#and palpatine was like yeah okay why not

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

When I watched rebels and ahsoka I couldn’t have cared less about thrawn

I am now reading his book and I care about him and eli SO MUCH

[galactic-rhea]

Can you imagine the sheer amount of horror and panic for the rebels if Padmé decided to be evil and "yeah, okay, you know what, let's cut Palpatine's head and let me see what I can do to fix this galaxy my way"?

No no like they're like "The Chancellor tricked us, almost all the jedi are dead, there's no republic anymore, but there's still hope! There's still a fight in us, there's still---!" and they see Padmé, with Anakin/Vader following her close with raging, horrible, yellow eyes, but what's more scary is that Padmé is just smilling? With a sith so close to her? Padmé, he's- he's a murderer, Padmé? Why are you giving him pats- Oh damn, he's the father, oh damn-.

"We're doomed" the rebels mutter when they realize Senator Amidala- wait, what? Is Empress Amidala now? Okay-.

Yeah, okay, theorically she would be a better choice than the bastard of Palpatine. But at the same time she's so loved, so clever as a politician and Anakin is so devoted to her that forming a rebellion against her would be twice as hard. Even more when she actually originally was one of the founders of that very same rebellion? And General Skywalker is insane now, and he's very insane about her too, and he's very murderous and did I say insane? and...

What, all the highly trained look-alikes handmaidens are now secret service? Well that's...complicated, but...What, Naboo supports her? The whole planet? That's not so much of a shock, but...Bail, wait, listen to yourself, Bail what are you saying, she's evil now, stay with us, Bail. Okay, well, you might have a point-

"We're doomed." The rebels mutter again as they facepalm at the most cheesy and dumb royal wedding between the worst power couple in existence and the Organas are guests of honor and the groomsmen/honor guard are a chained General Kenobi, an astromech and a protocol droid.

[chopper-base]

@shadestepping

Ok, that was honestly more like 15 minutes, but whatever. I did not edit this at all. I just basically word vomited on the page and this shit came of it-

"...organic chips."

"Yup"

"...implanted in our heads."

"Mhm."

"...to control us?"

"Precisely."

Fox rubbed his temple, already feeling the headache forming. "And the Chancellor is responsible??"

Fives nodded, his arms crossed. "He told me himself because he's gonna try to have me killed."

Fox locked eyes with Fives, trying to search his expression for a hint of a lie. He found none. He knew Fives had a habit of pranks and jokes but the ARCs face remained deadly serious. "Surprisingly," Fox shrugged, placing his hands on his hips, "I believe you."

Fives mouth fell open, his arms dropping to his sides in disbelief. "Wait, YOU DO?!"

Fox threw his hands up in defeat. "It'd explain a lot. The random memories missing, the bad osik I apparently do and then don't even know about til Thire mentions it." He turned, running his hand down his face. "...I hate that this makes sense but I do enjoy the extra excuse to hate the Chancellor."

Fives cocked his head, a look of confusion on his face. "Wait. You already hated the Chancellor?"

Fox had to laugh, shaking his head. "With every fiber of my being. Don't even get me started."

Fives put his hands up in surrender, not questioning it further. He dropped his hands, watching the Commander as he slowly paced the small room. Fox was racking his brain. They couldn't exactly just march up and declare that Palpatine was orchestrating both sides of the war to the senate or even the jedi council without some sort of proof. The most they could prove was the chip's existence and he was sure the Kaminoins would come up with some Banta osik to explain it. The Commander refused to ignore it though, knowing his brothers lives and entire galaxy were at risk. He knew what the Chancellor had planned to do with being able to control every clone in existence.

"...Fox?"

Fox turned to Fives who was looking more anxious by the minute. The ARC was practically shaking in his boots. Most of the Coruscant Guard were searching for him. There were orders to capture him but Fox knew the moment anyone found him, he'd be dead not long after. That was Fox's first glaringly red flag. Why would the Chancellor order the entire Guard to search for one clone? The only explanation to Fives' supposed rampage was he attacked the Chancellor which Fox had to force himself not to laugh at. He'd dreamed of doing the same thing and knowing one of his brothers beat him to it was honestly kind of hilarious.

"We can't just march up to the senate and declare the Chancellor is responsible for the entire war. We'd probably both be shot on site. We need proof."

"The only physical proof we have is the chips themselves and we both know the Kaminoins are going to cover their shebs." Fives explained, pointing to the scar that now decorated the side of his head.

Fox sighed deeply. "The only thing I can think of that'd stop this is killing the Chancellor and that's not exactly an option."

"Why not?"

Fox took a step back in shock, staring at the ARC. "Why n- Fives! He's the kriffin Chancellor! What'd you think would happen if we marched up to his office and but a blaster bolt between his eyes?!"

"...we'd solve the problem?"

Fox turned away, letting his face fall into his hands with a groan.

"Okay, maybe not just march up there but if he's the head of this plot, killing him would stop it!"

Fox couldn't get himself to turn around to face the ARC. Opting to stare at the wall, trying to keep down the angry bubbling in his chest. They needed proof. Or killing the Chancellor would just open another can or worms that neither of them could expect.

"Fives. You said he admitted this to you, correct?" He turned back around, finally locking eyes with Fives.

Fives nodded. "Yeah, he admitted it straight to my face."

"Did the room you were in happen to have security cams by chance?"

Fives froze, his eyes lighting up. "I think there just might have been."

A grin wormed its way onto Fox's face. "If there were cameras, his confession would give us everything we need."

Fives mirrored his smirk. "See, this is why they made you a commander.'

Fox got ahold of a set of Coruscant armor which Fives had quickly donned, placing the bucket over his head. From there, it was almost too easy to make it past the patrols that had begun to swarm the cool streets of the city. Getting into the security center was even easier, not a soul thinking to stop the Commander.

Fives was on the console in a heartbeat, searching swiftly through the camera feeds. "There!" He pulled up one of the feeds, turning the volume up.

Fox watched, anger radiating off of him as he watched the Chancellor admit to orchestrating the war. Admit to the plan against the jedi. It was all there. He started to download the recordings before the tape had finished, stuffing it in his belt pouches the moment it finished.

"Now can we go kill the son of a bitch?"

Fox smirked under his helmet. "I get the first shot."

They marched their way towards his office, determination in every step. The walk there felt like hours, but both clones held their heads high. Fox didn't hesitate for a second when they arrived, the door opening with a hiss. The Chancellor had barely turned around in his chair when the first shot rang out, hitting him dead set in the middle of his chest. Fox removed his helmet, letting the man who made his life a living hell look him in the eye as he died.

Fives had his blaster trained, finger iching at the trigger. "This is for my brothers, motherkriffer."

Fox couldn't even keep track of how many times Fives pulled that trigger, decorating the Chancellor's chest in so many blaster burn, it looked as if it was on fire. He didn't stop firing til Fox gently laid his hand on his vod's shoulder.

Fives lowered the blaster, taking a shaky breath. He had done it. He'd killed the man that was responsible for this whole war. Responsible for sending all his brothers to die in a battle with no true winner.

They were free.

[nonhumanhottie]

The bad batch season 3 premier reactions

Ep 1 - confined

I fully forgot about this premier until I was eating lunch and it hit me oh I'm so intrigued

Palps being front and centre in the D+ poster delights me

Not them starting with tech's death lol

Why is it so fucking dark it's animation you have the ability to make it visible so easily

Omega baby I'm so sorry yeah it sucks to be a star wars main character huh

That's some sweeney todd coloured blood lmao

While palpatine cloning nonsense in ep ix is... a Choice, and this justification in other shows doesn't fix it, I just love palpatine shenanigans

Oh Omega has a pony tail... she's been there a while

'I wouldn't think twice about leaving you behind' he lied

The way this season starts with a child prisoner just going through it is brutal

Episode 2 - paths unknown

Isa is spreading her legs so wild on that throne what a power move

The boys!! Oh they look like fucking shit these poor bastards lol

Child clones out in the wild nooo poor babies

I love their little kiwi accents omg and they sound like actual teen boys this VA is great

Again with the bad lighting

Okay but why are space ships apparently so easy to steal in this galaxy?

Oh hey the writers remembered Hunter's abilities

Okay this plotline was a little predictable but the boys are charming at least

Episode 3 - shadow of tantiss

I hope this episode has something real juicy in it

I'm not really a fan of Crosshair's character so I kinda love seeing him miserable lmaoooo

Feels like Emerie doesn't have the best hygienic practices. A blood sample without cleaning the the skin???

Omg Nala Se telling Omega to leave oooohhh

PALPATINE!! SLAY!! What's this cheeky bastard up to?

Project necromancer???

I do love Crosshair's mean little voice

I live for how unphased Omega is about the Emperor

Oh Palpatine... God love him even his backup plans have backup plans

I do miss his slay outfits from when he was chancellor

Not Crosshair shading Tech like that

Omega murdered those troopers lmao

Does Omega have a high M-Count???

Oh bitch Omega is force sensitive

Overall a... fine premier lol

My favourite part was Palpatine but story beats were kinda predictable

[mycurrentobsessionis]

I get why people are so mad at Milo, I really do...

(spoilers for The Night Market)

But, first of all, accidently summoning fucking Cthullu because you literally Do Not Know how to do your job is, uh, relateable somehow. Then proceeding to stab Cthullu because you panicked is objectively funny. Like. I got over the initial shock of that ending (because wtf, Milo?!?!?), and the confusion (like what did I do to get the bad ending???), and then it was ALL laughs. Like, daaaaamn, Malcolm is gonna be pissed, dude!

Legit, Milo isn't even malicious here, y'know? He's, like, a horse loose in a hospital -- he's just as confused as you are! He's never been in a hospital before!

Also, on a serious note, it's like, fair enough, okay. Because Hazel won't leave the Market, because she won't leave without Malcolm (living, dead, or undecided). Malcolm either can't or won't leave. Every probably can't leave. Milo probs doesn't care if he dies, but that's his family. And, I mean, the MC was dying irregardless. In his brain, this was the thing that would save them, too. All he had to do was give up their trust and love (platonic or otherwise), and they walked away. Limping and heartbroken, sure, but alive. Not saying it's fair, but you know. People do massively fucked up shit for love and for fear, and Milo has both. What he does is selfless from a certain point of view -- he gave up the affection and goodwill (that he probably thinks he doesn't deserve anyway), and everyone lives. He loved them all enough to lose them. And yeah, it was in fucked up way that is not the way to do shit, but.

As a future trauma-informed clinician, Milo's brain is legitimately built different. That man is on fight-or-flight 24/7, and I'm not convinced he isn't in a manic episode for at least part of the book. We know he's not sleeping and is drinking pretty heavily toward the end. That does not bode well.

Honestly, it was a shocker ending only because I didn't expect the author to go there, but it makes sense. This is a severely mentally ill man who spent ten years literally carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, on top of his own unprocessed grief and trauma, and trying to make sure his equally mentally ill friend is alright, and sort of single-parenting a dead child. Then you have the fact that he was meeting pretty regularly with Baron fucking Palpatine, who was probably manipulating him. And yeah, you can say that he's a grown man but... When you live your life focused on survival, you literally do not develop the kind of executive functioning skills you need to withstand that shit. You can develop them later in life, but it is significantly more difficult.

In a lot of cases, I do not argue for mental illness being a defense for the kind of fuckery that he got up to, but shit, man. Milo has such a deep-seated sense of self-loathing, and the amount of vitriol thrown against him so intense and utterly unsympathetic. The whole cast uses the MC for their own ends. They all put the MC at direct risk. At least Milo believes he's saving them.

Anyhoo... romanced him because Zinnia won't let me play as his therapist LOL.

[vodika-vibes]

How to Get Away With Murder

Summary: When Commander Fox burst into your office before lunch one day, you think that he's coming to steal you away for a midday rendezvous, as per the norm for your relationship. But he has something else up his sleeve.

Pairing: Commander Fox x Reader

Word Count: 1124

Warnings: Uh, some generally decent people planning murder

Tagging: @trixie2023

A/N: I was feeling the urge to write Fox, so I did. Also, today I learned the difference between a hit and an assassination. An assassination is always politically or religiously motivate. A hit is just a murder.

Divider by Saradika

Commander Fox, the love of your life, leans across your desk, a shit eating grin on his handsome face, and you can’t help but think that his time working under Palpatine finally caused him to crack. Of course, that’s also assuming that he wasn’t a little bit cracked when he first came to Coruscant. Which, knowing him, he probably was.

You lean back in your chair and eye your Commander warily, “Why are you in such a good mood?” 

“I have a brilliant idea.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to be involved,” You reply immediately, seeing as his brilliant plans tend to involve a degree of risk that you’re not sure you like or not.

Of course, you seem to be physically unable to say no to Fox.

He leans back in the other chair, his wide grin turning into a smug smirk, “Yeah, you do.”

You mentally curse him, and rest your chin on the palm of your hand, “Fine. What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to kill the Supreme Chancellor.” Fox replies blithely. 

“Is…isn’t that treason?” You ask. Tellingly, that’s your only concern.

“They can elect another one. One that isn’t corrupt. Like you.” Fox replies, and then he hops to his feet and walks around your desk and pulls you to your feet, intentionally tugging you so that you’re flush against him, “It’ll be fun~” He coos right in your ear.

You shiver, and then tilt your head back so you’re able to look right in his eyes, “Murder isn’t fun.”

“It is if you do it right.” He grins and presses a quick kiss to your lips, “Come on, babe. We have work to do.” Fox takes your unprotesting hand and pulls you out of your office, “Besides, if we do this right, then me and my brothers get rights, and I can finally stop listening to Thorn bitch over the fact that he can’t kiss his girlfriend.”

“Wait,” You hurry to keep up with his much longer legs, “Thorn has a girlfriend?”

“Yup. But he can never see her because the Chancellor is an abusive asshole.” Fox replies.

“Then how do you have time to come and see me?” You ask as you half jog to keep up with him.

“You, cyare, are a senator. Which means I can just walk my happy ass into your office and take what I need.” Fox replies with a small smirk.

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that,” You grumble.

“Am I wrong?”

“No. I just wish you wouldn’t say it in such a disgusting way.” You reply.

He laughs, a warm sound that never fails to make you smile at him like a lovesick schoolgirl. Fox favors you with a smile that he reserves for you and you alone, and then he opens a door and tugs you into a well lit, buzzing, room. “Okay, I’m back.”

You look around the room and fight the urge to hide behind Fox. There are a lot of big names in the room.

Aside from you, a relatively small-time senator from a backwater planet no one in the Republic actually cares about, there’s also Senators Organa, Mothma, Amidala, and Chuchi. All three of them are rather big names, and you feel very out of place. 

Aside from the four senators, there are also Generals Kenobi, Koon, and Windu in the room…plus their respective Commanders.

“Senator,” Senator Organa greets you with a kind smile, the same way your father greets you whenever you go home to help out on the family farm, “Forgive me! Had I known that you were a believer in our cause, I would have invited you myself.”

Fox guides you over to an empty chair, a smug grin on his lips, and you shoot him a look, which only makes his grin more smug. “This cause being the assassination of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic?” You ask, very dryly.

“Assassination is such an ugly word,” Senator Amidala says lightly.

“Oh. Is there another term used for the politically based murder of a specific person?” You ask.

“We’re doing it for a good cause.” General Kenobi says patiently.

“It’s still called an assassination.” You point out.

“You’re not incorrect,” General Windu interjects, “Does it bother you?”

“No. I’m the one who has to patch up Fox after a bad day. But I was just going to poison him, so-”

Fox chokes down a laugh, “You’re amazing and I don’t deserve you.”

“So long as you know, darling.” You lean back in your seat, and Fox’s gloved fingers brush against the back of your neck, “I assume there’s a plan?”

“There is, but we need the Guard outside of the senate building.” General Koon says quietly, “And we’re not sure how to do that.”

“Oh, I can take care of that.” You say with a tilt of your head, “Easy.”

“How are you going to do that?” Senator Chuchi asks, “Without alerting Palpatine-?”

You smile serenely at her and pull your comm out of your purse. You pause, and tilt your head back to look up at Fox, “How big of a riot do you need?”

Fox frowns thoughtfully, “To empty the Corrie barracks and the Senate building? A couple thousand.”

You send a series of messages, and you get responses almost immediately, “Uhh…how does seven thousand sound?”

“You can really get that many people?” Fox asks as he leans over your shoulder.

“Yeah. There are a lot of anti-war, anti-government protestors who are happy to riot at the drop of the hat.” 

“I’m sorry, how do you know these people?” General Kenobi asks.

“Uh…the best way to enact change is from the inside?” You admit with a grin.

“How many protests have you personally set up?” Senator Mon Mothma asks with a sharp glare.

“I’m not answering that question on the grounds that I don’t want to, and also you’re in here planning the assassination of the Supreme Chancellor, so maybe you shouldn’t cast stones while in a glass house.” You send another series of messages, “And…done. You have three hours to come up with a good plan, because that’s when the riots start.”

Senator Organa grins at you, “When we’re done with all of this, kid, you and I need to have a conversation.”

“Uh…I suddenly feel like I’ve been called to the principal’s office.” You mutter under your breath.

Fox laughs softly and presses a light kiss to the top of your head, “Don’t worry so much, cyare. Everything is going to be fine.”

And you relax as the much older people in the room start debating. If Fox says everything is going to be fine, then it has to be true. Fox isn’t a liar after all.

[according2thelore]

I think in es/ls verse that ls!sam would absolutely refuse to tell either of the younger ones about the future for WormHole Reasons but also because he knows they mentally cannot handle the idea of hell/the cage/purgatory/mom coming back/meeting god/the like.

and that's the Old Winchesters party line so obviously ls!dean is like 👌 sounds good sam whatever you say 👌 and then drops tantalizing hints in front of es!dean to fuck with him. just enough to drive him crazy, not enough to actually give him knowledge.

but. es sam is a goddamn bloodhound. he does not believe that any version of dean has the Right to keep any secret from him, ever, actually, and he's so so curious, and grizzled old dean is so WHIPPED by this entitled baby sam that he ends up spilling wayyyy too much. HE CAN'T HELP IT. plus he's jealous that his sam is spending time with es!dean, so.....

anyway, cue es!sam yelling at es!dean because how dare he sell his soul for him, months before he actually does it. es!dean overhearing es!sam ask his older self if they actually go to hell and what's it like, and dean loses his mind. etcetera.

"hitler's scared of me." dean says. the younger version of him slows down chewing, but doesn't stop. sam and...well, sam have gotten up to go look at the state map on the far wall of the diner, trying to see where alva, oklahoma is.

"yeah, okay." younger dean says--little dick, dean wants to dub him, but that weirdly feels like a self-burn, so dean goes back to brainstorming--but he must see something in dean's eyes, because his own get huge. like, cartoon-character huge.

then he starts choking. dean's sam--sammy, they've started calling him--comes over and smacks the kid on the back, then glares at dean like dean just purposefully and cruelly antagonized a wet kitten in a dumpster. or baby jesus.

"no fucking way. guy's been dead for like--seventy years!"

"elliot ness or hitler?" sammy asks dean through gritted teeth, still glaring holes into his face.

"i meet elliot ness?" little dick--fuck it, kid's annoying--cries, and sammy slaps a hand to his forehead.

"shit."

~~~

“lord palpatine has a granddaughter and she's hot." dean calls into the shower room as he passes, and he hears a loud crash.

"i'm going to FUCKING kill you!" little dean screeches--again, weirdly demoralizing--and dean cackles the whole way to the kitchen.

~~~

"you should get really good a sword-fighting." dean suggests. younger dean just slumps forward.

"why?" he asks, like dean just suggested he stick a grenade pin up his dick or chew off sam's toenails.

"dunno. seems destined." dean says, and his world gets rocked as sammy hits him on the back of the head with a book thicker than his arm--as hard as he can.

~~~

"am i happy?" sam asks--baby sam, even though they've established that he's just 'sam,' with flashing eyes and a curled lip--because he's a manipulative piece of shit. dean can feel his shoulders tense.

they're sitting on the couch in the dean cave and re-watching some old hits, like the original clash of the titans. sam has strategically placed himself so his skinny thigh is pressed against dean's bigger one.

dean has very carefully not looked down to catalogue the difference because he knows he's going to do something stupid like pop a boner over it. dean knows that the closeness is strategic. but god, sammy--sam--smells like his old aftershave and summer. his eyes are bright and unlined. and he's playing dean's strings with deft fingers as he rolls his neck and looks at dean with eyes bigger than the damn sky.

they've been spending so much time together lately now that sam--adult sam--has found his new favourite in dean's younger self. sammy told the tiny asshole--what the hell is he going to call this kid--that he did a good job the other day, and the kid damn near pissed himself in delight like an excited puppy. dean's not speaking to either of them at the moment.

sam's been gently plying him with questions over the past few days. did i ever finish my degree? do i have my own car? was this from our last hunt? why do you and sammy look at us like that? what's our favorite place to eat?

some of them are innocuous but most are not, and this most recent question has knocked dean flat on his ass. he can't help but picture sammy--older sammy, his sammy--and his hollow eyes. his smiles. his eyes rolling in pain and pleasure and exasperation.

"yes. fuck. i hope so." dean admits, too damn easily, and he sounds like he's begging. he searches sam's face, prying his eyes apart for the answer. he's a kid. too damn young. he's dean's baby. dean feels like it's a promise, and it feels inadequate, an i'm taking care of you, i guess, so dean tries to cast the words in iron.

"i'd do anything to keep you safe, sammy. sam." dean corrects himself quickly, even though sam melts into his side like a cat. "to keep you happy. alive."

and sam kind of freezes, pulls back a little.

"what did you do?" the words are hard.

dean's stomach sinks. "what?"

"what did you do, dean?"

and dean tries to demur, like oh come on, it's just an expression. but dean knows that sam saw the depth there, heard the weight of it. he knows that there are decades underneath those words. lives under those words.

he sinks his teeth into dean, into the very marrow of him, and doesn't let up. dean tries to fight off his insistence, fielding questions for almost ten minutes before sam grabs him, hard, and shakes him.

"did i kill you--did you let me kill you?" sam begs, hands tight fists in dean's shirt and of all the things dean was expecting, it's not this.

"what?" he asks. "what are you talking about?"

and sam lets him go, falls back against the couch, hand over his mouth and dean's afraid he's going to throw up. dean knows--in a way he didn't know when he was young and stupid and twenty-seven--that sam needs time to think, so he lets sam stew.

"that's the worst thing i can imagine." sam says, finally. "i have dreams where yellow eyes kills you. i have dreams where dad does. and i...and i have dreams where i do it. because of what i'm becoming. and i...i don't know what's a nightmare and what's a--a vision--and i--"

and dean tucks this little kid under his chin, wraps arms around him that could suffocate him if he tried hard enough, and holds sam to him like sam will fly apart if he doesn't.

"nothing like that, baby." dean murmurs into his hair, and lets sam quietly wail into his shirt. he doesn't say, i'd let you kill me, because sam knows. he knows. it would be one of dean's gentler deaths, any death at the hands of his brother, but how could dean even start to say that?

"tell me dean. we protect each other, right?" sam begs, wet against his neck, and dean shushes him, feeling inadequate.

"of course. you're my baby brother. i'll always look out for you."

~~~

"promise me."

"i'm not gonna do that, sammy."

"it's--never mind. look at me."

"what--what? we gonna sit here and talk about our feelings? what do you want from me?"

"something's happened to them. don't tell me you haven't noticed. your sam is barely holding it together."

"hold on, he's not my--"

"i don't know, okay? bad feeling. just promise me you're not going to do something dumb. or let me...i don't know."

"now sam, when have i ever done something stupid?" a smile in his voice.

"you're impossible." fond. sad. warm. lonely. acknowledging. dean backs away from the doorway.

~~~

"i'd do it." dean--fuck it, dean's run out of nicknames for the little fucker. "whatever we do. in the future. i'll do anything for him."

he's standing in dean's doorway. that's the first time really that he's said we--an implied understanding that they are technically one person, the same person. dean doesn't look up from the gun he's cleaning. i know, he should say. or good. or it's not going to be enough.

but he just looks up into his younger face, and for the first time since this whole fuck-show started, feels something like pity. like camaraderie.

"c'mere." he says. "lemme show you how to load a mag in six seconds."

~~~

this RAN AWAY FROM ME!!!!! i LOVE this idea anon!!! your brain is brilliant!!!

i personally don't see LS!Dean telling ES!Sam about hell, for the same reason LS!Sam can't tell ES!Dean about the cage. it's too close, too personal, too real. inevitably.

ES!Sam would go mad with it, i think. hell, we SEE him unhinged in the show, actively or passively killing people to get dean back. LS!Dean would never want to put that on him, couldn't bear it. but i think he'd get pretty close.

anyway! sorry for the length, lol! i'm actually pretty proud of this one, and i had a lot of fun thinking about it! thank you for the ask anon! you are so correct!

-lizzy <3

[lightwise]

TBB S3 E10 Reaction

Life has been a bit busier the last few weeks so I am finally catching up on my episode reactions (I’m determined to do all of them this season!) And I apologize y’all, this episode made me very snarky apparently.

I’ll be honest. When this episode first came out I was nowhere near as surprised by it or horrified by it as reviewers seemed to be. Nothing about Palpatine hunting down force sensitive children as experiments and using Cad Bane to do it is a surprise, and the Vault feels so much like Andor. But even on a rewatch this episode holds up so well and honestly just starts to give a cold chill under the skin as the quiet horror of it sinks in.

- Cute kid. And the Batch nowhere to be seen. This is going to be a different episode isn’t it

- Oh no. He’s force sensitive 😫😫😫 hmmm how could that possibly go wrong

- This is giving Andor vibes 👀

- It’s always interesting seeing “regular people” in Star Wars and little markets and how they’re just trying to go about their daily lives.

- Don’t go around snitching people! Nothing good ever comes of it!!!

- Yeah this guy is worse than Timm from Andor. Wtf dude. You’re turning in a baby!!

- Also is it just me or typical Star Wars “houses” end up being pretty dark and depressing?

- Wait okay okay. So this is the CX chamber. Why can’t we see any of them yet 😩😩 what is this red fog? What are these weird conditioning pods? What kind of armor is on this datapad?? *trying to crawl inside my screen* I NEED ANSWERS JENNIFER!!

- “Do you trust me?” Ooooh why do I think that’s going to come back around

- But also, babygirl, I don’t think you actually know what you’re signing up for

- “I could be more useful” “you wish to be the new chief scientist Dr. Karr?” “I believe I’ve earned it.” Alright. This. This is interesting. This fully encapsulates the dynamic that these two have shared. Emerie knows that Hemlock only values things that are useful, and probably only sees her own value in the light of what she can contribute, due to how she was raised and the circumstances she has been trapped in. Hemlock’s tone of voice implies that he has never considered her as being the new chief scientist, and yet he acquiesces quite quickly, almost as though he’s just too busy to think about it and if it means things are brought back up to production standard then he’s fine with it. His utter disregard for Emerie as an actual human and someone with merit is disgusting though.

- But I get it, the man’s busy, he’s got a lot of evil shit he’s trying to do all at the same time 🙄

- So we have “the assets”, which is the area that Hemlock took Palpatine in the first episodes, where the orange containment pods are and the zillo beast is being kept. We still don’t know what those assets are. The Vault is something different.

- Well. Shit. It’s Andor and Narkina 5 for kids. Lovely 😳💀

- “There are few adults left with such characteristics” I WONDER IN THE NAME OF ONE EMPEROR PALPATINE WHY

- Okay so this entire exchange is awful. The kids are so cute! Hemlock is so cold. “Specimens. Assets” ughhh Emerie what are you getting yourself into!!

- Is this the first time we’ve heard the word glasses in Star Wars?

- Oh no. So THIS is why Cad Bane was brought back 🥺🥺

- The score in this episode is perfectly eerie

- Lol Todo is not good with kids huh 🤣

- That poor mama when she wakes up and finds her baby is gone

- I hope that dude has his entire life flash before his eyes as he’s trying to pick all of those credits up

- “My name’s Eva” 🥹🥹🥹 Emerie has no idea how to handle this 😂

- I still wanna know what’s happened with these commandos. No way a clone of Jango Fett is able to look a child in the eyes, call them a “specimen” and not have even an ounce of remorse as they stun them point blank.

- “Jax?” And Eva just points. The power in knowing someone’s name vs a dehumanizing number

- It’s also interesting that these kids are species that are red, blue, and green, and when they get Bayrn in, he’s white. RGB colors make up white light when put together.

- The little peeks of Emerie’s backstory we keep getting are so interesting. She was abandoned by Nala Se. She knows that these children don’t belong here, the same way that Omega told both her and Crosshair that they didn’t belong here either. Nala Se says that the Empire will hold these kids to control them. Emerie feels like she has no power to do anything differently. So much to unpack here.

- Why is Tarkin’s holo so large?

- Lol I honestly love getting to see the backbiting politics of how the Empire functions. It’s so bad and so funny

- Also love that Project Necromancer is so secret that even Tarkin doesn’t know what it is. He’s so nosy

- Okay why does he bring up the CX schematic again and why is it so different than the one we saw earlier??

- Whoa Cid was tortured???

- “The other operatives aren’t ready to join you in the field” why????

- We’re visiting a lot of space stations this season

- Man I wish Emerie had fudged this test

- Nooo let the poor baby go home 🥺

- Oh and now we’re putting kids in solitary confinement. Great.

- C’mon Emerie. Keep clicking that moral compass until it points north

- She kept the straw Lula. She’s giving it to Eva 😭. There’s hope for her yet

[connecting-the-stars]

OKAY-Okay-okay….

That did hurt. I am hurt. WHY does the season 2 end like THAT!?

As someone who’s in a late crowd, I would be so seething in anger at the amount of time that’d I’d have to wait for all the shit to be solved in the next season. It really leaves such a dreadful note and kinda definitely depressing.

I’m over here like - yeah I know My Main Man Tech is gonna “kick the bucket” but I’ll be fine - I AM NOT FINE!

Bruh him sacrificing himself, Wrecker refusing to let him go, Omega being injured to have to remember his fall all over again, everyone is Big Sad and then Omega refuses to follow orders and tries to save Hunter and Wrecker to then have her be taken anyway! And Crosshair just lying unresponsive! It’s 28 minutes… My life was ruined in that span.

It’s definitely giving fighting a losing battle. Man, that was not an easy watch, everything just crumbles around them just as hunter has decided to go through with the plan to retire at Pabu too! It’s defeating in every sense of the word, but Star Wars is about hope persevering - (S3 please give me hope in the end!)

Seeing Cid have this regret about herself and I’m like “shut it! SHUT IT!” I guess it’s fine to show characters have remorse but she’s pouting as if the situation isn’t entirely her fault.

Seeing Wrecker in that neck brace and on his knees surrounded by the soldiers - my heart like sunk. The writers went after the character thats always been shown to overcome overwhelming amounts of soldiers and this time he can’t.

- I’ve seen some perspectives that point out that going on this mission to place a tracker on Hemlock’s ship was mute, like it was an excuse to give Tech his Hero Moment and kill him. But I don’t want to believe that the writers who put so much emphasis on his growth this season would make this his end. In the end, his actions prove Omega’s initial misassumptions wrong. “Doesn’t act like he cares.” He down write was the one to double check if crosshair was actually a prisoner, he fully supported the plan of getting his brother out. He reminds Hunter that Crosshair is still their brother, he has shown his care for Omega, and his growing connection to Phee - improving in places where his wealth of knowledge does not support him. I know the mission failed, that hemlock’s ship was never tracked and Crosshair is still very much a prisoner, but I don’t think it’s in vain. At least to me, his death almost certainly feels not permanent.

- Hemlock looks for Tech’s body and retrieves his shattered goggles, uses them as a tool to force Hunter to bend his knee. Use this emotional leverage to make hunter doubt himself and increase the fear of losing another brother. This ploy turns my head because hemlock has been shown to be quite determined and unshakable in his quest for completing his project for palpatine, of course he wants to capture Omega at any means, but he is also working with his unsightly experiments. The adult sized green tubes that held all sorts of people when Omega found Crosshair. I don’t find it hard to believe that he knew exactly how to pressure the bad batch in order to get them to surrender and he took a gravely injured Tech as his latest project. The head scientist in charge of this doomsday-esc lab facility on the planet that can’t be found, the scientist that brought back the Zillo Beast. He’s the one who seems to eventually be able to create clones with enough M-count for the emperor. If he got his hands on a member of a genetically enhanced clone group, it’s like a holiday present, of course he’d take them as another tool in his arsenal to ensure his mission and impose his control over the clones.

#Techisalivetruther

Also it was uncalled for when they played “when do we ever follow orders” his last words to open the recap of season 2 for season 3. (This literally made me have some inhuman miserable noise escape me)

(Many have pin pointed this behavior and I agree) But this also give me pause because the bad batch DOESNT follow orders! Who else doesnt follow orders well? >:D

[opinated-user]

Okay, two things about that bloodbending post:

That gif she used of the "machine gun"? Yeah, that was from a scene where Aang was in the Avatar State, which supercharges his bending and also gives him access to more advanced techniques. Also, Aang was TRYING to kill someone because that's what the Avatar State does. It turns whoever uses it into a fucking force of nature with no morals or ethics holding them back, and Aang was using it to try and kill Fire Lord Ozai, a very evil man who was trying to conquer the world.

Force lightning has the reputation it does because it's usually to slowly torture people like how Emperor Palpatine zapped Luke with lightning and absolutely reveled in his misery. The Rise of Skywalker showed just how powerful Force lightning can be, but it's never used to just kill someone. The users choose to watch their victims suffer instead of zapping them with lightning or cutting their heads off, because it's more fun. And using Force lighting the way it usually gets used always leads to their downfall, like how Palpatine and Count Dooku had their lighting turned against them by the Jedi they were fighting.

Do you want to know why Force lighting and bloodbending are seen as evil in their respective universes, Lily? BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WHO SPECIALIZE IN USING THEM USUALLY USE IT FOR FUCKING EVIL.

so it's basically just like the cruciatus curse in harry potter. something that LO already wrote "her hero" using on a harry's uncles when she was planning to do a rewrite of the series.

LO really has an obssession for choosing the most obviously evil power on any given canon and desperately tell you "but i'm not evil for using it!!!" to the point that it's frankly embarrasing. you want to be an edgy evil princess of darkness, but you want to be treated like a sunshine cinnamon roll. those two things do not mix. the mere fact that you puppeteer people against their will is an evil enough concept that should be self explanatory for most people.

not for someone used to violating people's consent and wishing that the victim of their sexual harassment wished them carnally, though! for a creep like that, i can see why they wouldn't have any issue to violate body autonomy, agency and generally be an ammoral monster to get what she wantss.

[piglet26]

Star Wars Rewatch: TROS

Oh, God.

Palpatine come back and ruining Anakin Skywalker's redemption. Why? How? Cloning, okay, so this Palpatine isn't the real Palpatine?!

We get to see Supreme Leader Kylo Ren for about 4 minutes before he's immediately benched by Palpatine as co-pilot. Why? I get they didn't want Kylo Ren as the big bad, but this is just lazy writing.

Green goblin, I remember you don't last long.

R2D2, they never wash him or nothing?

Maybe the First Order should win. They take hits and keep on knocking. They take losses and recovered, quickly and well. They always seem to have intelligence from somewhere. In short, they are competent.

Poe and Finn, have a great dynamic.

Rey is finally training for everyone who had a boner for two movies about her having a rocky fight montage.

They moment where Ren is praying over Darth Vader's mask and his mind bridges with Rey is a great reminder that these two are connected.

This film did something most franchise should never, it responded to criticism in real time.

Poe, you fucked up Han's ship. Stop attacking like she doesn't have a reason to be annoyed. Also, Rey is currently the sole Jedi in the galaxy, she should be training, not running off on every errand you have to do.

Colin Travano (whatever his name is) I wouldn't have wanted his script. Like at all. Poe and Rey do have chemistry though and you can tell they enjoy needling one another. It's just not endgame.

That Finnrey hug was awkward. It's a church hug with their butts sticking out. I'm Reylo to the core, but I have place for FinnRey in my heart. They're soulmates in a different way than Reylo is. Also, Daisy Ridley and John B are adorable and you can tell they enjoy working together.

In a flawed film, Rose Tico being sidelined was a wise decision.

Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewie and 3PO are cute. JJ Adams did seem to love friendships developing and for the third film we needed to see all these characters together on an adventure.

Kylo Ren is forging this dumb ass mask again. Look it worked initially, character wise and so forth, but at this point?! He smashed it and moved past the need for it. The audience liked that he smashed it. We have to see his face for emotional scenes. Why is it back? Oh I know! Because JJ Adams good juvenile friend was sad his mask wasn't in the film anymore. General Hux and Kylo are magically little bottle of goodness. We got so little.

We leave one planet for another planet but I keep forgetting what planet we're on. Title cards too much to ask?

Ren is actually pursuing Rey or The Scavenger because yes he wants her for himself. but he also wants to protect her from Palpatine. Their first force bond......... yeah. I've read the novelization so I understand it's been a minute since they've seen one another, but if I just watched the movie would I have known that? No. There is much they saying yet it's stiff and doesn't make much sense without context.

General Pryde. Why did we need him when we have General Hux?

I think Billie D Williams filmed all his scenes sitting down. He looks happy to be there but tired as hell.

Race through the desert of Pasaana. I like it. This crew does work and it feels like a fun adventure. There are cute, whitty moments between all of them and it works.

She heals a snake - Two halves of the dyad should only have been able to heal one another, but here we are.

The Trio and Co find the evil sith ship or whatever. The Knights of Ren gotta walk while Ren is flying. Ren tries to run down Rey, again this make sense in the novelization and not at all in real life. After Rey injures his planes, he crashes and the majestic prince emerges out of the flames. Seriously?! Why the hell are you covering this guy up?!

In a rip off of The Last Jedi we get a tug-o-war scene between the ship Chewie is on. It's not as great, but it's a good scene and we see how Rey's powers have grown. We know it's a waste of time though. They're evenly matched. It's a nice surprise when the lighting shoots out. Okay, I don't mind her being a Palpatine. I mind the retconning. I mind Palpatine magically coming back.

Rey confesses to Finn about her dream of her and Kylo Ren on the Sith Throne. Where? We would have liked to have seen this.

This is a nice FinnRey scene. Despite her display of "dark power", her killing Chewie presumably, Finn doesn't look at her any different. She's still Rey to him. He's patient and present and she describes her challenges. We still don't acknowledge Finn is force sensitive. Why isn't he training with Rey?

We are blazing through this movie. That's part of the problem we're just pushing plot points at this point. The movie needs to be more selective about slowing down and concentrating on character development. Something painfully lacking in this film. Even the Reylo scenes are about pushing the plot forward rather than pushing the characters forward.

3PO actually has a storyline this movie. Good for him. Look secondary characters in a trilogy, you get your moments and it ain't gonna be every film.

Zorri and Babu are nice additions. I like Zorri and the fact that Ren kicking her ass actually made her like her. Women supporting women. Were Zorri and Poe a thing. What's a spice runner? A space drug dealer?

Rey's social skills lack a bit. but she's great with Droids.

Wait, Chewie and Ren were both on Ren's Destroyer and they didn't even have a scene together?! Chewie's like an uncle to Ren.

Ren, show up in your boss ass destroyer to get your girl.

Standout lines -

Poe: 3PO! Move your metal ass.

3PO: How dare you we just met.

Finn, Poe and Chewie cowboying through the destroyer. Nice scene, doomed for failure I'm afraid.

Second Reylo forceskype is exposition. First real Reylo scene is exposition. Hey, movies gotta get it done haha but Ren literally is like here's the plot of the movie and everything you've been confused on up until this point. I will say watching the progression of the force bond that their spaces are now physically bleeding into one another. Nice touch. It's also nice to see what they each see when looking at one another through the force bond.

General Hux is the spy. Could've gone farther with this. RIP Dawg

Another FinnRey scene where you begin to understand Rey is pissed off and darker than possibly Finn thought.

Palpatine and Ren scene. I'm so annoyed Palpatine is in this movie.

We meet a ragtime band on horses surprise their former stormtroopers. All of them. From the same company. Sure Jan.

Seeing the death star again, so odd and doesn't look a thing like the original. We see scavenger Rey again.

Reylo fights again because Rey is the denial queen and she's free to take out her aggression on Ren. He likes feral Rey. In another less PG film, they've fought and then boned, but Leia died. Also, Dark Rey.... I'm here for it. Mostly cause it looks cool.

The film makers did the best they could with Carrie's Fisher passing. I thought they handled it with class and dignity while incorporating it into the film.

After Leia's passing and Rey healing it. Ren in his ever presented conflict nature overlooks the water when his father appears. It's poignant and character driven scene. It's beautiful scene about the enduring love of a parent. A flawed parent but a loving one nonetheless. Ben had two of those and he seems to finally understand that now.

Poe has a good scene with Leia's body about being a leader. Something that, despite all the bravado, he finally admits he doesn't know how to do. This would've been a great scene with her alive. Part of the issue people have the sequel trilogy of the lack of respect paid for previous generations. As if they are flawed and bigoted. On screen and off screen. A scene where Finn, Poe or Rey paid respect for the accomplishments of previous generations. Their courage and their bravery. Billie D. feels like just a stand-in.

Palpatine army blows up yet another planet. yawn.

Finn is a general bestow as such by Poe. Good choice. Sanitation worker aside no one knows more about The First Order than someone who was a stormtrooper. Finn reveals Palpatine wanted Rey alive...... then why tell Ren to kill her? Because if Rey didn't go dark then Ren was the fall back or vice versa?

So far it's not a bad film, just a disappointing film. The stuff that made my blood boil is about to come.

Rey isolates herself on Acht-to, burns the ship and we see ghost Luke. Why? She saw herself on the dark throne and she's afraid of herself. This might have meant something. At one point. It just feels like a retcon at this point. She's a Palpatine but Leia and Luke didn't care? Then what the hell were you worried about Ben for? If blood and legacy means nothing.

I'm not one of those people that need everything in a movie to make sense. It's also a space fantasy film, but damn.

Rey leads the Resistance to Exegol, she just doesn't know it. That was handy. No, really the way the movie sliced that together worked very well. Poe and Finn make a great speech about the resistance. Not as rousing as I'd like.

Exegol being the basis for the Sith religion is actually really cool. Wish we could've learned more. Empress Palpatine sounds like a boss ass name.

I hate everything about the ending of this film.

Rey once again goes into the enemy territory without a plan. The resistance doesn't really have one either except gumption.

Ben Solo is back! He's great. He's a hero. He's got great hair. He's likeable. We haven't seen him for 20 minutes, he doesn't say a word except "Ow" We have a beautiful Reylo moment where we Rey and Ben see each other through the Force Bond and she looks at Ben with such relief, joy and love that he's there with her. Ben fight like hell to get to her. This is it! Bendemption. We've waited three films for this. Then they tossed him off a cliff.

While it's a great scene of Rey listening to the previous Jedi's and rising up. I'm so confused how the dyad coming together empowers the devil. Ben has been made completely irrelevant.

I mean, we got a Reylo Kiss! It was epic and then it was over. We were lucky to get that considering Disney started to shy away from Reylo due to all the "controversy" I just hate this so we'll move on.

The hug was nice!

Rey Skywalker?

And that's that

[gffa]

Hi!  I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be because my view of the sequel trilogy lives in kind of a nebulous space, where I really like the characters and I actually like a lot of the potential of the storyline, but I dislike TFA, greatly dislike TLJ, and was actually pretty okay with TROS all things considered. I don't want to dig too deep into the negativity of my feelings but they're basically - TFA was too much of a repainting of ANH for me, the initial shine of it was through its potential, but when that didn't pay off in the other movies, the shine came off TFA, too. - TLJ was set too close to TFA, Finn's character should have been tied into the Canto Bight plot (which was exhausting as it was), as a stolen child soldier he has the most reason to hate the rich, but absolutely nothing was done with him, Luke being on that island for that long was out of character for him, Rey's entire story became wrapped up in Kylo Ren, neither of those characters had nearly enough connections with others despite having very good reasons to, like why do we not spend more time on Luke & Kylo?? and it played at being subversive but it absolutely was not, it's all been done before (and I really hated the way Force abilities worked in the movie) and killing off your main villain in the second act was a baffling decision - TROS' biggest problem is that it should have been two movies instead of one, it was a series of trailers rather than a story with breathing room, and it suffered the most from the lack of planning + the main villain being killed off in the second movie But here's why I still like The Rise of Skywalker the best:  The bones of what's there are a pretty good Star Wars story!  Yes, Rey Palpatine came out of nowhere and was very silly, but if you can't handle silly, I don't know how you can make it as a Star Wars fan, it's such a silly franchise! I'm not afraid to love a scene I laugh out loud at--and, yeah, I laughed RIGHT OUT LOUD the first time Kylo dramatically said, "You're a Palpatine."  I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes and let me tell you, I fucking LOVE that scene now. Or how the last words of any Skywalker, the last word Ben Solo/Kylo Ren ever says in the movies' franchise is, "Ow."  I am laughing RIGHT NOW, please, p l e a s e, that is so on-brand, I can't handle it, it's too funny. But I also like the basic storyline because Rey's story in TROS is her struggling with her own inner darkness, that she feels there's something dark in her soul because she's Palpatine's granddaughter.  The movie isn't saying that's true, but that Rey struggles with thinking it's true, and she has to wrestle with her dark side, just like every Jedi before her has as they're coming into their power. Anakin wrestled with his dark side and lost in Attack of the Clones and even worse in Revenge of the Sith. Luke wrestled with his dark side in the vision he sees of himself in Vader's helmet in the cave in ESB and in the climactic scene of ROTJ, where he nearly hacks his father's arm off in rage after his sister and friends are threatened.  He has to claw his way back out of that. Ezra Bridger struggles with the dark side in Rebels as he comes into his power and he has to claw his way out of it as well. Rey has to struggle with her own lure towards the dark side as she comes into her power--she rips a ship apart in the sky because she was so determined that Chewie was hers, she was so angry at Kylo that Force lightning burst out of her.  She's seeing Sith visions of herself on the wreckage of the Death Star.  This is a theme that has been there since the very beginning, that Jedi have to struggle through a temptation to the dark, and her relation to Palpatine preys on that. That's kind of why I wound up loving Ben's scene with Han as well, because that was an entirely imagined scene, but it represents that the way the Force works, you have to dig yourself out of the hole you're in, that Ben using the memory of his father, the last moments of connection he had with his mother, to pull himself out of the dark, really worked for me.  And I'm okay with his death, because this is Star Wars, people die before they should all the time. I even liked the political message of the final movie, yes, Rey vs Palpatine was the big Jedi vs Sith showdown, but the main galactic battle?  Had people showing up.  Just... people.  One of the themes I've talked a lot about, especially because The Clone Wars kind of has it as a running theme is that the average galactic citizen doesn't do jack shit about the state of the galaxy they live in.  The Rebellion had people starting to stand up, but it was an organized effort, it recruited people. TROS had just people showing up, that Leia and the Resistance had been trying to rally the cause, but ultimately it was the galactic public finally, finally saying, "We have to stand up and fight for ourselves, not depend on other people to do it."  Was it ham-fisted and not nearly as polished as it should have been?  Oh, no doubt.  But the message.  Just people showing up to fight against the First Order that was trying to bring back the Empire.  That meant a lot to me. And I loved Luke's character here, that he admitted when he was wrong, and gave us that banger line that's spot on:  "Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi."  Yes.  Yes.  FUCKING YES.  LUKE SKYWALKER AND JEDI PHILOSOPHY.  MY HEART.  Nailed it. Does this movie hang together as well as it should?  Absolutely not.  It needed a stronger writer, it needed more time than it got, and it needed better build-up.  But the bones of what was there were actually pretty good and, man, any movie that has Daisy Ridley in that white outfit with the hood where she looked practically ethereal cannot be all bad, in my opinion.

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "A Fool's Hope"/"Family Reunion And Farewell"

*singing*

~I'm glad that you were here with me/Here at the end of all things.~

Live reaction version.

Yeah be prepared for a lot of Lord of the Rings quotes and song lyrics in this one, lol.

Hey, don't blame me, the writers were the ones who made it clear they were hopeless Tolkien nerds.

And yes I am packaging both (all three?) episodes together. This is how it was aired, this is how it was experienced, you're gonna get the full treatment.

This does mean though that I will be very stingy with the pictures. Apologies. Blame Tumblr, not me.

Anyway, we start off the finale by gathering all the disparate parties that we completed the Friendship Fetch Quests for. Rex, Kallus, Gregor, Wolffe, Hondo, Melch, and Ketsu are all Back For The Finale. Which is a trope that I absolutely love in all shapes and forms, and it's even more appropriate for this show given that Ezra's main character "superpower" is literally making friends.

The connections and bridges he built all come back to aide him, not for any selfish motives of their own or because "the enemy of my enemy", but simply because Ezra has asked them to come.

"It's for Ezra," is all Hera has to say, and Hondo is immediately, genuinely pledging, "For that boy, there is nothing I would not do."

It is... incredibly heartwarming.

And I told y'all Hondo was a romantic at heart, and genuinely misses the days when the Jedi were around. And also that in the Rebellion Era, the Jedi still represent the nobility and goodness of the past.

After the titlecard, which still has no fanfare, we get this scene:

Come, you all knew I was going to cap it. Sabine's concern is so soft, the hand she places on Ezra's shoulder and the way she asks if he's okay so gentle.

The visual similarity in this scene and two scenes prior to this are interesting. This scene is firstly visually reminiscent of the Kanan-Hera scene in the beginning of "Kindred" (inviting comparison to the main canon ship of the show), and also the Kanan-Ezra scene at the beginning of "Jedi Night" (which emphasizes again that Kanan and Sabine are the two Most Important People in Ezra's life).

Ezra sits in the exact same pose, in the exact same place, that we saw Kanan meditating at, suggesting that he is also hearing the echoes of things to come, having similar visions of the future. This is certainly supported by his dialogue, where he mentions, "Something's changed... Something's happening." and that he's had a vision of Palpatine sending Thrawn back to Lothal.

Honestly I'm surprised it took Palpatine so long, lol. Thrawn: Treason supposedly takes place over the course of... a week? And the events of "Rebel Assault" to "A World Between Worlds" can't have been more than three or four days.

(This is why I reject the official canon timeline for Rebels, Season Four's events are crammed into the space of a month or two AT BEST.)

But anyway, Palpatine is pretty pissed off about the whole Temple thing so yeah, he's sending Thrawn back to retrieve Ezra personally. This seems to be a big ol' sticking point for our favorite blue bastard because he is NOT HAPPY when he turns back up.

You can't blame him really. He'd barely left Lothal and his TIE Defender project got literally blown up, so he had to spend the budget meeting arguing for what was essentially a smoking crater, and the wager he made with Krennic et. all. ultimately went nowhere because he lost on a technicality, and then the Emperor starts questioning his loyalty because his old Ascendancy friends showed up during the shenanigans, and then Palpatine dismissed him to go clean up the mess on Lothal and fetch him back a teenager for Sith sorcery bullshit.

...He'd had a very bad week, is what I'm saying.

I got off topic there, where was I?

Oh yes, Ezra's risky gamble. Fun fact, that was the original title of the episode, "Ezra's Gamble". I assume they axed it because it would give too much away. And like I've said before, if they could have avoided showing Ryder in footage taking the Dome for the finale previews, they could have really sold his false betrayal.

Pryce does not look like she's having a good week either lol.

Ezra continues to be cryptic about things, yet another hint to us that he's gotten "insider information" from the Force, as it were, and has made plans according to multiple possible outcomes. This is just one of the reasons why he outmaneuvered Thrawn, the other major one being that there was no possible way for Thrawn to predict Ezra throwing space whales at him lol.

This interference by the Force could have been a bit of a Deus Ex Machina but I think it's pretty clear that the Force only shared what might happen and left Ezra to figure out a solution on his own.

And his solution was space whales. XD

That comes later though, after this very risky gambit with letting Ryder broadcast their location to Pryce. A lot of things could have gone wrong. Hera might not have made it back in time. Ryder could have decided to genuinely betray them. Rukh could have gotten in a lucky strike and incapacitated him.

We are apparently putting a LOT of trust in the Force today.

This action setpiece is a great one so I'll just cover a few of my favorite highlights:

All the shots that track Sabine as she jetpacks around the battlefield.

Ezra versus Rukh.

Zeb going full feral with the minigun.

And of course on the other side of things Hondo trying to count the number of times he'd been collided with pulling off this exact maneuver they're using lol. The blockade seems to have thinned from "Rebel Assault", not as many capital ships?, so maybe I was right in that Thrawn called for reinforcements to repel the attack. Still gives Ezra the highest kill count by proxy at the end of things.

Oh and once again there's a moment where someone threatens Sabine in order to force Ezra to surrender. <3 Love that.

Pryce is awfully smug until the Ghost shows up, lol. (To heroic Main Theme fanfare into the Rebel Alliance theme of course.) Someone on the writing team understood the power of a good Eucatastophe. (Tolkien term, it means "the sudden happy turn to good".)

The clones also get a leitmotif fanfare as they debark the Ghost.

And we get a lovely Force Theme as Ezra gets his most badass shot.

Hell yeah.

The wolves sequence is amazing. The dramatic chorus, the chaos, the wolves skirting the veeeeeeeeeeery boundary of what's allowed on a Y7 show lol.

You know some of the troopers got ate.

One last shoutout to Hera using the Ghost to straight up smack a gunship out of the air and now we've come to the end of the setpiece. It can be hard sometimes to fill a full episode with one action sequence but this episode pulls if off perfectly. It never feels stale or boring, there are multiple bits and moments that just work. (I've always loved the moment where Ezra lunges for Ruhk's energy staff and uses the momentum of Rukh lunging for the same to straight up yeet him off the platform.)

Ezra's completely nonphased at Hondo's slung arm shoulder hug now aww.

Moving right along into the next segment...

This soft intro with Ezra talking to his parents' picture, telling them they are the inspiration behind his actions, how he wishes they could meet his new family, how he knows what he needs to do, but he's afraid. T_T Hgn he's precious and so mature and I love him so so much.

He knows what he might have to do, guys. He knows he might never actually see Lothal again and he's still prepared to make that sacrifice if he has to.

He's SUCH a good Jedi you guys I can't.

Kallus gets a token line here about his defection which is... okay. But again, really needed more from this arc for it to have a full impact.

"We come to it at last; the great battle of our time."

One casual wolf threat later, Pryce has agreed to transmit the victory codes and our heros fly off to the capitol to pull off their boldest venture yet.

I will never ever get over this moment. Sabine so attuned to Ezra even without the Force that she can tell just by looking at him how distracted and sad and scared he is.

How Ezra so clearly wants to tell her but holds back, and substitutes instead a declaration of absolute faith and trust.

And how she sees right through that and knows Something Weird Be Up With The Boy, Yo.

But like so many other conversations between the two, things are left unfinished, the mission and circumstances taking precedence.

Love the two quipping back to Pryce tho. <3

Still a crapton of air pollution over the city. This would clear up dramatically in the climax, for a bit of a symbolic moment.

There are SO many callbacks to previous moments in the show in this sequence, I noted a couple of them in my original liveblog but I'm certain there's a few I missed.

The music cue is great too, as is the effective silence once they've taken the bridge. A little bit of musical breathing space before things get hairy again, courtesy of Rukh ambushing the others back at base and stealing a gunship.

You know? I'm not quite sure what the plan was for if they managed to destroy the Dome before Thrawn got back. Seems a little shortsighted to blow up all the fighters and equipment and your city shields. A single Star Destroyer is more than capable of leveling cities and there are several in orbit around Lothal.

This honestly lends even more credence to the idea that, Force visions aside, Ezra was largely making this up as he went and had NO idea what he was doing lol.

Indy Ploy versus Xanatos Gambit. Indy Ploy wins by virtue of there was no way the Xanatos Gambit could predict the level of crazy Ezra's ideas were.

Amazing how empty the streets are when they've been emptied of Imperials.

Thrawn arrives, per schedule, and parks right over the Dome so that can't launch, lest they create catastrophic collateral damage. Important to note, for the people who want to nitpick No Endor Holocaust scenarios, the show specifically details that the city shields put out by the Dome deflected the Star Destroyer wreckage when the purrgil came, and that the Rebels directed the Dome to explode over the bay, not the city. The Cadet Academy is also a completely different building.

I mean, sure the debris from the Dome probably isn't great for the bay's ecosystem but honestly the water was probably already super polluted from the factories, they had to clean it up anyway.

Where was I? Right, Thrawn getting to be really awesomely creepy. The placid, "Are you quite finished?" gives me chills every time. Once again let me praise the expression work on this show because Ezra's soft Oh Crap look is amazing.

The dawning horror on Sabine's face too.

And then this music cue! The tension is drawn out just long enough for us to fully appreciate the horror.

:((((((

They even give us a nice wide-shot to appreciate just how much damage just those few seconds of bombardment did.

I had a rant here originally about the dumbass headcanon that Thrawn targeted empty buildings in this sequence (that may or may not have originated from Timothy Zahn himself) but if you've been following me you already know how I feel about it. It's asinine and I won't entertain it. Moving on.

Backed into a corner, Ezra knows he has no choice but to give himself up to Thrawn. This track in the score, "Sabine Sees Ezra" perfectly captures the sorrow and drama. It starts with a strained version of Ezra's theme, that doesn't resolve, fading instead into mournful original strings. Hera's entreaties for him to stay are painful, we can't help but think of what must be in her head--she just lost Kanan, she's afraid to lose him too. But Ezra is a Jedi. He is the guardian of Lothal. So he must make the sacrifice no one else can. He can't choose to be selfish.

So while Hera and the others try to figure out a way around the problem of Thawn, Ezra goes to confront it head on, secretly signaling to Chopper, who has been entrusted with so much of this plan.

And Sabine sees him.

It's a consistent theme throughout their relationship. She sees him. She notices him. She's attuned to when he's upset. She perceives him in a way that's unique from everyone else.

And he trusts her so implicitly that he silently asks for her help here, and after a moment of agony she does it, because she trusts him too.

These two just break my heart. :(

Sabine keeps looking back at the empty spot where he had been. T_T

There's a theme here about attachment and loss again, and it comes from Sabine. Like a Jedi, she's able to let go of her fear of loss and trust Ezra, whatever happens, and is able to encourage Hera to do the same. Her theme plays out here, strongly, before giving way to an excerpt of the Main Titles theme, uniting the Rebels in their heroism.

Ezra's theme playing again here, skittish and frightened. Once again the expression work is heartbreaking. Ezra looks like he's steeling himself, holding back his fear. He's resigned to his purpose, but that doesn't mean he's enjoying it.

AND NOW WE GET MY FAVORITE HANNIBAL LECTURE/SHUT UP HANNIBAL EXCHANGE! :D

The dialogue between Thrawn and Ezra here is so good.

"You could have chosen to let your people die. However... you chose to be a Jedi." Jedi cannot help what they are, the Jedi Code is like an itch he cannot help it *sobs in Kenobi feelings*.

Thrawn pontificating about how petty things like ethics get in the way of being efficient. He picks at Ezra from several different angles in this conversation, first by deriding the moral code of the Jedi, then by pointing out that their righteousness did not save the Jedi in the end, all that's left are frightened poorly trained children--a clear dig at Ezra himself. He laments what a shame it is that the Jedi didn't apply their powers in a way he deems would have been effective, implicitly suggesting that the Jedi should have used their power to dominate and conquer--Might Makes Right, after all, if you have the means to achieve a certain end you should use it.

Ezra tanks that calmly, pointing out that the Force isn't a weapon.

So Thrawn switches tactics, now lamenting that he must destroy Lothal (no you don't you asshole you can literally just disobey orders and defect, the total genocide of Lothal is entirely within your power to prevent) and oh, isn't it such a shame about Sabine.

And that hits Ezra's berserk trigger lol.

He snaps back at Thrawn. You're a tyrant, a bully, you didn't make or earn any of this, you just took it because you could, because you think your strength makes you right.

Thrawn essentially confirms that, "Yeah, having power does make me right." before leading him down to where the Temple doors have been set up for his meeting with the Emperor. Which kind of makes me think Thrawn wanted the opportunity to dress Ezra down and soften him up for Palpatine's manipulations because he could have just had the troopers shove him into the hanger first thing.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra keeps looking around in astonishment, wide-eyed, at the sight of the Temple doors.

Palpatine cloaks himself in white like an angel of light for this final temptation, wearing the guise of a friend or kindly old grandpa. It's every bit as unsettling as it seems.

Meanwhile with the B-Squad, Mart reveals that--like Chopper--he has also been entrusted with a crucial part of Ezra's "Just in case" plan. (Theirs is an underrated friendship, fanficcers you have let me down, again, why do I have to write all the things I wanna see more of?)

That shot of the wolves running alongside and under the Ghost. *chef kiss*

I have no idea when Ezra found time to figure out a signal the purrgil would respond to but I very much want to see that scene.

Sabine: "He [Ezra] knows what he's doing." Lol are you sure about that, 'bine? I think he had no clue the whole purrgil thing would work.

Palpatine is so slimy here, ugh. Acting like he did Ezra a favor by desecrating the Jedi Temple. Ezra's all ready to fling back anything ol Sheev throws at him here until Palpatine takes aim right at the heart of his greatest weakness.

Because after all this time, Ezra has never quite fully gotten over and accepted the loss of his parents. He's still at heart a lost little boy who misses his mom and dad.

The score goes almost Stravinsky-esque here, suggesting the Faustian nature of the deal Sidious is offering.

Meanwhile down in the gullet of the Dome, the Rebels are working feverishly to regain control of the the shield generator. There's some great coordination here between the teams and the control, Sabine really shines as a leader.

Word of God behind the scenes confirms Ezra is seeing THE day his parents were taken, his seventh birthday, when he could hear his mom and dad calling for him but didn't come because he was goofing off.

Hey uh, can this boy's life stop being ENDLESSLY SAD please? That'd be nice.

Love how Gregor calls for "something drastic" and Zeb immediately thinks, "Right, yeeting myself at the enemy." lol.

Gotta respect a man whose strategy is to fling himself full force at the enemy.

And the obligatory Make TCW Fans Cry Moment with Gregor here.

Palpatine keeps digging. This is your heart's desire isn't it? Don't you deserve this? All you have to do is open this one little door. He tries to keep Ezra's attention and focus on himself, even when Ezra asks what will happen to his friends if he makes this choice.

You can undo their deaths, Palpatine promises, about Ezra's parents. You can save them. I can help. It's the exact temptation he offered Anakin all those years ago.

"I have the power to give you what you want. You won't have to face this loss."

Like a devil, what he offers is a two-edged sword. What he is offering can't actually exist. Because if Ezra goes to be with his parents on the day they were arrested, how will he be able to make it here to open the door for Palpatine? Will Palpatine have to trap him in a closed loop, retrieve him from wherever he will end up in the alternate timeline, to ensure he can't fix this one fatal mistake?

See Palpatine doesn't care about breaking the timeline, he will gladly do it and rule over the ruins. But if Ezra reaches for this vision, he dooms his friends. He allows Palpatine to gain power beyond his wildest imaginings, turn himself into lord and master of time itself, a physical god.

So Ezra must deny himself, accept the loss, and let go.

And he does.

The Emperor's hologlamour flickering and failing as his rage ascends is really effectively creepy. Also HOW ABOUT THEM RETURN OF THE JEDI PARALLELS?

Years down the line, yet another pure-hearted Jedi boy will stand before the Emperor, throw his offer in his face, and tell him where to shove it. Even the dialogue mirrors Luke's.

"You're wrong. I have a family. I don't need anything from you."/"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

"Unfortunate. Destroy him!"/"So be it, Jedi. If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed!"

Poetry. Pure poetry. <3

Ezra gets a nice little face off against the Royal Guards, with some lovely whump in the form of whatever those pikes are doing to him, but manages to weasel himself out of the situation. And then somehow fights his way all the way up to the bridge. So proud of him.

The Rebels get the shield up just in time to prevent Thrawn's full scale bombardment, Rukh frying rather dramatically in the process. Lol and ouch with how irreverent Zeb is over the comm.

So now all that's left to do is break the stalemate and remove Thrawn from the chessboard.

HELL YES.

Oh hoooo man this twist isn't even really a twist it just makes too much sense for Ezra, for his character, for the themes of the show, for how to take Thrawn out as a threat while respecting his acumen as a strategist. (Gotta throw something at him he would never suspect lol.)

The musical build-up is amazing. Dooming low bass notes, drolling percussion. The strings build up, crescendo-ing.

AND THEN THE "WRATH OF NATURE" CUE FROM "THE CALL" COMES IN WITH GLORIOUS FULL ORCHESTRA.

The Hyperspace theme comes in as well, and the purrgil proceed to utterly decimate Thrawn's fleet. By proxy this gives Ezra probably the highest kill count on the show, as the purrgil must have taken out the orbital construction stations, a good chunk of the Star Destroyers up there, and all three of the ones above the city. (Somehow Palleon survives to join the Council of Evil in Mando Season 3 lol.)

Sabine looks SO confused, ha ha.

What a great shot.

Thrawn tries to get in a final, Taking You With me speech only for Ezra to be like, "Joke's on you that was the plan all along. You're not taking me with you, I'm taking you with me."

I do love Thrawn's increasingly panicky WTF expressions as things progress.

THIS ADORABLE #MARRIED BANTER BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AND THEN HOW THEIR THEMES ARE TONALLY INTERMINGLED IN THIS CUE.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The way Ezra's left arm hangs limp after Thrawn shoots his shoulder and the pained grimace he gives when he turns around to seal the door behind them.

He looks exhausted.

Pained grimace number two as Ezra raises his injured arm to wind up IN AN EXACT TABLEAU OF THE POSE KANAN HAD AT HIS OWN HEROIC SACRIFICE.

HELLO YES, ALSO ANOTHER ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOMENTS BETWEEN EZRA AND SABINE AS SHE BEGS HIM TO GET OFF THE CHIMAERA.

ALSO IT BEARS EMPHASIS BUT LOOK HOW THE GLASS SHARDS STILL WHEN EZRA RAISES HIS OTHER ARM.

EZRA IS LITERALLY HOLDING THE OXYGEN INSIDE THE BRIDGE WITH THE FORCE, WHILE HOLDING THRAWN AND THE DOOR IN PLACE, WITH AN INJURED ARM.

Ezra Bridger is the greatest shut up.

The purrgil charge up. Everything goes white. His theme bellows at full heroic volume and then...

Quiet.

Utter awed quiet.

Right, so you wanna know the other of the two times I cried at this show? Ezra's sacrifice right here. Waterworks.

"We set out to save the Shire, and it has been saved. But not for me. I have been too badly hurt. The last pages are for you, Sam."

Sabine is handed Ezra's lightsaber by Chopper, and takes up his mantle, finishing his mission and leading all the rest of them to safety as the launch the Dome and blow it. (Her journey to becoming co-protagonist is complete.)

Chopper gives us a final goodbye message from Ezra (that makes me sad again), and they soar over a triumphant freed populace.

Fade out and then...

*SOBS ABOUT THE BOOKENDS FOREVER*

Shot for shot. Shot. For. Shot. And I am UNDONE.

Lothal is free. The Empire never had a chance to retake it. Likely couldn't spare the manpower from the rest of the galaxy, first off, also replacing all those ships they had in orbit has gotta be expensive, and I suspect Palpatine just put glassing Lothal on hold until the Death Star was completed. And well... we know how that turned out lol.

The Fellowship broke, but they seem to all keep in touch, if Sabine's voiceover is any indication. Kanan's legacy lives on. Our crew found peace.

And last...

A sworn promise to find a precious friend and bring him back home.

The finale of Rebels is near perfection. With a very few quibbles here and there (the purrgil could have been just a smidgen more set up, Kallus's arc still needs to have some decent onscreen content for his redemption happy ending to be earned) it is the best Rebels has to offer.

The callbacks and bookends undo me. The music is full of wonderful dramatic cues. The animation is gorgeous. Everything comes to full completion and it is a very satisfying end.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Four is almost a bit nostalgic, returning to the tightly written narrative of the first season, but even more tightly tied together. None of the episodes feel wasted or superfluous. The major character death midway through is given plenty of narrative weight and time for the characters to adjust and grieve. Objectively it's probably the best season overall, none of the episodes are misses.

Even with the unanswered mysteries, the season feels solid, and a fitting conclusion to the overall Rebels saga.

---

And that was Star Wars: Rebels, the little show about a Found Family that could. It is my favorite new Star Wars content and what actually dragged me back into fandom after years away. It is heartwarming and exciting, poignant and hopeful and I'm so so glad I was taken on this journey.

Here's hoping the lost son of Lothal can make his way home soon.

[count-doodoo]

dooku: jedi lost: part 4: liveblog part 4

hecking FORCE this is getting long no wonder i ended up taking a five year hiatus lmao (the previous post was pretty much fully written already)

(the first voice here is asajj)

OBI WAN BEING A SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH FIGURE TO MAKE IT INTO THE AUDITORY HALLUCINATION SEQUENCE

GRANDPARENT DOOKU GANG WHERE WE AT

NOW lene is being like "no, dooku, don't!" AAAARGHHH MISS MA'AM one does not require debilitating visions to have enough foresight to have SEEN THIS COMING

HELP HIM

HELP YOURSELF

JFC THIS BOOK

THE RULE OF THE JEDI HAS BEGUN??????????

NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. LENE WHEN I CATCH YOU--

(i'm SO CURIOUS about this vision now, though. in the universe presented, is palpatine still a sith????? is this at all an actual universe or is it a manipulation of the dark side???? inquiring minds need to know)

ALSO

THE SENATE HAS BEEN CORRUPTED

DID DOOKU THINK HE COULD STAB PALPATINE LIKE THAT

a) this is the importance of training, so that one does not do Accidental Murder Via Lightning

b) THIS IS WHY WE DON'T TAKE THE KIDS ON DARK SIDE FIELD TRIPS

c) THIS IS WHY WE DON'T ENCOURAGE USE OF THE DARK SIDE ("we're just having dark emotions to help guide us with these dark side artifacts" my ASS)

"it wasn't you they brought it upon themselves" MISS MA'AM WE'RE GONNA NEED TO HAVE WORDS ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY AGAIN

also i feel like this is a bit of a misunderstanding of the dark side, to say it wasn't dooku because the dark side was using him. like that's what the dark side does. it takes and it takes and it uses you up. the dark side using you doesn't absolve you.

ALSO: ASAJJ?????????????????

imagine being asajj here. imagine knowing the man who electrocutes you now was once a boy terrified of that possibility. imagine watching this and seeing all the ways he could've been -- was, in the past -- better, and knowing he turned out this way anyways.

SEE DOOKU IS TRYING TO TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY AND THIS JACKASS--

no yeah i'm fine

I DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ANYMORE I'M JUST YELLING. SCREAMING AT THE SKY. LENE NO.

on a philosophical note i don't think we should ever shy away from the knowledge of what we're capable of -- even if and especially when it's dark. knowing what we COULD do doesn't mean accepting it as okay, it means acknowledging it so it doesn't control us.

and also for all lene's talk about how the jedi are too scared of the dark side... i think this shows that she herself is afraid of the actual dark side. she sees the lightning and she is terrified. she's just come up with this safe, romanticized version of it in her head that she insists the jedi shouldn't fear. and that's so so dangerous.

AND!!!! DOOKU TAUGHT KY BACK WHEN HE WAS A GOOD MAN!!!!!!!!!! ASAJJ CARRIES PIECES OF JEDI DOOKU THROUGH KY'S TEACHINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RAEL RAEL RAEL

WE LOVE THE DISASTER LINEAGE

onwards to part 5!

[batshieroglyphics]

[FIC] To Be Free Once More (That's Worth Fighting For) ~ Star Wars: Prequels ~ Fox/Obi-Wan ~ Mature ~ Ch 15/15 COMPLETE

Title: To Be Free Once More (That's Worth Fighting For) Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Era Series: Your Hands Protect the Flame Author: Batsutousai Rating: Mature Warnings: Alternate Universe, Qui-Gon survives, Jedi Shadow!Obi-Wan, Jedi culture positive, Coruscant Guard deserve better, clone trooper dehumanisation, institutional abuse, discrimination, learning to trust, Jedi and clone trooper relationships, strangers to friends to lovers, idiots in love, trans/nonbinary/agender clone troopers, trans/nonbinary/agender Jedi, character deaths (Palpatine, some Corries, offscreen Jedi OCs; more detail in notes of relevant chapters) Summary: As a Jedi Shadow, Obi-Wan hadn't expected to have much to do with the clone troopers. Until, suddenly, he does.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He didn't have long to relax into the comfort of the sound of Fox's laughter, because then they said, "Speaking of padawans, I heard you were thinking to...how do Jedi say it? Not 'adopt', right?"

"Who told?" Obi-Wan demanded.

Fox tapped their helmet, where it was set next to them on the ground. "It was in command chat," they admitted.

Obi-Wan groaned and rubbed at his face, because, okay, yeah, he...probably should have suspected something like that. "We would say 'take a padawan'," he offered a bit helplessly, "but there's more involved than just pointing to a padawan and saying 'that one is mine, now'."

"You have to ask them," Fox said, not quite a question.

"I do, and they would have the right to say 'no'. So, too, would their crèchemaster or the Council of Reassignment, if concerns were brought to them about our compatibility or either of our conduct." He sighed. "And, because I'm a shadow, the Master of Shadows has the final say about my taking a padawan, although I don't think she'll take any issue, beyond being much stricter about what missions I'm allowed to take."

Fox nodded, brow furrowed. "Is any of that...likely to be a problem?"

Obi-Wan shrugged. "Unlikely. There might be some concern, about her being my first padawan, but, well, I did help Quin with Aayla a fair bit, and Yoda's been trying to get me to take a padawan for a few years. Which isn't to say it's a sure thing, but he wouldn't be pushing if he thought the Council of Reassignment would refuse my bid for a padawan because of my recent conduct."

Fox nodded again, then looked up and met Obi-Wan's gaze. "Then...why are you worried?"

Obi-Wan felt his mouth turn with a smile that felt slightly strained. "It's..." He sighed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. "You're...probably going to say it's stupid."

Fox squinted at him. "Is it?" they asked.

Obi-Wan made a face—he probably deserved that—then hesitantly admitted, "I didn't want to ask her, only for it to turn out you two didn't get along."

Fox blinked once, twice, and then warm embarrassment filled their bond, and they ducked their head. "Oh," they said, and cleared their throat.

Read it on Archive of Our Own!

Reminder to please reblog this post, so you can share this happy ending with your followers.

[literallyjustanerd]

Scenes From The Caf Hall

So I had a lot of ideas for fun clone shenanigans but none substantial enough for full fics, so I put them into a sort of montage of moments I like to believe have gone down in the GAR caf at mealtimes. No consistency in timeline, just some harmless clone fun. Enjoy!

Note: one of these scenes references there being an abundance of Chancellor Palpatine biopics in the Star Wars universe. I saw someone mention that that would be funny in a text post once but try as I might I cannot find who that was. If you know what I'm talking about please let met know so I can credit them for the inspiration!

“I’m not kriffing drinking it, Fives. I won’t do it.” Fives lets out a low, pained groan as he drops his tray on one of the benches, head lolling back in a heavy circle over his shoulders. “Then don’t,” he says, for at least the third time. Echo pays him no mind. He may as well be speaking to himself. “Why would they change it? The one good thing I could count on every day, but no, let’s take that away, too. Kriffing Republic budget cuts. Kriffing quartermasters…” Hardcase is already grinning when he joins the two, watching in amusement as Echo’s rant fades to a low, sharp muttering. “What is it this time?” he asks, sounding almost excited. Echo is too busy stabbing at his salad like he wants to draw blood to answer.

“They changed out the brand of tea in the stores,” Fives says, head propped up on his fist. A hand slapped across Hardcase’s chestplate accentuates his feigned shock. “Not your precious Tarine!” he gasps. “What would they ever replace that with?” Oblivious or uncaring of Hardcase’s mocking tone, Echo’s fury is reignited. “Generic brand.” He spits the words like poison and scowls at the taste they leave in his mouth. Like they’re profanity. Which is ironic given how he continues; “I’ll be karked nine ways into the void before those shabuire make me drink the osik’la generic brand.” “Nobody’s making you drink it, Echo,” Fives reminds him, though by now he’s resigned, fully aware that he is little more than background noise. Echo growls at his tray. A couple of nearby shinies speed their steps to hustle past their table.

“Personally, I could never taste the difference,” Jesse pipes up. He’s so unfazed by the scene that nobody had even noticed him sit down. Fives sighs. That was not the right response. “The difference is night and day!” Echo blurts, voice surely close to reaching the upper limits of pitch. “They’re making us drink dirt water!” “Not making you,” Fives mumbles. “We lay down our lives for their war every day and this is how they repay us?” “Bit dramatic.” “We work our shebse off and you’re telling me I can’t even get a decent brew after an eighteen hour shift?” Fives pauses, tilts his head. “Yeah, no, okay. That’s fair.” At last, Echo acknowledges his presence in the form of a single, righteous nod.

Across the table, Hardcase flashes that look like a child about to poke a sleeping loth cat. “Why not just drink caf instead?” Echo falls deadly silent, eyes narrowed to a slit. His response is whip-fast. “Why don’t I just shoot you right here?”

***

“Telling you, things got wild that night. Don’t remember most of it, of course, but man, it was fun.” Waxer’s pride swells at the awed gazes across the table. His new 212th vod’ike, the gold on their armour barely dry, eyes wide with awe and demanding to know more of their superiors’ exploits. It’s like a drug, the wonder and admiration, and by now the 212th veterans know the best way to get it. Battle stories were great for gaining respect, sure, but if you wanted to really wow your rookies, stories of shore leave misadventures were far more effective.

“We woke up the next morning in a motel room on the lower levels,” Boil recounts with a grin. “No clue how we got there.” “What about the twi’leks?” one shiny demands, on the edge of his seat. “The ones from 79’s, what happened to them?” Waxer and Boil share a smirk, and Waxer delivers the kicker. “No idea,” he chuckles. “But they each left one of their numbers written on our vambraces.” “I really oughta call him sometime,” Boil muses. “See if they’re free again for this New Years’.” “She really was something else,” Waxer affirms. The shinies have gone silent before them, smiles wiped clean and suddenly sitting bolt upright. It takes the lieutenants a painfully long moment to realise why.

“Sorry to interrupt, troopers,” Cody says from behind the pair, sending bolts of ice through their veins, “but this wouldn’t happen to be last New Year’s you were talking about, would it?” Waxer and Boil both fall over themselves, mumbling sheepishly in the affirmative. “Interesting…” Cody hums. “Because I seem to remember things taking place differently.” “O-oh, is that… Is that right, Commander?” Waxer sputters, and tries immediately to move the conversation on. Cody doesn’t let it. “That’s right. As I recall, the two of you had to be carried out of 79’s well before New Year struck, and sent back to the barracks in a cab, drunk off your sorry faces.” Boil swallows audibly. He too is cut off when he tries to speak. “Can’t remember which one of you it was who was crying at the time, though.” His face is trained, his smile thoroughly measured, though his amusement is still glaringly clear. “Strange how our memories play up, isn’t it?”

He leaves it at that, and turns to walk away. One of the shinies, evidently a bold one, pipes up from the table, much to the horror of his batchmates. “Commander,” he calls, and Cody pauses in his step, turns back to face them. “How would you know what happened that night, unless… unless you were at 79’s, too?” After a moment’s pause, Cody merely flashes a grin. He turns to walk away, throwing one last comment over his shoulder: “Welcome to the 212th, boys.”

***

It’s been on Jesse’s mind for a while, but only now does he get the chance to bring it up. “There are three pieces of cake on your tray,” he says. Kix doesn’t look up from his work, datapad in one hand and sandwich in the other. He looks tired, but then, Kix always looks tired. “Very observant, vod. Good job.” “You got out of night shift last week.” “Mhmm.” “And I don’t think I’ve ever seen you on fresher duty.” “Okay?”

Jesse rolls his eyes, peeling the lid off his preserved jogan fruit. As if to illustrate his intended point, another trooper passes by their table and surreptitiously slides a pack of biscuits across to Kix like it’s a drug deal. When Jesse’s raised eyebrow gets no response, he clears his throat pointedly. Kix finally stops tapping away at his pad. “Why does everyone keep giving you their stuff?” Jesse demands. He doesn’t like the responding smirk that passes across Kix’s face. “Why do you think?” he asks, amusement tinging the edges of his words. Jesse sighs, lacking the energy to play this game. “Would I be asking if I knew?”

The look Kix gives is weary, bemused. He drags a hand over his eyes and takes a short, sharp breath, then begins. “Being a medic sucks.” “…Uh-huh?” “Long hours, always on call, the datawork never ends. People expect me to heal three-inch stab wounds in three minutes.” Jesse’s brow furrows, hoping there’s a point to this beyond his brother’s bitching “I’m… sorry?” “But as much of a pain in the gett’se as it is,” he says, finishing the sentence around a mouthful of cake, “being in charge of keeping all you di’kute alive it has its upsides.” Jesse can only roll his eyes. “Quit being so mysterious and get to the point.” Kix sighs sharply. “Jesse, I haven’t paid for a drink in over two years.” But the dots remain unconnected, Jesse’s expression still perplexed.

Begrudgingly, Kix sets the datapad down on the table and adjusts so he’s fully facing Jesse. He scrolls back on the pad through a plethora of files until he finds one. Jesse suddenly feels like a cadet again, called into his sergeant’s office. “0742 hours. Morning after last year’s Festival of Stars. You presented to medbay. Do you remember what for?” Kix needn’t have asked the question: a searing flush has already flooded Jesse’s skin, one that draws a sadistic grin from his vod. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen it a hundred times before and since. Never in that place, though...” Jesse’s head is in his hands as Kix continues. “Didn’t know how you’d managed it at first. Course, you told me the whole story. Spotchka and pain meds are great at loosening tight lips.”

“You kept that on file?” Jesse says in a strangled whisper. Kix shrugs, unfazed. “I’m required by Republic protocol to keep a record of all assessments and procedures carried out.” Jesse’s eyes fall to the extra cakes on Kix’s tray. Kix’s smile grows, tapping his datapad proudly. “And I carry out a lot of procedures.” Jesse curses under his breath, eyes wide in the dawning realisation. “How much dirt do you have on us?” he breathes, caught somewhere between awe and abject horror. Leaning his elbows on the table, Kix raises an eyebrow and grins.

“All of it, vod. You boys are animals,” he chuckles. “The things I’ve seen…” “You mean like—” “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s worse.” “What about—” “Worse.” “You don’t mean—” Kix leans further forward over the table, tilting his head down at Jesse. “Worse.”

Jesse swallows, leans back in his seat and acquiesces to Kix’s warning look. As much he itches to dig further, he knows Kix is probably doing him a favour by keeping the details obscured. “So. There you go. Maybe I get out of fresher duty. But with what I see on a daily basis, I think I’m within my rights to a few gratuities in exchange for my discretion about certain topics,” he says. “Like someone’s very inventive use of contraband fireworks…?” An uncomfortable silence falls between them, dragging on until Kix finally breaks it, eyeing Jesse’s tray. “Say, that jogan fruit looks—” Jesse’s handing it over before Kix has finished the sentence.

***

“Eight times in the last week he’s lost it. Three in one day, once. One of these days I’m going to weld that blasted saber to his hand.” Rex is slumped in his seat, shaking his head at the table. His brothers all murmur their commiserations around him, in various states of consciousness. Beside him, Cody jolts upright after almost falling face-first into his mug of caf for the fourth time. Ponds puts down the spoon he’s been using to mindlessly stir his porridge for the last ten minutes straight. “Least your general lets you have fun. General Windu makes us do weapons inventory and maintenance in every single minute of free time,” he grouses. Rex huffs. “I wish General Skywalker would order us to do weapons maintenance. I’m the only reason anything gets done in the 501st.” He gets a few affirming moans, half-hearted complaints about their own generals neglecting the more unglamorous responsibilities of commanding a battalion.

“You all have it easy.” It’s Fox who throws in next, hauling himself up from where he had been splayed across Wolffe’s back. He waves away the answering protests with a lazy hand. “Didn’t you go to the theatre last night?” Bly retorts. The disdain in his voice gives away his expression, which remains unseen; he’s on his back on the floor beside the table. The jab gives Fox a sudden burst of vindictive energy. “I did, Bly. I did go to the theatre last night. And do you know what I saw?” he says. “I saw another kriffing biopic on Chancellor kriffing Palpatine’s noble and heroic rise to power.” He spears a fillet of grey meat on his tray. “If I have to sit through another minute of some actor the Chancellor wishes he looked like making an empowered speech about the sacrifices he’s made for his people, you’ll all see me at the tribunal when I’m court marshalled and decommissioned.” The others say nothing, dredging up little more than sympathetic winces or groans. A few note that Fox’s hair seems just a little greyer than it did the last time they met up.

“General Kenobi jumped off a cliff on our last assignment on Onderon,” Cody offers a short time later to break the silence. He’s barely lucid enough to mumble the words. Nobody is at all surprised by the report. After a long draw from his caf, Cody continues, seeming bored by his own words. “Found him at the bottom totally unharmed and petting a bogwing. Asked him how he knew it would be there and let him ride it down, and do you know what he said?” The vode raise their weary voices to join him in chorus for the answer: “He didn’t know it would be there.”

Silence again. Someone snores, though it’s impossible to tell who and nobody can be bothered to try. Those awake enough to think straight mourn the state of the evening so far. It was a small miracle that this many of them were all in the one place to begin with. They’d planned for drinks at 79’s after dinner. And maybe they’d still rally and somehow make it out there. Maybe, with enough caf and the GAR’s famous resolve. But for now, they’re a sorry sight to behold. Soundly and thoroughly defeated. “Why does General Yoda talk like that...?” It’s Gree, his voice a pained whimper, muffled against the table. The question is directed at nobody. “Nothing he says makes any sense. He doesn’t need to talk like that.” Bly’s hand appears from below to pat his vod’s shoulder. With a shaking breath, Gree asks it again, barely a child’s pitiful sob: “Why does he talk like that?”

A little more moaning later, they seem to come to the consensus that their Jetiise (and Chancellor) were just confounding and infuriating by nature, and that they were tragically and inescapably doomed to a life dealing with their bantha shit. “They’re hopeless,” Ponds sighs. “Ridiculous,” Bly agrees. “Children,” Rex laments. “Maniacs,” Cody says, with finality in his tone. A voice rumbles from across the table – the first time that night Wolffe had made it known that he was awake at all. “What did you say?” Rex yawns. Wolffe raises his head. “I said, speak for your kriffing selves.”

***

The table in the corner of the caf hall may as well have a reserved sign on it. It does, in a way: Wrecker carved a crude ‘99’ into one of the benches months ago. The regs tend to steer clear, although on days like these, Echo can’t really blame them. He hears it before he sees it, the first signs of an argument beginning to escalate. “Get out of my face before I blast yours off,” Crosshair snarls.  Echo almost turns and walks away. But someone will need to be around to pick up the pieces if this all goes sideways. He steps through the remaining crowd to find his place at the end of the table. Opposite him, Crosshair is hunched over like a wolf with its hackles up. Tech is beside him, one finger poised delicately approximately an eighth of a centimeter from Crosshair’s shoulder.

“I will,” he says, “the moment you explain why you are so put out when I, clearly, am not actually touching you.” The plastic fork in Crosshair’s hand snaps. “How long?” Echo asks with a heavy sigh. Hunter, eyes occupied sharpening his knife, replies, “Going on fifteen minutes.” “Think there’s a point?” Hunter shrugs, slots his knife back into its sheath. His eyes flick from Tech to Crosshair, to Wrecker, who is watching the stalemate with rapt attention like it’s a nail-biting bolo-ball match. “Supposedly it’s a study on patience and stress levels,” he says. “But he hasn’t done it with anyone else. You know, Cross did trash his goggles last week.” Echo nods vaguely, sipping his tea and watching the rest of the exchange play out with distant disinterest. It would be imperceptible to the regs passing by, but Echo catches the slant in Tech’s tone, the tiny quirk in his eye. He’s enjoying this.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” “I don’t know what you mean. I’m still not touching you.” “Knock it the hell off, or you’ll wake up tomorrow to all your datapads melting in the kriffing furnace.” “I'm not touching you, though.” “This isn’t a joke. I—” “Not touching you.” “Hunter!” Crosshair hisses, shifting away yet again. He’s crammed onto the last three inches of the bench now, but Tech advances quickly to narrow the gap. Hunter cocks an eyebrow. “Oh, no. I’m not getting anywhere near this one.” “Some Sergeant you are.”

Echo tries to tune it out and enjoy his stew, as the threats grow increasingly crass and Wrecker eagerly demands the two get on with it and fight already. How they could lose themselves so shamelessly in such childish antics he does not know. He turns his gaze to the rest of the caf, the grid of tables packed with troopers he’d rather be sitting at. Though as he watches, he soon spots a table in the opposite corner of the hall; two shinies are locked in a fierce arm wrestling match, vode around them whooping and jeering. A few troopers at another table take turns lobbing berries in the air and trying to catch them in their mouths. More than one table has a perilous game of five finger fillet going. He looks back to Tech and Crosshair, inching towards all-out war, and lets his thoughts wander back to his old squad. Nights spent in this very same caf, breathless with laughter as Domino squad tried to one-up each other with outlandish dares. Lobbing wadded-up napkins into their commanders’ drinks. Sneaking behind the serving counters to steal extra desserts. Echo himself had definitely had his moments, dropping ice cubes down the back of Fives’ blacks when he wasn’t looking.

Across the table, Crosshair is reaching the end of his rope. “Are you all just going to sit there and watch?” he seethes. Echo feels a wry grin pulling at his lip. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says glibly. “He’s not even touching you.”