#right into sith

[a-artist-a]

Help, I got hit with another fanfic idea!

[loverboy-havocboy]

i think it's great that people who've suffered religious trauma feel a connection to anakin. i also think it's deeply troubling that the majority of them are either unable to recognize or unwilling to admit that the religion he was indoctrinated into and abused by was the sith and not, in fact, the jedi.

[hayden-christensen]

ANIDALA + kissing (requested by @xoxo-hayden-fangurl-xoxo)

[ahhrenata]

‘how quickly power can change hands’ | X |

[lukeslights4ber]

idk if anyone has done this for anakin already

[auxxrat]

so sick and tired of the “jedi are an evil and abusive cult that steals children” as if half the reason they weren’t protecting these children is bc sith were out killing them or TURNING THEM INTO SITH. they weren’t even STEALING children to begin with I thought we all knew that was Palpatine’s game not Yoda’s.

[short-wooloo]

It's never not hilarious how The Clone Wars Season 3 Episode 7 "Assassin" is basically just "what Anakin should have done"

Like aside from the obvious-that Ahsoka actually talks to Yoda about what she's having visions of-there's also the fact that she doesn't avoid the visions either

In a bit that was cut (albeit still remains in most novelizations) from the final version of ROTS, Anakin stops sleeping altogether in order to stop experiencing visions (although I think you can still get the basics of this across in the final version of the film since we never see him experiencing more visions)

Assassin shows us why this was precisely a wrong move

Throughout the episode Ahsoka either meditates on her vision or experiences new ones as she sleeps, the results being the visions became clearer or they changed because of Ahsoka's actions, ultimately resulting in the vision not coming true

So basically if Anakin hadn't been all "gotta avoid things that make me uncomfortable!" (Or y'know just listen to Yoda's correct advice) and worked through the visions he would have either changed them or gotten a clearer picture

[hurricanek8art]

Need to ramble about SW to distract myself from everything going on.

Something that's stuck with me about Ahsoka beyond, like, everything is how happy I am for Genevieve O'Reilly? Because I mean, look at how insane the last twenty (!!!) years have been.

She was cast as young Mon Mothma around 2003 (I don't remember exactly when, but I remember seeing a pic from them doing a wig test that was dated 2003 a little while ago). She got all but one of her scenes cut out of Revenge of the Sith (don't get me started on that I'm still mad about those scenes being cut for so many reasons) and the only one that stayed in is a scene where she doesn't even speak, and that's it. There's publicity photos and some deleted scenes, and that was her Star Wars legacy for eleven years.

And then she gets a co-starring role in Rogue One, getting to play the character again.

And then again in Rebels, getting to deliver half of what I think is one of the best dialogue exchanges about the Rebellion's philosophy—so basically half of Star Wars itself's entire philosophy—that I've ever heard.

And then again in Andor, as a main character, with all her complexities and just like everything about it because it's so flipping good.

And now here she is again in Ahsoka, playing the character past the timeframe of the original role, as a leader, getting to build on practically everything she's done before now.

And now she's not just portraying 'younger Mon Mothma', she is portraying Mon Mothma, she's the definitive version (at least to me, no shade to OG actress Caroline Blakiston) and everyone I've seen and heard talk about her since Andor loves the character.

Just. I love Mon Mothma. I am so happy for Genevieve O'Reilly.

[timetodiverge]

Shin stuck on Peridea like

Sabine: hey our wifi is down, can I come over and use your laptop

Shin: *shit shit shit shit shit*

Sabine's version here Memes: The Bad Batch | Ahsoka

[the-crooked-library]

so i'm facing a Sith in a deadly duel - and as my final blow, i slice him in half. surely he will not survive this, get robot legs, and fixate obsessively on me for the foreseeable future, pursuing me across the galaxy on his vaguely homoerotic quest for revenge.

it would be weird if it happened twice, i mean, really

[renesassing]

some notes on my revan [they/them] for if/when i talk about them; i generally use one of their various names if i'm referring to a particular era. before taking on the moniker of the revanchist (and later revan) they were known predominately as rye, which is actually a childhood nickname they embraced as their name (related to canon + homebrew firrerreo culture.) then of course, they're revan. while brainwashed their identity is lyndris artin, or lyn for short.

after their identity is revealed on the leviathan, they continue to go by lyn for some time, but after they recover most of their memories they go by revan except with people they're close to.

also, technically i should've been drawing those orange streaks in their hair this whole time; firrerreo have two-toned hair and these are the colors i picked for revan a while ago. i just didn't decide on a good way to draw it until recently. the grey skin during their revanchist/sith era is a species trait— the black hair isn't. they started dying it before getting the mask because their natural hair stands out (to both the authorities and snipers) and they just kept with the habit until the second half of the jedi civil war.

[blahblahblahviolentpain]

I was denied my Yuffie-Reeve interaction! So, I corrected it.

It shouldn't have been Aerith, it should've been Reeve.

[waifujuju]

Cloud would be so much more powerful if he had a phone

[brother-genitivi]

I think my favourite thing about The Revenge of the Sith novelisation by Matt Stover is that when Palps is trying to sow seeds of doubt in Anakin's head by making him think Obi-Wan is sleeping with Padme, before he actually namedrops her, Anakin immediately assumes Obi-Wan is shagging a guy.

'"The rumour is that he was seen leaving this Senator's residence this very morning, at an... unseemly hour."

"Who?" Anakin opened his eyes and sat forward. "Who is this Senator? Let's go question him."'

it's even italicised in the book I-

[aroaceleovaldez]

Mark Oshiro confuses me a little bit not going to lie. In the press tour for the first book all they ever talked about was how Nico is their son and Will is fine I guess. Then they said like 2 weeks before TSATS came out that they didn't understand Will's character at all and it's one of the main reasons why Will has so little POV.

Possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think it's a good, encouraging sign when the writer admits to not really caring about the deuteragonist or not even having a sense of how to write them...

Yeah, no. If you have no interest in 1/2 of the POV characters of your book, you REALLY shouldn't be writing it (or at least, not have that be a main character). Especially when the main way TSATS could have been improved is if it was primarily Will-centric instead of Nico-centric. Will basically had next to no established character prior to TSATS! He was practically a blank slate! But all the new stuff we got for Will in TSATS was so clearly disinterested and had no regard for his previously established traits (or the established timeline/canon). Which is annoying because fleshing out Will would have been the PERFECT opportunity to actually incorporate a lot of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in as a sensitivity reader, which was the ENTIRE REASON THEY WERE BROUGHT ON AS A CO-AUTHOR!!!!

As TSATS stands, there is no reason for Mark Oshiro specifically to have been the co-author instead of someone else. It's so clearly just a PR move from RR following the huge backlash Rick received due to his response to criticism on how he wrote Piper and Samirah (and Reyna and etc etc). This was immediately following Rick saying he wasn't going to write what would become TSATS because "it [wasn't his] place to." Most of the topics that Mark Oshiro specializes in either weren't relevant at all to TSATS or written very poorly (to downright offensively) in TSATS, so either Mark Oshiro wasn't doing their job or was not able to do their job for some reason, but either way it basically makes the theoretical justification for Mark Oshiro being the co-author/sensitivity reader irrelevant.

With Will, it was HUGE fanon back in the day for him to be trans. Trans!Will and photokinesis!Will were basically the two biggest headcanons for him (both largely popularized by Cherryandsisters). We know Rick is aware of this old fanon because he canonized photokinesis!Will. If we had gotten trans!Will, that would have been great! And then made sense why we specifically got a trans co-author! (Instead, if anything, TSATS canonized Will being cis.) If we had gotten Will being latino, that would have been amazing!!!! And also then made sense as to why they chose Mark Oshiro for the job as a latinx author/sensitivity-reader, versus potentially choosing an Italian co-author since Nico being Italian/Venetian was emphasized so much in the book (and done poorly! Yknow what they could have done to fix that? GOTTEN A SENSITIVITY READER FOR IT)! Based on the themes and focuses actually present in the book, it would have been most logical to get a queer, neurodivergent, Italian co-author or sensitivity reader who specializes in those three topics at least. But we didn't! So why was Mark Oshiro chosen instead when they only specialize in one of those topics? PR reasons. It's blatantly entirely PR reasons and no actual thought or care was put into this book (or, likely, TSATS 2 either).

It doesn't help that we're also actively being told that the published version of TSATS was a rough draft. Or that their editor blatantly isn't doing her job. Or that "The Sun And The Star" was the working title that they just kept cause they didn't bother to make an actual title. And that the final version is full of explicitly last-minute scenes that weren't checked over at all (the final Bianca scene, for one). Or the ACTIVELY ADMITTING TO SOURCING IDEAS AND INFORMATION FROM FANS! That last one is kind of important because at this level of publishing that is a HUGE no-no for legal reasons. You can get into a lot of trouble for that and there is a reason why it is Ye Olde Fandom Law to never try to pitch your ideas or headcanons to the source creator(s) and keep fandom separate from the creators. There is a REASON why Rick Riordan is so distant from the community these days and it's for PROTECTION AGAINST LEGAL REPERCUSSION. Mark Oshiro being the exact opposite while also ACTIVELY ACKNOWLEDGING sourcing concepts from fans does not bode well! It has to do with copyright stuff.

It's just. So. Sighhhhhhhh >->o <- me lying on the floor about all of this. It's sad being able to see the glimmer of what could have been at the very least a decent book underneath all this. If anyone involved in the process had actually cared just the tiniest amount.

[biblioflyer]

Being right doesn’t mean you get to kill everyone else.

I’ve seen some griping that the writers of X-Men ‘97 “did Magneto dirty” by first showing how human / mutant coexistence was a delusion only to have Magnus go full genocidal tyrant. I think this, like the exchange between Rogue and Captain America has nuances that aren’t being appreciated, but I’ll grant the point that the demographic disparity and the destructive capabilities of the setting ensure that it doesn’t take broad support by non-mutants to enact a pogrom. Even before the revelation of Bastion, the idea of an attempt to kill as many mutants in one place as physically possible and ruin the illusion of safety wasn’t that far fetched: with or without the support and sanction of major world governments.

That Magneto would respond to the Genosha massacre with disproportionate force, and let’s call it what it is: killing humanity including quite a lot of mutants, is not the writers turning on Magneto. It’s who Magneto is in the animated series and at the moment in comic lore it’s based on. Who Magneto is is a mutant supremacist. Separation from Sapiens was never just about safety. Magneto wanted to build a parallel culture. Not for the sake of creating a culture and the beauty of creative endeavors but because of mutant chauvinism.

Because the setting is what it is, Charles the assimilationist is doomed. If the rubric for success is mutant safety and equality across the board, then it’s simply unachievable because tiny cabals of madmen can cobble together salvaged alien tech, secrets from the future, and knock off Stark tech to unleash horror that is obscenely difficult to prevent and doesn’t require widespread societal consent.

Charles chooses not to blame the people just trying to live day to day for the actions of hate filled mad scientists and lynchers.

Magneto blames the masses for not recognizing and stopping the threat in their midst, sees their inaction as complicity, and even if they are blameless then they are camouflage within which existential threats to mutants conceal themselves and if Magneto has to burn down the whole village or planet to deny genocidal schemers their cover, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll kill as many non-mutants as it takes to feel safe because he did not value their lives prior to Genosha, did not feel they valued mutant lives, and he has always viewed mutant lives as more valuable. Genosha ratcheted that up to genocidal rage.

Revolutionary, terrorist, oppressed, and oppressor are not static categories. Real life figures and fictional characters can slide between them very easily because monsters can make valid points and victims can do monstrous things. A correct observation about society doesn’t justify the monster’s darkest desires and suffering doesn’t make evil deeds justified.

That’s the point. That’s always been the point of X-Men. It’s not cops and robbers, bigots vs good people, it’s the struggle of everyone not to judge everyone else by the worst thing a member of the other group has ever done. Magneto and Bastion are the faces of giving in to rage and fear. Succumbing to the easy moral certainty of collective punishment and of the rationalizations provided by their respective supremacies. They always were. Even when they were making sense. Especially when they were making sense.

Epilogue: (Tolerance is Extinction pt 3 spoilers)

It’s never too late though to step off the path of the tyrant. Better early but late is better than never.