What the Hell is This?

So when my husband and I decided to move to the city— specifically to a city with a high Black population, bc that sure isnt irrelevant — my parents became very concerned about Crime. My father got very worried when we asked for the bars that blocked fire escape routes to be removed and gave us several cans of mace that we have given a place of honor still wrapped at the bottom of a shelf somewhere. After the move I got asked a lot of questions about if I was hearing Strange Noises at night (no, on the record). My father was convinced because there were unoccupied houses on our street that we were going to Die.

So all of this primes me for today, when my husband tells me me our grocery delivery is on the porch. I open the door. It is not on the porch. We have a mutual "Well, shit" moment and some confusion because we have a VERY loud dog— my husband had locked the outer door (its a grate) by accident so the delivery guy hadn't been able to knock on the inner door, and so there had not been barking, so it'd taken us half an hour to get out there. I go Well, Shit, lesson learned. Here there be porch pirates. I guess this is what city living is like. I go to shower.

No sooner have I stripped and gone down to get a towel then there is a knock on the door. Dog loses it. I throw on a robe and get the door. It is our neighbor, who was told by another neighbor that we'd left our groceries out, and who'd picked them up to take them inside for us so they didn't get stolen. I pad out there barefoot, in my robe, and he gives me the groceries and as I struggle to get the two bags and keep the robe closed and get the door and keep the dog from running out to make friends and thank him profusely, he's calling "you got it? You need help?"

getting into the groove of making pages again OTL. anyways. the goobers. the boogers.

Like Queen Amidala was one of the most beloved Queens of Naboo in history, to the point that they literally wanted to overturn their own CONSTITUTION in order to keep her in power and only her refusal to allow it or to even run if they did kept that from happening. She's remembered as being kind, intelligent, brave, and beautiful. She is almost literally perfection incarnate.

And Senator Amidala is primarily known and remembered as someone who fought against war and corruption, someone who was willing to put her life on the line when it mattered and one of the few who was willing to speak out and fight against injustice. She's remembered for being powerful and clever and strong and moral.

There's never any real smear campaign against her the way there is against, say, the Jedi. Palpatine wants to stop Padme sometimes, sure, but he never sees her as such a big threat that he needs to turn the entire galaxy against her. In fact, her pristine reputation probably ends up helping him by proxy since he was her mentor. Even the reveal of Padme's pregnancy after her death, something that would've exposed that she'd had a scandalous affair, never seems to tarnish her reputation as a paragon of moral perfection. Even decades after her death, she seems to still be remembered extremely positively.

But the REALITY of Padme is far different. She's a corrupt politician, she's willing to help cover up several different crimes committed by her own husband, she's potentially going against her own planet's rules by having gotten married at all, she's going against some other rules by getting married to a JEDI. She's a liar and a hypocrite, she's selfish and greedy, and she's more and more willing to let herself be convinced into doing things she knows are wrong by the end.

But no one seems to truly know that person. The one person closest to her who does know about some of these choices often refuses to acknowledge or accept the reality of her because it obviously benefits him that she is this way and he's choosing to see what he wants to see. And everyone else is kept at such a distance that they don't get to see the darkness that lies beneath the pristine lie she wears.

I love me a flawed character who intends good so much that you know they'll kick and scream and throw up for it but then, in the next ten minutes, turn a blind eye to something catastrophic because their love for someone else overrides the rationale

You could even go so far to say she helped create Darth Vader, because had she not indulged Anakin, she'd never have been pregnant, he'd not have had those visions... That's not to say the whole debacle wouldn't have happened period, old Palpy had been building too much for too long, it just may have happened differently, Padme may have just become maybe a different type of pawn in the new Empire and Anakin may have just... died I guess(?) while the Empire was created around his corpse. You never know.

I think that you COULD argue she helped lead Anakin down a darker path, she chooses to give in to her own temptations and often allows Anakin to give in to his own as well. So while I don't think she's ever intentionally trying to hurt him or manipulate him or lead him down a more selfish path, I do think that her own selfishness ultimately feeds his own. She WANTS to help him, she wants to fix him, she wants her love to heal him, but she doesn't truly understand him enough to actually be able to DO THAT effectively and her motives are arguably a little selfish anyway (as in, she's more focused on how being with Anakin makes HER feel than she is in truly doing what's best FOR ANAKIN).

"I would never."

"I wasn't going to."

"You have to believe me; I'm not lying."

"What reason would I have to lie?"

"Okay."

"How could you think I am lying about this?"

"Why not?"

"Like you're one to talk!"

"Are you ever gonna trust me?"

"You're telling me to stop lying?!"

"I'm not fucking lying!"

"Will you stop accusing me of random things I never did?"

"Fine. Let's stop pulling punches."

"How're you gonna know whether I do?"

"You should know better than to ask that of me now."

*laughs in their face*

Also birch bark was used to practice writing on!

I think one of the reasons people use parchment is a LOT of people seem to think the word is just an old timey word for paper and not an entirely different thing? I see people making the same mistake with papyrus too (papyrus IS technically a type of paper but its pretty distinct in its feel and color and weight from regular paper types).

Paper = sheets of matted cellulose fibers. Usually made from wood fiber pulp.

Parchment = Specially prepared sheets of untanned animal skin. Usually goat and calf and sheep.