#for the record i did say i'm in it for jedi mostly and clone wars is a bad show for jedi lovers

[jewishcissiekj]

Reading Dark Disciple rn and... It's really not all that, sorry

Like, it's painfully obvious it was supposed to be a Clone Wars arc and not for the right reasons. First off, it's just how much Ventress is used solely to elevate Quinlan's character. There is almost nothing out of it for her in terms of development and growth. Quinlan's not "redeeming" her. they're just hanging out and she's everything he needs her to be, whether it's a guide to the dark side or a lover. I thought this book was about Quinlan AND Asajj, but so far it's so damn Quinlan-centric, and for what? I know she dies in the book, and if she's actually getting fridged like I anticipated, it makes it so much worse. Asajj talks about her dark past and all but other than that the book sorely lacks any pov part from her. This may just be my expectations failing to have been met, but I have a very low standard regarding Star Wars media usually, and once there's Jedi it's usually enough for me.

But I'm halfway through the book, and things can change. That being said, this feels like another adventure pushed into The Clone Wars series that can't have any impact on the prequels and therefore will be discarded and wrapped up nicely in a bow. It feels unnecessary and makes me think that maybe this story should have been discarded either way. In animation, it, at least, would feel right and have the usual quality, pacing, and overall feeling of a Clone Wars episode or arc. As a book, it just feels weird.

I still love Ventress to the death, though my opinion on Quinlan is just beginning to sour

[lauransoverthinking]

I have so many thought about Hondo Ohnaka.

And the way I often see fandom portray him - hilarious inept friend.

And the way he portrays himself - best friend of a certain Jedi master who is always willing to help, for a price.

And the heinous acts he is able to get away with because of this Jack Sparrow like representation.

When we see him in Rebels, it is a glowing representation of him as a scoundrel.

He loves the Jedi

He and Ezra are adorable together

He misses his Jedi best friend.

When we meet him in The Clone Wars, he’s hilarious, mostly harmless, and pretty helpful

Captures Dooku, Anakin, and Obi-wan with the goal to ransom them back to the Republic. Yay, the good guys!

Takes weapons to Onderon. Yay! Overthrow the separatist oppressors

Tries to steal kyber crystals from younglings - that’s not great, but no one got hurt and he definitely thought they could just get more. No harm, no foul?

Attempts to sell a teenage girl…. *insert record scratch here*

Everyone, and I mean everyone, loves to gloss over that last part. Fans, the entirety of the rest of canon, hell even the end of that arc, love to gloss over the fact that THAT MAN TRIED TO SELL AHSOKA.

Not ransom her back to the Republic, not sell her to the separatists.

No, he captured a teenage girl and was going to sell her to someone who specifically wanted to buy a female Jedi.

He told us this!

The truth is, I have my sights set on more nefarious criminals than I, a businessman who will pay handsomely for a Jedi.

A female Jedi at that.

This is the last arc of The Clone Wars he is in.

Later, in this exact episode, he tells us he killed an entire circus troupe because he didn’t like their act!

I would hate to be forced to cut off their heads like I did to your last act.

You remember those guys.

You are a brave man to come before me again.

Where is my Jedi?

I would hate for her to miss the show

which I'm hoping will be better than last time.

We learn so much about Hondo in this episode and it all seems to be telling us the same thing - don’t forget this guy is a bad guy. Like a very bad guy.

He seems to like Anakin and Obi-wan, so they don’t get the worst of him.

Ahsoka does not have that luxury. He is going to sell her to the highest bidder. The type of scum to say they don’t just want to say they own a Jedi, they want to own a female Jedi. We all saw the Zyggeria arc. We all know what he is talking about.

And what is worse is Obi-wan doesn’t even think anything like this is a possibility! Because he and Hondo are friends or something.

Obi-wan: We shall deal with Hondo on Florrum.

Youngling: Will Ahsoka be all right?

Obi-wan: Hondo would be even more of a fool than I think he is to hurt her.

Guess what General - HE IS GOING TO SELL HER!

And he would have continued to try if Grievous hadn’t shown up to ruin his plans.

He did not see the light and change from his murdering of circus troupe and selling sentient beings ways, a bigger bad showed up and he allied himself with the person he just tried to sell because she is a Jedi and still believed his life was worth saving.

And yet this saving his own skin behavior seems to have completely wiped the stain of tried to sell a whole person off of him. Because it’s adorable how he immediately cared for Katooni and that is all people seem to remember from that arc.

No, it isn’t adorable. At all. If Katooni had been a few years older he would have looked at her and seen profits too.

If Ahsoka hadn’t been so concussed from Grievous throwing her around, she would have mentioned the whole trying to sell her thing to someone.

And that would have been the end of the Obi-wan and Hondo friendship, because of, you know, the horrible behavior.

Anyways, TLDR - Never forget that everyone’s favorite pirate with a heart of gold Hondo Ohnaka tried to sell Ahsoka and was only thwarted because Grievous came to attack him instead.

I would have loved to see Ezra tell Ahsoka about his new bestie Hondo. Kanan is over there with his hand over his face thinking ‘I don’t know how to convince him this guy shouldn’t be trusted’ and suddenly Ahsoka solves the problem for him like ‘oh I know Hondo, yeah, he tried to sell me when I was 16 because it would be *airquotes* profitable’.

[littleladymab]

FebruarOC - Uriah

Hey hi hello did you know i'm obsessed with this guy? As I said in SWBC, I can't stop spinning him around like a rotisserie chicken in my head. 

I created his counterpart Kaedmon a few months ago (and I'll talk about her at the end of the month as a bonus character) and came up with Uriah in January! He's only slightly less new than Quin and Horatio, but I named them all at the same time. 

For January in SWBC, we read Phasma. My thoughts on the book aside, the framing narrative was someone in the First Order apprehended a Resistance pilot and then fudged the paperwork or something I guess so that there was no record of her being arrested and held on the ship and dragged her away to question her about Phasma. I have so many questions, but the biggest one came down to: Why are you going to nickname your rival Resistance spy/pilot Starling and the all-red armored NOT Elrik Vonreg from SW Resistance First Order guy Cardinal and NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT? Honestly I got a lot more mad about that than I did anything else in the book, because everything else I just shrugged off but that was the biggest missed opportunity. Also his "I love the First Order and everything it stands for" to "what am I doing with my life (but I still love the first order)" took a grand total of like 48 hours TOPS and wasn't... good. It just wasn't well done. 

So I came away from that book CRAVING spy v spy content. And, well, my Jedi OC is also a Fulcrum agent, so like, it made sense, right, to then make an ISB agent to be against her? 

I settled on his ISB designation before I did a name and it was mostly as a joke that had made sense to me at the time?? But now he's ISB-789 and Kaedmon calls him "Hungry 8's" and when he goes "???" she says "you know, because seven ate nine?" and he asks "Not to encourage this but then shouldn't I be hungry 7's?" and she says "No :)"

He's 20 at the end of the clone wars, and a full agent of ISB by 25, so that makes him about 40 by the end of the galactic civil war. He's from a planet at the far end of the Outer Rim, close to Wild Space but still part of the imperial "jurisdiction" (I haven't settled on any currently existing planet or not), but because he's great with accents to help him blend in, he's able to immediately adapt the core world accent. (he's not that great with the languages tho) He has a younger sister who he helped put through a fancy school on Coruscant and she's a nature photographer; their parents still live back on their home planet, despite Uriah offering to help them live in the Empire. 

More recently for SWBC we read Battlefront II: Inferno Squad and that is truly what made me start rotating him around even faster in my brain -- they're not ISB, but they're working for ISB and they go undercover into a rebel op to try and destroy it and/or find a data leak and now THAT IS THE SPY SHIT I WANTED and so instead of creating a character out of frustration I just started spinning him at warp speeds to pick up any of the stray pieces of inspo floating around. But more to the point, it was a good exercise at listening to Imperial minds in a way that didn't make them see like big joke clowns like can happen. 

So it'll be fun to lean into that when writing for Uriah because you get to see him fully believing in what he's working for, as a field operative infiltrating smuggling rings and drug gangs etc to make the galaxy a better place in the early part of the Empire -- but then as it goes on longer and longer and he gets more involved (tangentially) with the rebellion through Kaedmon, and ISB/the empire being less and less interested in investigating corruption in certain aspects, that building disillusion with their place and so on. 

And not to "diversity win!" the empire, but he's a trans guy! He gave himself the gift of top surgery after being accepted into the Imperial Academy. 

In my thoughts about how they interact with canon, I did jot down that Uriah probably knows Kallus as they're about the same age and ISB agents -- though while Kallus went on to be as you see him in Rebels, Uriah does mostly undercover work. So when Kallus joins the Rebels, Kaedmon will get to know him... and when Uriah finds out that Kallus is also Fulcrum, he about loses his whole damn mind and probably pulls a muscle laughing so hard. 

I did write like 2200 words of an outline for him and Kaedmon, and I was fully going to sit down and write how the two of them met but my brain has been absent like all evening so I'll probably do a double big drabble for the two of them at the end of the month.

[padawanlost]

Hey! I was wondering, how much power did Palpatine have over the Jedi before episode 2? And how much power did he get over them after the emergency powers? I always hear arguments about how the Jedi tried to fix/do things (even before Ep 2), but weren't allowed to so couldn't. Like, for example letting Palpatine have access to Anakin. It's never really sat right with me, and seems like making excuses, but I'm unsure. Sorry if this is worded weird!

Hey! Short answer is no. The fandom in the last couple of years created this twisted narrative that no one had control over anything but Palpatine. and that’s simply not the case. I don’t know how it became so widespread, considering this particular trend started with people trying to justify slavery, child abuse and corruption. Regardless, it’s revisionist history. If you pay attention to the arguments you’ll notice they are not backed by sources, it’s mostly something akin to ‘it’s not a war crime because *I* don’t believe it’s a war crime’.

Anyway, I won’t get into right now because I’m short on time so I’ll give you some *facts* and let you make your conclusions:

How much power the Palpatine had over the Jedi before episode 2?

It depends on what you mean by ‘power over’. It’s like asking how much power does your country’s president have over a police officer? They are bound by rank and authority but it’s not like the present have control over an individual’s personal choices. They had to follow the law, anything  beyond that was their own responsibility. 

According to the Republic’s law, the Jedi order operated under the Judicial Department. In turn, the Judicial Department was subordinated to the Chancellor’s office. However, the Jedi order had far more independence than the rest of the department, being able to chose which missions they would accept and how they would proceed. 

Though not formally bound by the Ruusan Reformations, the Jedi Order made fundamental changes as well. The Jedi gave up the bulk of their forces, from ground vehicles to warships and starfighters, and became part of the Judicial Department, reinforcing the fact that they answered to the Senate and were ideally counselors and advisers, not warriors. To decrease the chance that far-flung academies might stumble into dangerous explorations of the Force, Jedi training was consolidated in the Temple on Coruscant. And Jedi trainees would now be taken into the Order as infants, before they could be exposed to the temptations of the material world. [The new essential guide to warfare by jason fry]

Again, because the Order wasn’t an army at the time no one could *force* them do to anything, in terms of armed or even political action. To keep it short, being part of the Judicial Department didn’t put the Jedi Order in a position where they *HAD* to allow the Chancellor to spend some alone time with a 12 years old boy. That kind of rhetoric is, imo, pretty disgusting because it puts the blame of the all the abuse Anakin suffered on Palpatine’s shoulder and on his main victim who also happened to be a little boy at the time.

The Jedi Order had a choice.

Each time civilization threatened to topple into ruin, the Jedi faced a momentous decision: Did the Republic’s survival require the Order to intervene directly in its affairs? At various points in galactic history, the Jedi reluctantly decided such intervention was necessary. They stepped in to prevent the young Republic from annihilating the Tionese, plotted in secret to overthrow the Pius Dea chancellory, and served as chancellors while directly ruling large swaths of Republic territory in the chaotic centuries before Ruusan. Each time, the Order surrendered the powers it had assumed, returning to its guardian role. But as the Republic decayed and the Separatists gained strength, the Jedi began to once again debate whether a more activist role was required. By 22 BBY matters had reached a crisis point. This time it was the Supreme Chancellor himself who ASKED the Jedi to assume a new role: A powerful army awaited Republic command, but the Judicial Forces were ill prepared to lead them. Mindful that the Separatists were led by the Jedi apostate Count Dooku, the Jedi AGREED to lead the Grand Army to Geonosis in an attempt to short-circuit the Separatist threat. [The new essential guide to warfare by jason fry]

They had such independence from the Chancellor they felt justified in lying to his office and withholding information:

The Jedi Master rubbed a hand over his forehead and looked to Yoda, who sat with his eyes closed. Probably contemplating the same riddles as he was, Mace knew. And equally troubled, if not more so. “Blind we are, if the development of this clone army we could not see,” Yoda remarked. “I think it is time to inform the Senate that our ability to use the Force has diminished.” “Only the Dark Lords of the Sith know of our weakness,” Yoda replied. “If informed the Senate is, multiply our adversaries will.” For the two Jedi Masters, this surprising development was troubling on several different levels. [R.A. Salvatore. Attack of the Clones]

To make that even clearer, we have the Naboo crisis where Qui-Gon and Obi-wan’s involvement was the result of the Chancellor personally *requesting* the Council to investigate the situation.

“Under normal circumstances, the Council wouldn’t have subverted the authority of the Senate by honoring Valorum’s request to send Jedi to Naboo. But for Yoda, Mace Windu, and the rest, Valorum is a known quantity, whereas Senators Antilles and Teem and you have yet to disclose your true agendas. Take you, for instance. Most are aware that you are a career politician, and that you’ve managed thus far to avoid imbroglios. But what does anyone know about you beyond your voting record, or the fact that you reside in Five Hundred Republica? We all think that there’s much more to you than meets the eye, as it were; something about you that has yet to be uncovered.” Instead of speaking directly to Dooku’s point, Palpatine said, “I was as surprised as anyone to learn that Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Kenobi were sent to Naboo.” [James Luceno. Darth Plagueis]

If the Chancellor’s office, ddin’t have the power to force the Jedi Order into accepting a slave army, preventing a planetary invison or turning themselves into soldiers I highly doubt they would have the power to force them to give up a child a few hours a week. It doesn’t make any sense.

Here what the lore has to say about how the Jedi viewed Anakin’s relationship with the Chancellor. 

Sate Pestage showed Obi-Wan Kenobi and his young Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, into Palpatine’s temporary office in the Senate Building. Both Jedi were wearing light-colored tunics, brown robes, and tall boots. Facsimiles of each other. “Thank you both for accepting my invitation,” Palpatine said, coming out from behind a broad, burnished desk to welcome them. “Sit please, both of you,” he added, gesturing to chairs that faced the desk and the large window behind it. [James Luceno. Darth Plagueis]

Yoda stared at the floor, both hands grasping his gimer stick. There was no easy answer to that. Yes, he was concerned by Palpatine’s attachment to the boy. No matter how well-meaning, no matter how genuine and heartfelt, the Supreme Chancellor’s care for Obi-Wan’s apprentice was problematic. The root cause of all young Skywalker’s difficulties was his need for emotional connections. His friendship with Palpatine only complicated matters. But the man was Supreme Chancellor. And he meant well. Sometimes politics had to take precedence.[Karen Miller. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space]

I would think that Anakin’s friendship with Palpatine could be of use to us in this—he has the kind of access to Palpatine that other Jedi might only dream of. Their friendship is an asset, not a danger.” [Obi-wan Kenobi in Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith]

As for this comic, it’s not part of the original lore but I’ve talked about it in detail here if you’re interested. But the gist remains, the had a choice and saying the jedi shouldn’t have done anything more to protect Anakin is a pretty gross take. Anyway, I don’t know about you but this doesn’t read to me like ‘we tried everything we could to keep this child away from Palpatine’. 

Because I know people will twist this into ‘ShE haTeS thE jeDi’ allow me to clarify that this, all of this, is a good thing. It shows the Jedi had free will to make choices and the fact the made mistakes is what makes them such human, relatable characters. Also, it fits perfectly with the themes George set out to explore. 

The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three “Star Wars” movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said. Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate. In ancient Rome, “why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?” Lucas said. “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler. "You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody’s squabbling, there’s corruption.”

The story being told in ‘Star Wars’ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.” George Lucas

“All of these things that are wrapped up in Ahsoka’s story, which ultimately make her realize what the audience realizes. “I love the Jedi Order. They’re very important to me, I’ve always respected them. But there’s something wrong here, and I need to walk away from it to assess it.” It all feeds into Revenge of the Sith when the chancellor says, “The Jedi have just made an attempt on my life.” When you see these four episodes, I think you have a better understanding of how he gets away with all of that, because you see how compromised the Jedi Council is.” Dave Filoni

Because on a certain level, you have to accept that the Jedi lose the Clone War. So there is something that they’re doing that’s wrong.” Dave Filoni 

Holding the jedi accountable for their actions is not about hating them, is about recognizing the story George was trying to tell with these human characters and their very, very human flaws. Saying they should’ve done more to help Anakin, the slaves or the clones is not the same as saying they are as evil as Palpatine or simply bad people. Heroes makes mistakes, and the Jedi mistakes don’t make their actions less heroic or their deaths less tragic. The same way that Anakin’s crimes as Vader doesn’t erase the good he did as Anakin. if we can admit Anakin killed a lot of innocents *AND* that he was a great master to Ahsoka, I really can’t understand why some fans have such hard time accepting the same is true for all the characters. We all make shitty choices sometimes but that doesn’t necessarily makes shitty people. that truth, that very human truth is at the core of this issue.  Same people can accept this, others can’t.

[moragmacpherson]

The Shame Was On The Other Side

Because I’ve already read headcanons for most of the stuff following A New Hope, (or just read “I Guess I’ll Know When I Get There,” which you should definitely be reading) I had to jump ahead to the end of Empire, and how does Bodhi, nauseated by listening to respirators, react to finding out about Luke’s parentage. Many many run-ons and em-dashes ensued: you’ve been warned. PG, Bodhi X Luke, established relationship, fluff, angst Bodhi knew he shouldn’t feel like this; he’d known what he was getting into, becoming involved with one of the thirty people in the damned galaxy with a higher Imperial bounty on his head than Bodhi’s own, but still: first the wampa, then the belated holo of, Sorry, pateesa, I’m not going to make the rendezvous point, I have a training mission I need to complete alone, and finally Luke had lost a kriffing hand to Darth Vader. Bodhi toyed with his goggles in the lift on the Redemption, needing anything to distract himself from his warring feelings of relief, anger, frustration, fear and— all the other feelings that didn’t need names right now, because all they did was amplify the others. At least Bodhi would see Luke in a few minutes. At least the worst hadn’t yet happened.

Could still happen, might still happen, there’s a war going on, we’re right at the frontlines— No, right now Luke remained mostly whole, lying on a hospital bed, wearing a smile that looked only a little hesitant on seeing Bodhi’s face. “You’re here,” he said. “There was a mission,” Bodhi began to explain, not looking at Luke’s arm, he wasn’t, it was simply difficult to look at Luke’s face, especially when Bodhi had no real clue what his own face was doing, should be doing— and it must have been doing something wrong, because Luke was running soothing fingers through Bodhi’s beard —that’s a damn good prosthesis. “I’m sorry,” said Luke, shifting to the far side, inviting Bodhi to join him on the too narrow bed, but almost all of their beds have been too narrow, it was only natural to curl into Luke, warm and alive and the brightest star in the damned galaxy and alive.

“You should be,” said Bodhi. “You flew into one of Vader’s ambushes, you didn’t call for backup, we would have been there, you know we would have been there,” he muttered, because of course he would have run straight there. It wasn’t like Jyn or Cassian or any of them would have let Bodhi go alone, and maybe then Han wouldn’t be captured, maybe then the hand wiping his tears away would still be the hand Luke had been born with. Except Luke, always warm and yielding, had gone rigid and wasn’t looking at him, and Bodhi could feel in the pit of his stomach that there was something worse, something Luke was holding back. “Hey, I didn’t mean—” and Luke kissed him, a mercy that stopped Bodhi’s mouth from running any longer. Eventually the kiss had to end though. “I’m missing something,” said Bodhi, because kisses were all well and good, but after this past month he couldn’t let something so obviously wrong slide. If he was going to love Luke Skywalker, he had to love the whole of him, or else why was he here in the first place? Luke looked away. “I really— I don’t know how to talk about it,” he said. Bodhi smiled at him, running his thumb along Luke’s jaw. “Just say it, then, and then we can figure out how to talk about it together,” and he was a sap, he was a fool, he’s in love so Luke would have to forgive him— “Vader told me that he’s my father,” said Luke and to Bodhi’s credit, he didn’t jump off the bed. “What?” he said instead, flat and still. He didn’t dare move for fear just thinking about Vader might draw the... creature's attention. Bodhi'd seen things, heard things, and now— Luke kept staring straight ahead at the wall. “While we were fighting, Darth Vader asked me to join him, because he’s my father.” He looked down. “He wasn’t lying,” said Luke, a touch of bitterness to his voice, and oh, that would just be too easy, wouldn’t it? The walking nightmare being a liar would be truth in a kinder galaxy than the one which they lived in, apparently.   Bodhi’s mouth felt very, very dry. “How does that work?” he asked, mind still recoiling from this new reality, and how must Luke have felt? Had this little revelation been before or after the amputation. Bodhi couldn’t begin to imagine what Luke had gone through, he shouldn’t have had to do that all alone, said a very selfish part of Bodhi which he quashed as soon as he thought it. “I'm… I’m not sure,” said Luke, sounding a little distant. “My father was Anakin Skywalker, Jedi, hero of the Clone Wars. Who apparently became Darth Vader. I asked Leia, she said that she’d look into it, that the timeline wasn’t entirely out of the question, but her best records had been lost on Alderaan.” Because Luke was really, really too good for Bodhi, even at a time like this, he automatically moved to give Bodhi a reassuring squeeze at the mention of Alderaan. “She’s a little distracted,” added Luke. “Han,” Bodhi replied because Leia was living a far worse scenario than theirs, because Luke had said Vader had asked him to join him, but Luke had not, Luke was here, short a hand, but still here. With Bodhi. Kriff the nightmare, Bodhi thought as he reached over pull Luke into a deeper kiss, needing Luke to know he’d made the right choice. Bodhi let out a low whine deep in his throat as Luke pulled away. “Easy there,” said Luke, the warmth back in his voice. Bodhi smiled, content that he’d probably done the right thing. He hadn’t liked Luke going cold, didn’t like the idea that the darkness of Vader had infiltrated even one speck into his son. “I’m sleeping with Darth Vader’s son,” said Bodhi and he felt a little dizzy saying it. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t see any family dinners in the foreseeable future,” said Luke and now they were both laughing around the pain. Bodhi could live with this, though he had yet another troubling thought. “I can never tell Kaytoo this, can I? Can you imagine?” he said, still laughing nervously. “Actually,” said Luke, his voice gone quiet again, his new fingers back in Bodhi’s beard, “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t tell any of them.” “Oh,” said Bodhi. He could keep secrets, but keeping them from Jyn and Cassian—he pressed his lips together, “I guess I understand that.” Luke’s already faced enough suspicion from certain quarters for all of his separate Jedi missions, it wasn’t like he needed even more blasters gunning for him. But if he’d wanted to keep it secret—Chirrut or Baze would know Bodhi was holding back just by looking at him.  His mouth quirked and Luke moved his fingers to shush Bodhi. “I told Leia and Chewbacca because they were the ones who found me, and I’m telling you because you’re my you,” Luke said, like that was a sentence that made sense. Oh. “You’re not the only reason I stayed,” said Luke, “But you sure didn’t hurt.” Oh. Oh. For once in his life, Bodhi Rook didn’t doubt anything.