Look I would pay real currency to watch a series of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s couples counseling. The angst and the passive-aggressiveness and the “I’m fine it’s fine everything’s fine” “NO IT’S NOT OBI-WAN NOTHING IS FINE”. Or individual Jedi counseling.
Better: I want to watch the documentary/mockumentary made by a GFFA psychologist who embeds themselves with the Jedi Order to better understand how they can all be so chill and collected – What’s their secret? How can we all learn, from their example, to embrace serenity in our own lives? – who eventually, as the documentary wears on, comes to realize that THE JEDI ORDER IS COMPRISED ENTIRELY OF EMOTIONAL TRAINWRECKS.
I am living for this now. As @
devilangel657 said, the idea of a psychologist embedding themselves in the Jedi Order and having to listen to the stories of the stupidity the Jedi have to deal with every goddamned day in their roles as peacekeepers and later freeing worlds, would be amazing.
They’re so serene and calm and put together when you first meet them! Then, like, a month later, “YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SHIT I HAD TO DEAL WITH ON BRENTAL. LET’S JUST SAY IF I HAVE TO SEE ANOTHER FUCKING PIRATE I AM GOING TO SHOVE A LIGHTSABER UP THEIR ASS BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO SAY A GODDAMNED WORD.” blares through the Force, even when all the Jedi says is, “It was a difficult mission, but I believe it has been resolved to the best of my abilities.”
Obi-Wan and Anakin’s couple’s therapy is a disaster. Sure, Anakin wants to talk about things! Until the psychologist turns to him and tries to make him talk about what’s eating him and then NOTHING IS WRONG, EVERYTHING’S FINE, he says angrily, crossing his arms and glaring.
Obi-Wan looks at the psychologist, not a single hint of self-awareness on his face, like, See what I have to deal with?
YES. Little by little, all these things come out and eventually it becomes clear that A) the Jedi have to put up with a TON of the universe’s bullshit, B) there are a LOT of secret affairs going on, both within and outside of the Order, and C) there is a WHOLE LOT of trauma being actively repressed.
I feel like Mace Windu would be amazing in this documentary series. The interviewer would be like “It sounds like you have a very difficult role, being responsible for so much in the Order. Would you agree?” and he just keeps staring into space like this:
…before finally taking a deep breath and being like, “It is a noble calling, and one I am honored to take on.”
Yoda cancels on his interview like 45 times, or pretends to be napping or dead when the guy shows up, because He Really Doesn’t Wanna Talk About This Stuff Everyone Knows The Order Is Just Fine Look How Well-Adjusted We All Are.
Quinlan Vos does his interview from a bar, during which he becomes increasingly inebriated. His interview turns into him just bragging about various conquests or awesome parties he’s been to on undercover missions. Viewers love him.
Obi-Wan explains to the horrified interviewer that he really totally wasn’t traumatized by being sent away to be a space farmer when he was 12, or the fact that he once got a rock for his birthday, or that his Space Dad was murdered in front of him. And that things between him and Anakin are FINE.
The two of them don’t realize they’re still mic’d up when they try to “discuss” things in the hallway in between filming after a particularly pointed on-screen argument. The resulting audio includes lecturing (Obi-Wan), dramatic yelling (Anakin), retreading of very old arguments (both), and eventually some mild dirty talk, which they vehemently deny later even though they both have mussed up hair when they return.
Ahsoka’s interview is hilarious, since it is mostly just her telling stories about Anakin or Obi-Wan embarrassing themselves.She manages to come off as one of the most competent people in the entire show despite the fact that she’s like 15. She instantly becomes a favorite of viewer commentators on the Holonet.
Some of the Clones get interviewed about what it’s like to work with the Jedi. This turns into all of them sharing “most insane thing my Jedi has done” stories, and it results in 157 hours of footage. They end up with their own series.
Chancellor Palpatine also does an extended interview as one of the Jedi’s closest colleagues, in which he repeatedly has to take a break from filming because he keeps breaking out into inappropriate giggles as he discusses how insightful the Order is, and what great partners they’ve been for his administration in helping it to achieve its goals.
I am crying at that screencap of Mace, that’s exactly the face he’d make.
“The Jedi aren’t perfect, we have our difficulties, just as anyone else in the galaxy does,” they all say. “But we deal with them internally to the best of our abilities. We’ve agreed to this documentary as a gesture of good will, we hope to reach out to our fellow Republic citizens and show that we are as human as any of you.”
What they don’t say is FUCK OFF WE DEAL WITH OUR PROBLEMS OURSELVES, but you kind of get that impression anyway. And the first half of the documentary is this build-up towards the idea that the Jedi are totally fucked up, they’re all a bunch of lunatics who refuse to admit they actually have problems.
But then the second half of the documentary has, like, 300 hours of footage of the Jedi dealing with two warring clans on some Mid-Rim world, each willing to nuke themselves into orbit just to spite the other side, and the Jedi have to deal with literal tantrums from political leaders at least once a month and they have to see politicians living these ridiculous lives of luxury, they have space caviar flown in specially hand delivered while ¾ths of their world are literally starving in poverty, and still have to smile and make nice with said politician because otherwise they won’t be able to get this trade agreement signed that will help the rest of the world, and all the while they’re not allowed to scream obscenities or anything. And you start to realize, oh, shit, I’d have gone off the deep end, too, if I had to deal with that every day of my life.
The documentary works in a roundabout way, endearing people to them–it shows the Jedi being human, that one time they caught Luminara Unduli making the most amazing bitch face, just for a moment, before she managed to smooth it back over. They caught Obi-Wan Kenobi actually swearing one time! They have at least an hour’s worth of outtakes of Anakin Skywalker flying around on his droid and crashing face-first into a wall or swanning off the top of the Temple and screaming when he misses the speeder Master Kenobi is driving to try to snag him the first time!
“It was a bit of a close call,” Anakin Skywalker says with a grin, “But I had it totally under control.” (Smash cut to Anakin screaming and flailing as story after story of the Temple blurs by him as he falls while Obi-Wan zips the speeder around for a second try.)
There’s a collage of the Greatest Faces Ahsoka Tano Makes When Dealing With Republic Officials. Almost unanimously, the face she makes when Wilhuff Tarkin turns away from her are voted as #1.
There’s also entire sites dedicated to gossiping about the love lives of the Jedi. The HoloNet EXPLODES when Obi-Wan and Anakin are caught on mic making suggestive comments after their fight, because everyone thought FOR SURE Skywalker was involved with Senator Amidala, have you SEEN the way he makes cow eyes at her? There are threads and threads of HA AH VINDICATION!!! from Obikin shippers and NO WAY THIS IS JUST PART OF A THREESOME shippers.
(Everyone, please forgive me this enormous reblog. I think you all understand I have no choice.)
So, basically this is what’s going to foil Palpatine’s plans, isn’t it? He is kicking himself, because he actually urged the Jedi to do the documentary series in the first place, thinking that they’d come off as totally dogmatic, dispassionate weirdos and the Republic would be turned off, making it easier for him to push his “The Jedi Are Evil” spiel later.
Instead, as the series wears on, everyone finds them oddly charming, and is overwhelmed by how hard they work and the good they do. There’s all kinds of forums set up for the inevitable Jedi Order Fandom as people nitpick every detail the show reveals. The gossip is out of control. Ahsoka can’t go anywhere without an interviewer asking her about the state of her “dads”’ relationship. Padme is hounded by the tabloids every time someone thinks they saw her out with Anakin somewhere (and OMG IS THAT A BABY BUMP??! WHAT IS OBI-WAN GONNA THINK?! Wait, is OBI-WAN the father???!). Hondo Ohnaka, of course, uses this as a chance to make some money, and is constantly trying to sell outlandish stories about his “friends” the Jedi to the tabloids.
A couple of systems start petty disputes with each other just to get a Jedi and some clones to visit, and they start placing requests (”Can you guys send Luminara? We LOVE her, OMG. Also is Fives available?”) Even Yoda, who was hesitant to even participate, becomes somewhat beloved in his own right as the series’ grumpy, long-suffering grandpa, once viewers see how much insanity the poor guy’s been living with for hundreds of years.
I am very sorry to everyone that this is making your dash probably a lot to handle today, but you have to understand that this is what I joined Star Wars tumblr for.
Palpatine is so gleeful at first, look how awful the Jedi look, even though he’s pushing that, oh, they work so hard and they’re so talented and amazing! But then the memes start. LET OBI-WAN KENOBI HAVE A NAP. SOMEONE FEED THAT POOR CHILD AHSOKA TANO A REAL SANDWICH. AND GET HER A JACKET SHE LOOKS COLD. There are floating, spinning star crows attached to Anakin Skywalker’s head in holo pictures and vids. There’s a picture of Master Yoda making a face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
There starts to be knockoff Jedi merchandise. Toy lightsabers are a huge hit! So many people are much nicer to the Jedi now and are like, “Are you comfortable? Can I get you a blanket? You’ve probably had a hard day, here have a slice of pie, on the house.”
REQUESTING SPECIFIC JEDI. Of course The Team gets the most requests (Anakin is initially pleased by this, but then there are people flirting with Obi-Wan. WHO IS FLIRTING BACK. And knows exactly what he’s doing and keeps glancing at Anakin to see the effect of it because he’s a jerk who likes to rile people up. NOT THAT IT’S WORKING, OBI-WAN.) but Shaak Ti and Luminara Unduli prove surprisingly popular, everyone just falls in love with them. The clones, finally having the perfect audience for this, are MORE THAN HAPPY to tell everyone about the Most Insane Thing Their Jedi Has Done. Rex and Cody are no longer allowed to participate, in order to give everyone else a fair shot.
There are fandom wars over whether the fact that Obi-wan flirts with EVERYONE makes the Obikinmidala three-way MORE or LESS likely. “Hello there” becomes code for “I am flirting with you now” overnight. Clone naming conventions start to become popular with new parents and teens get their hair/ hair equivalent styled like their favorite clone commanders.
On the political side, the average Republic citizen starts getting savvier. Seeing their favorite Jedi deal with these Senate officials and obstinate planetary governors, day in and day out, energizes populations to organize more effectively. The Jedi are unsure how to feel about this at first, but its nice to have the added leverage when dealing with particularly reticent political figures.
Elan Sleazebaggano (of Death Stick fame) is Obi’s biggest fan. After he gets his life rethought, he becomes a community organizer in the fandom, trying to do for others what his favorite Jedi did for him
Okay so there are so many things to love here. Mace Windu’s FACE, Yoda memes, Luminara Unduli’s Jedi composure slipping, Anakin and Obi Wan being actual human messes, Poor Ahsoka, the only sane person in a literal mad house, the clones… Can you imagine how smug Rex and Cody are?
Obi Wan: goes to do something hilariously ExtraTM.
Cody: Arms crossed casually, face completely blank. “Ahem”
Obi Wan: Looks at him… “If I do this, you’re going to tell the entire Republic won’t you?”
Cody: Raises eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Obi Wan: “Ah, well,” looks almost sheepish. “What do you suggest, Commander?”
Cody: Deadpan “You’re learning.”
But we are missing some hilarious potential here… So you guys know how bad Padme and Anakin are at pretending they don’t know intimate details about each other/covering their asses/being remotely subtle? Well, once a film crew is following Anakin around on a semi-regular basis, they get even worse.
For example, Anakin, Padme, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are sent on a diplomatic mission together, documentary crew accompanying. They all board Anakin’s ship and there’s a lovely lace outer robe lying in a crumpled heap on the copilot seat from when Anakin and Padme made their last Dramatic Escape from a senatorial function (”I thought you said you were in danger?” “I was- a few more minutes and I’d have DIED of boredom.”) Anakin snatches it up and shoves it into his robes.
“SO THAT’S WHERE I LEFT MY FORMAL ROBES. OBI WAN WILL BE SO PLEASED.” and then he turns bright red because he just implied that Obi Wan will be really happy to see him in a undersized, lacy robe, which is true but not the impression he intended to give the viewing public. Padme breaks a rib suppressing her laughter. The psychiatrist and crew just roll their eyes and wonder why they’re even keeping up the pretense of deception.
Or, the crew just keep on finding mugs of half-drunk tea with lipstick marks in Padme’s distinctive signature shade
”They’re Ahsoka’s,” Anakin blurts out.
Ahsoka, who is there and not wearing a single smidge of lipstick looks at the camera, looks at Padme’s lipstick covered lips, looks back at the camera. Everyone turns to Padme. She looks around the ship. Anakin hasn’t cleaned it in months. There is exposed wiring from the last time Anakin started “improving” it and then got distracted. It smells like sweaty man and teenager and curry.
“I really enjoy the ambiance?” She offers. “It’s very… relaxed.” A muffled snort comes from the vicinity of Ahsoka. Anakin, who is standing next to her, steps on her foot. Ahsoka punches Anakin in the shoulder, hard. Obi Wan folds his arms and does his only sane man routine, which the psychiatrist and the documentary team now knows is Made of Lies and Deception.
This lasts until the team catches him sitting with Padme and Anakin in the cockpit, giving Padme a foot massage while Anakin drives.
“It’s a Jedi’s duty to do what is needed.” He explains repressively. “The Senator had a cramp. I did it for democracy.”
Despite all this fun it is a small subgenre of the Jedi fandom who end up having the greatest impact – the conspiracy theorists.
See, in among the “Kenobi is secretly a Space Siren”, “Skywalker is the avatar of entropy” and “the Jedi don’t die but merely change their forms and continue to save the galaxy under a new name” theories there are a smaller subset who are driven by the desperate need to uncover the truth of the war so that the Jedi can go back to spending more time with fans planets in need of their expertise. Everyone thinks they’re nuts. Until they don’t.
It starts as a post on a forum with user k3n0b15w00shyh41r ranting about how the war so obviously benefits the military industrial complex, and why has no one ever investigated Kamino for separatist links? User winduismygod93 points out that’s an excellent question, and wait a moment, why exactly were the clones commissioned in the first place? I mean, it was convenient, but could you really see masters Yoda or Windu authorising the creation of sentient beings for war? User 5tone9arden agrees – could this be a smear campaign? User masspalooza posits that it was a false flag operation by the Sith, and after a bit of digging user 5ith7i9ht uncovers the Sifo Dyas link – a known associate of the traitor Dooku? They’re on to something. User blankdayzii is concerned about sabotage when user xxx_t4N0_xxx points out a strange bit of footage from the latest episode of “Craziest things my Jedi has done!!! – Series 3, of a clone looking suddenly disoriented and shaking his head while muttering. User y0dAts4w3sm obsessively scans footage for more case into a compilation holovid. But it is user shaak_pronounsaresirandgeneral_ti who comes to the final conclusion: mind control. This is urgent! What if the Sith are secretly implanting sleeper agents into republic forces to shift the tides of war!!! It probably wouldn’t have gone any further, except user 0biAn1da7a689 turns out to actually be the Senator for a minor system in the Mid-Rim and raises the issue in open debate…
The Kaminoans rebut the accusations – some clones have occasional reactions to their aggression control chips! Which are perfectly safe from tampering because they put them in prior to deployment are you some kind of CIS sympathiser trying to undermine our brave troops senator?
Some reporter bails up the nearest Jedi for comment and oh, wouldn’t you know it? It’s General Skywalker! Here to see Senator Amidala for midweek nookie on Jedi business! Whose first response is “Chips? WHAT CHIPS?” followed by a litany of curses so vile even the reporter from the Nal Hutta Tribune is impressed. After Anakin’s brain reboots he does what he does best and angrily descends upon Obi-Wan demanding they free the clones immediately!
And that is how Palpatine had a very bad day and the Jedi fandom saved their heroes from a future full of loneliness and sand.😉
(yes there are references to some of you in the forum bit – @forcearama should be obvious but there are at least 3 more 😏)
People, I’m sorry this is a gigantic post now but I just want you guys to see this.
Am I the only one who remembers that time a padawan was whining about how Yoda doesn’t have any feelings and Yoda was like, “Excuse you, I have been burying loved ones for sixty times longer than you have been alive, lecture me about grief do not.”
1. a Specialty, 2. made with love and a complete lack of fucks 3. honestly the most Terrifying substance in existence
Every Jedi has their own particular twist – Kit Fisto uses a hallucinogenic seaweed found on his native planet. Plo Koon’s is literally lethal to non Kel-Dor but is the galaxy’s best known grease remover. Mace’s stash appears relatively tame, but has an aftertaste that kicks in half an hour later when you’ve already drunk half the bottle and cannot be removed by any mouthwash known to civilization. No one knows what Yoda’s tastes like, except possibly Dooku and the only time he was ever asked his eyes went blank, his shoulder twitched compulsively and he he immediately called a retreat – it is therefore the most sought after secret in the temple. Luminara has a variety that tastes of something only describable as “pure regret”. She’s been working on “horrified realisation” for a while now but has only managed “embarassed mortification”. Qui-Gon liked to infuse tea and spices into his brew, and brought back more than a few exotic species to feed his habit. Obi-Wan continues the tradition, however due to the increasing stresses of war the tea varieties he uses have steadily been increasing in both bitterness and caffeine content. It is colloquially known as “the sleepless death” and is banned in eight star systems. Skywalker’s version is surprisingly palatable, does not cause hallucinations and packs a kick stronger than a Dug on steroids. It’s made of bugs.
The Official Jedi view on politics is that they try not to interfere and do not trust politicians, but if they are running out of options on how to settle an issue they will tell Padme Amidala what is going on and just unleash her onto their problems
Weren’t there like five different TCW episodes about this being a thing?
happy duster + ket for @jaune-valjeen and chess! (he repaints his armor constantly because he can’t decide on anything) because i made myself (and you) sad by talking about him last night and THEN i dreamed about cats and also duster. apparently he sleeps curled up in a ball who knew
Kix is canonically alive in The Force Awakens era, friends.
“You keep twisting like that, it will take twice as long to heal,” Kix warns in a tone usually reserved for uppity cadets. It works, Finn gingerly straightens his posture, and Kix ties off the fresh bandages with a careful tug.
“Good to go-” he says, biting off ‘trooper’ just as Finn’s hand twitches with the urge to salute.
I actually hadn’t thought that far ahead lol. When I wrote it on a whim, I planned for things to play out more or less how they had in canon, so the only divergence was that Anakin was born much earlier and found and trained by the only Jedi (reluctantly) willing to do so.
Since having written it, there are already some divergences (Anakin has both hands, but has lost most of his left leg, he fights with a two ended lightstaff rather than a ‘saber). Off the cuff, I would say that Ahsoka would be unaffected by the changes, and still get assigned to Anakin during the Clone Wars.
Partially because Obi-Wan still hyper-corrects himself into the ‘perfect Jedi’ while being a small ball of extreme attachment and rage. Which encourages the Council to try ‘tying Anakin down’ to the Order by throwing more padawans his way. Ahsoka gets one hell of a culture-shock when she thinks she’s going into a slightly maverick but proper Master-Padawan relationship, and instead gets a jealous, hot-headed master and his overly friendly, mercurial Knight.
Thankfully, as attachment-happy as Obi-Wan is, he’s not the jealous sort. This is not Anakin dumping him on the wayside without any warning for some random kid. Obi-Wan is a knight already, and if they’ve forgone tradition and there is still a tight bond between them – well, none of the Council need to know. Anakin still often puts his hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and delights in making his ‘perfect Jedi’ mask crack with humor. Anakin still complains of the Council’s decisions and says, “The last thing I need is another reckless little monster to worry about.”
“The thing about little monsters,” Obi-Wan reminds him wryly, “is they are often born with claws and teeth.”
And so is Ahsoka. She’s shocked by the lack of Jedi decorum her master has, but she adjusts for it. Obi-Wan senses a kindred spirit in her, and once Obi-Wan manages to relax his guard enough around her to crack a smile, they end up forming an incredibly tight sibling-padawan bond. It takes time for Ahsoka to stop arguing on Obi-Wan’s side against Anakin’s decisions because OMG THE CODE and join in on the conspiracy ‘What the Council doesn’t know Won’t Hurt Them.’ She’s much more a Jedi in Anakin’s own spirit – she lacks Obi-Wan’s dupliciousness – but she’s resourceful and knows how to ask Obi-Wan to help her get around the Council’s decisions. Anakin has sheer gall and power going for him, and a hardheaded sense of what is right – but her brother-knight seems to know the right way to speak to their master to convince himself to wait for the right time to do the right thing.
One thing Ahsoka realizes: when Obi-Wan is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. You truely don’t realize how much peace-keeping Obi-Wan does until he’s no longer interested in having peace.
I would like to copy down that last paragraph and put it on a wall if I could and only because it is a bit too wordy to tattoo on my skin.
I think I actually need more fic in general revolving around ‘Obi-Wan let’s the people around him go at each other by virtue of stopping mediating and watches the ensuing flame war / cold war while sipping tea.’
face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
Steel Phoenix Studios 