Saw palmetto multiple sclerosis

My daughter Anne has issues and a lot of horrible qualities. But she calls me every day and needs my help with basic tasks because she doesn’t have anybody anymore. No friends, partner, anybody. She had a daughter young. Her name is Sara. She didn’t treat Sara well and it caused problems within the family for years. She would isolate Sara from us the second we said something she didn’t like. But she treated her horrible. I supported her financially by buying essentials, foods, and clothes for her because Anne couldn’t be bothered.
Anne has struggled with mental illness since she was a teenager and I had to get her hospitalized twice. When Sara was growing up, it took over her. She was a neurotic control freak. Controlled how often she showered (Not letting her every day) Hid and monitored the food in the house. And we got into multiple arguments and screaming matches about Anne being odd about things. Such as not letting Sara sleep on her bed or eat at the dinner table because of her OCD fear of messes. She made her sleep and eat on the floor for years.
Every time I saw this, I yelled at my daughter and asked her why the fuck she’s treating her like that. I came over their place one evening when Sara was about 10-11, and she was screaming on the hallway floor scratching herself saying she can’t take her mother anymore. I took her out of the house for a week, and my heart broke for her.
As a toddler, I heard Sara screaming for somebody to help her. We all lived together. She would put Sara in dark hallways, closets, scare her with the dark when she’d get frustrated with her. Sara told me that she’d say things like “The aliens are coming to get you. Goodbye” and lock her bedroom door so Sara can’t get in. All I heard was screaming all the time. My daughter screams daily.
She tore her down about her looks, body, everything. When she moved out at 18, she came to my house insecure and lost.
She hasn’t spoke to Anne in over a year. It makes holidays impossible. Because I love my granddaughter. And want to see her. But she won’t even be in the same room as her mother.
And I told her “Sara, I had to forgive my mother and it freed me. You will forgive her. For yourself. You never know how you’ll feel in the future” and now she wants to stop talking to me. I’ve never excused what my daughter did. I condemned her all the time.
I did everything for her. Bought her what she needed. Took her out of the house growing up when I could. Fought endlessly with my daughter. But it’s never enough. She’s taking it out on her grandmother. I did everything I could for her. I would never excuse what my daughter did. But I remind her sometimes that life can change, and she won’t know how she feels years down the road. Nobody knows what to do in situations like this. It’s unfair that I’m the one getting blamed and forced to chose between my granddaughter, my daughter, and her other kids. I speak to my daughter still because she will use the other kids as leverage and isolate them from me.

So I (18F) am in university. In one of my classes you have to do a group project. There are 4 people in the group (names changed ofc), Amy, Sam, Tom and me. We’re all the same age except Sam who’s in his mid 20s. Anyway the project has multiple sections, most of which rely on a section we will call section A. Sam volunteered to do section A. Amy did sections B and C, one of which hinges on section A, Tom (section D) and me (sections F and G) all rely on section A to be completed. Sam says on Wednesday section A will be completed on Saturday. (Project is due on Tuesday). That gives me and Tom ample time to do our sections before Tuesday. So Sunday morning rolls around. No section A. We check in again and again but no section A. In the end section A wasn’t done until midday on Tuesday and we had to scramble to get the project done. Section A should only take ~2-3 hours total to do. My sections are very wordy too so I was super stressed. Now if he had asked for help we would’ve helped him. But nope. On top of that, Sam is also in charge of uploading the assignment. We text him and he says he’ll upload it and it’s all under control. We find out the next morning he uploaded it 5mins late (he had 1hr approx to upload BEFORE it was due) and was very nonchalant about it. This gets 10% docked off the mark and this assignment is worth 20% of our grade for the class. We were angry. Now this is where I may be the butthole.
So we had to rate our group members today. Me and Amy were the only ones who attended class so we saw what we were writing. We both absolutely slammed Sam in our reviews. It won’t do much to him, just take a few marks off his individual mark. I know he wasn’t a good group member but at the same time I feel really really bad for giving him a bad review. I feel like a heartless asshole.
So reddit, AITAH?

Hello! Saw several others do the same and getting great feedback from others. Would really appreciate some as well as i'm feeling a bit anxious.
Course: Masters in International Relations
School: Australian National University
Intake: July 2024 (just got my offer a week ago)
Background:
Age: 23
Country: Philippines
Degree: Bachelor of Political Science
Current work: Consultancy specializing in geopolitics and global security in the Middle East
POF: Minimum of 150k AUD (will be fully financed by my parents, so i'm just gauging)
Home ties:

• family is entirely based in the Philippines, no social ties in AU
• have multiple properties (in cities and the province) under my name + multiple time deposits that total around 50k AUD
• Plan to work in the academe and continue private consultancy, but focusing on the Indo-Pacific region (geared to Philippine security and sovereignty)

Reasons for choosing Australia:

• ANU has one of the best political science MA programs in the Asia-Pacific that offers subspecializations in IR like global security and foreign policy, unlike in the Philippines which focus more on general concepts.
• Higher chances of being accepted into the academe due to the weight of ANU in the field (their political science and ir professors are highly regarded and some have recently done a lecture tour around top universities in Manila)
• Better chances of landing a higher role in consultancy firms with a subspecialty

I guess I need to return this?
Tomorrow marks 1 month since I bought the X4 and since day one it has been unusable for editing in adobe premiere. Audio is cut up and ends far before the video clips ends. This makes alignment un-usable with audio from a recorder and makes the camera itself unusable for anyone who wants to edit a video with multiple sources... unless of course.. I want to go through the long painful hassle of reframing in insta360 studio assuming I am getting the angles I want just to render it, then plop it into premiere and rerender.
How did this bug get past approval? Insta360 support said they know of this issue, I also saw a comment by Hugh Hou back weeks ago saying Insta360 knows about the issue. Insta360 support said it would be fixed in the next firmware update.. which I got today and nope still broken.
I am wondering if I need just return the camera and stick with my X3.

CNN posted this article recently which I'm surprised that I haven't seen on here yet.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.html
The article talks about the Sde detention centers and the grotesque treatment of human at the facility.
Let's me talk about why this CNN article is more likely to be true, one multiple israel soldiers whistle blowers sharing videos and pictures about the Mal treatment of people at the facility. Second the star witness Dr.Mohammed al-Ran who should be beyond reproach and was kept at this site for several weeks. Third multiple CNN interviews with different Palestinians in gaza who shared the same piece of information. At this point you should be on the side this is more probably true than false.
Question is why did this mistreatment of palestinian occur by israel. To Serve as a filtration point during the arrest period. How did this abuse allow to occur is due to part of the infrastructure of Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, an amended legislation passed by the Knesset last December that expanded the military’s authority to detain suspected militants.
So what did occur in the camp, and still occur in these camps that made israel soldiers revolt from the ugliness they were inflicting on people. They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
“(The beatings) were not done to gather intelligence. They were done out of revenge,” said another whistleblower. “It was punishment for what they (the Palestinians) did on October 7 and punishment for behavior in the camp.”
The IDF did not directly deny accounts of people being stripped of their clothing or held in diapers. “Part of my torture was being able to see how people were being tortured,” he said. “At first you couldn’t see. You couldn’t see the torture, the vengeance, the oppression.“When they removed my blindfold, I could see the extent of the humiliation and abasement … I could see the extent to which they saw us not as human beings but as animals.”
That whistleblower and al-Ran also described a routine search when the guards would unleash large dogs on sleeping detainees, lobbing a sound grenade at the enclosure as troops barged in. Al-Ran called this “the nightly torture.”
Whistleblowers also said that medical team were told to refrain from signing medical documents, corroborating previous reporting by rights group Physicians for Human Rights in Israel (PHRI).
The PHRI report released in April warned of “a serious concern that anonymity is employed to prevent the possibility of investigations or complaints regarding breaches of medical ethics and professionalism.”
If this process that involves the mass gathering of men, stripping them down , and making them wear a gray sweatshirt. And then punished repeatedly and treated like animals.does not upset you, something is wrong here. God bless the israel whistleblowers who couldn't just stand by and let's the IDF continue this mistreated of palestinians. If this doesn't reinforce that israel military doesn't treat palestinian people as humans then honestly nothing well.

Just need to get it out.
Last couple of weeks I have things to be overwhelming. I didnt think I could feel any worse then he said something which is growing inside me.
I'd been under the impression his "needs" had been a constant over our 33 years. Things may not have been as freely accessible in the 90s, but there were ways.
He said he was clean for the first 8/10 years of us. Then for nothing more than a "want" his porn use started. Over the last couple of decade it escalated. But after Dday he stopped. No urges, no thoughts. His addiction was a computer game. The alcohol and porn became what happened post game.
My head is spinning. So there was no need to bring porn into our relationship. None. No addiction. Just his selfish wants. And it was easy to give up. Yet he never thought of doing that until he saw how much it affected me.
Just to frame this, over 11 weeks last year he hit up over 1,000 porn pages. Everyday for 77 days. Starting at 5am and going through to midnight. Multiple check ins. And thats only over 3 months. Add in the other decades and all his sources of fun (TikTok, Deviant Art, Reddit, Discord, Computer mods, sharing/getting photos and videos from a particular friend etc) means hundreds of thousands of women enjoyed. Not to feed an addiction but because:

• He felt entitled to it.
• He felt it was none of my business.
• He thought I'd never know.
• He thought it wasn't cheating
• He didn't think I'd mind
• He didn't think it would hurt me
• It was his body so could do whatever he wanted

But ultimately I keep circling back to there wasn't a pirn problem until he brought it into the relationship.
Part way through we got married and he stood up and made that "forsake all others" vow. But in his mind he did because he defined unfaithfulness as physically sleeping with someone or having emotional feelings for them.
Nonetheless, the last 5 years were at the height of the abuse. It was less than roommates for me. He would stay on his computer for days. I got no friendship or companionship even, not even a 5 min conversation. I had operations during this time and still no care or consideration.
I look back over my boiled frog experience. I underwent the full minwalla experience. I see that now, during I knew something was off but not what. Until the last few years when sex dried up along with all intimacy. From his behaviour it was so obvious he was having an affair.
I'm far from perfect. But I tried. I worried and cared for him. I loved him. I thought of our future. I held him above others and he motivated me to become educated, to get better jobs etc. I thought he had standards, boundaries and principles. I thought I truly was the only person for him.
Turns out I was just the last person for him. The person he didn't want to spend anytime with or invest in the marriage. Turns out there's so many other women above me.
So the weight of all of this is cracking me. When I've become overwhelmed over the last 8ms his support has mainly traumatised me further as there was avoidant behaviours etc.
I'm lost.
I see his past where he had fun while I killed myself working and raising our children.
I see the future where he will be a man with integrity.
I see now how he is working with his therapist.
Me.
Well my past was a lie. It was full of abuse and unfaithfulness and lots and lots of women.
My future is carrying this trauma for life. Accepting triggers can come years apart but it's not going away. The knowledge of hoe long and how much will stay with me until my last breathe.
Me today, I guess 100 years ago I'd have been committed into an asylum. My heart is so pained, my brain won't let the thoughts go and my body is reacting (won't eat plus gut problems).
Why is it that my sentence in all of this is heartbreaking life long pain. And his isn't. How is that fair.
I just needed to let this out. I do have a therapist I see. I am doing all the stuff I should to heal. For awhile it seemed to help but at the moment I feel worse than ever.
If you got this far, thank you for reading. I hope you are okay.

I saw an article on FandomWire saying that more mechs may be hard to implement because players could just instantly call down another and break the meta which is completely understandable. Butwhat if mechs worked like Eagles? You can only use one Eagle at a time and they cooldown between uses for them to fly back and recharging also has them recharge all of them at the same time. You can't use both at the exact same time, so mechs could use the same system of being connected so you could bring multiple mechs without completely destroying the meta. They often run out of ammo or get destroyed before you have the next one ready anyway, but they could lower the ammo or increase the cooldown more to balance if 4 mechs available still becomes too much.

To clarify, I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

I female age 15 was living in a camper in Rhode Island with my mom age 31 and my dad age 33 along with 2 siblings my mom got into a car crash which gave her a concussion so I had to take care of my family and was like a house wife every time I got off from school my dad didn't help unless it involved my siblings with his game console or with nothing other than steal my mom's stuff to go through it to make sure she didnt catch him cheating on her which she did but I hid it all which he had a suspicion of but my mom was acting like a child at the time I wasn't focused on the remarks my dad would make when i was In shorts about how my butt looked like mom's but bigger and how I was better than her while my mom was getting better my was about to be 15 but I notice while my dad made dirty remarks he was reading a online book and I caught him multiple times in my parents bedroom alone rocking his stick and why I mentioned this is because that book he was reading was my whole bathroom situation but with Mafia people in his book while reading my mom was mostly recovered by the week before my birthday and my dad gas lighted her that I did nothing while he did everything and my mom believed him for 2 days before he tattled on himself about looking through her phone and finding evidence of him cheating which make them fight and argue which they were doing before the crash during the week before my birthday I got a road rash which will be a scar for ever a reminder of how my dad was able to look at me in the camper the shower doors were made of glass and if the temperature was lukewarm then you could see everything on the other side I turned 15 on the day of my road rash I got into the shower around 8:00 p.m. while washing my wound my father went in there and didn't say a word and just started brushing his teeth and looking towards the mirror which at the time was not looking my way I was okay with it at first cuz I thought it would just be for that day but the next 3 weeks it went to a transition of him looking at the mirror then to him leaving the bathroom door open lean on the wall towards the shower staring while playing toxic masculinity podcast of how women and Young women should do what men tell them and I wasn't on social media a lot so I didn't know what "alpha" male ment but women would refer them as that or they would refer them selfs as that but then to every couple of days during those three weeks was like him pushing boundary after boundary to the point where I can't handle it cuz he tried to touch the doorknob to open the glass doors I told him that I wasn't comfortable two times along with my younger siblings telling him to get out because they saw him in there because the door was open which he told them that it was okay and that he was my dad and everybody deserve to be in there it was him during the third day of the first week of this happening I wanted to prove to myself that my father wasn't like his stepfather which was a S A @bus€r of mine when I was 4 through 6 and because I thought it was because of my schedule of me getting in the shower late so I changed my schedule throughout the last 2 weeks while he was pushing boundaries I would change the times where it would inconvenience my mother during her naps or whatever she needed to do to get better cuz she had appointments or she would be like dead asleep and she would need me to watch my siblings but I was busy in the shower and they were messing with her while she had a headache and my father was complaining about the hot water for dishes and other women chores I need or my mother needed to complete but the part that makes it the most messed up is that when it was 20 minutes of me being still in the shower he would walk out and I would hurry up and get out and he would go back to his game console or smoke a cigarette and not good to bed or a couple of hours on the last day of the third week my mom asked me about it cuz she was finally starting to be aware of everything and I told her to wait and I would get in the shower as soon as I got home and he will be in there and she didn't believe me but once I got home and got in there he was in there with the door open my mom grabbed him by his shoulder and ripped him out and yelled at him and told him if he ever did that again that she would go get her shotgun cuz now she's more aware than she has ever been after the crash and he said that I was taking a shower late and then maybe I should be taking showers so late and then maybe I should be using all the hot water and that I'm his daughter he changed my diapers so if he wants to be in there he can be in there if you want the door open for some air he can have it open cuz he also pays the bills and owns everything and that I should be grateful which made my mom come up with a plan to start secretly moving after that day I called my aunt and my uncle who did not believe me and thought there was a better explanation but they did see my point of view but still thought I was being dramatic they question my father and he lied and said it was for 3 days more arguments started and one day when I had a school day off my dad as soon as he found out stayed home while my mom had to be at a appointment and thought he already left but instead he went to chill and came back to have a conversation with me and told me that I was delusional and that if I was uncomfortable I should have told him and when I told him I did and that he didn't say a word he said that he must have not heard me and once I told him that I said it loud and clear and that all you did was sigh and looked like he was about to cry and was mad he said that I'm just like my mother and that we deserve each other and then went on to if he had to have boundaries with me then I have to have boundaries with my mother and we can't get changed in front of each other because we are both bisexual and then proceeded to tell me that I don't know what's going on and then told me that I should be ashamed because I don't know how it feels to feel like a predator in your own home which left me speechless because I know what it's like to have predators around you every corner and he knows this and when I told him that he told me to grow up and that my hormones should be kicking in and I should have already forgotten about his stepfather my mom came home and my dad said he wanted a divorce and felt like I would take his side which my mom says working on it and took me for a drive and I told her all about it and then a couple of days later I woke up to my mom crying and naked because my mom had sex with my dad and when he was done and he got her done he kicked her out of the room and when she was wondering why he said she was more convenient then to go get a stranger and do it in the back of a truck my mom told me to go back to bed and I did at the time not fully knowing what was going on till that day that my mom going back on her word thinking she needed him telling me not to break up the family and that if he agrees the counseling we're staying even if I said no and don't like it which he didn't of course and also I told her that I would kill her and him and that I have thought about it and was in their room multiple times with a weapon think about killing them both because of the things they do which made my mom understand that she needed to grow up and leave him now which is sad for me to say but we finished up packing we got a U-Haul and before we left my mom thought it would be fair to him if my siblings had a board game night with him which later I left cuz I couldn't handle that my siblings get a perfect dad well I always got a cursing child beating lying disciplining me for no reason father and couldn't handle that my mom didn't leave them for a military hasn't killed my father or believe me on many occasions or didn't do anything because of him and because of her always needing him he went to go find me a hour later and talked and walked with me said the same things as the other conversation and when I brought up multiple predators in my life and how he did nothing for example I had a high school boy threatened to r@p€ me in the third grade and him and his friends chase me around and has kissed me and touched me multiple times for 2 years and and he said that he couldn't because that high school boy was a friends son but told him to stop but this friend was a mistress of his which later to find out that it would have been 4 years of harassment if my mother didn't threaten to burn his house which again shows that my father is a liar and my mother even proved it to me by showing me pictures of text between the high school boy and the mother and her but at the end of the conversation a dark side of me popped out and just went to try to go grab the nearest gun to shoot him cuz my father has an eye nose twitch when he lies and he has to be active or loud when he's trying to be manipulative and at the end he thought we had a great dad and talk even though I was still crying and he was like a brick wall cuz he thought I was like my mom and I would give up my mom stopped me and told me that I shouldn't go to jail and that we are moving tomorrow she will make sure of it no more delays and no more of letting me down we move to Texas where we're originally from and while living with a relative my little siblings could talk to our father which slowly broke the relationship because he would always try to bring up me and how he wanted to talk to me which later you can't stand not talking to me that he stopped paying child support until I talk to him and in between breaking the relationship with my siblings slowly they started seeing the dad that I saw and while here with my relative my mom got some console and help cuz at the time my dad was paying for child support but there was enough to get me help which my family thinks I desperately need but when child support stopped her console stopped cuz she can't afford it then drama started happening with the relative we were with and we've been moving ever since but now my mom is on the road making a lot of money to make up for no child support until the child support office is get their affairs in order and we are living with relative to relative that will take us in and watches but my mom will be coming back soon to get a rent house so that we can finally settle down after a whole year of dealing with all this without him and I'll be 16 and I don't know how to feel cuz it marks the anniversary of a scar physical emotional and mental and still cuts deep

TLDR; my ex treated me terribly and I’m still trying to get over it.
This isn’t something I would normally post but I am hoping it’ll be cathartic for me. This might be a long one and a bit of a mess so feel free to skip if you’re not interested in the read.
I 28f up until last August I was in a relationship with who we’ll call ‘M’ 24f for almost 2 years. We met on hinge. In general I’m very shy and not very confident person, and definitely new to dating as I spent most of my teens and early 20’s in the closet due to internalized homophobia. So I don’t have much experience dating. That context is important for the story. By all accounts, M was probably out of my league, (that’s what I told myself, again I have zero self confidence ) she was attractive, smart, came from a good family and on the surface a nice girl. The beginning the relationship was fine, she was in uni for medicine and her school schedule was pretty demanding. We’d only see each other maybe one every month in the beginning of the relationship, I understood she was busy with school and honestly I was still feeling lucky that she chose me to date.
A few months go by and we still remain only seeing each other once a month because her school schedule was so demanding. This is when the red flags start to wave, her school schedule was so demanding yet she was in multiple choirs that she would sing in once a week. She made time for choir but when I asked to hang out I was made to feel like a bother. Plus she played DND with at least 2 different groups of people.
Early in the relationship we were in her car after she dropped me off I asked if we could see each other a little more and she had a strange reaction, I didn’t want to seem needy so I backed off and later apologized via text. She responded with; “sometimes I just like to be alone.” Which as an introvert; I get 100%, so I let it be. But like….we only saw each other once a month as it was…..how could you possibly be alone any more??? I was always the one to ask to hang out, always. And every time I did I would sheepishly ask if she had some free time that weekend to hang out, because I felt like such a bother to her. I’m not exaggerating when I say we would easily go 3-5 weeks without seeing each other in person. We would text every day. But seeing her in person was a luxury. But don’t worry she always had time for choir every single week. Twice a week. Or DND. But seeing her girlfriend was too much strain on her school schedule.
I was always the one to text first. Whether it was good morning, or saying good night. Later in the relationship I wouldn’t text her just to see how long it would take her to text me that day, most time it wasn’t until 3-4 pm that I heard from her.
We never had sex, we barely even kissed.(which isn’t really important to me but damn). It was so difficult to have alone time with her so there was quite literally never an opportunity for intimacy. Towards the end of our relationship we would watch the bachelorette with her mom at her place, so we never had alone time for the last 3 months of dating.
For both valentines days we were together I sent flowers and chocolate to her house. She didn’t get me anything. For my 27th birthday we went out with my friends, and a small part of me wondered if she would offer to pay for my meal. Nope. She also didn’t get me a birthday gift or even a card. Flash forward to Christmas I get her a 250$ makeup palette that she always talked about and a blanket from her favourite K-Pop band. I got an xbox gift card and a cookbook. I need to emphasize that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT presents, I just literally wanted any sort of acknowledgment that she cared about me at all. I also feel the need to point out she has money, both her parents are lawyers and they are very well off and she gets paid to go to school because her field is very specialized. I was raised by a single mother and while I have my own career now, I’m far from rich. But I always went above and beyond to make her feel special and she did the bare minimum. Sometimes not even the bare minimum. This next one really bothered me; its my 28th birthday and I hadn’t mentioned it was coming up. A sick part of me wanted to see if she would remember, I know it’s stupid to test people in a relationship but I was genuinely curious to see if she would remember. It comes the day of my birthday, and I don’t hear from her until 3:30 pm. “Happy Birthday!” That was it. I was floored. A couple days later she managed to squeeze me into her schedule and we go out for dinner. Again, didn’t pay for my meal. For her birthday we went to a nice restaurant and I paid for the entire fucking thing it was almost 150$. Don’t worry she got me an xbox gift card though……..
But the worst part, beyond not seeing each other was how she treated me and made me feel. In the beginning she was very nice and kind, but slowly I think her true colours came out. She’s very smart, but she needs to be right all the time. Like literally every single conversation she needs to come out as right. I was never allowed to have my own opinions, she would make me feel stupid and correct me every time. I’m a bit of a goof and like to be silly, but she would look at me like I was an idiot, if I did a pretend British accent she would criticize it and tell me to stop. In the end I felt like a shell of myself. I was terrified to say something stupid. She would call out every single thing I did, if I merged a lane early while driving, called out (that actually happened). If I wiped my mouth after every bite, called out. If I said something she would have to google it to prove she was right or at least prove that I was wrong.
I would participate in her family activities, like birthdays and holidays. Side note: her family is lovely. I got especially close with her mom. Her mother is a sweetheart, a lovely human being and she treated me better than her daughter ever did. Her mom and I even snap chatted every day. M wouldn’t open my snaps for days and I could see when she was online. As weird as it might seem, I would have rather hung out with her mom than her. There were a couple times when we were with her mom, that M would call me out on something trivial and even her own mother was picking up on the vibes.
I had convinced myself I really liked this person, once I told her I loved her. Why, I’ll never know. She responded with “thanks, I’m not there yet but thanks for telling me.” I was gutted. I didn’t love her. I never did. In the end I hated her.
I would lie to my friends about her and say I was happy, my mom liked her which was the worst part because it would break her heart if she knew how I was feeling and being treated. I would make it seem like I was happy and she was this lovely person, but deep down I was dying. Towards the end of our relationship I was hanging out with a good friend of mine and someone who helped me a lot through my journey of accepting my identity as a lesbian. She asked me about my relationship and how it was going, and I honestly couldn’t say anything positive. This was the first time I was honest with someone in my life about how unhappy I was and I wasn’t sure how to process it.
Eventually she broke up with me; she said she felt like she made me nervous and that I cared about her more than she cared about me. Initially it hurt, and I felt bad. But after an hour, I wanted to do a freaking backflip. I was elated to be free. For the past 2 years I had felt like less of myself than I had ever been. It was the worst 2 years mentally of my life. I had twisted myself up into this sheepish person who just felt lucky to be chosen by someone. My self worth was so low that I thought this was the relationship I deserved, that I would never find anyone else and I should just be grateful that she chose me.
As the title says I’m still trying to recover and heal. It’s been about 9 months since I last saw her and I’m working on myself. That relationship showed me how compromised my mental health was and that I need to take care of myself. I have been seeing a therapist. Now don’t get me wrong I have struggled with mental health my entire life, but those 2 years were the worst of it. I’m not dating right now because I want to focus on myself and my personal goals first.
I still feel very embarrassed for how I let her treat me and embarrassed that I didn’t know the relationship was toxic. If anything I learned a lot from this experience.
If you have made it this far props to you because this was kind of a hot mess and wayyy too long. But it’s been bothering me even more lately and I guess I just felt like this might help. Even if no one reads it.
She didn’t want a relationship, I don’t know what she wanted. She used school as a buffer to limit the amount she saw me. I feel bad for the next person she dates and I hope they come to their senses quicker than I did. I deleted her off everything and I hope to never see her again. In closing, I fucking hate her guts.

To clarify, I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

This is my attempt at a re-submission due to some misunderstandings on the first attempt. I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

This is my attempt at a re-submission due to some misunderstandings on the first attempt. I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

—— Feedback from a 90S Buddhist practitioner who shared her experiences with tears at the Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door Website.
Gratitude to Namo Sakyamuni Buddha!
Gratitude to the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva!
Gratitude to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from ten directions and three periods of time!
Gratitude to the Dharma protectors!
Gratitude to the benefactor and benevolent father Master Jun Hong Lu!
Gratitude to my fellow Dharma practitioners!
I am very happy to share with you my path to learning Buddhism in a healthy state. I am a post-90s person, and I am also a devout Buddhist. Previously, I just believed in Buddhism, burned incense and worshiped the Buddha, but I did not know I should recite Buddhist scriptures. In my consciousness, reciting Buddhist scriptures is the business of a monk or nun. It was later when I became acquainted with Buddhism formally that I realized that monks, nuns, laymen monks, and laymen nuns can all recite Buddhist scriptures if they are willing to do so.
I came into contact with Buddhism in the summer of 2018, the year I gave birth to 2 children in a row. My physical state was particularly poor. I suffer from insomnia almost every night. I often got to bed around 10:00 p.m. and woke up around 1:00 a.m., and I was then unable to sleep. During the day, I had to take care of the children and do housework. I often felt physically exhausted.
One night, I remembered that my cousin transcribed Buddhist scriptures. I thought that it would be better for me to do so at home so that I would not be wasting sleepless hours. By transcribing Buddhist scriptures I could cultivate my mind and improve my handwriting. Then, I searched the Internet. They said that transcribing Buddhist scriptures disrespects the Bodhisattva, so I gave up this idea. Then I thought of reciting Buddhist scriptures. The several Buddhist scriptures I found online were not suitable for me.
It might be my affinity with Buddha is ripe, or it is the Bodhisattva's compassion for me. Not long after I saw an article online that said reciting Buddhist scriptures could change one's destiny. I just casually left a comment below:“Can reciting Buddhist scriptures really change destiny?”Back and forth in this way, I added that Buddhist practitioner to my friend list.
What impressed me the most was that practicing Buddhism and reciting Buddhist scriptures are free of charge, and there will be no fees. On the Internet, she shared with me a lot of Buddhist scripture information. Later, she mailed me the Dharma Gems. After receiving the Dharma Gems, I began reciting the Buddhist scriptures, and I kept doing so until my children started school. I became very busy after school started. I did not want to recite Buddhist scriptures anymore. I recited a few Little Houses but did not repay my karmic creditors. Perhaps that is why my karma was activated early.
In the winter, I found that I had a high frequency of headaches, and also suffered left migraines. The left side of the body was soft and numb, especially the left toes and the hand. I wondered if it was the same as my mother's disease. Until December, when my mother again went to the provincial capital hospital due to health problems, did I realize this was a genetic condition. Further, the probability of female inheritance is very high. Then, I searched the Internet for primary multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms and compared them to my own physical condition. I broke down. I was 26 years old at the time, just entering the age of predestined 369 calamity.
I had just been married for 2 years. I didn't dare tell my husband because I was afraid the family would be broken up. Since I had 2 daughters, I was afraid they would inherit the disease. I didn't dare tell my parents either, for fear of causing psychological pressure on my mom. I bear it alone. My spirit was in a state of collapse every day.
One day, I suddenly remembered a cancer case that was cured by practicing Buddhism, which was shared in a WeChat moment. Why not MS? Again, I contacted the Buddhist practitioner who transformed me. I cried and told her what had happened to me. I asked her if reciting Buddhist scriptures could really heal me. I remembered that she replied to me very firmly, saying it would definitely cure me. That's how I returned to the path of reciting Buddhist scriptures. This time I was with hope and determination in practicing Buddhism. MS can't be cured medically, only managed. I have no way out. I want to change my destiny through Dharma.
Since then, I have frantically read the shared presentations and referred to those practitioners’cases. I want to see how to do merits and virtues by making vows and releasing lives. Once, I made a vow to the sky to release fish worth 1,000 CNY and recited a number of Little Houses. Right at that moment, the left side of my body became much lighter and less numb. I thought it was amazing. It gave me a little more confidence in reciting Buddhist scriptures. When I saw people sharing that vegetarian is good, I made a vow to be vegetarian 2 days a month, then 10 days a month, and then a full-time vegetarian.
My physical conditions were not always as good as I wanted them to be, sometimes good and sometimes bad. I often dream of the dead. Once I dreamed that I had caused a car full of people to fall into the river and die. When I woke up, I hurriedly made a vow to ascend them using the Little House. Master Lu enlightened us that everyone comes into this world with karmic obstacles. Only by constantly reciting Buddhist scriptures, performing merits and virtues and repaying debts can these karmic obstacles be dissolved. Therefore, I knew that my karmic obstacle is from my past life, and I either have to repay it with my body or with reciting Buddhist scriptures. I chose the latter, by reciting Buddhist scriptures to repent of my past sins. Thereafter, whenever I dreamed of the deceased, I would make a vow to recite the Little House for them.
I have also deeply repented gossiping behind people's backs, saying too many bad things about them, and doing too many things behind their backs. Due to unknown the cause and effect, I advised people to divorce. I have been obsessed with worldly love and watched too many romance novels and TV dramas, which has led to my blessings loss. I have taken advantage of small gains and committed very petty thefts. I have deeply repented to this now. I am willing to spend the rest of my life cultivating my behavior and mind! I will recite the Buddhist scriptures and recite Little Houses to pay off my karmic debts.
With time, my symptoms improved: from the 24-hour constant numbness in my hands and feet in 2018, to a little bit lighter in 2019, to 2020 when sometimes these symptoms disappeared for a period of time, to 2021 when the symptoms nearly disappeared but the feeling of recurrence still came back at times, and then to 2022 when I had almost forgotten about MS because the softness and numbness in my hands and feet had completely disappeared. It is only now that I dare to stand up bravely and say I am really cured. This is because I have been free of the MS symptoms for >1 year. I am really grateful to the Bodhisattva! Buddhist scriptures have created miracles for me.
Maybe readers will think I have not done diagnosis tests. How can I tell if I have MS? First of all, my physical symptoms are the same as my mom's. Secondly, this disease is divided into hereditary and non-hereditary forms. Unfortunately, my mom's is hereditary, and she has test results for it. Furthermore, I've googled too much information just hoping it's something else and my faulty senses. One article had a message conversation that caused me to fall into the abyss. That person had the same disease and had been diagnosed, and mine was exactly the same. Honestly, I couldn't go to the hospital for a checkup, because I really couldn't face this reality.
Even though I had already practiced Buddhism, any time I thought of having MS it literally broke me down. Sometimes I would wonder why my hands and feet were still numb and weak after reciting Buddhist scriptures for so long and releasing so many lives. Why is it still not healed? This type of thought made me collapse. After collapsing, I decided to continue practicing because of the fact that this disease cannot be cured medically. Reading Buddhist practitioners’ shared presentations is my only motivation. So many rare and intractable diseases were cured, I firmly believe that the Bodhisattva will save me, too. I don't think words can really express my inner world. My heart always experiences breaking down and healing itself over and over again; then breaking down again and healing itself again.
I am grateful to my cousin for accompanying me all the way and listening to me pour out my sufferings. I am also grateful to Buddhist practitioner Liren for always encouraging me and telling me that this is karma and that reciting the scriptures can eliminate karma. It is only by reciting Buddhist scriptures properly and persistently that I have become the person I am now.
I have changed the most in 2022. This year is also the year of the greatest vow power. After I studied Buddhism in Plain Terms, I understood many truths. Before 2022, I used to recite Buddhist scriptures without understanding why. My mind was not cultivated well, and my merits and virtues were leaked. Before 2022, I ate vegetarian food with five pungent spices. In 2022, I made a vow to be a full-time vegetarian without five pungent spices, be one of the hands and eyes of Guan Yin Bodhisattva to widely transform sentient beings, release 100,000 fish, and recite 1,200 Little Houses specifically for my MS.
As my Master taught, the greater the vow, the greater the merits and virtues, and the faster the karmic obstacles are cleared. Today, sitting here and reminiscing, I am fortunate. This is because I met the Dharma before my karmic obstacles fully flared up. As a result, I was able to pass a major calamity in my life.
I hope my sharing will bring hope to more new Buddhist practitioners! Studying Buddhism and reciting Buddhist scriptures is not superstition. It can really help us dissolve all the problems on earth.
My sharing has come to an end. If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the truth in the presentation, I'd like to seek forgiveness from Namo Sakyamuni Buddha, the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and Dharma protectors. I’d appreciate my fellow practitioners' critique and correction!
I, not my fellow practitioners, will be responsible for my own karma!
Presenter: Dharma Practitioner LanLan
Posted: 2023-07-27
Translator: Frank
Published: 2023-08-25
Statement by translator
The story was translated from Chinese into English by meaning, not word by word. If there is anything that is not rational or in line with the true meaning of the Chinese version, I pray for forgiveness from the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva, all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Dharma protectors and Master Jun Hong Lu.
Propagation
It would be greatly appreciated if you would forward this presentation to all sentient beings you know, sick or healthy. You will accumulate immeasurable merits and virtues. Saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-floor pagoda!
Would you like to change your destiny?
We will show you how to do the Five Golden Buddhist Practices of Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door: (1) making vows, (2) reciting Buddhist scriptures (sutras and mantras), (3) performing life liberation, (4) reading Buddhism in Plain Terms, and (5) repenting. You will personally witness how you and your family can achieve physical and mental stability, relief from illness and grievances, wisdom growth, academic progress, career advancement, and family happiness through Dharma. It’s free of charge.
Contact
Buddhist practitioner: Lily
Email: [sunnypurplelily@gmail.com](mailto:sunnypurplelily@gmail.com)
WeChat: HanJing20210820
原文如下：
90后师兄含泪分享：医学无法治愈的多发性硬化症通过学佛念经彻底痊愈
——心灵法门网友反馈
2023-07-27
感恩南无释迦牟尼佛！
感恩南无大慈大悲救苦救难广大灵感观世音菩萨摩诃萨！
感恩十方三世一切诸佛菩萨！
感恩龙天护法菩萨！
感恩恩师慈父！
感恩师兄们！
很高兴能在身体健康的状态下和大家分享我的学佛之路。我是一名90后，我也是一名虔诚的佛教徒，只不过，我只是信佛，会烧香，会拜佛，却不会读经。在我的意识中，念经是出家师父的事。后面接触佛法才明白，只要愿意，在家出家都可以念经。
我是在2018年暑假的时候接触佛法，那年我是连着生完两个孩子，身体状态特别差，几乎每晚都失眠，经常10点左右睡，1点左右醒，然后就开始失眠。白天又要带孩子做家务，整个人经常觉得体力不支。
有次晚上无意想起表妹会抄经，我想着自己在家没事这样失眠浪费时间还不如也抄经，既可以修心也可以练练字。然后就上网搜索，网上说抄经对菩萨不尊敬，然后又打消了这个念头，又想着读经，结果网上搜索了几种经文，都觉得不适合自己。
也许是佛缘成熟，也许是菩萨慈悲我，没多久我在网上看见一篇文章说念经可以改变命运，我就随缘在下面留言说：念经，真的可以改变命运吗？这样一来二往，我加上了那位师兄。
印象最深的是，学佛念经都是免费的，不会有任何费用。在网上她给我分享了好多经文资料，后面也给我邮寄了法宝，我收到后就开始念经，坚持到孩子开学，孩子开学后每天很忙碌，就不想读经了，经文组合小房子读了几张，也没有烧送，就这样一直放着。也许是这个原因提前激活了业障。
到了冬季，我发现我头痛的频率高了，而且有些奇怪的还出现左偏头痛，还有身体左边有些发软、发麻，特别是左边的脚指头和左边的手，当时也有怀疑是不是和我妈妈的病一样，但也只是怀疑，不敢过多地想。直到12月，我妈又因为身体原因需要去省城住院，结果这次住院的经历让我发现，我妈这个病是遗传病，遗传女性的概率很大，然后我在网上搜索多发性硬化症的初级症状，再对照自己的身体状况。整个人都开始崩溃了，那年我是26周岁，正逢“三六九”关劫。
那会我也刚结婚两年，我不敢告诉我先生，我怕这个家会散，而且我生的是两个女儿，我也怕她们会遗传。我也不敢告诉爸妈，我怕给我妈造成心理压力。就这样一个人扛着，精神每天处于崩溃的状态。
回到家后，我就突然想起师兄朋友圈分享的癌症都能好，我又联系度我的师兄，哭着和她说了我的事，问她我念经真的能好吗，记得她非常坚定地回复我说一定能好。就这样，我又开始了念经的道路，只不过这次带着希望在读，更加坚定了一些，因为这个病在医学上无法解决，只有控制，我没有任何办法，想通过佛法来改变命运。
此后，我疯狂地看分享，参考大家的灵验分享，看大家如何许愿放生做功德。有次我对着天空许愿放生1000元的鱼，念诵多少张经文组合小房子。当时这个左边的身体发软发麻的状态就轻了许多，我当时觉得好神奇，也给我增加了一点念经的信心。此后，我看大家分享吃素好，我就许愿一个月两次，再一个月10天，再后面吃全素。
我许愿吃全素这个过程很短，因为我想早点让自己好。可事情总是不尽人意，时好时坏。在念经这段道路上，我也经常梦见亡人，有一次还梦见自己把一车的人弄得掉进河里死了，醒来后赶紧地许愿给他们读诵经文组合小房子。师父说过，每个人都是带着业障来到这个世界，只有通过不断地念经做功德还债才能化解这些业障。所以，我知道这是我前世的业障，要么用身体还，要么用经文还。我选择后者，用经文去忏悔我的过往。所以此后，只要梦见亡人，我都会许愿读经文组合小房子。
我也深深忏悔，我曾经背后乱嚼舌头，说了太多人家的坏话，做了太多背后阴人的事；曾经不明因果，劝人离婚；曾经迷恋世间的情爱，看了太多的爱情小说和电视剧，导致福报尽损；曾经爱占小便宜，做了很小偷小摸的事；我现在都深深地忏悔，愿意用我的余生好好地修心修行，好好地学佛念经念经文组合小房子还债。
经过我不断地读经消业，我的症状也有所改善，从2018年的24小时手脚持续发麻，到2019年的症状轻了一点，再到2020年有时这些症状会消失一段时间，再到2021年，症状可以说消失，但有时还是会复发的感觉，再到2022年，我几乎把这个病给忘记了，因为手脚那些发麻发软的感觉都消失了。直到现在，我才敢勇敢站出来说，我真的好了，因为我已经有一年多没有这些症状了。真的感恩菩萨！经文的灵验在我这里创造了奇迹。
也许大家会觉得我没有做任何检查，如何判定自己就是这个病呢？首先，是身体的症状和我妈妈的一样；其次，这个病分遗传和不遗传，很不巧，我妈的是遗传，这个是有检测报告的；再者，我上网搜了太多的资料，就希望是其他原因，是我的错感。尤其有一篇文章的留言对话，让我跌入深渊，对方也是这个病，已经确诊，而我的是一模一样，说实话，我真的没法去医院检查，我真的没法面对这个现实。
虽然我已经念经了，但一想到这个问题我真的每次都是崩溃。就这样我抱着念经的信念，坚持了一年，有一点点地改变，有时候也会怀疑，我已经读了这么久的经，我放生这么多了，为啥还是手脚发麻发软？为什么还是不见好转？崩溃之后依旧是继续，因为这个病真的医学上没法解决，看着师兄们的分享，是我唯一的动力。那么多的疑难杂症都能好，我坚信菩萨会救我的。我觉得文字真的无法来表达我的内心世界。内心总是反反复复地崩溃，自愈；再崩溃，再自愈。
这一路感谢我的表姐，一路的陪伴我，听着我倾诉苦水；也感谢丽人师兄，一直鼓励我，告诉我，这个就是业障，读经就能消业障，好好读，坚持读，才成就的现在的我。我在2022年变化最大，这年也是愿力最大，我学习《白话佛法》，明白了很多的道理，以前就是一味地读经，根本不明白，心没修好，功德有漏。我之前吃素都是吃带五辛的，2022年我许愿全素，许了做菩萨的千手千眼广度有缘人，许了余生放生10万条鱼，还针对这个病许愿1200张经文组合小房子，已经烧送了一部分。就像师父说的，愿力越大，功德越大，业障也消得快些。所以今天坐在这里回忆过往，我是幸运的，在业障还没全面爆发，我遇见佛法，让我化解了人生的一道大坎。也希望我的分享能给更多的新人带来希望的光！学佛念经不是迷信，是真的可以帮助我们化解人间所有问题。
我的分享结束了，分享中如有不如理不如法的地方，请南无释迦牟尼佛慈悲原谅，请南无大慈大悲观世音菩萨慈悲原谅，请十方三世一切诸佛菩萨和龙天护法菩萨慈悲原谅，请师兄们批评指正。我自己的业障自己背，不让师兄们背。
分享人：蓝蓝师兄
来自：师父博客
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This is my attempt at a re-submission due to some misunderstandings on the first attempt. I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), often known as ME/CFS, has a broad spectrum of symptoms that persist a long period. It is determined by basic signs and criteria. Post-exertional malaise (PEM), substantial impairment in capacity to accomplish tasks that were typical before the illness, and sleep issues are some of the key symptoms of Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) .
Orthostatic intolerance (difficulty sitting and standing) and cognitive issues. Long-lasting discomfort and a broad spectrum of body systems are also frequent symptoms.
The reason is unknown, however it might be due to metabolic, genetic, viral, or physical or psychological stress. For lack of a universal diagnostic test, the diagnosis is figured by symptoms.
A person with CFS becomes weary from working hard, and it doesn't get better when they rest. Many conditions cause fatigue, but none cause the amount of tiredness and functioning issues found in CFS.
Many individuals with CFS may improve with time, but many will remain unwell and incapacitated for a long period. No authorised therapies or medications for the underlying cause. Instead, treatment aims to alleviate distressing symptoms.
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends pacing (personal activity management) to prevent symptoms from worsening. Some patients may benefit with Rinatolimod (a medication intended for treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome ), psychotherapy, and tailored activity management, however research is limited.
It affects 1% of persons who see their doctor regularly, although the figure fluctuates since epidemiological studies define the disorder differently. According to official estimates, CFS affects 836,000-2.5 million Americans and 250,000-1,250,000 Britons.
Women have CFS at a rate of 1-2% higher than males. Most individuals acquire it between 40 and 60. Even youngsters may be affected. The prevalence of CFS in children is unknown, however it is thought to be about 0.5 percent. One of the most prevalent reasons students miss class is chronic fatigue syndrome.
CFS affects one's health, happiness, and productivity, as well as loneliness and alienation. However, several aspects of the illness remain unclear. Disability is diagnosed and treated by doctors, researchers, and others. The evidence for the causes and therapies isn't always consistent.

Common Symptoms

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) proposes the following diagnostic criteria for unwell people:

• Ability to perform things before the sickness. Weariness follows a decline in activity. It must last six months.
• Symptoms worsen if you do anything little before the condition. Exercise may make you sick, and the symptoms generally appear 12 to 48 hours later. Some term it a "crash," although it might last a long time. Also known as Post-exercise malaise (PEM).
• Sleep problems make it difficult to remain awake, fall asleep, or stay asleep.
• Memory and reasoning are poor (cognitive dysfunction, sometimes described as "brain fog")
• Standing or sitting upright may cause dizziness, weakness, fainting, or visual issues (orthostatic intolerance)

While other common symptoms may occur that not all ME/CFS people report
People who have a cold or the flu can have pain in their muscles, joints, and neck or armpits.
People who have a sore throat, irritable bowel syndrome, a cold, or night sweats, as well as people who have allergies and sensitivities to food and other things, can have a hard time breathing.

Functional Capacity of a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosed Patient

People with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can accomplish many things. Many individuals with CFS live regular lives, while others are bedridden and unable of self-care. Most CFS patients must miss job, school, and family time for a lengthy period.
Men and women have the same symptoms and limitations, and many suffer from severe chronic pain. Inactivity is blamed for this. The complexity of things has also changed.
AIDS causes as much agony and anguish as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, COPD, and end-stage renal failure. Even while major conditions like multiple sclerosis, congestive heart failure, or type 2 diabetes exist, CFS has a greater effect on a person's capacity to function and well-being.
Symptoms go in and out of remission, making treatment difficult. People who feel better may overexert themselves, causing worsening symptoms and relapse of their disease. A percent of persons with CFS are permanently housebound or bedridden for years. An illness that prevents around 75% of them from working.
More over half of them were on disability or sick leave, and just a fifth worked full-time. Children with CFS are the major cause for absenteeism.
The quality-of-life questionnaire found that patients with CFS had reduced "vitality," "physical functioning," "general health," "physical role," and "social functioning." However, CFS patients' "role emotional" and "mental health" subscales were identical to or slightly lower than healthy people's. Every year, the US spends a lot of money on healthcare.

Cognitive Dysfunction of a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosed Patient

Cognitive Dysfunction is one of the most devastating aspects of CFS, affecting people's ability to work and interact. It's estimated that 50-80% of CFS sufferers experience cognitive issues. Problems with attention, memory, and reaction time are typical cognitive symptoms.
Measured cognitive abilities are lacking, which may impair everyday living. For example, they make more errors, forget things, and have problems responding when spoken to.
In addition, activities requiring long-term working memory are slower. These defects generally support up the patient's views. As far as I can see, your ability to move swiftly, think clearly, and talk clearly hasn't altered.
People with poor health were more likely to report cognitive issues. People with CFS who could accomplish more physically had less visual perception and language processing issues.
Several reasons may be at play when it comes to disparities between what individuals claim they are and what they really are. It's difficult to compare participants' cognitive capacities before and after illness since there aren't any measures that accurately evaluate CFS's distinctive cognitive impairments.
CFS patients have higher neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms than non-CFS patients. The cause is unclear. Many theories exist to explain why cognitive symptoms and illness coexist.
Some experts believe psychological factors contribute to or cause the disease. Others believe the sickness generates physiological and social changes that manifest as symptoms.

Therapies Known to Have Worked with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

The CDC says talking to a therapist may help patients cope with their conditions. Counseling and behavioural treatments may benefit some patients, but they may not enhance their quality of life, according to a 2015 NIH analysis.
This means that these treatments should not be utilised alone, but rather as part of a larger strategy. The same article claims that therapy may help with weariness, function, and overall improvement. However, these methods have been understudied in several CFS patient subgroups. Those who had psychotherapy or behavioral treatment reported few unpleasant side effects.
IOM 2015 study indicates it's unclear whether Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) assists persons with cognitive disorders. It's unclear why CBT is used to help patients feel better about their illness. A 2014 research found little indication that CBT participants were more active.
The authors claim that those who received CBT were adjusting to the condition rather than improving.
Patient organisations have long opposed CBT as a CFS treatment. Also questioned is the model's explanation The MEA studied 493 CBT patients in the UK in 2012.
Due to the findings of this research, the MEA concluded in 2015 that CBT should not be the principal therapy for CFS. There's a "false model of causality," says Dr. Charles Shepherd, a MEA medical adviser. This paradigm ignores the wide range of clinical manifestations and illness processes that fall within the ME/CFS umbrella.
A 2019 research of ME/CFS patients in the UK revealed that CBT didn't help for over half of them, and that Graded Exercise Therapy made most individuals worse.

Hi everyone. I am new to the group and Joe's teachings. I saw him multiple times, even my mom sent me his audio book long time ago but I was out of my mind at those times, drugs, alcohol, smoking, unhealthy lifestyle. I was using those since I was 13, this year I became 30 and for very long time I want to change my life. I was practicing various meditations for past 5 years, quited a lots of stuff, but I am still addicted to kratom, which is kind of natural painkiller but can be very dangerous and it messes up with my skin, stomach, brain chemistry, etc. This is last thing that I want to quit, otherwise I am done with all other drugs. But whenever I used to quit kratom, I come back to alcohol, which means it's psychological, not substance addiction. I simply cannot handle stress or life in general when I am sober. I bought a book of Dr Joe recently "Becoming supernatural", it's very intresting but it's hard for me to read because I don't remember last book that I have read fully. But I am doing my best now and try to do meditations from YouTube as well. I truly hope that I will quit it soon, I love being sober so much, I remember times when I was quiting everything and those memories are so pure and beautiful. I want me come back to me. I want to come back home, where I was who I am for real, without fake highness. I wanted to ask you, if you ever been addicted to any of substances and successfully quited it with Joe's meditations? Which books, meditations are the most valuable in such situations?
Thank you a lot.

When the price was at $0.05, I saw multiple posts of people saying “I wish I would have bought in lower”. Well here is your opportunity. It’s normal for any coin to dip and consolidate. This is when smart people put in money. This is also when the game shakes out the fearful and inexperienced investor, only to leave them buying in once the price skyrockets due to FOMO. Stop using FOMO as your investment catalyst. Be smart and buy the dip right now.

A few months ago, my building's committee organized a small party for everyone living in our building to bond. It included some dancing and singing at the beginning and ended with a fancy dinner. My father was in charge of the food. During the party, the food arrived before dinnertime to ensure it was fresh and was set up on the buffet table. My dad went over to check if everything was up to standard.
Unfortunately, my neighbor, who is also my classmate, was there. He’s known as the class clown and is quite popular on Instagram for the funny stuff he posts. He secretly recorded my dad and posted it on his story, labeling him as someone who only comes for the food and can’t even wait for it. He also mentioned that he was my dad and added goofy music in the background. The whole school saw it, and needless to say, the next day wasn’t pleasant. A few people mentioned it and brushed it off as a joke, but I was dying inside and knew I had to get back at him.
Now, this guy is terrible at math and knew he would fail finals if he didn’t cheat. His roll number was after mine, so he always had to sit behind me. Throughout the year, I helped him pass the exams, but now there was no way I was giving him any answers. He realized this just before the math exam and offered to pay me a few dollars if I helped him pass.
I couldn’t believe his audacity. Not only did he ask for help after making a joke about my dad, but his offer was also ridiculously low. I was about to cuss him out but instead said, "Sure, you don’t need to study at all. I’ll tell you all the answers to the multiple-choice questions and you’ll pass for sure."
The exam time came, and I gave him the answers. After the exam, I asked him for the money, and he laughed and said, "I’m not giving you anything. You really thought I would pay you?" I laughed back and said, "You really thought I would help you pass after what you did?" He was shocked and I told him every answer I gave him was wrong. His expression was priceless; I wish I could have recorded it and posted it on my story.
A few weeks later, the results came out and he scored a 3 in math. He obviously failed and would have to repeat the year. I could hear his father yelling at him. A few hours later, I went to his house and showed his dad a screen recording of the story he posted. His dad, already furious that he failed, became even angrier. He then proceeded to discipline him right in front of me. I left immediately; I initially felt a little bad, but it was so satisfying. Apparently his dad was so pissed that he permanently confiscated his phone