Still a mystery this is

Thinking about when I was an Anakin Stan

I used to be a big Anakin stan as well as a huge prequels fan. I used to emulate him and was a bit of an edgelord. I would often act emotionally violent and immature as well as taking an imaginary lightsaber and slashing it all over. There were times I would advocate for a communist dictatorship while quoting him. But then I started to see how toxic that was and how nasty of a person he was. I don’t want to be like that kind of character after seeing what I was doing and I don’t want to relate to him. Looking back, he was basically every conservative white boy I met who would act friendly while spewing or supporting the most bigoted shit while getting defensive and crying “I’m just joking” or “you just cancel people you disagree with”. Seeing his stans on tumblr made me hate him more with many of them such as tragicfantasy-girl or Nerdychristianfanboy being right wing, Zionist, anti trans, trump supporters. Reading YouTube comments and seeing all the people who say they would do the same as him if their mother or wife was dying is pretty disgusting. While there are a few villain characters that I do love and sympathize with such as Princess Harumi, most of my faves are the opposite of Anakin. They’re all “chosen one” characters who are actually worthy of being called that. I’m not a Christian but Anakin doesn’t deserve to be called space Jesus after acting like a fascist, racist predatory douchebag for most of his life. Now, all my faves are characters who faced temptation, trauma and hardship but still chose to do good and keep seeing the good in people which include:

Ben Tennyson, Lloyd Garmadon, Steven Universe, Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time), Madoka Kaname, Luz Noceda, Ahiru/Duck (Princess Tutu), Usagi Tsukino

All these characters are far more worthy of being called Christ figures and are the kind of person I want to be. Plus they’re all teens and still chose better than Anakin who was a grown man. I have nothing against people who like villain characters and still like a few myself but emulating their beliefs/behaviors and justifying them is not okay. I have a whole other essay planned for why I like Harumi and hate Anakin despite their similarities. But I am a bit embarrassed of my phase where I acted like Anakin was the greatest thing since sliced bread especially as a person of color who’s met people like Anakin and the real nastiness of their beliefs.

Edit: while I’m not an Anakin fan, I’ve realized it’s a bit unhealthy to constantly hate a character. I don’t want to become intolerant or hateful of different perspectives as long as they aren’t villain apologism.

I really hope that the Rey Jedi Order movie (and all post ros stuff) just do not acknowledge the kiss at all, pretend it doesn't exist, didn't happen, make it a weird blip in the larger tapestry of Rey's story, make it so when newcomers who were brought into SW by post ros stuff go back and watch the st they're all like "wait, they kissed? Why did that happen? They never mentioned this guy in Rey's Jedi Order movie or any of the other stuff, and the first two movies in this trilogy showed them as bitter enemies"

We can only hope

To start with, this is not an anti Reva post and more being critical of some pro Jedi people. I think the reason why I think that some pro Jedi people who like Reva to the point that the Tumblr blog called Anti Anakin has youngling Reva as their avatar is because they use her as proof that Anakin was an irredeemable monster who doesn’t deserve to be redeemed. It doesn’t matter that Reva probably killed Force Sensitive children like Anakin did and even nearly killed Luke because of who his father was, she had a tragic backstory that involved Anakin storming the Jedi Temple so they use her to prop up their Anakin hate. If she didn’t have that part of her backstory I don’t think that pro Jedi people would like her as much as they do.

tumblr needs to stop recommending me blogs that are anti anakin fans.

I just really love the idea that the Jedi could be aroace

No shade to anyone who believes otherwise, I’m not staunchly one way or another, I just think it’s lovely that we can have some excellent aroace rep in the fandom with the Jedi

The Jedi are all about compassion and non-possessive love and FAMILY!!!! Which is so different from like 99% of the rest of media. We have this huge family of people that all look different and they all love and support each other and raise their kids and work together and we don’t really get that anywhere else! Everything is always: get married to 1 person, move away from your family, raise your kids on your own, struggle because you have no one to turn to, etc. So individualistic when stories could focus on COMMUNITY.

And! FOUND family! Most stories push the whole “blood is thicker than water” thing which is BULL. Sometimes people have shitty blood families! They deserve to make their own better one!!! And even if they don’t have a shifty family, they can still make another one! Or bring them both together! The Jedi may leave their birth families but they find a new family in the Order. They can even go back to their birth families if they want to! And still come back to the Jedi again!

Anyway aroace Obi-Wan means a lot to me

Following up on a previous post here since a whole lot of people decided to chime in and the OP blocked me.

@jediapplegist

I’m sorry, when did I ever say Tarre wasn’t a Mandalorian? 

This is a fairly common argument on this topic and it stems from the fact that most of them don’t seem to know what “being Mandalorian” means in the context of Star Wars. They think it means “he was Mandalorian so he could do whatever he wanted with that metal”. But this isn’t an identity you get to claim just by being born on Mandalore, it is something you have to uphold a certain code for (though the specifics of said code varies among Mandalorian sects). Tarre Vizla being from Mandalore and being recognized as a Mandalorian to the degree that he would be gifted enough beskar for both his lightsaber and a full set of armor (which he is always depicted with) are two different things.

Fun part about that code, it includes making sure that beskar stays in the hands of the mandalorians. Which is why collecting beskar is an ongoing side-quest for Din Djarin. Tarre Vizla leaving his beskar lightsaber to the Jedi would violate that code.

He was a Mandalorian too, yes, but we know he specifically left it to the Jedi, 

This part is just a straight-up lie. We know next to nothing about Vizla as a person or what instructions he left regarding his weapons. The story only says that the Jedi kept it after his passing. As usual, Jedi-stans can’t conceive of a scenario where the Jedi do not have explicit moral permission for everything they do.

As far as we know, the Mandalorians never did what you said, they never even seemed to ask for it in accordance with their customs 

Notice how they also assume the worst for any group that isn’t the jedi.

You're basically saying Tarre's own wishes regarding his people and who his belongings were left to didn't matter. 

Again, we do not know what Tarre Vizla wished for because no official material clarifies this and Jedi-stans are making this “last will and testament” up wholesale to try to whitewash a more complicated issue.

And here is the kicker, even if Vizla did leave it for the Jedi, it is easy to argue that he had no right to do so. Beskar isn’t given out to just any mandalorian, using it or the armor requires upholding the code which in turn includes keeping beskar out of non-mandalorian hands. Leaving the darksaber to the jedi would mean that he broke the code that gave him the right to use the metal in the first place. In other words, Tarre Vizla, a jedi, decided that he had enough connection to his mandalorian heritage to take and use their sacred objects, and then decided that he didn’t need to uphold the cultural law that says “don’t give this to anyone who isn’t a mandalorian”.

@monjustmon

Beskar is a material. It's not part of the culture in itself, but a resource cherished by it.

It is a resource that is unique to their system. And they only give it to people who swear an oath to respect their culture. It belongs to them. Funny how they didn’t make this argument about the Jedi and their kyber-crystals though.

The practices and traditions surrounding beskar are an aspect of the culture, and it would be inappropiate if a beskar armor (a cultural artefact) had been melted to make a lightsaber by some Jedi with no connection to Mandalorian culture, but that outright wasn't the case. The Jedi as a group weren't actively sourcing beskar from Mandalorian territories and communities- a member of dual culture made the object and then left it to them.

Again, Jedi stans don’t seem to understand what being mandalorian entails. Tarre Vizla couldn’t have gotten beskar legitimately just by being from there. If he decided that being born on mandalore (but not a mandalorian) meant that he had a right to use their sacred metal without upholding their rules for it then it means he as a jedi committed cultural appropriation.

And aside from the lightsaber, the fact that he walked around in mandalorian armor means he either made it himself with no regard for what wearing it means to mandalorians (which is cultural appropriation), or he convinced an armorer to make it for him by swearing to uphold the mandalorian code, which he would have broken by giving his beskar lightsaber to the other jedi (which would be cultural appropriation).

This has nothing to do with uplifting a side over another and everything to do with which community crossed the boundaries of respect. 

Again, using beskar (mandalorian steel) at all without respecting the law that says it can’t be used by non-mandalorians is already a crossing of that boundary. Jedi stans just have to make up excuses for why it is totally fine for their faves to cross whatever boundary they like.

@jedidruid

Tarre building his lightsaber with Beskar clearly has the same reasoning as with Gungi building his with Brylark Wood. It’s a way for their lightsabers to reflect their birth cultures. It’s literally what every Jedi does, creating a lightsaber that feels right to them.

Yes, and the fact that he thought he had the right to use that metal because it “felt right” to him without also respecting the mandalorian culture’s laws around beskar means he appropriated their culture for his jedi ways.

@smhalltheurlsaretaken

He doesn't say they 'liberated' it (coughRebels), doesn't say they rightfully got it back, he takes pride in the fact that they stole it.

Yes, and then Rebels came out and revealed that things were a lot more complicated than the line by a one-note villain from a previous cartoon made it seem. It happens with long franchises (just look at the EU). Sabine was also from house Vizla and she sure had a lot of reverence for what the saber meant to mandalorians. Deal with it.

@short-wooloo

Beskar is rare, but it is not only found on mandalore/in the mandalore system… 

This is yet another straight-up lie. The Star Wars book confirms that beskar is only found in the Mandalore system. It is also knows as “Mandalorian Steel” precisely for this reason. The mandalorians were genocided by the Empire for the express purpose of strip-mining their planet for beskar. Din Djarin has an ongoing quest to find and return as much beskar to mandalorians as he can because the only way a non-mandalorian can get their hands on beskar is by benefiting from the genocide of his people.

So the fact that this guy wants to claim that it exists on other systems not only to deny that they have any right to be upset by other people using it but also to push his own headcanon to make their concerns even less legitimate....yikes.

watching people get tons of hate comments/quote retweets on twitter for daring to criticize obi wan and/or defending owen lars…these people really can’t stand any dissenting opinion outside their own echo chamber can they? lol

Yeah, I never really saw the draw in Obi-Wan Kenobi as a character. It’s not even that he was a self-righteous and narrow-minded asshole. I’ve sympathized deeply with fictional characters who were or became objectively awful people who I would feel terrified of, if not despise, in real life before. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is a pretty great example of that.

It’s just that Obi-Wan has no life or interests that are really strong enough to ultimately outweigh his faith in Yoda and the Jedi Council. I partly get why. He never knew life outside of the Jedi Order. However, he’s also just rather shallow and insular in his aspirations. He’s primarily devoted to Yoda at all costs because Yoda and the Council discouraged emotion/individually his entire life. He saw that Qui Gonn, Dooku, Ahsoka, and Anakin never got ahead in the Order trying to be their own people. At worst, some went dark, and Obi-Wan’s primary goal and life trap is security and playing it safe by fitting in with the Order.

Since most of us weren’t recruited by cult soldier leaders from before we could remember, you would expect more people in the audience to relate more strongly to Luke and Anakin because they represent the average person. They know what it is to be people of the real world outside of just Yoda’s cult. They’re not okay with being abused, isolated, exploited, manipulated, and oppressed by Obi-Wan, Yoda, the Jedi Council, and Sidious. While Anakin went about dealing with it in the wrong ways in Revenge of the Sith, he had every right to resent them, distrust them, and want to avoid them after how they treated him over the past 14 years.

As I said in another post, I do think there is a point when a complete lack of individuality and sense of self to blindly serve authority to fit in actually holds people back from actually achieving great things and being heroes, too. Yes, too much individualism and emotional abandonment leads to the dark side, but if you’re always playing it safe by sacrificing your entire sense of self to serve authority without much question or fight to gain their approval and fit in, then how can you really achieve true bravery, heroism, and selflessness either? When your sense of drive and morality is completely based upon external validation from authority figures and a corrupt and outdated doctrine to fit in and be safe, then you’re not really being good because it feels good doing the right thing and helping other people without a thought of reward or validation for yourself from others either. Being truly heroic means being brave enough to stand up for what you believe in and do the right thing, regardless of what others think, and I don’t really get that from Obi-Wan in the narrative most of the time. It just becomes a task. For it to actually be heroic, it has to come from a personal and spontaneous drive, desire, ideal, and moral code from within yourself, too, regardless of the external validation and reward from those with power of authority and clout over you.

I think Obi-Wan, while infuriatingly stubborn in his ass-kissing of Yoda, is s pretty good example of that hero who utterly fails because he never feels confident enough in his sense of self, but his fans always want to make him out to be someone who was more heroic than he ever actually was. Yeah, he wasn’t evil, but he was not a very good person like the Skywalkers at their best, or even his master Qui Gonn. When his stans and Disney try to make him out to be anything better or more tragic than that annoyingly one-note “true believer” Jedi in the main narrative, that’s when I start to get irritated and roll my eyes.

I do think a big part of it comes from the fact that he’s played by Ewan McGregor in the PT movies. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is a good actor, and yes, very easy on the eyes. However, the character he plays in Star Wars was never too much of an intrigue to the main audience before the prequels cast him in the role of Obi-Wan.

Owen Lars had every right to tell Obi-Wan to fuck off and stay away from his son when he caught him requesting to recruit Luke as a child to be a Jedi. I mean, how can anyone watch what happened to Anakin, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, the Jedi younglings, and every other Jedi recruit in the prequel era, and think to themselves, “Yoda and the Council did a good job raising these kids to be healthy, functional, and independent adults,” even though every Jedi we meet in the prequels is a fucked up tragic mess of a human being as an adult in one way or another, regardless of whether they remained in the Jed or not? Let Luke Skywalker be a normal kid before getting involved with the Jedi.

Baruch HaShem I'm not a Star Wars fan.

What is the story behind Codywan? I don't know anything about this ship that's dominating the poll!

I don’t think I’m the right person to ask. I’m not anti-Codywan or anything, I just know nothing about the ship.

However @creativside did a really good explainer in the replies of Round Nine. I’ll copy + paste it here:

Caveat: I don't ship it, but I don't ship-shame and I get the appeal. So imagine there are these two people, thrown together in a really awful war. They fight side by side, both responsible for leading others into dangerous and sometimes certain death situations. Everyday is very frightening, every day coukd be their last. One of them has magic powers, he's basically a superhero, constantly putting himself at risk to protect (more coming )

2/ the other and his men, though they were all told they're expendable. He always, *always* uses their chosen names. In spite of all this power, the magic one is constantly dropping his magic sword, and so the field officer is always keeping an eye of out for it. They often brush hands when he passes it back. They often share cramped sleeping quarters where they don't sleep much, kept awake by war. They keep each other alive, (one more)

3/ remind each other to eat, and are always looking for ways to show the other they care, since every day could be there last. Of course, it's a love that can never be. Good soldiers follow non-fraternization orders, good Jedi follow the Code of non-attachment.

If any Codywan stans want to add their two cents, I’d love to hear from you!

People complaining about the Jedi "forbidding Anakin from being controlled by his emotions" like it's not a good thing

Reclaim Kenobist

Many pro Jedi fans have had their run ins with that one Anakin apologist who calls people Kenobists and calls Obi Wan a Mary sue, abusive and manipulative. Um, your fave who choked his wife and had his student repeatedly knocked out as a training exercise is standing right there. How is Obi Wan abusive? They try to deny it, but just looking at the blogs they follow and the way they debate proves they’re a right wing fascist. Don’t let her and her clique bully you for stanning our lovable queer master of trolling. Let’s reclaim that term from her. Reblog/like if you’re a proud Kenobist.

As an Ahsoka Tano stan, my number one enemy are people who think they're Ahsoka stans but are really Anakin stans who use Ahsoka to project all their anti Jedi feelings and opinions on to

Ok I’ve got to ask: what’s your perspective on ventress? Bc I feel like I’ve seen you talk about pretty much every other major character from tcw but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you talk about her. Is she just one of those characters that you’re neutral/have no opinion on?

Yeah I'm generally fairly neutral about her because I don't think they DID much with her. My strongest feeling about her is that I kinda hate her with Quinlan Vos. I haven't even read Dark Disciple because I heard it sucks, but what I do know about their relationship in that novel just doesn't appeal to me.

I think Ventress kind-of got the short straw in a lot of ways in TCW. She's primarily a pretty basic second or third tier villain in earlier seasons and her whole "redemption arc" is primarily utilized to bring back Maul and then she kinda just disappears mostly and her character never ends up really going anywhere interesting after she leaves Dooku and the Nightsisters are killed. I wish they had done something MORE with her after they started to "redeem" her, but they just... don't. So she ends up a kind-of basic villain and a kind-of mediocre... anti-hero? Sort-of? And then she dies in a novel or something apparently, so. Whatever.

She's not a character I see a lot of people trying to really woobify either, which is usually what turns me off of the "evil" characters. I think she generally does the job she's supposed to do as a villain and then she just kind-of fades into the background afterwards, and I don't tend to have strong feelings about the background lol.

I think if anybody tried to argue that she was ever a GOOD PERSON, I'd probably have strong feelings about that. She's not. She has a relatively interesting tragic backstory that absolutely doesn't get touched on as much as it should've (her relationship to the Jedi REALLY could've been a great way to expand upon her as she developed further away from selfishness), but she's very much a villain who does really awful shit to people for a long time. And even after she leaves the Sith behind, she's primarily still just doing things for selfish reasons rather than because it's the right thing to do or whatever. And that's not a BAD thing necessarily as a character choice, it makes her more interesting to be so self-serving and struggling with not being totally evil anymore and what that means. Honestly, I would've found a quick switch into goodness pretty unbelievable anyway.

Ventress is one of Star Wars's relatively few female villains, so it's definitely kind-of sad that the writers really just never cared about her all that much and the one place she gets a little bit more focus couldn't think of anything better to do with her than to give her a romance. Boo. So yeah, I don't think about her too often, I don't have super strong feelings about her because I don't think she's quite enough of a fan favorite to have a bunch of stans insisting she was actually right the whole time etc etc, so I can appreciate her for what she is even if it doesn't amount to much.

The Jedi Stans engaging in mental gymnastics *yet again*. There are so many assumptions in @pheonixyfriend post it almost hurts.

First of all, we don't know how the financial and taxation system worked on Naboo, and we don't know if the monarch actually had the ability to raise taxes or whether that fell to another branch of government entirely.

They just hear the word "Queen" and assume Padme was some monarch with absolute power. She wasn't. The Queen of Naboo was a temporary, elected office more akin to President than that of a monarch.

That actually makes it more likely the Queen did not have much power over laws and taxes, because you don't want to entrust your entire government, legal and financial system to someone who is only gonna be in power for a few years and doesn't have much experience.

So no, Padme could not just raise taxes to buy back Shmi. What about using her own money? Well that raises its own issues. I mean its possible she could do it as a personal project - but its unlikely she could get official government endorsement.

Now say she does do it as a personal project: why is she buying a slave? Slavery is meant to be illegal. A Senator involved in the purchase of a slave on Tattooine? Involved in slavery? Huge scandal and her reputation destroyed if anyone found out.

Makes much more sense for the the religious organization with care of the child to do it. Call it an act of philantropy, free a few other slaves too just so it doesn't look like favouritism. Even say you're setting up a charitable foundation on Tatooine for the relief of slave children and their families. A religious organization had more reason to do that then a politician. Especially when said organization had a slave child in thier care.

Yes to all this, we don´t know how taxes on Naboo and Tatooine work, sure they are close in location but their governments are extremely different.

Naboo has temporal Queens and Kings with a Congress and a galactic Senator representing them on the Republic.

Tatooine doesn´t have any representation on the Republic and doesn´t have a government, it´s been ruled by the Hutt Clan for centuries and their word is law there, as well as their money. They don´t answer to the Republic or anyone else, they are very much a mafia.

That said I don´t see the need to use taxes, anybody be it Padme, Qui-Gon or the Jedi Council, could have asked Watto for Shmi and ask his price, they could even have given him a star ship in exchange for her, just like the money for Anakin was taken from winning the boonta eve classic, if Cliegg could save enough money to free Shmi then so could anyone else but the matter wasn´t even discussed, it isn´t there, it´s just wasn´t a priority.

It´s canon the only ones interested in freeing slaves were Anakin, Shmi, Beru, Cliegg and Owen in movie and novels, in novel Anakin gave his friends Kitster and Wald his money to help them buy their freedom and his self-made detector of slave chip to his Mother. Shmi and Beru and Owen became active in freeing slaves on Tatooine secretly, all on their own. Qui-Gon was the only Jedi in canon to free a slave but he didn´t do it because it was the right thing to do but because he wanted to take him to the temple.

The total absence of dicussion over the matter of slavery from almost everybody except those directly affected isn´t an accident, it´s a character clue Lucas included to picture the kind of Republic and Jedi order the Prequel Trilogy had. In fact he made the casual comment when he and Filoni were doing the clone wars that only Anakin cared for Shmi´s death.

A republic that would allow an entire planet be taken hostage can´t be expected to enforce it´s anti-slavery laws, a Jedi whose only comment over slavery was "We didn´t come here to free slaves" in the main canon can´t be expected to free slaves unless they happen to be force sensitive and on Shmi case, from the Jedi pov, the less contact between her and Anakin the better.

This Republic is going to become the Empire and this Jedi Order had become blind to what the Sith were doing given their dettachment from the galaxy besides the matters talked at the Senate.

Of all of them I blame Padme the less because she gave Anakin refuge when he didn´t have anything on Coruscant and if Anakin was rejected by the Jedi Padme would have given him refuge on Naboo until she could arrange for someone to free Shmi or adopt Anakin into a temporal family. Padme could have done something for Shmi but I don´t blame her for believing the guardians of peace and justice when they said they would take care of her friend when they took in Shmi child and she had a recently destroyed planet to rebuilt and people to free and heal from their own concentrations camps, that´s a herculean task even for an adult politician, let alone a 14 year old.

This is my take on this.

Something that I've noticed for a while now, and something that's honestly become really irritating for me, is that people have suddenly apparently lost the ability---or maybe just the courtesy/empathy---to filter their fandom experiences and leave people alone.

I've just seen @antianakin's recent post of them responding to someone who didn't like that they posted about hating Anakin, and it just reminded me of all the fucking comments and reblogs I get about people seeing posts where I'm critical of a character, or a show, or something the fandom does---and, instead of just blocking me and moving on like a normal person, they feel the need to express how much they disagree or think it's stupid that I've decided to make a whole fic/post/whatever about how much I hate or am critical of that one particular thing.

And it's not just me!

Plenty of my mutuals and the people I follow, and tbh plenty of the Pro-Jedi/(x character/show) critical people who I don't follow but whose posts I see, have responded to countless comments and reblogs and asks from people who won't just fucking filter their content. It's always-

"I don't see why you felt the need to make a whole post about this." - a response I've gotten many times on some of my anti-Anakin posts.

-or-

"I think it's ridiculous that you're just writing a whole fic to bash a character." - a response I got to me being critical of Ahsoka in the Ahsoka show and my anti-Anakin fic ideas.

-or-

"Why do you want to make a whole event just to express your hate of one character?" - a response I got to me pitching the idea of an Anti-Anakin Week, so us that hate Anakin could blow off steam.

Like...are people being fucking serious?

I haven't been on Tumblr for a very long time, not even a year yet, but I knew as soon as I got on this hellsite that---if I didn't want to see certain content---I needed to filter the tags and block the people I didn't like.

I don't understand why so many people can't just fucking do that.

It's not like we're not tagging our fucking posts properly or purposefully trying to make people who disagree with us see our stuff, we're just posting our own shit in our own spaces!

And, ironically enough, those people who often come on these posts and complain about us making them---namely anti-Jedi people and Anakin Stans---are apart of the same group of people that literally will not tag or purposefully mis-tag posts so that the rest of us with the tags blocked have to see it!

This has probably been an issue for a while on Tumblr and I just haven't been around long enough to remember, but holy shit can everyone just start blocking people and filtering tags instead of making your discomfort everyone else's problem?

Guess what? I also like stuff in Star Wars, and it makes me upset when I see critique or hate of that stuff too! But I also understand that not everyone likes that stuff and that it's not their responsibility to cater to me---it's my responsibility to make sure I don't see that shit. The only responsibility anyone else has is to tag their posts properly, the rest is 100% on me.

So can y'all please get with the fucking program?

Filter your tags.

Block people.

Leave the rest of us the fuck alone.