I'm begging on my hands and knees for more Twilight au, and those are words I never thought I'd say! Anakin being able to resist compulsion, and Obi-Wan seeming instantly obsessed, and poor Shmi! Pretty please 🥺🙏
hey!! sure! here's some more!
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Having a sheriff for a mom sucked a lot when he was a kid growing up in a small town. There was probably nothing Anakin was rebelling against more at eleven, at thirteen, at seventeen than the rule of law his mother represented.
All things considered, she was pretty good at separating her home life from her worklife. It was Anakin who was bad at respecting the separation, Anakin who couldn’t keep son out of delinquent. There’s only so many times he could be pulled out of wreckage and bars and buildings with Keep Out No Trespassing signs on them before he got The Sheriff at home and out in public.
He’d hated it growing up and had come to grudgingly respect it later and in fits and starts. His dad dying had, terribly and ironically, helped a lot. His mother had had a stroke just before and then Anakin had been faced with the possibility of being an orphan, and the terror of that had mellowed him out.
Sorta.
He still hates a lot of things about his mother’s job. Especially the fact that she’s the sheriff of a very small town.
And when people talk, she listens.
The thing about small towns is that everyone’s always fucking talking. And other people are always fucking lsitening so they can talk later. One big fucking community, which means when Anakin comes home from his weird doctor’s appointment with Dr. Kenobi, a few hours later because he took a detour biking along the edge of the seaside cliffs just to spit in the good doctor’s metaphorical face, Shmi Skywalker already knows more than Anakin ever planned to tell her.
Like, for instance, “Sheila says that Dr. Kenobi thought it would behoove you to spend some time at the local library volunteering.”
Anakin pauses, backpack half-slung off his shoulders. He hangs his stuff up slowly, careful to keep his tone very light. “Did Sheila say what I told him after he said that?”
His mom’s silence is very loud.
“I don’t want to do i—”
“I asked the new librarian about it on my way home from the station. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Apparently we used to have a program like that in the forties but it died out during the war.”
“Mom, come on—”
“It’ll look good on resumes, saying you created and supported a local reading program.”
“Yeah, but I’m a bit too old to be applying for babysitting positio—”
“It’ll look good for me as well,” Shmi says in her sheriff voice. “Elections are coming up soon. It’ll be good, if my kid was involved in the community.”
Anakin’s glad that his back is still turned to the living room, where his mom is sitting. “Are you gonna run again?” he asks, paying special attention to his tone this time.
“Why wouldn’t I?” his mom replies. “I’ve been sheriff for a decade and a half.”
Anakin lets his eyes fall closed for a second, knowing that his face can’t be seen. This is how they end up half the time: Shmi’s ardent belief that she is invincible, going up against Anakin’s desperate desire for her to be so.
And they just don’t talk about it. As if they’re actually in agreement.
He knows how this is going to shake out.
“Do you have any plans tomorrow?” His mother asks.
Anakin’s eyes remain closed. “I guess so,” he says.
—--------
Mrs. Kenobi—call me Satine—is sort of scary up close. She’s tall. She glides between bookshelves. Anakin’s never met someone who glides before. And she’s so intensely, incredibly, blindingly perfect that Anakin would rather be anywhere but in her vicinity. There’s something incredibly unnerving about the symmetry of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones. She’s obviously an absolute knock-out, just drop-dead gorgeous, but it makes Anakin’s skin crawl and his heart beat fast, but not in a good way or a normal teenage boy way.
Anakin tries to keep the unease off his face as Satine leads him through a tour of the library, a gentle hand on his forearm. That’s another thing Anakin doesn’t really like. She’s wearing satin gloves. He doesn’t know anyone who wears gloves anymore.
It’s just all a bit…unsettling.
“I put in a few words around the school yesterday afternoon,” Satine tells him. They pass by the mystery section, the fantasy section, and take a hard right into the young adult section. The shelves are smaller here, and Anakin feels rather stupidly gigantic as he and Satine walk through them. “To some parents picking their children up after school. They agreed it would be good exposure to bring them to the library for an hour or so of reading before supper.”
Anakin highly doubts it will be, but Satine hasn’t really asked him.
She sweeps past his figure and pushes open a pair of double doors with a flourish better suited for a Russian tsarina hosting an elaborate ball than a small town librarian showing off a small, cramped, and dusty room filled with padded seats and threadbare rugs.
And then, as if she has been waiting to put the last nail in the proverbial coffin, Satine adds, “A few students from the local high school will be here as well.”
“Sorry,” Anakin says, “are you saying I’m going to be reading to high school students? Can’t they do that themselves?”
After all, Anakin went to high school here. Academics hadn’t been too rigorously challenging, but they’d taught the fucking basics.
Satine raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction. “They’ll be volunteering as well.”
Oh. Right.
“It looks good on their college applications,” Satine waves a hand through the air and the words linger there. Anakin looks out the rather dirty window, jaw clenching. “I’ve already chosen a handful of books I think the young ones will enjoy.”
Anakin, committed to his fate, pads over to the titles placed carefully ontop of a short, stout side table.
“Peter the Rabbit,” he reads off the top. “Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Prince and the Pauper—look, you’re the librarian here, but don’t you have anything written this century maybe? Harry Potter, even.”
“These are classics,” Satine tells him, her nose raised into the air as if she has encountered something particularly foul-smelling. She turns away, presumably to return to the front desk so she can welcome half the fucking town inside the library so Anakin can read them fucking Anne of Green Gables and become a better person.
“These are fucking boring,” he mutters to himself, flicking the cover of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz open. Publication date: 1900. “I’d rather be in Kenobi’s office getting lectured at.”
There’s a sharp noise of disapproval from the doorway, and Anakin’s head snaps up to see the tail end of a very heated look from the librarian before the door closes behind her.
He shivers, alone in the emply room, and it takes several long minutes for his heart to settle back into its normal pace.
—----------
After the fourth kid sneezes, Anakin closes his book with a snap and stands from the very small chair they’ve got him sitting on. “Come on,” he tells the cluster of children he’s been assigned to. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Are you kidnapping us?” One of them, a snot-nosed kid who’d started the sneezing says, rubbing at her cheek beneath her glasses. “Cause mommy says that’s not allowed.”
“I’m not kidnapping you,” Anakin snaps back, barely holding in his natural follow-up to the sentence which is of course, I don’t want to be around any of you in the first place. “Also, just for future reference, you shouldn’t ask if someone’s kidnapping you after you already start following them.”
The girl scowls and reaches up her hand to hold onto Anakin’s.
For the love of Christ.
“We’re just going to go into the main part of the library,” Anakin tells his children, all six of them. “They have windows out there.”
They have windows out there and they also have parents. Parents who absolutely should be doing other things with their lives and precious hour of extra freetime.
Parents who are clustered instead around the library’s front desk as the town’s newest librarian holds court.
“Is reading time over?” one of the kids asks him, turning his head to look up at Anakin.
Anakin thinks about it. “Do you want reading time to be over?”
The kid thinks about it back. “Yeah,” he decides. “You don’t do the voices good.”
“It’s a boring book,” Anakin tells the kid. “Voices aren’t going to make it better.”
“Voices always make it better,” another kid says. “They make everything better.”
“Oh look,” Anakin says. “Is that your father?”
He gestures vaguely towards the cluster of drooling middle-aged somethings focused on Satine.
The kid peeks around his thigh and then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s Dr. Obi.”
“Dr. Obi!” The kid holding Anakin’s hand says, and she lets go.
Anakin gets a bad feeling about this, a feeling that only doubles when he turns around to see Dr. Kenobi sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of a long dark jacket that makes him look even more pale than he already is.
He scowls automatically as the man gets closer. “Dr. Obi.”
Dr. Kenobi spares him a look that’s far too amused for Anakin’s pleasure before he crouches down to the level of the kids. “Hello there, young ones,” he says, opening his arms to accept a hug from the traitor of a girl Anakin’s just spent thirty minutes reading to. “Are you eating all your vegetables? Even the brussel sprouts?”
“I like brussel sprouts,” one of the kids reports sounding proud, and that starts a cacophony of opinions about brussel sprouts from all around Anakin.
“Wow! One of mine just absolutely hates them,” Dr. Kenobi says. “She refuses to eat them, so you’re very brave, Michele.” He lets go of the girl and turns his golden-brown gaze up to Anakin. “And what does Mr. Skywalker think?” he asks, raising a hand for Anakin to take. It’s very obvious he’s asking for a hand up and Anakin is obeying before he thinks about it. He snatches his hand free almost too soon, but Dr. Kenobi doesn’t even have the grace to lose his balance and fall over.
His hand is like ice in Anakin’s, and Anakin stuffs his fingers into the pocket of his jacket automatically a second later.
“Do brussel sprouts help with circulation?” he’s biting out before he can stop himself. “Cause you may need some then.”
Kenobi’s head tilts very slightly to the side as his eyes catch and hold onto Anakin’s. “Oh?” he asks lightly.
“You’re cold,” is all Anakin mutters in return. He swipes his other hand against the back of his neck. “”S poor circlutation, isn’t it? Something in your diet maybe?”
Dr. Kenobi blinks at him and then breaks into a wide smile. “I can assure my diet is very…circulation-mindful,” he says. “Blood health positive.”
Anakin’s mouth thins into a line. He guesses that’s what he gets for trying to give health advice to a doctor, especially a doctor like Kenobi who just so happens to be devastatingly attractive and also smart.
And also an asshole. And also married.
Speaking of which. “Are you here to fend off your wife’s admirers with a scalpel?”
Kenobi’s eyebrows raise. “Young ones,” he turns his head away from Anakin, down to the children.
The strangest feeling breaks of Anakin the second Kenobi looks away, almost as if a strange pressure he hadn’t even realized had been building was suddenly dissolved.
The very small beginnings of a headache begin to thrum in his temples.
“Young ones, it’s time to find your parents, isn’t it?” Kenobi says, and like fucking magic, the crowd of six children around Anakin disperse, children swarming away from him towards the group of adults surrounding the front desk.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” Anakin blurts out, even though he’d meant to ignore Kenobi now that he doesn’t have to make nice in front of small kids. Not that he was really making nice in the first place. But now he definitely doesn’t have to.
Kenobi gives him a half-smile, eyes heavy-lidded. “It’s a special sort of skill that takes, above all else, much practice.”
Anakin scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Kenobi think he can’t commit himself to something even as mundane as a fucking commanding persona? Does he think he doesn’t have it in him to be–-
Kenobi’s eyebrows go up again. “Has anyone ever told you that you are exceedingly defensive?”
“You’re extremely nosey,” Anakin snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have better things to focus on right now anyway?”
He gestures loosely towards Satine, who has started playing with one of the mother’s bracelets as the other woman stands and looks at her rather dumbfounded.
Kenobi follows his gaze and then lets out a huff of laughter. “Satine can take care of herself,” he says, even though it hadn’t really been Satine that Anakin was worried about.
He’s about to open his mouth to say so when Kenobi turns back to him. His eyes are piercing, a dark, captivating sort of gold.
“Do you find my wife beautiful, Anakin?” he asks.
Anakin blinks. His headache is getting worse, which is probably down to what can only be a trick-question fashioned to look like a grenade lobbed at his feet. “I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” he mutters, rubbing absently at his forehead. “What the fuck.”
“An honest answer is a good one,” Kenobi says lightly. “Tell me honestly.”
The words feel pulled from Anakin’s stomach, and he’s opening his mouth before he realizes it.
“No,” he says.
Kenobi’s eyebrows crinkle together. “No?”
Anakin curses his stupid impulse control. “She’s beautiful,” he adds quickly. “Really. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”
Kenobi’s lips purse, and then there’s something like disappointment in his eyes as he examines Anakin. “Ah yes,” he murmurs. “I’ve been told my wife can make countless young men feel rather uncomfortable. It’s normal in men your age, Anakin. Sexual ar—”
“Uncanny,” Anakin blurts out. He doesn’t mean to, but he also doesn’t want to listen to Kenobi trying to lecture him on fucking arousal in the public library. When it’s not even relevant. “She’s so beautiful, it’s uncanny.”
“Uncanny.”
“Yeah, like. Monstrous.”
Kenobi’s mouth falls open, pink lips parted in what looks like honest surprise.
Anakin’s own eyes widen as it hits him that he’s just called Kenobi’s wife a monster to Kenobi’s face.
“Shit,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m going to go.”
He throws a look at Kenobi, whose eyes are lit with something a lot like interest and then across the library to where Satine’s head is turned, cocked, and eyebrows up high on her forehead, as if she’s just heard everything he’s said.
He decides rather immediately that he’s going to take the backdoor exit.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions
This originally was going to be a reblog to another post, but it happened what it always happens: It got too long.
This is the post in question.
The response I wanted to talk about was that a lot of people were defending Peter's actions in the context that he has good intentions because he believes that this is the right thing to do. There was a mistake I didn't address in that initial post, so I will say the quiet part out loud for this post.
Despite being about Peter, I will talk a lot about Miguel, because Peter is doing what he is doing because he believes in Miguel, which is a problem.
(Disclaimer: I don't hate Miguel, I honestly think he is a great ambiguous character, and I am just going as hard as I do in this post because I'm very passionate about this subject not because I think Miguel should be hated. Fans may want to stay away just in case.)
Pls don't kill me.
This is false, and that's a problem.
Okay, so let's start with this: Miguel is wrong by his own standards. I had already talked about this in other small posts but let's dig deeper into it.
Did you catch the issue yet?
Here is the thing: How a canon event can happen if the person who caused it wasn't supposed to be there?
Miguel is blaming the hole on Miles, saying that it happened because it disrupted the canon event; yet what caused the canon event?
Spot. He did it.
However, Spot is not the arch-nemesis of Pavitr, Spot didn't even want to talk to Pavitr and was mostly ignoring anyone who wasn't Miles. And again, MIGUEL SAYS HOW SPOT SHOULDN'T have EXISTED TOO.
How come Captain Singh was supposed to die in that bridge, if this wasn't the canon event?
Because remember, Miguel says it needs to be a battle against an arch-nemesis too; meaning that if this needed to happen today, THE CANON EVENT WAS ALREADY DISRUPTED BECAUSE THE WRONG PERSON DID IT.
Now, I think the audience not catching this is pretty normal; I think it took me until like my fourth watch to notice that detail. In terms of writing, is supposed to be a small little hole when the next movie talks about what's going on.
(Because yes I am convinced this is the proof that Miguel is wrong about the canon and not just a mistake the writers didn't think of. Like the fact that in Into the Spider-verse Miles's spider glitches; and then in the next movie we realize it was from another dimension.)
However, is one thing the audience to not figured out this thing; another is that Miguel is doing what he is doing when this is the situation.
Let's mention other things Miguel got wrong, not because I want to dunk on Miguel, but because those mistakes had something in common that we need to address.
This is wrong, regardless of how you sliced it, this is wrong.
For starters, Miguel is blaming Miles for being bitten, which is...dumb. Like Miguel doesn't need the context that Miles didn't try to get bitten, it just happens; that's literally what happens to most Spiders, they just got bitten. Someone who objectively has learned about the story of multiple spiders in order to create an algorithm should have noticed that.
Second, this is stupid because now that we had established Miles was going to get stuck in this situation no matter what; let's go said this: The anomaly issues started before Miles was involved.
Miguel establishes how to travel between dimensions and anomalies in general fucks things up; and guess that: there was a spider from another dimension before Miles was involved. Actually, there are more!
Is hard to see, but as you can see, there are OTHER spiders! And considering 42 is the one that says decease yet not the rest, this means they are alive!
This fact I don't know if it will be canon, because it wasn't stated in the movies; but in the artbook is stated that Dr. Oct from 1610 stole John's designs to create the collider; Spot literally created Miles because the Spider was brought by his work.
Not only is Miguel blaming Miles for this mess, but if Miguel thought it was bad that a spider bit someone when they weren't from the same universe; well how good it is to have MULTIPLE being in the hands of one lunatic scientist that is the REAL reason this mess is happening?
Fact aside Miguel is hellbent on catching anomalies yet this slipped past his radar, let's remember that he should probably be aware of much of this.
Call me crazy but when you can get footage of all the spiders and what they are doing, and then you hear about the multiverse almost falling apart; wouldn't you try to look into EXACTLY what happened?
Speaking of exactly what happened-
Oh really? Because if you ask me.
None of these are the same.
Let me break it down.
Miguel's second universe: Things glitch briefly before they start crumbling and disappear entirely.
Pavtir's universe after the Spot: Hole starts sinking an entire building and it is led to believe more can be dragged.
Miles's universe in ITSV: Things glitch before making things from another universe take the place of the original thing.
None of these behave the same, which would be weird if these ones were all truly, made because the canon was disrupted. But what a coincidence that they start to make sense the second you put some context in two of these.
Pavitr's universe is being swallowed by a hole just after the guy who creates holes and wants to open some more became a multidimensional monster thanks to a big Collider who of course can magnify the Spot's effect.
And Miles universe has buildings and the like being replaced because they are trying to bring things from another universe.
So no, I don't believe Miguel's universe is falling apart because 'Canon.' I am sure there is more to it.
I am pretty sure I could find more things if I needed to, but I think this showcases my point. Miguel is wrong, on multiple levels; you can even see this in this post early on with how Miguel blames Gwen even when a perfectly available excuse was right there. Miguel is shown to be in the wrong constantly.
Here is the thing, I am not bringing all of this up because I want to trash Miguel (if I am honest considering how many of the things he does become retroactively worst when you think about it, this is pretty tame.) I am bringing this up because the information is wrong, and they are doing decisions on the basis of that.
Because Miguel doesn't know. None of them do.
They all believe in this.
I don't believe Miguel is a villain, I don't believe he is giving the wrong information because he wants to trick everyone into whatever he would want to do. There is no one in the organization that believes in this more than Miguel.
And that's the problem.
Seeing this movie the number of times I had and rewatching parts for certain things, one of the conclusions I got is that Miguel is hellbent that is his way or the highway on this one. Everybody else? I feel they are being strung along.
For example, Miguel believes Gwen and Miles shouldn't have been involved at all. Jess thought Gwen was okay but sees Miles as an issue. Peter thinks Miles is a fine, anomaly or not.
The cardinal Sin I didn't mention in my original post wasn't left out not because I knew that Miguel, Jess, and the others are just trying to avoid the multiverse from collapsing, and ergo deserve that defense. (Though to clarify, I do believe it is something to consider because is not the same as doing things for selfish reasons than for altruistic ones.)
It was left out because I firmly believe that making a mistake in good faith is wrong by default and doesn't need an explanation.
Also because for reasons I'm going to delve right now, I just can't be normal talking about this topic.
Look, without deviating too much and making this about myself, in real life, I am sick of "But they have good intentions!" Excuse. Is actually laughable how many things that are wrong with me started with good intentions.
But! That sob story only affects one person, right? And is different when it affects others!
My mom saw in me someone with potential, she saw someone smart, that may be able to achieve things, if I just push myself hard enough, I could get the best marks in the class. I just needed to apply myself.
This meant my mom ignored the difficulties I had, chalking them up as excuses, that I wasn't trying hard enough. She loved me so much that she didn't want to believe there was something wrong with me that could stifle my potential.
Without giving unnecessary details, what ended up happening is that I have mental scars that are not going away. Some of the things that happened left irreversible damage.
I think is not a surprise to hear that I am part of the LGTBQ+ Community, in more than just being trans. Do you guys want to know how many times in my life I had heard of "think of the children!" from parents that legitimately believe presenting content that isn't cishet is actually harmful?
I lost the count years ago.
"But that's bigotry! Is not the same if you are doing it for the actual good of the people!"
Sure, hey had you ever learned about the father of gynecology, J. Marion Sims? Without his contributions, we wouldn't have the knowledge we have today, he has been praised for years for his work especially since is an under-researched field.
Did I mention the guy had almost a messianic complex believing he had every right to do what he did, which was torture black women who were slaves?
"Oh but this is fiction!"
For those who don't know or don't remember, this is Tony Stark with Bruce Banner, talking about creating an AI that could help save humanity from the next catastrophe. Bruce was reticent, yet Tony wanted to do this as a response to the events in the first Avengers movie, because he wants to have something that can stop another float of aliens from invading the world.
This thing becomes Ultron, the supervillain of that movie and a villain that created a domino effect that catapulted multiple plot threads later on.
Now class, what do Tony Stark and Miguel O'Hara have in common?
They both have good intentions, and they are trying to save the world/multiverse, yet because they are still wrong, the consequences of it are still their fault.
Let's remember who are the ones paying over this.
Ah yes, basically everyone!
Miguel has noble intentions, he suffered a great tragedy that scarred him for life, and the burden of what he did has driven him to do whatever it takes to save the multiverse, so his mistakes can't happen again. He has been focusing on this entirely, refusing to focus on other things (including his mental health because he needs extensive therapy,) yet for some reason, call it hasty conclusions, call it hubris, I honestly don't know why; he ended up coming up with a flawed theory.
Because here is the thing, is fine for the audience to not catch the logical fallacy as a newcomer who is just new to all of this; yet imagine someone who created an entire theory that they are using as the baseline of rules in order to protect the entire multiverse, and yet somehow he doesn't catch a mistake that you can figure out if you say it slowly.
This is a problem because Miguel has the entire multiverse pending on a wrong theory, because if he focuses on keeping 'canon intact' instead of the real reason why stuff like this happens, it means resources, time and effort are poured into the wrong thing.
This is a problem because has a team that I believe is over a thousand people, including teens that honestly need more help than what this SpiderSociety is doing for them; being accomplices in reinforcing the suffering they had lived. Not to mention the moral dilemma everyone here is going to have.
Speaking of this, let's circle back to how this affects Peter too.
Because he is reinforcing this.
Yes, this is not his theory, yes, clearly how things are being run is not how he would do it. But he still lets this happen, EVERYONE is letting this happen.
This is the problem with Peter, Jess, and everyone else being strung along. Basically, everyone gave one look at Miguel, saw his theory, didn't think too hard about it, and went with it.
Let me remind you, Peter isn't stupid, he knows a few things, about the multiverse. Remember how in the first movie, he was the one who knew why he was glitching? Remember how he was planning to make a new goober himself, meaning he understands enough about it to know how to make it stop?
Here is my thing, "Good intentions" depend on how many people were harmed by those "good intentions." If I decide to bring a glass of water as a courtesy, and I drop the glass; I may have good intentions, but the glass is still going to be broken. However, this is just a glass, which makes it not that big of a deal.
Miguel, by deciding to take care of the multiverse and dictate how the interdimensional travel should be done and by who, is responsible for any mess his rushed conclusions had caused. And anyone who reinforces his ideology is an accomplice.
Now imagine I am a doctor, and I am convinced I found this miracle cure to cancer, and somehow I am able to bypass trials and legal bullshit and launch it into the market, and then is when we realize my cure's research was so poor it ends up making people actually get sicker.
In this scenario I rushed to get the cure to the public so people could be saved quicker, yet by doing so I ended up harming a bunch of people; which meant no good intentions should save me for a trial and judgment for the people who suffered.
Look, I am not a philosopher, and no one is asking me to give a class on Morals and Ethics. You are free to see the situation as you see fit.
The reason I decided to do this entire post, is because I as a person, can't and will not accept "Good Intentions" as an excuse.
I am not saying Miguel is as bad as Kingpin, of course. Again, I truly feel it for his character and his tragic nature; but Good intentions stop being an excuse and become an explanation the moment other people are affected. And at this point, that number is unmeasurable.
Miguel, Peter and Jess, and everyone else decided to preserve canon to save the universe, but if preserving a fake canon ends up making the lives of people worse if not contribute to letting people die; all that means is that the mistakes are marked in blood.
And the pain the people feel from those mistakes isn't erased by good intentions.
Again, sorry for coming way too strong in this one; this is just one of those topics that like the strike, I just can't contain how much it makes my blood boil.
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