judayre
replied to your post “The Founder is wise.” The Founder is underestimating humans -…”

I have so many thoughts about the Founders. And most of those thoughts are how they were done so seriously wrong for what they were built up as….. I should write that rant at some point….

I would like to see your rant! 😀

As for me….

They had so much potential, and they became just another alien enemy hell-bent on galactic domination. My brain continually lumps them and the Borg together as “big bads from parts of the galaxy the Federation has had little-to-no contact with”…. and also, of late, “aliens that could have been so much more than the ‘they aren’t like us’ boogeymen”.

I mean, the Borg are the “omg, using technology to expand/extend lives is eeeeeevil”. The “ew, cyborgs”. Without any real counterweights to the argument that technology used to directly extend/expand lives is a bad thing.

And the Founders are the “can’t trust someone who doesn’t fit in neat little boxes” aliens. Which. Even humans are messy and don’t fit neatly into boxes most of the time, but that doesn’t make those who won’t fit into a rigid framework any less people. Any less good people. Any less deserving of respect and the consideration that all people should be given. To live their lives without others imposing some framework on them.

Which of course, drags them into the context of the real world, rather than keeping the meta within the canon, but. *shrugs*

DS9 Meta

So, just finished watching the episode where Odo and Lwaxana get married, and I’m thinking about it, and comparing my reaction with my reaction to the episode I refused to finish last night. Which was the one where Kira and Shakaar get together, and at the point I stopped before I started the lots of internal screaming, Odo was about to fuck up at his job because he’s distracted by them, their closeness, and possibly his jealousy over some aspect of it.

I get far more cranky over that episode than the one where he passionately defends his love for Lwaxana and desire to marry her, and not just because it’s the cliche of the love triangle. To the point of, as I said, internal screaming. (Only not external screaming because I tend to prefer to be a physically quiet person. People tend to underestimate me that way.)

So, the question becomes why?

My usual interpretation of Odo is an aro-ace character who is randomly forced into this unnatural romance plot with Kira, and there’s at least one episode he apparently is interested in sex, and I made faces at that. Because all of those bits tend to read as “everyone must be interested in romance and/or sex, it’s unnatural and wrong not to want it”.

If I try to read it as something in universe? Odo is a neurodivergent aro-ace who is trying to mimic the social cues of romance that he sees around him in an attempt to better fit in. And sometimes that’s enough to be able to watch the episode I did not finish last night, because I can read it as “Odo is distracted by attempting to observe how romance works between (Bajoran) humanoids”, if only just. It keeps the screaming to a dull roar and I can make it through the episode, and the next one I watch can be the calming down episode.

It still doesn’t really make sense, because Odo doesn’t let his need to observe humanoid behavior interfere in doing his job, and yet, suddenly, because Kira is involved, he fails to do his job to his usual standard, and they’re put in danger because of it.

So. Yeah. Lots of screaming.

And yet, Odo getting married to Lwaxana doesn’t make me scream, and it’s not because Odo and Lwaxana have any more chemistry than Odo and Kira.

I think, honestly, it’s because his entire speech reads as someone who has found a soulmate. A platonic soul mate who made an effort to understand him. Who has a lot of her own defenses to hide who she is, and understands the need to apppear different from who a person actually is. And he does love her for it, dearly. But it’s not romantic love.

And their marriage is for her sake. He’s doing this to protect her reproductive rights as her culture understands them. Treating her as a person whose opinions and desires matter, rather than an object to be owned (as the person she’s married to at the beginning of the episode has been treating her).

That she then makes the decision to go back home at the end, to give Odo the room to be himself, and not have her unrequited romantic love for him potentially ruin their friendship, just. It makes me so happy. She is someone who is very much interested in romance and sex who doesn’t have any interest in changing her aro-ace partner. Who doesn’t treat Odo as broken or unnatural for having no desire for either romance or sex.

Yes, it takes her a while to understand it, but she makes the effort where, as far as I can tell, no one else actually does. Quark seems to be the only person who goes out of his way to imply that Odo’s lack of sexual or romantic interest is unnatural, but no one makes any effort to say “yeah, it’s normal, there are humanoids like that too”, either.

Just. I really appreciate the acting in the episode that took what could have been something written as romantic and turned it into a platonic awesomeness without taking away the love of it.

norcumi:

Mmkay. There’s this post floating around about Obi-Wan’s
characterization (link coming up in a minute). I want it on the
record that I am all for people characterizing fictional characters
however they want, on whatever criteria they have including “because
I was in the mood for it,” ‘cause going ‘there’s only one
true interpretation’ is totally a dick move.

Nonetheless this post has been slowly driving me bonkers so I’m
trying to do the polite thing and make my own post deconstructing it
rather than adding to theirs.

Hell, it starts off with “Please can someone explain to me why
there’s this fandom thing where Obi Wan is nothing but angst and
sads for 20 straight years on Tatooine?”

You betcha.

First off, OP is basing character assessment on the Myers–Briggs
Type Indicator. Look. I enjoy personality tests as much as the next
person, but that thing is just as useful to behavior prediction as a
Facebook quiz about which Disney Princess you are. Here’s a nice
convenient article about why which a minimum of digging on Google
netted me. MBTI presents archtypes that are sometimes useful for
casual commentary, but that is not a diagnostic tool.

So let’s take a look at Obi-Wan, as we see in the movies (and
Clone Wars), just after Revenge of the Sith. We have a man who is
anywhere from 33 to 38 years old (depending on your version of
canon), who has spent the last three years overworking himself at the
heart of a hideous civil war that he was essentially drafted for, and
oh yes, his side lost. Not only did his side lose, but it got
massacred. Yoda was able to feel the death of the Jedi Order as it
was happening, do not tell me that Obi-Wan had no idea what was going
on too. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan was also dealing with the betrayal of his
closest friend (his brother), who tries to kill him. Meanwhile, said
brother does kill his wife (pregnant
wife) who is a close friend of Obi-Wan’s, right there in
front of him. All this leads to Obi-Wan doing the unthinkable:
mutilating and then killing his brother – or worse, not being able
to kill Anakin, leaving him in torment for another two decades.

There is so much PTSD fodder here, and that doesn’t even touch the
betrayals from the clones, nor the question of ‘did he feel the
psychic backlash from the chips kicking in and twisting the clones’
minds?’, nor the mental trauma from The Phantom Menace wherein he
was replaced, failed his teacher who died in his arms but only after
saying ‘that kid what replaced you, you need to train him now,’
and then 10 years of raising a kid when he was literally just
sorta-kinda-not-exactly declared an adult himself. He was not
prepared for that.

So once Obi-Wan’s handed over Luke
(the last remaining link to his brother, who he is now not allowed
any contact with since Luke expresses he’s never really met Old
Ben) – that’s the first time he’s had to really stop and
breathe in over 13
years. Ten years to raise a responsibility he never asked for, was
not prepared to handle, and was a reminder of his greatest failure.
Three years of running at least a literal third of a galactic war
that was stacked against him (did he realize that by the end? That
they were being played, and could never have won?).

Yeah, he’s got 20 years to work at
recovering from that, but without a skilled therapist that I don’t
think you’re going to find on Tatooine, you’re going to be lucky
to be functional. I know that Star Wars as a whole doesn’t concern
itself with mental health (seriously, mind healers are becoming one
of my most cherished additions that Re-Entry brings to the table).
That doesn’t mean ignoring it will get you a good character assessment.

Depression and PTSD isn’t going to
make someone “a sad,
bitter, lonely man” nor
does it mean that one will metaphorically “be playing All By Myself
on repeat for 20 straight years while sobbing into a cup of Bantha
milk.” Depression expresses
itself in any number of ways. It can mute things, so that while you
laugh and even enjoy life, that joy doesn’t linger, or pales
quickly. It can add a haze to everything, so you feel numb and
distant. It can make someone who once expressed themselves
exuberantly seem calm instead of manic. It doesn’t have to affect
one’s wit, or habits of cracking jokes even if those jokes might
feel flat and hollow to the speaker.

Sometimes
it just leads to going through the motions of living, how one would
have approached things Before – but it’s just empty motions.

PTSD
can express itself as flashbacks. It can look like nothing until it
is
reactions to a different time and trauma instead of what is now and
present. It
can be a person haunted by their past, it can be explosive, it can be
quiet and turned inwards. There are days when it doesn’t hit you,
there are days when it’s so heavy on your shoulders that it feels
like all you can do is sit, stare at a wall, and hope your brain
shuts off. Then there are the days when despite that weight, you
still need to go get groceries, or make dinner, or fix a vaportator,
or fight off wayward Tuskens or something.

Nothing
says that depressed and traumatized Obi-Wan wouldn’t sometimes take
delight in lightsaber play, or practical jokes. I just don’t think
that it would overtake the depression and PTSD.

On
top of all of that is what
you get when
you take a look at the EU. Obi-Wan’s been traumatized since he was
a kid. He was bullied through his tweens. He was rejected by the ONLY
teacher he could hope to have until the Order booted him to the
AgroCorps, at least a week before the official deadline. Then that
shuttle crashed, and he saw his first major battle which led to
approximately FOUR HUNDRED dead.

At
not quite 13. Over the next year (probably less, but let’s be
generous), he had to deal with: kidnapping, enslavement and hard
labor, an attempted mind wipe, an actual war accompanied by
abandonment by his teacher, and
his teacher’s prior student trying to blow up his home. By the time
Phantom Menace rolls around, we can include: several more wars, 6
months to a year on the run across war-torn Mandalore trying to keep
a teenage Satine alive, taking responsibility for the death of
Qui-Gon’s Love Interest – and that’s just what’s off the top
of my head.

Y’know
what’s interesting? During Attack of the Clones, what I see is a
man just barely holding his shit together. That scene in Dex’s
Diner breaks me, because all I can think of is my time doing food
service while going through my own PTSD and depression – and I
recognize that empty smile he has for Dex. I know it’s all
interpretation, but I can’t help but think he’s faking that
smile. That sure, he means it: he’s happy to see a friend, he wants
to reassure him, but that doesn’t change the hollow inside that he
knows if he lets go and falls into it, he will never climb out.

The
war provided an alternative focus. It gave him clear, concrete goals:
beat back enemies here and here, keep as many of these people alive
as possible, here are resources and here are the end goals. He could
legitimately bond with brothers in arms who could grok black humor,
who wouldn’t look askance at someone covering long-standing grief
and discomfort with banter and flirting, “who
winked and witticized his way out of death and imprisonment a million
times, who always found something to laugh about or make fun of even
in the most difficult situations” – regardless of how inappropriate or relevant that might be to the circumstances.

Sometimes,
that laughter is all that keeps you from breaking from all the pain.

Yes,
people heal. Yes, he had 20 years to
work through
that trauma and injury. He’d
also be doing it alone, with a legacy of stoicism and philosophies
about releasing his emotions into the Force. The last major
friendships he had ended in betrayal in death, and people he depended on tended to either die or betray him.

That’s
not something you blithely overcome to play pranks on the locals
while watching over the kid of your best friend what you almost
killed as he was trying to kill you, like he killed most everyone
else you knew and loved. There is so much trauma and pain he’s had to see over the last 20 plus years, and Tatooine is the first time he ever gets to breathe and react.

If you want to write trickster archtype Obi-Wan, I applaud you. Without any sarcasm or mockery: you do you.

Meanwhile, I’ll be writing traumatized Old Ben.

(Many thanks to @morgynleri and @elegantmess-southernbelle who provided brilliant points and conversation, though I suspect I
phrased it with much less grace and coherency than they did)

sanerontheinside:

norcumi:

thefreelancerdivision:

Mando’a word for niece/nephew

bu’vodu???

–

Thought process:

ba‘vodu (aunt/uncle, pl. bavodu’e)

ba‘buir (grandparent)

ba = one generation older?

bu‘ad (grandchild)

bu = one generation younger?

I am really bad at this. A bit of digging turned up a fan-term “ba’ad” (from here), but honestly your logic makes sense to me.

… you know I think there’s a chance they don’t have one, culturally—because of cooperative, clan-based raising of children rather than with family specifications? I mean, yes, parents (buir) and siblings (vode) are important, but you would raise children of the clan no matter whose they were, right?

I don’t have much to back this, tho, buir’tsad means family lineage and the note put next to it in the Mando’a dictionary says it’s specifically a reference to biological lineage, and rarely used.

that aside, tho:

bah is the dative form of ‘to’, so a grandparent might have the shortened form of ‘parent to [your parent]’, ba’buir.

it’s a little different with ba’vodu, because by the logic above, I’m trying to form ‘sibling to your parent’. …. now it’s more like ‘to [your parent] sibling’, which is interesting.

Actually that makes sense, because dative means giving, so your parent was given a sibling, or given a parent in the case of ba’buir.
(it’s definitely within Mandalorian culture to be able to refuse/disown a parent, so I suppose while it’s expected that a parent will do their duty by their children, it’s also of term of respect for the grandparent who did their job right)

does the logic hold for ‘to [your child] children’ (i.e. grandchildren)? bu’ad: children are ade. The root of bu is likely buir, and most of that branch appears to imply responsibility (ex. buirkan).

so, ‘to [your sibling] children’? vo’ad? lol.

@maawi halp

Well, here’s the thing that I try to explain to people. As a life-long Star Trek fan, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out, one of the revelatory things for me – as a twelve-year-old who watched the show for almost a decade, who’d poured all over the blueprints, read all the novels; I lived and breathed in my imagination the Star Trek universe – when Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out and I saw the design of the new Enterprise, which you could tell was bad-ass, it was souped up, but it all made sense. When you looked at it, you were all like, “Oh, okay, that’s an extrapolation of the design, it looks cooler. Faster. More powerful. And very, very sexy…”

But when you saw the interior – this is what blew my mind the most – when you saw the interior of the refit Enterprise, with the blue-and-red impulse dome, and the impulse engines you knew so well, and how they related to the rest of the Engineering section, how the intermix chamber came down from that impulse dome, went into the Engineering deck that was below the impulse engines, and how you saw that same intermix chamber snake back through the length of the secondary hull to where it went into the different warp nacelle struts… when you saw that, you realized that the entire internal makeup, the internal design of the Enterprise had been incredibly well thought out. You looked and that and just thought, “Oh my god!” One could never understand the relationship between the warp drive and the impulse engines in The Original Series, because the Engineering set in The Original Series was located behind the impulse engines. So…how did that work with the warp drive? It never made sense to me; you never really got it. But with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, you finally saw how everything related, and the Star Trek universe was extrapolated upon in such a gorgeous way across the board – from Starfleet Headquarters to the Epsilon IX station to the Klingon battle cruisers; That first glimpse inside of the [Klingon] bridge, with the moving tactical displays, I nearly lost my mind. We’d never seen that before, other than the brief glimpse behind Subcommander Tal in “The Enterprise Incident.” But we finally saw this with The Motion Picture. For me, as a Star Trek fan, the imagination and the thought that was on display in that movie – of the Star Trek universe itself – was wondrous.

One of the things about the Abrams Star Trek that irked me to no end is how they just haphazardly put into that movie whatever they particularly wanted. Like, J.J. Abrams wanted the image of a young James Kirk driving up on the ground, seeing the Starfleet shipyards as the Enterprise was being built, and then seeing his future. He wanted that image, and you know what? As a director myself, I get that. I think that’s great, J.J. – however, the actual design of the Starship Enterprise, from its very inception back into the Sixties, came from the very real scientific idea a ship the size of the Enterprise COULD ONLY BE BUILT IN ORBIT, because of its sheer size. That’s a very scientific, real world concept based on the laws of physics. Components would be built on Earth, then assembled in orbit. You would not build a starship that looked like the Enterprise, with that configuration, with small struts holding up massive warp nacelles, if you had to build it on the ground and figure out a way to put it in orbit. You wouldn’t do it! The energy expenditure it would take to lift up something like a starship from the surface of the Earth and put it in orbit, into space, you couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t make sense, even if you had the technology to do it, because the ship would not be configured that way – so when they put the Enterprise on the Earth simply for that “classic” image, to me, what it said was the filmmakers were throwing out 45 years of all of the imaginative Star Trek design work for one single image. In the theater, I felt I was seeing someone say to me personally, “Fuck all that. I want an image of this starship on Earth so somebody can ride up on a motorcycle and see it and look at his future.”

I’m sorry, but the Starship Enterprise was simply not built on a planet. It just wasn’t. One of the constraints of the Star Trek universe is the Enterprise was built in space. That’s the design of that ship. It just was! Now, you can sit there and go, “Well, I didn’t want it to be that way.” But that’s always been the design of that ship; it’s as much as Spock having pointed ears. By putting it on the planet Earth… I was just like, okay, the thought behind the design work – it was just people saying, “Well, the practicality of all this, we’re going to throw it out the window.” My thinking would be…the screenwriters and Mr. Abrams should’ve figured out a really interesting 23rd CENTURY way to show that same image of Kirk seeing the ship for the first time. Riding up on a motorcycle and looking off into the future is just not very interesting.

To me, that same thinking permeated the rest of the film. They used narrative shortcuts and previously established cinematic imagery to convey information. So, why, exactly, is James Kirk a troubled young man in the J.J. Abrams movie? We never see a scene with the young James Kirk having something that happens to him directly that turns him into a troubled young man – sure, we’re given this shorthand scene where he steals a car, drives off a cliff, and that, inexplicably to me, the audience goes “Oh, he’s a rebel.” Well, is he? We don’t know; why is he a rebel? His father’s not around because he sacrificed his life so Kirk could live. That shouldn’t make you troubled. Then you have an obligatory scene inside a bar where the townies get into a fight with the Starfleet Academy boys. That is a generic scene from a hundred other movies. “But let’s put it in a Star Trek movie where it will be in the 23rd century!” There was nothing in that scene that was clever or had a 23rd Century twist; it was a bar fight scene that we’ve seen in movies back to the dawn of cinema. It is not a great Star Trek scene; it is not an interesting variation on the bar fight scene; it turns Starfleet Academy members, or young cadets, into ogres and oafs… “You’re talkin’ to my girl? Well, let’s get into a fight!” I mean, we’ve seen that scene in a hundred other movies; it is the most uncreative, shorthand bullshit storytelling method ever.

Throughout that entire movie… I will say this, to give them credit; I did enjoy the young Spock stuff on Vulcan, I thought that was great. The rest of the storytelling, to me, was – while the filmmaking was fine, there was some brilliant filmmaking on display; the acting was great, I love the characters and I thought the casting was impeccable – but to me, the storytelling was just generic and subpar. It did not create a believable ‘reality’ to me. The universe of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie is not ‘real’ the way the original Star Trek and The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager – and even Enterprise – were ‘real’. You cannot give a third-year cadet on academic probation the captaincy of a starship. In what universe would you ever do that? He’s had one mission – admittedly, he saved the Earth; of course, Vulcan was destroyed – I mean, what does he know about first contact missions? What does he know about interacting with an entire starship crew – I mean, the original Star Trek, when you met Captain Kirk, you got through various episode back stories he’d served for years and years before he became captain.

I understand what they were doing, and the movie made a lot of money, but to me, it did not create a believable universe – the way Star Wars created a believable universe, the way Alien created a believable universe – that new Star Trek movie was generic pablum that appealed to the masses. But, to be fair, that was exactly what it was designed to do. The greatest thing about it – I will say this – it made a lot of money, it brought the franchise back from the dead, and now new Star Trek is viable and lucrative; people are going back and rediscovering the original show, which is really the most important thing. I just wish it were a lot more intelligent.

Robert Meyer Burnett speaks about J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek (x)

do you need some ice for that burn

(via jacquez45)

reblogging for @medieisme

(via purplesneakerprincess)

HOLY FUCKBALLS that was AWESOME. Seriously, I don’t even smoke and I need a cigarette after reading that. *happy sigh*

(via greenbergsays)

‘even enterprise’

(via timefortigers)

fialleril:

kdazrael:

Writing Star Wars fic like:

no no no you can’t just make up the name of an object/material – better research that shit…. *checks Wookieepedia* Wow… that’s… even more stupid than I could have imagined.

You absolutely can make up names. I do it all the time.

The trick is to realize that the Expanded Universe is just fanfic that happens to be published in book form. It’s no more canon than any other fic. You can use its fanon if you want, but you’re not bound to it.

The vast majority of “spacey-sounding” names in Star Wars come from the EU. There’s actually very little technical jargon in the films, and there’s no ridiculous Space Profanity either. People say “hell” and “damn”, not “Sithspawn” or whatever nonsense the EU is using this week. If the movies weren’t PG, Han Solo would definitely say “shit” and “fuck”.

a–case–of–you:

“He was my friend. But his Cardassia is dead and it won’t be coming back.

One of the reasons I love Damar so much, and Casey’s acting, is because Casey has this beautiful, subtle way of getting emotions across. He is so good at it and I’m honestly irritated that Damar is a character who seems to be overlooked often. He is a powerful, beautifully crafted, and beautifully preformed, character.

In this scene, Damar has just killed his best friend because he was threatening to kill Garak and Kira. This was a very symbolic scene and another chance to showcase Damar’s change of attitude and the kinds of realizations he has come to. His character has made huge leaps in growth by now, but he is continuing to surprise us as he comes to terms with so many things–Cardassia’s past, and what he needs to do now, and how his very actions will greatly impact the future of his entire people.

Rusot represented the old Cardassia and Rusot had shown time and time again during the Rebellion that he was truly not on board with doing what was best for Cardassia. So despite his friendship and loyalty, when it came down to choosing between his friend or doing the right thing for Cardassia’s future, Damar chose Cardassia. He chose Elim Garak a traitor and exile, and he chose Kira Nerys, a Bajoran resistance fighter, over a traditional Cardassian soldier who had been his long time friend… in just the same manner that the kind of prejudices and attitudes that Cardassian culture tend to perpetuate had been Damar’s long time-friend.

Not only is the scene so powerful and important for these metaphors and Damar’s growth, but just the way in which Casey shows Damar’s emotions and delivers his lines are beautiful.

This photo is a look he trades with Kira after he has killed Rusot. They make eye contact and hold it for several moments. You can feel the strength of it. Damar has sighed, his eyes are wet, but he holds her gaze to convey a message to her and then he nods very subtly as though saying “Yes, I understand now” and she returns a similar gesture. These two people who could not have been more at odds with each other in the past, and from cultural perspectives, have come to a mutual understanding… and maybe even respect. I think Damar has discovered a respect for her in finding out how it is to fight for your people out from under the bootheel of oppression, and I think that Kira has learned to respect him too–yes, he is a Cardassian, but at this point Kira is a bigger person than that, and she seems to respect Damar’s growth and his dedication to fighting for freedom.

Anyway, I wrote a novel. Thank you, blogger, for having this blog where we can appreciate a man who has given us such wonderful things. I hope the blog grows and more people can come to appreciate a talent that is truly special.”

Thank you for the submission, @guljerry. This is an incredibly poignant moment for this character, and for the series as a whole. I would say that the only moment that possibly eclipses it is when Damar learns of the death of his family. The “casual brutality of it.” The acting is so understated, but it’s not numb. His eyes are absolutely alive with emotion. It’s a very, very powerful performance.

“Who gives those kinds of orders?”

“Yeah, Damar. Who gives those kinds of orders?”

I think that was not only one of the best acted scenes in Star Trek history, and a real turning point for the character, but also one of the most important.

Lest we forget.

A Nurturing Environment?

lectorel:

aspiringwarriorlibrarian:

redrikki:

swordsoul2000:

wingletblackbird:

wingletblackbird:

I frequently find myself at a loss when I discover the mindset that the Jedi Council, the Jedi Order, and even Obi-Wan provided a particularly good environment for Anakin to learn/grow up in. By comparing Anakin in TPM to AoTC, I believe it will become quite clear by the change in Anakin that the Temple provided an inadequate place for him to grow.

In TPM Anakin is a very self-confident boy. He is aware of his capabilities and limitations, expresses his opinion firmly, and, as a rule, doesn’t allow his detractors to get him down, or put him down. To list some examples:

He has the courage to initiate a conversation with Padme

In the novelisation, he even says that he’s going to marry her.

He stands up to Sebulba and confidently imitates a conversation with Qui-Gon

He invites perfect strangers to his home.

He calls Qui-Gon out on being a Jedi

He calls Qui-Gon out on slavery

He insists that he can win a podrace, and defends himself when his abilities are questioned

He ignores the ridicule of the children in his community

He talks back to the Council, not rudely, but forcefully.

He asks Ric Olie about piloting and is told he “catches on quick.”

He says he’s going to “see them all,” when he asks about star systems

He refuses to let people destroy his dreams-hard to do when you’re a slave.

He even talks back to and defends himself to Watto-his owner.

Clearly, Anakin is a very confident, and self-possessed individual. He states his opinions firmly, and defends them with conviction. Let’s compare that to AoTC Anakin:

Is far more nervous around Padme (which can admittedly be chalked up to hormones.)

Is shot down hard by Obi-Wan when he expresses his opinions-He does not ever really try and defend himself

Obi-Wan actually seems surprised he stands up as much as he does-clearly it is a rare occurrence that Anakin states his mind like that.

Anakin looks scared of what he’s done when he backs down

He looks timid in front of the Council-Far more so than in TPM

He is told “don’t do anything without first discussing it with either” Obi-Wan or the Council.

He just accepts Padme’s harsh criticism when he points out that she should discuss security concerns with him: Despite the fact that she is in the wrong, he does nothing to defend himself.

He expresses the opinions of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and mace, far more than he does his own. He actually seems afraid to give his opinions, as a rule.

There is a vast difference then between TPM!Anakin and AoTC!Anakin. The former defended his beliefs vehemently. The latter is afraid to even express them. Anakin only rants about Obi-Wan when Padme gives a hint of listening; it’s clear this has been pent-up in him for ages, but he hasn’t been able to let it out. Clearly, no one cares what he thinks or feels. When Padme shoots him down over security, he takes it meekly, but when she expressed doubt with him in TPM over his ability to win the Boonta, he just brushed it off, and told her “he’d win this time.” Before, in TPM, he said what he thought, now he just says “Master so-and-so thinks…” He feels uncomfortable saying what he really thinks. He honestly was more comfortable speaking up as a slave, than as a Jedi. Even just the body language difference can tell you that he’s gone from sure of himself to intensely insecure.

This is Anakin in TPM sticking up to his owner:

This is Anakin in AoTC, free, ostensibly, with his teacher:

It’s like chalk and cheese. One boy is sure of himself, the other looks brow-beaten. What could have caused such a massive shift in self-esteem? Well, a classic cause would be bullying. A child who is different, for whatever reason, gets humiliated, ostracized, beat-up, talked down to, and loses their self-confidence. I don’t doubt the same thing happened to Anakin. He was from the Outer Rim. He began his training late. He was different, unnaturally gifted. I’ve no doubt that was rough, and clearly he wasn’t given any kind of support to help with that, rather he was given the opposite. Hence, he is insecure.

This is in no way his fault. He’s barely an adult by AoTC, and it is up to the adults responsible for him during his childhood to provide a safe environment, if not a safe haven, for him to grow up in. Clearly, the Jedi have failed to do this. Indeed, as shown when Obi-Wan says “don’t do anything without consulting either myself or the Council,” they clearly had no faith in him whatsoever, (after ten years), so why should he believe in himself? In RoTS, Windu actually says when Anakin tells him about Palpatine, “If what you say is true, you will have earned my trust.” In thirteen years, Anakin who has worked diligently, and loyally as a Jedi, and he’s never earned Windu’s trust or respect! That is cold. What was Anakin suppose to do anyway as a boy? Go back to Tatooine? Anakin really didn’t have much choice but to stay. At least, with the Jedi he would get a good education, and would learn how to use the Force. There was nothing for him on Tatooine. What good would he do? By staying with the Jedi, at least until he was knighted, he might be able to help when he finally goes back to Tatooine. He’ll have the Force, and an education that would serve him well. (Then, of course, the war started so that went out the air-lock…) No, the fault for Anakin’s low self-esteem lies entirely with the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan, and the Jedi Council. You cannot blame Anakin, especially since he was a child at the time. Frankly, the Council should be ashamed of themselves. If you adopt a child, and he wilts that much under your care, you need to take a good hard look at yourselves.

i always thought this was bad writing but maybe it is abuse (via @paige-tic0)

I would have thought that it was bad writing too. However, the theme of the apathetic inadequacy of the Jedi is carried from TPM through to RoTS. In TPM, Mace Windu tests Anakin only as a formality, because “he’s too old.” When Qui-Gon insists that Anakin be tested, Windu just waves a hand and says “bring him before us then.” He’s pretty much done with it all. Unsurprisingly, the Council then rejects Anakin, (while talking about Anakin as if he wasn’t even there.) That’s not really the worst bit though, when Qui-Gon points out that Anakin has nowhere to go, they don’t express any concern for his well-being, his education, his future, even though he’s a freed slave with few options, and no money: He’s a child at their mercy. Even when this fact is pointed out to them they just say he’s Qui-Gon’s “ward” now to do with as he pleases, just don’t train him. How callous! I mean, would you do that to a poor boy with no prospects who needed your help desperately?

By the time TPM ends, Anakin’s behaviour is already beginning to foreshadow what happens in AoTC. He’s picked up on all this and this is how he looks when he finds out Obi-Wan is going to be the one to train him:

This isn’t just grief from Qui-Gon’s death; Anakin’s expression, the above expression, comes as a direct result of Obi-Wan’s promise. Anakin’s grief is enhanced by his insecurity over his future. As I pointed out in my post The Team: Built on Weak Foundations, Anakin knew that Obi-Wan initially didn’t believe he should be trained, and was even jealous of him due to Qui-Gon’s actions in the Council room. Anakin had every reason to be afraid that things weren’t going to go well, and they didn’t. Yes, he and Obi-Wan became friends, which was nice, but he was never allowed to feel safe in his environment at the Temple, because of the Council’s apathy, even antipathy toward him which most of the other Jedi would have picked up on and followed like Lemmings. After all, why wouldn’t they do what the wise and noble Council does? Hence, we get Anakin’s low self-esteem in AoTC.

By the time RoTS comes around, Anakin is doing a bit better. He has command of his own men. He’s no longer an apprentice. He’s gained confidence now that he’s needed as a General in the GAR, and he’s been acknowledged to be a really good one which also helps: He’s the Hero With no Fear. As a result, he pushes back a bit more, but the underlying timidity he has with the Council doesn’t quite go away:

While, Anakin starts to really express a lot of his deeply rooted anger that stems from way back in his childhood, both with the Jedi and from slaver, in RoTS, and the Council takes a lot of it, (ignoring Operation Knighthood), he still doesn’t get one of the things he desperately needs, and craves: Validation and respect. Anakin honestly just needs them to tell him he did a good job, and that they’re proud of him, but the Council can’t quite seem to manage it. He might get “arrogant.” (Oh, please. He wouldn’t be so keen to prove what he can do, if you’d just say “you did well, kid!) By the time RoTS comes around, Obi-Wan is the only one who ever really tells him he’s doing a good job, and therefore he is placed in the position of fielding between Anakin and the Council, as the relationship continues to break down.

Nevertheless, despite his slowly regaining confidence, and the increasingly tense dynamic between Anakin and the Council, Anakin still doesn’t feel secure enough to just stand his ground, or even leave. This is a result of years of emotional abuse. Anakin was physically and emotionally abused as a child on Tatooine, and emotionally, and arguably, spiritually abused as a an apprentice to the Jedi. To be honest, I think this behaviour was mostly reserved for Anakin. The Jedi may not have been stellar in raising other members of their Order; they lost sight of what their Code really meant some time prior to the PT. However, they came down cruelly on Anakin, because he was different, and they were scared of what that meant. (Fear leads to the Dark Side, oh yes, but you helped him on his journey through your own fear.)

to make that funeral scene even worse: Anakin has to ASK what’s going to happen to him.

I mean, think about it. The kid is all alone on a strange planet, surrounded by people he hardly knows, and the ONE GUY who appeared to be in his corner is dead, and no one will tell him what’s going on, or what will happen to him. it’s been at LEAST two weeks – to allow for Padme to consolidate her hold on the planet well enough for the Supreme Chancellor to visit, him to be ELECTED, and to hold talks with the Gungans as to how to include their voice in Naboo’s government from now on. Likely it’s longer. And in all that time, ALL that TIME, no one says ONE single WORD about what’s going to happen to Anakin going forward.

He can’t go back to Tattooine. Padme isn’t offering him a place on Naboo, she likely thinks that he’s already part of the Jedi and wouldn’t be receptive to her offer even if she did consider it.

Obi-wan has his head up his own ass and can’t be bothered to consider any feelings other than his own. He doesn’t get that with his new teaching gig, come responsibilities toward the well being (including emotional well being) of his charge. So he’s off in his own head during the funeral, and Anakin is forced to speak up.

and Jake Loyd is perfect here. Anakin’s voice is *resigned* as he askes the question. you can tell that the anxieties have already burned themselves out, and there’s nothing left but resigned acceptance. there’s no use fighting what comes next, because there’s nothing left to fight.

It’s only THEN that Obi-wan turns. Turns and tells Anakin that he has permission to train Anakin as a Jedi. Then he promises Anakin that he WILL be a Jedi, as if that makes it all alright.

It doesn’t.

Okay, so, just up my dash I saw a post by @furiousgoldfish listing signs that your family is abusive and I was just blown away by the sheer number of indicators seen in Anakin’s relationship with Obi-Wan and the Jedi. I’ve highlighted examples from the films and TCW.

signs that your family is abusive:

you feel the urge to hide from them whenever you’re vulnerable

you cannot bear the idea of them seeing you cry

when you’re hurt or in pain, you don’t go to them because you feel
they’ll tell you that you deserved it or that it was your fault

After Obi-Wan’s terrible advice about his prophetic dreams in AotC, Anakin doesn’t got to him about them in RotS. The ‘advice’ he receives from Yoda is basically to suck it up because grief and fear are wrong.

you don’t feel like you can confide in them, either because they don’t
seem to care, or try to control how you act, or yell at you and punish you, or
use the information against you

After Obi-Wan dismisses Anakin’s concerns about his mother, allying with the Hutts, the Jedi’s role in the war, the Jedi’s behavior regarding the Chancellor, etc., Anakin stops coming to him with his problems. He also keeps his marriage a secret out of fear of Obi-Wan and the Jedi’s reaction.

you feel very self-conscious around them and keep expecting criticism
and insults

Look at the way he sits in AotC and that tiny flinch when Obi-Wan tears into him.

you can’t tell them about your struggles because you already know
they’ll side against you

See my previous comments about Anakin keeping secrets from Obi-Wan.

you keep things in your life secret from them because you have a feeling
they would ridicule, humiliate, and judge you if they knew, or take everything
away from you

Same as above

you feel scared of letting them know when they hurt you

After Obi-Wan fakes his death in the Deception Arc of TCW, Anakin is told by both Yoda and Obi-Wan that the pain he feels is his own fault.

you feel scared and guilty when you so much as think about them in a bad
way

Anakin rants against Obi-Wan repeatedly in AotC, often times while crying and immediately denying that he feels what he just said.

you feel the urge to remind yourself of all the things they did for you,
whenever something bad comes up, to be sure that you’re seeing them the way
they want to be seen by you

See previous comment.

you’re scared of being accused of being a burden to them

Obi-Wan and the Council make it clear in TPM that they don’t actually want Anakin and that his presence is a severe inconvenience to them. When Obi-Wan complains in AotC that Anakin will be the death of him, Anakin is clearly hurt.

you’re scared to hold them responsible for things they did to you,
because you know they would argue otherwise, and insist they had full right to
do what they did, or that you made it up

See previous statement

you have the inner sense of dread that nothing you ever do or say will
be taken seriously by them, and your life will always look like a joke to them

you dream of living far away from them and feel guilty for wanting to
cut them from your life

Anakin wants to leave the Jedi, he says as much to Ahsoka, but clearly feels to afraid to actually do it.

you don’t feel like you’re really important in comparison to them, it
feels like it’s better to just step aside and let them be important, your life
doesn’t matter as much anyway

In RotS, Anakin says that he wants more, but is aware that he shouldn’t. He knows his needs are wrong and selfish and he should feel ashamed.

you’re worried about how your every action might affect their life,
their reputation and social standing

you feel that they’re ashamed of you and you’re trying your best not to
bring further shame on the family

Anakin apologizes constantly in AotC.

you feel like you’ll owe them for the rest of your life and nothing you
ever do will be enough to erase the debt, and this fills you with dread and
feeling of being trapped

The Jedi freed Anakin from slavery. The Jedi took him on even when they clearly didn’t want to. Obi-Wan potentially put his career on the line to train Anakin even though he obviously didn’t like him. Anakin can never repay that debt and they make sure he knows it.

you don’t count on their help when you’re in trouble, you’re scared of them
finding out and punishing you for being in trouble in the first place

Anakin doesn’t tell Obi-Wan about what happened on Tatooine. He doesn’t tell him about Padme. He deliberately with holds information about his relationship troubles, even when asked about them.

you don’t count on them sharing their resources with you, you know you
have to be grateful for how much they’ve given you already and feel like you
have no right to ask for anything more, even if you need it

you can’t feel warmth or safety when surrounded by family, instead you
wish you didn’t have to be there, and seek a place to hide and protect yourself

holidays spent with family are just painful and something you try to
endure instead of enjoy

you can’t imagine a world where you’re free and not defined by these
people

Anakin has a wife he could easily choose to be with, but he stays because he can’t imagine not being a Jedi.

Now, I’m not saying that Obi-Wan and the Jedi set out to be abusive, but that was clearly the end result. What they set out to be was in control. Anakin was too old. He was too powerful. He was too dangerous. He needed to be contained. Obi-Wan says as much to Yoda and Mace in AotC. Yoda says as much to Anakin in TCW Deception Arc.

So what did they do? They isolated him from his family and friends. They criticized him constantly. They reminded him how unruly and disobedient and wrong he was. They taught him that he was wrong to ever want anything more. The end result is that they took a confident, happy boy and turned him into an uncertain and unstable mess. I guess that made him easier to control. Palpatine certainly thought so.

It was confirmed in Obi-Wan and Anakin that he was bullied at the temple for being different and that not only did they ignore this but they made him apologize to his bullies whenever he retaliated. As someone who had this happen to them, I can tell you it absolutely torpedos any chance you have of standing up for yourself if you need to.

Like the Jedi Council had no idea how to deal with the trauma of being a former slave. It was Anakin’s choice to turn, it always was, but they infinitely worsened the process due to their clumsiness and prioritizing Anakin the weapon over Anakin the person.

No one says it, but Beru effectively saved the galaxy when she raised Luke as Luke before the chosen one or Anakin’s son or anything else. Anakin didn’t have someone like Beru to do that for him. Obi-Wan tried, but in the end he wasn’t good enough.

This. This this this. The Jedi fucked Anakin up. They didn’t set out to do it, but they did, and they did it thoroughly.

Methos would absolutely have a tumblr account

Methos would have a tumblr account full of shitposts and memes and cat videos, with the occassional vagueblogging about his Immortal friends, Watchers, and whatever anon hate has lately graced his askbox. Which he cheerfully deletes without posting, because he’s too old for that shit.

And he keeps his current life’s brick-space activities off his tumblr, because tumblr doesn’t need to know his current brick-space life, and he doesn’t need his current brick-space life to find his tumblr.

words-writ-in-starlight:

#rogue one #star wars #my creative writing class thinks this is a bad ending #because everybody dies #and they remind me that at the beginning of the class I told them cliche endings like ‘it was all a dream’ and ‘everybody dies’ were bad #THIS IS THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE I try to tell them #maybe one day they’ll learn #anyway #perfect ending is perfect

Hold my beer while I try (and probably fail) to articulate this.

This movie is somewhat unique in my experience because the death of all the main characters seems like the good and necessary end to the plot, and I think part of the reason this is true is because, basically, they don’t die for shock value or because Anyone Can Die, they die because this is a war and they are people who exist solely in the context of the war. I love AU’s where Bodhi meets Finn and Chirrut explains the Force to Luke as much as the next person, but within the context of the characters that we are given, in order to complete their personal arcs to satisfaction, they all have to die in this war.

You have Chirrut, who is the last relic of a religion whose lifeblood has been stolen to power a weapon of the enemy–his only peace as a character is to die bringing that weapon and that enemy to its knees. There is no Temple for him to guard, there are only a handful of kyber crystals left in the galaxy, and there’s no way for him to change that. Characters need closure, it’s what makes an ending satisfactory, and Chirrut’s only closure is to do what he can to right this impossible wrong, there’s nothing else for him, and that means he has to die bringing the weapon down.

You have Baze, who doesn’t even have his faith anymore, all he has is Chirrut and his gun. Well, we just established that Chirrut has to die to close his personal arc. Baze has nothing to tie him to the world without Chirrut, because the war has taken everything from him–his people, his home, his faith, and now his partner. Baze is, I think, very much a story of loss, so his closure comes from knowing that he has reclaimed some part of that, and there is no way–given his character and what we see of him–for him to reclaim any of that except in the face of death, when he is able to lay claim to his faith again. And that’s only possible because, at the last moment, Baze has nothing except the faith that Chirrut held for him all this time. And of course he can only take that back in the face of certain death.

You have Bodhi, who is the one with the message. That’s what his whole arc is about, getting the message to where it’s supposed to go. I think I’ve talked about this before, but Bodhi…he’s pretty much burned all his bridges, his home in Jedha is gone and he’s a traitor and a rogue, all he has left is the message and the hope that someone is listening. For his narrative to end the moment he gets confirmation that “Yes, Rogue One, we hear you” is a very clean, natural close, because it offers him the assurance of a task completed.

And then you have Jyn and Cassian, who are very much creations of the war in their own ways. They exist because of the war. They would not tolerate being out of the war, because they’ve never known anything but. There is no future for them, the way they’re portrayed in the movie, except to win the war at the price of their own lives. They’re not villains to be redeemed or heroes to be lauded, they are people who have been carved so much into the form and function of a weapon that they wouldn’t know how to be anything else anymore. And we get that impression very much over the course of the movie, with the way that absolutely everything is second to Cassian’s mission and the way that even at her most removed Jyn is still a soldier at heart. They are Achilles, not Odysseus–there is not a safe haven and a home waiting for them. They are destined to challenge the unbreakable city and die bringing it down.

And K-2…K-2 is Cassian’s imaginary friend, in a lot of ways. He created K-2, he taught K-2, he fed love and humor and duty, always duty, into K-2′s circuits until there was no empty space left. Of course K-2 dies for Cassian. Of course he does.

So Rogue One works because these are all people whose personal narratives are crafted and supported by the war, and because these are all people whose closure is a grave. They’re not Luke, who closes his arc with saving Vader, or Han, who closes his arc with finding something to fight for and someone who loves him, or even Leia, who closes her arc by avenging her planet through the saving of another. They’re not the heroes of a grand and sweeping epic. They are the martyrs whose stories could only end in peace when they died doing their duty.

This. This makes sense of why I was good with the movie in the theater, despite loving the characters and wanting to give them all worlds where they don’t die. But at the same time, have not felt an urge to write an AU which is explicitly where something in the time frame of the movie itself changes. Because the canon deaths make sense and feel right.

(That I am going to figure out how to not kill them in various running AUs has nothing to do with whether or not their canon makes sense with everyone dying by the end of the movie, and everything to do with exploring what changes in the characters because of the changes already wrought on the universe.)