doubt he even knows you exist!"

For a moment, she's offended. Heavily. By the fact Lana hadn't even bothered telling her apparent confidant she was married. That she hadn't seen her as important enough to tell him about her, that she was happy with her wife. But then, she stops, pausing to look at her broken form. Her wife is exhausted, and she hasn't slept properly since she's been back, tossing and turning and mumbling in her sleep. Lana has just been through maybe the two worst years of her life, hiding her true identity and living on Rishi of all places. Most of what she'd encountered was still a mystery to Khaak, lots of things simply hadn't been disclosed just yet. That worries her, maybe there was something Lana had seen that she wasn't able to get out of her head. Something the Emperor had done to her that Khaak wouldn't ever even begin to imagine.Maybe Khaak is being unfair, maybe her emotions have been invalidated again. Maybe she's overreacting unnecessarily. Something about Theron still bothers her, but he did his job and didn't get her wife killed while she was with him. That was all she could've asked for, especially for someone related to two higher-ups in the Republic.

"You're not invulnerable, Lana. I know that against all the odds, Sith can die just as much as us force blind can." Khaak whispers, staring at a fixed point in the distance. Their lived-in bedroom, that has seen many quiet nights with soft holos playing, loud nights where neither of them want to do anything even close to sleeping, bad days where they can't be bothered to get out of bed, good days where they stay in each other's embrace as long as their responsibilities allow them, stormy days where they yell at each other and can barely look at the other person.

Like today.

The rain is always in the background, the pittering and pattering of the raindrops against the transparisteel as she tries to formulate words to describe how she's feeling, "Maybe it isn't as easy to understand from your point of view, strong as hell, but some wild blaster shot could take any of us, including you. Someday your fancy force healing isn't going to be able to bring you back like it did now. No one is taking you from me again, not even Marr himself."

Lana is quiet, possibly pondering upon her response, and Khaak takes it as a pass to continue, "Yeah, I am sorry for yelling at you. That wasn't fair of me. But I'm not just going to roll over and--I don't know just let you keep risking your life like this and say nothing, pretend everything is okay." Khaak lifts her head again, but closes the distance between them and gently lifts Lana's head to look at her, "I'm not asking for you to give all of this up, I know the promotion to Minister wasn't given lightly. I'm proud of you for it, and I hope you continue earning what you deserve. But I'm asking you to never forget about me like this again. You'll always have me, and I don't want you to forget that."

"I'd never forget you." Lana whispers, eyes rimmed a light pink, "I thought I was protecting you by keeping you here. There were forces at work that I barely understood, much less wanted to put you through. It was never any ploy to rid myself of you, love. For that, I am sorry. Everything with the Emperor, and then the Revanites...I suppose I was trying to do it all myself again. I thought I could do it all myself."

"You tend to do that." Khaak softly chuckles, scratching the back of her neck. In a way, she isn't wrong, Lana tended to take everything on by herself even when it wasn't necessary. That was just how she was, and no argument would get her to stand down immediately, "Lana, I'd go to the ends of the galaxy and back for you, hell I'd stare the Emperor down and flip him off if that's what it took to keep you alive."

Lana raises an eyebrow, possibly amused with the image and thought, before a gentle smile takes the place of the small frown that had been on her lips, "I do hope it never comes to that, because I would never doubt that you would do such a thing."

"For you? Nothing is impossible." She hugs the shorter woman, laying her head on her shoulder. Possibly it's a little tighter than it needs to be, but Khaak needs her, needs to know she's here, that she's back again. "I'm sorry I was angry, I said things I shouldn't have said. It wasn't fair of me to get frustrated like that, especially at you. Everything you do to keep me here, I appreciate more than you know."

"It was partially my own fault. I left you in the dark for so long without considering how you'd feel about it. I shouldn't have assumed everything was okay here," Lana answers, hugging her back, "It wasn't fair of me to think you'd simply be okay with me being gone for so long."

"I'm not asking to be part of every little Sith thing you do, but maybe let me in on some things? I want to help as much as I can, even if I don't entirely understand. Hell, I'd make a shitty Imperial agent, but I'm sure I could learn." Khaak pulls away from her, still with an arm wrapped around her waist, "I don't want you as stressed as you are now. It isn't all work and no play, 'ana."

"I-" Lana pauses, seeming as if she wants to continue but can't figure how to, "The Emperor isn't dead. Not like how we assumed he was. He's alive, and surely planning something horrid for the rest of the galaxy. The Sith are on high alert, the higher-ups in Council are getting antsy and much too quiet. That includes me. We don't know what's coming next, so we have to stay on top of it all. Especially with me as Minister of Intelligence now, taking a day off isn't exactly something I can do, love. Not with the current state of the galaxy."

Shit, Khaak didn't know that part. She's beginning to think any happiness she had before was all a cover up for what was really happening behind the scenes with this new job of her's.

"Yeah...um, can't Lord Amarillis help you with that?" Khaak questions, pulling a few memories out. She wants this fixed, and now, "He screws around with Intelligence from time to time, right? Couldn't he take the mantle for a few days?"

"Not in the way you're thinking. I could surely use his help, but he has his own problems to deal with, especially with his estate the way it is." Lana looks thoughtful for a moment, considering before flickering her glance back up to Khaak, "I have a few other assets I could acquire for this investigation, surely it will get solved soon enough." With a raise of her eyebrow, Lana smiles gently, "And I promise that this time, you can help, love."

"Good, no running off to fight ancient evils without me again, okay?" Khaak asks, pressing a kiss to her lips that Lana leans into, "Two heads are always better than one."

Possibly unnecessarily, both women are still uneasy after this argument. It isn't obvious at first glance, even they've convinced themselves that all is well again. As if nothing has happened. Lana remains at their small apartment more often than not, Khaak is less ready to immediately run off and fight for something she doesn't fully understand. But Lana still hides quite a bit from Khaak, she can tell. Khaak continues to try and push down her true emotions, if only to conform to the mold she's accidentally made for herself to keep Lana around. It has only been the eye of the storm passing overhead, and another is brewing just off the coast. Neither wants to admit they've simply put a bandage over something that has been bleeding for years.

When they do eventually get the call that something horrible is going down on Ziost early one morning, there's a look in Lana's eyes that Khaak won't ever forget. There's another moment when they're flying back over the Sith Intelligence headquarters that Khaak considers that Lana may throw herself back into this and forget about her for real this time. That is mission may be the end all be all if Khaak doesn't do something about it. Firmly, she argues with the 'Keeper' (there isn't a single person in Intelligence who answers to a real name, and that's annoying as it is) and her wife to at least fly her down to the surface and stay on the space station in case she needs her. If Lana doesn't want her on-planet, then at the very least she will stay where her wife can always reach her.

Where her wife can't forget about her.

-

KHAAK._ZIOST.

"So your name is just Cipher Nine?" Khaak questions, turning away from the viewport of the shuttle for a moment. The woman that was accompanying them down to the surface was a piece of work that they'd met at Intelligence at Lana and Keeper's request. Blonde and deep brown skinned with hair in a tight ponytail and in a clean, crisp Imperial uniform. There are a few cybernetics here and there, and Khaak is undoubtedly impressed with just how high-tech they are. She can make a few assumptions on what each one does, but figures she might be wrong. She would've considered her pretty, should she not have been so horribly uptight. Not even a laugh at a few of jokes she cracked, simply standing at a perpetual attention nearby. Any question about Intelligence, answered indirectly, effectively skirting the entire question and returning to absolute silence. Even the little that Lana had told her about the agent was confusing and lead her around in circles. The fact she'd withstood being brainwashed and going undercover for months at a time, it was impressive but also made Khaak very happy that she never went into Sith Intelligence to follow after Lana. The addition of the modded rifle made her a bit nervous, according to Lana she was one of the most talented Cipher agents of her generation (Khaak didn't know what that meant, nor did she really care), though she posed no immediate danger to either of them. Khaak would buy that as soon as she stopped catching her golden-tinged glare every time she turned around. She felt like she was being analyzed from head to toe, or their was a file being made on her, "No nickname like...I don't know, Cara?"

Not even a snicker or a chuckle at the joke, "My designation is Cipher Nine. That is who I am, Captain." She answers, the Imperial accent thick and her expression unwavering from pissed off or possibly apathy. Nine it was then. Maybe Snips if she was feeling particularily annoyed with her.

"I have a name, y'know." Khaak deadpans back, clicking a few buttons to get them ready to land on-planet, then swiveling around in the chair and crossing one leg over the other, "You could address me that way if you're so inclined."

"Don't tease her, Khaak. That's how all Intelligence agents are." Lana responds, stepping closer to the nav controls and adjusting the belt on her armor. She holds back a low whistle in their current company, even going into battle her wife was a certain type of gorgeous that she couldn't put a name on, "I'm sure she has a name that she doesn't wish to disclose with us." Turning from her, she hands Nine a datapad, "Things are getting desperate on the surface, and while we're far from where I'd like us to be, we're safest further from the population centers."

"What about this Wrath of yours? Didn't you contact her before we got down here? Why can't she just slash a path through here for us?" Khaak asks, skirting the fact about the population centers (she'd been on Kaon during the outbreak and had just barely made it out by the skin of her teeth -- insane infections like this terrified her). When she thought of this Sith and her apparently galaxy-shattering abilities, she figured a few Emperor-controlled soldiers wouldn't be too much of a problem for her. Gritting her teeth, she makes the mental note that if the Wrath comes out of here alive but not her Sith,  she might just commit an unsolicited murder.

"The Wrath is powerful, but I'm afraid the Emperor might target her first due to her inclusion in the mission on Yavin and relation to him as his currently designated Wrath. He may see her as a adversary. Her landing out here is the safest place for us to meet her and regroup our efforts to push through and finish Vitiate for good." Lana answers, as Khaak turns back around to land them properly. A look out the viewport, and Khaak hisses in a breath through her teeth at what she sees.

Khaak had been to Ziost before, had even lived here for a period of time with her old crew in tow, but it had never been destroyed like this before. Never. The buildings were crumbling, and there were so many people running about, some stationary though. No ships were taking off, no speeders that she could see. The People's Tower loomed in the distance, New Adasta was dark from what she could see. The Landing Zone was in terrible shape, speeders and transports alike crashed. As they grew closer, Khaak was surprised no one had begun shooting. It was eerie, as if they didn't belong here. As if there was always something waiting in the shadows, and something is beginning to grow the pit in her stomach. Flickering her gaze to Lana, she isn't so sure she wants to leave her alone down here with only two agents and the Wrath behind her, prior fears be damned.

"I will scout the surrounding areas, Minister. Should I run into trouble or find the Wrath, I will alert you immediately," Nine says as they land, pulling the rifle off her back and clicking the safety off. For some reason, Khaak is quick to believe that the trouble will not be Emperor-made, instead the trouble with be Nine herself. Any help would be good help, she supposes and resigns to trust Lana's life in her hands, "Agent Kovach should meet us soon, yes?"

Khaak quietly grumbles under her breath about having an actual name, and Lana lightly slaps her arm in a mock punishment that Khaak pouts at, "Yes, Cipher. You know the coordinates."

A solitary nod from the agent as the door slides open, and she's gone in the cool air, falling into nothingness with only the buzz of a stealth generator ever letting them know she was here. Pushing yet another button to close it again behind her to wait for her return, Lana lets out a shaky sigh once the blastdoors have closed, and Khaak puts a hand on her shoulder that Lana leans into, "Already I've received more reports from concerned officials and worried civillians than I can count. The Emperor is causing chaos left and right, and I'm not even entirely sure why yet. Everyone needs me all at once, as if I haven't been putting out fires as soon as they're set. Evacuation shuttles are being delayed because of attacks, more and more civillians are being turned faster than we can contain those who haven't. Stars, this really is the end of a world, and no one knows what to do about it."

"Hey, we're going to save as many as we can." She says, trying to reassure the other woman and pulling Lana closer to her and pressing a kiss to her lips, knowing that this might just be the last time she sees Lana again. Lowering her voice, she leans her forehead against her wife's, her eyes going cross-eyed for just a moment before focusing again. She's warm, and with the way her eyes narrow in thought, Khaak has got to get this off her chest before Lana does something stupid. Not that she would, Lana remains one of smartest people she knows, but self-sacrificing actions were considered stupid in her book. Any action that could lead to unnecessary injury on her part was stupid, "It sounds bad, but just this once, put your life first."

"Khaak..." Lana says warningly, a skeptical look in her eyes as she leans her weight against her, "I have a job to do. Whether you like it or not,being the Minister means I protect all the Imperial lives that I can."

"That includes yours, 'ana." Khaak answers firmly, leaving no room for any more discussion on the topic, "Protect whoever the hell we're here to protect, but your's still matters most. Don't forget that, got it?"

They kiss again, and Khaak tries to imprint her taste, her smell back onto her. This mission wouldn't drag out nearly as long as Yavin did, but it doesn't mean her concern will wane. It could be as short as a few moments if as soon as she steps out of the shuttle that the Emperor takes aim for her, "I love you, Lana."

"I love you too, Khaak." Her holocom rings, breaking their eye contact as Lana pulls it off her belt, though her hand lingers in Khaak's for a moment longer, "That's Nine. I'm assuming the Wrath has made her presence known once more. I should collect her before the Emperor decides to first."

"If she's the reason you die, she'll have a lot more than just the Emperor to worry about." Khaak is less that ecstatic to see her go, and is beginning to consider that offer to go and scout for Theron herself, if not to have an excuse to still be on planet against Lana's will, "Look, I'll scout around for Theron's ship best I can, and I'll circle back for you if you need me, okay?"

"Are you sure? I know how you are with these situations, love." Lana says, stepping outside the shuttle, lightsaber hilt in hand. A concerned look fills her features instead of one of stress, possibly considering this offer. But, she resigns herself to a nervous smile, "Do not do anything that will jeopardize your survival, love."

"Huh, feel like I just had this conversation with someone I know very well. She didn't listen at first, but thankfully because I love her, I'll listen to her concerns." Lana rolls her eyes good-naturedly at the sarcastic comment, but the incessant ringing of her holocom again spurs her on to kiss her for a final time before igniting her lightsaber and disappearing into the landing zone in a flash of red, black and green. A certain sense of dread fills Khaak to the brim as she closes the blast doors and lifts off again. Essentially, she's leaving Lana on her own, to fend for herself amongst those who have already been controlled. Hell, she couldn't care less if Nine died (Khaak had half a mind to think all her responses were automated or taken straight out of some agent handbook or the other), Kovach could get himself killed and she wouldn't bat an eye. If the Emperor even touched a hair on Lana's head though, Khaak would find someway to fight the ancient Imperial entity. And shoot him.

Switching gears, she refocuses on the mission at hand. Intelligence doesn't exactly have exact information on where Theron is, but he was still on-planet, and would serve as a good distraction from the current situation. She can't stop giving lingering glances to to the landing zone where she'd left Lana, but turns away anyways. The additional Sixth Line was his idea apparently, according to the file Lana had given her, and she rolls her eyes at the mere idea of the action. If Saresh had approved it, it was no wonder the entire mission was going to shit.

Khaak hated Leontyne Saresh. She hated a lot of people, but Saresh topped that list time and time again. Restriction after restriction on trading outside of Republic entities, and even within it once Khaak had applied for Republic citizenship. She very quickly didn't end up renewing it, and probably lost out on hundreds of thousands of credits because of the Chancellor. She didn't do trade in the core worlds that were under her jurisdiction anymore, at least not legally. At the very least with this fascist government, she could trade as she saw fit. Hell, she was pretty sure the Republic was suffering at her hands, but unlike Imperial worlds, they didn't rebel for some reason.

Considering this, she finds that it's smooth sailing for the time being over the rest of the Landing Zone and into the city district of Ziost, much too quiet, which is an an oddity in itself, typically she'd have to dodge speeder after speeder at this time of day. It isn't as if the Imperial shuttle handles oddly either. She considers what she'd even say to Theron should she see him, or even find him. A small part of her hopes he's dead or gone, just so they all can go home and let the Empire deal with it all, like they always do.

She's beginning to near New Adasta when she can feel the pit in her stomach only growing. A glance around what she can see in front of the viewport leads her to believe she's only being paranoid, and takes a shaky breath in to continue on her mission. But a look into the holocamera recording from behind her is too slow to see the aerial guns slowly turning to take aim for the small shuttle. There isn't enough time for her to speed up or even use any defensive manuevers, because the first shot hits one of the main thrusters, thrusting her in the opposite direction, and the next takes out the other. Spiraling into a free fall and losing control over the shuttle entirely, alarms are blaring, red lights are filling her vision and Khaak is panicking. The safeties weren't exactly explained before they took off, and if there is anything to protect her from dying at the hands of a blasted transport shuttle, she doesn't know. Wide-eyed and nearly ready to jump from the ship anyways, she holds onto the straps tightly. It isn't the first time she's ever crashed a ship, hell the Clarity wouldn't fly properly the first few times and she gathered quite a few infractions the first few flights it had. But, this might end up being the last if she can't get out of this. The shuttle hits something hard, probably a building, throwing her off course and smacking her head against the nav dash.

Seeing stars, all she can do now is pray that the steering still works. Flicking her hands back to it, she finds that it does, but she isn't able to pull up properly to avoid a nosedive into the ground, that much is obvious. Lights flash by the viewport in a dizzying array, screaming is growing louder and louder and louder outside the shuttle as the ground grows closer. So this was how it ended, not in a blaze of glory with her wife at her side, but instead alone, in a shuttle she couldn't even figure out how to pilot in the end, trying to find the one person she hoped to never see in person.

A throw of the controls to the left just as she's about to hit the ground allows her two seconds more of consciousness, watching through wide eyes as she and the shuttle roll and the duracrete beneath her spinning before her. Her lekku are yanked painfully different directions as the safety straps snap entirely, throwing her forwar and another hit to the ground breaks the transparisteel, shattering it into pieces and sending her through the viewport onto the ground. Something snaps in her arm as she falls and skids to a stop on the snow covered ground.

She cries out in pain as it registers that her arm has broken in quite a few places after she tries to move. Her ankle is twisted at a despicable angle, and her head is buzzing like the static in a holcom. A string of obscenities escape her as she tries to push herself up into a sitting position, and she falls back to the ground, laying in one of the most painful positions she's ever been in. A quick stock check leaves her knowing she hasn't lost any of the offending limbs just yet. The shuttle is in horrible shape, looming over her and pieces of it scattered about nearby. With her uninjured arm, she fishes her holocom out of one of her pockets (not before biting back an animalistic scream of pain). Flicking one of the switches on the bottom, it begins to beep quietly as she slides it back to sit next to her head. Not even fifteen minutes after leaving Lana, she would need to call upon her for assistance. Chuckling, she wheezes out a laugh, oh the irony.

Glancing about, she can see why Ziost was in such desperate need of Imperial assistance. Alarms sounded everywhere, though she couldn't see anyone in her immediate vincinity. Khaak didn't know what exactly the Emperor was doing, or why, other than that he was controlling average citizens. A bout of panic fills her as her breathing quickens, wondering if he would try to control her. She hadn't seen much evidence of it just yet, but she's worried he's already in her head, trying to take her over. Trying to get her killed. Trying to kill her.

Where does she go from here, until Lana can send assistance or someone to help her? She can't move, she's essentially paralyzed. The ship is clearly non-functional, electricity dangerously close to swinging at her should she grow any closer to the now death trap. Even if she were able to get up on her own, there'd be quite a while before anyone would come for her.

Apparently, she doesn't have to wait long for her saving grace.

"Oi! This ain't a time to die." A voice shouts from somewhere nearby, clearly feminine in tone. Scrambling up from her prone position, her ankle snaps and she slides right back down to the ground, this time smacking the back of her head against the duracrete. Pain shoots up in every direction, and if she wasn't unmovable before, she is now.

Great going, Khaak.

At least she can clearly see who it is now, a woman bundled up in clothing that she would easily mistake for a pirate. A black market electrostaff is on her back, and is quickly sliding down from a line hooked many levels above them. Landing delicately on one boot and then the other, through her fuzzy vision Khaak can see that she's rather short, but blonde curls tumbling down her head. Her jaw and mouth are covered by a tan scarf that is the same color as the rest of her light armor, and she slowly walks up to Khaak. Using her uninjured arm to point one of her blasters at the woman as she tries to pick up the holocom that she had just dropped, the woman stops for a moment, holding her hands up in the universal 'don't shoot' position, "Hey, I don't mean any harm."

An Imperial citizen then, the accent isn't pristine Kaasian, but instead very much one of the Imperial conquered worlds, as Khaak had learned, "Step away...from the holocom."

"Gotcha there." The woman answers, whistling at the ship, "You definitely had one hell of ride into Adasta, huh?"

"You could say that." Khaak coughs, shaking her entire body as she tries to wheeze in another gasp of air. Great, she might've punctured a lung, or broken a rib. With how today was going, she wouldn't put it past fate to be doing so.

"Ships have been crashing for the last couple of days. Don't know what jurisdiction is up to, maybe trying to keep us all contained down here." The woman pulls out a kolto patch, but quirks an eyebrow up, maybe considering even what to do with it, "Jedi and Sith alike milling about everywhere. Wouldn't recommend the scenic tour if you're new here."

"Wonderful, just wonderful." Khaak rolls her eyes, as the woman grows closer.

"I could try to get you back to my apartment. I've been locked up tight since this whole mess started, it'd be nice to have someone else around 'till I die or everything else goes to shit. Or it blows over, who knows?" The woman bend down a knee to be at eye level with Khaak, showing her a grappling gun and then snapping it back to her belt, "How's that sound?"

Khaak considers for a moment, her vision flickering back to the beeping holocom, her only connection to Lana right now, before considering the woman before her. She's an older woman, crinkles around her silver eyes and scars galore marring what she can see. Sighing, she nods solemnly, "You got a name?"

"Do you?" The woman asks back, making a move to help her up. Khaak bites her bottom lip as her ankle drags on the ground and the woman presses down a bit too hard on the injured arm. But she's up, and that's better than she had been a few moments ago. The world spins for a few minutes as she tries to get her bearings back, and nausea is beginning to creep into her senses. A concussion, probably.

"Asked you first." Khaak responds, as they experimentally try a few steps in one direction, and then the other. The woman is much smaller than she is, so it takes a bit to get used to the weight difference, but they are able to walk a few feet to where the woman had just landed only a few minutes ago.

"Asked you second." The woman says teasingly, sliding the grappling gun back out from her belt and taking aim for much higher than they are now. Odd, but Khaak doesn't immediately question their destination. Taking a bit more of her armor in, she can see that the woman isn't underprepared for this excursions, because other than the electrostaff she also has two Czerka blasters on her hips, plus a blaster rifle alongside the staff. She was packing some insane firepower.

"Fine then. Captain Beniko." She answers, knowing this kind of woman, and that chances are she wouldn't be getting the free ride up and promise of rest if she didn't disclose her title at the very least. The woman readjusts her grip on her waist at the answer, the line shooting upwards and clanging to the side of a building. The woman gently tugs on the gun, testing the strength of the line. When it doesn't snap under their weight immediately, Khaak realizes that her apartment must've been higher up in the tiers of New Adasta. Clever, very cleve, "You, mysterious stranger?"

The woman laughs loud and long as they begin their slow ascent upwards, "Mysterious Stranger? Might add that to my list of titles, put that on my gravestone when I die." Her eyes are smiling, the silver turning a sterling grey in the changing lighting. She looks back down at her, "Call me Cadera."

"Alright then, Cadera." Khaak answers, playing with the syllables for a moment before looking out over the horizon. The view from up here would be beautiful if she didn't have to keep blinking her vision back as it swam before her. Ziost was being destroyed, and Adasta was going with it. So many people would lose their homes in this senseless destruction. Cadera is quiet the rest of the way up, maybe considering what to do next. This must've been her home, considering how well-adjusted she seemed to the chaos and her accent. Poor woman.

Once they reach the top, Khaak is pushed up first onto a balcony of sorts, slipping through a doorway and crashing to the ground. Thankfully, nothing of value is broken, and Cadera climbs over the balcony railing and closes the door behind her. Deadbolts are put back into place, and she closes the meager curtains. The low lights of the room come on, and they're in some sort of lounge.

"Nice place you've got here." Khaak comments, taking in the slightly junky room. Cadera chuckles darkly, removing the scarf from around her face. Scars mar her lips in every which of way, and she smirks.

"Welcome to the end of a world, kid."

#swtor #star wars the old republic #swtor oc #oc #original character #fanfiction #khaak beniko #khaak sayare #captain khaak beniko #lana beniko #female smuggler #female smuggler/lana beniko #swtor fanfiction #ziost

[him-e]

hi i’m really confused why people who hate ben say the first order/ben is/are nazis? like ???? how does that even exist or work in this story? am i just dumb and don’t ~see it~? i hope you don’t think this is me baiting you into something else (regarding your last ask) that’s what made me ask this since it mentions nazis in the article. i really am just confused since i loved tlj and didn’t see any problem with it.

It’s okay, don’t worry. First off, don’t let the discourse get in the way of your enjoyment of fiction, especially when it’s comprised essentially of guilt-tripping, manipulative buzzwords. 

Now. The nazi coding in the First Order (and the Galactic Empire in the OT) is there—from the uniforms to the insignia to Hux’s speech to the troops in TFA, everything screams “evil space nazis”—but it’s mainly for the aesthetics. It’s window dressing. It’s a literary trope. 

It’s make up, essentially, a shortcut to help the audience identify easily the bad guys as, indeed, Bad Guys. It’s the equivalent of dressing up your villains as monstrous, stinky orcs in tolkienesque fantasy. That’s because Star Wars is a mash up of different literary and cinematic genres, and one of those is classic WWII movies from the ‘40s and ‘50s, the ones that established the trope of nazis as action/adventure/historical drama villain material. The original trilogy in the late ‘70s was targeted to a young audience, an audience entirely born after wwii, who grew up with the imagery of nazi as fictional villains rather than present, tangible real world threat.

So basically the nazi imagery in Star Wars is a homage to a certain movie genre and its tropes and trappings more than a political statement. And the sequel trilogy deconstructs those tropes, which adds an extra layer of distance from actual political discussion of *real life* nazism. (please note that both TFA and TLJ were written before Trump’s election and before alt-right became a pressing matter in the us political scene).

This doesn’t mean Star Wars doesn’t have a political message. It absolutely has one, and it’s powerful precisely because it’s universal, not necessarily localized to this or that specific ideology or political climate: it’s a statement against imperialism, militarism and antidemocratic oppression, which applies to WWII nazi Germany just as much as it does to other (present-day) dictatorships or to the current rise of populism across the world, BUT most of all it refers (in its original intent) to post-wwii US’ politics. In fact, despite the undeniable pseudo-nazi-fascist aesthetics, George Lucas conceived the Empire as a parody/criticism of the united states’ imperialistic politics in the 60′s–70′s and of the Vietnam war, with Palpatine as a Nixon-like figure.

The superficial nazi metaphor, decontextualized from the other influences and taken in isolation as the only possible real world parallel to the First Order, is neither a particularly deep nor an accurate political reading of it. I would also add it comes from a shallow, imprecise idea of what makes nazism different from other fascist ideologies. Consider this: the most defining aspect of the nazi party—the belief in a superior race and the systematic extermination of Jewish people through the Holocaust—has no recognizable in-universe equivalent neither in the Empire nor The First Order ** (we can guess both are sorta racist—the term would be speciesist—towards non-human species, given the fact that you can’t see a single alien among their ranks, but it’s never a Plot Point, and in any case I hope nobody is under the impression that alien, aka non human or subhuman, creatures can be an acceptable metaphor for Jewish people. Right?). 

** and by the way: no, the destruction of Alderaan or the Hosnian System is not an equivalent to the Holocaust. The intention there was to wipe out a political/military target, not an entire race because of their race. The real life equivalent to the death star and starkiller would be the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Guess who dropped those?

So what makes a nazi analogy effective, exactly? Just generic imperialism and world domination? Evilness™? War crimes? The use of weapons of mass destruction? Aren’t other real life ideologies and military superpowers guilty of those things too? How do you strip a fictional representation of nazi ideology of its most important and atrocious aspect, antisemitism, and still expect the audience to take that metaphor literally? 

Spoiler: it isn’t supposed to be taken literally.

It doesn’t have to, in order to speak to the heart of the audiences all over the world. The nazi coding might be superficial, but this doesn’t mean that the First Order as presented by the new trilogy isn’t absolutely, unequivocally bad. Why is it bad? The narrative doesn’t get too specific about it—in fact many criticized how vague the politics both in tfa and tlj are—but we know they’re bad: they have a rigid militaristic structure, they blow up planets and entire solar systems, they oppose democratic-looking entities called the Resistance and the Republic (names are important just as coding is), they summarily execute prisoners. We just KNOW that those things are bad—we aren’t sure what their political vision is (beyond obvious galactic domination. To quote GRRM, what is the First Order’s tax policy?), but if they do those things, it must be bad, period. That’s all we need to know to understand this story.

The nazi aesthetics help broadcasting this evilness to the audience loud and clear, because we’re all children of the same culture that (thanks to the aforementioned movies and tropes) taught us to instantly recognize those black-dressed, seriously-looking guys marching in lines and swearing allegiance to an ominous-looking red-and-black symbol as evil incarnate (except we fail to recognize fascist and nazi ideology when it manifests in other, less obvious forms).

BUT here’s the thing that antis constantly get wrong, like abysmally wrong. While the First Order is portrayed as bad and unsympathetic, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo isn’t. 

Kylo Ren being made of a different cloth was clear since TFA (you cannot deny the truth that is your family) and insisting to claim otherwise at this point is willfully misinterpreting canon and loudly communicated authorial intent.

Aside from the stormtroopers (who were groomed into their role and are used as cannon fodder by the Order, and who I think will be eventually liberated by Finn), Kylo is the one part of the First Order who is clearly REDEEMABLE, because his nature is essentially extraneous to it. He’s a Skywalker. He’s the last of a breed of wizard-warriors who worship the Force and whose political views, for better or worse, will be always secondary to the way they perceive this energy in the galaxy and their role in it. His enormous power might be dark, but it’s not evil, and right now he’s misplacing it in the hands of an evil organization which he erroneously considers as a chance to bring “a new order” to the galaxy.

Is Kylo a nazi, or at least is he as superficially nazi-coded as the rest of the first order is? Let’s see:

there is no indication of Kylo being racist (or speciesist). Classist? Hell yeah, you can see it mostly in his interactions with Rey (which are, however, complicated and in part contradicted by the fact that Kylo seems to respect and value force users more than “regular” people, including those on his own side). Racist? There’s zero reason to believe that. Or at least there’s no satisfying in-universe equivalent of real world racism emerging in Kylo’s character.

the only group of people Kylo wants to exterminate (like Snoke, and like Anakin before him) is the Jedi order, but the Jedi aren’t an ethnicity or a species. You aren’t born a Jedi. You become one. Destroying the Jedi order is a purge, not a genocide. It’s like killing all the members of a political party, or the supporters of a religious heresy. STILL BAD! (and definitely something nazism, as many other dictatorships, did.) But not steeped in racism or eugenetics. It’s interesting that upon meeting Rey and discovering her force powers, Kylo proposes to teach her. He doesn’t have a problem with force sensitive people per se, he has a problem with those who adhere to the Jedi order. This grudge against the Jedi exists in the context of the eternal hostility between lightsiders and darksiders in star wars canon. It’s not the first time that one side of the Force tries to completely destroy the other, and yes, the Jedi have tried to exterminate the Sith too.

Kylo’s outfit marks him as different than the rest of the First Order, and specifically different from Hux (who is, in many ways, the epitome of the “evil gay nazi” trope, which in turn is a bastardization, mostly for the lulz and/or for fictional purposes, of nazism). Kylo doesn’t wear an uniform or display any official first order insignia indicating that he is, indeed, a believer of that ideology. His TFA costume is reminiscent of a monk or a knight templar (see also how his saber is essentially a red cross shape) while also evoking the classic image of the Grim Reaper (when he’s in full cowl+mask attire), while his TLJ one, while not very different from its earlier version, gives him a dark prince vibe, with the long, willowy black cape and the elegant shorter tunic resembling a medieval/renaissance doublet. Not a lot of nazi coding here, and believe me, how a character looks is very, very important to convey this sort of messages.

So.

What makes a(n allegedly) nazi-coded character convincing, aesthetics aside? 

His politics.

Do we know what Kylo’s politics are? 

No.

If the First Order’s political vision is vague because it works essentially as a stand-in for “evil organization” and we don’t need a lot of details about it, Kylo’s political views are more than vague, they’re non-existent. That’s because Kylo isn’t a political figure, at all. He got involved with this organization because his dark side master was the Supreme Leader, but we have no way of knowing whether his political ideas really align with those of the First Order, or if he has any at all. We believe they must align, to an extent at least, because why would he stick with them for so long if they don’t. The problem is that Kylo is too fucked up to discuss him this way. We actually see in TLJ how he keeps doing things that “split his spirit to the bone” just because his master asked, and because he sees no choice. He just keeps rolling like a wrecking ball towards complete (self) destruction. He’s a mess. He’s the opposite of a political thinker.

Antis insist to see Kylo as the embodiment of the first order when he’s actually (probably) the seed of its destruction. He exists at the margins of the organization, as a scary, but essentially extraneous presence, who follows his own rules and whims (proof of this is Hux’s seething hatred and distrust for him). We now see him rise as its Supreme Leader, but he, like Snoke before him, is an outsider, a custodian and wielder of an ancient magic/religion that the First Order is very willing to use for their own profit, but seems to be inherently skeptical of. And this conflict is 100% going to come to fruition in IX, make no mistake.

Framing Kylo as a nazi is such a massive misunderstanding of how his character is constructed, his role in the story and what he’s meant to represent to us. And of course it creates a VERY unfortunate dissonance in the fact that we’re EVIDENTLY meant to sympathize with him and root for his redemption. 

This is a character who isn’t meant to represent a political allegory, but an existential one. He’s an archetypal figure—the prodigal son, now become the Usurper. His political views remain largely unexplained and unexplored because they don’t matter. What matters is the archetypal ball of negative, destructive energy he represents, as well as the psychological horror of his personal and familial drama, which is the bulk of his motivation in everything he does. Kylo lashes out because of his unresolved trauma with his family and with Snoke, not because he knows what he’s doing or because he wants to achieve a specific goal. Even at the end of TLJ, he’s using the First Order war machine as a weapon to enact his personal, and deeply masochistic, vendetta against Luke, who tried to murder him, and Leia who (in his mind) rejected and betrayed him for the Resistance. He’s also externalizing the blind terror, the hurt, the confusion of having just killed his mentor and long time abuser to save someone who (from his point of view) only used him and then dropped him like a sack of potatoes (yeah, that would be Rey).

There’s no sound military strategy or even logical thinking in his almost delirious attack on the resistance base on Crait, to the point that even Hux is appalled. This isn’t a man who is pursuing a political ideology. This is a deeply broken individual who is fumbling to deal with some major unresolved issues from his past and childhood and who for some reason believes that burning everything to ashes is the only way to achieve some sort of peace. The “order” he wants to restore is more on a personal scale than on a galactic one. The galactic scale is always a byproduct of the personal, as it’s always the case with these thrice damned Skywalkers, tbh.

so to summarize

the nazi aesthetic is superficial and is meant to convey that the first order is Evil

the political message of sw is more universal than “fight the nazis”, not because the nazis aren’t bad, but because the nazis aren’t the only form of political evil people should fight against, and depending on where and when you are in the world, there might be more immediate forms of imperialism and oppression that the local audience might want to see reflected in the First Order (note that the current nazi discourse is incredibly westerncentric and especially us-centric, because that’s where we’re unfortunately experiencing a resurgence of these ideologies, but other parts of the world might have their own oppressive powers to fight that have nothing to do with nazism)

the First Order is 100% evil but Kylo isn’t integrated within it, and even as the Supreme Leader he represents an outsider

Kylo’s relevance in the story is broader than his affiliation with the First Order

in fact, the main themes of his character aren’t political at all

Kylo matters as an archetypal and tragic figure, the continuation of the very archetypal and tragic familial saga of the Skywalkers

Kylo is neither a “literal” nazi nor nazi-coded

insisting that Kylo is a nazi makes you (not you, anon, those who propose this interpretation) look stupider and stupider as it becomes increasingly clear that he’s a HUGELY sympathetic character who is on a redemptive (and romantic) arc

seriously, disney ain’t gonna “normalize” nazis

stop saying that

stop worrying about that

this is the least of your problems

the first order will eventually be destroyed as it should be. Kylo, who is not a nazi, will not

end

#anon #asks #sw asks #sw** #//// #// #sw wank #tlj wank #tlj for ts #sw for ts #kylo ren for ts #kylo** #nazi mention #reductio ad nazi #the first order #space politics #sw discourse #tlj discourse #anti kylo bs #villains #nazi coding #antisemitism tw #racism tw #wank for ts #fandom wank

[funkymbtifiction]

Knights of the Old Republic 2: Kreia [INFJ]

SUBMITTED by theentropyconspiracy

Warning: Major spoilers for Knights of the Old Republic 2. If you have any interest at this game and you haven’t played it yet, do yourself a favour and play the game first

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Kreia is all about her own personalized vision of the future. The entire game is build around her idea that the Force is all that’s wrong with the galaxy and the only solution she sees is to get rid of it entirely. Her plan has been set in motion years if not decades ago and it is so detailed, so intricate and so perfect that she always seems to be a dozen steps ahead of everyone. Kreia is incredibly insightful, she sees through the veil of crude matter. She’s unrivaled at her ability to understand people, their motivations, their fears. Predicting the next moves of her opponents is as natural to her as breathing. At the very last minutes of the game she literally predicts the future of all of the Exile’s companions and it’s not her using the Force, she despises the Force, and she doesn’t really need the Force to do that because she had already connected all the dots to see the most likely resolution for all of them.

Extroverted Feeling (Fe): This seems pretty unlikely at the first glance at her, because people with high Fe tend to be warm and friendly and Kreia is the opposite. She insults people she doesn’t like (calling Atton an imbecile every time she sees him) and doesn’t really seem to be that considerate of other’s feelings. So why Fe? Because everything described above is a very shallow look at her character. The depth of her character unravels during her personal conversations with the Exile. Analyzing those conversations shows her real intentions. Everything she does is in order to make the galaxy a better place and to help others develop and grow. She’s disgusted at the idea of the Force having a will of its own and controlling people, leading them into the same loops of history, same events, same struggles, same wars, same destruction. All she wants is to make everyone in the galaxy free, let them think for themselves rather than leave them as slaves to the Force. She’s against helping people just for the sake of it, being selfless as the Jedi are because she understand that in doing so the Exile actually weakens them. All that she wants is for people to be strong and capable and in order to become that they must fight their own struggles rather than relying on someone else doing everything for them. So by refusing to help and allowing them to fight for their own happiness, a greater good is being done. She wants to help people be free and strong and she does that through teaching them by example.

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Kreia is surprisingly knowledgeable about almost everything the Exile encounters on her (canon) journey. The Force and Force techniques, all the lightsaber forms, all the intricacies of how society works and how every little detail affects the entire system - Kreia knows all about that. She believes in the truth and she never hesitates to tell everyone the truth about them even if it might be painful for them. She sees the galaxy as a large system in which everything is connected. She knows exactly which strings to pull and what buttons to push in a given situation, and she knows how that would affect the system. She instantly points out inconsistencies and poor logic (or lack thereof) in anything the Exile or anyone else might say, and counters it with rational reasoning. In her years as a Jedi she realized that the Jedi code doesn’t give all the answers and during her life she had experienced all the aspects of the Force, both the Light Side and the Dark, the ideologies of both the Jedi and the Sith in order to achieve deeper understanding of the Force. Her decisions and actions are logical although not always understandable from the outside until a wider perspective is revealed.

Extroverted Sensing (Se): Kreia is always mindful of her surroundings. She is always aware of everything happening around her, although she doesn’t rely much on her physical senses for that. Her eyes have atrophied from no use as she sees through the Force. She doesn’t care about physical appearances or physical strength, but pays all of her attention to what she might feel through the Force. Thus, her awareness of the current moment is high, but it’s done through the mystical and subconscious rather than directly through her senses. She’s learnt to compensate it trough the Force. She never tries to be 

Note: My initial assumption about Kreia was that she’s an INTJ. That’s because I’ve never put much thought into it. During my latest play-through of KotOR 2 I decided to embrace my INTPness and thus I’ve been analyzing every line by every character, especially Kreia, and my opinion changed. Now I’d like to somewhat explain my reasoning. Ni is not debatable. As we all know Ni is all about vision of the future, it’s mystical, it’s symbolic, it’s insightful and it all applies to Kreia perfectly. I don’t see any Ne in her. Ne is expansive and it jumps between ideas like playing ping pong. Ne has breadth, Ni’s got depth. Kreia’s so firm at her vision of how the galaxy should be that I’m not even willing to debate on whether she’s got Ni or Ne. It’s just obvious. Ni suggests Se which kind of falls into place as her inferior function. Her awareness of the surroundings is more insinctual and it is probably her less prominent trait in comparison to all the others. Now the largest concern was Fe-Ti vs Te-Fi. And she initially strikes me (and probably everyone else) as exactly Te-Fi, this no-bullshit self-confident old lady, etc. But thought of her motivations and I was surprised. First of all, she’s got Ti rather than Te. She has this understanding of literally everything there is in the galaxy. She’s got answers to every question. I don’t see it as Te. Te would prefer to stick to one area and perfect its knowledge of that specific area rather than spend time and energy on learning everything. For example, such a strong Force-user as Kreia has little use of knowledge about lightsaber forms as she would prefer to fight using the Force rather than a lightsaber, but she know about every single one of them. Another thing about Ti is that Kreia wants everyone to be strong and independent. Especially herself, of course. This desire for independence is a prominent trait of most of Ti-users. Te is naturally more willing to be a team player, because why do everything yourself when you can delegate some of the work to others? It’s more effective and it makes sense. Fe also fits because everything that she does is never to confirm her own values but rather to carefully help everyone else to develop their own and find themselves by doing that. She keeps saying things like “I beg of you to use my knowledge” etc, at the very core all of her actions are deeply altruistic.

#knights of the old republic 2 #kreia #infj #c: infj #f: infj #mbti #submission #character typing

[millicentthecat]

Why The Last Jedi is a Reactionary Propaganda Film

I've been waiting for my thoughts to coalesce (and for the "spoiler" window to pass) to make a unifying analysis of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  This is not a position piece on whether you should or should not enjoy the movie.  It is not any kind of call to action.  It is only an analysis on how The Last Jedi works as a propaganda film.  It’s my personal interpretation based on my experience with assembling message.  This post is tagged "tlj critical" and "discourse" in hopes that will assist people in finding or blocking the content they wish to read.

To begin:   

As important as diversity in representation is, so too is balanced programming of message.  Programming message involves building value by presenting the very ideologies and mechanisms which sustain paradigms of injustice.  Will these be established as inescapable, natural, desirable, or effective?  The Last Jedi (TLJ henceforth) promotes integration with these ideologies and mechanisms.  It does not promote Resistance.

There are three central messages repeating in TLJ.  They are:

1. Respect and trust authority figures and institutional hierarchy

2. Girls like guys who Join (the military)

3. It is the work/role of women to be caretakers and educators (for men)

1. Respect and trust authority figures and institutional hierarchy

After The Force Awakens, my understanding of Poe Dameron's character was that he was designed as a classic rogue-individualist pilot--a hotheaded "flyboy," as it were.  This was not the fanon interpretation, which is understandable; The Force Awakens gave us a lot of poetic material to take in different directions.  I felt my interpretation was valid as it was supported by the visual dictionary (which calls Poe a rogue, I believe) and a line in The Force Awakens novelization about how some people are inherently more important than others.

In short, Poe Dameron was an individual who trusted his own instincts more than others and didn't believe in always playing nice.  In TLJ, this manifests in his relationship with a new character: Vice Admiral Holdo.  Now one of the only things we know FOR SURE about Poe Dameron is that he has no problem taking orders from women, respecting a female General, and trusting her experience.  This is demonstrated by his relationship to Leia, who he knows.  Holdo is a stranger who Poe has never met.  She is not just a woman, but an unknown woman.  EVEN SO, Poe is willing to trust her (at first) by sharing his assessment of the situation--essentially, submitting what he knows for her consideration, sharing his thoughts.  She responds to this by withholding information, reminding him of his recent demotion, and calling him names.  She responded to his  gesture of openness and respect with domination and authority.

This is well within her right, as established by both in-universe and our-universe rules of institutional hierarchy.  Poe, however, does not blindly trust authority figures OR institutional hierarchy more than his own instincts.  It's actually pretty unusual for a protagonist in this universe to do that, for reasons.

Later, General Leia reveals to both Poe and the audience that Holdo had information she was not willing to share.  She is strongly moralized as having been "right" about her plan: Poe takes his reprimand from Leia like a boy accepting a scolding.  Holdo is martyred and established as an example of strong leadership.  Her decision to withhold information from her subordinate is never highlighted (by a narrative authority or third party, such as Leia) as a mistake.  In our society, the rules of hierarchy dictate that "superiors" do not have to share what they have with "inferiors" or treat them with respect.  Those with more power are not beholden to those with less.  Poe is reprimanded for challenging that.

I was almost willing to overlook this deliberately moralized messaging as a botched attempt at a feminist moment before encountering the reviews about TLJ.  In general, there are a large number of reviews for this film which insinuate that most of the people who dislike this film are white male bigots, threatened by the presence of women. (a, b , c , d , e , f , g , h) .  This is not my experience.  The other thing many reviews point to is how Feminist this film is (as a selling point.)  It is an eerily unanimous opinion in mainstream, corporate media that Poe mistrusted Holdo because of her femininity--not her behaviors.  On social media where unpaid people are speaking, many young women are challenging this.  The shouting-down of women's opinions by accusing us of misogyny is a separate topic, but I did want to call attention to the discrepancy between the corporate media response and the social media response.  To me this is evidence of a deliberate misdirection.

Another story arc which enforces the position that we should trust authority figures and institutional hierarchy is in the reestablishment of the Jedi Order, via Luke, Yoda's Force Ghost, and, more significantly, Rey.  Now, much has been written (on this blog, and in many more prestigious place and by better known writers.  See Tom Carson's "Jedi Uber Alles," for instance) in the way of criticism of the Jedi.  The child abducting, the mind control, the over-extension of executive powers, the militarized cult status, the extermination of the Sith race, the monopolization of the Force; their crimes go on and on.  Moreover these are not just mistakes the Jedi made--crimes secondary to their nature--but rather these are the very nature of what their institution stood for.  The Jedi are not "the Light."  They are a specific religion with specific, inherently problematic practices and ideologies.

The Last Jedi is literally a movie about how it's ok that there are going to be more Jedi.

Luke's not on board with that, at first.  Master Yoda (from beyond the grave) reasserts the divine right of the Jedi to rule, as badly and indefinitely as they like.  Because even their failure is valuable.  Try try again, one supposes.  Whatever happened to, "there is no try?"  Oh yes, I remember.  The laws of the privileged do not apply to them.  

Last but not least, the character most overtly challenge institutional hierarchy in TLJ is Kylo Ren, when he kills Supreme Leader Snoke.  This move is not specifically negatively moralized (unless you read Kylo as the villain, which I prefer to) but it also very clearly does not result in a positive or progressive change for Kylo.  At the end of the film, he is miserable; his coup changed nothing.

2. Girls like guys who Join (the military)

"It's all a machine, brother," slurs an alcoholic loner-character known as "Don't Join," sometime after dropping the news on us that Good Guys and Bad Guys buy their weapons from the same arms dealer.  His general sense of hopelessness rubs off on Finn, who grows in his story arc from being willing to Unjoin, himself (as a deserter) to throwing himself into a suicide run for the Resistance.  What stops Finn from a kamikaze end is Rose: she saves him.  For the young viewer who agrees with DJ and sees machinery in war and capitalism, this suicide run represents the realistic (and popular trope) outcome of "joining."  War leads to death.  Capitalism leads to death.  Our generation knows this and we ask, as many before have asked, "why should I be a hero?  I'll just end up dead!"

The Last Jedi does what every great work of propaganda targeting young men does.  It gives a reason.  Why be a hero?  Because girls, that's why.

Before this pact is made, however, there needs to be a little softening-of-the-way--a little grooming.  The word "hero" has been deconstructed in the language enough that people know to associate it with self sacrifice.  We are wary of heros.  The Last Jedi substitutes the word "leader" to mean what hero once meant: a person in power whose sacrifices are gratified with moral rightness in the narrative.  This subverts any counter-programming people were able to apply towards "heroic" stories.  Leadership is presented as an inherently positive and desirable quality, linked to selflessness, sacrifice, martyrdom, and rewarded with female attention.

This same re-programming wordplay is employed in Rose Tico's call to action: "not fighting what we hate.  Saving what we love!"  Question: if the behaviors and outcome are the same, does the mental engineering matter?  Is a Rose by any other name still a Rose?

Is war still war if you call it love?

At this point I also want to call attention to the fact that there is AGAIN very little opportunity in this film where to SEE the First Order committing atrocities: abducting kids, repressing a labor uprising, etc etc.  The First Order is never called fascist (nor, if I recall, are they referred to as an actual nation.)  Their politics aren't even alluded to.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that the film implies it doesn't matter which side you join, but I think there's definitely an argument that being involves with one side or the other is lauded more highly than staying neutral.

Worth mentioning: "Girls like guys who Join" is also the message of Luke's story arc.  Both Rey and Leia wanted Luke to rejoin the arena.  Rey even expresses a willingness to get closer to Kylo--while he is acting like a Joiner.  The minute he makes it clear that he wants no part in either side of the conflict (No Jedi, No Sith, no ties to the past, etc) Rey's trust is broken.  She leaves.  Her rejection IMMEDIATELY follows his insistence on leaving tribal war in the past.  It does not correspond with any immediacy to his acts of violence, nor to his stubborn declaration that she "will be the one to turn."

A brief note.  Army enrollment messaging is a necessary and functional part of maintaining an imperial state.  The in-text discourse positions an offensive/insurgent military organization against a defensive military organization, during combat.  "Join up" is therefore an aggressively interventionist and arguably imperialist position.

3. It is the work/role of women to be caretakers and educators (for men)

This is one of the oldest motifs in storytelling, so when I say it's conservative I mean really, really conservative.  Traditional gender roles and traditional family values are just that: extremely traditional.  Many people find comfort in them and are extremely threatened by their breakdown.  For this reason, storytellers are authorized to hand-wave or sexualize an inordinate amount of violence toward women in order to keep paradigms of labor as gendered as possible.

First of all, there are literal feminine-coded creatures on the island of Ahch-to called "caretakers."  These aliens watch over the island and look after the hutts where Luke Skywalker has taken up residence.

Second of all, Holdo's arc with Poe and Rose's arc with Finn are full of nods to the idea that women must teach and lead men.  Men (who are inherently dogs, apparently) will speak over us, desert us, aim guns at us, and otherwise challenge us, and it is our duty to keep them in line.  This is to be expected.  Flyboys will be flyboys.

Third, it is Rey's sacred duty to prepare Luke to return to the arena of battle.  When Luke fails to step into that role, she turns to Kylo Ren.  Rey and Leia both possess Force-related powers.  Both spend most of their time directing these powers to trying to save, protect, or heal male warriors around them.  When they do fight, rather than act themselves as subjects, they punish men who objectify them inappropriately as a corrective measure.

To be fair, Admiral Holdo and Paige Tico both act directly against the enemy.  They also both have close mentor relationships with other women.  However, Paige and Holdo both die in the course of the film.

A final personal note: in my opinion, there are many ways socially problematic and coercive content offers comfort to a population where uncomfortable traditions feel like the only option.  However, this way of life is not the only option, and this media is not comforting to everyone.

#tlj critical #the last jedi #discourse #star wars #rey star wars #poe dameron #meta #amilyn holdo #kylo ren #luke skywalker #rose tico #paige tico #hating star wars like a star wars fan #contributing to the critical community i guess #star wars: it got wars in it #a paper by me

[gffa]

How much of our real world concepts and rules can we apply on gffa? Issues like mental illness, therapy, age are they same in gffa? Does the worldbuidling of gffa cover these subjects? Ahsoka at 14 fighting is argued as Jedi using child soldiers but Padme at 14 being a Queen and ruling a planet is accepted. Anakin didn't get therapy, but does mental therapy exist as a concept in gffa? Is it okay to simply accept the gffa's in-universe machinations, treat it as separate from our world concepts?

Hi!  This is a really fascinating subject that I enjoy a lot, because a lot of elements go into consideration for these things–writers often having an imperfect understanding of the concepts they’re drawing on for influence, the lack of desire to be a perfect match to realism rather than the thematic elements they prefer, even whether or not you follow narrative intention or instead go by Death of the Author.Let’s take physics as an example–if we try to jam real world physics into the world of Star Wars, we’re going to be sorely disappointed because the creators don’t have a perfect understanding of physics (NO WAY A LIGHTSABER WOULD EVER WORK IRL, THERE IS NO SOUND IN SPACE, etc.) but also that that’s not the point.  They’re writing a story to be entertaining, to follow themes, to have exciting and dramatic moments.  Those laser swords work because realistic physics is a far, far secondary concern to, “Does this look iconic and will make our property unique and sell a shitload of toys?”Does this stop people from yelling about how SWORDS DON’T WORK THAT WAY!!!! in “this expert analyzes the fight scenes of Star Wars” on YouTube?  No, it does not.  And I can yell back, “THEY’RE LASER CHAINSAWS, OF COURSE THEY’RE ALL BOUNCY, ALSO FUCK PHYSICS THAT’S WAY LESS IMPORTANT THAN THEMATIC INTEGRITY.” and then we’re at an impasse!  It depends on which way you want to go, if you want to aim for a Doylist or a Watsonian view on the stories you’re consuming.I want to establish that clearly–one of fandom’s biggest draws is that you get to choose whether you want to abide by Word of God or if you want to embrace Death of the Author (though, in that case, I don’t think you get to claim narrative intention, if the authors specifically say otherwise), that both are valid options.  Beyond this point, we’re going with Word of God because I think that’s the aim of this ask, but I want to be very clear that this is not a judgment of people who subscribe to Death of the Author!Within a fictional world, there is such a thing as narrative intention and narrative structure.  What I mean by this is what you mention with Ahsoka and Padme–the idea that the Jedi use “child soldiers” isn’t really backed up by the canon narrative and is directly contradicted by Padme being an elected Queen of her entire planet and being trained for combat, by the same age, which is treated as awesome.  We see Ahsoka being awesome all the time, there’s no narrative arc where she has to deal with being a “child soldier”.  The Resistance also uses younger people of that age and we’re not meant to think that the Resistance is a horrible, evil organization for that, either.I think realism has its place, because the authors and creators are influenced by realism, but if you can’t back up an assertation with reliable in-universe evidence and the narrative supporting it, then you’re not meant to think that that’s what’s going on.  Star Wars is a fictional space fairy tale, one with laser swords and psychic powers and spaceships, it’s not meant to be 100% realistic.  Not in physics or in psychology!  Not only is it okay to accept the GFFA’s in-universe machinations on their own merits and treat them as separate from real world concepts, I think that’s the best path to understanding the narrative!That said, that is a separate issue from potential criticism of a narrative for including the tropes it does–ie, if we want to, we can criticize the narrative for putting for the idea that having a 14 year old Queen (who many mistake for being much, much older because of the way she’s costumed and made up) is totally cool and that it puts pressure on people of that age to be more world-ready than they should be, but saying that the GFFA intends for us to find this horrifying and that the people around Padme are super judgmental and right about this–or Ahsoka fighting in a war or the Rebellion and the Resistance doing the same–is not accurate.  Because it’s not backed up in-universe by reliable narrators reacting the way they would if such concepts were intentional.It gets further more complicated when we start assuming things that make utter sense to us, but aren’t necessarily intended.  For example, Anakin Skywalker’s various diagnoses by different people (sometimes professional, sometimes not) can be used to say, “This is why his actions are understandable!” or “This is why his actions are inexcusable!”  You can map anxiety disorders behaviors onto him just as much as you can map domestic abuse/IPV behaviors onto him.  You can say, “He should have had therapy!” and I can say, “An actual professional paralleled the Jedi teachings as analogous to therapy, Anakin WAS going to therapy.  He did not want it.”  How much of these were intentional by the narrative and the authors?  We have to look at the characters in-universe’s reactions–ones we know to be reliable, ie, not villains who have an axe to grind or are shown over and over and over to be lying liars who lie for evil purposes, like Palpatine, like the First Order–and take our cues from there.Examples:  Everything in Dark Lord of the Sith shows us that Anakin cannot own up to his mistakes, that he lets his fear rule him, that he is shown better options and rejects them over and over and over.  (“No, this is all there is.”)  Or, in From a Certain Point of View, Obi-Wan says, (“Anakin became a Jedi Knight,” Obi-Wan interjects, a thread of steel in his voice. “He served valiantly in the Clone Wars. His fall to darkness was more his choice than anyone else’s failure. Yes, I bear some responsibility—and perhaps you do, too—but Anakin had the training and the wisdom to choose a better path. He did not.”)  It’s clear that the narrative is saying, yes, Anakin had access to tools that would help him make better choices, but he still rejected them.Ultimately, no fan is obligated to take one path or another, Realism vs Thematic Intentions, Word of God vs Death of the Author, Doylist vs Watsonian, or even a mix of the two, all are our choices.  But when talking about narrative intention, real world influences can be important, but they are inspirations, not a direct, literal correlation.  George Lucas did research on history, so the prequels follow certain structures, but his understanding of them was often imperfect, so I draw on his comments and what’s in the actual canon and books like Star Wars: Propaganda to make my conclusions, because that’s what was built into the foundations of the story.For me, I find it far more satisfying an experience, because my understanding of the story then tends to align a lot with the intentions of it.  Intentions are only as important as any given person wants them to be (Death of the Author is a perfectly valid approach to stories, if you want!), but that is still what was going into the story and I think it’s important to recognize that trying to cram hyper-realistic concepts into a story that wasn’t intended to have them isn’t always going to work out very well, because they aren’t narratively intended.  Padme’s not intended to be a child soldier, trying to cram that into her story can be an interesting thing to explore, but it’s not going to be reflected in the rest of her story.  Same for Ahsoka and the Resistance and the Rebellion, same for the realistic physics of lightsabers.

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