#ungete aikal: perfection is a competition and she wants to win

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Going back to some of my "next generation" assholes with Ungete Aikal, padawan of my main consular Kaoja. Where her master made for a good Jedi because of her personality, Ungete has made herself into a good Jedi. She is always considering what projects the best image for herself, not just what she thinks is right but what observers would consider the right thing, and presenting herself in ways that match with a sort of broad ideal of a Jedi.

She is vain as well as a perfectionist, taking great care with her hair, clothes, and makeup - the clothes are least obvious, since she still has to look Like A Jedi all the time, but her robes are always neat and pressed and only the most flattering neutral shades for her. It takes a little bit of work and more feedback from others than she's comfortable with, since the Force is not necessarily going to tell her what colour things are - but if appearances are everything and the average person isn't familiar with Jedi cultural values and signals, she has to meet those average people on a level of appearance they do understand.

Ungete wants nothing more than to be some important figure among the Jedi like Kaoja before her - Barsen'thor being the obvious one, but she'd accept a more usual council position or even the honour of being named an honorary general that my knight Kit received. (She is of course appalled that he fell so blatantly, but can't understand why he might be ashamed of anything good that fall earned him. If anything it ought to be a consolation.)

Part of this is just her as she is - a perfectionist, self-interested, hoping to be seen as the best person in the room. Part of this is that there is one person whose approval she craves above all others, her master Kaojacol. Kaoja, however, has spent more time than she's known Ungete trying to win her daughter over after inadvertently giving said daughter abandonment issues, and while she treats Ungete fairly and with affection it is always intensely clear to both girls that there is a favourite, and it's not the one who actually wants Kaoja's attention. The fact that both Ungete and Kaoja's daughter Rityesa want Kaoja to focus on her Padawan does not stop them from despising each other, of course.

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Ok now that I'm rambling about Ungete and Rityesa I can talk about the fact that they are so mismatched in their attitudes toward each other. Ungete despises Rityesa because she has what Ungete wants and won't accept it or enjoy it, and Rityesa can't stand Ungete for her need to be perfect in all the ways Rityesa has to reject for her own peace of mind - but where Ungete fully sees Rityesa as her rival for Kaoja's approval and affections, to Yesa Ungete is just. Some Jedi. This girl who won't stop showing up and sniffing disapprovingly at her but who doesn't matter to Rityesa at all. The worst thing about her is that she's around at all but Rityesa puts no real stock in having a "rivalry" with Ungete. It's overwhelmingly one-sided and they both want the same thing in the end (Kaoja to focus on her student and not her daughter) but Ungete resents what Rityesa has and Rityesa scorns Ungete for wanting what she thinks is stupid and oh well! Doomed to never get along even though they're actually alike in a lot of subtle ways.