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#Somewhere out there, Obi-Wan gets a force headache.

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HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN as ANAKIN SKYWALKER/DARTH VADER Ahsoka: Part 5 - Shadow Warrior (2023)

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Ahsoka on Choosing (and Fighting) to Live, and why it matters that Anakin was the one to complete this lesson

Ahsoka has been playing the neutral game for a while now. Don’t engage, it at all possible. Avoid conviction , which Anakin points out that she lacks. Anakin tells Ahsoka that her training isn’t yet complete. There’s still a last lesson for her, and it’s one that transforms her in the end.

That message? Fight.

This is not about merely physical survival. This is about spiritual survival, the survival of who Ahsoka is in the Light.

It’s exactly the lesson Anakin had to learn for himself. He had to learn to fight for the Light inside him; he had to fight Vader to find himself again and protect the core of who he is. He couldn’t teach her that before, all that time ago. He didn’t know. He could teach her to be a soldier, yes, but as Ahsoka knows and as we found out in this episode, her training from him wasn’t complete. Because he had only recently learned t he final lesson himself, which he is now in the World Between Worlds to teach her. He tells her:

He knows it’s already within her, but she resists the message. Ahsoka lives through the past once again, and Anakin is trying to show her how she wasn’t just fighting to live in a physical sense, she was fighting to save her self in the spiritual sense, her soul in the Light side of the Force. She fought to save herself when she left the Jedi Order. She fought for what she believed was right in the siege of Mandalore.

But in one thing, Ahsoka has remained neutral, avoiding a solid conviction. She won’t fight Anakin, she won’t take that step.

But that’s not what Anakin wants. In the same way that Luke initially didn’t want to fight his father and eventually had to in order to protect what is good and true inside of himself, Ahsoka has to choose that, too. Anakin had to learn that and choose to live himself, too. Luke and Anakin have gone before her; it is Ashoka’s turn now. Anakin pushes her.

Ahsoka walks right up to the edge. She engages in the struggle, as she is meant to. She touches the Dark side, and she chooses to back away from it. She chooses to fight for the Light inside her. She chooses to live.

It’s exactly what Anakin wanted her to learn. His reaction is interesting, because he appears almost sad for a moment.

But I think it’s because he’s shocked at how comparatively easy it was for Ahsoka to resist the Dark side, in contrast to himself. He realizes she’s so much stronger on that front than he ever was. He’s surprised, ashamed of himself perhaps, but ultimately proud of her. “There’s hope for you yet,” he tells Ahsoka.

This experience changes Ahsoka forever and from this she becomes Ahsoka the White.

Ahsoka has found balance now. She learns that in the struggle to hold on to the Light inside of her, she has to take a stand in the end. It’s what Luke learned, it’s what Anakin finally learned, and Ahsoka has finally found that hope, too. Anakin wasn’t able to finish her training all that time ago because he didn’t know the lesson yet; now that he does, he has returned to her in the World Between Worlds to finish her training. He brought balance yet again, and Ahsoka has found peace with her past. She was never “just a soldier,” she was always so much more. Anakin brought her hope, and now its Ahsoka’s turn to carry the flame.

#ahsoka #ahsoka series #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka episode 5 spoilers #anakin #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #vader and ahsoka #ahsoka the white #star wars meta #star wars

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An Admittedly Harsh Review of Good Omens Season 2

~ obviously contains spoilers for Good Omens s2 ~

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely ADORE Good Omens, both the book as well as season 1. I love the story, the characters, the writing, the acting, all of it. I'm a huge fan of Crowley and Aziraphale. So trust me when I say that it breaks my heart to leave anything but a glowing review of the second season.

That said, I feel like the second season has received a lot of praise. Fans seem to be generally happy about the way the show went, though obviously 'upset' about the events at the end of the season, as was intended. There were definitely fun things about the show that deserve some praise. However, I don't feel like the show has received the criticism that it is also due. And because of how much I love the first season and the ineffables, I feel like I owe it to myself to give voice to these criticisms. They are as follows:

1 Lack of Emotional Depth

Compared to a first season brimming with emotional depth, meaning, and complexity, the second season of Good Omens is incredibly lacking in multiple ways. Not only is the plot almost virtually void of meaningful emotion, the characters are regrettably emotionally dry. With a big caveat for the final emotional confrontation between Crowley and Aziraphale in the last episode (to be discussed again later), the rest of the show feels quite shallow. Aziraphale and Crowley have little meaningful conversation throughout the entirety of the series; they've just come out of the world almost ending and major upheaval in their realities and in their relationship with one another at the end of season 1, yet the two seem oddly distant from each other, and not even purposefully. Crowley is largely emotionally checked out most of the season, and Aziraphale is just stressed about Gabriel, but gives no thoughts whatsoever to Crowley, which just reads as characterization and dialogue poorly done.

What makes the lack of emotional depth in, and connection between, Aziraphale and Crowley even worse is that the other characters in the season are also horribly lacking emotion. I'll give a pass to Gabriel given it's part of his characterization, but the introduction of Nina and Maggie was disappointing. I was all for the intro of new characters with side romance plots, but the plot between these two feels contrived and, most of all, rushed. Their development is rushed to the extent that it's impossible for these characters to develop emotional depth that would resonate with the audience. Whereas we had extensive scenes of Newton, Anathema, Adam, etc in season one, we barely had scenes dedicated to exploring these two a bit more in depth. I found myself unable to really care about them at all which is a true shame because, as a sapphic myself, I was pretty excited about them.

What makes the ending confrontation between Aziraphale and Crowley so much worse is the fact that they had so little emotional interactions prior to this throughout the season. They were very surface-level, status quo, emotionally neutral through the season except for the tiniest whispers of something romantic before BAM this final dramatic confrontation. That scene was, unfortunately, the only time the entire season I felt like I was actually watching the Crowley and Aziraphale I know and love from season one. Talk about traumatic.

2 Inconsistent Characterization

This is largely intertwined with lack of emotional depth, but it deserves its own focus, too. Some of the character decisions simply do not make sense. Case in point: Crowley living in his car and Aziraphale not knowing and/or not offering him a place to stay. That is so unlike Aziraphale that it hurts. Crowley does something equally offensive by throwing Aziraphale's books around when Aziraphale isn't around. Given that he went to great lengths to save Aziraphale's books in season one and respects his angel with soft adoration, I find it jarring that Crowley would do this. Aziraphale doesn't seem as reflective as he did in season 1. Crowley, who we could always read behind the glasses, seems cold and closed off this season. I felt like I was watching a sad alternate universe version of them.

3 Painfully Slow Plot & Filler Content

To be fair, characters can't shine when the story they're in is sorely lacking.... everything. Each episode I watched became more and more nonsensical, boring, and painful. Flashback scenes were drawn out, the entire fourth episode was drawn out and flat, and the Hell vs Bookshop 'fight' scene towards the end was equally drawn out and anticlimactic. Towards the end of the season, it felt as if I were very slowly having a tooth pulled, and it just ended in the worst way possible. Compared to the brilliance of season 1, season 2's plot and content was disorganized, drawn out, rambling, and frankly felt like filler. The entire Nazi-zombie arc was... painful. The magic scene went on for a lifetime. I truly don't understand how the show managed to do so little with so much time.

Some Concluding Thoughts

The fact that all this culminated in a very intense and dramatic scene between Aziraphale and Crowley makes that interaction even more painful. While there are perhaps some reasons I could see Aziraphale making this decision despite the lessons he supposedly learned in season 1, this again just reads as poorly done to me. Crowley went from showing almost no emotion the entire season to having this very dramatic moment... I would have liked to see consistent hints of this. Without build-up this felt disproportionately unexpected and shocking. The scene undoubtedly has potential and is a very interesting consideration for the characters, but I struggle to care about this scene when it feels so utterly lacking in context.

Overall, as a huge fan on Good Omens and Aziraphale and Crowley, I'm quite disappointed with season 2. I had a lot of hope and excitement for it, but this... this brought disappointment and hurt. The writing felt rushed while also somehow grasping for content. Previously rich and developed characters felt flat. No emotional context existed to draw me in. Each episode, I slipped into a lower level of disappointment.

I'm not a fan of praising things for doing the bare minimum, and that's what this felt like. Just because side-plots geared towards some of the interests that the audience has expressed are included, it doesn't matter if those side-plots and characters end up lacking the context and depth they deserve. If there wasn't enough content to create a second season, better to not make it, in my opinion. Just because we got ~ the kiss ~ the rest of the show doesn't matter. To me, it feels as if they thought that was enough and that everything else would be overlooked as long as this one thing happened.

But... I'm not just going to overlook it. Compared to the fun, emotionally rich, exciting first season of Good Omens, season 2 is barely an echo of that original energy. This season deserves to be critiqued, so I'm going to say it.

I'm wary but cautiously hopeful about a third season. I'm hoping that that story and season would be more reminiscent of the first season's emotionality and meaning, and that we would see depth to our characters again. I could almost forgive season 2 if we got a genuinely well-done conclusion to the story.

// End Rant

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable idiots #ineffable bureaucracy #go2 #good omens season 2 #critique #media criticism #discussion

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#emma #sunlight

i love my girlfriend i love my girlfriend i love my girlfriend i love my girlfriend!! light of my life just spent 5 hours on a video call with me just doing phd work while i watched a shakespeare play and then taking a break to watch sth with me (currently ill) and then do some more work and then cuddle with me (what we call being on facetime when we're both in bed) and now i am going to sleep. i keep WINNING i'm so in LOVE!!!!!

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good omens text post meme, part 1

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley

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HAND ON MY HEART. HAND ON MY STUPID HEART

ross gay / susan sontag / unknown / richard siken / warsan shire / lana del ray / tturing / hera lindsay bird / richard siken

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Welcome home, Dear one.

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Literally all I want to do is write something that makes people insane and maybe scream silently over it like is that so much to ask

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i’ve witnessed a lot of people recently coming to a place in their healing/recovery where they no longer feel able to sustain the harm of work (under capitalism). they’ll say, sometimes half-jokingly, “what i really need is to not have to go to my job.” and i’m like, yes!!! yes! this is dead serious. this is a naming of harm that’s so obvious and yet so obscured in our society. there’s something stark about going thru a recovery process where you comb areas of your life for ways to be kinder to yourself and to pursue thriving, and in the area of work it’s this inexorable, violent robbery of half your life to which the alternative is being left to die. the absurdity of trying to heal all around this when we could… not have to do that 

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The djinn to Nandor this episode

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Anakins face as he goes up

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not to be emotional on main but fanfiction is a gift and it’s so fundamentally human to tell each other stories and i am deeply grateful to have that in my life. thank you all for adding so much emotion and meaning to the world with your words

#fanfiction #fic #humanity #stories #warm feelings #it fr feels like a warm hug #and is a balm to the SOUL

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my asexual self growing up in purity culture and not understanding why my friends were struggling not to have premarital sex:

#asexual #asexuality #ace #purity #purity culture #chrsitianity #religious trauma #critique #premarital #premarital sex

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(Stealth | by Karen Miller)      "Only you can decide what works best for you. How strongly you feel things—what you choose to care about—I can’t make those decisions for you. I can tell you what I think. I can give you the benefit of my experience. But I can’t live your life for you.“       Anakin ducked his head. “I already know what you think, Obi-Wan. You think I’m hotheaded. I’m impulsive. That I let myself feel too much.”       “Yes,” he admitted. “Sometimes I do. And sometimes I can’t imagine who I’d be today if not for you. Though you frequently drive me to distraction, Anakin, I cannot deny this: knowing you has made me a better Jedi.” THANKS, I’M GONNA GO FLING MYSELF INTO THE SUN

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #novels #obikin #obi wan and anakin

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OBI-WAN KENOBI Part V

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