You, You Get Me

the force should be a little scary the way the ocean is a little scary

God I’m so gay

2021 | 2024

to moving forward

That post that's like "stop writing characters who talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" really blew the door wide open for me about how common it's become for a character's emotional intelligence to not be taken into consideration when writing conflict. I remember the first time I went to therapy I had such a hard time even identifying what I was feeling, let alone had the language to explain it to someone else. Of course there are plenty of people who've never been to therapy a day in their life who are in tune to their emotions. But even they would have some trouble expressing themselves sometimes. You have to take into account there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable expressing themselves and people who think they're not allowed to feel certain ways. It also makes for more interesting conflict to have characters with different levels of understanding.

spreading my viktor wolfcut agenda

This post genuinely altered the trajectory of my life and how i make a lot of my decisions and i think about it so much

Thinking about missed opportunities in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy again: it's weird with hindsight that Count Dooku doesn't appear in "The Phantom Menace".

Dooku was a Jedi, so it's perfectly reasonable for him to be at either the Jedi Temple or the Republic Senate when we visit Coruscant in TPM. It would have been easy to move a few things around and include him even as a member of the Jedi Council when initially constructing the films, if you were planning ahead when writing.

As Qui-Gon's former master, Dooku is in the perfect position to ask questions onscreen about Qui-Gon's conviction that he's found the Chosen One and Qui-Gon's decision to put Obi-Wan up for knighthood, both publicly with the Council and privately from a more personal standpoint. Dooku could be used as a tool of interrogation to better lay clear for the audience some of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin's characters, their motivations and fears and their potential flaws. An intimate conversation with his master's master could definitely be used to give Obi-Wan some much-needed character focus and inferiority before his climatic fight with Darth Maul.

As the future leader of the Separatists, this is also the ideal point in time to have Dooku act as a voice of criticism, someone who laments both the greed of the Trade Federation and the inaction of the Republic. Dooku could have easily been the representative of the Jedi in the Senate, watching everything, offering grandfatherly sympathy to Padmé Amidala, remarking on the effectiveness of unrestrained power, perhaps even making a warning observation of the dangers of that as Palpatine becomes the new Chancellor. We don't have to see Palpatine and Dooku interact directly, the film could even suggest that Dooku finds this ambitious politician slightly distasteful, but it sets up an explanation for how these two might know each other.

And if we have reason to know and like Master Dooku, then it would actually hurt more when he becomes Count Dooku and betrays both the Jedi Order and the Republic. Even briefly, we could have seen him show frustrated affection and concern for Qui-Gon, give warm advice and praise to Obi-Wan, stand up firmly against the unfairness of the Jedi Council saying Anakin is too old at nine years old. We could have seen Dooku support Padmé in her struggles to make the corrupt Republic take action. We could have seen him as dignified and wise, perhaps one of the only members of the Jedi Council to immediately take the return of the Sith 100% seriously after Maul appears on Tatooine. We could have been made to feel like this experienced, slightly embittered, but righteous older man was the only one "speaking the truth" here.

It really wouldn't have taken all that much shuffling and reassignment plotwise to add him in as a supporting character.

We would feel intrigued at the beginning of "Attack of Clones" when we learn that Count Dooku has left the Jedi Order after Qui-Gon's death. We could see Anakin and Obi-Wan briefly exchange lines about how they miss Master Dooku as well as Qui-Gon (there is already an exchange in the films where they state they miss Qui-Gon), and how they haven't seen or heard from him in some time now. Anakin could suggest that Dooku is hunting down the Sith Master; Obi-Wan could counter with how Master Dooku has simply returned to his life on Serenno, which he couldn't have as a Jedi Master, which Anakin casually calls unfair and he suggests that Dooku can do far greater good as a powerful count (a parallel to Anakin's marriage to Padmé and own Fall). Dooku being established earlier in the trilogy would better highlight how he and Obi-Wan went completely separate directions after Qui-Gon's death.

And again, the reveal that Dooku has Fallen would hurt so much more, if we had actually seen him be affectionate and righteous and wise. If we had any point of comparison for how Dooku's embittered desire for peace and justice has been warped into the pursuit of control and tyranny. It would hurt to see that formerly good man sentence Padmé to death as "just politics, my dear".

"This will start a war!" Padmé tells the man who helped her help her people once.

"I know," Dooku replies, with ominous satisfaction.

It would hurt to see Obi-Wan beg Dooku to stop this (a prelude to him begging Anakin in the next movie: "Anakin, please, I cannot lose you too!"), only for Dooku to attack and nearly kill him when Obi-Wan refuses to join him. It would hurt to see this grandfatherly figure cut off Anakin's hand, someone he knew and was kind to as a child. Seeing where Dooku fell from would also make everything about his fight with Yoda hurt more as well. We wouldn't have seen Dooku's struggles directly, offscreen in the time skip between TPM and AOTC, but this Fall would help prepare us for witnessing Anakin's Fall onscreen in "Revenge of the Sith", illustrate for us how power and grief corrupts, how the desire to take complete control and "start over" corrupts.

And all of this would also make Dooku's death in ROTS hurt more: to see Anakin execute an unarmed, injured man who had once been kind to him, who had once had good intentions a long, long time ago. We could have even had Dooku perhaps try to warn Anakin about Sidious, as the fear cuts through him as he realizes Sidious has betrayed him, only for Anakin to kill Dooku out of anger (Dooku is responsible for so much death, Palpatine reminds Anakin) just before the ruined man can finish speaking. Dooku's former goodness underlines Anakin's arrogance in thinking that his own fate will be any different.

The novelizations of the prequel films and other extended universe materials build up an image of Dooku's life as a Jedi and his Fall for us. We can assume and imagine a lot. We can retroactively apply knowledge gleaned from "The Clone Wars" with Dooku as a major villain. But ultimately, Dooku as a more sympathetic and emotionally relevant character is just not in the films.

When "Attack of the Clones" reveals to us: "Oh, no! Dooku has betrayed the Jedi Order and the Republic!" I think that most of the audience is like: "Gonna be real with you, chief, I have no idea who that is."

He's only been mentioned before once maybe? In Palpatine's office? Master Mundi assures Palpatine that Dooku is a good man (or something like that), but we have seen no evidence of this ourselves. This line mostly just becomes really funny on a rewatch, rather than poignant, because the prequel films audience only ever gets to see Count Dooku as a Sith Lord and rather underdeveloped villain. We don't ever get to see him be a "good guy" first. We're told but not shown.

The audience has no solid reason to care that Dooku specifically has betrayed the Order, as opposed to any random Jedi, because we haven't seen him before at all, much less interacting with any of our protagonists or establishing himself as an opinionated player within the story. Which is a shame! Because he has strong opinions that stand in interesting ideological conflict with so many other characters, generating fun and dramatic exchanges! He has direct connections to and parallels with other characters! He's potentially a really useful storytelling tool within these films, and his character just doesn't get used to that full tragic potential.

In conclusion...? I wish I'd actually been sad when Dooku betrayed everyone and died at Anakin's hand, instead of mostly just confused and then vaguely pitying. I want to see some of the love between characters beforehand, so that it hurts more effectively when that love turns to hate.

yeah this is basically what my mind looks like at all times

it's nice to know my constants will always be there when I come back, with a ton of new fics to destroy me :')

i feel like being in a fandom long-term has a very specific repetitive cycle that kind of looks like this

繕い　　(；ﾟДﾟ) ﾅﾝﾄｫ Mending a sweater

（Reddit:r/oddlysatisfying u/thegupeeman）

tfw when the tragedy is tragic :(

May the fourth be with you!!! 💫✨