Finally Have All 4 Life Stages Let's Gooo

It's Phee Genoa hours again.

I was rewatching the first scene in "Pabu" and have some thoughts, sparked Hunter's knife whizzing by Phee's head to kill the kouhun and her not even flinching. I always think about how she must have absolute nerves of steel to have literally no response to that happening. So anyway, I got to thinking, as one does, and had some other thoughts. Disjointed breakdown below.

tl;dr Phee is brilliant because she is brilliant.

Phee goes into this negotiation with Crowder with every single possibility covered and considered:

Phee is familiar enough with Crowder to know that he might try to sell her a knock-off.

She also knew to check the drink for poison (likely not exclusive to Crowder — probably pretty common in her line of work.).

Killing her with a kouhun didn't work, so they tried to take the artifact back ("you should've brought more muscle"), but she had back-up.

THAT didn't work, and it turned into a shootout.

"Not until I know it's not one of your two-bit knock-offs" and "I thought you worked alone" strengthens the argument that these two either know each other or know OF each other. I'm guessing the former. If it's the latter, Phee has a hell of a reputation for Crowder to clock that her working with someone is out of the ordinary.

Her nonchalance about the kouhun -- she likely knew he'd try something like that. She had some intel maybe, or he'd tried something similar in the past. The fact that the kouhun comes from a creepy crawly trapdoor installed under his seat means this is probably the place Crowder does his business most often. Again, Phee has past experience or has the intel to know that the little bug cubby is there at all and that he would use it.

Similarly, the placement of Hunter and Wrecker has to be intentional. If Phee knew Crowder would try something, Hunter is pretty strategically placed to see it happening and be able to do something (i.e. throw a knife), while also keeping an eye on Omega (likely his first priority) but not be totally obvious about it (until he throws said knife).

My point is that Phee is a pretty brilliant strategist to be a step ahead of not one, not two, but three different attempts on her and the Batch's life in the span of less than a minute and a half. She also repeatedly proves that she is an incredibly valuable source of intel. We see this from her introduction, where she talks to Cid about the intel she'd provided regarding the war chest, in addition to her being able to track down Fennec, plus getting the location of the Imperial labor camp to find Rampart. She is paying a lot for this intel, but she both knows where to get it and that it will be correct.

She's seen it all, she's dealt with it all. She can work alone, she can work with others. She can rebuild her droid 222 times. She can use her massive contact network to find just about anything or anyone. She carries a big-ass sword and a space flintlock and wears a cool leather jacket. She cuts her ship's engines and falls through the atmosphere and calls it a "stealth approach" and has three super soldiers hanging on for dear life (Crosshair is literally crumpled up on the floor at one point.). She'll flirt with a total stranger after insulting each of his siblings. She can outcrazy the Batch but also likes to go hang out on a beach planet and be Auntie Phee for a while and maintain an archive of cultural artifacts on said beach planet.

She's cool and I like her very much.

A post I recently came across (elsewhere) about the Jedi made me realize there seems to be some crucial misunderstandings about love versus attachment.

(Full disclosure: for a very long time I didn't understand the difference either. It's only in the last few years that I've come to appreciate the nuances.)

Context: the post claimed that Kanan and Hera prove the Jedi were wrong about feelings/love.

Love and attachment are two very different things. I would even go so far as to say that attachment doesn't allow for real love.

We see in the prequel era that the Jedi Order largely didn't allow for (especially biological) familial or marital/romantic relationships because of the risk for attachment. Sometimes we take this to mean the Jedi Order didn't approve of feelings/love.

But Anakin was absolutely correct when he told Padme that the Jedi endorse compassion, which is (a form of) love. Calm, joy, and peace are all feelings, too, all of which the Jedi encourage. What the Jedi warn against is acting on negative feelings: hate, anger, fear, etc.

So, Anakin was not wrong for loving his mother and Padme, just like Kanan was not wrong for loving Hera and the other members of the Ghost crew as family.

The difference is that Anakin caved in to attachment - he allowed his fear of losing Shmi and then Padme to turn into possessiveness/obsessiveness, to turn into selfishness, which overpowered his love for them. Massacring the Tuskens wasn't an act of love for Shmi. Neither was siding with Palpatine an act of love for Padme, even though Anakin deluded himself into thinking so. All of that was done out of hate and anger and fear.

Kanan, on the other hand, loved others but did not become attached. He taught Ezra how to use the Force as a Jedi would, while accepting that if Ezra did end up turning to the Dark Side, that was Ezra's choice to make - Kanan's responsibility was simply to teach Ezra the best he could. He loved Hera and was basically her husband, but he was willing to step back and let others take the lead when she needed to be rescued. Kanan let go of the things he couldn't control, and he did not become possessive. He truly acted out of selfless love for his family.

Now, personally I think the Jedi generally promoting no marriage/families and no relationships with birth families is a bit on the "overkill" side in trying to stamp out attachment. (Note: while I don't fully agree with the Jedi Order's stance here, I still respect their choice to live that way; much like I personally wouldn't choose to follow the CotW's helmet rule but I don't begrudge them choosing to adhere to it.) And Kanan DOES prove that one can decide against following that tradition while still being a Jedi and not falling to the Dark Side.

But the reason why Kanan is able to succeed where Anakin does not is because Kanan understands the difference between love and attachment, and he remains a Jedi by avoiding the latter. Interestingly enough, I would say it's because Kanan strives to follow the hallmark Jedi principles about emotions - including acting out of love - and using the Force that he is able to avoid attachment.

And so, while I agree with the premise that romantic relationships do not in and of themselves lead to the Dark Side, I think it's also very important to keep in mind what attachment truly is when talking about the Jedi and their beliefs.

This is the best thing I have ever created.

Made some Linked Universe reference sheets. tried my best including important characteristics and parts of a character people may have issues drawing. These are just a few things I think of to help myself while drawing them. What's helpful for me may not be for someone else.

Technically true.

as far as one piece antagonists go Crocodile truly gets absolutely scooby-doo’d at unmatched levels

He immediately falls for a phone scam and from basically little garden to rainbase he doesn’t even know the strawhats are alive (and clowning towards him at incredible speed). As soon as he does, they’re in his house tearing at his walls and bringing marines into his villain lair.

He uses a literal floor trap door over a gator pit to catch them, gets phone scammed again, full scooby-doo chase scenes after Chopper through the streets while still missing him, and suddenly his prisoners have escaped his impossible cage, and his giant bananagators are dead. and Nico Robin saw it all happen.

He then spends rest of the arc complaining about those meddling kids and their dog “strawhat pirates and their weird pet” and at no point does he even know how many strawhats there are.

Like yeah he keeps having plans on top of plans to stop everything Vivi can do but also she keeps coming up with a new thing to do (Tom and Jerry ass dynamic).

Part of it is that he’s underestimating them and keeps grandstanding villain monologuing but also teens keep killing hundreds of his grand line bounty hunters and he straight up does not know what is happening.

Cause he IS trying to kill them he’s sending top assassins after them and ripping out luffy’s organs, the whole time he’s yelling HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?? DIE. as whack-a-mole Luffy keeps inventing new ways to hit him.

Reasons why I believe this isn't a final Death

denial

There's a couple parallels between Tech's death and Echo's supposed death. First of all, we don't see a body in either case. Not Echo's and also not Tech's. We do see Echo's charred helmet and we see Tech's broken goggles later on. The team also had to leave right away in both cases, otherwise they would've been captured/killed. And they both sacrificed themselves for the team. If Echo didn't die, then why should Tech?

Denial

All that character building this season. Like of that was for nothing, then that was terrible writing. If that was to make us more attached to Tech so that his death hurt more, that is also terrible writing. I mean, he got a whole ass lovestory-in-the-making and that's the character you'll kill off?? c'mon. just as he was learning more about people and showing affection and social interaction, and learning how to properly and respectfully communicate with Omega??? that's when you kill him off? c'mon.

DENIAL

The fact that it was Hemcock that found him. You know the guy who does experiments on clones? Why lose such a valuable test subject? if there were any signs of life from Tech, he must've saved him, if only to use him and maybe modify him (again, Echo parallels)

DENIAL

✨ star wars medicine ✨

I mean, last season Hunter fell down a cliff from a moving ship and he survived just fine. I'm just saying.

DENIAL

the cook and the grill master

based off of this post by @melonteee on twitter