#rick's rambles

he's baby. he performed a year of abominations before losing most of his baby teeth. he has a complicated relationship with his mother, who actually has enough screentime to be a complicated person, unlike so many other mothers and mother figures. he was conceived by either rape or a failed marriage depending on which canon you follow. he was nearly adopted by his oldest brother, who is actually deeply aware that he's not ready to be a parent yet and is torn between grief and relief that it never actually had to happen. he speaks like a caricature of formal english. he taught wonder woman's daughter every swear word she knows completely unintentionally. he has an unspecified accent. he keeps getting whitewashed. half the fandom is convinced that he's biologically inherently evil. he's a vegetarian for reasons of his own personal morality but is not vegan. he's obsessed with animals and keeps collecting more of them. he watched the closest thing he had to a loving grandfather get his neck snapped in front of him and has held himself personally responsible ever since. he's his universe's version of a swiftie. he reads shojo manga and naruto. he's decapitated men too many times his age. he died and went to hell before hitting his teens. he draws stupid little comics of his si/oc being a protagonist. he and his father may or may not be autistic depending on which fans you ask, we'll certainly never know. dc's writers are obsessed with giving him identity crises. he named his turkey jerry and his cat alfred and his cow batcow. he has an artificial spine. he has the potential to be blorbo of all time if people would stop forgetting that he's a child instead of the monster who replaced their favorite robin.

i'm a little bit tired of seeing people interpret obi-wan's pseudonym "ben" as a mandalorian name, or as having come from his time on mandalore. Partly because as much as I love conlangs dearly, the version of mando'a that we see most commonly in fic is a fan project, not canon, meaning that the growing popularity of "ka'ra beten" as an origin point is... entirely baseless when we look at canon actually, but more seriously:

Look, couple ships have tops and bottoms (and switches, but that's not important for this discussion) and throuples have middle spoons, and I have unreasonably strong opinions on who some of those middle spoons are.

See the point of a middle spoon. is that they are the most insecure individual in the throuple, who has the lowest self-esteem and therefore needs to be surrounded by love on all sides. This means that even in throuples where two of the members are platonic or queerplatonic with each other that doesn't make the shared romantic interest the middle spoon; it remains the saddest most babyest of the bunch, regardless.

Examples:

Haromione: Ron is the middle spoon, not because both harry and hermione are in love with him (though they are) but because he genuinely does not believe that he is as interesting or cool or special as any of his siblings and needs to wake up reminded that he is worthy of love from the smartest witch in his generation and the boy who lived. That they could have picked anybody but they picked him, because he IS actually all that

Sasunarusaku: Naruto is the middle spoon because he grew up alone and without love and deserves to be surrounded by love and care always 100% of the time regardless of whether he's romantic with both sakura and sasuke or if sasuke is the shared love interest between him and sakura

Zukki: Zuko is the middle spoon (except on rare occasions when Sokka is) because Zuko grew up having his self esteem be systematically obliterated to the point that he thought he had to earn the love of the person who burned a third of his face off rather than recognizing that he should stay as far away from that person as possible and sokka and suki need to remind him what actual, genuine love is like

Holy FUCK

I was fully spoiled but somehow it still hits so hard? And every time they've brought up attachment in Cal and Merrin terms I've been rolling my eyes so hard but then they do Bode and it's like someone understood attachment but it wasn't the people writing merrical!

Because the Dark Side-- and the path to the Dark Side that begins with attachment-- really is all about selfishness, isn't it? It's about Bode saying "you were going to give it away to strangers" and Cal saying "and you were going to sacrifice thousands of people to save yourself." It's about the fact that Bode would rather have Kata "safe" but isolated than in danger but happy. It's about the fact that Bode cares more about his need to control what happens to Kata than he does about her happiness or about right or wrong or about the people who could be safe on Tanalorr who will instead be murdered by the Empire-- some of whom are probably people he knew and once called family.

And the thing is!! Cal also starts to give into attachment-- and shut up, it's not about Merrin. Merrin and Cal actually have a really good NONATTACHMENT relationship where they both respect one another as individuals with choices and they don't try to control one another. But when Cere dies and instead of grieving, Cal and the others get stuck on the loss. Which makes sense! It's a perfectly normal and natural response to grief! But Cal then proceeds to murder his way through an entire base about it, and the whole giving in to darkness thing isn't about protecting the people who could find safety on Tanalorr, it's about avenging Cere. Which is a lovely sentiment for the living, but fundamentally requires that the person doing the avenging has not let go of the person who has died. See? see the attachment thing happening?

(names cut off because I think it's rude to attack people on their own posts and I don't want to attack people, I just can't not comment on this absurdity)

(deeply rude levels of sarcasm warning; scroll past the video to the next bolded+underlined parenthetical to skip)

Oh sure! I mean if he only committed mass murder once, I'd probably marry him too!!

Sure, the Tusken Massacre only meets the first four stages of genocide, so actually it's not that bad, really! It was an extreme outlier! Everybody should get one school shooting in their life, honestly; or at least everybody who's ever lost a family member to murder. They deserve it! As a treat, to cope with their extreme circumstance. It's only fair! And in an ideal world, he never would have committed an actual genocide against the people who raised him from the age of 9, because the massacre would have STAYED an outlier! He would have done it once when his mother died and never again! I, too, needed to murder several people including children in a fit of rage in order to learn that it was wrong. Didn't you?? I'm pretty sure we've all been there.

And calling Anakin a fascist?? Well! This guy?? Really?? The guy who had this conversation??:

[transcript:

Anakin Skywalker: I don't think the system works.

Padme: How would you have it work?

Anakin Skywalker: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interest of all the people, and then do it.

Padme: That's exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don't always agree.

Anakin Skywalker: Well, then they should be made to.

Padme: By whom? Who's gonna make them?

Anakin Skywalker: I don't know. Someone.

Padme: You?

Anakin Skywalker: Of course not me.

Padme: But someone.

Anakin Skywalker: Someone wise.

Padme: Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.

Anakin Skywalker: Well, if it works.]

into fascism?? noooo, that-- that's just him wanting an autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader who would enable the forcible suppression of opposition! That-- Anakin wouldn't do that, right? He wouldn't become the key enforcer in an authoritarian government whose personal responsibility and role is to stamp out those who would oppose the leader of that government! That's so completely unlike Anakin Skywalker, who as we know gives his loyalty to the Republic! To Democracy! I'm pretty sure he's the one who said that, right? Right? Anakin "Darth Vader" Skywalker would never be a fascist! It would be completely out of character for him!

(Deeply rude levels of sarcasm over)

I'm baffled. I'm astounded. This is just so... deeply absurd to me that I cannot truly process it.

I love the prequels passionately, but the entire point of anidala is that it is toxic. It is a deeply unhealthy relationship from start to finish and it's SUPPOSED to be! That's what makes it interesting! They're freaks about each other in the way that she would compromise her beliefs and morals for him and he would burn society to the ground for her and then they both actually did that! She married a teenager who had recently confessed to her that he committed mass murder, which it's true! Is not the same thing as being a serial killer! But if your (24F) assigned bodyguard (19M) who you think is kinda cute and has been adorkably awkward about flirting with you and continuing his advances even when you behaved really uncomfortable about it came up to you and said "I just murdered an entire neighborhood of people down to the last woman and child to avenge my mother" I don't think your response would be to marry him! Especially after he straightup told you, a senator who passionately cares about the freedom of the people you represent, that he thinks "if it works" then dictatorship would be the better option!