#or a new star wars trilogy that's actually good

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

some “writers” should starve actually

[nothinggold13]

*watches the prequel trilogy with the og trilogy once* GUYS I THINK I UNDERSTAND STAR WARS NOW

[planet4546b]

realizing mid conversation with my sibling that i’m essentially a hyper specialized cave fish when it comes to interacting with star wars content. can only bring myself to care about things with a horrible niche now sorry for not caring about ahsoka as a character at all simply cannot be bothered. where’s the weirdest freak i can find

[tossawary]

Thinking about missed opportunities in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy again: it's weird with hindsight that Count Dooku doesn't appear in "The Phantom Menace".

Dooku was a Jedi, so it's perfectly reasonable for him to be at either the Jedi Temple or the Republic Senate when we visit Coruscant in TPM. It would have been easy to move a few things around and include him even as a member of the Jedi Council when initially constructing the films, if you were planning ahead when writing.

As Qui-Gon's former master, Dooku is in the perfect position to ask questions onscreen about Qui-Gon's conviction that he's found the Chosen One and Qui-Gon's decision to put Obi-Wan up for knighthood, both publicly with the Council and privately from a more personal standpoint. Dooku could be used as a tool of interrogation to better lay clear for the audience some of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin's characters, their motivations and fears and their potential flaws. An intimate conversation with his master's master could definitely be used to give Obi-Wan some much-needed character focus and inferiority before his climatic fight with Darth Maul.

As the future leader of the Separatists, this is also the ideal point in time to have Dooku act as a voice of criticism, someone who laments both the greed of the Trade Federation and the inaction of the Republic. Dooku could have easily been the representative of the Jedi in the Senate, watching everything, offering grandfatherly sympathy to Padmé Amidala, remarking on the effectiveness of unrestrained power, perhaps even making a warning observation of the dangers of that as Palpatine becomes the new Chancellor. We don't have to see Palpatine and Dooku interact directly, the film could even suggest that Dooku finds this ambitious politician slightly distasteful, but it sets up an explanation for how these two might know each other.

And if we have reason to know and like Master Dooku, then it would actually hurt more when he becomes Count Dooku and betrays both the Jedi Order and the Republic. Even briefly, we could have seen him show frustrated affection and concern for Qui-Gon, give warm advice and praise to Obi-Wan, stand up firmly against the unfairness of the Jedi Council saying Anakin is too old at nine years old. We could have seen Dooku support Padmé in her struggles to make the corrupt Republic take action. We could have seen him as dignified and wise, perhaps one of the only members of the Jedi Council to immediately take the return of the Sith 100% seriously after Maul appears on Tatooine. We could have been made to feel like this experienced, slightly embittered, but righteous older man was the only one "speaking the truth" here.

It really wouldn't have taken all that much shuffling and reassignment plotwise to add him in as a supporting character.

We would feel intrigued at the beginning of "Attack of Clones" when we learn that Count Dooku has left the Jedi Order after Qui-Gon's death. We could see Anakin and Obi-Wan briefly exchange lines about how they miss Master Dooku as well as Qui-Gon (there is already an exchange in the films where they state they miss Qui-Gon), and how they haven't seen or heard from him in some time now. Anakin could suggest that Dooku is hunting down the Sith Master; Obi-Wan could counter with how Master Dooku has simply returned to his life on Serenno, which he couldn't have as a Jedi Master, which Anakin casually calls unfair and he suggests that Dooku can do far greater good as a powerful count (a parallel to Anakin's marriage to Padmé and own Fall). Dooku being established earlier in the trilogy would better highlight how he and Obi-Wan went completely separate directions after Qui-Gon's death.

And again, the reveal that Dooku has Fallen would hurt so much more, if we had actually seen him be affectionate and righteous and wise. If we had any point of comparison for how Dooku's embittered desire for peace and justice has been warped into the pursuit of control and tyranny. It would hurt to see that formerly good man sentence Padmé to death as "just politics, my dear".

"This will start a war!" Padmé tells the man who helped her help her people once.

"I know," Dooku replies, with ominous satisfaction.

It would hurt to see Obi-Wan beg Dooku to stop this (a prelude to him begging Anakin in the next movie: "Anakin, please, I cannot lose you too!"), only for Dooku to attack and nearly kill him when Obi-Wan refuses to join him. It would hurt to see this grandfatherly figure cut off Anakin's hand, someone he knew and was kind to as a child. Seeing where Dooku fell from would also make everything about his fight with Yoda hurt more as well. We wouldn't have seen Dooku's struggles directly, offscreen in the time skip between TPM and AOTC, but this Fall would help prepare us for witnessing Anakin's Fall onscreen in "Revenge of the Sith", illustrate for us how power and grief corrupts, how the desire to take complete control and "start over" corrupts.

And all of this would also make Dooku's death in ROTS hurt more: to see Anakin execute an unarmed, injured man who had once been kind to him, who had once had good intentions a long, long time ago. We could have even had Dooku perhaps try to warn Anakin about Sidious, as the fear cuts through him as he realizes Sidious has betrayed him, only for Anakin to kill Dooku out of anger (Dooku is responsible for so much death, Palpatine reminds Anakin) just before the ruined man can finish speaking. Dooku's former goodness underlines Anakin's arrogance in thinking that his own fate will be any different.

The novelizations of the prequel films and other extended universe materials build up an image of Dooku's life as a Jedi and his Fall for us. We can assume and imagine a lot. We can retroactively apply knowledge gleaned from "The Clone Wars" with Dooku as a major villain. But ultimately, Dooku as a more sympathetic and emotionally relevant character is just not in the films.

When "Attack of the Clones" reveals to us: "Oh, no! Dooku has betrayed the Jedi Order and the Republic!" I think that most of the audience is like: "Gonna be real with you, chief, I have no idea who that is."

He's only been mentioned before once maybe? In Palpatine's office? Master Mundi assures Palpatine that Dooku is a good man (or something like that), but we have seen no evidence of this ourselves. This line mostly just becomes really funny on a rewatch, rather than poignant, because the prequel films audience only ever gets to see Count Dooku as a Sith Lord and rather underdeveloped villain. We don't ever get to see him be a "good guy" first. We're told but not shown.

The audience has no solid reason to care that Dooku specifically has betrayed the Order, as opposed to any random Jedi, because we haven't seen him before at all, much less interacting with any of our protagonists or establishing himself as an opinionated player within the story. Which is a shame! Because he has strong opinions that stand in interesting ideological conflict with so many other characters, generating fun and dramatic exchanges! He has direct connections to and parallels with other characters! He's potentially a really useful storytelling tool within these films, and his character just doesn't get used to that full tragic potential.

In conclusion...? I wish I'd actually been sad when Dooku betrayed everyone and died at Anakin's hand, instead of mostly just confused and then vaguely pitying. I want to see some of the love between characters beforehand, so that it hurts more effectively when that love turns to hate.

[david-talks-sw]

Ironically, contrary to what most of the angry YouTubers are saying, I think The Acolyte is a story that heavily focuses on lore.

(Well, not really "lore", more like "fanon.")

But my point is, it makes a lot of metatextual commentary about these fanon tropes and lore elements that fans debate about ("are the Jedi truly good? Is the Sith way really so bad if they allow you to feel?") but it completely forgets that all those elements were created in the first place because they were telling a story.

Example: how the Jedi approach emotions.

The Jedi control their emotions. They don't repress them.

They allow themselves to feel them, but they do their best to not let themselves be ruled by them. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they do their best.

This is because wielding the Force is based on emotions... you use it with compassion in your heart, you're on the Good Side, you use it with negativity and selfishness, in search of pleasure, and it leads you to the Dark Side.

This all then ties in to how Luke and Anakin approached the Force, how the former saved the galaxy because of his compassion,after the latter one doomed it because of his greed, etc. It's a metaphor for emotional regulation and teaching kids to be compassionate.

There's a reason this has all been laid out this way.

So when you're making a new story, and your narrative is that:

"The Jedi think they're controlling their emotions, but actually they're just repressing them, and at one point one of them will snap and kill them all..."

Well... no? That's not the story. Because the narrative of the Prequels clearly frames Anakin's selfishness as the cause, and that of the Original Trilogy clearly frames Luke's retreading of his father's path to darkness as a bad thing.

Same goes for:

"Osha frees herself from the shackles of her trauma by killing her father and joining the Dark Side."

Joining the Dark Side is portrayed as a bad thing, it's synonymous with losing yourself, not finding yourself. That's why Episode VI frames Luke not killing his Dad as a good thing.

So... are we just gonna ignore all that?

There's a narrative attached to these points, and you can either reject it or embrace it... but if you don't address it in some way, you're missing the point.

The same way that, if tomorrow I decide to join a soccer game, then pick the ball up and shoot a hoop, I'm missing the point. The ball is being kicked around for a reason, the game is soccer.

The Acolyte focuses on lore and fanon tropes too much... and forgets to even address what the story of Star Wars is.

[whetstonefires]

I am a bit surprised at your tags saying you like jar jar, I don't really know anybody who's a fan in 2023. What's the appeal there, would you say?

Did people like JarJar more in the past? I remember when the prequels were new, his poor actor almost died from the harassment. Surely the venom against JarJar has only weakened.

But mmmmm...I guess what I enjoy about JarJar is he just. He sucks so bad. Nobody has any use for him. He's not just bad at emergencies and space and knowing you have to pay for food, he's not even good at Gungan-ing.

But he's just kinda allowed to be like that. He's there. The other protagonists are varying levels of Ugh Why but they don't try to solve him. He gets Recognition From His People at the end of TPM and fails his way upward in galactic politics and has good intentions and tries sincerely and fucks up so so bad, and is dumb as hell.

He doesn't get punished by the story for being a loser. He's allowed.

That's what made so many people so mad at him back when, and I do get it because any scene he's in is hard to take seriously, he's walking bathos, he's like Original Swamp Yoda without the redeeming kung fu drama. But also wow yikes no.

Let me sit with this a bit and let me see if I can turn this vibe into words better.

Like @husborth was totally correct in saying the whole Gungan plotline was a waste of screentime, a fun little excuse plot allowed to run riot due to unchecked directorial hubris, and contributed to the prequel films being atrociously paced pieces of cinema. But (somewhat consequently) there's something luxurious about JarJar Binks being allowed to go around existing so much, something I think is prototypical of the whole prequel tone and its contrast to the snappy war-film energy of the original trilogy in a way that...really works to create the atmospheric contrast between life in the Republic and life under the Empire.

The Republic was a bloated ancient mess of a government riddled with corruptions, and badly out-of-whack power balances and decayed support nets that weren't technically corruption but weren't working well either, and inefficiency.

And also what the fascists like to call decadence. You know?

Like one of the consequences of having a tolerant diverse society is that even when poorly run and afflicted with capitalism it is going to be full of fantastically annoying weirdos who don't have anything better to do than embarrass people by talking, and there's nothing to be done about that that morally can be. You can't Force Choke people for annoying and have a free society. We all gotta make our peace with the fact that JarJar Binks has every right to exist.

Not that JarJar Binks is necessary to any specific piece of media. I am not advocating for annoying gag sidekicks in general. But I am saying that JarJar Binks is metaphorically inevitable, whenever people are allowed to just kinda be.

So his presence on some level feels political to me, inasmuch as Star Wars are actually political films at all, which isn't very much. But definitely not none either!

Also I am old enough to have grown less susceptible to secondhand embarrassment so I am able to forgive JarJar his cringe. He can still be a little painful to watch! But I do like that he's there.

[open-sketchbook]

my girlfriend is asking for where she can find your written works, she really likes the one post you made about your mindstate wandering w/r/t making porn stories and she'd love to support you & read your stories

Sure!

I write my (public) fiction on the website Sufficient Velocity, a sci-fi forum. Most of them are in the form of 'quests', interactive stories; my day job is an independent tabletop roleplaying game designer, so the two things go hand in hand.

I unfortunately am both very busy and kind of a mess mentally, so fiction gets picked up and dropped a lot, and I write less than ever these days due to the shambles that my life has become.

For my quests, the stuff I'm proudest of is...

Castles of Steel, a longrunning (though currently on hiatus) story set in an alternate world much like our own, but with radically different gender politics. It's about the first woman in the navy of a country a lot like 1910s Imperial Japan, and more generally about how state power and imperialism entangles itself with and recoups social progress.

A Splinter in your Mind, a retelling of the Matrix with new characters and reimagined twists and worldbuilding. It makes the trans subtext into trans dommetext, and I feel its some of my cleverest writing.

Suffer Not, and especially its sequel The Witch Lives. Suffer Not is a Warhammer 40,000 fic about an Inquisitor who abuses her powers to actually make people's lives better, and is the story of her slowly realizing it is not enough. The Witch Lives takes place ten years later, following the grown up psyker the Inquisitor adopted, and focuses much more on faith, history, and the little people.

The Spider-Liv Trilogy started as a silly and honestly kind of bad extreme-divergence spiderman AU, but its sequel The Amazing Arachne is, I think, genuinely really good, because it's about what happens when a superhero gets hurt and then doesn't get better.

I've managed to properly publish two pieces of writing, as in you can get them in book form, and I'm still really proud of both.

Whispers from the Deep is an adaptation of the quest that defined the setting of my roleplaying game Flying Circus. It's about a young woman who steals a plane and runs away from her abuser with her boyfriend, and then has to take up life as an aerial mercenary in a 1920s-themed post-apocalyptic fantasy world. Also, she's a fish person and her village is a Cthulhu cult!

Lieutenant Fusilier in the Farthest Reaches is a pastiche of the Richard Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, moving the setting from the Napoleonic Wars to a bizarre future world where sentient, cheerfully productive robots were invented in the early 19th century and promptly took all the jobs, elevating all of humanity to the gentry and then to the stars. It's about a redcoated robot soldier who uses her immortality to save up and buy a commission in the Army of Great Britain and Beyond, a position normally occupied exclusively by humans, and then facing the fallout of her decision and the life choices leading to it as her first deployment spirals out of control. It's also, sorta, a parody of Star Trek; the Galactic Concert is a mechanized, Regency-themed Federation, and the back half of the book is basically about how the problems of a world cannot be solved by an away team of well-meaning people with stun pistols.

[comicaurora]

top three changes to the star wars franchise?

Like, top three things I would change if I was in charge of the franchise top to bottom?

This is Big Cheating calling it "one change", but scrap the prequels. The original trilogy already implied an incredibly simple by-the-numbers dark fantasy origin story for Obi-Wan and Anakin and if we strip away the space veneer we can easily see that Anakin's original backstory was implied to be "prodigy warrior-wizard is tempted by dark magic (and an established evil sorcerer-emperor who has clearly been in power for more than a scant 18 years by the time of the original trilogy) which slowly corrupts and twists him into a monster who eventually has a fight with obi-wan that he loses, also he has a relationship with a woman who survives to raise Leia for at least a few years". Those are the only points you need to hit, and you could tell a very compelling simple-meal-well-made sword and sorcery adventure with a guaranteed tragic ending. The original prequels fail at holding to the ONLY points of canon they needed to hit - the innately corruptive power of the dark side SLOWLY leading to Anakin's downfall, the empire being an existing threat for a long time and the jedi correspondingly being an ANCIENT religion rather than being less ancient than 9/11, and Padme being alive enough for Leia to remember her a little bit. Close your eyes, clear your mind, let the tropes flow through you - a By-The-Numbers Story will come to you and you will see the completely inoffensive prequel tragedy we could've had. Also, never show Yoda, preserve the fun twist in the original movies.

Easy change for this one. Finn's a force-user with a plot about inspiring a stormtrooper rebellion, another plot that literally writes itself, also let the sequel trio actually all hang out for more than five fuckin minutes because the only thing that ever made Star Wars work was the raw charisma of the actors having a good time and the chemistry was really solid for the only time in the final movie they were allowed to share screentime.

And while we're gutting the sequels, how about letting the hero's victories actually fucking matter. Luke gets to actually reinvigorate the jedi way and doesn't have all his victories ripped away in the name of sequel bait, and can serve as an extremely powerful but very busy Jedi Ex Machina who turns up in the darkest hour to save the day, Mandalorian-s1-finale style. The Empire doesn't just get magically replaced with Empire 2, Now With Less Charisma, let the threat be something actually new or a natural consequence of a newly liberated galaxy in sudden turmoil - feudal tyrants ruling over planetary fiefdoms squabbling to fill the Emperor's power-vacuum, more sith lords coming out of the woodwork now that their greatest rival is gone. Leia and the other rebel leaders struggling to reinstate some semblance of democracy in a scarred and shattered galaxy too accustomed to the crushing totalitarianism of the empire. How goddamn unoriginal to start a sequel by undoing every happy ending from the original series for retreaded drama, as if the universe could only ever hold three problems in it.

[fantastic-nonsense]

honestly as much as I bitch about TLJ specifically, I lowkey think the sequel trilogy was doomed no matter who tried to make them because they were made in Hollywood's peak "absolutely nothing we ever make can be sincere!" era, which is antithetical to how George Lucas approached making Star Wars.

One of the most interesting things about Star Wars has always been how absolutely sincere it was about its themes and message and everything that happens in the movies. Even if it's ridiculous, even if it's objectively silly, nothing is ever really treated as such within the movies themselves. A naive farmboy genuinely does have the skill to take down a planet killing weapon. A slave boy from a backwater planet really does have a key part to play in the fall of the Jedi. A group of three foot high killer teddy bears are treated as serious opponents to Imperial forces. Jar-Jar Binks gets to be a Senator with an instrumental, if small, part to play in the story of the prequels. Everything has its place and every part of the story is treated with equal sincerity.

But nearly everything made in the 2010s always had to be funny or meta or self-aware or subversive or self-depreciating about its message and the genre it occupied. There was always a twist. There was always a "I'm more clever than my audience" or "I know this is dumb, but watch it anyway" vibe being brought to the table. Everything always had to take at least one cheap shot at people who wanted to take a piece of media seriously and sincerely treat it as a story whose creators had something to say.

And meanwhile George Lucas was always just like "I have a story, and I want to tell that story. I don't care if people like it or don't like it. My themes are my themes, my message is my message, and you can just die mad about it if you think it's too naive or sincere."

Any world that is fundamentally built on sincerity and genuine belief in a core set of messages cannot maintain integrity when people who do not wholeheartedly believe in the sincerity of that world's message are put in charge of it. The lack of belief will always shine through. The lack of understanding will pervade every inch of the new entry. The sheepish embarassment of "I know this is dumb guys, but watch it anyway because I'm going to do something ~different~!" will always be the audience's takeaway over anything else the creative team tries to say. Because instead of just making a good movie that both logically follows the other ones and actually adds further depth to the existing themes, they're embarassed to even be trying.

Even apart from the utter lack of planning and the mess of executive meddling that went into the sequels...is it any wonder we got the end result we did when no one involved in the creative process actually genuinely, wholeheartedly believed in George Lucas's message and the story they were telling?

[mortuarywriting]

Falling into Place

Ao3 Link - [First] - [Next Chapter ->]

All things considered this isn't what you were expecting to wake up to when you went to bed. One minute you're on your phone, trying to pass out, and the next? You're here. You've had some interesting greetings in your life, but dropping about six feet and having twelve guns leveled at your face? That takes the cake

Warnings:

Reader Insert, Plus-Size Reader, The Author Regrets Everything, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Isekai, canon divergence Look we're gonna dig into the implications of omegasverse changing bits and pieces of history as well as addressing whatever the FUCK is happening as CoD's history. Idk man Godzilla is canon and nobody bats an eye at that fact and you think I'm gonna be normal about that? No

You could be having a worse day, you think, as you stare at the interrogation table you're cuffed to. They could've shot you the second you fell the six feet from the sky into a random army base. That's a very real thing that could've happened.

But no, you just had a dozen guns pointed at you in one moment and a slew of questions you didn't have satisfying answers for.

No, you had no idea how you got there. You'd been in bed tooling around on your phone and then you were falling.

They asked who you worked for, and were not impressed by your mundane answer. You didn't work for some pmc or intelligence organization. You asked them to their faces if they thought you could pass a PT test if you tried. Not that they answered or appreciated your point, mind.

It was only after you gave them whatever identifying information you had that things got… spicy.

"I would love to tell you what this designation of yours is if you tell me what you mean. Is it like a classification of civilian versus enlisted? Is it physical? Is it your horoscope? I don't know what I don't know," you explain again for the Nth time. You didn't wanna play twenty questions but here you fuckin were, captive audience and all.

The man asking you questions had lost his charming good cop look. He was getting more and more annoyed on this one, "your designation," a demand, not a question and sure as shit not an answer.

"Again, would love to tell you! I don't know what you mean! Feels like some kinda Star Wars thing," you grumble the last bit to yourself but the man cocks his head.

His eyes narrow, "what are… Star Wars, you said?"

You blink owlishly, "beg pardon?"

"Star War. Clarify."

It's your turn for your brow to furrow, and furrow it does, "Star Wars? As in the multi-billion dollar franchise created by George Lucas and eventually sold to Disney," your tone is questioning, just shy of asking if the guy lived under a rock but his expression didn't let up and the last thing you needed was bad cop, so you continued, "the story of what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? The political space series of movies versus Star Trek's more scientific and discovery based longstanding TV show? Nine major movies and the Clone Wars before Disney sunk their talons in. Like yeah we got more shows and movies that expanded the universe but they also cut out decades of book contributions in their acquisition and that kinda sucked. But yeah, that Star Wars?"

"Nine movies," his tone is disbelieving, and now it's your turn for your eyebrows to raise, "can you name them?"

You nod, "well yeah. Do you want them in episode order or release?"

His brows furrow, "did they not release in order?"

"In a sense? Three trilogies, 4-5-6 back in the late 70s early 80s, then 1-2-3 in the late 90s early 00s, and 7-8-9 through the teens. So order, yes, just… not a cohesive one."

"Release, then," he leaned back and crossed his arms, a position you'd love to mimic if you weren't cuffed to the table for… an indeterminate period of time now, actually.

"A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi-"

"Woah now, empire? What's a jeddy?"

You give him a blank look, trying very hard to mask your disbelief as you look between him and the mirror behind him. You look at your reflection, take a deep breath, and- "sir would it be easier for you to maybe check the internet?"

He seemed to bristle, nose flaring and looking at you expectantly.

You just… kinda sat there. You tapped your fingers together on the desk and kept the eye contact he was intent on. It took a good minute and him getting progressively pissier before you simply ask, "would you like the other movies now?"

You didn't expect an explosion of movement from the man. He downright snarled and slammed his hands on the table as he burst to his feet, the sudden change sending his chair screeching back before falling with a clatter. You leaned as far back as your cuffed hands would allow, eyes wide and a panic rising.

Both of you turned to look at the door when it slammed open with a barked, "Williams!" 

The man who opened it reared back a bit, "Christ, layin' it on a bit thick," he groused, his tone sounding more like someone chastising a teenager for using too much Axe body spray. He smoothed his posture back into something casual as he fanned the air dismissively with a hand, "cap wants you to take a walk."

Your interrogator- Williams, apparently- stares at the man in the door, the two locking eyes before the one in the door straightens from his purposely relaxed posture. You watch the both of them, noting the shoulders tensing as the two just. Staring at each other? Eventually the guy who'd been grilling you looked away and stormed out, the man in the doorway letting him slip out easily enough before turning a charming look back to you.

He took a minute to fan the door a few times to get newer, blissfully cool air in before he entered the room, "sorry 'bout him. He really did a number in here," the new guy tsked before closing the door quietly behind himself.

Your brow furrowed even as you slowly relaxed a bit, had this Williams guy like… farted or something? A nice quirk of ventilation keeping you from smelling something abhorrent? Either way you simply shrug as he walks in and tips the chair back up, sitting and giving another reassuring smile, "how you doing, love?"

You opened and closed your mouth a few times before simply settling on, "I'm a bit… whelmed? This has been," you give as vague a rolling gesture as you can without your cuffs rattling too badly, "a lot? And I have no idea what just set him off either?"

It's the man before you's turn to quirk a brow, "no idea?"

"If I knew the answers to his questions I'd've given 'em by now. I don't, though, and then he just started staring? And hell I just thought it was some kinda macho 'I can stare the truth out of you,'" you pitched your voice lower and pushed your shoulders out for a second to mimic the douchebag behavior before settling, "so I kept eye contact because I'm so out of my depth I have no reason to lie at all and now…" you trail off, gesturing around the room, "all that."

The man nods slowly, "alright love, could you tell me about the last five years?"

Your brows furrow, "oh fuck, 2019 was five years ago wasn't it. God, time is an illusion. Anyway, you want what I was doing leading up to and through the pandemic?"

You think he might've startled for a second but he simply moved to scratch his chin, "mhmm. Just your thoughts on the last five years is all."

So… you ramble. Because he was nice and not prodding or asking weird questions. You talk to him about your job before the pandemic, how people thought covid was just a flu until the death tolls kept climbing, how tons of governments dropped the ball on a local or country-wide level and how that kicked back onto your life, and then the absolute crapshoot of the last election cycle, the shitty 'oh no this is the new normal everything is fine' behavior that has lead to surges and cycles of a fucking plague and so on. He simply nodded, gave some sympathetic hums and winces appropriately at your experiences.

"And did you go back and watch Star Wars through that? Or other things Disney owned?"

And, well, that was a weird way to phrase it but you shrugged, "the mouse is just shy of a monopoly and not one that anybody can take that down so… yeah, I guess? They kept putting shows out and expanding their Star Wars universe so that's been kinda neat to watch but not just them, no. Couple other games and stuff like that to keep me busy, too," you kinda handwave and shut up because panic rambling to MILITARY PERSONNEL is probably not your smartest move in hindsight. Especially when you don't know his name. A+, self.

You tap your fingers against the metal table as he looks at you, "and you said covid has a long term effect of ruining people's senses of smell and taste?"

You nod slowly, "yeah, dude? It's one of the biggest warning signs for most people? Like if everything starts tasting like it was made by a middle class white mom who keeps shoving random letters in her kids names you should swab? That kinda shit?"

What rock has this guy been living under? You were pretty sure the military were supposed to be way more familiar with this shit all things considered, but you've been wrong before.

It was his turn to give you a bit of a wide eyed look before he poorly covers a laugh, "alright, that's fair. I need to go talk with my captain," he hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the window, which didn't surprise you that there had been people back there. He offers a reassuring smile as he stands, humming idly as he pushes the chair back in. He pauses mid-step, "you mentioned that there were cards…?"

You find yourself nodding slowly, "yeah it was important and you couldn't fly or go to certain places if you didn't have one for a while. Should still have a picture of mine buried on my phone," you really didn't wanna get another first-round of covid shots, you REALLY didn't wanna repeat the 24 hours of suck for no reason.

"Cool, thanks," he flashes another charming grin before he slides out of the room.

You lean back in your chair, what an odd guy. Nice though.

-------

"Right," Gaz says as he opens the door to Price and Ghost, "either our mystery guest is off her nut or she's legitimately from somewhere and somewhen else."

Ghost and Price look at each other before turning back to Gaz, this… complicated matters.

Well, it's not like you hadn't given them information to identify yourself. They'd dig up who you were one way or another.

-------

You stare blankly as the nice man from before gives you a sympathetic look, "what do you mean I'm dead?"

Behind him is a guy you're not sure if he's just fuckoff huge or if he's just moderately huge and it's forced perspective.

You don't think it's forced perspective.

You are absolutely trying not to panic spiral.

You are absolutely doing a horrible job at that.

"Well," he opens the file before him and there's a news article, proudly proclaiming "Locals Die in Horrible Freak Accident" like that's not some form of you that was looking like some smear on the pavement, "there's this. Fingerprints match up. Can check for dental if you're really curious."

"Were there even any teeth left after that," you mumble as you take and read the offered article. Seven people were involved, the pictures used are mostly flattering. Hell, you almost don't mind what pic they used for an alternate you but… "that's certainly not the pic I would've wanted. Maybe this me had different tastes?"

You take the time to actually read through the article. It's not helping because for as much as you stare at the page you're not absorbing any information. Some form of detachment, if this was really you? You'd died. A different you but a you nonetheless. You died and you're reading how it happened. There was a lot to unpack in all this and you just needed to put the suitcase away for now. You'd much rather throw it away at this rate.

You were rapidly coming to the understanding that you and Toto were not in Kansas anymore, and there wasn't a convenient yellow brick road to get yourself back home. No easy way to get the hell out of Dodge either. Was it Dodge or the O.K. Corral that was in Kansas? No the O.K. Corral wasn't in Kansas- Dodge was though, that's right. 

This analogy was getting away from you and some part of you figured this was just your brain trying to protect yourself but… wait, wasn't this a metaphor? There wasn't 'like' or 'as' or goddammit not again.

You recognize some names here and there but largely everyone involved were perfect strangers. The article doesn't cover if it would've been slow or quick. You hope for the smear that it was quick. Smears like that don't happen slowly, right? Well, not unless it's like a dramatic slide down a window, but not usually across pavement like that.

Still not sure how you feel about all of it. Bit morbid being confronted with your mortality like that.

Certainly answered a lot of questions about your theoretical passing you never thought about. Like if the obituary for you in what you know to be your own home and world is just as… really kinda just mediocre as this. Have you really done nothing of note for an obituary? Damn.

You kept pouring over the article, each pass bringing new words into focus that help connect the picture a little bit, but… Something repeated in the article made you pause, "two alphas, four betas, and an omega?" 

There was no decent way to ask about that. Any questions invoked from here would border into dangerous territory better kept between yourself and a private browser history. You knew what you were about but there was no fucking way.

"Their designations," the nice man whose name you still hadn't caught explains, "mostly explaining their secondary gender."

You look at him owlishly. You pray to whatever God might be listening that you wake up shortly. Or that the earth below your feet opens up and swallows you. Whichever comes first, the mortification will snipe you otherwise.

"Please tell me this is an elaborate joke at my expense," you are very quiet as you are trying to get really cool with a lot of things really quickly.

"Negative," the big fucker in the back practically growled and you knew that voice would do things to you if you weren't half stepped out of your own body. 

You missed whatever his followup was but your brow furrowed when you checked the date on the article, "I've been dead for months? That…" you let the paper fall from your hands. Everything about this is wild at best and very overwhelming at worst. 

A lot of this qualified as worst.

You look up at the two, missing the odd look they shot at each other as you try to pull yourself back together, "so now what? You've got a not-a-smear of me that fell from the sky onto a secure military base, and where I'm from we didn't have," you paused to gesture between the paper and the two soldiers, "dynamics was it? That was just a fanfiction special."

"Fanfiction."

The way he said it was so carefully neutral you paused, "oh my god without Star Trek to popularize fanfiction and the fan community, how has fandom evolved? Is fanfiction a thing- well, yes, it does fanfics have been a thing since Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy and even before- well, the question is more if it's still popularized? Are there still the wattpad fics of- I am getting so off track. What exactly is the next step?"

You look from the nice man to the big fucker and back, neither saying anything but looking at you with careful blankness.

You felt like you were being weighed and measured in their eyes.

You hoped to anyone listening that you weren't found wanting at least. Not when you're in the shit situation it looks like you ever so increasingly fell into.

"Considering I'm. Not smear. And very much not from here? Are blanks a thing? Or is that what a beta is I'm," you trail off, brow furrowing, "fuzzy. On the whole thing. The flavor of understanding, dynamics, and population skew tended to be dependant on the author's level of horny."

The did get a bit of a snort from the pretty one before you, the one in the back tilting his head just so as the pretty one spurred you on, "okay please don't take this the wrong way, you have given me nothing to go on but A/B/O and-" a finger was raised in question to that, you quickly explaining, "the fanfic shorthand for the universe without being a mouthful. Anyway- I've seen population numbers being roughly the same across the board, I've seen alphas and omegas at roughly 1% of the population of society on either end, I've seen alphas at about 5% and omegas at 1%- those ones are usually the most horny I swear.

"And it's all over the board, no consistency- sometimes it's betas are infertile, sometimes they're the straightman to the comedy that's an alpha and omega trying to woo each other without being too horny to function. Sometimes it's a sliding scale where being beta just means you're more the more middle-ground regulated hormonally with alphas and omegas being the opposing ends of a spectrum. Can you please say something and give me a fucking break because my panic rambles are probably like. Some kinda prejudiced. I'm still not over the 'I'm supposed to be a smear on the ground we don't even have dental images of to confirm who it is anymore' nugget you dropped on me. I think I'm doing well for this"

You would rather not tell them that as soon as you're out of this box of a room you were gonna be curled up in a ball and unabashedly weeping. That was none of their business.

The pretty one gave you what you're sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile but the quiet stretched just a bit too long. You looked from one to the other before leaning forward, "is this supposed to be soothing in some way? Because it's just a bit of an extended awkward silence and that's uh-"

It was the big one in the back's turn to give an amused snort, the pretty one looking bashful, "right, sorry, we uh-"

You jerk a bit, "wait, was that supposed to be some scent thing," you really didn't wanna say pheromones and potentially dig yourself into a deeper, more awkward hole based on Horny Pseudoscience.

Pretty rubbed the back of his neck, "something like that. You really couldn't smell anything?"

You know the exact Face you're making. It's very much your 'I have told you this and I'm getting tired of having to repeat it' face. You can tell he clocks it but for the record, because to your mortification this has to be recorded, you simply give a succinct, "no, I haven't smelled anything. Not from you, not from him," you jerk your head towards the big fucker, "and not from douchebag from be- Williams! His name was Williams. Nothing. Really had no clue why you were fanning the door when you came in."

You sigh, rubbing the heels of your palms into your eyes, "okay. Assuming I'm not about to be put into past tense a second time. Do we have any idea what popped me out here?"

The sentences are stilted, you know you're getting more rattled the longer you're here but sue you alright it's been the worst six hours of your life here.

They just continue to look at you, pretty keeping a polite almost customer service look as big one just stares unceasingly.

"Right. Okay. Am I going to be reintegrated to society or is this," you gesture around the little room as much as you can, "looking like my home for the foreseeable future."

No change in what you can see of either's expression, and you just sag. Deep breath in, deep breath out, "cool. Alright. Well. I know nothing of how biology is altered here, I'm not sure how that has impacted changes throughout history, and frankly I don't know what your pop culture has done. I'm assuming math and written languages are largely the same but in all fairness I don't know what I don't know."

You just stare quietly at the table for a bit longer before looking back at the two of them, "is there anything else you need because I can feel the freakout creeping up and while I know there's no real privacy, uh…"

The pretty one looked back to the big one, at some point you're sure you'll get some sort of names but for now? Now you watch the big one nod, the pretty one give you a polite smile and some vaguely polite bullshit your brain is swiftly going too far out to hear.

You only hope that whoever is behind the mirror is polite enough to look away as you put your head down on the table and give yourself the opportunity to, just this once, cry. As a treat.

[Next Chapter -> ]

[antianakin]

Out of curiosity: do you believe Anakin was truly was the Chosen One or was it Luke the whole time?

Anakin. 1000% Anakin. I believe it's Anakin as per Word of God, as well, but I don't have the quote on hand right now.

Part of the weirdness over this is because of how the films were released, Luke is obviously the main character of the original trilogy of films, he's the one on the hero's journey, and there was never any mention of a prophecy in those films. So when the Prequels came out and made this whole prophecy thing for Anakin, it's understandable that people sort-of looked at it and went, "But if Anakin was the Chosen One, why is Luke the hero in the end still?" Which has obviously led to a bunch of theories that it was Luke all along, that Qui-Gon misunderstood the prophecy or just misapplied it to Anakin, or even that Luke BECAME the new Chosen One when Anakin fell (all of which are made worse by Rebels sort-of validating this take by having Obi-Wan claim Luke is the Chosen One). I get it.

But the entire purpose of Anakin's story to me only works if he IS the Chosen One and he just... fails. Anakin fails. He defies his own destiny and it destroys an entire galaxy. One of the BEST things about the Prequels is how hard they work to subvert certain tropes and narrative expectations. Padme and Anakin are forbidden lovers, but it's a toxic unhealthy love and the relationship is forbidden for good reason. Anakin is willing to burn down the world for Padme, but it's not at all romantic when the world is actually burning and it's going to burn both of them down with it. Prophecies exist, Chosen Ones exist, but prophecies can be DEFIED and Chosen Ones can fail if they're making selfish choices. You only get the happy ending from the prophecy if you're making the right choices.

So Anakin DOES end up destroying the Sith and bringing balance to the Force, but only when he makes a choice that's primarily SELFLESS in nature. He MIGHT'VE been able to destroy Palpatine the Sith way, but then he himself would still be a Sith and so the prophecy isn't actually fulfilled. There would be no balance in the Force while Anakin remains a Sith. So until he figures out how to leave his darkness behind, he'll continue to defy his own fate.

And that is a FASCINATING way to represent a prophecy and apply a destiny to someone without completely removing their agency or making all of their choices unimportant. Anakin's choices literally define the fate of the GALAXY because the prophecy only gets to come true when he makes the right choices. Theoretically, Anakin could defy this prophecy until he dies. Personally, I think that this is something that could happen. Anakin could make that choice, he could literally just defy the prophecy FOREVER and it would just never happen. It doesn't mean he ISN'T the Chosen One, he just chose incorrectly and so the prophecy never actually gets to come true.

I also like that this leaves room for other people to achieve the same end without being part of the prophecy. Theoretically, Palpatine could still be killed in other ways, even while Anakin's alive. The prophecy isn't stopping someone ELSE from killing Palpatine (or Anakin), it's just a LOT harder. We do see people more attuned to the Force kind-of stepping back from something they can feel is perhaps someone else's destiny or following someone specifically because they have a destiny for something, but the opportunity is there for regular people to step up where a Chosen One has failed. And it's one of the things I love MOST about the Star Wars universe, I love the way this worldbuilding works.

Luke is still a hero, obviously, he plays a major role in Anakin ultimately making that final selfless choice, his faith in Anakin and his refusal to kill Anakin and his adherence to Jedi compassion are what eventually help lead Anakin towards making the choice that allows the prophecy to finally be fulfilled. I'm not downplaying Luke's importance or his heroism at all, but I think it kind-of makes all of his choices even MORE heroic if he's NOT a Chosen One. He doesn't do these things because he was destined to do them, but because he's a good, kind, brave, strong person making the choice to do heroic things. He's choosing to do what he believes needs to be done for the greater good. He's just a regular person, with no prophecies to fulfill, having to step into the shoes of a hero because his father failed and threw the galaxy into chaos. How is that NOT more interesting than just saying Luke was the real Chosen One all along?

So you'll never catch me saying the Chosen One was anybody but Anakin in canon. It's absolutely Anakin and it'll always BE Anakin. You remove SO MUCH of the best parts of Star Wars if you take away that part of it.

[padawansuggest]

Real take: I like Star Wars. I like the prequels because they have more fleshed out world building than the originals. I like the originals because it has a compelling storyline and character building. I like the cartoons because they do things that live action cannot. I like the children’s show Young Jedi Adventures and I think it’s both cute, extremely full of world building, and it’s designed to bring back the cartoon storyline of learning a lesson every episode that young children can relate to. I like the Mandalorian because it took a species with exactly two known people from it, and added a third, but made them a baby, and they were cute, and it shows the morals of Mandalorian adoption and love for children. I love Ahsoka because it took a favorite cartoon series and not only brought it to life, but also it’s funny and very full of world building for both the New Republic Rebellion scene, as well as more Dathomirian nightsister lore. I love a lot of other Star Wars off-shoots because they gave good storylines, they try to bridge plotholes, and a lot of amazing characters and new places to play with. I adore, fucking love, would give my life for Star Wars Visions; the lore and new concepts alone have captivated me and I can and HAVE made posts about things Visions did that no other SW series has touched and I’m so obsessed with the force and it’s aspects as well as just species and such you have no idea I would sell any of you for SW Visions. In fact, I would sell any of you for Young Jedi Adventures too. The worldbuilding alone for those two series is enough to have me vibrating with excitement with every episode. Sometimes I rewatch episodes of them just for random juicy facts that I can use for fics.

But you know why I don’t tell people I like Star Wars in real life? People always lookin at something they hate, and the most incel take on it is that it’s got too many women now. But irl non-fandom people who just want to ‘enjoy the ambiance of the original trilogy’ and me do not get along because they actually hate Star Wars. They genuinely hate Star Wars.

I can give you 50 plot lines in various sections of canon and legends that boiled my blood (tho not that one time Anakin at 12 literally boiled a man’s blood inside his body, that was hilarious his eyes turned black like a demons I’m so obsessed with him), but I’m not gonna talk about those.

Aren’t you exhausted? Wouldn’t it be nicer to gush about how amazing a certain costume design was? How the implications of a certain species makes you so excited you could burst? Wouldn’t you like to talk about how that one character just doesn’t get enough love and it wasn’t because they were fridged it was just because they didn’t get enough love from the fans for being black or female or disabled or something?

I am going to tell you this now, and you’re gonna hate me for it but I’m right: if you didn’t like Mortis because you think the force Doesn’t Work Like That? You don’t like Star Wars.

I’m tired of interacting with comments on commercials because it’s full of idiots crying about more women, a black character, the fact that ‘oh that wouldn’t happen’ as if the High Republic era didn’t literally have some sort of fucked up midichlorian vampire roaming the outer rim killing anyone force sensitive. Obviously they def would have acolytes set before the prequels shove it up your ass.

Anyways. Stop talking about what you hate. Yes, I get it. We are tired of rote pumped stories, but that doesn’t change the fact that there will ALWAYS be someone who hates the story you love, and loves the story you hate. You cannot please everyone, and I for one have found just about all off-shoot SW series individualized and compelling in some way or another.

You know what I did when I starting hating about 90% of all new Marvel movies? I stopped watching them. If I want back in the fandom I have older ones I can watch or simply only interact with fics.

Because Marvel, as much as they Need To Calm Their Shit, isn’t about me, and it isn’t for me anymore.

But I think a lot of you hate so much Star Wars content that you truly need to stop interacting with the series. It’s not for you anymore. And just because you didn’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not real SW. Not sorry, but this ain’t your scene anymore and you need to find a new one.

[theladyofrosewater]

NOTES I PUT IN MY PHONE DURING THE DAWKO SCOTT INTERVIEW

It’s been six years since the last interview wtf

Oh lmao they recorded this way in advance dawko we don’t know what the announcement is either 

I feel like Scott’s microphone has improved drastically since the last interview 

The fucking box fake out that is so evil how could you 

Has the movie really been in development since 2014?? No wonder it was the the most hyped thing to get over it

Scott don’t use your phone while driving wtf 

I wanna know the Warner Bros fallout tell me more

Aww he’s complimenting the actors that’s nice, they deserve the praise 

I refuse to believe that there wasn’t a problem crew member, I do believe that they were probably nicer that usual tho

Scott says he remake fnaf world, I agree can we remake it I want to have fun playing it

Lmao he knows he was getting arrogant; world was a lesson in humility

The absolute irony of steel wool having a great first game and doing great on ruin but absolutely botching security breach is so funny to me

Lmao he couldn’t beta test the Funtime auditorium level

Scott being pissed at the temp names becoming canon because of the source code getting cracked open, mood

Wow Scott has been actually involved in a lot of games behind the scenes

Dawko you can not ask Scott if he’s happy with security breach, also can we just remake Security Breach please 

SCOTT WHY DID YOU NOT TELL STEEL WOOL THE STORY WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

oh so burntrap was never supposed to move!!?? Oh shit actual retconned lore, Mimic new villain confirmed sorry Afton believers 

possible Vanny returns let’s gooooo

Bunny call is Scott’s favorite because it’s based off of a poorly made decision to have his boys be woken up by camp clowns I can’t 

The black bird is Scott’s sleep paralysis demon and then he inflicted it on the rest of us 

In the flesh is the worst one in Scott’s opinion and he doesn’t know what he was thinking, lol I thought it was a poorly done Alien reference 

Scott struggling to find a script because the animatronics are victims in themselves and they can’t be just killers is actually really interesting

Honestly the music was a great part of the movie 

Same director for sequel oh thank god I can not go through another Star Wars sequel trilogy. 

Ayo we might get a fetch game? Nice

Okay I’m dying to know the steel wool announcement now tell me Scott

Please never let FNAF get into dead by daylight as someone who is a fan of both it would be so bad and glitchy I guarantee it I don’t want another Twins situation 

What’s in the fucking box Scott I know you had notes WHAT WAS IN THE BOX

[sophiewith7es]

some of my six of crows modern headcanons xx

nina and inej are taylor swift and phoebe bridgers best friends

inej is vegan and i will not be explaining myself

matthias’ snapchat username is matthiashelvqr but jesper’s is animal_loverjes123 because he made it when he was nine

wylan is scared of planes but not helicopters

jesper is scared of helicopters but not planes

nina and inej listened to midnights together when it was first released

jesper got matthias into star wars

jesper loves the prequels and clone wars, matthias prefers the original trilogy and rogue one

both nina and jespers first bi panic was watching pirates of the caribbean

kaz has a secret fear of escalators so he always takes the stairs even though it actively causes him more pain

kaz and wylan watch criminal minds together in silence, but they both say the line about tracy lambert together

matthias falls asleep to animal documentaries narrated by david attenborough

inej jesper and nina are big greys anatomy fans

wylan’s first crush was teenage simba

matthias plays rugby

they have a book club (audiobook for wylan)

they read the acotar series and all had vastly different opinions

nina was an avid zoella watcher

kaz doesnt pay for any streaming services but has all of them anyway, jesper also doesn’t pay but uses everyone elses

matthias pays for the netflix account though

him and nina share one profile and everyone else has their own profile

nina cried when they took new girl off netflix

kaz says he prefers dc over marvel just to cause conflict

jesper read percy jackson growing up and still has the same battered copies he read as a kid in his room no matter where he lives

nina was a harry potter reading child and also still has her original copies of the books

HARRY POTTER REWATCH MOVIE NIGHTS!!!!

wylan is a secret marauders stan

nina jesper inej and wylan are all marauders era fans but wylan is soooo much worse

wesper = wolfstar

jesper’s favourite movie is the breakfast club

kaz says his favourite movie is fight club but it’s actually fantastic mr fox

kaz follows six people on instagram: inej and all the members of one direction

he does that to piss the others off

jesper went viral on tik tok one time

matthias loves oasis (both the band and the drink)

nina fought for eras tour tickets and managed to get them all tickets

kaz is going as reputation (his usual attire) jesper as lover, wylan as evermore, inej as speak now (she got the speak now dress), matthias as debut (they got him a cowboy hat) and nina as red.

matthias secretly cried over the how to train your dragon ending

matthias and inej read a lot of classics and share their collection, they both annotate the books as well and enjoy seeing what the other has written

kaz has a do not disturb sign on his bedroom door like in a hotel and puts it on the door handle even when he’s not in there

kaz is weirdly good with technology

jesper collects mugs

kaz and inej steal pint glasses from pubs

when inej and nina listened nothing new on red(tv) they lost their minds

kaz loves boygenius

matthias and wylan love modern family, wylan’s favourite character is gloria and matthias’ is jay

jesper loves formula 1 and its the only sport he’ll watch

nina and matthias play animal crossing together

kaz terrors jesper on terraria

when they play minecraft functionally, inej is the builder, jesper is the farmer, matthias and wylan mine, kaz has netherite armour in like half an hour and nina collects flowers and tames animals

when they play minecraft disfunctionally they just blow shit up

kaz plays the guitar

inej DEVOURED the cruel prince series

zoya and genya are nina’s foster/adoptive sisters

wylan is scared of clowns and is like that one episode of new girl when nick has to go into the haunted house

whenever jesper does something stupid or doesnt do something or whatever he says ‘#yolo’ and moves on and it drives kaz insane

jesper has muggies of everyone

inej takes 0.5 pictures of everyone when theyre sleeping without them knowing

matthias loves the hunger games series

kaz regularly predicts major global events

wylan loves breaking bad

[raphaellight]

The mindset of Light Side in Star Wars

This frame is possibly the clearest image of how Jedi win their fights.

But lets start from the beggining.

Recently it hit me how little of the actual force is in the Original trilogy of Star Wars. Let's see first movie:

Ben firstly makes his iconic "These aren't the droids you are looking for"

Luke stops the bolts while covering eyes

Vader chokes snarky admiral

Ben feels the destruction of Alderran

Ben's body dissappears

Luke shots down the death star

No flashy effects. No jumping, no pushing people around. Up until a finale, it seems Force is nothing special, trickery of sort, something to overlook. Until it proves Vader right: "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." and destroys the said Death Star, exploiting the very weakness that, althought the weakness in theory (planted intentionally according to new canon) shouldn't really be an issue, as it required miracle to work. And Force brought the miracle.

That's how Luke destroyed the Death Star, marking his first highlight of his road to become the Greatest Jedi in the Galaxy. But how would Sith come about destroying the Death Star?

Well, I say, if there was another Sith in the Galaxy, that dude would probably gather resorces and slaves and build his own Death Star, but bigger and deadlier. Or looked around Sith teaching and spells to become strong enough to crush it with his mind. Because that's how Sith mind works. "Unlimited POWER!!!" is their goal. When they see someone opposing them, they thing how to overpower them.

The Dark Side is "easier, quicker, more tempting". Because it's natural. Because Luke does exacly that, when he trains. He focuses on his strenght. Because his goal is to defeat the powerfull Empire. So he needs to become powerfull himself. And that is an invitation for dark side to enter the mind. The same way it entered the mind of his father.

Anakin wanted to gather enough power to save those he loves. And because he was also wronged by Jedi enough times not to trust them with his pet parrot if he had one, he was open to other advice. Don't get me wrong, power is sometimes an answer. But it should never be a goal.

That's the mindset Luke enters his fight with Vader. And he can't do a crap. The Dark Lord is to powerfull to overcome with strenght.

Jedi don't do that. Jedi deals with issues. Jedi helps others out. And in the process they learn and make friends. That's what Jedi wins with. Patience, wisdom and allies, not with power.

Every greatest victory of Jedi over Sith or any other villain is about Jedi bringing the miracules to life. Jedi always win when dark seems the darkest. Because that's when pride of villains comes full circle. Small things left behind gather together, teaching of mentors, friends and happy coincidences combined create the victory for good guys.

When Obi-Wan cut's Maul with a sword Sith forgot was lying there.

When He cuts his former apprentice legs off, because Anakin couldn't accept, that even he isn't all-powerfull.

When Ezra brings Purgils to fight, the one thing all-knowing, genius strategist had no way of predicting.

When Luke managed to break thru the mask of hate, inspiring his father to do the right thing in the most crucial moment in Star Wars history.

When on Endor, army of Empire fall under the invasion of literall teddy bears.

When Kanan, with no fear to cloud his mind, focused on simple tast of defeating Inquisitor, realised the sword that striked so much fear for how inventive it seemed, turned out to be extremely vulnerable.

Jedi don't gather strenght. And Jedi story is definitelly not about gathering the power of spirits or whatever to enhance the hero into overpowering the villain in the final showdown. Jedi win by performing small miracles here and there, patiently waiting for evil to dig it's own grave and then giving it just a little push with help of friends they made on their way.

That is the story of The Jedi, the greatest heroes Galaxy Far Away ever saw.

[herssian]

i never watched the new star wars trilogy and my franchise knowledge is leaning towards obi wan is jesus memes than deep lore enjoyer but can someone please explain to me the internet-wide, never-before-seen backlash towards anyone who created reylo content or admitted to enjoying them as a concept back in the day?

and i don't mean this sarcastically either. all i know about them is Good Aligned Protagonist and Villain Who's Actually Han Solo's Son and literally nothing else. NOTHING else. but i have to know. i have to finally know. was one of the actors a terrorist or some wild outcome of the sort that had people getting their pitchforks at reylo. or were people simply averse to the idea of their protagonist being in cahoots with the bad guy. i NEED to finally learn the truth. i'm sweating just at the idea of being so close to the answer