the idea that the jedi order "should have walked away from the republic because of its corruption" is very reflective of the weird all or nothing style of political thinking that's so trendy on the internet and we could argue all day about at what point is it a good idea to leave a corrupt political system but it's also pretty divorced from the plots of the films and the themes of the saga and the worldbuilding around the jedi because like
the corruption of the republic increases rapidly in the 10 years between tpm and aotc, and during the clone wars, encouraged by palpatine. the increasing corruption due to palpatine is literally a plot point and part of the big villain's plans, not a base setting of the republic. there was certainly corruption and inaction before but it was often challenged successfully - even in tpm, though palaptine engineers the vote of no confidence in valorum, it is passed by the senate majority who clearly find valorum's response to the trade federation's invasion of naboo to not be strong enough. in aotc, even after 10 years of palpatine as chancellor, it is still challenged and seems to have a good chance of being beaten - palpatine feels threatened enough by padmé's anti-military position that he tries to have her assassinated, nearly blowing his whole secret army plot, so it seems like he thought she and the other senators who were against a standing army had a pretty good chance of winning the vote.
the jedi also regularly challenge corruption where they find it - tcw is full of examples of this and that's when the jedi are distracted by a whole galatic war. one of my favourites is mace windu telling a senator he and their whole planet can shove it in defense of the last living zillo beast. but it is also an important plot point in rots that the jedi are investigating palpatine. despite palpatine's best efforts, they were able to find the source of many things getting worse, and they go to arrest him, to cut off the head of the snake. would that have solved all the corruption and issues in the republic? no, but it was a good start and probably would have led to them investigating his connections.
and to those "it doesn't matter that some people were trying, the republic was Too Corrupt and had fallen from grace before the movies even started and there's no hope of it becoming a force for good" arguments, you're missing one of the most vital messages of the whole star wars saga - you can always choose good and you CAN be better than you were. the point isn't trying to cleanse the sins of the past, it's making a better future. but a real chance for better existing is essential, especially in the prequels, where anakin has the potential to turn everything around and do the right thing, but chooses not to (until episode 6). if there was never any hope all along, you've taken the biggest message and the tragedy of anakin completely out of the story. you've nothing left but fun special effects and action pieces without all that.
i never see people argue that padmé and the other senators should have just thrown their hands up and walked away from the republic like they do for the jedi, which is weird because they're explicitly part of the political decision-making process and the jedi are not, though they can give advice. in fact, one of their main roles in the republic is diplomacy, because it's a given that there will be disagreements, trade disputes, and planets happy to fuck over other planets if it suits them. but diplomacy and the idea that these things can be worked out is a core part of the jedi's role and their beliefs. another central belief is their mission to help people, which is why palatine and dooku encourage the the CIS (that acronym makes me laugh every time) to be so over the top evil, like attacking hospitals and developing weapons that target all organic life, to make it impossible for the jedi to ignore all the suffering and just stay out of the war. so in what world would these same people walk away from the republic because it's been a really rough 13 or so years? especially when they're pursuing an avenue (investigating palaptine) that might turn things around? it doesn't really seem like the jedi have "lost their way" by sticking with the republic, like some claim, given what they're doing is very in line with their beliefs, but rather you want them to be fundamentally different characters with radically different beliefs. which is fine, but it means that all your analysis of the jedi is built on what you wish they were instead of what they actually are.
should the jedi have gotten more involved politically? maybe - there's reasons we could argue yes, in that it might help address the causes of issues in the republic rather than just treating the symptoms, and reasons we could argue no, such as how pursuing power, even with the best of intentions, can be dangerous for both jedi and everyone else, given that the jedi could fall to the dark side and there's very little normal people could do to stop them. but that argument is the opposite of "they should have just walked away, the republic was doomed to fail" and has a lot more nuance than "any interaction with any flawed institutions thereby makes them morally bad too".
if you were in their position, would you genuinely believe that walking away would lead to a better overall outcome? or do you just say they should have walked away to maintain some kind of moral purity at the expense of all the good they did and could do?
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Hi! I recently read Patchwork Heart (like twice in two days) and I now have brainrot from that fic. (Which is to say that I loved it.) And I’m sad that it’s incomplete but I’m grateful that you wrote it, and all your other Parks and Rec fics. I remember reading a comment from you (from like 11 years ago lol) where you said you’d been writing for 14 years and you encouraged someone who was feeling bad about their own writing. Which gave me the motivation to keep writing, and made me think, how awesome must it be to be a fanfic writer for so long? This is a rambly comment to say that I’m glad you’re still writing (even if it’s not for Parks heh) and you’re a great inspiration!
(Also I’m aware this isn’t a question but I don’t really know how Tumblr works)
Well this ask officially made my year. (P.S. - Asks don't have to be questions. Especially when they're as lovely as this)
You know every once in a while I think, am I being totally ridiculous just leaving my live journal out there like that? Really, who's going out and reading stuff from over 11 years ago, except ... yeah I've totally done that myself. And I'm forever grateful for the authors who let their stuff just float along and exist. So I'm gratified to know that I did that for you today. And extremely gratified to know that I was able to give you a little motivation to keep writing. I have been doing this for over twenty years with varying levels of success and intensity as my life evolves, but I keep coming back to it, because really at the end of the day, fanfic is one of those hobbies that more than anything make me feel like me. When you find that, you owe it to yourself to hold onto it. Even if you can't do it perfectly or quickly.
I am not going to lie, I'm very sad Patchwork Heart is incomplete as well. That was an unfortunate product of life circumstances overwhelming me and by the time I paddled my way to the surface my emotional relationship with Parks had changed. But I am forever in love with the complete human disaster that was teenage Ben Wyatt in that fic.
Sooooo this isn't much, but this ask made me go back through my google docs. Here have part of a camping trip:
Griggs-Knope-Wyatt (Whatever) Family Vacation
Hell – 375-369 days to go
Yeah, it’s official, Ben does not get camping.
At all.
Look he gave it a fair try. But he just- he doesn’t get it all right. He doesn’t get what’s so fun about sleeping on the floor (”Ground,” Marlene informs him, “It’s called a ground when it’s outside, dear.") or getting so many mosquito bites, or having to make sure your food is put up in a certain way so raccoons won’t get to it. And you know what he really doesn’t get?
Ghost stories.
He does not get ghost stories. They’re not scary. They’re particularly not scary if your dad is telling them. And when your step-mom takes over and does manage to tell a scary one, well then you’re outside, in the dark . . . scared.
Oh and his tent collapses on him in the middle of the night.
Yup, okay. Not. Having. Fun.
Ben just wishes he could convince himself that’s actually because of the camping.
Leslie’s been withdrawn and subdued for the past two days. Not angry, just quiet. He tried to talk to her yesterday morning like a dozen times, but the one time he got anywhere the fact he was trying to take the whole thing seriously only seemed to make it all worse.
He doesn’t know what to do for her. Has the sneaking suspicion there’s actually nothing he can do. Or at least nothing he’s willing to do.
So yeah, maybe he’s going to just lie here under the wreckage of what used to be his tent for a little while.
Except he can’t even seem to manage that, because the next thing he knows there’s the sound of footsteps and a flashlight is being shined into his eyes like an interrogation lamp.
“Benjamin?”
Ben holds up a hand to shield his eyes and squints up at the outline of his step-mother standing over him. “Umm, hi?”
“Benjamin dear. Your tent’s on the ground,” she informs him as though she’s not entirely sure he’s aware of this fact. Sometimes he’s pretty sure his step-mother thinks he’s an idiot.
“Yeah, so umm, funny story about that. You know what it was, it- it fell.”
The fact he always winds up saying stuff like that around her probably doesn’t help.
Marlene doesn’t respond for long moment, and even though he can’t see her face he can pretty much picture it. It’s a face he’s pretty familiar with. The one that says ‘I worry about your ability to dress yourself in the mornings’.
“I don’t- I’ve never really camped,” he continues, unable to help himself. Marlene’s silences are just about the most effective interrogation technique he’s ever encountered. No wonder Leslie’s usually so talkative.
“I never would have guessed,” she shoots back, before adding, “Well, should I just leave the two of you alone or would you like some help putting it back up?”
“No- no, help would be good.”
There’s a long pause, then: “Ben, dear.”
“Yeah?”
“You need to get out of the tent.”
“Oh. Right.”
---
So in a surprising turn of events (at least in his opinion), Marlene actually turns out to be a pretty good teacher. Like okay she isn’t the most patient person in the world, but she’s incredibly precise in her explanations of how to do things like tie a hitch-knot, and Ben’s always been more comfortable with precision over intuition, so it doesn’t take him too terribly long to catch on, and when she pats him lightly on the knee in approval, it feels like getting an A in your most demanding class from the teacher who scares the shit out of you.
All in all, Ben’s feeling kind of good about things by the time they get the tent back up, so when Marlene points out that it’s only an hour or so until sunrise and asks whether he wants to help her make coffee for breakfast, he says yes, thinking maybe things are looking up.
Yeah, no, that was obviously just designed to lull him into a false sense of security.
“So,” Marlene opens without warning or preamble, “Leslie tells me I’m returning the Purdue sweatshirt.”
He barely manages not to tip over his cup of coffee. “Yeah, um, sorry about that.”
“Ben didn’t we talk about that? Um-”
“Is the sound in dumb. Yeah I know.”
The look she gives him could level small countries. Ben keeps his head down and tries not to have an aneurysm.
How does he get himself into these situations? Really why is it sarcastic, smart-aleck things always come out of his mouth at exactly the wrong time. It’s not like he’s trying to be a wise-ass. He’s not really trying to be anything really. (Except maybe invisible. Invisible would be nice right now.) But for some reason it happens anyway, and he can’t seem to stop it. It’s like this leak, this crack in his personality. Ninety-five percent of the time he manages to be exactly the kind of guy he should be, the kind he thinks Virginia Wyatt would have wanted him to be. The kind of son his perpetually fragile father seems to need. Quiet and polite and respectful. But every once in awhile the pressure of keeping everything else in just gets to be too much and these little drops of acid seep through, landing where they’re not wanted and scarring once they’re there.
Except Marlene Griggs-Knope doesn’t scar that easily.
“Oh, sit up straight. Really, Ben if you keep going through life acting like a spineless jellyfish, it won’t just be Leslie who treats you like one.”
“I don’t.” he mutters under his breath.
Only he says it to the picnic table so that probably undermines his whole protest. He forces himself to sit up and look Marlene in the eye (Okay, it’s more like her forehead, but come on, cut him a little slack here. Do you want to look Marlene in the eye? Yeah, that’s what he thought. Shut up.</i>)
“Leslie doesn’t-”
But he can’t make himself complete the thought, because . . . yeah, sometimes she kind of does. And, shit, it’s Leslie’s mom, and Marlene’s giving him this look that clearly says ‘don’t bullshit me about my own daughter.’ Still, Leslie treats everyone like that, at least everyone important to her. Ann gets, like, twenty-three instructions a day. And, well, he likes it. It’s been a really long time since anyone paid that much attention to anything he did. It’s how he knows he’s important, that she cares. If she ever stopped trying to micromanage his life, well then he’d just be another ordinary person on the outside, wouldn’t he?
He opens his mouth to try again, but Marlene waves his efforts away with a dismissive hand. Oh good, apparently he’s now already used up whatever small amount patience she had allotted for him today, and it’s only, what? Five-thirty in the morning? This is probably some kind of new record for him.
Yaaaay . . .
At that moment from across the campsite, Leslie unzips her tent and steps out into the new dawn, only to freeze, eyes going wide, at the obviously unexpected sight of Ben sitting at the picnic table with her mother.
He tries to remember enough Morse code to blink her a S.O.S.
And any other morning it wouldn’t matter that he’s pretty sure he just looks like he’s having an epileptic fit, Leslie would have already come over and rescued him.
Instead she just turns back around, grabs her towel and a bar soap out of the tent and trudges off to the shower facilities, leaving him alone with Marlene to fend for himself.
Okay, Leslie is officially really upset.
“She will get over it.”
At Marlene’s observation, Ben whips his head back around only to find himself pinned by his step-mother’s sharp assessing gaze.
It feels like all the oxygen just got sucked out of the . . . well, earth.
He opens his mouth to stammer out a disclaimer but only manages a strangled kind of gurgle, which Marlene, thankfully, ignores.
“Leslie is no stranger to disappointment. She’s a very resilient girl. Always has been.” She says it matter-of-factly and maybe even a little proudly, then immediately counterbalances it with a sigh of exasperation. “Realism, however, is unfortunately not your step-sister’s strong suit. Particularly when it comes to people.”
Ben just presses his lips together and fiddles a little with his coffee cup, drumming his fingernails against the metal. He’s not really sure why Marlene’s telling him all this. Not that any of it is exactly revelation. To know anything about Leslie is to know she puts too much faith in life in general and people in particular.
So no it’s not like he doesn’t realize Leslie’s been disappointed by people before—her father, Lindsay . . . And then suddenly it clicks with him, the why behind all of this.
People leave.
In Leslie’s world, people leave her.
For some reason he’s never thought about it before, about her history and the painful lessons life’s given her. After all, he’s the one with the dead mother, the great tragedy that defined his entire fucking existence before he met her; that he wears like a poorly healed scar on his personality. Leslie always seemed so untouched by comparison.
But she’s not. He can see that now.
Because yeah, maybe his mother was ripped out his life.
But people walk out of hers.
By their own choice.
Of their own free will.
Ben drops his head to stare down at the film that’s started to form on his rapidly cooling coffee in shame as he realizes he’s been making plans to join them, to go off to college and then conscientiously extricate himself from her life, little by little, bit by bit, until he’s down to a subsistence diet. To the bare-essentials of what he needs to survive. Never once thinking about Leslie’s needs.
God, he is such an ass.
Marlene who has been silent for a little while, gets up to pour herself another cup of coffee, before coming over to sit back down and drop another bombshell on him. “You know, sometimes I wonder if your father and I should have waited until after the two of you went to college to get married.”
Oh god. He feels a cold finger of dread crawl its way down his spine at her words, and suddenly all he can think is: She knows. She knows how he feels about her daughter, and he’s going to die. Up here in all this outdoors, Marlene probably knows a dozen ways to kill him and make it look like an accident. Maybe that’s why they’re camping in the first place. Maybe this was her plan all along . . .
It’s about this time that the rest of what Marlene’s saying starts to sink in. “—it’s not that we’re not happy you two get along so well. After all, that’s the whole reason we decided to get married when we did. Give all of us the chance to try to be a family. But--” she purses her lips, and narrows her eyes, “Maybe we were a little too successful?”
And the terror’s back. “Too successful?”
“Up until two days ago, all Leslie ever talked about was going to IU and being close to home. She’s already learned the fight song.” That makes him almost smile despite himself, because of course she has. He bites the inside of his mouth just in time to stop it. Marlene continues. “And your father tells me you’ve been collecting brochures for out of state schools ever since the two of you moved to Indiana. But suddenly here I am buying sweatshirts for Purdue.”
“I didn’t ask-”
Marlen waves his protest away. “Of course you didn’t.” Then in a seeming nonsequitor: “Did you know Ann Perkins did Model UN all last year?”
-----
When I get a little more time I'll try to bullet point out for you where I was going.
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Hi! What are some of your favorite Obidala headcanons?
So true confession time? I'm terrible with head canons. Or at least I feel like I am? Not sure. But if I reframe it as 'commonalities' in how I approach the characters in my writing, I can give you a few. Hopefully this is sort of what you're looking for ...
There was something between them first -- So far at least almost every Obidala story I've constructed, whether published or not, has an element where Obi-Wan and Padme met/connected first. Exactly what that connection looks likes varies greatly, but it's pretty universally there in my story telling and often a pivotal element of how they relate to each other. The only exception to this might be the Manny AU. I'm pretty sure they didn't meet in that one ... but stay tuned. (Interestingly this doesn't apply to my obianidala stuff ... don't know why)
They love Anakin -- This feels sort of obvious, but I'm still going to say it because it's so universal to how I write them and how they relate to each other. Much like point one the nature and character of that love and its impact on them is highly variable depending on the piece, but its so integral to both their characters and their relationship that "placing Anakin' in the piece is almost always on the first things I do when I'm spinning a story in my head.
They Fight -- My obidala can go at it. They're not mean, but they are principled and passionate and do not always see eye to eye. The result being ... they fight. Sometimes its just light sparring, but they can and do tear great gaping chunks out of each other because in many ways they see each other as strong enough to take it and trust each other enough to be honest in a way I don't think either quite manages with Anakin. But sometimes that honesty is ... explosive.
Their sexuality is flexible -- I rarely use labels in my writing or my tagging partly because I don't feel comfortable that I will use them correctly, but moreso because its not important enough to the overarching storyline to feel like a valid or necessary tag. But in my head both Obi-Wan and Padme are people who can and do become sexually attracted to the personality/spirit of an individual first and their physical qualities second. And that translates to having no strong preference as to gender when choosing a partner. I tend to write Padme as being more physically passionate and driven by a desire for that kind of intimacy and connection, where my Obi-Wan is a little more 'neutral'. He can and does enjoy sex, he's had it, and will have a one night stand if he feels a connection, or 'companionable' sex with a good friend (I have a scene upcoming in Trap with Quinlan that speaks to that as part of their history). But he's really not driven by it. He won't seek sex out for the sake of sex alone. What turns him on is the emotional connection. So the man could go months or even years and simply not have sex just because he had other things to do and there was really no opportunity he found that interesting.
Padme has undiagnosed ADHD -- So this is a very closely held personal head canon that I hesitate to share, but the more I work with Padme the more I feel like it fits. She's capable of amazing things. Principled and indefatigable are words that were coined for her. And yet some of her choices seem to make no sense. That impulsivity combined with her almost hyper fixation on Anakin and saving him. Then there's that incredible duality in RotS where she can feel competent and controlled and commanding in her professional world and yet at the slightest indication of Anakin's displeasure in her home life she seeks to soothe. That rejection sensitivity, along with that inability to truly understand/face that the 'someday' they've been trying to put off has come due ... that all feels very true to my lived experience/struggles, and while I'll probably never put it central to a story, those elements and character traits certainly inform some of how I write her.
Bail Organa is the #1 obidala shipper -- that man is such a stan ... really one of the very first things I wrote for Trap was to take the exchange between Obi-Wan and Bail in the cave during OWK and spin it with the idea that Bail knew about him and Padme ... it actually works pretty well. But seriously, if Bail shows up in my stories, I can guarantee you he will be pro-obidala
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