#Sidious sucks and I hate him

[lovelybucky1]

Insignificant

kinktober day 14- bondage

warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT- non con, AFAB!Reader, handcuffs, vaginal reader, finger sucking, rough treatment, 18+ minors DNI

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Anakin Skywalker was no longer the man you knew. He was a great warrior, a general, an upstanding person, a kind soul, a Jedi, and most importantly, a friend. He was never meant to be a mechanical killing machine for Darth Sidious to lead around on a leash.

You managed to escape the violence of Order 66, though not without sustaining injuries of your own. For months after the massacre you saw visions of Anakin with orange glowing eyes in your dreams. The screams of children could be heard in the background. You were haunted.

You know some of the other Jedi escaped, though you don't know who or where they went. Being a Jedi is a death sentence these days, so it's better to lay low and not know anything more than absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, laying low on an outer rim planet where you live off the grid on your own little farm isn't low enough for the Empire. You returned from the forest with a basket of berries and mushrooms to add to your stockpile when you found your house burning, your animals slaughtered, and Darth Vader himself standing among the flames.

After seeing the brutal events of Order 66, you took not being killed on sight as a blessing. The stormtroopers surrounded you, grabbing your arms and forcing you to your knees before Vader. The dark mask was expressionless, but the tilt of his head to the side made you feel like a wounded animal he was about to put down.

"Take them to the ship," he said in a modulated voice. He sounded nothing like the man you knew.

You were hauled aboard the massive ship that they carelessly landed in a field of wild flowers. It was almost poetic how this hunk of machine destroyed something natural and beautiful.

Once the hatch of the ship closed, you accepted that your fate was sealed. You were brought to a cell in the bowels of the ship and abandoned, left with your own thoughts and restricted by force-blocking cuffs.

You were alone for hours until someone came by. You heard the sound of heavy boots banging against the metal grate floor, but it wasn't until you heard the heavy breathing that you turned your attention towards the intruder.

"Jedi," he says as a form of greeting.

You glare at him through the bars of your cell. "Vader."

He says nothing more. He only stands there, emotionless and unmoving. Anakin must have learned patience through his transformation, because the man you knew hated silence.

"Why am I still alive?" you ask. You'd rather be dead than be taken prisoner and be forced to work for the Empire. "You killed all the others. Why not me?"

"He wants you," Vader says crypticly.

"Who does?" you ask.

"Your friend," he says.

Anakin. He's in there somewhere, obviously, and he wants to save you. Maybe this is his way of making up for his atrocities, by making right with you. It could never be enough, but it comforts you to know the monster before you isn't entirely evil.

The door to your cell slides open and Vader steps in, looking like a giant as he towers over your slumped form on the floor. You look up at him but you can't get a read on him. The cuffs block any force sensitivity so you can't even feel him. The door shuts behind him, trapping you in a small box with the face of evil.

"He cares for you," Vader says. "He wants to protect you." It warms your heart in a weird way to hear him say that. "But you are insignificant to me."

Vader reaches down and grabs you by the roots of your hair. He tugs harshly until your scrambling to find your footing and stand so he doesn't rip out your hair.

He dwarfs you. You never noticed how large he was until you were face to face, mere inches apart.

Vader pushes you back roughly, sending you slamming into the wall. Your body crushes your arms that are bound behind your back and you whimper in pain.

"He will watch me destroy you," Vader says as he advances, crowding you against the wall.

He brings his hand down to the waistband of your pants and tugs, effortlessly ripping them off. Your underwear receive the same treatment, though the pull on your skin is painful.

He kicks your legs apart with his boots. The heavy, hard material on your exposed ankles hurts like a bitch, but there's nothing you can do about it other than scream.

Vader shoves his gloved hand between your thighs and carelessly invades your cunt with his thick fingers. You cry out in pain, beg him to stop and for someone to help, but you know it's useless. Everyone here does Vader's bidding, and disobeying their lord is an instant death sentence.

He grows tired of your crying, so he shuts you up by restricting your throat with the force. You have enough air to breathe, but not enough to speak.

You look into the blank helmet with teary eyes, hoping that somehow you can connect with Anakin. You know he's in there, you just have to bring him out.

Vader's fingers split you open painfully. You don't know what he has underneath the suit, but you fear that it will be even worse than the treatment being done to you now. When he pulls his hand away, your creamy juices coat the black glove.

He grabs your jaw and squeezes hard, forcing you to open your mouth. He shoves the wet fingers inside for you to clean, tasting yourself off of them. It's disgusting and degrading, but you're helpless to resist.

When he pulls his fingers out, his glove glistens with your spit. A string of it connects your lip to his glove and when it breaks, it falls against your chin.

Vader drops his hand and you're left staring up at him. The panel of his chest presses against yours uncomfortably, digging into you. You're legs are shaking, not from pleasure but from a mix of fear and the ache in your pussy.

Vader then grabs you by the shoulder and pushes you down, sending you sprawling onto the metal floor. He turns his back to you and the door opens again. Wordlessly, he leaves you alone once again, his heavy boots echoing down the corridor.

[magnusbae]

"Quit struggling, you will only make it worse."

Obikin, pretty please /ᐠ - ⩊ -マ Ⳋ

Thank you 🥰 Now imagine if Anakin fell a few years earlier than in canon, still has his limbs and pretty hair, and is currently serving Darth Sidious while fighting on the Separatist side. Something like that 😊 1,137w - vaderwan

▾▾▾

“Quit struggling, you will only make it worse.”

Vader bares his teeth and snarls. He snarls like an animal, like he’s a Tusken Raider and it’s the only way he knows how to communicate in. The thought fills him with an even deeper rage, makes his stomach turn in fury and sickness. He is better than that, he is better than them. He is Lord Vader, not some animal to growl and bark— he does not give a kark. 

He spits at Kenobi’s feet and glares up with as much hatred as his eyes would permit without burning white blind from it. 

“Kriff yourself.” Vader grits out when all he receives for his efforts is an infuriatingly smug smirk. (it’s sad, it’s sad, it’s sad)(he ignores it).

“I think I shall pass.” Kenobi says in that sarcastic manner of his that he reserves for Darksiders only. It should not sting Vader as it does, to be spoken to as if he was one of many.

He should be more than that, he is more than that. He’d make him, he’d—

“Please do stop thinking so loudly, you are ruining an otherwise lovely force weather.” Kenobi cuts this line of thought with some sort of Bantha Poodoo that wouldn’t make sense even on the best of days, least of all when he is busy tying Vader up like he was a Life Day’s gift. 

“Force Weather? Have you lost it entirely old m— argh-” Vader sucks in a breath when he feels the durasteel wire cut deep within his skin, so tight he can feel the instant numbing, indicating that the blood had effectively stopped flowing into that limb.

Concern spikes within Vader, he already has one prosthetic, and he is not very fond of the idea of more, Obi-Wan wouldn’t…. Would he….? 

There is a moment in which he thinks that he would. Thinks that Kenobi had lost any sentiment toward his old apprentice, even the guilt that had kept him from killing him in all the previous times he had managed to get the upper hand. (Through luck)(It’s luck, nothing else.)

Losing a limb due to Kenobi’s poor tying techniques would not be technically Kenobi deciding on killing him but— “Ngh.” He hisses out, teeth scraping together as Kenobi lessens the punishing grip of the wire.

Relief  flood Vader, scorching in its intensity.

“A little too tight there.” Obi-Wan chirps, all amusement and good nature. (He sounds old.)(He sounds broken.) “Apologies, Sweet.” he says with his characteristic charm, his typical ease. (He sounds as if he’d like to retch.)(he sounds sick.)

Vader hates it. Hates. Hates. Hates. He wants the anger, the hurt, the words of disappointment and fury and passion. (Love, love, of love.) He wants Kenobi to be honest, to be direct, to be him. The him that only he knows, that only he saw. He wants Kenobi to, (his chest fills and hurts, his lungs collapse with an inhale he doesn’t manage to keep, his eyes close and he cannot, he cannot lie—) care. Care, he wants him to karkin care. Even a little, even sometimes. Care enough to hurt, care enough to scream, care enough to hurt him. 

“Up and about now.” Obi-Wan says and hauls Vader to his feet. Even in this Kenobi is careful to not hurt him unnecessarily. Do not hurt prisoners, a Jedi would say. The Codes. It’s all he sees in him. The Codes he must follow in order to fulfill his duties. No, no. No, no and no. Anakin— Vader is more, he is more, he was, he is more. 

Twisting about to face Kenobi without being stopped is hard enough, his balance off with the way his arms are bound painfully behind his back. He manages it. He’s quick enough, skilled enough— determined enough.

Without a single thought, without a moment of consideration, Vader’s eyes lock onto his target. The neck.

It’s exposed just enough, with the layers of robes covering the curve of it an the beard reaching just the top of it, there’s just enough space.

Vader strikes as he always does, without warning, without hesitation. One moment he is standing there, wide eyes alight with orange-yellow, the next his lips are closing around soft flesh, teeth sinking.

It’s all over in but moments, and yet the way Obi-Wan groans, the way his throat tenses and he swallows, the way he shudders when he pushes Vader off hard enough to make him stumble and fall back onto the ground— the way there’s blood on that neck, on Vader’s tongue— it’s all worth it.

Vader will do it again, no matter the consequences, no matter how it might look to someone who didn’t understand. 

He will make absolute sure that Kenobi never forgets, never.

Vader makes a point of licking at his lips as he smirks at Kenobi, tilting his head from side to side in a way he saw his Master do while in a good mood and flirting. On him it looks mocking and he knows it.

He takes pleasure in Kenobi having no smart retort to it, no easygoing banter to masquerade with. Vader got him, he had won. 

He is almost angry when the sound of engines breaks through, hundreds of them, all belonging to Sidious. Or the Separatists, as the Republic still foolishly believes. He will never know what words had died on Kenobi’s tongue as he looked up and then down at Vader, calculating his chances of outrunning a fleet of battle ships while carrying an unwilling Sith on his back. 

“Not in your favor, huh?” Vader asks, laughing, not even bothering to get up, instead he just flops to lie on his back. It pains his arms terribly, but he does not care. He looks at the sky as if it was a starry sky you’d gaze upon, wish upon.

“Run now, Kenobi. You’re so good at it, after all.” He does not look at him, does not want to see that back turned on him. (Again. Again. Again that.)

The silence from Kenobi’s side is a heavy one, a painful one. Then he forces out amusedly (Chokes on it.) “We’ll have to rain check our little date, my Dear.” (He does actually choke on it.) (Vader hears, he always does.)

“So long.” The man who raised him cheers, all good spirits and not a care in the world. Then there’s the sound of Obi-Wan’s light feet as he force-runs towards his own ship. Leaves him. 

Anakin closes his eyes and all the world falls down. 

There’s only the sound of shooting and the flavor of Obi-Wan’s life on his tongue. For now, it’ll do. For now, it’s enough. (It is not.)(It never is.)

[chocmarss]

While the Attack of the Clones novelisation isn’t a literature masterpiece, I think it still got the message across on how the Jedi had no say whatsover when it came to the creation of the clone army. Everyone’s all, “The Jedi shouldn’t have used the clones for their battles! They should’ve just left them alone!”

First of all, they already had little power as it is in the decisions they make. They give advice to the Senate on the best course of action that doesn’t jump into literal war, but of course that’s ignored. Suddenly, the Chancellor has emergency powers that grows outrageous the longer the war goes on, and then the army they’re using keeps getting produced faster because the Senate thought it’d be a great idea to have more. The Jedi didn’t even know a clone army was ordered under their name until less than 24 hours before. Yoda is already so reluctant about fighting for the Republic because it diverts from what they believe in as peacekeepers, that they don’t interfere with something so monstrous, and suddenly they’re literally puppets to the Republic that being a Jedi = Republic worker at most times. The Republic was the one who gave the go for the clone army to released, not the Jedi.

If they don’t help this war, everyone will keep getting on the Jedi’s asses and hold over their heads on how they’re peacekeepers, they’re supposed to protect the people, and aren’t they supposed to help protect the Republic too? The army will make this easier bro, trust me -> literally the Republic Senate as they salivate over new business opportunities and get richer every month for producing weapons.

Despite all of that, of course the Jedi will help them. It’ll be wrong not to, especial seeing a lot of people getting hurt, and that’s just what decent people are.

But then the war literally kills thousands of Jedi on top of their men, the Force constantly feels like as if someone’s stuffed cotton into their ears after letting it be doused in acid, and then people hate them and are accusing them in causing destruction along with their clones as if they had any choice in the first place. Do you, or do you not want them to help you, bros?

And THEN, their whole culture gets annihilated overnight by one of their own, and it’s still THEIR fault they got killed off in the first place? It fucking sucks bro. Anakin Skywalker may have been whispered sweet nothings into his ear by Palpatine’s sinister little lies, but as the character itself, Anakin isn’t SETTLED. He has a hard time following the Jedi code, but he also WANTS the things that will somehow give him power, and he thinks that includes on being a Jedi, despite breaking the main code, while also having to keep his wife all to himself. “I want more.” Yeah he fucking does, he’s a selfish bastard that way, and I’ve always thought people overlook that part of his characterisation with, “Mace and the Jedi are so mean to him, that’s why Anakin fell into the dark side >:(“

??????? Are you hearing yourselves. Did we watch the same movies. You’ve been fooled by Anakin’s unreliable narrative, my loves!! It’s a ruse!! Wake up!!

TLDR; the Jedi are forced to be the Republic’s little soldiers, and it doesn’t help that Sidious fooled them all into believing that he was a nice old man with his “I love democracy.” talks when he’s been quietly amassing things for his own personal gain. The Jedi are victims as much as the clones are, and people have been fooled into believing Anakin’s POV of hating the Jedi because the movies are from his POV anyway.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I mean, by "writers" you mean George Lucas himself because Palpatine is primarily a character created by Lucas.

The short answer is no, I don't, I think Palpatine is exactly what he needs to be.

The long answer is that I don't tend to see Palpatine as a CHARACTER very often and more as a symbolic representation of a lot of the themes in this story. One of the major themes in Star Wars is the choice between selfishness and selflessness and we see this through Anakin's story, Luke's story, and the story of the Republic as a whole. Temptation towards selfishness IS powerful, that's sort-of the whole point in many ways. It's powerful because it's easy, it's instant gratification, it feels good right up until it doesn't. So Palpatine is powerful more because of what he represents than anything more practical.

But if I'm going to TAKE a more practical look at it, then I'd say that the reason the Jedi beat the Sith Empire back in the day is because the Sith are all selfish people who don't know how to work together even against a common enemy and they constantly undermined and betrayed each other in a way the Jedi just did not. So there's just never enough of them combined to truly hold back the Jedi's forces. But Palpatine doesn't ever face them head on, he is the result of a thousand years of planning and laying low and so instead of trying to use real force to take out the Jedi, he uses a more poisonous method that removes a lot of their support from the inside. He learns politics, he gets himself into a position of power, he gets himself all the right allies, he starts corrupting the galaxy itself by encouraging the selfishness in the Senate (which causes most of the "clouding" of the Force, it is never Sidious alone, it's the galaxy becoming darker AS A WHOLE because of his machinations but also because of the choices people are making everywhere), and he is able to then start a war that he can use his power to shove the Jedi in the front of which starts causing a lot of them to die and scatters them across the galaxy inside the trap that is the clone army. Palpatine sees the mistakes made by his predecessors and very intentionally DOESN'T MAKE THE SAME ONES. He gets smarter and uses different methods to take the Jedi out from within the system they created to FIX the galaxy.

So if we go back to the thematic thing, Palpatine is powerful because the choices of a lot of people around him BOLSTER him enough to make him powerful. He is powerful because a lot of people are choosing to be selfish and cruel and greedy. He's not powerful all on his own, we see that when he goes up against Mace. He CAN be beaten by the Jedi, and fairly easily, if he has to rely on force alone. But he knows better than to rely on that and so he never does. Palpatine is a poison in the galaxy just by EXISTING, that's what causes the Force to be more clouded and unbalanced, and it's why Mace recognizes that he's too dangerous to be left alive. This is what the Sith ARE, by their very nature. It's why the Jedi dedicate themselves to eradicating the Sith and everything the Sith represent. There can be no fixing the galaxy or finding balance so long as the Sith remain.

Now, if we look at what the SEQUELS did with Palpatine, then yeah, sure, Palpatine is too powerful because now he's surviving getting thrown down a reactor hatch in a space station that got blown up somehow (which isn't like... UNUSUAL in Star Wars, Maul does something very similar and I hate it just as much as I do this variety of it) and then manages to like suck Force energy out of a Force dyad in order to make himself more... corporeal? I have no idea. But he also then makes the big "I am all the Sith" claim which was HILARIOUS to me when I rewatched the film recently because this might be the first time in galactic history that the Sith have all collectively worked together like that at all. Like HOW is he "all the Sith", what does that MEAN, how does it give him more power, and why does he even NEED IT? It's weird, it's stupid, he should be dead and we all know it, so by the time of the Sequels yes, he's too powerful, but in the Prequels and Original trilogies? No, he's fine, he's exactly as powerful as he needs to be to get across the narrative themes he helps represent.

[himboskywalker]

I have a question are people completely misunderstanding and think you’re anti Jedi, or do they understand you’re pro Jedi and really want to show you the error of your ways. Just really curious what type is more common

It’s mostly seemed like people coming in with preconceived ideas of the Jedi and blindly assuming my writing reflects those same negative views of the Jedi…for some reason? I do try to write from Anakin’s pov and so it’s an unreliable narrator,but even then I tend to have Anakin pre-fall with his opinions of the Jedi,aka very grumbly on the council but not the anti-Jedi insanity of Mustafar. Most bizarre of all is it’s mostly been in response to Conceal Me What I Am. I’ve had some comments in the past on Rule of Two and how people wished the Jedi were as good in canon as that au when…when I wrote them off canon lol But cmwia gets lots of people thinking the Council were being mean to Anakin and unfairly cruel ect ect,which always boggles my mind. I get a lot of sentiments of ‘god the council SuCk and the Jedi are being so uNfAIR I hate them!’ Which again,boggles my mind because I specifically wrote the council finale scene to show they were on his side,and understood him,and while they thought he’d been a dumbass (because he HAD) they were WORRIED about him,which they VERBALLY SAY. People’s tendencies to buy into Star Wars Imperial/dark side propaganda really is such an interesting example of how gullible human beings are though. A huge part of cmwia was that Sidious was sowing anti-Jedi propaganda through the galaxy,that’s why the marriage happens because the Jedi are forced into that position. And yet I still get readers who’s takes are PALPATINE’S EVIL PROPAGANDA?!???

It’s just a truly bizarre position to have writing out in the public sphere and then have random people come at you with the worst take you’ve ever heard in your life. It’s MY writing I know how it goes,I just want to know how you read 100+k of it and walked away with the complete wrong opinion on the matter? I can’t IMAGINE what famous authors go through with professionally published writing and thousands if not millions of people interacting with their works. Can you imagine pouring your heart and soul into your art and then some chuckle fuck comes along with zero literary analysis skills and the worst opinions you’ve ever heard in your life of your own original art?lmaoo

[irenadel]

So I recently read the short story “An Unwilling Apprentice” and found it all sorts of unsatisfying and intriguing, mostly because in canon we are given completely contradictory hints in regards to how old exactly Maul was when Sidious took him and in what circumstances he was taken.

1) Maul seems to remember nothing of Dathomir. True this can happen both if he was taken as a baby too young to remember or by sheer, ornery self-defense against remembering something less shitty that current circumstances.

1) a) Maul’s name: Maul says in Rebels that he used to have a name long ago, that was forgotten, which is just... I’m... it kills me okay? That just outright destroys the fuck out of me. Because it means he’s acknowldging a Dathomir he doesn’t remember, but now knows existed (thanks to Savage and that bitch Talzin, whom I stan), a Time Before Sidious. And also because... I don’t think “Maul” is actually a sithly soubriquet. “Maul” sounds too much like other nightbrother names, which sure, all sound sithly but that’s because Dathomir is neck deep in Dark Side Aesthetics. It’s entirely possible that “Maul” is his actual birth name. Talzin and Savage never call him anything else, though Talzin would have a vested interest in restoring to him any sort of lost name, maybe not in the immadiate aftermath of dragging Maul out of the pit of raving insanity, but at any point afterwards... maybe? a little? Mother Talzin if you named him something less metal please speak up...

2) There is that one depiction of Maul in Son of Dathomir, presumably at the time Sidious just got hold of him.

And like that’s absolutely adorable but he IS too old to not remember anything because of age (then again comic book artists are notorious for drawing weirdly adulty kids), so that means he did not remember because he blocked most of his memories? Well.... my problem with this is that you create a sort of phantom (ha!) preMaul where you have to imagine Maul sans Sidious’s influence and that’s.... strange if you’re not thinking about a baby or a toddler who have just the beginning of a personality. It’s unsatisfactory for me at least, because you strip Maul of all we know of Maul and chase after the shadow of a kid who no longer exists.

3) We have two accounts of how Maul ends up with Sidious, one of them Talzin insisting he was stolen (what does that mean? furtively? or by coercion like Asajj) and the other being Sidious’s account from the comic Son of Dathomir “a not so appreciated gift” or some old sithly nonsense like that. One must consider that both parties are liars, who is the worst liar of the two? who the fuck knows? So it’s entirely possible that both accounts are wrong or one is right or both are bogus.

3) a) Then there’s also that thing where apparently Talzin wanted to be Sidious’s apprentice and like... for what? and how? and why? and how did you think this was gonna come out okay!? You’re already either clan mother or poised to be clan mother, what do you need this shmuck for!? (Wait! did she become clan mother because of what he taught her? Intriguing new possibility) Like with all competent, older dark siders (I see you Dooku) I am always left baffled by how anyone who is both powerful and saavy ever gets roped into siding with Sidious. The dude is like Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Movie. There is nothing about him that says Trustworthy... unless he actually has the chance to groom you since childhood. Like I get Maul, Anakin and Ben Solo.... but WTF Dooku and Talzin?! You guys knew better!!!!

3) b) This is happening when Sidious’s own master is still alive right? Whether you take that to be Plagueis or else... So, so, so.... is Sidious hanging around Dathomir to find out a way to kill his own master? Doesn’t he say something along the lines of “I was learning from her when she thought she was learning from me”? I dunno, sounds like a shitty Sidious thing to do.

So all this to say “An Unwilling Apprentice” presents us a scenario where Maul is in Dathomir long enough to be a boy taught by his mother, who is sometimes bullied by other, bigger boys, and old enough to understand fishy things are happening between his mom and the creepy dude (Sidious). And the manipulation is spot on, don’t get me wrong, Sidious does that thing he does with Anakin where he tells Talzin to do horrible things to herself to gain more power and all these things do is drive a wedge between her and her son, all the while he is stoking anger and resentment in Maul, so that when the time comes Maul goes with him willingly even though that was not the deal he and Talzin had struck. So it is true both that this boy is being “stolen” but also given as a sort of gift to Sidious...

It’s just that this author does the thing authors in Star Wars always do, where they ignore previously established canon, because we can’t actually have one coherent galaxy can we? Because... one, Maul is old enough to remember everything... and like okay I can go with him just blocking those memories.... but this also means Maul was taken old enough for Savage to remember and Savage doesn’t seem to in TCW. Let’s grant that Maul is an unreliable narrator who may be supressing memories or lying about how much he remembers.... but SAVAGE doesn’t remember him. How much Savage actually remembers of his brothers and life is also up for debate, given the Dark Side Steroids and brainwashing he underwent, but still.... STILL it seems the only one who fully remembers Maul is Talzin.

But then we have this in “An Unwilling Apprentice”:

“Matters, however, were only to get worse, for later that night, having been hauled from the pit, the boy found himself introduced to those his keeper claimed would become his kin: a tall, wiry boy of a similar age and a stocky, broad shouldered boy at least a year older.

‘These two boys had for too long been starved of the love and attention all children crave, for the keeper was a stern and self-righteous man, and their mother had long before been taken from them to join a mysterious order from which she had never returned. It seemed fitting, then, that the two of them resented the new boy as much as he resented them, for he represented another mouth to feed and another who would vie for the keeper’s scant attention.“

Are the boys bullying Maul, Savage and Feral??? What the hell kind of jump in characterization is this? Because Savage and Feral seem to be adorable bros who just bro around being bros and not harming anyone until Asajj shows up to fuck their whole shit up... And like I get people can change a lot growing up but...... come on, you don’t have time to take me through such a radical change in personality, this is a short story! Or maybe these bullies have nothing to do with his brothers. (There’s another brother mentioned as a “weakling”? Is THAT Savage? But then Savage is definitely Force sensitive and not a weakling.... is it Feral? Why mention weakling brother if we don’t get enough information on him to place him or have him do enough to affect the story? AUGH!)  And there’s the line, “their mother had been taken from them”.... So nightsisters grow up with nightbrothers? What? Is this keeper brother Viscus? What is going on? What insanity is this?

This is what I mean by ignoring canon. Dathomir is presented as a society violently segregated by gender. You never see any young boys with the nightsisters or any young girls with the nightbrother. For all intents and purposes they all live apart until Violent Breeding Ritual of Rapey Undertones ensues. Any story where you want Maul to be raised at least partially by Talzin must account for this segregation and in that sense you don’t actually... need.... the bullies.... they are kind of superfluous.... You have a whole caste system beating down on babyMaul and his mother wanting to keep him besides her. But then once more you have to account for olderMaul remembering nothing of this. Which okay, fair enough, Savage seems not to remember either. Neither of them seem to be scared or even wary of women... though by all means Savage should definitely be....

I just think it was a good plot with a weak setup that ignored a super useful canon setting and does not account for Maul remembering nothing of all of this! 

When considering all of this I wonder if the most interesting explanation is that Maul did spend enough time in Dathomir to remember but he does not from sheer trauma. I think adult Maul seems to depend on Sidious a lot but... he also seems a lot more... I’m not going to say rebellious, but I’ll say “aware” than Anakin. He goes behind Sidious’s back much more than Vader and is way more resentful of his position as a subordinate (and ready to lord his masterdom over Savage as soon as he gets it... but.... harmlessly.....like siths but for babies, babysiths).

Maybe the more interesting view is to think that Maul remembers nothing and it is only upon encountering Savage and Talzin that, little by little, he begins to remember pieces of it. It would explain his sudden loyalty to Talzin. It would explain his desire for a long forgotten name that Sidious never gave him... it would explain... a lot...

[stagbeetleboy]

Switching villain men with other villain men on a whim

[phoenixyfriend]

I keep wanting to do an AU where like... Vader's ghost fucks around pre-AotC. Like he had his return to the light and all that, but his face is very much Anakin Skywalker's face, and wearing the suit as a GHOST doesn't hurt, and it's more intimidating, so... Vader just runs around scaring the living daylights out of people to make them less shitty, like the Ghost of Christmas Past but unimaginably worse.

So there's this Sith Ghost running around being ominous and talking like a thesaurus who once took a poetry class because his first master said it was important and his second master insisted on elocution lessons for the Giant Goth Tank, and the (ex) Sith Ghost hates the Jedi but hates Sidious more, and between harassing the Hutts and Haunting the Zygerrians, Vader stalks Obi-Wan Kenobi to tell him exactly where to find the bad guys, because he doesn't want to scare Padme but there's nobody else he trusts in this bitch of a galaxy so it's gotta be Obi-Wan.

Knight Kenobi, crucially, wakes up to the dead cyborg with a hologram filter standing at the foot of his bed with grave tidings, regularly. This happens! To him! It sucks! He tries to ignore the ghost, and to redirect it, and to ask why a Sith would even want to help the Jedi in the first place, how many CENTURIES have you been buried or burned, anyway?

"None. I yet live on, in some respect, though I have died burning upon the shores of Mustafar, and again in the arms of my son."

Still alive in some respect means the kid might be alive too, right? "Where is your son, maybe he could--"

"Unmade."

Great.

Anyways, sometimes he shows up and gets semi-tangible to protect something through the power of "being so terrifying the enemy shits their pants." Obi-Wan still isn't sure if Vader even CAN kill anyone in this state, but he sure does threaten!

(Vader's lightsaber does not work as a ghost. His ability to choke a bitch, however...)

[gch1995]

Alot of the time I see people being like "wah wah, the clone wars ruined the jedi, my best friend george lucas would never do this to me. Non canon! non canon!" When like. My brothers in christ, he was In the writers room. He signed off on literally everything. At least before season 7. My knowledge on the production history of that season is limited. Point is pro jedi dipshits will literally ignore real life if it doesnt fit their view of their precious jedi monsters.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but I don’t think that George Lucas ever intended for the Jedi as an overall organization to be the heroes of his saga. I think Luke Skywalker was because he was actually a good person in the OT movies, not just a person who learned to convince himself that his intentions were good like his father and the Jedi before him.

No, Obi-Wan and Yoda weren’t as outright scary and villainous as Vader and Palpatine in the OT movies, but they weren’t particularly good people. They spent roughly three movies deliberately deceiving and manipulating Luke Skywalker in an attempt to use him as a weapon to kill off the monster of a man they inadvertently helped turn his biological father in to 19 years before Luke was even born. I don’t care whether a lot fans think that Anakin deserved the death penalty for his crimes or not at that point. For self-defense protection reasons, I can definitely see the validity of his victims wanting Vader dead at that point. I can definitely see why a lot of people hated him in the galaxy at that point. From a realistic legal and psychological perspective, I don’t think it’s fair to place the blame on just Anakin for becoming the horrifying human disaster he grew up to be, considering the lifetime of compromised agency under abusive, corrupt, and oppressive authority figures, but I don’t think he’s wholly innocent either since he did give up on fighting back after going dark, too. Either way, though, his many victims were completely justified in hating him.

However, like I said before, I don’t have a problem with the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda believe that Anakin/Darth Vader is too great a threat to stop without killing in self-defense in and of itself. I can completely understand why a lot of people in the galaxy would completely and utterly despise Darth Vader, never be able to forgive him, and want him dead. I can completely understand why Obi-Wan and Yoda feel deeply betrayed and hurt by Anakin’s crimes against them and their Jedi Order.

My first issue with Obi-Wan as a mentor and person started from his very first introduction in A New Hope. Right off the bat, he tells Luke that he failed Darth Vader as a teacher because he “thought he could train him as well as Master Yoda.” Sure, Darth Vader is a fully grown man, and he is no longer Obi-Wan Kenobi’s student. Therefore, sure, it’s fair to say that Obi-Wan no longer needs to feel personally obligated to stop his former student from committing these horrendous crimes throughout the galaxy on behalf of the Empire’s ruler Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine and/or a personal desire for vengeance.

While it’s never his fault that his circumstances suck under these abusive, arrogant, corrupt, deceitful, manipulative, isolating, hypocritical, and oppressive extremist authority figures, laws, and systems, Anakin is still an adult with enough rationale and self-awareness in regards to his relationship with objective reality to understand the basic differences between right versus wrong when we see him commit these crimes under their influence, so those crimes are also at least partially on him for choosing to not take the risk of doing what he knows is better out of too much fear to face the unknown.

What’s more, we have also seen an adult Anakin/Darth Vader chose to commit a number of personally motivated crimes out of extreme anger, an extreme desire to gain control, an extreme desire to enact vengeance against those who hurt him and/or those he loves, an extreme fear of the actual and/or perceived threat of abandonment from loved ones, an extreme fear of facing the unknown when presented with enemies or outsiders from the “greater good,” and an extreme sense of impatience when faced with disobedience, disrespect, or rebellion from those under him after going dark. So yeah, regardless of constantly compromised agency and shitty circumstances, Anakin/Vader is certainly no blameless innocent either. It’s not just his fault he could grow up to become a monster, and it’s not his fault that there were no safe escape options from the instability and toxicity of rampant crime and slavery on Tattoine, the Jedi Order, the old Republic, Sidious, and the Empire. He is a victim in that sense. However, he did also become an asshole and a monster who became increasingly willing to enable and perpetuate much of the same abuse, crime, manipulation, oppression, tyranny, and vengeance that he was victim to himself before because he eventually became too angry, depressed, exhausted, insecure, and terrified to make an effort to risk trying any better, even though he knew taking the easier path of enabling and perpetuating that same cycle of systematic abuse of power he got thrust into in these systems, was morally wrong.

Obi-Wan and Yoda may no longer be responsible for the crimes of Darth Vader now that he is a fully grown adult and no longer their student, but how to persuade an innocent young man with no prior formal experience and training in being a Jedi warrior to destroy an enemy of the galaxy who they claim to have had a hand in driving away in the first place through their methods? They don’t have to feel responsible for Vader’s crimes anymore, but why use Luke to finish a monster they helped create in the first place? If they’re as anti-vengeance as they claim to be, then why did Obi-Wan deliberately stand there when confronted by Vader on the Death Star with a lightsaber, egg him by telling him “I’m about to become more powerful than you can ever imagine,” and then allow for Vader to stab him right in front of Luke?

This all happens in A New Hope before we ever find about Darth Vader being Luke’s biological father Anakin Skywalker, or Yoda’s influence on Obi-Wan as the Jedi leader. Obi-Wan already comes off as manipulative and suspicious as hell, regardless of his intentions.

They’re not directly responsible for Anakin’s actions against the galaxy, but Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the Jedi Council were canonically shown to repeatedly be very arrogant, emotionally/psychologically abusive, controlling, deceitful, isolating, hypocritical, and manipulative bastards who refused to take full accountability for their bad choices and mistakes that heavily contributed to the circumstances, environment, instability, and mindset that influenced Anakin’s fall in the first place by following broken, outdated, and toxic methods in their Order and the corrupt Republic. The fact that trying to use his biological son to deal with a monster they helped create in his biological father in the first place, even if inadvertently, is messed up

In fact, while much less outright abusive, creepy, and threatening than Anakin/Vader in regards to Luke, their basic motivation to recruit him and train him through deceitful, dangerous, and manipulative means that they know are objectively wrong to achieve personal worthy ends of destroying Vader is pretty similar to Anakin’s ultimate goal in Empire Strikes Back and the beginning of Return of the Jedi of attempting to manipulate Luke to use him for his own goal of finding a kind and trustworthy ally/family member/friend to turn to the dark side to help him escape from Palpatine. You could also argue that a part of Anakin did feel unduly indebted to Palpatine after years of being groomed in the ways of the Sith and to be submissive to a psychopathic dictator. A part of him likely convinced himself that turning Luke to the dark side was the “best” way to keep his son safe from Palpatine. The point is that Anakin still knew Luke deserved better than that from him. He was being selfish by trying to mold Luke into someone he was not and disregarding his son’s say in the matter of his own fate. Anakin was being selfish by putting Luke through hell that he didn’t deserve because he was too afraid to stand up to Palpatine and do the right thing.

However, in spite of how awful Anakin did become at his worst as Vader, by the end of the original trilogy, he’s still the only surviving member of Luke’s predecessors from the old Jedi Order and Republic, who actually seems to realize that it’s not fair to betray, deceive, endanger, harm, and intimidate his son to pressure him down a path he doesn’t want to take, as a means to an end to escape and/or avoid his own issues with Palpatine, the Sith, the Empire, or his own bad choices.

Meanwhile, for such “wise” and “heroic” monks, Obi-Wan and Yoda never do really seem to realize that it was wrong to use Luke as a pawn for their own ends of “what’s best for him.” Nor do they ever do or say anything that indicates remorse over the shitty ways in which they treated Luke for their own worthy ends. In spite of how great the OT movies of SW otherwise are, this was probably my biggest gripe with them. The Obi-Wan and Yoda were portrayed as “blameless” and “justified” for being problematic in their methods with recruiting, training, and using Luke to try to take down Vader never struck me as okay for them to completely get away with without remorse, just because their enemies were worse. That’s how you get designated heroes and moral hypocrisy in fictional narratives in which the writer wants their heroes to be well-intended morally ambiguous and sketchy extremists, but only allows them to get away with it because the enemies they are fighting are worse. Obi-Wan and Yoda still get the happily ever after force ghost treatment, even though there never was one moment in their relationship with Luke when they weren’t deceiving him, manipulating him, or using him for their own ends.

Sure, objectively, Anakin was far more horrifying towards Luke than Obi-Wan and Yoda were, and Luke would also have had absolutely every right to hate him, no matter what, too. However, at the very least, he actually got consistently framed as in the wrong for betraying, endangering, and/or harming Luke to manipulate him for his own ends. At least, Anakin actually did something to genuinely express remorse for his mistreatment of him by selflessly sacrificing his life for him. At least, Anakin realized he was wrong about Palpatine, wrong to run away from his problems, wrong to try to use Luke to escape them, and tried to make up for it to his son.

Obi-Wan and Yoda never really seem to learn anything in the OT movies from their bad choices and mistakes on screen because it seems like George Lucas wants us to agree that they were justified in deliberately deceiving, endangering, and manipulating Luke for their own ends of “the greater good,” simply because they were facing a greater evil threat. Luke wouldn’t have just blindly and eagerly jumped on board to fight for them at their insistence, if he had been told the whole objective truth by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in the beginning, so I do get why they felt like they had to do it.

This is exactly why I love most of the PT movies and SW media. At least, pre Disney. It doesn’t absolve Anakin of his many crimes, but, while it’s still made clear that the entire Order and Republic didn’t deserve mass murder or the Empire, Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the adults involved in the Jedi Order and Republic government don’t get framed as being in blameless victims in the right for being abusive, arrogant, classist, manipulative, and oppressive assholes “for the greater good” either. They actually pay negative consequences for it. Certainly worse than what they deserved at the end, but they are definitely not framed as wholly “blameless” good guys either.

Yeah, I don’t understand how in 2022 there are still fans out there who wholeheartedly support every decision the Jedi have ever made as an overall organization. The only reason they get to be the good guys before Luke in the OT and PT movies is because the Empire and Sith are far worse, which isn’t a high bar to rise above at all. Not to mention the fact that their teachings and lifestyle helped influence the rise of the Empire. That exceedingly collectivist “greater good” line they repeatedly encouraged their students to use to feel better about giving in to pressure to enable and/or perpetuate “necessary” systematic abuse, crime, isolation, and oppression to hold onto security is what helped influence a creation of more dangerous and organized lawful evil Sith, who were able to convince themselves they were being heroes “for the greater good” in the first place in using shitty means to achieve worthy ends more easily.

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding XVII

Part I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part XIV - - - - Part XV - - - - Part XVI

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

Anakin scarcely had time to relax into the confirmation that Obi-Wan still loved him when his Master drew back.

“Anakin- you have no idea how much I simply want to stay like this, but we don’t have much time before I have to talk to the council, and there’s some matters I really feel we must discuss privately before that happens.”

“Ok.” Anakin wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe and sat at the foot of his Master’s bed, vibrating with intensity. 

“First of all.” Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “I know this sounds insane, but I need you to believe me- I’m from four years in the future. Or I had an incredibly detailed, four year long vision. Either way- I know things. I know where the war is leading us.”

“Alright.” Anakin nodded in relief. Looks like Bant was right. Thank fuck- I hated her theory the least. “So when you-” He vaguely mimed a stabbing motion “-You were trying to ‘wake up’ - from a memory? 

“Yes! Exactly!” Obi-Wan replied, relieved at the ease of the explanation. 

Anakin smiled reassuringly, then lunged to grab a pillow to whack his Master over the head. “You- fucking- kara- blast- idiot.” Anakin grit out, thwacking his master repeatedly with gentle rage. “Do. You. Have. Any. Idea. How! Fucked! Up! That! WAS! FOR!-”

Obi-Wan snatched the pillow, “Yes! Yes! I didn’t intend to hurt you, but I did, and I’m sorry, and you are perfectly entitled to your anger, alright!”

“I- oh.” Anakin paused, sitting back on his heels, not really sure how to go respond.

“Anakin- I know the identity of the Sith Master. I know who’s behind everything.” Obi-Wan stared intently into Anakin’s eyes. 

“Obi-Wan- that’s great!” Anakin said excitedly. If Obi-Wan knew who was responsible for all their suffering then, “That could end the war, right?”

Obi-Wan continued to gaze searchingly at his dearest friend and brother’s face, gently opening himself up to their bond, trying to find any hint of duplicity.

Anakin faltered under the scrutiny. “Right?”

Obi-Wan took another deep breath. He didn’t know. This was Anakin, before Palpatine- did something to him. It wasn’t too late.

“Anakin...it’s...someone we trust. Someone you trust. He- Darth Sidious- he’s been running both sides of the war.”

Anakin paled, eyes darting to the door, voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper, “He’s on the Council? Fuck that’s bad. Obi-Wan, what do you need me to do? I don’t have my lightsaber right now, but-” 

“No!” Obi-Wan replied quickly. “No! I mean, yes, it’s bad. But he’s not on the council. It’s- Anakin. I’m so, so sorry. But I saw a security hologram of him giving the final order to- to wipe out the Jedi and the Separatist leadership.” Anakin watched in alarm as Obi-Wan shuddered viscerally.

“I saw his speeches declaring victory over us, over everything. He personally killed half the council when we finally, finally found him out, far too late. Yoda barely survived- we were- the two of us were all that was left. I spent the last few years listening to his decrees as ‘Emperor’ - declaring the scarce remaining Jedi traitors to be hunted down. Making non-humans second class citizens. Enslaving worlds.”

Obi-Wan grabbed the front of Anakin’s tunic. “Please Anakin. He- he’s evil. He doesn’t want peace, or freedom, or justice, or security. He’s just been manipulating us all for his own ends. All of us. This whole time.” 

“It’s going to be ok, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said earnestly, grasping his Master’s hands. “I believe you. If the force gave you this clear a warning- or this incredible a second chance, then obviously we have to listen! I won’t let it happen how you saw, I swear. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop him.”

Obi-Wan felt like he was teetering over the edge of a precipice. He sucked in another breath- why was it so hard to breathe- 

“Anakin- It’s Palpatine. Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord.”

Anakin froze. “That’s- not funny.”

Obi-Wan barked out a single hysterical laugh. “No, no it is not. But it’s true. I told you- I saw it and- it makes a twisted sense, even only looking at the informational available at this point in time! How the Separatists  always stayed one step ahead despite our advantages. How the clones and the GAR came to exist in the first place. The constant increase in war time powers- Dooku karking told us the Senate was under the control of a Sith-” 

“We’re listening to Dooku now?” Anakin asked, getting angry for lack of a better response.

“Anakin...” 

“I mean of course that’s what the Sith would want you to believe! He’s the chancellor! Turning the Jedi against the leader of the republic is such a Sith move.”

“Anakin...”

“And- and- MIND CONTROL! What if it was it was mind control! You even said you thought that you thought Cody was mind-controlled, right?”

Obi-Wan drew back, alarmed and suspicious, “How do you know that?” he rasped hoarsely.

Anakin rolled his eyes. “You told Cody, remember? That first night? In the hovercar?”

“Ah. Right. Sorry. That first night is still a little fuzzy.” Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose. “I still can’t believe I time-traveled while high on one end and drunk on the other. It’s so- undignified.” 

Anakin snorted. “You must have taken a lot of spice, huh?” he joked.

Obi-Wan shifted uncomfortably.

“I- oh for Krong’s sake,” Anakin groaned, slapping himself in the forehead. “Obi-Wan- were you actually trying to kill yourself?”

“No!” Obi-Wan replied quickly to the loaded question. “I was just looking for a- temporary escape. I did mention that a Sith Empire ruled the galaxy and Yoda and I were all that was left of the Jedi order, right? He didn’t seem totally sane the last time I saw him, either! Not to mention, I spent most of the last three years alone in a desert.”

“Oh.” Anakin grew somber. “Master, that-”

“And that still doesn’t explain how you knew what I said to Cody.”

“Well, the day after I came back to our quarters to find you in the process of stabbing yourself in the heart you woke up, declared Master Che both dead and a Sith trick, then sunk into a self-induced coma.” Anakin snapped. “The healers, I think understandably, set aside privacy and called everyone in to try and figure out what the fuck was going on”

Obi-Wan cringed. “That...makes sense. Sorry again.” He cleared his throat. “Look, we’ve got seconds left before council interrupts- I just- didn’t want you to be blindsided by the Palpatine reveal.”

“But you admit there was mind control involved,” Anakin insisted. “Cody wouldn’t have turned on you without it, and neither would the Chancellor.”

“Anakin- I know we never liked to talk about it, but the Vod had a lot more opportunity to be compromised en mass. They were designed for a purpose we never fully understood and their entire childhood consisted of indoctrination; we already knew Dooku was involved with their ‘commissioning- we just ignored it.’”

Anakin bit the inside of his mouth, tasting blood as he restrained himself from screaming. He didn’t want to think about Kamino and he had to make Obi-Wan see past the nightmare he witnessed, before he convinced the council of an innocent man’s guilt.

“There wasn’t anyone else who might have been mind-controlled, who turned on you, or the Jedi? You said everyone died- there had to be someone besides some of the clones and one old man doing the killing,” he said desperately.

Obi-Wan’s sputtered, “That’s- that’s different- it was so obviously Palpatine’s influence.”

“But there was someone else you think might have been acting against his will.” Anakin pressed, sensing a weak point.

Obi-Wan looked gutted. “I don’t know- I want to believe you would never do such terrible things but you did and it all happened so fast...”

“So you admit-” Anakin stopped as his brain caught up with his mouth. “Wait- me?”

Obi-Wan’s face twisted in anguish but he didn’t break eye contact as he nodded.

Anakin swallowed hard. “Obi-Wan... what did I-” he cut himself off as the door opened.

Master Windu entered and squinted suspiciously at the two of them. 

"Mace!” Anakin said nervously. “We were just- crying. You know. Being attached and, and all that.”

Obi-Wan's jaw dropped open as he stared bug-eyed at his Padawan. “Mace?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

Mace Windu inhaled slowly through his nose. “Your friends had plenty of time to bond while we were trying to make sense of your more... disastrous traits.” He waved vaguely.

“You just gestured at all me,” Obi-Wan replied, offended. 

“Well, you’ll have the opportunity to help clear up our misconceptions. Master Aerdo is preparing a meeting room in the Halls so you can explain everything, just like you wanted.”

“Oh, fuck.” Anakin whispered softly. 

“It’s a different room, Anakin, I made sure of it.” Mace reassured him.

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan parroted in delight.

“Well, I’m glad you know everyone’s names, at least.” Windu muttered. “Master Che will be by to check you over one more time, she should have some proper robes for you. Should we contact Commander Cody? He’s at a pre-departure briefing with Master Tiin not too far away.” 

“No.” Obi-Wan responded sadly. “We can’t alert anyone outside the halls about even the existence of this meeting. Maintaining secrecy right now is too important. We’re going to need to take a significant amount of extremely careful action on a lot of fronts if we want to unravel the Sith’s plots- and I hate to say it but stopping the actual war is unfortunately going to need to wait for last. We’ll still end things sooner than they would otherwise, but if we meddle too much right now... Whatever story you were using to explain my- absence the past few days, please simply double down on that.” 

The Master of the Jedi Order nodded slowly, holding off on questions with well-practiced restraint.

“Alright Windu, Skywalker, get out.” Che ordered, brusquely pushing her way in with a hovercart. 

“Yes, Master Che.” Anakin acknowledged, jumping up. He gave Obi-Wan a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before he departed. “We’re going to get through this.” he said valiantly, trying to project confidence.

Obi-Wan smiled weakly, “I’ll see you two soon.”

“That’s up to me, actually.” Master Che said cheerfully, snapping her gloves.

Part XVIII

[willowcrowned]

Alright multiple things; 1) who is Zannah? I have not heard of her before and would love to know more, 2) please I am desperate for you to elaborate on this insane AU, 3) I am formally blaming you and Nevertheless for my new crippling addiction to Bespoke Star Wars AUs

1. Darth Zannah was Darth Bane’s apprentice! Theoretically, she was the first to institute the Rule of Two. In my AU, she killed Bane because he asked her to, trained a new apprentice, faked her death, fell in love with a mandalorian, and eventually transferred her essence to a holocron so she could cause problems on purpose for a while longer.

2. I literally just had the idea for flavor #2 of the sith!obi AU, (and also literally just posted a lil follow up, so I hope u enjoy that), but here’s some ideas off the top of my head:

Obi-Wan knows why Qui-Gon is holding on to him. He should have been knighted at least three years ago (really six, if you’re counting his sith abilities, but the Jedi don’t know about that), and half the temple knows it. But... as annoying as it is to still be a Padawan, he understands that it’s for Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon fears letting Xanatos go to early is what caused Xanatos to lose himself, and he’s trying to keep Obi-Wan safe. Obi-Wan is touched in the head.

The cross-galaxy road trip with Maul is Plan 387b of all the plans he and Zannah came up with over the years. Because he and Zannah are both secret Chaos Gremlins, they like making plans that will not only destroy Sidious, but humiliate him while doing it. Turning Maul into an anti-hero through a galactic roadtrip is one of their favorites.

Zannah hates Sidious and Plagueis not only because they’re lame and they suck and they’re helping ruin the Sith by keeping to the Rule of Two, but because one time she called them [redacted][redacted][redacted][redacted] and they tossed her into an abandoned temple for a very boring ten years.

3. ur welcome. this is where i live.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Hey! I literally love your last post so much but I'm confused about the rebels bit (never watched it). How does Rebels criticize the jedi? Thanks!

Aw, thank you! (Lol, this is such an old ask I don’t remember what that post was, but here goes).

Well in s2 Ahsoka, Kanan (a survivor from Order 66) and Ezra (his Padawan) all go to an old Jedi Temple to talk to Yoda about Vader and his Inquisitors (Darksiders who hunt the few remaining Jedi and kidnap Force sensitive kids). Yoda is only there spiritually and the three of them get different visions. Ahsoka sees Anakin as Vader, and Kanan has to fight several enemies and eventually admit he can't protect his Padawan from the world, only guide him (which prompts the vision to finally make him a Jedi Knight, as he survived Order 66 as a Padawan.)

And Ezra... Ugh. Ezra had a previous encounter with Yoda, in which he got his lightsaber crystal. Basically Yoda asked him why he wanted to be a Jedi, and Ezra had to do some self-examination and eventually realized that helping and protecting people made him feel alive, which greatly pleased Yoda who told him he might become a Jedi after all. That's a really great exchange and I love the character development Ezra gets, as he starts by saying he wants never to feel powerless and eventually realizes that's not the right answer.

But in this second encounter, as Ezra asks how they can defeat the Inquisitors, Yoda basically says that fighting is rarely the right path. And to illustrate that, he says that line about the Jedi being arrogant and joining the war swiftly "in their arrogance," which really bothers me. He also says they were "consumed by the Dark Side", which is why they're now gone. In all fairness, he also mentions that they were motivated by fear, which is partially true. 

Now, I write analyses and I try to be intellectually honest about them, because ignoring contradicting stuff weakens your argument instead of helping you. Except this time, I really can't accept this quote. I have an excuse, Lucas wasn't involved in Rebels so it's not the highest canon in my opinion (the 6 movies + TCW are, here are the quotes justifying my position), and I feel like that assertion is out of character for Yoda, ignoring his ST ghost appearances, and also plainly factually incorrect.

I understand that Ezra really needed to be taught not to always seek to fight. At this point, he's still an emotional kid who occasionally struggles with the Dark Side. Not fighting is important to a Jedi's path, so I can understand Yoda's intention. But the example he uses? According to Lucas, the Jedi were drafted in the war. That's not jumping into a conflict out of arrogance, that's literally being dragged there against your will. And sure, there’s Geonosis, but how exactly is rescuing a bunch of your people that’s getting slaughtered by a Sith Lord the same thing as arrogantly jumping into a fight? Like, what’s the option here? Not go, and let an innocent Senator and a bunch of Jedi be murdered?

It's like Rebels!Yoda isn't acknowledging that the war was fake and that a Sith Lord engineered it as the perfect trap (which is recurring problem in Rebels; at one point Ezra, Kanan and Rex have to fight an old Separatist tactical droid and Ezra "solves" the Clone Wars by pointing out that nobody won except the Empire, so really they were on the same side all along, and he gets praised for doing what "a bunch of Jedi, senators and Clones couldn't do," ie getting both sides to talk to each other – except wtf??? setting aside that the Jedi and Rex were aware of the war being fake by the end of it, and that the Separatists were openly led by a Sith Lord and attempted to commit genocide several times in TCW and did commit mass murder, and reduced like several worlds to slavery or starvation and were backed by the worst big corporations you could imagine, the war would NOT have ended if the two sides had tried talking it out. 1) The Senate made it illegal 2) the big corporations arranged for terrorist attacks on both sides the one time they tried to negotiate so the war would drag on and they'd get more money out of it 3) Sidious. Was. Controlling. Everything. What. The. Heck. Would. Have. Been. Accomplished. By. Negotiating.)  Plus the question of whether or not the Jedi should even fight is like... constantly raised by the Jedi during TCW, so I really can’t see it as “oh wow we didn’t even take the time to think and we got killed because of it, we really sucked.” 

Seriously, there’s this S6 quote: 

MACE: Are you sure we are taking the right path? YODA: The right path, no. The only path, yes. Designed by the Dark Lord of the Sith, this web is. For now, play his game, we must.

Like yeah, totally rushing in and being eager to fight lol. Nothing to do with being boxed in and having no alternatives. 

So yeah that's bothers me and I don't think it jibes with the rest of canon. I don't remember Yoda telling Luke (who, in the beginning, is as eager to fight as Ezra is) that the Jedi "disappeared" because of some fault of their own, or because of an eagerness to fight. (Seriously, pussyfooting around the fact that the Jedi were slaughtered grates me.) The OT never, ever, ever implies that the destruction of the Jedi Order was their fault - and unless you assume that the OT is “pro-Jedi propaganda” (*laughs in dumb youtube comments*) then I don’t see Rebels weaving it into its narrative as legitimate.

Again, choosing alternatives to fighting is a great lesson on a personal level, but it doesn't work on the scale of the Rebels/Empire conflict - or the Jedi/Sith one. Ezra should often choose not to fight because of what it'll do to his soul. The Rebels should not stop fighting because there is no cohabitation with something as evil as the Empire. Imo Yoda is always presented as wise enough to know the difference. 

The last thing that makes me think it's out of character is Yoda's spiritual journey in TCW s6. He gets all of his flaws thrown into his face and has to conquer them – he has to face his literal Dark Side and he wins. And yet at no point during that arc is he ever made to conquer his ‘Jedi arrogance’ or whatever. He has to face his worst fear (first vision, all the Jedi dying), let go of his attachments (second vision, him having to accept that he can’t live in a perfect world where everything is beautiful and no one is dead), and reaffirm who he is as a Jedi (third vision, refusing to give up on Anakin and trying to save him rather than to kill Sidious) but at no point is he ever made to recognize that wow, the Jedi are the worst for fighting. 

I’d argue that the very purpose of the visions showing him Order 66 and Anakin falling are to make him accept that these things are completely beyond his control - and as such, not his fault. He doesn’t get to fix things, because the fate of the Order is not in their own hands. It is, in fact, in Anakin’s (from a thematical/narrative standpoint). Yoda has a hard time with it (actually he almost shuts down when he first sees everybody dead and his first reaction is to say that he failed them, so I can’t accept Yoda blaming his grandkids for dying) but he accepts it in the end, when he tells Mace and Obi-Wan he’s not certain one ever wins a war, but they might still find ‘victory for all time’ (referring to balance aka Sidious’ death in RotJ). 

So anyway that’s my beef with Rebels!Yoda. Not hate on Rebels though, there are many parts of it that I really, really love - but some of them kinda infuriate me, and this is one of them. 

[obiwanobi]

In the Sith Senator au, I imagine that sheev introduces them either at a dinner party or maybe at a gala? anakin is in his robes as always and obiwan is super dressed up because he's a respectable senator thank you very much and he calls anakin darling and sweet thing and stuff like that and within an hour he has anakin wrapped around his finger

Okay, so WHY NOT BOTH? The last long post about this AU was painful, so have some “hate at first sight” and “0.2 sec for Obi-Wan to fix it and learn that banter and endearments can turn Anakin into a very charming mess” 

The first time they met, Obi-Wan has just been elected Senator after working in politics on Stewjon for years, making enough important friends and empty promises to be re-elected even without showing his face on Stewjon until the next decade. It’s his first month back on Coruscant, close to Sidious after years on his own. He needs to show him that his presence here, so close to his Master, is right, and can only benefit their plans. Even when everything isn’t… great.

The committee of small planets of the mid rim is pestering him to join their sad little club of useless dustballs, he has dozens of demands of various needy mayors, dignitaries and even ministers from Stewjon to reply to, the Senate security staff are a bunch of lazy bastards who still haven’t given him his pass and badge to enter and exit the building whenever he wants to and keep pretending not to recognize him even though they force him to go through a full security check every morning, and he can’t find a decent assistant to hire. 

You could say that Senator Kenobi is a bit on edge. 

He really, really doesn’t need to be late to his first real, private meeting with Sidious, especially because his only excuse is ‘I forgot how busy traffic was on Coruscant in the morning, don’t blame me I’m used to the countryside and seeing more sheep than ships on my way to work”. That would probably not go too well.  

Looking at his chrono every twenty seconds, he doesn’t pay enough attention to where he’s going and doesn’t notice the man turning at a corner on his side, running fast enough to come crashing against him without having the chance to do anything about it.

One second, a sharp cry, a flurry of dark robes and a cup of tea flying, and they’re both on the ground.  

Obi-Wan isn’t pleased. You could say he’s even a bit exasperated, lying on his back, a stranger’s elbow digging in his stomach. And then he turns his head to see who’s stupid enough to run in the Senate’s corridors on a Monday morning and almost curses out loud when he recognises Jedi robes and a stupid Padawan’s braid. 

It’s fine. He’s fine. He’s used to suppressing his Force-presence so no one can feel him and he’s not going to make a scene to attract more attention. He’s going to inhale and exhale slowly, accept the deepest of apologies from the stupid Jedi with a benevolent smile, repress his need to do something harsh, and be on his way.  

But then the Padawan groans, rubs his head and asks reproachfully why Obi-Wan didn’t watch where he was going. 

It’s eight am, half of his (expensive and only sold on Stewjon) tea on the floor, and Obi-Wan already wants to strangle a Jedi.

So, there is a shouting match.

Words like “pathetic life form” and “karking useless politician” are thrown, and it takes almost half a minute for Obi-Wan to realise that he’s arguing with a dumb teenager and that they’re still on the floor, half on top of each other. He, very politely, asks the Padawan to get the kriff up, doesn’t take the time to even look at the remains of his cup of tea after salvaging his wet datapad from the puddle on the ground, and leaves with one last silent death glare. 

“You’re not even going to clean that?” the Padawan yells in his back, sounding revolted. 

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. What are droids for these days? 

*

“You’re late,” Palpatine says flatly the instant the door of his office closes behind Obi-Wan. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 

“Yes, Master.”  

“Call me Chancellor for now. I want you to meet someone and he should be here soon. He could become important, maybe even crucial for our plans.”

“Oh? Another Senator or representative to charm?” 

“Even better,” Palpatine smiles. And that’s what gets Obi-Wan interested. He knows this is the reason he’s here and the reason Sidious wants him in the Senate. Obi-Wan is a smooth talker, a nice face and a warm smile all in one. Someone who, with enough time and efforts, could make anyone believes in anything.

Palpatine always said that he was made for politics. 

“He could be a decisive piece in this game. It will take a lot of careful manipulation and dedication to bring him to our side and I don’t have this kind of time to waste, so you’ll do. With enough care and patience, I think he could be the most loyal and useful… support, we could have.” 

“Who is he? What do you want me to say and how far am I allowed to go?”

A knock at the door interrupts them. “For now,” Palpatine says in a low voice, sitting behind his desk, joining his hands together above it, the picture of old and trusted wisdom, “I just need you to make him like you.” 

That’s not going to be a problem, Obi-Wan thinks, as the doors open. He straightens up, gets ready to put on his most radiant smile and displays an inviting openness and friendliness that few can resist. 

The Padawan enters. 

This is going to be a problem. 

*

“Ah! My favourite Jedi!” Sidious exclaims loud enough to be heard over the music and raising his cocktail above their heads. Anakin Skywalker smiles as he sees him, and dutifully comes closer. The Chancellor makes a point of clapping his hand twice on his shoulder once Skywalker is in front of him, and leaves it there as he introduces him to his new chief of staff. If anyone is wondering what a Padawan is doing at a Senate party that should only include political staffers and a few dignitaries, no one breaths a word of it. 

It gives Obi-Wan time to gauge, assess and appraise Skywalker, his reactions, body language, and anything he can learn from a simple conversation between Sidious and him. It would be his turn to do it soon. Relieve me from the burden of having to stroke the boy’s ego regularly so I can take care of more pressing issues, his master had snarled disdainfully. Right now, he’s playing the part of the dotting and proud fatherly figure to perfection, Obi-Wan has to give him that. 

Attention, approval and respect, Sidious had told me. That’s all you need to be in Skywalker’s good graces. The boy will soak every bit of kindness you can spare, as long as he considers you someone worth his own devotion.

It didn’t stop Obi-Wan from learning absolutely everything he could about him, from his lightsaber technique to his favourite food because Obi-Wan is and will always be a very thorough man who doesn’t rely on luck or unprecise sciences like basic psychology. Especially from his Master, who probably never encountered an emotion or feeling he couldn’t twist to fuel his ambition. 

Admittedly, Obi-Wan doesn’t share his Master enthusiasm for charming the brat and make him fall. He’s all for turning him against the Jedi, sure, that he can get behind and happily endorse, but having to deal with a moody teenager on a regular basis for the foreseeable future? It would be painful for everyone. Especially for Obi-Wan’s nerves.

 Anakin Skywalker, reckless, volatile and troublesome former slave and actual Padawan, wasn’t the type of Sith candidate Obi-Wan would have chosen. Not at all. Too many variables, too many chances to go wrong, a wild card that he would never risk. 

But Sidious is adamant. Doesn’t care for any of his arguments. He wants Skywalker, and Obi-Wan has started to realise why when he learnt all about the prophecy. Stealing the Jedi Chosen One and turning him against them in a last-second betrayal was the kind of symbolic irony Sidious loved and would gloat about for years to come. And when Sidious decides that he needs something, there is no going back. 

But this time, Obi-Wan has to do all the hard work himself. He calculates that getting close to Skywalker, especially after their more than tense official introduction, is going to take months, maybe even (and Obi-Wan shudders at the thought) a year. Trapped at playing nice with an overgrown child who hates being told no and likes to think he’s above the rules. For no direct and personal benefit but the approval of his own Master.

Obi-Wan really, really hates it.

But that’s not going to stop him from completing his mission perfectly, as he has always done. 

“I’m glad to see you, Chancellor,” Skywalker says softly, his quiet tone already at odd with what Obi-Wan expected. He grew taller than the last he saw him, and Obi-Wan hates it. His braid is a bit longer and his robes are a shade darker than a few months ago. Something passes in his eyes when the Padawan notices Obi-Wan’s presence next to the Chancellor and his head snaps up defiantly. “Senator Kenobi,” he grits out like the words pain him. 

Obi-Wan needs to change this right now before Sidious deems him inapt for this mission.

He hates this a bit more. 

The opportunity is given quicker than he thought when Sidious excuses himself and leaves their little group to mingle with other demanding sycophants. Obi-Wan gets stuck with Skywalker, Sidious’ chief of state who’s apparently only here for the free drinks, and Keneg, the senator of… Corulag? Barl’leth? One of those rich Core planets that hate anyone who isn’t them but need to be kept around for their credits, who always seems to suck years of his life every time Obi-Wan is forced to speak to him. It takes thirty seconds for all of them to grow bored of Keneg incessant complaints about how the lower levels of his planet are “ruining its reputation” and that the problem resides in their too lenient immigration policy, especially concerning poor and uneducated races.

Skywalker’s face is a journey. At least twelve different emotions play through his eyes, the twists of his mouth and raised eyebrows like a theatre actor in a dramatic scene at each careless word coming out of the Senator’s mouth, and Obi-Wan wonders if anyone has ever told him that Jedi are supposed to be masters of their own emotions first and foremost. Especially around politicians. 

But it doesn’t matter right now, because that’s the opening he was waiting for. 

“Excuse me Senator Keneg,” He cuts him off politely before another endless tirade. “I’m afraid I have to go, I see the Senator of Botor and I’ve been trying to talk to him for months. Surely you understand. Padawan Skywalker, may I ask for your assistance? We could use some Jedi wisdom in our debate, if you don’t mind.” 

Skywalker looks torn between being relieved to be offered an out from an awful conversation, but also have no desire to spend more time with Obi-Wan. 

“Sure,” he ends up mumbling, apparently judging that he was the lesser of two evils. 

“Wonderful.” Obi-Wan doesn’t pay any attention to the betrayed look Sidious’ chief of state sends him after being left alone with Keneg.

“So,” Skywalker says, resigned, following Obi-Wan who’s making a beeline for the bar. “Where is he?”

“Who?” 

“The senator of Botor? And what’s your deal with him?” 

“I don’t even know what he looks like,” Obi-Wan replies, trying to ignore the casual tone Skywalker shouldn’t take with a Senator, even one he dislikes. 

“What? Then why did you ask me to come with you?”

“Aren’t you relieved that I saved you from dreadful hours of xenophobic discussions about how poor people should be banned from showing their face in public because it doesn’t please Senator Keneg?”

“You didn’t save me,” Skywalker grimaces, but still seats beside him. “Is it… Is it always like that? I mean, I know Core worlds politicians can be a little…”

Obi-Wan weighs his options, and decides that Skywalker would probably appreciate truth more than carefully chosen words and subtle hypocrisy. Pretending to be the last nice man in politics is out of the question with the way they met, so Obi-Wan opts for sincerity.

To a degree. 

“Snobbish? Disconnected from reality? Shameless bastards with no souls?” Obi-Wan says while signalling the bartender for Trandoshan ale and a cocktail.

“Well, yes.” 

“Welcome to politics.” 

Skywalker opens his mouth like he’s going to protest. He puts his hands in his sleeves, probably hoping to pass for a wise Jedi Master, but his pouty lips and frowned eyebrows make him look like a sulking youngling. “You’re part of it, you know. You can talk about it like you’re not one of them, but I remember you insulting me and leaving without caring about your tea and cup all over the floor.”

What a brat.

“My tea- My dear, do I have to remind you that you barreled into me at full stupid and made me spill my tea everywhere? Some Senators would have made a diplomatic incident out of it,” he huffs, a bit more irritable than he wanted to. 

 “You said I was a brainless child!” 

“Because you ar—” Their drinks arrive at that moment, and it gives Obi-Wan precious seconds to compose himself.

This isn’t how he’s supposed to play it. He didn’t expect Skywalker to be this whiny and petulant, despite Sidious’ warning, and was planning on letting him think he was the one in control of the situation. He’s supposed to be a Jedi for Force sake, not someone who can’t control their tongue and get into pointless fights with politicians! 

No, no. Grin and bear it. Obi-Wan should recall the last remnant of Jedi philosophy still in him. 

“Padawan Skywalker, I’m sorry if my words offended you,” Obi-Wan says with the voice he normally uses for debates where he wants to appear as the most sincere and reasonable party. He holds a glass of ale to Skywalker, as a peace offering. “I admit I wasn’t in the most pleasant of disposition at that time, and I may have been harsher than I realised. I hope you can forgive me.” 

This seems to mollify Skywalker a bit. He doesn’t look like he’s going to forget it, but does take the offered glass. “At least the Chancellor is different,” he sighs and Obi-Wan represses the urge to burst into laughter. 

Oh, Skywalker is truly the most naïve boy around. Perhaps twisting his mind will turn out to be fun. 

“Wait,” Obi-Wan exclaims suddenly as the Padawan holds the glass to his lips, “are you even old enough to drink?” 

“Oh come on, I’m 19! I can handle a beer and I’m a Jedi, don’t forget,” he brags, like being Force-sensitive changes anything about his (probably low) alcohol tolerance. To be fair, a regular politician wouldn’t know anything about what the Force could and couldn’t do. Skywalker’s probably relying on lack of awareness about the magic and mysterious abilities of the Jedi to get away with it. It’s almost endearing. 

 “I don’t know, Padawan, you did look like an adorable sulking youngling just a minute ago.”

“Ador- I’m not adorable!” He yelps as his cheeks turn into an interesting shade of pink. 

“But you don’t deny the youngling comment,” Obi-Wan teases good-naturedly between two sips of his cocktail. He can’t help it: It is way more intriguing to follow the colours on his face spreading to his neck than being on the receiving end of his frowns and accusing words.

Unduly flustered for such an innocent comment, Skywalker stutters a few syllables, huffs, and narrows his eyes at his glass, Obi-Wan’s playful smile, and his glass again. He downs the whole thing with his head thrown back before Obi-Wan can say anything, surprised by the sudden motion and too busy watching his throat moving until the empty glass is back on the table with a resounding clank. Still wiping his mouth, he calls the bartender and asks for another. Obi-Wan doesn’t miss the ‘don’t you dare stop me’ glare. 

This isn’t how he imagined befriending him, but Skywalker is still seating next to him and getting into a rant about how he’s a capable man, thank you very much, and yesterday his Master even said so, well, not in these words, but he’s not a youngling, and absolutely not adorable, he’s a warrior, a protector, but he doesn’t suppose a politician can understand, and if Obi-Wan wants to know, his sabre technique is exceptional, really, it is! 

His whole speech is supported by hands flying around to illustrate his words and mouthfuls of ale, because he is a man and not a kid, remember that, Senator Kenobi. It doesn’t prevent him from flushing a bit deeper and spluttering even more when Obi-Wan, listening attentively with a smile on his face, throws an indulgent of course you are, darling.

Skywalker turns his face away from him, desperate to hide his embarrassment, and orders another ale. 

Adorable. 

 Obi-Wan can work with that.   

*

Hours later, once Skywalker is happily sloshed and dangerously leaning toward crashing against his shoulder, Obi-Wan calls him a hover cab.  

“Thanks, Senator Kenobi!” Skywalker exclaims as he climbs into the cab, like Obi-Wan is now his favourite person to be around. His cheerful and warm demeanour has stopped being surprising after his second ale. “You’re not as awful as I thought!” 

Obi-Wan can’t help it, he laughs, truly laughs at that. It’s probably the most sincere compliment he’s gotten since he arrived at the Senate. “I’m glad you consider me a slightly better man than Senator Keneg,” he says, leaning forward toward Skywalker, hands on the cab. 

Skywaker grins and raises an eyebrow at him. “And more handsome too!” 

For once, it’s Obi-Wan who must look baffled. Despite his careful planning, all his diverse estimations and assessments about the different ways he could charm Skywalker, he didn’t consider actually seducing him. That’s… a whole new point of view. 

Interrupting his thoughts, Skywalker yawns and starts hugging his robe around himself, smiling contently like he’s in the best place in the galaxy, barely trying to blink away sleep from his eyes. Adorable.  

On an impulse, Obi-Wan leans closer to him and tugs on his braid. The reaction is worth it: Skywalker makes a small surprised noise, eyes suddenly wide, and the slight flush on his cheeks worsen in an instant.

Obi-Wan almost considers touching his face, just to see how warm his skin is. And maybe even brushing his parted lips with his thumb, just to see how warm it can still get. 

But Obi-Wan feels merciful.

For tonight. 

“Sleep well, Padawan,” he purrs, winding the thin braid around his finger one last time. Skywalker looks like he’s going to melt.  

Obi-Wan can work with that too. 

*

Two months later, Sidious tells him that he’s going to be the victim of an assassination attempt right before the Military Act vote. It would be acceptable for the Chancellor to be concerned about the protection and security of all Senators, of course, so he will push for Jedi protection and is certain to convince the Council to send one particular Padawan as a bodyguard. 

Obi-Wan doesn’t hate the idea. 

[chokemeanakin]

First Kiss - Anakin Skywalker x gn Reader

Summary: Anakin treats you to your first kiss ;)

masterlist

Read it on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22469749

It happened on Tatooine. Anakin didn’t want to come back, but you had begged him to show you where he grew up.

“I grew up with Obi-Wan, travelling the galaxy,” Anakin corrected, a scowl clouding his face. “Not on Tatooine. I was just a slave there.”

“But it’s got your history,” you argued. “It’s where Qui-Gon found you. It’s where you build C-3PO. It’s where your--”

“It’s where my mother died,” he bit, jaw tense and eyes shadowed. “I know.”

“Maybe we could visit her.”

Anakin closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He did that a lot, ever since he came back from the dark side, to calm the anger inside of him. His hands clenched over the controls of the pod, then suddenly relaxed. When he opened his eyes, he was considerably less tense.

“Okay,” he agreed. “I think she’d like that.”

*********************

“I hate sand,” Anakin muttered as he hopped down from the ship. His boots landed on the ground, sending dust to cloud up around him. He swatted it away from his face.

“Oh, quit pouting,” you take his flesh hand, then raise it over your head with both of yours. “You’re home!”

“This is not my home,” he tried to sound angry, but his face softened when he looked at the smile on your face. He could see you were excited-- for what, he still didn’t understand. You would have to stay in the remote parts of the planet because Anakin would never be welcomed back after what he did to the sand people. You wouldn’t even be able to see the market or Jabba the Hut’s pub, or the place he used to live. Not that Anakin ever wanted to go back to any of those places, anyways. They came for one reason-- to see his mother.

Anakin led the way to the grave. It was just a plank of wood sticking up from the sand, so you weren’t sure how he even knew this was hers. But it was the only thing out here for hundreds of miles, and the somber look on his face was proof enough. This was his mother.

You sat on the sand in front of the wooden plank, drawing shapes in the course minerals. You didn’t say anything, and neither did Anakin as he sat down beside you. The silence was comforting, and just being there was enough. Anakin closed his eyes and his face was peaceful.

You watched him, his face unmoving, as you thought about Anakin and his past. This was where his life began, as a slave, working in a junk shop while his mother struggled to get by. He built his own pod and would race because he was good at it. He built his mother a robot so she wouldn’t have to work so hard. He could still speak the language, as sometimes he would mutter what you were pretty sure were swears under his breath in the foreign tongue.

This was where the sweet, unsuspecting, hopeful little kid who loved flying and wanted to be a Jedi grew up with his mother. He had left her to do just that, and that was the beginning of the end. He never got to see his mother again before she died in his arms. The Jedi Council consistently underestimated his power and belittled him. They alienated him from the one thing he was destined to be. No wonder he turned to Darth Sidious, who was the only person who seemed to trust him in those harrowing times. He had fallen, like Icarus from the sun, like an angel from heaven, and fell and crashed and burned.

But now he was back. He was here again, that same sweet, hopeful boy who just wanted to be a Jedi. And he was sitting before you, with his mother-- a family again.

You were there for hours, until the suns began to lower in the sky. A gust of wind blew sand in your direction, and Anakin cracked an eye open.

“We should get to higher ground,” he said, standing and holding his mechanical arm out for you to take. He helped lift you up, and then brought you in close so he could share his cloak with you, shielding you from the sand. “The wind should let up as the suns go down. For now, we can watch them set from the pod.”

The two of you climbed on top of the ship and sat with your legs dangling off the edge, watching the double-suns inch toward the horizon. The sky seemed to bleed when the lower sun crashed into the sandy mountains, but then melted into a melon-orange glow as the higher sun followed in its wake. Soon, the whipping sand clouds calmed and the sky turned to a deep purple, then black, dotted with thousands of stars. You wondered how many times Anakin had watched this sunset as a kid, and if it’s changed at all since then.

“You’ve come a long way,” you told him, breaking the silence. He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

“But you always come back,” you said. He lifted his head and his eyes connected with yours, but they were far away. He was deep in thought, and there was something warring behind them. Guilt.

“I left you,” he said, and it’s barely above a whisper. “We were friends, but as soon as Padme came along, I left you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You were happy with her.”

“I was happy with you, too.”

The confession caused an eruption of warmth to blossom in your chest. You smiled at him, a genuine, delighted smile, and knocked his shoulder playfully with yours.

“You have me now.”

At this, Anakin lifted his arm and wrapped it around your shoulder. He pulled you close for a moment, then relaxed with his arm still around you. For once in your life, you didn’t move away.

Anakin was warm. You basked in the weight of his arm around your shoulders, the feeling of his torso pressed against your side. Your thighs were touching and you realized that this is what you needed, this is what was missing all along, this warmth. Suddenly, you felt complete.

“Why haven’t you ever been with anyone?” Anakin asked suddenly. You tried to fight back the blush from your face at both the question and the fact that his fingers seemed to be absentmindedly tracing patterns on your arm. Suddenly he paused. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you told him, and he resumed the patterns. “I just… have a hard time connecting with people.”

“Because of your mother?”

“Because of my mother,” you confirmed, and he coaxed every bit of information out of you on how your mother was strict and mean and cold and judgmental, and your father watched as she stripped your humanity away. He listened attentively as you told him of the suitors you’ve failed with in the past, and his arm tightened around you.

“I just get nervous,” you frowned, twisting your fingers in your lap. “Like the closer someone gets to me, the more they’re going to realize I actually suck.”

“I don’t think you suck,” Anakin said, his voice that sweet, comforting timbre with a gentle rasp that you loved so much. He always sounded like that when he’s spitting off orders to R2 when piloting, or late at night when he’s half asleep and doesn’t know what he’s saying. He also had that stupidly soft look in his eyes, and that half smile you’ve only ever seen directed at Padme.

God, he’s so pretty, you groaned inwardly, unintentionally tensing up when you realized just how close you were sitting. And he was looking at you so deeply, and man, his eyes can be so intense sometimes-- your face burned and you ducked your head so he couldn’t see.

He caught your chin with his gloved mechanical hand, cradling your chin between his index finger and thumb. He turned your face to look at him straight on, right in the eyes, and all you could see was Anakin. He was so close, and he was getting closer. Your eyes shifted to his lips, the same ones you had fantasized about for years, and hoped he couldn’t notice what you were thinking.

“Have you ever been kissed?” you could feel his breath on your lips, your heart pounding against your ribcage. You blinked madly, breathing erratic, palms sweating. Every single atom in your body was buzzing with energy-- excitement, nervousness, fear. You wanted to pull him in and kiss the living daylights out of him. You wanted to push him away and run as fast as you could until you got to a cliff high enough you could jump off and never wake up. You wanted to explode.

“You’re trembling,” Anakin’s eyes shifted across your figure for a split second. “Do you want me to let go?”

“No,” you begged him, your hands shooting out to hold onto him without your permission. They landed on his thighs, and your face burned harder.

“Do you want this?” his thumb stroke your chin. There was nothing you wanted more.

“Yes.”

You weren’t sure how he even heard you, as you barely uttered the word. But before you could do or say or think anything else, Anakin was leaning in. Your eyes closed on instinct and you felt, very softly, the brush of his lips against yours. The volcano was back in your chest, spurting lava all over your insides as you realized, holy shit Anakin Skywalker’s lips are on mine. Holy shit, Anakin Skywalker is kissing me!

The feather light touch tickled more than anything, and you could feel his mouth twitch into a slight smile as your hands’ grip tightened on his legs.

“This okay?” he pulled back a centimeter to ask. “You want more?”

“Yes,” you said again. It was the only thing you could manage to say, the one syllable word, and you began to wonder just how much of a lost cause you were if a simple brush of his lips against yours could render you brain dead.

He muttered an ‘Okay’ and then brought his flesh hand up to cup your face, fingers sliding along your neck and locking into your hair as his thumb stroked your cheek. You shivered, goosebumps staining every inch of your body with the touch. His gloved hand stayed on your chin, tilting it up toward him for easier access.

You closed your eyes again, and he leaned in, and this time he really, actually kissed you. He applied the slightest bit of pressure, then he did it again, shifting his head and capturing your lips in his, pulling back slowly only to do it again.

You were in heaven.

You forgot to respond at first. All you could think of in your short-circuited brain was how Anakin smelled so good and his lips were so warm and he tasted like the stars. Oh, he definitely knew what he was doing, with the way he was moving his lips and the confidence he did it with. You had no idea what you were doing, so you let instinct take control.

You unclenched one of your fists from his leg and raised it to place on his shoulder, pushing just a bit to get a bit of leverage, get a little bit closer so you could respond in earnest. You opened your mouth and closed it over his lips, your stomach cartwheeling as you hoped you were doing this right. It felt right. It felt good. So you kept doing it, and Anakin’s metal arm dropped from your chin and fell to your waist as you rose onto your knees, hands finally tangling into the soft curls of his hair, kissing him like you’ve wanted to kiss him for years.

When Anakin pulled back for air, you realized just how starved you were for oxygen as well. You didn't even notice. You panted, fingers loosening in his hair, lips tingling and burning. Anakin was looking at you like you were everything he wanted, and his eyes caught the twinkle of the stars. This is right where you belong, you realized, right here in Anakin Skywalker’s giving arms. Your breathing evened out, and you seemed to be thinking the same thing.

You leaned back in.

[dalekofchaos]

The complete lack of Anakin Skywalker in the Sequel Trilogy is an insult to the story of Star Wars, Anakin’s story and in the end they destroyed Anakin’s fall and redemption

The fact that Anakin is never mentioned by name, let alone shows up as a force ghost. Just shows how much Disney, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy were so afraid of the Prequels and couldn’t even bother to have the man who is the main focus of Star Wars to be featured in the sequel trilogy period. The Star Wars Saga was about Anakin and his family. I will forever be bitter and disgusted that Disney went out of their way to erase his presence.

Disney did everything to show what Anakin trained for, struggled for, went to the dark side for and sacrificed everything for was pointless. They introduced force healing, force resurrection, Rey taking the prophecy for herself, his family was tormented by Palpatine until his bloodline became extinct and now we know people can communicate with Tusken raiders. If all of this existed in the prequels, Anakin would’ve never even become Darth Vader. They made Anakin’s entire fall and redemption completely pointless.

I don’t know what it is with Disney, but apparently they get off with backhandedly disrespecting Anakin at every opportunity they get.

I do love Rey, but I agree with this YouTube comment I found a year ago “Rey single handedly destroyed Anakin's entire legacy, and made his whole life a joke. - you don't need to train to be stupidly powerful with the lightsaber or the force. Training isn't necessary anymore, as Rey proves in TFA and TLJ, and in some ways in TROS since I doubt Leia taught her force heal, force skype or force lightning. Thus, Anakin's tough decision to leave his mother in slavery while training to be a Jedi powerful enough to one day save her is made pointless. - you don't need to be in control of your powers. Hell, fits of unexplained anger are encouraged and other characters love you for it. Rey can be rude, destructive and irrational all she wants, and everyone supports her, while Anakin was always taught to obey orders and not think for himself, furthering his feeling of being enslaved and controlled. But nah, he was just wrong I guess. - the path to the dark side is no longer the easy and fast one. Everyone can just decide freely, flip flop between allegiances and do whatever the fuck they want to. I don't know what Anakin was tempted by, Rey is angry all the time, uses force lightning, a power only the most powerful sith can do, and is never tempted in the slightest, always making the morally perfect decisions and never giving in to any temptations. Just be incorruptible, Anakin! - You can force heal easily at no cost. Anakin's mother died for nothing, as did Padme. Anakin's whole turn to the dark side was made utterly ridiculous by this movie. Anakin trained for years, mastering everything he could, striving for more knowledge and wisdom to be powerful enough to save and protect those around him, when he could have just done everything he wanted by closing his eyes. Fucking hell Rey, is there anything you aren't perfect at. - He didn't even kill Palpatine. He didn't redeem himself. He didn't bring peace to the galaxy. He did bring order though, the First Order. Fucking hell, did he actually do anything right or did Rey seriously outclass him in every _single thing he ever did This trilogy just shits on everything that came before. Everyone in Star Wars sucks because Rey is just perfect at everything she does, and all the other characters, with their flaws, struggles and problems they have to overcome just look stupid compared to her and her god powers. I hate this trilogy so much omg words can't describe it”

Let’s look at how much damage was done by not showing Anakin and how much the Sequels destroyed Anakin’s story and legacy

Anakin never warns his children about Snokeatine preying over his grandson, just think if Anakin told them a powerful and ancient dark side user was targeting Ben, Han, Lando, Chewie, Luke and Leia all would’ve gotten together and killed Snoke and by doing that, killing the First/Final Order in the crib.

Anakin never tells his children Palpatine himself is alive. If Anakin told them the truth, he could’ve directed Luke and Leia to his wayfinder, then Orchi’s ship and the stupid knife map. They would find both wayfinders and Luke and Leia would’ve killed Palpatine on Exegol. 

Anakin doesn't warn Leia that visions are not all they seem or how he lost himself because of a vision and tells her not to fall for the same trap he did. 

Anakin never once visits his grandson during his Jedi training or his time as Kylo Ren and tell him his story, Anakin appearing before his grandson and telling him HIS SIDE of HIS STORY could’ve prevented Ben’s fall

Anakin by name is never mentioned

Rey, someone who believed Luke was only a myth. Suddenly knows that Luke redeemed Darth Vader(again, Anakin is never mentioned by name)

Anakin does not appear before his son in his time of need. Instead Yoda does. Anakin knew all there is about failure and what happens when you fall to the dark side.  “failure, the greatest teacher is,” is bullshit. Yoda never learned this lesson to begin with. Yoda is the last person who should be saying anything like this to Luke. Anakin should have went to Luke, not Yoda. You know who would have been the perfect person to tell Luke that failure is the greatest teacher? His father, Anakin Skywalker. If anyone deserved that moment, it was Anakin Skywalker. Both because this should have been his chance to speak with his son AND because when someone is the embodiment of the failures of the Jedi Order, they’re really the one best qualified to call out the bullshit of that organization. Anakin would’ve been the best person to tell Luke to confront Kylo, his grandson. He knows failure more than anyone. Failing to save his mother, failing to save Padme, his failure into giving into the dark side and his fall. Anakin would’ve told him. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to Ben, I’m asking you to come back and save your sister, my daughter. Leia needs you. You never gave up on me. Don’t give up on your friends, your sister or even yourself. You saved me when I thought all was lost, there is still time to make things right. Remember you are a Jedi, like me. Not the last of the old Jedi, Luke. The first of the new.“

Anakin died to save his son. He does not attempt to save him.

The fact that Anakin didn’t even show up to speak to his son when he was at his lowest or when his son was literally dying , was just proof that Disney Lucasfilm didn’t care about him as a character or his story. Anakin’s redemption was saving his son, yet for some reason he just didn’t give a shit about him. There is not even a reason given as to why he didn’t show up.  

Anakin does not appear before his grandson in his turning point. It should have been Anakin who met with Ben, not Han. No one knows more about Palpatine and the dark side than Anakin and revealing the truth could have destroyed the dark side’s hold over his grandson and brought him back to the light and unlike Harrison, Hayden actually wanted to be there. We needed the one moment between Anakin and his grandson. All they did with Han was make little to no sense and just repeat lines from TFA. Harrison is clearly there to collect that sweet Disney money lol he doesn’t like Star Wars or Han Solo, he returned to have Han killed off. Hayden Christensen, however loved Star Wars despite the hate that was directed towards him. He wanted to return to play Anakin one last time. and the perfect way for him to return and to guide his grandson back to the light was Anakin. Anakin knows more than anyone what the dark side can do and what Palpatine is capable of and how much pain he has inflicted. Kylo has always admired Vader, and Anakin can show the truth of how he was manipulated into betraying everything he loved and why the dark side is not the path he should be taking.  I really hate to toot my own horn, but I wrote out a scene where Anakin’s force ghost visits his grandson and helped along his redemption.  “I never wanted you to repeat my mistakes. That pull to the light you were feeling was always me. I wanted you to be better than I was, who I could have been” and showing Ben his memories and what he had to go through. His life as a slave, meeting Padme, meeting Obi-Wan, becoming a Jedi, losing his mother, Order 66, losing Padme and being saved by Luke and finally destroying Palpatine(lol but not really). And telling Ben “Let the light in. You still have a chance, no one is ever really gone“  Ben would then tell his grandfather “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” Anakin puts his hand on his grandson and says “this time we’ll do it together.”

Anakin does not play a role in the defeat of the monster who destroyed his life. Anakin’s redemption, victory and the fulfillment of the Chosen One Prophecy  is now meaningless. He doesn’t even return to face Palpatine or to even power up Ben and Rey.  When Rey says "be with me" in the final fight. What should've happened is the force hears her pleas for help and sends Anakin to confront Sidious. Just imagine Palpatine:It cannot be....Lord Vader? Anakin:That name no longer has any meaning for me No, I am Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master and the chosen one. Palpatine:So be it, "Jedi" Anakin with the help of Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Yoda help Ben rise and empower Ben and Rey. Rey and Ben rise. Ben with his Grandfather’s lightsaber and Rey with Leia’s lightsaber deflecting Palpatine’s Lightning Palpatine"I AM ALL THE SITH! Rey and Ben:And we are the Skywalkers And together they deflect it back at Sidious. Once and for all, Anakin fulfills the prophecy, while not doing it directly, he guided his grandson and Rey and together they destroy the SIth and brings balance to the force. Then Anakin brings back Rey, and bids farewell to his grandson and fades in peace knowing that balance has been brought back and the force is in the safe hands of Rey and Ben.

The entire Skywalker Family goes extinct and everything Anakin fought and sacrificed for is completely meaningless

Anakin's Lightsaber is not recognized as his lightsaber, it is recognized as Luke's Lightsaber and Rey's Lightsaber. Luke has a Lightsaber of his own. He even used it for most of his life after the war as a Jedi master, yet it never makes it into the Sequel Trilogy outside of flashbacks. Where is it????? NO SERIOUSLY WHERE THE FUCK IS IT??????? Rey has a lightsaber of her own as well, but for SOME REASON, they needed Rey to have the Skywalker lightsaber and Leia’s Lightsaber throughout the whole movie. Rey cannot be defined on her own. She needs the Skywalker Lightsaber, she needs the falcon, she needs to be related to be Palpatine and she needed to take the Skywalker name in the end. Anakin doesn’t even get to be acknowledged as the master of his own lightsaber.

Rey steals Anakin's legacy as the chosen one. A PALPATINE STEALS THE SKYWALKER PROPHECY

Anakin’s Lightsaber was buried on Tatooine. Make all the “I don’t like sand” jokes you want. But this is like burying a possession of a freed slave in the remains of a slave plantation. Anakin and Shmi were slaves on this planet, his mother was brutally tortured and murdered, his step-brother and sister and Luke’s aunt and uncle were brutally murdered and his daughter was a Hutt’s sex slave. This is the absolute last place he’d ever want his Lightsaber to be buried. Every Skywalker and Solo hated Tatooine. Anakin wanted to escape a life of slavery and see the stars. Luke looks at that double sunset, longing to escape his mundane life, wanting to travel the galaxy to fight the good fight. Rey looks at the double sunset because it's supposed to pander to the OT fans. Bury Anakin’s Lightsaber in his wife’s mausoleum and his spirit would be at peace. But oh no, we can’t have that, the money needs it’s OT nostalgia and we can’t legitimize the prequels because this movie was made by a prequel hating asshole.  I don’t understand why Luke’s Green Lightsaber was never used again. Could’ve been given to Finn and when he’s done, Rey helps him build a Lightsaber of his own. Then Rey can bury Luke, Leia, and Anakin’s Lightsabers in Padme’s mausoleum with Rey, Finn and Ben looking on as the force ghosts of Anakin, Luke and Leia looks on them in peace and it would be a fitting way to end the Skywalker Saga.

Anakin does not appear as a force ghost. He doesn’t see his grandson. He doesn’t see Rey. He doesn’t appear with Luke and Leia at the end of the movie. It’s like JJ Abrams has some sort of vendetta against the Prequels. This is what happens when an OT purist is given power.

Ben Solo dies and is not given a chance to earn his redemption and thus the Skywalker family dies out. He did terrible things as Kylo Ren, but if you want him to redeem himself, actually give him a redemption arc. When he feels his mother die, let him truly feel remorse for his actions Let him see the force ghosts of Luke and Anakin. They set him on the path to make things right. Ben and Rey stop Palpatine together, they kiss and Ben goes on a path of atonement. Ben gets in the falcon and takes Leia’s lightsaber and goes to every known First Order base with the intention of righting his wrongs and making things right. When he returns to Rey, they go to Naboo to place Anakin, Luke and Leia’s Lightsaber’s in Padme’s mausoleum and it ends with Rey and Ben holding hands as the Skywalker family looks on proud and happily that the future is in good hands. Like....Anakin, Leia and Luke would’ve wanted their family to live on and wanted Ben to live. It isn’t rocket science, Anakin would’ve wanted Ben to be given the chance he wasn’t given to redeem himself and live to tell the tale.

Bringing back Palpatine back destroyed Anakin’s entire arc. I don’t care if it happened in Legends. It was fucking stupid then and it was stupid now. The impact of Order 66? The Sequel Trilogy ruined it. I hate how the Sequel Trilogy really shat on this moment. Order 66 was a tragedy for the Clones, Jedi, Separatists, Mandalorians, Night Sisiters and even Maul. Everyone lost except Sidious. When Darth Vader threw him over the railing he was avenging basically everyone. But the Sequel Trilogy rewrites that moment and makes it redundant. In my book, the series timeline ends at the Mandalorian. The Prophecy of The Chosen One? It’s no longer about Anakin. He is no longer the one to destroy The Sith and to bring Balance to the Force. His fall and redemption? It’s now pointless, Palpatine’s clone body was the one that got destroyed, not Palpatine himself and he returned and built up the Empire stronger than ever. Anakin saving Luke and finally killing Palpatine was beautiful. Something that really makes Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker saving Luke beautiful in my mind is actually Anakin/Vader’s perspective.  Qui-Gon was killed, his mother died a senseless death that he couldn't prevent, the Jedi Council was always wary of him and  never took him seriously, Padme spurned him after he became Vader -- which he only did to protect her from dying -- and died anyway, his best friend hacked off all his limbs and left him to burn to death and Sidious manipulated and lied to him from the time he was a kid, only wanted him for his force powers to use as a glorified hitman and openly contemplated replacing him constantly after he lost his duel to Kenobi on Mustafar and was maimed. The dude either lost or was (in his mind) betrayed by basically everyone he ever knew and cared about, except his son, who even to the end never lost faith in him. He was beaten and helpless and Luke had just severed his hand. Sidious then goaded Luke to finish Vader off and become his new apprentice, but Luke refused to turn on his father. The minute he realized Luke was the only person who hadn't betrayed, used, abandoned or left him was the minute Vader died and Anakin returned. This, in a nut shell, is the story of Star Wars. It is the story of a child from Tattooine who was finally able to save someone he loved.  Anakin has been manipulated by Palpatine since the moment he became a Jedi. Palpatine put visions of Padme’s death in his head until it was a reality. He went to the dark side to save his wife and children. He manipulated him into destroying the Jedi. He turned Anakin into Darth Vader and used Darth Vader as his enforcer. Until a moment of hope. His children lived. He thought all was lost until his son believed in him. In his final moments, his life, he saved his son and fulfilled the prophecy. Darth Vader is the ultimate villain deconstruction. He started out as a faceless monster to be defeated, a demon to be slain so peace would be restored. But Luke managed to look beneath the mask of intimidation and saw his father for what he truly was; a broken man who had been a slave his whole life and had lost all hope of redeeming himself. In the end Luke brought Anakin Skywalker back not because he convinced Vader to love him, because Anakin loved Luke since the moment he knew he would be born and never stopped loving him. And the decision to reveal that Palpatine didn’t really die and manipulated his grandson to kill Luke, that honestly cheapens Anakin’s arc. Just think with how he was brought back. They didn’t have an explanation. He is just there in the opening crawl. We didn’t hear his message in the movie, we heard it in fucking fortnite. And Poe’s line. “Somehow, Palpatine has returned” plays like a line from some kind of parody to Hollywood franchises. It’s actually... insulting. Like they are basically slapping us with “this is happening, we don’t have an explanation, just watch the damn movie and get us paid” without even the decency of trying to hide it. That line didn’t have to be in there. It revealed nothing, it provided no character development... it was literally just there to admit that the film really is as bad as you think. And of course, it’s something we HAVE to read in a book to figure out. If it’s not in your fucking movie, don’t fucking bother having it. Bringing back Palpatine made the first 6 movies entirely pointless. Palpatine outliving Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Han Luke and Leia is the ultimate desecration of Star Wars. “it was always the plan to bring Palpatine back” and that is the problem. Its actually amazing how little the folks at Lucasfilm, Bad Reboot and Disney “get” Star Wars. Having the ultimate bad guy of the first 6 films live to see Episode 9 when the heroes who supposedly defeated him are long dead. It literally destroys the core mythology of the Star Wars universe and makes the selfless choices our characters made unrewarding. That’s just depressing. Their sacrifices and triumphs are ultimately undermined, devalued and utterly pointless. Moral of the story, nothing you did mattered, let the new generation clean up your mess because the money says so. And making Rey Palpatine’s granddaughter, killing EVERY LIVING Skywalker and having a Palpatine steal the legacy of the Skywalkers is desecration of Star Wars. Rey isn’t related to the Skywalkers it’s so creepy that she stole everything from them. She stole the falcon, she stole Luke’s lightsaber, she stole their family name. She stole Anakin and Luke’s ultimate victory over Palpatine. Their legacy. Palpatine won…..This is disgusting. The Skywalkers all dying and Rey taking the name is an exact summation of this trilogy. Tearing down all the old heroes and everything they did just for the new ones to do the same exact thing. Just to prop Rey up? You CAN build up new characters without tearing down the old characters and their legacy. Everything in this trilogy was done to break down and humiliate the characters we cared about and imitate something that was done in the past and has no substance. 

Rey didn’t need to be a Palpatine or take the Skywalker name. This isn’t me hating on Rey. Rey can be a great character by standing on her own. Rey being related to NO ONE was powerful and shows us that even someone who came from Jakku can be a powerful Jedi. She doesn’t earn anything on her own. She downloaded all of Kylo’s abilities. She took the Falcon, she made Chewbacca her personal uber, she took BB-8 from Poe and buried Anakin and Leia’s lightsaber on the literal symbolic oppression of the Skywalker family instead of something peaceful like Naboo or Ach-To. She has her own Lightsaber, but never uses it. Rey being a Palpatine and taking the Skywalker name undoes the beautiful story the revelation TLJ had does. She didn’t need to be a Palpatine and she didn’t need to take the Skywalker name or even their relics.  Rey Nobody works. Here’s why. Rey’s story is her own, it is not her parents, it is not about where she came from, it’s about where she is going, and who she decides to become. Maz Kanata said “The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is in front of you.” Rey in the TFA trailers said “I’m no one” Rey never thought or wanted her parents to be important in TFA, she was literally going to pass up adventure and being important to stay on Jakku because what she wanted was her family to finally come home. She didn't want to be important or wanted her parents to be important. The audience wanted that. Any more lingering discussion of the possibility of Rey’s parents being ‘somebody’ only is distracting you from the actually beautiful story that is being told. Rey is a story of a girl who raised herself, who held onto hope for people who didn’t deserve it, she is a story of how light can be born from darkness, and Rey is story of someone who was scared of her own truth—but then finally faced it. Rey being a Nobody is the story I was skeptical of at first, but grew to love, the story that gives me more hope than any Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo story ever would. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was so forced and unnecessary because all the whiny pissants did not like that a girl was skilled and powerful in her own right and because Rey did not have a good relationship with Luke in the first place. JJ was so set in just making Rey a Luke clone that it just undoes character development. If Rey had to take a name, Solo or Organa would make the most sense since she actually had a relationship with Han, Leia and Ben. Say what you want about how RIan Johnson handled Rey in TLJ. At least he treated Rey like her own person, with her own journey, and her own desires and fears, rather than consigning her to be a vessel for OT nostalgia. And at least he allowed her to actually have a new outfit and new hair style. At least he let her change. Like him or not, Rian Johnson treated Rey with more respect and identity than JJ Abrams ever did. It means more than making her related to anyone because Rey was every lonely girl who wanted to be a part of something but didn't feel like they belonged. Every woman who learned to make her way in the world alone. Every person who clung to hope when they had nothing left. She is so many things to so many people. Rey Nobody can be fierce, angry and powerful without it connecting to a man or evil bloodline. She can love, be curious and emotional without being weak. She is a scavenger, a Jedi, and one half of a powerful Dyad. She is Rey of Jakku and that's all we needed. Rey calling herself a Skywalker denied her every last inch of who she was. Her character arc was ruined to please men that thought her power needed to be connected to a man for it to make sense. All we needed her arc to be was Rey accepting that she needs to be her own hero and loving herself for who she is, rather than who she wanted her hypothetical parents to be. And honestly Rey in TROS was a huge disappointment. Her entire character arc was regressed, she's back to wearing the buns and dressed all in white and sticks to the glorification of the Jedi. It's like everything she learned in the last movie never happened. And honestly her character in TROS  is what men think a "strong female character" is She fights, but they don’t have to deal with her processing internal pain. She loves, but they don’t have to deal with her fully exploring her desires. She’s a “badass,” & for them that is enough. When I say "A Palpatine is left and steals the legacy of the Skywalkers" I am not suggesting she doesn't deserve the title. I am saying that essentially, Palpatine won. Anakin, Padme, Luke, Han, Leia and Ben are all dead. Leia died for nothing. Leia deserved to see her son come home, and to see the end of the monster who ruined her family. She didn’t deserve to feel her child die. The entire line of the family is now extinct. The wiki even says "the extinction of the family name" what kind of depressing garbage is this? JJ Abrams ended the entire Skywalker saga on Palpatine successfully using love to manipulate, corrupt, hurt or kill every single Skywalker across three generations, ultimately resulting in the total eradication of the Skywalker, Solo and Amidala bloodlines, whilst Palpatine's heir lives on and claims the Skywalker name and legacy. Rey calling herself "Rey Skywalker" was patronizing and insulting and demeans what Rey's journey meant in the first two movies to everyone who loved her. Rey coming from Jakku and nothing but rising up as a heroic Jedi means more than "you have his power...you are a Palpatine" or "Rey Rey Skywalker" ever will. Women Of The Galaxy author Amy Ratcliffe says it best. “Even beyond the trappings of the Star Wars saga — the First Order, the Resistance, the Force — Rey’s story is inspiring, familiar, and timeless. Just because you come from nothing doesn’t mean you’re not part of the story. You’re not no one, because anybody can save the galaxy. Anybody.“

If anyone still cannot understand my problem with bringing back Palpatine and why I find it narratively offensive. Just imagine this. What if Harry discovered that Dumbledore was wrong and Voldemort had far more than 7 horcruxes? Ashamed and afraid, he hides Ginny and the Potter children among the muggles. A defeated Ron returns to the burrow, while Hermione spends her days searching for Horcruxes. Years later, a 17 year old, Rachel Marvela Riddle, begins discovering her new powers, despite never receiving her Hogwart’s letter. Her magic is incredibly strong, but she is everything Tom was not. With the help of some friends, she tracks down the remaining Horcruxes and finally destroys the true Voldemort, for good and realsies this time! Also she starts calling herself the Girl Who Lived. This is the plot of Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.. What if Harry didn’t actually destroy Voldemort? What if The One Ring survived Mt. Doom? Interesting concepts, but they would devalue everything that came before. The entire point of the Sequel Trilogy is disregarding generations of storytelling because no one behind this trilogy had any original or creative stories to tell. This is how Star Wars dies, with uncreativity and greed.

Anakin Skywalker’s story and family was destroyed, belittled, insulted and stolen by a Palpatine. Hell, even from a certain point of view PALPATINE WON! AGAIN!

[irenadel]

So I’m re-reading Son of Dathomir because part of me really, really wants to write Maul fic and therefore must consume Maul content. (Also I have yet to watch the 7th season of TCW and I wanna be ready you know? I wanna be fully prepared for my Maul fix). And all this shit is happening in Son of Dathomir that I don’t remember noticing back in the day, but I’m noticing it now. WTF, why didn’t anyone tell me to pay attention!? Are these the comic writers!?  Is this Filoni!? What!!! WHAT!!!!

So this was all mother Talzin’s plan!? The whole Mandalore arc!? WHAT! This wasn’t just Maul being a petty bitch!? Omg and why are you listening to the revenge-fuelled woman in the green mist Maul!? This is what got Savage killed!!! I mean what am I talking about... of course he’s listening to her! His entire life is about listening to authority figures obssessed with revenge. Like I’ve always thought Maul and Anakin have more in common than people give em credit for but this, this right here, this Maul being an obedient little mama’s warmonger... omg I had forgotten this...

And then omg... omg... he calls ‘em “brothers”!? He never called em brothers before!!! T_T this hurts my heart! this hurts me personally!... this is Attempt #1 at Replacing Savage and I bet he doesn’t even realize it. I had completely and fully erased from my mind the fact that he called his men “brothers” for this bit... I probably did it in self defense too... so this means Ezra Bridger is probably Attempt #230492323 “Succesful at Last!”

Oh no... oh no.... Talzin sent nightbrothers....why don’t I remember Talzin sending nightbrothers!? Omg no, and that’s Viscus there... oh god this is gonna hurt.... (Also, comic!Maul always seems to be so much crankier than animated!Maul. Is it circumstances? Is it the medium? Do comic book artists just like to draw him snarling much more than I thought they did?)

Okaaaay, getting Oedipal Mommy Issues Vibes here.... which all in all actually work really well with my pet theory on why mommy Talzin is obssesed with just one of her three known sprogs! It suits me just fine as much as it creeps me out. I like this Bad, Bad Feeling, I approve of it. And since when are Talzin and Maul so touchy feely??? Doesn’t she just fuck the whole fuck off after she finishes giving him Dark Magic Therapy to make him stop slobbering over himself? SHE DOES! I just checked! She fucks off after calling him Son of Dathomir!!! She calls him my favorite of all his titles and she just vanishes into the ether.... when did they get so chummy? Noooooo, don’t follow her revenge quest! it is as empty as Sidious’s! T_T You will feel as empty as you did after killing your hate!girlfriend from that other comic! (that jedi padawan watshername Eldra Kaitis! that girl!)

I just realized Maul’s life is dominated by Other People’s Revenge Quests that he never finds fulfilment in, and then he tries his own Revenge Quests and it also ends up sucking.... you’d think he’d learn..... you’d think those sith apprentices would learn.... (Imlookinatchu Kylo/Anakin/Dooku even!)