#Not without some Darth Vader bullshit happening | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

less-than-three-3 · 1 year

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fallen order lives rent free in my head

It's been like 3 weeks since I finished star wars jedi fallen order and it continues to live in my thoughts randomly so I just want to mind dump all of it here. tldr if you have not played the game you absolutely should!! one of my favorites of all time, it's fairly rare for a game to invade my thoughts and make me wish I could re-experience it all again for the first time (ok triangle strategy I also felt that way but I've just been playing more bangers recently) I'll get the spoiler-free stuff out of the way- it very much entirely feels like you are playing a star wars movie. And yeah "it really makes you feel like [thing]" is perhaps the most cliche thing to say about any video game but respawn really put their heart and soul into the presentation of this game because there is SO MUCH that's cinematic, and not in the way that the cliche mid-2010's AAA games just felt like you were watching a movie and pressing a couple buttons. The environments are super star wars (though the first major planet is kind of Just Ok in that regard), and the cinematic details of the cutscenes and ziplining and everything just feel awesome. The music goes without saying is super good, you could say it's derivative of John Williams but like, that's *entirely the point* and they do it super well. The characters feel extremely human in line delivery and animation, which is a thing that apparently we are still struggling with in current day. The only thing it's missing is the title scroll lmao Combat is very fluid once you get a hang of it, and even though you technically only have access to a few force abilities (being a goody two shoes jedi) throughout the whole game they add a lot to how you can approach enemies. It does feel sort of diet soulsborne, but that's entirely excused by the fact that you are a using a FUCKING LIGHTSABER it's so cool lol. And there's wallrunning and some parkour stuff that respawn excels at. If you are vaguely interested in souls games and/or metroidvanias I 100% recommend it, playing on the 2nd highest difficulty it was the right difficulty for me (on par with like hollow knight difficulty), but grandmaster sounds like the true souls bullshit experience if you really want that. ~~~~~~~~~Spoilers start here~~~~~~~~~~ I've gushed for a bit so I'll start here with the criticisms I had. Ultimately they all kind of boil down to "I wish the game was longer" and for a 20 hour (non-jrpg) game even that's kind of praise lol. But I did wish there was more of a final act twist or just something besides what you probably could have guessed would happen from the very start. That being "you find all 3 tombs and you get the holocron and the Second Sister steals it and you have a final confrontation with her and take back the holocron and end credits". That said there is a lot of character development for both Cal and Cere and a lot of lore building so I still found the story overall incredibly enthralling but I just wish there was *more* overarching y'know. You don't spend that much time with dual wield lightsabers and your own kyber crystal before you realize you're pretty much at the finale. And with only like 4 planets I just wished there were more places to go so there could be a lot more enemy types and boss varieties etc. And also I kind of wish the Nightsister did something more like idk fight alongside or teach Cal some combat techniques or something (but I assume that will probably be a thing in Jedi Survivor) but since she gets pretty much added to the crew at the end of the penultimate chapter she couldn't be particularly impactful besides saving Cal in the finale. Ultimately I think that's more an issue of "this is a prequel game to the main movie trilogy" than an issue with the game itself, by which I mean you know Cal can't entirely save the Jedi Order and defeat Darth Vader and Palpatine because that's what Luke Skywalker has to do. So when Darth Vader shows up and that awesome finale sequence happens there's a little bittersweetness because you know you aren't gonna *fight* him (or it'll be a scripted loss/he gets away due to some bullshit). It's the sort of phenomenon that I always talk about when people say like "man I wish Age of Calamity was a REAL prequel to BotW" like it functionally is for most of it except now you don't *actually* know the ending so there are actual stakes. Is it "less dark"? Sure, I guess, but I feel like going the entire story knowing the champions are all going to die would put a damper on the amazing character development and interactions throughout the game knowing none of it really matters because they're all gonna die and you know how they're gonna die from BotW. And just a nitpick is I wish the dual wield lightsabers were like a thing you could wield as a main weapon and not just a combo finisher lol but that's just me I fucking love dual wield it's always so sick!! But the combat is already super smooth, transitioning between single and dual blade lightsaber is very satisfying and weaving in force abilities and dodging it's already super fucking good, it could just be much sicker if you could just dual blade some fools. Going back to the story and characters, I just love pretty much the entire cast from beginning to end, allies and enemies. I could go through all of them one by one but like it's way too much to talk about I'd just recap the entire game lmao. Particular highlights are of course Cal's growth and tackling his trauma from Order 66 (an INCREDIBLE sequence built off of the "tutorial segments") and how it mirrors Cere's similar journey as they converge and work together in the finale, Second Sister and Merrin being badasses just in general, and the intro. Oh and of course BD-1. Just in general. BD-1 is a friend :) Map/dungeon design is also a highlight, there are a surprising amount of pretty interesting puzzles that I'd be shocked if they weren't directly inspired by Zelda dungeons. They're the puzzles that seem like the overall answer is fairly obvious but you just have to sit and think, run around, scratch your head as you figure out HOW to put together the answer. Yes, Fallen Order is one of my favorite Zelda games. (Alternatively, the Zelda team needs to make Zelda into a dedicated metroidvania it would bang!!!) I do wish there was better quick travel (or am I just spoiled by hollow knight benchwarp mod?) to better encourage exploring but I found that it generally wasn't really a huge issue; Dathomir is kind of a pain to get around but I never really hated backtracking for secrets, just wished I could benchwarp lol Moment to moment I loved the game and characters and music and cinematic presentation and I'm really hoping Jedi Survivor can push these pros even further and add even more cool combat options and add a little more QoL and be a like 100 hour game that would be cool. Just please don't pretend to be another game and instead build on Fallen Order's unique flavor in the sequel (looking at you Ori 2)(August 2022)

#star wars fallen order

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kelvintimeline · 2 years

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Stephanie’s Batman Review:

First off, this movie could’ve been an hour and a half. Parts of this movie could’ve been an email and that’s saying something considering parts of this movie effectively WERE an email. This movie had one good riddle and tried to give us like five. And that one good riddle was wasted because Rpattz got to say the word Lies and didn’t fuck it up by saying THE LAAAAS again.

That said, his Bruce was fun. Mopey Little Bitch Bruce Wayne is what I wanted and what I got, though he was more Batman than Bruce Wayne (which kinda made this movie lack an emotional heart on some levels). This felt like a Real Batman movie--it had the investigations, it took itself seriously, but also seemed aware that some things are... pretty fucking stupid. I watched Selina put a cat on the back of her motorcycle, implying it was gonna ride with her and almost lost my mind.

Sometimes, it doesn’t take it self seriously in a way to avoid plot follow up (seriously, uhh, Bruce just caused a 20+ car pile up and explosion and... no one cared because we made a joke about haha they abandoned the Penguin and he’s whining about it) but it was fine. Sometimes, it took itself too seriously to create a self important message where Bruce LITERALLY becomes a beacon of light for Gotham on impulse. Like he hit his head and decided to care about The Little Guys he could see in the darkness, through flood water and debris. Sure. (It was a great shot though, just like the recreation of the Darth Vader scene from Rogue One but with machine guns.)

But... I gotta say. The real take away was The Shit Tier, Holy Shit Tier Poltiics of this film. Copaganda wasn’t dialed up to 5, wasn’t dialed up to 10, it was on fucking 20. For a film obsessed with exposing police corruption... this entire film is about how good cops are valuable and how they are too restrained by the law.

The person exposing the cops is the villain, in the classic “He’s doing a good thing but in the wrong way” bullshit method. But it goes beyond that, we get Bruce working not just with Gordon but with the average cops and we get sooo many comments about how he’s ruining the chain of command (which is thus a barrier to him doing his Good Work) and then immediately solves something by breaking it. The chain of a command is a problem. The fact that the cops can’t just bust into places without a warrant is a problem.

I nearly fucking lost it when the film came to a halt for Bruce to call Gordon a Good Cop (in contrast to the bad ones!!! the bad apples!!) and then the film ends with a black woman coming on stage to restore “faith in institutions” with cops behind her, with these two scenes combining for some weird racial politics that made me uncomfortable even as a white viewer. Like, using black characters to uphold cops as Good is pretty blatantly inappropriate.

ANd the entire film felt like a set up for Bruce Believes in Radical Violence but that radical violence is GOOD because it is Cop Approved and The Riddler Believes in Radical Violence but it’s BAD because it’s exposing cops!!!

And when a movie has twice the run time it should have actually had and most of that extra run time is spent showing like “Yeah, these cops are rough around the edges and, yes, most of them are corrupt and cane bought, but we promise you should believe in them, Bruce Wayne’s only human contact outside of his foster dad is one!” it’s just... exhausting.

When the movie was fun, it was fun. I want a movie following Selina around, especially after this movie accidentally gay baited me with her. But there’s a lingering fucking taint around it that’s hard to absolve. Because this film had a weird throw away line about “white privilege” (to defend a white victim?) and it rly felt like a weird bone thrown at a liberal audience to make them think this film was trying to say anything other than “Weee riddles are fun and cops are funner.”

Also, a bomb went off in Bruce’s face and he was fine. Why did that happen? Someone got long nails to the face and acted like they were dying but Bruce got blown up like five times and walked it off

#batman spoilers #bat man spoilers #the batman spoilers #spoilers #the batman

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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so…now that we all know what you DISLIKE about star wars (and 400% fairly so, you have my full support here)…

what drew you into the universe, what keeps you around?

favorite characters, ships (OTPs or actual spaceships lol), overall themes, do you have a favorite random weird creature or robot that you adore? whatever you wanna talk about!

go off honey (again, but supportively 💖💖💖)

tax paid: the very nerdy star wars punk vest i made and the even nerdier matching vest i made for starsky

Lmaooo, entirely valid. You were like "star wars?" and I was like the drunk person at the bar who can't stop shouting about how much their ex sucks. But now that I have gotten all that off my chest, let's talk about why I love it (since if I didn't love it, I wouldn't have such strong opinions). Basically my feelings on the OG SW trilogy are similar to my feelings on the OG LOTR trilogy, as that tumblr post floating around somewhere put it: sure, they have flaws, but also, they're perfect. I have a complicated relationship with the prequels, as do we all, since George Lucas cannot write dialogue or direct actors to save his life (stick to what you're good at, George, hire other people to do the rest), but even they have their moments. Like. Hit me with that "Across the Stars" love theme, John Williams. Gahh. Just like that.

Because... Star Wars wasn't actually this omnipresent corporate global entertainment monolith when it started out. It was a dorky low-budget indie sci-fi film in the 1970s which everyone thought was going to bomb. But it told a simple and compelling story in an interesting way, everyone agrees that ESB is one of the best films/sequels ever made, and then ROTJ gave it a happy ending while it was still okay to do that. My main thematic gripe with the Disney trilogy (I will try to keep those to a minimum, lol, but I have to bring it up to compare) is that it very clearly fell into the "actual happy endings are naive and unrealistic and a cynical postmodern audience won't accept anything less than things being Bad" trap that, yet again, we have GOT to thank for. It obviously existed to some degree before that, but GOT blew it up to huge levels, where the only valid situation or character is that which is Grimdark and Depressing. Which, in my view, misses the heart and soul of what SW is all about??

Like. ESB is genuinely dark. ANH was this fun plucky little sci-fi film where the scrappy good guys won the day against the Nazi stand-ins, as they were supposed to, and then ESB comes along (speaking of John Williams, let us all chant together, DUH DUH DUH DUHDUHDUH DUHDUHDUH, DUH DUH DUH DUHHHH DUHHH DUHHH DUHHHH) and things go... wrong. Leia and Han are on the run for most of the movie, then get captured and tortured by the Empire and and betrayed (however unwillingly) by Lando. The Rebellion is attacked on Hoth (I tell you, those fuckin AT-AT walkers were SCARY when you see it as a young kid for the first time), and forced into hiding. Luke loses his hand, doubts Obi-Wan and Yoda and realizes that his mentors are fallible, makes dumb mistakes, and of course gets hit with The Most Famous Line In Movie History. But it's also just adrenaline and excitement. THE ASTEROID FIELD! THE HAN-LEIA BANTER! THE FIRST LUKE-VADER DUEL! THE FACT THAT YOU HEAR TWO FRICKING NOTES OF THE IMPERIAL MARCH AND YOU'RE JUST LIKE OH YEAH OH YEAH OH YEAHHHH!

But also then... Return of the Jedi. It gets shat upon for the Ewoks and reusing the Death Star as the Big Bad and being supposedly cheesy and not as Thematically Dark as ESB. Which is all kinda silly, in my opinion, but also, can we talk about Luke Skywalker's character arc and how he chooses possibly the most radical compassion ever demonstrated by a hero in an action movie, let alone a space opera. He insists that Anakin Skywalker is still in there somewhere and puts his own neck on the line to prove it. Luke doesn't save the galaxy by being a Badass Jedi. He saves it by throwing away his lightsaber and saying "I will not fight you, Father." He saves it by trusting that even in the depths of darkness, Anakin can come back from the charred ruins of Darth Vader and finally do what he was supposed to do all along. He can end Palpatine for good and all (we don't talk about "Somehow Palpatine has returned" because it's nonsense, obviously). Anakin can avenge the Jedi and what was done to him and all the lies he believed and the pain he wreaked on the galaxy, even then. It's not too late. It's not too late. Like. I don't care if this is Lightweight or Childish or whatever. It makes me CRY every time I watch it. Especially the moment where Luke takes off Anakin’s helmet and sees how ruined he actually is under there, and yet the downfall and death of the trilogy’s chief villain is not triumphant at all but instead utterly heartbreaking. “You were right about me Luke... tell your sister... you were right.”

Excuse me, I need to just /CRIES INTENSELY/

Luke won't be tempted to the dark side for his own sake, but Leia's ("If you will not join me, then perhaps she will"). I likewise hold firmly that Anakin/Vader is one of the best movie villains/antiheroes of all time and likewise have many feelings and Strong Opinions about his arc, prequel writing clumsiness and eye-rollingly tepid love story aside. (See: he and Obi-Wan were deeply in love and in a way they still are, don't @ me. I have no problems with Padme and obviously stan Natalie Portman at all times, but Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship is the real love story, the heart of the prequels, and in some ways even the subsequent movies, the end.) And “so this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause” is... raw af as a line. For being in a Star Wars prequel movie. What?? (Also, the Revenge of the Sith novelization had no business being as good as it was. If only that dude had also written the movie.)

Anyway, my point is: the OG trilogy had plenty of moments of staggering emotional weight and where things genuinely sucked for the good guys and the outcome wasn’t entirely clear. The difference is that it didn’t choose to dwell on them, and it allowed for a transformative fictional space where a happy ending, fiercely fought for and squarely earned, was the right outcome. We didn’t need to go back thirty years later and make everything suck for fear that a cynical modern audience couldn’t connect with it otherwise. (Like I said, we didn’t need the new movies at all, but Disney heard that Cha-Ching of the Almighty Dollar). Star Wars was sci-fi, sure, but it also had the fantasy elements that allowed a happy ending to be the right choice for what we saw the characters go through and the philosophy that carried us through the original trilogy.

Likewise it’s just... Peak as far as dynamics go. C-3PO the fussy metal butler who worries about Everything and R2-D2 who is the droid embodiment of YOLO? Flawless. Sassy scruffy space pirate and badass politician warrior princess bicker constantly, butt heads, drive each other crazy, and then fall in love? Iconic. (And has shaped my ship tastes for... all of eternity, oops.) The above-discussed transformation of Luke Skywalker, whiny ordinary teenage kid, to the truly great man who fulfills what Obi-Wan, Yoda, AND the rest of the entire Jedi order couldn’t manage to do, because of their own flaws and blind spots and black-and-white moral views that didn’t know what to do with a man who loved as passionately as Anakin Skywalker, for better or for worse? The guy who managed to save the galaxy with love? STAN.

So... what? The Disney trilogy decides to retcon all that, throw everything that they’ve fought for out the window, make Han, Leia, and Luke miserable and rejecting the roles they grew into in the original trilogy, and die without ever really reuniting or seeing each other again as a trio? The underlying message was that “these happy endings aren’t satisfactory/realistic/sophisticated enough” and idk, maybe it’s just the shitshow of the last few years, but I’d like to see some entertainment that had the cojones to tell me that despite all the darkness and despair, maybe there’s a chance for hope. (”Rebellions are built on hope,” thank you Only Valid New Star Wars Movie Rogue One.) And Rogue One worked so well, despite being utterly GUTTING as all the heroes died one by one, because we knew what was coming next (A New Hope) and that their sacrifice was going to be worth it. I don’t care if that’s “realistic” or not. As I’ve said before, that’s what stories are for, and if I only wanted things that were Real Life, I would only read the news. Besides, the idea that happy endings never happen in reality is equally bullshit. We as a culture need to accept that more, instead of finding reasons to tear everything down.

So just... yes. The original trilogy might have flaws, but also, it’s perfect. And do I want to rewatch it all now? Kinda.

(Anyway. I warned you this was gonna be long. Oh look, it’s long, and I’m sure there is even more I could say, but still. Ahem.)

sleepover weekend asks

#buffaluff #ask #star wars #long post

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darkisrising · 3 years

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Bobadinluke, 37?

Ooooooooooh, Anon. Dear, sweet sweet Anon. You have NO idea how overboard I went on this, lolol. Thank you for the prompt, I hope when you read this next 4k+ words you won't regret it too much. Disclaimer: All I know about prison I learned by watching Oz back in the day. Full whump in this one, and threats of sexual assault though none actually occur. Some character death, some mentions of transactional sex... lottttttta cursing. Yeah, just, if you decide to read this one please proceed with caution. 37. meeting in prison au, BobaDinLuke

“First thing you do when you get to prison,” Anakin Skywalker whispered into his son’s ear as he held him so tightly Luke couldn’t draw in a deep enough breath, though maybe that was just the panic setting in. “You find the leader of the Sith in there and tell him Darth Vader said to take care of you. He goes by Maul. He’ll keep you safe.”

In answer, Luke hissed “Fuck you, you fucking bastard” and sincerely meant every word of it. When the guards pulled them apart to lead Luke away—the irons around his ankles clattering ominously—it was a relief. For a father that had thrown him and his sister by the wayside as they were growing up, leaving them to be raised by distant and dubiously-related relations, he sure had decided to make himself suspiciously present in the courtroom ever since he’d framed his only son for murder.

“Don’t be proud, Luke,” Anakin called out, his voice cutting through the courtroom’s chatter. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Luke’s tempted to throw another “fuck you” over his shoulder but then he caught sight of Leia, clutching her tiny lump of a newborn son in her lap. Her eyes were as close to crying as he’d ever seen his sister get and that’s when it all came crashing down on him. That this moment, which some stupid, fragile part of him had thought would never really come to pass, had happened. He’d held on to hope that someone—some jurist— would listen to all the damning witness testimonies and look at all the gruesome crime scene photos and then look at Luke—pacifist, Prius-driving, yoga teacher Luke—and think ��No, it couldn’t possibly have been him.” He had a rescue dog, for fuck’s sake. He’d gotten Artoo from the no-kill shelter that he volunteered at between shifts at the local food pantry.

How the fuck could they ever believe him guilty of murder?

But Anakin Skywalker, leader of the Sith crime syndicate—second only to the so-called Emperor whose identity was a mystery to all but his most trusted underling—was good at what he did. If he wanted to kill a district attorney, he killed a district attorney. If he wanted to pin it on his son to keep his own ass out of prison, then that’s what he did. And then if he showed up every single goddamn day to Luke’s trial, sitting there just behind his son so that no one could help but notice the resemblance between the two of them—couldn’t help but speculate at how close they must be for his father to be taking such a personal interest in his son’s trial—until a person decided that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the rotten, mafia-laden tree?

Well, then; he did that, too.

Guilty on all counts. Seven life sentences to be served consecutively. One hundred and five years without the possibility of parole, and Luke knows as soon as the van pulls up to the prison gates and he’s shuffled out along with all his fellow offenders deemed too dangerous to society for anything but the most maximum of maximum security prisons, that he is going to die here.

As it turns out he doesn’t have to go looking for the Sith. Word of his arrival has preceded him and he turns from placing the blanket and pillow he’s been assigned onto the bunk he’s been assigned to see he’s been followed.

“Hey, you Vader’s kid?”

There are two men lingering by his cell’s opening and Luke doesn’t need to ask who they are to know what they are. They have that same glint in their eyes, rabid fanaticism and zero fucks to give, that mark all the Sith that Luke has had the displeasure of knowing in his life.

“No,” Luke says as mildly as he can manage before turning his back on them to pluck at his blanket under the guise of making his bed. His hands are shaking, his anger at his father is like runoff from a melting mountain snow, and he takes deep, careful breaths to try to staunch the torrent. He’d kill for a yoga mat and a dim room right about now, but he doubts that’s in the cards for him anytime soon.

“Aren’t you Skywalker?”

“I am,” Luke allows. “But I’m afraid my father’s name is Anakin. Not Vader.”

“Oh, come on,” one says, standing close enough that Luke can smell that his clothes are fresh from the dryer. It’s an industrial smell and utterly impersonal. “We both know who Anakin Skywalker really is. Maul wants to see you.”

“I’m afraid Maul is just going to have to be disappointed, then, because I don’t want to see him.”

“I think you’re going to want to,” the other one says, flanking Luke’s other side and he’s suddenly very aware of how small this cell is, especially with three bodies in it. “Pretty blond kid like you? Lots of ways you can end up hurt, you know what I’m saying? You’re going to need someone to protect you while you’re here.”

“I can protect myself.”

They only laugh, like they both know things that he doesn’t, but they don’t press the matter any further. Luke finds out the next day they were right to laugh. Maybe Luke had taken enough martial arts classes as a kid—from a sensei teaching out of a strip mall that was so wizened and stooped that he wasn't much taller than the children he instructed— to think he knows something about something. As he lays on the floor of the prison’s basketball court with the taste of his own blood leaking through his clenched teeth, a bribed guard smirking near the closed door as six men pummel him with fists and feet, Luke quickly learns how little he knows about anything. When one stomps on his wrist Luke doesn’t even scream, the pain is so white hot he can only cling to consciousness for one bright, all-encompassing moment before everything fades to black. The last words he hears before he’s gone are “Tell Darth Vader that the Tuskens send their regards,” and then: nothingness.

When he wakes up in the medical ward there is a cast on his arm and a man staring down at him. He's wearing the khaki pants and button up shirt of a prisoner. Tattoos spill across his face, down his neck, and continue again along his exposed forearms and for a moment Luke wonders if he’s the only one that can see this fearsome creature of a man for all that the nurses and guards and other prisoners are ignoring him.

“Still think you don’t need my protection, young Skywalker?”

Maul. It has to be.

Luke has to clear his throat before it’s any use to him but eventually he’s able to get out “Dunno why I’d need it. ‘M doing great.”

Maul grins and a mouthful of sharp teeth glint in the stale, fluorescent light. “Yeah? Well let’s see how long that lasts. Your daddy says I’m not supposed to raise a finger to help you until you pledge loyalty to the Sith.”

Luke’s heart kicks over as a chill spreads across his skin. So that’s what all of this has been about. For years his father had tried to get Luke to join him, to serve the Emperor just as he did, and now—what?—Anakin thought he could force Luke’s hand? That he could manipulate him into a situation where he’d have no choice but to swear his allegiance to the darkness Luke has tried so hard to exorcise from his life?

“That’s never going to happen,” Luke says and Maul only pats Luke’s ankle, a parody of comfort.

“Oh, it will, young Skywalker. The only question is how much pain are you willing to bear before you do? There are a lot of men in here that hate your father. I’m sure one of them will convince you that you need our protection.”

Maul isn’t wrong. In his first month in prison Luke becomes intimately aware of the intricacies of his cell block’s various factions and all the ways that Darth Vader has, one way or another, fucked over each and every one of them. He learns it in the cafeteria, where he’s jumped in line to get his food, and in the gym, where he’s pinned down by steel between the weight racks, and in the library, where he’s caught somewhere between the dictionary and the encyclopedias. He almost learns it in the showers when the leader of the Hutts has him dragged to his knees but that was blessedly interrupted by a CO actually doing his job for once.

Jabba watches him go, thick tongue licking across even thicker lips, and Luke knows his time is running out. He’s going to need to find a protector and quick.

***

The one respite he's found in this hellish existence are to be found at night. His cellmate, an old man with a white beard that everyone else calls “Crazy Old Ben,” is a lifer who is less interested in Luke’s body and more concerned with his soul. Together they meditate, sitting on the cold concrete floor and tuning their breaths until Luke can pretend not to hear the sounds of quiet violence and even quieter pleasure in the almost-dark prison.

Old Ben takes Luke under his wing until the day Luke comes back from a shower to find no trace of Ben save for the ratty old bathrobe he always wears. It’s crumpled into a heap on the otherwise pristine cell floor, like he had been in it and then, suddenly, was gone.

When the blaring sirens and red flashing lights and screaming of the guards call for a lockdown, Luke knows, he knows, he knows whose body has been discovered. And when, from across the hall through bars of his own, Maul catches his eye and smirks, Luke knows who ordered the hit on the only friend Luke had found in this God forsaken place.

***

Somehow the warden talks Luke into leading a yoga class for his fellow inmates. It's bullshit, of course; no one ever shows up. But it is nice to have space enough to move the way he wants to without risking someone stepping on his throat while he's down in Shavasana or taking his downward facing dog as an invitation for something he’s not interested in offering.

One day he’s startled to find a man he's never noticed before waiting for his arrival. He’s flanked by two that Luke has had plenty of run-ins with already to know they run with the Mando gang and Luke balks when he catches sight of Vizsla but for once there’s no smirking taunts to be had from him. He stares sightlessly ahead, chin raised, as if at attention and that more than anything makes Luke look back at the unknown man again.

He’s handsome: with sad, dark eyes and a scruffy appearance that somewhat distracts from the fact that his prison uniform is wrapped tight around a body that’s been whittled lean with muscles. He has a smattering of scars, remnants of violence that cut across his arms and hands, and if he’s there to beat Luke up he certainly doesn’t act like it when he extends his hand politely.

"I'm Din," he says in a careful, unassuming voice and Luke warily takes his hand, giving his name in return. “I understand you’re running a yoga class here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Luke says, glancing at Vizsla again and wetting his lips. “But, um, if you need the room it’s yours. No one ever shows and so I can clear out—”

“I’m here to take the class.”

“Oh,” Luke says, mouth running before his mind has caught up but what else if new? “Oh, well, that’s great. Let me get you set up with a mat. Are your, your—” he casts about for the right words. “—friends? Going to be joining us?”

Vizsla snorts. “Hell no, Skywalker. We’re just here to make sure nothing happens to the Manda’lor.”

It takes everything in Luke to simply nod and turn to the pile of mats to find one that isn't reeking of sweat and mold from being shoved into storage dirty. To not gawk at the doe-eyed man who even Luke, who prides himself on knowing nothing about his father's world, knows rules over all the Mandalorians, both inside and outside the prison. The one man that not even Anakin Skywalker will fuck with.

"I have a son," Din explains with a shrug when the class is over and Luke has been rendered suitably impressed with the fluid grace with which the fearsome Mandalorian gang leader had moved through every pose, his body made for movement and honed by battle. "The people that are watching him for me say there's this lady on YouTube that teaches kids yoga that he’s gotten really into. I just thought if I tried it it could almost be like we were, well," he shrugs again like whatever he's about to say is too unbearably personal and despite himself Luke finds it utterly charming.

Luke smiles, asking "How old is he?"

"Five."

"Well, if he’s anything like his dad then he must be a natural at yoga, too."

Din's lips quirk in a smile and something complicated in Luke’s belly curls at the sight. Or maybe it's not so complicated, Luke considers as he watched the Mand’alor leave with his guards. Luke can recognize a burgeoning crush when he feels it. He floats through his shift in the kitchen, contentedly lost in his memory of the other man, until he's brought back to reality when he takes a punch to the side of his head.

"Watch what you're doing, Skywalker. Hate for you to get hurt when you've got your head in the clouds, " the inmate supervisor calls out and Luke can only nod as he ignores the pain from his jostled skull and gets back to work.

Luke keeps his crush to himself, and would avoid Din completely if not for the fact that folks are remarkably less inclined to punch him in the face whenever he’s in the Manda’lor’s company and so he tries to be as close to him as often as he can. It’s strategic, Luke tells himself, as he asks Din if he has any pictures of his son and coos over a kid with giant eyes who is triumphantly holding up two bright pink Easter eggs. The more Din likes him, the better his chances when he finally works up the courage to officially ask for his protection. He knows he doesn’t have much to offer in return, but by now Luke knows the transactional nature of prison. His body is a hot commodity and he’s perfectly willing to give Din exclusive use of his ass and mouth if it keeps him alive.

He ignores the thrill of excitement that the thought of sex with Din inevitably brings.

So Luke flirts, flickering little touches here and leaning in closer there, hoping that eventually things will progress naturally. They don’t, but that’s okay because Luke is nothing if not persistent. He has full faith in his ability to work the cute twink angle. Lord knows he did it enough when he was on the outside and had far less to lose.

And it works. Sort of. Din doesn’t seem to notice that Luke drifts along in his orbit after morning yoga classes, sometimes well into the evening and as close to lights out as he dares. The reason why he doesn’t make a move on Luke becomes painfully, achingly, mortifyingly clear the morning Luke enters the meeting-come-yoga room to find Din in a passionate kiss with someone Luke’s never seen before.

He should have known something was different when there had been no Mandalorians posted by the door but this. This. This is. It’s—

The man whose mouth Din is trying to crawl into is built like a shit brick house, all thick muscles and big dick energy as he holds Din by the jaw and their teeth clack so hard that Luke can feel the echo in his own mouth. When he tears away to fix Luke with a stare, he can see that this man’s been so scuffed by life that even his scars have scars and when he speaks it is with a deep, gravel voice that shivers across Luke’s skin.

“You must be Luke,” he says, as if he hadn’t just been caught making out in a dark room. Like Luke can’t see his raging hard-on through his prison-issued pants.

With a calming breath Luke grasps desperately for his most enlightened and peaceful tone as he replies. “I am. Will you be joining us for class, Mister….”

“Fett. Boba Fett. And no fucking way. I’m just here to stand in the corner and enjoy the view.” He smirks at Din who answers with a smile that’s absolutely smitten and Luke can feel his heart jump into his throat before plummeting into his stomach.

“Of course. Make yourself comfortable.”

When the class is over Luke lingers in the room, taking his sweet time rolling up the mats. As he follows Boba out, Din turns to look back at Luke with a confused expression. “Aren’t you coming?”

“No, no, you go on ahead. I’ve got things to do.” Din’s eyebrow raises and Luke can concede that maybe his voice was a little high, a little pinched, but Din doesn’t press the issue. He only shrugs and tells Luke “Well, you know where to find me” before he’s out into the hall.

Luke doesn’t need to go in search of information on Boba Fett. It’s drifting through the filtered prison air wherever he goes. His re-incarceration is all anyone can talk about, starting from his offense—knocked over a grocery store and killed the clerk, if you can believe that stupid shit—and wild guesses as to why he would have gotten caught doing something so petty when he’d finally been paroled—probably just missed his husband, you know how stupid those two are for each other.

“Guess you got tossed to the curb, huh, Skywalker?” Jabba says when they are working the food service line and Luke is very carefully keeping his eyes from looking at where Din is sitting, trying to eat between laughs as Boba crowds so close he’s practically in the Manda’lor’s lap. “Tough break. You know the offer still stands if you want a new cock to suck.”

Telling the Hutt what exactly he can do with his cock and precisely how his mother might like it might give him a surge of soaring adrenaline for the moment but he quickly sees the error of his ways when it’s time to clean up and he’s shoved into the industrial freezer next to all the rows of Hoth Farms Vegetables.

By the time he’s found he’s pretty much stopped shivering which doesn’t seem like a good sign. The doctors in the medical ward seem to agree, at least as far as Luke can tell by all their scrambling activity when he’s wheeled in, barely clinging to consciousness.

***

“That was remarkably stupid,” a melodious voice says a week later.

Luke has been able to cling to lucidity well enough that he’s been sent back to gen pop, for all that he keeps to his bunk and can’t seem to stay awake for longer than a few hours. Shockingly no one has been by to harass him in his weakened state but his luck has finally run out. There is a mountain of a man leaning in his cell’s doorway, and Luke can’t even find the energy to be nervous by the way Boba Fett’s dark eyes are narrowly assessing him.

“I excel at stupid.”

“Yeah, I’ve gathered that from what I’ve been hearing about you. Son to one of the scariest sons of bitches around and yet you refuse to join up with your old man’s gang. Instead you prefer to get the shit kicked out of you like you're just another prison bitch.”

“Yep, that’s me alright,” Luke says with false cheer as he struggles to sit up.

“Word also has it that you’ve been following my husband around like a bitch in heat.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. “Listen, Fett—”

“Now I don’t begrudge you a little schoolboy crush. Din is a hot piece of ass. And I haven’t exactly been around so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you didn’t know that he was otherwise engaged.”

“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

“Okay. Good. That’s that.” Fett nods at him, but he doesn’t move from where he stands, still watching Luke. Still taking his measure.

“Does, uh,” Luke’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, a nervous gesture that Fett’s eyes watch sharp as knives. “Does Din know that I—” and he can’t bring himself to say anything more about it.

Fett snorts a laugh. “Din is clueless about just about everything but fighting and fucking. He doesn’t even know whose kid you are. I’d be very surprised to hear he was able to figure out for himself that you’re in love with him.”

“Ah. Okay, well that’s,” Luke stops when the ache in his chest tightens so abruptly he can hardly breathe. Still, he forces out a bleak: “That’s good.”

“It is. Take care of yourself, Skywalker.”

***

There seems little point in fighting against the inevitable after that. If his father thought prison was going to break him, then he’d thought right. He takes a month of beatings without so much as lifting a finger to protect himself. His face is in a perpetual state of bruises but he hardly notices for all that it feels like he’s floating, like he’s becoming one with some great higher power and one day he might just fade away entirely.

Fett is usually there in the periphery—watching, always watching—and Din’s eyebrows furrow every morning when he catches sight of some new mark, some swollen finger, some hastily bandaged scape.

“What’s going on?” he asks and it seems like Fett was right, Din really is that unobservant if he doesn’t see how often Luke is made to bear marks in answer for the sins of his father.

Luke plants a sunny smile on his aching face while Fett watches them from the corner of the room, arms crossed and face twisted in a scowl. “Not much. Same old same old. Shall we begin with our Ohms?”

***

He’s spitting blood down the drain after another ambush that leaves him splayed on the slippery communal shower floor when Fett finally confronts him.

“What the fuck are you playing at? You’re a dead man walking, Skywalker. Quit being stupid and go to Maul. Get his protection.”

“Never,” Luke grinds out with more vehemence than he’s felt in a long time. “I’ll never join the Sith.”

“Why not?”

“Like you care,” he says, reaching for a washcloth to finish the shower that had been unavoidably interrupted. Fett gets to it first and he holds it aloft and out of Luke’s reach unless he wants to strain his ribs that have seen better days.

“You got some kind of Daddy issues or something? That why you won’t become a Sith?”

“Hey, fuck you, Fett,” Luke says and he waits for Fett’s first punch but it never comes.

“Come here,” he says instead, his head tilting curiously. Luke doesn’t move and Fett rolls his eyes. “Come here, don’t look at me like I’m about to eat you.”

A washcloth wielded by a surprisingly gentle hand dabs at Luke’s face. He holds perfectly still under the ministrations while Boba leans in closer. “You’ve got gett'se, that’s for sure.”

“Like I know what that means.” Luke’s tone is bratty and rather than take offense, Fett smiles.

“Gett'se. Guts. Courage. Going to need to learn Mando’a if you’re going to be joining me and Din for the foreseeable future.”

“What?” Luke asks, eyes wide, and Fett doesn’t answer. Not in words.

The distance between them disappears as Fett presses his plush lips to Luke’s bleeding ones. He’s careful, so careful in his kiss and it shatters something vital in Luke. Tears are burning his eyes, biting at his nose, by the time Fett pulls away. “You’re breaking Din’s heart, the way you’ve been carrying on, cyar'ika. And that’s been breaking mine. So why don’t you do us all a favor and come be ours for a little while. If you hate it, we can set you up with someone else, but I have the feeling you’re going to like it just fine. What do you say?”

Luke can’t speak through the tightness of his throat, through the spilling of his tears of relief, and when Fett kisses him again, and again, and again, each time it’s like he’s someone worth caring about. Someone that matters.

Fett—Boba—turns on the shower and leads him under the spray, washing his hair and his skin. “Shouldn’t I be doing that for you?” Luke asks quietly and Boba laughs.

“Sure. Soon as you can lift your arms higher than your shoulders you're free to do anything you want to my body. Until then let me wash your fucking hair, alright? Gotta make you pretty for Din, yeah?"

He rests his forehead against the immense, solid expanse of Boba’s wet chest and for the first time in a long time he feels safe enough to close his eyes somewhere that isn’t his locked cell.

When the guards— who had fucked off to wherever the hell they’d been bribed to go while Luke took maybe his last beating ever—finally show up and yell at them to break it up, Luke isn’t even mad about it because Boba is tossing him a towel and telling him to hurry up and dry off. Din is waiting for them.

#darkisrising fic #bobadinluke #tumblr prompt #ask game #ask box

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twilightofthe · 4 years

Note

What was your opinion of the Clovis arc? People I know either love it or hate it, no in between. I generally liked it but found it waayyy ooc.

Hey anon, thanks for the ask!!!!

AHSJFLSLALK OK SO UH. Wow. Clovis arc. Yiiiiiiikes ok so. I totally agree with you on the fandom divide and I also totally agree that everyone involved in it is rather OOC for my taste. That being said, that case of OOC is exactly why I personally do not like the arc that much at all.

(Please note that my following words are MY PERSONAL OPINIONS, and that anyone is free to disagree, in fact I welcome the discussion, and even if this is your favorite arc, please consider yourself welcome on my blog I hold nothing against those who might like it)

Part of me was gonna make a short and sweet point about how I don’t like that TCW has had both of its main female characters have unwanted kisses forced on them, and instead of teaching young girls watching to tell those kinds of people to fuck off and respect their bodies, we get: 1. Just let it happen, you both must kinda like each other anyway or 2. Stay still then sit back while your boyfriend beats him half to death

But actually turns out I wanted to spend all day writing an essay so now you get this. So far I’m gonna hit four points:

the show’s constant need for Vader foreshadowing sometimes tending to completely override Anakin’s current mindset and personality he should have at this point in the timeline as well as his preestablished characterization

the way TCW gave Anakin a giant dosage of toxic masculinity to try and please the pissy movie critics who didn’t like that he cried

the role of Padmé and how TCW tries to portray her as a “strong woman” by just having her constantly be irritated by and sometimes even look like she actively dislikes her husband while simultaneously have her act OOC so they can blame HER and her actions for Anakin’s reactions and anger and overall Fall

How I think this arc is not irredeemable and that with some fixes it could be done decently— decently, not well, because a lot of this arc’s problems are also due to preexisting writing choices throughout the show

(Ok whoops this turned into a half Clovis arc rant half entire TCW Anidala commentary)

So firstly I wanna start that yes, I am fully aware that TCW is meant to fill in the gaps between AOTC and ROTS and help explain why Anakin’s mindset in the final movie is what it is and justify his Fall. Of course we need to show some Vader foreshadowing throughout the series, and in some places it is executed very well, notably the Mortis arc, the Bad Batch arc, the Wrong Jedi arc, as well as others that I can’t cite off the top of my head currently because I might have a mild touch of heat exhaustion wooo I need to get off the beach.

But it also has some rather hamfisted Vader foreshadowing stuff too. Like, y’all know the fandom joke where it’s like “Anakin: *Accidentally Leaves The Toilet Seat Up*. The Background Music: *BLASTS the Imperial March*” but like, they actually really do that. Like the time where they have Anakin take out a terrorist about to blow up an entire ship full of people and then play the Imperial March afterwards and imply he’s a “cold-blooded killer” just to defend the moral purity of the two people who were gonna stand there and let the ship blow in the name of idealism.

I’m getting off topic but yeah, sometimes the show’s Vader foreshadowing makes sense, sometimes it’s pretty forced, and the Clovis arc DEFINITELY leans towards the forced side, and when they try to force more of Darth Vader into Anakin at a point where he shouldn’t quite be there yet, it screws with his entire character.

This is particularly shown in the majority of the show’s takes on Anakin’s relationship with Padmé. Namely, they tend to forget nearly the entirety of AOTC with the exception of the Tusken murder scene, then forget even more of ROTS up until the point where Anakin strangles her on Mustafar. Basically, they take the truth that it was Anakin’s unhealthy attachment to Padmé that sparked his Fall, but then they decide to run with it where almost every single interaction he has with her in the damn show is him being a toxic overbearing dick to her and her acting like she mildly tolerates him at most and definitely doesnt respect him as like, I guess a way of showing what happened on Mustafar is in character for them???? Ugh, I’ll explain further.

So with Anakin’s aggressive possessiveness towards her. We know Anakin has possession and attachment issues. We know he’s a clingy needy whiny anxious mess who’s constantly afraid of losing or driving away the few people he has pinned his entire happiness on. We know he leans unhealthily on Padmé to provide the majority of his emotional support. We know he’s convinced himself he can’t live without her. But never, NEVER is it seen in the movies where his possessiveness turns into outward aggression towards her or this douchey pushiness. Never does he treat her like his property, like she belongs to him.

Not until Mustafar.

Not until he’s raving, half out of his mind with the warring emotions over the atrocities he’s just committed, until he’s begging her to understand where he was coming from, begging her and the child to stay with him and justify his decision, until he sees Obi Wan and sees her backing away from him, leaving him, and he PANICS because oh no no no you can’t abandon me, I need you, doN’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME. And he lashes out and tries to force her to stay, punish her for leaving and doubting him, and he puts that hand around her throat.

And that is supposed to be when we know he’s crossed the line, when we’re supposed to be horrified, where we know he’s lost himself, because he has NEVER ACTED LIKE THAT BEFORE.

Now how does Anakin act before? In the movies? He’s deferential to Padmé in almost every other scene they’re in together.

In AOTC, yeah he stares at her a bit creepily from a distance, he says awkward things and does goofy stuff to impress her, but he does Not get in her face. The few times he does invade her space, she flat out tells him: stand back. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t say that. Don’t interrupt me. And Anakin always, always backs off, respects her wishes. He follows her lead and lets her call the shots both on Naboo when he’s supposed to be protecting her and when she organizes the Geonosis rescue and once they arrive where she flat out tells him “I’m a Senator, I’ll handle this, just back me up”, and he’s all but just “ok yes queen”.

But they aren’t married then. Fine, take ROTS. It’s a movie all about Anakin’s issues but even then, when he’s worried about Padmé dying, he tells her he’s worried and that he can’t lose her, but he still keeps a distance. He doesn’t constantly hover and loom over her. If anything, Padmé, both in ROTS and AOTC is always the one to approach Anakin and close the distance when there’s conflict. When Anakin is upset, he averts his eyes and distances himself, tries to draw in on himself and brood silently, and we’ve seen it in Palpatine sometimes (of course with bad motives but he still does), but Obi Wan and Padmé both especially needing to be the ones to come over, turn his face to them and be like “hey, look at me, I care about you, what’s wrong”. Padmé SAYS in ROTS when he’s feeling specifically conflicted about losing Padmé, “don’t shut me out” and has to come over to him because he’s retreated into a corner of the room to scowl angstily out the window. Anakin does NOT get overbearing and possessive of her or get in her face, not once in the films.

In the fucking show? The Clovis arc, while perhaps the worst offender, isn’t even close to being the first time Anakin has been overly pushy and aggressive with Padmé, or acting like she’s something he owns, From that time in the Senate Hostage ep where he’s bugging her about ditching work and all but acting like incels texting like “awww but babe my dick hurts :(”, from the FIRST Clovis disaster ep where he’s childishly trying to screw up Padmé’s mission, to the Clovis arc in season 6

And this is where they just roll right in with their “oh so Anakin’s an overbearing, entitled douche” bit with the interaction he has with Pads and he’s trying to talk her out of taking the Clovis assignment and he says something along the lines of “as your husband, I demand you don’t do this”.

Hwat. The Fuck.

What kind of caveman-esque, 1800’s-ass man of the house whom my wife must obediently serve kinda entitled-ass BULLSHIT?!?!?!?

Like, I’m sorry, I really am, but that is just completely out of left field and not like Anakin at all. I mean to the point that when he’s an evil Sith Lord trying to talk her into taking over the galaxy with him, EVEN THEN he does not include “Padmé you must join me because I’m your husband and you do as I say” sort of domineering assholerly.

Anakin does not push Padmé around. He does not TRY to assert authority over her or try and force her to do shit. Not only because she doesn’t put up with that kinda shit for a second, but because Anakin respects Padmé; he will treat her with respect. He always has, and sometimes like in this arc it really doesn’t feel like he does.

Now of course Padmé’s response to the “I own you” declaration is “fuck you, asshole, I do what I want” and doubling down on her decision, and then decides to go even harder on the mission if only to spite her douche husband (and we’ll get to Padmé’s characterization in a bit) which is a very different kind of Anidala conversation we see in the show as opposed to the movies (also discussed later).

Now, the reason for Anakin’s overbearing douchery ties directly into an overarching problem in TCW— honestly, one of the very few issues I have with this show, but the problem is that it touches nearly the entire thing —and that is they almost completely reworked Anakin’s personality to be more hyper-masculine alpha male.

This is a topic I’ve discussed on my blog before, but the gist is that in the movies, Anakin was not the typical male heroic protagonist and DEFINITELY not what people expected from Future Darth Vader The Masked Brutish Male Power Fantasy. He was awkward, he was shy, he was soft spoken, he was clumsy around the girl he liked, he was very openly romantic, he liked frolicking in fields and candlelit dinners and snuggling. Two of the most important people in his life were soft, feminine women and he openly loved them very dearly and very gently— and he deferred to them when he felt it was right, as I’ve mentioned before. He CRIED when he was upset and was messy and emotional. And fanboys hated this with a burning passion. They couldn’t project their power fantasy onto this!!!! The Anakin critics were a HUGE part of the mob who crucified the prequels to the point of chasing both Anakin actors practically out of the movie industry in general.

The Clone Wars writers were obviously petrified of this happening again. So their solution, as has always been Star Wars’s solution to hateful fans being upset about an innocent character, is to completely rework them, hide or retcon all the undesirable qualities, and act like everything was all fixed. Now don’t get me wrong, there are aspects of TCW Anakin that I adore. As I’ve also mentioned before, they got his humor, his cleverness, his eagerness to do the right thing, to help people, his relationship with Obi Wan and Ahsoka and his men, they got that all perfectly. But the rest??? TCW’s solution to the criticism of Movie!Anakin was to turn him into an agressive, dominant, violent shadow of everything “soft” he was in the movie

Now, he speaks loudly and more deeply. Now, he’s cocky and overconfident and while yes he was arrogant in the movies, now it’s dialed up to like an 11. He never cries, never even THINKS to show a negative emotion that’s not Manly Rage And Aggression(TM). And then there’s the way he is around the women in his life. No more awkwardness or shyness, now he makes jokes about being a “ladies man” and does whatever the fuck flirting he does with Miraj Scintel even though the Anakin from the movies would have needed like every scrap of his self control just to look at her without insta-murdering her face. And then there’s how he is with Ahsoka and Padmé. He is muuuuch more of a loud brash dudebro around them who pushes his weight and is kind of controlling and their solution is just to have the both of them be Strong Women(TM) who Fight Back whenever he tries it too hard with them.

With Ahsoka, it’s not too bad because it’s a brand new dynamic and she’s a rather agressive firecracker personality herself when we first meet her, so the constant Snips n’ Skyguy snipefest works for them. For Padmé? It just means that in far too many episodes they’re in there’s a point where Anakin says something Eh and Padmé gets mildly irritated to actually annoyed with him for it and she’ll talk down to him and then there’s an argument between them because he’s bullheaded and she’s a Strong Woman. Why do I consider these out of character?

In the movies, despite the flaws, Anidala is a couple who actually tries to communicate. Anakin feels open to speak about his troubles to Padmé and her to him (for the most part, she definitely has a savior complex and a tendency to squash her own shit so she can help deal with both Anakin’s and the galaxy’s at large) when they’re worried or concerned about something and they want to talk it out, so they’ll talk it out!

The problem with Anidala isn’t that they don’t communicate, it’s that they try but also only do it by halves because they hate fighting. They’ll talk, Anakin will say something that Padmé might disagree with— the fascism discussion in the Naboo field in AOTC, the question of whether the Republic is just or not in TPM —and she’ll try and correct him if she feels he’ll listen, but if he doubles down, she’ll go “ok you know what, agree to disagree, let’s not fight” and she subtly changes the subject because she hates fighting with him. If Pads says something Ani doesn’t like— telling Obi Wan about them in ROTS, some emotional advice she tries to give in both movies —he’ll flat out shut down and be like “I don’t want to talk about this, let’s drop it” and then seek out cuddles or affection as a distraction.

And that brings us back to the Clovis arc. The scene where the “as your husband” line occurs. Anakin is trying to talk Padmé out of doing this not because he’s jealous. Maybe he was jealous the first time he met Clovis and saw Padmé being all cute n’ fond with her old flame, but this time it seems almost entirely because last time ended in catastrophe and he’s genuinely worried for Padmé and feels she’s not thinking wisely, that she’s putting herself in danger.

However, Anakin is deciding to voice these concerns in Possessive Dudebro Pushing because of the aforementioned misguided Vader Foreshadowing and Toxic Masculinity. Padmé? Is not even CONSIDERING what he has to say, is just breezing on through and shutting him down at every turn and generally acting like he’s a dumbass who doesn’t have a clue about anything.

Now, it is very in character for Padmé Amidala to be all “I’m right, you’re wrong, fuck you don’t get in my way”. HOWEVER, they aren’t framing this as solely Padmé having a goal and bulldozing her way through the situation. That’s not how they frame this.

They frame this as: Padmé is embarrassed that she misjudged the situation wrong the last time and embarrassed even further that Anakin had to step in and get her out of trouble— which he brings up —and probably remembers that he made fun of her while he did it—

(Timing out to say that THAT scene was also OOC; they once more wanted a Vader parallel what with Anakin’s silhouette when he opens her cell door and the way Padmé’s sleeping pose is identical to Leia’s in ANH. But Anakin basically steps in and gives her this condescending-ass “awww the little wife’s gotten in over her head like I SAID she would, good thing I’m here to rescue her!” bit that’s really just MEAN. It’s not like him and Obi Wan’s/Ahsoka’s teasing snark whenever they have to pull each out of trouble, he’s just kicking her while she’s already down. Really, Anakin’s reaction should have been a lot less humorous and a lot more pissy; she didn’t listen to him, didn’t trust him, and ended up in danger because of it. It’d be a surly and upset “I told you so”, not an amused one.)

—and now it seems much more like Padmé is solely taking this assignment to spite Anakin for being a dick and to pettily prove that she knows what she’s doing rather than any sense or urge to do the right thing. And....... childish pettiness????? Is not Padmé. And yet, she has the entire immature “don’t tell me what to DO, Anakin” attitude this whole arc that amounts to WAY more than just the normal response she would have to his overcontrolling dickishness

And once again, it’s because she, like everyone else in the episode, seems to think the problem Anakin has is that he’s jealous of Clovis. He’s not, not really. He’s insecure, yes, but he also knows Clovis is a bag of dicks as well, and trusts that Padmé knows she’s better than that. His problem isn’t fears he’ll lose Padmé, it is entirely that Padmé isn’t listening to his concerns, doesn’t trust him, is going into a situation they both know is unwise, and he is frustrated he’s not in a position where he can look out for her since he feels she’s not looking out for herself. And, he’s not entirely wrong. Padmé IS being reckless and kind of irrational solely to prove a point. He just goes about it pretty much entirely the wrong way, which is what you can really say is the cause and effect formula for any problem Anakin Skywalker encounters and subsequently makes worse.

And then there’s That Scene. The one where Clovis tries to force a kiss on Padmé and Anakin freaks and almost kills him for it. I’ll start off by quoting another Tumblr user on that very scene by saying in regards to Clovis: “that bitch deserved that”. The almost murder? Maybe not that far, but the initial hitting for disrespecting someone’s “no”? Yep, that was deserved.

My first criticism is that Anakin shouldn’t have even had time to attack him because why the fuck wasn’t Padmé instantly kneeing him in the balls?!?! Like Padmé is not prone to violence immediately, no, but she can will and does defend herself immediately when she needs to— her right punch knocked someone tf out once when she was pissed —and she already gave him a warning that his advances were not welcomed.

Now, I am absolutely not victim blaming. I am NOT saying it is the fault of a woman (I’d be a hypocrite if I did and that’s all I’ll say on THAT), or of anyone when faced with sexual harassment, if they don’t fight back for whatever reason, no matter how capable of doing so they may be. What I’m saying is that considering her previous behavior and personality and the fact that the show NEVER goes deep enough into explaining heavy stuff like why victims might freeze or NOT fight back when faced with harassment, I feel like showing her not attempting to defend herself at all is kinda strange.

Now, Padmé’s utter passiveness to the situation aside, we’re going back into toxic masculinity and misunderstood interpretations of how Anakin displays possession. While I’ll repeat that Clovis deserved consequences for the forced kiss, Anakin going full caveman defending his property jealous rage just. Doesn’t feel right to me. Again, I think Anakin would probs hit him and put the fear of living god into him, maybe even I’d buy the attempted murder if they framed it as Anakin doing it because he hates those who force their will on others and disrespect women, but the whole that’s MY wife and you’re touching her shite just once more feels alpha male aggressive ridiculousness. Like again, I understand Anakin is possessive of Padmé, but not like this. I’m sorry, but I just cannot see that, him fighting over her like she’s a scrap of meat.

Like, I completely think she’s in the right tho to put them on a break after he does it though. That’s well within her right.

But then onto the FINAL part where after Clovis goofs and fucks them all over and then dies, she forgives him and blames herself for everything and apologizes. And like, that part I do see as in canon and character for her and for Anakin. He doesn’t like to admit his mistakes, her mistakes weigh on her and when she fails to fix or save someone, she falls into depression and upset and self-blame.

But the fact that Clovis died because Anakin dropped him? Anakin Skywalker, who scaled an entire elevator shaft carrying two people over his back who combined probs weighed more than Padmé and Clovis. Anakin Skywalker, who’s used the Force to lift tons of debris, who’s used it to hold back explosions, Anakin Skywalker, MOST POWERFUL FORCE USER IN HISTORY WHO TENDS TO RELY ON BRUTE STRENGTH FOR MOST SHIT ANYWAY. That Anakin couldn’t pull two people over a ledge?!?!?!?!? This has always bothered me.

Like to be honest; I feel this entire episode could have been so fixable too. Like keep Anakin’s obsessive worry over Padmé making a mistake, keep the best part of the arc which is his talk with Obi Wan where Obi Wan tries to connect with him and explain that he’s not alone, all Jedi have emotional struggles and have loved, if perhaps he wants to TALK to someone about it, Obi Wan is here for him, like that? That’s okay!

Just ugh ffs, get rid of the nasty Anakin treating Padmé like a naughty dog who won’t obey him and the Padmé purposely acting unwisely to spite Anakin plot. Have the entire conflict be both of them being upset that the other doesn’t trust them, doesn’t believe in their advice, keep Padmé’s speech about how marriages NEED trust and compromise to survive, take all of Anakin’s aggression towards Padmé and transfer it to aggression towards Clovis, like make the conflict him menacing the guy if he hurts Padmé again just because he’s being overprotective and “if you won’t look out for yourself I will” and Anakin getting constantly checked for not being able to control his emotions, Padmé can tell him off for being overprotective instead of overaggressive and his possessiveness can instead show through him arguing that he needs to keep her safe at all costs. THAT can be the argument.

And if they want the Vader foreshadowing? Like real, in-character Vader foreshadowing??? Tbh, drop the Clovis beatdown, drop the machoness towards Padmé, and just have Anakin blatantly DROP the douchebag at the end of the episode instead of his hand slipping. Make him choose to ACTIVELY kill Clovis. Like THAT, Anakin taking the law into his own hands and deciding that he knows best and this guy is dangerous and has fucked up one too many times, there being an opportunity where there’s an chance to save Clovis when they’re alone without Pads, “be a Jedi, Padmé wouldn’t want this, do the right thing” Clovis might say, and we can see Anakin’s face considering, and then he just “Long Live The King”s him and lets him fall and die, THAT is an in-character Vader foreshadowing.

Then at the end of the episode, we can have Anakin lie to her, say Clovis slipped, say it was too late, and Padmé can believe him, thank him for trying. Then there’s the same thing where Padmé apologizes, and we can have a callback to the convo about trust and she adds that she’s sorry that she didn’t trust him, and when she says that, we zoom in on Anakin’s guilty face.

There. That’s how I’d fix these episodes

And THERE, I think I’ve complained about everything, I am SO sorry for the gigantic ass post and response, I’ll add a read more once I’m on my laptop and not on the beach on mobile.

But yeah anon, I hope that satisfies your question xD

Once again, I welcome discussion if y’all either agree with me or if you have any differing opinions, I know my takes are far from hot for several people and I’m curious to see what others think!

#i’m SO sorry i got carried away but yeah this arc and one or two others (one in particular) are the only arcs that kiiinda set me off tbh #long post #ask #anon #one (1) hot mess #queen of my heart #star-crossed lovers #sw the clone wars #anidala #the clone wars

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faulty-writes · 4 years

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Hi there, so I might have binge read all your bnha works in one go... 👉👈 and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind writing some angst to fluff for me? I don’t know if you write multiple characters for one scenario (if you don’t, then just Todoroki? (and if you do, maybe Tamaki, Izuku and Bakugo, take your pick!)). I’m asking for something where the reader (gf) doesn’t like to talk bc her voice is unusually low and gets made fun of? Please don’t feel pressured to write it! Love, from a shy fan💜

[Requests: Open]

[Normally I limit things to three characters per request but since you asked so nicely and you’re such a dedicated fan of my works. I’m happy to grant your request. I hope you enjoy and thank you for liking my writing! I appreciate it <3 I decided the best way to do this was bullet style.]

Shoto Todoroki

Shoto had always had an honest personality, which is why when he found you with your head down and a few tears streaming down your face, he had to ask why. But you only shook your head and refused to speak which irritated Shoto somewhat. He cared about you and he wanted you to trust him. But he had an idea of what was bothering you.

“Is this about your voice?” he questioned as he took a seat next to you and pulled you close, Shoto knew that you didn’t particularly like your voice and he found himself often on the spotlight defending you because others liked to think it was funny to bring you down over something so silly. After all, your voice was a part of who you were and he loved you.

You sighed and nodded in response to his question, “Hm, I see.” he said before leaning over to kiss your forehead. “This may sound strange to you, but I enjoy your voice. It’s unique and it’s what made me notice you in the first place. I know you have a hard time accepting it and if I’m being honest, I’m getting sick of seeing others make you cry over something that belongs to you.”

You swallowed and looked at Shoto, confusion in your eyes. “I ...” you closed your mouth before shaking your head. Shoto reached down to grab your hand, gently stroking his thumb across the top of it. “No please, use your voice. Tell me, I want to hear that beautiful sound only you can make.” you frowned before looking away. “I h-hate my voice.” you squeaked, it was too deep and unfeminine.

Part of you wondered how Todoroki could stand it but he only smiled. “I love your voice, regardless of what you think. Your voice is beautiful, your voice is important and I will always choose your voice, your words over even the sweetest of lullabies,” he said as he gently began to rock you and you felt tears prickle in the corner of your eyes. “Thank you, Shoto.”

Tamaki Amajiki

“B-Bunny wait!” Tamaki called after you, hearing the laughter continue and it made him angry. His fingers tightened into fists and he turned to face the fellow UA students who had decided to make fun of you. “S-Shut your mouths. A-All of you! S-Shut up r-right now!” he demanded, despite not being that brave when it came to social things. His anger fueled him at the moment.

“Hah! The anxiety boy and deep voice girl, what a pair! What’s a matter Amajiki couldn’t do better than a girl that sounds like she could voice Darth Vader?” Tamaki growled, tempted to use his quirk even though it would be wasted on such punks.

“I s-said shut up!” Tamaki snapped, “You c-call yourselves, heroes, b-but make fun of p-people for the t-things they can’t c-change? I-I’m proud to be w-with someone w-who isn’t a-afraid to be t-themselves!” he growled before taking a step forward, his tentacles at the ready. “So I s-suggest you stop m-making fun of the p-person I love or I-I’ll t-teach you a l-lesson!” despite the fact that he was trembling, he seemed intimidating enough for the group to back away.

“T-That’s what I t-thought ...” he muttered before running to find you pressed against a wall near the courtyard. He frowned as he approached you and held you close. “P-Please don’t cry B-Bunny, d-don’t listen to them! Y-Your voice, it’s w-what makes you w-who you are and I k-know ...I k-know you have t-trouble talking j-just like me. B-But please d-don’t stop talking t-to me. I-I’ll miss your v-voice, d-deep or not. I-It’s you.” He said as he nuzzled against your hair.

You sniffled, burying your face into Tamaki’s chest. “Y-You mean it ...” you responded, cringing at the sound of your voice as always. But Tamaki smiled and leaned down to kiss the top of your head. “Y-Yeah I d-do ...y-you’re my Bunny and y-you always will be. W-We can help e-each other f-find the courage to u-use our voices f-for the greater g-good. I p-promise, I-I’ll make sure you l-learn your v-voice is a-amazing and w-wanted and n-needed even.” he said before squeezing you. “I l-love you, Bunny.”

Izuku Midoriya

Izuku should have known something was wrong when you texted him that you wanted to be alone. Even though you were only a floor away in the dorm building. He hadn’t wrapped his head around what was wrong until Kirishima informed him that he saw some of the upperclassmen making fun of you. Most of their jokes revolved around your unusual voice.

He felt like an idiot, it was so simple he should have known better. He groaned before rushing to your dorm room, knocking loudly but he got no response from you. So instead, he began to text you. [Kirishima told me what happened, you’re the most important person to me. Why didn’t you tell me?] he sent it and waited for your reply. [BECAUSE YOU KNOW I HATE MY VOICE.]

He frowned, sure your voice was unusual but who wasn’t unusual in a world full of quirks? [Your voice is fine! Don’t listen to what other people say, they only make fun of you because they know you’re better than them. I know you’re quiet and reserved but whenever I hear your voice it makes me really happy. I love hearing what you have to say, your opinions, your favorite things. Everything.]

You sighed as you read his text and shook your head. [My voice is too weird, I wish it was different! Why couldn’t I have had a lighter voice?] you waited a minute before Izuku responded. [Please come out of your room and talk to me. I know that might be asking a lot. But all of us in Class 1-A would never make fun of you and now that we know what other people have been doing, we won’t hesitate to put a stop to it.]

He frowned as he waited for your door to open, almost losing hope after a few minutes but then he heard a click and your head popped out. You looked at him with a frown and he approached you. “I promise, your voice is important here and I would never lie to you,” he said with a smile as he pulled you into a hug. “No matter what, I don’t care who it is. When someone makes fun of you, especially for your voice they are making fun of me too. I won’t stand for it.” he said as he reached up to stroke your hair. “You’re perfect as you are, no matter what anyone says.”

Bakugo Katsuki

“Will you just FUCKING speak already!? I know you have this thing about your voice, but come on. Are you really gonna listen to what those shitty EXTRAS have to say?!” he snapped and you looked down, unsure of how to respond.

“It doesn’t matter what they say, it only matters what you fucking think of yourself, and frankly I’m getting sick of you always putting yourself down,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re better than them! Even without your voice, even when you choose to use your voice. It doesn’t matter and if they disagree they can answer to me.” he said as he lifted his hand, allowing his tiny explosions to come to life.

“I’m fucking sick of them making you have a pity party for yourself, so what?! Your voice is ...pretty weird but it’s part of the reason why I LIKE you okay?! You’re pretty awesome and ...well I’m not for mushy stuff but I’ll blow their fucking heads off if I hear them make fun of you again.” he said as he clenched his jaw in anger. He sighed and reached over, pulling you up. Something that made you gasp before you quickly pressed your lips together.

One arm was wrapped around your waist and the other reached up to cup your cheek. “You mean a lot to me okay!? I don’t like seeing you cry and all that other bullshit those BASTARDS put you through,” he said before leaning down to peck your lips. “Don’t ever let them say your voice isn’t important, that it’s too deep or whatever the fuck they have to say.” he paused before continuing.

“Babe ...I love your voice and well, it makes me happy when I hear you talk. It’s not a pleasure I get often so ...when you’re around me, could you at least lower your defenses down enough to talk to me?” he questioned and you glanced to the side, “I ...o-okay.” he smiled at you, “Thanks ....and thanks for trusting me. I couldn’t go without hearing your voice at least once a day. It’s one of the things that actually makes me smile.”

#Anonymous #shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #tamaki x reader #midoriya x reader #deku x reader #katsuki x reader #bakugo x reader #bnha requests #bnha x multicharacter

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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years

Text

Custom Toonami Block Week 70 Rundown

Code Geass: So Lelouch is gonna go join Nunally’s ‘let’s all hold hands and get along’ area but literally no one wants to go after Euphy murdered everyone last time. You’d think there’d be at least one dumbass like “Maybe it won’t be a massacre.” But yeah Zero’s like “Oh well I just happen to have a million people I can give to the zone if you exile me and let me go scott free” and everyone’s like “that’s a super shitty thing to do but okay” so then Zero tells Suzaku that culture is stored in the titty and all the one million people do their I am Spartacus thing and wear Zero’s costume which had to be a logistical nightmare, like Zero’s outfit already is pretty expensive with the fancy clothes and the helmet and shit and some of them are randomly customized even though that defeats the purpose like how do you do this on a terrorist budget in a few days without anyone in the government finding out. Like “we received an order for a million pounds of the thing used in Zero’s helmet on the black market” seems like it’d stand out. But yeah, the million Zeros get away, partially because of the “dogs playing basketball” rule that they’re all Zero because their culture of being Zero is stored in their titty which wouldn’t hold up in court but also because if they just kill a million people who’re just trying to leave that’d be bad for the government, not that they’re not used to genocide and being hated as Imperialists but Suzaku specifically doesn’t want that on his and Nunally’s hands while they’re trying to actually do shit for Japan for once. Feel like there’s probably a good cause for peaceful detainment and not letting them just walk out but it’s not like they’d find Lelouch or whoever the supposed second Zero was anyway even if they strip-searched everyone since he was never there and if it isn’t Lelouch the only thing that makes him Zero sight-wise is the mask.

Inuyasha: So yeah we get the conclusion of Shiori’s story for Inuyasha and I just can’t help thinking about how nice it is that she went on to help a lot of other half-demons in Yashahime because of an act of kindness that Inuyasha showed her right here, really good ripple effect shit. But yeah Shiori gets pissed that her grandpa killed her dad and Kekkaishi YEETs him and his followers out of the barrier so Inuyasha can backlash wave the lot of them. We still got fifteen minutes left though so even after Inuyasha says he’s not going to murder a little girl for a powerup that’ll get power crept in a few seasons, Shiori offers him the blood coral crystal to break to give him the powerup instead as thanks for not fucking murdering her. We can’t have the climax of the episode just be Inuyasha smacking a crystal ball though so Taigokumaru’s spirit yeets itself out of the crystal and fights with Inuyasha and attacks Shiori but her dad makes a barrier to bounce him off of so Inuyasha can kill him a second time and get the Red Tessaiga. There’s some navelgazing about how life as a half demon is rough but how Inuyasha thinks that hardship will be good for Shiori and he’s rooting for her in his own way and in Yashahime we see he’s right and all in all that’s pretty nice. Anyway next time we have the Panther Demon filler arc which is honestly probably one of my favorite filler arcs in Inuyasha so that’ll be fun.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke continues his fight with Suzaku and Suzaku splits himself into seven, which this doesn’t seem to be the Multi-Form or Shadow Clones deal where it divides his energy, each one seems as strong as the original so that’s just kind of broken. Keiko pulls a bait and switch on the zombies which neither Suzaku nor Yusuke see coming despite watching the whole thing on Spirit TV, guess Suzaku had the camera point at the door instead of on Keiko for some reason even though the point is to make Yusuke watch her die. Anyway Yusuke flashes back to Genkai telling him he’s a little bitch that always doubts himself and splits his energy across multiple plans instead of having the confidence to go for something with everything he has and make it work instead of holding back in case it doesn’t. This and remembering his mom crying over his death and all the relationships he’s formed makes him go Super Saiyan in what I can only describe as a Fully Body Shotgun which I don’t think ever comes up again. He knocks down all the Suzakus but it’s just time to start the real fight since Yusuke’s lifted his limiter again like he does in every fight.

Fate Zero: So the clusterfuck in the middle of Saber and Lancer’s battle continues to grow as Iskandar just fucking dares everyone to come at him and five of the seven servants actually do. Gilgamesh is all like “Ugh, why do I have to do this shit, breathing sucks, I’m a king, someone breathe for me.” And tries to murder everyone with spears and shit but turns out Berserker is Darth Vader this time around and uses the force to steal his stolen weapons until Rin’s dad is all like “Dude you’re showing the whole world our fucking moveset, get the fuck out of there. Which given that Gilgamesh is an archer which are supposed to be independent and he’s a fucking snobby asshole, even with a Command Seal I’m surprised that worked. Also Waver’s racist teacher is all “hah wow, I was supposed to have Rider and the token teenager character stole it from me” and Iskandar’s like “I like this kid that’s ride or die with me even though he cries all the time way more than someone who doesn’t even step onto the battlefield you stuck up prick” and then Lancer and Berserker double-team Saber (giggity) and Lancer’s not happy about it because he was fighting Saber first and doesn’t wanna just jump her with Darth Vader but more Command Seals are thrown around until Iskander runs over Darth Vader with his fucking Lightning Chariot and that’s kind of shitty because Racist Teacher man wasted a Command Seal to have Lancer attack Saber for like five seconds before making him retreat. Bug Dude is also kinda freaked out that Berserker just kinda went for Saber meaning she must be pretty pissed at Saber about something anyway so basically everyone runs away and nothing is really accomplished, we didn’t even really need Kiritsugu’s sniper shit or Assassins’s Ninja Bullshit for this everyone’s just had enough and goes home. Also Caster is a creepy yandere simp for Saber but really who isn’t in this series.

Konosuba: So Aqua’s ready to sit in a lake for a few hours to make some money but for the first time in her live her divine booty is not enough to solve this problem. She gets traumatized by getting attacked by demon alligators and Kazuma and co. are honestly uncharacteristically worried about her and ready to try and help her. Meanwhile generic isekai protagonist has a crush on Aqua despite already having his own harem of bland girls and wants to steal Aqua back but basically the whole group is so totally anti-White Knight they can see right through his shit and turn him down. Kazuma beats him up in the most Kazuma way possible and steals his magic sword, proving that not only is he not doing anything to defeat the devil king but he’s actively sabotaging those that are. Aqua fucking decks the guy and blackmails him so she’s rich now and Kazuma’s rich from selling his OP Isekai Cheat Sword. Also the Dullahan dude is back for revenge about bombing his castle and Kazuma’s like “Wait were we still doing that? Thought we stopped, oh well everyone in this world’s problems are our fault somehow so it sounds about right.”

Sailor Moon Crystal: So this time we get Makoto’s story who’s probably my favorite thus far because her job is punching shit and making sure Usagi doesn’t die from the hundreds of things ready to hit her on a daily basis. I have sort of found a redeeming trait for Usaig in that she’s willing to reach out to anyone and everyone, like she’s not what I would call traditionally ‘nice’ but she is friendly and that ability to pull disparate people together does kind of make more sense for why she’d be the leader rather than the other girls who have useful but more specific talents. But yeah continuing with the trend of things teen girls like trying to destroy the world, haunted bridal shop that also reveals Makoto’s tragic backstory of being a more believable version of Tall Girl. Makoto transforms and beats up the Bride lady with a combination of Zenbonzakura Kageyoshi and Azula’s lightning bending, no fair that she gets two powers but I guess she is the tough one so it make sense. Now we’ve basically got the whole crew except for the one that we already know is active but hasn’t joined the group yet so we’ll see how this goes.

Durarara!!: So Mikado’s in deep shit after stealing the girl away that half the town is looking for, all because he has it hammered into his head that whenever a girl asks for his help he has to give it. There’s a bit of discussion about the nature of the Dollars that I’m sure won’t be important later but both Izaya and Celty show up outside Mikado’s school and he’s kind of in an awkward position since there’s nowhere he can really go but home and lead them to the girl. So he decides to find out about them, or at least Celty, Izaya’s just kinda along for the ride. He gets Celty’s backstory and agrees to take her to the other girl only to get jumped by Yagiri thugs and pull out some Death Note animation internet shit that has even Izaya stunned, Mikado about to actually become the main character of this anime for a bit.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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mercurydancer · 3 years

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#maul stop being cocky2020 #it’s not going to happen lol #but please someone ask me about palpatine and maul’s relationship and the reason for that cockiness

Give us the thoughts? :D

(this fic has made me laugh and sob and mutter at fictional characters who can’t hear me and put the device down to stare at the ceiling because I need to brace myself for what’s coming next-I absolutely adore your maul characterization and hope you have a lovely day you clever hilarious awesome person-I am so invested thank you)

hhhhhhhhhhhh first of all you come into MY inbox and you say such nice things and i am absolutely *undone* how dare you D: thank you so much just holy shit i cannot. i CANNOT. just. i am suffering. also. honestly thank you so much for asking but i do warn you this is going to be a bit of a ramble and a bit long because i have. so many thoughts. i do. i do but just. in terms of Palpatine and Maul’s relationship i think that there's a tendency to understate the fact that Darth Maul was raised. literally RAISED by Darth Sidious. Disney Canon, Legends Canon, do not give a SHIT, this man was taken by Sidious and trained in the Sith arts, and just in general how to be, and oh my GOD, if you really look at the two of them it shows.

Palpatine is the single most dramatic bitch in the entire galaxy. the fucker absolutely is.

Maul is also the single most dramatic bitch in the entire galaxy. he absolutely is.

and you know exactly where he got it. and i think it's so funny that the thing that winds up being Maul's downfall - that moment of cocky belief that he's won and everything's over, the turning of his back, is literally the thing that winds up fucking up Sidious. he turns his back on Darth Vader because he believes he BELIEVES with everything in him that he has won and there's no way for Vader to ever come back from the spot where he put him, but he does.

Maul stares down at Obi-Wan and believes that there is no way that the other can attack, he ignores Qui-Gon and his lightsaber, just kicks the one belonging to Obi-Wan into the pit, but Qui-Gon himself doesn't exist, and that is some interesting dramatic irony. but ultimately this is me LOL dramatic irony only takes me so far and let me tell you the fuck what, the relationship is ultimately the thing that kills me the most. because holy fuck there is some utter tragedy in this.

Maul didn't just lose the battle and lose his legs he lost his father. like to call Sidious anything but his dad at this point is a mistake. his Master, certainly, but where it counts... one of my major reference points for this story is the Legends novel Darth Plagueis which holds this exchange:

FourDee sharpened its auditory inputs.

“Sidious says: ‘You have been well trained, my young apprentice. They will be no match for you.’ ”

The words stirred deep misgiving in Plagueis and he stretched out with the Force, attuned to its swirling currents. Momentarily, the gates that obscured the future parted and he had a glimpse of events to come, or events that might come. Either way, he was not encouraged. Had he and Sidious misunderstood? Would it be better to abort the plan and trust that Palpatine would be elected even without having Naboo fall to the Trade Federation? Once the Jedi learned of the existence of one Sith, would they launch an intense hunt for the other? Sidious had formed an almost filial bond with Maul.

Attached to the present, he failed to grasp the truth: that this was the last time he and his apprentice might see each other in the flesh.

now obviously this is legends, but there is a particular line that is in everything and it's that 'filial bond' and the fact that Sidious looks at Maul and is like 'bitch, you're the fucking best, go kill 'em.'

like. come on. Maul talks like a fucking politician because his dad was a fucking politician. he learned how to speak at Palpatine 'i love democracy's knee, like. fucking IMAGINE that bullshit. imagine it! Maul pulls together a criminal empire and claim that it's out of fear as much as you want that lasted well into Sidious' reign, and the only thing that eventually toppled it was Maul getting stuck on Malachor and that frankly is another thing that has to fucking stop is Maul getting stuck on different planets LOL fucking Lotho Minor out here. point is, though, that he had a very successful criminal empire for a while, and fear only takes you so far. Maul is clever he is dangerous and he's very very smart and has enough tactical savvy to orchestrate a war, bring a bunch of criminal empires together, and the only thing that he never ever was able to get rid of was that goddamn cockiness that his own goddamn father could never quite put away. and that's tragic lol.

ALSO!!! Sidious stop throwing your sons away 2020-2021 at this point!! i know you won't fucking do it but you take these (arguably) nice young men and you destroy them!!! STOP THAT!! STOP IT!! akfjh adsfahahahahah

stop trying to get a new fucking apprentice and just give your sons a fucking hug you dipshit. Maul literally got cut in half and still fucking lived and you're going to tell me that you looked at that went 'psh' and just asfkh ahahahah you had to CLONE your wrinkly-ass, Maul relied on pure rage and hate and you call yourself a sith fuck you asjdhkfwhef

okay that’s it that’s all i’ve got LOL

#asks for twin sons #Anonymous #i hope you don't mind a ramble i have a lot of thoughts #god do i have a lot of thoughts #but geeze just #palpatine you are such a bad dad #you are such a bad dad #stop #you took a perfectly good zabrak and you ruined him #so i'm going to fix him LOL #you obviously don't deserve him

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treesinbubbles · 3 years

Text

today is 4 march 2021 (lockdown 3.0, day 59), it’s 8pm.

it’s a wrestle-with-my-privilege day.

i was listening to this newscast explaining amazon’s efforts to block unionisation plans by their employees in the us. this, and i cannot stress this enough, IS SUPREMELY ILLEGAL EVERYWHERE IN THE EU (as far as i know). corporations CANNOT interfere in ANY WAY when their employees create or join a union here - wait, this is not the eu anymore - in the eu and the uk. however amazon has been hiring unionisation blocker consultants or whatever the fuck they’re called and paying them 32 000 moneys A DAY, when we know that egghead bezos, bald amazon darth vader, made 75 BILLION DOLLARS in 2020. during. a. pandemic. and the people who are brave and angry enough to put up a fight against amazon’s ridiculous work conditions get... warnings from their supervisors? threats and intimidation? for wanting to be treated fairly? how does this make sense? how is this not an incredibly easy moral choice? i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate that this is happening in this world. this is my world too and i don’t want that abhorrence in it.

i’ve also been talking to the mom of the kid i’m babysitting. she’s a single parent and has a good salary, but it’s not a lot in london with a child. in the company she works for, she’s seen that a good university degree can open a lot of doors, so she’s understandably worried about getting her kid into a good school. here in the uk, that’s very much a ‘where you live’ or a class thing - or money really. isn’t it all the same thing?

i hate that idea. i don’t want to buy into this bullshit system of class, money and influence, because that’s not how it’s supposed to be. i want to believe that it doesn’t matter what school you go to and that it doesn’t matter what university you go to. what matters is you becoming and being a person who is good at being a person for yourself and for others.

but of course i can think and say that... because i’m very privileged.

all that becoming a person who is good at being a person is only possible if you have a roof over your head, food on the table and time and a job that doesn’t suck the life out of you. i have that and more. and i think everybody should have that, no questions asked. i hate that this will make me sound like a naive idealist to some people.

i grew up in a family that had no political awareness to speak of. one of my parents especially holds very strong spiritual beliefs that i can only describe as neo-liberal - meaning that the self is at the centre of everything. you should lead by example, you should be the change you want to see in the world, your thoughts manifest what you imagine so manifest what you want out of life and manifest the world you want to live in.

increasingly, through lived experience and ongoing world events like the pandemic and climate change and the anti-racist movement, i find myself more and more repulsed by this way of seeing things. there is some wisdom in there, i’m not disputing that, but we live here on earth, together. people of colour cannot manifest racim away. struggling parents cannot manifest better jobs out of thin air. us amazon employees cannot manifest bezos giving them a fair wage. every single problem that plagues us is bigger than any one person - except, i guess, the matter of bezos (what does he do all day that he gets paid millions of dollars per second anyway? if this keeps going he’ll start taking himself for a god. nobody should have that much power). together. that’s where all our solutions will come from.

it’s so hard. it’s so hard to do anything where a lot of people need to agree on a solution. it’s hard to know where to start when you feel like a grain of sand on the vast, vast beach of existence. but we have to start. i have to start.

this is part of a daily practice i’m encouraging myself to do for the duration of the third UK lockdown. i’m taking some time to note where i am each day, letting myself sit with what comes up without judgement or pressure. feel free to join in!

here is yesterday’s post.

#privilege #amazon #union #mathie rants about injustice #i feel like such a fraud guys #so often #i'm comfortable #not rich rich #but enough money to becomfortable #that's huge #and you knowwhati did for that?#be born #that's it #it's bullshit i tell you #all of it

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atamascolily · 4 years

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Lily liveblogs: “The Rise of Skywalker,” part three

I end as I began: hopelessly confused about what the point of all this was. (Except for money. I got that part loud and clear.)

Rey just leaves Finn behind, because... friendship, right? Jannah does not have a good opinion of Rey right now, and tbh, I can't blame her. I realize Rey is under a lot of stress, but... her behavior since arriving on this "moon of Endor" has been wayyyy out of line.

Also, Poe pulls up with the Falcon right then, so I guess they got it repaired in record time, lol. Convenient.

Meanwhile, at the Resistance Jungle Base, everyone is sad because Leia is dead. I wonder who's in charge now???

"Goodbye, dear princess." Oh, so she's a General right up until she dies, and then it's back to princess again? I wish the ST would make up its mind about her title.

Oh, I guess Poe is, since he showed up and actually has a rank??

Chewie LOSES IT at the news Leia is dead--I feel you, bud. I feel you so hard.

Kylo tries to look dignified as he broods on the wreckage, but he looks awful. Like a drowned rat, with a convenient lightsaber-shaped hole in his tunic where Rey stabbed him. (She didn't even take the saber with her or drop it into the sea or anything! WHHYYYYYYYYYYY - gimme a reason, any reason, even a stupid one.)

And then Han shows up. Is he a ghost? Is this a memory? Is Kylo hallucinating? WHAT WHAT WHAT IS HAPPENING??? (This would have so much more resonance if we had SEEN how Han's death impacted Kylo earlier on instead of that one confused flashback at the beginning of the film....)

grizzled Harrison Ford looks great, why the hell did they kill him off in the first movie whyyyyyy

Okay, so they answer the question and this is a memory, which is fine, I usually love this trope, BUT it would be hella more effective if we'd seen Kylo arguing/interacting with memories of Han earlier instead of this happening for the first time NOW...

"Come home." Uhhhhhh, I honestly don't know what exactly Leia did, but she certainly kinda abetted killing him. What home does Kylo have now, anyway??

So Han says that what Leia fought for is still around, which is true, but Kylo is ostensibly the supreme leader here, so he doesn't just have to go AWOL, he can drag the FO leadership with him, and what passes for their government, he could SURRENDER and end the war right now. Does he? Of course not. He fucks off all by his lonesome after Rey and Palpatine because... that's all he knows how to do, apparently.

There's a callback that is supposed to resonate but doesn't work for me, because I just can't make myself feel for Kylo at all. Yes, redemption is hard. Yes, you have to work for it. Stop whining and just do it!!

We're supposed to think that Kylo will stab Han again (I guess?) but he turns and throws his saber into the sea. So that's why Rey didn't take it - so he could make a dramatic fucking gesture with it.

Palps is upset that Leia messed up his plans, but whatever. He orders Pryde, who apparently is now in charge of the FO in Kylo's absence, to come to Exegol. Apparently Pryde is a diehard Imperial (and possibly Sith cultist/Palpatine's secret puppet/agent??) I guess. It's never explained, he's just bad. And his name isn't subtle, either.

Palps just wants to burn everything to the ground for... evulz, I guess? I got nothing.

Pryde's star destroyer pops out a giant gun and blows up a planet.... apparently, Kijimi. Why, I don't know. Because they were just there?? Anyway, BOOM. Kijimi literally explodes.

What the actual fuck. How is that EVEN POSSIBLE?? What was the point of building two Death Stars if a Star Destroyer can do that????

Oh, apparently, that was the new model from the "Sith fleet" with a better upgrade. sounds fake, but okay. Poe is not thrilled by this news. The same Resistance member brings him the bad news, so I guess that's her official job??

Poe is genre-savvy enough to know that every ship in the Sith fleet has planet destroying weapons and they're doomed unless they stop the Final Order... which isn't new? I thought there was a countdown to an attack in 16 hours or something. What did they think they were attacking with? I don't even know, this movie is that incoherent.

Rose pops in with a message broadcasting on every channel about the "Resistance is dead. The Sith flame will burn. All worlds, surrender or die"... but given that it's in a language that isn't Basic, there's this one random dude with a beard who translates for the audience... and even though I assume it's meant to be some more commonly spoken language, given that the Sith have their own language in this movie, It makes it seem like this Random Resistance dude understands Sith and... I have questions.

Poe goes to sit by Leia's shrouded corpse because apparently they haven't buried her yet??? I wish Poe and Leia's relationship was more prominent in the movies, because I love the dynamic they're supposed to have, but never actually manifests in any of these movies.

Lando shows up to console him!

"How did you defeat an Empire with almost nothing?" "We had each other."

DAMN RIGHT YOU DID AND THE NEW GENERATION COULD TOO, IF THE WRITERS WEREN'T INTENT ON SEPARATING THEM CONSTANTLY AND MAKING EVERYBODY SUFFER....

Poe decides to make Finn his co-general. I have a lot of feels about this.

Turns out D-O knows all about Exegol because he used to belong to Ochi... that's actually earned, I'll allow it. Hilarious Rey never asked the droid about it (or any other details of his past, given that she was pretty sure Ochi killed her parents).

Ahch-To! Rey is wearing her hood and I don't know why. She's throwing driftwood into the flaming wreckage of Kylo's TIE and sobbing and... I don't know what's going on here. There are SO MANY REASONS she could be crying, I don't even know.

And she tosses her lightsaber into the sea... just like Kylo did. Parallels. I get it. And just like Luke did to her... She's giving it up because she doesn't feel worthy of being a Jedi because of her heritage, I guess?? (I'm guessing because this movie doesn't explain shit.)

Speaking of which, there's Luke's ghost, right on schedule! I love his snark but it's SO OUT OF LINE given his behavior in the last movie... and the fact that Yoda told him he had to let go of the past and let the books burn. I mean... the fuck???

Rey has this dark throne vision that's driving her, but ironically that's the one vision we don't see in this whole mess.. we have all these OTHER visions instead, I can' teven keep them all straight.

Oh, she's decided to model Luke and fuck off to Ahch-To forever because she feels she made a mistake. that's absolutely the WRONG LESSON from Luke's life, Rey!!

(also, what happened to saving the world? The sith wayfinder? She just conveniently forgot Palpatine was gonna slaughter everybody because she's having heritage angst?????)

Leia not telling Rey about Rey's heritage makes perfect sense when you realize just how much Leia's life was fucked over by the knowledge that Darth Vader was her father--once in ROTJ and again when she got kicked out of the Senate and ostracized in Bloodline.

Luke has Leia's lightsaber conveniently hidden in his hut... so now Kylo/Ben can have a weapon of his own in the upcoming fight, gag. (Really, Rey should use it to make a double-bladed saber, but she won't, sigh.)

The flashback looks like a video game to me. The CGI is not terrible, but doesn't look nearly as real as the rest of the film to me.

Also, I'm forever mad that Leia gave up her saber thinking it would save her son, that is SO AWFUL, especially since IT DIDN'T WORK, HE STILL TURNED OUT EVIL ANYWAY AND RUINED YOUR LIFE.

"A thousand generations live in you now" would have so much more resonance if Rey was an avatar of the Force or a reincarnation of Anakin instead of the metaphorical. (Yes, I know it will be realized literally later on.)

[Just realized that Kylo's obsession with Rey would make TOTAL SENSE if she were an reincarnation of Anakin given how much he idolizes his grandfather!!!]

Whyyyyy doesn't Luke talk here about the revelation that Palpatine is alive? That he and his father failed to kill the Emperor? That Rey has to finish LUKE'S journey, too??? But no, it's all about Leia here.

Rey somehow didn't notice the wayfinder in Kylo's TIE until Luke says "you have everything you need"... I guess? I don't know how she missed it before!!!

And the X-wing rises out of the water like the deus ex machina that it is... somehow still spaceworthy after six years in the ocean. Okay, then.

Apparently, Force ghost Luke can still manipulate physical objects through the Force??? Okay, I can kinda buy that, but... still....

I love how Artoo doesn't even wait for Threepio to get started with the bullshit, he just imports the uploaded memories right away without asking. Normally, I'd be mad about consent, but a) they're married, and b) he's restoring Threepio's personality, so I'm okay with it.

I love how warped and creepy the space is around Exegol.

Also, D-O looks just like a desk lamp.

Oh, so the Resistance follows Rey through Luke's X-wing computer via Artoo. Convoluted, but it works, I guess.

Okay, so time for some technobabble, but there's a navigation tower (the new shield generator) they have to hit for REASONS with a "ground team" (aka strike team). Sigh.

Love the dismissal of the "Holdo maneuver"--which is essentially kamikaze-style suicide. Not a great battle strategy if you want to survive the fight.

Wait, wasn't Poe angsting earlier about how nobody answered their call from Crait back in the last movie? What makes him think this is going to be any different?????

Okay, so all the FO folks on are on Exegol now?? Who is piloting and crewing those Star Destroyers?? Are they First Order or Final Order people? What happened to the First Order? What is the relationship between the First Order and the Final Order? Are they the same thing with two different names?? (But no, there are two fleets, the Sith destroyers are different.) What happened to the First Order then? Does anyone notice and/or care the alleged "Supreme Leader" of the First Order is missing in action??? I'M SO CONFUSED.

Okay, it makes sense that Poe is in an X-wing given he's a hotshot pilot, but he's also a general, and... I'm so confused about the tactical aspect of that, but fine, whatever. Also, Artoo is in the X-wing with him instead of BB-8, who I thought was Poe's droid (to the point of reaming Rey over injuring him earlier in the film!!!) WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE???

we're baaaaacck in the creepy sith ruins just like the beginning of the film, but so much has happened that my brain has fried and so the parallels are not as compelling as they could be.

WHEN DID THEY PICK UP JANNAH?? Has she been there the entire time and we just didn't see her until now, or did they stop back at Endor's moon along the way??? I'M SO CONFUSED!!!

Finn has " a feeling" where the ship is... it's the Force, why are you teasing us like that. LET HIM BE A JEDI.

Okay, I actually really like the fact that all the FO deserter stormtroopers from Endor are using their mounts so their enemies can use the tech against them. That's poetic justice right there. And also, epic cool. Good thing all the ships are still in the atmosphere... (nobody's wearing masks like Finn did for the Kijimi pickup)

I don't know how there is lightning in a fucking underground pyramid, but 10/10 for aesthetic, I love it.

"Grandma, it's me, Anastasia"--oh, wait, never mind.

The reveal that Rey is in a giant arena is hella creepy, even though it makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Where do all these people come from? What do they do? Where do they live? What do they EAT?? Are they born Sith? Brainwashed Sith?? Cultists? Clones??? I NEED ANSWERS HERE.

Palpatine dangling in his creepy metal arm-thing is a lot like GLADoS from Portal.

So... Palpatine can possess the person who kills him in anger??? Explains a LOT about how he treated Luke, actually. And why it was so important that Anakin finish him - one, because Anakin's body was failing, and two, because he did it for love.

Love the aesthetic of the flickering lights for added creepiness and nothing is quite real. Even if it makes no sense. My id knows what it wants, okay??

Jannah and Finn teaming up for the battle is great, BB-8 actually gets to do something for once, and I love Jannah's crossbow.

Oh, now Palps is going to monologue about Rey's parents, while telling us no interesting details whatsoever. Sigh.

HOW THE FUCK DID KYLO GET TO EXEGOL AGAIN????????????????? she left him stranded in the middle of a frikkin' OCEAN... and he just knows how to get back to Exegol without the macguffin,.... how....?

(yes, I know he's supposed to be "Ben Solo" again, but so far there has been zero explanation in the film itself, so I'm just gonna keep calling him Kylo.)

Okay, there's a TIE fighter next to the X-wing, but... where did he GET IT?????????

That "ow" is priceless. I watched that sequence twice.

(clearly Kylo has not been exploring ruins much recently.)

Finn explaining to Rose that he's going to sacrifice himself for the cause, exactly like she wouldn't let him do in the last film... and Rose goes with it. Okay, then.

Now Kylo has to fight his own boy band... who were secretly following the Emperor's orders the entire time (?) THE ENTIRE FIRST ORDER WAS LITERALLY A FRONT TO KEEP KYLO REN DISTRACTED AND KYLO TOTALLY BOUGHT IT. I... have questions, but I actually admire the sheer audacity of this.

Kylo fighting said knights would be way more emotionally engaging if we a) knew anything about them, b) had seen any interactions between Kylo and the knights earlier, and c) gave a shit, but none of those happened, so we don't.

Kylo and Rey have some sort of Force bond communication thing that is super vaguely filmed so it's hard to understand wtf is actually happening. Rey tosss her saber back and... Ben pulls it out behind his back.

what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK

I won't say that wasn't forshadowed, because it kinda-sorta was. I will just say that this movie has NEVER EXPLAINED HOW THEY CAN DO THAT or talked about it at ALL, just treats it like a fact, and I... have questions about how reality can be bent that way even if you are a Force dyad or whatnot.

So Kylo's fight with the knights parallels Rey's fight with a bunch of Imperial guards and it's so hard to care. Th timer says there's still a half an hour left, how is that possible???

So... it's okay to stab people as long as you do it with the properly colored lightsaber, I guess???

Kylo shows up, he and Rey exchange Meangingful Looks, they raise their sabers, Palps zaps them and slurps up "the lifeforce of your bond" and uses it to grow younger, whatever the hell that means ughhhhhhhh please let this be over soon.

Did he know they were a dyad before? Is THIS his real plan? I'm so confused and I have no idea wtf is going on.

RIP Snap. I guess I should care more about you, but I don't think you're mentioned in any of the other movies, so... *shrugs*

Poe has a meltdown but.... Lando shows up AGAIN to give him a pep talk, and also a fleet. Like seriously, Lando gets results, if he'd been running the Resistance, the war would be OVER by now.

Is the "Nice flying, Lando!" Older!Wedge?? I think so. I hope so, anyway.

Zorii shows up too, to fight and also insult Poe over the comm... I guess she's upset about Kijimi being destroyed? (Or maybe not given how she was so eager to get off it???)

Palps tosses Kylo into a pit, which... given that Palps survived, maybe not the best plan if you wanted to actually kill him.

Then he shoots force lightning through the hole in the arena into the sky and... zaps all the new fighters.

Well.

Okay then.

Rey wakes up and... reaches out to the spirits of past Jedi for help. (Apparently, Palpatine doesn't care about her killing him now, because he's young and healthy again, so it's okay to kill her? I guess he can always try again with another grandkid, lol.)

Also, it's funny how Rey is a Palpatine and blood is sooooo important and scary and destiny until someone's trying to diss her and then she's just "a scavenger girl". And by funny, I mean terrible. Sigh.

"I am all the Sith." I don't think the Sith, by the nature of their existence, can embody their predecessors the way that the Jedi can. I mean, to be a Sith is to be alone, and there is that whole Rule of Two business if that's still canon now. I mean, unless the Sith literally eat their masters and thus become them? But it seems a little late for THAT detail.

But it's okay because Rey's embodying all the Jedi this time (and has TWO sabers, lol) and she turns Palpatine's Force lightning back on himself and he turns into a crisp. You'd think the Sith Lords would have worked out a defense against that, since that's how Mace Windu scarred him in the first place, but okay then.

The entire arena crumbles. All the faceless cultists are crushed by falling rock. Pryde goeth before the fall. Lando rescues Finn and Jannah before Poe can. All the star destroyers are stranded because the command ship is gone and start blowing up.

Anyway, Rey collapses in the ruins. Finn senses her fall. but Kylo climbs out of the pit and cradles her in his arms. (ewww ewww ewwwwwww NOOOOOOO) and cradles her to his chest [gross gross grossssssss she's dead and can't consent and I can't decide if that makes it grosser or not, she's never let him do this while she was ALIVE fuckkkkkk]. He finally lets go and then places his hand on her stomach, and ughhhhhh I have so many issues with this I don't care if he's reformed, he's been stalking for three films, this is NOT OKAY and does the Force healing trick, and...

literally he could have just put a hand on her forehead or shoulder, which I would still hate, but would be less creepy than this.

Rey wakes up, puts her hands on his, sits up, startled and... doesn't say anything, doesn't even flinch, and smiles. "Ben."

and she kisses him. I knew this was coming. I still hate it.

he smiles, falls over, and dies. Like, literally, it's like Rey's kiss murdered him. I'm a terrible person, I know, but I really can't mourn him.

Kylo's body vanishes (Leia's stayed intact, damn it!) proving I guess that he was good after all?? I thought only special people learned the vanishing trick??? Leia's body vanishes right at the same time, and... I don't get it, I really don't.

Maz apparently skipped the final battle to watch over Leia's corpse and I.... definitely don't get it.

was Leia possessing her son this whole time? What. Just. Happened??????

Rey flies away in Luke's X-wing under her own power, and... "Red Five is in the air again," says Finn. People are rising up all over the galaxy, though against what, I'm not clear, and the skies are suddenly clear, implying that the Emperor was warping the weather with his darkness.

We see Star Destroyers blowing up behind Cloud City and on the FOREST moon of Endor with the Ewoks and I just... never knew they were there??? Were they connected to the rest of the Fleet somehow (like the Katana fleet in Legends??) Where did this come from?? Wicket and his son are clearly satisfied, though why they think anything's going to change is beyond me. And was the First Order oppressing them? Why didn't we see any of their fleet when our protagonists were IN THAT SYSTEM AND SO WAS THE OSTENSIBLE SUPREME LEADER???

Another Star Destroyer crashes on Jakku, so literally NOTHING HAS CHANGED THERE, LOL.

Back at the Resistance Jungle Base, everyone cries and hugs, Poe and Zorii have a moment that goes nowhere, Poe's arm is somehow in a sling (???) There's a very brief lesbian kiss, but it gets even less screen time than Rose Tico, so again, don't think that counts as representation, but nice try.

Maz gives Chewie Han's medal from Yavin and... where the hell did she get it??? Leia's corpse??? Creepy!!

Jannah comes up to Lando and asks him where he's from, and when Lando asks the same question, she say she doesn't know. "Let's find out." Wow, that's way more interesting than most of this movie!

Rey hugs Finn and Poe and I... just... it's the tearful hug of "wow, we've all been through a lot of trauma since we last saw each other and also I was a jerk and threw you across the sea with the Force to get you out of my way and I abandoned you without saying goodbye to isolate myself on an island in the middle of nowhere until my ghost mentor reminded me I could save the day".

ButWeDon'tHavetimetounpackThatNow.jpg

Rey takes the Falcon to the Lars' moisture farm on Tatooine with BB-8. No one is in sight. This is an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, not a shrine to the Legend of Luke Skywalker. Rey slides down the sides on a piece of metal and into the courtyard. She wraps up Luke and Leia's sabers and... we cut to her back up on the ridge near the droid garage, using the Force to bury them in the sand.

Then she pulls out her own saber and it's yellow-bladed and looks like a double quarterstaff (although I only saw the top blade ignite). What she should have had this entire movie.

There's a random woman with an eopie there, who... came over to investigate? there is literally NO ONE ELSE FOR MILES. HOW????

The woman asks who she is, and we have callbacks to that earlier conversation on Pasaana. Rey hesitates, sees Luke and Leia's ghost on the horizon, smiling their approval and says "Rey Skywalker". The movie ends with her standing watching the double sunset... alone except for BB-8.

Wow, she's literally come full circle from being alone in the desert with a droid to being alone in a different desert with the same droid. What the fuck.

Cue triumphant music and credits.

Oh, and I just realized we never found out what was so important for Finn to tell Rey about... so that went nowhere. I assume it's "he can use the Force" but apparently that wasn't important enough to ACTUALLY INCLUDE, sigh.

Did Rey fuck off to Tatooine to be a hermit? Is she going back to her friends? Is she going to train the next generation of Jedi? How will she keep the cycle from repeating? Is it broken? Is Palpatine really dead this time??? How does she feel about Kylo/Ben?? Is HIS ghost still around stalking her, too? Why did she take the Falcon? Doesn't it belong to Chewie now? Why didn't the rest of the gang come with her???? I'm so confused.

This was even worse than I had anticipated, and I came into this with super-low expectations. This wasn’t bad in a “bad B-movie kind of way,” this was bad in the “nothing makes sense, it’s all jumbled blur, I am numb and cannot begin to care” kind of spectacle. I cannot imagine watching this in a theater. No wonder the critics savaged this.

#star wars #lily liveblogs #WHY DISNEY WHY

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marvel-random-shiz · 5 years

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Parkner Halloween Week! Day One, October 25 - Ghosts, Haunted House “Are you afraid of the dark?”

“How do I look?” Peter spun around a few times in his living room to show off the white tee and jeans along with the small angelic wings perched on his back. Ned looked him up and down and clapped slowly,

“I’m glad you didn’t go with the devil, you’re too nice for that.” Ned commented with a chuckle earning a smack to the head as Peter passed him into the kitchen.

“I can be bad when I want to!” Peter whined and Ned just gave him the bullshit look before following him into the kitchen and leaning on the breakfast bar. Peter pulled himself up onto the bench and began to fiddle around with the halo he was attempting to attach to his head.

After watching Ned painfully attempt to put it on, Tony strutted into the room as he usually did and gave Peter a hand gesture to come closer, “here kid I gotcha.”

“Thanks Mr Stark.” Peter mumbled as Tony stepped back to examine the feathered and sparkly halo restraining Peter’s brown curls.

“What did I say about the Mr Stark thing?” Tony tutted and Peter shrugged and blushed a little,

“I like formalities.”

“Yeah well I don’t, it’s Tony or I’m kicking you out. Got it?” Tony gave Peter a pointed look and the teen nodded quickly not wanting to risk his place in the compound, “anyway Happy’s waiting out front for you two.”

“Aw yeah.” Ned beamed happily at the thought of leaving soon, not that he didn’t like Mr Stark but he really wanted to go to this party.

“All right, chop chop you two, no dilly dallying around. You know Happy’s tolerance levels.” Tony ushered Peter and Ned out the door.

“Thanks for everything Mr S- uh I mean Tony.” Peter quickly corrected himself and Tony grinned from ear to ear at finally getting through to the kid, talk about stubborn.

“Yeah yeah I know, have fun! But not too much fun if ya know what I mean?” Tony gave a wonky grin and wink to Peter as Ned had already left and Peter poked his tongue out in disgust.

“Don’t do anything I would do! Or in fact don’t do anything I wouldn’t do either!” Tony called as he waved from the front porch as Peter slid into the back seat beside an excited Ned.

“Y’know he’s pretty cool.” Ned broke the uncomfortable silence in the car and Peter raised his eyebrows gesturing for Ned to ellaborate, “like he really cares about you and trusts you. It’s pretty cool man.”

“Yeah I guess so, I think he’s pretty cool.” Peter replied and shrugged, trying to satisfy Ned’s rambling. It seemed to work because he didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride there.

“What exactly is it that you’re going to?” Happy asked as he pulled up out the front of a large house, much bigger than Ned’s or Peter’s, with disco lights streaming out and music thumping through the walls and down the streets.

“A party.” Ned grinned and slapped his hat on his head to complete his Darth Vader costume. It looked pretty radical too.

“Well no shit but what I meant was-“ Happy furrowed his brow and struggled to look for words making it very amusing to Peter who was often teased about his pauses between sentences and constant stutters, “will there be drinking and drugs?” Happy eventually finished with a flustered look on his face.

“Aw you care.” Peter mocked and Happy scoffed, “I don’t think there will be but you know me. I couldn’t deal with that sort of stuff anyway with...y’know my abilities.” Peter gave a not-so-sly wink at the end of his sentence making Happy groan and point to the door.

“Just have fun kids.” He mumbled and Peter and Ned exchanged an excited glance before jumping out the car and standing on the sidewalk to examine the party.

The two teens stood out the front for a few minutes, just evaluating it and working out if they should chicken out or not. The music was so loud Peter was sure he would have a sensory overload when he got inside but he needed to do this. He just needed to. Ned, being the great friend he is, was just waiting until Peter felt ready.

“I’m good.” Peter eventually nodded with a loud breath and Ned lifted his mask to examine Peter’s face properly to make sure he wasn’t bluffing.

“You sure man?”

“Yeah I’m sure. Let’s go do this!” Peter grinned and led Ned into the heart of the party. There were loads of new faces, definitely not from Midtown, and so many different costumes. Peter and Ned had to hold hands to weave past the bouncing elbows and drinks spilling everywhere. He wasn’t sure if they were alcoholic or not but it sure did look like it.

After at least ten minutes of rounds around the house they finally spotted MJ talking to some cute looking boy from another smart school.

“Hey MJ!” Ned beamed and waved as he and Peter tumbled into her line of sight. Her face instantly lit up a little and she flicked them the middle finger with a smile as they drew nearer. Before they reached her, Peter noticed her shove the masked boy away quickly with a blush.

“Hey losers, what took ya so long?” She greeted in her typical dry tone and Peter shrugged while trying to focus on her voice and not every single other one within a hundred metres of this house. His head was starting to spin and heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest but he breathed through it and focused on Ned and MJ’s breathing and heartbeats. It was comforting and grounding.

“There was a ton of traffic on the way here.” Ned yelled over the blaring music and constant chatter from around the house. MJ nodded and spun around to the drinks table behind her and handed Ned and Peter some kind of liquid in a plastic red party cup. They both exchanged a concerned glance before accepting and giving her a grateful smile knowing that neither of them would actually drink it. Not after the last time MJ convinced them to try her ‘masterpiece’.

The song suddenly changed and a booming, upbeat jam came on. Ned grinned and dragged his two friends onto the dance floor while they tried to break free of his grip. Once coming to terms with the fact that Ned wasn’t going to take no as an answer, a hesitant MJ and huffing Peter started to sway with the music along with their much too excited friend.

“I don’t like it.” MJ frowned at the jumping teens around her, wings, elbows and hats were being thrown around and shoved into one another as everyone danced to the song.

“You don’t like anything.” Peter pointed out while laughing and trying to ignore the growing throb in his forehead.

“I guess but I dislike this more than most things.” MJ shot daggers at Ned’s back who was talking to some girl in a red dress.

“Lighten up princess.” Peter chuckled and was nearly taken out by a drunk collapsing at his feet. The thud pounded in his ears on repeat, again and again. Soon it was taken over by his own pulse, drumming into his wrists and head.

“Shit you alright?” MJ asked, expression changing to sympathy for the first time ever, and Peter shook his head while taking it in his hands and stumbling through the crowd.

“I need air.” He mumbled, not really thinking that she couldn’t hear him. MJ tried to follow but was blocked by more people dancing and lost him in the crowd, she shrugged and assumed he wanted to be alone anyway.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut tight and slid down the wall of the hallway, dropping his head into his knees in an attempt to block the sound out a little. He focused on his breathing, in and out. His whole body felt dialled to eleven and the smallest touch of someone’s rough hand made him jump.

Peter looked up and his eyes locked with piercing blue ones. There was a tall teen, around his own age, with a sharp jawline and kind twinkle in his eye staring down at him. The sapphire blue eyes popped against the mix of blacks and reds from his devil costume and his dirty blonde curls fell loosely under the red devil horns on his head.

“‘M sorry man, I saw you were by yourself and wanted to check on ya. You alright?” The blue eyed boy had a kind tone to his voice which comforted Peter’s worries and he gave a short nod while biting his lip to stop it from trembling.

“I’m alright.” Peter croaked after the boy didn’t move. He had a soft gaze, not judging or unwelcome, but soft and comforting. The boys lips curved upright into a crooked grin and he gently offered his hand out.

“Wanna get some air?” The boy had a thick southern accent which made all of Peter’s insides melt. He felt the sounds around him fade away and calmed his breathing down while nodding and accepting the extended hand. The boy had a firm grip, his hand was rough and worn but grasped Peter’s gently as if he were made of glass and could break at the wrong touch.

The boy didn’t let go of Peter’s hand, just gestured his head to the front door and led Peter through the crowds of people and out into the cold night.

They walked for a few minutes in silence, still hands intertwined, which comforted Peter even more because he could feel the boy’s heartbeat thumping into his thumb which had been resting on the unknown teens wrist. They had been walking down along the footpath, the only sound was their feet crunching over the crystal like white snow littering the streets. Peter had been grateful that the other boy didn’t mention what happened back there, it would be much too difficult to explain it without exposing his identity.

“So what’s your name darl?” The blonde slipped his hand out of Peter’s and turned his head to face the brunette.

“Peter. Peter Parker.” Peter replied with a smile and could finally calm the buzzing in his head and look up from his feet. He felt the urge to grab the boy’s hand back but resisted knowing it would look odd.

“Peter.” The boy made a thinking face and pursed his lips before giving a friendly smile and adding, “I’m Harley Keener.”

“Where even are we?” Peter asked, moving past introductions knowing he would only make it awkward if he said something like ‘cool’ or ‘nice name’. The blonde, Harley, glanced up at the twinkling stars and breathed in the fresh night air.

“Well I didn’t originally have a plan because all I knew was you needed air.” He glanced down at Peter with a laugh in his eyes which made Peter’s stomach do flips.

“I- er yeah I- thank you.” Peter stammered and flushed a crimson, resembling the colour of Harley’s skin tight blouse.

“No problems.” Harley brushed off Peter’s nervousness and turned back to the sky, his eyes illuminating under its reflections and Peter literally saw stars in his eyes. His mouth grew dry and he didn’t know what to say, Harley smiled at his silence and looked ahead at the growing lights, “I ended up walking towards the new amusement park. Have you been?”

Peter shook his head and sighed, “No I’ve been really busy with school and...well other commitments and my friends are too chicken.”

Harley laughed and Peter instantly felt his breath hitch in his throat at the blondes angelic laugh. He was the definition of perfect. Everything about this new boy Harley was perfect, his perfect laugh, his perfect smile, perfect confidence and perfectly toned body.

“Well whaddaya say we go check it out?” Harley asked, southern accent drawling out with every word and Peter felt his entire face light up.

“Really? Would it even be open?” Peter frowned and then began to wonder if Harley meant breaking in and he knew he would be in lots of shit if Tony found out Peter, Spider-Man, had been breaking and entering just because he was with a cute boy. He would no doubt be grounded for life.

Harley seemed to notice the contortion on Peter’s face and laughed, “Hey don’t worry, it’s open I checked earlier because I was going to ditch the party anyway. You were just a bonus.”

Harley gave a flirty wink to Peter who felt his face heat up and he chuckled, “I’m a bonus? Why’s that?”

Harley frowned and glanced at Peter with his face scrunched up, Peter wanted to call the police because no one was allowed to be that cute when annoyed, no one.

“Seriously? That was such a good line and you just went all oblivious on me.” Harley laughed and Peter shrugged and felt his mouth open without permission,

“I’m sorry, I get nervous around cute boys.” He hadn’t realised he was actually saying it out loud until the words left his mouth and couldn’t be taken back, “fuck.”

“Cute boys eh?” Harley mocked and gave Peter a nudge in the shoulder while laughing. Peter felt his cheeks grow even hotter and knew they were most likely redder than Harley’s shirt now, lucky the night sky was like a blanket, covering and hiding all and any insecurities.

Harley didn’t say much after that but Peter didn’t mind, he was already nervous enough and didn’t want to have to talk much. They sat in a comfortable silence until they were standing outside of the buzzing amusement park. There were people bustling around with fairy floss and rides ten times as tall as the teens lining the sides of the large, dirt walkway.

“Wow.” Peter breathed out, in amazement and Harley smirked while they walked under the large clown archway,

“Wow indeed.”

The two began to wander in, avoiding getting lost in the crowd and Peter felt himself grinning for ear to ear and he couldn’t contain it. Harley was glancing up at all the rides and watching Peter get more and more excited the deeper they went in, until he spotted the one he’d been looking for.

“Let’s go to the haunted house!” Harley let his coolness fade away and looked just as excited as Peter had been while starting to make a break for the huge, cobwebbed building to the right of them.

“No way!” Peters jaw dropped and Harley stopped dead in his tracks to spin around,

“Don’t tell me you don’t like haunted houses.” Harley moaned and Peter scrunched his nose up in the most attractive way possible while letting out a laugh,

“What? No I love haunted houses, um I think? Well I’ve never actually been in one but it’s on my bucket list!” He skipped to keep up to Harley who let out a loud sigh and wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulders.

“Good. I nearly had to leave you there, you’ll love it.” Harley smiled as they got closer and Peter saw the flicker of excitement a little boy had in his eyes. It was adorable.

“Cool, but I have one condition.” Peter stopped at the entrance ubruptly making Harley’s arm slip from his shoulders. Harley gave him a quizzical look and he grinned, “hold my hand if I get scared?”

Harley’s face twisted into a crooked grin and his eyes laughed, making Peter’s heart melt inside his chest again, “of course. Are you afraid of the dark?”

Peter bit his lip and shrugged, he honestly didn’t know anymore. When he was a boy he had been scared of the dark, his Uncle Ben had always been so gentle about it and always made sure he slept with a night light on. After Ben’s death, the fear of the dark and what lurked in it became worse, Yes Spider-Man worked in the dark but it was always different being Spider-Man to Peter Parker. He felt so much more exposed, vulnerable, when he was Peter and it brought back the little kid fear he never overcame.

Harley noticed the pause and Peter’s face grow a little darker so he gave a smile and reached his hand out to Peter’s. He clasped them together and Peter glanced down then back up at Harley and gave a small nod to say he was ready.

“If it’s too much, you’ll tell me won’t you darl?” Harley asked as he took the lead into the darkening hallway of the haunted house.

“Course.” Peter replied vaguely and felt Harley stop in front of him. Their hands were still together and the warmth from Harley was soaking into Peter’s shivering fingertips while he tried to make out the blonde’s thin figure ahead of him.

“Promise me.” Harley whispered and Peter felt him shift closer, Harley was gazing down into Peter’s chocolate brown eyes and searching for assurance while Peter was tracing his dark figure with his eyes.

“I promise.” Peter whispered back while looking up into Harley’s eyes. Harley gave a soft smile and spun back around to lead the way down the tunnel.

There were small jack o lanterns lighting the walls and giving an orange hazy glow onto Peter’s features as he took in the experience. It was definely more creepy than fighting bad guys in the middle of the night and that was saying something. Suddenly a loud creak from some contraption echoed in the fake wooden mine like hallway and Peter nearly jumped out of his skin. The hairs on his arms and back of his neck were standing up and his eyes were wide while his heart pounded in his chest.

“You alright?” Harley asked and turned to face Peter who swallowed and nodded quickly, “you’re a bad liar,” Harley laughed and gave Peter’s hand a squeeze.

“I’m alright, just freaky in here y’know?” Peter gave a half hearted laugh and allowed Harley to venture further into the maze of scary Halloween props. This was when he started to realise what the ‘trick’ in trick or treat meant.

As they turned the corner Peter caught a glimpse of the fake railway road on the floor in front of them but seconds after the lights flicked out suddenly. He held Harley’s hand like a lifeline and furrowed his brow while trying to make out the room in the pitch black.

The only sound in the room was Harley’s slow breathing and his heartbeat, thumping in rhythm to his own. Peter felt Harley shuffle across the floor a little and followed with their hands intertwined, he would admit the warmth of Harley’s fingers made it a little less scary.

“It’s alright, you doing okay Peter?” Harley whispered into the dark and Peter nodded while whispering a yes. They slowly stepped forward a few more steps until a loud clunk was heard and Harley’s hand was ripped away from Peter’s.

“Fuck.” Harley cursed into the darkness as he tripped over something on the floor and tried to look around for Peter. “Peter? You there?” Harley whispered and for the first time, started to feel a little scared.

“Harley? Where the fuck are- OW!” Peter started by whispering but it soon turned into a loud yell as he ran into something solid. A wall maybe? He couldn’t really tell.

“Hey hold still, I’ll find you. I just gotta-“ Harley assured gently as he pulled himself off the floor and squinted his eyes in the blackness, “talk to me Pete, I can’t find ya if I can hear ya.”

Harley heard a small snicker and moved towards it, “You aren’t from New York are you?” Peter asked into the darkness of the room and nearly had a heart attack when Harley whispered back from right in front of him.

“I’m from Tennessee, are you making fun of my accent Parker?” Harley smirked as he kneeled down to become eye level with the brunette in front of him. He couldn’t see him but he knew he was there.

Peter felt Harley’s warm breath on his face and his stomach started to grow butterflies at the closeness of their faces. Harley didn’t seem to mind because he dropped to his knees and leaned closer, “I’m not making fun of anyone.” Peter whispered with a smirk and Harley made a hum of disapproval.

“Well if you’re not making fun of it, then the only other reason would be that you find it attractive.” Harley bit his lip as he leaned even closer, his lips were just centimetres from Peter’s and if he moved any closer...

Peter felt his back push against the cold wall behind him yet he didn’t feel cold. He felt warmer than he had ever been before, he could feel Harley’s breath on his face as his own breath hitched in his throat and he whispered, “I can’t deny that one Keener.”

Harley waited for a few moments as he drew closer, he didn’t want to pressure him but when Peter didn’t pull back he closed the distance. As soon as his lips pressed against Peter’s he felt his heart flutter and body relax into Peter’s warmth.

Peter’s hands flew up in instinct and glided through Harley’s blonde hair, brushing the devil horns still neatly perched on the top of his head and Harley pushed his chest against Peter’s while leaning right into the kiss.

Harley pulled back to catch his breath and leaned his forehead against Peter’s while smiling and puffing. Peter felt his lips go numb from the pressure and was about to lean in again when the lights blared back on and lit up their sweaty faces.

Both boys grinned while glancing up at the lights then to one another, Harley now sitting on Peter’s lap as he sat against the wall where he fell. Harley glanced back into Peter’s glowing brown eyes and closed his own as he pushed his lips back against the brunette’s.

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