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So this man like makes you guys horny . ?

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people who hate main protags think they have a degree in maturity

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normalize seeing the end of kenobi. wouldnt that be nice?

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#you’re welcome#you guys he’s a man and a woman he’s bisexual he’s a trans man and a trans woman he’s nonbinary#don’t just want him to be#MAKE HIM#anakin skywalker#hello handsome#the only thing he ISNT is cis or straight. open your mind to the possibilities

I get the feeling some of you guys want Anakin to be a girl really bad. Well he is.

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OK there is so much that is wrong with this post from @writerbuddha and sorry to say to my followers, as much as I adore you all, I am disappointed with you for sharing and agreeing with it. The most problematic part of this post is the OPs flat out denial of Anakin’s trauma.

Before considering the reasons why the OP seems to be so determined to minimize and explain away Anakin’s trauma- in a way he would not do with other characters…. we need to stop and look at what trauma actually is.

Trauma is defined as “an emotional response to a terrible event” or a “stressful event”.

I would consider crying to be an emotional response- and Anakin was very clearly CRYING on Padme’s ship in The Phantom Menace.

I mean that is NOT the face of a happy child.

Nor is this. This boy is not happy.

Why? What could he have to cry about? He got what he wanted he was freed from slavery, he was going to be a Jedi?

Could it be? Could it just possibly be, because he had been separated from his mom, from the only parent he ever knew? From the only home he ever knew? He was in a strange place, thousands of miles from home, with people he had met only days before?

Gee, whiz! That sounds and looks like an EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to a stressful event to me. That sounds a lot like TRAUMA.

I mean any child, ANY child, is going to be effected by a sudden and permanent separation from their parent, or parental figure. Such separations are known to cause trauma.

Incidentally, George Lucas himself said that the chose to make Anakin younger in  the Phantom Menace then he originally planned to make his separation from his mother more tragic and poignant. 

Also, frankly there was far more than one event in Anakin’s life which was traumatic and may have caused him trauma. It is mentioned in the novelization of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith  that Anakin was beaten and physically abused by Watto from a VERY young age. That is going to leave scars for a kid, and more than just physical ones.

He was also witness to other forms of violence at a very young age, including

Seeing another slave die when the chip in his brain was set off during an escape attempt

Witnessed people dying during Pod Races.

Knew himself to be in danger of death and injury from said races.

Was witness to casual violence such as Tuskens shooting at people during pod races, which we see during the movie.

. It is a well established and evidenced  fact that being witness to or on the receiving end of violence from a young age has a severe and negative effect on children, pyschologically and emotionally.

Well, that and the whole SLAVE thing.

I mean slavery in and of itself has a detrimental impact on the human pysche.

Being owned by someone else. Being their property to dispose of as they please. Having no freedom or autonomy, none of us can ever and will ever known what that is like, but it is sure to have a horrible effect on someone.

Conclusion:

Anakin already had severe trauma before he left Tatooine.

Qui Gon Jinn then took the boy into an active warzone on Naboo. I mean we see this in the movie…. 

Kids do not belong in warzones, and again, this experience has a severe and detrimental impact on children.

This is well documented…..and Anakin clearly looks terrified in that scene. 

So MORE trauma.

I think we can conclude that Anakin had trauma in heaps. Lots of truama- and one can only wonder at the reason why people like @writerbuddha and @starwarsaddiction try to deny this. Could it be because acknowledging that he had trauma might illicit a degree of sympathy for him?

Might actually require them to feel sorry for the kid? See him as a victim?

Or is it rather the case that the only character they will allow to have trauma this only character who is ALLOWED to have trauma is Obi Wan Kenobi?

I mean these guys just cannot stop talking about how much Obi Wan Kenobi suffered. How much suffering and pain and trauma he endured.

As fear as they’re Concerned Obi Wan suffered more then any human who ever lived and is the true tragic hero of Star Wars. Never mind that not faking disqualifies him from being a tragic hero, and his total lack of a character arc or development makes him more Mary Sue than Hamlet. 

Never mind that George Lucas had never said anything like the above about Obi Wan and has always described Anakin not Kenobi as the tragic figure. Who needs Lucas when you have rabid devotion? 

Second Anakin was not “tormented by dreams about his mother for ten years”. Like NO source supports this. It is very, very clear in the movies and the novels that Anakin only started having visions about his mom AFTER 10 years. The dreams began shortly before the events of Attack of the Clones.

At no point in the almost decade before that had Anakin dreamed about Shmi.

The dreams were not a result of of his “fear of losing her”. The dreams began, very suddenly and without warning when she was kidnapped by the Tuskens. There is no indication that he did anything to bring them on, the only clue we have for their source is a remark made in the Phantom Menace “He sees things before they happen”. Yeah, that. Anakin had prophetic dreams. He had premonitions. This was more than just Jedi senses: “I have a bad feeling about this” type of thing. He actually sensed things before they were going to happen- or in some cases SAW them.

So now we have that cleared up, and we have established @writerbuddha is talking out of his hat, there is one psychological condition that @writerbuddha has left out, and I assume his omission was deliberate because ONLY Obi Wan Kenobi is allowed to have this condition.

Or so it is said. Not by George Lucas. Just by fandom fancy.

PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Symptoms of PTSD include. 

Flashbacks. Anakin had this. I  the novel of Revenge of the Sith he had one during the Dooku fight. A flashback a a childhood beating from Watto. 

nightmares. Anakin had these pretty much all his life. 

Trouble sleeping or disturbed sleep.  Yup in both legends and Canon Anakin had this so much so he actively avoids sleep. 

Overwhelming anger. Not uncontrolled as the OP suggests, especially when faced with situations which remind them of trauma. Anakin gets angriest when made to deal with slavers. Who remind him of his trauma or people who r remind him of traumatic events. 

In the movie, Dooku was supposed to goad Anakin with reminders of what happened to his mom, and Lucas was even considering having him day he paid the Tuskens to kidnap her. 

Trouble coping with change. Oh yes. That’s a real symptom. 

C-PTSD a variant of PTSD associated with people who have been enslaved or trafficked or were victims of domestic abuse 

Anakin fits this even more closely as this Tumbl r shows. The symptoms of C -PTSD include problems with: 

Emotional Regulation. May include persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or inhibited anger.

Consciousness. Includes forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes in which one feels detached from one’s mental processes or body (dissociation).

On several occasions in the novels Anakin is described as feeling like he’s outside himself or his body. Feeling like he’s looking at himself from the outside and not really aware of what he’s doing. 

In the movies his eyes appear to glaze over, which is frequently associated with dissociative episodes. Most notably just before the Tusken massacre. 

He says in the Clone Wars series that he wasn’t himself that he didn’t know what came over him. 

In fact many psychologists ave persons  much better qualified than @writerbuddha recognise the above as a dissociative episode. 

Self-Perception. May include helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings.

Distorted Perceptions of the Perpetrator. Examples include attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, or preoccupied with revenge. (Obviously Anakin’s focus on slavers, and later on the Jedi.)

Relations with Others. Examples include isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer.

One’s System of Meanings. May include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.above

Honestly so many people including health professionals recognise the symptoms of PTSD, BPD and dissociative personality Disorder in Anakin that I’d rather take their word over a guy who's  done a few minutes internet research and has some recycled Lucas quotes. 

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Here’s to the fanfic writers who can only write sporadically.

Here’s the writers who can’t output enough to keep up with the most popular writers.

Here’s to the writers writing even though they get no feedback.

Here’s to the writers who somehow manage to scrape together a little inspiration and a lot of hard work to write that story they know nearly no one will read.

Here’s to the creators who keep going even when it’ feels like screaming into an empty void.

You’re inspiration, and I don’t know how you do it.

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tried explaining star wars fandom to my dad and settled on the simile that sw is too big and fucked up to know everything and you sort of have to choose a major like mando lore studies or jedi lineage trees and then we all come together but do not get along just like real academia. anyway what’s ur major

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Sometimes I think that Star Wars fans are so entrenched in their preconceptions about what anything "really means" that they forget to grasp the full picture.

It seems natural to want to view one's own favorite character as the ultimate victim. And as far as source material alone is concerned, there seems to be little doubt as to who the audience is meant to ultimately sympathize with... that is, little doubt, if one views one's favorite character as the ultimate victim.

But just for a second, put all that aside. Forget about finger-pointing and petty drama, about the endless struggle to prove who is right and who is wrong, who is a villain and who is a victim.

And think about everyone you know and love.

Your family, your friends, your partner, old friends and people you met literally a year ago. Whoever you trust and want to spend time with. All of those people.

They are your home. You may not always get along perfectly with any of them, but you can always come back to them, always trust them to come back as well. You know them, and you love them.

And you are aware of their flaws.

But can you trust them to not become only their flaws? You trust them, but do they trust you in turn? You want to think so, but more and more, their actions have caused you doubt. Still, you remind yourself that people are so much more than their best and their worst. You trust them.

The problem is, they don't trust each other. Sides are forming, and inevitably, you will be pulled to one of them, whether you want to or not. Someone will choose you, and for that reason alone, someone else will reject you. And so it will continue, until all that remains is you and whoever chose you.

You don't want it to be that way. Just because someone chose you, doesn't mean you should necessarily cut ties with everyone else. In fact, you reject the one who chose you first. But to what end? All you've done is reject the one person who chose you. Everyone else you've ever loved will reject you, has rejected you already for mere association. For being fooled the same way they all were, and for having the favor of the one who fooled them.

So you return to the one who chose you. And you do his bidding, lest you lose whatever human connection you have left. You don't plan to keep this up in the long-term. Given the chance, you will leave him behind, topple everything he has built and make things right.

But you never get that chance.

Because someone else is here now. Someone you once loved, who has earned your distrust, rejected you before you even met. He demands answers.

If he had truly earned your trust, you never would have chosen the other.

Yet he chases you down and victim-blames, hacking you to pieces while claiming to have loved you.

You would say it's incomprehensible, but you understand perfectly - this is worse than any nightmare. You have been betrayed worse than you ever thought possible.

At least if it were one person, there would still be others. But all you have left is one person, one person who would then proceed to make your life into the worst nightmare you can't even sleep to escape.

And you can't cry.

This is Star Wars, the Skywalker Saga.

Imagine the worst drama you have ever experienced. Now imagine that there's no way out, and once the wrong person gets a good look at you, any hopes you had of connection with someone else are done for.

And tell me you don't feel trapped. Take a lungful of air and tell me you can taste it.

Tell me purity culture is justified.

Lie to me. Tell me you don't feel sick.

Tell me you still believe in an ultimate victim.

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I never thought I'd see someone victim blame and talk about victim blaming in the same post, yet here we are.

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No but why does this line give me so many ideas? Why does it give me the vibes of someone walking away from a family member/old friend/ex who dragged them down? Leaving behind someone who controlled much of their life, having realized that they can live much better if they were free of this person?

Saving this line, don't mind me...

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Saving this line, don't mind me...

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Dust Writer

It's hard to combine air and earth, and you are the proof that impossible is just a word. You mix the patience behind the creation of long stories, with the lightness of air, and its force. Your prompts are the best, interesting, funny, and creating infinite possibilities and universes in front of them. Your words carry the reader in new and unexplored worlds, you give them wings and the whole sky. You can give a just taste and it's too good to stop. Your readers become your fans, because your writing gets them addicted. Your words can have an aftertaste of sadness sometimes, but mainly you like to show the feelings, like to let them really exist, without apologies. You're the writer that's born with the ability to touch the deepest floor of an abyss and, at the same time, smile while sitting on the clouds. Dust writers are a breathing miracle that make readers reach heights that others can only dream of.

(And, like dust, I'm always brushed off.)

Tagging whoever wants to.

what element writer are you?

water writer

just like water, you carry your readers in a new world, and they just can’t do anything but follow. your poetic writing allures the readers in with beautiful words, just for them to find themselves on the deepest oceans floors, where you make them taste pain in its sweetest form. water writers are the gentlest liars, they show the readers a small stream, and no one can see the waterfall at the end. if you were a tag, you would definitely be ‘Everything is Beautiful But Everything Hurts’. cliffhangers are one of your strong points that, mixed with your incredible versatility, make you a great writer. your stories have a deep meaning, and never miss to leave traces on your readers hearts. you don’t limit yourself, you like to explore the deepest parts in the human soul, and that’s why readers can sometimes find MCD in your stories. your endings tend to be sad or open, and your stories have the power to drag your readers with you, from the highest waves of a storm, and to the darkest secrets of the ocean.

this feels like the highest compliment i ever received when i honestly feel like a 4-6/10 writer :’)

tagging: @kitastowel @haikyuutothetop @amjustagirl @forgetou @luvnami @kohi-zeri @violetsoju @throughtheinterstices @moondaius @yacoka + anyone else who wants to try it !!

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Enemies-to-lovers, but instead of featuring a villain redemption arc, the heroic one is getting progressively more corrupt, unhinged and fucked up, and the one who was originally the clear-cut villain out of the two is just like "well mark me down as scared and horny"

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“Getting” yourself to write

Yesterday, I was trawling iTunes for a decent podcast about writing. After a while, I gave up, because 90% of them talked incessantly about “self-discipline,” “making writing a habit,” “getting your butt in the chair,” “getting yourself to write.” To me, that’s six flavors of fucked up.

Okay, yes—I see why we might want to “make writing a habit.” If we want to finish anything, we’ll have to write at least semi-regularly. In practical terms, I get it.

But maybe before we force our butts into chairs, we should ask why it’s so hard to “get” ourselves to write. We aren’t deranged; our brains say “I don’t want to do this” for a reason. We should take that reason seriously.

Most of us resist writing because it hurts and it’s hard. Well, you say, writing isn’t supposed to be easy—but there’s hard, and then there’s hard. For many of us, sitting down to write feels like being asked to solve a problem that is both urgent and unsolvable—“I have to, but it’s impossible, but I have to, but it’s impossible.” It feels fucking awful, so naturally we avoid it.

We can’t “make writing a habit,” then, until we make it less painful. Something we don’t just “get” ourselves to do.

The “make writing a habit” people are trying to do that, in their way. If you do something regularly, the theory goes, you stop dreading it with such special intensity because it just becomes a thing you do. But my god, if you’re still in that “dreading it” phase and someone tells you to “make writing a habit,” that sounds horrible.

So many of us already dismiss our own pain constantly. If we turn writing into another occasion for mute suffering, for numb and joyless endurance, we 1) will not write more, and 2) should not write more, because we should not intentionally hurt ourselves.

Seriously. If you want to write more, don’t ask, “how can I make myself write?” Ask, “why is writing so painful for me and how can I ease that pain?” Show some compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself for not being the person you wish you were and treat the person you are with some basic decency. Give yourself a fucking break for avoiding a thing that makes you feel awful.

Daniel José Older, in my favorite article on writing ever, has this to say to the people who admonish writers to write every day:

Here’s what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of ‘should be,’ ‘should have been,’ and ‘if only I had…’ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and you’re not.

The antidote, he says, is to treat yourself kindly:

For me, writing always begins with self-forgiveness. I don’t sit down and rush headlong into the blank page. I make coffee. I put on a song I like. I drink the coffee, listen to the song. I don’t write. Beginning with forgiveness revolutionizes the writing process, returns its being to a journey of creativity rather than an exercise in self-flagellation. I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.

Writing has the potential to bring us so much joy. Why else would we want to do it? But first we’ve got to unlearn the pain and dread and anxiety and shame attached to writing—not just so we can write more, but for our own sakes! Forget “making writing a habit”—how about “being less miserable”? That’s a worthy goal too!

Luckily, there are ways to do this. But before I get into them, please absorb this lesson: if you want to write, start by valuing your own well-being. Start by forgiving yourself. And listen to yourself when something hurts.

Next post: freewriting

Ask me a question or send me feedback! Podcast recommendations welcome…

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Afaik the current "Deception arc discourse" started with someone making a joke in another context that it was an arc where Obi-Wan was "evil." It was (at least to me) clearly a joke (and I say that as someone who often mistakenly attributes non-obvious jokes to malice). Obi-Wan even says in the arc that "I'm starting to enjoy playing the villain."

But even if it wasn't, is there anything wrong with people having that interpretation of the arc? Is there any reason people shouldn't joke about the messy writing of TCW and how it massacred our boys? Should we start writing meta posts about how Padmé somehow deserved to be put in a room with Rush Grabbyhands Clovis, or about how letting the brain worm infect Luminara would have been good for science?

(The brain worms bit is something I have yet to see a nuanced take on. I've learned too much unsavory research history to honestly think Obi-Wan's suggested research methods would follow an informed consent model.)

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The problem with larger spaces, the spaces that try to welcome as many people as they can, is that they often rely on blanket labeling for content filters. When you blanket label a subjective experience, it paints over every individual reality that differs from the creators' limited worldview.

As an example, there are many ships that go adjacent to one that might be considered a "main" ship - not by nature of the ships themselves, just by happening to include some of the same characters and/or the characters' friends. And not all of these adjacent ships are created equal. Some of them are rather unpleasant to look at. So what if we created a category for those, labeled "NoTP"?

Then you run into problems. Sometimes the NoTP label is accurate, but inevitably you'll get someone who really likes a ship that went on the NoTP list. Or vice versa, someone who has a NoTP and resents that it's considered adjacent to the main ship and not placed in the NoTP category.

Obviously, you can't blanket label which ships can be NoTPs or not to those who ship the "main" ship. In fact, blanket labeling NoTPs can be something that approaches anti territory. But if you really want to filter adjacent ships, there are ways to do that that don't rely on blanket labeling.

Same goes for "squick." No matter what anyone adherent to a larger space will tell you, squick is a subjective experience and by no means limited to things like bizarre alien anatomy. Like NoTP, there is nothing about any topic or another that necessitates labeling it as "squick" or, by not doing so, insinuating that the topic cannot be a squick. Of course, there are once again ways to filter content that don't rely on blanket labeling.

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Just want to give a shout-out to one of my least favorite word choices from Luceno’s Dark Lord, where Darth Vader thinks that he “was also married to Sidious,” because yuck