#Form VI | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

saphronethaleph · 10 months ago

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Niman, the Way of the Rancor

Jango muttered a curse, closing his commlink.

You just couldn’t get the informants these days. Jango had bribed people in the Kaminoan facility to be informed if anyone showed up asking after him, but he hadn’t managed to get them to realize that the arrival of a starship not long after he’d returned from Coruscant might be important.

And now he’d only found out that a Jedi was present when they’d actually asked to see the template for the clones.

“Boba,” he said. “We might have an unexpected guest. And we might need to leave – soon.”

“Got it, dad,” his son replied. “Now?”

“No, the Jedi’s coming this way,” Jango replied. “I’ll try and trick them, then we leave as soon as they’re not here. Is all my armour hidden?”

The attendance chime went, and Jango rolled his head back and forth slightly as Boba went to answer it.

“Boba?” he heard Taun We ask. “Is your father here?”

“Don’t worry about little old me,” a calm voice added. “Just here to visit.”

“May we see him?” Taun We added.

“...sure,” Boba said, after several seconds of silence. “Uh. Dad! Taun We’s here!”

Jango moved around the corner of the apartment, to look at the visiting Jedi, and nearly swallowed his tongue.

There was a kriffing Rancor standing behind Taun We. A Rancor wearing a utility belt, attached to which were two lightsabers – one about the size of a small claw, the other big enough that Taun We could have used it as a neck splint.

“Welcome back, Jango,” Taun We said. “Was your trip productive?”

Jango blinked several times.

“...why is there a Rancor behind you?” he asked.

“Hello,” the Rancor said, in that same calm voice. “My name is Knight Tosh. Can I come in?”

Jango was still staring.

“Isn’t it ‘may’?” Boba asked, in the tones of a child who was trying to notice something he could process.

“I’m not sure how big the hallway is,” Tosh explained. “If there’s a problem with my fitting in, that’s fine, I can sit out here and we can talk.”

Putting actions to words, she sat down.

Jango wasn’t sure exactly how he’d decided that the Rancor was a ‘she’, but he supposed they probably did have genders.

“...you’re a Rancor?” he said, still trying to get past that essential point.

“Yes,” Tosh agreed. “A proud daughter of Dathomir. I’m told I’m named for my grandmother, who was the first of us to learn to read and write.”

She steepled the fingers on her enormous clawed hands.

“Aide We,” she said, a little more formally. “I must inform you that I’m here for a number of reasons, not just one. You see, I’ve been looking into a recent assassination attempt on that nice Senator Amidala.”

“Oh, goodness!” Taun We said. “That is most worrying.”

“It is,” Tosh agreed, with a surprisingly kindly smile given that it was a Rancor smiling, something that Jango’s brain kept circling around to. “The assassin is dead, which is fortunate, and I believe that Jango here did us the favour of eliminating her. So I wanted to thank him personally, and also ask if he had any idea why that might have happened… why he might have been hired to kill that particular shapeshifter, that is.”

Then she frowned. “Oh – but where are my manners? We should really start with how it is that you came to be the template for the clone army! It must be a fascinating story. I assume your young son there is involved, somehow?”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said, taking the mug from Cliegg Lars. “I think that’ll be enough for us for now.”

“Not a problem,” Cliegg replied. “You and the other Jedi are the one who rescued Anakin from his old life, that’d be enough to make you kin here, even before all you’ve done for us so far.”

“We do our best,” Obi-Wan smiled, taking a sip of the drink. “Very nice. Thank you again, Cliegg.”

“I don’t know what I expected,” Anakin admitted. “I never really imagined what it would be like to have my mom actually marry someone, but… I think he’s nice.”

“It’s not something the Jedi have much experience with,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m just as lost as you are, Anakin.”

“Are you sure this is a good place to hide out, Obi-Wan? Ani?” Padme asked.

She frowned, and waved her hand. “I don’t mean… that it’s a bad idea to be here. We’ve only been here two days and we’ve already rescued your mother, Ani. But if someone comes looking for us… we’re hiding with the only relatives Anakin has in the entire galaxy.”

“I’m quite sure that nobody will find us,” Obi-Wan replied.

“Yeah, I agree with Master Kenobi,” Anakin nodded. “If I was looking for where a Jedi was hiding, I’d never even think of looking for their family. Jedi just don’t think about family. It’s not something we do.”

“But the people who are trying to hunt me down… they do think about family, don’t they?” Padme said. “Or they might, anyway…”

“In which case, fortunately, we are in a very large desert,” Obi-Wan said. “Mos Espa would have been a suitable enough place to hide out, but now we’re off in the desert. A planet is a very big place to hide someone, Senator – and if there’s anyone in the galaxy who wouldn’t try to betray us, it’s Anakin’s close family. Even before we rescued his mother.”

Padme looked conflicted.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I just worry that we’re too easy to find here. I don’t know how rational that is, but the extent of the resources available to our enemies…”

“Where would you have preferred?” Obi-Wan asked. “If this isn’t where you’d have thought to hide, where would you have hidden?”

“I’d have gone to Naboo,” Padme replied. “Relatives of my family have a house up in the lakes, in the mountains. It’s wonderful and calm and nobody ever goes there.”

“Actually, I like the sound of that, Master,” Anakin said. “Are you sure we can’t change plans and go there, now? There’s a lake there.”

“We brought a lake with us, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, tossing his head to indicate the beaten-up old freighter they’d used to get to Tatooine. “Or a large swimming pool, at least.”

Beru Lars chuckled.

“You three are terrible at this,” she said, from over in the corner. “We’re grateful for your arrival, but… none of you know the first thing about hiding.”

“We don’t?” Anakin asked. “What do you mean?”

“ Tatooine is a planet with slavery, which means a planet with crime,” Beru told them. “If you’re going into hiding, you want to get a good balance between the support network and being impossible to trace back to your owners.”

“Of course,” Padme murmured. “It’s a shame the Republic hasn’t been able to do anything about the slavery out here.”

“That’s your department, isn’t it” Beru asked. “With your being a senator, that is.”

“Padme’s brought it up in the Senate a few times,” Anakin said, defending her. “It’s never gone far, though.”

“Part of the problem is that the Republic doesn’t have the ability to do much about it,” Padme admitted. “We have a navy, but no real army – and bombarding Tatooine to help end slavery seems like a bad idea.”

Beru inclined her head.

“That’s fair,” she conceded. “It’s easy enough to forget that, out here. And I’d bet it seems hard to remember there are people in chains, when you’re on glittering Coruscant.”

“We could be doing more than we are,” Padme allowed. “Once this is over, I’ll see what I can do.”

Darth Tyrannus looked at Jango, his gaze calm. Calm, in the way that the ground was calm, under a descending meteor.

He was extremely unimpressed.

“You told her everything?” he asked, his fingers drumming on his belt next to the handle of his lightsaber.

“Not everything, but… more than I think I should have,” Jango replied, somewhat embarrassed. “You weren’t there. It was… I’d like to see you concentrate on what your story is when there’s a Rancor staring at you. Complimenting you. Offering you tips on how to make tea.”

He shook his head. “Saying that she could smell Coruscant on your clothes. And that’s before the fact that she’s a Jedi.”

Dooku sniffed.

“I think that if I were confronted with a Rancor, and it pulled out a lightsaber, I would be relieved,” he said.

There was a sort of soft thump behind him, and Jango glanced up before going pale and holding up his hands.

“Good afternoon,” a pleasant voice said. “Dooku, it’s nice to meet you at last. Should I call you Count? Or do you prefer the name Darth Tyrannus?”

Dooku knew what he was going to see behind him.

He knew it.

But he had to turn around and look anyway, and so he did.

“Tosh,” he said, and this time he did take his lightsaber off his belt – though he didn’t light it. “How did you get here?”

“A tracking beacon, of course,” Tosh replied. “Well, actually two, one of them was in the fidget spinner I gave young Boba, but I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed so I stuck one to Mr. Fett’s ship as well. I must say, I do like the climate here. Pleasantly dry.”

She smiled, in a way that was somehow disarming until you refocused and remembered what the smile was attached to. “You know, we’re actually somewhat related! In the Jedi sense, at least. I’m not sure how you’ve kept up with master-student relationships in the Temple since you left, but that nice dear Yoda trained me for a few years.”

Dooku did his very best to contain a nervous swallow.

“I have surpassed my old Master,” he said. “I doubt even he could defeat me now.”

“Oh, that’s quite possible,” Tosh agreed, nodding. “Yoda’s always been sentimental, you know. He finds it so hard to fight seriously. It’s not something I’d call a character flaw, but it is what it is.”

She shrugged. “I’d very much appreciate it if we didn’t have to fight today, you know. Since I know you’re a Sith, what about if you give me information on your Master? I know that betrayal is the kind of thing the Sith like to do, and that way we don’t have to fight.”

Dooku evaluated his options.

All it would take for his plans to hold together would be for him to be confident in his ability to defeat this Jedi Knight. This mere… Jedi Knight.

This mere… Rancor… Jedi Knight…

The other option was looking appealing. It was difficult to deny that.

“It’s hard to believe,” Mace Windu admitted, leaning back in his chair.

It was a common posture in the Jedi Council whenever this particular Knight was reporting to them, and Mace felt a most un-Jedi-like pang of jealousy for Yarael Poof. Long-necked and calm, the Quermian Master was the only one able to look Tosh in the eye without either leaning back or standing up.

“Hmm,” Yoda mused. “Mistaken you are not, I assume?”

“Being mistaken is always a possibility, Master,” Tosh answered. “But the plan that Dooku told me does seem to make a good deal of sense… it’s one of those plans where the Sith would win no matter which side of the war was triumphant.”

She spread her massive hands. “It could all be a lie… but it does explain a few things, which leads me to think it might be true. I’d recommend at least testing it.”

“A good approach,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said, to nods from Plo Koon and Sasee Tiin.

“It ties into what Master Gallia has been discovering recently as well,” the latter said. “The Trade Federation’s involvement in this is unsurprising, but the Techno Union, Intergalactic Bank Clan… again, investigation is needed.”

A ripple of agreement ran around the Council.

“And what of the clone army?” Yoda asked. “Commissioned by us, the Kaminoans were told.”

“Oh, I thought the best thing to do was to send them to make sure that nice Senator Amidala was safe,” Tosh replied, with a pleasant smile.

Windu frowned, then looked over at Yoda.

“When was the last time we got an update from Kenobi and Skywalker?” he asked.

“It’s been… a while,” Yarael Poof said, doing his neck exercises. “Last contact was shortly after they reached Tatooine. They were going to avoid broadcasting to make sure they weren’t tracked down.”

Mace Windu activated a holocommunicator.

“Old Folks Home to Guiding Light,” he said. “Knight Kenobi. What is your situation?”

“Guiding Light copies,” a hazy image of Obi-Wan Kenobi replied. “Master Windu, I think we just liberated Tatooine by accident.”

“By accident?” Ki-Adi-Mundi replied. “How exactly did you-”

He stopped, remembering the missions that Kenobi and his Padawan had been on.

“Never mind, carry on,” he requested. “What happened?”

“Someone sent us an army,” Obi-Wan said. “We didn’t actually order them to do anything, but Senator Amidala gave some speeches and I think things sort of escalated from there…”

#star wars #anakin skywalker #jango fett #count dooku #rancor #They could read in the EU #Form VI

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iiheartarc · 2 months ago

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MY TAKE ON THE CAITVI DISCOURSE

total wordcount: 1591

I will say that I've briefly commented on their dynamic in the past, but it was worded really badly so I feel like I need to defend my writing skills a little bit as well with this, but that's just a sidenote. 💀

I think what a lot of people are missing when people do criticise CaitVi is that they aren't necessarily hating on the ship, it's what writing choices have done to it.

I'm not even going to even say I'm a CaitVi hater, I'm not (S1 CaitVi my beloved, you deserved better), but I do think the choices that writers made this season heavily effected how audiences portrayed the ship, even including myself.

Idk I hope this insight might give some people more perspective on why CaitVi became so hated in this season, people rlly need to start looking at both sides and not taking criticism as a personal attack. It really could've been avoided too if the writers had added more time or extended the series onto a third season, but that's another issue on its own.

1. Caitlyn hits Vi

I really don't get why people are so quick to defend Caitlyn on this one, especially considering the amount of hate Vi got when she hit Powder. Are both inexcusable? Yes. But I do think that the situation is a little different when it's a fifteen year old child who had just witnessed the death of her entire family and a twenty something year old woman who took out her anger and grief on the woman she loved because she blocked her shot.

I do think that people also do ignore the immense amount of trauma that Caitlyn suffered at the hand of Jinx, but unlike when Vi 'abandoned' Powder, (again, that's a whole other conversation, we know she was not abandoned), Vi was not that direct source of anguish to Caitlyn the way Powder was to Vi. (Pls lmk if you want me to expand further on this)

Again, not excusing Vi hitting Powder, I'm pointing out the differences.

It's then also incredibly tone deaf when Caitlyn hits her on two more occasions with the same gun, the third time being played off as a joke. It really doesn't come off well, especially when Vi had been a victim of police-brutality even before the abuse she faced at the hands of the enforcers in Stillwater.

And then, even after all this, it's never addressed. It's brushed over, like Vi's entire trauma in the show, the most we get is Caitlyn brushing her hand over Vi's abdomen in the cell scene. Again, can be taken as an apology, but I think that for some very specific things (like hitting your romantic partner), verbal apologies do need to be made in order to communicate healthily and somewhat build a healthier relationship.

I don't really want to talk about the abusive implications of this, because I don't think I'm someone who can talk about it with a full understanding because that's something I've fortunately never been through, but the blatant disregard and shunning of abuse survivors when they pull up the red flags raised because of this is disgusting. In real life, or if it had even been someone else in the show, if the ship had been a heterosexual relationship, people would call Caitlyn an abuser and would be outraged that Vi had been paired with her in the end. But I digress.

1. The cell sex scene

Initially I hadn't been too bothered about this when I had first watched the episode, but when you really think about it, it shouldn't have happened. Hell, they could've had sex in Caitlyn's office and half of the criticism wouldn't have happened, the ship wouldn't be so hated and the fandom wouldn't be half as divided as it is now (from what I've seen).

First and foremost, the cell.

All I can say is wtf. It was such a poor choice it's actually unfathomable to me now. I don't know why the writers thought that it'd be a good idea for Caitlyn and Vi to have their first time in a jail cell, not only the one Jinx had been locked in, but the one Vi had herself been locked in for what we can assume to be hours. The place of her abuse should not be somewhere where the writers could possibly think would be a suitable for a victim to have such an intimate moment with her partner.

Then there's the fact that Vi had looked to have had some sort of breakdown, we see she's sh and there are literal crates in the wall from where she punched it as well as her knuckles bleeding. As soon as she sees Caitlyn, there's a parallel to when they first met, to when Vi is quite literally caged. She's clearly not in the right state of mind, and so when the scene eventually happens it inevitably comes off as wrong because Vi is incredibly emotionally vulnerable in that moment.

"But Vi initiated it!" That still doesn't make it okay. I do think that this also came with an issue of timing, but then again, as I mentioned earlier, it literally could've been in the office as they argued and it would've been recieved so much better then the cell scene was. Vi wasn't breaking down, she wasn't locked in a reminder of the abuse she faced and her sister hadn't just ran off to do goodness knows what (in Vi's POV, us as the audience know exactly what she's about to do). They could've even have it fade to black and cut to the next scene tangled in bed doing whatever they would've been doing in the cell, Vi would assumably have had time to calm down, would be having sex in a warm and safe environment, and guess what? The audience would've been even happier.

Sure there would've been criticism, but Vi could literally save a thousand babies and adopt them all and still face hate, because a lot of the hate is being directed to Vi too because of the situation with Jinx. That, again, is a whole other situation.

3. "Dirt Under Your Nails"

Again, for the love of god, there can be so many takeaways from this sentence but do not be surprised that people didn't like it. I didn't, it made me cringe horribly.

And before people throw 'media literacy is dead', this whole post (practically essay), is analysing a piece of media that I love. To be literate, you can draw different interpretations and conclusions and that's exactly what I'm doing. It's like saying literacy is dead if two people were to disagree on what the meaning of Macbeth's quote 'I am in blood' meant.

I digress.

I think the main issue here is the class difference between Vi and Cait. Caitlyn is from the aristocracy, a direct heir to a position of power in Piltover, while Vi is lower class, effected indefinitely by growing up in poverty. Even though she grew up as Vander's kid, they were still 'scraping for scraps'. The wealth margin between the two is almost immeasurable, and with the difference in money comes a difference in experiences, as we - the audiences - know.

It especially comes off wrong considering the class tensions and political themes heavily focussed on within the first season. The conflict between Piltover and Zaun, the abuse of power and exploitation of Zaunites by both topside and the chembarons, the prevalence of police brutality on the streets of the Undercity. Again, Vi is someone who is directly effected by this, while Caitlyn came into this blissfully naïve. She did learn yes, and in s1 she was so determined to help, but when then this progress reverts into her calling zaunites 'animals' and using the grey as a weapon, it again makes Vi's words feel uncomfortable.

Again, I think this was a massive timing issue, I would've love to see Caitlyn succumb fully to a villain arc. It would've been so interesting to delve into.

I think Vi has always had the image of herself that she'll always be viewed as less by Piltover, that she herself views herself as less. She says it herself to Vander in s1 ep2 while they're on the bridge, "I grew up knowing I'm less than them." So when she then says as her final words in the show, "I'm the dirt under your nails" obviously, that's going to come across as tacky.

People are free to think of romantic connotations for this, I won't stop you, but when you think about how the show was so focussed on class tensions, police brutality, oppression and exploitation, it doesn't come off right. Idk, that's what got me so interested with the show in the first place, the way these themes were explored so deeply but subtly in a way that didn't feel forced, so Vi's words really rubbed me the wrong way.

Conclusion

So I hope everyone that read somewhat gets where I'm coming from, this was my attempt to try and explain what I think needed to be, badly. Again, you can like the ship, I'm not saying I don't, but it also needs to be acknowledged that there is so many things that could've been worked on properly, done properly or addressed properly, and ignoring criticism won't help these issues to be fixed in the future.

Feel free to ask any questions and thanks for reading this long ass rant :)

#vi arcane #arcane vi #arcane s2 #arcane netflix #caitlyn kiramman #caitlyn arcane #this is not anti caitvi #caitvi #I miss s1 caitvi chat ☹️☹️#bring back the scene from s1 ep 8 #where was that caitvi in s2 😔😔#this was so long omfg #if only i was this passionate about my assignments #let alone my epq 💀💀#sixth form is kicking my assss 😝 (send help)

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