#somebody showed me that tma meme about how it's just if rod serling ranted about his coworkers

[yellowocaballero]

Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge made my brain go crazy honestly no idea what emotions i was feeling but by god was i feelings them, like i had my ribcage cracked open 13/10 would cry again. 💜 Also was the title based on the twilight zone episode??

AH I KEEP MEANING TO REPLY TO YOUR COMMENTS. I've been meaning to sit down and type something out for all of them, I'll get on that soon! Thank you for the essay it was awesome to read!!

And yes, as usual it was a three-pronged title - the title of the short story An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge that it's inspired by and a reference to The Twilight Zone (which aired as an episode a French short film adaption of the story) - I also kind of wrote the setting of the story as a weird, Force version of The Twilight Zone. I call it the land of the dead, the space between here and there, then and now, etc, but...it's the Twilight Zone. In universe and narratively, it's a more general reference to how the story takes place during the 'Twilight' of the Republic, and a more specific reference to how it also occurs at the Twilight of Fox's life. If you toss in Alderaan that would make Leia a Twilight Princess huh -

The story actually takes all of its major beats from TOOCB, in both obvious and non-obvious ways. The first little section (and, by extension, the last) is ripped almost word for word from the first paragraph of TOOCB. It starts out with someone being executed, it has their miraculous escape through diving into water and then resurfacing, they take a journey, then the twist hits that the entire story took place in the span of a two second dying fantasy and they die immediately (I left out a huge part of the story, which is his hallucinated reunion with his wife, but there was no translation for that and beat the point anyway). It also, importantly, takes place during the Civil War, and features a pointless execution of a poor idiot getting caught up in a war he didn't understand.

In a more subtle way, I think, it's the fact that the point of the story is that the man only learns to appreciate life through death. In the hallucinated sequence where he escapes death, he views the entire world differently - he sees its beauty, the camera lingers on beautiful images and animals, beautiful music plays, there's a sense of wonder and enchantment, as this 'near-death experience' has reconnected this man with life. He sees that he was never really living at all. This is thematically big with Fox, but in order to kind of pay homage to that I changed up the way I described the world as the days went on. In the first day he threw his clothing in the washer, in the second day he pressed his fingers to the top and felt its thumping vibrations. There's almost no description of the trolley on the first day, but in the second you see a clearer image of it. Fox looks out the window and actually sees Coruscant. He wasn't really living until he stopped and looked around - until Leia made him stop and look.

And, of course, it's only through Leia that he's able to see the true beauty in Coruscant, in democracy, in the Senate, in life. Til There Was You from the Music Man starts playing etc.

I also kinda structured it like a Twilight Zone episode - you have the introduction of the character, the introduction of the strange and bizarre setting, the exploration of the horror of the setting, the 'twist', and the exploration of the horror of the situation/concept, complete with sad ending. And, most importantly, a commentary on fascism, totalitarianism, and the importance of a single person's refusal to submit to fear. The Sith Are Due On Maple Street etc.

Anyway. Yes. I fucking love The Twilight Zone and this story took a lot from that both structurally and thematically. They used to play marathons as a kid and I'd just sit on the couch under a blanket and watch it for hours on hours and hours. Thanks for reading!