#I'M FALLING INTO THE DARK SIDE

[thatlittlefangirl]

Omg... Am I getting pulled into the dark (short Snape) side?

[fellthemarvelous]

How can you be on the council and not be a master?

I need to stop looking at Star Wars TikTok posts because I guess the concept of personal accountability is lost on so many people.

I love Anakin Skywalker. I do. I think he is one of the best fictional characters ever created because he is so fucking complex. I love him for all the good he did and in spite of all the bad things he did as Darth Vader. In the end, he sacrificed his own life to save his son.

That's the thing that's killing me right now.

People want to blame everyone else except for Anakin for the choices he made. They want to blame the Jedi because the Jedi don't strictly adhere to their vision of love and are therefore responsible for why Anakin fell to the dark side.

I saw a few comments where someone blamed the Jedi (specifically Obi-Wan), blamed the council, blamed Ahsoka because she left him, blamed Padme (because if we can't blame female characters for something then what are we even doing, right?), blamed the Jedi for not trusting him (and therefore somehow preventing him from believing in himself), and then at the end was like...oh and I guess Palpatine too since he groomed him for 13 years.

First of all, why is it a chore to blame Palpatine for Anakin's problems but so easy to blame the Jedi?

Imagine the heartbreak Anakin felt when he learned that the man who spent 13 years mentoring him turned out to be the Sith lord the Jedi had been searching for. That's reason enough to be angry at Palpatine because it was Palpatine who broke Anakin's spirit.

Secondly, not one of these people is responsible for Anakin's actions. Not one of them. Not even Palpatine. That's why it had to be Anakin's choice. Palpatine could not force him to fall, so he had to resort to manipulation and gaslighting to fuck with Anakin's head. He spent 13 years planting seeds of self-doubt and mistrust in the Jedi in Anakin's head. Because what happened when Palpatine assigned Anakin to the Jedi council despite having zero authority to do so??

"How can you be on the council and not be a master?"

The Jedi Council would like to ask Anakin the same question.

You have to be a Jedi master before you can be on the council.

Anakin became upset because he was denied the rank of master. It didn't occur to him at all that Palpatine intentionally placed him in that situation for that exact reason. Palpatine knew the Jedi well, and he knew how they would react. He knew it would lead the Jedi to asking Anakin to spy on him. He played the long game and it paid off.

The Jedi taught Anakin what they could, but they have no control over whether or not Anakin put the Jedi code into practice. The Jedi trusted Anakin. We saw them trust Anakin with their lives many many times during the Clone Wars.

They gave him a padawan for crying out loud. They looked at this 19-year-old, freshly knighted Jedi General and trusted him to mentor Ahsoka, a 14-year-old girl who was more advanced than everyone else her age. He's a vergence in the Force and they gave him a padawan who was already incredibly powerful. It's rare for Jedi to get their own padawans at such a young age, but Anakin was a Force prodigy and Ahsoka could have become a knight herself at 16 if she had not left the Order.

The Jedi trusted him. Until they didn't.

Anakin is the one who slaughtered an entire clan of Tusken Raiders in anger after the death of his mother. Even the women and the children. He killed all of them because he hated all of them and he was angry because he wasn't able to prevent his mother from dying in his arms. The only people who knew about that were Padme and Palpatine.

Anakin is the one who spent three years lying to the Jedi because he kept his relationship with Padme a secret from everyone (except Rex). He believed he could have it all if he tried hard enough, and trying to have it all is what lead to him losing everything when he chose to fall to the dark side, when he chose to sacrifice the galaxy for one person, only to lose her and his unborn child for good.

During the war, Ahsoka told Barriss that Anakin will always do what needs to be done, leaving out the part that includes the use of terror and torture. Barriss got to witness Anakin's rage personally when he figured out that she was the one who framed Ahsoka for treason.

We all saw how Luminara reacted to Ahsoka violently threatening Nute Gunray to get him to talk. She was horrified and immediately reprimanded Ahsoka because it is not the Jedi way to resort to terror. The Jedi were supposed to negotiate, not terrorize. And Anakin taught Ahsoka his version of aggressive negotiations. (And she hinted at the fact that she used aggressive negotiations against Morgan Elsbeth when Huyang questioned her about how she obtained the information to locate the map to Peridea and she told him that she did not follow Jedi protocol.)

When Anakin interrogated Poggle the Lesser during Brain Invaders, he physically hit Poggle before force choking him. He used brutality to get the answers he needed. Obi-Wan, Luminara and Ki-Adi all expressed concern over how he got Poggle to talk, and he wouldn't tell them what he did. What he did went against the Jedi code. He made that choice. No one else made it for him. He knows it was wrong. It's why he didn't answer their questions.

Yes, he was doing it because Ahsoka was in imminent danger and he needed to save her (and Barriss and the infected clones) and there wasn't enough time to negotiate with Poggle. Anakin did what an older brother would have done for his little sister, but she was also his padawan and he was her master. And it was very clear that Ahsoka was a lot like him.

It's not Anakin's fault that Ahsoka left the Jedi Order, but it is not Ahsoka's fault that Anakin fell. He was incapable of letting go of his padawan (he literally resurrected her from the dead on Mortis), which was an important part of the reason he was given a padawan in the first place. He had formed a strong attachment to her just as he had Padme and Obi-Wan and Rex and C-3PO and R2-D2.

His unwillingness to let go of his attachments is what caused him to fall. He was a Jedi, and Jedi are not supposed to form attachments. So when he betrayed the Jedi Order to save Padme's life, his fall to the dark side was a result of him giving into his hatred and his anger. He took his rage out on an entire galaxy for 25 years because he was unable to let go.

Attachment does not equal love.

Maul was attached to Obi-Wan and there was nothing loving about it. It was violent and many people died because of Maul's inability to let go of his anger and hatred for Obi-Wan.

The whole reason that Anakin gave into the dark side completely was because he fell for the trap. He believed he could use the dark side without letting it consume him, but the dark side is all about controlling others. He couldn't control Padme and he ended up force choking her. He couldn't control Ahsoka and she left. He couldn't control Obi-Wan and chose to fight against him instead of listening to Obi-Wan's pleas.

No one could save Anakin Skywalker from himself. He had to save himself from his own darkness.

Which he did, in the end, because he saw his son being tortured by Palpatine, and he realized what it meant to let go. He finally understood what he needed to do and accepted that he would have to give up his own life to do so.

It took him a long time to understand what it means to let go, because letting go isn't giving up. Letting go is about accepting that there are some things beyond his control.

The conversation he had with his mother on Mortis was key to helping him accept who he was in the end. "Your guilt does not define you. You define your guilt."

He knew he was going to die, but he died saving someone he loved, doing the right thing and ultimately returning balance to the Force. He accepted his destiny. He accepted responsibility for who he was as Anakin Skywalker and that Anakin Skywalker was also responsible for the actions of Darth Vader because they were one in the same.

It's the problem we see Ahsoka struggling with when she's with him in the World Between Worlds. She struggled with the knowledge that her master became a monster and worried about what that meant for her. She struggled to figure out who she would have become if she had not left the Order. She had to wrestle with her own darkness, and Anakin's final lesson to her also took a weight off her shoulders. It's why she's suddenly that same girl we saw at the beginning of the war. The one who always smiled and was always so sure of herself. She chose the light and it was reflected in the way she suddenly began wearing white, a contrast to what she'd been wearing decades.

It's understanding that she has control of her own destiny, whatever that might be, and that she gets to choose who she decides to be. Anakin chose to be a Jedi in the end, and he was able to pass a hard-learned lesson onto a padawan he loved like his own sister. He was still able to watch out for her in the end while teaching her one more time.

It's never too late to do the right thing, but it's Anakin who has to take responsibility for his actions instead of blaming everyone else for all of his problems.

Apparently that's a lesson a lot of fans need to learn too.

A question Star Wars has always asked us is "how far are you willing to go to save what you love?"

[2hoothoots]

Revisiting P2 since the docu epilogue dropped and your AMV (<3) popped up as a sign for me to ask something that hopefully you haven't already spoken about years ago: What did you think of the in-game psych explanation for Maligula, that she's the primitive savage part of the mind? P2 is a weird mix of sketchy Freud/Jung concepts that Tim likes meshed with modern psych, and Maligula's deal seems like something they probably wrote a lot of different versions of but never quite solved elegantly

yeah, i think you totally hit the nail on the head - it's always felt like one of the parts of the story that they couldn't quite give enough polish to before they had to finalize it and move on with development. like - i went to go get my artbook to see if it had any insight into the writing process, and did you know that Nona and Maligula being the same person was apparently added way later in development? that's wild! i didn't know that until literally right now! i may or may not have skipped straight to my favourite characters when my artbook arrived and then put it on my shelf without reading the whole thing

ANYWAY, retrospectively i think it being a twist that was added later actually makes a lot of sense in the context of everything you mentioned. the Maligula problem, to me, is the fact that they're trying to juggle a bunch of different things that she has to be in the story. there's Maligula, the ruthless big bad, and Nona, the beloved grandma, and if you suddenly have to also make them both the same person... well, it ends up being kind of a thorny writing problem to make that work, haha.

here's some art i made so this isn't just a wall of text, rest of the answer under the cut

i think one thing they could have done when they needed to rehabilitate a mass-murderer into a lovable old lady was pull back on either end of the spectrum. make your villain softer and more sympathetic, or give grandma a mean streak like she's one bad day away from a tragedy at the crochet club. and to give the story credit, i'm really glad they didn't. Nona is relentlessly sweet and endearing - and that's great! she needs to be in order to make the audience care about her, otherwise the emotional beats are never going to land. likewise, Maligula is a great villain, she's vicious and ruthless and at the culmination of her arc we see she simply does not give a shit about murdering hundreds of people. i love that for her, honestly, you go girl

but then, like - how do you connect the dots? how do you frame grandma having a violently murderous streak in a way that doesn't make the ending of "but she's over it now" feel kinda weird and hollow? and how do you do that while also being sympathetic to the game's themes around mental health? Maligula's informed by the traumatic things that happened to Lucrecia during the war, but she can't just be a manifestation of trauma, because the moral of the story being that trauma makes you a mass-murderer (until you beat up your trauma and shove it in a giant pit) would feel... really tonally dissonant!

so i think you're totally right that the sprinkling of pop-psych concepts we get ends up feeling a little bit like an awkward band-aid. Maligula's story is about how the horrors of war can shape you into a terrible person, who does terrible things - ...but there's also, like, special circumstances, so it doesn't feel weird that she goes back to being Raz's sweet grandma afterwards. special psychic circumstances! she's not just any war criminal, she's the fight or flight response gone out of control!

which - i dunno, i think that line in particular always stood out to me, because that's not really what the fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) response is, right? it's a temporary boost of adrenaline to the system to rev you up for getting out of a dangerous situation. an overactive fight or flight response is called chronic stress and anxiety. i know the games are pop-psych and not actual science, but it always stood out to me as a little awkward.

if it were me in the writer's seat - with the benefit of all the time in the world to workshop it, and no looming deadlines, and the hindsight of having a full completed game in front of me to think about - i might have tried to frame it around connection. i think you could swing the lens to instead focus on how violence, stress, trauma etc., make it harder to understand and empathise with the people around you. the tragedy of Lucrecia's story is that she came home to try and help her countrymen, the people she cared so dearly about. but the more time passed, the less she cared, the less she was able to see them as people. after Marona's death, the Maligula that remains is one who's unable to even care about killing her own sister. the alternative is too raw, too painful - instead, she sheds her last vestiges of remorse, and throws herself into the easy relief of violence. (we see this again, when Nona "awakens" as Maligula - when confronted with the baggage of her past, she chooses to wash it all away with force, unable and unwilling to care about the people she used to call friends.)

and i think shifting the focus like that ties it in thematically, too. a big theme (of both games, but especially the sequel) is how important connection is, how being able to understand and reach out to and rely on other people is a lifeline during hard times. PN2 touches on how there aren't really "good people" and "bad people" - everyone has the capacity to do wonderful or terrible things, and i think Raz's line to Maligula about how "everybody's got something like you" works. Lucrecia was never a monster, no matter how everyone tried to pretend she was. she was just a person, the same as everyone else - and just like everyone else, she could be pushed to extremes under the right circumstances. it just feels kind of odd when the implicit context is "everybody's got a mass-murderer hidden in the primal recesses of their brain", hahaha.

but like, again, that's the privilege of hindsight, right? i've definitely also been on the other side of the creative process, stuck with something i suddenly need to make work in a story and having to come up with a solution that feels like a band-aid. sometimes you just gotta call it good enough, and move on. and i think the game is overall much stronger for having Nona and Maligula be the same person - it plays into the wider themes, it sets up some great emotional beats, and i think it's overall well-executed, even if there are one or two hiccups in the writing.

anyway, great ask! thank you for the invitation to ramble, this is something that stuck out to me on my first playthrough of the game and it was fun to sit down and get my thoughts in order

[mlichaelm]

did y'all know that Kix was part of Dooku's war chest and originally headed towards Serenno with the rest of it and the bad batch was so close to him without realizing or was that something i was supposed to find out at 1am while doing rabbit hole research for my fanfic

[vertigoartgore]

1999's Star Wars Tales Vol.1 #1 cover by cover artist Igor Kordey.

[amypihcs]

Extracorporeal Experience Thursday GO

Alright humans of all sorts, we're at chapter 3, let's see what's going on!

Well, AND FOR GOOD RE- Holmes? Why is that man vibrating in excitement?

Oh well, Holmes always was a rather queer fellow. NOW MORTIMER! Answer my quiz!

Oh yeah so... big doggo?

yep. big-big doggo.

HOLMES! Don't be so very interested, snap out of the case, remember social niceties. Geez, next time you'll tell a poor chap accused of murder that his situation is 'so very gratifying', AH!

Holmes SO WANTS to study Mortimer under a microscope!

And drama, of course comes natural to such a man as he is.

So, do we call the Mistery Inc or are we able to pull it off? even if Mortimer is thinking oh-so-loudly that it's demonic stuff?

... you are not a modest man, we know, and we know the reasons. BUT GOD'S SAKE HOLMES!

This man's hilarious, i SWEAR. BUT HE'S NOT A GHOSTBUSTER! so

How can Holmes be of help? Man likes the case!

Allow an italian a moment to bemoan out lack of punctuality in public transport... And back online! Some gossip and inheritance-legal stuff follows, family lines and so on...

HOLMES! Have a care!

You can't just go on dismissing the man's worries this way, god's sake!

But the local devil's terribly funny to think about, lol.

See? Mortimer got QUITE a bit distressed by that!

W: Don't worry, Dr Mortimer, he's just like this, but he does care.

NOW you've got your job, Mortimer, (shirtcuff note mention), Leave. Me. To. Mine. -cackles madly-

You're going out John?

Now. Holmes is already vibrating from happy case chemicals, And has asked very prettily his Watson for some tobacco. For FAR TOO MUCH tobacco.

H: You'll be out all day, dear? Have fun, we'll compare notes later. W: Sure. Have fun too, darling.

You leave your husband with a 'i love you' and you're sure to return to a livable house, of course. And then...

COUGH COUGH COUGH HOLMES!!!

Always like this! It's INTOLERABLE! DON'T YOU TRY THAT!

H: -deductions- W: DON'T. I'm trying to be annoyed at you. -kissy- Insufferable. H. Deduce me now, Watson?

Okay, i don't want to know or even imagine what sort of cocktail of drugs was in Holmes' bloodstream. Sure too much nicotine and caffeine.

He vibrated himself to Devonshire and back. Alright. So normal.

Just as much as this super normal cat behavior. Another couple of years and he'll buy a trunk to think into it. And poor Watson will have to lure him out of that.

Also, it's not concentration, Holmes. It's carbon dioxide intoxication.

I don't want to think to the desperate scream of his joints either, as a person who often keeps the same cross-legged positions for hours on end as they study.

NOW WATSON. What are your own thoughts about the case?

Well well... Interesting thoughts Holmes... Very interesting.

But now, Watson, let's take this out of our heads! -Watson is discreetly re-opening the windows- First a serenade... and then Will you help a detective to have no thought at all?

We'll know of the conversation with Sir Henry in the next episode! And remember the yaoi goggles!

[grim-vs-lizard]

Hey guys!! We are FINALLY back with a new bracket, this time pitting our biggest interests against each other... introducing

💥THE BRAINROT BRACKET!💥

This first round will have 13 polls with some of our all-time favorite pieces of media, the first 5 being shared interests, the rest being individual (Grim on the left, Lizard on the right)

There was some confusion with our last bracket so we wanted to clarify that the only criteria for these polls is to vote for which one you like over the other!! We'll have silly titles just because we like coming up with any kind of connection between unrelated things, it's what we do

SO, all that being said, we're looking forward to getting this bracket started!! Expect to see the polls tonight (7/1)!! Links to all of the polls will be in the reblog of this post :)

[highbrasshighkass]

"We will always struggle, but that is the test. It's the choice to keep fighting that makes us who we are."

—Cere Junda

[multifandomaceflux]

The Dark Side

@amypihcs and @jelloduckie , you know what you did

To the rest of you, sorry for the zero context heheh

[lifblogs]

Star Wars is just Shakespeare in space.

[weepylucifer]

AND ANOTHER THING about hot sith girl summer, i've managed to write myself into addressing a common issue in the codywan fandom, but in a weird way: that thing where fandom sometimes treats cody like he's only there to babysit obi-wan and his every single thought and action revolves around obi-wan

like, you know who'd also think of cody as existing only in relation to obi-wan, as a kind of appendage of obi-wan? vader. it's probably the only reason he keeps cody alive after cody challenges him between chapter one and two. as bait to draw obi-wan out of hiding, and just to fuck with someone obi-wan held dear, to cause him pain. and wouldn't it be interesting if cody noticed this and started chafing at it, even as he also feels (irrational) guilt over what he did during order 66. and even when he escapes vader and takes up with maul, he expects the exact same treatment: to be treated as a thing that obi-wan owned, and that can now be used as a tool to exact revenge on obi-wan (but he and maul are actually going to have a rapport, weird and fucked up as that's going to be in its own right. but at least it will be true, equal-level codependence). so he's just like "oh it's gonna be the same humiliating dehumanizing shit again but at least i'm no longer in the empire... so i'll take it 🙄" (but then it is actually different, eventually, as maul begins to see the merit of cody as simply cody)

[beastsovrevelation]

I recently found out people ship Cassandra with Apollo.

My initial reaction was...

Just tan their hides. You know what happened to her because the the bastard, don't you?..

Then, I was overwhelmed by morbid curiosity, and checked AO3. People are writing rape fics about them. ...Why?..

Could I ever see Cassandra x Apollo?.. I don't know, maybe. But, definitely not the nonsense I mentioned. Dubcon at most. I guess, he might somehow coerce her into sleeping with him, and later rescue her from the fall of Troy, because she's pregnant with his child, or something (Zeus would be pissed, I'm fine with that).

Sounds like an intriguing story, with a lot of morally questionable elements. I can imagine Apollo confiding in Artemis, wondering why his wife is so upset. She'd just go "are you serious rn?.. -_-".

...What, you're surprised I'm among those I wish to hide with a broom? Don't be. It happens quite often, actually.

[vaguely-concerned]

the ultimate act of futility it is to argue about the rightness or wrongess of the jedi and their world view only through a watsonian lens with in-universe information, without taking into consideration the doylist perspective that this is fundamentally a cosmology constructed by a guy whose self-described religious views are those of a 'buddhist methodist' who was hopped up on campbell. friends we are never going to get something entirely coherent out of this b/c what went into it wasn't either and that's fine, that tension is probably part of what makes the franchise so enduringly interesting, please stop tearing each other apart I'm so tired

[resolutepath]

💋: for our muses to share a kiss under the mistletoe ( ling / ed )

Amestrian traditions are quite quaint, and endlessly amusing, Ling finds. Just being in the presence of what can only been described as the saving the world reunion - owing to the company present - he has watched a few in progress much to his fascination. The one that has brought the most joy of course, is the plant that has been pinned in several doorways, where he has watched extreme reactions of multiple varieties take place. From the ones who linger nearby, subtly eyeing who is beneath it, to the energetic avoidance and shocked faces, the Xing Emperor has taken great amusement in both establishing the rules of the tradition and watching others engage. Riza had been a great help in clarifying a few of the finer details for him, offering him a quick explanation when her observant gaze caught her curious expression before disappearing into another corner of the hall away from the commotion.

He almost lets it slip his mind when Ed walks into the room, talking loudly with Alphonse about their latest investigations. With chin upon palm and elbow upon table, he simply watches the other, piercing ebony gaze softened by the affection he holds. Others more impulsive than he might jump up immediately to be within Ed's periphery, to feel that aureate gaze upon them, but he has time. He's happy to wait until the chatter has settled and he can steal a few minutes that can be his alone.

But that doesn't mean he can't get creative in the meantime.

A smile settles on his face as he rises with the mention of another drink, leaving his chattering table in the hands of Lan Fan and circulating through the room. He winds between food and drinks, plucking the odd snack just to keep up appearances, before finding a quieter hallway still bearing the odd plant that has everyone in an excitement of varying natures. He does not stand beneath it, but rather just before, perusing his collection of snacks and waiting. He knows it will not be long.

Sure enough the sound of boots upon floor draws his gaze up and there stands his golden partner, words spewing from his lips, a beration of sorts, though Ling pays it no mind. He is too busy taking in the changes since they last crossed paths, the definition showing on the returned arm, the relaxed nature of Ed's shoulders. He looks happy and relaxed and all the things he had hoped Ed would find once the war was over. It's enough to have a smile curl on his lips, despite the ornery outburst, though it soon morphs into a smirk as he lets his impish nature take hold.

"Hmm did you say something?" He raises a hand to his ear for effect, then slides back at the burst of movement as Ed springs forward, a hand gripping into his jacket, teeth grinding with that beautiful irritaiton only Ling seems to spark. "Well now, that was just rude, and would you look at that..." He pats at the wrist holding him before pointing upwards, towards the plant in the doorway he has just orchestrated them beneath and smiles. "I believe tradition says you have to kiss me now... unless you're scared of course..."

The expression on his face makes it clear this was all planned in a way that would make Ed be the one delivering the kiss, and he's unapologetic, even at the initiated outburst of I'll show you scared, you damn bastard that follows. His shirt is pulled and he rocks forward, laughing as they clash in a display of affection, the initial kiss awkward and rough but soon smoothing out into something gentler, a kiss shared between lovers who have missed each other dearly.

Later when they are alone, he'll point out to Ed that it is the first time Ed has kissed him in front of their shared friends, and ask how he feels about that before delighting in telling him he'll have to handle the fallout alone as XIng calls him home. It's worth the pillow to the face that follows to see the redness in Ed's cheeks, to be able to draw him back into another kiss and share just a few moments of the precious holiday together.

[hersilco]

Silco.

he/him/his. 25+. fictionkin. tired.

minors & antis blocked on sight.

💙 @hisjinx

[amypihcs]

"Cut the poetry Watson." "You really want me to?" "... No."

HELLO! Hello, my beloved darlings! Time to actually get to Devonshire! Shall we?

Awww, Holmes accompanied them to say goodbye properly to Watson give a couple of last instructions and advice, of course, nothing more.

Most of this is 'write to me often and be very safe, my dear Watson.' They'll miss each other so, so much.

And so, to hide it, what's better than some theorizing and work even before Watson boards the train?

Watson you are much better than that, dear man! No, observe and be careful.

And be armed, and remember to sleep. And don't everextert that leg of yours, please, Watson. I'll miss you so much. - Holmes being a worried husband. Be carful y'all-

W: I miss him already. Look at how handsome he is. H: Hope he'll be careful. I miss him already

Now Watson, time to tap on your natural advantages of being able to chat and make friends!

Ah yes, some bisexual descriptions

Eager to get home, is he?

Insert some more phrenology and countryside and here we go, hop on a 'Wagonette' and up to Baskerville Hall, such a nice countrys- HEY!

What's that, why? AH A MURDERER!

And Watson knows of the case!

Uh- if this is the business...

WELL, there's the hall!

WHY! AND TEH FAMOUS BARRYMORE TOO thanks for the bisexual description, Watson

As Holmes foresaw, Sir Henry and Watson are alone at the Hall.

AH! And even the Butler wants to get himself out of the way ASAP

awww, sweet puppy you are, sir henry<3

Sir Henry and Watson are feeling something that hasn't escaped me either

No shit Sherlock. Oh, Well. Henry.

And now Watson going to bed. And i truly want to thank the granada production (And Jeremy and Ted) for having copied the scene by the letter from the book!

Included, of course, Watson missing Holmes.

Get ready for some handsome Ted Hardwicke GIFs because we all need them.

And maybe a bit more of Eveningwear Watson since we all deserve to see how cute he is.

He's too pretty in his shirtsleeves.

And also taking care of Sir Henry.

Remember the woman crying in the night. We'll see what happens next in few days!