#so the first one is supposed to be tcw era

[singsofecho]

So there's this Protector of Concord Dawn

[the-far-bright-center]

Re: Obitine and Anidala

I originally wrote this in response to @marvelstars' excellent post on the subject, but I wanted to share it again because it's one of many topics in which I have a differing view from the prevailing fandom perspective.

Above all, it truly drives me nuts how the fandom pits these two relationships against each other. I'm a die-hard Anidala shipper and when I first watched TCW, I was DELIGHTED by the Obitine ship. I saw nothing about it that made me think it was supposed to be viewed as somehow 'better' or more 'ideal' than Anidala. I only ever saw it as a relationship that was more suited to Obi-Wan's character and personality. Not to mention that Padme and Satine are presented as friends who get along well and go on adventures together to right political wrongs, much in the same vein that Anakin and Obi-Wan go on their many military exploits together. The story sets them up as two couples who, in an a more ideal timeline, would be besties who go on double dates together. In my opinion, fandom's insistence on viewing them through the lens of 'which one is a 'morally better couple' is completely missing the point. Personally, I see them as two sides of the same coin.

Since @marvelstars' post was specifically about these two couples as they relate to the idea of commitment to the Jedi Order, I also focused on that angle. Imo, the way Obitine's relationship panned out made sense for their characters and context. Just like Anidala's makes sense for theirs. Obi-Wan and Satine met each other as young adults and had a whole year 'on the run' together before having to say their farewells, whereas Anakin and Padme first meet as children, then re-meet and fall in love over a short span of time, and then suddenly their world is at war and they are facing imminent, possibly indefinite, separation. That's why they marry while still remaining in their respective Jedi and Senator roles, because they feel it might be their only chance to have anything resembling the family they both long for. They understand that they might not survive the war. Whereas Obi-Wan and Satine had first met when Satine's world was already enmeshed in civil war, and then they parted once peace was reestablished and their lives were no longer in immediate danger. And when they meet again during the Clone Wars, it's a wholly different scenario and things have drastically changed (she is the head of a neutral system, he is already established as a general in a war she is opposed to). They are also older, in their 30s, while Anakin and Padme embody the headstrong impetuosity and passion of young love. So it's not as though Obi-Wan and Satine are going to drop everything and enter a committed relationship/marriage in that context in the same way Anakin and Padme do in theirs (when, notably, Anakin is still a padawan and about to be sent to the frontlines to fight in a war for the first time).

As mentioned above, when I was watching TCW I never thought that the purpose of showing both of these relationships in contrasting-parallel to one another was somehow to demonstrate that one was more 'sacrificial' for remaining in the Order and giving up the relationship while the other was more 'selfish' for trying to have both at the same time. Rather, what I feel the story is actually saying is something completely different. It's important to remember that both of these relationships involve a Jedi and the political leader to whom he had originally been assigned as a bodyguard. What is the significance of that? Well, I would argue it's more than just a romantic trope. When I watch Lucas-era Star Wars, I'm always aware that the characters have both an immediate role in-story as well as a symbolic function. Satine, a pacifist, can be seen to represent Peace. Padme, as a Senator, stands for Justice and the rights of the people. And what is it that Obi-Wan says to Luke all those years later? That the Jedi were 'the guardians of Peace and Justice in the old Republic'. This strikes me as hugely significant. Especially if we understand that the Jedi Order had lost its way as of the Prequels-era. While the fandom focuses on which couple is 'better' because of how their relationship affects each Jedi's respective commitment to the Order, I see it from a completely different angle. My understanding is that the Jedi's TRUE purpose (in relation to their role within the Republic) was actually to dedicate their lives to protecting Peace and Justice and those who truly upheld these ideals in the galaxy. Obi-Wan and Anakin's actual callings in life should have been to protect Satine and Padme, whom they loved. Whether this manifested in a more chivalric, courtly love scenario or an outright marriage is immaterial. Rather, what matters is that being a Jedi and dedicating their lives to these women due to their love for them was not incompatible with their role as protectors and defenders of the galaxy, but was in fact the truest expression of it. The so-called 'commitment' to the Order itself was never truly the point, and that's the tragedy of the Prequels-era. Because it was the Order that had by this point forbidden love and family, and which had embroiled Obi-Wan and Anakin and the rest of the Jedi in a war that went against their own principles. A war that, it could be argued, ultimately lead to the deaths of both Satine and Padme, and with them Peace and Justice—the very values that the Jedi were supposed to protect and serve.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

Oh I have a LOT to say about this, this got really long.

For one, comparing ONLY Luke and Anakin ignores the MANY MANY MANY other Jedi we are introduced to in the PT who seem perfectly successful and happy as Jedi, most notably Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Mace Windu. If we include TCW, you can bring in a bunch of others like Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, Kit Fisto, Plo Koon, Adi Gallia, Eeth Koth, Saesee Tiin, Jocasta Nu, and Tera Sinube. All Jedi Knights and Masters of varying ages and species who are all VERY happy and successful Jedi. So it seems a little disingenuous to ONLY compare Luke to Anakin and come to the conclusion that full training doesn't work when there are plenty of OTHER Jedi from the Prequels era who weren't, you know, genocidal maniacs.

And sure, some Jedi can leave. The Jedi don't force anyone to stay. But let's look at those people who left. Nearly ALL OF THEM leave because they end up turning to darkness and becoming evil, so I feel like that doesn't really speak to the Jedi having done something wrong and more about how if you leave the path of the Jedi, you're probably going to lose your sense of compassion and selflessness. But even among those people, the thing that causes them to turn on the Jedi is generally NOT THE JEDI THEMSELVES, but an outside force or event. For characters like Barriss and Krell, it's the war and the hopelessness and despair it creates. For characters like Bode and Malicos, it's Order 66 and the loneliness and trauma of that sudden loss. For Ahsoka, it's being framed by a friend who was no longer a Jedi and a lack of trust in herself (this changes after the Disney buy-out and Ahsoka DOES start blaming the Jedi for leaving, but she doesn't initially, and for a while she's still intentionally said to ACT like a Jedi and is implied to be seriously considering returning to the Order before Order 66 happens). Dooku is more disillusioned with the Republic and the Senate than he is the Jedi themselves (this, again, has been more recently changed to be a disillusionment with the Jedi, but that's not at all true in earlier iterations of him). Even with Anakin, what causes him to betray the Jedi isn't actually a dislike of the Jedi themselves, but a fear of losing someone he cares about who isn't even a Jedi herself. So all of the people we know who leave the Jedi in this era don't actually do so because the Jedi do something wrong and most of them become evil as a result.

It's also notable to point out that if we're counting Luke as "half a Jedi" because he didn't get the whole experience that someone during the Prequels era got, Anakin counts as one, too. He came in late and wasn't raised among the Jedi, he never got that kind of experience, so making the comparison to Anakin is an even worse comparison than normal because it's comparing an abnormal experience to another abnormal experience. It's like comparing a Satsuma tangerine to a Mandarin tangerine and saying, "See? The first one is better than the second one because it's only half an orange." Neither one is a real orange, they're tangerines. Anakin cannot be used as an example of the Jedi experience during the Prequels era, so the idea that you could claim Luke "worked" and Anakin "didn't" specifically because Luke only got partial training makes zero sense.

For two, it seems a little ridiculous to act like the Jedi who exist post-Order 66 are "half a Jedi" at all. They're not. Just because being a Jedi looks different during this period doesn't mean they're not Jedi or only sort-of Jedi.

There's characters like Kanan Jarrus and Cal Kestis who were Jedi Padawans when Order 66 happened and were also "half trained" I suppose, but they were RAISED as Jedi in a way Luke was not and both choose to come back to it and that reclamation of their identity as Jedi is immensely important to them. I don't think either of them would consider themselves "half a Jedi."

And LUKE would never consider himself "half a Jedi" at all. The famous line from ROTJ isn't "I'm half a Jedi, like my father before me" is it? No. Luke is a JEDI, wholly and completely, I don't care how much training he got in comparison to PT Jedi, he considers himself a Jedi Knight and so does everyone else he ever meets, generally. And the only other character similar to him that we see is Ezra, who ALSO seems to consider himself a whole Jedi and not "half a Jedi" despite the fact that he, like Luke, came to training later than was normal during the Prequels era.

But also the entire statement of "If the Jedi had allowed people like Luke to exist" is so funny because like... gee who do we think TAUGHT Luke to be a Jedi? Could it perhaps be, I dunno, TWO JEDI MASTERS FROM THE PREQUELS ERA JEDI ORDER? The Jedi DO allow people like Luke to exist because OBI-WAN AND YODA LITERALLY TRAIN LUKE TO BE A JEDI. I don't know what more they need to see to understand that Luke WAS allowed to be a Jedi by GETTING TRAINED TO BE A JEDI BY TWO JEDI MASTERS. This isn't even like Ezra getting trained by Kanan who was only a Padawan before, this is YODA AND OBI-WAN, two Jedi MASTERS who were on the COUNCIL before. I guess the idea behind this statement is that they only "allowed" it because Order 66 happened and they had no choice, but like... this is ridiculous. If Yoda and Obi-Wan truly believed Luke shouldn't be a Jedi, they just wouldn't have trained him.

What I think this person means by "people like Luke" is people who were raised in a regular nuclear family and only start training to be Jedi in adulthood, with the assumption that this means Luke's first priority is still like... his family and friends MORE than being a Jedi. This goes along with the assumption that Luke succeeds "because of his attachments" and because he "goes against the Jedi's teachings" in the end with Anakin. There's this common belief that Luke choosing not to kill Anakin on the Death Star is Luke acting UNLIKE a Jedi, or at least, unlike a PREQUELS Jedi. All of these assumptions are wrong. Straight up flat out WRONG.

Luke succeeds because of his compassion, because he acknowledges his own anger and darkness and chooses not to act on it. It's not that he refuses to kill Anakin because Anakin is his father, he refuses to kill Anakin because if he did, then he'd be doing so out of ANGER and FEAR, because Anakin is no longer a threat and is lying defeated on the ground so killing him at this point makes him a murderer. Luke would have made this same choice NO MATTER WHO HE WAS FACING IN THIS MOMENT. And I find this to be something a lot of people miss and misunderstand about this moment. Yes, Luke cares about Anakin because Anakin is his father, but the connection he makes with Anakin in this moment isn't between father and son, but between two people who have felt fear and pain and let themselves be controlled by it. Luke sees the mechanical arm after he cuts off Anakin's hand and it forces him to remember Bespin, the fear he felt for his friends and the advice he chose to disregard from Yoda and Obi-Wan then, and what it ultimately cost him. And it forces him to realize that Anakin, for all that he's done monstrous things, was once a person who got scared and angry, too, who let it control him the way Luke once did, and it cost him. This allows him to feel COMPASSION for Anakin, to see Anakin not as a monster or as this broken dream of his father, but a PERSON. A person who was once like him.

And then by stepping back and refusing to kill Anakin and making the pronouncement that he is a Jedi like Anakin once was, it also then forces ANAKIN to see that same connection. Luke sees him as a person, a person who made mistakes just like Luke did, so maybe he can see himself as a person who can make the same CHOICE as Luke is making, too.

So it's not about their personal connection to each other as father and son at all, really. Like they HAPPEN to be father and son and maybe this allows Anakin to make that connection a little easier because he cares about Luke enough to make that sacrifice (I don't personally believe Anakin would've made that sacrifice for Han or Lando even if they'd refused to kill him either), but for Luke? It isn't about that.

The anger from earlier, though? THAT was the attachment. I imagine this person you were speaking to probably didn't know that Lucas (and the Jedi as a result) use the word "attachment" in the way Buddhism defines it, which refers to a relationship with someone or something (it could be a place, an ideology, a dream, even a piece of clothing) that you cannot let go of because of the way it makes you feel, even after it starts being detrimental to yourself and the people around you. Luke's feelings for Han and Leia are what push him to Bespin to save them, even though both Yoda and Obi-Wan are telling him it's a trap and there's likely nothing he can really do to help them so he's better off staying on Dagobah to continue his training. And Luke ends up getting some information he's not ready for, he doesn't save Han OR Leia, Leia and Lando have to actually come back to save HIM, and he loses a hand. Luke doesn't go to Bespin because Han and Leia need him, he goes to Bespin because he can't bear to LOSE THEM. On the Death Star, he attacks Anakin because Anakin threatens Leia, and his fear of losing her causes him to get angry. It's not really about saving Leia because what Luke is becoming in this moment isn't someone Leia would ever support, but because Luke can't bear to lose her. THAT'S what attachment is. His attachment to Leia nearly costs him his father (consider the parallel between how Anakin's attachment to Padme DOES cost him HIS father figure because he refuses to stop fighting Obi-Wan and reconsider the choices he's making).

The attachment isn't what saves Anakin, it's what nearly kills him. It's the Jedi COMPASSION that saves Anakin. It's only because Luke EMBRACES what being a Jedi means, wholly and completely, that Anakin doesn't end up killed by his own son.

So what this person MEANS is, the Jedi would've been better off they'd allowed people to be more Western, if they'd let people grow up in a nuclear family structure, if they'd let people get married and have children, and if they'd let their members prioritize their personal connections over the fate of the galaxy because that's how they define love. What this person might not REALIZE is that their personal biases are devaluing any kind of life other than the one they're familiar with. They can't conceive of growing up in a more communal family structure where this isn't a specifically clearly defined "mom" and "dad" raising their kid(s) together. They can't conceive of a culture that either never feels the NEED to get married or have children or doesn't mind making that sacrifice (this isn't even specifically Western, Catholic nuns and priests make the same sacrifice because their relationship to God is more important than getting married and having children). They can't conceive of a culture where they actively choose to love everyone equally and never prioritize their own family and friends above strangers.

So this person you were speaking to I think has a fundamental misunderstanding of Luke as a character and his relationship to being a Jedi as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Jedi were and a personal bias against a culture they're unfamiliar with. We're so often fed this story that if you aren't in a romantic relationship, then your life is basically hell on Earth. Everyone everywhere must be looking for this one special person, they MUST want that above everything else, and if they don't, then something in them is BROKEN. So the Jedi can seem very aloof and distant and fundamentally broken to viewers primed to see something like this as like... signals of an evil character, signals of a repressed character who needs to be saved, signals of corruption. But in fact, the Jedi are supposed to be symbols of the best humanity has to offer. They are the LEAST corrupt people in this entire story, the least evil people in the whole galaxy. They are a people who have figured out how to become the best version of themselves and spend their entire lives in service to the rest of the galaxy, passing on their wisdom and using their abilities to help anyone they can. They are an ideal to strive towards, not a cautionary tale.

Luke is not a success because he DOESN'T act like the Prequels Jedi, or because he is able to rise above them and become what they could not or what they had forgotten how to be. He is a success because he DOES act like them. He is a triumph because he represents the return of these people who always symbolized peace and compassion and hope.

I've called the Jedi a barometer for the galaxy's health before. The more there are, the better it's doing. At the beginning of the Prequel Trilogy, there are thousands of Jedi and the galaxy seems like it's GENERALLY fine, but with the return of the Sith, we also see our first Jedi death. And then in AOTC, a war starts and almost 200 Jedi die. By ROTS, even more Jedi have died and the Sith are more in power than ever before, and it ends with the Empire rising as the Jedi are all murdered. If we ignore all the different TV shows and skip ahead to the Original Trilogy, things only start to get better when the Jedi start coming BACK. Obi-Wan leaves Tatooine and brings Luke with him, who has just started Jedi training, and the Death Star is destroyed, saving the Rebellion. Luke commits to being a Jedi and the Empire falls, the Sith are destroyed, and the prophecy completed. Jedi represent all that is good, they represent a healthy balance in the galaxy. The galaxy ISN'T OKAY with the Jedi gone and it's at its best when the Jedi are at their strongest.

The Jedi DO allow people like Luke to exist because Luke is representative of the Jedi who came before him, the BEST the galaxy had to offer. Luke is representative of a culture that only ever did their best to be kind. Long before Rey, LUKE was "all the Jedi" because there didn't used to BE anybody else. Luke was the sole person keeping the Jedi's culture alive and he is bringing with him the training he got from two of the best, wisest Jedi Masters of the Prequel era. ALL OF THE JEDI were like Luke. All of them. Because they were ALL compassionate, they were ALL capable of putting aside their fear and anger in favor of understanding and acceptance, they were ALL people who fought back against the darkness and won. Luke succeeds because he becomes more and more like THEM.

The last thing I'll point out is that the Jedi's defeat doesn't happen because the Jedi failed at anything. The Jedi did everything right. But as everyone knows, you can do everything right, and STILL LOSE. They lose because the world and people around them failed, becauase the Senate and Anakin gave in to their own selfishness and fear and greed. All those "normal" people who were raised in regular family structures and prioritized their personal connections above their duty, they FAILED. But it was the JEDI who paid the price for that failure, so fans continue to blame them for everything instead of recognizing them as the victims they are.

[topwan-obikin]

SECOND DEADLINE REVEALS ARE UP!

Here it is, the authors reveals for our second deadline of our fest, and the official conclusion of the first edition of our fest!

We are so happy about all the engagement and love you have showed us!! We are so grateful for it and we hope to come back for a second edition too. For now we declare our fest over, but we will still accept post-fest submissions (more details will be added later on this week.)

From this moment on, the authors mentioned in this post will be able to promote their creations however they like! You are free to post your work on your own social media and we will promote it alongside the reveal of your fic. You can include moodboards or other creative images in your promotion! Just be sure to tag the fest in some way.

If instead you didn’t have the chance to look through the creations revealed, now it’s a great time to do it. Give them some love and share the ones you loved more!

From next week, the blog will restart our weekly recs friday and wips wednesday, plus our games. And look out for this weekend because we will drop some content to celebrate the end of our first edition!

Now let’s dive in!

☆ I Bring You With Reverent Hands by Aigoo (Tara) @aigoos

 [Explicit - 5,067 w]

It is supposed to be an easy mission on Lenahra, but things go haywire when Master Anakin Skywalker’s unknown microchip is damaged and causes him to present as an omega. He needs to mate or he will die, is what Padawan Kenobi is told, and the young alpha has to make a choice with the man he’s loved for years.

☆ Eight of Cups by Exonerin @exonerin

 [Explicit - 40,058 w - chapters 8/8]

Anakin’s knighting ceremony is canceled. Somehow, Qui-Gon Jinn has joined the land of the living again, and the Council is too busy figuring out what to do. Washing their hands off the matter, the Council decides to make Qui-Gon Anakin’s and Obi-Wan’s problem. For Anakin, this is a dream come true (minus the mishap with his knighting). He has always wanted Qui-Gon as his Master. Unlike Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon would understand him. This is his chance to experience what having Qui-Gon as sort-of-Master would be like. The answer is as surprising as it’s disappointing. It sucks a lot. Rather than understanding, Qui-Gon misunderstands everything. Half the (disparaging) stuff Qui-Gon says about Obi-Wan flies over his head, too, but Anakin’s convinced Qui-Gon’s trying to drive a wedge between Obi-Wan and him. So, on second thought, Anakin prefers to remain Obi-Wan’s Padawan. Really, there’s no need to reschedule his knighting ceremony.

☆ Untethered Tongues by ashes0909 @ashes0909

 [Explicit - 5,851 w]

“Thank god you got off my lap. You stink more than a trash compactor.” Anakin laughs like he’s said the most amazing joke in the entire galaxy. “The only person I want in my lap is a bit tied up at the moment.” Obi-Wan freezes. Anakin freezes. Then turns a spectacular shade of red. Korrax laughs. “The truth serum always works quick.”

☆ ART by @yatsukisakura

OWK Obi-Wan accidentally time travels back to TCW era, Post-Rako Ardeen arc, hours before Anakin broke up with him that day. He plans to stop that from happening.

☆ Tame ART by @blue-lumen15 (also on ao3)

 [Mature - Fanart]

post-ROTS mustafar fight anakin/vader, limbs chopped off, is immediately saved by obi-wan.

☆ Kalos Kagathos by intermundia @intermundia

 [Explicit - 7,220 w]

At the Battle of Potidaea in 432 BC, Anakin Skywalker and his former tutor Obi-Wan Kenobi served together as hoplites in the phalanx, sharing a tent and meals, living side by side. During the siege, Obi-Wan was drawn by Anakin into a relationship where erotic attention and physical intimacy is mixed into their old, strong mentorship bond. After returning to Athens at the end of the summer campaign season, Obi-Wan distanced himself, refusing to put Anakin’s reputation at risk. Anakin doesn’t take rejection well, and refuses to give up on their love without a fight. He acts out, making Obi-Wan jealous, and gets what he wants in the end: Obi-Wan’s cock inside him.

☆ Tethered and Bound by jiminthestreets_bonesinthesheets @jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets

 [Explicit - 20,241 w - chapters 6/6]

Anakin and Obi-wan can never catch a break, and this mission is no different. Unfortunately this time their misfortune comes in the form of three Dathomiri witch sisters, a seemingly unbreakable spell with a potentially fatal outcome, a very short time frame, and an extremely oblivious Jedi Master.

☆ After School Special by hopeforchange

 [Explicit - 23,618 w]

Anakin Skywalker learned how to lie before he knew how to tie his shoelaces. He wouldn’t be able to lead a successful double life if he couldn’t. At the age of twenty-two, he is the most popular stripper at the Starfall Club, the most skillful informant of the Naberrie family, and – the best liar in the world. There’s only one lie he can’t pull off - pretending he feels indifferent toward his drop-dead gorgeous professor.

♥ Ama'ya’s Dance by UsakoStar @usakostar

 [Explicit - 2,162 w - chapters 1/?]

Jedi Dragonrider Anakin Skywalker never expected his Dragon would rise during a planetary battle of all places. Or that his Master’s would answer her call. With the sacred bond between Dragon and Rider extending to shared mating dances, Anakin and Obi-Wan are repeatedly forced to confront the ways their Master-Padawan relationship has changed since Anakin was knighted.

♥ Home by UsakoStar @usakostar

 [Explicit - 3,609 w - chapters 2/?]

Fleeing a dark past, single omega parent Anakin Skywalker moves back to Coruscant in the hopes of giving his young family a fresh start. Alpha Obi-Wan Kenobi has just returned to teaching his kindergarten class after a whirlwind year abroad that ended in disaster. A second chance at love was something neither of them expected.

☆ My Son; My light by Snuggles_in_a_Starfighter

 [Explicit - 4,541 w]

Prompt fill! Single father Obi-wan has spent the past 17 years making sure his beloved boy is raised happy and though they’ve struggled a bit making ends meet when Anakin was younger, Obi-wan always tried his best to make sure he could give everything he could to Anakin. Nowadays, his baby is nearly all grown up and getting offers from universities all across the country, and he’s not feeling ready for the empty nest. To his surprise, his boy doesn’t want to leave his daddy, ever, Anakin decides to seduce the only man who’s ever made him happy into his childhood bed.

☆ Too Hot To Handle by dragons_and_angels @heaven-hell-and-humanity

 [Explicit - 3,607 w]

Obi-Wan and Anakin are in a tight spot. It’s even worse when Anakin suddenly presents as an omega.

♥ Lace by UsakoStar @usakostar

 [Explicit - 1,891 w - chapters 1/2]

When Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent undercover to a high-end slave auction for a vital mission, Obi-Wan had thought it would be a straightforward affair. He hadn’t counted on the lingerie.

♥ the muse: pleasure in bloom by boguspreston & innominatta (ineptia)

[Explicit - 4,166 w - chapters 1/8]

What would the artist focus on? Because so far, Obi-Wan had surprised him. The artist had focused on the sharp of his Adam’s apple, the muscularity of his back, the sullen scowl of his brow. Anakin didn’t know what he’d expected, unsure what about him would be defined as beautiful or interesting. He knew, faintly, that he was considered attractive, and that the artist was too, but if he analysed it, he came up empty. With the belt off, his jeans fell to the ground. Or, Obi-Wan is an artist who finds his muse.

 ☆ Serendipity by Darkwhisperings @dark--whisperings

 [Explicit - 6,032 w]

An accidental discovery on the holonet leads Anakin to a personal discovery about himself. And his Master. The rest, well, that's a happy accident.

☆ The Divinely Made by silkenlysleep @silkenlysleep

 [Explicit - 6,142 w]

Anakin has a choking kink. Or, until Obi-Wan decides he doesn’t.

♥ Electric Buzzing on Your Fingertips by deathbyobiwan @deathbyobiwan

[Explicit - 3,656 w - chapters 1/2]

As his Padawan grows into a man, Obi-Wan begins to be driven mad by the amount of unwanted attention that he receives. So does Anakin — the only upside is his former Master's increasingly displeased reactions. Surely it's not Anakin's fault, then, when he starts flirting with his suitors just to see what Obi-Wan will do?

♥ Like mine by Himboskywalker @himboskywalker

[Explicit - 3,027 w - chapters 1/2]

Anakin has never known his own scent after presenting as an alpha. Jedi use blockers to protect themselves from the dangerous pulls of instinct,and the even more dangerous pull of scenting one’s soulmate. More importantly he’s never known Obi-Wan’s scent. An important treaty with a culture who outlaw scent blockers changes everything.

♥ Curriculum Vitae by StrangeLilBat

[Explicit - 2,948 w - chapters 1/3]

Relationships come and go for Anakin Skywalker like the changing of seasons. Not by his choice, but through some cruel trick of the universe, he supposes. Enter Obi-Wan Kenobi - actor, millionaire, and all around good guy who also hasn't had much luck with his past endeavours. Will their relationship finally be the one they've been waiting and hoping for?

☆ the taste is oh so sweet by amadwinter @amadwinter

[Mature - 3,209 w]

Obi-Wan’s unimpressed glare wasn’t enough to shake Anakin’s resolve, nor was the purse of his frown, the way he folded his arms tightly over his chest, or how he looked seconds away from biting Anakin’s head off. Anakin knew what he had to do. What they had to do. He just hoped his racing pulse didn’t betray his true feelings. “I want you to feed from me directly.” Obi-Wan hasn't taken very well to his new diet after becoming a vampire. He would rather suffer in silence. Anakin won't let him.

☆ This Sacred Skin by silkenlysleep @silkenlysleep

[Explicit - 6,069 w]

Obi-Wan never knew Anakin could look good in white. Or, that he would lose his mind over it.

☆ ART by @yatsukisakura

First part of a obikin Agatha Christie style adaptation

♥ designed for cruelty by spitfired @spitefyre

[Explicit - 1,937 w - chapters 1/?]

And maybe the world was ending, maybe he was losing his mind. His gums ached and his vision was swimming. From the back of his throat, he choked out a growl, a groaning whine of need and confusion. But Anakin was by his side, and so he was sure they would be okay in the end. Or: In which Obi-Wan and Anakin are not alphas or omegas, because those don‘t exist. And then suddenly, they are, because why not?

♥ How Civilised by Quastake

[Explicit - 1,557 w - chapters 1/?]

Anakin thinks he’s ready to be knighted. His master, Mace Windu, does not agree. To prove himself, Anakin challenges a strange creature that has been kidnapping civilians. However, his normally flawless strategy of attack first, ask questions later may not be so solid after all.

☆ So Good For Me by dragons_and_angels @heaven-hell-and-humanity

[Explicit - 3,854 w]

Obi-Wan wondered if it was possible for someone to lose their mind over being denied an orgasm.

♥ A slip of the tongue by Viraha @virahaus

[Explicit - 1,835 w - chapters 1/2]

Two years after the end of the Clone Wars and the unmasking of Sidious' identity, Obi-Wan and Anakin are in what other people would call their 'honeymoon phase'. It would be better if they'd actually listened to Mace's advice and took a vacation months ago instead of thinking about it now, for the all the other Jedi peace of mind. After all, Obi-Wan (and half the jedi council) is about to discover what an half asleep, half horny Anakin is capable of to keep the attention of his Master on him all day long. Or, what happens when Anakin calls Obi-Wan 'daddy' in public and pretends to not know what he's doing.

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[david-talks-sw]

any new Star Wars essays in the making, or are you moving on?

I don't know, honestly.

Part of it is "life gets in the way," I'm working a lot and so whatever time I have left is spent just messing around or meeting with my loved ones.

I've got a bunch of stuff in my drafts. I don't mind sharing it here, most recent to oldest:

Sort of a joke post of me pointing out how stressful being George Lucas' producer must've been, like this guy really DIDN'T WANT to write his fucking scripts, did he? Poor Rick McCallum. Abandoned because who gives a crap.

'Ask' reply on how EU-fueled fandom perception of the Jedi was flipped by the prequels.

'Ask' reply about the themes in Ahsoka and why the show doesn't know what it's about. Problem is, I go about it starting from the basics, so nobody's gonna sit through reading a tematic breakdown of the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, The Batman and the original six Star Wars films before I even get to the show at hand.

"Part II" post about what Ahsoka, Rebels and TCW get right about lightsaber duels, which the Prequels never did.

Quote collection & analysis on just how complex the Prequels were meant to be (in the late 80s, Lucas intimated that the Sequels were the story that was supposed to have gray morality, not the Prequels)

Quote collection on how the themes and principles of Star Wars align with Lucas' own opinions and philosophies.

Quote collection on Lucas defining Anakin's flaws.

Quote collection on Lucas talking about the fact that we need to be more proactive, which aligns with what Lumi points out sometimes about the Jedi: they should've been more politically engaged because we all should be.

Why I approach Lucas as "word of god".

Personal life/joke-y post dating from the time of the WGA strike about how Jack Black's School of Rock lyrics "In his heart he knew, the artist must be true, but the legend of the rent was way past due!" applied to me. Abandoned because I didn't wanna bum everyone out.

Correcting the notion that Dark Times-era Jedi such as Kanan or Ezra or Ahsoka represent what Jedi were supposed to be.

A comprehensive end-all outlook on how Anakin's flaws all tie together. I've written this one twice and I don't know how to differentiate it from my other posts.

A secret "Part 3" to my TLJ Luke post, in which I point out that RJ's being too "indie", while being a strong point for a big chunk of the film, hampers the film's ability to make Luke feel as badass as he does on paper. I want to illustrate a storyboard for this one, but that takes time.

The evolution of Star Wars' approach to transmedia.

Debunking Star Wars myths: a (very) comprehensive outlook on children in the Jedi Order.

Problem is that only like 2/3rds of these are fully-written... and I still need to find the relevant clips, turn them into GIFs, etc etc.

There's many other interesting Asks in my inbox btw. But I'm already behind on all these, so I haven't begun to touch them.

Then there's the drawings.

I wanna draw a comic of the meeting between Yoda and Dooku in Dark Rendezvous. I wanna finish the comic fight between Maul and Ben. I wanna draw Mace, Shaak Ti, I've got a Luminara fan-art that was supposed to be ready for Jedi June 2022 and an Anakin drawing that looks weird. No time, nor am I skilled enough. (Like, I trace, that's what I do, it's not a secret I've said so before... but it takes me a long while to do so. I'm not fast at drawing, let alone coloring.) I could commission some of these, but there are obvious obstacles there.

There's fun tidbits I've discovered here and there but nobody will care about them and I usually try to not drown my blog with bs posts.

Then there's the bigger problem.

All the things I've listed above? I'm not 100% motivated to finish. But a lot of the new stuff I wanna write about is hella negative.

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say about Ahsoka. But it wasn't all good. It was mostly me bitching, be it about the show or the fandom's reactions to it.

I've also got more stuff to say about Filoni's take on Star Wars, but I've talked about why it's inaccurate like 8 times already, and I don't actually dislike the guy, like there's plenty of things he knows and does that I think are awesome but also people won't stop putting him and his takes on a pedestal and--

oh shit, there's Acolyte too, I forgot about that, gray morality galore, here we come. But here too, like... I've talked a couple of times about why this entire gray morality thing is actually just the gen X-ers trying to make the prequels "cool" and "complex". but I've never explored properly, with quotes and research and shit. but i've talked about it so many times that at this point it'd end up like the Filoni rants, redundant. "we get it already." as if this show didn't have haters lined round the block for absolutely sexist reasons.

Don't get me started on the mountain of lies and/or idiocy that is the YouTuber Star Wars Theory.

And yet he said one thing a few months ago which struck a chord within me and it's the fact that Andor is awesome, excels on all levels because it's treated seriously, like a proper show, not a Disney Plus one... why wasn't Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why wasn't Book of Boba Fett? And I've already established multiple times that I enjoyed Kenobi (yes, including the Reva parts) and I've established that I know what they were going for in Fett and I've established that this is mainly a "Disney Plus didn't know how to structure a fucking show pre-WGA strike" issue more than anything else... but when I think about how these could've been treated instead? When I look at the characterizations and emotional stakes of like Fargo Season 5? It's infuriating. Because it's not bad (talking about Kenobi, BOBF is awful)... but it could've been EXCELLENT and instead it was just "okay" to "good".

I just miss live action lightsaber duels, man. Like, good ones.

and i dunno. maybe I should just let it rip on all this. "go off, king!"

but I think there's so much negativity re: Star Wars that adding my thoughts on these subjects, no matter how structured and reason, will just blend into a wave of needless, un-constructive hate.

maybe I should finish the writings in the drafts and just post them with no gifs, maybe just still images?

but doing any of that feels like a step back.

So that's where I'm at right now.

[agentmarymargaretskitz]

@wwheeljack asked: A cuddle pile/some comfort for the original four after a mission during the TCW era, perhaps? Maybe Cross was injured and Tech supports him? Need some gen with the original four badly.

(CW for injuries. Also I’m writing this on my tablet as I am in the middle of moving. Yay. However, this was a lot of fun to write on a break)

“Crosshair, get to the ship!” Hunter ordered over the comm channel.

Τhe sniper ignored his older brother’s command and realigned his next shot up in he tree. Another droid’s head sailed off while the body hit the dirt. B1s were almost too easy at this point for him to pick off, even though Clone Force 99 had received combat clearance five months ago. It had hit the point where he and Wrecker created a competition to see who could take out the most in a standard week. Loser scrubbed down the can.

Crosshair had no intention of losing this week.

Two more shots. Two more heads.

“Get down now, Crosshair!”

“You’re not clear yet,” he argued back, peering up from the scope to see them running for him. “Hold on.”

Tech’s voice now came onto the channel. “You have done sufficient damage. Now please get down from there.”

“Ugh, you-“

Shots came firing at him now. Crosshair pulled his scope back up to see a wave of B2s flanking a tank. He positioned the barrel to get a shot right through the barrel of the tank. One shot, and then-

The tank fired first and splinters erupted below him. Crosshair tore his helmet away as the branch he was seated on suddenly gave way.

“Crosshair!” Wrecker screeched.

He must have been twenty five feet high above the fast-approaching ground. Someone was screaming. Instinctively, Crosshair closed before he hit the ground. His whole body jolted by the impact when something harder than dirt struck his side. For a moment, breathing was a forgotten bodily function.

“Crosshair!”

His mouth opened to suck in a deep breath. Instantly, pain crackled around his rib cage. Crosshair blinked his eyes open to see Hunter sprinting towards him, yelling something he didn’t comprehend.

He closed his eyes again.

~!~

“Crosshair.”

He didn’t remember falling asleep.

“Crosshair, you must respond.”

“Go,” he whined, but his chest ached when he inhaled and opened his eyes.

The first thing that struck the sniper was the interior of the Marauder, followed by the realization of laying flat upon his bunk. Hanging off the edge of the rack was his twin brother, typing rapid fire onto his datapad. Tech paused for a moment and looked back at him before reaching into one of his multiple pouches.

“There’s not rocks in there again, are there?” Crosshair attempted to joke until he saw a tube of bacta come out of the pouch.

Tech fixed him with an unimpressed expression. “Had I known those sedimentary deposits I collected for geological examination would take up so much space, I would have left most of the samples behind. That incident also occurred four months ago. Now, how are you feeling?”

“Like I went a couple rounds with that trainer who had the lip ring,” he sighed.

Tech leaned down and pulled up their well-used medical kit to take out a gauze package. “I suppose falling from such a height could be compared to combat training against Lees Bardeux. Fortunately, you only broke two ribs, cracked three others, and suffered a moderate abrasion to your temple.”

“Which you’re lucky for.”

Crosshair now realized Hunter stood right behind him, arms crossed. His face seemed to be trying to scowl, except his eyes were somewhat shiny. Seeing that was enough to make the sniper feel crappier while Tech applied the bacta and gauze to his head wound. Hunter always internalized every failure like Crosshair did, although Hunter did it with things that weren’t even his fault.

“I’m alive,” Crosshair quipped, hoping to squash Hunter’s guilt with ill humor.

Unfortunately, the scowl dropped and Hunter looked frustrated instead. “For once, can you just listen to orders?”

A reply of how that went against what their squad did was on the tip of Crosshair’s tongue. However, he found the words difficult to say out loud. Sure, he was a cold-hearted piece of shit. Hurting his brother drowning in guilt though…that would be taking it too far.

“Next time, I’ll listen the first time,” Crosshair promised, hoping it would appease his brother.

The sergeant seemed satisfied with that. Tech gave Hunter a somewhat smug look before Wrecker appeared around the corner. “You didn’t tell me he was awake!”

“Good news, Crosshair is awake,” Tech said bluntly.

Crosshair chuckled before his ribs protested again. “Kriff.”

“You should be feeling better in a few days,” his twin explained, returning his gaze to the datapad. “Unfortunately, you will need to rest and use cold packs, as well as sleep upright and perform a few breathing exercises. Fortunately, none of your vital organs have been perforated.”

“Goodie.”

“We flew outta no man’s land into that Republic-occupied area while you were out,” Wrecker explained as he started pulling the blankets from the other bunks. “Also, we ‘lost’ the comm signal after General Windu kept asking Hunter what happened.”

“Droids get it?” Crosshair asked.

“Chewed wires,” Tech corrected, a gleam in his eye. “Such a surprise for a vessel such as ours, but these things happen.”

Hunter nodded. “They scraped away enough coating before cutting them that even I can’t tell the difference.”

The sniper laughed again before remembering it hurt. “Ow.”

Hunter dropped down and brought their heads together, ruffling Crosshair’s hair. “Still, thanks for covering our asses.”

“Who else are you going to get to do the job?” Crosshair quipped back

[cantsayidont]

As much as I still enjoy the older comics and books, my feelings about modern STAR WARS media are at best mixed. Many of the recent streaming shows (with the notable exception of ANDOR) have been especially dire, but to my mind, the rot set in long before that.

There have been a lot of terrible SW tie-ins over the years (the old Bantam novels were so bad that after a while I stopped even bothering to get them from the library), but I'm particularly antipathetic to THE CLONE WARS, which is now emerging as the core text of the new SW universe. (I refer here to the 2008 animated series, not the earlier Genndy Tartakovsky shorts, which I hated and found pointless, but were at least easy to ignore.)

One of the riskiest and most potentially troublesome things a spinoff or tie-in project can do is to go to war with its own source material. This is something that even STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE ended up struggling with, despite that show's strengths; the writers couldn't hide their annoyance with some of the basic premises of the TNG-era future (like the Federation's abandonment of money), which at times became not so much a critique as an expression of writing staff frustration with dramatic rules they didn't make but weren't empowered to change.

That tension is also at the core of THE CLONE WARS, which is driven by an ill-disguised disdain for the SW prequel films the cartoon is ostensibly supposed to bridge. TCW, particularly in the early seasons where Lucas was still directly involved, takes exaggerated care to remain faithful to the details of the prequel storyline (for instance, the assertion in REVENGE OF THE SITH that Obi-Wan Kenobi has never previously met General Grievous face-to-face). However, it also plainly wants to redo the prequels, making their story and characters into something more like what the show's creators would've preferred to see in the first place. (Some of that revisionism may have come from Lucas himself, but it's continued in substantially similar ways since Lucasfilm was swallowed by the Mouse.) It's not hard to see where the creators of TCW are coming from, because the prequels were distinctly disappointing in many respects, from their appalling racism and antisemitic caricatures to their hilariously clunky dialogue to the inept handling of the Anakin-Padme romance. However, in the show's zeal to fix what it sees as the films' flaws, THE CLONE WARS also seeks to dismantle their thematic integrity.

Where Lucas might have taken the SW prequel trilogy if 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq hadn't occurred is anyone's guess, but ATTACK OF THE CLONES and REVENGE OF THE SITH are plainly constructed as a surprisingly angry critique of the politics of the Wubbya era and the invasion of Iraq: The Jedi and the Republic are tricked into going to war on false pretenses, engaging in a conflict whose real purpose is to undermine the foundations of republican government and bring about the rise of a fascist dictatorship. By the end of ATTACK OF THE CLONES, where the war begins, the heroes have already lost: The military they're building is unmistakably an early iteration of the Imperial war machine seen in the original films, and the clone troopers are or will shortly become stormtroopers. Aside from being doomed by the narrative, Anakin Skywalker in Episodes 2 and 3 is a moral and emotional wreck: an immature, unstable young soldier — trained (and used) by an institution with no regard for his well-being that repeatedly urges him to reject normal human connections in favor of acetic martial purity — whose volatility and hazy grasp of right and wrong make him a dangerous, genocidal monster with no compunctions about murdering children in his paranoia and rage. None of the other prequel characters is remotely sympathetic: Obi-Wan Kenobi is a contemptible fool whose stubborn incuriousness (even when Dooku tells him quite directly what's really going on) and blind faith in the institutions he serves contribute materially to both the moral collapse of his apprentice and the ultimate triumph of interstellar fascism. Yoda is by the rules of our world a war criminal, whose eventual response to his failure to defeat Palpatine in single combat is to run away and make the brutal rise of the Empire everybody else's problem. Padme, meanwhile, is Anakin's enabler and apologist (she's an accessory after the fact to an explicit act of genocide, and she marries him anyway!) before becoming another of his victims. That's harrowing stuff, for all its clumsiness of execution, and, Lucas being Lucas, it's not at all subtle.

The central project of THE CLONE WARS is a cowardly obfuscation of the admittedly extreme grimness of the prequel films. It makes Anakin stable and competent, a capable if somewhat reckless leader who's a far cry from his deranged, tantrum-throwing live-action counterpart, a compassionate mentor with his own adorable teenage apprentice rather than a child-murdering fascist lunatic. The show also works overtime to rehabilitate Obi-Wan, Padme, and Yoda (who really doesn't deserve it). More alarmingly than that, TCW seeks to legitimize what the live-action films present as an unequivocally phony war, and blunt the edges of the prequels' original critique. In the films, the clones embody a military-industrial complex that's fundamentally inimical to the survival of justice or democracy — manufactured soldiers (and, pointedly, men of color) who are considered disposable war materiel even by the Jedi, and who are conditioned to follow any order delivered in a reasonably authoritative tone of voice. THE CLONE WARS wants desperately to reassure you that the clones are actually good guys (which it seeks to accomplish in part by making them white), noble and heroic true friends of our Jedi heroes who would obey them even if they didn't have to, and whose eventual heel turn has to be mechanically coerced. Moreover, TCW and its repulsive spinoff, THE BAD BATCH, take pains to distance the clones from the stormtroopers of the original films, qualitatively, morally, and ethically. Of course they're not stormtroopers who carry out massacres without question (even though we see them do just that in REVENGE OF THE SITH and in flashbacks to that period), they're Good Soldiers and heroes! They're victims of the evil space-wizard, just like the Jedi children and innocent people we watched them slaughter, and most of them feel terrible about it! The clones can't be bad guys, because then people wouldn't want to buy their toys. It's as disingenuous and cynical as the live-action films were dark, and it's completely nonsensical within the narrative bounds Lucas originally set out.

I'm not very fond of the prequels, which were not what I would have expected or wanted to see, and I can't blame Lucasfilm people for feeling similarly. However, I think that some creative levers really only go one way: You can take something simplistic and make it complex, or take something that's pretty black and white and introduce many shades of gray, but going the other way rarely works, and often feels insulting to boot. I did see the prequels, even though I didn't enjoy them very much, and while I don't begrudge anyone for wanting something lighter and less doomstruck, trying to tell me those movies were about something different than they obviously were has an "Ignore your lying eyes" vibe that I'm always going to find suspect.

[maidenvault]

hey! so I just watched rogue one for the first time (and realised how much I actually love the Star Wars series.. it's a whole thing) and now am about to descend into the sw canon. but I thought I'd ask where the best place to start is? comics, spin offs, books etc! (for context I've watched the prequels, og trilogy but only the first of the newer movies because ugh. and I've watched a bit of the clone wars & loved it.) Any advice you have for me would be greatly appreciated!!

Hi! If you liked what you saw of Clone Wars, I'd definitely start by watching it to the end and continuing with The Bad Batch, which I think is the most consistent in quality of the animated shows and builds on things TCW did in really smart and rewarding ways. Because TCW is so long and honestly has a lot of tedious fluff in it, I've made a watchlist leaving out the skippable episodes for anyone who doesn't want to commit to getting through it all, as you really don't have to.

And if you love Rogue One, you should definitely watch Andor. Not my fave but it's as good as everyone says. Just a staggeringly good cast all around.

When it comes to the books/comics/games, I'm honestly not the best person to ask lol. I dabble in reading EU stuff and a lot of it's great, but I feel pretty strongly that SW loses a lot of its magic when it's not on the screen and the fandom takes all the deep lore a bit too seriously. Back when Timothy Zahn's original Thrawn trilogy was published we weren't supposed to ever be getting more films, so naturally it was a big deal to people that canon was expanding in this way and luckily those books were excellent. But these days the EU seems relatively non-essential, even if many would say it's better overall than it used to be, and some of it's contradicted by the movies/shows anyway. Idk, part of the appeal and identity of the classic canon to me is that everything about the world is kind of different-yet-familiar, using recognizable archetypes and all, it's really pretty simple as a story and not hard to understand. I think fans who get hung up on the supposed importance of world-building details or expanded-universe lore can lose sight of that.

This is a long way of saying it can be intimidating how much Star Wars there is, but you shouldn't be intimidated by it. There's nothing that's essential to read to be into the fandom. A lot of "canon" is little more than glorified fanfic and we can all discard the parts we don't like. Even fans who are more into the EU than I am would probably say there aren't a lot of bad places to start, and it just depends on what kind of Star Wars you want more of. I know the ongoing High Republic series is really beloved and supposed to be very consistently well-written. Lately I've really enjoyed reading Jason Aaron's Star Wars comic (set between ANH and ESB) and Kieron Gillen's Darth Vader which can be read alongside it. If you'd be interested in reading any Legends stuff (stories that are no longer canon as of the Disney era), the Thrawn trilogy is a classic of course, and the New Jedi Order series is a sprawling storyline that even some fans who like the sequel trilogy say is a better OT sequel story than those movies. You can easily google the reading order for any of those to know how to read them. If anyone wants to chime in with other recs in the notes, please do!

[lightwise]

There’s a lot of good points here. At first I was enjoying most parts of this show and was willing to see where it was going to lead (aside from being upset about Carrie Ann Moss being a carrot on a stick for marketing 😆😭). And while I LOVED the action sequences in episode 5, I’m starting to see the rest of the elements of the show fall apart a bit.

1. I’m seeing a lot of people either be disappointed about the number of deaths that occurred in this episode OR being shocked at the number and brutality of them. For myself, along with many other Bad Batch fans, an unexpected character death hasn’t been overly shocking since Tech’s death in TBB season 2. The shock and horror and despair of that storyline was very much a shift for me and many other people, and has since left me a bit numb to similar displays of “shock value” deaths, even though his arguably had more meaning than the ones that occur in The Acolyte. Using death as a plot point, as some of my friends have pointed out, gets boring.

Interestingly, I know that the actors feel differently. Both Jecki and Yord’s actors were told their fates ahead of time and are excited that they got to portray characters who show some grit and stakes in the drama. I’m happy that they are happy with their roles and that they threw themselves into still giving a great performance knowing it would be short. (I’m actually less happy about the amount of focus and marketing that went into Indara and Kelnacca because I think pulling an immensely charismatic and well known actress, and creating an entirely new and intriguing Wookie character, only to have them do next to nothing and serve only as plot fodder, is very disappointing to me, even though I understand their role in the story).

2. For awhile I have been starting to feel like Star Wars shows are starting “too far ahead” in their storylines, so to speak. I saw it with Ahsoka somewhat, and I think it’s causing issues here too. Much of Star Wars has been written backwards, often filling in gaps in timelines that we already know a lot about (TCW, TBB, Rebels, many of the games and novels, Andor, Rogue One, Kenobi, etc), or introducing a past or future era that is still heavily tied to the original storyline via characters and tropes (the PT and ST, Mando, Ahsoka, TBoBF, Resistance, etc). We either are familiar with how the galaxy “works” at a given point in time and can then focus on getting to know and appreciate the characters, or we already know many of the characters and can focus on understanding what is going on in the galaxy in this new story.

The Acolyte isn’t accomplishing either. It is both an entirely new era AND an entirely new cast of characters, both of which we are supposed to come to care about in only 8 episodes. That’s not an impossible ask. But, since they chose to set this show only 100 years prior to TPM (making canon more important), and not tie it more firmly to the existing High Republic storylines, it is unmoored from the precedents set in both THR and in TPM, yet close enough to them that we can’t just start from scratch and suspend disbelief on certain things. We are told the Jedi are concerned about their political image, and seem to be a mix of the more open and compassionate Jedi of THR while turning into the more stoic and uptight Jedi of the prequels, but we don’t know *why*. We have no idea what the state of the Republic is right now other than offhand comments about the Jedi religion and how they interact with other force users. We’re barely shown how the Jedi normally act in day to day life in the temple, other than Sol teaching younglings (which tells us more about him than about the Jedi as a whole), and other than Osha, have little insight into each character’s motivations and thoughts about life outside of this mission they’re dragged on. We know in 100 years the council cannot be aware of the Sith having risen again—which boxes us in to either a cover up or everyone involved in this story dying or leaving.

What I’m getting at, is in a similar vein to what is said above—we need more time with these characters. We need more context. We need more world building. Give me a whole season with Jecki and Yord, and then kill them off midway through a season 2, at the height of me caring about who they are as individuals and who they are to Osha—then I’d be devastated.

This show has been tightly focused on Osha and Mae’s experiences and what happened on Brendok. But it is trying to do that while dropping us into the middle of a galaxy and a group of people that we have no prior experience with, sort of setting up an ensemble cast that was never meant to actually stay coherent, while expecting us to rely on our knowledge of other time periods in this universe to fill in the gaps, even if they’re not entirely applicable. At first it was fun, and the dialogue was quippy and the force bond was intriguing and the witches culture felt unique and worth exploring. But now I’m wanting the cracks to be filled in less sloppily.

3. I did LOVE Jecki and Qimir’s action sequences, both of them were absolutely incredible, as well as the inclusion of cortosis. The cinematography and choreography were beautiful and fresh and very admirable. A few lines of dialogue especially from Qimir were very poignant, and his interactions with Sol and their fight sequences were excellent and heartbreaking and make me want to know just exactly what darkness Sol is hiding. But the rest of the dialogue and plot choices felt on the cheesy or poorly used side, including almost everything between Osha and Mae, who are supposed to be the characters we’re the most invested in. As you said in comments @gffa, a lot of this feels cool but not particularly necessary, and it doesn’t feel like it’s drawing a straight line between THR and TPM the way that other “in-between eras” projects have.

I want to care about these characters. I do. But I don’t think this show is going to add to my experience of the Star Wars universe as much as most of the other shows have, sadly.

I genuinely didn't think The Acolyte would kill Jecki or Yord, not at just barely past the halfway point, and I had to stop and think about why I felt so disappointed by it. It's not really about the deaths of characters I enjoyed--though, I definitely said, "Welp. There goes about 60% of the reason I cared about this show at all." in the most exhausted voice you can imagine--because I can respect a show's decision to kill off a character, especially in a High Republic show, but I still had to wonder about what the point of them even was. What was the point of including Jecki and Yord in the show? I kept thinking about the comments their actors made about their characterization and it all felt so misaligned from what's actually on the screen, there's cute banter and fun moments of care and some badass fights, but neither character really went through anything, there was no character growth because they didn't have time for it. There was just no character arc there at all. So were they only there to be cute and die for the show to tell us that Darf Teefs was Real Bad News? Maybe if I'd had more time with them, more than just four and a half episodes, it might feel like there was a point to them being in the story, beyond just there to die, but right now it really feels like that's all they were there for. And if the show doesn't really care about giving them any kind of real story, it's a lot harder for me to be invested in any of this, either. Maybe I'll come around on it, but my initial reaction is very much feeling like I just got a whole lot of my emotional investment in the show handed right back to me.

[floaromaxtowns]

Seto Kaiba & Ahsoka Tano for the character ask meme

@genlirema tysm!!

Character Ask Meme [Accepting]

Send me a character and I’ll say: 

Seto Kaiba

What I love about them: OKAY SO, the wonders of watching YGO as a fully grown person: suddenly the snarky, over the top, asshole rival character quickly becomes your favorite. As a kid, I genuinely didn't care at all about him. But that changed SO MUCH, as an adult. IMHO Kaiba may as well be the protagonist of the anime's version of YGO. What I hate about them: Nothing comes to my mind, honestly? Sometimes, you just want your blorbos going off the charts, and that's all A-OK in my book. Although I'll say it: Kaiba's involvement in the 5Ds anime is kinda of confusing ngl. I get that's part of the same timeline, but???? IDK something is off. Maybe there was going to be more, that didn't make it in the end. Favorite Moment/Quote: I honestly could put every single line he has ever said in the dub. But the one that takes the gold for me has to be:

Seto Kaiba: So you got a dweeb army. Is that supposed to make me afraid to attack? Dartz: No, not unless destroying an innocent soul concerns you Seto Kaiba: As the CEO of a Mega Corporation, I have to do that everyday

What I would like to see more focus on: I feel like it would have been nice to see some more of him in both GX and 5Ds (the latter is just to try better explain why was he involved in the big catastrophe of the series, but I also don't mind leaving it up for interpretation and guesses)What I would like to see less focus on: I wished Yugi/Atem wouldn't steal the attention from Kaiba's story, so he isn't reduced into another cheerleader. Favorite pairing with: Yugi/Kaiba, Ishizu Ishtar/Seto Kaiba, Malik Ishtar/Seto Kaiba and Ryuji Otogi/Seto Kaiba are some of the ships I still hold dearly to! Favorite friendship: Kaiba doesn't have any friendships. NO BUT HEAR ME OUT, I like the idea of Pegasus and Kaiba trying to amend for what happened in Duelists' kingdom, as shown in their v close business relationship in GX. I'm glad the anime didn't kill off Pegasus. NOTP: Joey/Kaiba Favorite headcanon: 4kids' dub version of unhinged Kaiba > the sub original and more down to earth Kaiba. I said it, and I'll keep saying it: This is the exact reason I loved this character. "bUt iTs nOt FaiThFul tO tHe SoURcE mAtEriaL" I can hear ppl cry about it, and I'll keep supporting dubbed Kaiba's assholery in that version. Even if it comes at the cost of the story/context of many things changing. It's a price I'm willing to pay.

Ahsoka Tano

What I love about them: Ahsoka's behind the scenes production story is genuinely interesting, in a time and period where nobody feels like putting effort into anything, and just resort to insulting others at the slightest bit of criticism! It's refreshing and very inspiring! When TCW was in production, they decided to give Anakin a padawan, and they KNEW the reception to the idea wouldn't be a warm one from the community. So, instead of throwing a tantrum, the team EMBRACED that and worked around it. So Ahsoka would gradually gain the audience's interest, as she also grew as a character. Ahsoka IS intentionally written as an unlikeable brat in the first 2 seasons, and in the later seasons we see how much she matured. The effort paid off, and Ahsoka is now held up as one of the best prequels era characters. What I hate about them: Filoni is setting out to undo all the hardwork they put into her, via overexposure. Ever since the Mandalorian show, she suddenly became the bridge to EVERYTHING. Even though, her actions shouldn't really give her that much influence or position to begin with. Favorite Moment/Quote:

"You're A Good Soldier Rex. So Is Every One Of Those Men Down There. They May Be Willing To Die, But I Am Not Going To Be The One Who Kills Them."

What I would like to see more focus on: I'd love to see some more of her bond and connection with Plo Koon. We only get a 5 secs clip, in the first season of TCW of them meeting, and this is never expanded on. Which IMO is such a big missed opportunity. What I would like to see less focus on: STOP FILONI'S ANTI-JEDI PROPAGANDAAAA Favorite pairing with: Rex/Ahsoka Favorite friendship: Ahsoka & Anakin, Ahsoka & Padmé, Ahsoka & Barriss. Honestly? I could go off. NOTP: Any form of Master/padawan ship. This is something I'm not interested in to begin with, and that doesn't go away even after she leaves the order or ages over time. That just isn't my cup of tea - So basically: Sabine/Ahsoka and Anakin/Ahsoka. Favorite headcanon: I can't hear Filoni, she is not going around blaming the jedi for their own genocide. She also doesn't go around calling herself a jedi knight, whenever it is convenient to her. She left the order in her own accords, and she has to live with that fact.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

I love the jedi but enjoy the sith, mostly vader,new republic sith and old republic sith, do yoi have a lost of your favorite star wars villains.

In order, Dooku, Thrawn, Palpatine, Vader, OT-era Tarkin, Maul - and TCW!Hondo right after Dooku if that counts.

Pretty vanilla lmao. I like the Son as a concept but he's really not hardcore enough to really embody what he's supposed to represent. (There's not enough of the slimy slithering madness and viciousness that makes the Sith do stuff like sacrifice Jedi on altars and do blood magic rituals, among other things.) He's too tame for something supposedly worse than the Sith, though he'd be horrifying if he'd been more Dark-Side-y.

So, Dooku, because he's a disaster and a mirror to Anakin's garbage and because there's a lot of genuinely interesting things about a character who was among the wisest and noblest and who knows what the darkness is and willing embraces it anyway. he's Star Wars' Saruman and I love Saruman. It certainly helped that he was played by Sir Christopher Lee. The man was just that good.

Thrawn, because of the smooth, calm demeanor - much like Dooku's. That scene where he slowly explains what a kalikori is without revealing right away who is Hera, toying with us with his incredible score in the background, gave me shivers the first 4-5 times I watched it. I love sophisticated and collected villains. Brutish villains feel too simplistic and not nearly as frightening. I also love Star Wars aliens.

Palpatine because he's a delight to hate. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever - he's just absolute selfishness embodied and that makes if very fun. Also love the 'frail' old man whose power is in his insidiousness. I love how maniacally happy about his plans he always is and I love to think of how completely bored he must have been during the Empire days, before Luke showed up and gave him something to plot about. Sure I wish the Zillo beast could have flattened him to a Sheev pancake - or that Dooku would have just punted him into the sun before Naboo, but hey, at least he got thrown down a reactor and exploded twice and was never ever heard of again, right?

Vader because he's a powerhouse and that's always impressive. James Earl Jones' voice was always magnificent as well and there's something so expressive about faceless characters.

OT Tarkin because- smooth, calm and collected old villain. I really have a type ah ah. There's something so maddening about that complete confidence that they're right, that end-justify-the-means mentality they confuse for wisdom, that dismissive way they see the hot blooded righteous heroes as so beneath them...

Maul mostly for the times he goes completely crazy and either turns into a spider or a Temple-dwelling Sith cockroach and runs around painting Kenobi on the walls with his blood. I love his arc with Obi-Wan, I love what it says about the light and the Dark, the Jedi and the Sith, and the Florrum and Twin Suns duels are my favorite ever.

Finally, Hondo... Well, is Hondo. Much smarter, much more ruthless, and much saner than people give him credit for - just spectacularly greedy and ballsy. I wouldn't call him a villain so much as the true example of what a 'morally gray' character is. It's not good guys in impossible situations like Mace, it's not complex villains like Dooku, it's not the image people have of a tortured prince of darkness that deep down feels really sad about all the murder he's doing and it's not the selfless hero who angsts about quickly killing a monster that one time - it's Hondo.

I'm generally pretty indifferent to Ventress, Jango, Boba, bounty hunters like Cad Bane, the Hutts, villains of an episode, or more minor villains and/or reformed antagonists like Bo-Katan, Kallus, etc - as characters anyway. I might like them when they're onscreen or like their place in the story but they don't do much for me individually beyond that.

And a special mention goes to Miraj Scintel - the Zygerrian Queen and only Star Wars villain I truly and deeply loathe. I hate seeing her onscreen, I hate hearing her talk, I hate watching her move, I hate her aspirations, I just detest her. Everything about her is infuriating.

[the-far-bright-center]

Thanks for making this post! It truly drives me nuts how the fandom pits these two relationships against each other. I'm a die-hard Anidala shipper and when I first watched TCW, I was DELIGHTED by the Obitine ship. I saw nothing about it that made me think it was supposed to be viewed as somehow 'better' or more 'ideal' than Anidala. I only ever saw it as a relationship that was more suited to Obi-Wan's character and personality. Not to mention that Padme and Satine are presented as friends who get along well and go on adventures together to right political wrongs, much in the same vein that Anakin and Obi-Wan go on their many military exploits together. The story sets them up as two couples who, in an a more ideal timeline, would be besties who go on double dates together. In my opinion, fandom's insistence on viewing them through the lens of 'which one is a morally better couple' is completely missing the point. Personally, I see them as two sides of the same coin.

Since the above post is specifically about these two couples as they relate to the idea of commitment to the Jedi Order, I'll try to focus on that angle. As OP noted, the way Obitine's relationship panned out made sense for their characters and context. Just like Anidala's makes sense for theirs. Obi-Wan and Satine met each other as young adults and had a whole year 'on the run' together before having to say their farewells, whereas Anakin and Padme first meet as children, then re-meet and fall in love over a short span of time, and then suddenly their world is at war and they are facing imminent, possibly indefinite, separation. That's why they marry while still remaining in their respective Jedi and Senator roles, because they feel it might be their only chance to have anything resembling the family they both long for. They understand that they might not survive the war. Whereas Obi-Wan and Satine had first met when Satine's world was already enmeshed in civil war, and then they parted once peace was reestablished and their lives were no longer in immediate danger. And when they meet again during the Clone Wars, it's a wholly different scenario and things have drastically changed (she is the head of a neutral system, he is already established as a general in a war she is opposed to). They are also older, in their 30s, while Anakin and Padme embody the headstrong impetuosity and passion of young love. So it's not as though Obi-Wan and Satine are going to drop everything and enter a committed relationship/marriage in that context in the same way Anakin and Padme do in theirs (when, notably, Anakin is still a padawan and about to be sent to the frontlines to fight in a war for the first time).

As mentioned above, when I was watching TCW I never thought that the purpose of showing both of these relationships in contrasting-parallel to one another was somehow to demonstrate that one was more 'sacrificial' for remaining in the Order and giving up the relationship while the other was more 'selfish' for trying to have both at the same time. Rather, what I feel the story is actually saying is something completely different. It's important to remember that both of these relationships involve a Jedi and the political leader to whom he had originally been assigned as a bodyguard. What is the significance of that? Well, I would argue it's more than just a romantic trope. When I watch Lucas-era Star Wars, I'm always aware that the characters have both an immediate role in-story as well as a symbolic function. Satine, a pacifist, can be seen to represent Peace. Padme, as a Senator, can be understood to represent both Truth and Justice. And what is it that Obi-Wan says to Luke all those years later? That the Jedi were 'the guardians of Peace and Justice in the old Republic'. This strikes me as hugely significant. Especially if we understand that the Jedi Order had lost its way as of the Prequels-era. While the fandom focuses on which couple is 'better' because of how their relationship affects each Jedi's respective commitment to the Order, I see it from a completely different angle. My understanding is that the Jedi's TRUE purpose was actually to dedicate their lives to protecting Peace and Justice and those who truly upheld these ideals in the galaxy. Obi-Wan and Anakin's actual callings in life were to protect Satine and Padme, whom they loved. Whether this manifested in a more chivalric, courtly love scenario or an outright marriage is immaterial. Rather, what matters is that being a Jedi and dedicating their lives to these women due to their love for them was not incompatible with their role as protectors and defenders of the galaxy, but was in fact the truest expression of it. The so-called 'commitment' to the Order itself was never truly the point, and that's the tragedy of the Prequels-era. Because it was the Order that had by this point forbidden love and family, and which had embroiled Obi-Wan and Anakin and the rest of the Jedi in a war that went against their own principles. A war that, it could be argued, ultimately lead to the deaths of both Satine and Padme, and with them Peace and Justice—the very values that the Jedi were supposed to protect and serve.

Anakin & Padme vs Obi-Wan & Satine

I have some thoughts on both of these relationships especially because I enjoy both but I don´t like when some fans use one to put down the other in terms of their relationship with the Jedi Order

First off, Obi-Wan and Satine deciding to go on their own way because Satine had a duty to her people and Obi-Wan wanted to remain a Jedi despite loving her is totally in character to the kind of people they are and what they care for, Obi-Wan was raised at the temple, he didn´t know his birth family, the order is his world and Satine didn´t want to put him in a position of leaving his world for her world and she most probably wasn´t going to leave her duties to her destroyed planet as the heir of Mandalore, especially after a civil war.

In this I agree with the majority of fandom, in what I disagree is the fact that Satine and Obi-Wan decision not to pursue a romantic relationship is a legitimate one while Anakin and Padmé´s choice to begin one is selfish and a show of attachment, I believe both decisions and both relationships ARE legitimate, after all being a Jedi is a choice and just like Ahsoka showed, you can leave without being made an enemy of them precisely because the Order is supposed to offer this freedom.

Anakin was born in a family, he wanted to become a Jedi to be able to free the slaves on Tatooine, later he had to sacrifice this dream to remain a Jedi because freedom of slaves on Tatooine or the outer rim simply wasn´t a priority for the Jedi Order because they did mostly what the Senate asked of them and freedom in the Outer rim wasn´t something the Senate cared about at all.

In this scenario Anakin falling in love with Padmé, the girl he helped when he was a slave on Tatooine, the same one he promised to help free her planet which he ultimately did, is a good and honest feeling, just as Padmé´s auntentic feeling of wanting to have a family with Anakin once her period as Queen was done, so she could execute her plan of them going to live on Naboo once her time as a Senator was done.

Anakin´s decision to leave the order to built a life with Padmé and a family is a legitimate decision. At no point did he wish to impose his pov on the order or make them change their oppinion on marriage, his position was simple, he could not remain a Jedi if he was married to Padmé, he stayed during the clone wars to help the order but he had already decided to leave once peace was achieved and who could condemn him for that? if that decision could very well have led to him finally achieving his childhood dream of freeing the slaves once he wasn´t a subject of the Senate dictates as a Jedi? especially given Padmé´s help and influence on Naboo could have helped in achieving this and who knows, without Palpatine´s direct influence over Anakin, this could have helped fulfill the chosen one prophecy in a better context than ROTJ

In both cases, the characters are making a decision that makes sense given their background and point of view which is completely legit, even in the real world, life long compromises of the kind monks/ catholic priests make, they are made aware they have a choice if they ultimately decide to live their life as part of a family and that it´s an honest and legitimate decision, in fact catholic priests are given a whole year to decide before making their formal votes.

So in Anakin´s or Obi-Wan´s case, while the Jedi Order certainly didn´t take well seeing their members leave, it wasn´t banned, it was a legitimate decision one could take if the circunstances led to it as Ahsoka showed and I believe this is the least they can do given they take their members so young, before they are able to fully understand the decision they are making.

My two cents.

Double date by Ame

[belfrygargoyles]

*whispers* I would like to hear what you have to say on reader inserts in the SW fandom because I too have a problem with them and I feel like not enough people are calling it out 👉👈

I’ve made a few posts about it in the past but I think it’s high time I actually Do This and really get into it.

Before I start: 1) This will be in specific reference to fanfiction written for the Star Wars fandom, particularly tcw and the mandalorian eras, 2) A lot of the issues come down to racist fetishization of men of color by white women; I am white, so there is much that is simply not my place to make statements on. What I can speak most on is my take from the gender side of things.

I’d honestly recommend reading this post by @nibeul with addition by @clonehub first, as they discuss the core issue with reader inserts in the Star Wars fandom.

And 3) some of this will involve discussion of sexual acts (as they relate to fanfiction) and sexual fantasies. These discussions will be non-explicit, and no pornographic text or content will be displayed.

Also. I’m GNC and nonbinary. I’m also a very feminine looking person that falls under the generalization of “small and petite.” I don’t have dysphoria, I like my body and the traits I have, and treating them like inherently female sends me into a blind fury. This is, unfortunately, important.

For the sake of making sure I come across as clearly as possible, I will be writing as though the reader of this post has never read or is broadly unfamiliar with reader-insert fanfiction.

Without further ado.

Hey, Star Wars reader insert fic writers? Please get your shit together.

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been reading reader-insert fanfiction since I was a grade schooler waking up early to check Quizilla. I love it! It got me into fandom, kept me engaged, helped me make and develop some of my oldest OCs, and it’s just fun to read and write- it’s like a self-indulgent little gift you can give to a bunch of people all at once. Because who doesn’t like the idea of starring in their own little adventure, usually alongside some of their favorite characters? It can be fun, immersive, get you attached in ways other ways of fandom interaction may not, make you feel just a little bit special, or be a way to express some feelings you might have about canon and the way the story went.

Like any form of fiction, it ends up saying more about the author’s feelings than anything else, whether the author realizes it or not. For many, many authors of reader-insert fanfiction, the primary enjoyment comes from writing “themselves” into the story- before the readers, the author most often makes the “reader character” someone they, themselves, can relate to and substitute for themselves. They write to live out a self-indulgent fantasy they have, and their readers can come along for the ride.

Some writers do actually try to write as diverse or as vague of a reader character as possible- as few details about the body, identity, etc. as possible so anyone could superimpose their image without the narrative directly contradicting it. This is not the kind of reader insert author I will be discussing.

The kind of author I will be discussing is the one most common in the Star Wars tag on Ao3: White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women who assume all of their readers are also White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women. Yes, you can tell.

ISSUE: fetishization of men of color

Again, this post puts it in the best words, but there is a rampant problem with Star Wars reader-inserts, particularly those involving the clones, Boba Fett, and Din Djarin, fetishizing characters played by men of color as either “physically aggressive and threatening, hypersexual and dominant, big strong men who are scary because they do violence and fuck constantly when they’re not” or “completely inexperienced baby who doesn’t know anything about things and needs a gentle nurturing guiding touch to introduce him to the mere idea of a vagina.” The former is common across all of them, the latter most common among clone trooper fics or Din/Reader.

I went into the Boba Fett/Reader tag on Ao3, because I like him and hoped to find something alright. Here are some stats I tallied up (give or take some) based solely on tags, summaries, and warnings:

There are 284 works in the Boba Fett/Reader category as of the time of this post.

198/284 are rated E for explicit sexual content. 69.7% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are sexually explicit.

259/284 are in the F/M category. 91.2% of all Boba Fett/Reader works involve an explicitly female or AFAB reader.

24/284 are tagged with or mention “Age difference,” “Older man/Younger woman,” “Innocence kink” or “Virginity kink.” 8.4% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are written explicitly with an age gap, with Boba Fett as the older party

26/198 E rated fics are tagged with or make reference to “Daddy kink” or involve the reader being called some variation of “little girl” by Boba. 13% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader are daddy kink fics, or allude to Boba Fett being a daddy dom/sugar daddy.

102/198 E rated fics are tagged as, make reference to, or suggest in the summary that Boba Fett takes a dominant sexual role with a submissive reader involving rough or painful play, or make reference to Boba Fett being frightening, physically intimidating, having a power dynamic over the reader, or being possessive or violent. 51.51% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader portray Boba Fett as sexually dominant and/or enacting use of physical force or pain play.

Just using this as an example, because it’s the easiest stats I can gather and also what made me realize there was a pattern.

The problem isn’t even necessarily that people write explicit fic about Boba- it’s that 1) over half of all fics in the category are explicitly pornographic, and 2) the way those pornographic fics are written. The two things compound on each other. They’re dominance fantasies projected onto a character of color in which he becomes extremely sexual, physically rough with the reader, possessive, and demeaning towards a reader character who is always written as White, AFAB, and petite.

This brings me to the next issue.

ISSUE: The way sexual relationships are portrayed.

Let me clarify so there is no chance of me being misunderstood: sex is good. Liking and wanting and enjoying sex isn’t bad. It is not bad if you are AFAB and have submissive fantasies. It is not bad to be sexually attracted to a man of color. You can write about sex even if you haven’t had it. Writing about sex can be a good way to express some more complicated feelings you could have about certain things. It doesn’t even have to be realistic. It has its time and it has its place.

This being said.

Sexual relationships as they are portrayed in the vast majority of E-rated Star Wars reader inserts are… not great.

The reader is always AFAB. I can think of maybe one fic off the top of my head where an AFAB reader was written with they/them pronouns and not just she/her.

The reader is almost always submissive, the dominant character is almost always portrayed as cis male. Even when the characters are supposed to just be having spontaneous casual sex, D/S or BDSM aspects will be introduced with no prior discussion or talks about it afterwards. Sometimes characters will start using dirty talk and it just does not fit at all, but it’s what the author thought was hot.

Sometimes, it just reads like a quick smutty oneshot. More often than that, it reads like the author doesn’t realize that sex… isn’t always a dom/sub thing. Or that someone can take the lead in sex and that doesn’t automatically make them a dom.

It’s not bad to be inexperienced. It’s not bad to have preferences or kinks or specific turn-ons.

But it gets… tiring to read, over and over and over and over, because that’s all there is.

That and… I dunno, it just has me a little worried? It doesn’t make me feel good knowing so many people can only portray a sexual relationship if it’s dom/sub. I don’t know why it makes me so uneasy.

Vanilla sex isn’t a bad thing I promise. It's this feeling of insistence that something "spicy" absolutely has to happen for it to be worth writing that gives... some weird vibes.

I’m going to move on to the next Big-

ISSUE: Every “reader” character is exactly the same

By which I mean the following:

Always cis AFAB female

If a character is written with gender neutral pronouns they will always be AFAB and written like Girl Lite

I have never seen an explicitly stated nonbinary/gnc reader character unless it was a request specifically for a nonbinary reader

I have never seen a gender neutral reader insert fic where the reader was AMAB

I have seen a grand total of 1 cis male reader fic and 1 trans male reader fic. The trans male reader fic was about dysphoria.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following backstories: slave/runaway, mechanic, medic, ex-Rebel, secret Jedi, bounty hunter.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following personality traits: throws knives, babysitter, completely civilian, WOMAN, says curse words.

The reader is never written with any narrative agency- things only ever happen to the reader character or around the reader character, they are never written to take charge and actually affect things on their own. Essentially the sexy lamp trope.

Remember when I said the majority of people writing Star Wars reader-insert fanfic on Ao3 were White, cisgender AFAB women who are gender-conforming and able-bodied? This is how you can tell.

It’s at this point where you can tell they’re really not meant to be reader-inserts, but author-inserts with the names removed- they were only meant for a very narrow selection of readers.

I’m nonbinary, I’m gnc, and I’m a very feminine looking person, generally speaking. I’m used to people looking at me and assuming oh, girl. I’m at peace with that.

I can barely stand reading some of these fics just because of how much the author emphasizes that the reader is FEMALE shes a WOMAN with BOOBS and a VAGINA and FEMININE WILES. There’s barely ever even a chance to give myself room to mentally vault over all the “she”s and “her”s because then I’m getting hit with Din or someone calling the reader “girl” or “the woman.” It’s unbearable, and I even fall into the general description every fucking fic author uses for their generic protagonist!

Even with the “gender-neutral reader” fics, it is just. Painfully clear that they just wrote a female character and changed the pronouns- no, there is no such thing as “male behavior” or “female behavior,” and I quite heartily rebel against the concept of gender essentialism. And honestly, I can barely even begin piecing together how I know it and what it feels like, because it’s just one of those vague conglomerates of cues and writing patterns I can’t consciously pick up on but I know it’s there- it’s frustrating, it’s demeaning, and it feels like you’d have to threaten these authors at gunpoint to get them to write a reader character who was any major deviation from the same three cutouts they use every time.

It seems like they can’t possibly force themselves to write a reader character who isn’t meek and submissive or has the sole personality traits of “mean and can hit things”- you can actually strike a balance between “absolutely no personality” and “fleshed out oc” you know? And you don’t actually have to tell the reader what their hair looks like or how full their figure is

It’s like 2:20 AM and I started this at like 8something PM but.

I’m someone who loves reader-inserts. I enjoy them. I still check for new ones regularly. I’ve been reading them for well over half my life now.

So many of these authors are just locked in on exactly one way to write things and it fucking shows. It’s like a self-feeding loop, they just keep writing the same things and the same dynamics because they see each other doing it and they never think about taking a step back.

It’s… exhausting. I’m exhausted. If you’re a reader-insert fic writer and you want to improve your reader character inclusivity and have also read this far, you can DM me or shoot me an ask.

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

Short one again, and technically a day late, ah well.

As always, feel free to check out my writing discord; and I’ll hang out for an Open Question Night if y’all are interested!

I also have a couple of meme/question lists open (one; two; three; four; five); feel free to send me some of those (please specify which list)!

Star Wars Projects:

Precipice!verse: Still not officially on hiatus because I am Determined not to let that happen, lol. I am...admittedly not sure when the next chapter/next Preludes story will come out, but.

SWBB: I am starting to toy with stuff for next year, but I don’t have a concrete idea yet...still leaning towards a BSG crossover because there’s a lot of Interesting Stuff I could do there (especially in PT/TCW era, which has always been my SW home, so to speak).

AtLA Projects:

On hold for the moment...I couldn’t sustain the momentum, alas. But I’m sure sooner or later (probably sooner) something will pop up that will get me to start Actively Working on at least the Avatar Zuko story, and maybe one of the others.

Castlevania Projects:

I swear I really am working on Incinctus XD It’s just this next chapter is being a pain in the ass; I’ve got the like...two or three after it essentially ready but This One.

BSG Projects:

The Other Battlestar is actually coming along! I’m probably just going to go in chronological order, which does mean spending a solid chunk at the beginning introducing four (or possibly five) OCs who are central to the plot (Pegasus SMO Daphne [Last Name Still Needed]; the marine officer formerly known as Rex who needs renamed [as I complained about the other day lol]; Replacement VP [who...also needs a name, lol...]; and then Atia [who does all the Science Stuff]; I am also putting a Four in play because I can, but he might not get introduced until Pegasus happens to that civilian fleet.)

...yeah, there are still some missing names here XD I’m also still not super happy with the title, but I have yet to come up with a better one...and toying with the idea of doing one POV per chapter and having the POV character as the chapter title (like I did with Take a Bond of Fate; or some other internal structure, but that can be settled once I have more text.

But I did have fun earlier today poking at Fleet!Cavil and how some of his gambits are altered. Little taste (rough/unedited/draft-y; not sure I like some of the wording I’m using here, but still):

He could, technically, refer to them as Shelly and Vera, but it felt so...undignified, to think of them as anything other than what they were. They were Cylons, not humans. The names were a convenient fiction while they were completing the genocide.

And now, he supposed, the mop-up after.

Still, a way to distinguish them would be useful, especially since they had gone to such lengths to distinguish themselves. Fine. Six-A would be the buttoned-up librarian, and Six-B would be the clever prostitute.

Anyway, I’m going to keep pushing at this; goal is to work on it a little bit each day and hopefully these holes will fill in as I go. I’m also thinking ahead to NaNo, and how I want to split my time there...but hopefully I’ll have started posting this before we get there, lol.

(As for other BSG projects--various random prompts that have flitted around my brain; Serenissima; pondering a For Sorrow Sung rewrite--those are not a Focus at the moment but are definitely hanging around and might see some movement as well. I also need to get back to my rewatch...)

Other Fanfic Projects:

My PodTogether project went live! It is a Leverage/Nikita crossover, and I had a great time putting it together and working with farkenshnoffingottom (who was my podficcer).

Original Fic:

I do love the summer challenges on Rainbowfic because I always get stuff done there, lol. I think I did some really nice things this time around.

I am vaguely poking at some of the other/more long-term projects (Lady Mordred; one or two alternate history things; that first contact novel I was working on for NaNo one year...) but no actual text has made it down lately. I should get back into those...

...I think that pretty much sums it up!

[sharknadoslutt]

Not that I ever wanted to watch it because of the era it plays in, but what was so awful about Star Wars resistance?

Oh Okay this ask got me GOING so Welcome to my Tedtalk on my feelings on Star Wars Resistance; a story of Disappointment.

So Mr. Dave Filoni, the story telling Prince, left the show like halfway through production of the first season for other projects (For TCW season 7 and The Mandalorian). This left what was a promising show with characters Dave himself had created, in the hands of very inexperienced story board artist and writers. Personally, I think they panicked and half assed it so that Disney could make money on toys. Because.. idk. It just doesn't even come close to the emotional story arcs that TCW and Rebels gave us. and that's what Star Wars is supposed to be about. Changing for the better. Hope or some shit, am I right?

What was most disappointing in my opinion.. is that the protagonist, Kazudo Xiono, is UNBEARABLE. He is the EMBODIEMENT of privilege. This punk has had everything handed down to him from the moment he was born. He was born like 14 years after the Empire has been brought down and the New Republic reigns, so he has never known war. AND HIS DADDY IS THE SENATOR OF HOSNIAN PRIME FOR FUCKS SAKE! THE CAPITOL????? WHERE THE SENATE IS???? YOU KNOW HOW RICH THAT MUST MAKE HIs FaMiLY??? His dad literally gives him an allowance even though he is a grown ass man in the military when the show starts.

To put things into perspective for those not up to date on Sequel Era Lore and I envy you greatly tbh bcs not to be that person i do not like the sequels that's the equivalent of being the Senator of Coruscant in the Prequels!!!!

Not to mention he is a BUMBLING idiot. Like. This man has ADHD on steroids. As a person with ADHD it's.. lord, it's cringe. He is clumsy. He is loud. He says inappropriate things at the wrong time. He doesn't know how to do anything for himself. AND HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SPY FOR THE RESISTANCE UNDER COVER AS A MECHANIC???? HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT MECHANICS and really doesn't really learn anything about it by the time the show ends. And don't come at me saying this is a kids show so I cant complain about things being silly bcs I'm not the target audience. I can and I will bcs no one was NEARLY this obnoxious in TCW or Rebels. Kaz is Jarjar Level, but I ACTUALLY LIKE JARJAR!

DUDE IS A DAMN SPY HE DOESNT EVEN LIKE GO BY AN ALLIAS!!! HE DEADASS USES HIS REAL FULL NAME. BCS KAZ IS AN IDIOT.

I'm not saying he isn't a good person. Kaz is very sweet tbh. He's just an unknowing spoiled ass man-child who NEVER REALLY DEVELOPS INTO ANYTHING ELSE?????

It would be okay if he entered the show like this and exited a more mature, capable man. But he really doesn't. There are never any consequences for his actions. Ever. Other than when he becomes a spy and, again, IS USING HIS REAL LEGAL NAME as a spy for the Resistance... to avoid a scandal and to scold him for LITERALLY DESERTING THE NAVY his daddy cuts him off from his allowance. So instead of half assing his cover job as a mechanic, Kaz has to actually apply himself so he can make money for food. He doesn't improve much. His co-workers (Who are MUCH more interesting than him) constantly complain about him messing things up and making their jobs more difficult.

Man, FUCK KAZ. MY HOMIES HATE KAZ. BEING HOT CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR!!!!!

At the Season one finale there is a moment where you think he is finally going to grow as a man! Grow into the protagonist we deserve! Tragedy, for the first time in his life, strikes Kaz! It's during the events of episode 7, when The First Order blows up Hosnian Prime. His home planet. Where his FATHER LIVES. He has a moment of humanity and he is devastated. He almost cries. But he sucks it up to finish the mission and get his friends off base for their safety. He is a man now. and the audience feels a sense of comradery for Kaz. After all, Star Wars is about Fathers. Kaz has lost his father forever. His father was KILLED by the First Order. He now, first hand, has experienced real loss for the first time and this is going to help him grow and toughen up. he has to live on his own now. Our hero has a reason to be doing what he's doing. Fighting against the first order.

BUT NAH. FAM. then the very next fucking EPISODE YOU FIND OUT HIS DAD IS FUCKING ALIVE AND THAT HE DIDNT ACTUALLY EXPEIRENCE THE LOSS THAT HE HAD THOUGHT, AND HE GOES RIGHT BACK TO BEING HIS GOOFY ASS CHILDISH SELF. NO. I HATED THAT. THERE WAS NO REASON FOR GROWTH. MAN FUCK RESISTANCE.

FUCK. IF ANYONE DESERVED THEIR FATHER TO LIVE THROUGH A DAMN PLANETORY DESTRUCTION IT WAS MY GIRL LEIA, NOT FUCKING KAZUDO THE CLOWN XIONO. FUCK. guys I'm sorry I just really hate this god damn character.

Like. Lemme break it down, folks.

TCW started and Ahsoka enters. I HATED Ahsoka for a long time. Bcs she was young, cocky and annoying. But that was on purpose. Narratively, she experiences loss, she experiences pain and GROws as a character while navigating her Jedi life during the war. Our girl grows into the capable protagonist that we EXPECT out of a Star Wars story.

Same for Rebels. We meet Ezra, and he's not quite as annoying as Ahsoka was at first in my opinion (I cannot stress how much I did not care for Ahsoka yall) but he was young. He was childish. But he was more capable at 14 than fucking Kaz was at 20. By the end of Rebels, not only is he more wise and capable, but he is selfless. He has found his own path and it's only because of what he has gone through. His journey has made him stronger. Ezra is my favorite Star Wars journey, if I'm being honest. He is the perfect example of character development.

KAZUDO XIONO ENTERS SEASON ONE AS A 20 YEAR OLD MAN-CHILD USING DADDY'S MONEY WHO IS LOUD AND DOESNT KNOW WHEN THE STFU... AND EXITS THE FINALE... AS A LOUD MAN-CHILD WHO CAN NOW USE TOOLS. He doesn't' experience REAL FAMILIAL loss. He doesn't really experience a lot of character development at all. Things just happen around him, he helps, but he doesn't learn. He doesn't grow. I fucking hate that.

Literally every single character in the show BESIDEs Kaz is more interesting than him. and EXPEIRENCE CHARACTER GROWTH!!!

Jarek Yeager, Kaz's boss in the mechanic shop, was in the Rebellion and LOST HIS FAMILY. He is a sexy ass man too. HE starts the show not wanting to help the Resistance at all bcs he's experienced loss since his days in the Rebellion, and his heart is hard and he's comfortable. By the end of the show he is risking not just his career, but his VERY LIFE to help the Resistance.

Tam Ryvora, Kaz's co-worker. Daughter figure to Yeager and a total bad ass woman of color. She is the one on the show who experiences the most character development and struggles to find her identity while the First Order is taking over the galaxy. I LOVE her.

There are these 2 kids who are force sensitive and orphaned after Kylo Ren comits GENOCIDE on their planet. This arc set up is never fully addressed nor does it have a conclusion, like most story arcs on this show tbh.

There's a literal witch for some reason??

There's this fucking rad ass sexy Mirilian Pirate girl named Synara who FOR SOME REASON is suggested to be Kaz's love interest. Gross. Girl, you gay. Move in.

I could go on and on and on. But I wont. Fuck this show. Fuck Kaz. It literally adds NOTHING to the bigger Star Wars lore. TCW and Rebels do this beautifully and this show is a hot mess of ideas and characters that never come to a satisfying story telling conclusion.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk, dont watch Resistance.

[cienie-isengardu]

Hi! Sorry to bother, but I couldn’t find a clear answer when trying to research. What were the Mandalorians role in the Clone Wars in Legends/EU? I know in TCW they were a neutral planet and largely pacifist (outside of Death Watch), but do we know anything about the Legends Mandalorians at that time? Thank you so much!

Hi there! You are not bothering me at all, I’m always here to talk about Mandalorians.

The Legends gives some clues about Mandalorians and their role in the Clone Wars, though I wouldn’t say sources provided the full perspective in a political-economic sense. Prequel Trilogy and tie-in materials retconned some already existing elements to fit with the general course of history but the Mandalore sector and Mandalore planetary politics wasn’t flashed out much. The overall idea was that [modern] Mandalore was ”a destitute homeworld historically marginalized by the Republic”.

The earliest information (albeit Mandalorians weren’t outright named) comes from The Empire Strikes Back novelization

A human bounty hunter, Fett was known for his extremely ruthless methods. He was dressed in a weapon-covered, armored spacesuit, the kind worn by a group of evil warriors defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. [The Empire Strikes Back by D. Glut]

which indicated that Mandalorian warriors fought against Jedi / Republic. And frankly, this sentiment was repeated in most sources.

So we have Marvel’s Star Wars 68: The Search Begins that introduced Fenn Shysa, Tobbi Dala and Mandalorian Supercommandos / Protectors. From Shysa’s own words:

The three Mandalorians who survived were Fenn Shysa, Tobi Dala and… Boba Fett. The original version of Fenn Shysa’s backstory was retconned to fit with the new lore of Attack of the Clones and summed up in The History of Mandalorians by Abel G. Peña [Insider 80]. Here we learn that alleged Boba Fett was in fact a rogue clone known as Alpha-02/Spar, one of the Advanced Recon Commandos. He managed to run away from Kamino some years before Clone Wars and once Jango Fett died, took the mantle of Mandalore and led Mandalorian Supercommandos against Jedi:

or

Then we have Star Wars Republic comics series [issue 65: Show of Force] that mentions Mandalorians attacking New Holstice, the medical facility.

And Galaxy at War provided another informations like this:

and how Mandalorian Protectors were effective and dangerous during war:

or

Protectors were the biggest, organized group we were told about that joined CIS for ideological reasons and/or because of poverty of Mandalore. Republic Commando book series on another hand focused on individual Mandalorians while the planet of Mandalore was more or less neutral. The big difference between sources about Mandalorian Protectors and the Republic Commando’s characters is that the first had Death Watch reunited with other Mandalorian warriors to some degree, while the latter kinda ignored it completely, making DW the hated group by main heroes (the former trainers of Great Army of Republic known as Cuy'val Dar). Anyway, because of the civil war and massacre on Galidraan, part of Mandalorians was spread through the galaxy doing their own things. Some, like Ghez Hokan (supposed ex-Death Watchman [RC: Hard Contact]) worked as mercenaries and ultimately agreed to work for Separatist. In the case of Ghez, at first it was about money / work, later about personal dislike of Jedi & Republic for using Jango Fett’s clones. Some, like Kal Skirata or Walon Vau (ex-True Mandalorians, the mentioned Cuy'val Dar) who trained clone army on Kamino decided to support Republic out of loyalty to their trainees (clone commandos). And though they worked for the Republic, it did not stop them from stealing supplies from the army (Skirata and Nulls) or even robbing a bank (Vau) during one of republic military operations - their first and foremost motivation was to secure the well-being of their “boys” (clone troopers) and that desire expended soon to protect their growing “clan” by any means.

Like I said, there is little of proper informations about Mandalore and its status or politics during the Clone Wars era. It is hard to tell what a Mandalorian “civils” thought about the conflict or how it affected their daily life. We know that there were Mandalorian Protectors under Alpha-02/Spar and Fenn Shysa who joined CIS either because of hate for Jedi or ideology and Mandalorian individuals fighting on both sides - for money or as a mean to protect their family (including clone troopers).

Hope it answer your question! :)