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“You’re free,” the Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler declared proudly, brandishing a copy of the New and Improved Jedi Code. “You’re now allowed to have feelings, express them, fall in love, have sex, get married, have two Padawans at once and use a tiny-bit-of-the-Dark-Side-but-not-too-much.”
The Jedi blinked, nonplussed.
“Wait,” a young Nautolan Knight piped up, “we weren’t allowed to have feelings?” She turned to the others, headtresses twitching. “Did you guys know about that?”
“Uh, we definitely weren’t told,” the twin Mikkian Masters said, both a bit offended. “Is not having feelings even possible?”
“No!” The Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler exclaimed. “It’s not! And you don’t have to try anymore!”
An Iktotchi Padawan wrinkled his nose. “My Master tells me to be mindful of my feelings all the time. Is that what this is about?”
“Yesterday Master Kenobi told us we shouldn’t let our emotions cloud our judgment. I feel like there must have been some kind of mix-up,” the Nautolan Knight insisted.
“Aren’t we literal empaths?” somebody called from the crowd. “Isn’t that like 90% emotion-based?”
“Master Yoda definitely tells us to reach out with our feelings when he teaches.”
The Time Traveler was at a loss. Obviously the Council displaying and encouraging feelings pointed to their hypocrisy, not their openness and healthy state of mind. How sad that brainwashing prevented the Jedi from seeing that.
“Don’t they tell you you’re not allowed to express fear and loss and anger?”
“Technically, they tell us that we should overcome fear and loss and anger. We make a whole field trip out of that. Kind of a pointless skill to spend a lifetime mastering if we were just meant to ignore those.”
“Isn’t I have a bad feeling about this our catchphrase?”
“Also, isn’t our Temple filled with statues, murals, mosaics, colorful tiled floors and stained glass sceneries?” A Togruta Knight asked. “I feel like art should count as expressing our emotions.”
“I totally encourage the younglings to make lightsabers that reflect their souls,” Huyang chimed in.
“Well,” the Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler smiled patronizingly, handwaving away all those very valid points because there fucking wasn’t any good answer to any of them, “now you’re free to love.”
“Uuhhhh…” a Pantoran kid said with a raised eyebrow, “I thought compassion was universal love and we very much encouraged that.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a bit of Jedi philosophy that goes: we can love people - in fact, we should love everybody. We should love our enemies; we should love the Sith - but we can’t form attachments. It definitely sounds like something the person who created our entire Order said.”
“But you can have families now!” the Time Traveler cried.
“Don’t we already?” the Mikkian twins who wore matching outfits and had matching names and openly called each other “sisters” asked.
“I’m pretty sure we do,” said two of the Council Masters, one standing next to her sister, and the other next to her cousin.
“But you can have sex now!” the Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler desperately insisted.
“Yuck,” came the resounding cry from half of the Jedi there. The other half quietly snickered.
“Oh, quick, somebody tell the hormonal 18 year-old Padawans they’re allowed to get laid.”
“Wasn’t there always a bit from the creator of the Order that expressly said we weren’t celibate, in those exact words?”
“And I mean, sex is nice, but have you ever tried meditation?”
The Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler almost started crying. These poor, asexual and/or willingly single and/or healthily unattached people. Obviously this kind of mental disorder could only come from rigid, dogmatic indoctrination and twisted, repressing lies. The Time Traveler had to introduce them to the beauty and purity of completely unrestrained sex, casual oath-breaking under the guise of love and mental instability due to the constant strain of managing your duty and biological family.
“I feel like this new Code isn’t really anything new so far,” a Master frowned.
“But you can get married now! Don’t some of you want to get married?” the Time Traveler pleaded.
“Sure, some do.”
“Well, where are they?” the Time Traveler asked eagerly, vindicated.
“They left. To get married.”
This was a nightmare! Didn’t Jedi want to be saved from their corrupt, crumbling religious Order?
“Well, you get to have several Padawans at the same time if you want! That way you don’t have to heartlessly throw out the masterless thirteen year-old younglings anymore!”
“Uh, we never did that?” a Zabrak choked out. “Is this from one of those civilian written, poorly documented holo-novels that came out before the public even knew about our most basic tenets, and whose authors pulled 99% of our supposed traditions out of their asses instead of waiting for our true culture to be explained in more details?”
The Time Travel didn’t know what to reply to that. The information had come from a civilian written holo-novel that had been disproven like twenty times since its publication.
“Besides, isn’t the point of having one Master for one student to make sure the Master is dedicating all his energy, attention, wisdom and care towards his apprentice?” a Knight asked, crossing his arms.
“Wait, wait,” the Heavily Biased Fix-It AU Time Traveler cried one last time, because the Jedi had to see the light and be saved. “You can use tiny bits of the Dark Side now!”
There was a pause.
“… Why would we do that?” the Jedi asked, astonished and a little grossed out.
“Because religious adherence to the Light is anti-balance! Balance is both Light and Dark!”
Thousands of eyes stared at the Time Traveler in complete bafflement.
“That’s so not how the Force works,” a kid muttered.
“Yeah, it's really not. Isn't there a story about a very famous Jedi who fell and helped destroy the world because he’d spent the last three years using the Dark Side a tiny bit until he could no longer resist it?”
“No, he fell because he wasn’t allowed to love,” the Heavily Biased Fix-it AU Time Traveler seethed. “What’s wrong with you people?! Don’t you want to be free?”
“But we are,” someone insisted. “Wouldn’t the Order have collapsed centuries ago if we were all unhappy with it?”
“Ugh!” the Time Traveler screamed. “Why can't you get that the Galaxy will fall to ruin if you don’t discard your culture, identities, religious beliefs, understanding of the Force, traditions and alternative family structures?!”
“Wow,” someone whistled, “fuck you.”
(Quinlan Vos. It was Quinlan Vos.)
“Here,” a teenager said, calling the New and Improved Jedi Code to his hand and crossing out the title with a red marker. Instead, he wrote Dangerous Misrepresentation of Jedi Beliefs Further Revised to Cater to Anakin Skywalker, and chucked the flimsi manual right back at the Time Traveler. “Better.”
And thus the Heavily Biased Fix-it AU Time Traveler left, reeling from the revelation that most Jedi were perfectly happy with their lifestyle, thriving in a life of service, content to do their duty and live for the Force. Taught to value preserving life over their own personal desires, they were fine with not getting married, and didn’t feel oppressed by the Council at all. What a stunning revelation! Who would have ever thought?
From this epiphany came the idea that maybe, just maybe, Anakin’s incapacity to adapt to Jedi Culture and to assimilate their beliefs came from personal weaknesses due in part to his background, and not at all from them being toxic af.
Thus, the Heavily Biased Fix-it AU Time Traveler, realizing he wouldn’t save the Galaxy by getting the Jedi to bang and have the emotional continence of Sith Lords, decided to go keep a village of Sand People from being slaughtered, instead of seeking to remodel an entire Order so that a mass-murderer could keep his dream job and his wife without making efforts towards self-control.
Then, he would go tell the Senators - who far outnumbered the Jedi - to do their fucking job and stop accepting bribes, voting laws that benefit unethical mega corporations and turning a blind eye to the democratic body they were in charge of slipping into fascism.
The END.