#im not saying this to discredit anyone who wants to play with the concept of a vow of celibacy/non-attachment jedi order

[bolithesenate]

not a single day passes where I don't think about the implication of legends(?)-comics jedi master Vima-Da-Boda

she *has* to have been in her prime during the clone wars, which puts her right into the time frame of anakin 'stress ulcer over my secret wife's secret pregnancy' skywalker.

why am i saying this?

because this woman, a jedi master from a *geneological jedi dynasty*, also got pregnant, had a whole daughter and TRAINED HER AS HER OWN PADAWAN (the daughter then wdnt off and fell and got herself killed but thats besides the point)

what i'm saying is that between Vima (and the whole Sunrider Dynasty tbh) and Yula Braylon (who hid her child but Yoda explicitly states that they would have helped her had she told them) and the several other jedi with close family bonds in and outside the order WHY do people keep insisting that the jedi were anti-family hardliners?

the jedi order, at least in legends, has *always* allowed its members to marry and procreate if they choose to. you can even train your own children! it happens all the time!!

ki-adi mundi has five wives and idk how many children, plo koon's niece is a jedi, adi gallia and stass allie are cousins and both became high council members, vima trains her own daughter as her padawan and yula could have announced arath as her kid no problem.

and that is not even going into jedi families in the old/high republic times (remember, the order's most famous grandmaster, nomi sunrider, became a jedi at 30 after her already jedi husband was killed and she too had a daughter which she trained as a padawan)

also, you know, canon is free real estate anyways.

but for those who are so hellbent on saying that the jedi are anti-marriage/family hardliners, no they are not & they never were.

i hope that helps 👍🏼

[typwrter]

What He Should Have Said, a Monologue by Emilie Hepburn.

My Dearest, Emilie. 

I will understand if you cannot forgive me. What I did was unspeakable. I need you to know that I never meant for you to get hurt. I, for some reason, always had the naive notion I was in the right. It is only now, that I write this, that I realize how misguided my actions were. You did not deserve the life you were given, and it is in writing this that I hope to help you find peace. If this is as far as you get, I understand. I am writing this not for myself. I have done enough in this lifetime for myself. I write this so that should you ever need closure, you can do so on your own terms, or do so in not reading this at all. I hope to explain what led me to take the path I did. I will not lie. It is not my place to victimize myself, nor do I believe my words will absolve me of my crimes. This apology is sincere, Emilie. I hope it brings you some solace.

You were a beautiful baby, Emilie. You had your mother’s beautiful eyes, and crazy hair. Luckily her hair. Im sure there was a time I loved your mother, even if I cannot remember it anymore. Decades of unreasonable hate and too much booze has has erased all my good memories of our relationship. She’s incredibly talented, your mum. Just like you, huh? I’ve always been a bit jealous of her. The way she can make people feel. Your mother has a gift with people. I never seemed as important next to her. I felt like she sucked the life from me and the more I drank the more I resented her. It wasn’t right, but you’re so much like her Emilie. I loved you with my whole heart, and yet I could see her with her claws in you. I could see her stealing you away from me. Turning you into all the little things that had come to drive me crazy about her. Everything she said, everything she did. And you and your sister just waddled along after her. I could never steal your attention like she did. I did try.

I loved you, Emilie. I loved the way you saw the world. You were so smart for your age. You were strong. Like your mother, when you talked everyone listened. Everyone wanted to be loved by you. I wanted so much from our relationship. I treated you how I’d always wanted my parents to treat me. An alcohol soaked brain telling me I was being the ‘cool dad’ when in truth I was just being inappropriate. You had to grown up too fast, Emilie, and I am to blame for that. No daughter should have to raise their father, especially not before they’ve gotten a chance to live.

It started before you were born. I had dreams for my life, and someone gave me a sample of the life I wanted. A taste of stardom that I would never have again. My career ended before it could begin and like many I found solace in the drink. I am ashamed to tell you I am a cliché. A wannabe rocker who never had what it really took to be a star. I can pretend it was the industry. That I wasn’t the perfect image of a rocker, what with my premature receding hairline and ever growing beer gut, but in truth I just couldn’t put the passion some can into their work. I’ve never truly struggled, Emilie, and so I had nothing to fight against. My music had no pain, and no life. I gave it all I had, and I failed. I was a flop. I never truly recovered from that blow to my pride.

When you’re in school, you drink to convince everyone you’re cool. Or at least I did. You don’t really partake in alcohol, do you? I suppose that’s my fault as well. Ruined the concept for you a bit. It’s completely understandable. When I was in school, I wasn’t particularly good at anything. I wasn’t the smartest, or the strongest. I couldn’t play basketball or make the dean’s list. I didn’t stand out. I used humor to gain attention. The more I drank, the less I felt like I had to work at impressing people. It took the edge off. Eventually it became obvious that I couldn’t be without it. It seemed to happen over night. I was fine, and then I wasn’t.

Your mother and I met at a wedding. I was smashed. Your mother was smashed. We had an excellent night. We went out a bit, but we were young. Going out meant drinking, and I was good at hiding my problem. How was she to know?

We got married for the party. It wasn’t a good idea. We both just got so excited about the idea of making all our friends dress up and drink with us, we lost ourselves in the moment. It wasn’t until you that your mother realized there was a problem. You see, she drank too. But then she stopped. She was able to grow up for you. I wasn’t.

I loved you, Emilie. I know I keep saying that, but it is only because I feel like I have never been able to say it enough. Never been able to make you hear it. Maybe now can be different. It was much easier to see there was a problem when I was drinking at six in the morning while we got ready for work. I hated when Melody called me out on it though. I hated when anyone brought notice to it. I wanted it to be something we never talked about, and I couldn’t understand why no one else could leave it be. I watched my friends grow up around me… and I never did. Instead I kept drinking and reminiscing. I made terrible decisions.

And than your sister was born. I still had my heads stuck in the clouds, you see. Kept thinking that one day… one day I would have it all again. The stage, the band, the albums. I thought if I willed it to happen, It would.

Your mother went away. Her aunt was dying, and we didn’t have the money for both of us to go, so she went alone. She left me with you and your sister. I was ill equipped to take care of you. I was not a good parent. I resented Melody for leaving me with such an impossible thing to do, and so I lashed out. This was not the first time I used you against your mother, but it was the first time I scarred you doing so. I told you your mother had abandoned you. I told you she was never coming home. For a full week you sat by the window and wept. I listened to you cry. I didn’t care. At least now you were sitting still. You were easier to manage when you were sad, and easier meant more beer for me. When your mother returned she was furious. Of course she was, she came home to her child a neglected mess. I hadn’t taken care of you.

You asked me who god was. I suppose you’d heard students talking about Him at school, or maybe read about Him in a book somewhere. I told you he didn’t exist. Melody yelled, at me for saying something so final to a child, but what did I care? In my eyes God was a stupid ploy to control the masses. Why would my child need their head filled with so much bullshit?

Eventually it was rare that your mother and I weren’t fighting. Life was madness, and my drinking got worse. I couldn’t stomach all the guilt I felt, and the only way I knew how to deal with it was by drowning it. The more I drank, the less I made sense. Anger and jealousy twisted my vision, fact became fiction, fiction became fact. It was easy to pretend your mother was the source of all my problems, and by taking it out on her, I had an outlet. It wasn’t right, and I make no excuse. I was a horrible husband.

You just kept growing. The more you grew, the more you learned that I was a disappointment. Your mother was so good at parenting and she always seemed to one up me in everything I did. And the worst was that she knew. She knew that I was nothing without alcohol, and I felt the need to discredit her. I wanted to be the good guy, and so I needed a bad guy to blame when things went wrong.

And then she left. She took you from me. At the time you were so confused. You said things you didn’t mean, and there is nothing I can say to make this right. I’d put you in danger with my addiction, and your mother saved you. I hated her for it… but she was gone.

Your mother is too good a woman. She never wanted to take anything from you that you would resent her for. She had grown up without a father, and so you were subjected to shared custody. She was gracious. She took care of you when you were with her. She raised you. When you were with me I spent my time taking my anger out on you. Only you. Without your mother there, someone needed to take the abuse, and that fell on you. I said horrible things to you. I would make you feel small because it made me feel big. I’m embarrassed at how much of a traditional bully I was, a hypocrite. You were small, and you were there. And I was angry.

And just like your mother, you learned. It took a lot of pain to teach you though.

You were eleven years old when I picked you up from girl guides with liquor on my lips. I could have killed you. Killed your sister. An officer pulled us over though, and I was arrested. You were terrified. Angry. I deserved worse than I got.

When you finally left me, it was drawn out. I fought it with every fiber in my body to keep you. I lashed out. Like a caged animal I attacked. I left you wounded, but you escaped. And still I hounded you. You leaving felt like a failure. I had wanted to ruin your mother, and instead, I had just isolated myself. I remarried. I had another child, Emilie, and still, I didn’t let your scars heal. I had a piece of you, and I didn’t want to give it up. I burned it. I burned the things you would need to heal your wounds. I poured the antidote down the drain. Not that you can ever truly be cured from wounds so deep. I had conditioned you, Emilie, to want to care for the people I tortured. So that as long as I was hurting someone, you would feel the guilt. I brainwashed you. I broke you.

I could write a million of these letters, Emilie, and never could I truly explain why I did the things that I did. I do not deserve your forgiveness. But you deserve to move on. And it is with that that I write this letter. It is in knowing that you are the person I have hurt, that I leave you this.

You are not who you are because of me, Emilie. You are you despite me. And I am proud. You were the better man. I wish you hadn’t had to be. You may never forgive your father the the way he has left you, but I hope one day you can find peace in knowing you never did anything wrong. You survived, Emilie Hepburn. Take a deep breath, and when you’re ready… take another step forward. You will always have this in your past. You will always feel this scar. You will never truly live until you allow yourself to feel it. So feel it. Breath, Emilie. One day, you will do incredible things. And all of this, will stop being your sob story, and become your origins.

Sincerely, What he should have said, even if he never will.