how do these things happen?

[bedlamsbard]

I...have evidently started writing another SW AU. One of the Qui-Gon lives and trains Anakin type, which usually do nothing for me as I'm all about the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship. But I kind of like this one, because it is all about the Obi-Wan/Anakin relationship, minus the ten year background and the Master/Padawan relationship. It begins with AotC, with Obi-Wan alone getting sent to guard Padme rather than the Master/Padawan pair of Qui-Gon and Anakin. Anakin and Obi-Wan still end up working together to catch the assassin, though, since Anakin is going to visit Padme when he sees Obi-Wan jump out the window. And to everyone's surprise, including their own, they work well together.

Beyond that, I still have to work out what happens, though, since at this point in canon they split up and I have to figure out who gets sent where: if Obi-Wan follows his canon role and goes to Kamino, and Anakin and Qui-Gon guard Padme, or if Obi-Wan continues guarding Padme and Anakin and Qui-Gon go to Kamino instead. That latter is more likely, I think, but that leads to lots of repercussions, like Qui-Gon being confronted by Dooku and the lack of Anakin going out and murdering sand people all over the place.

And, of course, the Anakin/Padme relationship. It wouldn't be Obi-Wan/Padme, though.

*prods curiously* Well, I'm intrigued, even though I know it's the most common AU in the SW fandom. Which actually surprises me, because I always thought there'd be a lot more Anakin-doesn't-turn fic.

Comments

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Anakin and Obi-Wan are so tangled up in each other that even when it's gen, they sound like they're sleeping together. Even in the original trilogy, it seems like three-quarters of what Vader says is about Obi-Wan in some way. *shakes head* I am totally convinced that Obi-Wan was a mess during the twenty years between RotS and ANH -- not just because of the betrayal, but because he was all alone, when he'd spent the past twenty or thirty years of his life constantly with someone: first Qui-Gon, and then Anakin.

Palpatine really wanted to insert himself into Anakin's life, though. I have no idea how he managed to do it so early on, but obviously he found a way. Actually, that's a good question: how did he manage to do it so early on without Obi-Wan or the Council freaking out?

I've seen a lot of time travel fics within the prequels themselves -- RotS Obi-Wan ends up in TPM Obi-Wan's body, Obi-Wan meets young Qui-Gon -- okay, not that many, on second thought. I've seen one fic where Amidala's ship from TPM ends up in the future, but I didn't actually get around to reading it because it didn't look like my thing.

I really, really want to write the Anakin and Obi-Wan go forward in time story -- the working title is "The Most Dangerous Man in the Galaxy." It starts at the very beginning of RotS, when Obi-Wan's unconscious in Dooku's ship, and when Anakin refuses to leave him, Palpatine freaks and attacks him and the Force somehow transports them to the future -- which unfortunately happens to be Hoth in ESB, which of course means they get captured by the Rebels who are out looking for Luke and Han. And then they get stuck there, which leads to some really amusing hijinks, which is to say, Anakin freaking out because Luke somehow has his lightsaber, Obi-Wan somehow getting ANH Obi-Wan's memories (yeah, that...doesn't go too well. Let's just say "freak out" when he sees Anakin), and Yoda trying to attack Anakin on Dagobah. And Palpatine freaking out, of course. But it would be seriously massive to write.

I think it would be heartbreaking for Luke to see how close Anakin and Obi-Wan were if the time traveling takes place after ESB and amusing for lightsaber mixup hijinks if it takes place beforehand. Plus, if Luke and Co. realize they can't change the past, that makes it even more heartbreaking. *sigh*

Star Wars breaks my heart in many, many ways.

[rose-aislin.livejournal.com]

Yes, they are all tangled up together, aren't they? Although, one of my pet peeves is when people seem to think that two guys can't be really, really close friends *without* sleeping together. Not everything is about sex. And you can be great friends without wanting to sleep with someone. Although I really love just about every facet of the Anakin/Obi-Wan relationship that I've seen.

And I never really thought about the *aloneness* of Obi-Wan so much during those twenty years - so now I'm sure my poor little brain is going to spend the next - oh, who knows how long, dwelling on poor Obi-Wan... if I'm lucky the muse will join in and I'll get a fic out of it.

Of course, I like to think that Luke spent more time with Old Ben then is suggested by the originals, partly because, hey, I think that'd be cool (poor Obi-Wan - although, of course, then you get issues of poor Obi-Wan having to deal with the guilt/flashbacks/fear of being with someone who reminds him so much of Anakin), and partly because, especially after watching the prequels, it's just not realistic that Luke could learn enough to face Vader so quickly.
Although, of course, my other favourite idea is that you really only need that long to learn what you need to to be a jedi and the rest of the time is spent learning things like politics and the jedi code, etc (which, I know, is totally unrealistic, but I like to imagine Anakin's face when he finds out Luke didn't have to learn all that).

I've never really wondered too much about palpatine, I have to admit. He's there in the senate which is right near the temple, so the availability - at least distance-wise is there. Then, I imagine that poor Obi-Wan is simply struggling to deal with losing Qui-Gon and going from a padawan to a master all in one day, as it were, and so isn't too sure about what he should/shouldn't be doing with Anakin.
Anakin, the general consensus seems to be, feels that Obi-Wan only took him as a padawan due to Qui-Gon asking him to, and so doesn't feel wanted. Having come from such a loving environment, despite being a slave, he seeks out someone to give him at least something of what his mother always did - enter palpatine - the only person he knows - apart from the jedi, who is still on Coruscant, and that Ani knows.
And of course, the jedi don't show love, etc, because that's a big no-no.

And here, I think, that the main mistake they made was treating Anakin as if he was just another padawan - yet also treating him as if he's the chosen one, and also dangerous.
They hadn't taken someone who was older into the temple in so long that they didn't know how to deal with him and he suffered for it. I always wonder if there was some teaching or something that he missed out on having not grown up there that would have really helped him deal with everything, and that everyone just assumes he knew about, but he didn't.
Not to mention that you can't take a nine year old and tell them to suddenly stop feeling. Whereas you can teach two year olds to let go of feelings a lot easier.

The other general consensus seems to be that Anakin refused to 'release' his feelings as when he was a slave it was all he had.

Ok, I never really thought too much about the lightsaber thing before - but that is a good point! I always focused more on - do I want Shmi to still be alive or not, and do I want Anakin to have started down the dark path yet or not.

And yes, Star Wars does just break your heart, doesn't it?

(eh, there, see, I rambled on again...)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I definitely hear you there, although I have to add that a couple of my OTPs are guys who in canon are friends who are more or less close enough that, again, the only thing they aren't doing is sleeping together. And when it comes to Anakin and Obi-Wan, I'm fairly convinced that, at least in canon, they're not sleeping together. Or, actually, I should say, having sex, because I do believe they've slept together in a strictly platonic definition of the word for various reasons: comfort, security, lack of two beds. It's kind of a motif I like; it shows up in "What is Lost" and again in "A Long Time Gone"; I also use it in my original fiction.

It's in my personal canon that Obi-Wan went, at the very least, a little bit crazy on Tatooine. I mean, think about it. He's just been betrayed by his best friend, he's just had his heart broken, he's just had his "family" murdered by the one person he trusted more than anyone else, he's alone in the desert on the planet he knows Anakin hated, the only company he has is his dead Master, he has no friends, everyone thinks he's crazy, and he has to watch his best friend's kid grow up and make sure he doesn't make the same mistakes all over again. I know I'd go stark raving nuts.

Oh, Obi-Wan. My feeling is that he and Luke actually didn't know each other very well at all.

I wish we had a better idea of how the timelines went in the movies. I mean, there's a certain span of years between ANH and ESB, but obviously ESB covers a fairly significant period of time itself with Luke's training on Dagobah -- and I'm pretty sure Yoda was freaking out, because basically all he was teaching Luke how to do was use the Force. Judging from the prequels, too, the Jedi learn everything, not just fighting and the Force: politics, negotiating, medicine, engineering, quantum science, cooking, everything. (Not to mention how much Yoda and Obi-Wan must have freaked when Luke was, like, "Off to go rescue my friends! Bye!" It's like deja vu all over again!.)

*shrug* I'm not really as bothered about the feelings/love thing as most people. Maybe it's because I don't tend to dissect a character, just write out of instinct and what feels right for the character.

Well, consider that all the Jedi grew up in the Temple, so none of them had any experience with normal children. quigonejinn does the best with her intepretation of baby Obi-Wan, I think -- and Anakin's nothing like that at all, because he doesn't have the same experience, the same training, that everyone else has, and nobody's ever had to deal with anything like that before.

The lightsaber thing amuses me far too much, because Anakin would freak out a lot and Luke would have one of those moments where he just wants to die. I'm kind of intrigued by the fact that Anakin might be interested in him, but really wouldn't actually care all that much -- it's one of the things I'm playing with in the Anakin and Obi-Wan time travel story, that even with Luke right there, Anakin still cares more about Obi-Wan than he does about Luke.

It breaks my heart, besides the obvious, because there are so many things that are lost in the nineteen years between RotS and ANH. So much that no one will ever know -- I mean, for an example, Padme Amidala. Once the originals roll around, she's completely irrelevent; we don't have any indication that Luke or Leia know that she's their mother. Hell, we don't even know if people knew she was against the Empire, since Palpatine was from Naboo. They only know that she died.