#'at least she's moved on from always posting palpatine all the time' they might say

[hegodamask]

“I was punished for trying to uphold the law. Do my job, maintain public safety. Two men dead. Co-workers. I believe that we have laws for a reason. I fully intend to clear my name and have my record expunged.” 

Kyle Soller as SYRIL KARN in ANDOR Season 1 (2022)

[henrysglock]

He's Dead, Jim.

Okay so. Forewarning. This theory is probably one of my least canon-based ones. And yet...it would make sense sense, and it would provide an MO for certain things.

I was thinking about Natalie's post regarding the intricacies of blood splatters, especially as that post may pertain to a faked massacre in 1979 à la Fringe Subject 13...or an actual, physically committed massacre (as opposed to One's psionic killing).

Like...a couple things I've been struggling with are:

The "why" of it all re: a no-powers massacre. Why do that, if you've got a whole raft of kids, all of whom display useful talents? All that for one girl that you suspect might be stronger than the others?

If Brenner was yeeted, then what happened to One? Where's he in all this?

Now, we know we have a good deal of evidence that certain crucial parts of NINA are missing (for example: "I meant what I said when I called this place a prison", meanwhile One's never mentioned the lab being a prison before then) or spliced in from other versions of events, which brings me to something that's always fucked me up:

Why the hell does One look so distinctly normal after having the every loving fuck tortured out of him?

He goes from being so injured that he can't even stand up. He has to be dragged out on the floor...

With, it seems, a skull fracture bad enough to cause his face to swell and make him bleed fairly heavily from the ears...

(since the only other thing that can do that seems to be overusing powers, which doesn't seem likely given that he's still chipped at this point)

To this, supposedly within the next day-ish:

He looks startlingly normal. Tired and upset, yes (as usual, and understandably so), but unharmed.

In fact, shortly after that, both versions of this guy are not-concussed enough to play chess?

(see: the change in hairstyle)

Like. I know characters aren't real, but for reference: I smacked my head on the ice two years ago and got a moderately bad concussion from it. I was stuck in bed for 2+ weeks because I couldn't function (in like...multiple ways).

But somehow this guy is well enough to play chess and formulate an escape plan within a day or so? I don't buy it.

In fact, based on the visible symptoms and likely point of impact...

That injury puts him at risk of death:

And you'd probably go "Oh but James, One chats with El about Papa hurting him, though, so those two ought to be the same guy" to which I'd go "This guy? This guy shouldn't be able to do that". Regenerative healing or not, he should be knocked on his ass for a while (see: Two after the shock collar incident, which was arguably a less severe injury), especially with a device like Soteria in him inhibiting only Papa knows what.

Actually, given that we supposedly start NINA on Sept. 4th, 1979 and the massacre happens on Sept. 8th...I'd say, if we're being shown things even somewhat chronologically, he shouldn't come back at all. If he's not dead, then he should be down for the count.

And here comes the tentative theory bit:

I wonder if he doesn't come back. Can we say for certain what happened to this version of One? He's likely not the One playing chess or asking El if she wants a challenge. He clearly isn't even well enough to be standing anytime soon.

And so, in a sort-of backtrack-y topic-shift way, I want to address the scene that we know directly precedes the plinko/torture scene.

Now...I know I, personally, have always wondered why they kept One around for so long when he's practically useless to them. What if they were just waiting for the next One to pop up? Something about Sith always coming in pairs, master and apprentice...Brenner's got a fair bit of Palpatine coding, after all.

And Brenner knows One isn't loyal to him. Brenner knows One is making moves in silence or whatever. So, like I said (except in SW terms), how improbably would it be that he was just biding his time with One until he could find a new "apprentice" and discard him, someone to replace his first, failed "student"?

I have more to say about Brenner and Palpatine (and William Bell, for that matter), but that's a matter for another post (I can only fit so many pictures, and it would be a real tangent anyway).

All this to say:

With One proving himself disloyal and a threat to Brenner's authority, which Brenner is clearly shown to be aware of:

And with El having defeated Brenner's current most promising student:

Only to immediately follow up with this torture/injury scene...

I think there's a fair chance that this version of One may have died or been killed.

Which would, then, be sufficient motivation to prompt a massacre scenario to both paint Brenner in a trustworthy light/re-center El's loyalty and get El to step into her full powers/take One's place as Brenner's most powerful test subject, much akin to Sith apprenticeship turnover.

This would solve not only the question of why this type of scenario might happen, but also the question of where One, in this version, might have gone.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

After that gorgeous sequel rant, would you be willing to share your thoughts on reylo?

Ugh.

Once again, that is the most succinct, easiest, answer I can supply. But it's so short, and that just won't do.

I mentioned in a recent post that Dramione comes in a myriad of disguises. Every fandom usually has at least one Dramione ship, you can usually guess which characters the ship will consist of, and while you might not be able to articulate exactly what about it makes it so damn similar to Dramione you will recognize it on sight.

Usually, to me, a Dramione ship features a strong, independent, female lead who may be varying levels of sexually empowered, varying levels of intelligent (Hermione loves to tell us how smart she is but it's not the heart of the ship), is strong, courageous, and noble who depending on the story du jour might slide into depravity.  The real give away is her love interest, always a man, usually a young man of comparable age, who has the bad boy appeal that's not too bad boy where he often is redeemed to the good side for 'reasons' in the course of the story.

Reylo is such a Dramione pairing.

You don't believe me? Look at the authors who write it, I haven't done this too often myself, but I guarantee you that a not small majority of them will either write Draco/Hermione or will have it all over their favorites and bookmarks. It's the same damn pairing.

But worse.

Because Kylo-Ren and Rey aren't really characters.

"Whoa, hold up!", you say, "That's just slander and uncalled for!" Well, change my mind. Rey Palpatine and Kylo-Ren are a series of character tropes and archetypes thrown to us by Disney screaming "LOVE MY CHARACTERS".

Rey is our noble, very Luke like, hero who is a scrappy desert rat with overwhelming mystical powers only acknowledged when the movies feel like acknowledging them (guys, admit Rey kicked Kylo-Ren's ass every time they fought with 0 training, come on, it's not hard).

However, there is nothing underneath her surface. Her hero worship of the resistance feels dull and given to her because it's expected. Of course Rey likes the resistance! The resistance is great! Sign her up! Rey has been living in the desert at the edge of nowhere for presumably 15 years, I'm shocked she's even heard of the new republic let alone the resistance. Despite essentially starving and only having a home that's a broken down old fighter, Rey saves a random droid. We're not really given a compelling reason of why she would do this, that she has a deep respect for droids/is horrified by their use, really really really hates the random trader she sells things to, or really really really hates the empire (if she even realizes it's them behind the bounty). She does it just so that a) the plot keeps moving b) to show Rey is... noble... I guess?

Remember that even Luke (who I have some problems with as a character) started his journey with more backstory and personality than this. Luke loved the empire and desperately wanted to become a pilot. He was very put out that his aunt and uncle kept saying, "Uh, no, bad idea." Luke was ready to skip town and sign on up for flight academy, he just got distracted by pretty women, er, his sister.

So, Rey is never given a compelling reason to do any of the things she does in the series. Just vague feelings of hero worship. And, of course, the drama over her parents. Just... I feel like Disney took out a hat, put a bunch of pieces of paper with words on them, and drew out the one that said "orphan angst about parents" and said "See, now she's conflicted! What a character!"

So yeah, Rey is your cardboard generic hero who is so generic she's not even a person. She has no hopes, no dreams, no fears, just these vague things we're told as an audience she cares about but never shown in any legitimate manner. Rey likes the resistance and rando droids, Rey imprints on Han Solo as the father she never had, Rey has this thing about her parents, Rey is attracted to Kylo Ren.

And that last one, oh boy that last one. It sold me less on the attraction to Kylo Ren than... oh... I don't know... Palpatine's secret Sith planet of doom. I mean, we all saw it coming, The Last Jedi it was very clear where that was going and then Abrams went for it even harder. But what we had was a series of skype conversations where Rey went from "Gr, you killed my pseudo father!" and Kylo-Ren responding, "Yeah, well he was my real father AND HE WAS SO MEAN" to "Oh Ben, I will fly to you through space and we shall save the galaxy together!"

I am given no reason to believe Rey's change of heart. Han Solo's death just suddenly... doesn't really mean much to her anymore (the man was murdered by his son in cold blood so that his son could feel better about himself). She believes Ben Solo is good now because Luke is a dick (never mind that, no matter what a dick Luke is, Ben Solo still murdered dozens of children and then went on to gleefully massacre his way through the galaxy). We're told there's a Force Dyad, which is um... not this thing the writer's made up because they were too lazy to convince me that Kylo-Ren and Rey would end up together in any organic way.

So, yeah, why does Rey like Kylo-Ren? Because the Force told her too? Because it was somehow all Snoke's fault in a way that's never properly described? (Indeed despite us spending quite a bit of time on Kylo-Ren's decision to remain Kylo-Ren being a very internalized thing) Because we saw him shirtless in yoga pants this one time?

It's bad when that last is actually the most legitimate reason I can think of out of the whole lot.

Now let's go to Kylo-Ren. If Rey is boring and nonsensical then Kylo-Ren is a dumpster fire and non-sensical. The guy reminds me a lot of Commodus from the film "Gladiator", the man is cowardly, vile, and murders his father in despair that his father never will be capable of loving him/passes him over for the throne. Kylo-Ren's murder of Han Solo is extremely similar to the murder of Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator". Han Solo is a flawed father, trying to make his peace with his son, who approaches him unarmed and Kylo-Ren decides to murder him in order to solidify his place in the dark side.

Only, the films never acknowledge that every action Kylo-Ren takes is horrifying.

We're told "oh, Kylo-Ren exists because evil Snoke corrupted him" but also shown repeatedly that Kylo-Ren chooses the darkest path again and again and again. He "struggles with the light" but I don't see it. His opening scene, he has massacred a village and is torturing a man for information (this is presumably a daily routine for him). In the same film he later tortures Rey for information. He serves on a Death Star which wipes out billions in an instant. He murders his father to feel good about himself. He dresses as a man who was reviled and feared throughout the galaxy, a man who murdered countless children, and a man who dressed the way he did because he was barely hanging onto life, because Kylo-Ren thinks it makes him look like a badass. Think about it, this is like if a fully abled Kylo-Ren is wheeling around in a wheel chair, perfectly capable of walking, because he thinks that Professor X is so cool. Now, replace Professor X with Hitler, this is what the movies gave us.

Yet, the films seem to take it for granted that Kylo-Ren is a redeemable character. He's just lost and misguided, he's really struggling with the light and dark side! They don't just tell us this over and over again (which they do) but also just assume we know it.

And base the entire Reylo pairing off of it. Reylo believed Kylo-Ren could be redeemed, they battle Snoke together, then Kylo-Ren stabs her in the back and continues the assault on the Resistance and asks her to be his Dark Queen (TM). Reylo is shocked and appalled, I'm just wondering what movie she thought she was watching, because that was coming a mile away.

Later, when Kylo-Ren is redeemed, we're never given a reason why it happens. Leia just gives him a nagging, one word, phone call and then Han Solo shows up to go, "Ben, are you going to do the right thing?" and Ben goes, "Mumble, grumble, fine" because there's only an hour left in the last film.

Kylo-Ren, like Rey, is the writers' desperate attempt to create a compelling anti-hero with all the anti-hero sauce we love. They just won't admit they made an overgrown genocidal toddler.

Wow, this turned into why I hate both Rey and Kylo Ren, but, uh, back to the ship. Basically, the films give me 0 reason to ever believe it, and even if I wanted to, even if I said "Alright brain, let's make these characters real people for once", I still wouldn't like it. Because the ship itself is just as flat as the characters. It's spicy but not too spicy bad boy gets together with strong female lead.

I know a lot of people enjoy this, and I won't say it's any less legitimate than any of the weirdness I ship, but I'm not one of them. And the whole thing just makes me go "ugh".

[reallybadfeeling]

My Obikin Playlist Masterpost

I'm gonna try to explain my reasoning, but you can give each song whatever interpretation you want. Also, use them however you want if any of them inspire you to make something creative.

(PS: Sorry for my ranting on the first song. I'm very passionate about it in particular.) (Tagging @imtryingsstuff because she asked for it. Even though I was already working on this post before she asked. I have way too much free time.)

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❧ Heart + Bones - Roisin O

I've tried to sit down and write this song out Feels like a thousand times But I was always too scare of what I might find But if I keep on blocking this pain out It might be too late To heal my heart somehow Don't wanna open that wound Don't wanna replay that night Don't wanna think about you You are no longer mine Don't wanna write you a love song When I know that love is gone 'Cause if I let myself think of you I might lose my mind It's the heart and bones It's an empty soul The dreams at night that shake me to my core And I can't get up off this floor It's in the bones of me An empty soul in me The dreams at night that shake me to my core I can't get off this floor [...] Don't wanna think about you When you're no longer mine Don't wanna write you a love song When I know this love is gone [...] The dreams at night that shake me to my core I just can't take this hurting anymore [...] Don't wanna think about you You are no longer mine Don't wanna write you a love song When I know this love is gone 'Cause if I let my mind think of you I might lose it all I've tries to sit down and write this song out Feels like a thousand times

A fair warning: each and every break-up song in this playlist is basically me crying at the idea of a very heart broken Obi-Wan post RotS alone on Tatooine. But for this song in particolar I mention the repetitions with the slight differences because in my eyes they are actually HUGE! The more the song goes on, the more Obi-Wan is spiraling! The way it specifically tells that the empty soul is his the second time, like he accepts that despite what Anakin did he still thinks there's a soul there to save, and the idea of not doing so makes his soul feel empty. And the switch from "get up off this floor" to "get off this floor", literally him being so desperate he stops thinking that he wants to get up (and the last time it literally becomes "i just can't take this hurting anymore", because Obi-Wan had to see so many people he loves die, he literally can't take any more breaking of his heart). The first "you are no longer mine" is the realization hitting him, but then it becomes "when you are no longer mine" and that feels like acceptance of that realization (but then later in the song it turns back to "you are no longer mine" like he's so desperate he wants to deny it once again, distance himself from it)! The switch from "that love" from "this love", like the first time he's thinking about how Anakin no longer loves him, but then realizes that no matter how much he still loves Anakin, there is actually nothing he can do about how everything is broken. But most of all the first time it's "if I let myself think of you I might lose my mind", which is Obi-Wan still being rational about things, or at least trying not to let his mind linger on the thought of Anakin; but then at the end it becomes "if I let my mind think of you I might lose it all", because he's already thinking about Anakin and he can't let his mind linger on it, otherwise he would realize how much he lost when he lost Anakin, which is everything. And the ending too, by repeating the start, but now it has a feeling of resignation to it, like at first he was literally scared to let himself linger on his feelings because he knew he would find heart break, but now he's just empty and at the same times he knows he'll feel like that a thousand times more, because he just can't let that hurt go, he can't let his love for Anakin be forgotten. ... I love this song and it shows. I mean, the playlist is literally named after it for a good reason. I swear I'll be less wordy for every other explanation.

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❧ Black Hole - Griff

It seems like things are going really well for you I wish that I could say the same about me too I wish that I could say the same [...] Without a trace You disappeared and took some of me with you, babe Like the way I used to laugh untile my belly ached Well, that's all gone away now And boy, you know I've tried to pray, I've bruised my knees I've tried to bring you back to me I've tried my best to find some kind of peace Don't you see? There's a big black hole where my heart used to be And I've tried my best to fill it up with things I don't need It don't work like that, no, it's not easy To fill this gap that you left in me

So, I see this as a song for an AU, maybe a Modern Au. Something basic like the two of them maybe being neighbors and Obi-Wan maybe being a tutor for Anakin when he was a teen, and Anakin having a huge crush on him. But then Obi-Wan marries and Anakin is heart broken. (Don't worry the idea is also that Obi-Wan gets a divorce and comes back to Anakin, but still, the song fits for the first part of this idea). But feel free to see whatever else you want in it.

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❧ Gone, Gone, Gone - Phillip Phillips

I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bride To make you well, to make you well When enemies are at your door I'll carry you away from war [...] Give me reasons to believe That you would do the same for me And I will do it for you, for you Baby, I'm not moving on I'll love you long after you're gone

This is honestly a classic. It would fit with any ship, but that line about lying, cheating, etc... That screams Anakin. Like, literally canon that he would do anything to keep the person he loves with him.

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❧ What You Talking About? - Peter Bjorn and John

You used to be my hero Now you're just another boss [...] Five years as your understudy When I can't understand what you talking about [...] Tell me lies and I will listen Tell the truth and I'll be gone Tell me why I need permission [...] Shining in your shadow How could I sink this low? Our acquaintance has been so-so And I can't understand where my patience's gone

These lyrics just give me very frustrated Anakin as a Padawan trying to navigate his relationship with Obi-Wan. Not very romantic or shippy, but still relevant in my opinion.

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❧ Bruci la città - Irene Grandi

(Let) The city burn down or live in fear (that) within two hours everything will disappear anything else will disappear [...] I can't stop (myself) from screaming That I hold you to my heart To protect you from evil That I wish I could soothe Your pain, your pain [...] (Let) The stars explode (Let) The whole thing explode (Let) Everything other than the two of us die At least for a little bit At least as a mistake [...] I want to get my act together Maybe be better And shield you with my heart From catastrophe and fear

Don't really know why, but this makes me think of a quiet moment in the middle of the Clone Wars, just Anakin and Obi-Wan alone in a tent, hoping to have a moment of peace in each other's arms. (If you want the full lyrics translated let me know, I just picked my favorite parts)

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❧ Atlantis - Seafret

We got here the hard way All those words that we exchange Is it any wonder things get dark? 'Cause it's in my heart, it's in my head I never take back the things I said [...] I can't save us My Atlantis, we fall We've built this town on shaky ground [...] Now all the birds have fled The hurt just leaves me scared Losing everything I've ever known It's all become too much Maybe I'm not built for love If I knew that I could reach you, I would go

SO MUCH OBI-WAN ANGST POST-ROTS! Like, the birds that have fled are the Jedi that survived Order 66, the things impossible to take back a reference to the entire conversation between Anakin and Obi-Wan during their duel... And the one thing that always breaks me: "maybe I'm not built for love", which makes me think about that "infinte sadness" thing that comes from one of the novels. *chef kiss*

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❧ No Time To Die - Billie Eilish

I should have known I'd leave alone Just goes to show That the blood you bleed is just the blood you owe We were a pair [...] You were my life, but like is far away from fair Was I stupid to love you? Was I reckless to help? Was it obvious to everybody else? That I'd fallen for a lie You were never on my side [...] I let it burn You're no longer my concern Faces from my past return Another lesson yet to learn

Don't know about you, but this always makes me think of a lonely and bitter Obi-Wan after RotS. There's also another way of reading this honestly. This could absolutely be Anakin spiraling at the end of RotS, convinced that Padmé doesn't love him anymore; and then Vader facing Luke (the face from the past returning) and realizing the one who always lied to him was Palpatine.

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❧ White Flag - Dido

I know I left too much mess and Destruction to come back again And I caused nothing but trouble I understand if you can't talk to me again And if you live by the rules of "it's over" Then I'm sure that that makes sense But I will go down with this ship And I won't put my hands up and surrender There will be no white flag above my door I'm in love and always will be And when we meet Which I'm sure we will All that was there Will be there still I'll let it pass And hold my tongue And you will think That I've moved on

There's no doubt that this song has been overused. And it is a very classic meme, so sometimes it's hard to take it seriously. But I still love it. And I can't help but relate this to something with Vader trying to redeem himself but failing at that too, and his and Obi-Wan's relationship still being broken as fuck.

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❧ Fight the End - The playground

When it's all falling apart I'll be the one who can hold you Console you When everything's getting dark And you can't find the spark To get through I'll fight for you till the end Whatever's broken I'll mend For you If you think it's all gone Just breathe in and hold on Till the end of time

Once again, just some H/C during the Clone Wars kind vibes, but also good for an apocalypse AU of some kind.

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❧ Hanging On A Lie - Striking Matches

I'm not mentioning a specific part of this song, because the entire thing in my head is just the whole journey of Anakin turning to the Dark Side and then turning back to the Light right before he died. Seriously, up until the first chorus, it's just Anakin talking about what he feels like about Padmé's supposed betrayal. ("Baby you've been up to something / don't you tell me it's not what it looks like" but also "I might have been naive but I'm not blind" and "Don't you know you should know better than this / Than to cover up the truth with your poisonous lips/I'm not falling for it this time"). The second half of the song is Vader facing Luke. ("I'll be the one who got away from you when you / finally figure it out / you won't find me"). And the last part is Vader realizing all the lies Palpatine told him all alon. ("I'm not fallin' for it this time/try and try too little too late" and again the "you should know better than this/than to cover up the truth with you poisonous lips") A bit of a weird interpretation, that's for sure. But look at me making a song about cheating all about Anakin's journey!

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❧ Bloodsport '15 - Raleigh Ritchie

Your love is worth it and for that I will wait And though you hate me when you have a turn I drive you crazy, but you always return [...] Although you love me, sometimes we're mean Things can get ugly, but we're still a team We are an army that breaks from withing but That's why we're stronger and that's how we'll win [...] I've got your back, and though it's stacked against us I've got your hand, it's us against consensus And I will burn the people who hurt you the worst and I will no learn Cause I am too young and too dumb to consider the terms of breaking the law And I'll curse the day that they return With a smile on my face as their heads hit the floor And they're done, now it's curtains, the bloodlust's a clusterfuck, it hurts but it's working And even if you ask me to stop, it's too late because I've already decided their fate It's not a distaste, it's pure hate and it pulsates and it works its way around my brain Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I'll protect you till the day I meet my maker So don't fight me now cause you might need me later Loving you is a bloodsport Fighting in a love war It's not what I'm in love for, I'm yours I don't know if you can help it, maybe I'm just being selfish

Soooo, basically Anakin doing to Obi-Wan what he did to Padmé: loving him so much he thinks he has to turn to the Dark Side to save him. The first part I can almost imagine said by Obi-Wan, actually. Like, he's aware that sometimes Anakin hates their dynamics, but also that they are both in love... Which just ends with total madness.

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❧ Sweet Love of Mine - Joy Williams

I was broken, I was blind Lost in a moment I thought I left behind Then you woke up this dark soul of mine Carrying a light I thought I'd never find When you found me, I was all alone The whole world around me, but nowhere to call home I heard your voice sing like heaven's choir Gathered up my fears and threw them in the fire

I'm well aware this song is about pregnancy and how the singer found herself in the experience of becoming a mother. BUT, hear me out: what about an AU with either one of them being a Sith and the other one is still a Jedi. Instead of fighting each other, the Jedi tries to save the Sith, because they realize that the Sith actually never had a chance to be anything else since they grew up with a Sith as their "parent" and Master. But if we still want to keep the pregnancy element, fuck it! It's perfect for an Omegaverse AU, with Anakin maybe about to fall when he finds out he's pregnant and that is how Obi-Wan and their unborn child save Anakin. (Is this very specific? Yes. Do I care? Nope, and that's why this song made it into the playlist.)

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❧ Senza fare sul serio - Malika Ayane

There's a post on my blog already about why this song makes me think about the Jedi Order in general. I know I should probably keep it in a different playlist. Alas, it's still here. Have a link to my previous post if you are interested on reading a complete translation and the explanation of my reasoning. HERE!

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❧ Conversations in the Dark - John Legend

I will never try to change you, change you I will always want the same you, same you Swear on everything I pray to That I won't break your heart I'll be there when you get lonely, lonely Keep the secrets that you told me, told me And your love is all you owe me And I won't break your heart [...] And we, we got places we both gotta be But there ain't nothing I would rather do Then blow off all my plans for you

It's just such a lovely love song, I couldn't help myself. This seriously gives me sappy Obi-Wan vibes in any way, shape or form.

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❧ If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You - The Wombats

You know I'll do Whatever you want me to [...] Take you out of this You reluctant optimist And if you ever leave, I'm coming with you Stuck to the gum that's stuck on your shoe If you ever leave, I'm coming with you [...] Am I losing you in the dark baby? No more breaking stuff No more acting up Filling your head with doubt

A song about the obsessive kind of love that hints of a way too dependent relationship? Something that mentions losing themselves in the dark? Of fucking course I relate this to Anakin and the way he loves people!

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❧ Transplant - Sea Girls

You're breaking all the promises tonight I'm always dancing by myself as the music plays I'm always one step behind, off-beat, out of place Now I'm looking for you, you're looking away [...] Your heart changed Mine stayed the same I don't recognize your voice when you're saying my name Your heart changed And mine beats the same way [...] Wish I could be back in the moment We were shining, we were making mistakes 'Til your heart changed Mine stayed the same

Have I mentioned that I have a lot of RotS feels? Yeah, so, in my head the "dancing" works like an analogy to fighting and the "music" is literally the sound of battle. Which is why this fits perfectly as far as I'm concerned. An even the "always one step behind" part is just Obi-Wan not realizing Anakin was slowly turning to the Dark Side. But it can be related also to how Anakin basically felt like he didn't truly belong with the Jedi.

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❧ Read my Mind - JONES

Can't control my thoughts But I'm trying every day [...] But sometimes I want impossible things When you hear my voice, what does it say? Need a language, we're lost in translation From impossible thoughts and feelings Why don't you know before I know? What I need to say, before I can How come you don't have the answer Before I asked you the question? Wish you could read my mind [...] It's been a long time since we've been together In the same world, just want you to look at me Like I was everything you ever wanted again [...] Just hold me like I'm everything you wanted again

A good song of the two people pining will always make me think of those two dorks. And their feeling are definitely lost in translation even in canon, with Anakin never realizing how much Obi-Wan actually cares for him because of Palpatine's manipulations.

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❧ So Much It Hurts - Niki & The Dove

Oh, I ask you where you've been 'Cause you always come home late nowadays What a fool was I to think we were safe From the thieves in the temple [...] Oh, won't you bring it back? After all that we've been through together Is it now you gonna throw it all away? Oh, a love like ours Tell me, was it worth it? Oh, the thieves in the temple Oh, but you said that For better for worse You would always be there for me Always be there for me Always be there for me like I'll always be there for you Good times and bad times

So this screams Padmé being cheated on. Like, Anakin still married to her, yet he is always sneaking away after they spend time together to be in the Temple with Obi-Wan. Like, Obi-Wan is literally the thief in the Temple that steals Anakin away from her. (Which I'm sure is actually a metaphor for how the couples' marriage is the temple and someone is disrespecting it by taking away the other's lover. But look at me making this literal, 'cause why not!).

❣🅞🅑🅘🅚🅘🅝❣

❧ Power & Control - Marina

Give a little, get a lot That's just how you are with love [...] Think you're funny, think you're smart Think you're gonna break my heart Think you're funny, think you're smart Yeah, you may be good looking But you're not a piece of art [...] Power and control I'm gonna make you fall I'm gonna make you fall We give and take a little more 'Cause all my life I've been controlled You can't have peace without a war

Another song for an AU, this time one with both of them being Sith, most likely being enemies too at first. Before they decide to work together against Anakin's Master.

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❧ No Hero - Elisa

Don't you shut your eyes And hide you heart behind a shadow 'Cause you can count on me As long as I can breathe [...] I've fallen from grace Yeah, I'm much less a saint than a sinner Oh, no I ain't no superhuman 'Cause that's just in the movies, I know But I'll carry you throught the night Through the storm Give you love, always love in return I can't jump over buildings I'm no hero But love can do miracles I can't outrun a bullet 'Cause I'm no hero But I would take one for you [...] 'Cause I'm no hero But I'd spill my blood for you If you need me to I'll be there

Another song from an Italian artist, but this one is in English! And I totally see this song for a scenario where one of the two isn't a Jedi or even for a Modern AU. But it can totally work for Canon compliant too because Anakin is the one every calls hero with no fear. It fits then if Obi-Wan tells Anakin that he doesn't feel like a hero, but he would do anything for Anakin.

☙ ✤ ❧ ☙ ✤ ❧ ☙ ✤ ❧ ☙ ✤ ❧ ☙ ✤ ❧ ☙ ✤ ❧

SOOOO, this post is getting way to long (like, it was way too long even just with the first song). And I made it to an even 20 songs. I feel like this a nice place to stop for now. Don't worry, these are just the first 20. I have more in my private playlist, but I want to make another post like this when I add them to the public one. Because I can. And that's what I'm gonna do.

[tryingmybestpls]

Fallingforyou (Poe Dameron x Skywalker!Reader)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Skywalker!Reader

Summary: Post TROS. Reader is the daughter of Leia Organa and Han Solo and since the fall of the First Order, she finally has a moment to mourn the loss of her family.

Rating: T

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: Talk of death, feeling guilty, angst, all around sad

Poe's hand stayed in between your thighs as you attempt to force yourself to listen to whatever Finn had decided talk everyone's ear off about. You sure it was important and interesting. You watched as everyone else laughed at whatever he said and you forced yourself to smile, playing along. You were sure that you were doing an amazing job at it because the others at the table didn’t bat an eye.

Everything felt and sounded like it was underwater. You had just been trying to enjoy your lunch-well as much as anyone could with everything that was going on. But then again, it wasn't like you were actually eating. All you had been doing as moving the food around with your utensil. You were just sitting with the others as they ate. Rey was also talking, but your thoughts were now turning to focus on the man sitting beside you and the hand between your legs.

The placement of his hand wasn't inherently sexual and it being there didn't make you think of sex-well now it was-but it was something else. If anything it just kept you grounded. That was something you desperately needed right now. You needed to hold onto something and you were glad that Poe was sitting next to you. It reminded you of where you were. It let you know that you still had someone.

The past few days had been...difficult-to say the least.

Your mother died and then only a few hours later, Rey died, and then after reviving Rey, your brother Ben died as well. The last two remaining members of your family gone within a single day and just like with your father and your Uncle Luke, you never got the chance to say goodbye. You were the very last Skywalker, the last Solo. Maker, you hated it. The lightsaber on your waist felt heavier and heavier every time you slipped it into its leather holster. What good was it in the end? It didn't save your family, didn't stop them from dying. Maybe you should give it to Rey, have her bury yours along with your mother's and Uncle Luke's. It would have more use in the sand.

You felt nothing as you sat there with Poe, Rey, and Finn. Everything was numb. Finn and Poe (like everyone else that was left in the Galaxy) were relieved that the First Order was gone, but of course they were saddened by the death of your mother. Rey mourned both your mother and Ben, but she still saw the good in the situation, whatever what that might be. You, in this moment, felt nothing. You were feeling both too much and nothing at the same time. Rey and Finn were still talking about something, something that was important you were sure. It's always important.

And then there was Poe, who had started to move his thumb side to side, bringing you out of your dark thoughts. You were incredibly grateful for the man sitting next to you. You probably would've gone insane without him. The sound came back to the environment around you and now Rey was responding to whatever Finn had just said. You turned your head to look at Poe, his eyes already on you. Worry was etched deep into his face. You reached down and put your hand on top of his. Poe immediately intertwined his fingers with yours, squeezing your hand. He raised your hand to his lips, kissing the back of your hand. The action made the corner of your mouth turn upwards.

"Everything okay?" Rey asks, making the two of you turn to look at her. You sit up a little straighter, still holding his hand like it could keep you tethered to the ground. She is studying you, like she could read your thoughts, but Uncle Luke had taught you how to block anyone out so there was no way she knew what you were thinking.

"Yeah, I'm just tired." You try to explain away, but Finn and Rey both know you're lying. Everyone is grieving, but they know it's hitting you the hardest. However, your mother raised to always be strong in extremely difficult situations and that's what you were going to do.  Rey and Finn looked from you to Poe and back to you. Poe suddenly dropped your hand, wiping at his face. He looks at you, pushing his tray of food away from him.

"Kriff-Y/N, we are going to be late. Sorry guys, but we will have to continue this later on." Poe lies effortlessly and part of you want to ask he learned to lie this good when he was a spice runner. Instead of doing that, you just find yourself going along with what Poe is saying. You push your tray of uneaten food away. The two of you stand and walk out of the cafeteria. Poe's hand rested on the small of your back as he leads you towards the bedroom the two of you share. A wave exhaustion suddenly washes over you, the same one that has been washing over you every day since you got back from Exegol.

"Have I told you today how much I love you?" You say with a tired smile on your face. Poe chuckles, pressing his lips against your temple.

"You have." He tells you, punching in the code to enter the room. Poe guides you inside, watching you as you take your lightsaber out of its holster, the leather belt following soon after. Both items rest alongside his blasters that he sets aside, his holsters joining the other items. You kick off your boots, his following after. It's the same routine you two have been doing everyday.

"I feel bad about you lying to them." You say softly as you sit on the bed. Poe shakes his head, moving to his side of the bed. The bed seemingly envelops you as you lay down. Poe pulls you into his chest, pressing his lips against your forehead.

"They understand, Y/N. They more than understand." Poe responds, his arms wrapping around you. You felt bad about feeling bad, no matter how many times Poe told you it was okay to feel upset. Everyone around you has lost the people they love. You weren't special. Your chest ached as your throat started to tighten.

"Breathe, please." Your boyfriend says softly, tucking some of your hair behind your ear. You let out a shakily breath, tears brimming in your eyes. It felt as if your chest was being crushed and stabbed all at once, like your chest was caving in and your ribs were stabbing at your lungs. Poe cups your cheek, his thumb brushing against your skin. Concern is written all his face, like it has been every time he looks at you. You hated it, hated that he was worried about you rather than everything else.

Death walked hand in hand with your family. Your grandmother died after she gave birth to your mother and uncle. Your grandfather was killed by Palpatine. Your father was killed by your brother. Uncle Luke died while fighting your brother. Your mother died trying to turn your brother away from the dark side and Ben gave his life to save Rey. You felt guilty to be alive. Part of you felt like you should be with all

of them. Felt like you needed to be reunited with your family.

You just didn't understand why you got to live when everyone else around you died.

"Hey-Hey, breathe. Breathe." Poe smoothes out your hair as tears start running down your face.  You wanted to stop the pain in your chest, wanted to stop how your throat felt raw.

You hated how you either felt nothing or your felt this immense pain all over. It was the worse pain you've ever experienced and you've felt a lot of pain in your life.

Poe wrapped his arms tighter around you, his hand rubbing your back in an attempt to soothe you. You were most conflicted about mourning your brother. Kylo-Ben-He hurt a lot of people. He killed your father, caused your Uncle's death, and caused the death of thousands of others across the Galaxy. He's hurt everyone around you and yet-yet you still missed him. You missed him like you missed your mother, father, and uncle. However, you couldn't talk about it with anyone because everyone around you (except Rey) hated Ben and rightfully so.

"It-It just hurts so much." You finally get out, the words feeling like knives as they come out of your throat. You rest your head against his chest, tears staining his white shirt. You haven't talked about any of it with anyone, not in depth. Poe understood you were mourning and you missed your family greatly, but you kept the rest to yourself. You didn't want to worry him, worry the others. So you kept silent, kept it yourself.

"I know, baby. I know." Poe responds, kissing the top of your head. He's doing his best to try to help you, but you know that he fully doesn't know how he's going to do that.

He's all you got. Poe's the last little bit of happiness you got in the galaxy and that absolutely terrifies you. It doesn't matter that everything seems okay right now because you know that eventually something will fill the void the First Order created. You know that it'll seek you out and it'll come for the people you love. Your Dad and grandmother weren't Skywalkers, but that evil sure as hell came after both them due to their attachments to Skywalkers. You'll never be able to fully protect Poe or Finn or Rey. You start crying a little harder, way more than you did than when you felt your father die, when you felt your mother leave this world. You cried harder than you did when you watched your brother die in Rey's arms in Exegol. It was like the dam holding back everything has been released.

"Don't leave me. Please. Don't leave me, Poe." You tell him in between sobs, looking up at the man. His face looks pained as wipes away his tears with your thumb. He knows he can't fully promise you that. Life isn't promised, especially with what you two do. It doesn't matter that the First Order is gone. Things can always go wrong.

"I won't, Y/N. I won't." Poe's voice is soft and it should comfort you, but it didn't.

You were selfish. You wanted your family back, wanted them here with you. You needed your parents, your uncle, your brother. You should be already grateful that you had Poe and your friends. That was way more than most people had in the Galaxy. You weren't the only person that has experienced a loss of this magnitude. Maker, look at Rey. She was the granddaughter of Palpatine. Both her parents were murdered and she grew up a scavenger on the piece of garbage that is Jakku. You grew up the daughter of a Princess. You had no reason to complain.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry." You hiccup as he kisses your forehead. Poe didn't know why you were apologizing and you weren't about to explain it to him. Your shoulders were shaking with every sob that wracked your body. You felt bad about this whole situation, pushing your feelings onto him. He shouldn't be having to sit here and hold your hand through this whole situation. Your boyfriend is the General now-well co-General now. He should be out there, leading alongside Finn, not in here with you. He needed to be out there, doing the job that was handed to him. You were sure he didn’t want you crying over Ben, someone who tortured your boyfriend and tried to have all of you killed, but he knew that Ben was still your brother. Poe wipes away your tears as they fall. He shifts in the bed, sitting up slightly and pulling you on top of him. Poe holds you in his arms, letting you lay on him.

You really, really didn't deserve him.

"Don't be sorry, princess. Please don't be sorry. Just breathe, okay?" He reminds you, his hand continuing to smooth your hair. You nod your head slightly, his arm tightening around you as he continues, "I'm here, Y/N. I'm right here."

You didn't know why he had stayed. Why he continued to stay with you. There was just so many more options around him. He was obviously close to Zorii, something that went further than them just being colleagues. Hell, at first you thought he had a thing for Lieutenant Connix until Poe told you that he was crushing on you. Everyone around you-male, female, everyone-were wrapped around Poe's finger. He could have anyone he wanted and for some reason, he chose you. In this moment, you just couldn't understand why.

"I love you so much, Y/N." Poe murmurs to you, pressing his lips to the top of your head again. You wondered how he knew exactly what you needed to hear when you needed it. He tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear as he looks down at you, "You know that right? You know what I love you?"

"I-I know. I love you too." You respond, looking up at your boyfriend. Poe still looks as worried as ever as he wipes away a few more tears. You lay your head back down onto his chest, trying to calm yourself down, listening to the beating of his heart. You calm down your breathing, evening it out.

"I'm right here with you, okay? I'm not going anywhere." Poe continues, shifting again to get in a more comfortable position. You just nod in response. You were extremely grateful for Poe and everything he has done for you and your family. You also have never been more in love with someone. Maker, you madly in love with him. The dissolving of your parents’ union had made you wary of ever finding someone to be attached to someone in that way, but then Poe Dameron walked into your life.

And the women in your family always had a weak spot for cocky pilots that were damn good at what they do.

You leaned up and kiss his jaw, the scruff covering his skin scratching you slightly. The action made a small smile appear on his face, cracking through the layers of worry. It made you press another kiss against his skin, wanting him not to stress out over you anymore.

You don't know if you'll ever feel like you did before all of this. Before your parents died, before your Uncle gave his life, before Ben gave his. When you were happy and carefree and all you cared about was carrying the Skywalker legacy. Now, you just wanted to stop this hurting. You just wanted the ache in your chest to dissipate.

Luckily-thankfully for you, you had Poe. You had someone who cared for you and loved you, who wanted to help you through all of this hurt. No matter what, you knew you had him.

And that would be enough. It just had to be.

[princepondincherry]

The Tragedy of “The Wrong Jedi”

The first time I watched the Jedi Temple bombing arc in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I was kind of uncomfortable with how it played out. I felt like it misrepresented how the Jedi Council would have handled the situation, that Anakin was going too far and uncomfortably close to the Dark Side, and that Ventress was handled strangely. But after reading a whole bunch of posts by tumblr user gffa and others about how the Jedi didn’t handle it too terribly, I’ve had to rethink my view. Thinking about it more, it’s definitely even more tragic than I realized.

I’ve got a lot to say (seriously, a massive wall of text) and, even though this is a really old show, I might as well put spoilers under the cut.

Okay, first of all: Ahsoka might not have been found innocent if she stayed in jail, but I bet she would. Barriss knocked out the guards and left Ahsoka a keycard to break out of her jail cell. As soon as she used it to break out, Ahsoka fell into the trap. If she’d just sat in the cell, eventually order would have been restored in the prison, and there would have been some sort of evidence that someone else was trying to frame her. Unless Barriss managed to spin it so it looked like Ahsoka broke out, killed some clones, and then returned to her jail cell? Seems unlikely. The genius of the trap was that breaking her out was exactly the sort of rule-breaking she’d expect Anakin to do, so I can’t blame her for falling for it.

Actually, taking a step back, the frame-job only worked because Ahsoka was an impulsive Padawan. I tried imagining how other Jedi would have reacted, and a few of them would have ended up much better. Anakin probably would have been screwed too, but a lot of more-experienced Jedi would have just begun meditating calmly in the cell and been able to follow the promptings of the Force to end up with a better outcome. In particular, Obi-Wan probably would have laughed about the key card and managed to talk his way to some sort of advantage with the clones who came to investigate. (And, of course, someone like Yoda might have just sensed Barriss like Tarkin said Ahsoka should have been able to.) None of this is Ahsoka’s fault, of course--she’s a great Jedi; she’s just in training still, and not the calmest.

Moving on, the Jedi Council expelling Ahsoka *really* bothered me, and I don’t think that’s an uncommon opinion. Other people (gffa, again) have talked at length about how they were under great pressure from the Senate, and so it wasn’t entirely their fault, but I still thought it was a terrible, if understandable, decision. They brought that the Senate was concerned they wouldn’t be impartial, but I thought, “Let the Senate be concerned. The Council *know* they’re impartial, so if Padawan Tano is guilty, they’ll find her guilty and punish her. Which, of course, is what the Senate wants. And if she’s innocent, they should support her no matter the political consequences.” But then I realized that the evidence against her was so strong at that point that the Council was probably assuming any trial would find her guilty, and the only real point of contention would be the punishment. The Jedi would probably decide on a punishment that wasn’t strong enough for the Senate’s liking. So instead, they decided that expelling her from the order *was* their punishment. It’s my opinion that this was either discussed in offscreen Council deliberations or just understood by the Councilmembers, who’ve worked together for a long time. The episode probably just didn’t make this explicitly clear because we’re intended to emotionally be on Ahsoka’s side, feeling betrayed like her, and only figure out the larger implications later with more thought and analysis. If this is true, it totally worked on me. You could definitely make a good argument that they still should have made a stand, but with public opinion and the opinion of the Senate turning against them, they had to pick and choose their battles.

                                                     THE TRIAL

The real thing that convinced me to write this post was the emotions and framing of the end of the trial, when Anakin brings Barriss forth and gets her to confess. The whole trial makes masterful use of oppositions. First, Tarkin and Padme are prosecutor and defender. They literally enter from opposite sides. Symbolically, since we know these characters, this is Grand Moff Tarkin supporting his vision of punitive control (he calls for the death penalty!) versus Senator Padme Amidala, supporting the rights and freedoms of an innocent. The symbolism and conservation of characters is nice enough that I can overlook how stupid it is that an Admiral and a Senator are the ones arguing this case or that the Chancellor of the Republic is also overseeing a trial. (Also, a Jedi accused of sedition is a BIG DEAL.)

Palpatine, of course, gives a grand speech about how Separatists have fooled the Republic before, laying on the irony as thick as he can as he accuses Ahsoka of being part of a plot to tear the Jedi Order apart. There’s an interesting interaction when Anakin breaks his stride right before he declares Ahsoka guilty, and I imagine he was torn between annoyance and his desire to have Anakin like him. And then when Barriss starts her big speech about how the Jedi have lost their way, he must be thrilled that these sentiments are getting such traction among the populace that even a Jedi espouses them and gets such a public stage to proclaim them.

Because--and this is the important part--Barriss is WRONG. - “The Jedi are the ones responsible for this war.” -- INCORRECT - “We have so lost our way that we have become villains in this conflict.”--INCORRECT. One thing that bothered me is that so much of the anti-Jedi argument is that they’re killers, but we almost always see them fighting droids. This is the most bloodless war ever, even assuming there’s a ton of offscreen collateral damage. ONSCREEN we see the Jedi avoiding collateral damage as much as possible. - “We are the ones that should be put on trial; all of us.”--No, literally just Barriss should be put on trial, for her senseless crimes. - “My attack on the Temple was an attack on what the Jedi have become--an army fighting for the dark side.”-- Incorrect on two counts. Others have explained how the Jedi are CLEARLY the good guys in this show, and more than that, her attack on the Temple was pointless murder that failed to even make a clear statement. She killed Jedi, non-Jedi workers, and clones, so I guess she was just symbolically opposing the war effort, but considering she had to explain herself before anyone guessed her motives, I don’t think she did a very good job.

Once you accept that Barriss is wrong, this becomes extremely tragic. - Anakin’s clearly struggled with the dark side over this whole arc, but he hasn’t Fallen. He’s still firmly a Jedi, firmly rooted in the Light. He lets Ventress go when he realizes she’s not responsible (which may have been a bad decision ethically, but it was probably better than just killing her), tries talking calmly to Barriss first, and sees justice done. He works within the system by making sure Ahsoka is arrested. - The music is just SO GOOD. When I was believing Barriss, the dark, dramatic music just made me more uncomfortable (”ahh, the bad guy is right?!”), but now it’s just sad. - This trial has been taking place in a Senate courtroom with the Imperial logo prominently displayed on the wall, Tarkin prosecuting, and the future Emperor presiding. But when justice is truly served, it’s by Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight opposing Palpatine, and four Jedi Guardians escorting a prisoner. And...look, in terms of iconography, those guys are awesome enough to challenge all the Imperial paraphernalia, with their masks, armor, and special yellow lightsabers. Seriously, I’m surprised over the strength of the feelings I’m having about the clash of icons here. The failing Republic/future Empire is about to perpetrate a great injustice, but in march the traditional guards of an ancient peacekeeping order in full dramatic procession to bring true justice.

Barriss and everyone else taken in by anti-Jedi propaganda fail to realize that the Jedi aren’t the cause of the problem--they’re just a bandage struggling to help people like Padme hold a failing Republic together as crime syndicates, the Sith, and more base forms of evil such as corruption tear it apart.

I’ve written waaaay too much already, so I won’t talk about it too much, but Ahsoka’s arc in season 7 supports my thoughts. Basically, that arc starts with her realizing how the common people often have at least semi-legitimate reasons to dislike the Jedi, and it ends with her realizing that she’s been acting like a Jedi the whole time (and the one hostile Martinez sister realizing that since Ahsoka’s basically a Jedi, she’s been judging the Jedi too harshly).

[bedlamsbard]

Here is the first sequence of the Other Side AU concept!  (yes, the nickname is borrowed from Fringe.)  There is...a lot of crying.  The AU is Backbone-based, but takes place before Backbone.  I am not caught up on current new canon post-RotJ and prefer Legends there anyway, so this takes more from the EU than canon on that front.

About 5.1K below the break.

***

“You know, it’s not too late to change your mind,” Luke Skywalker said. “We do have other candidates.”

Zeb grumbled something softly under his breath that was probably, “Sounds like someone who doesn’t know her very well.”

Luke flicked a glance at him, but most of his attention was on Hera.  “This is dangerous,” he said, almost apologetic.

“And the Rebellion has been a blue milk run,” Hera said.  “I’m fine.”  She folded her hands together and looked across Luke’s right shoulder.  She didn’t know him very well, had never had any particular inclination to get to know him, and at the moment didn’t feel particularly encouraged.  It wasn’t fair to him, but Hera couldn’t particularly bring herself to care, not when even being on the same ship as him brought a dull stab of pain to her heart.

Not fair.

Nothing was fair, especially nothing about the Rebellion.  But she wished he hadn’t had to be on the Ghost for this.

Luke hesitated again, then said, “All right.”  He took a deep breath.  “Are you ready?  I’ll probably only get one shot at this.”

“I’m ready.”  She looked at Zeb, who nodded slightly, and Chopper, who groaned a long protest.  She had told Jacen goodbye via holo a few hours ago; he didn’t quite understand how Mama leaving now would be different than Mama leaving normally, and Hera hoped that he wouldn’t have to understand for many years, if ever.  She had tried to explain it to her father in the same holocall and wasn’t sure she had succeeded.  Sabine had understood but had told her it was the worst idea she had heard since – well, you know, she had said, and looked like she had wished she hadn’t mentioned it.

“All right,” Luke repeated. He looked a little unnerved, which Hera took vindictive pleasure in and then felt guilty about.  “If this works, I’ll open it again every ten days – right here, all right?  It can’t be anywhere else.”

Teach your mother to feed nunas, Hera thought, giving him a sideways look.  She just said, “I understand.”

Luke nodded, swallowed, and raised his hands, releasing the artifact he had been holding.  It was a little bell-shaped construction of crystal and metal, both substances etched all over in runes that no one had been able to fully decrypt.  It could, Hera knew, very easily kill her if what they had managed to decrypt was wrong.

It hung suspended between Luke’s palms, glowing a bright, vivid blue.  A rising hum made all of them but Luke wince, Zeb’s sensitive ears flicking in disgust.  Hera kept her eyes on it, trying not to blink as the light brightened until it was all that she could see.  Her stomach turned over, but it wasn’t any worse than doing a barrel roll in an A-wing.

All at once, the light was gone.  So were Luke, Zeb, and Chopper.  Hera looked around the Ghost’s common room, making the differences in the familiar space.  Zeb’s big wooden chair was gone; the walls were bare of Sabine’s artwork. So they had probably gotten the timing right, at least.  Hera stepped towards the holotable, running her fingers over its surface and searching for the deep scar near the rightmost edge of the frame.  It was there.

Hera took a suddenly shaky breath.

Ten days, she reminded herself.  It was both a lot of time to get this wrong and no time at all. She put her head to one side and listened to the now only half-familiar sounds of the Ghost.

She hadn’t spent much time on the ship recently, and mostly it had been almost as empty as it felt now. It made Hera think of its namesake, of her old crew’s namesakes, every corner of it haunted.  She thought with enough time it might get better, less raw, but so far the war hadn’t given her that time.  Instead, she let herself be moved around the Rebel Alliance as needed, sometimes with what remained of her crew, sometimes not.  Even Chopper didn’t always stay with her, much to his protests.

This, though, had needed to be done on the Ghost, and Zeb had brought it to her from where it had been docked on Lothal for the past six months.

Luke had been right. There had been other candidates. But they all thought this might work best with her, because there weren’t many options for where she had been more than a decade ago and in a position where she would probably be willing to help.  Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon, maybe, but that was a much longer shot than Hera Syndulla.  Any Hera Syndulla.

She took another deep breath, trying to calm the sudden rapid patter of her heartbeat, and moved towards the hatch leading towards the cabins and the cockpit.  There was no rumble of the engine; the ship was docked somewhere – solid ground, Hera thought, though it could have been a space station.  The air filters seemed to be drawing a little heavier than usual, which suggested they were dirtside.  Some stations triggered that too, though, if their own filters weren’t good enough.

The short corridor between the common room and the cockpit was empty.  Hera rested her hands briefly on the cabin doors as she passed them, but there was nothing to tell her which was being used.  The cockpit hatch slid open with only the tiniest of jerks, which Sabine had repaired years ago.

Hera stepped inside, resting a hand on the back of the pilot’s chair as she looked around.  The back left chair was plain, without the distinctive paint job Sabine had given it; the back right was still the old matching chair, not the one they had had to replace six months before they had gone to Lothal.

There was a pair of black gloves sitting on the dashboard.

Hera frowned at them, trying to decide what about them struck her as familiar.  She didn’t own a pair like that at the moment, but she probably had in the past.

The scene outside the viewport was one Hera had seen hundreds of times before; the blank gray durasteel sheeting of a docking bay wall.  She leaned forward to peer out, searching around for some indication of where the Ghost was docked, but there was nothing.  It could have been any docking bay on any thousands of the planets in the galaxy.

Hera hesitated for a moment, then leaned down over the dashboard, intending to get into the Ghost’s systems to find out where – and more importantly, when – she was.  She hadn’t gotten further than turning them on when the hatch slid open behind her.

Hera turned quickly, self-conscious and achingly aware that this wasn’t her own ship, to come face to face with Kanan.

*

She had forgotten how handsome he was.

Hera still had a precious handful of holos of him, but most were from those last few years, and she had trained herself out of looking at them too often because of the dull, anguished hurt that accompanied the action.  Jacen was looking more and more like him as he grew up, but Hera didn’t see her son often either.  Increasingly the war made time feel like it was slipping through her fingers like sand; Hera held onto it with unexpected desperation, both for her own sake and for the Rebellion’s.  Palpatine’s death should have made it easier, faster; it wasn’t like that at all.  Days both flew by and spread out; sometimes Hera felt like she blinked and it had been years, sometimes she turned around and what had felt like months had only been a handful of minutes.  It was both too long and not long enough since – since Lothal.

Kanan was younger than she had expected, twenty-two or twenty-three, clean-shaven and with short-cropped hair.  There was warm affection in his clear bluish eyes as he looked at her, though Hera couldn’t miss the scars flecking his face, scars that she knew Kanan – her Kanan – hadn’t had when he had died.  He wore all black, a high-collared, long-sleeved shirt open at the neck and tight black trousers, with an unfamiliar lightsaber slung at his hip.

“I didn’t know you were back from HQ yet,” he said.

Hera opened her mouth to respond and couldn’t.  She was crying without meaning to, tears rolling down her cheeks; she had told Zeb she could handle this and she had been wrong.

Kanan took a step towards her, his expression going alarmed. “Hey,” he said gently, “what’s wrong? What happened?”  He put a hand to her cheek to wipe away her tears, warm and strong and alive, and Hera cried even harder. She wanted more than anything to step into his arms; he even smelled the same, and she could have been eighteen again, twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-seven – young and with the whole galaxy spread out before her, possibility endless, in love and with a future that could have held anything, instead of a present constricted down to a war that ground on long past when it should have ended and a child growing up without her.

Below them, the Ghost’s hatch opened.  Kanan turned his head slightly, frowning, and despite the tears blurring her vision Hera saw where a notch had been taken out of his ear.

Hera tried to breathe in gasping breaths, trying to get herself together enough to speak.  “I’m not her,” she managed to say.  “I’m not –”

She saw realization start to form on Kanan’s face, though he didn’t take his hand away.  Light steps sounded on the cockpit floor as a new arrival stepped off the ladder, followed by the sound of a blaster clearing its holster.

“No, you’re not,” said Hera Syndulla, a girl barely out of her teens wearing an ISB officer’s crisp white uniform, her green skin startling bright against the stark fabric. She held her blaster with practiced ease, right hand wrapped around the grip, left hand bracing the butt.  “Who in blazes are you?”

*

Hera could barely remember being that young.

Given her counterpart’s occupation, the other woman’s youth probably shouldn’t have even registered with her, but Hera couldn’t get past it.  When she had been that young, she had been blinkered by single-minded focus on the mission, on an end goal of destroying the Empire.  She hadn’t thought to regret it until years later, crying her heart out in that cave on Lothal.

Does he know you love him? she had thought, in that first split second when Kanan had stepped away from her, his clear-eyed gaze flickering between the two women. Do you know you love him?

And then she had seen Kanan bend his head to the other Hera and her expression soften, her body curving towards him without touching, and Hera had known that both of them knew. It was a sharp stab of jealousy that shouldn’t have bothered her after all this time, when there was nothing she could do about it.  Imperials or not, they were lucky to have that.

Hera leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the cabin door and sighed.  They had locked her into one of the empty cabins after they had searched her and taken her blaster and other possessions away.  It happened to be Sabine’s cabin, but of course Sabine wasn’t here yet so there weren’t yet explosives tucked away into every nook and cranny of it, “just in case of an emergency,” Sabine had told her once. “What kind of emergency are you expecting?” Hera had demanded.

Three days later Maul had broken onto the Ghost and taken them captive, so she might have had to take that back if they had actually had any opportunity to use all those explosives.

She could just barely hear Kanan and the other Hera talking to each other, but couldn’t make out the words through the heavy metal door.  They hadn’t given her much of a chance to say anything before they had locked her in here, but at least they hadn’t acted like most Imperials Hera had known and stunned her first.

She sighed and left the door to slump onto the bench built below the upper-level bunk, leaning an elbow on the table and her chin against her palm.  The room seemed bare without Sabine’s colorful paint jobs; Sabine hadn’t lived on the Ghost for years, but she hadn’t stripped the walls, either, and she still kept some of her things onboard.

Sabine would still be on Krownest now, Hera thought, if she had gotten the dates right.  Ezra would be back in his tower on Lothal.  The Scourge of Lasan was happening right now and Zeb was there in the palace with the Lasat Royal Family.  Kallus would be on Lasan too, maybe already giving the order to use ion disruptors on the Lasat defenders.

Kanan was alive, and on this ship, and Hera knew that if she started crying again she might not stop.

It will have to be Alderaan, she thought.  Leia Organa had volunteered for this mission for just that reason, but during the target period she had been on Alderaan, and Luke hadn’t been certain that this would work simply by flying to the Graveyard.  It had been a shock to realize how few people with the clearance for this operation had been somewhere the Rebel Alliance could still access ten or fifteen years later.  They hadn’t even been entirely sure it would work on a ship, but it was the best option they had.  Hera had been certain that she could convince her younger self to help and equally certain that for the first twenty years of her life there was very little that could divert it, which wasn’t true for everyone else.

Obviously, she had been wrong.

She rubbed a weary hand over her face.  She was going to find a way out of this situation, get to Alderaan, and talk her way into seeing Bail Organa, however that was going to go.  Chandrila and Mon Mothma were another option, but for something like this she still thought Organa the better bet.  Ackbar wouldn’t have the access and Mon Calamari weren’t good spies, either.  Not to mention she didn’t have the faintest idea where he was right now.  Her father –

Hera couldn’t begin to imagine what had happened to her father, not if her counterpart was an ISB agent right now.

She looked up at the sound of approaching voices.  Just outside the door, she heard her counterpart say suddenly, her voice small and hurt, “You didn’t realize she wasn’t me?”

“Hera –”

“We’re not even dressed the same.  And she’s at least ten years older than me.”

Hera rolled her eyes and called, “I’m thirty-three.”

There was a sudden silence from beyond the door, then it slid open to reveal Kanan and the other Hera. The woman was still in her white ISB uniform, her cap matching white leather.  Her lekku were covered with wide straps of more white leather, completely obscuring their color.  The rank badge she was wearing gave her the equivalent of a first lieutenant’s rank. Kanan, beside her, was still wearing all black, but he had added a second layer of heavy black leathers and vambraces that bore the Imperial cog.

Hera looked at it and then away, fighting down her hurt.  There had to be a reason.  She knew Kanan.  He wouldn’t do this without a reason.  She had seen that kindness in his eyes, that genuine care; Maul hadn’t had that.  She hadn’t met any of them, but she doubted the Inquisitors did either.  He was still Kanan.  She would know him anywhere.

The other Hera was looking at her with the same sick hurt that Hera was feeling right now.  Hera made herself look at her, really look, because despite her first impression it wasn’t at all like looking into a mirror. Despite the obvious muscle beneath her uniform – Hera suspected she usually wore a field agent’s grays and cuirass, rather than formal whites – there was something oddly fragile about her.  She stayed a carefully measured length away from Kanan, as if both aware of his presence and certain she couldn’t show it in front of a stranger.  When she moved forward, it was with precision, lekku barely moving with the motion, and Hera thought suddenly, she grew up with humans.

“Is Daddy dead?” she said before she could stop herself.  She said it in Basic, not Twi’leki; if her counterpart had grown up with humans then there was no way to be certain that she was fluent anymore.

The other Hera froze, her eyes going wide with surprise. “What?”

“Daddy – Cham – is he dead?”

The girl flicked a startled look at Kanan, then shook her head. “No.  Not that I know of, and if he had died someone from HQ would have hauled me into an interrogation room about it for the next three days.  Why?”

“You grew up with humans,” Hera said. “He wouldn’t let that happen.”

“If you think that then you don’t know him that well,” her counterpart said bitterly. “I grew up in the Imperial Academy on Serenno.”

“I grew up on Ryloth,” Hera said. “At home, at the villa in the Tann Province – at the townhouse in Lessu, sometimes.  Until my mother was killed when I was thirteen, then my father sent all of us back to the villa until I was old enough to leave.”

The other Hera blinked slowly. “The Syndullas haven’t been on Ryloth for a long time.  Cham sent the family to the colony on Zardossa Stix after my mother was hurt in the Lessu Riots.  Then he tried to assassinate the Emperor, so the Empire wiped out the colony. I don’t know what happened to the others.  The Syndullas and the other clans fled Ryloth not long afterwards.  They’re on the Imperial Terrorist Watchlist.”

Hera blinked. “Mama’s alive?” she whispered.

The other woman looked aside.  “You’re not the one asking the questions here,” she said, but not before Hera saw sick hurt flash across her face.  She set the small holoprojector Hera had had in her pocket down on the table in front of her and activated it. “Who is this?”

“That’s my son,” Hera said, trying not to look at Kanan and failing. “Jacen.  He’s five.  He’ll be six in a few months.”

The other Hera’s eyes went wide with shock. “Your son?”

Hera nodded, swallowing back a familiar lump of regret.  “He’s staying on Ryloth with his grandfather now that Free Ryloth has been able to retake the planet.  They’re rebuilding the villa, but right now my father spends most of his time in Lessu. The townhouse wasn’t destroyed, just ransacked a bit.”

Kanan started to raise a hand towards the image, clearly barely conscious he was doing it, then closed his fingers into a fist against his side.  He said quietly, “He’s dead, isn’t he?  Your Kanan.”

Hera couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at him and her son at the same time, not when her mind was already picking out the similarities between them, seeing what hadn’t been clear from the precious holograms she hadn’t been able to bear looking at alongside her son.  How could I have forgotten? she thought.  Jacen bit his lip the same way when he was thinking hard, had the same heavy eyebrows, was going to grow up to have the same broad hands and elegant fingers.

She put a hand to her mouth, trying to hold back her tears.  “Yes,” she said eventually, when she was mostly certain of her ability to speak without stumbling over the words.  “He died. He died before Jacen was born.  He didn’t know – he never knew –”

She lost her battle to contain her tears and scrubbed her sleeve hard across her eyes.  The other Hera had drawn close to Kanan without seeming to be aware she was doing it, reaching for him as if searching for reassurance that he was still there and breathing.  They were holding hands when Hera got herself under control and looked up again.

She had talked about this with Zeb and Rex, with Sabine chiming in via holocomm, when she had been cleared for this mission.  They had talked about what she could bring with her, what had the best chance of convincing her counterpart and Kanan’s, and Rex had insisted she bring this.  I’m probably the only person in the galaxy who has any idea of what this is going to be like, he had told her.  And it’s not the same for a clone as it will be for you, but it’s as close as you’re going to get.

Hera opened her mouth to say the Empire killed him and stopped. The Empire killed him, and you’re working for them.  The Empire killed him, and you’re alive, both of you are alive, how can you be doing this when the Empire killed him?  The Empire killed him and he never knew he was going to have a son. The Empire killed him, and I loved him. The Empire killed him and he should be alive today, he should be with me now, he should have been able to meet his son.

She said again, “He died.”

“I’m sorry,” the other Hera said.  She sounded very young.

She was younger than Sabine had been when Kanan had died, Hera thought, and pulled her shirt cuffs up to scrub at her eyes with both hands.  She couldn’t remember being that young.

Haltingly, the girl said, “I know – a little – what that’s like.  I’m sorry.”  She was gripping Kanan’s hand so tightly that it had to hurt both of them.

Hera touched the base of the holoprojector, looking at her son’s familiar face, then, deliberately, flicked the hologram over to the next image.  It hurt to look at too.

Kanan stared at it, his eyes going wide.  “What –”

“There was a Sith lord named Maul,” Hera said, and was curious to see him flinch, recognizing the name. “Kanan was hurt fighting him.”

Kanan was laughing in that holo, grinning at something that the recorder hadn’t captured – something Ezra had said, maybe.  They had been on Atollon, just a few weeks before Thrawn had reduced the planet to little more than a cinder.  Someone in Supply had scored thirty crates of Yensid/Sacul Vineyards wines, apparently by accident, and they had split it up between everyone on Chopper Base who wanted some.  Not long after this had been taken, Hera and Kanan had taken a bottle and a few blankets and gone off to a quiet corner of the base.  Ezra had found them the next morning and declared himself scarred for life by the sight.

It had been a good night.

The other Hera was peering at the hologram with curiosity, looking between it and Kanan.  She caught Hera watching her and said again, “I’m sorry.”

Kanan shut off the holoprojector.  He paused with his hand over it, then pushed it towards Hera.  “You’re a Rebel, aren’t you?” he said.

“I’m an Alliance officer,” she corrected him, suspecting that it might be better to leave the “Rebel” part of “Rebel Alliance” off in this case.  She had anticipated explaining to a younger Hera and Kanan that given a decade’s time, the disparate groups of rebels scattered across the galaxy would pull together, that they had defeated the Emperor and taken Coruscant, and that there was – or would be soon, once the vote concluded in a few days’ time – a Galactic Republic again.  The possibility that she might have to explain this to a pair of Imperial officers, one an ISB agent and one an Inquisitor, had never occurred to her. “I came here because I need help.”

The other Hera drew herself up, settling her shoulders as if aware of the uniform she was wearing and its significance.  “Fighting the Empire?” she said, her voice suddenly cold.

“No,” Hera said. “In my time the Empire no longer exists, not as it was.  Since the Emperor died there have been a dozen warlords all struggling for power, all trying to take his place.”

The other Hera’s eyes went wide. “The Emperor…died?” she said.

“Yes.  He was killed by Darth Vader.”  At Kanan’s flinch, Hera looked at him and said, “A Jedi Knight named Luke Skywalker sent me here to retrieve data tapes on something called Project Cluster-Prism.  In my universe the only copies that we know of were destroyed along with the data vault on Scarif six years ago.  That’s all I need.  Just data tapes.  I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

“Why would I help you?” said the girl. “I’m an Imperial officer.”

“I’m not fighting your Empire,” Hera pointed out in what she hoped was a reasonable voice.

The girl looked away. Kanan stirred a little, uneasily, but didn’t say anything.  Eventually, the other Hera said, “I don’t have that clearance level.”  She swallowed, then said, “I need to think.”

She finally released Kanan’s hand and started towards the door, white-wrapped lekku nearly invisible against the white wool of her uniform jacket.  It was as though she wanted to be human, or, barring that, at least wanted people to forget that she was a Twi’lek.

“Why are you here?” Hera asked suddenly. “Why are you ISB?”

The girl stopped, bracing a hand against the wall.  She didn’t look back, just said quickly to the door, “When the colony was destroyed, I was sent to prison.  I was there for – for a long time.  My handler gave me a chance to get out, to apply for the Imperial Academy so I could start making up for some of the damage Cham had done.  So I did.  I had to. I’m ISB because my handler blocked my application to the Starfighter Corps; he wanted me in the Bureau.”

Hera bit her lip. “How old were you?”

There was a long moment of silence, then the girl’s lekku swayed just a little as she swallowed. “Fourteen.”

When Hera had been fourteen she had been racing blurrgs across the Tann Province with her cousins Doriah and Nury, or sneaking out of her room to work on her mother’s old racing pod.

“I’m sorry,” she said slowly.

“It’s done now.”  The other Hera took another shaky breath. “I’m where I need to be.”  She touched the control and the door slid open; she left with hasty strides, as if she couldn’t wait to be as far from Hera as possible.

Kanan stayed.  Hera looked up at him, drinking in the sight of him, because she was never going to have this again.  She was never going to see him again, never going to hear his voice, never going to touch him.

“Tell her you love her,” she said quietly. “Please.”

He nodded. “She knows,” he said. “I tell her every day.”  He hesitated, then asked, “How did he die?”

Hera looked down.  She closed her hands over the holoprojector, studying her gloved fingers.  “There was an explosion,” she said haltingly.  She never talked about it.  She would have to tell Jacen someday, but everyone else knew better than to ask.  She thought that Luke had wrangled the story out of Zeb or Rex, maybe Kallus, but wasn’t sure.  “We were – on a planet called –”  She hesitated, remembering that this Kanan was an Imperial Inquisitor, and corrected herself, “We were on a planet that a member of our team had close ties to. There was an Imperial factory there building a new kind of TIE fighter.  We had been doing groundside work, commando work, for weeks, but I left to go back to the Alliance and ask for a starfighter task force to wipe out the factory.  I got it. But we couldn’t get past the planetary blockade and I was captured.  Kanan and two others – his apprentice and a Mandalorian girl – came up with a plan to rescue me.  It almost worked.”

She scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes again.  “Kanan got me out of the Imperial Complex while the others stole a gunship.  We – we almost made it.  The Empire blew up its own fuel depot to stop us.  Kanan held the explosion back so that the rest of us could get away, but he – he couldn’t.  Get away, I mean.  And he knew that.”  Her voice broke.  “He sacrificed himself for us, and I still don’t know if he knew – if he knew – how much I loved –”  She had to stop.  She couldn’t go on, not now, not ever.

She was crying in gasping sobs, tears rolling down her face as she wiped at them with already soaked sleeves.  Kanan took a step towards her, hesitated, and then came the rest of the way, putting an arm around her shoulders.

It was too much.  Hera wept as though her heart might break, because it was broken, and Kanan was here, he was here.  He drew her close, and Hera turned her face against his chest and cried.  It wasn’t him.  Hera knew it wasn’t him, but at the same time, it was, and she didn’t know how to bear it.  She cried until all that was left were dry, hiccoughing sobs, and made herself pull back from him, wiping her sleeve over her face.

Kanan touched her cheek gently. “He knew,” he said.  “Believe me, he knew.”

“I would give almost anything to have him back,” Hera whispered.  It was a confession that she had never made out loud, had never intended to. Not anything, not quite, but almost anything.  Even years later there were days she wanted him so much that she couldn’t think past her grief and her longing, just go through her day on autopilot until something happened to jar her into full cognizance.  “I loved him so much, and I never told him.”

“He knew,” Kanan repeated.

Hera put a hand to her face. She couldn’t look at him; if she had to keep looking at him, she might scream.  But she didn’t know if she could look away either.  “Go be with her,” she said. “Please.”

Kanan nodded.  He hesitated, then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.  “I’ll talk to her about helping you,” he said. “I don’t – Hera’s here because she doesn’t see that she has any other choice.  I’m here for her, not the Empire.”

“She has a choice,” Hera said. “We always have a choice.”  She shook her head.  “Just – go be with her.  Tell her you love her.”

“I’ll tell her.”  For a moment he stood still, looking at her, then he turned and left.  Hera heard the door lock behind him.

She put her head down on her folded arms and wept.

[violent-optimism]

Rey as a Palpatine and Why it’s Grown on Me

Hello my lovelies!

I think it’s been quite a while since I posted any kind of essay on here. Between work and other things I honestly haven’t had much time for it. However in recent days I’ve felt very motivated to work on a very particular kind of essay; a subject that I’ve been stewing over since December of last year.

Obviously from the title you already know what I’m going to be talking about. I’m not going to deny that this is a rather heated subject for some Star Wars fans, particularly those who disliked this plot choice and The Rise of Skywalker in general. As per usual in my essays, my goal is not to change anyone’s mind or argue over who’s opinion is “more right”. Plain and simple, this is just going to be me talking about MY thoughts and MY observations about Rey’s journey and lineage in The Rise of Skywalker. I hope this doesn’t need to be said but if you read something in this essay that you disagree with, I politely ask that you keep it to yourself and move on. At the end of the day, we are just talking about a movie, and this is all just for fun.

Now, with that being said, let’s get started! This essay is definitely going to be a bit more structured than my usual efforts and I hope this will result in a much more straightforward and clear-cut essay. Enjoy!

 1.      My Initial Reaction

 While I don’t want this to be a major part of the essay, I do think it makes sense to start this off with a little story about the time I first saw TROS in the theatre. I can remember it pretty well. My whole body was tense, my eyes glued to the screen for what I knew was about to be some kind of major reveal in the story (even if it felt very late in the film for such a scene). Then came those shocking and irreversible words from Kylo Ren: “You’re his Granddaughter. You are a Palpatine.”

Wait…what?

My mind recoiled at this statement. My heart sank into my stomach with complete rejection. This can’t be right. He must be lying. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. A man behind me just snorted with laughter and I can totally see why. Rey being related to Palpatine sounds more like a crazy Youtube fan theory than something that could actually be canon in the Star Wars universe. We had always thought she might be related to Luke or even Obi-Wan, but…Emperor Palpatine? Darth Sidious? No, just no.

So yeah, suffice to say that my first reaction towards this plot twist was not very positive. I admit that even once the movie was over, I still didn’t like this reveal. I don’t even think I began to warm up to it until my 3rd or 4th viewing of TROS. I had become so used to the idea that Rey had no special lineage and she was just a very force-sensitive girl from nowhere that it was extremely hard to let go of that. And honestly, if JJ and everyone else involved had chosen to keep it that way, I would have been perfectly content. So why…you might ask, has Rey’s true lineage grown on me in the last several months?

Now, don’t get me wrong…there’s still a part of me that thinks it was a very odd choice to introduce a reveal like this considering what happened in the previous installment. However…this fact has already been discussed to death and this essay is intended to be more of a story exploration rather than a critical film review. So let’s talk more about Rey being Palpatine’s Granddaughter and how I have actually grown to love the idea.

 2.      Rey’s Journey

 Throughout the trilogy, Rey has had to overcome quite a few challenges in her path to becoming a Jedi. Her journey has been one of mostly self-discovery and personal growth. In The Force Awakens, Rey discovers that she is strong in the force and can do things she never imagined. In The Last Jedi, Rey’s strength in the force grows stronger and she learns to accept that her parents were nobodies and that some things do not turn out the way we expect.

And so, thematically, it would almost seem like Rey has reached the end of her character arc. This is Rey at her most powerful. There’s nothing left to learn, and there are no more secrets to be revealed…right? Well, we know that this is not the case. Even from the first scene with Rey we know that something is wrong. She knows that something is wrong. There is a darkness inside of her; she fears for her destiny and who she is meant to become. It’s not until later that we understand why these feelings have come to the surface.

Up until TROS, we didn’t truly know who Rey was or where she came from. However, by this point in the story anyone should be able to describe her as a character. Kind. Brave. Resourceful. Curious. Compassionate. Strong. Rey has proven time and time again that she is an incredibly kind and capable individual who wants to do the right thing. Although both TLJ and TROS strongly hint towards Rey possibly turning to the dark side, we know that our protagonist never actually would because we know who Rey is.

And this a huge reason as to why the Rey Palpatine reveal works so well for me. There is an incredible juxtaposition with Rey being the most heroic, kind-hearted person imaginable, and yet she is related to the most evil man in the galaxy. There is something deeply profound about the last living Jedi having Sith blood in her veins. Part of the reason why this reveal is so shocking is because the two characters are complete polar opposites in terms of good and evil. Rey is absolutely nothing like Palpatine and so the familial connection seems impossible. It doesn’t just seem like an unlikely truth, it feels entirely incorrect. And yet, that is also what makes it (again, in my opinion) so interesting and bold.

 3.      Meaning and Impact

 Apart from giving Rey one last emotional challenge in the final installment, I think this choice was made for other reasons as well (3 to be precise).

1.      It made Rey even more similar to Kylo as he too is grappling with the dark influence from his Grandfather

2.      This decision subverts a long-existing trope in fantasy stories

3.      Used to further tie the 9 films together as a story about the Skywalker and Palpatine bloodlines

Since The Force Awakens, it was made very clear early on that Rey and Kylo were connected in some way; their destinies were intertwined. Although this was further explored in TLJ, we would not truly understand just how similar their journeys would become until the final installment. The dynamic between Rey and Kylo is infinitely interesting because at first glance they seem like completely opposite people, when in reality they share a very similar struggle, especially in The Rise of Skywalker.

Both Rey and Kylo experience the overwhelming darkness of their respective families. Kylo even says it quite bluntly before the lightsaber duel on the ruined Death Star: “The dark side is in our nature, surrender to it.” He is quite obviously trying to use Rey’s lineage against her in an attempt to turn her over to his side. What makes this so interesting is that we know Kylo himself is not yet completely taken over by the dark side. Despite his evil deeds, he has always been conflicted during this story.

When Rey finds out that she is related to Emperor Palpatine, she becomes withdrawn, angry, afraid and unstable. This is the closest to the dark side that we have ever seen Rey at. Indeed there are some moments where she almost seems to be channeling behaviour that would be more suited for Kylo (snapping at her friends, using anger as power). Although Rey eventually comes to her senses and realizes what is happening to her, she was clearly affected by her Grandfather’s dark influence, just as Kylo was.

 Despite the fact that both Rey and Kylo come from families with a history of the dark side, the film makes it very clear that one character’s lineage is far “worse” than the other. This is where the subversion of a common fantasy trope takes place. Now, to be clear, this is only my interpretation and I don’t claim this to be exactly what the filmmakers were going for; however this subversion is yet another reason why I enjoy the Rey Palpatine reveal.

How many times have you watched a movie or a TV show where a character’s lineage was a significant part of the story? It’s probably more times than you can count on one hand, right? My point is that the idea of a character’s lineage/family history becoming a main plot element in a story is nothing new, we’ve seen this before a million times. For example, in Disney’s “Tangled” (2010) Rapunzel learns that she is the long lost princess who was taken away from her family when she was an infant. Disney influence aside, does this sound somewhat similar to Rey’s story? Yes, it absolutely does…but not in the traditional or conventional sense.

This is where Rey Palpatine (for me at least), becomes extremely appealing. This reveal is like the evil, twisted version of a heroine discovering that she is the secret heir to a royal family. And instead of the protagonist being overjoyed and enlightened by this information, the reveal comes with great personal shock and emotional turmoil. In this case, Rey is the Granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, which essentially makes her Sith royalty if we’re being really comparable. Am I the only one who (for lack of better words) thinks this is insanely cool? Not only is it a direct subversion of a very common story trope, it directly ties into Kylo’s arc and it also parallels Luke’s family revelation in “The Empire Strikes Back.” Coincidentally, this also makes Rey’s journey similar to Luke’s in that regard, but I’ll get back to that later.

Now as you’ve probably heard before, as we look back on all 9 films in the Star Wars saga we can see that this is clearly a story about the Skywalker and Palpatine families. Granted, the Palpatine bloodline is largely unexplored in comparison to the former. We know that Rey’s Father was the son of the Emperor, but we still don’t know his name or who he really was. Ultimately this information is not relevant to the story as a whole, but it’s clear that Emperor Palpatine has been pulling the strings throughout basically the entire saga.

More specifically, Palpatine himself has always been tied to the Skywalkers. He seduced Anakin Skywalker to the dark side and later tried to do the same to Luke. Via Snoke he was also able to turn Ben Solo, who shares a dyad with Rey, Palpatine’s Granddaughter. It kind of comes full circle and it’s really quite clever in my opinion. The Villain of the ST is related to the Heroes of the OT, and the Hero of the ST is related to the Villain of the OT (Did I just blow your mind?).

Put simply, Rey being a Palpatine makes a lot more sense thematically when you examine the story that came before her. Families are complicated and messy, especially in Star Wars. Rey’s experience echoes this, but in a much darker and harsher way. Her journey is meant to resemble Luke Skywalker’s in many ways, but their stories do have differences. In Luke’s case, he actually got to see and interact with Anakin, the real face of who his Father was. Anakin Skywalker was certainly not a perfect person, but in his last moments he turned to the light and saved his son’s life.

Rey, of course, did not get to experience a moment even close to this. Palpatine is about as evil as evil gets. There is no hope or chance of redemption. She was forced to look upon her own flesh and blood and see nothing but a monster. It would be unfair to turn this into a competition of “who had the most devastating family reveal”, but the point I’m trying to make is that Rey and Luke’s journeys are undeniably similar, which serves to further strengthen the connection of Skywalker and Palpatine in these 9 films.

 4.      Conclusion: The Power of Choice

 I feel I must end on the note of choice, because this is how The Rise of Skywalker chooses to end. Despite everything I have mentioned and how much I have grown to love the idea of Rey Palpatine, there is something that I love much more than this: Rey Skywalker. Even just reading it or saying it out loud fills with me an indescribable amount of joy.

To put it bluntly, Rey did not have an easy life. In fact, she probably had one of the most challenging upbringings of any Star Wars protagonist. Yes, Anakin was a slave at a very young age, but he also had friends and a mother who supported him. Luke was even better off with a relatively normal childhood, friends and parental figures who loved him as if he was their own son.

Rey had nothing and no one.

She was forced into a life of struggle and hardship, not by choice, and certainly not by her parents’ choice. Although they loved and cared for her, she would never feel this or know it to be true until much later in life. Rey did not choose where she came from, nor could she choose who she was related to. This is perhaps the most powerful and meaningful message that one could take away from the Sequel Trilogy: You cannot choose the circumstances of your childhood, nor can you choose who you are related to by blood. However, you can choose your destiny, you can choose who you want to be, and you can choose who you consider to be your family.

Rey had all the makings of a villain, but she chose to be a hero. A Sith that chose to be a Jedi. A Palpatine that chose to be a Skywalker. It doesn’t matter where you come from, only where you’re going. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide who you want to be. That is a beautiful thing.

Well folks, it took me a long time to get here but we’re finally at the end. I hope this essay was able to make some kind of a comprehensible point. Even if you didn’t agree with anything I said, I hope it was still something that made you think. It was quite a lot of fun to really delve into this topic and explore every microscopic detail. I sure hope it made sense, and if not, I’ll try to do better next time.

Thank you so much for reading! Bye for now.

[reylofanfictionanthology]

For one is love and both are one in love is now live!  

Authors will be revealed next week!  For now all fics are anonymous.  Treats can be posted through author reveals on 2/21.  We will post an updated masterpost at that time.

For one is love and both are one in love collection on AO3 |  Gift Fic Master Post Part Two | Treats Masterpost

Gifts Fic Master Post Part One:

ghosts on the shore for aaronBursar

“I meant what I said to you that day on the Death Star. I thought I could never go back. I still think it even now—that I don’t belong here, that I never will.” “But you did come back,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You’re here now. With me. You chose it. Despite everything, we made it, both of us.” They sat in silence for awhile, hands clasped while they watched the camp clear as people finally turned in for the night. Then, suddenly, Ben was struck with an idea. “What if we took a trip?”

Sugar High for abbytheatre08

When Maz Kanata hosts five weeks of a Battle of the Bands competition, Rey Johnson and Kylo Ren find themselves both pitted against one another, and drawn together as the weeks go on.

Delayed For A While for aionimica

Death cannot stop love. All it can do is delay it awhile.

I am ready to follow you even though I don't know where for AlwaysEverlark

Her closest friends want Rey to move on from what happened on Exegol, but she refuses to accept that Ben Solo, her soulmate in the Force, is dead. Instead, she undertakes a rescue mission to bring Ben home--no matter the risk.

A More Perfect Union for america_oreosandkitkats

Rey, new to DC, tags along to a stuffy networking event with her friend -- they're both poor and, hell, there's free booze. Ben, a recruiter for the lobbyist firm he works for, finds the intern with the soft voice and angry eyes a fun challenge -- especially when he finds out she works for his estranged mother Senator Leia Organa.

In the Den of the Darkwolf for Amy326

Rey awakened in the darkwolf’s den.

happy cockus day for andabatae

She prefers the nip of New Hampshire winters, heavy winds blowing in her hair, being bundled up in three layers with pens whose ink freeze fast and thaw slow. She loves warm buildings, and Christmas breaks, and slurping down huge bowls of ramen in the evenings, but being on the ground, a clipboard in her hand, boots on a voter’s doorstep? That’s where she knows she belongs. So there are a lot of things going against Rey Johnson’s introduction to Ben Solo, his moody personality probably the least of her worries, since he’s the reason she’s not outside, making some sort of tangible effort to get his mother elected as president.

Hope Lives for aNerdObsessed

This AU story takes place right after the Battle of Exegol, Rey and Ben have just defeated Palpatine and they are both seriously injured but not mortally wounded. When all hope is lost for them as there is no one coming to get them, old friends of the past come to their aid.

Two Bits (or The Haircut) for Ann3onymous

Three days into their marriage of convenience, Ben and Rey are maybe starting to realize that there’s more to this arrangement than a green card or a cooperative board of directors.

We've Got a Good Thing Here for Anysia

Rey & Ben Solo navigate their feelings in the aftermath of the end of the war. With Ben a "functionally dead" force ghost, Rey has to come to terms with how she will balance restoring liberty to the galaxy and making her relationship with Ben work in a... physical sense. It's a difficult enough task to begin with, and it doesn't help that every time they're alone someone seems to require Rey for something.

Event Horizon for Apisa_B

Rey runs into Kylo Ren on a mission for the Resistance, and they have to work together against their wishes. This would be simple... if working together didn't involve pretending to be married, sharing a hotel room, and a lot of unresolved feelings.

still caught in yesterday's wake for Apricot

Her heart is heavy with fear—fear that one day she will no longer be able to recall the shape of Ben’s face, or the timbre of his voice, or the exact color of his eyes; that her memory of him will fade until she is left with nothing but the pain of his absence, like some phantom limb that aches and aches and aches, relentlessly.

A Dark Day Dream for ArdeaJestin

Ben's come home, but Rey can't face him. Not because of anything he's done, at least not in real life. But in her fantasies? oh yes.

Become Who You Were Meant to Be for Aurae

Kylo is a fighter both by training and by preference. Tactics, not strategy. Action, not discussion. Every instinct in him wants to solve his problems by grabbing his sword and shedding some blood. But those easy days are behind him now. He has a galaxy to run. It would be easier if only he could stop thinking about her.

The Spaces Inbetween for Ayrith (freijya)

It wasn’t the first time. Not the first since Crait and she saw him kneeling and their eyes met with anger and ache and want and everything else they didn’t have to say. No. Not the first, nor the second, nor even the third. This was a well trodden path that they all walked over and over. As if the Force was taking their hands and despite both of them tearing it away, still trying to bring them together. --- Rey and Kylo have been dealing with the Force bond for some time, but it finally reaches a tipping point.

The Least Of What I Could Do for benperor-ren (winterelf86)

"I refuse to play opposite someone who has never had a part in their entire life," sneers Ben. "Either Rey goes or I do."

Niima's for bensolosredemption

Though Niima's is a questionable establishment, it's always been Ben's favorite bar. It's not just because he's inexplicably attracted to the new bartender, either - though he has to admit she might have something to do with it.

Devil Spawn for Biekewieke

After a hot anonymous encounter at The Annual Organa Halloween Ball, Rey realizes she slept with the horrible guy who is her new boss. But he doesn't recognize her! And he asks her to track down his mystery hookup, which she totally agrees to do (wink wink, haha, she's lying). But then she finds out she's pregnant! GASP! What's a scared, pregnant single girl to do? (Other than take a nap because she's exhausted.)

Belonging for bitterbones

Friends-with-benefits except whoops I'm in love with you now and hate seeing you flirt with other people because we're technically not together.

Paradise for bittersnake

For two people whose souls are inseparably united, the question of sex shouldn't be that complicated. Given Ben and Rey's individual histories, however, it really comes as no surprise. But that's all right. They’ll have their whole lives together to figure it out, if Rey and Ben and possibly several hundred generations’ worth of Jedi ghosts have anything to say about the matter. Which they do.

Miss Johnson & the Professor for blackheretic (redlondons)

Her heart wants to erupt through her throat, and she audibly gulps, trying to keep her gaze from the only place it wants to go. Thank fuck his eyes are so hypnotic; she can get lost in them as she stammers for English syllables. “Y-Yes, Dr. Solo?” “Seriously, Rey.” Is he blushing? Surely not. “I’ve known you all year, call me Ben.” “Ben,” she mumbles. It tastes like delicious sacrilege. “I actually think you’re in my bed.” “Huh?” “The couch. I was going to sleep there. Remember?” Rey clutches the blanket to her collarbone, hoping the light fabric is tented loosely enough to cover her breasts. Fuck, why does he have to be so distractingly hot? “No, it’s all right. I don’t mind, Professor.” “Ben," he insists firmly. “And I won’t be able to sleep at all knowing I’m comfy in a bed while you’re sleeping on that thing.”

Owner Malfunction. for Bombastique

One year after surviving Execgol, Rey and Ben Solo find themselves in each other's company after they are both captured while trying to take back the Falcon from Kanjiklub remnants. (AKA - The Force, the Falcon, love, and droids.)

Stealing the Light for bratanimus

Redemption isn’t given. It’s earned. Or: As the galaxy rebuilds from war, the man formerly known as Kylo Ren tries to make peace with the person he was, and the person he’s becoming.

Rey Niima and the American (Hot Piece of) Ass that She Just Wants to Tap, while also Not Dying in the Triwizard Tournament or Becoming Otherwise Inconvenienced or Maimed for Cairdiuil_Paiste

Completed for the prompt: Hogwarts AU! Triwizard tournament time with seventh year Rey representing Hogwarts. She wants to impress the MACUSA representative to strengthen her chances of joining their graduate programme. Too bad American diplomat Ben Solo doesn't seem to like her…

a forest of stars for caisha

Rey works hard at the diner to save up for her long dreamed-of vacation to Finland. She's lonely, but that's not new. What is new is Kylo Ren, the CEO of Orpheus Corp and new boss of her best friend Finn. When Finn and Kylo Ren stop by the diner for lunch, Rey feels as though she's finally met someone who understands her. But who is Kylo Ren, and what's his secret? A Modern Fae AU

I am a Soul Longing for Ceallaigh

Rey has spent the last two years searching the galaxy for clues about how to bring Ben back. Now, finally, it seems she has a solid lead. The planet Xolutel is said to be a vergence in the Force, and myth has it there's a hidden temple where worshipers of the Force were granted their deepest desires. No matter how slim the possibility, Rey owes it to Ben and herself to check it out. She's not known to give up easily.

The World Has Been Sad Since Tuesday for ceciliasheplin

The creature on his bed defied explanation, but Kylo Ren had a distinct feeling that there was nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. At least, not in this room. Demons lay in wait outside, but not here. Best not to let anyone know about this.

Be With Me for Chthonia

A force connection between Kylo (Ben), and Rey. It takes place while she is on Ach-To, and he is on the Death Star.

between the shadow and the soul for ClockworkCrow (icemink)

“You and Skywalker have been keeping it a secret,” she said, her eyes searching his face to catch him when he lies. “But I know the truth. I learned it, the day after we fought on Mustafar. That Lord Vader was his father, and your grandfather.” He struggled against her stasis but she pushed back harder, her power swirling around them both. “Rey—” “Don’t you see, Ben?” There was a ghost of a smile on her lips. “The darkness is inside of you, too. You don’t have to keep fighting it. You were meant to be mine.” Mine. . or: Jedi Knight Ben Solo should really stop doing smuggling runs with his father. Kira Ren should really stop trying to turn him to the dark side.

The Rescue for cohava

“What is it?” Ben asked, watching the worry lines form on Rey’s forehead as she checked the message that had just pinged through her datapad. “Poe’s leading the relief efforts on Faratula. There’s a boy there, Force sensitive. Orphaned. Poe says it’s a pretty bad situation.” “Let’s go get him, then,” he said without pausing.

how easy you are to need for Crimson_Alchemistress

The war is finished, yet Rey still carries wounds. They come in the form of nightmares, but Ben is there to comfort her.

stuck on how it feels here next to you for crossingwinter

Around four months ago, Ben and Rey married out of convenience. It had started that way and one of the key reasons why they had agreed to this in the first place was the condition that neither had romantic feelings for the other. This is their life, both head of heels for the other while not really knowing what to do about it.

Blue Sand for Crysania

The pale crimson sun rises above the horizon across the fields. A slight wind gently brushed Rey’s face. She left the ship and coverded herself with a blue scarf from a desert heat. She stepped forward, carefully observing the small city before her. Hot sand was burning her feets despite thick soles of boots. “This is going to be disaster,” she told herself with a crooked smile.

covert mission: baby acquisition for crystanagahori

In which Rey decides she's ready to start a family of her own and Ben Solo, her boss and dear friend, would make the perfect sperm donor. * It was a stupid, girlish crush. One that likely wasn’t reciprocated, and could land her in a world of trouble with HR if she acted brashly. But still, she wanted him. He could waive his parental rights for all she cared. They could enter into some sort of contract, if such things existed. But he was the perfect candidate, the ideal sperm donor. Ben Solo.

hands that hurt, hands that heal for cuddlesome

Rey climbs on top of Ben and makes out with his sopping self after Force healing his stab wound.

It was not Death, for I stood Up for CwenPhy

Emperor Palpatine lied on Exegol; Rey is not his granddaughter. Rey sets off on a journey, led by Obi-Wan Kenobi, to bring Ben Solo back from the World Between Worlds.

Good Boy for dankobah

Rey takes her dog to a nearby veterinary clinic for an emergency and doesn't expect to meet Ben (or anyone) while there.

The Unbreakable Bond for DarkSideOfMe

After Crait, Rey thought she had severed their Force Bond, or at least closed it, but some weeks ago she started feeling it, a presence in the back of her mind. Then she could hear him saying her name or other random words or feelings: concern, anxiety, loneliness, longing..to be fair, she didn’t know who those feelings belonged to, if there were Kylo’s or hers. And that was the other reason to put an end to this; she wasn’t ready to deal with anything different to her anger and disappointment. She had to focus on her training, on the Resistance, in their fight against “his” First Order. She was scared, scared of something she couldn’t put a name to, and last night had just showed her how important it was to break their connection. It was time to read the Jedi texts she’s been putting off for too long.

NiimaRide for datswatutink

Journey urge her not to stop believin' but provide no further clarification before she's strapped in the back seat and they're pulling away from the only real break she's had in twenty-four years.

To Hold and Give Light for dearly

After Exegol, Rey takes an injured Ben back to the Resistance.

a conundrum of lightsabers for devon380black (kryptonian17)

In the aftermath of Crait, Rey is left with two halves of a broken lightsaber she has no idea how to fix. As her force bond conversations with Ben continue, she comes to understand he's the only one who can help her with her problem. Maybe if they can repair one thing, they can repair something else too.

What Happens in Hotel Chandrila for DrPearlGatsby

Accompanying her best friends to a Galaxy Wars convention in Chandrila sounded like a good idea at first. But third-wheeling sucks, and that's how Rey finds herself daydrinking alone at the hotel bar. And then she gets a free drink from a tall, brooding, handsome stranger…

Until the Wild Feelings Leave You for dustoftheancients

Rehabilitating from a battle injury leaves Rey an irritable mess. The way Ben hovers over her does nothing to help.

Kintsugi for ElegyGoldsmith

In the darkest moments, the galaxy is still filled with light.

give me shapes and letters, if it’s not forever for ElleRen31

She holds out her hand, “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Rey.  I work at the flower shop next door.” He must be new, or she’s just a shut-in during work because she would’ve remembered seeing him after a year of being here. “I’m Kylo, I own the tattoo shop.”  He points to his building and her eyebrows raise as he shakes her hand.  Owner? So he’s the head honcho? She hums to herself and then keeps the smile plastered on her face. Then she sets her sights on the dogs, “What are their names?”

Where the ocean goes for Elywyngirlie

Sometimes getting out alive is the victory. Sometimes the rest takes a little time.

it shall not be death for englishable

Rey of the Jedi Knights is sent with her sword and Holy Fire, to destroy a palace of thorns. It doesn't quite go as planned.

The Reckoning for Erin410

Because of Rey, Ben has grown rather good at waiting. But she’s waiting, too, for something that hasn’t dawned on him yet. [Post-TROS mildly angsty marriage proposal fluff, hope you enjoy!]

Trading Places for Fairleigh

Kylo… Kylo awoke to the sound of her whimpering his name. He sat bolt upright in Rey’s extremely uncomfortable cot. Anxious for her safety, he reached out for her with his mind. Rey? He heard her moan and heat instantly pooled between his legs. Curious. The sensation was different but not unwelcome. Then he saw Rey, or rather he saw himself, naked and writhing on his bed. His mouth fell open. Rey was... masturbating. He watched in awe as she pumped his shaft up and down, slowly but forcefully. Kylo… She called his name again.

You'll Turn for FangirlintheForest

A retelling of the Last Jedi's elevator and throne room scenes with a role reversal twist. Can Smuggler Ben turn Dark Rey?

Building Something Together for fantastic_fanatics

When Ben confronts his new upstairs neighbor who keeps making all manner of odd noises at all manner of hours, he didn't expect what she's doing up there. He also didn't expect her to be so pretty.

Little Starfighter for Fic_me_senseless

Convinced he ruins everything he touches, isolated and lonely Ben Solo successfully pushes everyone away, except for the girl who sees something in him she recognizes.

Benvenuto nella nostra famiglia for gennalannisters

"Well, I have sensitive information here. Dinner is just actually a ploy. It’s actually an interrogation to make sure you didn't read the documents." She turned and smirked at him as they headed down the stairs, "If that's the case, I'm happy to be interrogated through wining and dining.” Love is in the air at Harvard Square.

Binary Suns for gigi_marlee

Young Ben Solo meets a young Rey. The two form an intense and instant attachment to the confusion of Ben's parents and his Uncle, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. What is a dyad and what will it mean for two children who have found belonging in each other?

more everything for HalfwayThrough

"I'm the boss, I've earned the right to show up whenever the fuck I want." He was arrogant, condescending, and an asshole. And he didn't have a mark on his wrist.

One Stick of Unsalted Butter for HopeRebel

Rey's neighbor is the rudest, least considerate person she had to interact with. However, when she runs out of butter in the middle of night trying to bake cookies for Rose's birthday, there is only person she knows is awake and he is her only hope. Of course, things don't go according to plan.

come home, ben for hxllosweetie33

He looked at their hands, watched as Rey intertwined their fingers together, and fought the back the shutter from the contact. “ Rey…” He whispered. She brought her hand to his face – calloused tips brushing against his scar – observing his face, every detail of it, the bags and dark circles under his eyes, the paleness of his skin, his dry lips, the lack of light behind his eyes.

Ashes of Life for iamladyloki

Dark Rey becomes a reality and Ben has to remind her who she is

Negotiated Settlement for ilum

General Leia Organa has brought a small team with her to Kaytuu 5, expecting to negotiate a ceasefire between the First Order-controlled planetary government and local Resistance fighters. Unfortunately, Supreme Leader Armitage Hux has other plans. Rey will need the assistance of a Certain Someone who no longer calls himself Kylo Ren if she and her friends are to save the day.

Coming Home for incognitajones

After the Battle of Exegol, Rey and an injured Ben are trapped together on an uninhabited planet.

The Stray for itsinthestars

Rey moves in across the hall from Ben; a former foster kid alone in the city, aspiring to be an actress. Ben is a ladder-climbing white collar businessman with a horrible boss and zero social life. Which is just the way he likes it. So why in the world has this insufferable creature made it her life's work to adopt him? From sharing her dinner to doing his laundry, she seems determined to make a connection. In the end, it's easier for Ben to just let her. But opening up means letting your heart be vulnerable.

Peace and Purpose for itsnotillegal

Across the stars, Rey and Ben yearn for each other, neither able to move on, both facing the unending nights alone. But the Force longs for balance as surely as they long for each other.

Christmas Blues for karlamartinova

The first snow had fallen, covering the ground like a white blanket. The emergence of winter weather always marked the increase of Christmas moods. The season when people fervently decorated their houses and you couldn’t walk through the mall or downtown area without hearing a Christmas jingle. The neighborhood already sparkled with multicolored lights and inflated or authentic snow-made snowmen. Rey Johnson’s festive mood rose with each house she drove by, her fingers tapping on the wheel as “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree”faded and transitioned into another song.

prince and the sea for kuresoto

Prince Ben Chewbacca Solo Organa, descendant of the house of Naberrie and the line of Skywalker, heir to the Starbird pirate fleet, has followed in the family tradition of slaying monsters and ruling the high seas. Which in no way is an attempt at ignoring his soulmate bond.

what stranger miracles for La_Catrina

Ben can’t even manage to die right, apparently. 

the universe resting in my arms for Lightningpelt

Rey sees Ben, quietly tooling around the Skywalker homestead, his hands wet with mechanic's grease, and the image is so perfect that she holds her breath, not wanting to mar it with a loud breath.

counting my steps, reaching out to you for Lizardbeth

All her life, Rey has felt snatches of someone else's emotions, seen visions of other places, other people she's certain she's never seen before. In a world where everything had been taken away from her, this connection was hers alone. She is wholly unprepared for the day she finds out that the person at the other end of the connection is a Jedi fighting as part of the Resistance against her delusional Master.

Soulmates for LostInQueue

After Ben Solo disappears in front of her eyes, she finds a way to bring him back, where love began…

Heal for LRRH17

A few weeks after the Battle of Crait, the Force connects Rey and Ben again on several occasions.

Softly, Softly  for lucymonster

When the Resistance start to pick up distress calls from defecting Stormtroopers, they move to save as many as they can. It doesn't occur to them that the First Order might be after the same renegades until they're right on top of them.

First Impressions and Unexpected Connections for LueurdeLaube

War has ravaged the galaxy, but finally, there is a chance at peace. Her grandfather arranges for Princess Rey Palpatine to wed the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, broadcast across the galaxy to usher in the new era. They've never met before, but he's sent her letters.

All These Things That I've Done for MahoganyDoodles

Someone dropped down to Rey's level and reached for the empty plastic shell of her case. She stilled for a moment, afraid that she was about to get smacked with it, afraid to look up. “Sorry about him,” she heard over the sound of her heart beating through her ears. Not Hux? This voice was deeper. Rey looked up and saw Ben Solo in front of her, holding out the case for her, a sympathetic look in his dark brown eyes.

For Now for maq_moon

There are plenty of things he could say, but he doesn’t. Buying you muffins makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning. I wish I could go back in time and be the kind of person you could like. I don’t remember my life before you. ---------- When Kylo finds his soulmate, she doesn't know, and he doesn't tell her.

[anime-alyssa]

once more, thank you so much for the love. if you’d like to leave me a tip you can do so here and as always, this is cross-posted. 

be’jetii masterlist.

t h r e e.

It had been twenty-four hours. One full day since this storm took over, leaving you trapped in your house with the Mandalorian who wanted to throw your ass in carbonite still and his force-sensitive foundling. Leia and Han had tried to holo you but there was no way in hell you were picking up with this guy staying in your guest room. Once you got rid of him you’d go to them on Chandrilla and tell them it was the sandstorm. But until then you had to figure out a way to deal with your house having two extra people in it than you were used to.

You discovered the kid didn’t know how to control his powers, mostly. He was levitating things left and right, stressing the Mandalorian out. Eventually you got the Mandalorian to confess that he was trying to find his people, but had hit a dead end. He told you that he actually wasn’t looking for you, but that the kid had told him to come here. Thus he found the necklace, found you, and were in your current situation.

You were sitting cross legged on your couch, the Mandalorian taking residence up by the window, staring out it as if that would help the storm stop. The kid had waddled his way over to your feet and reached his arms up towards you, a sign of wanting to be picked up. At least, that’s what Ben would do when he wanted to be picked up. Babies are babies, right? All the general same actions, right? You leaned over and picked up the little thing, placing him next to you.

“Don’t touch him.” the Mandalorian said from the window. You glared at the back of his helmet - you swore he had eyes in the back of his head. You felt the baby crawl into your lap and smirked.

“Tell him to stop asking then.” you mumbled back to him. The baby smiled up at you from your lap, holding his hands out to you. The little thing had been obsessed with you since he saw you, much to the dismay of the Mandalorian. You held your palms out in front of him and he smiled bigger, putting his little hands into your palms.

You felt the force flowing through him. It was a lot of raw power, power that wasn’t in control yet. It was no wonder the kid was floating everything he touched. You could hardly believe the force flowing through this little tiny creature - and then he started to show you images through the force.

Flashes of things like being on the ship with the Mandalorian, how much the tin can cared for the little thing, how they’d play… it almost warmed your heart. He looked up to the Mandalorian like his father, it was obvious. Even when he would get annoyed at him for levitating things he was not supposed to.

You tried to imagine how he would be if he was in control of his powers. Right now he was a typical youngling, new to this and clueless as to what was going on and you could sense it from him. He didn’t know what he was doing and how to control it.

Maybe you could contact Leia and see if she could get a hold of Luke to help train him - but no. Luke was still a sting in your heart, someone you didn’t want to face. Plus, you had a feeling this bounty hunter wasn’t going to give up his kid. He was a softie for the little thing, you had discovered.

It occurred to you suddenly that the reason the baby seemed to be attached to you so much was that you think he could sense you and your connection to the force - even though you had cut yourself off from it for the most part. That one little sliver you held onto just incase was what the thing could sense. Maybe it was a good thing? You weren’t entirely sure anymore, but what you did know was that the Mandalorian’s gaze was burning through you right now as he watched you and the kid on the couch, in silence.

“You’re very special, little one.” you said to him, running your hand over one of his ears, earning a giggle. That made you melt into a little giddy puddle right then and there at the cuteness of it.

“What is ‘force-sensitive’?” the Mandalorian suddenly asked you. You arched a brow as you looked up to him, starting to sweat a bit. He was never gonna believe you, but you were stuck here with him so you might as well explain it.

“Force sensitive is when you are in tune to the Force, an energy that surrounds all living things. Some people are able to use it stronger than others, manipulate it.” you said to him. The kid cooed up at you as if he was listening, wanting more. “It’s a lot more complicated than just that, unfortunately.” you added.

“I got time.” He said, pulling a chair up across from you and sitting. He titled his helmet, urging you onward. You sighed as you gathered your story in your head, moving on.

“It’s been around since the beginning of time, the Force, the light side and the dark side. The people who are able to use on the light side it are called the Jedi. Long ago the Jedi were the keepers of the peace and everybody lived by a strict code. They tried to find ways to solve problems as peacefully as possible, but were also trained warriors. Their numbers ran in the thousands, long ago. If you were a Jedi back then you were proud to be one, and honored. It meant that you mastered the art of the Force and were able to use it to your advantage.” you started, taking a breather. The child was looking up at you with wide eyes, absolutely enthralled as if he understood every word you were saying perfectly - The Mandalorian said nothing. Sighing, you continued.

“Of course, with anything good most times comes out the bad. There were a group of Force users who weren’t on the side of the light but on the side of the dark were called the Sith. They’d mishandle their power, use it for bad. They’d find ways to cheat death, to come back that were unnatural. But eventually, the Sith went extinct because of the Jedi, or so everyone thought.” you took another break, trying to fight back emotions. You were now going into territory that involved your father, something that was still hard for you. You hadn’t told this story to anyone in a long time, not since you told it to Luke.

“During the age of the Republic and the Clone Wars, the Jedi started to get cocky. They were on top of the world, thinking they had everything under control. Unfortunately due to their egos, they allowed Darth Sidious to operate right under their noses in the most powerful position the Senate held, Chancellor. Palpatine executed everything so perfectly, as much as it pains me to say it. Every win that the Republic and the Jedi had was just a pawn in his game, a piece of the biggest puzzle of all; the rise of Darth Vader. Vader was a Jedi, drawn into hate out of fear. And in the end, he ended up winning. The Jedi were eradicated and killed off and he ruled the galaxy, for many years.” you explained to him. The child’s hands slapped your palms in an urge to go on, to continue the story. You didn’t know if you could, it was going to get personal. You didn’t do personal anymore.

“Seems like the Jedi aren’t as all-powerful as they thought.” The Mandalorian finally piped up after that. You gave a small laugh and an eye-roll. You did have to agree with him, it was the whole reason why you gave up your title of Jedi Knight and cut yourself off.

“Definitely not. However a few Jedi survived - two Jedi masters and a padawan who left the order before it got ugly. They fled and went into hiding after the rise of Vader, fearing that he’d come for them one day.” you added to him. He took a moment to think it seems, humming in response before he spoke up again.  

“But isn’t there a new one out there somewhere? I heard rumors after the fall of the Empire.” Your heart skipped a beat and you couldn’t hide the shock on your face. It was too obvious - but you couldn’t let him know. You didn’t fully trust him yet. Nor did you want to dig into what really happened.

“Yeah - there is one. The son of Vader who rose up on the side of the light, he took on Palpatine himself and that’s what lead to the fall of the Empire. He trained with the two old masters before they passed. Now he’s somewhere in the galaxy, rumor has it he’s trying to start a school of his own, bring it all back.” you concluded. The Mandalorian observed you for a moment and if he thought you were lying or trying to avoid the truth, he didn’t say it.

“My mission has been to try to find someone who is the people for the kid. Either someone of his kind or someone like him. I’ve been searching for a year - nothing.” he said, standing up and walking over closer to you. “You just told me more information in ten minutes than I’ve found in a year. How do you know this?”

“My father - he was obsessed. Told me all the stories.” So it was a little white lie, but you weren’t going to tell him that your father was the Master to Darth Vader before he turned to the dark side. You weren’t going to tell him that your father also trained Luke Skywalker and you in the ways of the Force. You hoped you were convincing. “I think the idea of bringing the Jedi back is ridiculous though. But that’s just me.” you said to him.

“Why is that?” he asked with a helmet tilt.

“I mean, you’re a Mandalorian. Sure you’ve heard the stories about the Jedi being these horrible people to your people.” you said to him. He gave you a grunt in agreement.

“I was told they were warriors that did more harm than good.” He said to you. That was the understatement of the century, but he was right.

“Well, it wasn’t wrong.” You said back, agreeing with him. “Plus, I think some of the rules are ridiculous. Don’t interfere with wars, don’t help people that might be in need - it’s ridiculous. Plus, Jedi are forbidden from having personal attachments of any kind. You get taken from your family as an infant and groomed to be this peace keeper and you can’t even get married either.” you ranted, shrugging your shoulders. “I just don’t agree with it, personally. Darth Vader rose out of fear of losing someone close to him, and he couldn’t go to the Jedi for help.”

The kid had fallen asleep in your lap now, over the conversation that was happening between the two of you. His head rested soundly on your stomach as he had curled up in between your legs, out like a light. You wondered what the Mandalorian was going to do next - he seemed to believe most of what you had said, if not all of it. Was he going to ask you where to find Luke? That was something you didn’t want to do.

“Who is this person that’s making this school now? Where is he?” It’s like he could read your mind. You took a big breath in and sighed, averting your gaze away from the Mandalorian.

“He’s an old friend. We grew up together here but - things changed after he learned his powers. I don’t know where he is now. After the Rebellion won the war he sort of just became distant, or so I heard. He hasn’t been back here in years, I haven’t seen him in years.” you told him.

It was the truth. You didn’t know where he was and you hadn’t seen him in years. The last time you saw Luke was after the fall of the Empire - he came back to Tattooine to ‘rest’ after the war. He said he needed to find his purpose now, since Darth Vader had fallen and his training was complete. He lived with you during that time period, when you were still at least trying to practice Jedi beliefs.

But things had already changed - you knew that. You think Luke knew that too, which is why he left the way that he did. He could sense it - he knew what was going on and what you felt and were going to do. It was painful for you to look back on it - you couldn’t believe that he had changed the way he was. You hadn’t seen him since he left your house that day six years ago, nor did you want to any time soon.

You could tell the Mandalorian was a little frustrated by your answer - hoping that you would have more. You did - you could tell him to go to Chandrilla and talk to Leia and have her contact Luke. But you didn’t want to do that - you knew what Luke would do. Luke would take the kid away from him, and that wasn’t going to be what was best for either of them. The Mandalorian relied on the kid too much if he liked it or not and the kid wouldn’t understand.

“Thank you for the information.” he said, coming closer to you and lifting the kid out of your lap, leaving you in your living room alone and going into the bedroom.

You were left to your thoughts, flashbacks of your time as a practicing Jedi plaguing your mind for the rest of the night.

taglist: @waiting-for-motivation @domino-oh-damn @theocatkov @killtherandomness @mrsparknuts @wolf-lover74 @the-sparkism @jedi-dreaa

[malfoysdarkprincess]

Power of the Darkness ⇝ i.

Summary: Before the galactic domination of the First Order, we follow a young Y/N and Ben Solo through their creation as the new found Lord and Lady of the Galactic Empire under the reign of Supreme Leader Snoke. Both are Jedi’s gone dark, making you both extremely powerful and feared by every civilization in the galaxy. Will the first order come out on top or will the new found hero Rey and the resistance destroy and last remainder of the dark side? Pairing: Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x Reader Word Count: 1.6k A/n: Hey guys! I’ve been working on this for a week now and i finally decided today that i would share it with you all and drop some peeks at the new fic. I’m also gonna make Y/N, Kylo, Rey, Finn etc. close in age, it will still all flow and make sense :) Anyway, enjoy and if you lie it Like and Re post so I know that this series is worth continuing <3

I don’t remember much of my parents. I was always told they sold me to Maz Kanata to help out in Takodana but I knew it was something more than that. Either way, I always resented them for leaving me there. As I got older, it became clear I was a force-sensitive and was increasingly getting stronger. Maz had sent me away to train with Master Luke Skywalker and several other children as well. That’s where I met him, Ben Solo.

“Benjamin, I swear to the stars, if you don’t get up right now to train- I will suffocate you with your own pillow,” Y/N had threatened the young boy with Raven Hair. She received a grunt in response from him which caused to frown. She picked up the pillow that was on the floor and nearly hit him in the head with it but, he caught her wrist and pinned her on the bed.

“You are easily, the most annoying person I know,” his groggy voice filled her ears. She sent a big, toothy grin his way. He dipped his head, their lips catching on one another’s. Y/N started to giggle, and Ben looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Morning Breath,” Y/N stuck her tongue out, eyes scrunched close. Ben grabbed the pillow that Y/N let go of and thumped her right in the face.

*

They were too in sync. They knew each other’s moves, even before they were to do them. Luke Skywalker had been watching them, he knew they were connected in ways more than one. He knew of their secret relationship; he knew the force connected them as one. It was a power that frightened him because he sensed the bubbling darkness in both his pupils.

“If I say anything, I might cause bigger problems than what we already have R2,” Luke quietly explained to the droid. R2D2 began to whir back and shake slightly. Luke sighed and continued to stare at his pupils, “You’re right, I need to talk to Leia.”

The two pupils continued to fight, oblivious to their master’s gaze. They stopped sparring and practiced moves together. Y/N could not get the sand twister which resulting in Ben nicking her arms every time. The pain was searing, but she knew the pain was a reminder that she was failing. Ben apologized every time he got her, and Y/N would just shake her head.

She finally got it after being burnt at least twenty times, her arm already began to swelter with blisters. “Maybe if you were better you wouldn’t have been burnt that many times,” Ben joked, stuffing his saber into this holder.

“Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole you could’ve missed my arm instead of getting it” Y/N retorted, kicking the dirt as she spoke. “I’m going to go to the infirmary, my arm kinda-”

“I’ll come with you Y/-”

“-It’s okay Ben, you go clean up, I’ll meet you at your hut after, I promise,” Y/N had smiled at him and whiskfully spun on her heel and headed toward the infirmary. She felt Ben stare at her up until the doors shut behind her in one of the temples. Her head suddenly began to hurt, as if something was prying her mind apart. That’s when she heard the voice.

Hello Child.

She froze, no one was in sight and it was a voice unfamiliar to her. Her confusion was amusing to the mysterious voice.

Oh child, I am no where in sight for you. I sense your strong power. Power that shouldn’t abide to such harsh laws that the Jedi Order enforces.

“Who are you? What do you want?” she whispered, her voice shaking as she spoke. The voice didn’t respond straight away but when it did, it sent shivers down her spine.

You will know soon enough. You’ll make the right decision.

She froze. Her breathing picked up the pace. Who the hell was that?

*

Ben laid in his hut shirtless as he cleaned his saber of dirt and grime. He was in a conflict, Supreme Leader Snoke of the first order has been enticing him of large promises within the first order. He promised great power to Ben, but he knew that would not suffice to lure him to the dark side. Snoke wanted Y/N too but he wouldn’t tell Ben why, all he would say is they both hold great power. Of course, Snoke seduced him with that thought that Ben and Y/N would be fine to openly love another if they joined the first order. Ben didn’t know what to do.

Thump. Ben jumped at the noise and heard a groan of pain. He went over to his hut door and opened it to reveal Y/N holding her head and her right arm covered in bandages. “Sorry love, my door was locked” he informed.

“Really? Didn’t realise,” Y/N grunted and pushed past him. Something was up with her and he could tell. She sat down on his bed and took in the site of the shirtless boy. He caught her staring and she only just winked back; heat creeped its way up to his cheeks. “My cuts are fine by the way. Nurse Meera just said I need to clean them, and they’ll heal fine. You only got me 12 times though,” She smiled. Ben notice her fingers fidgeting.

“What’s wrong? You’re fidgeting...” Ben trailed off, his eyes watching her every move. She went to open her mouth to say something, but they heard Master Luke announce outside the huts than supper was served. Y/N hopped off the bed and opened that door.

“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine Ben,” and she walked out heading toward the hall. Ben stood still then chose to catch up with her. “I really am fine. I think I’m just tired and hungry.” Ben hummed in acknowledgment. He knew something was up but he wouldn’t push it out of her. Dinner went by in a blur, Y/N and Ben kept to themselves and didn’t like most of the kids there as majority of them came form wealthy upbringings. Once dinner was done, nightly training would commence. Luke would pair the training jedi’s up to see their improvements and how the adapt to a different fighter each time.

Y/N was picked to fight against Yasmina and as they battled, the voice reappeared.

Yes. You possess a great technique which renders you merely impossible to beat. Yet, you fight like a Jedi. Fight how your blood wants to fight

Y/N shook her head and was almost sliced on the leg. Yasmina smirked and spun and went to slice, but Y/N smacked her saber that hard it flew out of Yasmina’s hand and into her own. Y/N than began to attack Yasmina has she was defenseless.

Yes, my child, destroy her. Complete the Blazing Supernova.

Y/N’s mind didn’t understand what the voice meant but her body did. She felt her body twist and the sabers began to swirl. She almost sliced Yasmina up, but Master Luke had jumped in and had turned off the sabers whilst using the force and pulled them out of her hands and straight into his own. Y/N blinked a few times, slowly realizing what she just did.

You have done well my child.

“What the hell were you thinking. That wasn’t how a Jedi fights you almost killed a fellow pupil doing that. What was that Y/N,” Master Luke had bellowed at her, but in his eyes wasn’t anger… it was fear? Y/N stood still and tried to speak but she couldn’t find the words. “You have lost you supper privileges for two days. You are restricted to your hut, now go!” he continued to bellow. All eyes were on her, all were stifling laughs at her embarrassment from Master Luke, but Ben stared at her in sorrow.

*

“Who are you… please just tell me who you are” Y/N whimpered her head was being split into two.

I am Supreme Leader Snoke of the First Order. You have proven yourself worthy girl.

Her eyebrows furrowed. The first order? What could they want from a nobody like me?

You aren’t a nobody. Close your eyes and I’ll let your Master Luke Skywalker show you.

*

Luke was there, talking to Leia through a holographic communication device. They were both worried and fearful. Y/N was confused she was right next to Luke, but no one noticed her.

Focus and Listen.

And that’s what Y/N did.

“Luke, I think you’re overthinking this. She might not have been thinking. She always trains with Ben and we both know they’re the best you’re training. Maybe she thought-”

“No Leia, we both know Snoke has seduced them. They both are losing sight of the light within the force and are spiralling towards the dark side.”

“Luke, they’re only teenagers. We can’t make assumptions on what they’ve done and who they are”

Y/N’s ears perked. Who they are? Her heart hammered in her chest as Luke began to speak.

“Leia, he has Skywalker blood. The same blood that flowed through you, me and our father. He is powerful and he knows it. So does Snoke.”

Y/N realised that the reason why Ben had begun to lock his door was the same reason as she nearly killed Yasmina. Snoke had been talking to him too.

Yes, my girl, Ben has already made up his mind. I will promise you both great power and the freedom to love one another. No time to be restricted to the Jedi Code.

Leia sighed, yet Luke continued, “And its clear as to why Snoke would now want Y/N”.

Y/N was confused. Then Luke said it and her blood ran cold.

“He would only want her because she’s a Palpatine.”

[sasskarian]

Fanfic Masterpost ... sort of

In honor of Fanfic Appreciation, I put together a list of my fics for anyone who’d like to look 

Under the cut, because length

Dragon Age:

After the Glitter Fades (Glitterverse):  Hawke x Fenris, modern AU. (Long fic, WIP) Hawke and Fenris are movie stars in a torrid love affair. Fenris has a mysterious past. Also Cassandra is investigating a murder mystery? Varric, as ever, is a delight. (*this is borrowed from @nug-juggler‘s excellent and shorter summary!)

Memorable quote:   Fenris observed candidly was something sacred. For a moment, Hawke fiercely wished she were an artist. The scene in front of her was too… every word she could think of— beautiful, elegant, breathtaking— was trite, a pale description of perfection. 

In the Heart of the Woods: Lavellan x Fairbanks rarepair. (WIP) Inquisitor Lavellan’s heart is broken by a certain Commander, Fairbanks has an appreciation for her, and a love story blooms like elfroot in the Emerald Graves.

Memorable quote:   This kiss, she thinks, two mouths moving in perfect unison, is a spell of its own. Not quite love, not yet, but close enough she can pretend it is. Hope wells up, a solid thrum beating in counterpoint to her heart, and for one perfect moment, the world just bows down and… stands still. All that exists, all that ever has existed or ever will exist is wrapped up right here, right now, in Fairbanks’ lips on hers. Motes of dust turn golden in the sunbeams splashing through the roof, and a touch— his thumb, her cheek— says a million more words than words ever could.

Yesterdays: Surana x Zevran, mild Surana x Alistair pining. Post Origins, complete. A Warden’s sacrifice means something only as long as someone remembers it. A king looks back, balancing regrets with happiness.

Memorable quote:   With a half-sob, he realizes he’s forgotten the sound of her voice. Oh, he remembers how it made him feel, all those years ago, all the glorious, shining moments where happiness dwells still. But what she truly sounded like, what sounds she made as she buried herself in books, the snap of her magic, the low buzz of her and Zevran whispering in their tent, all of that is gone. He knows it happened, but the memory is lit dimly in his mind, a torch burned too low to be flame but not low enough for embers yet.

If You Ever Did Believe (for my sake):  Lavellan x Cullen. (On temporary hiatus) A wary Commander. A lost Dalish mage. Two hearts beating alone and exhausted on a battlefield, their only rest coming from each other.

Memorable quote:   “Does your Maker hate us so much?” Isera asked bitterly, and for a moment, Cullen felt as though years had rippled, bringing his past self— still clanking through the halls of Kinloch Hold in Templar plate— and his current together. He’d asked Ser Greagoir the same question once, after a Harrowing went wrong and the body of a former apprentice lay at their feet. So much potential wasted, so much fear in the mages’ eyes after that. For once, Greagoir had shown a hint of emotion, clapping Cullen’s shoulder briefly before walking away, but hadn’t answered.

Voiceverse:  Lavellan x Solas/Dread Wolf. (WIP) Building off of the great works of @khirsahle and @athreehundredthirtythree. All mages are born with a soulmate--a voice they hear in the darkness of the Fade all their lives. The lucky ones find their soulmates and forge a bond strong enough to threaten the very foundations of the Chantry. At least, that's what they claim. So what happens when a Dalish mage hears the voice of their most reviled and feared god shaping her dreams? 

Memorable quote:   Accompanying the thundering voice, great fissures ruptured around her hiding spot, green light streaking upward as they gathered into a roiling cloud. A wave of raw sound— howls, cries, pleas— rolled over her, forcing her to her knees. Iveani clapped her hands over her ears, losing her own scream among the agony thundering through the Fade. All caution, all her hard-won lessons about walking the Fade, vanished into the back of her mind under the need to simply ride out the explosion and survive.

Mass Effect:

Home is Where You Are: Ryder x Jaal (WIP). Ryder didn’t cross two galaxies and 600 years in search of love. But damn if she didn’t find it anyway.

Memorable quote:   “I should take a shower,” he mumbled, as the same time as Sara said, “Would you like to stay?” Both of them broke off, staring at the other, and she laughed nervously. That feeling was back, the one from the tech lab, fragility and strength and affection turned fierce and bright tumbling over and over one other.

A Song of Sea and Stars: Garrus x Shepard x Thane (WIP). Our favorite turian badboy sees right through the mask the galaxy’s most famous Commander projects. Neither of them expected to fall in love on a host of impossible missions. And both are taken by surprise by a pious Drell who steals both their hearts.

Memorable quote:   (He opens his eyes, shocked how it feels to look into her face, intimate and hungry. He hazily notices that up close, her eyes are thulium-gray. There's a hot, tight knot in his chest and she's pressed so close, he thinks he could count each faint freckle on her face.) (They look like tiny stars.) (…there are twenty-eight on her right cheek. Thirty on her left. And fourteen, right across the bridge of her nose.) (Those are his favorite. They remind him of his own markings.)

the sound of shattering glass: Generic Shepard, post-Tuchanka, pre-Citadel II. The Shroud explodes, taking a beloved friend with it. Shepard only has herself to blame.

Memorable quote:   “Damn Reapers,” he said, striving for nonchalance. “Always throwing us around.” “Banged us up pretty good,” she agreed, and he knew she wasn’t talking about their bumps and bruises. “So what do we do about them?” “Get back on our feet. Keep fighting.” Garrus hummed as she shifted closer, pressed her forehead against his neck. “Maybe find a way to use some really big canons I spend half my time adjusting.”

Star Wars:

He Might Like That: Mandalorian x Cara Dune pining. So they argue. So they took down Gideon, and have a magic green frog baby older than both of them. That doesn’t make them a thing. Does it?

Memorable quote:   He tunes back into the not-so-friendly argument in time to hear Greef splutter. “You trash talked while holding hands! If that’s not flirting, I’m a kowakian monkey lizard.” “It was arm wrestling, not holding hands,” Din points out mildly. 

Star by Star:  Post TRoS. Ben x Rey pining, Finn x Rey x Poe. Can three hopeless idiots in love fill a wound as deep as the death of a dyad? Maybe not, but they’re out to try anyway.

Memorable quote:   “You know,” Poe whispers, a glint of mischief in his eyes, “if we ever did tell him we loved him, he’d probably sleep right through it.” Rey touches her fingers to his lips, tracing the shape of his questioning smile. It’s an invitation to play, that smile. A careful offer of love, of comfort. And though she’s not sure if he can really understand when even she doesn’t, she’s finally ready to try a little. 

Counting The Days (Since Exegol): Finn x Rey x Poe, Ben x Rey. Its been 42 days since Palpatine’s death. 42 long days since she felt the surge of light in Ben Solo. And in her dreams, something whispers on the edge of the Force. But she’s shut it down too tightly to hear it. 

Memorable quote:   True to form, Poe can’t resist the urge to kiss away Finn’s troubles whenever possible, and Rey looks away to give them a moment. Some love stories work out, yes, and she loves Finn and Poe more than almost anything else. But that doesn’t stop the way bitterness floods her mouth as the memory of Ben surfaces, and it isn’t until Poe gently squeezes her knee (and she throttles back the near-instinctive urge to break his fingers from a lifetime of fending off handsy scavengers on Jakku) that she comes back to the moment. His brow furrows and she reaches for him, smoothing out the lines of his frown with her thumb. “I’m okay,” she says, answering his unspoken question. It’s mostly a lie, but she has to say it. Most days, she’s okay enough.

A Language Made for Lovers: SWTOR (NSFW). Torian Cadera x Bounty Hunter, gender neutral. Reflections on love and marriage under the glow of hyperspace.

Memorable quote:   He murmurs in your ear, words that should sound harsh in that still-new tongue scalding your mouth, molding you from aruetii to mandalorian. But the love in his voice softens them, steeps them in warmth and adoration. Still the language of a hunter, of those brave souls willing to be reforged, but with a gentle side, a language reserved for lovers. Words like cyare and riduur, words that mean I love you and forever and home.

Malicious Compliance: SWTOR (NSFW). Malavai Quinn x Sith Warrior, gender neutral. Far away, in an apartment no one knows about, a Sith Lord plays dire games of control... and trust.

Memorable quote:   It takes a man with the courage of an entire fleet of Mandalorians to love a Sith, and oh, how he loves you. Like you hung the moons and the stars and all the spaces between. Like you are his other half, like loving you is his sole purpose in life, does Malavai Quinn love you. Your old masters spoke nothing of this, of this enraging hunger gnawing at your bones and curling into the hollows of your rib cage. ... Is it really even love if you don’t want to devour him just a little?

Misc:

Tumblr Prompts: Grab bag of every fandom and series listed above. Prompts filled originally here on tumblr.

Visual Files: Collections of art and commissions from talented friends and artists here on tumblr.

Every Beautiful Thing: Crimson Peak. Thomas x Edith, Edith x Alan. Edith learned, in the dark halls of Allerdale, not to take ghosts lightly. But still she waits, every year, for a chance to see Thomas again. Until the night their son tells her he can see him too.

Memorable quote:   Snow heralds nothing but pain in Edith’s world: first her mother’s funeral, smothered in fat white flakes wet on her lashes like tears, then her father’s. Smaller ones, then, rain slowly freezing and scattering on the ground; the ones that night at Allerdale were the smallest yet, more ice pellet than snow. Jagged, hateful things scraping at her with a cold that burned through skin and encased bone.…God, how she has come to hate the snow.

Where I Can’t Follow: Co-authored by @suspendnodisbelief. show!Witcher, mild Geralt x Jaskier. (Temporary hiatus) Drawing from a variety of inspiration, including greek mythos. Geralt takes a blow meant for Jaskier, finally granted the death by battle he expects Witchers to end by. And Jaskier is not having it, at all. It’s his turn to save Geralt, even if he has to walk the entire bloody underworld to do it.

Memorable quote: “Geralt, get up. Come on, open your eyes. You’re going to upset Roach if you keep this up, and she’ll bite me. You know you aren’t allowed to be dead, because Yennefer didn’t give you permission, and neither did the Princess, and I’m pretty sure they both outrank you.”  

[kyluxtrashpit]

TROS Review

Okay here is my extremely long (almost 4k words >.>) review of tros. And that’s without the 2k meta on redemption arcs I also have filed away lmao. First off: I am not leaving the kylux fandom. It’s not a good enough movie to warrant that. Second: I might make a post of things I wished we’d gotten later, but this is already WAY too long lmao. Warnings for spoilers, opinions, and general negativity

EXPLICIT RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

So. I have watched the thing. I went in knowing the spoilers and oh boy, am I glad I did. Still, overall this movie was… not great lmao. It’s messy and the pacing is off and there are some very weird and straight up Bad moments, but I’m not actually upset about it anymore. It’s more like ‘there’s a lot to unpack here’ except we’re not going to unpack it or even throw away the whole thing, it’s just gonna become that one box that’s still packed and untouched from when you moved 3 years ago. It’s there, but you rarely think about it beyond the occasional ‘maybe I should finally unpack that? Nah, too much effort’

I see a lot of people writing fix it fic and that’s totally valid but tbh… I don’t think it’s worth the effort for me. I think I’m just going to pretend it never happened and write my kylux the way I always have. Maybe I’ll do something with tros at some point, maybe some mean!Hux + redeemed!Ben because I’m awful lmao but for now, it hasn’t changed my plans at all. Which is actually a good thing tbh

Anyway. I’ll start with the good simply because there’s less of it lmao. Best thing about the movie? Everyone in it is looking like a fucking snack. It’s great. These people have always been hot, but this movie really nailed that. Also the trio stuff was fun and felt genuine. I LOVED the hints that Finn is Force sensitive, and I liked him in this movie even though I wish he got more story/time. I enjoyed Rey at the beginning, but her actions and plotline made less and less sense as the movie went on. Kylo was fun; I had gotten worried after that interview that said he’s calm now but he wasn’t lmao, like at all, so that was good. Also I didn’t like how Hux died but I’m endlessly grateful Kylo wasn’t the one to kill him. That might’ve actually ruined the ship for me

The visuals were excellent (save that strobing near the beginning; I’m not epileptic, but I had to close my eyes because it was too much). Some of the jokes hit will, as did some of the emotional bits (Chewie’s “death” was very well-executed and Rey’s scream broke my heart). Weirdly enough, C-3PO is kind of the heart of the movie, which I did not expect at all. Lando’s appearances were too brief but good. I also loved D-O a lot and he’s very cute. I liked seeing a bunch of new planets and environments, however briefly. The acting was also really great throughout on most accounts. I really enjoyed 2 of the Hux scenes (when he’s sitting in that board meeting making a face like he’s mentally eviscerating everyone in the room and when he gets so excited to finally get to blow something up and then Kylo shuts him up with the Force BUT WITHOUT HARMING HIM!!!)

That’s kind of it tbh. The movie overall is really messy. I’ve seen people say it feels like a fever dream and it really does. I’ve seen descriptions of people dreaming the plot of tros and they’re less weird. The pacing in the first chunk is way too fast and there’s way too much to take in. Then things get weird in the middle. Then, well, that ending. It feels like it’s trying too hard to be liked. It’s ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘joke’, ‘reference to past movie’, ‘mention of hope without showing it’, etc. etc. on and on throughout it. Some of those are fun, but it got tiring very quickly. And it made it impossible for me to suspend disbelief long enough to actually get into it

I also saw a lot of reviews saying if you didn’t like tlj, you would like this one. That was not correct. I disliked this for many of same reasons I disliked tlj, but it also managed to hold tfa’s weaknesses as well. Honestly, tros feels like the worst aspects of tlj mixed with the worst aspects of tfa, mixed with way too much nostalgia and then blended up with a good heaping of mania and desperation to keep it going. It tried so hard, wanted to be liked so badly, and you can feel that watching it. It doesn’t feel genuine

It also feels like every single movie in the ST was actually from a different trilogy. None of the 3 connect to each other. You can’t say tros is a successor to tlj or tfa; it’s totally on a different path, which I’m honestly not sure how they managed that. As much as I felt tlj wasn’t a true continuation of tfa, tros feels like its own trilogy mashed into one movie. There wasn’t one consistent plot or character thread to follow between all 3 movies

I think bringing palpatine back was the first fundamental mistake. It didn’t fit. And after creating Kylo and Snoke to be very specifically Not Sith, why bring the Sith back all of a sudden? Palpatine has had his day and he didn’t need this. No one did. Much as he was creepy as hell and that was well done, it didn’t feel right to have him there. Also, I really don’t like the implication he procreated at any point skdfjskldjk

As for Rey… I know I’m in the minority here, but I never found here to be a good narrative foil for Kylo. The connection between the two doesn’t really interest me at all (and this was one of the reasons I didn’t like tlj). It worked better if they were related, which was the biggest reason I was a proponent of Rey Skywalker, but that didn’t happen. The commonalities they have are just: 1) can use the Force, 2) have been lonely. The contrasts are: 1) light vs dark (sort of; this is less explicit in tfa and I miss that greyer view of the Force) and 2) had a family vs didn’t. And that’s pretty much it. In order for 2 characters to contrast and hit the ‘complimentary opposites’ sweet spot, you need much, much more than that. Finn has and always will be a better foil for Kylo and it’s a damn shame they abandoned that in tlj and even more so in tros. I have more thoughts on her that I’ll get to later too

I did like Rey in the beginning, but the longer it went on, the less I could rationalize her actions. Why is she doing that? Why is she trying to ditch her friends all the time? Why does she heal the cave snake? Why does she stab Kylo when he’s just become a non-combatant? Why does she heal him after? Why is she trying to reach out to the spirits of past jedi? Why did she Do That after she wakes up in the end? Why did she then seem to not even care that Kylo died right after? None of this is explained. Show, don’t tell, is great, but you can’t just make massive leaps like that. I didn’t get it. None of this felt like the character I’ve gotten to know over the last few years, nor did it feel consistent within the movie itself

That said, I want to discount one complaint I’ve seen: I got no impression she’s exiling herself on Tatooine at the end. It’s very clear she’s just doing a quick funeral ritual for Luke and Leia. The Falcon is still there, ready for when she’s done. I don’t get where the ‘she’s all alone in the desert again forever and ever’ comes from because it’s clear she’s not. It’s just a private ceremony (plus obvious fanservice). That’s it

For Finn: I liked that his character got to be a lot cooler here. I’m sad that he didn’t get half the attention and plot he deserved, but at least he wasn’t treated as a joke and a coward. My tlj complaint for Finn was that he went through the exact same arc he did in tfa over again; here, he doesn’t. He’s clearly grown into himself. That I liked. But damn, he was supposed to be a main character and he really got sidelined hard. It’s also very clear finnrey was planned at some point but didn’t end up in the final cut. The tease with that felt cruel tbh. He deserved to get to tell Rey he loved her on screen

And Poe: Poe was okay in this one. He felt to me like a different character in tfa and tlj, but this one managed to mesh the two characterizations well. He’s a bit of a hothead who doesn’t think (tlj), but he also really cares about people and is trying his best to lead (tfa). That was very successfully done. However. Poe is the one character with the most backstory. He’s got novels, comics, all of it. Where in the fuck is this history of being a spice runner in all that??? Sketchy as hell to make your one Latino character being a drug runner but you know. It also felt like a HUGE retcon of the one character that actually has fully revealed backstory. Also his thing with Zori was just weird and forced and exhaustingly heterosexual. Completely pointless tbh

As I was rereading this, I realized I forgot Rose but really, that’s because she does pretty much nothing. She has very few lines, never comes along. It’s like they forgot she was there. Or just didn’t care. It was really sad and a huge disrespect to everything KMT has gone through. Both her and her character deserved more

For Hux: I liked the 2 scenes I mentioned above, but other than that I was disappointed. I said this on twitter already, but the biggest crime they committed was getting rid of his fanaticism. Tlj may have turned him into a joke, but at least he was still a zealot. Here, it’s clear he gave up his last fuck like a year ago. It’s 9 am and he’s had 6 glasses of wine because he’s lost the will to live and it’s all pointless. Might as well fuck around and give the Resistance info that might lead to the end of everything he’s worked for his entire life because nothing matters and at least Kylo will lose. That’s dumb and violently ooc. I get him being a traitor to Kylo, I am DOWN for that, but not to the FO. He cares about the FO. He is fanatically devoted to the FO. That was ridiculous and wildly out of character. Also the FO is just gone in favour of Palpatine’s fleet as soon as Hux dies? What happened to them? Are they still out there? Who even knows? WHAT A FUCKING WASTE

Also Pryde? Fuck that guy and fuck JJ/LF/Disney for thinking it’s okay to have an old imperial kill Hux. Especially since the visual dictionary today confirmed Pryde knew Brendol and our Hux had known him for years. The possible implications are gross as fuck. If anyone was going to kill Hux one on one, it should have been Finn (with a wonderful stormtrooper rebellion arc involved) for the sake of both characters. I’m personally going to choose to believe Hux was wearing a blaster proof vest (thank you, Delilah Dawson, for putting those into Black Spire as canon) and faked his death. He’s living in blissful exile with Millie now or rebuilding the actual FO and ready to take over as the Emperor he deserves to be

Oh and Leia’s scenes did feel weird. I appreciate them trying to incorporate her, but it didn’t quite work. I feel like having her be offscreen yet present would’ve worked better than most of what they used. Some worked better than others though. I also have some Thoughts about her death but I’m about to get into the second half of the movie stuff and I’ll cover that there

Now Kylo. My darling, sweet, disaster boy. So. Okay. I knew no matter what happened his end would be controversial. And I have a lot of feelings on redemption arcs that can be distilled into one thing: if they’re written well, I like them, no matter how much bad the character has done; however, they are almost never written well enough. One of the first things I said coming out of tfa back in 2015 is ‘that’s going to be a disappointing redemption arc in a few years’. It was never about what ending I wanted (I actually favour something more grey than simply ‘oh he’s good now’ or ‘dies evil’, but that was way too ambitious for them to attempt so I never bothered to hope for it), because I knew it was coming. So this didn’t really bother me beyond the fact that it was too sudden. I do blame that partially on tlj, because it took Kylo from conflicted and torn apart to ‘yeah, I’m in charge now’, but I still think this was not the way to do it. Anyway. I have a 2k word rant somewhere about redemption arcs and when they work and when they don’t that I never posted and this is the much, much shorter version of that

Also. Okay. One more thing on this. So I usually don’t like redemption arcs because they’re written badly, but my least favourite redemption arcs are those that end in death. The only one I can think of that actually worked was Vader’s, but it doesn’t work as well with Kylo. Why? Because redemption is about making amends, not being punished. It’s about choosing to stop doing bad shit and instead to do good things to make up for what you’ve done. In self-sacrifice, not only does it send the message that the only path to redemption is death, but also it means you do literally one thing and then die. That’s it. One good deed, die, you’re done. That’s too fucking easy. True redemption is waking up every single day, for the rest of your life, and continuing to choose to do good. You know that evil is easier, feels better; you’ve done it. But you’re making the choice to keep doing good and to make amends instead. And you do that for years. Decades, even. That is SO MUCH harder to do than just one good thing and then immediately dying without showing if that change is lasting or not. That is how redemption is achieved: in making that choice not once, but again and again and again. So yeah. I didn’t like that. Death redemptions aren’t convincing to me because one choice is easy; consistently making that choice over the rest of your life is much, much harder

End of point: if they were going to redeem Kylo, he needed to live and work to make up for his past mistakes in order to make it impactful. It’s a damn shame he didn’t

Also: having Leia die for the sake of a man, son or not? FUCK THAT. And, even worse, if we follow the movie’s logic: Leia died trying to reach and save her son. Which lead to… him dying anyway?! Which means Leia’s death is meaningless and she died for literally nothing. Fuck that. FUCK THAT. What the fuck. That’s bullshit

Again on the redemption: Kylo just… kills his good friends the KOR without a shred of hesitation? Also the KOR literally never speak? And Kylo says literally one word (‘ow’) after the redemption? I admit, it was fun watching him fight and also watching him get hurt. If I ignore the context of it, watching him crawl out of the pit, scrabbling on the ground, so hurt he can’t even stand up? Fuck. That was good shit tbh. Also those big, desperate puppy eyes. They’re even worse with him as Ben instead of Kylo. Bravo to Adam for playing such a convincing sad boy. I hate that his scar got healed though; I liked it

Now. The whole ending and the plot stuff. Rey being a palpatine is… okay. Fine. I don’t like it but whatever. Seems like an unnecessary excuse to bring him back. Also Luke and Leia knowing? How? Luke knew Rey for literally 1 day. And how would Leia know? And why not tell Rey, who was so desperate for answers to her past when they thought Palpatine was dead? It makes no sense. It’s just very unnecessary. Not to mention the line “you’re a palpatine” is not a thing any real human being would ever say, jfc that was clumsy and unrealistic dialogue. I don’t mind Rey going a bit dark for some time, but this was not the way to do it. Also I was really hoping for a resolution beyond ‘dark siders dead, light sider alive’ because the dichotomous nature of the Force MAKES NO SENSE. Balance is needed. Leaving the only Force user alive a light sider means something dark will come again for the sake of it – Rey should’ve gone grey and tbh tfa made me hope this trilogy would end with all surviving Force users grey. So that was disappointing

Now. The kiss. Straight up: I do not ship it. I don’t mind if other people do, but I do get touchy when they go out of their way to prove there’s nothing inherently problematic about it. I ship kylux; it’s problematic as hell. That’s a good part of why I like it. So I’m fine with r*ylo shippers as long as they do the same. Problem is: most don’t and go around insisting it’s actually the highest romance possible while leaning on incredibly misogynistic and racist tropes to prop up that argument rather than accept their ship has some questionable parts to it (like kyluxers do). It’s more a problem with the fandom for me than it is the ship in theory. Still, I don’t like it and that’s what matters for this

The fact of the matter is it felt extremely sudden and out of place. The entire first half of the movie is Kylo being an aggressive, creepy asshole to Rey. I can theoretically entertain the idea of Kylo having feelings for her (though I don’t), but I cannot see the other way around, not when Rey has so many kind, wonderful people around her. Which is why this feels so weird. There was not enough build to it. I saw a cam clip off reddit before I went in, so I had accepted it was happening but I expected a lot more lead up to it to make it not seem so sudden. None of that was there. There was no build up or reaching of understanding so it reads exactly like those versions of it I dislike: there is nothing wrong with a man berating you and insulting you and attacking you and you should love him for it. That is not enemies to lovers. That’s just abusive bullshit

And then the death. Both of them. Rey dies from… what exactly? It’s never shown at all. And same with Kylo. The leaks said it was Force exhaustion, which a) why? And b) that’s not clear in the damn movie. You need to explain things!!!! And also that means Leia, Luke, Kylo, and Rey all died (even if one didn’t stick) from using the Force too hard. Meanwhile Darth Maul survives getting cut in half and Palpatine survives falling down a shaft in a space station that explodes 2 minutes later (and, you know, all the wacky Force shit he did in this movie too). The fuck? It’s dumb. I hate it

Also the dyad thing was weird. I know the early leaks had it more explained, then the leaks said they cut it, but now it looks like they left in 3 lines of dialogue with it and cut the rest. Again, explanations people! This is not a thing in previous canon! Maybe in the EU, but that’s not canon anymore! The fuck!!!! The idea is dumb and forced to begin with, but the execution made it worse

And now for the final, largest criticism I have. A confession: I am not a star wars fan by nature. I’ve always liked them, but I preferred other sci-fi more. I’m more of an invasive species who forcibly carved my way into this fandom ecological niche because I really loved Kylo lmao. But if there is one thing star wars is defined by, I don’t think it’s love or family or any of those common themes people say. It’s hope. That’s the thing star wars does well. Even when things are darkest, it keeps the hope alive and it makes you feel that. Good will triumph. There is reason to believe in heroes, even when they stumble

This movie is not hopeful. Rogue One, a masterful tragedy, still manages a message of hope despite every single lead character dying. This one doesn’t. And tbh, I think tlj missed on this a bit too (a lot of talk about having hope, not a lot of showing us reasons to be hopeful), but it was still there. Tros does not feel hopeful. The Skywalkers are all dead. Rey has decided to download the legacy (why? No idea! The whole message was ‘don’t be afraid of who you are’ and she just then decided to become someone else? Makes no sense!!!). Anakin’s sacrifice meant nothing because Palpatine came back (and it is CRIMINAL we never got an Anakin and Kylo scene). Han and Leia’s and even Luke’s (a bit) deaths meant nothing because yeah, Kylo turned back in the end, but then he died anyway. They all gave their lives to save him and it was all for nothing. He’s still dead. Palpatine is gone and so is his fleet, but what about the FO fleet? Are they still out there? Are there brainwashed stormtroopers still trapped in its clutches (also, they were so close with Jannah and Finn to adding depth here, but nope, the stormtroopers are still cannon fodder in every fight scene even though they’re literally slaves!!!!)? Who knows!

This movie only feels conclusive in that so many characters we love are dead. That’s it. There’s more questions than answers and so much left unresolved. There’s no sense of hope in it. There’s barely a sense of victory. It’s not satisfying. Even the celebration at the end feels weird and like it’s trying to force you to be happy. The jedistormpilot hug was good, but the lesbian kiss was such a cheap attempt at trying to appease people calling for representation. The moment with Lando and Jannah at the end was probably the most hopeful part of the movie and neither of them are lead characters

Idk. I know this is pretty negative. But I didn’t really enjoy this movie. Some parts were fun, or funny, or exciting, or emotional. But overall? No. This was not a satisfying conclusion for any of these characters, either the new or the old. They missed. Hard. Not one character was truly done justice. And it’s disappointing. But it’s over now and I have no intentions of letting it dictate my fandom activities. I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen and call it a day

[jadejedi]

Love Does Not Fail (1/?)

Summary: When Anakin saves the galaxy from Palpatine, Padmé and his children survive, but their family is split apart nonetheless. Leia is taken to be raised in the Temple, not knowing that the Jedi who "found" her is actually her father. Luke grows up with Padmé, knowing only his mother's side of the family. But some things are inevitable.

ao3 link here

A/N: Another RotS fix-it fic slash what if Anakin and Padmé each raise a twin fic. Basically, things happen a little differently post Crisis at the Heart. This chapter is basically a prologue, so we are going to move with LIGHTNING SPEED through RotS. The focus of this story is what comes after RotS, rather than a scene-by-scene rewrite of the movie. Also, I am a little hesitant to put this out before s7 of The Clone Wars airs, but eh whatever. If it fits in, great, if not, oh well. 

Padmé was silent on the jump back to Coruscant. 

Anakin wasn’t sure if it was grief for the loss of Clovis, or if it was lingering anger over his actions throughout this whole ordeal. He had been right about Clovis being a traitorous piece of Separatist scum, but he had a feeling that that wasn’t much comfort to Padmé right now. 

For the first couple of hours of the trip back, he had been content to pretend to meditate while he let her sit silently in his bunk on The Resolute, wordlessly scrolling through her datapad, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on like this. 

“Padmé,” he began hesitantly, moving to crouch next to the bunk. “I am sorry about what happened to Clovis. I am sorry for my part in all of this.” 

She looked up from her data pad, a tired look in her eyes. “Anakin, what has happened to us?” She set the data pad down and looked at her hands. “Our relationship isn’t what it once was.”

Anakin felt his heart ache. “Do you still want us to… take a break?” he asked, recalling her words on Coruscant. 

She shook her head helplessly. “Anakin, I love you. I don’t want to be apart from you. But I also want things that can’t be. I want our relationship to be better than it is now.”

Anakin reached out to grasp her hands. “It can be better. I can be better!” He couldn’t lose her. This whole mess had started because he hadn’t wanted to lose her, and now he might anyways.

Padmé smiled sadly at him. “It might not be up to us. This relationship will always be a secret. How can either of us be expected to operate normally, or in any way that could be considered healthy, in such conditions?”

Anakin let out a frustrated huff. “So what? You’re just going to throw this away? Pretend it never happened?”

“No! That’s not what I want.” She sighed. “Anakin, I worry about how healthy his relationship is for you. You feel things so strongly, including your feelings for me. And I love that about you. But you have no outlet for those feelings, except for me. And when you and I are at odds, you have no one to turn to. You end up just bottling up those emotions until they explode out of you like they did at home.”

Anakin looked down at their joined hands. “I could tell Obi-Wan,” he offered. 

“What?” Padmé said in surprise. 

“I…think he may have an idea that something is going on between us,” he admitted, looking up at her. “And I think he would understand, at least a little.” He paused and looked back down. “I haven’t told him before because,” he sighed. “Because I don’t want him to see me as a failure. As a bad Jedi.”

Padmé withdrew one of her hands from his so she could cup his cheek. “Oh, Anakin. Obi-Wan loves you. I know the Jedi aren’t supposed to feel such things, and I know you think that Obi-Wan is above all that, but he isn’t. It is the nature of sentient beings to love. There is no stopping it.”

“You think so?”

Padmé nodded. “I know the Jedi say that attachment is dangerous, but I think that they don’t realize how much strength that love, healthy love, can give a person. I think attachment only becomes dangerous when it becomes an obsession.” She gently tilted his head so he was looking her in the eye. “Anakin, I don’t want our love to become an obsession.”

Anakin leaned into the hand that was touching his cheek. “I don’t want that either. I think you’re right. I need to be able to talk to someone about all of this.” 

She smiled encouragingly at him. “I’m glad, Ani.”

Hearing her use his nickname soothed some of the worry he felt that had been eating away at his gut. They would be okay, he could feel it. 

There was always the possibility that Obi-Wan would rat on him to the Council, but he didn’t think so. And even if he did, his future with Padmé was worth more to him than his future with the Jedi. 

--

“Anakin,” scolded Obi-Wan, “I can feel your anxiety from here,” he said, meditating in one of the Temple’s small meditation rooms.

 Anakin was seated next to him, ostensibly meditating himself. In reality, though, he was too keyed up to meditate. He and Padmé had gotten back from Scipio almost a week ago, and he still hadn’t confessed. His anxiety over the subject was a nexu chewing at his insides. 

When Anakin didn’t reply, Obi-Wan sighed and looked over at him. “What’s going on, Anakin? You know you can talk to me.”

Did he know that? 

Yes, he supposed he did.

“Master,” Anakin began, “I have something to confess to you.”

Obi-Wan looked at him in concern but said nothing, and let him speak.

Anakin paused, then sighed. “I am telling you this because I have no one else to talk to, and it is causing me a great deal of stress.” He paused again. “Please don’t tell the Council.” 

He paused again, before blurting, “I’m married to Padmé!”

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened in surprise, only for a moment, before his expression settled onto one of understanding.

Anakin shot him a hesitant smile. “You knew, didn’t you?

Obi-Wan leaned back where he sat, palms behind him on the ground for support. “I knew you were in a relationship with the Senator, of course. At first, I think I just thought that you wanted to be. But I eventually realized, yes.” He grinned wryly. “I wouldn’t have guessed that you were actually married, though.” 

“You aren’t going to tell the Council?” Anakin asked, just to be sure.

“I am on the Council, Anakin. I don’t see why the whole Council needs to know,” he said with a sly grin. His expression turned serious. “And it’s not like I can’t empathize. I know that you know about some of my history with Satine, but I never really told you all of it.”

“All of it?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes looked sad in a way that had become frighteningly common for him these days. “I loved her. By the end of my time guarding her we were… involved. If she had asked me to leave the Order, I would have,” he admitted.

Anakin felt his own eyes widen. “You? Leave the Order?”

He nodded. “Like I said, we were in love. She didn’t want me to leave for her, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Anakin said. “I didn’t realize how much she meant to you.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “We aren’t talking about me right now. Why are you telling me this now? Is something wrong?”

Ankin sighed and told him about what had happened between him and Padmé and Clovis. 

When he got through the whole story, Obi-Wan grimaced. “You really do have a way of finding trouble in every situation, don’t you?”

“Is that all you have to say?!” Anakin exclaimed, a bit of frustration slipping through. 

Obi-Wan chuckled. “No, of course not. I’m sorry. You have managed to get into a difficult situation, though.”

Anakin looked down at his hands. “I didn’t want to lose her,” he admitted. “I am always so scared of losing her. She is everything to me.”

“Have you considered that your efforts thus far to “keep” her are what is pushing her away?”

And there it was. His worst fear. That his own desire to save Padmé, to save their relationship would be what tore them apart. 

“What do I do?” he asked quietly. 

Obi-Wan stroked his beard. “I think your apology was a good first step. And talking to me was the right thing to do. I want to help you, Anakin. You may not be a conventional Jedi, but you are a great one; your relationship with Padmé hasn’t hindered you so far.”

Anakin felt himself smile a bit at his former master’s praise. 

Obi-Wan continued, “To me, the Jedi’s rules on attachment aren’t so much about any supposed danger that love and attachment carry, but about our responsibility to the Republic and the galaxy as a whole. The worry is that if you are attached to one person or one family, you won’t be able to serve the entire galaxy. And maybe that is true. But I have begun to think that it is possible that we need that attachment anyways. Maybe it makes us lesser Jedi, but it makes us better people.”

--

Things changed slowly for Anakin after that conversation with Obi-Wan, but they did change. 

He felt lighter, not having to hide that secret from his best friend. Knowing that Obi-Wan did not think any less of him. 

He and Padmé invited Obi-Wan over for dinner one night. It was a little awkward, at first, but eventually they all relaxed and Obi-Wan regaled Padmé with stories from Anakin’s apprenticeship. 

Anakin knew he and Padmé’s relationship would never be fully “normal”, but he was glad to be able to provide her with a little bit of that. 

Their relationship righted itself, as much as it could in the span of a couple of weeks. He still worried, about losing her, about the war. But he knew that she loved him, and wanted to be with him. And it helped, knowing that Obi-Wan was behind them. 

It wasn’t long before Obi-Wan and Anakin were deployed again to the Outer Rim. Anakin didn’t have to ask Rex to cover for him to Obi-Wan anymore. When Anakin started to feel the separation from Padmé, he was able to talk to Obi-Wan. 

It was about the longest they’d ever been separated, gone for three months without seeing each other. It wasn’t long before Anakin was driving Obi-Wan fully crazy with his pining for his wife. 

While they were deployed, Anakin felt like he was on the best terms with his former master than he’d been for a long time, maybe ever. Once that one secret had been told, it was like an avalanche had been released. He told Obi-Wan about his mother’s death on Tatooine, about what he’d done to the Tuskens, about everything.

Obi-Wan had been more than concerned, of course. That involved an even longer discussion than when Anakin had told him about his marriage. There had been a lot of meditation involved. And talking. And more meditating. Eventually, Obi-Wan put a hand on his shoulder, and looking him in the eyes said, “Those mistakes, Anakin, were in the past. I fully believe that you have grown past them, and that you understand not just the horror and gravity of your actions, but are no longer the kind of person who would do something like that again.”

And when he said that, Anakin believed him. Not just that Obi-Wan could forgive him and not see him as any less, but over the course of the Sieges, Anakin also came to believe what Obi-Wan said about him. He wasn’t that person anymore. That anger, that resentment and fear that he had so long held in his heart began to melt away as he continued to confide in Padmé and in Obi-Wan. 

And when they got back to Coruscant, and Padmé told him that she was pregnant, he told Obi-Wan the next day. When he had nightmares about her death, all three of them sat down and talked about how serious it might be, and what they could do. 

Padmé was looked over by a Jedi healer (a friend of Obi-Wan’s who was more interested in healing than in spreading secrets), and, to her chagrin, followed around by a very chipper medical droid called AZ-7. Everyone they talked to said she was healthy. But, his nightmares persisted.

--

When the moment came, Anakin was at peace with himself. Well, maybe not entirely. He still didn’t think that the Council trusted him, but Obi-Wan did. And he still had nightmares. But he didn’t want to let them get to him. 

When Palpatine told him that he could show him how to save Padmé from certain death, things clicked into place for Anakin.

“It’s you,” Anakin said, circling the Chancellor, lightsaber drawn. “You are the one giving me those nightmares.” He paused, and looked at Palpatine in horror. “You’ve been manipulating me this whole time!” He growled. “Since I was a boy!”

“No! It’s the Jedi, the Council that’s been manipulating you, Anakin! Your master, he doesn’t trust you. The Council doesn’t trust you! They fear your powers!”

“I’m not going to listen to you,” Anakin snarled.

Palpatine turned away. “Are you going to kill me?”

Anakin paused. Was he? On one hand, it would be treason, wouldn’t it? Did two opposite acts of treason cancel eachother out? On the other hand, he thought back to the discussions that he’d had with Obi-Wan, with Padmé, about the state of the Republic. The Chancellor’s executive powers. The feeling that all the Jedi had had recently, that there was something going on behind this war that they didn’t understand. 

“I would like to,” he admitted. 

“I know you would. I can feel your anger. It gives you focus,” Palpatine said. He turned back around to face Anakin. “Give into the darkside, Anakin. Know its power. It will make you stronger than any Jedi.”

Anakin thought of Padmé and the twins they’d found out she was carrying. He didn’t want to be stronger. He just wanted them. 

“I am going to turn you over to the Jedi Council,” he told Palpatine.

His expression did not change. “Of course. You should. But you’re not sure of their intentions.”

“I’m not sure of your intentions, either.” Anakin shot back. He pointed his lightsaber towards the Chancellor’s desk. “Sit there. I am going to comm the Temple, and I am not letting you out of my sight.”

He directed Palpatine into the chair at the desk, and then, holding his lightsaber to Palpatine’s throat, used the comm on the desk to contact Master Windu.

Mace Windu’s form appeared, blue and shimmering. “Skywalker, what’s wrong? Obi-Wan has destroyed Grievous. We are on our way to the Senate Offices to make sure the Chancellor turns over his emergency powers.”

“I am with him now,” Anakin said grimly. “And he won’t turn over his powers. He is the Sith we have been looking for. I am holding him here until you can arrive as back-up.” Anakin glanced over to Palpatine, who was not looking at Master Windu’s holographic form, rather he was calmly staring straight ahead, hands folded on the desk in front of him.

“A Sith?” Mace Windu said in surprise. “Okay, Skywalker. Stay there,” he commanded emphatically. “I will gather some Council Members.”

“And the Senate,” Anakin interjected. “They need to know what is happening. That he is a traitor. He was working with Dooku!” he exclaimed, suddenly realizing that it must be true.

Mace nodded grimly. “You’re right. I’ll keep them informed. If he tries something, you have my permission to use whatever force you deem necessary.” With that, the call ended. 

“Do you really think the Jedi will be content to just hand power back over to the Senate?” Palpatine sneered. “You know that they are power hungry. You have witnessed their corruption! They will want me dead.”

“Because you are a Sith! You have betrayed the Republic, Chancellor. You have betrayed the whole galaxy! You have manipulated all of us into this war!”

Palpatine shook his head delicately, aware of Anakin’s thrumming lightsaber inches from his neck. “It was unfortunate, yes, that so many had to die. But now that I am in power, now that I control the Republic and the Separatists, the bureaucracy that you so hate will be gone. I can end slavery on Tatooine with a word. I can put the war criminals behind bars without waiting months for a trial and endless deliberation. Isn’t that what you want?” 

Anakin looked out the window towards 500 Republica. It was. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? 

He thought of his mother. She could have been saved with a single order. She could have left Tatooine. 

He thought of the horrors of the war. The Twi’leks, the Lurmen, the Togruta of Kiros, the Mandalorians, and all the worlds that had had atrocities committed against them. 

He thought of Padmé. While he had fought for the Republic on the fronts, she had fought for democracy in the Senate. 

“Not like this.”

Palpatine made a face of disgust. “You are weaker than I thought. When I first met you, I sensed the power within you. I knew the Jedi would waste your potential. You would be my apprentice, and I would rule the galaxy with you by my side. 

“But I was wrong,” he hissed, standing up, ignoring Anakin’s lightsaber. “You are weak! Your love for your wife makes you weak,” he said, all but spitting the phrase ‘your wife’. “Your commitment to Kenobi makes you weak. And your commitment to the Council, to the Republic makes you a fool!” he spat, extending his arms, shoving Anakin away with the Force.

Anakin slammed back against the wall on the other side of the room. 

Two lightsaber hilts appeared in Palpatine’s hands, summoned from the sleeves of his robes. Two blood red blades thrummed to life.

Anakin jumped up, lightsaber at the ready, as Palpatine leapt through the air toward him, snarling. 

Anakin brought up his lightsaber to redirect one of the red blades while he spun away from the range of the other. Palpatine slashed. Each slash, each jab, each attack came at Anakin stronger and quicker than he’d imagined. 

As they fought, Anakin felt the tendrils of anger on the edges of his consciousness.

Palpatine had him in a corner. He jabbed. Anakin jumped up and flipped over the lightsabers, over him.

Not just the anger he’d felt when Palpatine had revealed his betrayal. But the anger he’d felt when he’d slaughtered the Tuskens. When he’d attacked Clovis.

Their lightsabers clashed over and over again in a whirlwind of red and blue. The strength and offensiveness of Anakin’s Djem So countering Palpatine’s angry and chaotic Juyo. 

Everything about this war had been a lie. Everything he’d done in this war, everything he’d sacrificed… 

Anakin saw an opening. Before he could take it, blue lightning shot from Palpatine’s fingertips, flowing into Anakin’s chest. He was once again knocked off his feet and into the desk.

The air smelled of burnt cloth and flesh

He growled in frustration. This fight was going on too long.

Palpatine cackled as he rose up from the ground. “Yes, Anakin! Give in to your anger! Give into hate! Only then can you defeat me!”

He charged at Palpatine, who treated his attacks like mere inconvenience. 

Anakin could feel the anger that had long ago taken root in his heart. It wasn’t giving him strength. It was a leech. But he could not remove it, or ignore it. But he would not give into it.

He parried every attack Palpatine threw at him, countering every one with a blow of his own. 

With a thrum-hiss, suddenly Anakin wasn’t alone. Masters Windu, Fisto, Tiin, and Kolar were with him, surrounding the Chancellor. 

“It’s over, Chancellor,” Master Windu declared. “You’ve lost.”

Palpatine snarled, and a wave of Force energy rolled off of him, knocking all of them, including Anakin, off of their feet. 

Windu and Fisto were the first back on their feet, each catching one of Palpatine’s blades on one of their own.

 Anakin was just about done with being thrown across the damn room. He jumped up, and attacked Palpatine from behind, only to be met with more lightning as Palpatine swung around.

 He was ready for it this time. He caught it on his blade, deflecting it back at him. At the same time, Master Windu disarmed him of one blade, while Master Fisto disarmed him of the other. The deflected lightning caught Palpatine in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

Palpatine looked at Anakin. He snarled, “They will never let you have your wife. They will never-”

 With one smooth motion, Windu drove his lightsaber through his heart. 

Anakin stumbled back, both from shock and exhaustion. He deactivated his lightsaber and the others did the same. 

“You should have taken him prisoner,” Anakin said. “This will not look good to the Senate.”

“How it looks to the Senate is the least of our worries,” Master Fisto said mildly.

Master Windu shook his head. “Skywalker has a point. It won’t look good.” He looked Anakin in the eye. “But I had to do it. He was too dangerous to  be left alive. We don’t have the resources to contain that kind of power.” 

Anakin nodded. He knew that he was right. 

“You have done well here, Skywalker,” Master Windu admitted. “But you have a lot of explaining to do.”

Sooooo, like I said, LIGHTNING SPEED. I kind of rushed how much Anakin’s mindset changed in these months, but I might explore that later in one-shots, or if you want to discuss it, leave a comment!! I have a lot of thoughts about it, but at the same time, that’s not what this story is about; it’s about Anakin and Padmé raising Luke and Leia. I just had to get past this prologue lol. BUT, I will say that I am FAR from done dealing with Anakin’s issues. I kinda hand-waved a lot of it away for the purposes of getting through the events of RotS, but I will definitely be circling back.

[atamascolily]

Appointment in Sawarra, 1/?

First scene of a new Inheritance fic set just after the Thrawn trilogy, featuring Luke Skywalker, philosophical musings about the Jedi, and botany. You know, my usual jam.

I had a good experience serializing Desert Places on this site, so perhaps posting things here as I write them will encourage me to keep going instead of stalling out, since the chapters are long, and my need to finish something is strong.

Luke Skywalker leaned against the wrought stone balcony on the rooftop of the Imperial palace, taking in the red-streaked alpenglow of the snow-covered Maranai Mountains fifty klicks to the south. Skyscrapers lapped at the feet of the two peaks, but the mountains themselves were relatively pristine, one of the few vestiges of natural life on the entire planet, and the contrast was striking.

This wasn't to say there wasn't any development--this <i>was</i> Coruscant, after all--but none of the exclusive restaurants or vacation homes were visible at this distance without macrobinoculars. Even as artificial lights winked on and off like flickering stars as the sunlight faded, the mountains themselves plunged into shadow, cool and dark and silent in the approaching night.

Whenever his heart itched for adventure, and he was too busy to get away from Coruscant, Luke would rent a speeder and fly out to the Manarai. He'd zip over the peaks themselves, flying as low as he dared, heady on the adrenaline rush that came from life-or-death decisions and reckless instinct. Sated, he'd ditch the speeder after a few hours, and wander the winding trails through the remnant forests on the lower slopes of the mountains on foot before flying back to the Imperial Palace for yet another round of politics, bureaucracy, or an equally frustrating combination of the two.

The chaos of the last few years hadn't left much time for exploring, but the mountains remained a refuge in his own mind, if nothing else. He'd toyed with the idea of building a private retreat out there someday, but life kept pushing him in other directions, and he'd never gotten around to it.

Luke liked people, but as his rapport with the Force deepened, he found himself craving silence and stillness to fully recharge--both in short supply on the never-sleeping capital world. The Force was present in all the hustle and bustle of the billions of life-forms all going about their business, no less so than anywhere else in the galaxy. Yet sometimes he needed a break from the traffic and the crowds in order to hear <i>himself</i> think, let alone the quiet whisper of the Force's guidance--which was far more elusive than not despite his training.

A retreat in the Manarai would also put him closer to the newly constructed Orowood distric and the apartment Leia and Han had purchased there. It was part of Leia's ambitious vision to create a hub for the Alderaanian diaspora. In addition to the massive Orowood Tower, she'd supervised the planting of thousands of its namesake trees, complete with the famous iridescent lichen on their bark. Luke wasn't sure Leia would ever move out of the Imperial Palace for good, but he was glad for her to have a project to distract her when the Council was too mired in petty arguments and infighting to get anything done.

As far as Luke could tell, the success of the Orowood scheme hinged entirely on his sister's ability to persuade the skittish remaining Alderaanians that Corcuscant was no longer the Empire's target--a hard sell after Grand Admiral Thrawn's recent siege. The peace settlement with Admiral Pellaeon in the aftermath of Thrawn's assassination at the Battle of Bilbringi might yet convince them--if it held. Only time would tell.

To be honest, Luke wouldn't blame the Alderaanians for taking their chances elsewhere skepticism. Three years ago, when the Alliance had first re-taken the planet, he'd argued against setting up the new government here--or at the very least, not in the Imperial Palace. In his mind, the symbolism was all the more reason to start afresh somewhere else.

Since then, however, he'd come to appreciate the virtues of this bustling city-planet and the Palace itself--in large part thanks to the woman he sensed approaching from twenty meters away.

"Hello, Skywalker," Mara Jade said crisply, leaning against the balcony beside him. "I have to sweet-talk yet another government official into listening to the Smuggler's Alliance latest shipping proposal in...." She glanced at the chronometer on her wrist. "Thirty minutes. So make this quick."

Luke managed to hide a grin, but it was difficult. Since he'd persuaded her to accept the position of official liaison between Talon Karrde's new organization and the New Republic three months ago, there had been no shortage of meetings. To be fair, Luke had gone to plenty of those himself, despite having no official position in the New Republic's military or government since he'd resigned his commission after the Mindor campaign. There had been no shortage of press conferences, planning sessions, and mopping-up actions, and everyone wanted the Last Jedi involved, even if his role was more ceremonial than practical.

At least Mara was accomplishing something <i>useful</i> in her meetings. Even in such a short span of time, she'd managed to make quite a name for herself among the New Republic bureaucrats. They might curse her as a hard bargainer, but they respected her as much as they feared her. Both attitudes went a long way towards smoothing out the previously rocky relationship between legitimate and illegitimate--just as Luke had hoped when he nudged Mara into accepting the job.  

Yet somehow the two of them had managed to carve time out to train together at regular intervals--even if she groused about her workload every time they met.  

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," he said, gesturing to the fading sun. "I used to watch the sunset all the time when I was a kid, wishing I was somewhere--anywhere--else. Now here I am decades later, right where I always wanted to be, and I don't know what comes next."

Mara snorted and shifted her weight. The lightsaber clipped to her belt--that had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker--shifted against the balcony as she moved. She had taken to wearing the weapon openly these days, which could only make the bureaucrats even more nervous than they already were. Seeing it visible made Luke's heart beat faster, even if he couldn't articulate why.

Gifting it to her hadn't been Luke's most subtle gesture. But it had been a way for him to honor and thank her for saving his life several times over--as well as an invitation to continue her Jedi training in the future.

Mara Jade's relationship with the Jedi Order--and Luke himself--was... complex, to say the least. She had grown up in the Imperial Palace, trained since childhood to be the Emperor's Hand, the silent, subtle executioner of his will against enemies and traitors alike. Palpatine had channeled her fledgling abilities to mold her into a perfect servant, one who could hear his voice anywhere in the galaxy and respond accordingly. The Emperor's dying wish had been for her to murder the man he'd claimed was responsible for his death--Luke Skywalker, last of the old Jedi and first of the new.

Suffice to say things had not gone according to plan.

"Spare me your existential angst," she said, turning back to the sunset. "As far as I can tell, there's nothing to complain about. C'baoth and Thrawn are gone, and the war is over. The peace treaty with the Empire might actually last. What's left to figure out?"

Luke extracted a black velvet bag hanging from his belt and held it out to her. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

She accepted the offering gingerly. "What is it?"

"You tell me."

She opened the bag and squinted inside before spilling its contents onto her palm. A knobbly brown lump emerged, along with half a dozen smaller black orbs jammed neatly into its indentations.

"It's organic, whatever it is," she said at last, shoving it back into the bag and handing it back to Luke. "Looks a cone off of some sort of tree, but not a species I recognize. And seeds, perhaps?"

"You're right, it <i>is</i> from a tree," Luke said. He carefully re-attached the bag to special pouch across from his own lightsaber. "Are you sure you haven't seen it before?"

"Positive. Why?"

"The Jedi Order planted these trees at all of their temples," Luke said. "As far as I know, they were wiped out along with the Jedi as part of the Emperor's purge. There was at least one here on Coruscant and I thought maybe you--"

Mara shook her head. "Must have been before my time. I never saw or heard anything about them. But Palpatine and Vader must not have been as thorough as they thought if you have seeds. Where did you get them, anyway? "

"There's a tree on Dagobah that Yoda took me to see before he died," Luke said softly. "I went back to visit it again before facing Vader. This time, there were seeds, so I took some. And I promised... I promised to plant these seeds, to bring them back along with the Jedi Order."

His voice trailed off, lost in the memory of that encounter, of all the possible futures he'd witnessed in the moment he'd accepted the seeds.

Mara's voice cut abruptly into his meditation, drawing him back to the present. "I fail to see what the problem is, Skywalker."

Luke gathered himself together. "I grew up on a desert world; I don't know anything about plants. If I screw this up, it might be a long time before I can get seeds again--there can be decades, centuries even, between harvests. I--I was hoping that you might know something that would help me."

A long pause. He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I don't know who else to ask," he said at last.

Silence stretched out between them as they pondered this admission and its implications. Finally, Mara stirred. "What about Karrde?"

"I thought he dealt more in people than plants."

"He doesn't know everything, but's worth a shot," Mara said. "Information <i>is</i> his business, after all. He has access to all kinds of sources that you don't get if you follow legal channels. And he's full of surprises."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I suppose he might know something about botany--he built his base on Myrkr around a giant tree, after all. But can I afford his services?"

"You get what you pay for with Karrde," she said. "Besides, I think he owes you a favor after you rescued him from Imperial interrogation."

"I had help."

"So let's say you bring the trees back," Mara said, turning away from him. Her role in Karrde's rescue was still a touchy subject, given that she'd been coerced into betraying her boss to the Empire in the first place. "What then? Do the Jedi just start popping out of the woodwork?"

"I don't know," Luke admitted. "The two go together in ways I don't fully understand yet. There's an old saying that when the student is ready, the master appears. But I'm not even close to being a master yet. I don't even know if I'm <i>ready</i> to take on students yet."

She shot him a puzzled look. "You're not such a bad teacher."

From Mara, this was high praise and he took a moment to savor it before plunging ahead. "But you already know so much. In some ways, you have more formal training than I do. It's more like I'm just... reminding you of what you already know than teaching anything new."

Mara winced, and Luke didn't need the Force to know what she was thinking. The four years between Palpatine's death at Endor and joining Karrde's organization had been brutal for her, not in the least because her Force abilities had gone haywire in the trauma. It was only in the last year--the last few months, really, after their victory at Wayland--that she'd been able to find any kind of peace.  

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," she said at last. "We can keep working until you build your confidence back up--and since I don't see a queue of eager students lining up, you might as well work on this tree business. Take my advice and talk to Karrde. See what he says about it."

"How do I sign up for an appointment? I hear he's pretty busy these days."

"Aren't we all." Mara rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll get you in."

"Thank you," Luke said, and meant it.

"And if you're worried about money, I don't think he'll set too high a price," she added as she turned away, off to the next meeting. "He doesn't even want credits from you, anyway.  More likely he'll ask you for a favor he can call on later the next time he's in a jam, assuming he asks for anything at all."

He winced. Karrde's favors tended to be... interesting. "I was afraid of that."

"Oh, come <i>on</i>. You tried to bargain with him for your freedom back when you had <i>nothing</i> but the clothes on your back and he was contemplating whether to sell you to the Empire. How could this be any more awkward than <i>that</i>?"

Luke had to admit she had a point.

[misscrawfords]

The Rise of Skywalker: Part One

I have lots of thoughts and feelings about TROS. Most of them negative. For three days I’ve been alternating between raging and crying. Finally, I’ve felt able to start writing.

This is a negative review. If you loved the film then this might not be the post for you. I am very sensitive to what happened after TLJ. And I want to reassure anyone reading that I would never turn criticism for a film (which is absolutely a valid response to seeing something that you disliked and are trying to understand) into personal attacks against the actors or creators involved or, worse still, fans who liked it. If you liked TROS, can’t bear to hear any criticism of it, and still choose to read my posts about it, then that is on you. (I really shouldn’t have to say this but this is a hellsite.)

This post contains spoilers for TROS... and Jumanji 2. Go figure.

Things I liked:

·       C-3PO and everything he did. This droid is the character I identify with most in the entire SW series (which probably says some uncomfortable things about me but this is not the time!) and he had such a big and important role and his quips were genuinely great and funny and I loved everything he did. Apart from – but more on that later.

·       Ben Solo. Uh, other people have talked about his little shrug and his “ow” and his smile – oh god, his smile. Ben Solo is amazing. It’s a shame that – but more on that later.

·       I didn’t hate Rey Palpatine. I mean, I literally wrote this story when I was 13 when I made Hermione Voldemort’s daughter as a way of explaining her inner darkness and had her team up with Harry (with whom she had a telepathic bond) to destroy him. (You can read the story here if you really want to.) So it would be pretty hypocritical of me to hate this plotline. I enjoyed seeing angry, feral Rey on screen, I enjoyed seeing a female hero confronting her capacity for destruction and darkness. I was okay with the idea of a final face-off between a Palpatine and a Skywalker and how this is a way of bringing final balance to the Force. This was pretty interesting and I’d be up for this. I much prefer Rey Nobody but as a concept I’m not actually against it. Unfortunately the execution – but more on that later.

·       I really enjoyed more of Finn and Poe. I love both of them as characters. I mean I can’t think of a single bit of dialogue that was meaningful between them or what they accomplished in particular for they had some fun moments.

·       Finn and Jannah’s conversation about being ex-stormtroopers was a lovely scene, a moment of much-needed quiet and reflection and bonding in a film that was far too hectic and crowded. Shame it went nowhere.

·       Reylo kiss? I mean, that was cool.

·       Unironically, I loved Hux. He was snarky and his revelation of being the spy because he just hated Kylo that much got the biggest reaction in the cinema of the entire showing. Admittedly it was derisive laughter as we all realised what a clusterfuck of bad writing this film was, but still. It crossed over into so-bad-it’s-good territory. Hux gave me considerable pleasure in a film that otherwise made me very angry.

·       My favourite scene in the film was when Rey and Kylo fought on Pasaana over the transport ship with Chewie (apparently) on and Rey blows it up. The cinematography was amazing, it was a visual representation of both balance and building on the lightsaber breaking scene in TLJ while upping the stakes considerably and Rey’s reaction of visceral horror when she realised what she had done was truly shocking and unexpected. To have Chewie killed off so suddenly like this for no reason except that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the stakes are high and this is a desperate war with casualties – genius. A perfect way to make Rey and Ben even more similar – both having killed father figures – and have Rey confront her dark side as she wrestles with what she has done and the consequences of having a non-unified relationship with Ben while also being in a position to truly empathise with him – this was exactly the content I had signed up for. But it was the moment that it was revealed that Chewie was still alive that I realised what I’d only suspected before then: that this film was terrible and I would not be able to trust any emotion it was inviting me to feel.

Fundamentally, I think that this film is incredibly poorly written and emotionally dishonest. It is telling that I saw Jumanji 2 earlier in the day and out of the two films, the only point at which I cried was when Milo decided to stay in Jumanji as a horse. Why did I cry? Because Milo and Grandpa’s relationship had been gradually built up over the course of a film that was not afraid of quiet moments and building a narrative of a relationship that revealed what it needed over the course of several meaningful scenes. It allowed Milo’s decision to stay to be both a tragic loss but also a happy ending for him. Truly bittersweet and in a way that everyone can relate to. The loss of a dear friend to illness is a horrible but human thing to contemplate. To be able to set this friend free through a metaphor of a beautiful death and afterlife is genuinely moving and hopeful. Unfortunately TROS did not manage to give me any such emotions or elicit a single tear.

At least not till afterwards. I’ve subsequently cried a lot, some of it over the tragedy of Ben and Rey in a film that promised hope, but mainly for myself and the other (mainly) young female fans who have poured all their knowledge and intelligence into analysis of TFA and TLJ and who seemed to understand the story that was being told and who had been promised more of this story in the interviews and trailers released prior to this film – and who are now feeling like absolute garbage as this film throws out its own mythology for an incoherent, self-serving mess that in many ways defies analysis. The only thing I feel really capable of analysing is how much it doesn’t work, as opposed to what the film is trying to do. Where is the symbolism? Where is the metaphor? Where is the hero’s journey? Where is the heroine’s journey? Where is nuance? Where is everything that was set up in both TFA and TLJ? IDK, I can’t see it. It’s a kick in the teeth.

So, no matter how many individual things I was able to enjoy at the time when watching TROS, they end up being meaningless because the entire film was so bad. I can’t feel pleasure thinking about the good bits because they were mired in context (or lack of it). I can’t feel genuine sorrow about the fate of Rey and Ben because the execution of that fate was so poorly done. I don’t even mind that Ben died. It was always an option and the story of redemption followed by death is a very common story, a very Christian story. Though the death of Christ to save us from our sins, is crucially followed by resurrection. I mean, literally everyone can and does die. That doesn’t make you special. If you’re going for a Christ metaphor, you kind of need resurrection too. But I’m not sure that was exactly what they were going for with it; it was a mess and the execution made little internal consistency.

It may be that if I watched the film again, my problems would be lessened and I would see new things in them and they would make sense. I’ve read some twitter threads of people who are making connections and finding explanations on a second or third viewing. But the problem is that I shouldn’t need to see a film more than once to fundamentally understand it. I don’t mean picking up on new and interesting features and subtext which a good film, like a good book, rewards you with on multiple viewings. TLJ does that. But you should be able to follow what the ultimate meaning of a film is when you see it first.

If that is the case, then the ultimate meaning of TROS is that the good are good, the bad are bad, change is rewarded with death, a character who was once alone ends up alone again, plot coherency is sacrificed for whatever explosion or cool backwards-reference is needed at the time, death is not the end except when it is, there is no cosistency and consequently no emotional impact. And apparently it is a happy and hopeful ending? The tonal disconnect with the story being told and the way it was shot and the music being played and the clear intention of the people making the film is utterly jarring.

To famously quote Macbeth:

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

This post is already too long so I will go into my criticisms in more detail in a further post. Stay tuned!

Read Part Two here.