Two ⋆✩pretty✩⋆ best friends

all you conceal, let out: ch. 1

i finally managed to fill another square on my @obikin-events bingo card well after the event was over 🫡 (i tried my best to finish it before it ended, but oh well)

alternate universe travel • obikin • 5.1k words • read on ao3 instead

Anakin knew his mission wouldn't be easy. He was warned against going, specifically going alone, but he insisted on taking it anyway. He needed to be away from the Temple, from everything that reminded him – 

“You still need time to mourn!” His own padawan had cried out in the hangar as he strode away from her, his responsibilities, and any bit of sanity he was still holding onto. 

Death is a natural part of life, he thought bitterly as he jogged up the Twilight's ramp, followed quickly by Artoo. I guess you forgot that lesson. 

It's wip Wednesday, my dudes

So I've been working on this 'never a jedi' obikin au for many months, maybe a year at this point, idk. But, by some miracle, I feel like I'm possibly finally gonna finish soooooon. 🤞🏻 so anyway, I thought I'd share a little bit.

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Anakin carefully stretched out with his senses and found that all was calm. He reached further looking for someone, anything, but didn’t get much beyond the general course of life on the planet. But then, on the edges of his consciousness, a single life form appeared, close… They were inside the house with him.

Anakin knew he should be on high alert, but he couldn’t find it within himself to be. Perhaps he could come back to the why later. Wherever he was, he felt safe and not in any danger. The life form felt calm, relaxed, and slightly amused. Suddenly, he heard a low humming, but not like the humming of the Force, but a living being softly humming a tune. It wasn’t in the room with him but it was close. Then it stopped.

"Ah, you're awake."

Windswept Cal Kestis for @pathetic-lifeform 💕

Sometimes it's easy to forget just how kind Anakin could be, how boyishly charming he could be! With another character, this could come off as annoyingly hypocritical, about how he knows he doesn't practice his forms as often as he should (and it shouldn't matter that he's naturally talented enough not to need to, it's about the internal discipline of it all), but he's so adorable about it that instead it's something those who love him wind up smiling at him over. His natural charisma comes through even when he's admitting that he doesn't do the things he's supposed to, he's so easy to love in these moments, he made twenty of these holos for Ahsoka, he trained her through them and emphasized that he believed in her, and wryly admitted that he didn't do as he was preaching to her, even though it's important. It's so easy to see why Ahsoka loved him, it's so easy to see why she held onto his memory, it's so easy to see why Padme and Obi-Wan and the Jedi loved him, why he never really got in trouble for the things he did when he broke the rules. We all know he's also Darth Vader, but Darth Vader is also Anakin Skywalker, you can't have the nightmare murderer without the boyish charm, and Hayden bringing that energy to the character, that we can see both in his portrayal, more charming boy here than nightmare, but it's not hard to put it together with the previous episode's Force vision of him as Vader, because this is who Anakin Skywalker is, too. This is why he was so loved, why he was so easy to love, he's just plain ridiculously adorable here!!!

After witnessing Hayden’s return to Star Wars, first in OWK in 2022 and now in Ahsoka, I cannot help but think that why did it take us nearly 20 years to collectively claim this man as our own? Do we even deserve him?

In the prequels he gave his everything, his portrayal of Anakin was incredibly nuanced and he clearly had done his homework (e.g. nailing JEJ’s speech pattern and his vocal cadence, as well as David Prowse’s physical mannerisms). Looking at Hayden you could see exactly what George Lucas meant when he said he wanted someone who had ” that presence of the dark side”. But you could also distinguish the former innocent slave boy, who wanted to be a Jedi and make his loved ones proud. He was Anakin, he was Vader.

It still makes me extremely sad and upset that some fans thought their image of Vader at the time was the only right one. They had their heads too up their asses to see that Anakin/Vader was right there, exactly as George Lucas had written him, both passionate and powerful but also sad and pathetic. And of course there were those who did see it, most of them were just too young at the time/without a platform to express all that awe and outpouring of love, as it was mostly drowned out by the loud, spiteful hate and criticism.

I can’t even imagine the things Hayden had to hear, directly from fans and from the media. It must’ve been so discouraging for a young actor. Heck, he was 24 when RotS came out. 24. And still, after everything, he decided to come back. He could’ve declined when Deborah Chow called him and asked him to return to the franchise, I would not have blamed him.

We are extremely lucky to have him back as Anakin and Vader again. And we better remember that.

Some good additions from @mcgregor, well said.

Exactly this. Poor Hayden and Jake Lloyd (a literal child) became the spitbuckets for all the hate and backlash for Anakin’s characterization. The toxic fans couldn’t believe the creator himself was responsible for it. I mean the guy just cast and directed both Hayden and Jake, wrote the lines and even decided what Anakin’s hair was gonna look like but go off, I guess.

It’s like all the interviews/BTS etc with Lucas where he explains Anakin’s character and motives didn’t exist. Some fans still didn’t want to accept that it was the Darth Vader they were seeing in the prequels, but wanted to cling to the idea of an all-powerful, macho and cold villain. In reality, Lucas (and both actors with their portrayals) just made Vader more complex and interesting and I’m glad most of the fans have realized that.

But as we have seen with all the anti Jedi sentiments lately in the fandom, it doesn’t matter what canon (or Lucas himself) says, there are always those who miss the whole point and don’t accept any other truth than their own. But that’s another fight.

Anakin Skywalker in Ahsoka (2023)