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#Andor is here at JUST the right time
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Star Wars has always been about fighting fascism but it just feels so real now.
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missunsympathetic · 2 years
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one thing andor does right (among many) is how terrifyingly accurate it shows true fascism.
after the aldhani robbery, the ISB casually decides in a meeting that now every crime is a class one offense. they just sit together in a meeting and decide to doom millions of people as a sign. the empire doesn't care.
we see the flashbacks of Clem and Cassian, and we see that Clem tried to calm down and stop the protestors. And yet he still got hanged for it, because the empire doesn't care.
we see the shore trooper areesting cassian for nothing, having him choked by a K2 unit just because he can, and then he gets sent to court with no way to defend himself and his sentence just gets randomly pushed up from 6 months to 6 years. because the empire doesn't care.
star wars, for years upon years, has always depicted the empire as the bad guy, sure, but you were rarely terrified of them. stormtroopers can't hit anything, the empire gets defeated by ewoks, atrocities are mentioned but seldom showed directly.
but here? here you see enitre long arm of fascism. you see the banality of it. it's everywhere, it follows you wherever you go, it keeps you on your toes all the time. it's everywhere and it's coming for everyone. even you.
I don't know about y'all but I thought this whole episode was terrifying, bone chilling and ice cold
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anybody remember the lucasfilm panel at disney inverstor day 2020? how they announced more shows than anyone knew what to do with, and everyone was speculating which ones would even end up being made? i member
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Rangers of the New Republic - didn't get made
Ahsoka - getting a second season
Andor - getting a second and final season
Obi-Wan Kenobi (technically announced earlier at D23) - didn't get renewed
The Bad Batch (animation) - 3 seasons
Visions (animation) - 2 seasons
Lando - hasn't gotten made, creator left the project, might become a movie instead
The Acolyte - didn't get renewed
A Droid Story (animation) - didn't get made
Willow - not only didn't get renewed, was entirely erased from disney+
The Book of Boba Fett was announced indirectly, only as a "next chapter" for the mandoverse, because they wanted to hold off for the announcement at the end of The Mandalorian season 2, airing at the time. that show also didn't get renewed.
(while we're here. movie releases announced at the same panel:
Indiana Jones 5
Children of Blood and Bone - didn't get made, lucasfilm got rid of its rights to the property
Taika Waititi movie - didn't get made (yet?)
Rogue Squadron - didn't get made)
that's around 6 abandoned projects and 4 shows cancelled after their first season. 2 live action shows got a renewal, outside of The Mandalorian, which was an established show, and still got just one more season after this. 2 animated shows got renewed, one of which wasn't even made by lucasfilm. great job everyone
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colleybri · 2 months
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My very basic first thoughts about the D23 Andor trailer… (in combination with the earlier leaked one from over a year ago!)
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Mon’s hand gripping the edge of the Senate pod rail – I think she’s about to denounce the Emperor and the Ghorman Massacre. Does she know she’s going to be rescued, or does she think this is suicide?
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Cassian and Bix - battle couple? Looks like she’s going to be a fully fledged rebel. Love the detail that she’s wearing braids again, as if to symbolise order returning out of the chaos . Not sure if it’s definitely her Cassian is talking to but it makes sense… “You’ll never feel right unless you’re doing what you can to stop them”. Kicking Imperial butt as a great therapy for what she went through? Hope she gets to take out Gorst. Mind you, that line could also apply to a lot of people. Great recruitment line, in fact.
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Oh my, Cassian is “weaponised handsomeness” personified with that eyeliner and fabulous outfit. Woof!!! Sorry – I know that’s not very articulate. More seriously, doesn’t that line in the paragraph above contrast so brilliantly with “ I’m here to win and walk away”. He knows that’s not going to work anymore. For him or anyone else. And who is this character, a new recruit? Or Bix? (Fighter pilot Cassian too?)
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Syril watching the TIE fly over… is it starting to dawn on him that perhaps he’s on the wrong side? That the order, justice and beauty he craves is not provided by this fascist regime after all.?
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Luthen saying “little sister”… The tenderness of that makes me think immediately of Baze calling Jyn this in Rogue One so I don’t think it’s literally Cassian’s sister. Maybe Bix again or a new character . Unexpectedly moving though. Sounds like there’s love in the old boy yet.
Edit - I could well be wrong about that. It could just as easily be “what else is there?” and tbh that makes more sense for a sizzle reel… far less spoiler-y! Give us a decent trailer with proper sound quality please, Disney!
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I never thought I would well up at the sight of a robot that isn’t B2EMO. But Kaytoo … oh, it’s so great to see you again. And Melshi!!! Remember - he has Syril’s gun. Will that come into to play again?
The farm planet is likely Dantooine, site of the first rebel base. Filmed in Oxfordshire. The previously leaked photos of the sets looked amazing. 
And this is a bit more niche, but I’m so looking forward to seeing Thierry Godard in this, as he’s such a fantastic (French) actor. Engrenages (Spiral) is one of my favourite shows of all time, Gilroy is a fan of “A French Village” and it probably led to his being cast for Andor.
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And finally – it’s not even finished footage, but the special effects are looking incredible already.
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And now, I need a little lie down.
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ronearoundblindly · 4 months
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Time and Tines (2/3)
Reasons (see previous or series)
Steve Rogers x Villain!Reader
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Summary: With the Winter Soldier on your side, Steve races against time to figure out why...and how to stop you.
Warnings for basically DARKFIC: talk of unspecified terminal illness, medical malpractice, gaslighting, revenge, gun violence, not overly graphic death but still death (not of Reader, Steve, or Bucky), and decidedly too-little editing. MINORS DNI. There's plenty for you to read on my Light Masterlist, but this isn't for you! WC 5242 (which is, yeah, way longer than it was supposed to be)
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Steve will do anything to avoid a fire fight with the Winter Soldier. There are too many people involved now, and he has to approach this situation delicately from all angles.
Steve just does not understand yet.
After hours waiting with agents in the dark of Doctor Avani’s house, convinced you’ve ordered Bucky to come right over and kill the man with brute force, nothing happened. There was no sign of anyone. Steve has to try something else.
A small army protects Salvatore while he searches your apartment. If the key to activating his friend is here, he needs to find it, destroy that information, and get a handle on why this is happening.
“This can’t be right,” Steve mutters, pushing past Agent Palmer (who drove) for a better look. “It’s too clean.”
Your one-bedroom would pass a white-glove test.
There’s so little…everything. It’s a far cry from the chaos Steve woke to find in the police station. His head throbs at the memory. He forgot what it was like to have his bell good’n’rung.
“Supe says she’s been selling off furniture,” Palmer calls from the doorway, “but he thought it was replaced. Boxes kept coming.”
Steve inventories a mattress with no frame, half a dozen hanging garments, no shoes. What were you buying? Where did it all go?
The desktop is bare. You’ve taken any laptop with you, it seems. That’s a small comfort. You clearly planned contingencies for your attack andor escape; it’s fitting you had the foresight to hide your research on the Winter Soldier.
Steve is still scared, however, because he sat with Bucky many times, listening to horrible tales of being trapped in his own mind, powerless, isolated in the midst of everyone, unable to control thoughts much less actions.
This one’s gonna take a few more beers for the friends to contend with, but with any luck and quick work, they’ll get through without bloodshed. He and Bucky will decompress somewhere peaceful. It’ll be okay.
He hopes.
Steve scans the lone bookshelf. The most curious edition is a history book about WWII, a few flagged pages open to reveal passages about Bucky’s service record, an underline beneath the location where the sergeant fell from the train, and a mail receipt for an address on Forsythe Avenue keeping your page. That’s all.
It’s not even a unique read. The book isn’t any more specific than an average school text. No other notes are made in the margins, so Steve turns the book upside-down and shakes, hoping for something to fall out. He rips the other books from the shelf and shuffles their pages until a picture comes loose—a polaroid of three women.
You’re on the right, fuller faced but it’s you. On the back is scrawled “the girls” with hearts on either side.
The book is handwritten, no label on the cover or spine, only an embossed mandala design. Steve’s stomach drops, but he opens to the front flap.
Property of Faith Williams
He swallows roughly and closes it, unable to step over that line of privacy. At the moment, he needs evidence of where you could have taken Bucky, and slow-reading someone else’s diary won’t give him that.
Forsythe Avenue might, but that’s just one tiny piece of the puzzle. 
Steve checks a different unlabeled book, but it, too, doesn’t have your name inside, just a ‘Z’ fancifully drawn amidst doodles.
Damnit. This is no help.
“Palmer, you finding anything?”
“No, Cap. Bills all paid. Nothing under the mattress. No mention of Barnes on any papers in the drawers. Not even a Cyrillic symbol.”
No trace, just like how you two disappeared from surveillance.
Steve shuts his eyes, head still throbbing from how hard the Soldier landed a blow to knock him out.
The agent wanders through the tiny kitchen. “Fridge is empty. Doesn’t look like she intended to come back here…if…actually, it looks like she barely ate. No condiments, no spices, nothing.”
“How long has she rented here?”
“Over two years.”
Shit. This is a dead end.
“Keep looking,” Steve orders, but he takes the two journals and heads for the car, pulling up your thin file again. You don’t hold any clearances or a government footprint. You were let go of from your last job with a severance package. Nothing overly generous. No medical leave mentioned. Benefits, including health insurance, would be intact. Based on your appearance earlier versus you in the photo, Steve chews on a few wisps of theories, but it’s not solid proof. Without more, Steve has no leads.
“Friday, any connection to properties on Forsythe?”
He adjusts to get comfortable in the back seat of the SUV alone, firing up a view screen.
There’s a low, sad sound that means the AI found nothing in your records.
"For her or him?"
Womp womp, it comes again.
Steve lets out a tense breath, “Where are we with bank statements?”
“Authorizations just came back,” F.R.I.D.A.Y chirps.
“What about medical records?”
“That one’s a lot harder, Captain Rogers. We have to—“
“Just analyze the financials first,” Steve sighs. His head throbs again, and he knows he needs sleep. There’s no time though. If he could just get answers…
Protections exist, of course, for good reason, but Steve feels the frustration of any detective. He’s trying to find a bad guy, and by 'bad guy,' he means you, not the man you’ve taken, not the man you are certainly going to order to kill for you.
Steve rests his head on the chilly glass and pinches his eyes shut. He’ll take a minute, review the money trail, and then interview the doctor. It seems a miracle that man was able to go home to his wife and sleep, even with security inside the room, down every hall, surrounding the house…Steve wouldn’t do it; he can’t even keep his eyes closed long enough for the dry sting to subside.
How could he be so stupid?
You weren’t staring at him from across the room; you were watching your mark, waiting for an opening. Sadly, it occurs to Steve that if he’d just let you inject Avani, Bucky would be fine, here by his side, and safe.
You are the threat, not his friend, but that’s a hard distinction. If anyone else sees James Barnes—who is the stealth assassin Winter Soldier, as far as they know—they’ll shoot. No questions. Steve has to find him first. He has to get to you first.
Bucky is compromised, but Steve won’t let it come to that. Buck shouldn't do anything he doesn't want to do just because some enemy hijacked his mind and body.
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“Feel better?” You twirl in the chair as soon as the motel bathroom door opens, steam billowing out.
Winter’s face is shadowed, pointed to the floor.
“Or…at least, okay? Here—“ you offer the seat next to you at the tiny table “—sit. Eat. Let me—I’ve got bandages for your knuckles.”
“Heals,” he grunts, sitting easily but with stiff posture, “fast.”
You let out a heavy breath, muttering, “makes one of us.”
The soldier reaches out for the file in front of you, but your hand pins it down.
“Uh-uh. Food first, and palm up here, please.” You wait for him to flip open the takeout container then blot antiseptic on the split skin. “Does that hurt?”
He shakes his head, focused on the meal before him.
Several months ago, an article was published about Bucky Barnes’ affinity for this one particular deli in Brooklyn, a third-generation shop. It listed his usual order.
You’ve made sure the bread isn’t soggy. You kept the spicy mustard on the side.
He makes a strange face, looking around for your portion.
“Not hungry,” you assure him, “I’m rarely hungry.” You secure the bandage like boxing wraps and spin the file around.
“Eat your food—” The command is soft, encouraging. “—while I tell you the story of how we ended up here.”
Buried in the file you’ve put in front of the Soldier is several lifetimes of horror. Maybe not everyone agrees with you, maybe not everyone cares, but that bastard Avani has to atone. For the next hour, you explain what’s expected of him, glancing every so often at the fancier hotel entrance across the street from your motel room.
It’s too early; you’d be very impressed if the Captain had followed those bread crumbs yet.
You planned so carefully for every obstacle. You anticipated so many setbacks. Men like Avani go down like great stone pyramids, not houses of cards, because their lives are built with safeties.  For him to fall, a thousand others have to be damaged, and each one of them will put up a fight to remain untarnished. That approach—the truth, and nothing but the truth—has gotten you nowhere. Diaries aren’t enough proof. The placebo effect is not a crime. Two women are worth far less than a functional, marketable drug.
Plus, they’re two dead women. The pyramid is now their tomb. Nothing ever changes.
No.
You alone cannot topple a pyramid. You’re too far gone. You’re just one person. For justice, you have to go straight to the top, to the man himself. One on one.
Well, one on one-plus-one. Your addition is the sharp-shooter who can get you the top, the target, Doctor Avani.
Winter’s mission is very simple, but he’s thorough, asking all the right questions, thinking of all the right options. You knew he would be perfect.
“Now,” you clap at the end of your story, rubbing boney hands together, “a rundown of my meds. Sound good?” You grab a zippered case from the foot of the motel bed. “Nothing complicated, but here—“ nudging out a syringe and one glass vial “—this is the emergency one. Use 10 milliliters of this if I pass out. Got it?”
The Soldier takes an enormous mouthful of his sandwich and nods, eyes flickering back to that single bed.
You smile sadly. “I…rarely sleep. I’m keeping watch for now. You’re safe. You’ll need the rest.”
He chews and adds more mustard before his last bite.
“Okay? Good.” Your smile fades, fatigue and restlessness swirling in your empty gut as you remove another medication. “Next is this one. Every four hours, twent—wait, no, I’m up to thirty CCs now…”
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“Sir,” Steve grits out with far less patience than he intended, pinching the bridge of his nose as if it will stop the throbbing inside his head, “you realize I am trying to save your life?”
Dr. Avani purses his lips in annoyance. “And you realize I am required to keep my patients’ confidence, right?”
Yes, Steve thinks, he’s said that several times.
“Are they current or former patients?” Steve tries to clarify.
So far, Salvatore slipped up only once. When Steve showed him the photo from your apartment, the doctor muttered something about ‘Faith’ and ‘Ziva’ knowing each other, looking confused, then immediately shut down.
Steve has to switch tactics. He doesn’t have time for this.
“Ok. We found over a dozen hotel reservations made with your assailant’s credit card, so look at this list—” Steve taps the smart screen to lay out a map with the names highlighted “—and see if anything stands out.”
“What have this crazy woman’s travel plans to do with me?” Avani bites out, rattling the tea his wife hands him.
A tremor. Not unlike how your hands shook at the table last night. Steve wonders if yours was because you are ill or because you were lying to him.
“Darling, your blood pressure…”
Steve sighs sympathetically to Mrs. Avani. “Thank you, ma’am,” he whispers, taking the next cup and saucer and clearing his throat. “Doc, please. I’m just hoping you can narrow this down for me. We still have no motive.”
“Insanity. Jealousy, maybe!”
“Jealous of what? Do you know what she might want?”
No answer, but Avani chews his cheek, eyes wide, while staring northwest on the map of hotels. Steve files that away in his mind.
The doctor returns to sipping his tea. “Do you know what they call people obsessed with finding patterns in chaos?”
His wife drops the plate of biscuits unceremoniously down on the side table between the men’s chairs.
“Salvatore,” she snips with the same frustrated fatigue wrapped around Steve’s neck like an albatross, “behave.”
“No. None of these are familiar,” the doctor grunts.
Steve can’t accuse the man of lying unless he wants to risk an all-out breakdown in communication during this active threat, but he’s running out of options. He needs real information.
Usually Steve would have more respect for a man staying within the parameters of his vocation, but this is a unique and complicated situation. This is Bucky on the line. Steve’s had enough of secrets and red tape.
“Any idea why she’d mail something to Forsyth Avenue? Do you know anyone there?”
“Forsyth Avenue? No, I’ve never been in that area before, as far as I know.” Though Avani wrings his hands together, no indicates that’s a lie.
Wonderful. Steve’s never been this unsuccessful at gathering intel, and Avani’s status as the newly-appointed Avengers’ lead physician makes it tricky to push harder.
So Steve recommends Avani and his wife consider staying in a more secure location before he sets off to personally check the hotels in the northwest quadrant of the map.
He takes Agent Palmer, riding in the SUV while the two diaries sit in his lap, knowing now—as sure as he can be—that ‘Z’ is for Ziva, and she knew you and Faith Williams. Those are ‘the girls’ in the photo.
Without Ziva’s last name, he can’t do a general search, but there is a death certificate on file for Faith.
Three women. One confirmed dead. At least two ‘former’ patients of the doctor. All visibly ill in either the picture or in person. One mourning the loss of person(s) and out to kill the doctor.
The pit in his stomach grows. Something very bad is happening, yet while Steve has anything else to go on, he will not be reading another’s diary.
He can only hope that your medical records are finally available once the hotel searches are complete.
There’s even a possibility he’ll find Bucky at one of these. Maybe he won’t have to concern himself with the rest at all. Maybe he won’t have to think so hard about your motives for activating a Soviet sleeper agent.
Steve does think, however. He thinks hard enough to spiral as each reception desk is questioned, as all security footage is combed, as every building is cleared. He has to make some assumptions to make the pieces fit.
You believe Avani is responsible for your friends’ deaths—both of them, since when Steve interrogated you, you accepted his condolences—and believe their cause of death was whatever treatment Avani administered.
It’s sad, of course, but it happens everyday. Experimental treatments are just that. If you’re concerned about gross negligence, the doctor could easily be reported to the Medical Board. Considering the amount of research, forethought, and planning required, the Winter Soldier is one of the slowest possible solutions to your problem.
But…Bucky was just your contingency plan. You had an opportunity to kill Avani yourself, yet you still set other options in motion. You used a weapon theoretically deadly to only the doctor 
Steve still can’t understand, and it’s driving him nuts.
Finally, after the hotel reservations prove fruitless, Steve sees no other choice. He has to read the diaries.
He combs through the pages, growing nauseous as darker and darker layers of the situation reveal themselves, disturbed by everydetail except updates from the units on Forsyth Avenue or those stationed at the doctor’s house. Nothing is unfolding save the landscape in Steve’s mind.
He asks F.R.I.D.A.Y about the disease Faith and Ziva mention. He asks about the public records of the drug trial Avani lead and its results published just six months ago, after the last entries of the diaries. He notices the treatment was a huge success…for those not in the control group. Finally, he can’t continue.
His head pounds while his stomach churns.
In the early afternoon, Steve lays down to rest his eyes and reevaluate, but he’s met with only a blank  canvas and drifts to sleep instead.
He’s woken by a shrill ring of his phone.
“Yeah, Palmer, what’s—what? What do you mean he’s gone?” Steve jumps up, straps on his shield, and races to his bike. “The hell were you thinking letting him make a house call today? Where did agents—“
Steve’s foot slips right off bike for an instant.
“Avani led the driver to some suburban neighborhood. Forsythia Commons.”
It dawns of him just as the garage door squeals open.
Steve never showed Palmer the receipt. No one else saw the numbers to the address. Steve’s rattled brain finished the label with a street name he knew.
He was wrong.
Including battles in Germany way back in the day, he has rarely driven so recklessly, but Steve is nearly a half-hour behind now. He has to catch up.
Palmer tells him Avani went into the residence alone—for patient confidentiality—and after a while, agents couldn’t get an answer at the door. Upon forced entry, they found the woman who lived there bound to a chair with tape over her mouth and the doctor nowhere in sight.
Steve gets lucky.
On his way to exit the freeway, he notices a hole in the noise barrier wall past a slope of grass. He pulls over and asks Palmer what the backyard of the residence leads to, but Steve can hear the reverb of agent comms before anyone is visible through the brush.
“Friday, I need traffic camera footage from my location from thirty-five minutes ago. Were there any vehicles stopped on the side of the road?”
“Yes, Captain Rogers. A standard maintenance truck with the department’s logo shows up and leaves seven minutes later, based on ten second intervals.”
“The license plate, can you read it?”
“Quality insufficient.”
“The highway department, do they have any registered cars out here today?”
A long pause follows.
“Friday?” Steve barks.
“Negative, Captain. Inspection is slotted for the end of next week, not today.”
“Alright, follow that truck on the cameras. Tell me exactly where they went.”
He doesn’t bother to tell Palmer where he’s going because Steve doesn’t want them to know really. He needs a head start to find Bucky—to make sure it’s Bucky who is found and rescued, not the Soldier who is cornered and subdued.
The trail ends at a dilapidated office park near the river miles outside of the city. With his own, short fingernail, Steve peels away the Highway Department magnet slapped onto the white truck parked by one building.
Nobody else is in sight, and the truck cab is empty.
Across the nearest door is sun-shriveled lettering. “-alv—re Ava—, M.D” marks the third name in a list.
Steve doesn’t hesitate. He can’t. He walks right in, eyes adjusting to a cave-like darkness without electricity.
The voices are faint behind another set of double doors, but he hears them.
“I don’t owe you anything, bitch. I hope you die like they did.”
There’s a sharp slapping noise and someone spits loudly.
“Admit it. Admit what you did and you won’t die today.”
You don’t beg him to talk. You don’t plead with him. You sound weak but sure.
“Rot in hell,” Avani annunciates, and Steve flings himself through the doors, knowing what comes after such a taunt.
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You give him every opportunity to come clean. He could save himself, but Avani refuses while the camera records behind you. He calls you names. He calls your friends worthless. He says they were ’whores,’ but you will still send him back to the correct authorities if he tells the truth.
He doesn’t, he won’t, and you’re honestly pleased this is how it ends.
You don’t have a choice really; you must honor Faith and Ziva somehow.
Instead of the truth, Avani curses you, though not much could be worse than your current fate, even with Winter standing a few feet away, his gun drawn.
You have readied the syringe in your unstable hand and lift it to the doctor’s throat when—crash—Captain America bursts in and scans the whole room.
“Don’t do it,” he tries plainly. “You don’t have to kill him.”
You’re impressed. That’s faster than you expected, but Steve is looking at his friend to stop, not you.
“Shoot him, you idiot,” the doctor snarls.
As if Winter thinks the order somehow applied to him, he turns toward an open palm and a raised shield.
“SHOOT HIM!”
Winter doesn’t move the gun away from you and Avani.
Steve steps closer. “Bucky,” he starts slowly, “I’m not going to do that. I’m not here to hurt you. No one has to die.”
You need to buy more time.
“Soldat, show him.”
Only then does Winter lower his pistol and reach into a pocket at his chest, revealing the tuning fork that controls his own mind. Doing this will forfeit your exit strategy, but you’ll accomplish you mission. Winter’s mission is now secondary.
Steve’s eyes flicker from the fork to you.
After a tense breath, you give the command, confident the soldier will obey, locking your focus on Steve.
“Fetch.”
Winter sprints to the other end of the room and explodes through a wall and then a window to the lawn banking the river.
Cap makes a choice, his sad blue eyes full of pity, and it’s then you realize he knows.
He read the diaries. He understands what Avani did.
Steve bolts after the Soldier.
The doctor shrieks for his Avenger to come back, to protect him from his earned fate, but the hollow thuds of a vibranium arm and a vibranium shield colliding hum through the hole in the building.
The sound of fighting continues as you return the syringe to Avani’s neck.
Enough. Enough excuses. Enough lies. Enough time has been wasted on this man already. Enough is enough.
The end is more peaceful than he deserves. It’s quick and not nearly as painful as it should be. There’s no time left for suffering.
Salvatore convulses after collapsing on the stained industrial carpet, foam gently dripping from his mouth, a symptom of his condition when mixed with a common resuscitative cocktail, one you have to take frequently, one that spiked Steve Rogers’ adrenaline and nothing more. It kills Avani. His heart nearly explodes in his chest.
If there was ever a human that medicine should fail…
You only know he’s susceptible because Ziva knew. Heart conditions and caring for them are the sort of thing one knows about a person they love.
Avani promised to marry her, to leave his wife, to be with her after the drug trial succeeded. He promised she’d live, but he told Ziva she was taking the real medicine, ensured she took the placebo, and then gaslit her until the day she died.
Ziva spent the rest of her life loving a man who would make her happy and healthy, but instead, Avani made her life as short as possible.
He was not even that kind to Faith.
In her own words, Faith wrote how dying scared her, how she begged the doctor for the actual medication, how she offered anything to get it. Avani accepted. Faith did whatever that bastard wanted for months, all the while told she was healing.
Relief never came.
Faith was bedridden when a package arrived for her—a diary willed to her by a friend she’d lost touch with once you three weren’t gathering in the same hospital suite for the old treatments. That’s when she put it together, but Ziva had passed two months prior. Faith lasted only four more days, just long enough to bequeath the two journals to you.
The victory doesn’t feel as euphoric as you expected. You thought somehow you’d know that Ziva and Faith were proud and at peace, but you’re just empty and tired.
You stare down at Adani’s body, unfazed, when the tuning fork slams against a dangling metal doorframe and Cap shuffles through the rubble.
He’s scraped and beaten which isn’t what you ever wanted, just a necessary evil to fight evil. He watches as Barnes walks in from the grass.
“It’s me, punk. You can put that thing down.”
Bucky doesn’t wait for Steve, snatching the prongs right from his hands and tucking it back in his jacket.
There’s a moment where they almost hug before Steve remembers the doctor and rushes to the man at your feet.
“Call for help! I'm starting CPR.”
Barnes simply holds your gaze.
More sad blue eyes. It brings you hope that he will complete his mission.
You step away from the others to make for a cleaner shot, nodding that it’s okay, breathing a rough but weak “please” for emphasis.
“Buck?” Steve looks up as Bucky points his gun at you again. “What are you doing? STOP. It’s over!”
“His mission was never to kill Avani,” you hiss, unable to take your eyes off the perfectly-centered muzzle directly in front of you. “He’s here to kill me.”
“The hell—“ Steve climbs to his feet “—why would you shoot her?”
“I’m not going to jail!”
“You know what they’ll do to her, Steve.”
Both men take one step closer.
“There has to be another way.”
“I did this because it’s the only—“
“—can understand doctors who taking advantage and manipulating their patients better than anyone—“
“Put the gun down!”
“Pull the trigger! It'll be—“
“—told me he could do better than me,” Bucky barks. “Doc said, to my face, that he could make a better me. He wanted to make soldiers, Steve. More soldiers. Avani didn’t give a shit about what was right.”
You jump in. “If you found the diaries, you know what he was capable of.”
“That’s not how this works. We don’t condemn a man from—“
This time you step toward Barnes. “Just do it. Shoot me now.”
Steve lunges to take your wrist in his hand, your limb comically thin and delicate beneath all his enhancements.
“She doesn’t deserve to rot while they sweep this under the rug,” Bucky adds, voice low and serious.
“This is for the best.” You look at Steve now, and something heartbreaking swims in those morose pools, something unspeakable.
His head shakes, dirty, sweaty hair falling in his face. “What if there’s another way?”
“I don’t want to be saved, Cap. Let me go.”
You offer one final, soft smile, and Steve moves just as Bucky pulls the trigger.
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Steve completes his testimony before the panel opposite him. None of the questions are a surprise.
They’ve painted you as completely insane, demented, psychotic, and he can’t argue. What would he tell them? Yeah, but she had kind eyes, so, you know, remember her fondly? No, he can only remain quiet until he has something pertinent to add which is very little. Bucky had far more to offer, and he already spoke.
When Steve steps out of the counsel chambers, Maria Hill is waiting for him.
“Shame she ordered the Soldier to dispose of her body. Took the coward’s way out.”
“You make her sound like a rabid animal that had to be put down,” Steve grit out. 
“No, you’re right,” Hill admits, “but it was lucky she left the sound thing for—”
“Tuning fork,” he snaps, “which I destroyed. No one should have that. No one should even know about it.”
Buck does his best to calm Steve down with a heavy hand on his shoulder. “S’okay, pal. The interrogation footage has been wiped and unless someone with perfect pitch was walking by observation--”
“You know that’s not reassuring, right?”
The two huge men look at each other.
Steve finally mutters, “what about Avani’s widow?”
“All the blackmail sent to his mistress in Forsythia Commons was removed before Gloria even knew Sal was kidnapped, and I think it’s fair to say that lady is so grateful her name wasn’t dragged through the press that she won’t be bothering the wife. Good thing the doctor put her car and house in her name, or legally, this would get ugly.”
“Yes. We’re very lucky he was such a skilled adulterer,” Steve quips dryly. He regrets handing over the diaries for evidence. They weren’t mentioned once in any of the hearings.
Bucky flashes Steve a warning glare that reads, don’t start.
Hill obliviously flips through the folder in her hands, nodding. “All in all, this report amounts to an incredibly long lead-in of ‘use that PTO, boys!’ You earned it.”
“Understatement of the century…and I would know.” Bucky is a much better liar than Steve.
Thank god, they are fleeing to the middle of nowhere indefinitely.
Hill heads back to her office. “We’ll be here when you get back. Keep in touch.”
“No,” Steve counters. “I don’t think I will.”
Bucky and Steve leave in an old truck the next morning. They can’t seem rushed or impatient to get to their destination.
Casually accumulating supplies, Steve loads their bags in the flat bed with space for all repair materials they are likely to need. The cabin needs some work; the guys need to get their hands dirty and live simply for a while.
The team is happy for Steve; it’s been so long since anyone saw him moving forward in life, and, of course, he and Bucky deserve some peace and quiet.
No one else has any idea how hard-won this vacation is.
The drive takes all day because they can’t be in a hurry.
Steve takes pictures at every scenic outlook. Bucky climbs up onto some rock ledges to take selfies which Steve is not into. This earns him being featured as a blurry grump in the background of all of them, purposefully.
Eventually, the GPS-free truck pulls up to the place, a large A-frame style cabin that should be plenty big for two super soldiers.
Parked on the gravel path, Steve is careful not to ding the other car when he swings open his door. As Bucky heaves two duffels from the trunk, he calls out, “got the meds, too” and heads inside. Steve gathers up the remaining bags and trudges over, smelling something hearty and delicious cooking, listening to the tinkling, copper-coin wind chime hanging somewhere above him.
He doesn’t stop looking at his feet until they hit the top of the porch, spotting two smaller bare feet on the welcome mat.
There you are, holding the door open, layered in warm knits, more tired before but better than expected.
“Hey,” Steve breathes finally.
“Hey,” you say, your mouth twisted to hide an excited smile.
“Yes, hello,” Bucky grumbles from the living room. “Now shut the damn door. I’m hungry.”
Steve steps inside.
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[Last Part]
[Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]
a/n: Sorry this took so long a fucking year! Tags will be in a reblog.
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SW - ALL TYPES OF LOVE WEEK
INFO
Star Wars: All Types of Love week is a fandom event of fancreations, lasting a week, that celebrates love in its many forms! Since we celebrate romantic love and familial love often, we thought it might be time to give an opportunity for other kinds of love to shine!
Inspired by the Ancient Greek Philosophers and their seven kinds of love, we aim to showcase those different, less celebrated loves. Rooting for the little guys!
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
No sign-up, nothing. Just create!!!
Post during the appropriate week and you’re good!
We welcome any kind of creation, as long as it is truly yours. Even old posts being reblogged is fine! Old creations deserve as much love as new ones.
Fanfics, fanarts, moodboards, fanvids, fancomics, banners, playlists… An epic fic or a 100 word drabble, an amazing painting or a stick figures funny scene- we love it all!!
WHEN TO POST
Wednesday 7th of February, 00h00 PST, to Wednesday 14th of February, 23h59 PST.
HOW TO POST
Post under the tag SWATOLW during the week the event is running. Add the tag of the type of love you are representing. 
Be sure to @ us so we can appreciate what you’ve made and put it in the round-up!
WHAT TO POST
Star Wars characters, places, animals, games… Be it from the movies, the novels, the comics, the shows like The Clone Wars, The Mandalorian, Andor or even your own OC, the important parts are:
It must be from the Star Wars fandom
It must be about Love and that love must be not romantic or familial
To get a better idea of what we mean by that, you can read more about the seven types of love here. In short, we want to give a chance to shine to:
Love of Friends #philia
Love of Strangers #agape
Love of Partners #pragma
Love of Players #ludus
Love of Self #philautia
You can post about any of these, at any time of the week. There isn’t a day assigned to each type. The point is to create without pressure and celebrate all the types of love we don’t often focus on! The more of these you depict, the more we will love you for it!
QUESTIONS
“I love my two clones who are bffs, but they are clones. Does their love count as familial?”
Well, the truth rather depends on your point of view how you present it.
Pairs like Fives and Echo, and Rex and Cody, are usually understood in canon and fandom to be family. They can be friends too, but we’d prefer to focus on other pairs for this event. Post another time. We’re sure people will love it.
Alpha-17 and Cody have a cross-generational friendship? As long as the way their relationship is described/shown isn’t the dynamic of big brother & younger brother, or father figure & son figure, it’s good!
Want to show off Waxer & Boil being two peas in a pod? We would love that! As long as it isn’t a ship or they, the characters, don’t feel like the other is kin in the way we understand it.
“I want to show my two Mandalorians who are Partners In Bounty Hunting, but they are from the same clan. Does this work?”
No. I’m sorry, but it does not. We consider clan to be the SW equivalent of immediate family, a close circle, so it’s not the right event for this. But it does work if they are just from the same house or faction!
“Can I do two Jedi who are teammates and lovers?”
You can show any characters (two, three, four…) having a relationship that is sexual and based on love. As long as that love is not romantic.
If what moves your Jedi is the sense of purpose found in duty, the common love for the Light and the wider galaxy, the playfulness and affection shared between bed partners, these feelings can be as big as the moon, and it is still fine!
That is the whole point!
Feelings can be enormous and serious and important and still not be romantic or familial.
But if it’s shown or implied that the relationship is romantic/familial or turning so at some point, that is not what our event is focused on.
We know people are a bit tired from the holidays and that Valentine’s Day is a period often rich with events, which is why we put these conditions so it can be as low-pressure as possible. The point is to rejoice in all the breadth and the richness of the human sentient experience of love. In the love of Star Wars. And in the love of this community.
Be civil and show goodwill to participants and spectators. Be kind. YKINMKATO. Go crazy! Be creative! Have fun!
Love!
@swfandomevents
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hashtagloveloses · 1 year
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But the real root of the problem seems to be that Disney higher-ups see these characters as only dollar signs, so they gave a visionary and talented creator the bare minimum amount of time and resources to continue their stories. The show didn’t need to be good to sell merchandise, especially when the characters were already familiar to viewers, similar to how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has apparently been cutting key elements of the TV production process to churn out its many IP-stretching series. Here lies the bittersweet truth of Ahsoka — this eight-episode streaming series with one writer, the corporate pressure to maintain a streaming service’s profitability, and the responsibility of launching the future direction of the entire franchise, was doomed from the start. Whether it continues with another season, a movie, or not at all, Ahsoka is another victim of late-stage capitalism’s path of destruction through Hollywood, decimating incredible storytelling potential in its wake. Even Filoni’s considerable talent, much like that of J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson, or any of the gifted screenwriters and directors these studios bring on for both major franchises and original prestige projects, can’t stand up to Hollywood’s intellectual property machine turning almost everything into passable “content,” good enough for merchandising and driving subscriptions. A few genuinely wonderful projects, like Andor, and compelling characters and concepts, like the Mandalorian, miraculously slip through the cracks to keep audiences interested, but this IP-squeezing race to the bottom continues. Let’s just hope that the recent gains by the WGA and rise in unionization across the industry can prevent it from continuing before more beloved characters are put through the wringer.
i wrote this piece about ahsoka, a show i'm so so sad didn't live up to it's potential, and what it says about the entertainment industry right now. i am not a total hater, and there really were things to love about this show, but i needed to get out how disappointing it all feels, and hopefully i got that across. thanks for reading!
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talaok · 1 year
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Since all the nominations for Emmys, I need one fic where reader is either video calling or with Pedro when nominations are announced. Somethig fluffy and full of emotions cuz Pedro deserves all of this 😊
a/n: this ask skipped the line just cause I felt that if I posted this next week it wouldn't have made as much sense, so yeah here it is (also, I’m so happy for him and Bella, like omg man)
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Today was the day.
Pedro was never usually one to care about this stuff, yes he was grateful, and yes he was happy, but no other time had he felt this electricity in the air, this buzz telling him that something was about to happen... something good of course.
He had set up his tablet on the coffee table in front of the couch, waiting for the announcement to start, but he hadn't even managed to sit- he was too nervous, too excited.
A ringing sounded through the room all of a sudden, and after an initial scare, he smiled, glad you finally could call him.
You were on set. In Vancouver. A thousand miles from him.
"Is it on yet?"
Your eagerness spurt through the screen.
And he thought he was exited
"nope"
"what? How much longer?"
He glanced at the screen, feeling a tiny goosebump traveling up his back at the countdown.
"two minutes"
"Oh my god!" You squeaked, smiling so wide your cheeks almost hurt "how are you feeling?"
"nervous" he chuckled drily
"Oh c'mon, what about? We both know you're gonna crush it"
"I hope so" he sighed "God I don't know why I care so much" he laughed "The only important thing is that Bella and the show get nominated"
"And you, of course" you chirped in
He tried to fight a smile, but it still pulled at his lips "Well if there's room..."
"There you are" you nodded, your smile fading ever so little after a brief moment "god I wish I could be there"
"Me too" he agreed "but at least w-" a noise in the direction of the coffee table caught his attention
"Oh shit, it's starting"
"shit, go go go go" you mumbled, feeling all too powerless in your position.
He sat down in front of the screen as the announcers appeared on it.
"what are they saying?"
"uh- just their names and stuff"
"ok-"
A moment passed 
"what about now?"
He laughed, ever so thankful for your presence "Still that, sweetheart"
"fine, just- tell me when they start telling the categories"
"ok ok here we go" 
"what is it?"
"talk series"
"Bo-ring" you huffed, making him chuckle "I want the good stuff"
"they're doing reality programs now"
"oh my god! it's like they want to torture us"
...
"Oh shit" 
A pit created itself in Pedro's stomach
"what?"
"lead actor in a drama series"
"oh my god" you screeched, doing a poor job of trying not to freak out "C'mon baby I know believe in you"
"jeff bridges... Brian cox... Kieran Culkin... Bob Odenkirk..."
come on come on come on
His mouth widened as he let out an incredulous breath.
"baby?" you called, already knowing but wanting a confirmation "baby pl-"
"I got nominated"
"I told you!" You basically screamed, jumping out of your chair "I told you, baby! I'm so happy for you! You deserve all of it babe, all. of. it." 
"I can't believe this" he smiled, his eyes glimmering with that spark in his eyes he only got whenever he was truly happy "This is crazy"
"Well believe it baby, you're an Emmy nominee"
"I just-" he interrupted himself as the next category was announced "shit it's best actresses"
You nodded, trying to cool down while really just mindlessly pacing around your trailer 
"Bella Ramsey!" he laughed "Bella Ramsey! They did it! I knew they fucking would"
"oh my god!" you grinned "What a power couple"
"I know right?" he chuckled "I'll have to call them I-" and once again, the announcers interrupted his train of thought.
His gaze moved from you to the tablet again.
"best drama series?"
He only nodded, clearly all the anxiety coming back.
"Andor... Better call Saul... the crown... House of the Dragon..."
he fell silent as his eyes came back to you, and this time... this time they shined with tears of joy.
"yeah?" you asked, feeling your heart beating out of your chest.
"yeah," nodded.
You felt your heart and chest and body fill with pure joy as you let some tears fall from your eyes.
"you did it baby" you sniffled "I knew you would. You deserve it, all of it" you smiled, wishing with all your heart you were there to hug him and kiss him and whisper in his ear
"How are you feeling?"
He laughed "I don't even know, I just- I think I need time to process this" he smiled, his hands slightly shaking "A-Are you ready to go to the Emmys?"
"are you?" You laughed, quite literally quivering from the excitement
"As ready as I'll ever be"
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antianakin · 6 months
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Am I the only one who just lost any and all love for newer Star Wars material due to Jedi hate ? Like- the only merch or show or even FANDOM topic I get involved in is clone wars stuff and MAYBE TBB. Like- why would I want the watch shows who attempt to rewritte canon and portray the very heroes of Star Wars as the bad guys ?
Why would I want to watch shows that assassinate characters left and right (looking at you, Ahsoka and Sabine) ? Why would I want to buy merch of characters who I not only NOT care about, but who also are used as meta mouthpieces for stupid Jedi hate ?
I think there's TONS of good newer Star Wars material, to be honest.
I loved the Kenobi show and it is arguably one of the most pro Jedi pieces of media to have existed since the Prequels films. Aside from one itty bitty somewhat awkward word choice in one line of one episode, there is absolutely NOTHING in that show that can be used to indict the Jedi or blame them for anything and it is arguably one of the only shows to really spend time MOURNING the Jedi and recognizing the horror of what was done to them. Rebels comes closest after this, but its structure makes it a little less visceral than the Kenobi show was to me.
I really adore Visions and I recognize that this is sort-of Star Wars adjacent more than anything else, but SO LITTLE truly understands what makes Star Wars compelling as a story and really hits on those primary themes the way that Visions does. There's SO MUCH Jedi content in Visions and I remember people complaining about how much Jedi content was in Visions and other people responding that if you were given free reign to just play in the Star Wars sandbox with near zero restrictions on what you could make with it, you would probably ALSO immediately go for the psychic space wizards with laser swords. Who WOULDN'T? Visions also just genuinely has some of the most engaging and heart-wrenching stories to come out of Star Wars in a LONG while and it does it in these beautifully animated 15 minute packages. It's such a gem and I am so glad to be alive at the same time as Visions.
Rogue One is older now, but both Rogue One and Andor, despite having zero actual Jedi in them, really hinge on the themes from the Prequel trilogy about the tragedy in the Star Wars universe, stepping up when no one else will, choosing to be selfless and compassionate for the greater good, etc. Faith and hope are MASSIVE themes within these two works and even though there aren't any space wizards, good or evil, in either story, they feel like some of the most pro Jedi things Star Wars has come out with in a while based on thematic messages ALONE.
The Mandalorian's first two seasons actually have this absolutely BEAUTIFUL story about the selfless sacrifice of one man as he gives up everything in order to help this child find his way back to the culture he'd been ripped from. Everything AFTER that regarding Grogu and Din's storyline is a piece of shit (it's not explicitly anti-Jedi or anything, but it undoes a lot of the things that made their story so compelling and beautiful), but the first two seasons are genuinely GOOD and very pro Jedi in a lot of ways despite the lack of many actual Jedi characters.
The Book of Boba Fett is a terrible show for a LOT of reasons, but shockingly none of them have anything to do with its treatment of the Jedi. If it ever ends up with a season two, I desperately hope they leave Mace Windu's name the fuck out of it, but at this point it is a pretty Jedi neutral show if you're willing to deal with the rest of its bullshit.
Rebels is also somewhat older now, and it has a few lines here and there that are a tad more Jedi critical, but it is by and large VERY Jedi positive and does also follow a lot of the themes of selflessness and sacrifice that go along with being a Jedi. It also has themes of mercy and patience and facing your fears in Sabine's storyline that got entirely thrown away in her later storyline. Just thought that was worth pointing out. For reasons.
TBB is also fairly Jedi neutral, but its treatment of the clones is basically the clone version of being anti Jedi, so I'm not sure it's actually any better. It just traded hating on the Jedi to hating on the clones, and I find that just as distasteful.
I can't really speak to things like comics and novels much since I don't tend to consume them really. I've read a few of the adult novels in the High Republic Phase I and the first one was genuinely very good, but there were some relatively heavy-handed Jedi critical themes within the third book of Phase I (The Fallen Star) that put me off of it a little. I haven't continued into Phase II or III at all, so I have no idea if those themes got continued in later books. I've heard generally good things about the Padawan book, I think.
The Cal Kestis video games, Fallen Order and Survivor, also have their small Jedi critical moments, but much like Rebels, it has these massive overarching themes and messages about compassion and selflessness and sacrifice and facing your fears and mercy. They are immensely Jedi positive in a lot of ways and I really enjoyed both of them.
So out of everything I have seen (and know about) the only stuff that's truly heinously and insultingly anti-Jedi is the Ahsoka show, the Acolyte, and Tales of the Jedi. Three shows and like 30% of one book. Out of a list of like ten different shows and one film and some books and video games. It's not even really HALF of the content we've been getting recently.
A lot of people talk about the Disney era like it's ruined Star Wars, or like nothing it releases has ever been good. But it just straight up isn't true. It's a little insulting to all of the genuinely wonderful work that is being done by all of these other creators to just brush aside everything that's been coming out recently as awful and bad because some of the MOST recent things have been pretty explicitly hateful towards the Jedi. It's not fun that we had the Ahsoka show immediately followed by the Bad Batch followed by the Acolyte. I hate that, too, it feels like we're on this neverending shitshow of stories explicitly aimed at hating a group of characters for no obvious good reason. But I don't think that the last 6 months or so of bullshit should overshadow some of the really beautiful stories we HAVE gotten within the last several years.
If you feel like things are getting difficult, maybe do a "good Star Wars" marathon of sorts. Watch the Prequels, followed by the Kenobi show, then Andor, then Rebels, then Rogue One, then the Original trilogy. This one long beautiful story of people stepping up to fight against selfishness and greed and darkness no matter what.
Or go rewatch Visions or read some of your favorite fanfics and remember all the things about Star Wars that are just universally cool and compelling across the world. Hell, you can try writing something of your own! Anything! A lot of my AU concepts stemmed from spite and really helped me feel a little bit better about Star Wars when it sometimes felt like I was just surrounded by the parts of it I liked the least. Go buy yourself a cool t-shirt or some fun jewelry. Find some pretty stickers and put it on a water bottle or an enamel pin to put on a canvas tote bag or a corkboard.
Curating your fandom experience goes beyond just the internet. There's a reason I am boycotting the Acolyte and it isn't because I think Disney or its creators are going to care at all. I'm doing it for ME, because I had such a shitty time watching the Ahsoka show and it made me so miserable each week that I seriously think I will be better off just leaving it the hell alone and just absorbing whatever ends up crossing my dash from a distance. I only participate in Star Wars fandom servers that I feel safe in and only really get into discussions with personal friends who I know well. If participating in Star Wars fandom is making you sad, maybe take a step back or find a way to create your own corner of fandom that feels better. Ignore the damn Ahsoka show, pretend it never existed. Ignore the Acolyte. Ignore Tales of the Jedi. Ignore Filoni-related bullshit. Focus on the parts you DO like, or give yourself the space to remember why you liked it in the first place.
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markantonys · 4 months
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What is your ideal Gawyn show intro?
tick tock, it's gawynposting o'clock!!! i love being enabled, thank you :')
okay, so here's what i'm thinking. 3x01 focuses on catching up with our established characters and setting up the main storylines for the season. 3x02 is time for our caemlyn crew to make their grand entrance; the episode title seems to be "a question of crimson" (though this isn't guaranteed) which would be perfect for an andor & elaida intro episode.
3x02 cold open. scene: caemlyn palace nursery 20 years ago. baby elayne (there was allegedly a baby needed on the caemlyn palace set) is snoozing in her cradle with a nurse (lini cameo!) keeping an eye on her. 10ish-year-old galad is there playing with toddler gawyn. elaida enters the room and takes gawyn over to elayne's cradle and explains to him what it means to be her first prince of the sword, then makes him swear the oath we famously hear about in the books, the oath he swore over her cradle when he was just barely tall enough to look into it, "my blood shed before hers, my life given before hers". the audience goes "wow! this is a pretty fucked up thing to do to this 2-year-old" and thus we learn something about both gawyn (was psychologically fucked up at age 2 by being taught to see himself as a tool to protect other, more important people) and elaida (cares a lot about protecting the royal house of andor and has no problem psychologically fucking up 2-year-olds to do it). and there can be other stuff in the scene to tell us a bit about galad and morgase maybe, depending on how big of a role they're going to have in s3.
this is where i would put the opening credits IF I HAD THEM. (hashtag bring back the opening credits in every episode not just the finale you cowards.) now we go to present-day caemlyn, where the fam is discussing their worries that elayne is missing. gawyn in particular is upset about it and is blaming himself (and being blamed by elaida, and maybe even morgase makes some queenly Harsh But Fair remarks), and the audience goes "yep, sure enough, that 2-year-old has grown up to have Issues." and thus, right away, we've been given a point of connection with and sympathy for gawyn as well as an important insight into why he is Like That. this toddlerhood oath-swearing scene is buried in his narration in the books and i think a lot of people miss it or miss its importance, but it is THE formative moment for his character and the key to understanding why he is Like That, and i'd die if it was portrayed directly onscreen via flashback cold open.
meanwhile, elayne, nynaeve, and mat have set off for tanchico from falme, but the rest of the gang is headed for caemlyn (either as a stop on the way to the waste, or as their intended final destination but shenanigans later force them to flee and only then do they decide to go to the waste). perrin goes out and about in the city and hears rumors of trouble in the two rivers, setting him up to branch off from the group by the end of 3x02. egwene heads to the palace, having been tasked by elayne to deliver a letter to her family assuring them she's well, and rand tags along.
but the guards won't let these two hooligans in, so instead they go around back and break in over the garden wall, falling off the wall at gawyn's feet and setting off the biggest bi crisis of his life. egwene has a whole flirty meetcute with a handsome prince while rand, with whom she officially broke up in 3x01, has to bear witness to the whole thing (and this shows the audience that egwene is also moving on, thus soothing them about rand getting new love interests this season), but gawyn is friendly to rand too and defends both of them from galad's bitch ass and all the guards galad tattles on them to.
rand and egwene are hauled off to an audience with morgase and elaida, and gawyn defends them again but obediently shuts up when morgase and elaida tell him to (showing us that he has a good heart but is easily influenced by authority figures, especially elaida - seeing that gawyn tends to obey elaida is a surprise tool to help us later). whole tense convo here where egwene and rand both get to meet their mutual future mother-in-law as well as their mutual future kidnapper, and egwene delivers the letter but then elaida has her ominous foretelling of rand, which calls his and egwene's integrity and thus the veracity of the letter into question. morgase lets them go (against elaida's advice) but doesn't trust the letter (at elaida's advice) and continues to worry for elayne's safety. so, elaida sets off for the white tower to get answers, with gawyn in tow because, as we learned at the very start of the episode, protecting elayne is quite literally his life.
there we have it! a gawyn intro that sets up a ton of important stuff for him (his oaths to elayne, the way he ties his self-worth to his ability to protect people he deems more important than him, his fucked-up mentor/mentee relationship with elaida, his crush on egwene, his friends-to-onesided-homoerotic-rivals arc with rand, his relationships with morgase and galad), gets the audience to understand and sympathize with and maybe even feel fond of him right off the bat, AND doesn't violate any of the handful of tidbits we know about s3 so far. a win-win-win!
this is my ideal version. but there's a couple other possibilities, such as a) we meet gawyn in caemlyn, but rand & co don't go there, so gawyn does not meet egwene until a future season, or b) elaida and morgase have a one-on-one convo in caemlyn (both actresses were leaked to have been on that set, but no word on if the brothers were there) and gawyn isn't introduced until a later scene arriving at the white tower with elaida (and so doesn't meet egwene until a future season).
i'm leaving galad out of the white tower trip for now because i remember musing a while back how it could actually be more effective if it's an elaida-gawyn duo and galad stays home with morgase. both women are important to both brothers' stories, but elaida is more important to gawyn and morgase is more important to galad. gawyn can be alone with elaida doing all the coup stuff, and galad can be with morgase watching her start behaving strangely, not understanding why, and starting to turn to the whitecloaks (because he blames the aes sedai for elayne's disappearance, because he's afraid morgase is losing her grip and starting to do andor harm, and maybe because morgase was compelled to treat him cruelly and kick him out a la bryne* in the books and he feels he has nowhere else to turn to). gawyn/elaida/tower + galad/morgase/whitecloaks feels like two logical groupings, and in that regard keeping galad in caemlyn could allow for more efficient storytelling than sending him to tar valon. and the galad/morgase/whitecloaks storyline could be held until s4, leaving galad and morgase as just 1ish-episode characters in s3, or it could be another s3 subplot if they want to speed things along. there's also a chance galad could already be a whitecloak and is in the two rivers storyline with dain, but i would prefer that not be the case because my opinion is it's important to his character for us to see him start normal and then get radicalized into the whitecloaks. plus, galad has SO little content in the books that the show is absolutely fine to stretch his stuff out a bit, they don't need to rush to have him already be a whitecloak at the start of s3.
*i've also made these theories with bryne being cut, since i have elaida take his place in gawyn's oath-swearing and galad take his place as the big bridge burned by compelled!morgase. i have no idea whether he actually WILL be cut or not (though i'm 99% confident his romance with siuan is off the table even if he's in), but he feels like a character where it's easy to divvy their stuff up among other more important characters. mat and bashere have us covered for Great Generals, thom has us covered as morgase's ex with whom things ended badly, and egwene could get soldiers from another source (or could even have her army simply be aes sedai and warders).
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teddy06writes · 8 months
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Stubborn
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Cassian Andor x gn!reader
Prompt: "The only person that gets to kill you, is me."
Warnings: non specific description of injuries
Premise: After a mission for the rebellion goes south and Cassian lands himself in the infirmary, you give him a piece of your mind. Told from Jyn's perspective.
(presumably takes place at some point after Rouge One, in an Everybody lives universe)
~~
It was supposed to have been a relatively routine mission. Two days at the most, including travel time; get in, get the intel, get out. That's all it was intended to be. That was until Cassian saw an opportunity to get a leg up, and Jyn had gone along, right up until that leg up turned out to be at a steeper price than they had planned.
Now, sitting in the infirmary on Yavin IV, Jyn was certainly beginning to regret it. Neither of the two were hurt badly, Jyn only sustaining a few scrapes and bruises from their quick escape, nothing a bit of bacta spray couldn't fix. Cassian had gotten the worst of it, and would be forced to take it easy for the next week or so until he had healed up enough to go back out in the field.
When the doors to the infirmary slammed open with a bang, Jyn couldn't even muster up shock. Cassian had mentioned that you would be furious at him.
"Are you kidding me? Are you an idiot Cass?" You demanded, storming past Jyn and strait to Cassian's bedside.
K-2SO lumbered along behind you, stopping beside Jyn, "To be fair, I did try to stop them."
"No you didn't." She said, watching in amusement as you continued to rant.
"No, I didn't." K2 agreed.
"You can't just go throwing yourself into things like that because you think it will accomplish something! What good are you to the Rebellion if you go off getting yourself killed for the tiniest bit more information!"
Cassian just kept looking up at you, waiting patiently, the same love struck in his eyes that Jyn saw every time you came near, or even came up in conversation.
"There are people here counting on you to come back! I'm counting on you to come back! God for someone so smart you make the dumbest decisions sometimes- Your so worrisome, and stubborn and aggravating and- Damn it, Cass, the only person who gets to kill you, is me!"
After this final exclamation you fell silent, staring down at him with a flushed, exasperated expression on your face that had Jyn struggling to hide her laughter.
Gently, Cassian took your hand, where it had fallen back to your side after your gestures had ended, "And you'll still have the chance, y/n. I'm okay. It's okay..."
In a moment, you deflated, your frustration suddenly disappearing as you squeezed his hand back, slowly sinking down into the chair beside his bed, "I was so worried Cassian. You can't scare me like that again."
Your voices grew too hushed for Jyn to make out, as Cassian reassured you, your hands still clasped between you. So she stood, all but dragging K2 out with her to give you space.
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shanastoryteller · 1 year
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HAPPY MONTH OF PRIDE!!!!! Poe and/or Andor from Star Wars please? (Thanks for the twofer last time 🥰)
a continuation of 1 2
They get lost.
Ben isn’t at all surprised, because this is exactly what he said would happen if they started trying to actually solder wires together instead of using the tried and true method of bubblegum and a prayer.
“How is this even possible?” Poe moans. “We’re going to die out here and then my mother is going to kill me. How does your dad get anywhere in this thing?”
“The Force, mostly,” he says, because Dad has been insisting he’s not Force sensitive his whole life and from where Ben’s standing, it’s pretty much total shit. Uncle Luke says to just let him live in his delusion.
Poe brightens. “So you can get us out of this, then? You use the Force, right?”
“Maybe?” he says. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’ve shorted several important components and if we don’t replace them it won’t matter if we know which direction to go since the ship will lose propulsion halfway there and we’ll be stuck floating in dead space until we starve to death.”
Poe glares. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious,” he says. “Come on, follow that that star thirty seven degrees to your right, we should hit a junkyard planet on the way that we can scavenge from. Hopefully.”
“Great,” Poe says, adjusting the controls. Ben can definitely get in contact with Uncle Luke if they actually need to get bailed out, but there’s no reason to tell Poe that.
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"The Bad Batch" S3 Review- Spoilers
Alright guys, we made it. After 3 years of this lovely show, it has finally come to an end. I definitely plan on doing a review of the entire show and see where it fits with the other big animated shows. However, that will come after my Crosshair Character Study. For now, let's focus on S3. Like Season 2, I'd definitely say it's a solid 8.5/10 for me. Although, S2 might still be my favorite. I honestly think Rebels might be the only show that has a 9/10 final season for me. Look, I loved CW and Siege of Mandalore is phenomenal, but that Ahsoka arc was not it. The final season of TBB has so much I absolutely loved and so much I wished it handled better. So, let's jump right into it!
This season felt so different for me and I definitely know why. The story is much more plot driven than the first two. In the first two seasons, the Batch were more worried about survival and kinda just went on adventures all around the galaxy. The Empire really didn't know where they were so the stakes weren't as high. Crosshair himself was stuck in the Empire meaning he didn't focus on the Batch as much until they crossed paths with him.
S3, however, sees the Batch and Omega specifically being hunted relentlessly. They need to figure out what's going on or else they will never be free. This shift from the Batch galavanting around the galaxy to a more plot driven narrative does change things up. Looking back, I think the creative team just needed more time. S3 has so much going for it and there just isn't time to flesh out the ideas to their fullest potential. That being said, I am overall satisfied with everything they pulled off, especially Crosshair. This show has solidified him as one of my top 3 favorite SW characters and fave clone. He's so well-written and I adore him.
What I loved:
The atmosphere this season was so dark and I loved it. There was a maturity to the ideas and threat level that I honestly really appreciated. Just like Andor, TBB really demonstrates just how monstrous the Empire is. There is nothing that Palpatine won't do in order to achieve total domination and subjugation of the entire galaxy for all eternity. And Hemlock is right there beside him. That man's passion for his craft knows no bounds; it doesn't matter who's strapped to his table. It's so horrifying to think how Tantiss is probably just one of the many, many inhumane and monstrous things the Empire has running. TBB, like Andor, is peak Empire imo. If there was any doubt that this monstrosity could last as long as it did, these two shows erase it.
I also really loved the character relationships, particularly Omega and Crosshair. Their bond is so beautiful and reminiscent of ones I see in my own life. There's nothing Crosshair wouldn't do for her and it fits really neatly with who he is as a person. Omega brings out the best in him, just as she does all her brothers. This season really emphasized how much Omega's brothers have influenced her. Their lessons really come into play by the end of the season. To see her grow from a naive young girl into a mature (but still childish) teenager/pre-teen was beautiful.
Crosshair this season was everything to me. I could be here for hours talking about him. I was beyond thrilled with how they handled him. He has changed so much and this season highlights that growth in every way. Crosshair remains to be the best written character and nothing about him felt OOC. I loved his dynamics with the Batch and Omega. (The hugs were perfect)! I loved how his struggle was something he worked on the entire season; it wasn't just one and done. I love how the themes of trust were woven so perfectly into his story. Crosshair was perfect (I'll touch on the hand thing later). I couldn't have asked for more (except just give me more Crosshair. I will never be tired of him. I could watch a whole show of just him doing stuff).
I don't have a burning desire to punch Hunter anymore. Yay! But in all seriousness, I have developed a soft spot for him. As much as he got on my nerves in S1, I really do appreciate him a lot more. He does care deeply and has a lot he's struggling with.
Echo showing us why he's the ARC Trooper. Seriously, those scenes of him will always live rent free in my head.
Emerie! Really great character and very interesting.
*hides in a corner* Rampart.
The music and animation were phenomenal. Honestly, both were flawless. The music in particular moved me to tears several times. Props to the animators and Kiners because this is some of their finest work yet. That one shot of Crosshair catching CX-2's knife was outstanding.
I also loved the action, seeing the boys fight together, and final shot of the Batch + the epilogue. There is so much I adored in those moments and the rush of emotions I got each time. The epilogue was so personal and I might do a separate write up on it.
The themes of family and hope were also front and center and I loved every second of it. If anyone asks why I love TBB, it's because this is show about family more than anything. The Batch are a family and seeing them learn to be one is so beautiful. It means so much that Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair got to settle down together and raise Omega. It's just beautiful.
What I didn't like:
I wanted more deep convos. Whether it was because of a preference for action or time constraints, the writers just needed to have more deep character emotions and let them sink in. It's why "The Outpost" and Tech's convo with Omega are so well loved; they let us really be with the characters. I wish S3 had more of those moments because they make this show that much better. I just wanted more. And I know this show is capable of that. It sucks knowing what it could've been. So many moments could've hit more had they been given time to breathe or worked in a bit differently.
The way Tech was handled. Hats off for actually keeping him dead. I just wish we got proper closure on that 😐. Although Tech's death looms largely over the Batch, it feels like the writers brushed it off. Why didn't we get a scene of Crosshair learning what happened? I know the time skip implies they all processed Tech's death, but it still felt like something was missing. It felt like the writers expected us to also process it like the Batch and move on. Except, we're not the Batch. We don't know what went on in their heads because they're fictional. The audience relies on the writers to show us that grieving process and we don't get it. It also didn't help that it felt like they were baiting us with CX-2 at times.
Some of the plot lines being dropped for plot/time reasons. Look, I know that it's about the Batch and their journey on becoming a family. However, it felt like more was being set up and it might go no where. One thing I love about TBB in general is how it showed us how the Empire began to change the galaxy the moment Palpatine got what he wanted: total dominance. Clones began to take a stand. Talks of rebellion were already being whispered. I just hope that these storylines revolving around Rex, Riyo, and Echo don't wither away because TBB has ended. Or the Ventress thing. I know they said she'll be back but who knows when that'll happen. I also wanted to know more about the CX Program. That’s what fanfics are for, am I right?
The pacing was brutally fast. This ties into my points about the narrative being more plot driven and lack of time to fully flesh out ideas. It felt like there was almost no room to breathe at times because we jumped from plot point to plot point as each episode progressed. Don't get me wrong, TBB handled this way better than Ahsoka, but I just needed like two more episodes of the boys and Omega running around, ok?
Overall, this season just needed time.
What I am neutral on:
Scorch. Man was done dirty, but I didn't know who he was til this season. Sorry guys. Including him and not giving him anything wasn't a good idea imo though.
Crosshair's hand. I get both sides of the argument, I really do. First off, I'm a sucker for whump. I can't help it. Also, you can say that him losing his hand connects to him severing himself from Tantiss and the pain he went through. But at the same time, Crosshair's trauma isn't going to magically vanish by just chopping off his hand. If anything, it'll just add to the trauma. I applaud the writers for dealing with such a sensitive topic, but from a certain POV the hand chop is a quick fix to a storyline that could've had more substance with another season. I'm neutral on it because again, I see both sides of the argument. I think if we got more of a reaction from Cross, the situation would've been more clear (he was doing some crazy compartmentalization during the back half of the finale, let's be honest here).
Anyways, that's my review of S3 of TBB. Despite it's flaws, this little show still went out on a high note and I am very pleased with it. I love TBB with all my heart and I will hold it cherish it forever. Until next time everyone. I will still be talking about Crosshair and this show, don't worry. No matter what, I will never tire of this beautiful family ❤️
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thecoffeelorian · 13 days
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Fandom Friday, 09/13: Fanart!
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Hello again, everyone…and welcome to another installment of Fandom Friday, the two-post series where I go off to find new and interesting fanworks that might need a bit more visibility.
Before we begin...I'm not sure I have a cool address created for this latest update, other than the seasons are about to change, and I think that...for better or for worse, I'm probably changing a little right along with them.
I have no idea whether this will prove to be a good thing or not in the long run, only that I'm still learning new things even as I face my elder nerd years, and my ever-increasing amount of gray hairs upon my head keep reminding me that there's still a ways for me to go here...so please. I hope that anybody still reading my words will continue to be patient with me, especially if I don't always feel in the mood to draw, write, or otherwise create eye-catching things for the rest of the interwebs to enjoy.
And so without further delay...here are my picks of the week.
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THE CLONE WARS
The Clone Wars Fanart--By @clownbloody:
The Clone Wars Fanart--By @lonewolflupe:
THE BAD BATCH
The Bad Batch Fanart--By @thora-sniper:
The Bad Batch Fanart--By @elslittlestories:
ANDOR/ROGUE ONE
Andor Fanart--By @fen-luciel:
Rogue One Fanart--By @aron-mp4:
STAR WARS REBELS
Star Wars Rebels Fanart--By @hayesflint:
THE MANDALORIAN
The Mandalorian Fanart--By @shadsthequeenofthepotatopeople:
In conclusion, as part of my mission to poke around the Star Wars fandom and, on Friday every two weeks, highlight those artists who might otherwise go unnoticed…I hope you will check out the links I have included for yourselves and like, comment on, and reblog them, as well as also giving the artists a few more followers to their Tumblr pages.
Please also like and reblog this latest installment so that these links can be spread around to as many other fans as possible, just in case not all of them can tune in at the same time.
An additional thank you goes to @djarrex for making the divider I used earlier in this post, but still want to give credit for.
And finally, so that I do not forget…this post will be continued in its second half: the Fanfiction Edition.
Thank you, good morning, and I’ll see you in the next post!
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No Pressure Tags: @melymigo @algo-o-nada @theosb0rnway @everybirdfellsilent @skellymom
@leos-multifandom-corner @maggie-dylan @leenabb104104 @gun-roswell @tazmbc1
@bluedeedeedoop @its-time-to-rise-above @tlmtwelve and anybody else who might be on the lookout for new SW fanart.
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colleybri · 9 days
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Cassian Andor taking on an Imperial garrison…
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The subtle use of echoing lines in Andor (frequently right through to Rogue One) is so well done, and one example shows Cassian’s character development very clearly…
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When Cassian is first being briefed by Vel about the heist on Aldhani, he reacts with horror at the news about there being an Imperial garrison nearby. Luthen didn’t mention it, and you get the sense that he might not have agreed to take on the job had he known about this extra danger . But of course, he commits and the heist is a success – of a kind.
But afterwards… he doesn’t want to do anything like that again. He wants to “win and walk away” to “somewhere warm and easy” . The irony is – his actions have helped to inspire Maarva, who refuses to leave Ferrix - while praising the actions of the “brave” “heroes” of Aldhani. She’s just indirectly praised him, and you can see that he’s delighted by a split second little spontaneous smile of pleasure that he quickly suppresses. Ouch. He’s finally done something she could be proud of, but he doesn’t want to give her a reason to stay so he has to stay quiet.
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^ Awww 😞
But what’s really interesting is the editing in this masterful and moving scene. On Maarva’s words ‘If there are heroes brave enough to take on a whole Imperial garrison I’m brave enough to stick it out here” we see the flashback of 13 year old Cassian approaching the Troopers with a cudgel, revealing at long last the details of the assault that landed him in youth prison for three years and Mimban after that. The horrifying execution of Clem combined with the injustice and pain of his own punishment has not just traumatised the adult Cassian, it’s also made him somebody who will now avoid a conflict – and therefore the Rebellion– wherever possible. 
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‘It’s all useless… it’s better to live!’ is what he told Luthen before Aldhani, but the precise placing of the shot here is very telling.
Cassian is starting to subconsciously associate that act with bravery rather than recklessness. He hates the Empire for what they did to Clem but it has so far translated to trying to ‘live’ and ignore them as much as possible; but his teenage self wanted to fight, to get revenge. Nonetheless it was an emotional response, an impulsive act that was not thought through. This is in total contrast to the calm methodical shots of Wilmon Paak preparing the bomb at the start of Episode 12. Wilmon is balancing emotion with rationality in planning his own revenge, in an arc which otherwise is like a replay of Cassian’s own.
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Later in Episode 12 Cassian hears from Brasso his mother’s last words for him - all proof not just of how much she loved him but of how much she knew him too. He does indeed now ‘know everything he needs to know and feel everything he needs to feel’. His reasoning and his emotions are now able to work together to be that ‘unstoppable force for good’. He won’t be making emotional but futile attacks like rushing armed Troopers with a stick anymore. He will think, plan, observe and react. But he will act. He is not going to walk away any more. And he’s not going to leave loved ones behind if he can help it…
…Because in a final bit of lines-linking brilliance - immediately after hearing these words of his mother, Cassian prepares to go into the hotel, via the tunnels she checked were open, to rescue Bix.
Incredulous, Brasso says: “Are you going to take on a whole garrison?”
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And Cassian doesn’t verbally reply. The look says it all. ‘I’ve done it before, twice, l’ll do it again, and I’m doing it now.’
It sums up Cassian’s arc so well. From oppression, to fighting back, to running from the fight, to taking up the fight again (now an even more exact mirror of Jyn Erso’s arc too). But this time… having learnt from experience. One lesson being: teamwork matters…
…Because thanks to Brasso and the riot the Troopers are ordered out of the Rix hotel, which is the Empire’s base. Making it possible for Cassian to extract Bix, with the “Imperial garrison” deployed elsewhere. A technique so effective, it will also be used on Scarif to give Jyn, K2SO and himself a chance to reach the data files.
“Light it up …
..Make ten men feel like a hundred “
And that’s how you make a realistic hero. Cassian is somebody who learns and grows despite some bitter experiences.
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Better deploy that garrison, because Cassian Andor is taking it on.
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pedrito-friskito · 1 year
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cassian andor + smut prompt #10
i am a whore <3
nonnie if you're a whore I'm a whore 🤍
you called - cassian andor x fem!reader
word count: 3.1k (this one got away from me can you tell?)
warnings: unprotected p-in-v, brief oral (f receiving), jealous/possessive!cassian
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“Two shots of Corellian whiskey, please,” you ask, stepping up to the bar beside Cassian. The sound of your voice almost makes him jump, but he hides the movement smoothly, adjusting in his seat. From the corner of his eye, he watches you lean back against the bar, propping your elbows on it. You wait for a few other patrons to pass before you drop your voice low. “You’re late.”
“I am not late,” he grumbles, polishing off the rest of his own drink. “I’ve been here waiting for you for hours now.”
You scoff a laugh, shaking your head. “After all this time and you still think you can lie to me, Cassian? You don’t think I had a lock on your ship the moment it entered the atmosphere?”
He balks, tries to hide it and fails. You’re good. Too good. He doesn’t say a word, shakes his head as the bartender returns with two shot glasses, placing them on the bar between you and him.
“That Fondor looks like it’s more mod than original,” you comment, reaching for one of the shots. “Where’d you steal it?”
“I didn’t steal it,” he shoots back, watching your brow raise. “It’s on loan, from a friend.”
“You don’t have friends, Cassian,” you quip, tossing back your shot. You slide the second one over to him. “Just people you owe money to.”
“I don’t owe you any money,” he mutters, unable to stop himself from giving you a cheeky grin. “What does that make us? Friends?”
“You know exactly what we are,” you return, giving him a sideways glance before setting your glass back down. “The mark just walked in. Keep an eye out, will you?”
“I always do,” he replies, and then you’re gone.
This is an old habit for Cassian. He’s known you a long time; you grew up on Ferrix same as him, but you managed to get off-world far before he could bring himself to. By the time he first met up with you on Coruscant, you had already started to make a name for yourself in the Capital’s underworld, and Cassian was in awe. He longed to get the hell off of Ferrix, to go somewhere warm and easy and carefree. He knew Coruscant wasn’t that place, but judging by the amount of credits you were raking in, it was a step in the right direction.
You sent for him often, over the years. He was the only one you trusted to watch your back, to keep a careful eye while you gathered intel, traded information with some of the shadier types in the galaxy. Most jobs went off without a hitch, but there were more than a handful of times where Cassian had started bar brawls to get you the hell out of dodge. He hadn’t had to kill anyone yet, but after everything that’s happened to him, he wouldn’t be surprised.
This is the first time he’s seen you, since everything happened on Ferrix. Maarva, Bix, B2. Luthen and his newborn rebellion. Cassian doesn’t totally know where he stands, what he’s doing, what his next move might be. But when he picked up your signal, Luthen loaned him the ship with little protest, and he was jumping through hyperspace an hour later.
You call, and he comes. It’s how it’s always been.
There had always been something between you, Cassian knew that much. His reputation might not have been the most pristine, but you never seemed to mind, having a bit of a rep yourself. 
But tonight…He could hear the unspoken in your voice, the strain of the events of the last time you met up. The job hadn’t been the issue - it had gone perfectly, in fact - but after, you asked him to walk you back to the apartment you had on the other side of the district.
He’d done as you asked, going so far as to bring you right to your front door. You’d asked him if he wanted to come inside, and before he could get the word yes past his teeth, you’d grabbed him by the front of his collar, and kissed him.
Clothes scattered on the floor, you’d stumbled your way to your bedroom. It was…blissful, in a word. It was everything he felt like he was missing, and that unspoken thing rumbled through you both, but there in your bed, he didn’t think it needed to be spoken aloud. It just…was.
Morning had come too quickly, and when he woke, you were gone. No note, nothing, just his clothes folded and stacked on the table beside the bed. He’d dressed quickly, and got on the next ship to Ferrix.
He wants to ask. He wants to know why you didn’t stay, why you didn’t leave him any sign that you wanted him to stay. But after everything that’s happened, it feels inconsequential, almost.
Cassian drinks down the shot, setting the glass down on the bar with a little too much force. You’re easy to spot, weaving your way through the bar to a man lurking in the dark corner. Brow furrowing, his hand brushes over his coat, where his blaster sits, tucked against his hip. He’s gotten quick on the draw, since he last saw you.
The man spots you as you draw closer, and Cassian bristles at the recognition on his face. He’s glad to see you, and it only becomes more and more evident as the two of you move closer and closer together, heads bowed as you speak, the man’s hand moving to rest on your hip. Then it moves up your back, pressing into the dip of your spine, and Cassian grits his teeth.
Something like jealousy flares in his gut. No, not something like it, but the thing itself.
He wants to touch you like that again, like he had that night. Seeing someone else with their hands on you…his fingers twitch over the blaster again.
No, something else warns him, a clearer voice in his head. That won’t go well, and you know it.
So instead, he watches. He leans back as casually as he can, one elbow leaned on the bar, tapping his other hand against his thigh. The conversation doesn’t last much longer, and before he knows it, you’re returning to his side, a contented grin on your face.You toss your hair over your shoulder as you wave down the bartender again. “Another round.”
“Got everything you needed?”
“And then some,” you reply, looking at him over your shoulder. “Thank you for coming, Cassian.”
He just nods. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
“We’re not friends,” you say, shaking your head as the bartender brings you another two shots. You toss them both back quickly. “I thought we made that clear the last time you were here.”
“The last time?” he repeats, lifting a brow. “You mean when you dragged me to bed and disappeared the next morning? That last time?”
He doesn’t mean for it to come out with such venom, but it does. Jealousy has taken hold of him and refuses to let go. His blood boils with it.
You narrow your eyes at him, your tongue poking between your lips to wet them. He watches the movement and ignores the way it makes his trousers tighten. He’s mad at you, he’s so glad to see you, he’s infuriated at you for leaving him alone last time, he’s so in love with you he might burst into flames.
“You’re jealous,” you determine, and though everything in him screams YES!, he rolls his eyes, turning half away from you. But you don’t let him go far, grabbing his shoulder and spinning his stool back in your direction. “Tell me I’m wrong, Cassian.”
Your hand moves from his shoulder to his thigh, and Cassian’s jaw goes tight. “We are not friends.”
“No,” you agree. “We’re more than that.”
“And your way of telling me that was disappearing the next morning, waiting three months, and then calling me to be your sidekick again?”
Your face falls, and you step back, removing your hand from his leg. “Come with me.”
Without another word, you turn on your heel and stalk out of the bar. Cassian only finds it in him to move when you reach the doorway, and then he’s all but chasing you, walking the almost familiar path to your apartment. You take the stairs, seeming to float up them as Cassian almost struggles to keep up. He loses you for a moment, but when he reaches your door, it’s open, only closing when he steps inside.
He calls your name, hears your quiet in here come from the direction of your bedroom. The place looks the same as he remembers and as he rounds the corner of the hallway, stepping into your room, he finds you perched at the edge of your bed.
“I left in the morning to get us breakfast,” you admit, looking up at Cassian, your eyes shining in the dark. “I’m not here a lot, and there wasn’t any food, so I went to get us something. When I came back, you were gone, and I realized I’d made a mistake.”
He says your name again, softer, and you shake your head.
“And then I started hearing the rumours, about Ferrix, about you. I heard about Aldhani, about Narkina-5, all of it. I even called Brasso, and that was when he told me about Maarva. I’ve been trying to call you ever since then, but nothing was going through. Then I met Vel, and she gave me the right frequency to contact you.”
Cassian sighs, leaning against the doorway. He never even questioned how you’d gotten his contact info after he was off Ferrix…he just…
You called, he came.
“You met Vel,” he says, unsure of what else to say.
You nod. “Hell of a woman.”
Cassian nods. “So you know, then. About the Rebellion.”
“I do. Figured I should put my talents to good use. Better than ripping off ex-senators and making credits I don’t need. And, if it keeps me closer to you, then it’s a win on all sides, as far as I can tell.”
His stomach drops into his toes. “You’re joining?”
You nod again. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes. I tried to resist it, I really did. But now…everything else seems…”
“Meaningless?” you supply. You pull your eyes from his. “For what it’s worth, Cassian, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t call you sooner. I’m sorry about Maarva, Ferrix, all of it. ”
“You didn’t cause it,” he replies, propping his hands on his hips. “I did that all by myself.”
“Come here,” you say, your voice going soft and your eyes meeting his once more. “Please?”
Slowly, he closes the distance. He watches you reach for him, your hands moving to the belt that holds his blaster, undoing it quickly and letting it slip to the floor. He tries not to groan when your hands move under his loose shirt, fingers curling around his hips. 
Silently, he shakes his coat off, letting it drop to the ground before he hooks two fingers in the back of his shirt, pulling it forward off his torso. It joins the pile on the floor and then he hisses, your teeth sinking into the skin over his hip bone. He lets one hand dive into your hair, holding you against him, feeling your tongue soothe the mark you’ve left behind.
“Promise me something,” he whispers, and you tilt your head back, pulling your mouth from his skin long enough to meet his eyes.
“Anything.”
“Promise you’ll still be here in the morning.”
“I promise.”
You kiss your way across his waist, fingers working the button on his trousers while you distract him with your mouth. He’s got both hands in your hair now, silk between his knuckles, and it almost pulls his focus completely, enough that you have to repeat the next words out of your mouth.
“You never answered me.”
“Huh?”
“Back at the bar, I said you were jealous. You never answered me.”
You pull his zipper down, snap the elastic of his boxers against his skin. Cassian hisses. “I thought it was obvious.”
“It was,” you agree, nipping at his hip again. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
He tightens his grip on your hair and pulls, just hard enough that your head tilts back and he bends slightly, pulling his body away from yours, but putting his face close enough that he can feel your breath on his cheek.
“You have any idea how much I hated seeing someone else touch you? Someone else put their hands on you?”
You inhale sharply, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip, and Cassian prods it with his thumb, pulling it free, rubbing the pad of his thumb across the plush of your lip. “Show me.”
And he does.
He makes quick work of your clothes, shucking his trouses off once you’re naked on the bed. You don’t let him go far, surging up to kiss him when he steps back to undress completely. Your hands are in his hair, same as his are in yours, and Cassian groans when you tug, both of you finding similar pleasure in the movement.
The first night was different. You’d stumbled your way through the dark, finding your peaks quickly. You’d fallen asleep after, and Cassian had watched you for a while before drifting off. That unspoken thing lulled him to sleep.
But now, he turns the bedside light on. The room illuminates with a soft orange glow, and he leans over you, until you fall back against the pillows and blankets, laid out for him, reaching for him. He molds himself into your palms, covers your body with his own. 
The first night, he hadn’t had the chance to taste you. Refusing to miss out a second time, he arranges you on the bed, pushing your knees apart to make room for his shoulders, tracing his mouth along the inside of your thigh, eyes darting between your glistening cunt and your face, the way your eyes roll back in your skull when he buries his head between your legs and sucks your clit between his teeth.
He wants to feel you cum on his face, to feel your thighs tremble around his ears, but you have other ideas. You haul him up with a gasp, fitting your mouth to his and licking your taste out of his mouth. “I wanted to-” he starts, but you cut him off, reaching between your bodies and squeezing your fingers around his cock.
“Plenty of time for that later,” you murmur, lips at his jaw, words spoken into his skin. “Right now I need you inside me, Cass.”
He groans as you stroke him, curling your wrist just right, but then he pulls your hand away, pinning your wrists either side of your head. Using his knees, he spreads your legs wide and drops his hips, the tip of his cock dragging through your wetness.
“Please,” you beg, your own hips lifting, chasing him, trying to notch his cock at your entrance. He teases you a moment longer, waits for the angle to be just right, and then he pushes into you. Your fingers flex against the bedsheets, mouth dropping open with a moan as his hips press into yours. Your legs twitch, one calf wrapping around his thigh. “Cassian, fuck, oh my-”
He covers your mouth with his, swallowing down your words and moans. You tighten around him, impossibly so, and he starts to move, finding his rhythm, filling you to the hilt with each thrust only to pull out almost all the way and do it all over again. Over and over and over, and you’re babbling into his mouth, straining against his hold. He leans up just that much more, pulling his lips from yours, both of you staring down at the spot where you’re joined, where he’s disappearing into you with every move.
“I’m the only one who gets to touch you like this, yes?” he grunts, hearing you gasp as he gives you one particularly hard thrust. He feels your head wobble with a nod, but he wants to hear it. “Say it.”
“Only you, Cass,” you breathe out, throwing your head back as you go even tighter around him. “Oh gods, fuck, only you.”
Pleasure coils like a serpent at the base of his spine, and he drops, trying not to smother you with his weight, pressing his face into the arch of your throat. You moan loudly as he releases your hands, curling his own around your shoulders while yours find purchase in his hair again. The bed shakes with your movement, both legs lifting to wrap around his waist now, your ankles hooked together at the small of his back. “Please, please, please, please, please,” you beg and Cassian bites at your pulse, groaning into your skin as his release threatens to overtake him.
“Cum for me,” he says, and you obey.
Your back arches and you make the sweetest sounds. He wants to bottle them, keep them for himself. He rides out your orgasm, keeping his own pleasure at bay until you’ve caught your breath, sighing at the press of him inside you, pulling him close. “Now you,” you whisper, nipping at his ear, lifting your hips so he gets that much deeper inside you, the warmth enough to swallow him whole. “Let me feel you.”
You call, and he comes.
He growls into your throat, fingers digging deep into your shoulders. You press kisses along his cheek, the space below his ear, his temple. Murmurs of how good it feels, how you missed him, how you’ll never let him go again, it’s the backdrop to the pleasure roaring through his body. It makes every muscle in him tense up before he relaxes completely, sinking into your embrace.
His eyes drop shut as he softens inside you, completely spent. Your fingers comb through his hair, soft kisses still scattered across whatever skin you can reach. After a few minutes, he finds the strength to roll off of you, falling onto the bed at your side.
You kiss his mouth before you get up, disappearing into the fresher for a moment, coming back with a glass of water for you both to share. Cassian gulps down the liquid as you slide back into bed with him, pulling the blankets over you both. You go to turn out the light, but he stops you.
“I’m not done with you yet.”
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