#and in like the second scene she cuts holes in the ground with a lightsaber and it fucked me up a little bit

[tiktaaliker]

i have this thing where sometimes i see a smooth surface (cgi is specifically bad for this) and some part of my brain goes. hey wouldnt it be fucked up if that was Flawlessly and Perfectly Smooth. and i go yeah that would be fucked up and proceed to have an anxiety attack over the concept of a really really really flat rock face or some shit like that

[him-e]

How confirmed is the "she doesn't mourn him" aspect though? Leakers aren't always good at understanding acting/human emotion

She doesn’t mourn him. The only part that can be vaguely read as mourning him is the burying the two lightsabers in the ground on Tatooine.

Idk if you have the seen the leaked video of the death but very anticlimatic, there isn’t even time to cry about it everything rushed for no reason basically. I want to know who in the right mind thought this was a good idea to make a death like this. And the worst part they left so many questions unanswered which should be the most important aspect of ending a saga, yeah they leave some stuff ambiguous but the narrative isn’t cohesive and leaves a lot of plot holes. It’s like GOT again

I’ve just seen the movie. The death scene is like, Ben drops dead and vanishes and Rey looks mildly confused/upset for half a second. Then they cut to the rest of the Resistance rejoicing à la RotJ. Finn’s like, “Rey is alive!!”, and there’s a shot of Rey piloting with her helmet on, looking 100% fine. Then she jumps down her ship and reunites with BB-8 with her stupid ass Rey smile on. Everyone’s happy and satisfied and the film really acts like Ben dying just seconds earlier never happened.

You’re basically being asked to be happy with and for these people you give zero fucks about, just like the audience was happy in RotJ despite Vader’s death, except this time it doesn’t work because the guy who died was a young man, and a son, and a lover, and someone whom the kids deeply identify with. Someone who showed up minutes earlier in a black t-shirt looking every bit like a redeemed Ben Solo, and who just crawled out of a pit, stumbling and sobbing and holding the dead body of the woman he loves in his arms. And you’re being asked to be okay that he dies like that. You’re being asked to be happy.

It’s painfully, atrociously tone deaf. It makes you want to gag, I’m not kidding. I personally felt sick, like my feelings didn’t matter. I can’t believe Star Wars is out there asking children to have zero feelings for a boy who was coded as a “son” and suffered his whole life, and not only killed this character off unceremoniously but didn’t give them any tools or mental space to process his death either. It’s incredibly damaging, in my opinion. I felt a degree of cognitive dissonance I rarely experience in fiction. It was deeply, deeply uncomfortable and painful.

[heliotrope-r]

I’m a bit miffed that there’s a comic coming out set between TLJ and TROS and Kylo’s still in “seething about destroying the Resistance” mode and ordering the destruction of planets for just helping them. It’s like...I guess his expression and demeanor in the last Force bond didn’t mean that much? It’s also impacting my view of his redemption, not going to lie, he has the authority as SL and is doing a lot worse things and hasn’t learned anything at all, fully regressing...

Oooh! Thank you for asking this, as I was JUST thinking about this very thing tonight and considering writing something up on Twitter about it. Now I’ll do it on Tumblr instead! 

I completely understand (and share!) your frustration with Kylo’s ongoing crusade to crush the Resistance, especially when he knows Rey is with them, and may even know by now that his mother is still alive. How could he behave so cruelly and ruthlessly after what happened at the end of TLJ? Surely after venting his rage against Luke’s Force projection and then finding the base on Crait empty and nothing left for him but the fading illusion of Han’s dice, surely after seeing the reproach on Rey’s face as she closed the door of the Falcon and cut off the Force Bond contact that had opened between them, he should have realized the error of his ways and repented? And if weeks or perhaps even months have passed since then and he’s still raging and frothing about destroying the Resistance and everything and everyone associated with them, doesn’t that look like distressingly like a sign that Kylo Ren is only going to plunge deeper into the Dark Side from this point on, and never repent or return to the Light at all?

At first glance, it certainly does look like that -- and I think a lot of fans are going to see it that way (even including some who sincerely care about Kylo and hoped to see him redeemed in the end, but who can’t imagine how that could be possible anymore). But Kylo’s behaviour in Allegiance #1, disappointing as it may be, is far from being out of line with a redemption story. In fact, it’s perfectly in line with one of the most famous redemption stories of all time -- that of Saul of Tarsus, a man who started out as a fanatical enemy and persecutor of the early Christian disciples, and later ended up being a leading disciple and preacher of the Christian faith himself.

Bear with me here, I’m about to get Bibley on you but it’s all relevant, I promise.

Saul���s first big chance to repent and change -- his TLJ moment, you might call it -- is found in Acts chapter 7, where we meet him witnessing the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Stephen delivers a powerful, moving speech before his death by stoning, including praying for God to forgive his executioners, and Saul is right there to hear every word of it. But how does he react to this moving scene? The answer is right at the start of chapter 8:

... Saul approved of [Stephen’s] execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria ... Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Judging by his behaviour, it looks like Saul was the very opposite of touched by Stephen’s eloquent speech and courageous death for what he believed. In fact, it just seems to have made Saul hate Christians even more. But then we get to Acts 9, when Saul, who is still “breathing out threatenings and slaughter” (sound familiar?) against the Christians and has even doubled down on his efforts to destroy them, is suddenly struck on his way to Damascus by a vision of Jesus speaking to him from heaven:

And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

That’s all we get in that chapter to explain what happened to Saul, but it’s the beginning of an absolutely monumental transformation -- his conversion into Paul the apostle, a man who would dedicate the rest of his life to preaching and teaching the message of Jesus Christ and eventually became a martyr himself. And although it might seem like this transformation came out of nowhere, Paul admits in a later account of his conversion that Stephen’s death had made a big impact on him and left him ashamed of what he’d done:

And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’ (Acts 22:20)

But here’s my favorite part, from an even later version of Saul’s testimony:

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ (Acts 26:14)

In other words, the exact reason Saul was so fiercely motivated to destroy the Christians, the reason he doubled down on attacking them after Stephen was martyred, was not because Stephen’s words and his courage hadn’t moved Saul but precisely because they had. They’d left Saul feeling ashamed of himself for the part he’d taken in Stephen’s murder, and uncomfortably aware that he was very likely taking the wrong side. But instead of admitting he’d been wrong and changing his ways, he’d thrown himself desperately into doing even more harm to the Christians, in an effort to harden his conscience and get rid of those nagging, goading, nastily prickling doubts.

And this is very often the way human beings in general behave when we’re confronted by someone, or something, that tells us we’re doing wrong. We don’t want to hear it, it makes us unhappy and uncomfortable, we’re scared of how much damage we may have done to ourselves and others if we really are wrong -- so we snarl and snap and fight that possibility with everything we’ve got. We can’t see any way out of the hole we’ve already dug for ourselves, so our instinct tells us to just keep digging and pray we end up somewhere.

That’s what I think Kylo Ren is doing in Allegiance #1, and what I expect to still find him doing at the beginning of TROS. He’s kicking against the goads. He knows deep down he’s on the wrong side, that he shouldn’t have refused the chances for redemption that Rey and Luke offered him, and his guilty conscience is driving him wild with frustration. He invested everything he had in becoming Supreme Leader, in proving that he could bring order and peace to the galaxy, and yet the Resistance keeps slipping through his fingers and gaining more and more support for their rebellion. Their very existence taunts him with the knowledge of the good man he could and should have been, and that’s unbearable to him. He has to wipe them out, or (he tells himself) he’ll never know any peace.

Hux and the other First Order generals can afford to be cool about the Resistance, to consider them an insignificant threat, because they’re completely convinced of their own power, superiority and ultimate rightness. Their consciences are so seared by a lifetime of loyalty to Snoke (and before that, the Emperor) that they don’t feel a single iota of doubt or remorse. But Kylo can’t be cool, because he’s terrified. He can’t relax and bide his time, because every second the Resistance continues to exist reminds him that there’s another, better side in this war and he should be on it. 

So in essence, Kylo’s fanatical zeal to destroy the Resistance is exactly what shows us that he isn’t fully committed to evil, despite all his best efforts to prove otherwise. The pre-TFA Kylo who coolly stuck his lightsaber through the Benathy king’s skull and cut his lieutenant off at the knees, who smirked after carving through a Zillo Beast from the inside out and strode into Tuanul like he owned the place, was the closest we’ll ever see him to being a true sold-out-to-the-Dark-Side villain. But the Kylo we’ve been seeing since Crait is a panicked, hysterical mess who makes his own officers side-eye him for his bad strategic decisions, because he literally cannot see past his own obsession with destroying the Resistance. And that very fixation tells me that he’s closer to turning than he’s ever been before.

[misplacedgamer]

Meta on “Farewell”, aka the Reylo Theme that Never Was

So I was listening to TRoS soundtrack on Spotify and of course I immediately went to the track “Farewell” (because I like to suffer), and I noticed how...weird it sounded when isolated from the scene it’s placed in. Listened to it a few more times, and I definitely think it lends credence to the theory that there was supposed to be a different ending, and maybe even that it was originally intended to be a triumphant love theme ala “Across the Stars”. And since I have nothing better to do this Christmas, let’s walk through it shall we? I have also been watching the scene for my comparison, so if you’d like to see what I used for comparison please click here. Theory continues under the Read More

The first 40-45 seconds actually line up really well. It’s a reprise of Rey’s theme, but quiet and fading. I think Rey’s death was always supposed to be in this film, or at least a scene where she falls after defeating ol’ Palps. I’m not sure why Rey would fall after deflecting lightning with two sabers full of the entire will of the Force when Mace Windu did the same thing by himself with one lightsaber, but honestly that’s another post for another time. Rey falls, the scene pans down, and her theme cuts out immediately as Ben’s hand enters from the pit. So far, all good.

Next we get maybe my favorite part of the song: Kylo Ren’s reprise. I know I probably shouldn’t like it because that’s not who Ben is anymore, but I think the grief and tension he feels in this scene are high enough to mimic how he always felt as Kylo, so it’s acceptable to keep here. It’s so great how tense this music is, not the full orchestration of his theme but just a few notes for the leitmotif. There’s also a really great part here where the violins swell like it’s going to morph into Rey’s theme (showing just how complementary the themes for these two are), but it never resolves; it just sits there and you feel completely how lost Ben is without Rey. The music does start to get chopped up here though. There’s a bit more of a swell around 1:23 on the Spotify song that’s not in the movie, but it’s not completely cut and I think the shorter length works in the film’s favor so still nothing too bad.

So next we have the hug and the heal. The music sounds about the same for both of these, but it all sounds a bit weirdly timed. Like Ben should start hugging her on the swell of this section (1:38 in the attached video) but he hugs her around 1:34 instead. The cut isn’t even on the swell either, so it all feels a bit disjointed to me, but this might be a nitpick, so idk. If I’m honest him placing his hand on her stomach to heal her seems a bit out of time too. At 1:55 in the video the music drops and switches to another section, so to me that seems like when he should pull away and start to heal, but he’s already touching her. This whole part seems like its a bit fast forwarded, but just the video, so the audio is just out of sync.

The music slips back in time though, and this next bit is great. Everything from the hand touch to Rey saying “Ben” is so excellent. Before the touch, the music starts to slide back into tones that remind me of Kylo’s theme, like maybe it's not going to work, but then the hand touch comes and the music back to a major key. It’s Rey’s theme at first, but then it swells into something wild and screeches to a halt because you (like our heroes) can’t believe it. Is this really happening? Are they really both back? Did they really make it out ok? You can see it on Ben’s face too, the disbelief that Rey’s really alive, like he’s just waiting for it all to be an illusion. And then the music halts, letting everything sink in, and Rey calls Ben’s name and smiles the widest smile (I fucking love this smile, it’s so beautiful). And for me this is the last time this music really fits what’s going on in the scene, so how fitting that it’s on something so lovely.

And now, at last, we get the kiss, and this is where things get wonky. I don’t understand the musical timing of this at all. The kiss happens in the middle of a bar, and it’s such a quiet moment too. Y’all know how Star Wars scores its kissing scenes; it is not subtle. So to have it both start and resolve quiet is a little odd. There’s also been Twitter/Reddit posts going around saying that Rey is definitely supposed to have dialogue here, and I agree. I think what was supposed to happen was a quiet conversation where Rey just pours her lonely heart out, and that’s where Ben smiles then passes out. 

The collapse/death is also a little weird, cause the music does quickly divert back into a minor key, indicating that yes, something bad is happening here, but its not totally sorrowful either. This section resolves on a light, almost wistful tone. The film uses it to show him passing into the force, but it’s so weird. Combine that with the footage looking like it’s been reversed and it’s all a strange effect. 

So finally, I would like to get to the crux of why I think this track was intended to be something completely different: the last minute of it that, as far as I remember, is not in the film. So around 3:56 in on Spotify, the trumpets of the Resistance/the space battles come in. I believe this part is in the film, and it plays when Poe and Finn spot Rey in the air as Red 5, but it immediately cuts to the next track, “Reunion”, without a fade out. The problem with this is that there’s one last big swell of music near 4:18. It has a sweet violin buildup, then a great sweeping long section of strings and a choir and everything. THAT feels like the kiss music there. Right there is the huge “Across the Stars” sting that the Reylo kiss needed. So I’m wondering if maybe that’s where the kiss was supposed to go, or maybe that Ben was supposed to pass out then when it cuts to Red 5 in the air it’s a surprise that he’s with her, and they kiss again. When I originally heard it, I thought that it cut to everyone cheering outside, Rey and Ben would watch it inside the throne room, then they would kiss as a culmination/celebration of them winning. Then it would smash cut to the Resistance and everyone coming home. 

I know there are holes in this theory, but honestly I feel like the song proves this scene was supposed to go very differently. I’m not even sure it was originally called “Farewell” in the first place. It resolves so joyously and hopeful that it feels like it was originally called something else. Why would you end your song meant to underscore a death scene with sweeping strings and happy music when the very next track is a happy reunion and you could have just put it there and had the music carry over between the scenes? If I had to guess, this was originally meant to be the Ben/Rey love theme, probably called “You’re Not Alone” or something equally sweet and it was changed because they changed their minds at the last minute. Now I’ll just continue to live in my happy place where Disney plans to retcon this movie due to backlash and Adam agrees to come back despite the mistreatment his character received and Rey is allowed to be the grey character she’s always been instead of a pure cinnamon roll who’s only evil was due to her lineage.

Oh, one last thing: that sweeping melody used in “Farewell” at the end is also used in the “Finale” during the ending credits. It starts at 6:30 goes until the opening crawl theme starts and it’s fucking beautiful. 

Edit: It also appears throughout the track “Rise of Skywalker”, which for some reason plays over the Resistance reunion scene. Weird that no Skywalker has risen there yet, since Rey’s not yet taken their name. It’s almost like there should have been a Skywalker there....maybe one who’d risen from the Dark Side, from a literal hell pit, AND who’d just risen off the ground after collapsing from his wounds. HMMMMMMM

If I’ve made any errors, please let me know. I only have the death scene footage on hand, so I wasn’t able to double check the stuff after Leia fades, and I do not have every Star Wars leitmotif memorized, so I might be wrong about some of this. Also just htm if you wanna discuss TROS or anything else Star Wars, I’d love to talk. Thanks to @youunderestimatebensolo for the footage!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!!!!!

[roses-foxes]

TROS feelings but i try to keep it all in one (long) post

I’ve had some time to think about this film, read lots of different opinions on it, consider the things I hated and liked about it, and I guess I just want to share? Let’s start with the good stuff

What I liked 

It’s really not much but some positivity is always nice lol

Adam Driver’s acting! He’s not the only good actor in this, but imo he’s far above the rest. I’m 90% sure he’s getting that Oscar for Marriage Story, but he’s also extremely good in this despite having probably more than half of his lines cut or altered (more on that later) and he deserves that recognition

The fact that Finn, Poe and Rey had stuff to do as a trio, even though it wasn’t well done (more on that later)

The Han moment with Ben 

Rey being cheered on by all the past Jedi (more on that later too)

The concept of Rey burying the lightsabers and the last shot being on Tattooine at sunset 

The lighstaber “””magic trick””” through the force with Rey and Ben

The entire dyad thing with Rey and Ben, actually

That’s literally it lmao I truly hate this film 

What I think the problems are 

Even if I hadn’t read stuff about it before, it’s super painfully obvious as you watch it that they had reshoots/line changes/storyline changes and it makes the film not make any sense at all, it’s such a mess. 

A lot of super important lines by Kylo Ren are delivered with his mask on? There are also other instances without his mask where he’s either not in shot as he speaks or he has his arm in front of his mouth etc.. The more I think about it, the more I realise there’s literally no point at all in the story for him to reconstruct his mask. The scene where he does it is like.. 3 seconds long?? Like there’s no real emphasis on it even though it’s super important character-wise? UNLESS... it was done only to make sure lines (and therefore storylines) could be easily changed in the edit. I don’t think there’s actually a shot of anyone in the film saying, with their lips moving in shot, visibly “Rey is a Palpatine”, and that’s weird as hell? Rey herself never even really REACTS to it properly? In a saga that puts so much importance on legacy, she SHOULD have reacted, like Luke reacted when he learned Vader was his dad. Also Oscar Isaac said the actors had no idea that was a thing before the premiere..? Which implies there was no big table read with that part included and only a few people knew of that change? In my opinion it’s clear that this isn’t how the storyline was originally planned, and it probably was a last minute decision that they tried to make work with minor reshoots and some editing (the lightning when Rey blows up the ship Chewie is believed to be in could have been added in post-prod, for example). 

That’s not the only change, a lot of people have pointed out that Rey speaks to Ben in the end (before the kiss), like, you can clearly see that her lips are moving and that he’s listening to her, but that conversation was cut for some reason? In many shots of that scene, Adam’s hair are longer then shorter, his hands are gloved then ungloved, Rey’s reaction to his death is super weird, he’s never mentioned again at all, he doesn’t get a force ghost even though Anakin did at the end of RoTJ, the shot where he falls back and dies makes more sense in reverse when you look at the angle of Rey’s arm etc.. it’s very possible in my mind that Ben Solo dying wasn’t originally planned either and they just reshot the kiss or something, but yeah that whole thing felt particularly sloppy to me. Props to Daisy and Adam for still making it kinda work though. 

The editor of the film has said herself in a podcast that they used the “speaks with the mask on”, “not in shot” etc kind of tricks to allow them to change things up. Like idk what the hell happened to the original movie outline but I’m 10000% sure that it wasn’t what we ended up seeing at all. 

What would have been my ideal TROS (or what would have at least slightly improved it)

Involve Rose Tico??? Instead of setting her aside for no reason at all, have her go on the mission with the trio, like it really isn’t that hard? Adding one (1) tiny little scene showing what her relationship with Rey is like would also have been great. Either continue the romance with Finn and develop it more, or establish that they decided to remain friends, but don’t cast it aside and pretend it never happened? What they did to her is fucking gross honestly. My heart breaks in a million pieces for KMT 

 Develop!! Rey!!! and Poe!! It’s clear that they were going with OT trio vibes with Rey/Finn/Poe, except that Finn’s relationship with Poe and Rey are developed separately, but Rey and Poe aren’t with each other. So it doesn’t really seem like a trio and more like 2 duos that have Finn in common, you know? In the OT, Han/Luke Han/Leia & Luke/Leia were all developed, and that’s why the trio worked as a whole by the end of the saga. Instead what TROS did was make Rey and Poe bicker 80% of the time for no real reason? Then hug? So.. are they friends or not bc it’s a bit hard to tell? 

Cut that whole wayfinder plot to make it wayyy shorter. It was so stupid to watch (the knife needing to be placed exactly right at the exact right place, are you kidding me JJ Abrams? Is this Benjamin Gates or smth?), it didn’t do anything at all for the characters journey, it introduced people (Zorii and Jannah) that, as cool as they were, ended up not doing much at all...? Those were weird ass choices that ended up taking away screen time that could have actually been useful for the characters we already had. If you wanted a cool female character, JJ, Rian Johnson already had one. But where was she all that time? Oh, yeah. Off screen. 

NO REY PALPATINE. Makes no sense at all, is awful, has super weird implications that are never really explained, it’s full of plot holes... just big huge no. Rey being Rey Nobody was extremely powerful. It meant creating your OWN legacy, your OWN history, it connected her with the audience more. Rian Johnson actually surprised me with this, and I would have loved for it to stay that way. This is actually what crushed me the most about the entire film, I refuse this as canon completely. 

Ideally,... no Palpatine at all? Him coming back kinda ruins Vader’s arc for me. Ofc one big bad was needed after Snoke’s death and Kylo Ren getting an obvious redemption (yes, it was obvious, I’m not even gonna go through explaining it, just rewatch the 2 previous films). But Hux was RIGHT THERE. We knew he was a big BIG mean guy since his dictator speech in TFA, he had more to do with Starkiller Base than Kylo Ren ever had (yep, thats canon hoes), he always hated Kylo Ren, he almost killed him in Snoke’s throne room, I mean??? Plus Domhnall Gleeson is an excellent actor, why waste him like this when you can give him a great character arc where he does a coup and takes over the First Order?? Nonesense

Have Kylo/Ben’s redemption earlier in the movie and show him actively save lives before joining Rey’s side. I don’t necessarily hate how it played out in the film but I was pissed off that for a movie called The Rise of Skywalker, the actual Skywalker still alive barely speaks or does much once he comes back from the dark side. If you go for a redemption, GO for it, make him break Vader’s mask intentionally, make him feel Hux’s betrayal, make him be heroic. And ideally, once he saved lots of lives, imply that he intends on rebuilding the things he broke.. and make him live. Because having a last minute good action then “poof, he’s dead!” isn’t reverse Anakin/Vader, it’s a direct parallel to it. Which is a lot less interesting to watch as an audience. Why make a new trilogy if the ending is so similar to the original one? Why make it all about balance if Rey ends up forever brokenhearted bc her dyad in the force died? 

Still regarding Kylo/Ben: A FORCE GHOST MOMENT WITH ANAKIN WAS SO ESSENTIAL FFS? Even one with Luke? Or literally any other Jedi, like I’m so mad about that. He was the LAST Skywalker. Rey was cheered on by all the jedi and that was cool as hell, but when he was lying in that pit he should have been cheered on too? It would have been such an awesome scene to have that parallel between them (also them killing Palpatine TOGETHER would have been better, but whatever nothing about Palp made sense)

Heavier hand on the Rey/Ben romance. I’m one of the people who saw it coming since TLJ, so I personally wasn’t surprised at all, but a lot of casual fans were and that isn’t normal. There were so many opportunities for scenes reallyyy preparing the ground for a big epic space kiss that would have felt more satisfying, instead all we got in terms of clear romance pre-kiss was “I did wanted to take your hand, Ben’s hand”. That wasn’t enough. TLJ went hard, but stayed subtle. TROS needed to go harder, and not be subtle at all.

NO RACIST DRUG SMUGGLING BACKSTORY FOR POE!!  And instead maybe an arc about taking over Leia’s legacy in the resistance, about him fighting since he was a kid, about his parents being Rebellion fighters... if there was a story to be told about legacy... that was IT. Bc that’s Star Wars. You have characters trying to distance themselves from their legacies (Kylo Ren), trying to build their own legacies (Finn, Rey), and characters honouring it (Poe, Rose). It’s so stupid that they didn’t actually go anywhere with that. 

Give Finn something to do??? My boy was treated so fucking dirty I can’t believe. He’s an ex stormtrooper, why didn’t he, at ANY point in this trilogy, ever think twice about killing stormtroopers? If he KNOWS they’re brainwashed child soldiers.... why not have him do something with that? Create an arc around that? He’s really just gonna kill them left and right like it’s nothing to him? We’re gonna introduce Jannah, basically a female version of him (bc apparently that’s all woc get to have --’) who’s also an ex stormtrooper, and still not build an actual storyline around that? In a trilogy about BALANCE, ffs, which implies there can be good in the bad and bad in the good?? Like I’m losing my mind here lol that’s so so so dumb. Also for the entire film he’s got *something* to tell Rey, but there are some issues there: if it was a romantic confession, it doesn’t quite work bc TLJ already gave him another romantic interest (Rey too even if ppl like to deny it, Kylo was her love interest in TLJ) + made him care about the fight besides her. So making him be all “heart-eyes puppy following her around”, especially if you plan on having her kiss someone else at the end, seems particularly cruel. But if it was about him being force sensitive, it still doesn’t really work bc 1) it’s barely implied in the film and doesn’t actually go anywhere. It was a great idea! So why not fully lean into it? What was the point? I don’t get it. 2) They don’t even resolve it. Like, he tries to tell her that *something* like 3 times, and in the end it’s just never brought up, we leave the theatre not knowing what it was. I mean????? 

Have Leia’s death be more meaningful and CLEAR as to why she dies. I’ve seen like 10 different interpretations of her death. None of them make absolute perfect sense, that’s how poorly executed it was. I know they didn’t have much to work with, but I hate her dying like that, its like they tried to kill her off but had no idea how so there were like “she lays down and dies”. She’s Princess Leia ffs. Giver her some damn respect. 

I think I said pretty much everything I had in mind here. If you want to chat about it, my ask box is open! 

I still love star wars, but i’m gonna need to refuse to see this movie as canon in my head, for my own sanity ^^ 

[hydrospanners]

every doubt we had

like a scene from a nightmare he'd never admit to having, darth marr's ship goes down and takes his sister with it. rhese velaran has never had to live in a galaxy without nirea, and he's not sure he knows how. he leans on an unlikely shoulder while he figures it out. SWTOR genfic. M!Jedi Knight & Doc friendship (fraternity?) fic. Background Established F!Jedi Knight x Doc. Grief & angst. 3300 words. AO3.

The chrono reads 0300 hours. 0400 hundred until their arrival on Coruscant. 17 minutes since he checked last.

 Rhese turns his eyes back to the ceiling. Landing prep starts at 0600. He could still get three full hours of rest if he could just get to sleep.

 He draws in a slow, deep breath, willing his racing heart to slow. There is no emotion, he reminds himself. There is peace. No emotion. Peace. No emotion. Peace.

  Peace, peace, peace.

 Peace is a damned lie. There’s only war, constant and consuming. War, where the players may change but the game never does.

 He’s fucking tired of war. Tired of running and killing and being too little, too late. Tired of leaving people behind.

 Marr’s flagship explodes in his mind’s eye. Again and again, a bloom of sparks and flame stretching up and out until it’s nothing, fizzled out. Until the space where she was is nothing but dust and cannonfire and distant winking stars.

 Blood rushes in his ears, the pounding of his heart the only sound in the heavy quiet of simulated night.

Dammit. Rhese taps the comm by his bed, wincing away from the bright blue-white gleam of the indicator light. Teeseven answers immediately, chirping a greeting that’s no less cheerful for having possibly lost his master. His friend.

 “Any communications?” Rhese asks, and the comm terminal flashes, hundreds of messages flooding the screen. From the Council. From the Senate. From SIS. Saresh. “Anything from--” Even if she had survived, she would have had no way to send word. Not yet. “Any new information on Nirea?”

 “Jedi = still missing,” the droid reports.

 It’s what he expected, but knowing the knife is coming never made the cutting hurt any less. He swallows his disappointment. “Keep an audio sensor to the ground. Let me know the second you hear anything.”

 “T7 = Looking. // Jedi = Still alive.”

 “I know, Teeseven.” He’s reasonably sure, anyway. “Thank you.”

 The indicator light blinks out, leaving Rhese alone with his thoughts.

 He remembers a time when he would have killed for this kind of quiet. A chance at sober reflection. Isolation. When he believed peace could be achieved from structure. When a steady heart and an ordered mind were still his best chance at salvation. Or absolution. He’s still not sure what it was he spent all those years looking for, but he’s pretty damned certain it’s gone now.

 Ringing fills his ears again. Someone’s talking shit about you, Ranna used to say. An old Corellian superstition, or maybe a spacer’s. She had so many superstitions it was hard to tell which was which.  Either way, he didn’t inherit Ranna’s penchant for mysticism and the only person who’s ever cared enough to talk about him anyway is--Well, the point is that it’s just a symptom of his hearing giving out. He’s been meaning to have Doc look at it for a while now, but there never seemed to be any time.

 Rhese glances at the chrono. 0321 hours. 21 minutes since he checked last.

 He gets up and dresses quickly, trying not to think of all the shit Rea would give him for picking the robes. The ship is dark and silent, the passageways empty this deep into the night. Not that anyone is actually asleep. Rhese can sense the crew in their quarters as he passes them, all awake despite the hour, all pretending not to be.

He senses Kira’s restlessness. It’s familiar to him as his own anxiety, and he can almost see the defensive hunch in her shoulders as she paces back and forth in the too-small space of her bunk. He can see the little wrinkle between her brows as she kneels, trying her damndest to meditate. He can see the tremble in her hands as she opens up her saber, taking it apart and putting it back together as many times as she has to for the adrenaline to fade.

 Rea would have gone to her. Would have laid upside down on her bed while Kira ranted, absorbing all her rage and being the soft place to land once it was spent.

 Rhese keeps walking.

 He senses Rusk’s tension. How tightly he’s coiled, primed and ready to strike at the first actionable target. He pictures Rusk standing at his worktable, the lines in his forehead cutting deep as he methodically disassembles his cannon. He pictures his hands, rough but nimble as he cleans every part, as he sets the chrono to time his reassembly. He pictures the way he keeps glancing at the comm, twitching at every noise like it might be the news he’s waiting for.

 Rea would have offered to spar. She would have worked him until his muscles were loose and warm and tender, and then she would have worked his mind, cracking open some shitty beers to swap stories about the stupid shit they did when they were young and green. He would have laughed like only Rea could make him laugh. He would have slept a little easier.

 Rhese keeps walking.

 He senses Scourge’s fury. It’s a raging wildfire, consuming everything it touches and Rhese can almost hear the groan of metal bending beneath Scourge’s fists as he burns, feeding everything around him to the furnace of his anger. He is hungry to destroy, to quench the flames in his heart with carnage and violence. He wants a fight.

 Rea would have given it to him. She would have poked and prodded until he lashed out, swinging his lightsaber at full limb-severing power, nothing held back. She would have let him. She would have matched him blow for blow until his fury burned itself out and when it was done, she would smile and complain at the scorchmarks in her deck.

 Rhese keeps walking.

 He senses Doc. Alert and focused, thrown completely into some project or the other. There’s none of the usual thrill he feels from Doc when he’s working, none of the anticipation or pride. The purpose of his work doesn’t matter right now as long as the work is consuming him, leaving no room for other thoughts. For worries.

 He feels clear and steady in a way the others don’t right now, and Rhese sees, just for a moment, what it is that Rea must see in him. What it is that draws her to him.

 Rhese enters the medbay without knocking, his left ear ringing.

 “You should be asleep,” Doc says, not looking up from the viscous green liquid he’s measuring. Beneath the goggles Rhese can see his eyes are puffy and shot through with red. “Got a long day ahead of you.”

 “And you don’t?” Rhese raises a brow, folding his hands in front of him. He tries not to think what jokes Rea would make about his posture. Something about the stick up his ass.

 Doc just snorts. “I’m not a Jedi. Nobody cares what I think. Here.” He puts the green liquid down and pulls a small metal tube from his pocket, tossing it to Rhese. “Take one of those. It’s a low dose; should only put you down for an hour or two.”

 “You carry sleeping pills in your pocket?”

 “You’ve met my wife, right? About this high--” Doc raises his hand a foot over his own head “--brown hair, blue eyes, great ass. Only sleeps if you make her.”

 Rhese smiles, feeling none of the usual discomfort and inadequacy he feels when he has these chats with Doc. For once he doesn’t mind being reminded what a giant Rea is in everyone’s mind, how much taller she seems despite being shorter than him by four inches. For once he isn’t embarrassed and annoyed by the reminder of his sister’s very active sex life. For once, he just feels… fond. “I may have seen her around,” he says.

 “Well if you see her again, you tell her to come home. Her family’s worried.”

 Do you hear that Rea? Your family is worried. Rhese wonders if she can feel their concern. He wonders if she can feel anything at all. He can’t feel her. She’s always been good at hiding, and there were years on Tython when he couldn’t separate the feel of her from the rest of the Force, but he could still feel that she was out there somewhere, could still feel their connection. This is the first time she’s ever just been gone, a hole in the Force where the tingle of her warm, fervent energy is supposed to be.

 He reaches for her on instinct, and the void he finds in her place leaves him cold. For the first time in his life, he feels really alone. Careful what you wish for, Liss always warned him. You might just get it.

 “You okay, kid?” Doc, with his bloodshot eyes and exhausted pallor, is watching him carefully, his brow furrowed in concern. Rhese can only think how he’s going to get wrinkles, scrunching his face up like that. How Rea’s going to kill him for aging her husband prematurely. ‘I only married him for his looks,’ she’ll say. ‘Now I’ll have to trade him in for a younger model.’

 Rhese laughs a short, humorless laugh. Is he okay? “I’m going deaf,” he says. “In my left ear.”

 Doc sighs. “Sit down.”

 Rhese does as he’s told, climbing onto the exam chair and pushing his shoulders back, trying to keep his chin up. Trying to hold it together because someone has to now that Rea’s gone.

 But there’s no point. That pinch in Doc’s brow says he isn’t fooled, that he knows too many of Rhese’s secrets, sees too much through Rea’s eyes. It says there will be no fooling him and Rhese can’t find the energy to try. He tips his head back against the chair and lets his shoulders sag, only a little embarrassed by his ragged sigh of relief.

 “Ringing?” Doc asks, wheeling over one of his scanners. He pulls a headset with an alarming number of wires from the drawer.

 Rhese nods. “Started a couple months ago, but things have been--” He thinks back to Ziost, to Tython, to Manaan. To all the blaster fire and running and death. “Well, you know how things have been.”

 “No kidding. I’m surprised your ears lasted this long, the way you Jedi go on.”

 “You mean the way Rea goes on.” She’s had cochlear implants almost as long as she’s been a Jedi. Went in for her first operation the day the treaty was signed, not even a year after Marefka scooped them up on Corellia. He’d been on Tython at the time, but he’d read the reports from her surgeries. It had taken six. “Most Jedi don’t spend so much time getting blown up.”

 He sees the explosion again. Marr’s flagship consumed by inferno, sparks and flame spitting from the cracks in the hull, a ring of fire expanding slowly around the whole fizzling mass. The only sound the static of the comm crackling over the speakers, the echo of her last words ringing in his ears. His own voice, shouting Rea’s name.

 Rhese flinches.

 Doc’s hand settles on his shoulder. “She’s gonna be fine,” he says, and there’s something in his eyes, in the warmth and certainty of his voice, that makes Rhese turn away. It feels too familiar. Too much like--Rhese can’t feel her in the Force, but he can feel her in the tender way Doc is looking at him, in the way Doc is caring for him, gently and thoughtfully, like family.

 Stars. They are family now, aren’t they?

 Doc’s hands are steady as he lowers the headset onto Rhese’s forehead. The nodes are cold but Doc’s fingers are warm as he massages them into place along Rhese’s forehead and around the delicate insides of his ears. And if he notices the way Rhese shivers, Doc is merciful enough not to mention it. “I know you’re worried, Junior, but this is Rea we’re talking about. She’s survived way worse.”

 If anyone knows what Nirea Velaran can survive, it’s Doc.

 “But it doesn’t take worse,” he argues. “One stray blaster bolt. One piece of shrapnel. One mistake.” Force knows she makes mistakes, no matter what she’d have people believe. “She’s not indestructible.”

 Doc says nothing. A stream of rhythmic beeps fills Rhese’s ears.

 He knows she’s alive. This nothing--the gap in his consciousness where she’s supposed to be--it’s not what death feels like. Rhese has felt death before. He’s felt it in strangers and in allies and in friends. He’s felt it in family. In Ranna. In Qarric and Daeleth. He would have sensed his sister’s death. He would have felt a piece of himself die with her.

 Hell, if she was really dead she’d probably be here, complaining about it. She’d be haunting him the way Master Orgus Din haunted her, refusing the peace of death just so she could pester him.

 Rea has to be alive. But for how long? And where?

 Doc lifts the headset, gently peeling back the little nodes as he goes. “How do you feel about implants?”

 Rhese sighs. “Resigned.”

 “I’ve got a friend on Coruscant. She might be persuaded to do it for free.”

 “Persuaded?” Rhese raises a brow, very nearly smiling. “Just what kind of a friend is this, Doc?”

 “Don’t get your panties in a twist, that was a long time ago. I’ve got no interest in persuading anyone but your sister these days.” He pauses, considering. “Well, no interest in persuading anyone without her, anyway.”

 “Ugh.”

 Doc laughs, and it’s an effort to not laugh with him.

 He feels better. No one is more surprised by it than Rhese--if you’d told him back on Balmorra that Archiban Kimble would ever make him feel anything other than annoyance and disgust, he’d have laughed you into the next sector--but here he is, sitting in the medbay and feeling better for having Doc there with him.

 Here he is, sitting in the medbay because it’s where he wanted to be. Because it’s where his feet carried him when he was feeling lost and alone and there was no Rea to collapse into.

 He’ll have to tell her when he sees her again. That she chose well. That he loves this little family she’s built. That he’s grateful and he’s happy and if she ever leaves him again he’s going to lose his starsdamned mind because he can’t keep doing this--

 “Hey.”

 Rhese blinks and finds Doc’s eyes boring into his. Dark and bloodshot and so, so serious. Worried. Scared. For him.

 “Breathe, kid.”

 Rhese realizes he hasn’t been. He gasps, once, twice, until his lungs remember how they’re supposed to work. He tries to recite the Code, but the words keep getting jumbled in his head. It’s like everything he’s been trying not to think and not to feel is breaking free and rushing over him all at once. “I feel like I’m drowning,” he confesses, voice tight like it’s trying to hold onto the words, trying to keep that truth hidden. “I don’t know what to do.”

 “Must run in the family,” Doc says, surprising a small, shaky laugh out of him. “Now c’mere.” He opens his arms and Rhese only hesitates for a second before sitting up and leaning into him, his forehead pressed to Doc’s chest, hot tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. They start to fall when Doc’s arms wrap around his shoulders.

 At least it isn’t blood. Doc’s always complaining about how many shirts he loses to bloodstains; tears should be easier to clean. Rhese doesn’t know why he’s thinking so much about Doc’s shirts, but he can’t seem to make himself stop. And he can’t stop thinking how that’s a stupid thing to be thinking about at a time like this. Can’t stop thinking how he’s blowing this out of proportion. Can’t stop thinking he’s not taking it seriously enough.

 He can’t stop thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

 His breaths are coming too fast and too shallow, desperate, ragged things just barely escaping the tightness of his throat, and his skin feels so hot. Too hot. He wants to climb out of it. He wants to climb out of his whole body and just--He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what he wants but he knows everything is too much.

 Doc pulls him in tighter, blunt nails scraping gently at the nape of his neck, and it’s so much like--His mind swims with memory, of nights spent curled into Rea’s lap, of her body wrapped around his like a shield, of her fingers in his hair, her kisses on his forehead, her voice in his ear, whispering how she’ll protect him, how she’ll always be there no matter what, how it’s the two of them against the galaxy.

 Where the fuck is she now?

 “Me too, kid. Me too.”

 “I don’t want to lose another family.” Rhese whispers the words into Doc’s chest, his eyes squeezed tight against the brutal truth of them. A brutal truth he’s been hiding from for years now. Years of keeping people at arm’s length, of reciting Codes and turning his back and telling himself he’s above it all. Years of trying to keep himself from connecting with anyone because he was so fucking scared of having another connection break.

 You can’t lose what you never had, he reminds himself, thinking of the rest all locked away in their cages, drifting to their own orbits in the absence of Rea’s gravity to draw them together. They were Rea’s family. They’re always just Rea’s. Never yours.

 But then Doc is kissing the top of his head, just like Rea would, and holding him just like Rea would and he can’t be doing it for her cause she isn’t here to see it. He can’t be doing it for any reason but--

 “You aren’t losing anything,” he says, with so much conviction that Rhese almost believes him. “I don’t know where Rea is or what she’s doing, but I know her. I know she loves you more than anyone in this galaxy, and I know she won’t let anything keep you apart for long. She’s coming back, kid, and we’re all gonna be here when she does.”

 Rhese thinks of Tython. Of ten years’ worth of secondhand reports and unanswered messages. Ten years of lonely nights and insecurities. Ten years of waiting.

 “It could be awhile,” he says.

 “We’ll wait.”

 “I waited for ten years last time.”

 “We’ll wait.”

 Rhese lets his eyes fall shut, tilting his face up to the ceiling as breathes a long, shuddering breath. “Okay,” he says, his throat a little looser, his chest a little lighter. “Okay.”

 He sits like that for a long time, listening to the slowing rhythm of his heart and the quiet gurgle of Doc’s equipment, bubbling away on some experiment he doesn’t want to know the particulars of. Listening to the distant ringing in his left ear. He flexes his hands against the exam chair, feeling the cool, smooth fabric shift beneath his fingers, and with each slow breath he feels the sharp sting of chemical cleaner burning his nose.

 Doc is still standing there when Rhese opens his eyes, the little tube of sleeping pills back in his hand. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you,” he says again.

 This time, Rhese takes the pills.

 He curls onto his side on the exam chair, and when Doc lays his lab coat over his shoulders, Rhese pulls it up to his chin and breathes deep of the cologne that always seems to rub off, just a little, onto Rea’s clothes. It makes him feel warm and the drugs make him feel hazy and Doc, steady, certain Doc, shuffling around the medbay behind him and never leaving him alone--Doc makes him feel safe.

 By 0430, Rhese is finally asleep.

[jessica-problems]

Ramiel’s fight from NGE 1.11 is hands down my favorite monster of the week encounter from anything ever.

This is the single most alien monster design I have ever witnessed. Just a blue polyhedron. No visible weapons. No sharp teeth or claws. What the fuck is this thing going to unleash? Is it mechanical? Is it made of water? Surely it’s not organic?

Right off the bat, it sounds like a mix between sephiroth’s backup choir and the sonar pings of a nuclear submarine. It’s a monstrous angel of the lord, as well as a silent enemy approaching unseen from the darkness. Boom. Character introduction DONE. all necessary traits have been conveyed.

 but then, you get in close, and it’s made of these minecraft looking cubes. It unfolds into some sort of unfathomable tesseract, with this weird meaty sound like skin being torn away from flesh, raising questions about what the fuck is even going on. Is it... hurting itself? It reveals some sort of central node. Normal logic would say this is it’s heart or brain or reactor core or whatever equivalent it has. Turns out this is the emitter for some sort of weapon. This is more like a dragon opening it’s mouth to breath fire.

 It unleashes some sort of power, but even it’s MOST BASIC ATTACK is completely invisible. God works in mysterious ways, right? 

Then, it shifts to a different weapon, complete with another weird impossible transformation, and this time is sounds like Alvin and the Chpmunks entering a berserker rage. This second attack’s activation sequence escalates the weirdness, having pieces actually appear from and vanish into thin air(as opposed to “just” changing size and shape), as a SIDE EFFECT of just arming it’s weapons. This thing casually and incidentally violates the laws of physics, and it may well be no more intelligent than a trained attack dog.

it fires the newer weapon, which is larger, and more destructive than the first, filling the entire screen, rather than just poking hole in buildings, and the we the NERV facility retract into the ground to lockdown for combat.

Then, it reverts back to its base form, which ends with a metallic clang. Maybe this is a machine after all. We’ve got a back and forth plot going just from audio cues. It floats above the city, framed from DIRECTLY below, filling the entire sky, and deploys some kind of drill thing to attack the underground NERV facility.

Then we have a shot from the distance that could almost be mistaken for a harmless child’s top. Cut to nighfall. It’s been rotating in place, drilling for several hours. It is slow and implacable, and confident enough to sit down and get to work directly on top of it’s enemy’s base. Notably, it’s drill is also rotating backwards to how a physical drill would. Even this recognizable, physical tool is weird and alien and just wrong.

There are various scenes about ‘oh no it’s drilling into the base’, and the heroes come up with a plan., Part one, the defenders send a barrage of missiles after it. It unfolds into this pinwheel orbital thing. Judging by its previous attacks, this radial symmetry suggests it’s using something like twenty nodes. We still don’t know much about this thing, but monkey brain says big number is more dangerous, so this must be bad. Then, it fires a single laser into space, and whips the now solidly linear beam around like a sword to smack the missiles away.

A concentrated barrage of artillery manages to catch it with it’s pants down(?) and it takes the first defensive action we’ve seen so far, which consists of turning into a heptagonal prism and making a bunch of little barriers to parry each individual projectile. There’s no literal melee combat happening, but we’ve progressed to more and more mundane attacks every time. Invisible force > laser > drill > basically an enormous lightsaber > lots of little shields

Then, it unfolds, and starts screaming. We don’t know a whole lot, but so far, that always means it’s angry. It fires a laser, evaporating the bunkers we’ve seen so far, but the heroes’ plan is working. They’ve procured so many missile launchers that it has to focus on parrying the incoming projectiles.

Now the basic plan to defeat this thing is that they have this huge gun that will use all the power in the entire power grid of japan to fire an enormous laser that should absolutely vaporize anything it hits.

From inside the EVA’s cockpit, we get a look at the thing through various lenses, and finally, the order is given to fire. Several beams are channeled through this big clunky cobbled together sniper rifle, as if the best the heroes have is a a crude parody of Ramiel’s multi-core laser beams, and it takes all the power of Japan just to fire it once. And here, ramiel has been throwing these beams around left and right.

The shot penetrates Ramiels defense, right through it’s core, the only thing it has resembling ‘important anatomy’, and it crumples/explodes/folds/ shifts into this starburst thing like a bullet hole hanging in the air, or shards of broken glass. Visually, it’s hurt pretty bad, probably. At least, we hope it is, unless this was just a weird dodge., but the audio sells it ten times over. It screams like a woman in enormous pain, not a good sound in any context, but so out of place here that it sparks a million questions just at the moment of this thing’s death. 

And a death it is, because this previously perfect, geometric abstraction crumples up and starts to sag like a dry leaf in the wind. But that’s no it. There’s one more thing. It spews literal lakes worth of bright red human blood. That’s a good sign, right? it’s smashed and bleeding, and it’s impenetrable divine facade has cracked to reveal, in a very abstract sort of way, a woman who bleeds like anyone else. Step back for a moment, and appreciate that they’ve managed to communicate the idea of dying and coming back to life with an abstract polyhedron.

But then, cut to the center of the impact, and it heals itself. the damage just folds away, and the bloodstains retreat back inside. It reverts to it basic d8 form, as if nothing has changed. Our heroes have blown out the entire power grid of Japan in a crude mimicry of this thing’s basic attack, and it got them what exactly? they drew its attention away from their base? Pissed it off? 

And then, the first thing it does after being all but killed is to IMMEDIATELY re-expose its core, and unfold another beam weapon. Then it keeps unfolding. And unfolding. this newest configuration is larger and spikier, and it’s got a whole five points rather than four. Without a single word or recognizable piece of anatomy, we can tell that the kid gloves have come off. It resembles nothing so much as a tesseract rotating in four dimensions.

It fires another invisible beam, this time with enough force to vaporize half a mountain. Shinji gets shook around inside the cockpit of the EVA, just by the back blast. We get a shot of Ramiel stopped for a moment, maybe recharging, or surveying the wreckage or something. Then, it’s drill penetrates the ceiling of NERV HQ. Apparently, Ramiel has been distracted this entire time, but now they’ve got it’s full attention, as it’s done drilling.

There’s a big rousing speech where the boss lady is like “no, give him a chance, he can save the day! we believe in you Shinji!”, during which Ramiel does nothing. Eventually, Shinji heroically gets the gun back in position, and looks down the scope to line up another shot, only to see that Ramiel is pointing directly at him, and charging up another blast. Before he can fire, it unloads, and the beam punches through the remains of the moutain, and devastates the outside of the ship. Luckily, Rei is there to jump in with a big shield and protect Shinji long enough to line up another shot. But there’s this moment of calm after she jumps in, there’s a beat, here she is, she’s saved the day and blocked the attack. But nope. The beam keeps coming. Ramiel doesn’t need ammo. It’s just opening the floodgates and pointing them at the heroes, and Shinji and Rei are surrounded by a blizzard of light with no sign of stopping. Rei’s shield slowly, layer by layer, burns away under the intensity of the blast, but before they’re obliterated, Shinji fires off another killshot.

Ramiel rapidly clamshells shut with a metallic clunk, but then a gout of fire comes out the back. That’s better than blood, right? apparently it can survive losing a lot of blood, but if it’s on fire, that’s gotta be progress, right? It explodes into a rosette of shards and screams again. Same as last time, but then irregular craters appear on its surface, and its cores explode one by one.

It comes and goes, and we never learn a damn thing about it. It’s just... a thing.

[postedbygaslight]

You’ll Be the One to Turn - Part 41: Perdition

...

Rey had exited the Falcon and stepped out into the hangar bay minutes before, but she’d taken a few minutes to assess the scene while the others prepared for the descent into the tower. At the far end, she’d seen the sparkling blue sky of Naboo crowning a veritable ocean of green. And in that sky, orange and gray streaks of smoke trailing behind massive chunks of debris from the battle above. She can already sense the kyber heart, an angry, wounded thrum in the Force, lurking far below them.

And as she looks around at the carnage that preceded their arrival, she’s keenly aware of what she can’t sense. The stormtrooper bodies that litter the hangar floor met their ends in a variety of ways. She can see several who were incinerated by flamethrowers. A few more with scorch marks on their white armor, probably from detonators. And the others. With long, melted slashes across their plastene chest plates, and still smoking puncture holes, clear signs of death by lightsaber.

Over by the blast doors, Ben and Finn stand talking. Rey marvels a moment at the change a few simple understandings can make. Just a day ago, the two men had been mortal enemies, and Finn would have killed Ben on sight given the chance. Now they were calling each other by name and working together. Ready to die together. For the greater good.

Ready to die together. She dismisses the thought. The reality of it is too close a thing. She centers herself as best she can, and crosses to where Rose, Chewie, and the small group of soldiers have gathered.

“Well, I think it’s clear which way we’re meant to go,” she says, nodding toward the blast doors.

Rose turns to look that direction. Ben is headed back toward the group. Finn follows close behind.

“Wouldn’t it be better to maybe, I don’t know, not go that way?” she says, but Rey can sense she knows as well as the rest of them that this is the only path before them. And they have to walk it, come what may.

“How much time?” Ben says, standing a few paces back from the group.

“Thirty minutes,” Rose replies after glancing at her datapad.

“No choice,” Ben says grimly. “We have to go. Now.”

Finn comes around to where everyone can see him. He unslings his rifle and addresses the soldiers.

“Everyone stay close. Watch for gas or other toxins. If we run into that, fall back and try to use the emergency rebreathers on your vests. The droids won’t use blasters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t.”

Finn nods toward Rey and Ben, and continues.

“Rey and Ben take the lead. We all know what they can do, but don’t let them get separated from the group. When the hunter shows, she’s priority. Ignore all other targets.”

“How will we know when she shows?” one of the soldiers asks.

“You’ll know,” Rey says, idly thumbing the hilt of her lightsaber. “Trust me.”

Finn gives the troops one last appraising look and nods.

“All right. Let’s move.”

***

Through the blast doors is a large turbolift designed for carrying freight between levels. Having spent so much time on Starkiller, Ben would have known what level they needed to go to regardless, but even if he hadn’t, the accusing howl of the kyber gnaws at him, and he’d know where it was even miles away.  He can feel its fury toward him, and its fear of being subjected to greater pain. He wonders how much of that Rey is able to sense. And he wonders whether she really understands what he’s going to have to do once they arrive at the focusing chamber.

The lift carries them down to the lower levels. He can sense the anxiety and growing dread in the others. Part of him wonders why Rose and Chewie didn’t remain with the Falcon. But the other parts of him know they would never be denied. Because if they’re all going to die anyway, better to be with those you love.

Ben still can’t quite believe that Chewie has been so willing to forgive him. Or, if not forgive, accept. But here he is, bowcaster at the ready, walking confidently with Ben into a trap. Like he had so many times with his father.

The Wookiee has always been a part of Ben’s life, and his earliest memories are colored by the enormous creature’s tender protectiveness. Piggyback rides on Unca Choowee’s shoulder. Learning to speak Shyriiwook and sharing in-jokes others couldn’t understand. Feeling closer to his father through the unconditional love freely given him by his best friend. Love that Han Solo found so difficult to show. Love that Ben only now understands. To care about something so fiercely that it frightens you. To be willing to die for someone, no matter what that might mean.

The lift doors slide open and the long corridor to the focusing chamber appears before them. It’s empty, and the way forward is unencumbered. Above is a vaulted ceiling hundreds of feet high, crisscrossed by maintenance catwalks, and the chamber itself is a towering cylinder within the larger chamber into which they’re now entering. To either side of the wide mirrored floor ahead of them are slanted terraces of large pipes and cables carrying coolant to the geothermal vent housing.

He unclips his lightsaber and senses Rey do the same. As before, their breathing is starting to fall in time, and their heartbeats are matching each other’s. He can feel her so viscerally now, as though they share the same skin, and she’s sticking close beside him as they cautiously advance.

“Ben,” she says as they’re walking, “do you sense anything at all?”

“No. But she’s here.”

“Remember what you promised,” she says softly, eyes trained forward. “Together.”

He wants to say something to reassure her. He wants to be able to say his promise was absolute. On some level, he knows she understands it wasn’t. But he wants to tell her. He wants her to know that he won’t let her die for him. That he can’t. He wants to say so many things.

But before he can even contemplate it, he’s instinctively igniting his saber as the first droid crashes down on him from above.

***

Rey senses the droids all at once. Six of them. She’s fought these before. Fought them and beat them. It’s not these that frighten her. But as they come rocketing down from somewhere above, she’s arrested by a sudden spike of danger and she knows what’s going to happen seconds before it does.

“Ben!” she shouts as the first droid comes screaming down on top of him.

She pushes it away with a brisk lash of the Force just as the machine’s core goes critical and explodes in a furious blast of lethal plasma and shrapnel. Somewhere not far above her another droid self-destructs, and she instinctively dives aside amidst a rain of durasteel shards and molten embers.

Then comes a thudding report of blasts from behind them, and the grisly electric drone of a lightsaber cutting through flesh. Rey peers up through the choke of greenish gas, back to where the others so recently stood ready to help them fight, and can’t see anything except the hazy crimson of two plasma beams floating in the smoky cloud. Screams. Fear and then pain. And then silence.

She reaches out to find her friends. Finn and Rose she can sense. In pain, but alive. Chewie too, but what she senses there is fainter. And all of them are suffocating in the cloud. She can sense Ben is alive, but she can’t tell where.

She stumbles to her feet and summons all the concentration she can, holding her hand up toward the cloud. Moving solid objects is simple enough through the Force. But less consistent things— water, fire, air and other gases— prove almost impossible to manipulate. But she has to try. It’s like trying to hold a stream of water in your hand, but she can begin to sense it. The shape of the unnatural miasma. It gradually begins to break and separate, and she can sense the poisons in the air starting to lift.

And perhaps she could have done it. But her concentration snaps as a blinding bolt of pain shrieks through her chest and she falls to her knees. Her hand goes to her heart, but nothing’s hit her, and she casts about in the smoke and plumes of dark fire to see the rippling crackle of Ben’s saber swinging to meet and fend off the two red ones wielded by the hunter.

She ignites her saber and rushes into the smoke toward them, the burning pain in her chest throbbing with every heartbeat.

***

He’d sensed the droid in time, but not the explosion. He’d felt, but not heard, Rey call out to him as she’d pushed the rupturing core of the machine away from and above him. But the concussion of the blast still flung him to his back, sprawled out against he pipes and cables beside the walkway.

Somehow Ben is still holding his lightsaber. He senses the sudden terror that accompanies mortal pain. The panic of suffocation. The confusion, the anguish, the silence. He’s no stranger to dealing death, and neither is this hunter.

He reaches out to find Rey, but he sees her before he has to use the Force. She’s coming to her feet and looking back at the sickening cloud of gas that’s gathered back near the turbolift doors. The hunter, wielding one saber in each hand, is cutting down soldier after soldier, and he knows what Rey is going to do. She can’t sense the hunter, but she can try to move the gas cloud. Try being the operative word.

Ben wills himself to stand and can sense Rey trying to move the cloud. She’s concentrating too hard to see the hunter break away from the group, activate her thrusters, and come blasting down the corridor toward him. He readies his saber and meets her head on with a surge of the Force, slowing her momentum as he brings his saber blade down toward where her armor segments at the neck.

The hunter counters, planting her back foot and overcharging her thrusters, blocking his blow with one saber while thrusting hard across her body with the other. Ben knocks the other saber from her hand with a flick of the Force, but loses the concentration that arrests the hunter’s forward momentum. She keels forward, her thrusters driving both of them to the ground, their lightsabers still locked together and sparking. Ben tries to push back, but the hunter is massive, and she brings a gloved fist down on his chest, thrusters firing, hitting his wound over and over.

Pain screams through him and his breath comes faster as blood leaks into his lungs. He musters all his strength and flings her back with the Force, rolling out of the way as her thrusters bring her crashing to the ground. He lunges forward immediately to strike again at her exposed neck, but he has to dive aside at the last second as she fires a wrist mounted missile and comes to her feet. The hunter draws another saber from her belt, igniting it and resuming pursuit as the missile impacts the ground behind Ben.

He stumbles forward from the shockwave, bringing his saber blade up just in time to fend off one attack, then another. She slaps his lightsaber aside with two slashes and drives her spiked boot into his chest with alarming force, hidden thrusters again firing as she drives him back, sprawling to the ground.

The hunter moves with frightening speed to strike the killing blow, but Ben feels a sudden ripple in the Force as the hunter is pelted with smoldering chunks of droid chassis, followed by a brilliant flash of blue as Rey slashes across the hunter’s belly, armor segments peeling off and flying.

***

Rey comes dashing through the smoke and debris to see the huge form of the hunter, the violet lenses of her mask glowing in the half-light, driving Ben to the ground with a kick to the chest. She runs faster, summoning the Force to fling whatever is around her toward the hunter. Half-melted droid parts go hurtling ahead of her as she brings her saber level with the hunter’s gut and comes sliding across the floor, hearing metal smacks of impact as she brings the blue-white plasma across the hunter’s gut, and positions herself between the massive killer and Ben, who’s still on his back behind her.

As the hunter reels and stumbles back, Rey makes a lunging jump after her, letting out a primal roar as she aims a thrust toward the hunter’s exposed midsection. But the hunter leans back with the thrust, allowing Rey to overcommit and fall forward as the hunter dashes back with her thrusters, comes set with incredible speed, and takes a huge step forward, bringing her heel down on the back of Rey’s head.

Her chin smacks the floor. Blood fills her mouth and she has just enough time to look up as the red saber blade comes rushing down toward her face. She tries to bring her saber around or shove the blade aside with the Force, and fails at both, staring up with dread and confusion as the hunter’s head snaps back violently and she flies to the ground.

Rey scampers to her feet. The hunter is on her back, her gloved hand clawing at her smoking, broken mask. As she wrenches it free and tosses it aside, Rey looks back the other direction to see Finn, blood streaked down his face, reloading Chewie’s bowcaster.

Ben is up off the ground, wiping blood from his mouth, stooped slightly as he readies his saber again. Rey brings her own weapon to the ready, and the hunter has risen as well. She’s lost her two smaller sabers. She draws the remaining one from her belt and unslings the spiked baton that serves as her main weapon, igniting both. Her face is now exposed, her silver hair and hard features cutting a severe contrast with her black eyes in the chaos of fire and ash around them.

“Finn,” Rey calls over her shoulder, “careful! Stay back!”

But she can sense Finn sees the opportunity to finish the hunter off, and he’s leveling the bowcaster for another volley. Rey wants to shout another warning to him, but he’s already fired, and the bolt screams toward the hunter, who activates an energy shield around her arm guard, bats the bolt right back in Finn’s direction, and it impacts the ground at his feet, sending him flying. All Rey can do is try to take advantage of the situation, and she feels Ben, who is hurt and tired, begin to draw strength from the bond as they face their enemy together.

***

Pain. Ben can feel the wound in his heart opening, and he’s exerting all the concentration he can spare to keep it from tearing all the way. As it is, the puncture is a slow leak, but he feels his strength ebbing. He’d been able to pull himself up just in time to see Finn emerge from the smoke at the other end of the hall, hitting the hunter with a dead center headshot from a hundred yards. If the target had been any other creature, it might have torn the head clean off.

Rey had been right to warn Finn off any further engagement. Ben had known since he first saw this hunter on Taris that their destinies were to meet again, and soon. And to the death.

He brings his saber to the ready, still disoriented by the hunter’s total lack of presence in the Force. Now he and Rey are standing together opposite the hunter, and there’s nowhere for her to run this time. Without having to say a word to her, the two of them rush the hunter, and sabers begin to clash.

It’s a savage, frenzied dance, like in their shared dreams, and they both thrill in the synergy of it. The hunter is skilled and swift, but their attack is concerted and precise, and her armor pieces are being swiped aside, tearing away from her tunic and clattering to the floor. Sparks are spitting from her armor joints and the hunter is struggling to keep the assault off of her.

Rey brings her saber down toward the hunter’s legs, and Ben brings his around to the hunter’s neck in perfect synchrony, and the towering figure is only just barely able to absorb the impact, firing what thrusters remain to fling herself back toward the focusing chamber blast doors. Instinctively, both he and Rey channel a powerful burst through the Force, and the hunter’s thruster’s fail, sending her bashing against the blast doors with a hollow clang.

Coming back to her feet with just her main weapon, the hunter lets out a full throated roar and rushes right at Ben. He meets the assault head on, teeth bared, muscles taut and straining as the sabers lock. Rey comes running in, saber ready to cleave the hunter in half, but the hunter’s black eyes glint with murderous resolve as she pushes Ben back with a sudden lunge, and brings a vibro-blade out from a hidden sheath, driving it into his abdomen.

***

The pain is instant and intense, tearing into her as she watches the hunter stab Ben just above the left kidney. She screams and blasts the hunter with the Force as Ben staggers to the ground. Rey doesn’t cut off the pursuit, bring bringing her saber down harder and harder as she keeps screaming and driving the woman, whose armor is mostly gone, whose red-violet tunic is tattered and smoking, back and back against the blast doors.

And that’s when the clarity strikes her. She can’t sense the hunter, but she can sense the kyber crystal in her saber— a piercing, barely perceptible screech of pain in the Force. The hunter brings her saber around for another strike, but Rey knows where it’s going this time, and she dodges to the side, the hunter’s lunge missing wide as Rey centers, plants her feet and drives her lightsaber up through the hunter’s belly and into her chest.

Rey is shaking violently, raw groans escaping her throat as the hunter collapses forward onto her, meeting her eyes. She reaches up to keep the hunter from crushing her under her weight, and brings her hand to the towering woman’s face. Her hand touches the hunter’s skin, and she is assaulted and overwhelmed by a rush of images as a vision takes her.

Snoke. Standing above the hunter. Rise, child. Rise, Vyada Ren. The torture. The lightning. The dark song of the Force twisting through her. Rey sees and feels the frozen gasp of energies, deep in the Dark, and Vyada’s torment in search of meaning. Instruct me. Please, great one. I cannot know what this is and I am afraid. Snoke’s vicious eyes. The icy desecration of his touch. Yes. Fear. You will be ever afraid. Know the darkness, and your fear will become a weapon. I will teach you.

The vision pulls Rey deeper, and she begins to feel sharp hooks of panic sink into her. So much pain. Rey sees the hunter now, and the threads that would bind her to the Force tattered and groping in the dark. You are being given a gift, child. You will become nothing, and will bear the honor of living as a testament to my power.

The horror is blasts through her and she feels as though she’ll be buried in this lightless Hell, this place beyond the reach of the Force, forever. She feels Snoke’s claws dig into her mind as they did before, but she knows she’s feeling what Vyada felt as Snoke— who’d promised to teach her, to help heal her pain— ripped her away from the Living Force. He’d smiled as though he’d done her a favor. And he’d left her alone in agony.

Vyada Ren is dead. I am Vyada Nil. I will become nothing. And I will take what was taken from me.

Rey reaches out, flailing in this yawning throat of darkness, searching for any escape. And she finds it. The bright thread of the bond. She holds to it, and feels Ben and the brilliant spark of his light anchoring her to him. And she can sense the severed threads that surround the hunter. Almost without knowing why, Rey summons the light of the belonging she and Ben have forged, the bloom of powerful warmth that both of them have clung to and feared and cherished. And all at once, with a furious rush of raw power, she can feel the severed threads around her bleed through with light as they lash back to the subtle fabric of the Living Force.

The world comes rushing back. Vyada Nil stares into Rey’s eyes with a terrified sense of wonder, tears streaming down her face. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come, and she falls to the side, releasing Rey from her grip. Rey sits for a few long seconds, her breath coming in trembling gasps. She stands slowly and looks down at the hunter. Nil is unmoving. Her eyes are blank and lifeless, reflected with ghosts of firelight.

Rey finally controls her breathing, but she’s still shaking and pain is shooting through her chest and side. She turns to where Ben had fallen. He’s nowhere to be seen, but she can sense him close by.

“Ben?” she shouts into the smoke as she staggers forward.

The focusing chamber blast doors are open. She comes around from where she and the hunter fell, and sees Ben as she looks inside. He’s standing near the center of the chamber. The kyber heart is suspended there, and the air is snapping with violent energies as the whole vaulted room is bathed in flashes of pale red. He looks up at her mournfully, holding his side, blood covering his hand. Rey can sense Finn and Rose farther down the corridor rushing toward them. But she can’t sense anything from Ben except regret and resolve. A spike of fear drives into her as she starts toward the open doors and she hears his voice through the bond.

“I know what I have to do.”

And Ben disappears from sight as he brings the blast doors closed and the bulkhead above crunches under the Force, sealing him inside the focusing chamber with the crystal, alone.

[xadoheandterra]

So I need to share this before I forget, because ever since I saw the Last Jedi for a second time with my brother (while drinking a Revenge of the Sip...god, AMC, why did you stick a bar in the theater?!) I was hit with some pretty big realizations. This is, of course, after devouring TLJ and TFA meta on tumblr as it’s come across my dash in droves. My main focus here is Luke. Placing under a cut for spoilers, and also spoiler tagging because I know some people have yet to see it that I’m friends with.

There was a lot implied in TLJ that I’ve not seen people touch upon. I’ve seen the comments about Snoke, Ben’s abuse and childhood grooming, and how Luke led everyone to believe Ben just went nuts and killed everyone--not that Luke almost killed Ben. Then there’s Rey and her connection and the themes of adolescence and just--it’s great meta. It’s wonderful.

I didn’t see a lot of people actually touching upon Luke in all this mess, aside from being an additional abuser of Ben. Unfortunately I never quite read Luke as one of Ben’s abusers--while yes I feel that Luke deciding to train Ben because of his strength in the Force and being a Skywalker Legacy was a bit rude, you have to admit: Ben needed training. Leia, Han, and Luke were all highly political figures--is it therefore any wonder why Snoke was able to slowly and subtly groom one of the Skywalker line? If Luke hadn’t taken Ben on, and several other force sensitives, to at least give them some grounding considering what the force is and how powerful Ben himself is? It could’ve been a disaster.

More than it was, at least.

I think also the implications of what happened have been hinted at in other meta, but I’ve not seen anyone outright address it. Luke talks about how he could see the evil growing in Ben--there’s a lovely little incorrect-starwars-quote going around about how it was 2AM and Ben was sleeping--but the thought niggled in my mind, especially after Snoke admitted to creating the Force Bond between Ben and Rey.

What if Ben wasn’t turning at all, in any respects? Because Luke got to Ben early enough, started to train Ben early enough, Snoke couldn’t actually get his claws into Ben without a catalyst. He could try to manipulate Ben’s thoughts, but Ben had someone in his corner at this time. Luke. Luke who saw promise in him, Luke who paid attention to him when his parents weren’t or couldn’t. Luke who actually was there for him--and sure it was because Ben had powers or whatever, but Luke was Ben’s primary influence where Snoke tried to be.

Luke’s betrayal of Ben was the catalyst Snoke needed to hook the Skywalker he wanted. There is a lot about the scene(s) we see where Luke betrays Ben that got me thinking. First of all, why was he actually there peeking in on a teenager’s dreams? That’s not something I could ever see Luke logically doing. We were never given any hints as to what supposed darkness Luke saw either that led him to this action. We know Snoke was horribly, terribly powerful in the Force given that he could Force Bond two young force sensitives galaxies apart. Something that should have, theoretically, been impossible.

Whose to say that Snoke didn’t manipulate Ben into turning, but more manipulated Luke into believing Ben was turning? We all have to admit, Luke tries to be wise but he’s really not. TLJ showcases that wonderfully. He’s a goof who got placed with responsibility that he didn’t know how to handle at all--he handled it fairly well all things considered, probably with Leia nagging him and feeding him things while they had their twin bond going strong, but in training other force sensitives all Luke had to go on was Obi-Wan, and Yoda. One old guy that he was told to stay away from, but was supposedly a family friend, who lied to him about his father and kept a lot of secrets.

The other a massive troll of epic proportions going slightly senile from everything he ever created/controlled being ruined by his own hubris.

I don’t count Aniken and I don’t count Sidious because while they definitely showed him the other side of the force in force they didn’t actively had a hand in teaching him things aside from being adversaries.

So I propose that in this Luke is as much a victim as Ben, specifically of Snoke. Ben is noted as being a lot like his father--having his father’s heart--and we actually do see a lot of Solo in Kylo Ren. That’s probably why everyone refers to him as Ben Solo instead of Ben Organa like I presume he would’ve been called, given that Han Solo even referenced that he no longer bore the name ‘Solo.’

This is where I want to step it up a notch. So Snoke royally fucked around with the Skywalker line because he wanted a Vader to his Sidious--great, wonderful. I still have no idea what hole you crawled out of and I don’t care. You’re dead now and good on Ben getting out of your shadow. What I find interesting is that there is reference to Rey turning--that even Luke is horrified that Rey would willingly follow the dark hole in the ground to get what it offers her, that she doesn’t resist--and that both Ben and Rey seem to think the other will turn. Yoda says they can’t lose Rey like they’ve lost Ben--which prompts Luke to pull an Obi-Wan.

Strangely, Luke’s stand off with Ben and subsequent apology about how he royally fucked shit up--I mean freaking out about your uncle standing over you in the dead of night with a Lightsaber very obviously contemplating shoving the laser sword in your chest would terrify anyone. Rightfully so. I’m proud of Luke owning up to his biggest fuck up to date, because that showed Luke finally accepting his hand in this whole mess instead of running and hiding like a coward.

Again understandable. This is Leia and Han’s kid. They would’ve torn him a new one if they knew what shit he’d pulled there. Leia is so terrifyingly like their father I could understand Luke’s desire to run and hide and just fade off into obscurity because fuck this. Plus I found it very interesting at this point after the monumental ‘but he’s evil!’ ‘shit that’s wrong!’ mistake Luke actually shuts himself off from the force.

None of us knew Luke blocked the Force out until Rey mentioned it! That Luke shut himself out doesn’t scream to me like he’s trying to hide even further from Leia or from Snoke--honestly if he doesn’t want to be found he could just mask his presence, not cut himself off completely. Especially not when the Force has been such an intrinsic part of his life for so long--long enough that he uses it subconsciously when he opens himself back up again! I see here more that Luke saw something with the Force-or he thought he saw something that was true, but because it ended in such tragedy he couldn’t come to terms with it. Luke closed himself off as another way to hide--this time from the Force that he felt betrayed him.

From himself, and his own strength in this mystical binding power between everything. If he could make such a huge mistake--what if that meant Luke was turning? I see Luke’s self imposed exile to a planet that houses ancient Jedi texts as him trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Why he responded that way? Why did he even think it was right? Was the Force turning him? Was he turning the Force? Was there something else?

And I think Luke finally put together that it was Snoke only after Yoda destroyed the tree, after Yoda talks about how they can’t lose Rey. Here Luke stood, having betrayed another potential student out of sudden fear. Here Luke stood, having opened himself back up to the Force and having to reveal his mistakes before an enraged child--a hurt child, one who was bound neatly to Ben Solo in a manner that shouldn’t be possible. Here Luke finally realized--it was Snoke.

And then Snoke was dead. He was no longer in the Force, no longer sending out feelers for Luke, to twist Luke, to twist Ben, to twist Rey--so Luke did what he thought was best. Save the child he could, and show the other child that he fucked up and there wasn’t anything more he could do aside from admit it--that he failed Ben Solo.

That’s what I think is most interesting. That Luke stands before Ben not as the Luke of today--he’s very obviously the Luke of Ben’s nightmares. His hair has color and is neatly trimmed, he’s dressed in a manner befitting a Jedi Master of a Training Temple. He wields a lightsaber that is destroyed. It’s glaringly obvious in retrospect that Luke is projecting from his little island--because Luke is projecting the Luke Ben remembers. The Luke that betrayed Ben, that hurt Ben, that started Ben Solo’s descent into Snoke’s arms. It is not from current day Luke that Ben get’s an apology, it’s from the Luke of Ben’s nightmares.

It is that same Luke that promises to haunt his steps if struck down in anger.

I think Luke knows--Rey doesn’t need saving. Ben already saved her. He got rid of the poison, he got rid of Snoke. Ben doesn’t need saving either, because at his heart he was left with a gaping wound and no real closure for what happened. Luke disappeared before Ben could truly get it, but now Luke gave Ben closure, and gave himself closure too. Luke gave himself the tools needed to make sure no other abuser could touch his nephew like that again.

Luke isn’t Rey’s guardian angel. Rey’s guardian angel comes in the form of Leia. Let the girls handle the girls. No, he’s Ben’s, because ultimately Luke was the catalyst for Kylo Ren--and ultimately, Luke will be the one in the Force stopping another Snoke from taking control of Kylo Ren while he finds his footsteps.

Or so I hope.

(seriously the Skywalker family needs to stop being extra okay)

[oldtestleper]

so, @thebisexualmandalorian expressed an interest in reading this particular scene from O66. well, here you go, Jesse. Maximum angst.

Kashyyyk, three days after the flight of Grievous from Coruscant, 1,088 days ABG

“About time,” Fixer said, cramming ammo clips into his belt. “I was getting fed up fighting this war on my own.”

Scorch nudged him in the back, indicating Boss and Sev. “What were we doing, then, filing our nails?”

“I meant Vos.”

General Vos had arrived from Boz Pity with the first wave of troopers the night before; General Yoda was inbound with the 41st Elite and the Wookiee chieftain Delta had extracted from the Seps’ prison camp, Chief Tarfful. The Republic was pouring resources into the Kashyyyk theater. Scorch agreed that it was a little overdue, and also that it was remarkably handy that all those extra troops and ships had become available, freeing up the likes of Yoda.

It’s a big ambush; Coruscant first. Grievous gets his tin shebs kicked, and runs. Chancellor, you better be right, or we’re finished.

“Ready?” Boss said.

“How long have we got?”

“Time on target for Yoda’s flagship—thirty standard minutes.”

They walked out onto the vine bridge and scanned for visible vessels in the dawn sky. The Seps knew reinforcements were coming, too; their fleet was piling in, and a cruiser had taken up position at coordinates that looked as if it was going to engage Yoda’s flagship.

Wookiees were massing, too. Scorch heard them long before he saw them, a random chorus of rumbling, growling, yawling voices, growing louder, and you didn’t need to know a word of Shyriiwook to get the gist of the sentiment. They were psyching themselves up—not that they needed it much—to take back their world. They were going to do it with their bare hands, and Scorch believed them, oh yes, he did. He’d seen it. He wasn’t keen to see it again. The screams would be enough. The Wookiee chieftains were massive, brandishing heavy bowcasters and long-guns as if they were tiny hold-out blasters. They were working their troops up to a fever pitch. They thrashed their fists against their chests, then raised their arms to the sky again, bellowing defiance. The whole Wookiee army joined in. It was a wall of sound that Scorch didn’t just hear but felt in his sinuses.

Enacca came up behind them, and even Fixer jumped. She growled and pointed back into the forest.

Boss checked his chrono. “Yeah, I know you’re looking forward to pulling off some arms, but I think our best bet is to take control of the turbolaser battery. That cruiser’s positioned to stop Yoda from disembarking ground troops, and we need it gone.”

Enacca let out a roar of approval. She wanted it gone, too.

Etain came jogging along the platform and stood beside her. It was an image of extremes that Scorch wouldn’t forget in a hurry—the two-meter-tall Wookiee with a bowcaster slung across her back like a small accessory, and Etain, so tiny that he was still sure her conc rifle weighed more than she did.

It was nice to see a Jedi general who used more than a lightsaber. Etain knew exactly what it felt like to haul heavy kit for hours on end, so she understood when her troops needed a break. But there was something poking out of her belt, in the shadow of her robe, and Scorch realized after a few baffled seconds that it was a small furry toy, an animal.

“Reckon you can take that battery in eighteen minutes, Delta?” she said, winking. “Omega would try for fifteen.”

“We’re easily provoked into rash displays of competitive machismo, ma’am,” Sev said. “We accept the challenge.”

Scorch indicated Etain’s mascot. That’s what he thought it was, anyway. “Your Wookiee’s not very big, ma’am.”

“It’s my little boy’s toy nerf,” she said. “He put it in my hand before I left, and right now it’s really comforting. It smells of him.”

Sev said nothing. Scorch was grateful for that. Boss clapped his gloves hard to get their attention. “Come on, Delta, move it. You can play with the toy later.”

Etain gave them a casual fingers-to-brow salute and disappeared with Enacca. They were booby-trapping the walkways so that the 41st Elite could drive the Trandoshans into a trap and pick them off.

“I call dibs on the main cannon,” Sev said. “A Sep cruiser is like one big bug. I haven’t had my bug-splattering fix today.”

But he’d get plenty of chances once they blew their way into the big silo-like emplacement. The Seps had built into the trees, almost sleeving them in metal at some points and driving durasteel shafts clean through the road-wide trunks. The first set of doors Scorch blew unleashed a wave of spider droids, and Fixer picked them off with anti-armor rounds.

Boss checked his HUD chrono, flashing the countdown to all of them across their readouts. “Fifteen to go, so let’s not let the generals down. Grab the first anti-air turret you see and hang on to it. One each. Between the four of us, we should be able to put a dent in that shabuir.”

Scorch could hear the voice traffic now in his helmet between the 41st and Vos’s forward air control. The Sep cruiser was maneuvering to block the flagship, and Commander Gree was searching for alternative sites to land men. If he was forced too far from the landing zone, they’d have a hard haul back“through the forest before they could engage the Sep targets. The cruiser had to move. Two MagnaGuard droids blocked their path to the battery positions. Scorch almost didn’t count the Trandoshans who opened up with blasters. He lobbed a grenade their way while Fixer and Sev charged the droids, slicing one of them in two with a burst of plasma bolts and smashing the other to the floor with the butt of a Deece before emptying a clip into it.

Fixer ran on and swung himself into the gunner’s seat on the first turbolaser position. He waved Scorch and the other two past him, and started punching the controls. Scorch dropped into the next bay. He found a Trando trying to get a firing solution on the GAR flagship, which was now looking awfully close and in need of a parking space. Scorch brought his vibroblade up under the Trando’s chin just as the barve reached for his rifle, waited for him to stop struggling, and dragged the body clear of the seat.

By the time Scorch had taken control of the cannon’s targeting system and found the optimum points on the cruiser’s hull to do the most damage, Boss and Sev were gone, sprinting on to take control of the last two cannons. Fixer was already opening big vents in the cruiser’s hull. But the thing wasn’t going to go down easy; now Scorch could see four streams of laserfire playing along the keel of the Sep ship.

“Yeah, feel free, join the party.” Scorch thought Fixer was talking to him on the comlink, but when he saw triple-A coming up from the ground in brilliant white staccato lines, he realized Vos’s larty units had moved in. “That’s our sky, buddy. Move over.”

The cruiser was losing height. Its buckled hull plates shuddered every time it took a hit, and then it started to break up. Flame vented from rips big enough to swallow a gunship.

“We’re going to be wearing that thing for a hat if we don’t move soon, Boss,” Scorch said. “It’s as good as dead.” “Job done, Deltas. Bang out.”

“Scorch swung out of the gunnery seat and ran for the turbolift, Deece ready, but he was running over dead Trandos and shredded metal. Any remaining Seps in the battery had made a run for it, too, possibly because of the imminent fireball from a dying cruiser. Boss, breathless, was calling in a LAAT/i for extraction as he ran.

Then Sev cut in. Scorch looked around. It was the first time he’d noticed that he wasn’t with them. When he checked the point-of-view icon in his HUD, Sev still seemed to be looking out from the turbolaser viewport, and then the image broke up into streaks before going black.

Sev’s voice carried on. “Boss, I’ve got a problem here …”

“Sev, where are you?”

“Sector … multiple hostiles …”

Fixer jabbed the comlink reset on his helmet. There was just the wash and crackle of static. “Lost his signal, Boss.”

“Well, find it again. Delta, regroup—we’re going after Sev.”

The forward air controller from Vos’s unit cut in. “Negative negative, Three-Eight, new orders came through from the generals—clear the area and evac now.”

“I don’t care if they came from General Yoda himself.” Boss gestured to Fixer and Scorch to make a move after Sev. They could always claim they hadn’t heard the message. “Sev—”

“As a matter of fact, they did, soldier. Now get your squad out of there.”

Explosions shook the ship. The comm circuit was a disjointed mix of half-snatched conversations; it was all going to haran. Sep forces were streaming in from the north and east of their position, converging on them. Delta had killed the cruiser and enabled the 41st to land, but the battle had only just begun.

“He’s right, Boss,” Fixer said. “We’ve got to get out now.”

Scorch grabbed Fixer’s arm. “We can’t leave Sev. Nobody gets left behind. Remember? Remember how Sev blew up when we left Vau on Mygeeto? You want to do that to our brother? You want to abandon him? Leave him to die here?”

“He’s Sev,” Fixer said. “If he’s alive, he’ll hole up somewhere and we can retrieve him later.”

“What if he can’t?”

“Then he’s dead anyway.”

“We don’t leave without a body, moving or otherwise.”

“If we don’t evac now, we’ll all be dead.”

“Fine, then we go together, not running off to save our own shebse while Sev’s left here.”

Boss said nothing and just watched as if he had nothing better to do, even though they had seconds to make their move. Then he took hold of Scorch’s shoulder.

Scorch hadn’t wept since he was a kid, but he couldn’t see for tears now. “I’m not leaving him, Boss. You go if you want to. Not me.”

“This is an order.”

“Screw orders. Omega wouldn’t leave a man.”

“Scorch …”

“You’ll have to shoot me.”

Boss put his hand on his sidearm. “Losing one guy is bad enough. I’m not losing two. Don’t let me down now.” He shoved Scorch hard in the back and nearly knocked him over. The larty was hovering level with the exit hatch of the turbo-lift. “Shift it, Six-Two.”

“I’ll never forgive you for this, Boss. Or you, Fixer. We’re brothers, for fierfek’s sake. I’d never leave you.”

But he did. He left. They all left.

“Sorry, Sev.” Boss’s voice was suddenly husky. He wasn’t the weepy type, either, but he sounded like he was struggling. And maybe Sev could hear them, and maybe he couldn’t, but if his end of the comlink was still live, Scorch could imagine what he was going through now as he listened to his brothers leaving him to die, or worse.

“Delta … move out.”

Sev was as hard as they came. Vau had made survivors of them all. Fixer was probably right: if Sev was still alive, he’d probably stay alive for a long time, and they could always go back.

But they didn’t know.

No, you didn’t pull out all the stops for Sev.

Skirata would have told Yoda to shove his orders, cut the comm, and gone looking for him.

As they jumped into the larty’s crew bay for the evac, Boss put his hand on Scorch’s shoulder, but Scorch shrugged it off. He longed for a cannon round and instant oblivion, some way of stopping the guilt of not being dead, not staying to search, not making a final stand and defying Boss and CIC and even shabla General Yoda. He wanted to die of shame. He could only imagine how much worse it would feel in years to come when he had to face himself every morning.

It was just as well that a clone’s life span was limited.

-Order 66Karen Traviss

[ohmytheon]

Rebelcaptain - Jedi Knights AU (bonus points if at the end of ROTS and Order 66)

I rewatched the Order 66 scene so I could get a feel for this and wow okay my hormones are in a swing because somehow a three minute clip from ROTS that didn’t involve Obi-Wan made me cry. Yoda’s pain via the Force GOT ME. It reminded me of Leia’s in TFA. Also, this got way out of my hands, but the next ones will be drabble size again, I swear.

give me a pairing and an au and i’ll write a drabble

Out of the two of them, Cassian was the wary one, always looking for the first sign of trouble, but it was Jyn that felt it first. She was split up from him this time, something that she probably shouldn’t be prone to doing since she was still very new to being a Jedi Master, but she had wanted to do a perimeter check. Besides, it wasn’t like she was alone. She had two trusted Clone soldiers with her, Looper and Green, men she had worked alongside on multiple missions.

Her boots thumped with every step on the platform, but when she neared the edge, the only sound she could hear was the wind. Nothing. Still, an easy feeling in her gut kept stirring, even larger now that her suspicions had been unconfirmed, and she reached up to grasp the kyber crystal her mother had given her before Jyn had been taken to become a Padawan. The crystal could’ve been put to much better use, as she had one now in the lightsaber she carried, but it was an old relic of her past that she refused to give up despite the Council’s wishes.

It reminded her that even Jedi were fallible – that even those who were considered not Force sensitive enough, not strong enough, to be considered for Jedi training could overcome everything. She had hid the kyber necklace for so long until Cassian found it. He had not berated her for it at least. The memory of the soft look in his eyes when he had tucked it back under the neckline of her shirt had to kept just as much of a secret as the crystal itself.

Closing her eyes, Jyn took a deep breath and focused on both the Force and the crystal until she could sense everything around her. She could feel the Clones behind her waiting for the next order and then, probing further, Cassian back inside. She thought he was looking out the window, trying to see her through the snow, and then she tangled with him as well. He was trying to sense her too. It made her smile faintly. Always wary, that one. Was he ever not restless?

Something sharp in the Force hit her, not unlike a blaster, and Jyn’s eyes snapped open as she felt something ripped away from her. No, it had been a blaster, but she hadn’t been the one hit. Who? Cassian? She struggled to find him again, but everything was a mess now. The Force felt like it was…like it was being ripped apart thread-by-thread. She gasped.

If her eyes had still been closed, she wouldn’t have noticed the sudden change in stance of the clones behind her, but out of the corner of her eyes she saw Looper raise his blaster towards her and she reacted quickly. The lightsaber was ready and in her hands in a second and she slashed it forward, slicing the blaster in half and rendering it useless.

“What are you–?” But there was no time to demand answers, not when she had to deflect a blaster shot from Green. She didn’t want to hurt them, much less kill them – she had worked with them so many times, joked with them, laughed with them, ate with them – but they left her no choice as they ruthlessly tried to attack her.

Jyn cut them down with ease, but her heart ached. They had only been clones, yes, but they had been her friends. Why had they suddenly turned against her?

And then another thought: Cassian. If Looper and Green had tried to kill her, what about all the other clones back inside? This was supposed to be a comfortable safe house for diplomats, but she suddenly pictured a blood house instead and her fears betrayed her. She had been taught to dampen those fears and put them away – passion led to dark paths, they were told – but she could not burn them to ashes so easily, not anymore.

Jyn raced back inside and all but burst through the door. She knew exactly where Cassian was and the quickest way to reach him. It would be dangerous, filled with possibly turned clones, but she had always had a habit of coming in hot and doing things straight on. She had to reach him; she had to get to him before it was too late. Otherwise, what was the point? Where would be the hope that all of this would end?

After reaching the hall that would lead her to him, her heart leapt into her throat as she skidded to a halt. There were at least ten clones blasting at the door to the main quarters until a hole large enough for them to climb through was made. Inside was Cassian, doing his best to block each blaster shot while anyone else with him tried to stay out of sight. Any other person might’ve tried to find a different way. Not Jyn. She ran straight ahead, her lightsaber cutting through the clones before they even realized she’d come upon them.

Ten against one was still a battle and she couldn’t cover all angles, so when a blaster hit her in the back of the shoulder, she yelped as she was thrown into a wall. Before she could be taken out, however, the familiar glow of a lightsaber stabbed through the middle of the clone and he collapsed dead to the ground.

“Come!” Cassian shouted breathlessly, holding out a hand. Jyn took it without thinking and allowed him to pull her through the hallways. She had no idea where he was going, but she didn’t ask questions.

“The diplomats?” Jyn asked the moment they paused.

Cassian peered around the corner. The hangar door was right in front of them, guarded by turned clones. If they had any hope of fleeing, it was in there with their ship, which was the closest thing to home that Jyn could imagine. What if it had been sabotaged in case they made it this far? No, no, the clones had turned so suddenly. They couldn’t have planned that ahead. She and Cassian shouldn’t be alive right now.

Taking a breath, Cassian pulled back and leaned against the wall. He had let go of her hand, but she yearned for him to take it again. It was a terrible thing to want, but so very human. Jedi were not so far removed, were they? "Safe, as long as we keep our distance from them. The clones only seem focused on Jedi.“

"How is that possible?” Jyn hissed furiously. She thought of the times that she had gone to the shooting range to help Green out and now he was lying dead on the platform at her hands, his body slowly getting covered with snow.

“I do not know,” Cassian replied grimly, “but they are very determined.”

Jyn went silent. They needed to get on that ship. Who knew how many clones were in the hangar. The suddenly very real fear that she would die struck her. She was not afraid of death itself. As a Jedi, she would be come one with the Force; she would live on through it. But then she looked at Cassian – the tightly-coiled tension in his body, his fingers flexing on the handle of his lightsaber, the scruff on his jaw and cheeks that he’d forgotten to shave, the sharp look in his eyes that saw everything – and she was afraid of something.

Fear led to a dark path that she could not go down, but it also felt unwise to dismiss it outright. Then again, a few on the Jedi Council might argue that Jyn had a habit of doing a lot of unwise things. She wondered if any of them were still alive to tell her that.

There was no time to question it further. Cassian touched the inside of her wrist and then they were off, battling their way into the hanger and towards their ship. A spark of relief lit inside of her when she saw it, but then she was ducking and sliding and twisting around as she deflected blaster shot after shot. She and Cassian were able to work together, protecting the other’s back while guarding their own front.

It did not make them invincible. A blaster grazed her side, sucking the wind out of her, and one caught Cassian right above the knee, knocking him down. He was almost cut down, except Jyn threw out a hand at the last second blindly and shouted, “Cassian!” The clone was blown off his feet by the Force, crashing into three others, and gave them an opening. Jyn went to help him up, leaving him to cringe, but she cut him off before he could even protest, “I’m not leaving you.”

She half-carried, half-dragged him into the ship, unceremoniously dropping him so that she could deflect another blaster shot and hit the button to close the ship’s door. By the time she turned around, Cassian was already in the pilot’s chair, activating the ship. She listened to it come to life, humming under her feet, whirring around her, but her heart was beating almost just as loudly. Blaster shots kept hitting the ship until Cassian was able to return fire, nearly blowing up half the hanger with his superior firepower.

“I thought that was my move,” Jyn mumbled as she stood behind him to assess the damage. Most of the clones that had been left were now either unmoving or struggling to get up. Cassian’s knuckles were white and his face determined as he guided the ship up and then out of the hanger as quickly as possible. It would not be long before other ships were sent after them, so they needed to get out of here as fast as possible.

She had no idea where they would go (where in the galaxy would be safe for a Jedi that was now being hunted like a dog?), but she trusted Cassian. He was an excellent and natural pilot alongside being one of the most capable Jedi Knights. Instead, she closed her eyes, grasping the kyber crystal again and listening to him activate the hyperdrive, and willed everything into the Force. It would not betray her. Cassian would not betray her. As long as she had them, she would be fine, she told herself. The ship rocked as they made the jump, but she barely swayed on her feet despite holding onto nothing.

Only when she felt a hand wrapping over her own holding the crystal did Jyn open her eyes and she found Cassian staring down at her solemnly. It had been a very long time since she had felt alone, especially after crossing paths with him, but here on this ship, drifting somewhere in the blackness of space, she felt very much alone. The Force was silent, frayed, and distant. She could feel the emptiness that had once been occupied by so many others.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Cassian whispered, even though they were safe for now and completely alone.

Jyn felt adrift, like the ship, completely untethered. The emptiness was as vast as space. “They’re gone.” Her voice was hollow. She didn’t know what she was saying, except that she did. A few lights reminded, blips on the outskirt of her radar, but she could barely sense them. Some winked out so suddenly that her knees buckled. She would’ve collapsed had Cassian not caught her. She clung to him and he let her, maybe needing it as well. “Gone.”

Cassian slowly gathered her back to her feet, but he did not push away, not like he should have. Jedi were not to gain attachments, at least not close ones. Some had been wary of the two of them partnering, but most of the higher-ups on the Jedi Council had believed that Cassian’s unwavering belief in the Force and the way of the Jedi would eventually smooth out Jyn’s edges. They had not counted on the two of them fitting together.

He held her against him, one arm wrapped around her securely as he smoothed down her hair with his other hand. She breathed in his familiar scent as she tried to regain her balance, but there was so much gone, like the rug had been pulled out from underneath her feet. Her mother had not been Force sensitive enough to become a Jedi, but Jyn, her daughter, sometimes felt like she was too sensitive.

“Where will be go?” Jyn asked quietly.

“Somewhere we can hide,” Cassian told her. “We must gather information and regroup before we can do anything.”

Jyn scoffed lightly, but she didn’t pull away. “I hate hiding. It feels so… helpless." She bit her lip and moved her head to lift her gaze to him. He moved his hand from the back of her head to her shoulder. "We’re on the run. Did you ever think that would happen?”

His lips quirked into a faint but pained smile. “Not entirely like this.”

Not know what to do with his answer, Jyn looked away and out the front of the ship. Her eyes caught sight of the stars, all of them distant but so dark. She used to think that stars could never die, back when she was a child, before she had been taken away from her family. “How many do you think are left?”

“I don’t know.” Cassian sighed, the smile gone so quickly it was like it was never there. He released her from his grip, but he didn’t leave her. “Not many.” He glanced down at her the same time she looked back up at him. “But you’re here. When the clones turned, I didn’t know what to do. I shut the doors, trying to protect the diplomats, but then realized I’d locked you out there with them. I was…”

He was afraid. Cassian was not as quick to admit his emotions as readily as Jyn was. Before her, he had been an excellent Jedi, a proper example. Perhaps she had ruined him. He never seemed to regret joining her though. She could feel his confidence in her thrumming through him, strong as ever, and it comforted her. At least he was here. She looked back out at the stars. But for how long would they be able to run and hide before their stars were too snuffed out? The answers were just as distant. Her heart began to burn like a supernova. Whatever had happened, she would fight until her last breath.

[wingskribes-blog]

WING FIXES THE UNIVERSE! 1. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

The Last Jedi, is probably the most contentious of the nine Star Wars films released so far. Some seem to love it. Others say it’s undeserving to hold its place in the series. Both camps seem to span the cross-sectional gamut of casual and hardcore fandom. So too are there are those—maybe even a majority—who will work up what little enthusiasm they can find to tell you, “It was okay. Not great, but okay, I guess.”

Well let me be the first to say, ALL of you are right. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is as GOOD as it is BAD. And on the whole, it’s kind of just ‘inoffensively, meh’. But this is not a Kribes’ Review you’re reading. No, this is a Wing Fixes the Universe! No ratings here, Dear Reader. No, here we get into what Last Jedi should have done to be a truly fantastic film. Here we fix EVERYTHING. So let’s begin!

(Of course … there will be spoilers.)

  The PROBLEMS

1)      TONE: Star Wars has never shied from a joke (“Shut him up or shut him down!”), but the jokes, quips and gags have usually managed to hold themselves ‘in universe’. That is to say they are played to the situation, or to one character or another, not to the audience. They are not slipped in just to keep the audience laughing. And when they are, it rarely goes well. Then we get Jar Jar bumbling his way through a platoon of tanks. We get Obi wan and Anakin trapped in a force-field with saying, “How did this happen? We’re smarter than this!”

Well, perhaps The Last Jedi isn’t quite as dense as say, The Phantom Menace, with these class-clownish winks to the audience (though it’s close) but it takes them much further than the franchise has ever allowed before. We get Poe’s crank call to Hux, Luke milking that alien’s testicle-boobs, the crying-eyed porg staring up at Chewie, and so many little moments that just don’t feel like Star Wars. We will fix this.

2)      PACING: Battles are great but they slow things down. Too many and they tend to blend together; they become boring. Character arcs are vital but you must move your characters through these arcs! You can’t just linger and show them banging their heads again and again against the same wall! (As we get with Rey on the island.)

3)      STAKES: When every sequence is offered up like a climax, you stop caring by the third one. Build your tension so we care whether the heroes win or lose in the end.

  The FIX

1)      THE TONE: We’re going to have to re-script everything. I don’t mean a major overhaul here (yet), just stripping and replacing the wallpaper. No more pandering to the audience. No crank calls. No alien milking, or space-nun near misses. e.g. you can keep the porgs but they can’t just be there to be cute and silly. Give them a tiny sub-arc with Chewbacca. 1) Stepping off the Falcon he sees them immediately. They scatter at the sight of him. 2) They chirp in the night and Chewie has trouble sleeping. He covers his ears and grumbles. 3) He finds they’ve infested the Falcon and he gets legitimately angry. 4) After destroying the First Order’s air support on the crystal planet, the Falcon is forced into a crash landing (which would just be a better way for Rey to arrive) and the poison gas mentioned in Force Awakens is about to flood the ship. Chewie grabs a handful of porgs before running out then puts them down on the ground outside. Yes, it’s still corny. But corny is fine in a Star Wars. (e.g. R2 launched through the air by a swamp lizard.) But at least they have a place in the story now; they’re not just there to be cute and sell toys.

2)      THE OPENING: If you’re going to start with a big battle, make it mean something. Don’t just tell me some jokes, show a few explosions and then kill a Red Shirt I’ve never seen before but am supposed to care about for some reason. What you should do is make this sequence its own miniature movie starring Rose’s sister. Poe shouldn’t even be in it (except on the communicator telling them to ignore retreat orders). Start with the sisters saying goodbye. (This grounds the one sister’s sacrifice and gives us reason to care when she dies. Simultaneously, it helps us to care about Rose later on, and makes her sudden importance as a main character much less jarring.) Now you can give all the turns and tension of the battle to this plucky, determined bombardier. There’s plenty of story and emotion to be dug up here. Find it Don’t give us the opening battle from Revenge of the Sith. Give us the first twenty minutes of UP.

And when it’s done, let’s see Rose in the background, mourning her sister as everyone else celebrates. Only Leia sees this. Then it’s Admiral Holdo who berates Poe for disobeying orders. (Moving up her introduction to reduce how jarring her sudden importance is.)

3)      THE ISLAND (A): Rey’s time on the island needs to be WAY shorter. And less silly. When Luke comically chucks his lightsaber over his shoulder it undercuts Rey’s entire Episode VII story arc, reducing it to a three-second, not-terribly-funny sight-gag. Have him look at it instead, then look at her and walk past without touching it or saying a word. Then we get the short montage of her following him around as he does his day-to-days but he refuses to talk to her. NO MILKING. We see time pass in shots of her sitting outside his door at night, eating food she brought from the Falcon. Each time there’s less food in her pack. Until there’s none. Then Luke steps out, glares at her, and places a bowl of stew in front of her. As he turns away, she begs him to tell her why he won’t help and seems to have turned his back on the Force. He appears as if he’s going to answer but before he does, we cut away to…

4)      THE CHASE: The First Order chasing the Resistance’s ships is so boring you only really showed it in the background of other events. So obviously, it needs to change. What if they’re hiding instead. In a nebula or something. Poe wants to take a flight of X-Wings out and see if he can cut a hole in the First Order fleet for them to escape through, but Holdo says he has to stay and protect the cruiser. Instead of mutinying, he highjacks some fighters and goes out anyway. The cruiser’s attacked and he barely makes it back on time. He expects to berated by Holdo but finds out that Leia’s woken up while he was out and that’s when she slaps him.

5)      THE ISLAND (B): Rey begins communing with Kylo. We get TWO scenes of Luke showing Rey what the force is and isn’t (no more). No Dark Cave. And TWO scenes of communing. No Kylo’s version of what happened with Luke. We still get Luke’s version. Luke and Rey fight when she tells him she’s going to Kylo. She leaves him with words that are a callback to his “I must face Vader” speech in Return of the Jedi. He is left to ponder his choices.

6)      SNOKE/REY/KYLO: a) Forget Rey’s parentage! If her parents weren’t important, there’s NO REASON the characters would be talking about them. Just because it’s a mystery to the audience, doesn’t mean it is to them! At least change Kylo’s line to, “I know where your parents are.” b) Give us something about Snoke’s background. I mean, who the fuck is this guy all of a sudden, anyway? Maybe he was Sidious’ rival but lost out to becoming the previous Sith Lord’s apprentice. A single line is all it would take. 3) Cut the fight with the New Imperial Guards to no more than ten seconds. It added nothing. It wasn’t exciting. And even if they’re the best fighters in the army, I just didn’t believe they’d last that long.

7)      CASINO: There’s so much wrong here. Too much. Fixing it would require major structural changes more significant for a small article could fit. Let’s just say, the following issues need to be dealt with:

For starters, it just doesn’t fit. Allowing Fin and Rose to leave the chase and then come back to it without anyone noticing is an odd choice. If escape pods are so hard to track, why doesn’t everyone just get into them to get away? Even if I missed something and they gave a reasonable explanation for this, why would they call Maz? How does Fin even know how to reach her when he’s been unconscious since the last film? And then we get them walking around Casino World gawking and judging as if they’ve completely forgotten their friends are currently dying in large numbers. We’re shown more urgency in the escape of the horse-aliens than in the near-total destruction of the Resistance.

Plus Benicio Del Toro’s character, another important character who jarringly appears out of nowhere, not only adds nothing to the story, but is dull to watch too. And could Captain Phasma at least be fighting them to get to the last shuttle before the ship explodes? Instead of just because she’s a villain? And could we see Gwendoline Christie’s whole face, while she’s alive?!

8)      YODA: Cut this whole scene. Yoda looked terrible and didn’t act or speak like any Yoda we’ve seen before. It added nothing to plot or character that we didn’t already get, and could as easily be accomplished the Return of the Jedi callback from Rey (as suggested above).

9)      THE LAST STAND: This was actually mostly quite good. The Luke stuff was great. Just a few changes. Why are Fin and Rose flying salt-speeders? Neither of them are pilots. Find something else for them to do. And as I mentioned before, crash the Millennium Falcon. Have Rey try to take out the Battering Cannon and make it seem like she’s going to take it out. But then she gets hit by a ground turret and is forced down. It’s a much better entrance for Rey. Beyond that, the sequence is good.

10)   BOY WITH BROOM: This scene is the only reason I didn’t suggest cutting the Casino Planet altogether. Having the film end with a seed of hope is both a great throw to Episode IX, and a powerful moment in its own right. That being said, it wasn’t done particularly well. The Casino Kids were a pretty small facet of the Casino Planet arc (which is kind of fucked up if you think about it). So their impact in this scene is not as strong as it should be. When you sit down and rework the Casino arc (as prescribed above), make sure the kids are more relevant to its development.

 And THAT dear reader, is how you will fix this most mediocre addition to the Star Wars franchise. Follow my council and I promise, your work will be better. Your work will be everything it should be. Your work will be FIXED.