#because truly I feel I could rewrite that entire shitshow of a movie

[softquietsteadylove]

Hi, I am missing the Mr. And Mrs. Lee AU >< this is a very angsty request. Maybe you can write the part of the confrontation scene but a little different. Thena trying to fulfill the mission even though she already fell in love with the mission (him), but Gil never reciprocated the attacks Thena inflicted to him because he would never lay a finger on her. Thena's mad at him for doing that, she's desperately shouting him to fight her back, but Gil just can't. And when Thena already had the perfect opportunity to kill him, Gil just said with no hesitation that she can do it and it's okay. But of course she didn't.

And we all know what happened next after that...scene, right? But what about we change it? I think having some soft at the same time emotional moment instead of spice after this angsty scene would be good. We'd love to see a lot of comfort, them just holding each other in their apartment that now has broken doors and walls with bullet holes in it.

THANK YOUUU SO MUCH, LOVELY!!!

The house is a disaster. It looks like an entire team of assassins has torn through the place, when really it's just a husband and wife. Well, a wife--Gil couldn't raise his hand even once after finding out it was her on the other end.

Thena stares at him, her hand shaking so much it rattles the weapon she has pointed at him.

His hands are still up, palms out to her. He isn't looking down the barrel at all, just up at her with those eyes he knows can make her melt. "It's okay, Sweetheart."

She glares at him. He doesn't get to call her that now. He should be thinking of her as the enemy. "Don't."

"It's okay," he repeats, and slides his eyes closed as if he's lying down for a nap after a few beers while watching the game. He lets out a slow sigh, and it sounds the same as when they're going to bed together after a long day apart. "You've got it. Take the shot."

She tries. She tries to make herself take the shot and fulfill the mission she's had for the last five years of her life. The mission she was told was a life or death situation, it never being more important for her to maintain her flawless success rate.

But the mission changed. Somewhere along the way, he wasn't only the Mission; he became just Gilgamesh. Gil was sweet, and charming, and friendly in a way she had almost never encountered in her life before him. Then Gil was a pretty good date. She was used to having to play any part necessary, be that the blushing virgin, the seductress, the cold bitch. But Gil was himself, and somehow he had tricked her into being herself too.

Now he's Gilgamesh Lee, and he's a great home cook, and he likes beer but he hates red wine, and he's handy with home repair but he can't identify the difference between paint shades to save his life. He's Gil, and he brings her flowers for her birthday, and he lets her drive because she gets carsick as a passenger. He's her husband of four years, and they've built an entire life together.

And she has burned it to the ground in a single night.

"Dammit!"

Gil watches as she tosses the weapon aside, and sinks to the floor. She curls right up, which is her go-to posture; it protects her, makes her feel more secure. She hugs her knees to her chest.

"Baby?"

"Don't," she practically whimpers into her lap, balled up like a child in the face of her life choices. This is pathetic; she's a top agent, one of the deadliest in Eternal Agencies. And here she is crying like a fool over her first love.

Gil sighs, moving over to her on what remains of their polished hardwood floors. "C'mere, hot stuff."

She should be trying to kill him. She should be fighting and clawing at him to regain the upper hand. Just because she decided she couldn't take the shot doesn't mean she can give up on the mission completely.

Gil lets her curl up on his lap, pressing her tears into his - dislocated, and then re-located - shoulder. He grunts, but bears it as he wraps his arms around her. "Easy, Sweetheart, I've got you."

Thena presses her face harder against him, muffling her agony as she wails into him. She hasn't cried like this in...maybe ever. Maybe she's never felt anything like this, but she supposes Gil has made a habit of unearthing feelings she thought she had cut out of herself.

He rubs her back, presses kisses to her temple. Their home is crumbling around them and he spent the last hour trying not to get assassinated by her, but now he's holding her as if she's had a bad dream after a thunderstorm.

Thena tries to build up her walls again. She tries to think about the house structure, how she can get away and regain the high ground on him. She tries to think about where she tossed that weapon, or which door frames still have her knives lodged in them.

But all she can think about his her husband, holding her in his arms, safe from anything and everything, including the omniscient reach of a man called Father. These are arms which held her after their fifth date, in an apartment she procured just so they could go somewhere after dinner. These are arms which held her against his side in a gondola, and then held her that same night after proposing. This embrace is the only place she has ever felt safe enough to truly banish her other thoughts from her mind and just be Thena.

Missus Thena Lee.

Gilgamesh whispers and coos in her ear as her sobbing subsides slowly. He holds her trembling form against him, offering all he can when they've already been worn to the bone by life and its complications. "Sweetheart?"

She groans into his shirt. "Stop calling me that."

She can hear the smile in his voice. "Why?"

She stays buried against him. She doesn't even want to look at the house, right now. "You want the full list?"

Gil chuckles, running his fingers through her hair. "You're still my wife, Thena. Nothing about tonight changes that."

Fuck. He always knows exactly what to say to make her want to throw herself to the ground and beg him to love her for just one more day.

"Nothing changes that," he repeats in a whisper as she clings to him so tightly her nails dig into him. "Unless you're about to ask for a divorce, in which case I change my mind about putting up a fight."

He also knows how to make her laugh at truly the worst times. "Gil, I'm serious."

"Yeah," he lifts his head and looks around them, "I'd say it's pretty serious, Honey-Bun."

Such cutesy pet names; she once tried to convince herself that they were off putting and that she hated them. It didn't last long. They're cliche and embarrassing and she loves each and every one of them.

Thena lifts her head too, unable to avoid looking at the massacre of their home. A few shreds of wood fall to the floor as if they're paid actors. "Really did a number on the place, hm?"

Gil shrugs as if she's asked if he knows what the weather will be tomorrow, "I'm sure I could make some progress in here if I took some time off work."

Thena thunks her head against his chest again. "Work."

"Sorry," he apologises and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "We don't have to think about that now."

They will sooner or later, though. Both of them will, given all that they've learned in the past 36 hours.

"We'll figure it out," he says so definitively.

Thena looks down at her tattered and shredded dress. She looks at Gil's ripped and burned suit. She sighs, "they're going to call a domestic disturbance on us."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't blame them," Gil murmurs, shaking out his jacket and letting the bullets that got caught in its reinforced lining clatter to the floor. He lays it over her shoulders. "You hungry?"

Thena lets out an even longer, even louder sigh. She feels like she could throw up. "Starving."

Gil groans as he hauls himself to his feet. "Fridge is a little beat up, but I'm pretty sure there are a few eggs left."

"Scrambled?" Thena looks up at him from her miserable quarry on the floor, "with cheese?"

He leans down to kiss her, letting her hand rest on his cheek no matter how much he has to twist his neck. "I know what you like."

"Thank you," she whispers, hoping to memorise every line and feature of his face in case the next 36 hours also go to shit. She listens to the sound of him prying open the dented fridge door, pulling out the eggs, finding a pan that doesn't have bullet dents in it. She loves listening to him cook. "Baby?"

"Yeah, Hon?"

Thena smiles to herself. He's right, they will figure it out, and he is her husband; nothing about tonight changes that. "I love you."

"I love you too, Thena."

[nofearofwaves]

Some Rise of Skywalker Thoughts

Everything is a spoiler, so click through at your own risk.

I left The Last Jedi with tears in my eyes. I cried in the bathroom at the theater. But they were good tears. Luke Skywalker’s death hit me hard, but his arc felt complete. It felt right. It felt like his death, like Vader’s, was a true redemption. It felt like it mattered.

Rise of Skywalker is not worthy of Luke’s death. Rise of Skywalker is a soulless bait-and-switch that gives us nothing Star Wars hasn’t given us before, when it was in the perfect position to give us redemption by life and living.

I will start with some positives. This is not going to be a complete review; I don’t know if I’ll ever care enough about RoS to actually review it.

Lando was fun, as, unlike some of the original cast, he wasn’t overbearing and he actually looked like he was having fun.

Leia’s stuff was more extensive than I thought it would be. It’s awkward because it’s franken-footage, but it does give her much-needed closure; more on that later.

Rey gets her own saber, at last. Of course, only right at the end and we don’t see her building it and it’s not a saberstaff, but it’s something.

Rey, Finn, and Poe share a lot of screen time, which is fun. Of course, it only drives home how little of that we’ve had in the trilogy thus far. TLJ’s major misstep for me was that it didn’t include enough of this found-family dynamic.

Some of Kylo Ren’s early dialogue is precisely the romantic, purply-prose stuff that I go for. Dark proposals and all. Good stuff.

Some of the alien worlds, designs, and prosthetics were cool. Unfortunately, there was also a heavier percentage of CGI stuff that was distracting, especially when juxtaposed with the overwhelming use of practical effects from earlier films.

Several of the fight scenes are good, though nothing can compare with the snowy woods fight and the throne room fight of previous movies. I have seen critics praising the visuals of this movie, but they were altogether too fast, enormous, and choppy for me.

Some of the comedic beats, especially including C-3PO, are legit funny.

And now, the shitshow.

Rey Palpatine. Dear God, why? I understand some people were disappointed by TLJ’s reveal of Rey Nobody, but I thought that was genius. Why does legacy matter? The Force belongs to everybody, as it should. Rey being powerful doesn’t matter; unlike Kylo, who is crushed by his legacy, she is freed by the lack of it.

I can’t even explain how cheesy this becomes. There’s a long, long, long sequence with Palpatine tempting her into killing him while shadows of all the other Sith ghosts stand in stadium seating and chanting, and it’s so damn cheesy and bombastic. I could watch the temptation scenes from Return of the Jedi over and over again because Palpatine is so oily and the whole scene is so intimate and quiet and you are watching Luke see and imagine his friends’ deaths from a distance and ugh, this movie doesn’t have the slightest shadow of that and it thinks it does. 

Also, Rey is literally never tempted to join him. She hates him in a vague kind of way because, it’s revealed, he killed her parents, but she relinquishes that very early and only agrees to kill him(?) to buy time for Kylo to reach her.

Palpatine’s motivation also changes about three times. 

He wants Kylo to kill Rey, because, as Kylo says, he’s afraid of her supplanting him.

But no! Palpatine wants her to kill him because then she’ll inherit the legacy of the Sith, even if her heart isn’t in it and she doesn’t hate while she does it. Very confusing.

And last! When he cannot turn her, he settles instead for draining the life from her and Ben, a “dyad in the Force”, which revives him.

On that point, uh, couldn’t he just have done that from the start anyway? He’s clearly not opposed to coming back to full power. Why not just drain Rey and be done with it?

Ben Solo, who is truly Ben Solo by the end, dies. He gives Rey a kiss of life, after fighting through his Knights to get to her, and dies. The last Skywalker is dead, and though Rey “rises” in their place, the Skywalkers are over and Palpatine killed them. As he always wanted to.

So much for the big stuff. Let me end with some small, nitpicky things that bugged me:

All the deaths, save Ben’s, are undone. There’s a truly shocking moment where Rey thinks her unhinged power has killed Chewie, but no! He’s on another transport. C-3PO agrees to a memory wipe to get some vital information out of his head? Undone when he sees R2, who has been backing up his memory this whole time. If you’re gonna walk back a death, at least give it some time. How else are we supposed to feel anything otherwise?

Where was ROSE?! They tease her coming along on the trio’s mission and she says she has to stay back for Leia’s sake, but then they don’t do anything with that. She’s just not on the mission because reasons, and the most interesting character from TLJ is now out of the story. Because reasons.

Poe’s sudden backstory that gets no payoff and only exists to give him all the skills he needs at any given point. Now with more romantic baggage from a woman’s face we never see!

The Knights of Ren, given huge visual weight in the first third of the movie, just disappear until Kylo fights them right at the end, in a scene that could have been a callback to the TLJ throne room fight except everything is bad and boring. None of them speak, even to tell them why they’re suddenly cool with betraying Kylo, their master. None of them seems even vaguely troubled by killing him, even though literally no one has asked them to.

Finn wants to tell Rey something. We all know what it is. He never says it. It is brought up several times, with increasingly frustrating effects.

There are more, but I’m tired. I’m tired, tired, tired of putting my love and thought and energy into a story that betrays me. I’m over death as redemption. I’m over hearing that people can never come back from the evil they’ve done. I’m sick of it, y’all. 

I can deal with tragedy. But it has to make sense, it has to. This isn’t real life, where bad things happen and we don’t know why and we can’t stop it. This is fiction. I want sacrifices to matter, I want closure.

They said this ending was about hope, that it was hopeful. But God, I just can’t see it.

And now, I will erase the memory of this movie from my databanks forever, and try to resist the urge to rewrite the entire sequel trilogy because, good God, a monkey with a typewriter could do better than this.