REBLOG IF ITS OKAY TO TALK TO YOU.

Chaos Gremlin and they Know it

Walk with me for my next bit of madness.

What if…what if…What if between Obi Wan and Qui gon, and later Anakin and Obi wan, Obi Wan was considered the more chaotic one. Like the reason that he hadn’t been knighted is because the council is honestly a little afraid about what they would be unleashing on the galaxy if he no longer has any supervision (Rancis Oppo secretly had a study done, any mission that Obi Wan undertakes without Qui Gonn there every minute is 25% more Ridiculous, capital intended, over all). And the council is concerned about giving him Anakin to raise, but not for the sad(barely knighted, watched his master die, trauma) reasons but because no one knows what will happen with two like Kenobi.

Just picture Mace Windu finding out about Anakin’s secret relationship, his violent tendencies, and his slight instability and he drops his head into his hands and goes ‘Thank the Force, he takes after Qui Gonn’. Also picture Mace Windu hearing about Ahsoka Tano getting herself captured and hunted for sport with other younglings and somehow rescuing them all and just bursting into tears because ‘Fuck, it skipped a generation.’ 

When they landed on Tatooine, Qui Gonn Jinn very deliberately left Obi Wan behind. From hard won experience he knew that if Obi Wan set foot on a planet with as much as a single slave ring he would immediately be abducted by a slaver. Then he would somehow start no less than four slave uprisings, rescue some endangered or unknown creature, break at least 3 bones, and then find, make worse, and fix the only blood fued on the planet.  And frankly Qui Gonn does not have time to deal with restructuring a planet's economy after his little chaos gremlin collapses the one that was based on sentient trafficking, not today. Not again.

By the way, Anakin is the 4th ‘Chosen One’ that Qui Gonn has brought home in five years in an attempt to get the Council to knight his Padawan.  Qui Gonn loves his Chaos Goblin of a son dearly but he’s tired, he wants to start going on missions that don’t end in ridiculous again. Or be hyper paranoid when they go normally. 

Half the Jedi were confused or resistant to the fact that the Sith were back. Until they heard who was on the mission. Then they all went ‘That tracks’ and moved on.  Anakin thinks that he is being watched for ‘Chosen one’ reasons. He is not, the Council quickly realizes that he somehow is also a mitigating influence on Obi Wan (the amount of ridiculous and chaos in the mission drops by a full 75% with Anakin, this however does not drop it down to even a solar system's distance to anything normal).

Mace Windu is deeply, deeply impressed by Anakin. And it is mostly due to the fact that he has spent more than three days in constant contact with Obi Wan without turning strange, or a cult leader.  Mace Windu, personally, knows about 6 cults throughout the galaxy dedicated to Obi Wan Kenobi. Three only exist on their own planets (one of which is the entire planet’s religion.), two involve multiple planets in specific sectors, and there is one down in a particular section of level 37 on Coruscant (Anyone who enters it comes back a little strange).

Look, I am not saying that this Obi Wan is an Eldritch Horror wrapped in a Disney Princess, but… this Obi Wan is an Eldritch Horror wrapped in a Disney Princess. There are scattered reports that the three of the last beings that tried to mug Obi Wan blinked awake 6 days later, having reevaluated all of their life choices, and now in contact with some heretofore unknown long lost relative that they desperately need to help.

It should be noted that Palpatine abjectly hates Obi Wan, not just because he is Anakin's master.  It is also because he can sense that if Obi Wan even hinted he wanted more power it would be given to him, no questions, plots. 

Every couple of months the Council debates sending Obi Wan to work in the Senate for a while, just to see what would happen.  It always boils down to the fact that they may actually need that building at some point. As an excuse it gets weaker all the time.

And Anakin is kind of in the dark for most of his padawanship. He thinks the council hate him, they do not. He thinks that Obi Wan is the perfect Jedi. If he had said that to anyone in the Jedi Order at any point (including Obi Wan), the Jedi in question would hurt themselves laughing. Palpatine tries to use that, to some success, until Palpatine uses his influence to get Anakin knighted young.

Through some hand waving series of events Anakin brings up to Mace Windu that the Council didn’t want him knighted because they don’t trust him. Windu just blinks at him for a really long moment before telling him that it was not him they were concerned about. He goes onto say that yes, that without a war and in normal circumstances the council would like to give Anakin a few more years of missions with other masters, so he could see what actual normal missions look like (Frankly no one was surprised when Obi Wan went looking for a bounty hunter and managed to find a clone army) and he is a little younger than the average knight but that is offset by how well Anakin has handled having Obi Wan Kenobi for a Master. 

Anakin just goes ‘What?’ very quietly.

Windu sighs. ‘Do you understand how impressive it is that you have spent the last 10 year in almost constant contact with Obi Wan Kenobi and haven’t developed some weird ability (Bant Eerin, Quinlan Vos, Reeft), accidentally rediscovered a lost darkside faction to follow you around clucking (Garen Muln), develop a habit of finding the weirdest Force artifact in any given location (Luminara), or have become a really obvious cult leader. And if you have become a cult leader I thank you for being discreet.’

‘Cult leader!!?’

Windu shrugged, ‘Current official count is 6 cults dedicated to Obi Wan specifically, though I’ll eat my left boot if the 212th doesn’t become the 7th within the next six months, I am already prepared for the fact that it will spread to the entire GAR in a year’

Then he hands Anakin a piece of flimsy, telling him that this was an official approval of his marriage by the Jedi council, on the grounds that the marriage was clearly ‘The Will of the Force’. While Anakin gapes at him, Windu clarifies that this covers Padme in case of pushback for marrying a Jedi. She would be considered as part of the Order under a religious exemption.  She may have to recuse herself from Jedi matters in the Senate (that was up to the Senate Ethics committee) but it also means that the next time she gets a death threat, they could deploy all of their resources instead of just whatever the Senate approved of. 

‘The Will of the Force’ Anakin said weakly.

Windu smiles, ‘you have no idea how much joy it gives me to be able to write those words on an official report to the senate. The pedantic bastards can’t argue against it because of the treaty with the Jedi Order. You have my thanks for that alone.’

Overwhelmed Anakin blurts out what happened on Tatooine, with the Tusken village. Windu clicks his tongue absently, “Hmm, I had wondered why your aura had become a bit darker, but I thought it was because of Geonosis. I’ll get you set up with my therapist, they handle most of the Shadows as well. Once they sign off, we’ll get in touch with the Tuskans to see if there are any reparations you can make.”

And Anakin is just standing there, Absolutely flabbergasted because the Chancellor had him completely convinced that those two secrets would be the WORST things that he could admit to.

Wnidu throws out another deep sigh, ‘Do you think that you are the only Jedi to act in anger with huge consequences? I created an entire lightsaber form because I had so much anger that I needed somewhere to put it. Half the Shadows have actively fallen, some multiple times. Your own Master was abducted by slavers at 16, two hours later their ship landed on an inhabitable world, they unlocked the cages, and the entire crew committed ritual suicide. To this day we have no idea what Obi Wan did to them. We preach self control so much, Anakin Skywalker, because Force users have the potential to do massive amounts of harm in a very short timeframe but because such small slips have such huge consequences we have a rather…different view of what is unforgivable.’

Two months later Anakin’s 501st is in battle with the 212th. He thought his men were a bit unhinged (and liked it like that, everything is better with the proper application of explosives) but then Grievous kicked Obi Wan into a large stone/small cliff so hard that it rattled Anakin’s teeth. 6 troopers immediately stopped firing to sprint through blaster fire to Obi Wan’s position. Anakin could have sworn that the blasters bolts simply passed through the 212th’s medic, Fizz, without slowing. At the same time three companies of the 212th, led by Cody and Ghost, roared and dogpiled Grievous, with his four lightsabers, and the 30 battle droids that he had with him. They also stopped using blasters at about that point. Anakin had not known that the clones were strong enough to rend metal apart like that. 

The 501st can only stand and watch in befuddled awe and horror as the enemy is decimated by a suddenly feral 212th. The carnage only stops when there are no more enemies and the medics declare that Obi Wan will be ok with some time in a Bacta tank.  

It is not long after that battle that Obi Wan finds out about decommissioning.  He is on Coruscant, in the council chamber itself, but the atmosphere on planets, moons, and planetoids (both inhabited and not) across the galaxy begins to tremble. For a brief moment residents of Coruscant would swear that the sky turned 212th gold. 

Shaak Ti reports that decommissioning is written into the contract that the Republic/Jedi have with the Kaminoans. That it is not something that the Kaminoans can just stop. 

Obi Wan decides it is time that he speaks with the Senate about this. The Council effectively gives him a thumbs up, shoves him out the door and are very very glad that they do not have to deal with any of this. 

There is no recording, nor any true recollection, as to what Obi Wan Kenobi says to the Senate that day. Only at the end, the Kaminoan delegation (along with nearly 6000 other delegations) is crying with shame at their actions, Palpatine and a good half of his closest supporters are bleeding out of their facial orifices, and a bill has been passed giving the clones rights, pay and backpay, and a planet of their very own. 

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

I love me a pseudo-historical arranged marriage au but it always nudges my suspension of disbelief when the author has to dance around the implicit expectation that an arranged marriage should lead to children, which a cis gay couple can't provide.

I know for a lot of people that's irrelevant to what they want from an Arranged Marriage plot, but personally I like playing in the weird and uncomfortable implications.

So, I've been thinking about how you would justify an obviously barren marriage in That Kind of fantasy world, and I thought it'd be interesting if gay marriage in Ye Old Fantasy Land was a form of soft disinheritance/abdication.

Like, "Oh, God, I don't want to be in this position of power please just find me a boy to marry", or, "I know you should inherit after you father passes but as your stepmother/legal guardian I think it'd make more sense if my kids got everything, so maybe consider lesbianism?", or "Look, we both know neither of our families has enough money to support that many grandkids, so let's just pair some spares and save both our treasuries the trouble".

Obviously this brings in some very different dynamics that I know not everyone would be pinged by, but I just think it'd be neat.

Dick Grayson's unmatched success as a child vigilante makes a lot more sense when you remember the Court of Owls was a thing and that Dick was meant to be the next Grey Son.

There is no way that someone at Haly's Circus wasn't there keeping an eye on him while he grew up. A future weapon needs to be trained and monitored after all, and a circus, a place where weird skills are completely normal, is actually a great place to secretly train a child.

You know, just some knife tricks that translated really well into actual fighting. How to get out of restraints and pick locks while under a time limit. Death defying acrobatic stunts that coincidentally do wonders for parkouring. That sort of thing. Nothing that seems out of place for a boy growing up around circus performers to learn, but would literally any where else.

I mean, while I fully believe that most kids would want to kill the man responsible for their parents deaths, Dick was weirdly prepared to go through it. He tracked down Zucco with way more ease than any normal child should have too. He became the first child vigilante, for goodness sake. The first Robin! He only started getting formal training after he basically forced Bruce into it!

Bruce himself has no idea that this kind of competency in a child is unusual, considering he was much too blinded by the similarities between his and Dick's tragic orphanhoods.

Alfred is in a similar boat because he’s desensitized to weird children after he somehow managed to successfully raise Bruce 'The Batman' Wayne, so he doesn't clock the hyper-competency as abnormal either.

By the time the other batkids start popping up (Jason 'The Audacity' Todd, borderline-street rat with no fear) (Tim 'the greatest stalker in Gotham history' Drake, child genius, also bullied his way into becoming Robin) (Barbara 'raised by the only uncorrupt cop in gotham' Gordon) (Stephanie 'daddy issues and spite' Brown) (Duke 'Pretends he's the normal one and people believe him' Thomas) it's too late.

It would also explain how Dick got along so well with Damian out of all of them. Similar childhood with different approaches and all that. On some subconscious level, Dick recognises and resonates with the murderous ten year old assassin with strong familial ties to a secret elite assassin organization.

It isn't until after the whole Court of Owls and Grey Son reveal that suddenly Dick realises a whole lot of things about his childhood that suddenly make a lot more sense.

When the fanfiction was so good you wish there was fanfiction about it.

lab and border collie 

my prof told me homer actually prolly did this intentionally in order to have a bigger target audience

Prof (Of classics) just told me that we can interpret Achilles and Patroculus any way we want bc the ancient greeks couldn’t even make up their minds “It all depends on who you ask when and where”

Characters' train of thought explained through mycro expressions

Well, I say explained, but just hear me out.

It occurred to me just now that I was making one of my silly posts, that they way Sherlock and John react to Sally Donovan's words might reflect something that I hadn't previously considered.

Up until this point in ASiP, John has just met Mrs. Hudson, with whom Sherlock seems to be so close, and her first thought was not only that he and Sherlock were romantically involved, but that they were already serious enough to be moving in together.

Then, there's Sally Donovan. She calls Sherlock a freak, so from here on, it must be obvious to John they're not in good terms.

Sherlock then remarks Sally didn't make it home the previous night, and Sally knows he's right; furthermore, she knows why she didn't make it home; she was with Anderson, with whom she is actually romantically involved, but presumably, she doesn't want to give Sherlock, the man she constantly ridicules, the power to ridicule her back over Anderson, so she tries to prevent Sherlock from going any further with his deductions by deflecting to John and the reason he's there.

Sherlock proceeds to introduce John by his professional title, "Colleague of mine, Doctor Watson", because he's eager to show off his association with him, something I have previously theorised about in this post, but Sally doesn't care about that, now does she?

"Colleague? How do you get a colleague?" she asks then, and the question is obviously meant to imply Sherlock is so utterly unbearable that no one would want to be around him, but it serves another purpose too. By teasing Sherlock about his involvement with John, she can easily deflect from her own involvement with Anderson.

Now, let's see the boys' reactions to the question again, shall we?

Sherlock turns his head and rolls his eyes because he's obviously offended, but he's already used to it; after all, Sally is hardly the first person to treat Sherlock this way, but John, John frowns as if offended on Sherlock's behalf because at this point, neither Sally nor Mycroft have warned him about Sherlock being... well, Sherlock yet. It is then that Sally adds...

Sherlock lowers his head, once he finally gets what Sally is implying. It is true that Sherlock doesn't know that she spent the night with Anderson yet, but just the fact that she was out all night might suggest she spent it with someone, and now she might be asking if John followed Sherlock home for the exact same reason.

Thing is, at this point, they have just met each other, and they seem to be getting along. This doesn't happen to Sherlock that often, and he must know John is special, which is the reason he invited him along in the first place. Why would a man who is said to have no friends and who once said "Alone protects me" would immediately ask John to live with him and work with him within 24 hours of having met him if he wasn't the exception to the rule? I can only imagine how badly Sherlock wants to be the exception to the rule for John as well, and how scared he might be of driving him away; after all, he's learned from everyone else around him that he's a freak, that he puts everyone off, that he's meant to be alone, and he doesn't want John to see him in that light because he wants him to stay.

Sally's comments have effectively made John question why he's even there. He rolls his eyes and prompty suggests it might be better if he waits outside, but that's not all there is to it.

Why would John suggest that? He could have just ignored Sally's question, but instead, he reacts just like he did when Mrs. Hudson ("Of course we'll be needing two"), and Angelo ("I'm not his date") implied he and Sherlock were a couple, by retreating. Sherlock can't be happy about this, but he reacts like he did before too, by ignoring the situation and bringing John along anyway. He can deal with Donovan later.

The opportunity presents itself when they come across Anderson, and it takes Sherlock less than a second to deduce by his deodorant that he is the person with whom Sally spent the night, which is then confirmed by their reactions.

So this little remark...

This was payback. If Sally really thought she could make him look inadequate in front of John, well then she'd better take a look at her own choice of companionship first. Inappropriate and immature, sure, but so was Sally Donovan's behavior from the start.

So we're finally in, and who do we have next? Ah, Lestrade! Kind, and unassuming Detective Inspector Lestrade, who mirrors Sally's question upon seeing John, but Sherlock is having none of this.

Translation: "I'm not doing this again. This is nobody's business but our own. He's here, he's with me, and I intend to keep him, so would everyone please back off?"

I may be wrong, but I think that ultimately, this might be at least part of the reason Sherlock doesn't respond when they are interrogated about the nature of their relationship. Why bother when it's obvious to him people don't know the first thing about them? This is them, this is the two of them against the rest of the world, this is private, this is their life together, this is what they are to each other and Sherlock will have no one question it or ridicule it, let alone trying to understand it.

Almost 12 years later, and here I am, trying to question it, and trying to understand it, but that's neither here, nor there.

Out of curiosity...

Just finished reading the Symposium, in which a guy named Phaedrus claims that Aeschylus is ridiculous for believing that Achilles is the lover and Patroclus the beloved. (i.e. that Achilles tops.)

Phaedrus argues that Patroclus was the lover (the top) and Achilles the beloved (the bottom), as Patroclus was older and Achilles more beautiful.