so_out_of_ideas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
so_out_of_ideas) wrote2007-06-18 08:51 am
so_out_of_ideas) wrote2007-06-18 08:51 am
In the life of a writer and a fangirl
I had a teacher who sat us down on the first day of class and made us fill out a questionerre that looks a lot like some of the "get to know your flist" memes that float around on LJ. Favorite color, food, book, what do you do in your spare time, who are your heroes and why, what do you think of when you hear the word blank... I just sort of rolled my eyes like, "And we're doing this exactly why? This is a history class."
This is not going to be one of those "inspiring teacher" rambles. The truth is, this guy was a real blockhead. He was a jerk, and he was good at intimidating students, especially ones he didn't like. The class was World History or something like that, and I remember a particular occasion when I accidentally "ruined" his lesson plan by raising my hand and going, "Well, wait, I read a few years ago that Caesar did X, Y, and Z, and then..." So he looks at me all exasperated like, "Will you shut up...?" I think he was trying to present Caesar in a positive light to then later make some point about the fall of a hero and being corrupted by power. Or something. I didn't realize that at the time, and although I happened to be one of the students he liked--probably because I understood the subject matter already and could discuss it credibly-- the "shut up" was embarrassing.
I had trouble in the class after that. My knowledge of history takes a serious dive around the Renaissance and into the colonization of the Americas. Things get confusing for me, and I still have trouble with that. THEN, he started using this weird method where he wanted us to watch these slide shows of his and take notes on them using a three-column outline format that he had to explain in insane amounts of detail. Then we were supposed to go home and make "write ups", which were sort of reports on the notes we had taken, but they had to be done exactly as specified, and the outlines had to be turned in too so he could see that we'd done them. It just made even less sense to me then, and if I'd been a few years older, I might have gone to him and asked for help, but at the time, I couldn't get up the nerve. Mainly, I think, because I had felt so belittled over the "shut up."
That and the questionerre thing are really all I remember about the class. Despite how much of a bully this guy could be, though the lesson he taught with the questionerre was a good one.
His point was that history is important. Our own history as much as the history of the world around us. He took those questionerres, stuck them in a drawer someplace, and then made us fill them out AGAIN sixteen weeks later at the end of the term. I'd figured out the point by then, but he told us that he would mail them to us later that summer, along with an empty one that we could do again if we wanted.
I don't really remember if I filled it out a third time or not. I do remember, some fifteen years later, that I read both versions and was honestly amazed at how much I had changed. I guess that's why I started this journal, even though it started as just a storehouse for icons. Any of my processing and thoughts on real life end up on my comp or in a notebook, because I'm really too private to share the stuff on the 'net. When it comes to my original writing, I don't often bring it here either, but even in terms of fandom related work, I can see the same sort of thing.
I don't icon for comments. Everything I make is just what I happen to be inspired by at the moment, be it a show, movie, story, or something else. I post them here because the journal is the place I can come to and quickly see where I was at any given point in terms of style and technique. It's sort of like going back through old stories. I either go, "Oy, what was I thinking..." or "Oh! I remember that!" but either way it allows me to get an overview of my own growth. What I find confounding is that whenever I think a particular set won't generate much interest, that is the one which receives comments, where the ones I think are really going to get comments don't. A prime example are the Zhaan icons I made a while back from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aruna7's vids. Despite the fact that I don't watch Farscape, I know what is visually appealing, and I am honestly very proud of that set. I posted them to comms over the weekend (finally) and haven't gotten any new comments on them since. When I posted my Superman icons a few months ago, I expected like maybe one or two comments from a few people who remembered Chris Reeve as Superman. I got far more than I thought, and I even had a few people friend me as a result of the set.
The same is true for my fic. I've been thinking lately about how it was that I came to have written several AU epic fics now. Once upon a time, I did not even consider myself to be much of a fic writer at all. I first started posting fic here on a whim. I was randomly inspired to answer a fic challenge on the Daniel/Vala comm and decided to try ficcing SG-1 even though I'd never had much sucess with fanfiction. By success, I don't mean reader interest. Success to me is not about readership, although I am very flattered and appreciative of feedback on my work. It's about a story which says something and means something--and when the story is fanfiction, it's also something which honors the characters and their creators. It also means a story that doesn't like die halfway through, which was a problem with the attempts I had made to fic in some other fandoms before. I still have fond/irritating memories of an SG-1 fic about Daniel and some OC mutants that I'd started before LJ, but that died on me too, so it's not something that can't happen with SG-1. It just tends not to, especially with Vala involved. Strangely enough, I didn't like Vala in the beginning of s9... o.O *hugs Vala*
All of my Stargate AU stuff has honestly been accidental. At the time I began writing SG-1, the series was still in production. My stories are long and tend to be written over a period of at least a few weeks, if not months. That means they diverge from canon because they don't end between one episode and the next. Even when I attempt to write one-shots, I usually find myself with LONG one-shot ideas that turn into series ideas because the fics are written in response to challenges with word limits.
Believe it or not, I am not a big fan of AU fanfiction. If I go looking for fic, I tend to look for canon fic because, in large part I have found that "AU" becomes a blanket excuse for the author to disregard canon elements purely on a whim, regardless of whether those elements are formative and integral parts of what creates the personality of the character or the dynamic of relationships within the show. "AU" comes to mean, "It's mine, I can make it however I want." In my opinion, AU is too often the justification for everything. It's the excuse for Sam and Jack engaging in an illicit romance in blatant disregard for the frat rules, even though doing something like that is entirely outside the realm of how either of them think. It becomes the reason for Obi to not only have an affair with Padme while in the Jedi Order but to do so after Padme is married, despite the fact that in canon both of them loved Anakin Skywalker so much that they were blinded to what he was becoming. There's generally no credible explanation of how this deviation took place, but to me that's the problem. If a character's personality is that different, as a writer and a fan, I need to see how it got that way or I can't buy it. Everyone of course is entitled to their own interpretations of a fandom, but to me even if something is AU, there has to be a clear POINT at which it diverges from canon for plot reasons, and the established canon before that point should be the same. Otherwise the characters themselves become different to the point that they are unrecognizable.
Another problem with AU is the tendency for an insane amount of OCs who take over the plot. Not necessarily Mary Sue characters, just characters who are everywhere to the detriment of the canon characters that I came to read about. I'm not against the creation of OCs in any way. All of my fic series (with the possible exception of Taking the Long Way) have them. They can bring a lot of fun and interesting twists to a story, and it's pleasant for me as a writer to explore what might happen, for example, if a canon character was given an opportunity to have a type of relationship that would have been impossible EXCEPT with an OC (Anakin, Obi, and Little Ani, say?). My issue comes when the story becomes so much about the OCs that the author seems to forget it's a fanfic and that therefore the story is supposed to be about the canon characters.
And all of that now finally brings me to what I wanted to say when I started this post. *facepalm @ self* Sometimes I talk as much as Daniel.
One Path is my first conscious attempt at an AU. When I started it, I set out to write in an alternate reality for the Star Wars Saga. A year or so ago, I don't think I would have even attempted it, and I have to say that One Path owes a lot to Rediscovered Hearts in terms of the fact that RH gave me a chance to discover a way that I was comfortable in writing AU fic. However, because AU itself is problematic for me, I had certain goals. The story would reflect canon. Those who died in canon would, with a single exception, die in One Path. Padme would live, but only because her reason for dying in canon does not exist here. Well, we can see how much those goals have been...erm...tweaked. And yet, it is my hope that the story continues to reflect canon, and to remain true, at its essence, to the heart of what Lucas was trying to express. However, some of you may be interested to note that in the original outline of One Path, there was no Anakin Kenobi.
Aruna and I like to say that One Path has a mind of her own. Yes. The story is a she. She's far too evil and changes her mind WAY too much to be anything else. The most vivid example of this phenomenon is Ani Kenobi. As mentioned, he wasn't supposed to exist. Ani came to me in a dream. The dream consisted of the temple scene, and the entire genesis of the character was based upon two lines:
"Uncle Anakin, what are you doing?"
"Run, Ani!
I woke up stunned and immediately knew that I had to write this scene. In my mind at the time, I also knew that a third kid didn't fit ANYWHERE in our plans for the OT. So, after some consideration, I thought it might work if the kid died on the way out of the temple, shot by the Clone Troopers.
Given events in recent chapters, I think some of my readers might find this hard to believe, but I really am capable of doing things like that. Characters fill roles in my stories, and there are times when it's necessary to kill them. I don't like doing it, but I can. The scene demanded to exist, and the artistic part of me couldn't deny that it was a powerful image and a great echo of Qui-Gon telling FPB to run at the start of the Maul fight on Tatooine. I think we had only just started AotC at that point, so there was no reason we couldn't give Obi and Padme a kid prior to RotS.
My problem at that point was not killing Little Ani. My problem (already) was the fact that we planned to kill Obi on the Death Star. He's always been my favorite character in the saga but there was no way around it. Then, one night while Aruna and I were lamenting over his death, I had an idea.
What if Ani doesn't die? We can make it LOOK like he dies, and then in the next chapter, pull a fast one and have him be alive! Then he can go to Tatooine with Dad instead of Luke and Padme can show up later with BOTH twins. Then HE can die on the Death Star instead of his father! It's better this way--he'll get to grow up. He'll die a hero!
Then, randomly, One Path decided one day just after he was born (in fic, not born in my head) that Ani has some unique and very interesting rapport with Master Yoda. So, I was writing along, thinking to myself, "Okay...maybe Yoda asks them to let him train Ani, and Obi promises but Ani won't, and then Ani dies on the Death Star...and that's why Obi sends Luke to Dagobah in ESB since he's now alive and could have finished Luke's training himself...? And Luke goes because he feels he owes it to his dead brother--which makes way more sense than the other explanation you thought up!"
The next little piece of trickery that One Path pulled on Aruna and I was the concept of "Ani's gf". Put bluntly, one of the first things we both agreed upon when we decided that Ani lived was that he was NOT going to have a girlfriend. Ever. One Path was an Obidala story, and we didn't want it to turn into a soap opera or to have the focus become about Ani's romantic life. *cough* Yes, well, One Path had other ideas. I don't know how many times Aruna frying panned me to remind me that Ani was NOT going to have a girlfriend because I kept having ideas for scenes. Then she started having ideas. Ani ended up with a girlfriend in the works, though at the time we capitulated to the idea and named her Isaly, he couldn't have been more than four. And sooner or later, we realized that we would need a reason for Obi to be somewhere else during the confrontation on the second Death Star. (He was dead in the outline.) Then an idea hit.
OMG, what if Isaly was PREGNANT when Ani died, and they end up taking her and the kid to Dagobah...and they'd name him after his father...then Yoda's prediction is right, because he DID train Anakin Kenobi. Mwhahahahaha. And then when RotJ starts, Grandpa has to go to Dagobah and get them because...
Not long after that, Isaly's "son" became Isaly's "twins". Ani was about five while we were planning this part, and there is a reason for the twins, though I won't spoil if you haven't guessed what that reason could be.
Well, one day, everything came to a screeching halt. (For about five minutes anyway.) I realized, "Crap, the twins aren't going to work. He's too young! But he's already met her and she has to be pregnant or the kitchen scene won't work and I GOTTA write the kitchen scene--oooooooooooooh..."
Enter Shmi Kenobi. Like her father, she wasn't even supposed to exist. Like her father, as soon as I started writing her in, I found that she MUST have existed all along. She makes perfect sense. The fact that she exists at all is a parallel of the three Kenobi kids we saw with Luke, Leia and Ani growing up, but different enough that it doesn't seem artificial. It feels like a Force thing. Her relationship with Luke and Ani is a reflection of all the GOOD parts of the Obi/Ani/Vader dynamic the same way that Ani himself is a reflection of the good parts of Obi/Padme/Anakin. Her name honors Anakin Skywalker, who was Shmi Skywalker's son; it honors Owen, whom Ani respects and admires, and who thought of Shmi as a mother. I really was disappointed that there was no way to include the stuff with Shmi on the farm from the AotC novel in One Path, and Little One gives me a way of at least nodding to it. Her name also honors Qui-Gon, though Ani himself probably has no idea that Qui-Gon loved Shmi in One Path. I had no idea what she was going to be like when I started her, but I could immediately see that she was a great mesh of Leia and Padme, and OMG Obi with a GRANDDAUGHTER?!?!?! Come on...how could it be any other way?
So now we have Ani all grown up and the father of three, trotting off to save his father's life on the Death Star. Sad, yes. Very sad. I hate it. But I can kill him, I tell myself over and over. Despite the fact that I'm sure I'll have readers upset, Obi will be ALIVE. I've done far more horrible things in other stories. He's going to be a hero. He's had a good life. It's tragic. But it works. I wept my way through from the wedding all the way to duel, sad but determined. It was either him or his father and I just. couldn't. kill. Obi.
I'm sure we all realize by now that Vader would never kill him. At least not intentionally. In canon, it was only the revelation of Luke's existence which began to awaken the core of Anakin that existed in Vader; in One Path, Ani remains a part of Vader throughout. Even when he cut off Ani's hand (a surprise to me until the second it happened) he was trying to be merciful. Well. For Vader. It was like the least debilitating thing he could have done. He didn't go for the arm then, just the hand. All he wanted was to get the kid out of the fight. Although I didn't realize it until after Ani's hand was gone, it shows that One Path's Vader retains some element of the philosophical training he received from Obi and Mace. Without going into a long thing about Marks of Contact at the moment, when a Jedi has to disarm an dangerous opponent in battle, cutting off the weapon hand is seen as the most preferable method. It stops the battle (theoretically) without killing, and shows the most respect for the opponent because it does the least damage. Cutting off the arm in this case was a desperation move on Vader's part. He didn't realize or remember that Ani was equally capable with both hands and that he had trained to be able to use this to his advantage in saber combat by becoming proficient with one-handed technique. If he'd had an opening, he would have just cut off the other hand, but the battle was too heated by then. (I'm probably going to have to have Ani brood about this now or something, by the way.)
My problem with this scene from its inception was exactly HOW the duel was going to play out. I see a lot of symbolism and philosophy at play in the lightsaber duels of the canon saga. It's possible that I read more into it than Lucas intended, but ideology and symbolism are my thing anyway, and they are the tools of the trade when dealing with fiction that involves mysticism and religious orders, especially anything with overtly "magical" overtones like the Force. To me, the duels in RotS and ANH are representative of Vader's canon descent into the Dark Side. Beheading an opponent, which Anakin Skywalker intentionally does in canon is regarded as one of the worst ways to dispatch an opponent, never to be done when another option is available. Bisecting an opponent, which Vader attempted to do in canon ANH, is just butchery and a total "Sith" way of killing someone. The canon beheading of Dooku is a sort of symbol for Anakin's fall. He rejected his Jedi training there, symbolically, by doing something he knew was not only morally wrong but incompatible with Jedi philosophy. Except in One Path, he never did that. Dooku was beheaded by accident, when Anakin was left no other choice. So, symbolically, there couldn't be a progression from beheading to bisecting. I was going to have to find another way for Vader to attempt to kill Dad, because the symbolism of One Path deviates from canon at this juncture in RotS. The answer was to use the symbolism of One Path. By refusing to behead Ani, Anakin Skywalker asserts his presence within Vader. Would Vader have managed to overrule Anakin and complete the beheading? I don't know. But in RotS One Path, Anakin moved his lightsabers and was thrown back, so I used a similar device here.
And so the moment of truth arrived. Vader threw his lightsaber on the way down, aiming for his former teacher. Ani was supposed to jump in the way. This was what he was born for. We had this BEAUTIFUL moment planned where the dying Ani is trapped behind the door with Vader, who falls to his knees, holds the boy and asks for forgiveness, which of course is given. Horrible. Exquisite. Makes absolutely perfect sense.
Right?
Well, once again, One Path had other ideas. First it doesn't work because I had to move them OUT of the hall in the beginning of the duel. Then I figure out how to get them all back in the hall, re-write the whole thing, and CRAP! There goes Obi, jumping out of the way and grabbing ANI. Grr. So I re-write it again, and somehow it fails to work AGAIN. Obi ended up behind Ani, so there was no way Vader would have even thrown the thing. I re-write it again and Han comes charging out of nowhere with Chewie running interference while the twins pick off stormtroopers and somehow manages to save Ani while Obi bites the dust trying to keep Vader away from them. Ooops. Well, that won't work. So, now I'm on the phone with my friend going, "He won't DIE! No matter what I do, he won't DIE!"
I re-write it AGAIN. This time Ani jumps ON his Dad. I'm thinking okay, there is NO way he can not die. Well, Ani outsmarts me. Uses the Force, pulls them sideways through the door, and whoops, there go his legs. How the HECK--*pause* O.O THAT'S IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! RotS all over again!!
Okay, Luke, get your butt over there and shoot the door...*pause* Ani's on the wrong side of the DOOR. I can't do a Vader forgiveness scene if Ani's on the other side of the door. His dad would never leave him behind if there was a chance to save him.
Well, at that point, I just couldn't change it. I couldn't stand doing it again, and he obviously did not want to die.
And there you have it, folks. Ani Kenobi has managed to fullfil his destiny and still be alive. I'm mystified. However, it's also funny because now I've got readers like, "Obi's alive!!!!!!!!!!!" and I'm just like "SO IS ANI!!!!!!!!!!!" I wonder what will happen next.
This is not going to be one of those "inspiring teacher" rambles. The truth is, this guy was a real blockhead. He was a jerk, and he was good at intimidating students, especially ones he didn't like. The class was World History or something like that, and I remember a particular occasion when I accidentally "ruined" his lesson plan by raising my hand and going, "Well, wait, I read a few years ago that Caesar did X, Y, and Z, and then..." So he looks at me all exasperated like, "Will you shut up...?" I think he was trying to present Caesar in a positive light to then later make some point about the fall of a hero and being corrupted by power. Or something. I didn't realize that at the time, and although I happened to be one of the students he liked--probably because I understood the subject matter already and could discuss it credibly-- the "shut up" was embarrassing.
I had trouble in the class after that. My knowledge of history takes a serious dive around the Renaissance and into the colonization of the Americas. Things get confusing for me, and I still have trouble with that. THEN, he started using this weird method where he wanted us to watch these slide shows of his and take notes on them using a three-column outline format that he had to explain in insane amounts of detail. Then we were supposed to go home and make "write ups", which were sort of reports on the notes we had taken, but they had to be done exactly as specified, and the outlines had to be turned in too so he could see that we'd done them. It just made even less sense to me then, and if I'd been a few years older, I might have gone to him and asked for help, but at the time, I couldn't get up the nerve. Mainly, I think, because I had felt so belittled over the "shut up."
That and the questionerre thing are really all I remember about the class. Despite how much of a bully this guy could be, though the lesson he taught with the questionerre was a good one.
His point was that history is important. Our own history as much as the history of the world around us. He took those questionerres, stuck them in a drawer someplace, and then made us fill them out AGAIN sixteen weeks later at the end of the term. I'd figured out the point by then, but he told us that he would mail them to us later that summer, along with an empty one that we could do again if we wanted.
I don't really remember if I filled it out a third time or not. I do remember, some fifteen years later, that I read both versions and was honestly amazed at how much I had changed. I guess that's why I started this journal, even though it started as just a storehouse for icons. Any of my processing and thoughts on real life end up on my comp or in a notebook, because I'm really too private to share the stuff on the 'net. When it comes to my original writing, I don't often bring it here either, but even in terms of fandom related work, I can see the same sort of thing.
I don't icon for comments. Everything I make is just what I happen to be inspired by at the moment, be it a show, movie, story, or something else. I post them here because the journal is the place I can come to and quickly see where I was at any given point in terms of style and technique. It's sort of like going back through old stories. I either go, "Oy, what was I thinking..." or "Oh! I remember that!" but either way it allows me to get an overview of my own growth. What I find confounding is that whenever I think a particular set won't generate much interest, that is the one which receives comments, where the ones I think are really going to get comments don't. A prime example are the Zhaan icons I made a while back from
aruna7's vids. Despite the fact that I don't watch Farscape, I know what is visually appealing, and I am honestly very proud of that set. I posted them to comms over the weekend (finally) and haven't gotten any new comments on them since. When I posted my Superman icons a few months ago, I expected like maybe one or two comments from a few people who remembered Chris Reeve as Superman. I got far more than I thought, and I even had a few people friend me as a result of the set.The same is true for my fic. I've been thinking lately about how it was that I came to have written several AU epic fics now. Once upon a time, I did not even consider myself to be much of a fic writer at all. I first started posting fic here on a whim. I was randomly inspired to answer a fic challenge on the Daniel/Vala comm and decided to try ficcing SG-1 even though I'd never had much sucess with fanfiction. By success, I don't mean reader interest. Success to me is not about readership, although I am very flattered and appreciative of feedback on my work. It's about a story which says something and means something--and when the story is fanfiction, it's also something which honors the characters and their creators. It also means a story that doesn't like die halfway through, which was a problem with the attempts I had made to fic in some other fandoms before. I still have fond/irritating memories of an SG-1 fic about Daniel and some OC mutants that I'd started before LJ, but that died on me too, so it's not something that can't happen with SG-1. It just tends not to, especially with Vala involved. Strangely enough, I didn't like Vala in the beginning of s9... o.O *hugs Vala*
All of my Stargate AU stuff has honestly been accidental. At the time I began writing SG-1, the series was still in production. My stories are long and tend to be written over a period of at least a few weeks, if not months. That means they diverge from canon because they don't end between one episode and the next. Even when I attempt to write one-shots, I usually find myself with LONG one-shot ideas that turn into series ideas because the fics are written in response to challenges with word limits.
Believe it or not, I am not a big fan of AU fanfiction. If I go looking for fic, I tend to look for canon fic because, in large part I have found that "AU" becomes a blanket excuse for the author to disregard canon elements purely on a whim, regardless of whether those elements are formative and integral parts of what creates the personality of the character or the dynamic of relationships within the show. "AU" comes to mean, "It's mine, I can make it however I want." In my opinion, AU is too often the justification for everything. It's the excuse for Sam and Jack engaging in an illicit romance in blatant disregard for the frat rules, even though doing something like that is entirely outside the realm of how either of them think. It becomes the reason for Obi to not only have an affair with Padme while in the Jedi Order but to do so after Padme is married, despite the fact that in canon both of them loved Anakin Skywalker so much that they were blinded to what he was becoming. There's generally no credible explanation of how this deviation took place, but to me that's the problem. If a character's personality is that different, as a writer and a fan, I need to see how it got that way or I can't buy it. Everyone of course is entitled to their own interpretations of a fandom, but to me even if something is AU, there has to be a clear POINT at which it diverges from canon for plot reasons, and the established canon before that point should be the same. Otherwise the characters themselves become different to the point that they are unrecognizable.
Another problem with AU is the tendency for an insane amount of OCs who take over the plot. Not necessarily Mary Sue characters, just characters who are everywhere to the detriment of the canon characters that I came to read about. I'm not against the creation of OCs in any way. All of my fic series (with the possible exception of Taking the Long Way) have them. They can bring a lot of fun and interesting twists to a story, and it's pleasant for me as a writer to explore what might happen, for example, if a canon character was given an opportunity to have a type of relationship that would have been impossible EXCEPT with an OC (Anakin, Obi, and Little Ani, say?). My issue comes when the story becomes so much about the OCs that the author seems to forget it's a fanfic and that therefore the story is supposed to be about the canon characters.
And all of that now finally brings me to what I wanted to say when I started this post. *facepalm @ self* Sometimes I talk as much as Daniel.
One Path is my first conscious attempt at an AU. When I started it, I set out to write in an alternate reality for the Star Wars Saga. A year or so ago, I don't think I would have even attempted it, and I have to say that One Path owes a lot to Rediscovered Hearts in terms of the fact that RH gave me a chance to discover a way that I was comfortable in writing AU fic. However, because AU itself is problematic for me, I had certain goals. The story would reflect canon. Those who died in canon would, with a single exception, die in One Path. Padme would live, but only because her reason for dying in canon does not exist here. Well, we can see how much those goals have been...erm...tweaked. And yet, it is my hope that the story continues to reflect canon, and to remain true, at its essence, to the heart of what Lucas was trying to express. However, some of you may be interested to note that in the original outline of One Path, there was no Anakin Kenobi.
Aruna and I like to say that One Path has a mind of her own. Yes. The story is a she. She's far too evil and changes her mind WAY too much to be anything else. The most vivid example of this phenomenon is Ani Kenobi. As mentioned, he wasn't supposed to exist. Ani came to me in a dream. The dream consisted of the temple scene, and the entire genesis of the character was based upon two lines:
"Uncle Anakin, what are you doing?"
"Run, Ani!
I woke up stunned and immediately knew that I had to write this scene. In my mind at the time, I also knew that a third kid didn't fit ANYWHERE in our plans for the OT. So, after some consideration, I thought it might work if the kid died on the way out of the temple, shot by the Clone Troopers.
Given events in recent chapters, I think some of my readers might find this hard to believe, but I really am capable of doing things like that. Characters fill roles in my stories, and there are times when it's necessary to kill them. I don't like doing it, but I can. The scene demanded to exist, and the artistic part of me couldn't deny that it was a powerful image and a great echo of Qui-Gon telling FPB to run at the start of the Maul fight on Tatooine. I think we had only just started AotC at that point, so there was no reason we couldn't give Obi and Padme a kid prior to RotS.
My problem at that point was not killing Little Ani. My problem (already) was the fact that we planned to kill Obi on the Death Star. He's always been my favorite character in the saga but there was no way around it. Then, one night while Aruna and I were lamenting over his death, I had an idea.
What if Ani doesn't die? We can make it LOOK like he dies, and then in the next chapter, pull a fast one and have him be alive! Then he can go to Tatooine with Dad instead of Luke and Padme can show up later with BOTH twins. Then HE can die on the Death Star instead of his father! It's better this way--he'll get to grow up. He'll die a hero!
Then, randomly, One Path decided one day just after he was born (in fic, not born in my head) that Ani has some unique and very interesting rapport with Master Yoda. So, I was writing along, thinking to myself, "Okay...maybe Yoda asks them to let him train Ani, and Obi promises but Ani won't, and then Ani dies on the Death Star...and that's why Obi sends Luke to Dagobah in ESB since he's now alive and could have finished Luke's training himself...? And Luke goes because he feels he owes it to his dead brother--which makes way more sense than the other explanation you thought up!"
The next little piece of trickery that One Path pulled on Aruna and I was the concept of "Ani's gf". Put bluntly, one of the first things we both agreed upon when we decided that Ani lived was that he was NOT going to have a girlfriend. Ever. One Path was an Obidala story, and we didn't want it to turn into a soap opera or to have the focus become about Ani's romantic life. *cough* Yes, well, One Path had other ideas. I don't know how many times Aruna frying panned me to remind me that Ani was NOT going to have a girlfriend because I kept having ideas for scenes. Then she started having ideas. Ani ended up with a girlfriend in the works, though at the time we capitulated to the idea and named her Isaly, he couldn't have been more than four. And sooner or later, we realized that we would need a reason for Obi to be somewhere else during the confrontation on the second Death Star. (He was dead in the outline.) Then an idea hit.
OMG, what if Isaly was PREGNANT when Ani died, and they end up taking her and the kid to Dagobah...and they'd name him after his father...then Yoda's prediction is right, because he DID train Anakin Kenobi. Mwhahahahaha. And then when RotJ starts, Grandpa has to go to Dagobah and get them because...
Not long after that, Isaly's "son" became Isaly's "twins". Ani was about five while we were planning this part, and there is a reason for the twins, though I won't spoil if you haven't guessed what that reason could be.
Well, one day, everything came to a screeching halt. (For about five minutes anyway.) I realized, "Crap, the twins aren't going to work. He's too young! But he's already met her and she has to be pregnant or the kitchen scene won't work and I GOTTA write the kitchen scene--oooooooooooooh..."
Enter Shmi Kenobi. Like her father, she wasn't even supposed to exist. Like her father, as soon as I started writing her in, I found that she MUST have existed all along. She makes perfect sense. The fact that she exists at all is a parallel of the three Kenobi kids we saw with Luke, Leia and Ani growing up, but different enough that it doesn't seem artificial. It feels like a Force thing. Her relationship with Luke and Ani is a reflection of all the GOOD parts of the Obi/Ani/Vader dynamic the same way that Ani himself is a reflection of the good parts of Obi/Padme/Anakin. Her name honors Anakin Skywalker, who was Shmi Skywalker's son; it honors Owen, whom Ani respects and admires, and who thought of Shmi as a mother. I really was disappointed that there was no way to include the stuff with Shmi on the farm from the AotC novel in One Path, and Little One gives me a way of at least nodding to it. Her name also honors Qui-Gon, though Ani himself probably has no idea that Qui-Gon loved Shmi in One Path. I had no idea what she was going to be like when I started her, but I could immediately see that she was a great mesh of Leia and Padme, and OMG Obi with a GRANDDAUGHTER?!?!?! Come on...how could it be any other way?
So now we have Ani all grown up and the father of three, trotting off to save his father's life on the Death Star. Sad, yes. Very sad. I hate it. But I can kill him, I tell myself over and over. Despite the fact that I'm sure I'll have readers upset, Obi will be ALIVE. I've done far more horrible things in other stories. He's going to be a hero. He's had a good life. It's tragic. But it works. I wept my way through from the wedding all the way to duel, sad but determined. It was either him or his father and I just. couldn't. kill. Obi.
I'm sure we all realize by now that Vader would never kill him. At least not intentionally. In canon, it was only the revelation of Luke's existence which began to awaken the core of Anakin that existed in Vader; in One Path, Ani remains a part of Vader throughout. Even when he cut off Ani's hand (a surprise to me until the second it happened) he was trying to be merciful. Well. For Vader. It was like the least debilitating thing he could have done. He didn't go for the arm then, just the hand. All he wanted was to get the kid out of the fight. Although I didn't realize it until after Ani's hand was gone, it shows that One Path's Vader retains some element of the philosophical training he received from Obi and Mace. Without going into a long thing about Marks of Contact at the moment, when a Jedi has to disarm an dangerous opponent in battle, cutting off the weapon hand is seen as the most preferable method. It stops the battle (theoretically) without killing, and shows the most respect for the opponent because it does the least damage. Cutting off the arm in this case was a desperation move on Vader's part. He didn't realize or remember that Ani was equally capable with both hands and that he had trained to be able to use this to his advantage in saber combat by becoming proficient with one-handed technique. If he'd had an opening, he would have just cut off the other hand, but the battle was too heated by then. (I'm probably going to have to have Ani brood about this now or something, by the way.)
My problem with this scene from its inception was exactly HOW the duel was going to play out. I see a lot of symbolism and philosophy at play in the lightsaber duels of the canon saga. It's possible that I read more into it than Lucas intended, but ideology and symbolism are my thing anyway, and they are the tools of the trade when dealing with fiction that involves mysticism and religious orders, especially anything with overtly "magical" overtones like the Force. To me, the duels in RotS and ANH are representative of Vader's canon descent into the Dark Side. Beheading an opponent, which Anakin Skywalker intentionally does in canon is regarded as one of the worst ways to dispatch an opponent, never to be done when another option is available. Bisecting an opponent, which Vader attempted to do in canon ANH, is just butchery and a total "Sith" way of killing someone. The canon beheading of Dooku is a sort of symbol for Anakin's fall. He rejected his Jedi training there, symbolically, by doing something he knew was not only morally wrong but incompatible with Jedi philosophy. Except in One Path, he never did that. Dooku was beheaded by accident, when Anakin was left no other choice. So, symbolically, there couldn't be a progression from beheading to bisecting. I was going to have to find another way for Vader to attempt to kill Dad, because the symbolism of One Path deviates from canon at this juncture in RotS. The answer was to use the symbolism of One Path. By refusing to behead Ani, Anakin Skywalker asserts his presence within Vader. Would Vader have managed to overrule Anakin and complete the beheading? I don't know. But in RotS One Path, Anakin moved his lightsabers and was thrown back, so I used a similar device here.
And so the moment of truth arrived. Vader threw his lightsaber on the way down, aiming for his former teacher. Ani was supposed to jump in the way. This was what he was born for. We had this BEAUTIFUL moment planned where the dying Ani is trapped behind the door with Vader, who falls to his knees, holds the boy and asks for forgiveness, which of course is given. Horrible. Exquisite. Makes absolutely perfect sense.
Right?
Well, once again, One Path had other ideas. First it doesn't work because I had to move them OUT of the hall in the beginning of the duel. Then I figure out how to get them all back in the hall, re-write the whole thing, and CRAP! There goes Obi, jumping out of the way and grabbing ANI. Grr. So I re-write it again, and somehow it fails to work AGAIN. Obi ended up behind Ani, so there was no way Vader would have even thrown the thing. I re-write it again and Han comes charging out of nowhere with Chewie running interference while the twins pick off stormtroopers and somehow manages to save Ani while Obi bites the dust trying to keep Vader away from them. Ooops. Well, that won't work. So, now I'm on the phone with my friend going, "He won't DIE! No matter what I do, he won't DIE!"
I re-write it AGAIN. This time Ani jumps ON his Dad. I'm thinking okay, there is NO way he can not die. Well, Ani outsmarts me. Uses the Force, pulls them sideways through the door, and whoops, there go his legs. How the HECK--*pause* O.O THAT'S IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! RotS all over again!!
Okay, Luke, get your butt over there and shoot the door...*pause* Ani's on the wrong side of the DOOR. I can't do a Vader forgiveness scene if Ani's on the other side of the door. His dad would never leave him behind if there was a chance to save him.
Well, at that point, I just couldn't change it. I couldn't stand doing it again, and he obviously did not want to die.
And there you have it, folks. Ani Kenobi has managed to fullfil his destiny and still be alive. I'm mystified. However, it's also funny because now I've got readers like, "Obi's alive!!!!!!!!!!!" and I'm just like "SO IS ANI!!!!!!!!!!!" I wonder what will happen next.
no subject
Ani will learn to cope, in time. After all he's a Kenobi and has his family, who are very supportive.
I was so much expecting you to knock off Obi and besides knowing what it would do to Padme, there was little Shmi whom I was concerned about. All those "Muhahahahahas" through me off, or crying with me. Very sneaky..
I would never thought you would knock off Ani, I mean we watched him grow from a youngling to a jedi/father. I'm so relieved you decided to let him live. I believe it would of been, very devasting for this reader.
I love the tweakiness, the story is like canon, but dare I say? SOOOOOOOO MUCH FREAKING BETTER!! :D
no subject
Thanks, btw. I honestly can't even watch SW clips anymore without going, "Wait...where is Ani?" or "OMG, why is she KISSING Anakin????"
no subject
With the vids and pics you have provided, I can close my eyes and imagine this story, really happening. But, I think I said that before. :D
I noticed a comment about Daniel. I always thought Daniel Jackson looked like a young Obi-Wan. ;) lol
no subject
I still don't know what One Path is preparing for us... She even needed to find her own life in the Lady in Red vid, and I know she will keep doing this to you. to me. to both of us. I don't really know where it's going, yet I believe that everything has a reason, as we've seen it from the beginning...
And once again I think I need to bow before your magnificent writing... *hugs*
no subject
I understand the bit about history too, and please don't be apologizing for sounding like Daniel Jackson here because I happen to like the man, too.
Anyway, yay, Ani's alive. Obi's alive. And wow, One Path is definitely a fickle female, but she's entertaining and she tugs at the heart strings and that's something huge in my mind.
no subject
Well, I'm certainly glad you did. I'm very flattered. One Path, despite her annoying qualities, means a lot to me.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject