Imo one of the best things the Star Wars prequels did was establish how much Anakin/Vader *wanted* he and Padmeâs baby. Because if it HAD been written as him never knowing she was pregnant, or not caring much because he was Too Much of a Man in War to really give a shit that he was going to have a kid (both of which are things people have suggested would have been *better* somehow), I donât think it would have added as much to his relationship with Luke as it did. Vader doesnât love Luke just as an extension of Padme, or in an obligatory, familial way, or even as a last connection to the person he was way.
Vader loves Luke because heâs always loved Luke, from the moment he knew there was going to be a Luke to love. He wants to know Luke because heâs always wanted to know him. He wants to be a part of Lukeâs life, because he never had any intention not to be. Thatâs important. Thatâs powerful shit.
#luke isnât just the child he never knew he had#luke is the child he /thought he lost/#âthis son of mine was dead and is alive againâ#thatâs so much more powerful via @catie-does-things
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Shopping for laptops fucking sucks âcause I donât know shit about computers. Iâve never had a computer with a functional webcam or microphone or the ability to play computer games made later than 2005 or a speaker that could play anything loud enough to hear from more than a foot away. How the hell should I know what I want?!
wow that would be such useful advice if only desktop PCs were small and portable and did not require desk tops on which to place them and I could take them with me when I traveled
I know this is a haha funny post, but for anyone who needs it, here's a quick-and-dirty of what you're most likely going to see while shopping for a computer/laptop (w/Examples)!
Cores/Intel Cores (Ex. i3, i5, i9)= Processing Speed= how fast your internet and other programs run. More cores is better.
Hard [Disk] Drive(HDD)/Solid State Drive(SSD) (Ex. 250GB, 480GB, 2TB)= How much you can store on your computer (files and apps and programs). A Terabyte(TB) is 1,000 Gigabytes.
*HDD is cheaper and more storage while SSD is faster, more durable, and uses less energy.
Memory/RAM(Random Access Memory) (Ex. 4GB, 8GB, 16GB) = How many different things your computer can do At The Same Time.
Ex. A computer with 4GB of RAM will probably shit itself if you try to play a game with with the internet open.
Video/Graphics Cards (Ex. NVIDIA, Intel HD Graphics, AMD) = How much visual complexity your computer can handle without throwing a tantrum. Only important if you play video games, do digital art, or watch a lot of movies on your computer. (When you're watching a video and it pixelates and lags when the action stuff happens, that's a bad/small graphics card)
Also the âavoid refurbished computersâ tip is dead wrong.
âRefurbishedâ means itâs been in a technicianâs hands recently and canât be sold as new. Thatâs it. Thatâs all. In the US the FTC makes it illegal to sell something new if itâs been sold to an end user, so by definition a lot of perfect, ready-to-go hardware must be ârefurbishedâ in order to sell it again, no matter the circumstances.
Reasons a machine might be a refurb:
- Customer bought the item, decided they didnât like the color, and returned it
- Customer bought the item, couldnât figure out how to turn it on, and returned it
- Retailer opened the box for some reason and lost some of what gets shipped inside (manuals, cables, charger) and returned it
- Company bought 100 computers but went out of business before they could be installed or used
- Customer got a replacement for a damaged computer under warranty, and the manufacturer fixed what was wrong with the old machine and is now selling it as a refurb
I HAVE PERSONALLY WITNESSED ALL OF THESE SCENARIOS
Bottom line: ârefurbishedâ hardware has been repaired, tested, cleaned, and renewed back to original specifications by a trained technician. If anything, itâs probably MORE reliable now that itâs been doubly-tested.Â
All responsibly refurbished equipment comes with a factory warranty... the only refurbs I would avoid are items sold âas-isâ without warranty. Thatâs dangerous unless you know what youâre doing, like buying stuff for parts.
A lot of my most reliable hardware -- servers, laptops, tablets -- were bought as refurbished goods at huge savings. When I go shopping for a new thing I always look at the refurbished options first.Â
Shopping for laptops fucking sucks âcause I donât know shit about computers. Iâve never had a computer with a functional webcam or microphone or the ability to play computer games made later than 2005 or a speaker that could play anything loud enough to hear from more than a foot away. How the hell should I know what I want?!
wow that would be such useful advice if only desktop PCs were small and portable and did not require desk tops on which to place them and I could take them with me when I traveled
I know this is a haha funny post, but for anyone who needs it, here's a quick-and-dirty of what you're most likely going to see while shopping for a computer/laptop (w/Examples)!
Cores/Intel Cores (Ex. i3, i5, i9)= Processing Speed= how fast your internet and other programs run. More cores is better.
Hard [Disk] Drive(HDD)/Solid State Drive(SSD) (Ex. 250GB, 480GB, 2TB)= How much you can store on your computer (files and apps and programs). A Terabyte(TB) is 1,000 Gigabytes.
*HDD is cheaper and more storage while SSD is faster, more durable, and uses less energy.
Memory/RAM(Random Access Memory) (Ex. 4GB, 8GB, 16GB) = How many different things your computer can do At The Same Time.
Ex. A computer with 4GB of RAM will probably shit itself if you try to play a game with with the internet open.
Video/Graphics Cards (Ex. NVIDIA, Intel HD Graphics, AMD) = How much visual complexity your computer can handle without throwing a tantrum. Only important if you play video games, do digital art, or watch a lot of movies on your computer. (When you're watching a video and it pixelates and lags when the action stuff happens, that's a bad/small graphics card)
Also the âavoid refurbished computersâ tip is dead wrong.
âRefurbishedâ means itâs been in a technicianâs hands recently and canât be sold as new. Thatâs it. Thatâs all. In the US the FTC makes it illegal to sell something new if itâs been sold to an end user, so by definition a lot of perfect, ready-to-go hardware must be ârefurbishedâ in order to sell it again, no matter the circumstances.
Reasons a machine might be a refurb:
- Customer bought the item, decided they didnât like the color, and returned it
- Customer bought the item, couldnât figure out how to turn it on, and returned it
- Retailer opened the box for some reason and lost some of what gets shipped inside (manuals, cables, charger) and returned it
- Company bought 100 computers but went out of business before they could be installed or used
- Customer got a replacement for a damaged computer under warranty, and the manufacturer fixed what was wrong with the old machine and is now selling it as a refurb
I HAVE PERSONALLY WITNESSED ALL OF THESE SCENARIOS
Bottom line: ârefurbishedâ hardware has been repaired, tested, cleaned, and renewed back to original specifications by a trained technician. If anything, itâs probably MORE reliable now that itâs been doubly-tested.Â
All responsibly refurbished equipment comes with a factory warranty... the only refurbs I would avoid are items sold âas-isâ without warranty. Thatâs dangerous unless you know what youâre doing, like buying stuff for parts.
A lot of my most reliable hardware -- servers, laptops, tablets -- were bought as refurbished goods at huge savings. When I go shopping for a new thing I always look at the refurbished options first.Â
How do you think things would go if Luke had to spend time with/look after a de-aged Vader?
SWIMMINGLY -Â iâm not kidding. luke and baby anakin would get along like fire and donald trumpâs hairspray. essentially, theyâre almost the same person. thereâs no one who can keep up with a skywalker like another skywalker can.
awkwardly enough, i think baby anakin - ignorant of the future - would hero-worship luke. lukeâs so kind, and so cool, and heâs the greatest pilot ever, and his droid is kickass, and if you say shit about luke skywalker, scrappy desert child anakin is there to beat your face in with a hydrospanner. TALK SHIT GET HIT
while anakinâs busy being absolutely enthralled by luke, his new role model, lukeâs busy being very awkward. on one hand, itâs gratifying to know that his father wasnât always Tall, Dark, and Wheezy, and he was actually a very sweet kid, once upon a time. and luke can see the similarities between him and this small ball of excitement and fury, so itâs heartwarming to be similar to his father. on the other hand - anakinâs a traumatized kid. understanding that his father knew terrible things from such a young age is disconcerting, hearing him say things like, âwow, that costs more than i do!â hurts. thereâs also a question of what happened to anakin to make him what he became, because itâs clear that anakin didnât transform on his own.
thereâs a lot of heavy emotion interspersed with anakin and luke accidentally blowing up half the hangar
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"shipping and blorbofication are not inherently at odds with understanding a story's deep themes" and "some people can't grasp the themes of a story because they never learned how to engage with stories outside of the lens of shipping and blorbofication" are two statements that can coexist
blorbofication to me is when you love a character in such a laser focus way that you somewhat detach them from the narrative from which they are inserted and treat them in a way roughly similar to how you'd treat an oc for which you still have no story and just like to put them in situations just for fun. which there's nothing wrong with btw, it's just that it can easily lead to people forgetting the character engine in a narrative and not just a barbie doll
obi-wan kenobi would not be thrilled in a fix it to discover that anakin was married and had kids, nor would he want to play any sort of role in the kids' lives, given, you know, his whole ideal jedi no attachment schtick
too many people have the idea that racism is a nothingburger thing. like. people die from that. itâs not âcancel cultureâ to call out racism. and if youâre white and you say anything close to that you have some serious self-reflecting to do. idc if youâre a content creator. idc if âit could happen to you.â having a platform on the internet and saying stupid bullshit doesnât make you more oppressed than the marginalized groups youâre criticizing for being upset
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Do you think Anakin is as possessive as fandom makes him out to be?
Disclaimer: I am mainly going off of film-canon here, because that is the highest tier of canon there is. I will discuss the EU (specifically TCW '08) later because it's wildly inconsistent and that's where the canon vs. fanon begins to diverge drastically.
To be possessive towards or about another person, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, is to "want to have all of that person's love and attention and [be unwilling to] share it with anyone else", and is commonly associated with being jealous and controlling. Anakin is none of these things, at least not in the sense you might hear from in a stereotypical BookTok dark romance or whatnot.
I'll go through both platonic and romantic relationships. Spoilers: Consider this Part 2 of the Attachment Discourse Behemoth and the Masculinities Essay that I didn't know I'd have to write.
Shmi
Yes, I'm listing her here because the pro-Jedi crowd like to claim that Anakin's "possessive love/attachment" is where everything went wrong, for some reason.
In terms of TPM, he is literally 9 years old. At age 9/10, children are still typically dependent on their parents, and he "knows nothing of greed". I think reading TPM!Anakin as "possessive" is inherently a bad-faith reading because there is zero indication of that being true in the film. As I put it in my last essay: Chat, is a loving parent-child relationship "greedy" and "possessive" now?
In AOTC, Anakin is having nightmarish Force visions of his mother being kidnapped and tortured to death, but has not had the opportunity to check on her until the events of the film. And then Shmi literally dies in his arms. I'm not sure what people are thinking when they claim Anakin is "possessive" of his mother and mad at her because she died on him, because at this point this is just mental gymnastics. The Massacre happened in a vengeful, dissociative grief-induced rage; there is nothing else to it. Star Wars is a very straightforward story; most bad-faith readings make themselves very apparent in terms of how illogical these claims can get.
As for his relationship with the Lars family? I think Anakin is far more concerned for the fact his mother was sold as a bride to Cliegg Lars, which is a very justifiable reason to worry for a loved one (i.e. how consensual the relationship is, if she's free and happy, etc.). It is implied he gets along well enough with Owen and Beru, at least.
Obi-Wan
Yes, apparently I have to list him here too. So here's the thing: Jedi forbid attachment, in practice interpersonal loving relationships; if the two were not defined as equivalent, then the story would literally make zero sense (I said it before, I'll say it again).
Obi-Wan is meant to represent the perfect, archetypical PT-era Jedi who follows all the rules, which means he doesn't get "attached" to other people, and if he does, the only time he's willing to openly admit it is when everything has gone to hell anyway (re: Mustafar). Obi-Wan is literally not "attached" enough to anyone else for Anakin to theoretically get jealous of, at least in film-canon.
To branch into TCW '08, however, we do get to see one potential "attachment" for Obi-Wan in the form of Satine Kryze, an old flame and friend of his. And guess what Anakin's reaction is? He ships them like the postal service! He's happily married and wants his mentor-father-figure to experience the same marital bliss, not try to control with whom Obi-Wan consorts with! He's happy for the people around him if they experience happiness (or at least have the potential to do so)! Why would he be jealous? He's literally watching them bicker while sipping on a space-martini!
Ahsoka
I'll keep her section short because she debuts in TCW '08 and is thus by all means an EU character, but the end of Season 5 of the cartoon says it all: Ahsoka chooses to leave the Jedi Order. Anakin isn't happy about it, but empathizes with her and doesn't make more than a token effort to stop her, and ultimately respects her opinions and her agency to leave. I don't think this sounds like "possessive" behaviour, or at least more "possessive" than the average person to the point of being defined by it.
PadmĂŠ
And now here's the big one: PadmĂŠ.
To me, I think the answer is obvious: throughout AOTC (which sets the precedent for their relationship), it's always PadmĂŠ who dictates the pace of the relationship, and Anakin always listens to her opinions and boundaries and supports her regardless of his own feelings on the matter. They do have disagreements, but he never tries to "possess" her as an individual or control her: not her career, not her actions, not her thoughts, not her feelings. She literally rejected him at first in AOTC and he resigned himself to yearning in silence and never says a word of it again until PadmĂŠ herself brings it up again when she's ready, and even then he's confused at first! This is not possessive behaviour!
The only thing Anakin tries to control (or "possess") is PadmĂŠ's fate in ROTS, and I think this is what George Lucas meant by him being "possessive" of anything at all, but considering his unresolved psychological trauma (re: Shmi), I think it makes sense for him. On a Watsonian level, I don't think not wanting your loved ones to die a painful, unjust, and ultimately preventable death constitutes as someone being "greedy" or "possessive" at all, but rather a normal human reaction, if amplified by psychological trauma; on a Doylist level, the fear of traumatic loss is his fatal flaw that the tragedy of ROTS hinges on and is thus a vital component of the narrative and his characterization.
I'm not saying that Anakin is incapable of jealousy: in AOTC, we have a brief moment of PadmĂŠ teasing him about her childhood crush on another guy, presumably to invoke that jealousy, but ultimately they're very secure in their relationship and happily devoted to each other. They are a classical (mythic, Shakespearean, etc.) tragic romance, not a contemporary BookTok dark romance, get your facts right and your genres sorted out.
The reason I say all this is because of how TCW '08 derails their entire dynamic and even their personalities, and that cartoon has had a tremendous impact on how fans perceive the PT's characters and is thus a major source of fanonization. And the main arc that started all these "possessive" accusations is the Clovis arc, one of the few arcs where Anidala play central roles in the TV series and widely reviled for its OOC characterization by Anidala shippers and core saga fans. In my words, it introduces the new character Senator Rush Clovis as a rival figure for PadmĂŠ's affections and was seemingly written purely to shoehorn Anakin into the "jealous love interest" archetype often seen in more contemporary media. My problem here is that a lot of the fandom (and thus fanon) actually takes that arc seriously and unironically as canon, while brushing aside how egregiously OOC everyone is for the plot to work (not to mention the misogyny).
On fanonization
Another major source of fanonization? The Vader persona and Dark Side corruption, which the argument for the Clovis arc also ties into, because TCW '08 leans heavily into "hypercorrecting" Anakin's characterization to be more Vader-esque when that defeats the point of Anakin as characterized in the actual Prequel Trilogy films.
It's far easier to argue post-Fall Anakin (especially on Mustafar) as "possessive" and he has been described as such by George Lucas, but the issue is that this is not Anakin's default state. He's not in his right mind after being corrupted from immersion in the Dark Side (or as I like to analogize it, being high on metaphysical murderdrugs) and this is meant to be seen as OOC behaviour, both in- and out-of-universe. Any and all "possessiveness" is his inherent love corrupted by the Dark Side.
The main problem here ties into the main conflict of the saga: "Vader" is not his true self, Anakin is. And that appears to be something the wider fandom can't seem to grasp, hence the fanonization of his "Vader" traits as an inevitability even though his Fall is meant to be seen as unexpected and preventable in-universe. To wit from an out-of-universe standpoint, Anakin may be doomed to Fall, but even if so, he's also destined to return to the Light, and that's the crux of the narrative: he comes back; Luke and PadmĂŠ are right about him and everyone else is wrong.
TL;DR: No, Anakin is nowhere near as possessive as much of the fandom makes him out to be. The reason fanon is like that is in part due to a badly written and OOC TCW '08 story arc, but can ultimately be attributed to the idolization of "Vader" and a refusal to acknowledge Anakin for who he is as his true self: in other words, bad faith readings and media illiteracy.
