A 36-foot-long billboard located at the corner of Highland and Baum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Every month, a different individual is invited to take over the billboard to broadcast personalized messages, which are spelt out using wooden letters that are changed by hand.
singleminded and incredibly dedicated to whatever it is she’s focused on at the time (gets into and then goes to law school to get back warner, even though it breaks with everything she’s done in her life up until that point)
incredibly knowledgeable about her chosen point of interest (”it’s impossible to use half-loop top stitching on low-viscosity rayon”)
has a dog who’s permitted to live with her on campus and go to court with her, and who completes daily-living tasks like fetching mail (i’m calling it: bruiser’s a service dog)
relies on routine and an established set of coping mechanisms (manicures; tries to schedule social events to maintain some sort of consistency)
struggles with social cues (for instance, the way she delivers her introduction when she first arrives at school, the way she interacts with warner)
is incredibly smart (got a 179 on the LSATs) but struggles in school — has difficulty keeping track of her assignments (first day in stromwell’s class), has difficulty answering questions on the spot in class (”do they always do that? put you on the spot like that?”)
struggles with codeswitching in different environments (with her friends in LA, in the classroom, with the other harvard students, in court, etc)
when she does try to institute a change like this, she does it overly dramatically; she over-plays it — see: the outfit she wears for her first day of classes
that line also — ”i totally look the part!” — that idea that what she wears, says, and does are largely performative (maybe also she’s trying to pass?)
uses overly formal or informal language; language inappropriate to the context (”and i am fully amenable to that discussion” when warner is breaking up with her; the ‘valley girl’ language she uses at harvard)
has difficulty identifying sarcasm and mocking (the costume party)
is set up in the narrative as out of place in her social environment
the narrative about elle ultimately winning the case because she uses her existing skills, knowledge base, and passion rather than What She Learned In Law School ™ is also, like, a really strong neurodiversity narrative
i love her and i only care about autistic characters, so she must be autistic
she’d be a textbook example of the sort of woman who falls through the cracks in diagnosing autism, if the textbooks didn’t fail so egregiously in regards to diagnosing women.
So I was rereading Harry Potter, when I came across this and thought- what if instead of Cedric Diggory, Cassius Warrington had been chosen to compete in the Triwizard Tournament?
Imagine Dumbledore calling out the name of the Hogwarts champion and it isn’t a Gryffindor, or a Ravenclaw, or even a Hufflepuff, but it’s a Slytherin. A student from a House most people hate.
Imagine Cassius Warrington getting up, and three out of four Houses are booing at him and shouting things like “NO!” or, “We can’t have a Slytherin champion!” or demanding a retry. But he’s a Slytherin- he’s been dealing with this shit since he got sorted, so he keeps his head high and joins the other champions.
Imagine Harry trying to catch Warrington alone because he doesn’t really want to associate with Slytherins (plus Malfoy has this tendency of being around the guy ALL THE TIME since he got chosen), but at the same time he’s also fair enough not to want him to walk into the first task unprepared.
Imagine Warrington walking over to Harry a few months later, and Ron and Hermione both jump into a protective stance, wands out, but instead of attacking Harry he just tells him to stick the egg underwater. (Because Slytherins don’t forget those who helped them out).
Imagine Warrington and Harry helping each other out in the labyrinth.
Imagine Harry being devastated when Peter kills Warrington- because Voldemort doesn’t care what house they’re form, a spare is a spare.
Imagine the uproar that causes among the Slytherins, because some of their parents really are Death Eaters and they know what really happened.
Imagine Slytherins fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts and shouting “This is for Cassius!”
Imagine Harry returning with Warrington’s body, and the crowd realizes what’s happened, but Warrington’s parents don’t show up. There’s no one to mourn him, to cradle him in their arms and cry for their son. The Slytherins know why. His parents were Death Eaters, too.
Imagine Slytherins reaching out, asking for help from classmates from other houses. They’re terrified, truly terrified because the being their parents claimed would never hurt them because they’re pureblood, they realize that he does not care.
Imagine Slytherins in the 5th book sneaking off to join Dumbledore’s Army, to learn more about who Voldemort is without their parents acting as a filter.
Imagine the shock when they’re told what he’s really done.
Imagine that a few talented Slytherins went with Harry and the others into the Ministry of Magic. The others are a bit wary but they prove themselves as friends.
Imagine them being confronted by Lucius Malfoy in the the Hall of Prophecy, and when the Death Eaters descend, they know that any one of them could be their parents.
Imagine the shocked gasp of a Death Eater as they realize their own child, a pureblood, is standing defiantly with Harry Potter. They choke back a cry. They can’t let their child know that they were about to duel to the death.
Imagine a DA Slytherin facing off against their own Death Eater parent. That they make the decision to let their child defeat them, because in that moment, they realize that they love their child more than they fear Voldemort. They go down, mask unveiled, and the Slytherin kid has to be dragged from the fight before he gets killed.
Imagine Book 6 Slytherins getting more friendly and cooperative with the other houses. Two years of Voldemort terrorizing the muggle and Wizarding world, two years where their parents just up and leave some days, cringing from the pain in their arm, two years after the death of the first Slytherin pureblood, Cassius Warrington, killed by Voldemort’s right-hand man, and they’re slowly hitting the breaking point.
Imagine Slytherin kids keeping tabs on their parents, sending the information to Harry, who shares it with the Order of the Phoenix, and hoping that their parents won’t be killed.
Imagine Book 7 Slytherins low-key rebelling against the new oppressive Hogwarts staff.
Imagine the final siege on Hogwarts, where Slytherins stand proudly by their fellow houses, knowing full-well they could be fighting their own parents. Some Slytherins know their parents were in the fighting. They hope to find them first and sneak them away. Their fellow students understand. Professor McGonagall allows 7th Year Slytherin, Pansy Parkinson, to duel a death eater in her stead; her father is under that veil. She knows it.
Imagine the aftermath of the battle; every house suffered loses. Slytherin students crying over the deaths of friends they made in every house.
Imagine
a Cassius Warrington statue made in his honor, the first Slytherin to fight and die nobly with Harry Potter, the boy who lived, in the face of ultimate evil. He was a true Slytherin, and it’s in his name that Slytherin children and their families have cut all ties with the Death Eaters, denounced Voldemort, and are finally living in peace.
Imagine a story in which Harry wasn’t in love with his fellow champion’s girlfriend, but after her boyfriend’s death just hugs her so long, so hard, and says “he wanted to win for you. You should know–you should know he won, he did it for you” and gives her the best hug and shoulder he knows how to be because her parents aren’t there either and she must know why.
Imagine Harry staring over her head at everyone else until Hermione steps up–it doesn’t take long, but it takes long enough that when she does all eyes are on her as a source of motion–and says “we’re never going to forget this. They’re not going to get away with it” and the girlfriend just latches onto Hermione and everyone is in wands-out stance convinced she’s about to attack the shit out of Hermione, and then the girlfriend stares into her eyes and says “do you promise me” and Hermione just gives her this super-firm nod and says “I promise” and the girlfriend just collapses on her, sobbing.
Imagine Dumbledore trying to give some flowery speech about inter-wizard solidarity while glossing over why, because Slytherins have always been a touchy subject, and Ron gets to his feet and says “Professor, I need to say something important” and Dumbledore is so surprised he just cedes the floor, and Ron–after that awkward moment when he realizes everyone is staring at him–says he didn’t know Warrington particularly, but he knows how Warrington and Harry played. That each was always cheering on the other. Both wanted to win, but neither was willing to undercut the other by underhanded means. He finishes up saying “I think–I think it’s important everyone should know he died being what a champion should be. Because he could have abandoned Harry and instead he stood up with him to play the game the honest way, and he died for it. And–and Slytherin House should be proud, and we should all be proud, because Warrington was a good bloke.” He sits back down all flustered because he didn’t actually stand up meaning to make a speech. And then Pansy Parkinson stands up before Dumbledore can take back control of the room and says “I want to tell Weasley thank you.” And all of Slytherin House raises a glass–to Warrington, to Weasley, to Potter–and the other houses follow suit. Many years later, Wizarding scholars will say that was the moment Voldemort truly lost.
Imagine later that summer. Harry gets several owls on his birthday, all unsigned. The birds are plump and pretentious and well-cared-for. He will never know which Slytherins sent him their treasures: parchments with hexes developed by the Death Eaters; a strange locket that will only open if he whispers a special spell but that always shows him the picture he most needs to see; a page torn from a potions book that, brewed properly, will allow him extra time to summon a Patronus by giving him a few crucial seconds not just of happiness but of bliss. It doesn’t matter. Harry knows these gifts not as birthday gifts but for what they really are, and he treasures the locket and copies out the potion to send to Hermione and Mrs. Weasley, and when first summoned by the Order of the Phoenix he marches straight up to Dumbledore with the hexes and says “I can’t tell you where I got these, Professor. But they’re in use by the Death Eaters and I think you should have them.” Months later, Sirius will recognize the spell Bellatrix shoots at him, and will dive out of the way just in the nick of time.
The final battle. Everyone is there. Sirius somehow ends up herding a group of Slytherins. They all stare at him and he at them, across a centuries-old divide Voldemort has only succeeded in deepening. Then he remembers the hexes. Harry’s locket, now tucked under Sirius’ shirt because Harry’s friends are with him in this battle but most of Sirius’ are dead. The moment that happiness potion saved Remus’ life, his very soul. Snape’s final words to Harry, finally seen not as mockery but real true advice. What Harry said Voldemort said–his first words in his new form. They are kids, and they are sharing the same kind of hurt he once wouldn’t admit to, watching his mother burn his name off the family tree. “When we go in there, it’s going to be hell,” he tells the Slytherins. “Some of you are probably going to die. I might go down too, and if I do I want your best curser in the front. But I want you all to remember one thing. There are no spares.” Later retellings of the battle never fail to mention the moment a group of angry, screaming teens burst into the Great Hall, wearing their green and silver as the badge of honor it should be, shouting NO SPARES, NO SPARES at the tops of their voices in between hexes and curses and the occasional physical punch. When Hermione is present, she always interrupts the storyteller to be sure everyone knows about the moment Blaise Zabini shoved her to the floor, dropped on top of her, fired off three curses in rapid succession and said “stay alive, Granger, we need you” before jumping back to his feet and vanishing into the melee–how, for all anyone knows, those may have been his last words, and she will not let his sacrifice go unnoted.
The aftermath. Malfoy holds out a hand to Sirius, badly injured on the floor. Sirius asks how Malfoy is willing to trust him. Malfoy nods at his chest. “You’ve got my godfather’s locket,” he says, and when Sirius and Harry finally speak after the battle Harry gives his full agreement to the very first thing out of Sirius’ mouth. They give the locket to Malfoy. Sirius grits his teeth and closes his eyes and opens them and says “He probably saved my life, giving Harry that.” He doesn’t say thank you. Malfoy hears it anyway.
The school reopens under a single banner: the four Houses united. The House rivalry is reduced to just that–a competition in fun–with those deep divides slowly healing to scars, and eventually away to nothing at all.
Imagine it.
When we stand, we stand united as one
And then there would be no hope for any uprising of evil, no users of the dark arts would dare to attack. There would be no neglected Slytherins turning to a darker cause. The unity Cassius Warrington’s death caused would come to save the world, time and time again, as would-be-Voldemorts find no followers. No children will ever have to fight their parents, or family. There would always be peace.
oh christ somebody added to it and now i’m a soggy emotional wreck
I’m crying because this is what slytherins should have been and truly are
This is beautifully written and I wish it was in the books xx
This is such a fantastic read. A Slytherin triwizard champion sounds awesome.
mace windu and anakin skywalker: lessons, in trust and other things
In
another world, Obi Wan has to leave for a mission after Naboo. He agrees to go
only after the council promises to let him train Anakin, and only because he
sees that a battlefield—another one, at least—is no place for a young boy to
start his training. He tells Anakin before leaving, and Anakin waits.
In
another world, Mace sees Anakin sitting on the steps that line one of the
larger training rooms. The boy is quiet, intensely focused on the training
droid ten feet away, eyes not even glancing down as his fingers fly over the
programming tablet. The droid is holding a staff, like the one Obi Wan
described to the council when he came home without a master. The sabers are
blue, but the movements make it obvious whose technique Anakin is so determined
to learn and defeat.
Mace
shifts and Anakin looks up, fingers already stuttering to a hesitant standstill
over the pad, mouth already opening on unsure words: to apologize, to explain.
To defend before attacked.
In
another world, Mace sees a young boy spending the few moments he has to himself
selflessly, for a man he’s known for a handful of days at best, and only after
he has completed what is expected of him. Mace sees an initiate who will need
to forge a unique path among the jedi, and he remembers the way he too, in a sense, had made his own way in the Order. In another world, Mace senses this boy’s
tumultuous fear, and remembers how hard, how differently, he’d worked to get
through his own.
He steps
inside, closes the door behind him, and tells Anakin to add another lunge at
end of the program’s third attack. This is how they start: small steps, and
smaller words. It’s enough.
Mace does
not train Anakin, but he helps.
In
another world, when Mace Windu sees inside the heart of a newly freed slave
child who has suffered too much, he breathes in and thinks, shatterpoint. Mace, who has seen the ugly scars left by slavery and
imprisonment in the outer rim, knows Anakin needs more than what the old set ways of
the jedi will give him. His
compassion outweighs his caution, and he teaches Anakin how to work with the
things inside him that the jedi warn against.
In another world, Mace Windu does not give into the council’s
fear.
He
remembers that sometimes hatred, too, is a right, one they cannot thoughtlessly
strip from a boy who grew up with the threat of a chip ready to explode inside
him. He teaches Anakin how to channel the fear and anger and cracked bits of
hate, how to use their own energy to loop them away, and eventually, how to
catch and direct that darkness in a fight.
It’s like
winding up thread, Anakin
says once. You have to wrap it so
it doesn’t tangle when you pull it out again. I used to do that for my mom,
sometimes. Mace blinks. It is not
inaccurate, and Mace tells him so. Anakin smiles, carefully proud. He doesn’t
hold his mother’s memories territorially close to his chest yet, and in another
world, it isn’t Mace who makes him start.
He feels
Anakin’s attachments, sees Yoda’s narrowed eyes, and decides there are enough
masters to tell the boy to let go. He focuses on teaching Anakin what he knows
best. Anakin still trains in Shien So, but in another world, he has more than a working
knowledge of Vaapad, too.
In
another world, Mace’s soft spot for younglings and new padawans is not lost to
the war.
Mace Windu’s guidance is not that of master over apprentice,
but it is enough. It is enough to loosen the knot of mistrust choking young
Anakin’s every thought in front of the council, and it is enough to slacken Obi
Wan’s mercilessly demanding standards for himself in front of Anakin. Anakin
finds someone to remind him that his master is young and new and imperfect and
will not begrudge Anakin his weaknesses or differences, and Obi Wan finds someone
to remind him that his apprentice is young and new and imperfect and will only
find comfort in Obi Wan’s own uncertainty.
Mace and Anakin. In another world, theirs is a relationship
of distant, reluctant affection. There’s a genuine bond between them, but it’s
quiet, left unsaid. Mace leaves the voicing of such things to Obi Wan. Obi Wan,
no longer solely responsible for teaching Anakin Skywalker, finds it much
easier to voice them.
Small
things change. During the Clone Wars, when Mace thanks Artoo, Anakin still has
something to say. But instead of that’s
more than I ever got, it’s a thank you and a smile? That means
he really likes you. Mace still shakes his head and looks away. But this time there’s
amusement in the tension at the corner of his mouth, and Anakin knows how to
read it. Small things change, and those changes add up.
In another world, Mace Windu trusts Anakin. He talks with
Anakin about seeing further than most, and being unsure what to do, which path
to take. Anakin still dreams of his mother, still returns fissured and aching
from Geonosis and Tatooine. Mace does not understand completely, but he
listens. He respects Anakin’s loss—his sacrifice—and he trusts Anakin’s grief. It is enough.
In another world, Anakin trusts Mace. That trust means Anakin isn’t afraid to
talk to Obi Wan, even when it seems there isn’t enough time, about his past and
his mother and his weaknesses, about Padme and Dooku and all those moments
when something terrible tried to unfurl in his chest. In another world, one day
Anakin trusts Mace with these things too.
In another world, Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu know that
they will never agree completely, but they do not arrange these differences
into a minefield between them.
Mace sees the more shadowed parts of the Force become still
with anticipation when Anakin and the Chancellor meet. In another world, he
lays out his fears in front of Anakin, discusses them with Anakin as equals.
Mace acknowledges his own attachment to the republic, how his faith is
breaking, how he houses a weaker echo of the same monstrous fear as Anakin.
Anakin, already intimately familiar with the tangled threads of Force visions
and shatterpoints and gifted sight, listens. He listens, and because he is
trusted, he doesn’t need to stay.
In another world, Anakin still grabs Mace’s hand, desperate
for a right answer in this maelstrom of wrong wrong wrong—
Mace still asks where Anakin has been injured, still asks
what’s wrong, still puts an arm around his shoulders and helps him sit. But the
concern runs deeper this time around. Anakin still falls apart in front of
Mace, still shakes with the burden of too many stars and people, still
struggles to articulate his discovery of the sith when all his voice wants to
do is scream and scream and scream.
But this time: when Anakin Skywalker begs for answers, Mace
pauses to give them. It is a handful of moments, it is years of trust, of
respect. It is hours and days and months spent together in the training rooms,
it is instance after instance of their pain and anger and attachment, all
spoken out loud and addressed and smoothed. It is enough.
It is not Obi Wan’s presence, but it is enough to hold the
tide.
In another world, in an office with huge windows and too high
a fall, Mace tells Anakin not to listen, and Anakin doesn’t. Anakin tells Mace
to have faith, and Mace does. It is enough. It is more than enough.
Mace
Windu brings change to the Jedi Council, in another world. He learns from Anakin, in this; tradition will only carry them so far, will only tide them over so long, will not do what open arms can do. Mace learns to let go. He relaxes his too-tight grip on the past, and
the Force breathes easier for it. He argues with old friends, pushes for new
thought, for revision, for softer judgement. The Order, too,
breathes easier. It becomes a different kind of home for its newest
members, who were raised in a war-torn world, whose lives and families are
already too full of sacrifice to ask for more.
In
another world, when a boy with burning dreams and too much in his heart puts
his trust in the jedi, they do what they were always meant to do: they make him
family.
Anakin
Skywalker passes on Mace’s lessons to countless others. And his own lessons,
too. It’s about time someone
started a new form, Mace tells
Obi Wan as they watch Anakin smile and adjust a young padawan’s stance. I was getting bored.
In another world, Mace Windu sees a scared, hurting child
unsure of his place, and he does what the jedi were always meant to do: he
brings him peace.
Kylo Ren had a shitty deadbeat dad who decided to be a smuggler than be there for his kid and a mom who wasn’t a princess or a senator but a general. Kid probably grew up in a war zone. Safe to say his childhood was far from fucking privileged.
Anakin’s reaction to any adversity in his life is to murder every single man woman and child in his path and then blame entire groups of people for his problems. Wife gonna die in childbirth? Good enough reason to fucking murder a bunch of kids.
Kylo has so far on screen killed one person. Had great hesitation to do it. And frankly is an action I’ve thought about a bunch. I think kids of deadbeat dads have all thought about fucking killing your deadbeat dad.
All of your Kylo facts is actually fiction. Nothing you say here is supported by fact. Kylo Ben fans are tripping.
He also killed more than one person on screen. We saw him specifically murder Lor San Tekka and Han Solo on screen. Both unarmed old men.
We saw him order the slaughter of a village which had already been subdued. Every death that his troops caused in compliance with that order is on his head.
We saw him lead the invasion of two planets: Jakku and Takodana. The First Order is not a legitimate government of either planet. Any deaths that occurred during that invasion are on him too.
While he didn’t give the order to blow up the Hosnian system, (BILLIONS DEAD) he willingly assisted the people who did. Moreover, he willingly continued to protect the weapon when their victims attempted to prevent further use. Moreover, he knew it was being aimed at his MOTHER at the time.
He abducted a civilian woman and repeatedly assaulted her. He tortured her as well. He tortured an enemy combatant. He assaulted and attempted to murder a young man who had been enslaved by the First Order.
He is complicit in the abduction, indoctrination, abuse and enslavement of Finn and every other Stormtrooper. The movie makes it clear that he knows the nature of the program and does not object except to suggest clones would be more efficient.
Even if Kylo’s childhood was as described (which it was not, as proven by the Aftermath trilogy and Bloodlines) that is not a valid excuse for any of his crimes. And while I am not much of an Anakin sympathizer, the fact remains that, at this point in time, he has been established to have an objectively worse backstory, which is a valid basis to compare and contrast even though it does not excuse his crimes.
And in the end, Anakin still had to die for his crimes. He did not get a forgiven by everyone, happily ever after with his kids ending. The love he got from his son was still with the mournful understanding that the darkness inside of him was terrible and still his responsibility, not excused by his backstory. He wasn’t offered free forgiveness, he was challenged to be better because he’d established on a number of occasions he had a line he wouldn’t cross. “You couldn’t bring yourself to destroy me before.” is what Luke told him.
Kylo crossed that line. Kylo was furthermore offered several chances to at least establish a line by maybe taking Lor San Tekka alive (but he killed him), maybe just leaving the subdued and not a threat village (but he had them kill everyone), maybe ignoring the girl in the woods (but he kidnapped her), maybe turning the other way while Hux tried to identify the runaway stormtrooper (instead he identified him), maybe if not taking Han’s offer to go home just turning around and leaving his father alive (but he killed him) and he didn’t. Vader at least didn’t go out of his way to be more of an asshole than he had to to get the job done, Kylo enthusiastically threw himself into murder and mayhem, volunteering to go that extra step.
Anakin’s backstory isn’t what got him a redemption arc. It was the little moments when Vader was not entirely fucking evil. Not killing extra people, for example. It wasn’t his previous pain, it was that little tiny spark of goodness he very occasionally indulged, that Luke sensed when they connected minds, that saved Anakin in the end. Anakin’s horrible backstory is only there to explain why that little spark of goodness could still exist, because he was once a genuinely good person and he went to Hell on that path of good intentions, but he still had something that he valued enough that he could drag himself out of the Pit to save.
Kylo is specifically designed and presented as NOT valuing that same thing that Anakin valued. He wants to kill his uncle, he didn’t lift a finger to save his mother, he killed his own father. Desire for power had led Anakin down the Road to Hell, but we knew from the confrontations with Luke that that desire for power did not override his desire for family. Kylo has several lines that establish he wants to be as dark as possible so that he can attain and surpass Vader’s power level. In the movie, he kills his own father to achieve that goal. In the backstory of the movie, he’s establish to have destroyed his Uncle’s life to achieve that goal. During the movie he’s supporting the destruction of his mother’s life’s work to achieve that goal.
It’s got nothing to do with having a sob story and everything to do with WHY they want power and WHAT they will do to achieve it. Anakin wanted power to protect his family, and even after 23 years of darkness he was not willing to allow his son to die. Kylo is willing to kill his father and purposefully harm his mother and her brother to achieve power, and by all indications he wants it for his own vanity.
I think a lot of fans don’t realize or remember that when Vader’s arc came about, we didn’t KNOW Anakin Skywalker’s backstory at all.
All Luke (and the audience) knew, even at the end, was that Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi and a pilot, who at some point, for some reason, became a monster.
We didn’t have Revenge of the Sith to explain it until twenty years later.
The roots of Darth Vader’s redemption comes entirely from Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Vader was scary in A New Hope, and he hurt Leia and killed Obi-Wan. But at that point in time, he was basically a faceless machine. Cold, terrible, cruel. But not personal or human.
In Empire, Vader is a terrifying monster who knowingly stalks and brutalizes his son while still furthering the Empire’s atrocities. There’s no question about his evil. But there is the faintest glimmer for hope in the way he’s reaching out for a connection to his son.
Unfortunately, because Vader is a monster, the only connection he can forge with him is monstrous. But he is still trying. He wants Luke to join him. He’s offering him power WITH him. In the warped and terrible way that Vader perceives the universe, that’s the closest he can come to love.
This is the first glimpse of Vader’s humanity that we get. And while it’s terrible and monstrous, it’s all about wanting a connection with his son.
And that’s where the redemption moment becomes possible. That’s what Luke is able to draw on later to save Vader from the Dark. He uses the fact that Vader reached out to him for connection to offer that connection back. But not the power exchange that Vader understands, but forgiveness and love. And when the choice is before him, in clear, uncertain terms. Vader takes that offering.
This doesn’t work for Kylo Ren, because we’ve seen Kylo Ren as a human all along. The unmasking during Rey’s interrogation was deliberate. It showed us that he wasn’t a faceless machine, but a man.
And that’s what destroys the chance of Vader’s redemption arc. Vader’s a machine, whose sole glimpse of humanity is reaching for a familial connection. But Kylo is a human man, with a human face, who is repeatedly offered that human connection all along.
Lor San Tekka tries to appeal to Kylo as a man, in his family’s name, citing his origin in the light, and gets murdered.
The Starkiller is aimed at the Resistance base, where Leia is sitting. Kylo defends it.
And finally, of course, the most explicit: Han Solo begs Kylo to come home. Reaching out to him, unarmed, crying. And Kylo shoves a saber through him.
That’s why Kylo loses in this comparison. It’s not a measure of evil deeds or sob stories. It’s because he rejected what Vader chose to save.
Only 2 years ago, George Miller blew us away with Mad Max: Fury Road. Let’s take this second anniversary as an opportunity to witness what made the film such an awesome game changer.
from the article (emphasis mine):
Another characteristic that sets Fury Road apart in its genre
is the distinct lack of romance. Furiosa and Max never share a romantic
moment, even when the story could have easily made space for it. Their
connection is gripping in its intensity, as two characters with painful
pasts and bleak prospects come together to try for hope one last time…
and while it fuels some of the best fan creations on the internet, it’s
great that it isn’t canon. Fury Road is a rare instance in which a main female character holds her own without being a love interest.
Oh yes, I’m SURE there are cat-equivalents! Now I’m laughing at the visual of some poor padawan chasing after a streak of blue with claws and teeth as it tries to escape by way of jumping off Master Yoda’s shoulder and flinging itself into the rafters.
I bet Mace Windu doesn’t like cats.
which means, of course, the cats follow him everywhere
Every time there’s a Council meeting and he sits down, BAM, cat on his lap and he can’t yell and shoo them away without betraying his cool exterior
The tookas had been at the Temple for as long as anyone could remember. Nobody knew when or why. For as long as there have been Jedi on Coruscant, the tookas have lived beside them. Nobody questioned their presence, not even the Jedi who disliked them or who were allergic to them, not even Mace Windu, whose hate for them was legendary and who was followed around the Temple by a plague of tookas, suggested that they didn’t have a place in the Temple.
To hurt or kick the tookas was frowned upon. An initiate caught doing so would probably never make padawan but even the worst behaved initiates would never have thought to do so.
The Tookas ate the vermin that snuck into the Temple from the twisting lower levels of Coruscant. They stole food from distracted Jedi, or were fed by Tooka loving Jedi- bowls of blue milk left in hallways, scraps off plates, or left-over food left out by the Jedi who staffed the Temple kitchens. They slept curled up in patches of sunlight on Temple windowsills, or in the beds of Jedi, or in piles in the darkened corners of the Temple where few Jedi had cause to tread.
(If you are in deepest parts of the Jedi Temple and you feel the brush of fur against your leg and the flash of golden eyes, there is a tooka beside you. There are many more around you that you cannot see or feel. Ask yourself, should you be there?)
Anakin Skywalker loved the tookas he kept scraps in his pockets for them. The Jedi Temple was cold, so cold, but the tookas with their small furry bodies, were warm as warm can be. They slept in his bed and comforted him when he cried, quiet as quiet can be so as not to wake his master (a Jedi releases his feelings into the Force), for his mother. (Obi Wan also cried in the other bedroom into the fur of a scarred blue tooka with one eye who had followed Obi Wan through his initiate days and who padded along behind him whenever his journeying took him back to Coruscant, but this is another tale.) Even in the last days of the Jedi, when Anakin Skywalker teetered at the edge of the Dark, the tookas swarmed behind him, almost tripping him up, mewing insistently.
When Darth Vader marched on the Temple, he and his clone troopers walked down hallways surrounded by unblinking yellow eyes. Some unwary troopers who walked too far from their battalions into the Temple’s shadowed corners disappeared. Their bodies were later found by the emperor’s cleanup crews chewed by a hundreds of tiny mouths, scratched by thousands of tiny claws. (Members of the cleanup crews disappeared too but nobody talks of that.)
Emperor Sidious tried to make the Temple his palace, a final insult to the Jedi. The tookas gave him no rest. They attacked him, his staff, his soldiers. They clawed his draperies, knocked over his artefacts, left puddles of piss and excrement in every corner. He fled a month later for good.
Darth Vader never returned after the Temple massacre. In the council room, he looked up from the bodies of the younglings into a thousand unblinking golden eyes and knew that there would be no place for him here ever again. He strode (fled) from those halls that had once been his home and never came back.
Decades later when the Jedi had risen and fallen and the empire too had risen and fallen and risen and fallen yet again, a young woman and a young man, one fair, the other dark, both lighting their way with bright blue sabers, levered open the heavy rusted doors, and let the sun shine into the Temple once more. They were met by thousands of shining yellow eyes and the low buzz of hundreds upon hundreds of purring throats.
Jedi, something whispers, welcome back. We have been waiting.
I love this, angst and all! On a happier note, why do I get the feeling they made it into to GAR ships as well? They adored the clones no doubt, and the same way that all Padawans tended to be called commander, and all Jedi kinghts and above general, all temple tookas were referred to as lieutenant. And yes, you know they tried claim orders from a superior when they were caught slacking off with a tooka in their lap!😁
Also, the Wolfpack with a teeny tiny tooka sitting on Plo’s shoulder. The 212th with a fussy ginger tom who can instantly tell if the general’s tea is too cold. Torrent company with multiple furry friends who skitter through the air ducts and catch rides in R2’s chassis, but one can always be found curled up in the med bay waiting to assist.
“Lieutenant Socks says I need to stay put and administer head scritches sir.”
“Waxer, get to the bridge now.”
Commander Cody is tired. Fortunately, with Waxer gone, the Lieutenant needs somebody else to give head pats. I like your idea!!! I feel like years afterwards the imperial but formerly GAR ships and their clone crews have a veritable infestation of tookas.
Only after the clones get phased out by the emperor, do the tookas leave the ships, following their clones into retirement on a hundreds of different planets, warming their laps and keeping them company in their (premature) old age. Commander Cody keeps “Lieutenant” Socks until his death. It’s his way of holding onto a piece of his old life and his general.
Nope! I refuse to let this get sadder! (and yes Alba I see the irony 😉)
Because these are Temple Tookas, and they are attuned to the force in ways we will never fully understand. Just like the clones, they are meant to be with their Jedi. So I give you two scenarios;
– Tatooine’s native animals aren’t exactly the smallest or cutest of beings, so the first time Luke encounters one in the corridors of Home One he thinks it is just his curiousity that makes him pick up the purring Tooka and hold it close to his chest. It makes the loss just that little bit easier to take. Soon however it becomes obvious that he has been adopted, and not just by the first one (who he names “Sparks” in honour of a rather amusing incident with R2 in the hanger bay) but by an ever growing tribe of Tookas who refuse to let him wallow. Leia giggles as she plays keep away with an adorable tabby kitten (ATAVII) while Wedge complains about the black one (Bomber) that likes to sleep in the Rogue’s flight helmets ( Luke pretends he doesn’t see him slipping the little menace treats between missions).The real shock however are the grizzled veterans who follow the Tookas, identical faces all looking at him with a sense of dumbfounded awe followed by determination. The Tookas found the Vod’e a baby Jedi, they will be damned before they let this one be harmed on their watch. Which is how Luke Skywalker gets an honour guard of overprotective clones who know all the tricks for keeping their Jedi safe from their own idiocy. They are however vastly relieved when Lieutenant Fluffybutt sashays in on ancient paws followed by former captain Rex – when it comes to chaos Skywalkers are after all in a league of their own.
-Cody has no clue know why he doesn’t change the coordinates Lieutenant Socks managed to accidentally enter into the navcomp. But honestly, there’s nowhere he really belongs anymore and he’s just so tired… Tired of running, tired of grieving, tired of trying to drink away his memories,just tired of everything. So he makes the jump, and finds himself orbiting a certain desert backwater with two suns. He looks at Socks and asks him why he felt the need to take them to a planet where he’ll spend half the time combing sand out of his fur? Socks just purrs. Cody figures that counts as orders from a superior and so heads down to the surface. He’s not sure where to go, until he checks to see where Socks has disappeared to and finds the Tooka twining himself around the ankles of a local boy who offers to show him around. Luke is a sweet kid, and Cody pushes down a weird feeling of familiarity as he follows him around town. Cody offers him a ride home and Luke agrees, but does he mind if they make a detour to see Old Ben? The Tuskens have been active recently and he want to make sure the hermit is ok. Cody of course agrees (somewhat bemused) and off they go with Socks tucked around Luke’s neck purring up a storm. And then? There is a man in the desert with beard and hair bleached white by the sun. His voice is rougher, he moves like a man much older, but it is still unmistakably, unbelievably, Cody’s General. There are tears. There are apologies. There are hugs. But most of all, there is belonging. Because at long last Cody is back where he is meant to be, at his Jedi’s side.
Good luck with your essay writing! I’m sure you’ll nail it! 😊
Oh my God, I am not exaggerating when I say that I squeaked happily at your scenarios. Especially the one where Lieutenant Socks leads Cody to Ben. They can be grumpy Sand!husbands together.
Cody chases off intruders with his trusty GAR issued blaster, Ben (irritatingly) invites them in for tea, even those of the feral Tatooinian wildlife variety. Luke comes for visits at least once a week and absorbs their war stories, wide-eyed. Owen grumbles but has to concede that “that Cody at least has some sense, maybe if we’re lucky some of will make its way into your hard head, boy.” Beru and Ben meet in Mos Eisely for monthly supply runs and exchange gossip over drinks at the local cantina. Nobody bothers them, it is common knowledge that Beru is a quick draw and wicked shot and that Ben is a bad man with whom to pick a bar fight.
Cody manages to convince Owen that the universe in a dangerous place and that Luke is safer trained so Luke starts Jedi training at the age of seven. When a certain pair of droids show up eighteen years later, Luke is ready to face the galaxy. Cody is a pretty old man by that time, but Ben has also been prematurely aged by his experiences and they are both at peace with their lives and their physical state. Lieutenant Socks is very, very old but lives in contented and pampered splendour on his favourite cushion in their hut. Idk, if they survive ANH but I know Owen and Beru do (because reasons, that’s why) and that they have a happy life together.
Oooooh.
And there’s a colony of tookas now living on Endor centered on the clearing where Anakin’s funeral byre was because he did come back to the light in the end.
I almost have to appreciate Jedi Trainee Hair because it’s so stupid. Like, why? FOR SO MANY REASONS, WHY?!
You know who has something stupid to say about this ridiculous haircut? Star Wars does, that’s who (who would have guessed?)!
Yes, my favorite, the non-canon The Jedi Path expands a bit on this silliness:
I love that non-humans make out WAY better in this game than humans do since they can kind of do whatever they want. No fair! They don’t even have to live with the shame of that awful ponytail!
Interestingly, AND IMPORTANTLY, this book makes no mention of said Terrible Ponytail being mandatory. It’s ALL about the braid. This is making me think of the discussion I had with people a while back about how maybe the Haircut was like, something that happened to Obi-Wan by accident and then Anakin just wanted to be cool like Obi-Wan so he asked for it, too? I think Kanan had it too (edit: I’m wrong and it’s even funnier this way), so maybe by then it had become Trendy, because Kenobi and Skywalker totally had this awesome ponytail when THEY were Padawans, so I want it too!
LOL forever that this part of the book is written by a Jedi Recruiter, who is apparently under the impression that well-kept Jedi Trainee Hair is helping to boost the overall public opinion of the Jedi. Oh, honey. No.
(And yes, there are written comments in the margin on this page, too, that got cut off. Qui-Gon comments that he finds this all rather restricting of the council. Obi-Wan comments that that’s no damn surprise. Hahaha.)
The Jedi Path is possibly my favorite Legends book.
Everytime I see someone’s edgy theory about how capturing Pokémon is wrong, I remember that time in Sinnoh it was explicitly stated that Pokémon approach trainers specifically to engage in battle and how it’s implied multiple times throughout the series that Pokémon engage in battle and competitions for their own prestige and it’s just a symbiotic relationship that a respectful trainer gets a career for helping raise a powerful Pokémon while the Pokémon gets access to stronger opponents and more varied experiences than it ever would in its native habitat
Also in the first episode of the anime Ash asks why a wild pokemon is attacking Pikachu and his pokedex says that wild pokemon are often jealous of pokemon with trainers.
#keep your edgy shit away from my pokemon plz n thx
Pokemon are miniature blood knights who love beating the shit out of one another and dream of joining professional fighting squads that go around beating the shit out of one another and I think that’s amazing
It’s actually also officially stated that pokemon battle all the time against each other in the nature. Just think about it: it’s how they EVOLVE, that’s how they grow and mature, and you meet evolved and high-leveled pokemon in the wilds, meaning they did a lot of fighting. Also, a lot of people forget that the reason they have moves is because it’s how they harness their power in a relatively safe way. That’s why they need to learn things like “Cut”, “Surf” and “Fly”: they could do all those things naturally, but they need to learn how to cut things without gutting creatures around them, how to swim without drowning you in the process, how to fly without having you falling from dangerously high heights. They use moves precisley because that isn’t a brutal beat-down or a fight to the death, but a safe way of confrontation and personal growth. And it was also stated that captured pokemon are stronger and level up faster than wild ones, meaning that once they bond with a trainer the whole challenging other trainers is actually beneficial to them, not cruel.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT. this makes much more sense now.
oooooohh!! This is good! Let’s assume that Steve’s either not full of illness or gets immediate and proper medication so that he’s good to go. Let’s also assume is temporary so Steve’s not having a ridiculous crisis.
Sam would be the one to enjoy it the most for non-sexual reasons I think. He either makes Steve run with him or makes Steve watch him run and he laughs and laughs the entire time. Payback’s a bitch. Besides all the petty reasons though, I think he really enjoys seeing Steve smaller and that even though all his giant muscles are gone, he still has all the same bravado that he had before. Sam would be the snappiest about it. He picks Steve up at least once just so he can say he did it. I feel like Sam doesn’t let up on Steve at all because he doesn’t see Steve any differently if he’s big or small. It makes the least bit of sexual difference to him but he finally gets to try out some more acrobatic stuff on him now that he doesn’t weigh a ton.
Natasha? Loves it. Like, really loves it. It’s still her Steve but now she can crush him like a bug and tbh Steve’s just as into that as she is. She probably literally walks all over him and spends a lot of time riding him. So… not much changes there tbh. Nat’s super into skinny Steve though. I feel like knowing Steve skinny is a window into his soul. All the weird mannerisms that seemed odd for a giant man to do make sense on a little guy. She figures out that Steve’s still that little guy even when he’s big, he just can’t hold her up against a wall and fuck him anymore. Natasha’s probably super turned on by understanding the inner workings of someone’s mind. Since Steve’s super libido is gone too she also spends a lot of time sitting on his face.
Bucky’s interesting because it could go one of two ways. He could either be like ‘holy shit there’s the Steve I miss/ never got to fuck I gotta do him like I’ve wanted to for forever’ or ‘wtf this is weird and wrong and I’m gonna kill my tiny friend’! Either way it takes Bucky a while to come around but when he does, he really does. Bucky’s always a little sweet with Steve but when he’s tiny it’s amplified. It drives Steve crazy because he doesn’t want sweetness so he pushes and pushes and eventually gets Bucky to treat him how he wants. (He wants to get rekt)
Steve himself is probably extra needy and a little whiny and eventually decides that there’s no need to be miserable when his lovers can all pick him up and toss him around now.
Steel Phoenix Studios 