#obsession rant

SPOILERS FOR OBSESSION!! Okay so here's the thing that hits with the 'What so bad about being with me?' Line. Baron is aware he is talking to Nikki and he's actively playing dumb in front of her, yes, we know this, that's already a shitty thing to do.

I want to point out a few things - Bear understands that Nikki has never been with him, at this point he's just upset that she still doesn't like him. A choice I think played into that is that what Bear said is 'What would be so bad....' THEN 'What's so bad about being with me?' - yes, this could just have been Michael messing up the line, however the choice stayed in the final cut and became cannon so I'm over-analyzing what it means. I also think that the line 'You are you.' isn't just willful ignorance alone, I think it's also partially Bear convincing himself the real Nikki likes him, that her and the wish Nikki are one being not separate. It hurts less to believe that all of wish Nikki's feelings were authentic. Starting with past tense changes things, he's asking her what would be / would have been so bad about being with him. The way I understood this was him quite literally asking 'Why wouldn't you want to be with me? Why wasn't I enough?'. Being the first time he gets to have a proper conversation with Nikki since the night of the wish, mind you, he's angry at her for not choosing him. This is the first scene in which we see him properly frown. In my opinion, he looks pissed off. Now, the second half, he catches himself and changes his speech to present tense. He voids the idea that Nikki never wanted him because that would be admitting 'it's not real' - he phrases it in a way that makes it seem like he doesn't understand why she's unhappy in their current relationship. Online, I see this is how it was widely interpreted. However, I think this is Bear asking real Nikki why she didn't just choose him 'beforehand'. When he asks what's so wrong with being with him NOW, he is wondering why she still can't see him romantically even after they spent all this time in a relationship, even if she's just watching it all happen in her own body. She confirms she's never had an emotional attachment to him, and he walks away. Analyzing his body language in the scene, he's frowning, looks kind of angry, and then turns away. THIS is what pisses me off when he walks away. It's not just that he's being ignorant or simple. He's punishing her because of his own selfish anger towards her. This is why it makes sense for him to go on and have that moment with Sarah, he craves something real (even if he does not deserve it).

Some lines I want to reference are: 'Do you even like me at all' - 'No, No, is Nikki happy? Does Nikki like me?' - 'I thought you'd be Nikki!' - He tries to ask about the real Nikki directly. When he realizes that wish Nikki isn't who he thought she was he gets upset and admits he thought it would've been Nikki herself, as a real person. In my opinion this changes the subtext of the scene where we finally see him get through to real Nikki for the first time, because that is exactly what he wants to know: 'Do you even like me at all? Does Nikki like me?' and when he's met with confirmation she has never once seen him as a partner, he leaves. And I guess it's kinda obvious with the fact he only wants to cancel the wish after finding out her feelings likely aren't 'real'. It upsets me that his reaction to this revelation is being pissed at Nikki.

I need to rant at this to the void, and this blog is my go-to for these things. I feel free to do so since no-one comes here anyways.

A bit of background

(or, the part you can skip if you want to get to the nerdy rant now): I've been into Star Wars on and off since my teens. I'm nearly 40, so that's a few decades. I do watch the new series, and became very fond of "The Mandalorian" really fast. In-between seasons, my spouse and I also re-watched most of Clone Wars. In early 2024, we started a Star Wars 5E TTRPG campaign with a friend, where my spouse DM's, Friend plays a Jedi, and I play a Mandalorian (and she's just so much FUN to play). My character is one I came up with around... 2017? Maybe? IDK if you can find her if you scroll down far enough. Currently re-designing her, though. I originally came up with her after working my way through the Travis books and becoming fascinated with Mandalorians for some reason.

Accidential Language Acquisition

My latest obsession (and distracion from the summer heat) started with me looking up some Mandalorian phrases and curses for RPG purposes. Yes, I know, none of this is canon any more. None of us cares. We kind of make our own canon. Then I found out there's a script - and I was lost. I loved codes and obscure scripts as a child, and I did learn to read Hiragana in my 20s, so how hard could this be? I looked for a chart and found this site, which offers practice reading (and a dictionary, amongst other stuff). So, I started learning the characters in, I think, late July. I read quite well by now, my writing does lag behind. Juuust... the practice phrases are written in the Mandalorian language.

I didn't set out to learn a constructed language. I really did not. I just wanted to know WHAT I was typing. So I looked up the sentences on the cheat-sheet after I got them right. And some words started repeating, and I picked them up. Kinda automatically. I swear, I only practice reading/ writing this for like 15 to 30 minutes a day. After a while, I half-understood what some sentences said. Reading Star Wars fanfiction did not help (or help a lot, depending on your POV) there. I looked up missing words, building a bit of a vocabulary. It's erratic still, but I noticed something. In conversations, my brain sometimes supplies the Mandalorian words I know now. (I usually do catch myself, although stuff tends to slip in when I'm alone with my spouse, to his amusement.) My language center does not know this is a con-lang, after all. I also tried to write a ransom note in Mandalorian, which was a fun experience (for a private project). Through fan fiction and looking up stuff, I also learned about the Legends version of Mandalorian culture. That stuff is fascinating, although I feel like a visitor to an abandoned city. Everyone's gone (since Legends is out of print and stuff is falling into obscurity), but it's still cool to look around. It gives me a kind of bittersweet, nostalgic feeling, too. So many passionate minds, and things I'm so happy to experience, but wished I knew about sooner. Aay'han, if you will, only it's memories I never made. Nostalgia for what could have been. Not gonna lie, I'm obsessed. It's a feeling I seldom get now, although it was quite frequent when I was a teen. It feels great and enjoyable and unhealthy and I think I need to stop. I'm an adult, and I'm too old to fangirl. Or, at least, I keep telling myself this.

Analyzing a Con-Lang because my nerd brain can't stop looking for patterns

Mandalorian actually HAS different words for the people, the planet, the ruler, and the language. Let me start with Manda, which is the collective soul (or the concept of) of the Mandalorian people. The people themselves are Mando'ade (Children of the Manda/ of Mandalore. Singular Mando'ad). The language is Mando'a (no clue why, language would be joha. Maybe Mando'joha was too long and it got shortened). The planet is Manda'yaim (yaim meaning home. Simple enough). The ruler is the Mand'alor (alor meaning, well, leader. Also simple).

Before long, my brain started making connections between some things. Simple things first - "Ke" or "K' " at the start of a sentence is always the imperative form of something ("Command form"). The words for "you", "I", and the third person pronoun. Then, between words, trying to fit new words with what I already know. Like [something] ad was most likely about people. I built myself bridges that are just theories - I am not a linguist in any fashion, and I'm just trying to make sense of what's there. Like mirsh meaning brain(cell), kot meaning strenght, and mirshko is courage - so, "brain-strength"?

And no, for all of you out there that are as nerdy as me, this is not a full language. There isn't a word for "call" or "get in contact with" I could find, for example. Some authors just wanted to add flair to their writing, so an incomplete thing is what we have. Even so, I am kind of hooked in the weirdest way. I play around, trying to make my own sentences and combined words. It's fun, and private, and nobody needs to know. Except for the two people I TTRPG with.

What happened to my obsession since the last rant (or, the part you can skip if you just want the obsessive over-analysis)

I am still deep in my kinda-unhealthy Star Wars obsession. In the four months I didn't write anything here, my Star Wars 5E group closed out the "chapter" we were in, and is now on hiatus for good. As I said, everyone else wants to go back to D&D (wich I'm ambivalent about, since I feel I messed up my character, and everyone else is against me switching).

I'm also replaying KOTOR for the first time since the 2000s. My spouse gave me the Star Wars game collection for the Switch for christmas. In addition to a really cool Lego set - I started to collect Star Wars themed Lego last year. He's still supporting all of this, stars know why.

Dear maybe-reader, there are spoilers for Star Wars media and cuss words ahead. I am mostly noting all this down for myself.

Just Fandom Things: Getting back into KOTOR (Spoilers ahead)

Replaying KOTOR with all the additional context is a lot of fun. When I first played, I just had the movies for context. I knew what a Jedi was and what a Sith was, and that was it. Canderous was just this grumpy old guy I nicknamed "Candy" in my mind, since his full name was a bit long for a German-speaking young me. Imagine my surprise when I found out this guy literally became Mand'alor later on.

Also, back then, I had no clue about who Revan canoically was. I thought everyone made their own. My Revan was - still is - a redhead by the name of Shaya Moonshadow. Red because my monitor back then had a reddish tint, and that made her hair look auburn. She was also married to my Exile, a woman named Kira Starsong. By now, I made OCs based on both of them - it has been 20 years.

Now, I try to take the Companions out that have stories on whatever world I am. I ran across Dantooine with Bastilla and Canderous for the fun of it, and these two verbally eviscerated each other. It was GLORIOUS. I'm just a bit sad since I did Tattoine too early, leading to a bug where Mission's brother does not spawn in his cell. I just keep two saves at most, and I am going without a guide for the most fun experience. Game's janky even on the Switch. What didn't change is my dislike for Carth. He's just an insufferable insecure prick to me. I try to avoid romance on my playthrough because of this.

More Fandom confusion

Beskar as force-blocker: My spouse and I have the working theory that this is accepted fanon because of the old belief that Iron blooks magic/ fae/ magical beings. Still looking for a canon yes-or-no answer to that. Additional theory about people in full Beskar being hard to read for a Jedi (or Sith): The armor gives the wearer a sense of safety, which translates into mental shields. Also, no visible face means no visible facial cues.

Role of the Armorers in society. My spouse and I agree that armorers are important to Mando'ad society. What we don't agree on is the degree. I feel they are valued craftspeople, he thinks they are akin to Priests of the Forge, in D&D terms. Which I think is a weird take on a people who famously do not have gods or a religion as I understand it anymore. Yes, there are the Resol'nare (and the Way mentioned in the Mandalorian), but those strike me as ways of living more than a belief system. You can't just follow the Resol'nare on Taungsdays, you do that every day. Same with the Way. Yes, the Covert's Armorer leads her people. She, in my eyes, combines two roles here. Leaders are not necessarily gorane and vice-versa. Also, what are the Armorer's tools made out of? Super-pure Beskar?

Timelines. The amount of times I want to look up someone's age, who survived which wars, and what happened when, and just encounter question marks, is too shab'la high. Seeing as 1, I want to know to get a better idea of the galaxy's history and 2, my SW5E character is a hobby historian, this is frustrating. Fanfiction adds to the confusion - I've seen anything from Jango and Obi-Wan being about the same age, to being fifteen to twenty years apart in age, for example. The only ages I'm sure of are Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme in relation to each other, Yoda being about 800 years old when he died, and Boba's age. Distances are equally as frustrating. We found a star map we were working with for the TTRPG online. Is it accurate? I got no clue.

Character motivations. A lot of what happens in both Legends and Canon makes little sense to me. Might be a me thing though. Like in KOTOR: Why do they send Bastilla off with Amnesiac Darth Kriffing Revan without oversight? Knowing she'd be tempted by them? I know, they need to find the Starforge, but that's still a lot to put on a PADAWAN. Yup, Bastilla isn't even a full Knight, if I understood correctly.

What even is canon? Everything changed so much over the years. The Bounty Hunter Wars (currently, I am on book 1) have little to do with the SW universe I know. Is the Scorekeeper still a thing? Do Trandoshans still habitually commit fratricide? For my own purposes, I pick and choose. I still look up characters from the fanfics I'm reading, especially if the author assumes the reader knows who they are. That's how I learned about Komari Vosa, for example. So many interesting characters, so little time...

An increasingly confused language center

I'm still learning Mando'a, mostly passively. I feel a weird sense of pride when I understand a word or phrase in a fanfic without having to look it up. As a skill, speaking a conlang is slightly less useful than underwater yodeling. I am aware of that.

My brain now translates complete sentences into Mando'a, not only words. I still can catch myself before speaking (or typing) them - most of the time. What is the mechanism in my brain behind that phenomenon? I also feel that anyone fluent in the language (or as fluent as one can get) would laugh at my attempts. Not that it matters, it's all just in my head anyways. Still, my brain supplying the Mando'a word for something, and me blanking on both the English and German terms, is not good for talking to normal people. I can cuss up a storm, though, which is always fun.

Feel free to ignore. I just gotta let off some steam.

Now, I will freely admit that I have my obsessions. To be perfectly honest, I doubt there's anyone who doesn't have at least one obsession (yes, sweetie, including you. Obsessions aren't always fandom related). You might not call it an obsession, but if it comes under "something I really really like" then I am counting that range.

So when you have an obsession, what do you do? Apart from seeking it out and enjoying everything to do with it, you also talk about it and share it with other people. Nothing wrong with that. I have been introduced to several books, films, youtube videos etc and thoroughly enjoyed them because other people recommended them to me. I am perfectly happy to listen about how much you enjoy this or that, watch videos and hear about different scenes or plotlines.

What I'm not okay with is when you won't let me do the same.

I'm aiming this in particular at two people, neither of who have tumblr and so won't be seeing this. But whatever, I gotta say it anyway.

It is not fair that I will sit and listen while you nag me because I haven't yet seen Attack on Titan or the RoosterTeeth productions and tell me half of it anyway, but then call me obsessed when I try to explain why I think Hawkeye is such an interesting character and show you a Clintasha video that I found.

It's not okay when you call me down from my room to show me the latest PewDePie video, but then roll your eyes every time I bring up Jeremy Renner.

Likewise, it is not okay to disrespect my opinion that the Hobbit films are bad (and yes, I'm sure I'll get hate for that) ignore my reasoning and tell me that I'm wrong and that I'm "the only Tolkien fan who doesn't like them" because I know that's not true and I'm entitled to my own opinion.

And it's definitely not okay to outline the lotlines of Terry Pratchett novels, show me videos of "funniest moments in Halo" or "100 ways to die in Skyrim" and then, when you come over to my house for lunch, to look around my room and tell me (and then others back at school) that everything I own is MR related.

Here is a list of everything I have that is MR related.

The books 1-5 (I gave up after 6)

Volumes 1-6 of the manga series

A clock that I made in Design & Technology that has the moon as the background and then each of the mnaga drawn flock members every 2 numbers

2 notebooks that I used to write down my ideas for stories and oneshots (most of which were never written)

Some really bad drawings of the flock I attempted one day when I was bored

A t-shirt with blue wings on the back that I designed myself

That's all. Does that sound like everything in my room? No. So don't fucking call my room "A Maximum Ride shrine" when it clearly isn't.

I would understand if I was one of those people who was all "OMG, the Avengers are AMAZING!! You absolutely HAVE to see this because it's the best fucking movie in the entire history of everything and if you don't agree then you're wrong." But I'm not. Those kinds of people annoy me as well. Fangirling is fine. Over the top fangirling is irritating.

It's gotten to the point when I won't talk about the things I love because I'm afraid people will either shoot them down or shoot me down. Do you know who the person I am most comfortable talking about my obsessions with is? My mum. She will happily let me talk about why I love Hawkeye and Clintasha and even ask questions which allows me to talk even more. And even then I have to stop every few minutes and double check I'm not boring her.

My point is that I so very rarely get to rant that I can almost literally feel it bottling up inside me. I spend hours reading fanfic or going through fanart because it's the only outlet I have. On that note, I need to start writing more again...

I know that this situation could be somewhat overcome by contacting people here on tumblr who, I'm sure, would be happy to chat with me about Avengers, Sherlock, Jeremy Renner or anything else I love, but there are a few problems with this.

My internet sucks

I'm really bad at starting conversations and relationships

I'm worried I'll bore people

If anyone's actually gotten this far (hiya) you might be thinking "of course I wouldn't get bored! I love these things and others as much, if not more than you do!"  Put yourself in my shoes. You've been shot down on your obsessions for years, anyone you try to talk to about it treats you like there's something wrong with liking what you like, but then will talk non-stop about their own enjoyments. How comfortable with talking about your obsessions would you feel then?

Exactly.

I'll respect that maybe the people I tried to talk to don't like Maximum Ride, Hawkeye, Avengers or Sherlock.

But has it ever occured to you that maybe I don't like PewDePie, Halo or Skyrim?

Think about that.

How irritating it is to be in such a new obsession-streak (I blame you, Johnny Weir) that you don't even have time to watch your television shows. I had 3 new eps I could have watched today but I've seen zero.

And now the crew of Tech Noir has created a RIP-page on FB with old photos from back in the days at the venue Kolingsborg which is to be demolished. They're updating a new album like every 10 minutes. Gaaah! The nostalgia!