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the parents from coruscant to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, who have just become new parents, or perhaps are welcoming their third or fourth

it’s subtle at first, so subtle it’s easy to miss

their baby is different

maybe they’re worried. ‘what’s wrong with my baby? will they be ok? are they sick? they don’t cry like my others, doctor.’

maybe they’re amazed. ‘he has such a way with animals. she always seems to know when it will rain. what amazing reflexes! i’ve never seen a child with such a green thumb!’

it only becomes more apparent as time passes. seasons change, children grow, people talk, and the reality that their beloved child has been gifted with something beyond their comprehension becomes a reality that can no longer be ignored

and then, one day, the jedi arrives

they arrive on the doorsteps of homes both humble and opulent, armed with a soothing demeanor, a benign smile, and an explanation that simultaneously relieves and terrifies

sometimes i think about the horrid realization that, despite a willingness to lay down their own life for their child, despite their attempts to provide to the best of their ability, it is not enough. it never will be

sometimes i think of the tearful goodbyes - goodbyes that are not made any less painful with the knowledge that their decision is in the best interest of their baby

‘will they remember me?’ a parent wonders as they gaze with blurry eyes at the retreating form of the jedi, who carries away their entire world, swaddled in fabric that still smells of home. ‘will they remember my lullabies? my voice? will they remember how loved they were?’

years pass. the absence is a gaping wound that never truly heals. they follow the news, daily, scouring titles and clips for information- hoping to catch a glimpse or the smallest assurance that their child is well, growing, prospering

and then, one day, the news stops. everything changes, and nothing could ever prepare them for what follows

governments fall, an empire rises, and parents across the galaxy are rendered immobile, breathless, and shattered at the uttering of one simple sentence:

the jedi are no more

The siblings who were old enough to remember their baby brother or sister being accepted into the Order and meet a survivor who wasn’t their sibling but may have known them and could tell them who their sibling was, what they were like, that they were loved by their brothers & sisters in the Order.

Some people join full of grief.

Everyone has a cause. Sometimes they’re looking at the bigger picture, the real rallying call, but more often they start out for reasons that are intensely personal, and highly emotional.

You join the Rebellion quiet.

“Why are you here?” cries a General on your first day, and there are answering cries from all around you as your fellows erupt, shouting out their reasons in triumph and fear and regret. They’re full of passion.

You are silent.

“Why are you here?” asks one of your bunkmates after a long day followed by probably more drinking than was advisable, but fortunately they all fall asleep before they remember to press you for an answer.

“Why are you here?” Leia Organa asks you one day on Hoth, and you’re cold down to your bones, and deeper still, and even inside your breath mists on the air.

You look at her and something compels you. Trust. Experience. The honest question in her eyes, calculating but kind.

“The Empire had a lot to say about the Jedi,” you tell her. “Propaganda. And then they’ve tried to erase them. You don’t erase guilty people from history, you punish them. …My sister was one.”

“A Jedi?” Leia asks you, startled.

You nod.

There is a long silence.

“My father knew Jedi,” she confides after a long while. “Many of them. Some of them very closely. Your sister wasn’t a traitor, I swear to it.”

what is a legacy

Script of Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars Wild Space

Unreliable Narration: exists

Anakin: There’s no particular problem, idk why this is happening.

Obi-Wan: Well, it’ll pass eventually, if that conforts you.

Anakin, and Fandom, later: OBI WAN IS AT FAULT FOR NOT BELIEVING IN ANAKIN/ME!

it seems inevitable to us because we all - mostly - saw it coming because of the order of release. and TCW makes no bones about showing Anakin’s unsteady descent into reckless selfishness, even while he’s still absolutely planted in the role of hero, of Jedi.

but just. for a second. put all that aside. the narrative, the characters, the foreshadowing.

and think about your best friend.

your lifelong companion, your spouse, the friend since childhood, the person you connected with last year and just know you’ll never let go of. a parent or parental figure.

whoever it is you trust the most and want to spend the most time with.

you know this person. you know their likes and dislikes. their mannerisms. when they like to sleep and wake, what they like to eat, how they laugh, who else they’re comfortable around, their favorite clothing style, how their voice sounds when they’re frustrated or tired or a little silly.

and you know them, and you love them.

you are aware of their flaws.

you trust them to not become only their flaws. why would they? who would do that? people are so much more than their best and their worst. you trust them.

of course you do. after all, you know them, understand them, love them. you might not get each other all the time, or even get along as much as you’d like, but you know each other. you’ve got one another’s backs.

it is this person you think of most often. the one you think of when someone invites you and a plus-one, the one you worry about when there’s bad weather, the person you want to share a joke with first. they’re annoying and complicated and you know them. (life has been tough on you and them. life is tough on everyone. things are hard, and you stick as close as you can to this person, and it helps so much.)

and then one day, you come back home after a very long but surprisingly positive day at work and find out that this person has sold your house out from under you, killed your dog, murdered your entire family, slaughtered your neighborhood, including all the kids you’ve grown up around for years and waved at as you drove by, maybe even stopped to say hello or return a toy that rolled away, and then somehow managed to pin all these crimes… on you.

you have lost everything. everything.

and when you chase your friend down and demand answers out of them, plead and argue and ask and cry, all they can say is that it’s all your fault. and that if you can’t be with them on this, that you were never with them in the first place.

your best friend has just destroyed lives, destroyed your life, murdered people, and continues to victim-blame while attempting to hack you to pieces.

it’s incomprehensible.

you must be having a nightmare.

but you’re not.

you’re still loving this person who is more caricature than person, and even as they’re trying to kill you and you’re trying to process the overwhelming losses, you still love them. and hate them, too. except - you still love them.

this is when you begin to cry.

and this is the story of everyone who loved Anakin.

It’s the story of Obi-Wan, and Padmé, and Ahsoka, and Rex, and even just other Jedi and Clones that knew and trusted him, existing in his periphery and by his side, trusting him even while knowing his flaws. everyone has flaws. everyone has dark, selfish, wild desires. nobody expects their friends to give into them.

picture your best friend again. now picture them doing all of this to you.

and tell me you don’t want to destroy something. or hurl yourself off a cliff.

tell me you’re strong enough to live in the wastelands for twenty years contemplating your mistakes and wishing your friend was still your friend.

lie to me.

If you do choose to do evil things, some people WON'T forgive you for it. You're always capable of being better and making better choices and you can still be loved afterwards, but not everyone will do so. Sometimes, your actions will have consequences and those consequences will be that people who'd loved you once don't love you anymore and that some people won't forgive you for what you've done.

And that is a part of the whole process. As nice as it is for Anakin to just constantly be getting forgiven by everyone he cares about, it also feels incredibly unrealistic that everyone he cared about and betrayed keeps deciding to forgive him for it anyway. Part of the journey should also require accepting that some of those people WON'T forgive him, that he's hurt them enough that they can't look at him without remembering the pain he'd caused them. And that's okay! That's what happens when you do evil things, and it feels like it would be important to force him to accept that this is a consequence of his choices, to see him LOSE something or someone he genuinely cares about as a result and all he can do is accept that.

But Star Wars doesn't seem to want to showcase that. Pretty much all of their "redeemed" characters just end up getting universally forgiven. Crosshair gets forgiven by everyone and even gets apologized TO by someone he'd hurt for holding his crimes against him. Satine dies and Korkie disappears and anyone else who could hold Bo-Katan's crimes against her either forgets all about it or simply doesn't know it. Kallus not only gets universally forgiven and accepted as a rebel, but he gets literally taken to the secret homeworld of a species he'd led a genocide against and actively tried to eradicate from the galaxy.

It just feels like Star Wars doesn't want to deal with the idea that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much better you choose to become, some people simply WON'T forgive you for the things you've done if you've hurt them badly enough. And I'd love more representation of that, because choosing to let someone go when they've hurt you, even if they say they're sorry later, can be incredibly healing in its own right. It feels like it could be an equally important message to send as the one about forgiveness. Sometimes people won't forgive you and you DO have to learn to be okay with that. You could grow into one of the most moral people in the world and it won't necessarily make someone forgive you for your previous choices. Sometimes you won't be able to forgive people who hurt you and that's okay. It doesn't make you equally as bad as the people who hurt you if you decide you no longer want those people in your life anymore.

At the risk of pissing off most of fandom: what I wouldn’t give for fic exploring the idea that Obi-Wan can love Anakin and mourn for what happened—and still not forgive him. Because Anakin killed their Jedi family. Maybe he didn’t issue Order 66, but Obi-Wan watched him march on the Temple, on their home, and kill everyone in it. The younglings, yes, but consider who else was at the Temple—it would have been the Jedi who could not serve on the battlefront. The Healers, the sick, the elderly, the librarians and archivists, the cooks and cleaners, the crechmasters… Their most vulnerable, to put it mildly.

Yes, Obi-Wan blames himself for Anakin’s choices. We know that, whether it is appropriate for him to or not. He mourns him. But I would love to see something where he meets an Anakin who has turned back from the dark side (I know, I don’t believe it outside RotJ either but just for the sake of fanfic)… And maybe Obi-Wan can still love him. But can he really forgive him? Maybe. Maybe he can forgive him for himself, but I do not believe they could ever have the same relationship they had before.

(And I don’t mean forgive Anakin like… Forgive him and absolve him of what he did. But just stop carrying the pain of it and the blame. I’m not wording this well, but—like OP says, you can forgive someone and still not want them in your life.)

I have an entire AU in my head (based loosely on a fanfic I love) where Padme lives and manages to capture Anakin in an attempt to "save" him, but neither she nor Ahsoka nor Rex are able to actually get through to him and so they bring in Obi-Wan to see if Obi-Wan's able to actually do anything, and... it works. Not quickly, not immediately, but it works.

I know there's lots of reasons why Obi-Wan theoretically shouldn't be able to ever get through to Anakin, there's narrative thematic reasons for why it could have only ever worked with Luke, but Luke is like 5 years old in this AU and Anakin is stuck in a cell with no way out other than to sit there and talk to Obi-Wan and convince Obi-Wan that he's stable enough to be trusted with people's lives. And I am still convinced that Obi-Wan was the ONE PERSON that we ever see Anakin actually willing to be selfless with (other than Luke later, just that once). Obi-Wan is the ONE PERSON who truly manages to get through to Anakin, the ONE PERSON whose opinion of him matters enough for Anakin to not just do whatever he wants when he's angry. There's MULTIPLE moments in canon to back up that Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin was the healthiest Anakin ever had and that Obi-Wan had a capacity to get through to Anakin in a way no one else really did. And above anything else, Obi-Wan was Anakin's guide. That's what a Master is, a guide for their student to figure out how to walk their own path. And that's what Anakin needs in this moment, he needs a guide that he trusts to show him how to get back to a better path.

And so, in this instance, it works. It works because it HAS to, because none of them have any other options and they're unwilling to just give up, so they push through the pain and the anger and the betrayal and the fear and it takes months, it takes over a year, but Anakin finally manages to come around. He's not the nicest person in the world, still, he's still a little quick to anger and has shit to work on, but he's not completely consumed by darkness anymore and he's willing to turn against Palpatine at least.

And once Palpatine is dead, they go their separate ways. It's the last lesson Obi-Wan has to teach Anakin, how to let go. It's the most important one, too, the one that got Anakin in trouble last time. Obi-Wan isn't dead, but the pain Anakin caused will probably always remain. Obi-Wan will never be able to look at Anakin again without remembering the bodies of the younglings covering the floor of the Temple and the smoke rising from the towers and the feeling of all the Jedi in the galaxy dying all at once and having to make that message saying that the Jedi's time was done just to save what few survivors might be left. Anakin will never again be just the little boy Qui-Gon picked up from the desert and left to Obi-Wan to train. He'll also always be the man who betrayed Obi-Wan and destroyed everything Obi-Wan had loved. And Obi-Wan does still love the boy he trained, but he can't continue to live alongside the man who betrayed him. He has to walk away, and Anakin has to let him. It isn't easy for Anakin, who has struggled SO SO MUCH with letting go, to recognize that Obi-Wan loves him and is proud of him and trusts him but doesn't want to be around him anymore. It's so hard to accept that this isn't something that he can fix, no matter what he tries.

Also I absolutely 1000% agree that Obi-Wan is the only person other than Luke who could manage to get through to Anakin, for all of the reasons you say. I mean, even Palpatine knows that he needs to separate Anakin from Obi-Wan before he can manage to turn him.

I also super love that you have Rex in there, that maybe he’s initially with Padme on trying to save/redeem Anakin, but by the end he’s done. THESE TAGS:

I do think that some part of Obi-Wan probably WOULD want to save Anakin for Anakin's sake, he loves Anakin of course, but it's all mixed up and complicated with all of the betrayal and anger and the uncertainty of whether he could've done something to keep Anakin from betraying them all in the first place. But Padme's tried, Ahsoka's tried, even Rex has tried, and no one has managed to get through to Anakin for months, so Obi-Wan takes a stab at it even if he's convinced it won't be any different for him than for the others, but lo and behold, Anakin REACTS to his presence in a way he doesn't to anyone else.

He lashes out at Obi-Wan still, of course, but as Obi-Wan starts to leave, he says something to the effect of "Qui-Gon would've been a better master than you" and... Anakin used to say that to him a LOT when he was younger. He grew out of it, but as a kid he'd say it any time they got into an argument and Obi-Wan decided to just walk away and let them both have time to take a breather. Eventually, Obi-Wan had realized that Anakin had been saying anything he thought would keep Obi-Wan around by goading him into a new argument. So the fact that he's using the EXACT SAME TACTIC now tells Obi-Wan that, as much as Anakin is lashing out and trying to hurt them, some part of Anakin doesn't want Obi-Wan to leave again. And that's potentially something Obi-Wan can work with.

Rex's presence is something that's from the fic I mentioned this AU was loosely based on, and he IS initially with Padme on trying to save Anakin and by the end he's not quite DONE with trying to do that but he is a LOT more realistic about their chances and about what Anakin's choices say about him. I tend to think that he'd stick with Padme and Ahsoka because he knows they need him, and because he believes that this could be a gamechanger if they can accomplish it, but by the time Palpatine is dead, Rex has no interest in ever being around Anakin anymore. The love and respect he'd had for his former general is basically gone. He's glad that Anakin turned on Palpatine, but he's had a number of epiphanies about how Anakin had actually viewed Rex and the other clones and what their relationship had actually been.

….That is good to know for. No reasons whatsoever. (I was absolutely going to ask if you had any fics out there, since. I basically agree with everything you ever post, lol. BUT I SUPPOSE THIS ANSWERS THAT.)

However, if you want to share the fic this AU was inspired by, well. Inquiring minds.

give me more jedi comparing a non-jedi's familial relationship to that of an apprentice and a master - at least that would make sense!

jedi going "yeah, an adult who guides and protects you and you're supposed to listen to them? yeah thats a master- oh, your mom is like that too? neat :)"

more jedi not really understanding non-jedi family dynamics. more jedi being horrified at the concept of someone being rejected or mistreated by their parent, because "why did they choose to have you then???"

Jedi who know they don't really have 'parents', like there's the crechemasters which is kind of parental and when you're a youngling you're growing up in a world where all the grownups do watch out for you and you get taught different things and cared for in different ways and you're expected to be respectful in different ways to and by different adults, but you don't have one specific adult as your go-to adult until you're nearly a teenager.

And you meet someone from outside the Temple who is so well meaning and says 'oh so like a parent' and they're wrong, they're incredibly wrong in ways you can't begin to express because you'd have to explain your whole culture from the ground up and you're twelve. But based on what you've read about normal childrearing structures in the greater Galaxy, that this well meaning stranger knows and you don't, yeah, sure, 'parent' is probably about as close as you're going to get without making it weird.

Look I would pay real currency to watch a series of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s couples counseling. The angst and the passive-aggressiveness and the “I’m fine it’s fine everything’s fine” “NO IT’S NOT OBI-WAN NOTHING IS FINE”. Or individual Jedi counseling.

I feel like Mace Windu would be amazing in this documentary series. The interviewer would be like “It sounds like you have a very difficult role, being responsible for so much in the Order. Would you agree?” and he just keeps staring into space like this: 

…before finally taking a deep breath and being like, “It is a noble calling, and one I am honored to take on.” 

Yoda cancels on his interview like 45 times, or pretends to be napping or dead when the guy shows up, because He Really Doesn’t Wanna Talk About This Stuff Everyone Knows The Order Is Just Fine Look How Well-Adjusted We All Are. 

Quinlan Vos does his interview from a bar, during which he becomes increasingly inebriated. His interview turns into him just bragging about various conquests or awesome parties he’s been to on undercover missions. Viewers love him.

Obi-Wan explains to the horrified interviewer that he really totally wasn’t traumatized by being sent away to be a space farmer when he was 12, or the fact that he once got a rock for his birthday, or that his Space Dad was murdered in front of him. And that things between him and Anakin are FINE. 

The two of them don’t realize they’re still mic’d up when they try to “discuss” things in the hallway in between filming after a particularly pointed on-screen argument. The resulting audio includes lecturing (Obi-Wan), dramatic yelling (Anakin), retreading of very old arguments (both), and eventually some mild dirty talk, which they vehemently deny later even though they both have mussed up hair when they return. 

Ahsoka’s interview is hilarious, since it is mostly just her telling stories about Anakin or Obi-Wan embarrassing themselves. She manages to come off as one of the most competent people in the entire show despite the fact that she’s like 15. She instantly becomes a favorite of viewer commentators on the Holonet. 

Some of the Clones get interviewed about what it’s like to work with the Jedi. This turns into all of them sharing “most insane thing my Jedi has done” stories, and it results in 157 hours of footage. They end up with their own series. 

So, basically this is what’s going to foil Palpatine’s plans, isn’t it? He is kicking himself, because he actually urged the Jedi to do the documentary series in the first place, thinking that they’d come off as totally dogmatic, dispassionate weirdos and the Republic would be turned off, making it easier for him to push his “The Jedi Are Evil” spiel later. 

Instead, as the series wears on, everyone finds them oddly charming, and is overwhelmed by how hard they work and the good they do. There’s all kinds of forums set up for the inevitable Jedi Order Fandom as people nitpick every detail the show reveals. The gossip is out of control. Ahsoka can’t go anywhere without an interviewer asking her about the state of her “dads”’ relationship. Padme is hounded by the tabloids every time someone thinks they saw her out with Anakin somewhere (and OMG IS THAT A BABY BUMP??! WHAT IS OBI-WAN GONNA THINK?! Wait, is OBI-WAN the father???!). Hondo Ohnaka, of course, uses this as a chance to make some money, and is constantly trying to sell outlandish stories about his “friends” the Jedi to the tabloids.

On the political side, the average Republic citizen starts getting savvier. Seeing their favorite Jedi deal with these Senate officials and obstinate planetary governors, day in and day out, energizes populations to organize more effectively. The Jedi are unsure how to feel about this at first, but its nice to have the added leverage when dealing with particularly reticent political figures.

Obi Wan: goes to do something hilariously ExtraTM.

Cody: Arms crossed casually, face completely blank. “Ahem”

Obi Wan: Looks at him… “If I do this, you’re going to tell the entire Republic won’t you?”

Cody: Raises eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Obi Wan: “Ah, well,” looks almost sheepish. “What do you suggest, Commander?”

Cody: Deadpan “You’re learning.”

But we are missing some hilarious potential here… So you guys know how bad Padme and Anakin are at pretending they don’t know intimate details about each other/covering their asses/being remotely subtle? Well, once a film crew is following Anakin around on a semi-regular basis, they get even worse.

For example, Anakin, Padme, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are sent on a diplomatic mission together, documentary crew accompanying. They all board Anakin’s ship and there’s a lovely lace outer robe lying in a crumpled heap on the copilot seat from when Anakin and Padme made their last Dramatic Escape from a senatorial function (”I thought you said you were in danger?” “I was- a few more minutes and I’d have DIED of boredom.”) Anakin snatches it up and shoves it into his robes. 

“SO THAT’S WHERE I LEFT MY FORMAL ROBES. OBI WAN WILL BE SO PLEASED.” and then he turns bright red because he just implied that Obi Wan will be really happy to see him in a undersized, lacy robe, which is true but not the impression he intended to give the viewing public. Padme breaks a rib suppressing her laughter. The psychiatrist and crew just roll their eyes and wonder why they’re even keeping up the pretense of deception. 

Or, the crew just keep on finding mugs of half-drunk tea with lipstick marks in Padme’s distinctive signature shade 

”They’re Ahsoka’s,” Anakin blurts out. 

Ahsoka, who is there and not wearing a single smidge of lipstick looks at the camera, looks at Padme’s lipstick covered lips, looks back at the camera. Everyone turns to Padme. She looks around the ship. Anakin hasn’t cleaned it in months. There is exposed wiring from the last time Anakin started “improving” it and then got distracted. It smells like sweaty man and teenager and curry. 

“I really enjoy the ambiance?” She offers. “It’s very… relaxed.” A muffled snort comes from the vicinity of Ahsoka. Anakin, who is standing next to her, steps on her foot. Ahsoka punches Anakin in the shoulder, hard. Obi Wan folds his arms and does his only sane man routine, which the psychiatrist and the documentary team now knows is Made of Lies and Deception. 

This lasts until the team catches him sitting with Padme and Anakin in the cockpit, giving Padme a foot massage while Anakin drives. 

See, in among the “Kenobi is secretly a Space Siren”, “Skywalker is the avatar of entropy” and “the Jedi don’t die but merely change their forms and continue to save the galaxy under a new name” theories there are a smaller subset who are driven by the desperate need to uncover the truth of the war so that the Jedi can go back to spending more time with fans planets in need of their expertise. Everyone thinks they’re nuts. Until they don’t.

It starts as a post on a forum with user k3n0b15w00shyh41r ranting about how the war so obviously benefits the military industrial complex, and why has no one ever investigated Kamino for separatist links? User winduismygod93 points out that’s an excellent question, and wait a moment, why exactly were the clones commissioned in the first place? I mean, it was convenient, but could you really see masters Yoda or Windu authorising the creation of sentient beings for war? User 5tone9arden agrees - could this be a smear campaign? User masspalooza posits that it was a false flag operation by the Sith, and after a bit of digging user 5ith7i9ht uncovers the Sifo Dyas link - a known associate of the traitor Dooku? They’re on to something. User blankdayzii  is concerned about sabotage when user xxx_t4N0_xxx points out a strange bit of footage from the latest episode of “Craziest things my Jedi has done!!! - Series 3, of a clone looking suddenly disoriented and shaking his head while muttering. User y0dAts4w3sm obsessively scans footage for more case into a compilation holovid. But it is user shaak_pronounsaresirandgeneral_ti  who comes to the final conclusion: mind control. This is urgent! What if the Sith are secretly implanting sleeper agents into republic forces to shift the tides of war!!! It probably wouldn’t have gone any further, except user 0biAn1da7a689 turns out to actually be the Senator for a minor system in the Mid-Rim and raises the issue in open debate…

The Kaminoans rebut the accusations - some clones have occasional reactions to their aggression control chips! Which are perfectly safe from tampering because they put them in prior to deployment are you some kind of CIS sympathiser trying to undermine our brave troops senator?

Some reporter bails up the nearest Jedi for comment and oh, wouldn’t you know it? It’s General Skywalker! Here to see Senator Amidala for midweek nookie on Jedi business! Whose first response is “Chips? WHAT CHIPS?” followed by a litany of curses so vile even the reporter from the  Nal Hutta Tribune is impressed. After Anakin’s brain reboots he does what he does best and angrily descends upon Obi-Wan demanding they free the clones immediately!

And that is how Palpatine had a very bad day and the Jedi fandom saved their heroes from a future full of loneliness and sand.😉

This is BEAUTIFUL. Pretty improbable – let’s be honest, even though he’d absolutely underestimate how likable segments of the audience would find the Jedi, Palpatine would still 110% make sure that whoever was hired to put the documentary footage together did so in such a way as to make the Jedi look like The Worst Ever™ (think reality TV dialed up to eleven) – but I laugh in the face of realism when the crack is this delightful.

Jedi Order fandom!!! Tabloids and conspiracy theory boards!!! Therapy for ALL the Jedi!!!! Palpatine’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day(s) being the unintentional product of his own meddling!!

She gets a real sense of community from the Jedi on the show. Which is pathetic, of course, or so she tells herself. She’s a Sith acolyte, soon-to-be Sith apprentice, and she doesn’t need friends or family like these weak Jedi seem to. (Even though they claim they’re above such things. Obviously another case of Jedi hypocrisy at work.) But the abandoned young girl who lives deep inside her soaks it up vicariously and with poorly-hidden envy. 

And a few of these Jedi don’t seem too bad. Plo Koon, for instance, reminds her just a little bit of Ky Narec. And while young Tano has all the irksome enthusiasm and dogmatic certainty of youth, she won’t deny that the girl can be entertaining. Besides, she pities Tano for having to put up with both Kenobi and Skywalker. 

And a few other Jedi… well, as long as they don’t open their mouths, they can be quite pleasant to look at. For Jedi, anyway. Not that she would notice that sort of thing, of course.

She eventually joins a few fan forums under the username 2sab3rsar3b3tt3rthan1. For research purposes and to spread the truth about the Jedi, obviously. Not-so-surprisingly, she winds up getting into lots of heated discussions with fellow fans of the show, and a couple of them get her second-guessing some of her decisions over the past few years. (A few users also introduce her to the wonderful world of Jedi memes, but that’s a story for another day.)

Dooku, both because he’s a Sith (and thus rightly paranoid about betrayal) and because he’s a control freak with no sense of boundaries, has always secretly monitored his apprentice’s media consumption and holocommunications. It’s not high on his priorities list, however, so he’s set the system up so that he’s notified if certain flagged key words appear more than X times in a fixed timeframe.

“Jedi” is, of course, one of those key words.

So when he starts getting twelve thousand alert dings to his comm, he’s naturally a little bit worried, a little bit curious, and very irritated.

Things progress from there. 

Dooku starts watching the show, and it makes him feel feel nostalgic and ever-so-slightly regretful about having left the Jedi Order. He’s still bitter about all of the problems in the Order, of course, but… part of him misses having a community to fall back on; a group of others to be superior to. He’s still superior to all of the Jedi, of course, but it’s not the same when they aren’t around to appreciate it. Besides, the holodocumentary has made it more clear ever that his lineage desperately needs him. And while this whole Sith thing has been going more or less according to plan, he’s long had his suspicions about Sidious’ true intentions towards him…

But Dooku doesn’t actually do anything until Sidious orders him to dispose of Ventress. It’s not that he’s fond of her – don’t be ridiculous! – but she’s been a faithful apprentice and a useful tool. Killing her would be wasteful. (And she so looks up to him…) Besides, if Sidious is this eager to kill Ventress because he thinks she poses a threat to him, what does that say about his own fate? Dooku is still fairly certain he can outmaneuver Sidious when the time comes, but… why should he wait when there’s an easy answer sitting right in front of him?

Cue Dooku returning to the Order in the dark of night, Ventress in tow.

Yoda keeps every one.

The “Dooku Returns!” Episode breaks the holonet for many reasons: the whole “enemy of the state returns with offer to end the war” for a start, but also “The Team’s expressions when Dooku bluntly tells Master Kenobi that he needs more sleep and honestly Skywalker, has no-one ever taught you how to slip things into his tea?” , “Ahsoka Tano’s face when Asajj Ventress sidles up to her while watching the theatrics and offers her pointers on her Jar Kai” and “Master Windu’s face changing to match his saber” are considered highlights.

But the #1 best ever moment, as voted by viewers is the contrite Sith Lord on his knees, as he greets his former Master. One ancient green hand reaches out to as if to test that this is real while the other is visibly shaking on the handle of the stick - there now a disbelieving smile on Yoda’s face and the hint of tears in his eyes (if his head was not bowed, the matching glints on Dooku’s face would give him away)…

I could lengthily tell you about how I feel, think and write about the Chaos Gods ( in fact I have POV-written Tzeentch ) but I think a full exposé might bore you. And I am not sure if I could do it in a coherent fashion. I am working on working it into various of my stories, at the very least, like the one linked above.

I’ll add this headcanon to your post though, as food for thought:

Humanity seems, to me, to hate about itself that thing which s/he appreciates most in nature and animals - wildness, fierce, free, untamed, unstoppable, roaring lions, diving eagles, rain forests and thunderstorms. We admire this in everything around us. As soon as we become that which we appreciate so much in everything but ourselves? War. Gruesome. War. Its terrible and dangerous, like a churning ocean or a collapsing storm. And at the same time, I find it beautiful in its own way. Why?  It’s the lengths we go to as we fight for what we believe in, tooth and nail. And I think it nigh always boils down to freedom.

The Emperor sought to unite Mankind, to drive out all those things that hurt us: uncontrolled passions (Slaanesh), constant change and trickery (Tzeentch), war and hatred (Khorne), disease and suffering (Nurgle). But passions give flavour to life, change is time itself and laughter is one of our greatest mechanics of relief, war and hatred allow us to fight for what we believe in to the bone, and disease is the wellspring of life in places we don’t like and suffering, tears, is that other great mechanic for relief.

By seeking to eradicate or even just contain Chaos, I believe the Emperor, knowingly or not, set out to destroy the very things that makes us human. And, by extent, take away the one thing we go to such terrible lengths for to keep or retake: freedom.

A well-intended tyrant, is still a tyrant.

okay there are 42 chapters in the book, and dividing 3000 by 42 = ~72

so I’d have to write the chapter titles like this:

According to Ragnarok, it’s Thor who wants to talk things through. Thor wants to bring up their family issues. And Loki chooses not to talk.

Let’s just have a little stroll down Memory Lane to Reality Check Street, shall we?

Thor 1:

Thor habitually undermines and shuts his brother up, to the extent that Thor’s friends—and even the servants—openly show disrespect for Loki.

In the final moments, when Odin rejects Loki, It becomes brutally clear that this is the dynamic: Loki will never be heard in this family.

The Avengers:

Thor never once asks Loki why he’s come to Earth, or what happened to him in the void. He makes the worst assumptions about his own brother.

Then, he literally puts a gag on Loki and goes out to eat with his new friends.

The Dark World:

Despite everything that has gone before, Loki is still making overtures to Thor—still trying to reach his brother.

Loki: “Did she suffer?”

Thor: “I did not come here to share our grief.”

Then, Thor gives the first of several threats that he’ll kill Loki if he “ betrays” him.

Still, no one has ever asked Loki why he tried to take over Midgard. Odin has passed his harsh judgment, and Thor apparently agrees with it, though Loki never had a chance to defend himself. His life is only spared because Frigga is soft hearted. The entire family apparently believes he deserves to die.

Infinity War:

Loki reveals that he has taken the Tesseract from Asgard’s vault before the planet was destroyed. Thor doesn’t consider why Loki might have taken it. The assumption is that Loki “stole” it for some nefarious purpose. He snaps to his final judgement of Loki; literally the last words he ever says to his brother.

Endgame:

Loki is in this movie for about 2 minutes, and in that time Thor gags him.

Thor did nothing but shut Loki up and shut him down in every movie—but in Ragnarok, Thor’s the one who wants to talk it out?

The truth is that Loki was always desperate to be heard. Desperate.

If one person in Loki’s life had been willing to hear him, rather than treating him like dirt (Odin), ignoring him (Thor), gaslighting him (Frigga), mocking him (the Warriors 3), despising him (Sif), distrusting him (Heimdall), and betraying him (all of the above), things would have turned out very differently for them all.

So whatever favoring Marinette already got back then due to being the main character got amplified by a 1000 and turned into a #girlboss incel's moral disaster of a paradise.

This is how we are now at the point where Marinette in Werepapas is willing to risk killing Adrien with her own hands because the mere thought of risking a future where he wouldn't wanna marry and fuck her anymore is treated as a fate worse than (HIS) death.

The current "it's not Marinette's job to tell Adrien about the secrets she made everyone else keep from him" is the direct successor to "Chat Noir wanting to be included in this team he's a founding member of is really selfish of him actually".

Like, even pre season 4 there were people who actively ignored Marinette's stalking/ bullying Adrien's friends who happened to be girls. In order to paint Adrien as a misogynist.

This episode is just bad in general, but it BAFFLES me how the general idea is that Marinette was just so horribly mistreated. Yes, it's easy to disprove Lila, but Marinette made herself look HORRIBLE.

Let's break it down. The episode starts with Marinette coming to class and assuming that Alya arranged for her to sit next to Adrien. This assumption is of course wrong and very thrown out there. The thing to keep in mind is that we as the audience know Lila is lying, but the other characters don't. To the outside eye, it looks like Marinette is just throwing a petty tantrum over not getting to sit next to Adrien for a period, when there literally was the WHOLE day to see him and breathe in his essence or whatever. Lila reinforces this even more by saying that she's causing problems and guiltripping the class. Honestly, Marinette sitting in the back after that was deserved.

Then the lunch scene. This whole thing could have been avoided if Marinette exposed Lila as LADYBUG. Go tell Alya she is not friends with the girl, it's not hard to guess from there the chance of her other tales being false. She then proceeds to throw a NAPKIN at a PERSON WITH AN ALLEGED WRIST INJURY. Lila hasn't even targeted Marinette in any way this far, Marinette makes herself look like a jealous brat. Why didn't she tell Alya and Nino Lila stole Adrien's book? That would immediately make them more wary of her.

Then in the bathroom, Marinette's the one who starts the threatening. WHY couldn't she just say something like "I'm not being friends with a deceiver. Why are you lying?" She's just making herself an enemy this whole episode. Lila's just fighting fire with fire if you ask me.

As for Adrien, i honestly don't understand what he did that was so wrong. From his perspective Lila was lying for attention, which is not the end of the world. He was willing to be her friend and help her. As soon as he saw that she was actually maliciously deceptive in Oni Chan he started avoiding her. It's thanks to him Marinette is still in school.

Half of the conflicts can be solved easily had Alya, the so-called best friend of Marinette, had talked to her about the seat arrangement.

Why not send Nino back there? Why not send Adrien? Why not send both of them? Why not send yourself? Why not send both of you? Why not send Alix and Mylene? Why only send Mari, your own best friend, without informing her and get her consent? Lila said she has hearing issue, so she just need to be in the front seat. Alya rearranged everyone's seat without informing THE class rep. Not even a text or a call iirc, is that too much?

Heck, Alya is fully aware of how insane Mari is regarding Adrien, was that not a factor to be thought about?

Why didn't Alya talk to Marinette about the seating arrangement?

Because Alya wasn't the one responsible. Ms. Bustier was responsible of starting the entire seat change arrangement because she was trying to accommodate the new student.

Because Marinette wasn't there. She was late and arrived after everyone already changed seats, hence why she only had the seat in the back left. Nobody else was sent to the back because they were on time and so got to voice their opinion on what seat they wanted, unlike Marinette.

Because saying that it's Alya's responsibility to prevent Marinette from acting like a crazy person by bending over backwards just so poor widdle Marinette won't have to feel jealous that someone else is sitting next to her property future boyfriend is the same bullshit that all those Marinette apologist say. God forbid we expect Marinette to be responsible for her own emotions and behaviour. Clearly it's everyone else's fault that they simply don't coddle her enough, how cruel of them.

Alya and Adrien saw the tail end of it we don't know how much they objected to isolating the bullying victim again, so they come off the less bad. Especially Adrien, as he's the most socially challenged and apparently figured out he screwed up first.

Almost the rest of the class were there as Chloé originally destroyed Marinette's confidence. They should have known better than let it happen.

Chloé, Sabrina, and Kim were the bullies. Aside for Kim, who isn't the smartest guy around, they knew EXACTLY what was happening. And did nothing.

Finally there's Mme Bustier, who, as the teacher, should have vetoed it. But instead allowed it.

And Lila ironically comes off almost clean out of all this, as not only she was almost certainly unaware of everything that happened in the past but to her this was intended as a warning to try and get Marinette to stop hounding her, a demonstration of what she could do to her before making her peace offering.

Marinette having been bullied by Chloe doesn't mean the entire world is obligated to bend over backwards to put her feelings as a priority in every situation ever. If she was stuck sitting next to Chloe I may be willing to consider it, if it would enable Chloe to target her more.

But you're talking about sitting in the back alone as if that's some kind of unfair punishment to her specifically, when the truth is that someone in class had to sit there (but I guess the other kids getting "isolated" is fine because they're not Marinette?) and it's Marinette's own fault that she ended up sitting in a place she didn't want. She didn't get a say in her seat because she was late. It had nothing to do with Chloe.

Not that Marinette even care that much about sitting alone in the back. Adrien offered to be the one sitting in the back, but she refused it. If that was the real issue, she had the accomodation to the issue that was bothering her so much (which, btw, isn't "Adrien figuring out he screwed up", if that's what you're referring to by that sentence. It's Adrien being a generous guy. He wouldn't have done anything wrong even if he didn't offer to switch with her.) No, the real thing that was bothering Marinette is that Adrien was sitting next to Lila instead of her.

Marinette's subjective experience is not the bar I'm going to measure who is good and bad by, unlike the show and certain parts of the fandom. Even if Matinette can't be rational, it's still her responsibility. Her age means it's also partially her parents' responsibility, but she still has a responsibility over her own mental health and behaviour. It's not anyone else's responsibility to take care of her mental health for her.

And again, the series doesn't show that Marinette is incapable of being rational at that moment. People would get akumatized over being regularly upset at something. And we know that that's the level of upset Marinette is at the moment because she calms down soon afterwards, enough to not get akumatized.

Claiming this moment is a result of Marinette's trauma is pure headcanon.

I'm not sure what you think a teacher's job is, but managing the student's emotions for them is not part of it. Careing for their well being, yes, but not catering to their every whim just so they won't ever feel a bit of disappointment.

In fact, if we're arguing that the teacher is also responsible for the emotional growth of the student, then Bustier wasn't strict enough. She shouldn't have let Marinette disrupt class just because she was pissy about the sitting arrangement. If it bothered her that much, it could be discussed discussed after class.

Not only was Marinette irresponsible and late to class, which caused her to miss the chance to pick her seat, she also made it everyone's problem. Sitting a few hours alone wouldn't have killed her.

Toph: I’ve been banned from every major city’s transportation system except Omashu

Bumi: Well, well, well. It seems I have finally met the troublemaker who has been causing such chaos with my rail systems.

Toph:…

Bumi: I must say, I am thoroughly impressed with your earthbending abilities. You remind me of myself when I was a lad.

Toph: Get to the point.

Bumi: I see great potential in you, Toph Beifong. I want you inherit my title once I am no longer fit to rule.

1. Implying Bumi was fit to rule at any point

1.1 except maybe in the sense that he was completely shredded

2. That he has no plans to die, (nor would death necessarily make him unfit to rule), but that he apparently intends to like. Tuck his arms and legs into himself and just roll off into the sunset.