It's Not a Love Triangle and Other Thoughts

[so_out_of_ideas]

My latest One Path chapter has things like: "(unnamed planet) had (unnamed resources) which made High Command feel that the risk of sending Padme was acceptable.
(Transition paragraph)
(begin dialogue here)

A few minutes later, Padme returned..."

I despise writing on days like this. I am trying to push through and keep going, but I can tell everyone right now that it is going to be quite a while before I post again. I will have to go back and fill in all the holes.

I'm sick of it, so I'm going to ramble now. About my fic, icons, and Star Wars as a whole. Read if you're bored, otherwise, keep scrolling and I won't be offended because I won't know the difference anyway. ;)

I've been thinking a bit about this story, how it came about, and Star Wars in general. Big surprise, eh? But the latest set of Obidala icons and PT bases has gotten my wheels turning. One might be surprised, when looking at those posts, to hear me say that, although I enjoy the Prequel Trilogy, I prefer the OT. My love affair with the PT really began with One Path. Why? Well, I confess that at one time, I was an Anakin/Padme shipper, but even when I was, I think that the reasons had more to do with the twins than with the couple.


Visually, of course, Hayden and Natalie looked good together, and Naboo is a lovely world. The graphic artist in me was drawn to that aspect. In the same way, the graphic artist was responsible for One Path, since the entire fic was generated out of a couple of icons. As my recent icons illustrate, Obidala also happens to look rather good together. Mwhahahaha.

As a fan of the OT, I was always curious about the twins' mother and naturally drawn to Padme, but elements of the A/P relationship always either made me uncomfortable or felt contrived or both. However, one simply cannot have Star Wars without the twins, so for a while I guess I was able to accept the ship by intellectualizing that without it there could be no Luke and Leia, and anyway, it made nice fanart.


Plotting the One Path storyline with aruna7 I really started to realize why exactly I didn't like the ship, and the more I've written, the more those feelings emerge. This isn't just some childish "my ship is best" thing. I can and do accept that not everyone ships the same couples. Aruna and I ship different pairings in some fandoms and we never have any problems about it, largely I guess because we realize that opinions on these things really don't warrant argument.

I thought Anakin's "connection" with Padme in TPM, while it could have been cute, was just a bit too creepy. His behavior in AotC during the scene in her apartment was annoying, and the first time I saw initial kiss scene, I was hugely disappointed in Padme's lack of resistance. Warning bells were going off, and would have been even if I did not know what happened in the OT. The meadow scene and the kiss in the arena won me over from a visual perspective, but honestly the writing made me cringe.

I really don't know what Lucas was thinking when it comes to RotS. Clearly, Anakin's obsession with saving Padme from death had to play a part in his fall, but the obvious instability and lack of comunication between the couple leaves me as a mature viewer rather without the sympathy that needed to be evoked in order to make the story properly compelling. I suppose that I have high standards in this regard; I have literally spent my life wondering and imagining what it might have been that caused Anakin Skywalker to turn to the dark side. The A/P relationship strikes me as a cop-out from a writer's perspective. Had the relationship been portrayed as at least reasonably stable and then deteriorated into obsession, the tragedy would have been far more powerful. However, as it was, I found myself saying almost immediately, "This is not love. It's obsession. I don't want her to die, but I want her away from him." For me, the real tragedy of RotS in terms of interpersonal relationships is the destruction of the brother-bond between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Padme's death, while horribly sad, left me with a feeling of relief for her, since I had not, in fact expected it. Leia said she had memories of her mother, so my assumption was always that Padme would end up going into hiding with her on Alderaan.

That said, I admire Padme's loyalty to Anakin in canon--I can relate to those feelings. However, as a survivor of domestic violence, I have major issues with the Force choke on Mustafar. I am profoundly glad that Lucas chose to make the OT first, because if I had known that the story was instigated by such a deeply disturbing relationship, it would have marred my entire view of the OT, which is really a very special part of my youth. Vader's redemption was important to me as a young person because he was a terrifying figure to me from the first time I saw him. I have a recurring nightmare involving Vader, me, and the twins--at least I did prior to One Path. It's a father thing, I think, and the fact that it was his son's love that could redeem him spoke to me for a variety of reasons that I won't bore readers with. The important thing was that the idea of Vader being redeemable reinforced to me the belief that I have always had in the redemptive power of love.

My objections to the Obidala pairing were pretty simple:

1. Obi-Wan is not someone who would engage in an illicit affair, especially with the wife of his best friend.

2. A secret love affair in violation of the established rules of the Jedi Order is also not in his character. In fact, it is a slap in the face to his ideals, whether I happen to agree with the philosophy of the Old Order or not.

3. Padme's loyalty to Anakin, however misplaced,would have kept her faithful to him regardless of any professed feelings that anyone had for her, or any feelings of dissatisfaction she had with her canon marriage.

Some writers are okay with those types of plots, and that's their business, but my stories are character driven from the outset. Plot is key to any story, of course, but I am not able to sacrifice characterization in order to make a plot work. In writing AU, it's possible to have a characters personality and beliefs change over time in response to changes introduced by the AU, but in my opinion "AU" shouldn't be a blanket excuse to make a character do whatever the writer pleases. "Romantic" plot situations have little appeal to me unless I can believe that the characters would think and act the way they are portrayed, and despite my discomfort with some elements of the canon plot of the prequels, these characters belong to Lucas, and if I am reading a Star Wars story, I don't enjoy it unless I can believe that these are the same people placed into different circumstances. If they act differently, they should be doing so because they have changed over the course of the story, not because the author randomly decrees that they can behave in ways their creator didn't intend.

What One Path endeavors to do is to maintain the integrity of the characters Lucas created and the overall message of Star Wars with all of its major themes while exploring how a slight change of events in the beginning of the saga might have drastically affected the lives of everyone involved. The Obidala relationship is not a love triangle, nor is it a betrayal of anyone's ideals. The love affair is powerful and compelling without the aspect of secrecy or the immaturity of "I can't live without you!" and forbidden passion. Anakin falls because he has to fall, but in writing that sequence of events, I tried to infuse some of the things I was expecting into the canon scene. Afterward, his relationship with Ani has a profound effect on Vader, making him both more and less twisted. Is it "better" than the canon story? By no means. Luke Skywalker's canon journey is what Star Wars is all about. One Path wouldn't be here without it. I can't watch the PT without being confused anymore, and I tend to keep looking for Ani in the OT. I recently had an idea for a fic that followed canon until RotS about Padme's experiences afterward...and then I remembered that "DUH...Padme died. One Path is not canon." But I can still hear canon Star Wars in the lyrics of songs on the radio, and for whatever reason I seem to be inspired to make canon vids rather than One Path. Which is probably good, considering that aruna7 is the One Path vidder.


Speaking of which, I recently iconned some more of the One Path vids, which I haven't talked about.



Our Journey Begins focuses directly on the Obidala relationship after AotC when they've finally (FINALLY!) gotten married. It's a beautiful romantic vid featuring Rachel Luttrell (yes, Teyla Emmagen) gorgeous overlays and great evil genius editing by Aruna.

these are two of my favorite overlays.

This would have to be my favorite icon of the set, made possible only because Obi-Wan cut his hair and shaved in the fic (Yes, now you understand why we did that...)

I am still obsessing about blue, but I tried some new blue coloring this time at least, and it's not as BLUE!!!!!!!!!! as my last few sets have been.



All done with a few simple color layers. Guess I'm lazy. :P

I'll Love You More Than Life is an ensemble vid done to the One Path anthem, a song called "Cry On My Shoulder" by Overflow. I really love the emotions of this song and I think the vid captures the Kenobi family perfectly. I love how it captures both the Kenobis' relationships to one another and the feeling that someone is missing without Vader/Anakin. His loneliness is also plainly apparent and very moving. "Let me put you back together" was a brilliant clip choice whic makes me cry every time I see it. I only wish that those particular icons came out better, but it's difficult to capture Vader's body in the flames. Speaking of the icons, there are one or two I looked at a second ago and wished I hadn't uploaded because I don't know what I was thinking about the coloring, but overall it's a nice set and I think it can compliment the vid nicely. I particularly liked the way that the bw icons came out, which was a lot better than I had hoped.

At the moment, the BWs are not loading, and I'm not sure whether that's my browser or what.


These are my favorites. Note the continued obsession with blue. But aside from that, the Anakin-Obi-Wan moment is my favorite scene in RotS, despite the fact that it is heartbreaking. Call me a masochist. Anakin and Bail just BELONG there because they are both part of One Path's family. I don't think I need to explain the twins or the Obidala icon.

Oh. That reminds me. People are already asking about the Pink!Vader. Well, in short, it was a mistake, but I couldn't believe it when I saw how nice the smoke looked, so I made more. Then I was joking with Aruna about the improbability of a PINK Vader icon looking good and the text sort of insinuated itself:



I really have to thank Aruna for these vids, since she allowed me to icon them in part for my claim, which I've been beating my head about for quite some time. The challenge of Obidala icons for me is the lack of footage with the two of them together. The problem is getting them into an icon attractively without godawful cut-and-paste jobs that look like a six year old glued them in. Possibly I am overcritical of icons in general and mine in particular, but oh well. That is how I feel. I was of course aware of these challenges I started the claim, and I thought I was up to 200 icons.



As it turned out, I really had to pull out all the stops, including making a new set of bases because my old set lacked certain scenes. (This set still lacks some things; there are some scenes I just won't do, and obviously I have issues with the A/P scenes since starting One Path, but it's more complete, I think.)

I probably over-iconned the famous RotS scene in Padme's apartment, but I didn't make them all at once, and I will say that I tried to do different things with it, including green coloring (GREEN? I don't know, I was in a weird mood. I almost never do green icons.) That scene, for me is actually one of the most challenging, along with the Han/Leia moment on Bespin, because the sets are so glaringly white. They don't pick up color well and tend to look either too white or too yellow. I'm never sure I like what I manage to do with the scene, hence the over iconning.

this is my overall favorite of the set. Have to thank stargatefangurl for her input on it because it wasn't working at first.

These really surprised me. I didn't expect them to work at all, but I was running out of ideas, so I tried them and found that I really liked the look. Obi-Wan is just layered over the cap from Padme's apartment and set on lighten. The background from the apartment does most of the work, and then I just lightly went over his shoulder with the smudge brush.

This is my favorite coloring. WHY couldn't she have spent a few more minutes looking at him in this scene? WHY, George?!?!?!

this is the one I really like that everyone else doesn't. I haven't posted these to comms yet, so I'm not quite sure which ones everyone else will like better than I do. I have a feeling it will be the ones with the heavy brushes/textures. I tried to be cautious with that stuff, because although I like them in moderation, I don't use them a whole lot on icons anymore. I relied on them a lot more than I have in about a year, year and a half. So, I'm sure I'll wince at those in a month.

OH! These:

and a few others like them are One Path specific. Do they work? I mean...for me they work, but it's my fic.



Hmm...think that's it. Nothing else to ramble about tonight. Hope I haven't put everyone to sleep. *snerk*