vader-apologist

[vader-apologist]

obsessed with how fixable society is, on a structural level.

obsessed with how all you need to do is throw money at public education and eliminate most standardized testing and you will start getting smarter, more engaged, kinder adults. obsessed with how giving people safe housing, reliable access to good food, and decent wages dramatically reduces drug overdoses and gun violence. obsessed with how much people actually want to get together and fix infrastructure, invent new ways of helping each other, and create global ways of living sustainably once you give them livable pay to do so. obsessed with how tracking diseases, developing medicines, and improving public health becomes so much easier when you just make healthcare free at point of use.

obsessed with how easy it all becomes, if we can just figure out how to wrench the wealth out of the hands of the hoarders.

[vader-apologist]

[vader-apologist]

Something wholesome for once.

[vader-apologist]

~ Contrast ~

[vader-apologist]

[vader-apologist]

Gonna get my holes filled at 9am on a Thursday morning 😌

[vader-apologist]

me when someone who has been nice to me every single time we've interacted is nice to me:

omg... you dont hate me?....

[vader-apologist]

Public outcry make a difference.

Boycotting makes a difference.

We can make a difference.

[vader-apologist]

bandaids on ur fingers can be a kind of lingerie. if youre enlightened.

[vader-apologist]

Should I post my Star Wars novel reading list? I've been thinking about including it in a read more under my intro.

[vader-apologist]

Someone please tell me to not spend my grocery money on the entire Jedi Quest series

[vader-apologist]

I literally hate every job in the world. I don’t want them. I don’t want ANY of them!

[vader-apologist]

Disney should hire me to write an Anakin book

[vader-apologist]

The life experiences that shaped Anakin Skywalker: slavery

I mentioned in “Jedi respect for clones” that I would like to write one day about Anakin Skywalker and his relationship with clones - I keep that in mind all the time! - but I figured out it wouldn’t be complete without talking first about Anakin’s life experiences. He spent half of his life in Jedi Order and those 10 years affected him the same as his childhood in slavery. Together those experiences shaped his relationship with clones.

“I can’t believe slavery is still permitted in the galaxy. The Republic’s antislavery laws should-“

"The Republic doesn’t exist out here,” Shmi interrupted quickly, her voice hard. “We must survive on our own.”

Anakin Skywalker was born in slavery and spent his childhood on Tatooine. Before he became Watto’s slave, he and Shmi Skywalker were brought by Hutt Gardulla. Anakin’s first master - like Jabba - was a cruel creature. Gardulla didn’t care for anyone but herself; she liked to hurt others, she “had killed expensive slaves before, often to show guests how powerful she was”. She was also known “to eat a slave from time to time” [The Ghostling Children]. It shouldn’t be a suprise then why Anakin kept a grude against all Hutts. He personally experienced their cruelty.

The first years of Anakin’s life were for sure harsh. As a slave of cruel Hutt, his living conditions weren’t the best; one of his earliest memories was about a slave who tried to run away but whose “body erupted in a small explosion” because of explosive device. Anakin was around 3 years old at that time.

He also remembered being closed in crate used to transport slaves:

Years later he was sold to Watto, or more precisely, Gardulla lost Anakin (and Shmi) to Watto because of bet. Which just prove how unstable was slave’s life. Anakin grew up with the knowledge he could be sold in any day. He could be separated from mother on master’s whim. He was treated as thing, as a price in bet. He could be also sold to mines of Kessel, where slaves were forced to work in horrible conditions. And he couldn’t do anything about it.

Watto may be seen as a nicer person than Hutt. But as much as Anakin & Shmi’s living conditions get better –

[…] after sharing a dingy, fetid room with six other slaves at Gardulla’s estate, they were astonished to learn they would have an entire hovel to themselves at Slave Quarters Row, along the outskirts of Mos Espa. Watto believed they should feel grateful, and made it clear that if they didn’t do as he said, he’d fill the hovel to capacity with additional slaves. [The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader]

– it doesn’t mean that Anakin’s life became easier. Watto used him all the time, forcing few years old boy to work for long hours or sending him alone for spare parts to Jawas (both who came to Mos Espa or were in the desert). He forced a seven years old human child into podracing, a sport that no human had a chance to survive. Before Anakin reached the age of 10 years, he experienced life-threatening situations and he survived only thanks to his untrained Force skills.

And it’s really awful to see such young kid who understood so clear what it means to be slave:

Besides, what choice did they have in the matter? He raced because he was good at it, Watto knew he was good at it, and whatever Watto wanted of him he would do. That was the price you paid when you were a slave, and Anakin Skywalker had been a slave all his life. [TPM novelization]

(Which is no suprise why Anakin - as teenager / adult - wanted to be powerful. Because since he was kid, all his life depended on someone’s power over him)

Young Anakin all of his life was exposed to violence of any kind.

Keep reading

[vader-apologist]

“but it wasn’t that bad”

did it hurt? did you feel scared? unsafe? were you embarrassed? humiliated? terrified? did you feel confused on why? does it keep you up at night? do you avoid being in a similar situation? did you cry? did you want to cry? who told you it wasn’t that bad?

[vader-apologist]

[vader-apologist]