I keep seeing people in the ventress tag saying they read dark disciple and it was soooo good.... what part was good, exactly? the part where quinlan says he's going to make a stupid reckless decision and tells ventress to wait in the car and she's like "okay💗 yay💗"? the part where dooku kills her without saying a word to her because he was trying to kill quinlan, whose relationship with him was developed entirely off-page? the part where she's buried in the sexy revealing dress she hated because quinlan liked her best feminine? the part where quinlan gets treated like an idiot the whole book because "snarky grumpy woman and her himbo sunshine boyfriend" was the only trope they could apparently make work here? the part where the Jedi get a bunch of people killed and at the end are like "ah well, we've all learned a valuable lesson about the dark side!"?

OKAY so on the topic of Star Wars takes wrt “character ends up in an A/B/O universe where they’re an omega, but they were previously a cis male in their canon”

@atagotiak and I had some Thoughts on discord

So, obviously, Anakin would make a good omega and he’s also incredibly murdery. Foregone conclusion that we're using him for this.

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse. He shows up JUST as the war is starting. Canon timeline is in the third year of the war (he’s 22), but whatever dumped him into omegaverse also tossed him back a few years. No de-aging, just a bit of mismatched timeline stuff.

He's... really good at war, and clearly a Jedi, so the Temple just kind of goes "WELL OKAY THEN, SURE, YOU'RE IN, EVERYONE PRETEND HE'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME." The Jedi, by and large, don't care about omegaverse dynamics beyond 'what do you need, medically, to be happy and healthy' and 'what do you need to be aware of so you can be prepared for biases you encounter in the field?’

None of the civilian natborns (mainly politicians) want to put him on the field because of those biases. Anakin, being Anakin, is VERY blatantly an omega in scent, has never been on suppressants (because it wasn't a thing he fucking NEEDED), is incredibly emotional as a person, loves kids, etc.

Like, nobody wants an omega fighting a war anyway, but THIS one is like PINNACLE omega, and those awful Jedi are making him FIGHT just because he's good at stab!

The Jedi: Actually, it's because he's got several years of war experience that we don't, and he's a good tactician that works well with the clones-- Coruscant: You MONSTERS The Jedi: Look, we gave him the option to not stab and he looked absolutely devastated. Anakin, several days earlier: You don’t want me? I’m not good enough??? Jedi: Also he can beat up at least half the temple.

He doesn't know a damn thing about dynamics, but he DOES know that sometimes he's so horny he wants to stab HARDER. The clones are largely disinterested in their generals' dynamics because between mostly-Mando* trainers and no-dynamic Kaminoans, they only really care if a person can shoot.

* Mandalore approves of Fighty Omegas. As far as (traditional) Mandalore is concerned, you want an omega that will kill the threats to your children as well as you do.

Anakin: You know more about being an omega than I do. Rex: ...I'm an alpha. Anakin: Yeah. Let that one sink in a bit.

We have two options for Obi-Wan!

Omegaverse local Obi-Wan (beta) has never met this man before, and is very unnerved that the immediate default reaction Anakin has to his presence is releasing Family pheromones as if Obi-Wan is his DAD and like. This strange, too-tall man from another dimension has got absolutely NO control over what he projects in the Force OR in his dynamic.

Obi-Wan was ALSO transplanted from canon to omegaverse, and is also an omega, for contrast reasons. He is nice and friendly and and likes poetry and that sort of thing... but also he has the highest dismemberment count in the movies. Also he doesn’t prioritize romance.

We went with the second one because it's hilarious.

Someone watching them spar: Wow, omegas from that universe are terrifying.

As previously mentioned, now with some tweaking to account for both: Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don't exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood. (It's mostly not theirs.)

Nobody realizes either one is an omega until they "naturalize" to this dimension and Anakin goes into heat... and doesn't realize it, actually, because his primary symptom is heightened protectiveness and aggression. Everyone else with the right nose realizes, because the man has no control over his pheromone production, but Anakin? No. He just stabs. He’s angry and horny and he will cut someone.

Ahsoka has no reaction to human pheromones but basically everyone smells Anakin's "my child!" reaction to her, so... Cool. Have a padawan, we guess.

Anakin ends up sparring a lot with Aayla and Ahsoka, because only humans and near humans have dynamics, so these two don't REACT to the pheromones situation.

(Palpatine is a Kindly Old Beta who tries to treat Anakin the way he EXPECTS Anakin wants to be treated, which is. Not. Accurate.)

(Anakin hates it.)

I'm just so in love with "An omega can't fight." "You wanna fuckin' bet?"

There are plenty of omega Jedi, by the way, it's just... most of them can keep it relatively low-key instead of Anakin's jet-engine broadcast. Some, if they're known to be omega, probably take advantage of being underestimated, like Obi-Wan probably (and especially a version of Obi-Wan that was always an omega, unlike this version). They have a very different way of presenting themselves than Anakin, who's not subtle about being an omega and also not subtle about being all aggressive and stabby.

At one point, Anakin has to protect some Very Traditional Individuals who get all "Stay back, Omega, it's not safe!" and he's just... so tired of this shit. “You are squishy civilians and I'm a trained Jedi Knight and accomplished GAR General who's killed more people in one sitting than there are in this entire palace. Sit the fuck down and let me do my job.”

It starts making the rounds that Anakin insisted on fighting in person, and the rumors shift from "how dare the Jedi force an omega to fight" and over into things that are deeply hurtful in-universe in the vein of "broken omega" and some people try to say it to his face but like...

He didn't grow up here.

He doesn't care.

Say that to one of his friends and he's going to rip out your spleen, probably, but say it to him and he's just staring at you flatly and asking if that's a negative on getting away from the encroaching battle droids, sir?

"You're rather unpleasant for an omega, aren't you?" [deeply offensive] "I literally could not give less of a fuck about your opinion. Move."

It's not that there aren't omegas that act like Anakin, either, it's just that most of them aren't, you know, Jedi who regularly interact with the upper crust, or capable of his level of destruction. Unbeknownst to Anakin, everyone clocks him as Outer Rim based on his behavior, well before his accent gives him away, and certainly before he mentions he's from Tatooine, because Core Omegas Don't Act Like That.

Someone they meet in a more diplomatic setting says something decently passive-aggressive about how at least Obi-Wan acts more like how an Omega should. Then a battle breaks out for some reason, and... well. Anakin and Obi-Wan cause such a scandal by keeping score of kills in a battle, don’t you know?

Turns out sending Anakin to fight Ventress is great because she keeps expecting him to react a certain way but NO he's here to STAB.

I like the idea that Obi-Wan's favorite opponent these days is Grievous because the cyborg doesn't have a nose, and thus gives zero fucks about dynamics or heats. Dooku is a rich old man who has opinions heavily influenced by Sith Juice Making Him More of a Dick, and the Dathomiri can smell dynamics even if they don't have them, and so they have biases about those things. Meanwhile, Grievous is just there to Kill, and Obi-Wan genuinely appreciates the lack of commentary on his dynamic.

Dooku’s probably an alpha, or a beta who's used the whole "we are more level-headed" thing as one of several angles to keep himself the public face and supreme commander of the CIS.

On to more fluffy things that have less to do with political biases.

There's a lot of "I'm upset that my loved ones don't know me," but also please understand the appeal of Obi-Wan marching up to Quinlan like "Yes, hello, I understand you've been read in on the full situation behind myself and my former padawan. I was close friends with your alternate universe self, which I feel is necessary disclosure before I propose the following: Would you like to join me for my upcoming heat, as I have minimal experience with the dynamics situation and even fewer people I actually trust, and I believe I can put my faith in you to treat it as casually as necessary while still having control and respect for my person."

(The Team is in a fairly safe place to process stuff, but having sudden unexpected changes to your biology has gotta be a little traumatizing, on top of ending up in a universe where none of your friends know you and people have a whole host of unfamiliar forms of sexism to point at you.)

Obi-Wan, who wasn't quite touch-averse but was much more easily overwhelmed by physical contact than Anakin (who craved it), suddenly finds his body switching gears and insisting on cuddles with Trusted Loved Ones, which is.... mostly Anakin, on account of nobody else really knowing him yet. Also Ahsoka, who is aware that she's something of a replacement for her alt-universe self, but Anakin explained it as "I love you so much no matter which dimension I'm in or what you're like, and I'd like to get to know you the way I got know her."

(It's rather eloquent for Anakin. He got Obi-Wan to help him draft up the script for when he pitched taking on omegaverse Ahsoka as a padawan.)

Anakin gets a more intensely sexual heat than 'usual' at one point for Reasons (IDK it could be as innocuous as 'we got better food than the usual rations and my body is reacting to the higher fat content with the belief that it's safer to have a baby now'), which nobody takes a whole lot of notice of because they're in a WAR, and also this is only his fourth one so it's not like he's got a lot to compare it to... except then the predominantly alpha clones can't stop themselves from reacting to the pheromones, mostly by wandering past his door and asking if he needs anything, offering up alpha-scented blankets and stuff for the nest to soothe the hormones, bringing snacks and electrolyte drinks, and like, Anakin is flattered, really, but fuck off please.

(He got a warning from medical a few hours before it hit that it would be different, so he actually does have alpha-scented fabrics to help him out. Apparently that's a thing you can just ask friends for, so he asked Rex if he had anything on hand that he could spare. He now has one of Rex’s recently-used sheets and a bodyglove in the nest.)

(Anakin has no idea how to feel about the nesting instinct, but at least it’s warm.)

Tia asked "Oh hey, who has the scared and horny reaction to his carnage?" and like.

Listen. I'm not saying I've been low-key imagining this as Rex being a very subby alpha who's really into Anakin's whole Thing but...

At one point Anakin gets injured in a way that requires painkillers and he ends up whining to the point of almost crying about the fact that nobody is cuddling him right now in medbay and Kix just gives up and comms Ahsoka to come hug her weird older brother.

And Then There Is Purring.

That’s a Thing Now.

Rex ends up in the pile somehow. He came over to check on Things and ended up yanked in by half-asleep, half-high Anakin, who has a grip like an octopus and no impulse control and is purring like a pod motor while NUZZLING HIM.

There’s a lot of blackmail photos featuring Rex’s very intense blush as he’s cuddled by his commander (giggling at him) and general (clinging like a tooka and rubbing himself all over).

Anakin is deeply offended that ANYONE thinks he'd want to get pregnant by just any old person, NO he needs to fall in LOVE there needs to be EMOTIONAL DRAMA and if Padme won't have him (apparently she's in a relationship and no he's not BITTER) then he'll find someone else to have a whirlwind romance with!

People think Anakin's a slut because he can't control his pheromone production (he has NO practice and for health reasons he can't go on suppressants) so he always smells open and ready for flirtations, which Obi-Wan also has to a somewhat lesser degree (he's older so his body just naturally produces less), and then someone tries to cross a boundary and grabs his ass and ANYWAY Anakin has to now fill out an incident report for breaking a civilian's arm.

Again.

A Case for Rexsoka

I’ve been around the block when it comes to ships. I’ve seen people obsess over them, and I too have been driven mad by obsession. I was a hardcore original avatar fan and I was OBSESSED with shipping Toph and Sokka together. Any time they so much as made an interaction I over analyzed it and picked it apart looking for clues that somehow would prove that my hunches were correct. It was because I related with both characters, and I loved their chemistry. I wanted them to have a romantic relationship because it would feel like some sort of personal validation.

I’m an adult now and nothing has changed. But it has been a while since I’ve desperately shipped two characters together that are not obviously romantically involved with one another, or who could be romantic behind the scenes or beyond the story shown.

Until Rex and Ahsoka.

And I’ve seen people be adamantly against it. 

“No no no it’s just a brother/sister relationship.” 

“No it’s gross she is a child”.

And of course being disagreed with on the internet can drive a person crazy, and instead of individually arguing with dozens of people online, I’m making this post once and for all to explain why I think Rex and Ahsoka have romantic feelings for each other. Especially Rex.

The argument I’ve seen, that their deep passion, commitment, love, admiration, and respect for one another (which are all so obvious you’d have to be...silly to not see it) are felt in a platonic fashion. Which, for the first 6 seasons and 8 episodes, I would totally agree.

But then Ahsoka comes back. And let’s face it. She is a woman. Age wise, she’s around 17, but everything from the maturity of her Lekku (which weirdly don’t get all that longer, especially compared to other Tagrutan women) to her poise and confidence, to her prowess as a warrior, a user of the force, and her ability to command soldiers as well as control her emotions points to her being an adult woman. She’s no Snips anymore; she’s no child. She’s grown up. And how her peers react to her illustrates how they now view her as an adult.

First there is Obi-wan. Obi-wan has always been a mentor to her, a sort of second Master. Obi-wan never hesitated to guide and Ahsoka or offer his council. He is proud of her when she succeeds, and will admonish her when she makes mistakes. When she returns and he sees her as a woman, he changes the way he treats her. He acknowledges her maturity by addressing her as an equal. He doesn’t admonish her. Instead he discusses with her, challenging her ideas and letting her offer an argument for them instead of putting them down and telling her how she should think or act. He also comes to her in his time of need, trusting her to help him with Anakin.

Then there is Anakin. We all know of Anisoka shippers, and they are perfectly able to ship and enjoy said ship, but we can all acknowledge that it is a crack pairing with no basis in the canon. Anakin portrays the perfect kind of brotherly love. He is excited to see Ahsoka, and is stunned by her unexpected reappearance. Things are harder for Anakin because he is used to their fun banter and sibling-like companionship. He’s constantly shut down with her business like manner and he struggles with coming to terms with the fact that she isn’t a little kid sister anymore. She is an adult with a mission and a plan. When he looks at her, he is endearing. He loves her. Admires her. And he can’t wait to pick up where they left off. There’s joy and adoration in his face. He is proud of her and what she has become, but he also feels alienated and even hurt because of how her adulthood has changed their dynamic.

Then there is Rex. When he first sees her, he wants nothing more than to reassure her that she still belongs. The clones had accepted her into their family. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. When he looks at her for the first time, he’s beaming with the same adoration as he had had for her before, but also with a solemn awe at what she has become and what she has grown into. He welcomes her back into his life without hesitation.

But then there is a moment things shift so drastically that I paused the show and re-watched it half a dozen times. We all know it and love it. This face he gives Ahsoka. The Look.

What we see here is something we have never, EVER seen in Rex for 7 whole seasons. And it is my opinion that this is the first time Rex has been able to feel and express that he is attracted to Ahsoka. In other words, Rex has a sexual awakening.

Up until this point, Rex has been a sexless character. Nothing he does is flirtatious, sexy, or at all suggestive that he has those feelings inside him at all. Every sexual being has a moment where they are first animalistically drawn to another being. Characters who have already had this moment are easy to pick out. Obi wan. Anakin. Ventress. These characters have already experienced their sexual awakening. Ahsoka has too. Lux was her first object of attraction.

But Rex has never had this moment. Until this reaction.

I know some of you might be thinking “but Ahsoka gives a very similar look to Anakin, does that mean she is sexually attracted to HIM?” It’s a very good point. Ahsoka and Anakin share some cheeky playful looks during “Old Friends Not Forgotten”. We see many characters give similar looks to other characters, but does this mean it means the same thing as when Rex does it? The short answer is no.

When animators design a character, they establish the “range of emotion” for that character. You can easily see this when you look back at how many times you see Rex break from his stoic, captain’s face. He rarely laughs, smiles, or emotes in any way. This is why when we see him emote it is exciting to us as an audience. A character like Ahsoka or Anakin commonly show a wide variety of expressions. Ahsoka is much more likely to give a cheeky look than Rex is. So “the look” for Rex, means a lot more when he is doing than it does when another character does it, say Fives or even Obi-Wan.

Which means the writers are trying to tell us something about this moment. 

This moment has changed Rex’s and Ahsoka’s relationship. 

Now does this mean that they are going to go bang each other immediately? Does this mean the second they are alone after “Victory and Death” they start an intense, sexual relationship? Of course not. That’s not what this ship is about at this time. But the reason many of us ship it is because suddenly they don’t feel like brother and sister anymore. It isn’t entirely platonic. And the show does a good job to further emphasize this as they come closer and closer both emotionally, and physically during the finale.

Blocking is a huge factor in visual storytelling. During the finale, Rex and Ahsoka are blocked in a way that makes them as close as physically possible on the screen. This communicates to the audience that they are closer now than they have ever been. As Jedi and Clone Trooper. As friends, and as companions, their bond forged in the fires of war, struggling to find meaning in life as soldiers.

In contrast, look how Ahsoka and Anakin are blocked in their scenes. There is nearly always a gap between them, illustrating that they are distanced from each other emotionally. Rex is even visually inserted into the gap between them in several instances. Anakin and Ahsoka are growing apart, but she and Rex are growing closer.

We get to experience Rex and Ahsoka engaging in actions and conversations that we had rarely seen before. From casual banter, to moments of intense intimacy, to emotional peaks, Rex and Ahsoka interact more in these four episodes than in the previous six seasons. Part of this is because their maturity gap has closed. Ahsoka is finally Rex’s equal in experience and maturity. It is also in part because it is a unique dynamic. No Obi-wan. No Anakin. Rex and Ahsoka are equal leaders of the 332nd. There’s also the fact that they are put into life threatening situations and have no one else but each other.

But there is that “look” that is given at the beginning of all this that suggests something else, that as their bond undoubtedly becomes strong as beskar, there is an element of it that takes their relationship from the platonic to the romantic.

I feel every detail, moment, and piece of dialogue in the finale tells the story of this bond. 

Many instances of their strong emotional bond have been spread throughout the internet, with most ready to acknowledge that they have a connection unlike any other, one that may even be described as a “force” connection. These last four episodes are so exciting because we see two friends reunited, but then we get to watch as their relationship transforms.

Even disregarding their implied attraction to each other physically, they dive into each other and hold on tight. Ahsoka shares deep personal worries with Rex, and Rex and her are shown opening up to each other in ways they have never opened up before.

We were all floored and dumbfounded at scenes such as these that show these characters at their most vulnerable. But they decide to be vulnerable together. Is it because they are all that is left of their 501st family? It part, this is definitely true. But by being this vulnerable they transform their relationship into something very different from what they had before. It will never be the same again, and it will be near impossible to back out of the emotional intimacy that these two have participated in. Once you have formed that kind of an attachment with someone, there is no going back, and as is seen in rebels, these two maintain that strong connection even after years of being apart.

This goes beyond their sexual desires or needs. They’ve forged a bond that cannot be broken. They have shared minds, shared pain and agony that only the other can understand. They’ve been isolated from the world, and all they have left is each other.

And at the end of the series, when we have Rex and Ahsoka broken, their world flip upside down and everything they ever valued or cared about lies in ruins before them, the idea that they still have each other is that beautiful seed of hope Star Wars is so good at preserving. Those of us who believe that their relationship could be romantic want good things for Rex and Ahsoka. We want them to have that love and share it with each other. Maybe only for a few moments, but having known it would be better than both of them living and dying without having that experience. 

When we see the two in Rebels, for me it confirms that these two love each other deeply. But their lives can never be lived in a normal fashion. They cannot even be together as partners in life. The Empire has stolen this from them. The tragedy of this ship is that it can never be the way we want it to be. Rex will age and die long before Ahsoka is even halfway through her own life. They cannot live with one another. They cannot wake each morning with each other, at least not at the point we see them in rebels. 

But they continue to love each other. Even over distance, even knowing that mortality will claim them with only a fraction of the memories that they deserve with one another. 

So please, the next time you see some art or a fic, or a post like this, think of what I had to say. Rexsoka is about two adults, their lives destroyed at the hands of Sidious, but in defiance they still forge a bond that he could never break or take from them. And that to me is beautiful and something to celebrate.

Side note: I spent a ton of time making gifs but they never would work and so I had to use screenshots instead :(

EDIT: At the request of the OG poster of a few gifs, I have replaced them have also made some grammatical changes. 

Ashes to ashes

If you have no expectations, there are none to ruin and that's how this filler week went for me.

I'll keep this simple because I see a lot of similar feelings, but the main thing for me is this isn't the show promised. We were promised The Bad Batch. You can rewatch this season, but this show wasn't about either of them. There was no character growth. It all promoted Omega and her rinse and repeat storyline. Instead of going into that, I'll give you things I had hoped for.

An actual reunion with Rex.

Growth for each Bad Batcher. Examples? Echo dealing with his changing world (and ever more changing after Order 66). Echo dealing with Fives' death. Tech's quirkiness and his love for recording things being shown or used in an episode or two. Wrecker and his demolition prowess. Knowing what Hunter's powers mean as he leads the team through the ups and downs of this new galaxy. (Not just sort of doing whatever each week)

I want the Inhibitor chips explained. They seem to change whichever way the wind blows from the plot. At one point, every clone was susceptible. I could understand The Bad Batch at the beginning, Echo. Now it's just whatever they need to progress the plot. Sometimes the chips works. Sometimes in part. Other times not, but there's no consistency and this is the Kaminoans that created them so there should be some foundation there.

A storyline for Crosshair. Feelings on him are mixed, but I think that's more in part because he was tossed aside (all the boys were). We could have shown what was going on in the fledgling Empire with his perspective. Instead, we traded that for worthless cameos.

I've seen a lot of "Clone Wars had a rough first season". Well, you had Yoda explaining that each clone was individual in the Force. We had some Grievous and Ventress moments that introduced and showed their cunning skills. (I'll gladly skip Jar Jar) Then there's Obi-Wan, Anakin and Dooku's episode where they just continue to roast that "elderly" man alive (and his comment "I would kill you both right now if I did not have to drag your bodies" is my absolute favorite to this day) which is amazing. There's episode 16 with Slick and we see a clone betray his brothers because he sees the Jedi as enslaving them. We see how the clones are really bred to die in Blue Shadow Virus where they accept their fates.

Then the first season has the battle for Ryloth and the soft moment with Waxer, Boil and Numa. An episode arc that showed the harsh realities of the war by leaving a child lost and how two clones could come to adore a little child.

They ended the first season on high stakes with Cad Bane going after the senate. Sure, we all knew Anakin would probably save the day, but there was a lot at stake. We'd seen clones die, we knew there was a cost and that the rent came due.

All things BB didn't seem to want to give us.

Overall, there's nothing memorable from this season. There's nothing worthwhile. I'm not left wondering how things are going to resolve. Instead, I'm left sad that I didn't even get to see a Kamino uprising. Boba against his brothers? That would have been great.

Instead, I had to hear about how Omega Sue was older than the others and how she was there when they were being created. What a way to keep me intrigued. Not. Also, I firmly believe this entire show was plotted without her character, and then she was shoehorned in. If you remove her, the story arcs make more sense and we can use that empty space for more development of the clones.

Lastly, if they jump the shark completely in second season, they could salvage this. I just don't have any faith in them to be that smart.

hello! i hope your day is good :) question? i just re-read annihilation and i know the movie is way different but would you still recommend it to someone who loves the book? your art of it from ages ago is what made me want to read it in the first place and you made it seem so lovely

hi :-3

oh ya i would recommend it very much, its different but also vry good. it has much more of a concrete escalating plot, i think, in some ways, like its been adjusted for mainstream film a lot, way less vague and characters are named etc.. but its really really good. even if you dont like the plot change watch it for the soundtrack and visuals (the translation of area x onto screen is top tier, so many rly good mutated strange things and all the refracting light). also, im not super keen on the biologist being named tbh, but i kinda do love the other women on the team, like josie and anya :'''')

the main problem with the movie is, unfortunately, whitewashing.. the director says that since the second book wasnt out yet (where we learn what people actually looked like bc the biologist never tells us) when he was writing the script, he didnt know. which is a bit ???? idk why didnt you ask jeff vandermeer who was writing the books? idk, i guess he was involved at all? but, i think probably they got natalie portman during casting and wanted a famous actress, and didnt change if they did find out the biologists actual race, even tho she is definitely not east asian >_> (if you dont know, the psychologist is also meant to be half white half native american, which ventress isnt) ... idk. its, weird how the director defaulted to white tbh :/ i do think the casting for the rest of group is perfect though. josie and anya again, so good :''')

also forgive me if im misremembering, but its weird to me that they made the biologist's distance from her husband from cheating in the movie... like.?? idk. in the book she was just distant, she was called 'ghost bird' and didnt like it. they were distant because she was hyperfocused on the back lot and the rockpools and things.. idk she's just nd lol . .. . but anyway. very long answer. but, yes, i recommend it vry much. i love the soundtrack sm. also its worth it entirely for the sound/creature design for the Bear :-)

One life, I thought—a thousand deaths (Jon Antilles & Fay)

Summary: On Queyta, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the only one to escape Durge and Ventress. One of the four legendary Masters, Jon Antilles, emerges from a lava stream despite knowing he’s going to die. He’s so sure of it that he crawls his way to Fay’s side, wanting to spend his last moments with the woman who he considers his Master. But she has other plans. Plans to make certain that Jon Antilles lives past today.

Warnings: Angst, Character Death, On-Screen Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, there’s both sorry, Self-Sacrifice, The Curse of Immortality, holy shit i made myself sad dude Word Count: 2,191

Prompt: Angstpril Day 2 - Sole Survivor

Author’s Note: listen I know nobody knows about these characters that are in literally one comic but I have FEELINGS about them okay?? Jon is meant to be a badass mysterious enigma but he screams sad boi and Fay is like...the greatest cryptid Jedi ever, I love her. So, of course, I decided to make them and Knol and Nico suffer. (Also I know Obi-Wan survived the mission but the Sole Survivor still applies because Jon is the sole survivor of the four legendary Masters, just in case that wasn’t clear.) I just finished this today, so the editing is minimal.

Read on AO3

*

Using the Force as a shield is, in theory, one of the easier skills a Jedi utilizes. That is assuming, of course, that the Jedi in question is in good health, a decent mental state, and isn’t under a severe amount of stress. If said Jedi is, say, three feet into a pool of lava, already bearing grievous injuries and the weight of the deaths of two close companions, and feeling the fading life of another, the simple task, understandably, becomes something of a problem.

Jon has finally managed to pull the Force around him like a blanket. It protects him from the bubbling lake around him now, but the first few seconds he couldn’t pull it off were torture.

As it turns out, lava burns. It burns like shame, like failure, like the nightmares Jon used to have about his Master abandoning him on a planet in Hutt space for getting just a little too mouthy. And it hurts nearly as much.

“Fuck,” he hisses. He makes a rule of not cursing, but right now feels like an appropriate time to break it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He claws at the charred remains of his robes. Contrary to popular belief, lava doesn’t melt initially, as Jon now knows. Instead of melting, he burst into flames for the few seconds it took to pull himself together, though they felt like an eternity. Red, throbbing burns litter his entire body, his hair singed but miraculously intact thanks to his hood, which is entirely ashes now. The pain consumes his thoughts, making his shielding start to flicker in and out.

And then, through the debilitating agony, a touch of something familiar.

Jon’s eyes fly open. “Fay,” he whispers.

Her light is dimmer than it should be, not flickering in and out mischievously like it usually does. But still, she makes an effort to reach out, to check on him. It sends a sob up his throat.

“Hold on, Fay, hold on.”

Clenching his fists, he opens himself up to the Force. His actions are ones of faith, not of desperation, and he lets it flow through him as he takes a deep breath. The idea of using one of his Master’s abilities would normally make him nauseous, but the disgust doesn’t even cross his mind this time as he prepares to teleport. He thinks of that open, flat space of rock that Obi-Wan and Fay ran to, their enemies close behind. Focusing fiercely on that distant image, he pulls on the Force and folds the two points—

Jon collapses on solid ground with a heaving gasp.

Every inch of his body protests the change, especially his knees, which burn when they make contact with the ground, but somehow he manages to ignore his own complaints.

Fay isn’t far, or she shouldn’t be, at least. The distance between them seems gaping when he tries to move.

Still, her light is fading fast. And he wants to be by her side.

So, Jon Antilles crawls on hands and knees, dragging his body across sharp stones and past bubbling streams of lava. He aches with each movement and cries out when it becomes too much, but he persists regardless. Something in him knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Finally, he sees her.

She’s sprawled out, her chest hardly moving as her breathing becomes shallow. Her near-golden hair is filthy with ash and her eyes are dim. She’s hardly herself, Jon thinks, and feels his stomach sink.

Hundreds of years the great Master Fay has lived and breathed. Hundreds of years and he’s going to watch her die today.

“Jon,” she calls out weakly.

He pulls himself to her side, grabbing her hand with his own shaky ones. “I’m here, Master.”

They only met when he was a teenager, but he feels as if he’s known her all his life. They’ve travelled the Outer Rim together, following the Force, for decades now and he’s never regretted a second of it. In all but title, Fay is his Master. She was always better than Dark Woman, even when the bar was six feet under. The only record with both their names will be at the Temple, where the dead are listed, a handful of mission reports with other Jedi, and the stories the younglings share of the 4 legendary, nomadic Masters.

“Knol and Nico,” Fay breathes out, “they’re one with the Force.”

Jon grimaces. “Yes. And the Force is with us.”

She laughs, breathy and half-choked. It’s an old lesson, familiar and grounding. “And so too are they,” she adds.

“Where’s Obi-Wan?”

“Gone, with the cure.” She smiles just a little. “The Republic fights another day.”

Suddenly grim, he squeezes her hand. “But not us.”

A pause.

“But not us.”

The silence overwhelms them. The wind whistles in the distance, carrying with it nothing but smoke and ashes. Queyta isn’t the best place to die, Jon thinks absently. He would rather it have been someplace with flowers.

“I wish it could’ve been Jedha.”

He almost jumps at her voice, but her words jarr a surprised laugh from his sore lungs. “Jedha? I thought you hated cold planets.”

“Oh, yes, but not that one. Force, I should have taken you. The Force there is so...so strong, so pure, you can feel the kyber from the surface,” she explains, staring straight up at him. If anyone else were to gaze so intensely at his scars, he’d be uncomfortable, but she’s safe. She’s family. “And the Guardians of the Whills are so kind. I met a young one of theirs some decades ago. You two would’ve gotten along.”

Jon laughs a little. “You’re always looking to find me friends, Fay.”

Her smile turns sad and she lifts a hand to his face, letting it rest on his cheek. “You’re so young,” she whispers. “Too young to be so lonely, Jon.”

He shuts his eyes, lets himself be comforted by her touch. When he opens them again, she still has that gut-wrenching look on her face. He places his hand on top of hers, unsurprised at how cold they are despite the blistering heat.

“I’m not lonely,” he promises.

Jon doesn’t say that it’s because of her, Knol, and Nico, but Fay picks up the thought anyway. Her eyes fill with tears.

“I have watched so many I love die.” Fay’s voice wavers as she says it. He realises that it’s the first time he’s ever heard it do that. To be honest, he’d thought it was impossible. “Taken by age, by Darkness, by foolishness. Never have I met a soul as good as yours, Jon. And never a Jedi so worthy of love.”

“Fay…”

She shakes her head. “Your Master did not deserve you. The galaxy did not deserve you.”

Pulling her hand away from him, Jon squeezes it. “You did,” he says firmly, though his voice cracks.

“I hope so,” she admits with a rueful laugh. “I hope so.”

He smiles weakly. “I wish you’d found me first. But I thin-I think the Force knew when I needed you to save me. Because you did save me, Master. I could never thank you enough.”

She takes his word silently, holding his hand even tighter. “You never needed to.”

“Thank you,” he says now, even though it’s useless.

Fay’s grey eyes meet his pale ones and suddenly, she’s distressed. “You’re so young,” she repeats.

But Jon can see that she means something else this time.

“Not too young to do my duty.”

“Too young to die doing it.”

Jon thinks of Tan Yuster, one of four Padawans to die on Geonosis. The Jedi have experienced great loss these past months since the beginning of the war and so many so much younger than Jon have died in battle, the clones included. Of course, to Fay, they all may as well be children.

“I will go proudly into the Force,” he promises her. At your side.

Fay’s expression twists. “No.”

He scoffs. “I don’t think we have a say in it.”

“The Force let me live this long,” she says suddenly, as if it’s a realisation, “longer than I should have. Obi-Wan is gone, I’ve done what good I can, except...you’re here. Why are we here?”

“To say goodbye,” Jon offers.

She shakes her head, then tries to sit up, struggling until her would-be Padawan helps pull her up. “I’m done with goodbyes.”

“What are you—?”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his question. Fay presses their foreheads together and grabs his hands with a newfound energy that terrifies him. Chills go up his spine when her presence in the Force covers him like a blanket. Warmth climbs up his hands, then his arms, and with a glance down he finds that his skin is healing.

“Fay, no!” he cries, trying to shove her away.

She only tightens her grip. “Stay still, Jon.”

She sounds more like herself, certain and unwavering. Jon would be happy-crying if he weren’t horrified. He tries to drag himself out of her grip, but she’s impossibly strong. Her healing creeps up his entire body, soothing his burns, though scars remain behind.

“No, no, no—FAY! Fay, stop it!” His screams turn to sobs. “You’ll die, stop—!”

“I already am,” she says, just as certain in her abilities as her fate. “But you don’t have to.”

Trembling, his attempts are weaker now but still there. “Please, please,” he begs. “Not without you!”

Tears stream down her cheeks. She allows herself a moment of weakness; she opens her eyes and meets his tearful gaze, remembering the teenager she first met. He was so scared and so brave. And for a moment, she’d thought he must be a ghost. But no, he was just a boy. For the first time in a long time, she had let herself build a bridge between them, like Knol and Nico before him, even knowing she would have to watch him die one day.

Now, she thinks with fierce stubbornness, she won’t have to.

It feels like her life is leaving her for him, though she knows it’s just fading into the Force. It’s to it that she speaks, the cosmic energy she’s dedicated her long, long life to.

“If anyone is deserving of the time you’ve given me,” she gasps out, “it is Jon Antilles.”

She doesn’t see the horror in Jon’s face, but she can feel it in his quiet Force-presence, so subdued. He hides himself on purpose and it truly breaks her heart. His light is so strong. The galaxy is all the better for his existence.

“I don’t want this! Fay, I don’t—let me die, please—”

Fay only lifts her head and kisses his forehead, the sort of gentle gesture a mother might give her son. “One day,” she promises. It rings with truth, with the strength of the Force behind it. “But not today.”

Jon cries out and tries to rip himself away, but freezes when pure light washes over him. The warmth he’s always associated with Fay soaks into him, healing all his wounds in an instant and rejuvenating his fading energy. Stars burst before his eyes, like he’s seeing into the very universe beyond Queyta, beyond what he’s meant to see with his petty Human eyes. In another instant, it’s gone and Fay is slumping over.

She falls to the ground with a thump, a noise that jolts Jon back into focus.

“Master!” he sobs.

He pulls her up from the ground with the sickening realisation that she’s a complete deadweight. She’s limp in his arms, already paling. Desperate, Jon pushes her hair out of her face and finds...nothing. Her eyes are dull. With his fingers on her wrist, he can’t feel a pulse.

“Fay?”

The steady beat of her Force-presence is gone, a gaping hole in his universe. Their bond, one strong enough to resemble a training bond, is shattered, a physical pain that throbs in his skull.

Jon begins to hyperventilate, his sudden gasps for breath burning his now-perfect lungs.

“Come back,” he begs Fay’s corpse. “Fuck, please. Please, come back.”

He pulls her into his lap, clutching her robes like a child being left behind for the first time. It doesn’t hurt to move anymore and, thank the Force for it because his entire body shakes with the force of his cries.

Overwhelmed with grief he’s never experienced, Jon wails into Fay’s shoulder, rocking back and forth. The agonizing sound rings across the valley, a noise like torture.

It’s only now that he feels the frayed edges of his bonds with Knol and Nico.

He screams again, his vocal cords protesting it sharply.

The last time Jon was this alone, he was a child. And now, he’s right back where he was before he met his three closest companions. Except now, now, he knows what it means to love and to lose. It aches. It aches like nothing he’s ever felt.

“Please,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can’t—I need you. What do I do? What am I supposed to do?”

He never gets an answer.

*

River’s Tags: @hahaboop & @mystoragehatesme

Masterlist

The more I think about Dark Disciple, the more I find something odd.

[28th March 17:46]

I keep referring to it as a ‘favourable experience’, and there is no question the writing is what made me fall totally head over heels about quintress, but I also just, can’t?

I mean, yes. It’s very passionate, dramatic, scenes and gestures I can only dream of. But I also, don’t really see it in that ’omg they totally belong together here are my sixty headcanons of them’ sense?

I am very involved in the pairing, but also don’t really, actively ‘ship’ it — like the way it was an open book with Rhayme or Latts Razzi (since it’s the same author that indoctrinated me to Captain Rhayme). I could imagine them being happily ever after and silly shenanigans and slow-burn. But the concept of a quintress fairytale ending is so wild. I can only ask how much it is tainted with my personal view on relationships.

I know the plot leaves little room for “the future” and fed us well on all tropes possible. But, it just never occurred to me to put them in any other clichés or invent a missing scene.

Winding up, I don’t think their relationship is "weak", but it’s very motivated by circumstances and once you take that out of them, you are a little bit lost. For example even during the illicit affairs month, I… can’t really propose one date that does not seem tonally insensitive. (I can think of them being cloak dorks and Vos bringing her to ice-cream, that’s it, after a long hard moment) Really, all I possibly want is that sweet, sweet angst and canon is already there so I have no complaint.

It’s just… I don’t really get why it has to be the two of them that fall for each other. I understand why they did, and I believe it— Perhaps it’s much more a physical attraction thing that I don’t really have personal experience with.

I don’t know if quintress classify as slow-burn because 10 chapters still seem a little quick in the grand scheme of things. (aside: I’m quite disappointed Ventress wasn’t doing much in the last quarter of the book.) My point is, they do feel a little bit puppet to tropes, and while it’s deliciously written, there’s not much potential outside of canon. And that lack of inspiration makes me grimace a little.

[3rd April, 01:39]

I’ve scrolled through the dd tag and let the book sank a little. I am better articulated to talk about the sexist criticism now.

It’s a romance story, and when I judge it by that (lower) standard, it ticks the boxes. However, it might be a weakness as well, due to the projectability of the heroes. And yes, the whole assassination is dumb. Yet, tcw has been consistently this dumb at us. The last two times when she’s more rooted in the dark she failed, sent Savage and failed, so she’s gonna do it again with Vos… after she put down her desire for revenge. right. and surprise! Our “assassination” plan is to find Dooku and duel him directly. right…

I’ve read a review that says the romance takes away from the plot. However, the romance IS the plot. The book IS supposed to revolve around the two of them. I do agree them becoming begrudging allies then partners is a more unique approach, more rewarding as foils as well. but I guess a romance is easier for the conventional to process ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

With the “Ventress lose agency in falling for Vos”. Now, I can’t dictate how each of us buy into their physical attraction and chemistry (or lack thereof), and there’s no denial that a conscious human being is making that choice for the fictional character, I think the stance on this topic varied person to person from the above two factors, which are very different starting points.

I kept Katie Lucas’s foreword vividly in mind while reading. She said this is a story about people seizing chances to rebuild. That there’s always a choice. Cliché as it is, I believe ~the power of love~. I believe there exists someone you’re willing to sacrifice everything for, to overlook everything for, to forgive - to love them, warts and all. So, yes whether you think Ventress loses her agency to the romance, or if that’s a conscious choice on her behalf, is swayed heavily by how much you buy that they are the one.

[10th April, 10:30]

Yesterday I’ve been thinking a bit more about this. I do love this ship, I just don’t believe they’d be two people who find each other again and again in every life time, in every universe. That’s why, as magnificent as fireworks, it also won’t last.

To explore this, it’s not entire impossible for quintress to separate peacefully after this incident, but would that cheapen the build before? The entire motivation of dark!Quinlan hinges on his vision of their future. And say, Ventress did saved him and survived. How would he balance being a Jedi and his feelings - that’s publicly exposed to the Council? (sidenote: i really don’t like Ch. 27 where a bunch of old men are questioning their love life, but uhhh yes, I’m a sensible person!) For now, I’m seeing another Obi-Satine situation. And honestly how bad that an outcome is. It’s not like Ventress died for her war crimes! The show gave her a full pardon! So Idk man. Why can’t she leave him because she loves him and she exiled herself and they never see each other again WHY NOT FILONI WHY NOT.

Now I’m lamenting more what could’ve been with the two arcs. In Filoni’s original sketch, Aayla and Maul were involved. Man, that could’ve been the dream.

~~~

Part 2: [26th April, 15:15]

It has been… a month, since I finished Dark Disciple and I feel like it’s time to conclude all the thinking this book has made me do.

On the wider reflection about attachment and the Jedi Order, I still have to do more reading on it from other sources to form a concrete opinion. This theme won’t be touched on in this post yet, but I cannot shake how intriguing it is to compare “falling” in love to falling to the dark side. The temptation, and the submission to their emotions, the irrationality, the newfound curiosity, it all incites. Very curiously, it was Anakin Skywalker who commented that one is “blinded by love”

Okay, so what I’ve been scratching my head off the past two weeks is how I look at the romance between Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. How would I define it?

Now this is as much as an exploration of how I view romantic relationships. Well, I’ve decided it wasn’t “love”, it was an “affair”. It was an affair because it’s a rush of passion, it’s a secret, it won’t last. Before I chop my own head off for bluntness, I mean it in, of course they are hopelessly in love with each other, that’s the exact premise of why it moved me so. But it wasn’t a complete relationship, wasn’t a healthy, sustainable one by any objective standards. Then, that’s the exact contradiction. Oh to throw caution in the wind with you, or to build a future with you?

Both are things I want a lot, and the ideal is of course one after the other. What quintress had (in the end) is definitely not something I’d want for myself, but it’s so fantastical, it’s alluring, just like the concept of falling in love - opening up yourself and trusting another person, is - it’s risky. That’s why it’s a sweet, sweet drug.

I’ve been so angry at all the red flags in this relationship. Reading this book, getting into both of their shoes, yelling NO like their best friends. But ultimately, what they had is unique to them and I can’t influence it in any way. Re-reading, I find myself holding myself back at all the places I was furious about going ‘You are smarter than this!’. Because it’s a tragedy, and the beautiful (I guess) thing is they chose each other.

The other day something on the dash inspired me to really think about ship dynamics. I, unashamedly admit, I’m VERY into Obi/Quin/Ventress in any and all combinations. *cough* I will not explain further.

I do accept the premise and I did discover they share quite a bunch of traits, but it confused me a while what made them cross the boundary, and it was, physical attraction (that the book was selling so hard I was blushing hot). I love them both a lot, and I would like to date them both, and I can see myself in either of them. Again comes the contradiction, is it a good thing to have characters so easily projectable, or do I want to see myself in more complex characters like them?

I probably lost quite a few cars stalling this train of thought. And I've been a canon apologist since forever. This book brought me a lot of emotional upheavals and a lot of food for thought. It brought me down to reflect on my romantic worldview and sexuality because I have nothing better to do. It totally challenged me as a writer and it’s just a really good novel by its right, regardless of the absurdity that is The Clone Wars. It’s a lot of firsts for me. And I really should find something better to do.

[26th April 16:00]

I must address that I got spoiled of the ending and the first and second half of the book probably went through some big changes.

If I cried for this book, it’s score would be even higher. And I’ve been so obsessed with discussing the relationship, without shedding light on the characterization, which is definitely an unfortunate side effect. Then it occurs that quite possibly the second half (26-42) deviated even further from the script than the first? It doesn’t have concept art or blocking, plus possibly (heavily) edited to omit correlation to other arcs. My major complaint for the second half is Ventress doesn’t do much and we know NOTHING about Vos, even though he is given screen time in the book. my, I just wish Ventress punch him harder and drag his idiotic mess back to the light sooner.

And to criticism about it being their ‘toxic’ relationship being portrayed as ‘true love’, well, it really depends on how thoughtful the reader is, right? I think if the reader is able to notice all these red flags and gave their own interpretation of the relationship and its outcome, it’d’ve been an educating experience. There’s what for the reader and what for the characters. They don’t know this ‘love’ is destroying them, and what kind of message is it sending? What ‘love’ depicted in the book is true then? I have my answers, and I hope every reader comes to their own as well.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, annnnnnnd Luke Skywalker

Probs gonna be a long post since I Cannot Shut Up, so here we go!

OBI WAN (see look I told you this was gonna be long)

How I feel about them:  HELLO HI YES I LOVE HIM A NORMAL AMOUNT.  Okay okay, besides the fact that he is Very Nice To Look At (c’mon, I must, I have EYES), I genuinely love Obi Wan because he wants to be a good person so, so badly, and he’s always ALWAYS trying to be better because he doesn’t believe he already is a good person.  His life is a literal living hellhole and he doesn’t crumple under all of that tragedy like literally everyone else does, he takes a moment, puts a cheeky smile back on his face, and gets back up and keeps going.  He can be a hypocrite, he tends to look over things he really shouldn’t or gets the wrong idea about things and just shuts off what he doesn’t want to deal with, he’s overconfident and a little snobby and petty and a bit of an asshole, and he makes mistakes because he is human, and I love him for all of those flaws because if he was perfect, I wouldn’t like him as much.  He’s funny and reckless and would literally die before letting anything he cared about get hurt, he wants to do everything at once so he can help everyone and he literally gives all of himself to a cause because he cares and y’all, he is the most distinguished disaster I have ever come across and he deserves peace and rest and loved ones who don’t die in his arms or betray him and he’s one of the most brilliant fighters I have ever seen and he just draws you in.  You can’t help but want to watch him.

Romantic ships:  I will love him and Anakin together past my dying breaths; they’re soulmates.  I can also enjoy seeing him with Quinlan or Ventress, and of course Satine.

Non-Romantic OTPs:  Anakin again, I just love them and will take them any way I can get.  Also Cody, Cody is great.  And Ahsoka-- especially post-Order 66 (c’mon Kenobi movie don’t let me down now).  And Padmé!  Ugh, I’m mad TCW refused to let us see the Obi/Pads friendship the movies promised us they had.

Unpopular Opinion:  Two big ones.  First, that Anakin is the most important person in his life.  I can’t see it any other way, and I know other people would disagree.  Second, that he’s a good person and ALSO kinda a jerk.  He’s one of the most popular figures in this fandom with the most mercurial fanbase.  I’d say a good 85% adore him, but then the 15% who don’t hate him with a burning passion.  Seriously, it’s like to these people Palpatine was a better Master to Anakin than he was, jeez-- I’m digressing.  Anyway, it’s like in retaliation, the other 85% have put him up on a pedestal as someone who’s done no wrong whatsoever.  And here I am in the middle like, I love him to hell and back and always will, he’s legit one of my favorite characters, but he isn’t perfect.  Like I said, it’s hard for me to like perfect characters with no flaws.  So yea, I guess that’s it.

Something I wish would happen/had happened with them in canon:  MORE OBIKIN MOMENTS BECAUSE I’M NEEDY.  Ok but in reality, there’s a couple things, most I’m discovering have to do with female characters.  I wish he hadn’t faked his death when Ahsoka was there.  I get why Anakin had to be there to witness it, otherwise he wouldn’t believe it, but Obes, my dude, there was no reason why you had to (further) traumatize a sixteen year old over this.  She really did not need to have you die in her arms, you of all people know how shitty that feels.  I also want to know why he didn’t speak up (or if he did and we didn’t see it) at Ahsoka’s trial.  Was he being punished for Mandalore?  Going off of that, I wish we actually got to see him mourn Satine for more than 0.5 seconds of him looking sad after she died and then it literally never being brought up again (I’m looking at you here, Season 7, give me SOMETHING).  I’d also like to see him having some sort of meaningful interaction with Leia that would make her naming her only child after him make more sense (I actually have a really good penpals style idea about this, but I don’t know if I’d be able to write it before the Kenobi show comes out and josses it).  Also, I heard that the original Twin Suns episode of Rebels was supposed to have Kanan going to Tatooine with Ezra, and I really would like to see a Kanan/Obi Wan interaction, it just sounds like so much potential for angsty goodness!!! ;_;

AHSOKA

How I feel about them: My brave, brave girl!  She was what got me into the prequels in general, if you can believe it (wow, my star wars watching order is just WEIRD), I had to know more about her after seeing literally one glimpse of her in Rebels and then saw the Tumblr fandom explode.  She’s enduring and snarky and clever and a total badass and I adore how we got to see her grow from a spunky little kid into a shining, confident young woman who I’d follow anywhere.  Anyway, I love her and god did she deserve so much BETTER FROM EVERYTHING.  HER LIFE SUCKED TOO AND SHE TOLD LIFE TO FUCK OFF AND KEPT GOING.

Romantic ships:  I adore her and Kaeden Larte from the Ahsoka novel and you can pry my headcanon that they’re still together up to the Sequel trilogy out of my cold dead hands.  Also Barriss Offee (WHY DO ALL MY STAR WARS SHIPS HAVE A PATTERN?  CAN WE NOT BE BETRAYING EACH OTHER FOR FIVE SECONDS PLEASE).  Also Riyo Chuchi, that was really cute!!!

Non-Romantic OTP’s:  Snips n’ Skyguy all the way!!!!  But also argh, I adore Ahsoka and Rex and everything about them and Season 7 is going to KILL ME.  I also love seeing Ahsoka and Padmé interact, and I really do like the little bits we see of her and Obi Wan and I want MORE of them >:(

Unpopular Opinion:  This is gonna sound weird since I just said that seeing Ahsoka in Rebels was what got me into TCW and the prequels, but I really didn’t like her characterization in Rebels all that much after I went back and saw her in TCW.  I know she grew up and was traumatized and matured, but Rebels!Ahsoka just seemed a bit too severe, a bit too peaceful (she’s always been a firebrand), a bit too quiet.  Yea she grew, but I feel like the environment she grew up in wouldn’t foster the personality change she got in Rebels.  She was a bit of a hot mess in TCW, and the Ahsoka novel kinda showed more of that personality in an older version of her and felt more right than what we got in Rebels.  

Something I wish would happen/had happened with them in canon: A GROUP HUG WITH ANAKIN AND OBI WAN IN SEASON 7, PREFERABLY HER PICKING THEM BOTH UP LEGEND OF KORRA STYLE.  Ok but really there’s a LOT of things.  First, that she never liked Lux Bonteri.  I’m sorry, I’m petty.  He just reminds me way too much of my IRL friend’s stupidass boyfriend who I Do Not Like and I never got what Ahsoka actually saw in him ;p  Second is that I did not like how Ezra saved her in Rebels.  It’s a grumpy point for me because I certainly like how she managed to outlive the entire Order that kicked her out, it’s poetic, and if they did have Vader kill her I’d still be grumpy because it would be just another Prequel era woman who got killed off because she wasn’t in the OT while the males all find some way to be alive despite not being in the OT.  HOWEVER, you will never convince me that Kanan wasn’t the one who deserved that time-travel fixit.  Kanan had a family-- a CHILD, who he left behind.  Kanan had a future, and a story point that was just left unfinished and unsatisfying for me and other fans, if what I’ve heard was right.  As much as it would annoy me, Ahsoka dying facing Vader makes sense from a narrative point because it would follow the path that Vader destroys everyone he ever loved until he meets Luke.  Kanan’s death felt sudden and forced, and the fact that they had the audacity to use his death to be like “oh no Kanan had to die and become a Spirit Wolf solely to tell Ezra he needed to bring AHSOKA back”, come on.  Rebels didn’t establish Ahsoka and Kanan having any sort of meaningful relationship, it makes no sense for that to be his final wish, so it just feels a LOT like favoritism on Filoni’s part.  So yea, I don’t know what I wanted to save Ahsoka because I did want her alive, but it definitely shouldn’t have been at the expense of Kanan.  Meh.  Ok, but on a happier note, I really wanna see Anakin’s ghost on Endor reuniting with her again cuz that would be sweet and make me cry.  I also wanna see Ahsoka interacting with Obi Wan on Tatooine in the new show because please it would be perfect, she’s already met Leia, now she can meet Luke!  Also, if we could actually see her find Ezra, that would be very nice, thank you.

LUKE

How I feel about this character: Luke Skywalker is one of the bravest, most kindest men in the galaxy.  He’s not the stereotypical macho hero, he’s goofy and he whines and sulks and he makes dumb jokes and he rushes right into things, but he’s determined as all hell and once he loves you, he’s never letting go.  He wants to fix everything!  He has so many ideas!  He’s so bright and you can’t help but fall in love with his smile and his sparkling eyes and you want all his dreams and plans (because he has so, so many of them) to come true, and he will make them come true, because he is stubborn like both of his parents before him.  He worked through the discovery of his beloved father being a monster, and not only did he love him despite that, he did the unthinkable and BROUGHT HIM BACK.  LUKE BROUGHT ANAKIN HOME BECAUSE HE LOVED AND BELIEVED IN HIM AND HE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO DO IT.  I just wish he had gotten the happy ending his parents never did (and that he had had for 40 years before it was ripped away whoops I got salt on this haha).

Romantic ships: Complicated.  I think he would be really cute with Ezra if they ever actually met; their personalities would mesh nicely and I think they’d make a great team!  However, I don’t really ship him with anyone else, and me the ace again is projecting major aro/ace vibes onto him because I can *blows raspberry*

Non-Romantic OTP:  BROT3 WITH HAN AND LEIA!!!!  FOREVER AND ALWAYS!!!!!!!!  Y’all but they literally saved the galaxy together, and Luke and Leia love each other so much they knew there was a connection from the very beginning and always supported each other and the BEST space siblings, argh that forehead kiss was my favorite part of The Last Jedi I cry but I also love the chaotic dumbass duo that is Han and Luke and how they’d legit die for each other and have each others’ backs.  And, Luke and R2 will always always make my heart melt because these guys are the best team!  And Chewie, cannot forget Chewie, Chewie loves his stupid blonde little brother.  Ya know what, I’ll also add in Rey for the pure potentiality of what could have been.

Unpopular Opinion:  Well it’s certainly not unpopular to anyone I talk to, but Lucasfilms disagrees with me, so I’m gonna put forth that I don’t care WHAT the explanation is, I could never ever ever see Luke even thinking about murdering his nephew in his sleep, not just a “slip up”, not “only for a second”, no.  Yes, people can change in thirty years, and I’ve begrudgingly accepted a lot of his actions in TLJ, but not that one.  Luke would NEVER.  A more unpopular one I have would be that he’s not as much of a “innocent cinnamon roll” as fandom makes him out to be.  We see from the beginning of Episode 4 that Luke has the Skywalker temper and he’s a bit on the rude side, even though to me that seems a little more like issues with a filter that he works on developing throughout the OT.  But yeah, people tend to declaw him a bit and forget this is the same sarcastic, snarky guy that can and will happily kick the ass of basically anyone who he can’t talk his way out of trouble with (in this, he is very much Obi Wan’s apprentice).

Something I wish would happen/had happened with them in canon:  LET HIM APPEAR TO REY WITH ANAKIN’S FORCE GHOST 2K19!!!  PLEASE JJ I BEG YOU YOU LITERALLY NAMED THE MOVIE AFTER THEM.  Also, please just let him take an active role in Episode 9.  I understand it’s about the new protagonists, but please do not include the Sequel Trilogy in the “Skywalker Saga” if you’re just gonna sideline him the entire time.  If he couldn’t have his original happy ending, please let him be happy at the end of all of this.

My Path with the Force

: A Star Wars-fan Chronicle.

                                                                                           by. J.M.Giovine.

A long time ago, back in the 90s, I was 5 and the remastered edition of the Original Trilogy was released on VHS format. Star Wars entered in my life. I remeber those good old days. Since I’m the child of a failed marriage, my father used to pick me up every single weekend to take me for a ride for some father-and-son time, just the two of us, sometimes with my dad’s family as well. Like I said, good old days. Before that, my whole world turned around Batman and Jurassic Park, as well as pretty much every single Disney-animated flick I got my hands into. One of those weekeds, my dad took me to a Toy Store, and my wonder solidified the moment I saw a giant box-set of MicroMachines figures that immediately draw my attention... and eventually became my first merchandise (purchased by my dad as a gift) of the soon-to-be-my favorite franchise, ever.

Fun thing was, I never saw any of the original films, nor played any of the LucasArts videogames released back then. I entered into this fandom as an innocent five-year-old poser, but obviously, my curiosity and wanderlust won’t stop there. Eventually, I’ll turn to acknowledge the franchise from a movie perspective, ironically, almost immediatelly after acquire my most precious set of ships (which I still possess, for the most part). That very same year, my grandmother came one afternoon with several copies of VHS tapes on her bag that she proudly showed to us; the rents of the week. Little I knew, that would be it, the moment I’ll be acquainted with the Original Trilogy for the first time. Fun thing was, my grandmother is a considerably devoted catholic, and an awfully religious person (she’s nuts), but if I ever have to feel grateful about something she did for me, was introducing me to two different worlds I love: Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. She knew the films (at a certain degree), and basically spoiled me Vader was Luke’s father the very moment I pop A New Hope’s into the VHS. But I didn’t care back then, because I was hooked. Somehow, I realized, this was it; “this is the universe I love”. 

I still think about it. What was it at first? I mean, I can answer that almost right away with a 6-hour-long explanation why I love this universe, but to be fair, I really wonder what was back in the day in my earliest childhood years, the very essential element that made me fell for it. The space ships? Maybe, that’s probably a reliable esthetic trait that’ll captivate any small child. Perhaps the whole Jedi mythos presented lightly between the three episodes, later explored with a larger detail in further entries and titles from both, the Expanded and New Canon. Which 5-year-old child wouldn’t want to be a Jedi Knight just as Obi Wan, or Luke by the time he showed up in Return of the Jedi (1983), weilding his brand-new green lightsaber in order to defeat Jabba’s band of criminals and guards. We’re getting closer. But I suspect there was more to it. Of course, being a grade-school kid my thoughts never went anywhere further than my visual and spectating admiration for the trilogy. That lasted 2 more years, 2 years of me asking like crazy the whole action figures and vehicles I was so desperate to possess and play with. Hardly I was gifted with some of the merchandise, aside my beloved MicroMachines set, and then, it came 1999...

I can just imagine, for the elder people, what this meant back at the release of The Phantom Menace (1999), although, it kindda happened the same way in 2015; people went nuts and fans all over the world realised it returned. Star Wars was back, but not in the shape of a horrible remasterization in a re-release of a classic film(s), but as a brand new episode. Something that’ll continue the story left behind more almost 20 years ago. Young version of characters we all loved from the first ones, as well as new introductions of characters that, from the distance, looked like they had certain potential. I mean, I just remember Darth Maul being literaly everywhere at stores, promos, banners. The guy everyone thought would be the new face of these new installments, just as Vader was years ago. The rest, well, what can I say? But this ain’t a review. To be completely honest... I liked it. Never watch it at the theater (until the 3D re-release back in 2012), but I immediately bought the VHS. My grandma and aunt actually went to the movies to see it, they hated it.

But obviously, I had my reservations in regards of the newest Star Wars flick, and my hopes to see an actual connection between this “new” vision, and the episodes I’ve learn to love these past couple years. So, you could say, I decided to give it a pass and accept what I was experiencing. Back then, having already 7 years, my judgement towards films wasn’t-let’s say- well defined.To me, if something belongs to what I already know, it was alright, but deep down, I knew something wasn’t right with this newest film, it didn’t feel the same. Was I set to become one of those folks that’ll limit themselves to what was already stablished rather than to accept new ideas and concepts inside a franchise set to expand? Well, thankfully, few years later I’ll understand it was all due to how poorly the film was crafted. Also... yeah, Jar Jar...

But not everything was that bittersweet. I fell in love with the franchise right before seeing Phantom... so by the time, all toy lines (Kenner, particularly) were everywhere from both, this newest episode and the original trilogy line, which endured several years afterwards, before the newest 2004 line. I acquire several other figures, and I was enjoying myself pretty much alright. I couldn’t wait for more, and only two episodes left, my childhood excitement grew exponentially by the realization that, soon, I’ll possess 6 VHS of my favorite saga ever (ha!). Like that, and continously buying as much merchandise as my parents were capable of, 2002 came along. The so-much-expected episode two came, and this was officially my first Star Wars film ever experienced on the big screen. Save your pity, please, I don’t need it.

I was aware, probably for the first time, of the quality decaying this franchise was suffering, probably the moment I saw Hayden Christensen portraying the long-expected-hero Anakin Skywalker. If I ever check a top 10 list of the worst casting choices ever made, this guy would probably be in the first 5 spots, easily. Even the toy-brand seemed... I don’t know, uninspired? Yeah, not much of a big change, but somehow I felt way attracted for the lines of episode 1 than this one. The starships never took my breath away (except for a fully renderized Slave I, the very first Original Trilogy starship brought back for these films), nor the aliens or the newest incursions of Jedi felt innovative or interesting enough. Probably the Clones, but I have to admit, my interest for this army came years later, when Genndy Tartakovsky’s The Clone Wars, as well as the Expanded Universe’s stories were release, in order to fill the gap left by Episode’s 2 need of ending at the very beginning of the long-awaited wars.

Another spark of honesty, I never watched the show on it’s innitial release, in 2003, since I never had cable, ergo, never saw Cartoon Network, even though I really wish I could’ve. My initiation with the short cartoon came a year later, and a year before the heavily anticipated release of Episode 3. The first time I did came around the show was at my highschool tutor’s house. Every day, after my school schedule, my mom sended me every afternoon to my tutor’s place, literaly, on the street behing mine’s. Why here? Easy, after finishing my whole homework (for the next day) we got some spare time before our moms (we were several other kids at the house), and that’s when, located at the livingroom basically identical to my place’s, my tutor’s son was watching some tv. He looked nerdy af, and what was he watching? No more and no less than the show’s second season, episode 19: Anakin VS Asajj Ventress.

After that, my next step was some of the best I’ve had in regards of the franchise: the Original Trilogy DVD release in 2004. Just as my dad did, back in 1997, in 2004 I spend my first Christmas with my dad’s family, and one of my presents (one of my all time favorites) was my very first DVD player, also, packed along the remasterization (one of many, Christ...) for the same format that launched also a brand new toy series better known as the Original Trilogy Collection from Hasbro. I was one step closer to fulfillment, and for the first time I had the Original Trilogy in my power. At the same time, my highschool’s best friend lend me the DVD of Tartakovsky’s series from 2003, recently launched in a compilation of the entire 20 episodes. That’s when I saw the whole show for the first time. Again, aside of my bitterweet experience with Episodes 1 & 2, I felt great passion towards Star Wars, once again. 

My first Star Wars game also came in 2004, the same year I first acquire my Game Cube console, that meant I was finally able to buy Rebel Strike: Rogue Squadron 3 and I was pretty much at candy land. I played Rogue Squadron 1, for the Nintendo 64, a while ago, and I was pretty much addicted to the epic arcade game, located at a Peter Piper Pizza near my house. On the videogame background, this was the only thing I needed so far, until I realize of the existance of other games such as Battlefront, Jedi Academy-Outcast, and countless other elder games I never had the chance to play. Probably my official first Star Wars game was the PC exclusive, Dark Forces 2, but I never managed to finish it (I still hadn’t have the chance to, since I’m no longer able to play it), but overall, Roque Squadron 3 was everything I needed, surely I wouldn’t mind experience other stuff, specially when first realizing about the existance of the memorable Knights of the Old Republic, a game I considered for superior gamers back then. 

2005 came, the first trailers for Revenge of the Sith were everywhere and dropped every 5 seconds. But that wasn’t just it. I was able to follow the weekly release of the Clone Wars Season 3, that was supposed to end the series right at the very beginning of Episode 3, which it did. My best friend and I saw the series finally together, at his place; pizza, soda and chips, the two of us excited for the finale and, oh boy, we were. With Revenge... it came my first official midnight release, something that’ll take a while to return to my life, mostly after highschool. My entire family and I went to the movie-theater, and it became one of my most beloved experiences in a movie, from my entire life. Back in the day, that movie gave me everything I wanted out of a franchise I followed. Every single plot-detail, every single arc, fanservice (which I didn’t know it was back then), and full circles leading to Episode 4 were there, in all their glory. And, the less I know, it hit me: this was my last Star Wars. Only two episodes at the movie theater, the rest experienced at home-video. Not that I regret anything, but its never easy to let go something so attached to our lives. If I only knew...

Not much to say about the next years. A new decade arrived. I was way past buying and collecting figures or vehicles, and in regards of the films, for some reason, I never acquired the prequels on DVD. Somehow I felt as if I was already complete with my Original Trilogy. I really wanted The Clone Wars series on DVD, but never managed to buy them, either for the lack of money, or I never found them at local stores (even nowadays its extremely difficult and expensive to get). In 2008, The Clone Wars came out... which was already extremely weird, considering some of the characters from the original animated series came back, like Asajj Ventress, and naturaly, since I ended my journey with the saga, I lost my entire interest for Star Wars material furthermore, I ignored it. Therefore, I never saw nor the movie or the newest 3D Animated show, created by Dave Filoni, a name I’ll learn to admire and respect almost a decade after. We’re talking a complete absence of interest for the franchise during a 4 year period until the impossible happened...

George Lucas, after a personal professional defeat, sold his epic and extremely profitable (still) franchise to Disney, now belonging executively speaking to Kathleen Kennedy, who immediately confirmed to the world what we all thought would never come: a brand new episodic installment in the franchise will eventually be made... continuing the events concluded on Episode 6 and completely throwing away everything that happened before the sale, that is, everything considered aside of the films, the former Expanded Universe, being the Clone Wars the only property still considered important and canon inside the newest Disney reign. Suddenly my love came back, just as it is when you’re in a marriage that is merely a dry relationship  between to irrelevant individuals and then, out of nowhere, you remember how lucky you are of having that person by your side. But it wasn’t just me, the whole world went bananas, and everyone needed 2015 to arrive, as of now.

And so it did. The Force Awakens came on December of 2015. It quickly became one of the highest grossing films of all time. One of the most succesfull releases ever, Hollywood-speaking. Fans were excited, hopeful and, let’s be honest, fearfull for the upcoming results. We were still harmed for the prequels and we needed Star Wars to be what we loved in the first place. To me, it was, I felt like experiencing Star Wars for the first time in a long while. I felt that excitement, the struggle, the emotion and power I felt when watching my old VHS, back in the 90s. This was the worthy succesor I was expecting. Star Wars was everywhere and, once again, I felt like a five year old. Of course, my curiosity and dissappointment appear once I saw people felt... conflicted by this new episode. Somehow people really didn’t feel like enjoying something so reminiscent of the old-school franchise we all grow up loving, instead, they criticized the fact that “we didn’t got anything new” and the film relay so much on nostalgia and similarities to the original episodes. Of course I never felt that way, at least, not in a negative way. 

But that didn’t matter! Hope was still foreseen and Disney also anounced their next installment as a prequel that’ll take place right before A New Hope (1977), and so, the first “A Star Wars Story” was meant to be released on December 2016. Rogue One was a blast, and unlike Force Awakens, it seemed this was what every single fan was expecting. Classic Star Wars, a brand new take on this world that’ll fill a gap left on episode 4 and, what we all agree was the best aspect of the film; a complete tone of war and battles worthy of any great moment in the franchise. People started to believe Disney was actually caring about the franchise future, and the horizon offered a bright looking for the next installments. We had Star Wars literally everywhere, and new films (both, episodic and spin offs) were already scheduled, also, bringin important names in the director’s chair for each one. Me, personally, I liked fine. I understood why people loved it, and I understood why this could easily foreshadow episode 7. Overall, I thought it was an excuse to showcase a pop-corn spectacle, but yeah, a pretty entertaining one, but non of the complexity and creativity from the originals were there, making it a little disposable for my taste. Regardless, I didn’t mind, and I felt as excited and hopeful as I was a year before it.

I guess I wasn’t entirely prepared for what came on 2017; the whole The Last Jedi controversy. Rian Johnson wasn’t that known, except for directing one of the favorite sci-fi flicks from 2012 and two of the best episodes of Breaking Bad. People either hated it, or just liked the film. Me? It’s hard to say but I enjoyed it pretty hard. The next episode got me hooked, invested and intrigued all the way through. At the midnight release, on December, I watched the film with my cousin and my best friend (who just finished watching the whole film-saga, and she became instantly a fan), and the three of us were dazzled all the way through. My realization came when I arrived home that night and found out, all my contacts on Facebook were ranting the hell out of it, specially the elder ones. I was confused and, downright, alone when it came to my joy towards Episode 8. The fandom lost their minds, and the hatred rised considerably againts the new direction given by Disney and Kennedy. Star Wars quickly stopped being what it was before; the saga we all had tons of fun discussing and talk about. Suddenly it became hard to talk about the saga, and the passion seemed to have been drained from it, something that I confirmed when Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) was released.

The second spin-off in the saga became the biggest box office flop for the franchise on that very same year and critics partially seemed to like it. For audiences it was as harmless and inconsequential, pretty much unlike the overall received of Rogue One. But, one thing was for sure; the franchise hype was starting to fade. From my own perspective, I started to lose interesting, but not for the same reason not-pleased fans were, but because I felt the polarization all over the place. Again, Star Wars wasn’t fun anymore. 

However, and after the anouncement of Abrams returning to the franchise in order to conclude it, somehow I felt the excitement once again. Slowly, and once 2019 arrived, I slowly started acquiring new Star Wars merchandise, from the LucasArts videogames I wasn’t able to play back in the day, like Republic Commando, Battlefront 2 and Jedi Starfighter. Also, I got my 5 Black Series figures, from 2016 to date, being Ahsoka Tano my first, then Thrawn, General Kenobi, Darth Maul and the Second Sister. The trailers for The Rise of Skywalker were dropped and my hype was real. Also, Disney + would release the very first live action tv series on the saga, with The Mandalorian. 

So, somehow, 2019 exploded in Star Wars, and I wasn’t the only one. On November, only a month-away for Episode 9, The Mandalorian made all of us fell in love with the franchise, making us feeling like we were discovering something that we needed and wanted at the same time. Also, people played Jedi Fallen Order, and everyone loved it, unfortunately for me, I haven’t got the chance to do it as well. Nevertheless, my amazement belonged completely to Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, with 8 episodes of aproximately 40 minutes each, and providing wonderful connection between Clone Wars and Rebels, this time, with the whole esthetic scenarios and props from the Original Trilogy, all this before watching the last Episode.

And so, the saga came to a supposed ending, at least, in regards of the Skywalker installments. That was it; no more title cards in the middle of the open space, no more drama between the Skywalker family, no more John Williams. Sigh. Well, for my eyes, I was partially pleased, but I had my issues. Call it an overall excess of expectations, call it non-blinded judgement, but there was something missing, something worthy of the franchise I have loved most of my life. It could’ve been better, for sure, and the commitment from the previous two was lacking. Abrams had the opportunity to go all the way with something memorable (something accomplished by Endgame, for example), but for what it was, it was just good enough. That’s it. My inner child never died, but wasn’t completely baffled or amazed. Serviceable, and that was it.

But that’s not the end, for me. I’m still acquiring the novels and comic books (which I started buying back in 2015), and my collection of figures and merchindise is still growing, slowly. Also, several tv-shows are scheduled to be release in the next years, so, Star Wars isn’t over. I’m still excited to see this franchise expanding, and my devotion hasn’t change a bit. I’m still a fan, despite the ups and downs. I guess when it comes to the Disney domain, I’m glad, considering Lucas didn’t wanted to direct or make any more sequels or spin-offs so, without the company’s purchase, Star Wars might still be a franchise entirely for the geeks, and being pretty much resting nowadays. I’m glad it is back, and I’m glad there’s more to explore, perhaps not as people wished, but there’s no denying, the saga may have concluded, but it is far from being over, or dead, and I’ll be there, experiencing it, consuming it, and being in love with it, pretty much, until I become one with the Force.

hi! you seem really well-versed in sw novel knowledge, so i was wondering if you have any good novel recommendations for obi-wan fans who want to learn more about him? mainly canon ones, but legends can be included too if there are some you really like. sorry if you've gotten this ask before!

Hi!  ♥  There’s not a whole lot of canon novels yet, as they only put out a handful a year and are more focused on the later years of the SW Saga, so I’m going to have to go with a mix here!- I’m not sure there are any canon novels with Obi-Wan playing a direct role, other than maybe Dark Disciple?  Which I haven’t read yet, but some people love that one and some people hate it.  But it is based on future plans for TCW that they never got time to animate, though, and it’s centered around Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress.  Oh, but if you want a canon Obi-Wan story, the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic has some really beautiful art and some great character moments!- From a Certain Point of View only has the three stories with Obi-Wan in them (though, he’s a background character in several other stories) but they are STELLAR and worth reading!  The Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Yoda stories all really help give depth and feelings to the story of their lives and some great, great character moments.  Oh, and that one is canon as well!- Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover might still be considered canon given George Lucas’ involvement in line-editing this novelization, and it’s not just an Obi-Wan book, it’s really more of an Anakin book, but it’s great for the Obi-Wan&Anakin feelings re: his character!All the ones after this point are Legends!  There’s not much to Obi-Wan’s character in canon, we know pretty much nothing about him pre-The Phantom Menace except little comments strewn through the movies and TCW, which can be frustrating.  If you’re looking to get to know his canon life, these won’t help you, but if you’re looking for good Obi-Wan Kenobi stories to help potentially get your own view of him into shape or just to enjoy his character, these can be good!- Wild Space by Karen Miller is my go-to rec for Obi-Wan novels, though, it’s Legends it was still written after TCW started, so it ties into the show really well.  Also it’s HILARIOUS and GREAT and the entire first half of the book has great stuff with Anakin and the second half is 100% pure OBI-WAN KENOBI IS A GODDAMNED TANK.  I haven’t read Miller’s other books yet, I doubt they could live up to Wild Space, but they’re probably worth checking out, too!- Rogue Planet by Greg Bear is set in the early days of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship and it’s pure Star Wars weirdness and fantasy/scifi fun!  Living star ships and dangerous races in Coruscant’s underground and Jedi shenanigans, it’s a lot of fun!- Kenobi by John Jackson Miller is a semi-rec, there’s a lot I like in the book and it’s great at giving feelings, but I kind of side eye some of Miller’s undercurrents, they’re not always great at meshing with the actual canon.  But this is a pure Obi-Wan Kenobi story, of his early days on Tatooine, and I do enjoy it for the feelings it gives me!  (Though, it’s less centered on Obi-Wan himself than you might think, it’s only sort of half his story.)- I haven’t read Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn or Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno yet, but I’ve enjoyed everything else I’ve read from both of them, so I would give a cautious “maybe check those out!” heads up. “Changing Season” by Zahn is a short story set during the Clone Wars that was GREAT, too, if you can find that one!Anti-Recs:  Anything by Karen T raviss because a) she behaved vilely towards people on-line and b) she never read any other SW books while writing hers and came in with a whole lot of really blatant agendas.  The Jedi Apprentice/Jedi Quest series–while they have some great moments, when Watson is on, she’s on, overall they’re not good worldbuilding imo and the people behave terribly in them and they’re incompatible with The Clone Wars, so they end up being really frustrating for me.  I do love the friends Obi-Wan has in them, I’d love to see them recanonized like Thrawn was, so they fit into canon, but I really dislike a lot in those books and people really do not behave in ways that make any kind of sense sometimes.This is all also very personally bent--what I enjoy might be completely different from someone else’s enjoyment.  I know a lot of people really love those JA/JQ novels and their love of them is just as valid as my frustration with them, for example.  Or, say, how I loved the Phasma novel and some people couldn’t stand it!  But I think this is the list that will best help you get the shape of Obi-Wan’s character when it comes to SW novels.  ♥

The Clone Wars: Heroes on Both Sides (3x10)

Summary: Padmé and Ahsoka meet with a Separatist leader in an attempt to open peace negotiations. 

Comments: The opening crawl from Episode II is:

The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere. [...]

I assume this episode gets its name from this text. But what does “there are heroes on both sides” actually mean? We can assume “both sides” refers to the Separatists and the Republic if we ignore the often overlooked third side (the sizable fraction of independent systems). 

And, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the Republic has heroes (simply because I don’t want to take the time to argue why this is not the case). But... the Separatists? 

General Grievous, Count Dooku, Ventress, Nute Gunray... who exactly on the Separatist side is a hero? Admiral Trench in Cat and Mouse? Cad Bane is a hero to me, but for different reasons than what the writers probably intended. Hondo is a hero for saving otherwise painfully dull episodes, but he’s not aligned with the Separatists... So who exactly? Where are these heroes hiding? 

And that brings us to Heroes on Both Sides... 

It turns out, people are not entirely good or bad. That’s it. That’s the message here. By “heroes,” the show means politics are not as simple as “Republic good” and “Separatists bad.” Padmé’s friend, a Separatist politician, is an actual human being and therefore a “hero” by the show’s standards. 

Heroes on Both Sides opens with an absolutely enthralling political debate in the senate over fiscal responsibility, and uh, the deregulation... of banks (or something). Turns out, that’s the premise of this episode. Padmé wants to end the war by suing for negotiation, but greedy senate members want to line their pockets by deregulating the banks to allow them to take on new lines of credit... 

After the corruption within the senate is thus established, the awful trio (Ani, Paddy, and Ahsoka) discuss the politics behind the debate. Ahsoka is confused and so Anakin tries to simplify it for her. He says, “the Separatists believe the Republic is corrupt, but...” and there’s a pause where I hoped the show was about to finally explain it for me, but he ends with “they’re wrong.” 

One of the most critical questions of the first two seasons (why did the Separatists leave the Republic?) is glossed over in a fraction of a line of dialogue. 

Speaking of dialogue, there’s a funny bit between Grievous and some droids. He’s giving a prep talk to his Transformer droids (which itself is absurd) and tells them, “Some of you may never return,” and then, on second thought, says, “Actually, none of you will return. But don’t let that get in your way.” 

I did a chuckle. Which is a nice way to remember that I am alive while watching this show.

Did Ahsoka’s outfit change? She also seems... older? There’s a poorly handled scene where she invites a boy she just met to check out her new outfit, so the camera pans over her recently sexualized body as if exhibiting the new character design to the audience. 

It’s made awkward by the exchange of dialogue. Ahsoka tells this boy to “Look at me. I'm not so bad, am I?” The camera then pans over her and he says, “No, not bad at all.” Then Ahsoka gets disgusted and says, “It seems boys are the same whether they’re Republic or separatist.”

WTF? She can’t invite comments about her appearance and then be offended by his innocuous response. Also, what was the point of this scene? Does this mouse-like boy return to fight Ahsoka or something? 

We also learned that Count Dooku is the leader of the Separarist Senate. He’s like the Palpatine of the other side. He’s teleconferencing into their senate meeting when a Separatist representative says, “This is a democracy and, unlike the Republic, corporations do not rule us.” Which directly contradicts everything we know about both the Republic and the Separatists. The latter are literally run by The Banking Clan, the Techno Union, and the Trade Federation. Like, the statement is even directly contradicted in the very next scene, when the pro-war Republic representative claims his profit margins depend on the war continuing and Dooku reassures everyone in the room by claiming everyone will receive their fair share of profits... 

The dialogue just doesn’t match what is actually happening in the show. It’s so confusing. After Anakin finds out about Paddy and Ahsoka meeting with Paddy’s friend in the Separatist Alliance, he yells at them for going “too far” and doing something dangerous and illegal. 

Ahsoka rightly takes issue with this and says, “You would do the same. You do the same all the time.” Anakin gets all serious and replies, “This... was too much.”

Excuse me, what? 

In The Academy, Ahsoka supported the insurrection of a group of young cadets against the government of their neutral homeworld. Afterwards, Anakin congratulates her on a job well done. Why was that okay? More than the shifting standards, the double standards of Anakin are infuriating to listen to. It’s okay for him to do something, but not okay for his student. 

Anyways, Heroes on Both Sides tries to backtrack so far backwards it breaks itself in the process. Both sides have been portrayed in stark, black and white terms in all previous episodes so it’s much too late to portray the majority of the Separatist senate as normal, peace-loving people who vote for open negotiations. Or, as the show calls, them, “heroes.” 

In conclusion, the war continues. Look forward to lots of clones dying. 

I feel like I haven't as active lately, although I guess that's a matter of perspective.  Work's had me busier than normal, and my sleep schedule's all fouled up from that.  Right now my goal is to spend all day writing, and since there's no new episode of Dragon Ball Super to talk about, I'm gonna discuss the four Star Wars novels I re-read. 

I'm a big fan of the Sith.  My favorite characters in the Star Wars movies are all Sith Lords, followed by Luke, Chewbacca, Lobot, and Wat Tambor.  None of that Dark Jedi crap, or whatever Kylo Ren is supposed to be.  I get genuinely irritated whenever I see Sith fanart that includes Asajj Ventress, because even though I like Ventress, but she's no Sith and she never will be.  

Consequently, I never had any use for the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" unless it delved into Sith lore.  This didn't happen a lot, since the Sith were key players in the movies, and there were stricter editorial controls on how they could be used in the books, comics, cartoons, edible underwear, etc.  The Sith would appear in a lot of other media works, but generally they didn't introduce a lot of backstory like the Prequel Trilogy did.  

Fortunately, they did publish some novels in the late 2000's that scratched my itch.  The Darth Bane trilogy expanded on the life of a Sith Lord mentioned very briefly in the novelization of "The Phantom Menace".  In the movie, the Jedi Council initially believe "the Sith have been extinct for a millennium".  When they learn otherwise, Yoda notes that there are always two Sith at a time, "no more, no less".  The novelization connects these two ideas by establishing that there were once many Sith Lords in the galaxy, until a visionary named Darth Bane reformed the order by establishing the "Rule of Two".   While the rest of the Sith were driven to "extinction", Bane and his apprentice, Darth Zannah, continued their order in secret, and the Sith in the movies are the inheritors of their efforts.

For a lot of years, this was all anyone really knew about Darth Bane.  In 2001, there was a short story entitled "Bane of the Sith", and Dark Horse Comics published a miniseries entitled "Jedi vs. Sith", which depicted the climactic battle that saw the destruction of the old Sith order.  Darth Bane was a minor player in the story.  He stayed out of the fighting mostly because he had no respect for the Sith leaders, and so while they were all getting killed in the final act, he was recruiting a child to join his new order.  Mostly, though, these stories simply illustrated the same basic points made in the Phantom Menace novel.  

Published in 2006, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction went further than that by assembling these stories into a Bane-centric story.  The author, Drew Karpyshyn, detailed the entire early life of the character, from his early adulthood as a miner, to a brief career as a sergeant in the Sith's army, to his training in the Sith Academy on Korriban, to his disillusionment with the Sith status quo.  While the events of "Jedi vs. Sith" are used in the novel, Karpyshyn added the twist that Bane was secretly engineering the Sith defeat.  

It's a really good read, because it does a great job establishing an anti-hero as a protagonist.  Bane is one evil dude, but he also has a refreshing sincerity and pragmatism about him.  He's grateful for the opportunity to learn at the Sith Academy, but when he realizes the Order's shortcomings, he refuses to compromise.  His colleagues think he's wasting his time consulting old scrolls written by the ancient Sith Masters, but if you've watched the movies, you know Bane's way works, at least for a thousand years longer than the system he replaced.  As cruel and malicious as Bane is, you can still root for him as a man with a vision.  His opponents can't see past the ends of their noses, and that makes them more frustrating than the atrocities they commit on the battlefield.  

The two sequels, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, mostly focus on Bane as he pioneers his new order.  He trains Zannah to be his apprentice, works to accumulate as many old Sith records as possible, and tries to become as powerful as he can while Zannah tries to decide when and how to kill him and take over.  Re-reading these, I realized they weren't quite as good as they were the first time, mainly because Darth Zannah doesn't have a whole lot going on.  She basically agrees with all of Bane's teachings, so there's not as much conflict between them as there was between Bane and his teachers.   When I finished the last book, I really wanted a sequel about Darth Zannah or her eventual successor, Darth Cognus, but now I'm not so sure it would have been worth the trouble.  Bane had a messianic quality about him because he altered the course of history.  He changed the game, while Zannah and Cognus were just following the trail he had already blazed for them.

This sort of brings me to the fouth book I read, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno.  Published in 2012, Plagueis was sort of a spiritual successor to the Bane trilogy, as it also attempts to expand lore introduced in the Prequel Trilogy.  This time, the story focuses on the "Sith legend" Palpatine shared with Anakin in Episode III.   In the movie, Plagueis was used as a way to suggest that the Sith possessed the means for Anakin to save his wife from dying, and Palpatine deliberately crafts the tale to imply that Plagueis was a somewhat decent fellow who only used his dark side power to protect "the ones he cared about".  

The book exposes that idea as a distortion of the truth.  The only things Darth Plagueis "cares about" in the novel is himself, and his menagerie of test subjects used for his bizarre experiments.  This doesn't come as much of a surprise, since Palpatine always twists the truth to suit his purposes.  Besides, Darth Plagueis wouldn't be much of a Sith Lord if he didn't put himself ahead of the rest of the universe.  The problem is that it's not enough to build a novel around.  The key aspect of Darth Vader, for example, is that he really was a tragic, conflicted villain.  He really did get into the Sith game because he had loved ones he wanted to protect, and he was brought down by this noble quality.  It's that extra complexity that allows Vader to star in six whole movies.  

Plagueis--at least the version provided by Luceno--has no such redeeming quality.  He's just an asshole who doesn't want to die, which isn't particularly innovative as motivations go.  Several other Sith Lords in the Expanded Universe pursued the same goal.  The only hook to Plagueis is that he might have actually succeeded, except we already know he didn't succeed because Palpatine told Anakin that he was killed by his apprentice.  So most of the book feels like an exercise in futility.  Plagueis spends the entire book working on plans and projects which will be abandoned or perfected by his more charismatic sucessors.  In the end, he manages to survive all the way into the events of "The Phantom Menace", which is a pretty brazen retcon, but it serves to demonstrate how he's outlived his usefulness.  Even if he can cheat death, he no longer has a place among the living.  He's reduced to a bit player in his own story, but Plagueis himself never really catches on to this, and it's kind of dull watching him meander through the second half of the book without a clue.  

I struggled with this book the first time I read it, because Luceno seemed determined to namedrop every fictional name, place, species, or event that he could cram into the story.  It sort of suits the concept of the Sith as clandestine power brokers with a hand in everything that happens, but the Sith in the movies never had to go to such lengths to get that idea across.  The second read-through just confirmed my original complaint.  Much of the book is an extended callback to other, unrelated EU stories.  If Darth Maul hurts his arm in a comic book, you better believe Luceno mentions it in the Darth Plagueis novel, even though it has nothing to do with the plot.  

The reason I'm discussing all of this on a Dragon Ball blog is because when I re-read these books, it reminded me just how much of an influence they had over the fanfic I've been writing for the past couple of years.  Like the Bane and Plagueis novels, I'm trying to expand a handful of lines from one episode of DBZ into a fully realized character.  In particular, I always took some cues from the way Darth Bane was a forgotten figure from a thousand years ago, but he still managed to leave a lasting legacy.  And I liked how Bane was a transformative figure to the Sith, but his peers rejected him as a heretic and a fool.  It nicely mirrors the way the Jedi of the prequel era failed to recognize what they were dealing with in Anakin Skywalker.  

Both orders sort of adopted this mediocratic system.  The Sith of Bane's early years were basically warlords, fixated on glory and honor more than the underlying principle of the dark side of the Force.  They thought having lots of Sith Lords working together made them stronger, but it only encouraged individual weakness.  They embraced passions, but without any overriding sense of purpose.  So they'd kill and conquer and make love but they weren't really fufilling their true goals.  The Jedi of Anakin Skywalker's career were obsessed with micromanaging the Force.  They'd take custody of Force-sensitive beings at birth, forbid any and all attachment to the physical world, and basically do whatever they could to suppress emotionalism.  This was all meant to prevent any resurgence of dark side practitioners, except this only exacerbated the problem.  The Jedi never wiped out the Sith to begin with, so trying to prevent a revival of their kind was pointless.  The sterile, unfeeling nature of their order probably did more harm than good.  

In the same vein, I've been trying to establish the Ancient Super Saiyans as similarly transformative figures, since Goku was clearly a repudiation of all the Saiyan culture Raditz boasted about when the Saiyan race was first introduced.  Like the Jedi, the Saiyans tested their people's potential from birth, and showed little tolerance for dissent or new ideas.  Like the ancient Sith, the Saiyans were constantly undermining their own efforts with their infighting.  A strong leader could force them to work together, but only up to a certain point.  More critically, that strong leader couldn't risk letting anyone else rising to his level, which means that his political survival would necessarily be at odds with the natural evolution of his people.  

I haven't really delved into this in my story yet, but I'm getting closer to it, which I guess is why I'm trying to get the idea sorted out in my head.   What I've been driving at this whole time is to establish a Super Saiyan who's clearly beyond her people, but they're too stuck in their ways to appreciate it.  Lord Kaan was skeptical and somewhat afraid of Darth Bane, but he couldn't really get rid of him either.  Mace Windu didn't trust Anakin Skywalker, but he couldn't really do anything about it.  

And that may be what's been holding me back with Luffa's conflict with the Saiyans.  I need them to be able to do something about her, but that flies in the face of the analogy I've just drawn.  Unlike Darth Bane, Luffa has to fizzle out, and get lost in the dustbin of history.   Whatever she's trying to sell to the Saiyan people, it won't get accepted until Goku brings it back a thousand years later.  

On second thought, that isn't so unlike Darth Bane after all.  Something that stuck with me on my second reading was the opening scene of the Path of Destruction.  Before Bane joined the Sith, he was a cortosis miner basically living out the lyrics to "Sixteen Tons".  To offset his enormous debt, he would try to hustle people at card games, using his nascent Force powers to manipulate their emotions.  In the book, this backfires, because he manages to win a large pot one night, but  he inadvertently drives one of his opponents into a murderous rage.  Bane has to kill him in self-defense, and since the dead man was in the Republic Navy, he's forced to leave the planet and join the Sith military to avoid arrest.  

So while Bane had the skill and patience to win the game, he never got to collect his prize.  Even if he had collected, the money would have just gone to his creditors, so it would have made no difference.  At first, it seems like his joining the Sith is a sign of success and greatness, but it really isn't, at least not for him personally.  Bane founded a Sith Order that went on to take over the galaxy, but Bane himself never lived to see it.  For all the work he put into it, he still ended up dying on some backwater planet, which would have been his fate if he had stayed in the mines.  Similarly, Darth Plagueis was trying to bend fate to his will, only for fate to bend back in turn.  Even if he had accepted his obsolesence, he would have been no better off.  

I suppose this is the point to being an idealist.  None of these characters were planning to enjoy a peaceful retirement.  They weren't even trying to accomplish great things in their lifetime.  They were just following their beliefs as far as they could possibly go with them.  The final outcome was irrelevant.  

Star wars for the fandom ask

Thank you!

the character i least understand

Satine. I really wish I could find something about her to sink my teeth into, but really? Nada. There’s never been that “aha” moment for me with her character. 

interactions i enjoyed the most 

I’m honestly highly intrigued by Kylo Ren and Rey’s interactions. I understand why people are squicked by it, but for my part, I’ll be interested in seeing how that dynamic evolves in the next few films and how Disney will be pulling it off. 

Kallus's interaction with the Ghost crew on Rebels is interesting, particularly Zeb, and that’s hopefully something that gets explored further next season. Without a redemption=death scenario, thank you very much. 

From KOTOR, one of my favorite interactions comes in a sidequest on Korriban. With the way I played my game, I had it so that Korriban was the last planet I played, so that (SPOILER) By that time, my player character knew she was Revan and she’d just lost Bastila, AKA one of the two loves of her life. (/Spoiler) This was really her dark night of the soul. When she was in one of the Sith temples, she came across the ghost of the first Sith Lord, Ajunta Pall, who was absolutely heartbroken and refused to believe that he could find peace. My player character helped him to move on and find redemption, and that scene, for me, perfectly encapsulates the entire theme of redemption in Star Wars, that anyone, even him, can move on and find peace if they seek it out, and it’s absolutely perfect that, my player character being who she was, was the one to help him. I also had to reload my save like 10 times to roll the right Persuade points to convince him it was possible, but it was worth it. 

the character who scares me the most

Darth Malak from KOTOR has the special honor of nearly making me wet my pants at the age of 19. Like, that guy’s creepy. (And I had to set the game on easy+set up mines around the area to defeat him. Hate that guy.) 

Also, keeping in with the *current* continuity, Pong Krell. Just...Krell. That man lives, breathes, and eats nightmare fuel. 

The Son gets an honorary mention, since he’s y’know, the actual embodiment of the Dark Side of the Force. Though WHY they seem to have abandoned the entire Mortis arc is something I’ll never understand. They give us this fantastic, epic set-up between the forces of light and dark and then just...leave the Son there without his sister and father, presumably having an impact on the balance of power in the galaxy but not directly influencing it. Really? Especially with the way Rebels has been dealing with the Dark-Light-Gray thing, it would have been the perfect time. But nooooooooo. 

the character who is mostly like me

Probably Obi-Wan, though I would probably end up a gray force user like Ahsoka.

hottest looks character

In KOTOR, I modded my game just so my female PC could romance Bastila because I basically fell in love with her at first sight, so yeah. In the current continuity, Cassian Andor. 

one thing i dislike about my fave character

Ventress’s treatment of Savage Oppress was not her finest moment (One could even say it was...Savage). That’s something that, as a fan of hers, I have to take in stride and accept as part of her story arc. The second she left Dooku, she did not become a perfect person, she still had her issues, and, unfortunately, Savage bore the brunt of it. 

(I have not read Dark Disciple out of spite, so I can’t speak about any aspects of her character in that.) 

one thing i like about my hated character

Tarkin’s very dutiful, I guess, very no-nonsense and pragmatic? He also has nice cheekbones. 

a quote or scene that haunts me

That final fight scene between Anakin and Ahsoka in Rebels, Luke staring up at the binary moons of Tatooine in A New Hope while THAT song plays, Darth Vader’s redemption, Cassian and Jyn’s deaths, Ventress saying that she’s not the person she used to be and then walking off to her destiny, Maul’s death. 

From KOTOR, there’s the aforementioned redemption of Ajunta Pall, as well as this line from Malak: “Savior, conqueror, hero, villain. You are all of these things Revan, and yet you are nothing. In the end, you belong neither to the light nor the darkness. You will forever stand alone.” 

a death that left me indifferent

Satine. I was actually relieved. 

a character i wish died but didn’t

Star Wars is generally good about killing off the characters I absolutely loathe. There are a lot of characters that I wish hadn’t died that did, such as Padme, Ventress, Bail, etc., but no one who I think “Why did they survive past the first movie?” 

Yes, even Jar Jar Binks.

I mean, if Sheev Palpatine died, the galaxy would have been a much better place, at least for a while longer, but he kind of drives the plot. I hate the man, but he has his uses, namely giving the fandom a lifetime supply of gifs and memes. 

In all seriousness, I think I might be a little disappointed if Ahsoka turns out to be alive. I love her, she’s one of my favorite characters, and I think she had one of the best arcs in the franchise, but I also think that the ending she had, her going up against her former master and being unable to save him/herself, was really the only option. I think that to take that away would be a pretty bad narrative decision, unless they could find something absolutely phenomenal for her. I’m open to it, as a fan of hers I want her to be alive, but on a writing level I think it’d be a cop-out. 

Upon writing this, I realized Lux Bonteri is also an option. So, yeah, him. He could have died with his mother and very little would’ve had to be changed. 

my ship that never sailed

Ventress/Obi-Wan, alas. Bodhi/Luke, for obvious reasons. I refuse to acknowledge than fem.Revan/Bastila/Juhani (or as I call them “Dark Side Dropouts”) isn’t canon, so naturally it doesn’t belong here. Naturally. Kind of hard for it to be non-canon when KOTOR’s been decanonized anyways. 

Is Braig more comfortable in the company of women or men? His peers, his subordinates or his superiors?

Character building questions! || ALWAYS Accepting

I’m gonna preface this by saying that I don’t really see the Star Wars universe operating on the binary gender system. This isn’t just ‘cause I’m hoping for an agender character (I am, but that’s neither here nor there), but because gender’s weird enough on earth like. I think I read somewhere that honey bees have three genders, clown fish change sexes based on necessity, there’s an entire species of lizard with only one gender, and don’t even get me started on how weird angler fish are), and this is if you only take reproductive capabilities into account, and not identities, and this is just one planet. And I’m expected to believe that, with all the countless species and races, only have male/female. AND I SWEAR THIS ISN’T ME BEING ANNOYED OR UPSET AT YOU!! Just sowing my fields with salt for Disney and Lucasfilm tbh

Anyway, on to the meat of the answer!

I’m not going to pretend sexism isn’t a thing in the Star Wars universe, because it absolutely is. From the female Twi’Lek slave trade, the Republic propaganda posters of feminine droids in the boobs-and-butt pose of comics, the little Twi’Lek civvie who told Aayla she couldn’t be a Jedi because she was a girl (to which she replied that, not only was she a Jedi, but she was also the kid’s cousin and was there to save his life), Oked hitting on Ventress and getting mad when she tries to get him to leave her alone (to which she replied by stabbing him. Literally both of them are icons), the fact that in the same episode someone hires the bounty hunters to (unwittingly) transport a kidnapped girl to become some creepy old guy’s wife, the whole thing with Death Watch literally stole a village’s entire population of women just so they’d have people to cook for them, like. This is an actual problem in the universe, but, at the same time, it doesn’t seem to be as much of a thing in the Jedi, and it makes sense. I mean, can you imagine another Jedi telling Adi or Shaak or Aayla or Luminara (Or Yaddle, rip) that they shouldn’t be on the council because women are too emotional, or that they shouldn’t be Jedi, and should be in the kitchen, instead? If Ahsoka heard that? Man, you wouldn’t even need a medical team. Just a bucket and a squeegee, maybe a damp paper towel. Don’t get me wrong, Jedi are absolute jerks to each other, and I’m pretty sure it stems from pitting them against each other at a young age to see who deserves a master and who’s low-key dubbed a failure at the one thing they were raised for, but, even then, it’s more jabs at someone’s lack of skill - again, probably to make them seem less appealing to any potential mentors. Like when the two padawans mock padawan-Anakin for his lack of self-control, or when Bruck Chun nicknamed Obi-Wan ‘Oafy-Wan’ to highlight his clumsiness. Don’t really see gender being brought up, though. Clothing’s gender-neutral, clans were mixed-gender - and, by extension, lessons would be, as well - big events like gatherings were mixed-gender, padawans and masters could be any combination of genders, and, even disregarding the Councils, there are women in pretty lofty positions, like Jocasta being in charge of what’s arguably the biggest store of information in the galaxy. Now, I’m not saying that there’s Absolutely No Sexism In The Order It’s An Objective Fact, just that I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I’ll also be the first to say that my knowledge of Star Wars is kinda limited. But, yes, all that to say that I don’t see gender really being a deciding factor in whether or not he’s comfortable with a person. To add to this, he’s met plenty of people who he’d perceive as being a threat, or capable of being a threat, if they so chose, regardless of gender - and, if you mean in terms of who he’s attracted to, he’s a lovely mixture of pan/demiro and pan/grey-ace. Basically, everyone has the potential to be attractive to him, so that doesn’t help, either. So, again, gender isn’t a factor in determining how comfortable he is around another person.

As for the second part of your question, I find the line between peers and subordinates and superiors tends to blur with him, since he makes friends in all walks of life - from homeless bounty hunters to clone marshals to Jedi Masters on the High Council to I don’t even know who, at this point - it’s gotten delightfully out of control, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. But, for the sake of this question, I’m going to equate ‘peers’ with equals - since this is being written for MainVerse Braig, it’ll be other Padawans. Now, this largely depends on who it is - after all, Obi-Wan is Brag’s superior, and yet Braig’s more comfortable with him than anyone else. And the clones are technically his subordinates, but you’ve seen how he is with Wolffe and Cody. Even though he technically outranks them as a Jedi, he’s never even thought of pulling rank on them, and they’re more likely to call him ‘Bra’ika’ (’little Braig’, a Mando’a term of endearment) than ‘sir’. As a whole, though, he tends to be more comfortable with subordinates. Sure, he has his friends across the board, but, as a general rule. His subordinates include younger padawans, Initiates, younglings, clones, and probably Temple staff. Among younger Jedi, I imagine Braig’s got a fair bit of clout. Not necessarily because of anything he’s done, personally, but simply because he’s Obi-Wan’s padawan. Canon basically establishes Obi as the Order’s equivalent of a celebrity; All the kids both want him as their mentor and want to be him when they grow up, and even older Jedi use him as an example of a ‘perfect Jedi’. Braig, being his padawan, is sort of a gateway to all things Obi - whenever it’s his turn to be on nursery duty for chores, he’s probably surrounded by littles wanting to hear stories of Space Dad. Add to that the fact that he’s older, more experienced, and higher up in the Order’s hierarchy, he feels more secure around them, and less like he has something to prove - sure, he wants to show he’s a good commander for the troops, but it’s not the end of the world if he’s not the best commander in the Order. When it comes to peers, that is, other padawans around his age (usually only with those he’s not close to, as he doesn’t really have this problem with his friends), he still feels like he has to be better than them - residual behaviour from when they were competing for masters. This is at its worst when he’s thirteen, having come fresh out of Initiate-hood, but dissipates, the older he gets. By the time he’s late fifteen-early sixteen, it’s basically gone completely. He still has moments, especially when he’s actively challenged or otherwise confronted, when he can get a bit bristly in regards to his position in the Order, but, for the most part, he’s grown out of it. As for why he’d be uncomfortable around his superiors - to put it simply, they quite literally control every aspect of his life. They control what training is available to him and when, whether or not he’d be allowed to stay with his mentor and by extension what room he lives in, what activities are available during his leisure time and how much of that time he has, whether or not he stays a padawan, and, if he doesn’t, whether he’d be sent to be a farmer, doctor, or teacher, or whether or not he’s allowed to stay in the Order, and, if not, if he’s to be left on his ow, or sent off to live with a family he never really met. While he doesn’t completely realise how much power they have over him - at least, not consciously - he is aware that they’re In Charge, capitals for emphasis, and he’s been raised to view them as Better Than Him in some way, so, having to remember and act on the proper protocols at all times, while not a problem for him, having grown up with them, it does make reactions feel a bit less personal. As I said, there are exceptions, based on how close he is on a personal level to any particular master, and how strictly said master observes protocol. So, again, he’s most comfortable around Obi-Wan, and to lesser degree some of the other masters. Quinlan Vos is an interesting fusion of someone Braig’s comfortable with, and someone who doesn’t seem too hung up on protocol. Can you imagine bowing and scraping and adding ‘master’ to the end of every sentence with Vos? He’d probably think Braig bashed his head too hard while sparring. 

So, tl;dr, gender doesn’t really matter, and, though there are exceptions, he generally feels most comfortable around those considered his ‘subordinates’. 

10 Best Star Wars Villains Ranked

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Star Wars is a story about good triumphing over evil, the heroes overcoming all challenges before them and defeating the villains. But we love to watch the antagonists, too! What would the saga be without its iconic, larger-than-life villains?

The hum of a lightsaber echoes in a hallway filled with smoke. A mastermind works behind gilded walls against his enemies. A bounty hunter zips through the sky with his jet pack. A dark lord awaits her prey from the core of a dying planet. These are moments that stay with us long after the credits have rolled, and they’re the reason why a few of the villains on this list are considered some of the best ever created regardless of the medium.

We’ve ranked our top 10 favorite Star Wars villains below:

10. General Grievous

Like many characters and concepts in the Prequels, Grievous is perhaps most notable for his visual design and powerful presence. A spindly four-armed droid, he looks like a mix between a robot, a spider, and a dinosaur. This non-human form wields four lightsabers at the same time, all of which he stole from Jedi he killed.

While Grievous’ personality isn’t really the draw here (he has a brief backstory and a tendency toward the dramatic), you can see some of his history in the excellent The Clone Wars episode “Lair of Grievous.” But we’d especially recommend you check out his first on-screen appearance in Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars microseries. Scary stuff!

9. Grand Admiral Thrawn

Inspired by Sherlock Holmes and legendary military strategists like Alexander the Great, Grand Admiral Thrawn is the first character on this list to originate in tie-in books. He also has the distinction of being the first major villain of the post-Return of the Jedi era. The “Thrawn Trilogy” in the 1990s remain the most famous books of the lot for rejuvenating the franchise and introducing this tactical genius.

The epitome of working smarter, not harder, Thrawn is a no-nonsense thinker who can tell what a culture’s war strategy will be like based solely on their art. His clashes with characters from the Original Trilogy to the Rebels crew to his own Chiss Ascendancy are beloved as tactical puzzles and a showcase for his intimidating personality.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Fans love Thrawn so much that he was one of the first non-canon Legends characters to be retconned back into the Disney continuity after the House of Mouse bought Lucasfilm in 2012. The Mandalorian season 2 has even set up the Grand Admiral to make his first live-action appearance at a later date.

8. Kylo Ren

While there’s some debate among fans about whether Kylo Ren should still be considered a true villain after The Rise of Skywalker, his appearance in The Force Awakens is our favorite, and he’s firmly in bad guy territory there. From the intimidating crossguard lightsaber to his chaotic nature that makes the audience feel like even he doesn’t quite know what he’s going to do next, Ren’s vivid characterization and volatile personality (not to mention Adam Driver’s performance) helped sell The Force Awakens as a worthy successor to the Original Trilogy.

He sometimes borrows too much from Darth Vader in that first installment to be truly unique, but that’s the point: Kylo is a fan of the villains who have come before, a member of a new generation of characters who inherit the saga and choose which role they want to play. Ren joins the dark side knowing exactly where it will lead.

7. Asajj Ventress

Ventress has been many things. A witch, a bounty hunter, a Jedi, and a Sith disciple, but her different roles are all in service of finding what she really wants: A home.

Introduced as the acrobatic and creepy antagonist in the first and second seasons of the Clone Wars miniseries, she goes toe-to-toe with Anakin Skywalker on several occasions during the galactic conflict. Throughout The Clone Wars, we also see how her part in the war changes, all while she tries to fill the hole in her heart created by her separation from her parents and death of her mentor when she was just a child. Ultimately, she’s both a tragic and sympathetic figure but also a frighteningly unpredictable villain.

6. Kreia/Darth Traya

Knights of the Old Republic II features one of the most inventive and critical explorations of what it means to wield the Force. The game’s Jedi and Sith are conflicted, use their powers in unique ways, and hold personal philosophies about the light and dark sides beyond the beliefs of their respective orders.

Into the life of the game’s Jedi exile protagonist comes the mysterious Kreia, a Sith lord disguised as the hero’s mentor in the ways of the Force. And her teachings about the ancient energy are unlike anything else we’ve seen or read to date.

Instead of following the light or the dark side, Kreia feels the Force itself is a malevolent barrier between people and free will. Although her philosophy technically leads her to the dark, her ideas about going beyond that dichotomy entirely make her one of the most thought-provoking characters in the series. It’d be interesting to hear what she thought about the Force dyad from The Rise of Skywalker.

5. Boba Fett

Boba Fett began his Star Wars career as a mysterious cartoon character in The Star Wars Holiday Special and as a faceless villain in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, before making the jump to the classic Legends tie-in books and comics. Now, he’s back for the first time in the Disney canon, thanks to The Mandalorian, which gives a new generation of fans plenty of reasons to love the iconic bounty hunter.

Although he isn’t the first actor to portray Boba Fett, Prequel Trilogy veteran Temuera Morrison brings newfound charm and power to the legendary bounty hunter, whose armor, jetpack, and laconic personality made him a breakout star despite his relatively minor screen time in the Original Trilogy. On The Mandalorian, we finally get to see his legendary prowess as he single-handedly breaks stormtroopers with his bare hands before even regaining his armor.

Boba Fett’s history is almost as long as Star Wars‘ itself, debuting in 1978, and he’s been a fan-favorite ever since, living many other lives on the page beyond the movies. He’s worked for the Empire, teamed up with other bounty hunters, and even become the leader of the Mandalorian people. With his return to Disney canon, he gets a whole new future full of adventures for fans to look forward to, including The Book of Boba Fett.

4. Darth Maul

Maul just keeps coming back. While he was easily one of the best parts of The Phantom Menace, it’s his development in The Clone Wars that really puts him near the top of the list. A perpetual student always looking for a master, Maul’s tutelage under Sidious means he never really learned how to live outside the structure of the Sith order. That mentality clashes with the Jedi in one of the most dramatic confrontations in The Clone Wars, where Maul reveals he knows the Empire is coming and the Jedi are too late to stop it.

From a martial arts expert to the galaxy’s Cassandra, he’s played many different roles, including the secret leader of a galaxy-spanning criminal organization in Solo. In Rebels, his death serves as a moving capstone to what began in the Prequels, when Obi-Wan Kenobi finally ends his life in a battle not of martial skill but of the kind of mercy and solace only a Jedi at their best can offer.

3. Moff Gideon

While the villain of The Mandalorian hasn’t had nearly as much time on screen as many of the others on this list, he’s climbed to the top through force of personality. Giancarlo Esposito gives even Moff Gideon‘s expository dialogue a sinister life.

As an ISB agent, he differentiates himself from most Star Wars villains by not being a Force-wielding warrior first and foremost. He’s cool because he thrives on information, and frightening because of the lengths he’s willing to go to get it. And don’t forget, he’s willing to handcuff Grogu. You get in the Villain Hall of Fame for that.

2. Emperor Palpatine

The mastermind of many falls (Anakin’s, the Republic’s, Ben Solo’s), Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, is the shadow looming over the entire saga. He has a hand in everything, from the inability of the Jedi to hold on to even their own Force powers (as they discover in the Prequels) to the rise of the First Order. He’s the ultimate example of ambition gone wrong, the desire to rule the galaxy for the sake of ultimate control in human form. And the performance by Ian McDiarmid through the decades has become a staple of pop culture.

1. Darth Vader

From the first part of A New Hope to the finale of Rogue One and beyond, Vader’s intimidating visage is synonymous with Star Wars. Designed by Ralph McQuarrie in part after the shape of a samurai armor, the apparatus that keeps Vader alive was made to look dark, intimidating, and “spooky.” He doesn’t have to run or use flashy lightsaber moves to kill you: instead it’s his inexorable approach and brutal moves that are so fearsome. And he has no problem Force choking his own men to get what he wants.

While part of what makes Vader number one is how frightening he is, that’s not the whole story. As Anakin Skywalker, he also brings pathos to the saga and inspires endless debate. His choice to turn to evil is the event on which the rest of the saga turns. Decades later, he’ll inspire Kylo Ren to start down a similar path.

Let us know your own ranking in the comments below!

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Sometimes you just want a nice, long novel-length (or thereabouts) STAR WARS fic to sink into, maybe you’re going on a long car ride or maybe you’re visiting family without regular internet or maybe you just want some kissing to happen in that novel-length fic! I mean, canon is amazing and wonderful, but sometimes you want to pick up something and have the undercurrents finally rise to the surface, so here are some of my favorite Obikin and Obianidala novel length fics! (Last Updated: 2017.05.17) ✦ wicked thing by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin & ventress & dooku & ahsoka & cast, 97.3k wip    There are rumours of yet another Sith Lord hiding among the Separatists. The Council sends Anakin to investigate. Anakin has a bad feeling about this. ✦ Ouroboros by bedlamsbard, obi-wan/anakin/padme & cast, time travel, 458k wip    Considering that he had picked up what was probably a Sith artifact, promptly passed out in the middle of a war zone, and apparently woken up twenty years in the future with Obi-Wan having taken up residence in his head, Anakin thought he was entitled to have a few questions. ✦ Seed by bell (bellaboo), obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme, NSFW, 44k    When Anakin falls prey to a lethal poison, Obi-Wan has no choice but use all his resources to heal him– no matter how reluctant he is in administering the antidote. ✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & dooku & mace & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, time travel, 101.5k wip    Second chances are very rarely given, but the Force smiles upon two of its favorite children and returns them to a time before their actions have met their consequences. ✦ Negotiation by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & bail & cast, NSFW, modern au, serial killer au, dark themes, dark!obi-wan, 73.7k wip    Over a year ago, Coruscant Police Detective Anakin Skywalker vanished without a trace while hunting the prolific serial killer known within the media as “The Negotiator”. ✦ flowers for a ghost by QueenWithABeeThrone, obi-wan/anakin & cast, modern au (sort of), 42.2k    Anakin Skywalker’s had a rough go of it, from being imprisoned to losing his hand to remembering an entire past life. He’s only looking for a place to stay the night when he comes to Obi-wan’s doorstep. ✦ The World Undone by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & maul & cast, nsfw, sith!obi-wan, 143.3k    Anakin Skywalker, proud symbol of the strength and purity of the Jedi Order, is the target of a strange and handsome Sith named Obi-Wan, whose only goal seems to be pulling Skywalker down into the dark with him. ✦ you knock me out, i fall apart by blackalien, obi-wan/anakin/padme & han/luke/leia & ahsoka & cast, 64.8k wip    ( aka: the one where anakin was a sith lord for literally an hour, everyone is alive, and they’re actually happy ) ✦ World Come Undone by crazyundeadfairy, obi-wan/anakin (maybe?) & luke, 68.3k wip    Unexpected things happen when ObiWan takes Luke to Tatooine. ✦ Futurus (-a -um) by cadesama, obi-wan/anakin/padme & cast, time travel, 60.8k wip    Cracked hyperdrive? No problem. Just hold it together with the Force. Time travel? Well. That could be a bigger problem. ✦ Clarity by anecdotalist, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & cast, 73.7k wip    Anakin’s jealousy leads to the start of something new between him and Obi-Wan and a lot of frank discussions about things they should have talked about but didn’t in canon. ✦ White Rabbits by Butterfly, obi-wan/anakin & luke & leia & han & cast, NSFW, time travel, 102.5k wip    Through the Force, everything is connected. Anakin and Obi-Wan find this out first-hand. ✦ The Reality of Change by midnight_vision, obi-wan/anakin/padme & ahsoka, time travel, 185.1k    Padmé dies on Mustafar and wakes up in the past, about a year before everything falls apart. She’s determined to make sure none of it happens again, and with some help, she tries to expose Palpatine for what he really is. But even if Anakin and the Republic can be saved, that doesn’t mean life will be easy. ✦ Sigh No More by edenwolfie, obi-wan/anakin/padme & ahsoka & luke & leia & cast, 158.2k wip    Anakin makes slightly better choices, Obi-Wan is a Mess™ and Padmé deserves none of this. AU from Mustafar onward with liberal manipulation of canon to culminate in some angsty, fluffy, domestic fix-it because we all deserve better. full details + recs under the cut!

✦ wicked thing by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin & ventress & dooku & ahsoka & cast, 97.3k wip    There are rumours of yet another Sith Lord hiding among the Separatists. The Council sends Anakin to investigate. Anakin has a bad feeling about this.    I’ve done several recs for this fic, which are collated on this post, but am writing a new one to encompass the entire fic rather than piecemeal, so those that are new to this fic will have a better one to hopefully encourage them to read it! This is another fic I’ve been reading pretty much since the beginning and would immediately read it as soon as a new chapter dropped and will have a tough time writing a coherent rec for it–there’s a reason it’s so massively popular in the fandom, because the writing is absolute joy to read, that it’s almost 100k of Anakin’s point of view where he’s a completely #Relatable emotional mess, in that sort of hilarious and utterly engaging way. It combines that with the just as delightful Soft Sith aesthetic/dynamic that is so, so much fun with these characters and writes an Obi-Wan Kenobi who is charming and charismatic, but so much more dangerous, where he’s so much more selfish and all that insight and precision and lethality to him are turned to much more dangerous avenues.    The fic sparked a ton of trends in fandom (especially helping to popularize Soft Sith!Obi-Wan, for which I am forever grateful) and, once you start reading, it’s easy to see why, there’s just something to this fic that is really special, it’s an Obi-Wan/Anakin fic, but the kind that I would recommend to anyone who is one the fence about them, the kind of fic that draws new fans into the pairing, the kind of fic that may not be their canon selves, but keeps enough of their dynamic and is just plain ridiculously hot and delicious, that it hits all the right buttons for the ship. There is still Anakin being so tremendously strong in the Force, but such an utter disaster in his personal life. There’s Obi-Wan who makes things seem easy, but has worked incredibly hard to get where he is. There’s Anakin being absolutely and completely turned around and confused and not knowing which way is up, really wanting someone to follow, and Obi-Wan who may not tell him everything, who may be kind of manipulative, but there’s such a solid foundation of genuine care there. All of this is balanced together so well and then written with a plot and an incredibly deft hand, so that every single scene sparkles and draws the reader in. It’s that Obikin fic that I will go, “Here, read this if you’re thinking about getting into the pairing.” because I think it does the groundwork for showing what a fun pairing they can be, while also just being a scream of a fic. ✦ Ouroboros by bedlamsbard, obi-wan/anakin/padme & cast, time travel, 458k wip    Considering that he had picked up what was probably a Sith artifact, promptly passed out in the middle of a war zone, and apparently woken up twenty years in the future with Obi-Wan having taken up residence in his head, Anakin thought he was entitled to have a few questions.    Wake the Storm: So, I pretty much sunk into this fic and didn’t come out again until I’d read the whole thing, I just absolutely couldn’t put it down! My only caveat is that, while the build-ups and suspense are stellar, you just kind of have to roll with that the fic is not as strong at reveals. The way the fic is structured, there’s a lot of “omg when will Character A find out about Character b????” that don’t necessarily happen or happen late in the fic or aren’t pieced together when they should be or aren’t dwelled on for long. I don’t think this is a huge detriment, so long as you know what you’re getting ahead of time, though, because what the fic is about (Anakin skipping around the timeline and other universes, dragging Obi-Wan along with him) is absolutely fantastic. The writing is incredibly engaging, it’s the kind where I find this far more readable than a lot of professionally published books, that the plot structure and pacing of the scenes is all rock solid for me. (Tbh, probably the only reason any caveats occur to me at all is because the fic as a whole is so well written.)    The characterization is lovely and gets at the heart of what I wanted–where Anakin experiences the destruction and tragedy that happens, his horror at it solidified by the time he finds out his connection to it, as well as his interaction with Obi-Wan is strengthened up because of what Obi-Wan has been through and how he’s seeing Anakin again and how much time he’s had to think over the events of Anakin’s future. The plot is interesting and the fic spends time with each world but doesn’t linger and there has clearly been thought given to setting all of it up, but it blends into the story perfectly, like… you know those fics you can pick up and just read and read and read because they’re so engaging and written with such good pacing that you don’t want to put it down, that even when it shifts gears, you find yourself rolling right along with it because you want to know what happens next? That’s what this fic did for me, I was so curious about where it was going next and how this was all going to affect them.    While this story itself is gen, you can tell that the story is heading towards Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme, so it spends time building Obi-Wan/Anakin back up and shifting it to romantic instead of platonic, that it doesn’t happen here at all, but you can feel how desperately Anakin loves Obi-Wan and how Obi-Wan has been given the time to really reflect on feelings and attachment and on Anakin in general, so that I believe it. Plus, I’m a sucker for all the little touches, like Anakin sleeping on Obi-Wan or the way he touches Anakin after he goes through a tough time, it got me right in the feelings place, to go along with the intriguing greater story. I am now going to proceed to dive right into the monster sequel fic and probably roll around in my feelings some more.    Queen’s Gambit: I haven’t yet finished Queen’s Gambit, but I’m including it on this list because I enjoyed the first fic a lot and I think I can safely recommend the sequel already. ♥ ✦ Seed by bell (bellaboo), obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme, NSFW, 44k    When Anakin falls prey to a lethal poison, Obi-Wan has no choice but use all his resources to heal him– no matter how reluctant he is in administering the antidote.    I love how this fic started out as an excuse for fuck-or-die blowjobs, but then went and developed feelings and an actual plot. That is my favorite kind of thing! But what really gets me about this fic is that everything is so carefully considered and given so much thought, that the miscommunication between Obi-Wan and Anakin takes so long to resolve (but without being dragged out too long just for the sake of drama or padding the fic) is central to the story and such care is given to show how these two characters misunderstand each other and why they clash and things so often go off kilter with them. The entire point of showcasing that miscommunication is to nudge the characters into a situation where they have to face it and actually work to resolve it. This is not a smooth path, especially not with feelings being brought to the surface, that both characters have to work through.    Obi-Wan meditates and tries not to burden Anakin with his feelings and balance being a Jedi with what the heart of the man wants, which works so well because Obi-Wan has never been about denial of feelings, but instead about letting them go, about accepting them and releasing them because he has another path that he’s chosen to walk. So what happens when he finds that these surfaced feelings are stronger than he intended and he doesn’t want to let them go? The fic works hard to bring him to a fork in the road where he has to choose one path or the other, that both are important roads for him, and the choice is legitimately difficult. It takes care to show that Obi-Wan isn’t perfect, he doesn’t always understand Anakin, he’s human and Anakin gets to him, but also that Obi-Wan is someone who knows himself very well and is emotionally stable, that the difficulty is in the choice, not the knowledge.    By contrast, Anakin is just an emotional mess who doesn’t understand Obi-Wan, but also doesn’t really understand how to process anything, that he’s all instinct and reaction, but that doesn’t make his feelings any less real or there. This is a fic that is about Anakin struggling to understand Obi-Wan, struggling to understand his own feelings, struggling to not make all the worst choices–there’s a moment later in the fic where he could make an absolutely disasterous choice and keep an important secret from Obi-Wan, but he’s struggled through so much (and become so much more trusting, because his relationship with Obi-Wan is closer) that he makes a better choice. The fic is just as much about dragging Anakin into making better choices, tiny bit by tiny bit. And about how Anakin is just never going to be an independent person, he’s always going to be dependent on those he loves, and that Obi-Wan has to come around to understanding this and accepting it about him.    It’s also a fic that may not be centrally about her, but Padme has a very real and very present role in the fic. Anakin’s love for her is just as valid as his love for Obi-Wan, that he thinks of her while she’s not there, that he’s terrified of losing her, that the conversation he has with her about Obi-Wan is painful and difficult because he leads with his heart, that actions that might be manipulative in others (like wanting to be with two people and have them approve of him being with both) are just who Anakin is. He’s still selfish and probably entirely hypocritical (he would never share either of them the way he wants to share himself), but it’s never done with artifice, he clings to both of them because he’s so insecure and needy, he’s desperate to keep both of them, he’s an absolute mess, and the fic never denies that. It doesn’t deny that this is painful for everyone involved, because it’s not easy for Padme to share her husband, it’s not easy for Obi-Wan to feel like an intruder on someone else’s relationship, and it’s not easy for Anakin to know that he’s asking for so much, but terrified of losing either one of them. I love that this fic holds Obi-Wan and Anakin apart because Obi-Wan is very much “if you’re going to do something, do it right” and he holds firm on that, he draws a boundary and keeps it there, that he’ll reassure Anakin in other ways (the element of Anakin asking for Obi-Wan’s total honesty when Obi-Wan won’t budge on starting a relationship until they’ve worked the problems out was so satisfying for this!), but he won’t cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed, like, yes, that is Obi-Wan’s character and exactly what Anakin needs from him in this relationship, just as Padme doesn’t react happily to the news that Anakin’s in love with Obi-Wan, but she has such emotional openness and care that she provides the warmth and acceptance that Anakin needs, the two of them filling in the different jagged edgegs of Anakin’s character.    Which is what I mean about this fic giving such thought and care to each scene and character, that I can pull all of it apart and it holds up to that scrutiny for me, that it may not be the longest fic I’ve ever read, but it’s certainly one that knows the characters it’s writing and what it wants to do with them and what motivates them. It’s a fic that starts out as cracky, but then uses it as a character exploration and is just really damned satisfying to me for it! ✦ Soldier, Poet, King by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & dooku & mace & cast, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, time travel, 101.5k wip    Second chances are very rarely given, but the Force smiles upon two of its favorite children and returns them to a time before their actions have met their consequences.    I’ve done several recs for this fic, which are collated on this post, but I’m sticking with an earlier rec that won’t give too much away, but still hopefully tells you why you should read one of my favorite fics: I cannot tell you how in love with this fic I am, how much I love what it’s doing on both a plot level and an id-pleasing level. The fic first got me with these little moments of Ben (older Sith!Obi-Wan) and the way he would crowd into Anakin’s space, the way he would touch Anakin, the way he would run a hand down Anakin’s back or shove him up against the wall when he was getting out of control, there was this quiet but powerful intimacy between them, both dangerous and something very genuine there. It’s so incredibly good, the way Anakin curls up against Ben’s side or wriggles onto his lap, the way he so very much wants affection from his once-again-Master, the way Ben knows this after all they’ve been through together and the lives they’ve lived and this second chance, the way he absolutely is manipulative and much more iron-handed than he was before, but some part of Anakin feeds on that. It’s so well written and there’s such charm and sparkle to the writing, it’s that sweet spot between just exactly what my id wants and the more rational part of me that is impressed with the world-building and plotting and character motivations, that I legitimately respect the fic. It’s such a great example of what Obi-Wan would be like if freed from the restraints he puts on himself as a Jedi–he has power, sure, but it’s also such intelligence and insight, such lethality and being predatory in all the right moments, the way you really, really understand how Obi-Wan is dangerous when he puts all of his skills to less noble purposes.   And the plot is good, it’s a great cast of different versions of the characters, the older versions having been dumped back in time and are running around to fix things in their own way, including a time out to go free the slaves on Tatooine and, of course, have more run-ins with the Jedi. I love that there are light saber battles, I love that they’re not just idling around, they’re doing stuff, moving the pieces around from the shadows, in addition to their complicated relationship developing further. I am H O O K E D on this fic and it’s honestly one of the most satisfying I’ve read in the fandom yet, it’s one of those that I pretty much drop everything else to go read when there’s a new chapter, it’s one that I’m torn between tripping over myself to read everything as fast as I can because I want more and forcing myself to go slower becaus I want to savor it, it’s one of those that I never want to end, but also I want all of it to be able to read everything right now. ✦ Negotiation by Glare, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & bail & cast, NSFW, modern au, serial killer au, dark themes, dark!obi-wan, 73.7k wip    Over a year ago, Coruscant Police Detective Anakin Skywalker vanished without a trace while hunting the prolific serial killer known within the media as “The Negotiator”.    I’ve done several recs for this fic, but am writing a new one to encompass the entire fic rather than piecemeal, so those that are new to this fic will have a better one to hopefully encourage them to read it! I feel like I hardly know where to start with this one, because it’s another that I’ve been reading as each chapter comes out and I think it might be my favorite of the author’s work. It’s a fic that initially caught my attention, despite the seemingly incompatible concept of the character, but what got me is that this isn’t canon Obi-Wan, but he shares so much of the traits of him, like what Obi-Wan would be without his unbreakable morals and faith from the movies and the show, that if you changed those things about him, you would get this fascinating look at the way he uses that charm and gentlemanly manner and incredibly insight to do such terrible things, to focus on the person he loves (Anakin) more than anyone.    And that’s the other thing that gets me, the way their relationship is played, that it takes so long for Anakin to come around is to the fic’s credit, that it’s not dragged out beyond what it should have been, that instead it needed that space to show the way he was stripped of his defiance bit by bit, just tiny step by tiny step. That this is never portrayed as healthy or anything other than Stockholm Syndrome, the fic is very aware of what it’s doing, but there’s a dark charisma to it, that I find myself rooting for it, even when it’s clear that it’s a terrible thing. The fic is very good at balancing those two things–the fascination with that dark yet beautiful dynamic, obsessive love that can still be genuine in its own way, even as it’s awful. It’s charming, even as you don’t forget that Anakin has been conditioned into this, you still see the layers being peeled away from him to get at something that’s underneath that, something that says a lot about who Anakin Skywalker is.    It’s a modern AU, it’s a serial killer!Obi-Wan AU, it’s a story about Anakin being manipulated into dependence on him, it’s a lot of things that I might normally not be that keen on, but between the fic visibly embracing those things while still keeping so many echoes of their original selves, while hitting all those elements that made so many of us fans of Hannibal, that it’s honestly one of my favorites in the fandom. ✦ flowers for a ghost by QueenWithABeeThrone, obi-wan/anakin & cast, modern au (sort of), 42.2k    Anakin Skywalker’s had a rough go of it, from being imprisoned to losing his hand to remembering an entire past life. He’s only looking for a place to stay the night when he comes to Obi-wan’s doorstep.    I’ll note ahead of time that I haven’t finished this fic yet, but I’m far enough in that I want to include it! It’s the first part of a long sort-of-modern-AU where the characters are reincarnated into current day Earth and are all kind of giant messes, especially Anakin, and this is the story of him trying to recover from just how much he’s been damaged along the way. Not only is there his previous life as Darth Vader to contend with that haunts him, but also the terrible things that have happened to him in this life, the further terrible choices that he’s made that landed him here and weigh him down. It’s a fic that’s a very long, slow process (and very much a slow burn between Obi-Wan and Anakin) because there’s so much for Anakin to wade through and so little progress he can make at any given time. There’s so much about this fic that’s bittersweet and haunting and lovely in a really heartbreaking way–it’s moving towards the better, step by step, but it’s a long road and it’s fragile and brittle the whole way there.    But, ahhh, the relationship and the utter need Anakin has for Obi-Wan and how this situation is both id-pleasing (accidental Force bond, yessssss, give me that always!) and all about doing the slow, almost daily life of recovery, both for Anakin himself as a person and for his relationship with Obi-Wan. There’s a sneaking plot here as well, there’s a lot of characters they run into, there’s an expansive world unfolding here, but at it’s heart it’s a fic about Anakin’s recovery and trying to piece himself back together–trying to find the will to want to piece himself back together, after everything. And the length of it is necessary (even as I scream at them to just kiss already) to show that that’s something that’s not easy or quick. This is a lovely read and I’m adoring it so much. ✦ The World Undone by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & maul & cast, nsfw, sith!obi-wan, 143.3k    Anakin Skywalker, proud symbol of the strength and purity of the Jedi Order, is the target of a strange and handsome Sith named Obi-Wan, whose only goal seems to be pulling Skywalker down into the dark with him.    I’ll note ahead of time that I haven’t finished this fic yet, this rec is based on the first 2/3rds of the fic, but I’m far enough in that I want to include it! Oh, I hardly know where to start with this fic! I admit that it took me a bit to get into, for personal reasons (I usually turn right around at fic where someone other than Obi-Wan trained Anakin if it isn’t a complete disaster, I’m not a big fan of Maul’s character/thought Dooku or Sidious would have been in his role), but those aren’t really criticisms, they’re just things that popped up on my own personal radar. I mention this because, if someone’s tastes are like mine, I want to encourage continuing with this one because once the story kicked into gear for me, I just got swept away in it, I kept reading and reading because I wanted to know where it was going. Once Obi-Wan and Anakin started interacting regularly, once the attraction between them was unable to be ignored (even if it took awhile for some resolution!), and once the main mystery of the story got underway (which I would say was about halfway through when I read this fic), it became a really well-plotted and paced story.    The fic does so many things that I really love about it, right down to the language has shades of something like poetry but the author makes it work, it never had me doing that, “wtf does that even mean” feeling, but instead… oh, like when they finally have time to be together, when they have just enough space to breathe for it and there’s a line that really struck me: Obi-Wan only drove in harder and faster, a shooting star in free-fall along its own doomed line toward earth until it flashed and burnt itself out in its own flare of beautiful white heat inside the velvet night of Anakin’s body. What might have been too flowery in another fic, I really loved this line, I love that it was highlighted their relationship, how passionate this Obi-Wan was about Anakin, how desperate Anakin is to clutch at something, to have Obi-Wan in him, as a steadying presence and to fill him up, that that’s both a culmination of the long attraction between them and shows how their relationship works here. Because this isn’t canon, but it still has so many elements of it, the way they care about other people (especially Anakin and Ahsoka’s relationship has several meaningful scenes, it’s very much an important part of Anakin’s character), but they revolve around each other, Anakin still needs Obi-Wan like that.    The reveals take awhile to happen, but they’re worth waiting for, because they’re satisfying and so interesting, the slow pealing back of the layers and hints, until we finally get proper flashbacks and you understand how the characters came to where they were. The author knows how to pace a story, how to write something long without feeling like it was dragged out, that it takes its time, but it’s not padded to hell and back, and that kind of solidity is incredibly appreciated. It’s one of those fics that just feels… smooth and solid, one of those that’s satisfying to have such a long fic that knows where it’s going and you can feel that even from the beginning, whether or not it grows some here and there or expands in a few unexpected places, it keeps on topic and is paced just right for me. And, of course, I enjoy so much the way Obi-Wan and Anakin are slowly coming together here, that it’s a long path for them to take, but each step forward is sure-footed and will get there. ✦ you knock me out, i fall apart by blackalien, obi-wan/anakin/padme & han/luke/leia & ahsoka & cast, 64.8k wip    ( aka: the one where anakin was a sith lord for literally an hour, everyone is alive, and they’re actually happy )    This fic was my happy place for two days straight while I read it, because it’s everything I was hoping to get from it–it’s a collection of non-linear scenes spanning from ROTS to probably twenty years into the future, showing the snippets of their lives, the family they all build together, while balancing something so incredibly charming with the occasional moments of absolute heartbreak. Primarily, this fic is definitely about making a happy family AU, whether it’s Anakin keeping the people he loves close or eventually he and Padme convince Obi-Wan to join them or giving Ahsoka a family to come home to or getting to see the twins grow up, but it’s also about how Anakin is never going to be entirely emotionally stable and about how Ahsoka bears the scars from being too young in the war and about how Obi-Wan is so solitary for so long and about how it’s not always easy to grow up a Skywalker for either Luke or Leia.    The fic is really good about making those moments genuinely serious, it’s not really a cracky fic and the serious moments are genuinely serious, and it’s… I think of it as being like The Clone Wars show, only trending in a positive direction instead of negative, where sometimes it’s heartbreaking, sometimes it’s ridiculously charming, and sometimes it’s just straight up cute fluff, but all of it is well done. And I cannot convey enough of that sense of charm, that kind of sharpness to the happy AU that makes it so good to read, the kind that makes it straight into my fannish heart, rather than just me seeking out fluff because I need it to soothe me. This one captures my feelings and my imagination, it’s ridiculously engaging and one of those fics of my heart. ✦ World Come Undone by crazyundeadfairy, obi-wan/anakin (maybe?) & luke, 68.3k wip    Unexpected things happen when ObiWan takes Luke to Tatooine.    Oh, lord, this fic. I cannot tell you how hard this fic grabbed me and would not let go until I finished it! There are a couple of caveats: The first two chapters are fairly slow, a lot of monologuing over things actually happening, but once Luke starts talking, it kicks into gear and doesn’t let go. It’s also a WIP and hasn’t been updated in a few years, but the author has gone years between updates before, so you never know, but more importantly! You get so much of the good stuff in what’s already here! So, while I would have loved to have had the rest of the fic, I’m genuinely content with what we had here as well, because let me tell you about my feelings on Obi-Wan raising Luke, who is this amazingly sweet little moppet that I was instantly in love with, as well as Anakin eventually finds out and tries to steal Luke away but gets in his own way too much and finds himself trapped in a situation that he’s not sure how to get out of.    I was initially skimming ahead to just read the confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin when they saw each other again, just to see if the fic picked up, and found myself getting sucked in because the fic does a great job with each scene making me want to read the next and the next and the next, so I had to go back to my original place and then I just hungrily read the entire thing because Anakin wants to take Luke and kill Obi-Wan, but he can’t because he wants Luke to love him and that won’t happen if Luke knows he killed the only father he’s ever known, yet Anakin still burns that Obi-Wan has taken Luke, despite that Obi-Wan has always talked about Anakin to Luke, always told him stories, and Luke can already feel that there’s still love there, no matter how much anger and hate is held onto, sometimes on both sides, after all that’s happened.    It’s one of those fics where they’re forced to be semi-civil to each other again, but underneath is all this emotional tension and hurt that made my fannish heart absolutely ache while reading it, yet was delicious candy at the same time because it hit my id perfectly. Getting well-written fic that does justice to the iddy concept it has is such a rare treat in fandom and I love this fic for doing that for me! It’s one of those situations that I would dream up without trying to properly justify it in my head just because I wanted it, but the fic actually sold me on it and doesn’t shortchange that Anakin is full of rage and hates Obi-Wan, even as you feel how much of it is borne out of still loving him.    Obi-Wan is fantastic, he’s so steady and solid, but that doesn’t mean he’s passive or without his own anger on Anakin’s actions, even as he’s still willing to try to help him again. And Anakin feels so right to me, that he’s not there yet, he’s not doing any of this for the right reasons, his love for Luke is still selfish and obsessive, but there’s hope in him and you can see the sparks of maybe something still good in there. And I’m labeling this as Obi-Wan/Anakin because the author has written slash fic for them before and the relationship is very central to the story, even if there’s no kissing, and Anakin’s relationship with Padme is very important and I just really, really was hit spot on by this fic, okay. So good. ✦ Futurus (-a -um) by cadesama, obi-wan/anakin/padme & cast, time travel, 60.8k wip    Cracked hyperdrive? No problem. Just hold it together with the Force. Time travel? Well. That could be a bigger problem.    This is a fic I read very, very early on in my time in Star Wars fandom, so I can’t say how it would hold up for me if I tried to go back and read it, but it will always be one of those fics that’s dear to me because it helped tip me from shipping just Anidala into also shipping Obikin and Obianidala. And so I’m leaving the rec as I originally wrote it, as I think it does a good job of conveying my reaction to the fic!    I have two caveats about this fic before I begin: It’s a WIP that hasn’t been updated in about a year, so I’m not sure if it will be. But it gets enough satisfying stuff in so even though it ends on a cliffhanger, I found it absolutely worth reading! And that it’s very fast in the beginning, there’s not much time to build up suspense before the reveals are already happening. This isn’t a fic I wound up reading for the suspense or reveals by the time I got into the thick of it, this is a fic that’s about the building relationship between Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme. Previous to this fic, I’d never shipped anything but Anakin/Padme, so their relationship being strong here, being absolutely important to Anakin’s pov, while the shifting nature of his relationship with Obi-Wan is slowly changing, works for me, it eased me in at just the right pacing and made me actually really, really want it.    What the fic does the most beautifully for me, though, is how Anakin is so beloved and so special and so brilliant, but he’s also an obnoxious pain in the ass, the way Padme and Obi-Wan both love him dearly, but he’s also a dumbass, oh, that worked for me because that’s exactly it, that’s how they relate to him. The plot part of the story was interesting as well, I definitely want to know where things are going, how this will affect history, and I love love love that the PT characters were the ones thrown forward into the OT’s time, that’s where my heart really is, and this fic just completely and totally charmed the hell out of me! I especially appreciate that it gently eased me into shipping this OT3 in a way that worked for me and got me to be able to actually see it. ✦ Clarity by anecdotalist, obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & cast, 73.7k wip    Anakin’s jealousy leads to the start of something new between him and Obi-Wan and a lot of frank discussions about things they should have talked about but didn’t in canon.    This is one of those fics that I’m going to write a terrible rec for, which is frustrating because I very thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s one of those that’s… one of those solid reads in that it’s satisfying and having 60k+ of it to tear through was a delight because I really got to sink into it and it has so much… idk, it’s not quite breathing room, because it’s not really slice-of-life, there’s events happening and things moving towards Big Events, but at the same time, I feel like there is breathing room for the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship to develop, especially as it doesn’t crowd out Anakin’s relationship with Padme. It’s definitely focused on the Obikin side of things, much of the point of the fic is Obi-Wan settling into his feelings and the new direction his life is taking, that it’s… I love that it’s not this big, huge, overtly emotional thing, because that’s not who Obi-Wan is, it’s much more still-waters-run-deep that works for me, like this is someone who may struggle with feelings, but he knows how to get to where he needs, and there’s this really just… warm and comfortable air between him and Anakin for so much of the fic.    I think maybe that’s my favorite part, now that I’m trying to put this into words, that even when there’s shit happening elsewhere, when the plot stuff ramps things up in later chapters, there’s still a warm connection between Obi-Wan and Anakin, I trust that they love each other and they know they want to be together, that Obi-Wan knows himself and Anakin is still kind of a mess, he’s just got almost no self-control, and thus Obi-Wan tempers him and puts him back when he needs it. The three of them (Padme as well) have this… they don’t necessarily fit together perfectly, but there’s the sense that they’re working on it, that Obi-Wan and Padme fill in the various edges of Anakin’s character, how the three of them just fit together, it really is supremely satisfying. And there are loads of little touches (I love that Bant gets several good scenes! I love that Obi-Wan’s path is departing from the Jedi, but not in a judgmental sort of way! I love the way Obi-Wan and Anakin meditate together! I loved Obi-Wan being in the room with Palpatine and Anakin, so Anakin follows Obi-Wan’s lead instead and it subtly changes so many things!) and I love that this is a fic that’s about gently turning Anakin’s relationships to the better, that I felt good reading this, even as I’m eyeing future chapters with trepidation. ✦ Sun Kissed by Vee017, obi-wan/anakin & mace & yoda & cast, nsfw, dark themes, past sexual abuse, 81.7k wip    Being on a world that supports slavery is one thing. Buying a slave and bringing him into Republic space is entirely another.    I admit, I usually turn right around at fics like this, I’m not big on AUs where Obi-Wan didn’t become a Jedi or where Anakin was never found and instead became a sex slave, but I liked the author’s other fics and I was terribly curious about this one, so I picked it up and found myself just sort of quietly falling in love. When I read the summary, I had a lot of expectations about the tropes, based on previous experience with this kind of fic, but this one surprised me where there’s something really almost gentle about the way it writes the characters and their relationship, how it’s been almost 80k and there are definitely feelings and being in love, but they weren’t really in the right place for a relationship yet. The fic does a lovely job of establishing Anakin’s healing process and their daily lives, that it uses this time not to just drag things out, but to clear away the things that need to be cleared away first, that Anakin has to truly be ready, not just wanting more with Obi-Wan, but truly being ready to go there, and this fic gently keeps them on that path.    And that’s what really makes me enjoy this fic, that it’s well written in a way that’s easy to read, but also well written in a way that builds something here, that I can legitimately enjoy beyond just iddy kink reasons. I’d have read this story with or without the tropes! And it’s hard to believe that it’s as long as it is, because it was just so easy to pick up and read and read and read, there’s something so smooth about the pacing and writing style, something that pulls me along without me even realizing it! And I love that there’s enough resolution by this point that I think the WIP factor doesn’t matter too much–though, it’s been in progress for ten years now, it still gets slowly updated, so I don’t doubt that it’ll continue to be so.    It’s a fic that I went into expecting it to be one of those early 00s types of fics that were cheesy and appealed to my id for the OTT kink, but instead found a fic that was much more gentle than expected, that took its time and wasn’t about dragging out the angst forever, but instead that healing took time and that the majority of the fic was actually pretty calm and laid back, the most exciting parts (previous to the most recent chapters) were Anakin’s frustration with himself to not be over his past more quickly, that he still had nightmares sometimes. Sure, once things start heating up, there’s more action and plot going on, but at its heart this is still a fic about being a slow burn relationship and it hasn’t strayed from that–I have no doubt that it’ll get there, but I love that it’s taking its time to do so, because the journey there is the important part. ✦ Second Chances by Driverpicksthemooseic (Ratkinzluver33), obi-wan/anakin & han/luke & ahsoka & leia & cast, de-aged fic, 121.3k    Leia wasn’t convinced inviting evil incarnate to join them in fighting the Empire was exactly one of Obi-Wan’s brightest ideas.    This is a delightful cracky fic where, mid-ANH, the Force decides to de-age Obi-Wan and Anakin by about twenty years and then Anakin decides to defect to the Alliance and be a scary over-protective helicopter parent when he finds out Luke and Leia are his kids and also oh yeah falls totally in love with Obi-Wan. And then more characters from The Clone Wars and Rebels are pulled in, the plot goes off in its own direction, and it’s this fun, easy to read fic that I just sailed through! It’s very long, but it’s focused on a fairly large cast of characters (though not so large that you can’t keep track, especially since they’re all characters you’re invested in already) that’s about the greater web of connections between the SW characters. I picked it up for the Obi-Wan/Anakin ship, which is actually a relatively small part of the overall story, it’s really more a group fic about how Vader defecting to the Alliance changes a lot of things, and it’s about Anakin angsting a whole lot about trying to balance himself and his emotions and not always doing a stellar job of it, it’s about the people he’s hurt along the way and how some are able to be won over, but others take a much longer time.    I read practically the whole thing in a single day, that’s how easy it was to sail through, and it’s one of those delightfully tropey fics where I’m just so here for de-aging fic (why is there not more in fandom?? I want it!!) and it was nice to have a longfic to sink my teeth into again! It’s one of those stories that really hits a person’s id if you’re into this kind of thing and I am definitely in fandom to read about helicopter parent Anakin Skywalker who’s practically the same physical age as his kids. :D :D :D ✦ White Rabbits by Butterfly, obi-wan/anakin & luke & leia & han & cast, NSFW, time travel, 102.5k wip    Through the Force, everything is connected. Anakin and Obi-Wan find this out first-hand. I do have a couple of caveats about the fic–it hasn’t been updated in close to a year (but it’s also been in progress for over 10 years, so the author does keep coming back) and the beginning of the fic (probably about the first third at least?) is very much the plot moving the characters rather than the characters moving the plot, that they don’t really react to things in a way that feels organic to their own motivations, but rather where the scene wants them to go. And I do have some trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that Anakin wouldn’t be all over his kids, even as the fic gently nudges him away from them because of jealousy and then fear for Padme’s life. I mention these things because I want to encourage readers beyond them (as I always do with recs) because it’s a story that I read over the course of a couple of days and the writing is really smooth and just so nicely sailed along and it very much has a plot and does a really lovely job of balancing the five rotating character povs (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Luke, Leia, and Han), of throwing this tangle of characters together and keeping up with group scenes. The fic’s plot is absolutely intriguing and the author is taking their time with it without feeling like it was dragged out, it’s almost sort of hard to believe that it’s a fic that’s over 100k because it was just so easy to keep reading and never felt bogged down or padded out just to up the word count.    And once the fic settles into the story, as Obi-Wan and Anakin discover more and more about this future, as they’re thrown into a situation where Anakin has to face what he’s capable of (once he hears about Vader) and how the fic sort of… balances between trying to reconcile that/fix it and also just sort of avoiding it by going I WON’T DO THAT I WILL AVOID IT, which is actually a pretty perfectly Anakin Skywalker reaction. The author also knows how to write UST while still giving some resolution, that Obi-Wan and Anakin are very attracted to each other and it’s being thrown into this mind-boggling situation where Anakin desperately needs someone to help and support him, he desperately needs someone to cling onto, that seeing this future where the Jedi are gone and this horribleness is possible, that finally breaks that last hurdle and jams them together. I love that Padme may not be here, but Anakin’s love for her never is dialed down a notch, that so much of why he wants to go back is to save her, that he still loves her just as furiously and obsessively as ever, even as he loves Obi-Wan as well. And the sex scenes were lovely, the way Anakin is desperate to grind himself against Obi-Wan is lovely, as well as the brief moments where Obi-Wan’s hands slide lower down his back, not quite ghosting over the prize there, but the implication of the future, that one day he may open Anakin up and push into him is there, and just the right amount of promise of it.    But also! The later chapters are starting to get into just what all is in this world, what’s left that they might still remember, that they’re still working to uncover just what happened, both to them and to this world that may be their future. And I do love that it’s Leia who pushes for them not to change things, because they worked damn hard for this future, because they fought and bled for it, because she won’t give up this hope or gamble it away on something that might be better or might be worse, that who she is, everything that’s made her Leia Organa, could disappear, it makes perfect sense that she would try to convince them to stay, and it allows the fic the time and room to explore these characters from the past in this future. It’s a fic that’s definitely a WIP and may take a long time to update again, but I greatly enjoyed what was here and it was just so very easy to sink into and I appreciated having that over the past week! Plus several Obikin kissing scenes yes thank you! ✦ The Reality of Change by midnight_vision, obi-wan/anakin/padme & ahsoka, time travel, 185.1k    Padmé dies on Mustafar and wakes up in the past, about a year before everything falls apart. She’s determined to make sure none of it happens again, and with some help, she tries to expose Palpatine for what he really is. But even if Anakin and the Republic can be saved, that doesn’t mean life will be easy.    At the time of this post, I’ve only read about half of this fic, but it fits theme and I wanted to include it! But it’s definitely a rec based on half the fic so far: I could have sworn I’d done a rec for this fic before, but I cannot find it anywhere in my files, so I’m going to assume I haven’t actually and do one fresh. I am always here for Obianidala fic and I’m always here for time travel fic, so I picked this one up and tore through pretty much all of it over the course of a few days! I do have a couple of caveats about it, the biggest being that the Jedi are used as antagonists, even against established canon (like, they’ve specifically said they don’t keep people against their will, that they wouldn’t force Anakin to stay), which can be jarring sometimes, so you gotta roll with the premise of them being villains, but when the fic is all about the domestic trio learning to figure out their relationship, the fic is at its strongest and it’s just really heart-warming and delightful. It’s a long fic, so it’s a bit of a slow burn, not in that there’s lack of resolution, but in that there’s no hurry to get there before everyone is ready, instead it’s a much more natural pace that I really enjoyed.    I love that it’s a Padme time travel fic as well, because I very rarely see one about her, especially because she doesn’t know everything that happened and it gives her a chance to work through what happened between her and Anakin on Mustafar, that she has to work through all that fear and mistrust, because this Anakin hasn’t done those things, but she has to process that they did happen, that it could have happened, and that’s something that takes quite awhile to get over. There’s also some lovely Padme & Ahsoka friendship scenes, there’s a whole lot of Padme telling people what she knows, there’s a lot of Anakin having to deal with feeling kept out of the loop, that he’s still got anger issues and isn’t emotionally stable, but Obi-Wan and Padme have better tools this time around, there’s a good amount of Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship building, and there’s a lot of satisfying fixing of the timeline, including killing Palpatine plot!    The fic is at its best when it’s about the breathing room the Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme trio has or when they’re interacting with Ahsoka, when the story is going towards fixing things, that’s when my heart is happiest and I just really had a lot of fun reading this, especially since it was lengthy and I loved being able to tear into it and read read read for so many pages! ✦ Sigh No More by edenwolfie, obi-wan/anakin/padme & ahsoka & luke & leia & cast, 158.2k wip    Anakin makes slightly better choices, Obi-Wan is a Mess™ and Padmé deserves none of this. AU from Mustafar onward with liberal manipulation of canon to culminate in some angsty, fluffy, domestic fix-it because we all deserve better.    I believe I’ve recommended this fic at least once before? But now that it’s up to 22 chapters, I’ve caught up on the fic and it was time to write a fresh rec for it. I do have a few things you need to just roll with the fic for–that the characters go hide out on Tatooine instead of fighting back, that Obi-Wan is often more indecisive than he would be, that Anakin’s emotional problems tend to go away more easily than I think they would. But the point of the fic is to write a really long, really revel-in-it story about the domesticity of these characters on Tatooine, to just wholly embrace digging into the slice of life stuff in this remote, isolated area where it’s just the three of them + the twins + Ahsoka. It’s a story that has the room to breathe with the characters, that it’s not about dragging things out, but instead that the whole point of the story is that slow, incrimental moving forward with the relationship(s). It’s a story that I pick up when I want something where the characters are (for the most part) taken away from galatic level action and instead are given something like a peaceful life (as much as one can get post-ROTS, of course) and I just want to roll around in something that’s hopeful and kind.    The length is nice as well, because it really gets across that this is a story that’s meant to be a slow burn and a slow build even once things finally do catch fire. As mentioned, I don’t feel like it’s dragging things out, but instead that the slow process is the whole point, that it’s about building their relationships, their life here, step by step. It’s domesticity and slice-of-life and really reveling in it to the fic’s heart’s content. But also omg I admit I’m definitely here for the sex scene, because Anakin and Padme are adorable, Obi-Wan and Anakin had a very pretty frottage scene earlier, but then chapter 22 was exactly what I wanted–where they finally have the time and both are in the right place for something more intense, something deeper. And, boy, does Anakin find that he enjoys being held down, that he has Obi-Wan’s attention all on him, that he likes the way he feels when he’s pressed down onto the bed and held there, when he’s filled up with Obi-Wan, who opens him up with such care and affection, until there’s no other noise in his head, that all the anxieties and fears and insecurities are pushed out, as Obi-Wan pushes into him. I’m really not kidding that I will read that a thousand times because Anakin needs it a thousand times and Obi-Wan being able to give that to Anakin is so good for him as well. There’s also a lot of cute stuff with Ahsoka coming and going, watching the twins grow up, and more! But I can’t lie, I’m here for Anakin Skywalker, my precious child, getting the happy life I always wanted for him.