My Brain Is Malfunctioning, So I Can't Think Of Anything Witty To Say.

My brain is malfunctioning, so I can't think of anything witty to say.

EWAN McGREGOR behind the scenes Shallow Grave (1994)

Fail Better AU -

Anakin Skywalker is eleven years old, the nine year old wary, clingy, needy boy burgeoning into a pre-teen who is chafing and resentful of what he sees as his master’s overbearing strictures and unnecessary coddling, too smart for his own good and too ignorant in turn and too powerful even for himself to contain, which is why Obi-Wan tries so hard to do so.

Their arguments simmer and boil over, tension and uncertainties clashing with grief and frustration. It goes how it could have been expected to go, really;

“I didn’t ask to be your padawan! Master Qui-Gon was supposed to train me! He  –“

“Well I never wanted you either!” Obi-Wan snaps, to his instant regret, locking his jaw shut and pinching his brow, glowering at the floor and squeezing his eyes shut in shame. “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

He leaves with Anakin hollering in wordless anger at his back, stung to the point of tears as he runs off in one direction and Obi-Wan retreats in another, hand covering his eyes.

He is in over his head with the boy.

But it was Qui-Gon’s dying wish that Anakin be trained. Obi-Wan has done his best. Taught him basic, taught him literacy, sat with him through numerous tutoring sessions to help him catch up to his peers in the glaring gaps of his education. Taught him to swim. Taught him to meditate. Held him through nightmares and tantrums alike. Comforted him through grief while quietly burying his own.

But he is drowning in the effort. He was barely a knight trying to teach a padawan who is both too young to be a padawan and too old to be anything else.

And Obi-Wan… this was not his choice. This was not the knighthood he imagined and certainly not the mentorship he’d looked forward to.

It is so bitter, that he finds himself doing to Anakin exactly what Qui-Gon had done to him, the worst of the old scars between himself and his master.

Qui-Gon had not wanted Obi-Wan either, not particularly. Obi-Wan had begged to be his apprentice and Qui-Gon had vocalized his resentment for having taken him on several times in their first couple of years together.

And it was a wound from which Obi-Wan had never quite healed. He simply stopped resenting Qui-Gon for it years ago. He fears he has started resenting Anakin for it, though. For being the padawan Qui-Gon did want, the padawan he went so far as to fight for.

And the boy does not deserve that, no matter how difficult he might be.

Obi-Wan had once sworn he would never do such a thing to a student of his own.

And he is failing.

There is a tense, awkward silence between them for the next few days. Obi-Wan spends most of them meditating and the conclusion he comes to is hard and ugly and weak.

He takes himself to Master Yoda’s quarters and bows  low on his knees before the elderly grandmaster.

“I cannot train the boy,” he confesses. “I cannot fulfill the last promise my master asked of me. Master Yoda, I do not know what to do.”

The elderly master rests a clawed hand in his hair, consoling. “Done enough, you have. In vain, your efforts will not be. In vain, your word was not.”

Anakin is only eleven years old, and in spite of his temper and his anxiety, of his obstinance and his uncertainties, he is a boy who has proven himself hard-working, eager to learn, eager to please, with the right motivation. Impatient, perhaps, but brilliant. In spite of his difficulties and disadvantages, he has in fact made great progress in two short years, in both his studies and his self-control.

He is taken into the creche, with the other initiates, moved into a dorm with age-mates who have spent their whole lives in the temple. They don’t talk like him, or think like him, but they are eager to share gossip and temple lore in exchange for stories from the greater galaxy, of life on the Outer Rim, to learn about pod-racing and how to reprogram the temple flight simulators (Initiate Skywalker! – they get scolded for it, but only because they did it without permission. Anakin learns to ask. Most of the time, even the teachers are curious enough to let him attempt anything at least once.)

He makes friends. Sits at a crowded table in the cafeteria every day and tries snacks from all over the galaxy (“You’re human, you can’t eat that!” “Bet me.”). Plays silly games with the younger kids and gets teased with riddles by the elders who assist the crechemasters. Learns more about the Jedi Order, about the Service Corps, about apprenticeships and the various paths towards knighthood. Learns about his choices, and his freedom to choose among them.

“But… Master Qui-Gon said I was the Chosen One.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t get to make your choices yourself. Prophecy is a fickle thing and Master Qui-Gon Jinn… hmm.”

Obi-Wan, no longer tied to the temple by a too-young padawan, spends much of the next two years on field missions, racking up assignments and accomplishments more prodigiously than even his own infamous master.

He returns to the temple on medical leave shortly before Anakin is to turn fourteen, with a full leg cast and crutches, to find that the boy has found a master in Jedi Knight Kit Fisto.

“It feels like a good match,” Knight Fisto says, when Obi-Wan politely and a little wistfully inquires. There is still an ache in his chest regarding the boy, regarding his broken promise to Qui-Gon and the promise he had kept with himself not to repeat Master Qui-Gon’s mistakes with his own padawan. “Kid loves water. I love water,” Knight Fisto jokes, the nautolan smiling broadly. “He says you taught him to swim,” he adds, his tone more sincere. “You did a good job.”

He excuses himself after that, nodding in gratitude.

Anakin almost knocks him over running down a corridor a few days later. Obi-Wan rights himself on his crutches and sighs at the boy, only just biting his tongue before letting out a chiding padawan. He is not Obi-Wan’s padawan.

“Mas – uh, erm, Kn- Knight Kenobi,” Anakin scratches the back of his head sheepishly, rocking on his heels to absent, excess energy as he always has.

“I think it would be fine,” Obi-Wan says, smiling softly, “if you were simply to call me Obi-Wan. You look well.”

“Really?” Anakin beams. “Thanks! You look, uh, broken.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan replies dryly. “How flattering.”

“I mean, uh, you – erm – wanna see my saberform? I’ve improved a lot! Master Kit says you were right bout my suiting Djem So, but he’s really had me focusing on Shii Cho, he says the basics a very important and also I need to get strong to do Djem So properly and I’m too skinny for it yet but if I eat too much won’t I just get fat? He doesn’t seem to thinks so. He thinks swimming cures everything but I feel like he’s kind of right? Anyways –“

“I would enjoy observing your progress,” Obi-Wan manages to get a word in. “Yes. I imagine you’ve improved greatly. You’ve always had great potential and it would be my pleasure to see what you make of it.”

Anakin turns pink in the face but grins broad – a little like Knight Fisto, actually – and bounds ahead towards the salles, seemingly forgetting that Knight Kenobi is on crutches.

Obi-Wan tips his head back and chuckles, hobbling on after him, feeling terribly, dreadfully relieved.

When I watched this clip, I was instantly transported to the lava fields on Mustafar. Uncannily similar! Hayden was the perfect casting choice.

Blessing the timeline with a clip of Mark Hamill being arrested and shouting "you go to hell!" repeatedly in The City (1977). 😊

Smooth move, ex lax

I had the most stupid thought and I'll dare @ollikah to offer her take on this. So:

Obi-Wan trying to do the dramatic robe-off but one of his sleeves gets caught and he's just awkwardly whiping his arm up and down trying to get rid of it while still maintaining the perfect charming deadpan face, not breaking eye contact with his soon-to-be opponent.

After a good fifteen seconds, Cody just hesitantly asks "um, general, do you need some help?" and Obi-Wan is just "MIGHTY KIND OF YOU, COMMANDER, BUT EVERYTHING'S GOING FINE HERE" while becoming visibly increasingly distressed as his cunning smile starts to tremble just a bit from the effort and actually, kriff, he really wants some help, but asking for it now would be just too embarrassing.

😯🥺😢😭

Uhh okay so you know how Anakin loses all of his four limbs, like he lost his mother, padme, obi-wan and ahsoka....

Obi-wan deserved the chance to be the grandpa/fun uncle! He would have been so good at it 😭