cotnoir:

Such a fun @thegeorgelucastalkshow early show at @dynastytypewriter! Thanks to everyone for coming out in the rain and thanks to @tatianamaslany, @brendanhines, @williebhines and @richsommer! Video coming soon

📸: @jill.petracek

Barriss: "You understand...Miralans live for centuries. I will look almost exactly the same by the time your body starts to fail. I don't even know if you'll live long enough to witness my Midlife Crisis."

Ahsoka: "No, I can't die."

Barriss: "Ahsoka, someday, everyone has to--"

Ahsoka: "No, I mean I literally Cannot Die. I was given the life force of a divine being from another dimension while in a realm beyond time, and though I grew up to an adult, my montrals and lekku haven't striped a day past thirty since I was, well, thirty. And with all the stuff that's tried to kill me and failed, I don't see any surprises coming along, so, yeah. It looks like I'll be around forever."

Barriss: "....."

Ahsoka: "...it's weird for you to think about this from the other side, isn't it?"

Barriss: "Just a little."

Via: Out of context D'Arcy Carden

Not to compare apples to oranges or whatever in regards to fictional characters' trauma, but Anakin wouldn't have been able to handle even 1/4 of what Obi-Wan went through.

Look, I’m an Anakin stan myself. He’s not my number one blorbo, but I do adore him and purely for the fact that he’s a goddamn fucking mess. But I can’t help but feel like some of the more extreme Anakin stans keep missing the point of the prequels/Clone Wars as a whole. That being: Darth Vader could not exist without Anakin.

I only bring up Obi-Wan because a lot of the takes I’ve seen from people trying to defend Anakin from any speck of criticism tends to almost always revolve around his trauma/shitty life experience. And, like ... he’s not unique in that aspect. If anything, Obi-Wan shares a very sad, almost mirror-like amount of experiences with him.

For example:

-Obi-Wan was a slave. A lot of characters in the Star Wars universe were slaves.

Anakin was a slave!

((Update to the above: someone asked for clarification on this point, and I made a lengthy response in my reply/reblog. If my reply is too difficult to find down the road, I can add that bit here. Otherwise, the short version of the above isn't that Obi-wan's trauma is more valid than Anakin's. Just that 1) Anakin being a slave is not unique in the world of Star Wars and 2) Obi-wan and Anakin do share similar traumas but react very differently to said traumas)).

-Obi-Wan’s father figure (Qui-Gon) died in his arms.

Anakin’s mother died in his arms!

-Obi-Wan lost the love of his life. Who also died in his arms. Who also, strangely enough, did not die because of anything he did.

Anakin lost the love of his life!

Anakin was criticized by the Jedi Order for his inability to let go of others!

-Obi-Wan was criticized by the Jedi Council and his peers for his attachments to Qui-Gon, Anakin, Ashoka, Quinlan, Satine, etc, etc. The Jedi did not condemn him (or Anakin) for forming these attachments. He learned to let go of those he loved when their time came, no matter what form that took, i.e. death or simply them choosing to take their own paths without him in their lives.

Anakin had anger issues that made it difficult for him to form proper relationships!

-Obi-Wan had horrendous anger issues. Qui-Gon initially refused to taken him on as a padawan specifically because he had a horrifc temper. He learned to control his anger so that it would no longer control him. 

Anakin was being targeted and tempted by a Sith!

-Obi-Wan was directly targeted by multiple Sith at multiple instances throughout his life. They all at one point or another tried to force him into using the Dark Side (Maul, in particular), or tried to convince him to leave the Jedi Order and become a Sith (Count Dooku, mostly, but also Asajj). He didn’t. 

Palpatine manipulated Anakin!

-Obi-Wan was also manipulated by Palpatine. Everyone in the fucking galaxy was manipulated by Palpatine. Anakin is not special. 

I could go on and on and on. This is just a small list of one to one comparisons, but like ... this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the absolute amount of horrendous shit that Obi-Wan has gone through, even prior to Order 66. I’m not saying that Anakin’s trauma isn’t valid, nor am I trying to say that Obi-Wan is a better character than Anakin because of how much more he has gone through in comparison.

My point is this: At no point, did Obi-Wan give into the Dark Side or become a Sith. Despite the actual living hell that his life was, he never ever ever turned to the Dark Side. A lot of people like to say he came close when he faced off against Maul during the episode “Revival,” and I can definitely see where people are coming from. But he didn’t.

In the grand scheme of things, Anakin does not have a fucking excuse for becoming a Sith Lord. Not that he (or any other Sith for that matter) ever had a valid excuse to begin with. But holy fuck, my guy. If someone like Obi-Wan, who literally has not known a single day of peace, can still somehow manage to keep themselves from giving into the temptation of becoming the emobiement of all things evil, especially in response to great emotional pain ... like, my guy, there really is no fucking excuse. 

this adorable human being and her grape trick 🥹🤍🍇

A GLTS Special Edition of the teaser trailer for Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny!

honestly i’m not excited for the new sw content about to come out bc i’m so tired of the depoliticisation of it all, and how the mouse has defanged the overt message of like. the empire = facism, homogeneity, xenophobia. the recent andor news describing him as “revolution averse”? what?? and the issue of casting women of colour as empire-aligned characters...trilla in JFO, now reva in the kenobi series, not to mention the female east asian imperial officer giving orders in the scene that references the tian’anmen square massacre in the bad batch. congrats on the diversity win!

i don’t know. maybe it’ll turn out that the coming series is good and i can just turn off my brain 100%. and i know media consumption isn’t activism, but it’s still so disheartening to see the foundations of what the core conflict of star wars is about being stripped away. mcu-ification of star wars etc

a slightly more advanced evaluation of Star Wars-related Karen's Boys (preliminary evaluation)

What are your thoughts regarding Jocasta Nu and the anti-Jedi sentiments raised against her because of her scene in Attack of the Clones.

She wasn't even mean about it! Was that scene there to show that the Jedi were a little too sure about themselves and had a touch of arrogance about thinking their Archives were complete? Yeah, sure, that's fine, it's hardly worth raking someone over the coals for, given that she was also shown to be warm and gentle in that scene where she talks about Dooku with Obi-Wan and all her scenes in TCW were of her always ready to help anyone who came into the Archives. TCW is just as canon to George Lucas as the movies are, so you can't divorce that context from her. To raise anti-Jedi sentiments because of one librarian being like, "Let me come over and help you, dear. Well, if it's not in our system, then it doesn't exist, now if you'll excuse me, there's a child over here that needs my help as well." (She literally walks off to go over to another Padawan.)?? Like THAT'S your case against the Jedi?? She didn't even insult anyone else! She didn't even sneer or click her tongue or give anyone a dirty look! Let Jocasta Nu be kind of full of herself and not have to have it be something to drag all the Jedi through the mud over, like people can be kinda annoying or kinda full of themselves as a sign that they're not perfect and they don't always know everything, but you don't have to make it And That's Why The Jedi Deserved Their Genocide. It doesn't have to be part of a major case against the Jedi, sometimes characters can just be. If the Jedi are allowed to be flawed, let them be flawed without having it have to be a talking point about how the entire Jedi Order is mistaken about everything. LET HER JUST BE. LET 👏 JOCASTA 👏 NU 👏 BE 👏 KIND 👏 OF 👏 A 👏 BITCH 👏 I SUPPORT JOCASTA NU A LITTLE BIT OF A BITCH RIGHTS

"I blame Red Riding Hood's Mom!"

"Obi-Wan was a parent surrogate for Anakin, but was terrible at it. He tried to instruct Anakin in the austere, objective Jedi way, but didn’t notice that Anakin did not have a foundation of humanity on which a conscience and good decision-making are based. Obi-Wan looked on Anakin as a brother... but Anakin needed a father. And there was no father. [The Prequel Jedi] unprepared to deal with, to guide, someone who was deeply mired in that world." - Aaron Allston, Star Wars Insider #145, 2013

"Obi-Wan trains Anakin, at first, out of a promise he makes to Qui-Gon, not because he cares about him. [...] He's a brother to Anakin, eventually, but he's not a father figure. That's a failing for Anakin. He doesn't have the family that he needs." - Dave Filoni, Disney Gallery: Mandalorian, “Legacy” 2020

"Anakin— yeah he ultimately makes the choice to turn to the Dark Side… but he has not, like… all of the systemic support that someone should have - when they experience trauma at the ages that he has experienced trauma - like, he has none of that, there." - Mike Chen, Star Wars Explained, 2022

The above statements are provably inaccurate, but hey it's a take that can be had. Sure. There's always more that could've been done.

Thing is, Anakin's story is one about personal responsibility. Per George Lucas, the core message of Star Wars, as a whole, is about you - dear viewer aged 6 to 12 who are starting to think for themselves - learning to be more selfless than selfish, more compassionate than greedy.

Anakin's story shows what happens when you don't do that.

Blaming the Jedi Order/Obi-Wan for what happened to Anakin is the same as arguing:

"Red Riding Hood getting eaten by the Wolf is her Mom's fault! What was she thinking, sending a child out to wander alone?! Of course she got eaten by a Wolf, she a kid, she don't know better!"

You can argue that. You can argue that Red Riding Hood's Mom should've gone with her to see Grandma. But that's not the point of the story, the point is "kids, don't try to take the quick/easy path because it's usually dangerous, and don't talk to strangers."

And I've yet to meet someone who would unironically blame Red Riding Hood's Mom. Because it's obvious that doing so would miss the point entirely.

Yet we do have a big chunk of the fandom whose takeaway from the Prequels is that Anakin's fall is on the Jedi's shoulders, even though that also misses the point.

That only indicates, to me, that what it's really about is...

For one generation, coping with a dislike of the Prequels. Trying to make them make sense and coming up with a headcanon that makes them "good," and nuanced.

For the younger audiences (first the one the Prequels were meant for but now also the Disney-era one), it's just them reciting what they've seen in the movies... which have been recontextualized and retconned through media written by people coming from that previous generation listed in point 1.

Anakin and Slavers

"His undoing is that he loveth too much"

George Lucas

One thing that I always liked about George´s work in relation to Anakin and slavery is how out of the left field he and Dave Filoni wrote Anakin´s relationship to the people who owned or saw him as a property at one point or another and yet it makes total sense for his character.

For example kid Anakin has no doubt that Slavery is horrible and at 9 he is actually working towards developing technology to help free his Mom, friends and himself from it. He hates with capital H the fact those people have control over the life and death of other people but at the same time he has great compassion and kindness which his mother helped nurture. This along with the fact that Watto was the only adult male figure who was around during his early chilldhood, this complicated his feelings towards slavers in a very tragic way.

Anakin feared Watto´s violence and didn´t for a moment doubt he would have been willing to sell off his mother or him if the customer got to a big enough price but at the same time he listens to his advice when he travels to the dune sea to do his work with the jawas and his pov is almost as important as his Mom´s, in the novelization of TPM Anakin remembers not to talk to strangers or to get close to Tuskens Raiders camps thanks to Watto´s advice.

So in Anakin´s mind, Watto is someone he fears but also someone he takes advice from, respects to a point, sometimes gets sassy to and actually listens to almost as a father figure BUT at the same time he has no doubt he would activate the killing chip if he tried to escape.

Pain/abuse/fear mixed with care/advice(sounds familiar?) Anakin knows slavery is awful but he can´t help but see Watto as a person because of who Anakin is, Annie is a kind and understanding person and to point may justify Watto as a "Man of bussines" and "Not as bad a other masters" "It could be worse" but he definitely doesn´t trust him in the same way he does his mother, she is blood, she is family. He and Mom are a team.They shared their secrets.

The first time Anakin saw Watto again after being freed, he was a Jedi with training, almost a knight and the first thing he does to the guy who beat him and his Mom some years ago is to ask him if he can help with the ship parts Watto is working on because he noticed Watto is struggling and his bussines is falling down compared to how it was when Anakin was a kid. When Watto noticed who Anakin was he didn´t reject him and accepted his congratulations but keep himself appart, hoping to learn about his mother whereabouts.

When Watto told Anakin he sold Shmi, Anakin doesn´t have a reaction, he takes Watto´s justification of "I am sorry Ani but bussines are bussines and anyway the person who bought her freed her and married her" Anakin doubts it´s as good a picture as Watto is talking about but he takes his justification and leaves.

When he meets Owen, Beru and Cliegg he sees they are indeed nice people and the reason for his mothers suffering is something completely different that they were not able to stop so he doesn´t blame them for her fate. When Anakin lost his mother it was only natural for him to seek a family, someone he could share how he really felt and his secrets, he could not be part of the Lars family but Padme was willing to love him so she became his new confirmed family, right along with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka but while he had to show himself different to them, he didn´t had to do that with Padme, just like he did with his mother.

In the clone wars Anakin shows again this complex view of slavers with Queen Miraj Scintel, the cartoon goes out of it´s way to show she looked at him as pretty property and he didn´t let her forget that and actually it was strongly suggested he may have been raped by her at some point to keep safe Obi-Wan, Rex, Ahsoka as well as the people they wanted to save while he got enough soldiers to stage their rescue. Anakin had a plan the whole time just as he did as a kid so he keep his cool even when he saw another slave choose suicide over keep being under the control of Scintel. Yet in the end when the Queen was killed by Count Dooku Anakin felt sorry for her, he could not help it.

So this mix of rejection/anger/hate/disgust towards slavers mixed with pity/understanding which is something that was part of what made Anakin a good person gets used agaisn´t him in his relationship with Palpatine.

He first shows himself as the father figure Anakin thought he could find in Qui-Gon before he died a better father figure than Watto had been, a father figure that didn´t reject this title like ObiWan did, Palpatine did this to get his trust as a young child and later young adult and then he showed himself as the real sith master he actually was, Palpatine knew that Anakin wasn´t a stranger to be treated as property by people who showed themselves as good advicers or somehow not as bad as others despite their actions. So Anakin´s initial compassion, kindness and understanding for people that abused him is played agaisn´t him to make him fall to the darkside and chain himself again to another worse master who didn´t just seek to use his skills and body but who wanted his soul as well.

And the same reasons why Anakin justified Watto at first when he was a young kid also applied to Palpatine, he may be a sith but he ran the Republic better than those corrupt politicians, he isn´t a perfect Emperor but in Padme´s absence he is better than the alternatives. He isn´t as bad as a master and anyway I deserve this because I fell to the darkside and nobody can come back from that, if he abuses me I got this coming because I choose this and he still teaches me the ways of the force, he rescued me from Mustafar when Obi-Wan left me to die and he didn´t have to, he is all I have left.

So once Anakin´s voice died down Vader was left with many reasons to say to Palpatine "What´s your bidding my master?" because in his mind master isn´t a word that contradicts father and Palpatine became his father in all but name, this makes George´s words about Anakin fatal flaw being the fact he loved too much make complete sense and it´s a tragedy.

The George Lucas Talk Show with Brendan Hines, Tatiana Maslany, Rich Sommer, and Earl at Dynasty Typewriter. 👏🎉☺️

Andor cuts to the root core of what Star Wars is about without playing up any of the tropes the franchise has become known for.

Star Wars is not about Jedi, or the Force, or pew pew, as much as we enjoy them. Star Wars is about EXPLICIT ANTI-FASCISM. And this show has exuded so week after week after week.

And that’s why Andor is simply the finest of all Star Wars media outside the movies. This is the kind of stuff George Lucas was talking about.

She's so relatable

imagine it's 1982 and you really love star wars.

you go looking for other fans to talk about star wars with. you meet someone. "my favorite character is boba fett," they say. "cool! i love boba fett, he's such a great bad guy," you reply. the person you're talking to suddenly becomes deadly serious. "what? he's not a bad guy," they respond. "how could you even think that? what's wrong with you?"

you laugh nervously, thinking this is some kind of jokey deliberate-reading-against-the-text gag, but it becomes clear your new friend is absolutely deadly serious about this. unsure what to do, you try to redirect the conversation to subjects other than boba fett. you try talking about the first movie. but it turns out this person has an entire bonkers reinterpretation of the first movie where it's all about showing how luke and han and leia will be ultimately unable to succeed on their own, thus foreshadowing the eventual arrival of boba fett as fourth co-protagonist. you try pointing out that if there's a fourth protagonist surely it would be lando, and ignoring him seems kind of maybe a tiny bit racist? this goes over even worse.

you start to avoid this person. you seek out other fan spaces. but people who are like this about boba fett keep showing up. you feel increasingly insane every time you talk to them, hearing yourself saying obvious things like "well, uh, that's certainly one interpretation, but i feel like if darth vader has to caution you not to disintegrate people that might be a sign you're a villain?" and having them laugh in your face like this is absurd and offensive. you gradually realize that while most star wars fans aren't like this, everyone normal has learned to politely avoid talking about boba fett and other subjects that trigger the boba fett guys, because nobody wants to deal with them. you learn to only talk about star wars in closed communities that don't have any boba fett stans.

the saddest part of this is that over time it makes it very, very hard for you to enjoy boba fett, a character you used to really genuinely like.

the first trailer for return of the jedi drops. the boba fett guys go nuts, insisting that this proves their ultimate vindication is at hand, despite the fact that actually he's barely in the trailer. "uh, guys, i don't know about that," you say cautiously, kind of alarmed at how they're setting themselves up for disappointment. "i think boba fett might be a really cool character but not actually a super important one, and maybe he's just going to die in a sarlaac pit halfway through the movie and the rest will be about luke defeating darth vader." the boba fett guys respond by screenshotting your posts (social media exists in this version of 1982 for purposes of this analogy. work with me here) to publicly make fun of you. how could anyone possibly be dumb enough to think this, they say.

return of the jedi comes out. boba fett dies in the sarlaac pit. the boba fett stan community goes even more nuts than usual and schisms into a faction who are insisting that this is all part of a plan to resurrect boba fett like jesus in episode 7 and a faction who insist that george lucas has personally betrayed them. some of the latter faction manage to take control of the fan campaign to get more movies made despite the fact that they've explicitly said they don't actually want any more movies.

this is what my experience of ofmd fandom has been like.

#271.

would steve ever insist that eddie comes to basketball games with him just so they have an excuse to get those good seats right at the court that famous people and celebrities usually get?

Eddie is not Steve’s go-to person if he wants basketball tickets.

He goes to Lucas because every doctor knows a doctor that knows someone with season tickets they never use. And also, Steve kinda wants to go to the game with someone who, you know, will actually enjoy being there.

Eddie’s undying hatred of all things sports is, well…undying.

But Steve’s been a Pacers’ fan since the first time his dad shoved a basketball in his hands and taught him how to shoot. He has watched them lose in the playoffs every year that they make it to it, but he’s convinced. 2014 was going to be different.

He just can’t get tickets. He spent all day trying to buy them online and failed, and all the resale tickets are for seats that suck or way over his paygrade. Him and Eddie pay for their own hobbies out of their separate bank accounts, and Steve can’t afford the absolutely ridiculous price that’s being asked so…

“Please?” Steve asked, big puppy eyes and adorable little pout. He knew what he was doing and so did Eddie. “Pretty please? I never ask you for anything, Ed…Okay, fine, except for all the stuff I ask you for, but this is different. It’s a small price to pay to see my team win.”

“Your team that has literally never won in the history of all time?”

“How many championships does Leg-less the loser elf have?” Steve asked.

“…It’s Legolas,” Eddie said. “And he was a part of the fellowship that kinda saved the world.”

“So was I,” Steve pointed out. “And I deserve this.”

Steve didn’t ask for courtside seats. He didn’t ask to be sat among the rich and famous. Hell, he didn’t even ask Eddie to go with him. He just wanted to see if Eddie had a connection that could get him a ticket for a seat that wasn’t in the nosebleeds.

Steve doesn’t really believe that the tickets Eddie showed him are real until they are sitting in their seats – their seats that are courtside and five feet away from Paul George warming up. Steve is so excited to be there that he pretty much misses Eddie shaking someone’s hand right in front of him until he’s nudged in the shoulder, “Babe, you know, Sandy, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Steve says absently, sparing a glance in the direction Eddie was gesturing before looking back out at the court. It takes him a second for his brain to register who he was just looking at and then, “Holy shit, you’re Sandra Bullock.”

She is just as beautiful and as nice as Steve has always thought she was, and she’s amused by him which makes Steve blush. She holds out her hand to him, “And you are…”

“I’m…” Steve trails off, only picking back up his train of thought when Eddie laughs loudly beside him. “Steve. I’m Steve. Uh, Harrington. Eddie’s – I’m – we’re together, by law.”

“We’re married,” Eddie grinned, throwing his arm over Steve’s shoulder, and wiggling his wedding ring at her. “Still working on how to tell people, obviously.”

She congratulates them and talks to them a bit about the game (bring Steve out of his starstruck stupor), and even buys them champagne as a late little wedding gift. It’s a blast.

Eddie spends half the game flinching every time the ball bounces a little too close or a player nearly ends up in their lap, but Steve is loving all of it. The other half of the time, Eddie is having Steve explain what’s going on and who the players are, or he’s talking to the guy next to him.

It’s some square jawed model type that Steve doesn’t recognize and also, doesn’t like. He’s a little too friendly with his husband, especially when he curled a piece of Eddie’s hair around his finger. When the two of them end up on the kiss cam together, Eddie doesn’t even get a chance to register it before Steve pulls him nearly out of the camera frame and kisses him.

Later, fans will make jokes about the pictures of that night because it’s very clear that Steve and Eddie switched seats.