#chewie x maz

[peterpparkrr]

Drowning in the Light (4/?)

Chapter 4: Return

Series: Drowning in the Light

Summary: The reader finds herself face to face with the man who she once considered her best friend. Now on opposite sides of a war, where do her loyalties lie? And what role is she prepared to take in this fight?

Word count: 3.1k

A/N: Has it been 2 years (almost to the day) since I updated this fic? Yes. After an unexpected hiatus, I have returned with this beast of a chapter to remind you all how much I adore this story.

Pairing: (eventual) Poe Dameron x F!Reader 

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) // (Part 5)

playlist for this series can be found here. you can also read this series on ao3.

The sound of ships approaching and of the sudden hail of blaster fire that shown down around you. But that wasn’t what pulled you out of your reverie-- no-- it was the sudden presence of someone who’d died along with the rest of the Jedi. 

Him. 

Ben was coming for the droid.

You needed to find them first. You sprinted off into the forest desperate to find Rey and the droid before he could.

You could hear the sound of blasters behind you as you raced through the forest surrounding Maz’s castle. But nothing was going to distract you from your mission. 

As you whizzed past boulders and jumped over fallen trees you tried desperately to reach out to Rey, to use the force to try and find her. Unfortunately, your powers are not unlike a muscle, and after years of tamping down every impulse to connect to the force and your powers, it is now a struggle just to search for another being.

Luckily as you’re searching you manage to spot the familiar orange and white droid in your periphery.  

“BB-8!” You thank Maker that you’d found the droid before it was too late, “Where’s Rey?” You ask it as you look around. 

BB-8 frantically beeps and whirls at you and you can’t help but groan. She’s brave, but what a stupid plan. There was no way she could take Ben on with just a blaster.

“Get back to the others, don’t let anyone else see you.” You tell BB-8 quickly before taking off in the direction the droid had pointed you.

“No!” You shout as you run up on Rey and Ben.

“Ben-” 

But before you can say, or do, anything you feel the pressure of the force pressing against your chest as you go flying into the air, until you feel your back make contact with a tree trunk as all the air is knocked out of your lungs and you fall to your hands and knees. 

“Ben, please,” You choke out as you push yourself to your feet.

Your eyes flicker over to Rey’s form, still immobilized on Ben’s other side. You’d all seen the map, so even without the little BB droid, it wouldn’t take long to pull the memory of it out of the head of someone like Rey.

As you reached your hand out in determination to free Rey from Ben’s grasp you feel a stabbing pain in your head. You groan as your eyes flicker back to Ben, desperately wishing you still had a weapon on your person to properly fight back. 

Before you can do anything to stop him a branch comes flying at you out of nowhere and slams into your stomach, sending you keeling over from its brute force as you collapse from the pain. 

“You should have stayed dead,” Ben’s voice cuts through the vocoder of his helmet coldly as it tilts down at your form where you groan on the forest ground.

You watch helplessly as he returns to Rey, forces his way into her mind, and carries her lifeless body out of the woods. 

You push yourself to your feet as quickly as you can manage and sprint back to the remains of Maz’s castle as fast as you can. 

You were just making it to the edge of the trees when you saw the ship taking off. Both of them were on it. You were too late.

You’re desperate to find General Organa, but you don’t need to go far, she’s stepping off a transport ship and speaking to Han when you find him, Chewie, Finn, and BB-8 among the wreckage. You try to give the estranged couple some privacy before Han and Chewie come back to prep the ship.

“Go on, kid,” Han mutters as he jerks his head back towards the General. 

“Leia,” You greeted the woman you once knew well. “They...they destroyed the entire Hosnian System.”

“I know, (Y/N), I am so sorry,” She tells you before pulling you into your own hug. 

“There is this girl, Rey, she’s seen the map to Luke,” You struggle to explain, “He took her. Ben. He was here.”

“I see,” Leia replies as she nods, lips pursing as she processes what this will mean for the resistance.

“The droid has the map,��� You add as you gesture behind you to the BB droid whirling around Finn. 

“We’ll discuss it at the base,” Leia finally says as she gestures for her lieutenants to wrap things up and head back to their ships. 

“I’m glad you’re alright,” She calls after you as you head back to the Millennium Falcon. 

You turn around and give her a brief nod before you join the others on the ship.

None of you said much as Han and Chewie flew you all to the resistance base. Once you landed you were slow to get off the ship. You still weren’t prepared to be back. You’d left the resistance for a good reason. But you also couldn’t help but feel like there was a force pulling you back in. That wanted you here. To be a part of something that you couldn’t fully grasp yet. 

When you joined the others they were already discussing plans. 

It was obvious that this Starkiller Base was a bigger threat than anyone had been able to anticipate. And it needed to be neutralized if the resistance wanted to stand a chance against the First Order. 

The fact that Rey’s memory held a copy of the map to Master Skywalker seemed like a nonissue, just like the fact that Ben was holding Rey captive on the base.

You could tell Finn was desperate to get to the base and rescue Rey. And you just needed to find a way to help him do that. 

“You’ll need a ship like the Falcon to get onto the planet undetected,” You point out as the leaders argue amongst themselves. “And someone like Finn who knows the base to find the control room.”

“We’ll get Finn down to the base and help him disable the shields, your fleet takes out the oscillator and we’re all off the planet before that happens,” Han tells Leia and the group. “Hopefully,” He adds after a moment of consideration. 

“Okay,” Leia replies and you shoot Finn a brief smile as you move to grab your things.

“Hey buddy,” You greet BB-8 as he beeps at you excitedly, whirling around your feet. “That's great! I’m glad he’s alive.”

“Commander Dameron, this is (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” Leia introduces you, “She’s a family friend.” 

You glance at her curiously before returning your focus to the pilot standing beside her.

“And (Y/N), this is Poe Dameron.”

“The BB droid is yours,” You say in lieu of a greeting.

“Yes, he is,” He replies with a smirk. 

“He talks about you a lot,” You tell him as you cock your head to the side. “From his description, II thought you’d be taller.” 

“(Y/N)!” Han shouted from across the hangar, pulling your focus.

“Duty calls,” You say to Leia and Poe. “It was nice to meet you, Paul Damon,” You add as an afterthought before you race off to help Chewie with the pre-flight checks.

It’s probably your own fault for thinking that turning off the shields would be the easy part of this mission. That any part of this mission would be easy. 

After nearly dying in a fiery crash thanks to Han crash landing the Falcon near the base in an effort to fly under their radars you’d all nearly been caught. And then with Finn’s admission that he knows absolutely nothing about this base other than where the trash compactors and the mess hall are, you realize how wholly unprepared for this. 

Luck seemed to be on your side long enough to capture Finn’s former Captain and forced her to disable the shields before throwing her into a garbage chute. Thank the Maker that Rey found her own escape and happened to find you all while you were sneaking around the base. 

“Chewie and I’ll plant the explosives,” You tell Han as you all split up, You and Chewie are tasked with dotting the perimeter of the oscillator with charges.

“Ben!” Han shouts and your head shoots up from where you're crouched down, arming one of the explosives to see Han and Ben moving towards each other on the bottom level of the space.

“Han Solo. I've been waiting for this day for a long time,” Ben replies as he stalks toward his father.

“Take off that mask. You don't need it,” Han tells him.

“What do you think you'll see if I do?”

“The face of my son.”

“Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.”

“That's what Snoke wants you to believe, but it's not true. My son is alive.”

Your heart breaks as you hear the rare flood of emotion in Han’s voice. You knew that he struggled with Ben’s turn and the estrangement between himself and Leia. You never talked about it, and neither did he, but it was obvious enough in the way that you behaved with one another that you were both hiding your feelings underneath webs of apathy and sarcasm. You were so alike in that way that you don’t need to talk about it to understand what he felt. 

“No. The Supreme Leader is wise.”

“Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you. You know it's true.”

“It's too late,” Ben replies 

“No, it's not. Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you.”

“I'm being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me?”

The sudden flood of emotion nearly bowls you over. It felt so like the old Ben. Like your best friend had returned to you as you watched the tears spring in his eyes. You could feel the truth in his words even from where you stood.

You honestly didn’t know what to think as you silently watched the father and son.

“Yes. Anything,” Han replies as he takes a hold of Ben. 

You feel a sudden shift and are helpless to do anything but watch as you hear the buzz of Ben’s lightsaber activating and see the end of it poking through Han’s torso.

You can’t do anything but watch silently when Rey screams and Chewie roars as you watch Han’s body fall over the edge of the walkway. Leaving only Kylo Ren standing atop it. Staring up at where the rest of you were standing. 

“Now,” You command Chewie in a voice just above a whisper as he detonates the explosives while you turn and run from the base, back to the ship.

Ben follows hot on Finn and Rey’s heels as you all race away from the base, out into the thick, snow-covered brush. 

“Get the ship and come back for us,” You tell Chewie before he nods and rushes off in the other direction while you chase after the others.

You're shocked at how well Finn, even with a lack of proper training is able to hold Ben off. But it doesn't last for long.

“Finn!”

Your arm is flung out before you can second guess yourself, pulling the saber from where it lodged itself in the snow and pulling it towards you. It takes a moment longer to finally fly through the air and into your hand but when it does you immediately realize whose saber it is and why Ben wants it so desperately. 

You’re holding Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. 

“That lightsaber. It belongs to me,” Ben hissed as he turned to you, his hand clutching the wound Finn managed to cause with a well-timed strike of the blade. 

“Then come and get it,” You taunt as you ignite it and begin to circle one another slowly. 

It’s been years since you’ve trained. Since you’ve fought. But fighting opposite of Ben is muscle memory. You know every single one of his moves, his defenses, his tells. But he also knows yours. And he’s had ten years of training under the Sith now. 

Your first strike comes swiftly, but Ben matches it easily. You were always the one to make the first move. Too impatient. 

But Ben’s counterstrike comes shortly after. Too impulsive. Too angry. You dodge out of the way with a graceful spin. Even in your clunky boots your moves become light and fluid with a lightsaber in your hand.

The two of you push and pull against each other effortlessly. It’s always been like a dance between the two of you, but where the moves were evenly matched when you were children, Ben’s brute force and anger have only grown and you quickly begin to struggle under his relentless pressing on your defense.

“Even now, all that rage and hate? It’s nothing compared to the power you could have had,” Ben taunts as you manage to block an attack just inches away from your face.

“You are a disappointment,” He spits at you in anger.

Your chest burns as you push out of the block and fight back, but Ben seems to have prepared for this and counters quickly before swiping into your blind spot and swiping down – hard – on your thigh. 

You groan as you try not to scream out at the pain. Your knees buckle and Ben swiftly kicks you between the shoulder blades and you fall into the snow, using the spare second before your body collapses to send the lightsaber in your hands flying in the opposite direction. 

The best you can do is to slow him down as much as possible. 

You realize from your new vantage point face down in the snow that Ben’s own movements are stilted at best as the efforts of your trio’s barrage on him have clearly taken their toll. 

You can see the pain in the way his face tenses as he reaches his uninjured arm up to pull the lightsaber into his grasp. You spare a glance around to see Finn still unmoving a ways away but find Rey stood up from where she had fallen, her own hand reaching for the saber as her brow furrows in concentration.

Your eyes widen as you see the lightsaber fly through the air, not to Ben, but into Rey’s hands. 

“I’ll get Finn, run!” You shout to Rey as she takes off, Ben hot on her trail while you crawl to Finn’s side. You can see the large wound on his back through the now tattered scraps of his jacket and hurry to pull Finn’s unconscious body over your shoulder and drag him towards the ship as you see Chewie appear in the nearby clearing. 

Once you had Finn back in the ship you re-emerged to see Rey had severed Ben’s lightsaber in two. As she moved to deal what looked to be a killing blow, a trench opened between the two, the ground opening up beneath them and pulling them away from one another. 

You’ve never seen anything like it. 

Chewie must have detonated the explosives at the perfect time. 

“Rey!” You shout from the door to the Falcon, calling her back away from the edge of the still-forming cliff.

She races over to the ship and you pull her in before shouting for Chewie to take off.

When you return to the base it feels like the entire base is celebrating.

And they should be. They destroyed a weapon that can destroy entire planetary systems. 

But the losses you’ve faced are taking their toll on you. 

Rey takes Finn to the infirmary while you and Chewie seek out Leia. 

When you see her you can tell she already knows. It’s the look in her eyes as Chewie pulls both of you into a tight hug. 

It’s so unfair, the thought that they’d spent so much time apart, and just when they’d reconnected and there was a renewed sense of hope for the two of them, that he would be ripped away from her. 

“R2-D2 reactivated,” Leia tells you once you’ve both shed a few tears, pulling you into the control room. 

“The map,” You breathe out as you look at the completed route, with the piece of the map BB-8 had now spliced into R2’s.

“Good to see you again, buddy,” You murmur to R2 as you pat him on the processor, causing him to whirl at you happily.

“Who’s going to go?” One of the commanders asks.

“You and Rey should,” Leia offers as you turn to look at her.

“No, Rey needs to be the one to go, alone.” You protest with a sharp shake of your head. It doesn’t take a deep connection to the force for you to understand what the universe wants to set into motion. This is Rey’s path. Of that you’re certain.

“You should have seen her in that forest. She’s more powerful than anyone knows. If anyone can get through to Luke, it’s her,” You tell Leia and Rey with a small smile, “I gave it all up for a reason, Rey doesn’t just need anyone to train her, she needs a real master.”

It takes them some time to prepare, but Rey, Chewie, and R2 are packed and sent off not long after the map is revealed. There’s no time to waste now that the First Order is out for Resistance blood. 

“Good luck, Rey,” You tell her as you pull her into a tight hug. “May the force be with you.”

“Take good care of her, Chewie,” You tell Chewie as he pulls you into a tight hug of his own, lifting you off your feet. 

Chewie groans mournfully. 

“I know, I know, but I think this is what he would have wanted. As much as he would have pretended like we were forcing him to do it, he would have been the first one to offer to go get him,” You say with a bitter laugh. 

“You too, R2,” You tell the droid beeping at your feet. “And give Master Skywalker hell from me,” You add with a smirk.

Once they’re aboard and ready for take-off you join Leia in sending them off. Once the Falcon disappears into the atmosphere the General turns to you. 

“I’ve got a job for you.”

[spongebobafettywap]

I sincerely agree with on those events.

The last one the X-Men had, Sins of Sinister, was so pointlessly hopeless, it almost read as a parody (doesn't help an entire issue was basically just them referencing Star Wars for everything down to the plot).

I'm first and foremost a Polaris fan but since she's been shafted out of any X-Men story, I decided to check Nightcrawler's deal during that event for kicks and that was, from beginning to end, absolutely miserable for him to go through

And it meant nothing!

For reference, he was physically altered by Margali, who spent the last weeks prior to this infecting a chunk of the mutant population with a magic illness while she collaborated with an anti-mutant organization. When she took a soulsword made from Kurt's hope out of him, it broke him. Once she left, he was locked up by Sinister then another then another, continuously loosing his mind and mutating more and more for hundreds of years while he remained caged, alone to be forgotten by all until he died.

So all of that happened

... For Nothing

Because the timeline was reset back to when Nightcrawler was facing off against Margali.

Why didn't it go down the exact same way this time around with her uncharacteristically abandoning him to his fate? I dunno Maz, I really don't: The writer didn't give an explanation and I eventually figured out there was no reason for me to try coming up with one for him

Another thing to say is that Nightcrawler's suffering was put in the background in his own book. It gets to the point where it's no exaggeration for me to say he was a side character in a series named after him. The main characters were his literal clones and a villain. I know it sounds like a joke, really wish it was but it's currently Marvel for you

Wait.. they really did a Star Wars parody? Please tell me Kurt was Luke, Rogue was Leia, Remy was Han and Beast was Chewie. Oh and Mystique was Darth Vader. (Reference to a fanart piece haha)

Yeah Polaris is my other all time favourite X-men member but she always gets shafted and I'm not exactly sure why she has the same powers as Magneto and is his daughter and is one of the earliest members of the X-men team like how do you NOT use her. It's always baffled me how so many good X-men characters get treated with less respect than an absolutely garbage character like Cable.

So now Margali is like the second Mutant Romani woman they'd given an Anti Mutant streak to?? I wouldn't have a problem with Boomerang Bigots in Marvel if it was actually something in the nature of the character not just shock value garbage. I hate writers constantly trying to do shock value, at a certain point it becomes incredibly predictable that they will always go the opposite direction of what you expect them to do. It's why I stopped watching Empire, it became so predictable in how it would kill characters off.

Lol I mean I can see them doing clones of Nightcrawlers in that book, for some reason Marvel loves to clone Nightcrawler numerous times he's like how Rimmer is in Red Dwarf where he's always the member that gets cloned the most, not even Wolverine has as many duplicates or similar characters as Nightcrawler. So that's at least the only amusing part of this story to me.

[flilisskywalker]

Oh, they totally fucked after that. 

[star-wars-ao3-fandom-stats]

AO3 stats for smaller Star Wars Sequel Trilogy pairings - May the 23th, 2020

Here’s the current list of the Sequel Trilogy ships with 20-99 fanworks on AO3, excluding platonic relationships (tagged as ‘Character & Character’, not Character/Character’) and Official-Character/OC ships.

The differences between the ranking posted seven weeks ago and the one posted today are in the brackets.

Since last ranking Kytaka (Kylo/Mitaka) reached 100 works and therefore got to the +100 ranking. Congratulations to the shippers!

New ships on the list:

-Rey x Flip Zimmerman;

-Kaydel Ko Connix x Dopheld Mitaka.

1. Finn/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 97 (+4)

2-3. Rey (Star Wars)/You (+6), Armitage Hux/Dopheld Mitaka/Kylo Ren (+3) - 94

4. Armitage Hux/Phasma/Kylo Ren - 92 (+1)

5. Poe Dameron/Leia Organa - 90 (+4)

6. Poe Dameron/Jessika Pava - 89 (0)

7. Matt the Radar Technician/Rey (Star Wars) - 80 (+1)

8. Leia Organa/Rey - 73 (+1)

9. Clyde Logan/Rey (Star Wars) - 72 (+8)

10. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rose Tico - 70 (+9)

11. Poe Dameron/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 66 (0)

12. Armitage Hux/Matt the Radar Technician - 64 (0)

13. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey/Rose Tico - 63 (+1)

14-15. Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Reader (+3), Snoke/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (-2) - 62

16. Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 61 (+1)

17. Dopheld Mitaka/Phasma - 58 (+3)

18. Poe Dameron/Luke Skywalker - 57 (+1)

19. Finn/Armitage Hux - 52 (+2)

20-21. Chewbacca/Maz Kanata (+7), Poe Dameron/Amilyn Holdo (+2) - 51

22. Phasma (Star Wars)/You - 49 (+2)

23. Zorii Bliss/Poe Dameron - 48 (+9)

24-25. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (+1), Kylo Ren/Anakin Skywalker 28 and 14 works tagged only as Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Darth Vader and 2 works tagged only as Kylo Ren/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader and 2 works tagged only as Anakin Skywalker/Ben Solo (+4) - 46

26. Jannah/Rose Tico - 44 (+11)

27-28. Poe Dameron/Paige Tico, Finn (Star Wars)/You - 42 (+1)

29. Kaydel Ko Connix/Rose Tico - 40 (+5)

30-31. Karé Kun/Temmin "Snap" Wexley (+1), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rose Tico (+3) - 39

32-33. Kaydel Ko Connix/Rey (+6), Armitage Hux/Knights of Ren (0) - 37

34. Knights of Ren/Kylo Ren 32 and 1 work tagged only as Knights of Ren/Ben Solo - 33 (+2)

35. Poe Dameron/Terex - 31 (+7)

36-37. Clan Techie (Dredd)/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (0), Poe Dameron/Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rey (+3) - 30

38. Armitage Hux/Leia Organa - 29 (+2)

39-41. Bazine Netal/Kylo Ren 18 and 10 works tagged only as Bazine Netal/Ben Solo (+6), Dopheld Mitaka/Thanisson (0), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Han Solo (0) - 28

42. Armitage Hux/Armitage Hux - 27 (0)

43. Armitage Hux/Luke Skywalker - 26 (0)

44-45. Poe Dameron/Muran (+1), Phasma/Nastia Unamo (0) - 25

46-48. Dopheld Mitaka/Reader, Poe Dameron/Han Solo, Finn/FN-2003 | Slip - 24 (0)

49-52. Armitage Hux/Pryde 22 and 1 work tagged only as Armitage Hux/Enric Pryde (+1), Armitage Hux/Snoke (0), Finn/Phasma (+1), Rey/Han Solo (+2) - 23

53-56. Rey (Star Wars)/Flip Zimmerman (new on the list!), Armitage Hux/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo (0), Leia Organa/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 20 and 1 work tagged only as Leia Organa/Ben Solo (+1), Poe Dameron/Jaina Solo (0) - 21

57. Kaydel Ko Connix/Dopheld Mitaka - 20 (new on the list!)

[i-am-shitpost]

I’ve wanted to say this from the moment I first saw Maz on screen in theaters.

THEY HAVE THE SAME FUCKING ENERGY OK?!

[steves-on-a-plane]

A Sister for BB-8

Words: 1148 Pairing: Poe Dameron x Gender Neutral!Reader Summary: Reader is Poe Dameron’s significant other with a pension for scheming.  This time the Commander has come upon his partner surrounded by unidentifiable parts and bright buckets of paint. One thing is for sure, Reader always keeps him on his toes. 

“What are you doing, Captain?” You looked over your shoulder to see the newly minted Commander Poe Dameron walking towards you. You looked away from him to focus on the on your current project.

Poe took in the scene he’d walked upon. You were sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a semi-circle of open paint jars. They were colors the resistance, and probably most of the galaxy, hadn’t seen in years.  One jar of pale pink, a brilliant magenta, a bright green and a dark grassy tone were each sitting with a brush balanced precariously atop them. A smaller container of black was held in one of your hands its companion brush hanging lazily out of your mouth. Littering the floor along with your painting supplies were several tools. This included a sonic screwdriver that he remembered lending to Rey. 

“Are you going to make me ask you again?” Poe sighed.

“WhatdoesitlooklikeImdoing?” You questioned with the paintbrush still in your mouth. He could write you up for insubordination. You supposed being the highest-ranking being at the outpost gave him that right. He’d even gone as far as threatening to do it once or twice since becoming general, But Poe never stayed mad at you. At least not usually.

“Come again?” He asked, making a great show of leaning in to hear you. Rolling your eyes, you took the paint brush out of your mouth.

“I said What does it look like I’m doing?” You gestured at the heap of scraps in front of you. Poe could tell you were building something, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was meant to be.

“Making a mess on the only freighter ship I have access to on world.” He said, bringing a hand up to massage his forehead.

“I cleared it with Rey beforehand. She said I can use the Falcon for as long as I need.” You explained. “I wouldn’t just take over the lounge area of her ship without asking.”

“No one asked me if it was okay!” Poe argued. “What if I needed Rey and Chewy to take the Falcon to get supplies?”

“Do you need Rey and Chewy to get supplies?”It seemed he wasn’t going to be going away any time soon, so you put down the pot of paint in your hand and your brush on top of it.  

“No, but…”

Poe, she’s a Pre-Empire freighter.” You interrupted him. “The Falcon takes so long to get started up I would have plenty of time to put my supplies away before Rey and Chewy needed to take off.”

“What are you building anyway?” He scrutinized the pile of parts, tools and paint.

“I’m glad you asked! I’m building a friend for Baby.” Baby was your nickname for Poe’s personal atromech. It has started when you told him he looked after the droid as if he were his own child.

“BB-8 doesn’t need a friend. He has me.” Poe disagreed.

“Okay, then I’m building a friend for me.” You shrugged.

“All of this, is going to turn into a droid?” He gestured at the all-around chaos you’d left in your wake.

“Well, she’s going to be small. Have you ever seen a BD droid?” You began sealing up your paints and trying to clean your work area. It was getting close to dinner time.

“A BD? How in the world did you find a BD droid on this planet?” He wanted to know.

“Well, I didn’t exactly find it here…but I didn’t spend any of our credits either.” You rushed to assure him. “See I told Rey I wanted a droid of my own and she asked Chewbacca how one goes about getting a droid on this planet and he mentioned the Jawas and…”

“Jawas?!” Poe’s eyes widened and his brows shot towards the ceiling.

“Let me finish!” You hissed impatiently. “So Chewy remembered that he and Han had a whole hanger of unused parts at Maz’s place. He sent her a holo and she was able to ship a few crates of stuff over. Rey translated to the Jawas for us and got me all the parts I needed. All I have to do is help her and Chewy re-run the hydraulic fuel line for the lifts. I get some workspace and a droid, the Falcon gets updated hydraulics.”

“Uh-huh, and did the Jawas have five buckets of paint available too?” His face had rearranged from incredulous to amused.

“Okay, that I did have to order with credits, but I promise every cent of it was my own. I wanted her to stand out.” You explained. “I’m painting her the colors of this fruit we used to have on my home planet. I really only ever ate them in the summer, but I always loved the colors. A hard green rind on the outside with a white to red gradient inside. They didn’t have an overwhelming flavor but they were so watery and juicy!”

“So what are you going to call this little melon droid?” He crouched down to inspect the pieces you’d painted. It looked like you’d nearly finished before he interrupted you.

“Haven’t thought of a nickname yet. The first part of her serial number is BD-4, which I like because it’s half of eight, and she’ll be half the size of BB-8. Like a lil’ sister. Plus, my partner was born on the fourth moon of Yavin.” You kissed Poe on the cheek. “Anyway, I think having Four around will be good. Not only will it give Baby someone to talk to in his own language, but Four will be full of useful tools. I mean she’ll have the standard scomp link and holoprojector, but BDs were designed to aid researchers and explorers. She’ll have grippy little feet that’ll make walking on all sorts of terrain easy. I’ve even seen people use BDs for ziplining or attaching weapons to them!”

“Droids don’t need to have weapons.” Poe laughed.

“I think Artoo would disagree.” You told him.

“Fine!” Poe conceded. “You can keep the BD, sorry, Four. But she’s your responsibility! I don’t want to hear you’ve stolen away any of my communications officers to help you program it am I clear?”

“One question, if someone volunteers to help say Finn or Rose, am I allowed to say yes?” You asked.

“I’m just going to assume you’ve already roped them in somehow so fine. No finish cleaning up so we can eat. I’m starving.” He ordered.

“Ooh what are we having for dinner?” You wondered excitedly.

“Something fast and from a food synthesizer since my partner has been out bartering with Jawas and painting droid parts all day.” He teased.

“I mean it was this or I upgrade the hyperdrive in your X-Wing.” You shrugged.

“Don’t even think about touching her!” He warned with a smirk.

Author’s Note: Can we normalize the idea of making droids fun colors? Like okay a watermelon colored BD might be ugly but she could be cute! 

[judgementdaysunshine]

what about poe and “first i love you” 🥰

🥺 Here's The Fluff! @plainemmanem

I thought i would never get to tell you

Pairing: Poe Dameron x GN Reader

Description: After finding Finn on a mission you bring him and BB8 back to the resistance base and are reunited with a person you thought you lost

You were exhausted and tired from running after seeing your newfound friend Rey get captured by the first order reuniting with Finn and BB8 also meeting Han Solo and Chewbacca after fighting stormtroopers,you joined them after being found by general Leia Organa and the resistance who were relieved to have found you alive and well back to the base on D'Qar. "How did you two meet?" han asked you and finn before landing at the base, "I was on a mission for the resistance to find Kylo Ren and the first order,i was sent to Jakku where i found finn in the desert after he crashed escaping the first order but we got separated which lead me to go to Takodana to get help from Maz where i met rey while you guys were trying to find maz ,we then found kylo and well..you all know the rest" you said taking a deep breath while chewie pats your shoulder in a comforting matter. "She wasn't the only one i lost..i lost a very dear friend who i know fought until the end.." you said tears running down finn putting his hand on your leg rubbing it to comfort you before wiping your face quickly while leaving the ship and walking into the base, "You're okay!" you turned to see your friend Liara running and hugging you with happiness causing you to smile and hug back "I'm happy to be back" you said introducing her and finn to each other when suddenly BB8 speeds past the three of you causing you to look and see the person you both thought you had lost forever and you had fallen in love with. Poe looks up seeing Finn bringing him relief and utter joy but then seeing you causing his heart to stop and skip 2 beats, "Poe!" you yelled immediately running straight to him with finn following behind and poe running to both of you, "Poe Dameron your alive!" finn yelled with poe responding with "Buddy" before embracing each other in total surprise of what was happening. After the two talk ending with poe giving his jacket to finn and finn going to stand beside liara and meeting your other friend Marz, poe looks at you tears running down his face immediately pulling and hugging you to him shaking, "I thought you were dead" he said voice cracking and full of honesty and shock, "I thought i lost you" you said hugging him back just as tightly with your own tears falling down your face, "I thought i would never get to tell you" you said holding him knowing if you let go you would fall on the ground "Tell me what?" he asked pulling back to move strands of hair away from your face holding your face in his hands looking you in the eyes. "I love you..i've been in love with you for so long i thought you were gone and you didn't know.." you said crying putting your hands on top of his holding his wrists, before you could say anything else or ask him about his feelings he leaned in kissing you holding you like you would disappear "I've always felt that way ever since i saw you on the training grounds back in coruscant" he said smiling with tears running down his face even more, you both laughed kissing again and hold each other, "Finally!" finn yells while liara cheers and marz raises his fist in the air causing you two to laugh kissing poe on his nose while you still hold each other happily.

[tlcwrites]

By A Nose

Submission for Writer Wednesday 5/12

Summary: If you're going to talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk. Or, proof Poe Dameron is a terrible loser.

Word Count: 1528

Tags/Warnings: Poe Dameron x Reader, Modern AU. Implied smut but mostly in passing. Some bad words. Poorly edited because as usual I finished this at like 11 and my kids get up at 5 so I need to go to sleep.

Author’s Note: THREE FICS IN A WEEK WHO AM I?

Okay, so I cannot be the only one who saw the photo for this week's Writer Wednesday (thank you once more for hosting, @autumnleaves1991-blog!) and went the direction I did. If I am the only one, well, just further proof my brain is certifiable. Make sure you comment on when you figure out where this fic takes place.

There will also be an accompanying headcanon coming for this probably tomorrow, because there was SO much material I wanted to use but couldn't make fit. Thank you @paper-n-ashes for brainstorming with me and being the best hype-woman ever.

“AAAAHHHHH.”

“WE’RE GONNA DIE.”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!”

“FINN!!” You smack him. “There are small children here!”

But he’s too busy screaming to pay attention.

On the other side of you, Kaydel looks decidedly green. She lets out a pained moan as your vehicle makes a particularly hard turn. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

You pat her knee as you fly through a kitchy town. “Hang in there, honey. It’s almost over.”

The village elder’s well wishes still ringing in your ears, you pull up next to another idling transport. From the driver’s seat, your boyfriend winks at you.

“You’re going down, Dameron!” you holler at him.

He makes the universal ‘I’m watching you’ gesture. “Eat my dust, losers!”

Finn yells back something that has you smacking him again, shooting an apologetic glance to the second row of Poe’s transport, where Snap and Karé are sitting with their daughter Nora. Snap’s hands fly to cover Nora’s ears while Karé laughs heartily.

Next to Poe, Rey holds her thumb and forefinger up to her forehead in an ‘L’ shape. “Second place is the first to lose!”

Before any more trash talking can occur, you see a flash of red out of the corner of your eye and then both vehicles take off, bursting out of the dark into blinding sunlight.

You both fly over the rusty terrain, neck and neck as you navigate under rocky overpasses and around hairpin turns. From the second row of your car, you can hear Maz lobbing profanities at Chewie in the other ride. He’s yelling back in his native tongue (which you still only understand half of). Beside Maz, Leia and Han are both laughing like kids.

A shriek of joy erupts from you as you fly over a series of hills, the momentary weightlessness thrilling. Finn has both hands in the air, while Kaydel grips the safety handle with white knuckles.

Finally, you come out of a turn to see a sharp drop. You look to Poe, who grins back at you, his vehicle slightly ahead of yours. Damnit, you HATE losing to him. He’s the worst winner.

At the last moment, your ride leaps ahead, crossing under the checkered banner by a nose. The passengers of your car cheer and high-five in victory, while Poe’s passengers groan in good-natured defeat.

As you roll through the red-lit cavern, you laugh as you catch sight of Poe’s face. He’s a terrible winner, but he’s an even worse loser. Even if his loss comes at the hands of an algorithm.

Anthropomorphic cars wave you off as both vehicles enter the unloading zone. On the other side of the platform, Chewie is lifting Rey out of the front seat as she pretends to collapse in agonized failure, her laughter completely destroying the illusion. You accept Finn’s hand as he helps you up, both of you turning to support Kaydel as she crawls out of the car.

A ride attendant watches her warily. “Does she need assistance?” he asks Han.

Han waves him off, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders as Maz and Chewie beeline for the ride photos. “She’ll be fine. No protein spills here.” At the cast member’s astonished look, the charming rogue gives his trademark grin. “Ain’t my first rodeo, kid.” As he and Leia stroll past you towards the exit, he catches your eye and winks. “That, and they haven’t changed the lingo since the 70’s.”

Laughing, you rub Kaydel’s back as Rey swaps places with Finn and helps bracket your green-tinged friend. “Let’s get you some water, yeah?”

Kaydel manages a slight nod, and the three of you make your way towards the exit.

Behind you, you can hear Poe and Finn bickering, as they’re wont to do.

“It’s a ride, dude,” Finn is saying, the exasperation clear in his tone.

“It’s physics, dude,” Poe shoots back. “There’s NO way the car on the outside of the turn would be able to finish first.”

Worst. Loser. Ever.

Your rag-tag alliance eventually makes it out of the exit tunnel. Ben’s waiting across the walkway, those ridiculously long arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the guard rail and steadily ignores whatever Armitage is ranting about.

On the bench next to them, Rose perks up, a smirk crossing her pretty face as she sees Poe’s expression. “Well, I don’t need to ask who won.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” the most-competitive-pilot-in-the-galaxy grumbles back, adjusting his backpack. You help Kaydel to a bench, where she quickly curls up.

Rey rolls her eyes as she forces her way into the circle of Ben’s arms. “It’s not like any of us could have actually controlled the outcome, you noodle.”

“Not without some kind of magic,” Ben intones dryly, resting his chin on his girlfriend’s head.

“How cool would that be, though?” Rey’s getting her Down-The-Wormhole-We-Go eyes. You and Rose exchange a Look™️ as she starts gesturing wildly with her hands. “Like, imagine if you could just look at something like rocks and, like, make them fly. Or make someone do whatever you wanted them to do. OH!” She looks up at Ben with a slightly manic expression. “Lightning bolts from your fingers!!”

Well-used to these kinds of rambles, Ben gently captures her hands and wraps her into a hug that doubles as a straight jacket. “No more SyFy channel before bed.”

Rose slides her arms around her husband as Finn joins her on the bench. “Did you behave?”

Nora, in all her 6-year-old innocence, giggles. “Mr Finn said a whole lot of swear-jar words.” She casts a critical eye on the young man. “You probably said enough you could buy an Elsa doll.” The ‘for me’ is unsaid, but implied.

Karé rapidly turns her laugh into a cough.

Finn glances down at his wife as Rose smacks him upside the head. “Hey! That tractor thing is terrifying. And Maz said WAY more than I did!”

“Age before beauty, Finnigan,” Maz says haughtily, waving off Finn’s ‘m'name’s not Finnigan, damn it’.

Giggling, you tune out the ridiculousness that is your found family and turn your attention to your still-sulking boy toy. “You know,” you murmur, wrapping your arms around his waist, “you make that face for long enough and it’ll stick that way.”

He huffs. “This is just how my face looks.”

“Uh huh.” Considering yourself quite the expert in his face, having spent countless hours studying every crease and line until you could have drawn him blindfolded, you call bullshit, but say nothing further.

“It is,” he insists.

“Okay,” you agree.

The King of Sarcasm narrows his eyes. “You’re doing that thing.”

You widen your eyes innocently. “What thing?”

“That thing where it sounds like you’re agreeing with me but you’re really telling me I’m a dumbass.”

“What?!” You bring your hand to your chest. “Moi?! I would never.”

He huffs again, but you can see the hint of a smirk starting to break though.

“C’mon, First Runner Up,” you tease. “No sulking in Disneyland. Let me buy you a drink at Trader Sam’s, and then we can sneak off to the Haunted Mansion and make out like teenagers in our Doom Buggy.”

He tilts his head, considering it.

“Or-“ You brush an inky curl off his forehead and stand on your toes until your lips are just about caressing his ear and whisper, “-we could get back in line right now and go again.”

Even before you’ve finished speaking, Poe’s grabbing your hand and hauling you back towards the entrance, tossing a “See you jerks later!” as he pulls you under the Radiator Springs Racers sign. Their laughter echos behind you as he leads the way through the mostly empty line (thank goodness for parade lulls).

As you wait in the queue, only a few dozen people stand between Poe and his (re)shot at victory. You see that competitive gleam in his eyes start to come alive again.

“Hey.” You tug on his tee shirt until he looks at you. “If our car doesn’t win, tonight I’ll do That Thing you love.”

“Babe.” The look he gives you is one of pure torture. “You are killing me here.” He really loves to win. But he really, really loves That Thing. “What about when we come in first?”

You shrug demurely. “Then you wear Those Pants™️ tomorrow.”

Hm. Poe’s always been quick to calculate his odds, and this is quickly turning into a win/win situation. If you lose, he gets That Thing. But Those Pants™️ turn you about feral, and when you’re in that kind of mood- let’s just say Poe still has the scars on his shoulders to prove it.

“Are those terms acceptable, Flight Commander Dameron?” You smile sweetly up at him.

His licentious grin says it all. “Hell yeah.”

For the record, your car does lose a second time. And the next morning, Poe hardly has Those Pants over his ass when you’re ripping them back down his legs and shoving him backwards onto the bed.

Oh, yeah, he thinks to himself. This is better than any dumb kid’s ride.

…doesn’t mean he’s not going to ride it as many times as it takes to win.

A/N: I almost titled this “Tell me you have children without saying you have children”. I am so fucking sick of ‘Lining McQueen’. Yay 4-year-olds.

Thank you for reading; likes and reblogs feed my soul.

[standard-muse]

What happened to Rey?

Rey was honestly one of my favorite characters coming out of TFA, but I couldn’t figure out why I was walking out of TROS feeling like there was something off about her. I decided to dive into a character study to see what the issues were. That’s when I realized the unbelievable character regression we witnessed in TROS. I know I’m not the first one to notice this or comment on it, but here are some of the key elements I noticed.

Rey’s Wardrobe:  Rey’s wardrobe in the first two movies does an interesting thing. She starts off in an off-white outfit, very similar to the looks we see on Anakin in TPM and Luke in ANH. This signals the beginning of all three of their stories. Each character begins as a child and is inexperienced and naïve in their training and maturity. Then, we move to the second movie. Rey progresses to cool grays, Anakin movies to a series of deep blues, browns and black; and Luke also moves to a gray color scheme. This signals the growth, the changes, the rise in maturity and knowledge, and signals the step that they are no longer in that place of innocence and adolescence. This matches what we see on screen in ESB as Luke dives deep into his training, Anakin goes on his first solo mission in AOTC, and Rey trains with Luke in TLJ – it fits perfectly.

Then, we get to the third movie. And here’s where the problems begin with the choices they made with her character. In ROTS Anakin is wearing all black, he has a gloved hand -- his wardrobe not only signals his completion into maturity but also foreshadows his eventual turn to Vader. Luke is also wearing all black, at one point he has a cloak, and his wardrobe shows the struggle and trials he’s been through. Luke is no longer the same man he was in ANH. Famously, Luke’s all black wardrobe raises the question of “will he turn to the dark side like his father?” And after he refuses, we see the white lining to understand that he was always good on the inside. If we were to follow this trend (since Star Wars is supposed to rhyme), Rey should have been wearing dark colors. A darker color would have also been a nice callback to the teasing question we had with Luke, but instead the question would have been “Will we see Rey join Kylo on the Sith throne?” Instead, what we got was a blindingly white outfit that was identical to her TFA outfit. Not only does this symbolically point to a regression in her character and the work and training she’s gone through, the stark white paints her as an innocent – a pure creature that is untouched and has a naivety about her and her experiences. More than that, it’s almost identical to the outfit she wears in the flashback when her parents leave, telling us that after the acceptance we witness in TLJ that her parents are gone and her place is ahead of her instead of behind, she’s suddenly regressed back to waiting for her parents to return to her. This outfit did not suite the Rey that we left in TLJ who showed development and experience. 

Rey’s Hair: It’s been a common theory that the reason Rey has her 3-bun hair style is because it’s the same hair she had when her parents left; and the reason she kept it was so they could recognize her if they returned. This ties into the same point made that she is wearing the same outfit she had as a little girl so they could recognize her too. The irrational hope that even as she knows (as Kylo unlocks this memory within her) that her parents are gone, she still won’t let it go. The problem with this hair choice for TROS is that Rey had already moved passed this way of thinking. In TLJ we see his beautiful moment of her accepting Kylo’s words to “Kill the past so you can be who you were meant to be”, seconds later after this scene she dives into water (i.e. a rebirth or baptism) and comes out with her hair down. This was beautifully done and was a great way to show the big step Rey had just taken in her character journey. Not only that, but immediately after she lets her hair down, she reaches out to Kylo again and they admit to each other that they’ll never let the other person be alone (i.e. a new family). Unfortunately, the writers of TROS decided not to follow up on this, and instead her character goes back to the same little girl hairstyle she’s had since she was a young child. This felt like Rey tacking a Padawan braid in her hair after she had already ceremoniously cut it off. There was no excuse or reason to justify it either other than that she reverted to a child like state.

She was living with Leia, the Princess from Alderaan, the place with a culture famous for their braids. Would it not have made infinitely more sense for Rey to be sporting an Alderaan-like braided hairstyle? Not only would that have helped TROS’s “New-Found Family” theme they were poorly trying to convey, but it also would have emphasized the relationship and connection between Rey and Leia. It would have been an easy way to show the audience that Rey and Leia had bonded, without them having to film it (which they couldn’t have anyways).

Rey’s Staff and Saber: Now, Rey’s staff has been with her since the first moments of TFA. She relentlessly carries it around with her all across Jakku and it’s her main form of protection. This makes total sense in the TFA timeline. However, about halfway through TLJ we see her shift her attitude towards the staff. There is a moment on Ahch-To where she’s practicing with it, she stops, and instead shifts to using the legacy saber for her training. Not only that, but during her fight with Luke she uses the staff for a moment, only to quickly drop it in favor of the same saber. After which point, she never uses it again in TLJ. By the beginning of TROS, after we’ve clearly seen the legacy saber working and her using it, it makes no sense for her to continue carrying around the staff. The staff was a symbol of her time on Jakku, it was her main weapon of choice before she became a Jedi and before she joined the Resistance. After she goes on her journey for a little bit, in TLJ she moves past that, she sets it aside in favor of the saber since that is where her future is. However – in TROS she inexplicably goes back to carrying it around like a safety blanket. It's another tether to her childhood that the writers insisted on keeping around even though it had no purpose. She uses it one time with Zorii Bliss, but even then in a second she swaps it out for the saber. There was no purpose for her to have this staff with her and more often then not, it hinders her ability to use her saber, the true Jedi weapon. In one scene—ridiculously—she carrying around the staff, the saber, the sith dagger, Han’s blaster, and Chewie’s crossbow and bandolier. She looked like the character from Jumanji with the giant backpack that is just known as the weapons valet.

As for the saber and how it relates to her character regression… In TFA we hear Maz Kanata say “This lightsaber belonged to Luke, and his father before him, and now it calls to you.” She then proceeds to use the lightsaber to defeat Kylo Ren and the Praetorian Guards all on her own. She’s trained with it, it flies into her hand when she calls to it, and she retrieved it after Luke threw it away on Ahch-To. This was Rey’s saber. However, in TROS we get this perplexing line of her returning the saber to Leia (who never owned it?) and saying she’ll earn it again one day. This was wrong on so many levels. Not only did Rey already earn this lightsaber, and it called out to her in Maz’s castle and on Starkiller; but the fact that she doesn’t even assume she’s worthy of holding a lightsaber means her Jedi’s journey is in it’s infant stage in the final film of the trilogy. Compare this to our other main protagonists Anakin and Luke, they’re both masters (sorry, Anakin) at their craft and proficient and confident with a saber. Anakin defeats Dooku when Obi-Wan can’t and Luke has built his own saber and takes on an entire barge of criminals. They’re both exactly where they should be in their Jedi/Hero’s journey at this point in the story. But, in TROS, Rey takes an epic step backwards from all the groundwork done in TFA and in TLJ and is put in the place of a Padawan. Where she should have been prepared to fill in the shoes of master, she’s not even fit to carry a lightsaber without permission from a parental figure. What’s worse, it is brought to our attention that Rey is trying to earn this saber, and in the end, she ends up just burying it in the sand and making a new one anyways. In a weird way this feels like she gave up on that idea entirely, or failed at it, and instead decided to make a new one because in the end she didn’t feel worthy to use it.

Rey’s Maturity/Emotional Mindset: For lack of better word, Rey’s maturity in this movie takes a huge step back as well. Again, if we look at our other protagonists Anakin and Luke, they both start off as young, naïve, and somewhat whiny. Rey, blessedly, never whined but we do see a great amount of youthfulness and child-like behaviors from her in TFA. She slides around on sand dunes, she runs away in Maz’s castle when she gets scared, she plays around with a x-wing helmet. This is the perfect place for her character to begin and balances great with the parallel of Luke and Anakin who both are in similar states. Then, in TLJ, like Luke and Anakin, Rey matures. She’s no longer playing around, she faces Luke head on and fights for what she knows is right, she doesn’t shy away when she’s scared, she enters into a relationship much like Anakin did – signaling her maturity and stepping into adulthood. Rey in TLJ grows up so much in the best possible way. After her hair comes down, and after she shares the hut moment with Kylo, she steps up fully and makes the choice to go and save him, moving away from her master to go on the journey on her own. She faces Snoke with her chin held high and doesn’t cower or get persuaded by him. She never lashes out irrationally and is poised and dignified the entire time. We see this again at the end with Kylo and her during the last force-bond scene of TLJ. This is after they’ve already parted ways and after she realizes he’s taken on the mantle of Supreme Leader. What we see is Rey standing there, poised and dignified, mature and calm as she looks him dead in the eye and closes the door on him. I’ve seen 50-year-old adults less mature than Rey is in that moment – and it is a wonderful moment of her character growth.

This was mentioned by @Forcebond-Shenanigans and I wanted to touch on it a little bit more. Rey in TROS acts completely irrational to Kylo up until…well Exegol basically. In one particular scene, Kylo is calmly standing there (in the weirdest framed shot ever, but that’s besides the point) talking to her normally on his ship, warning her that Palpatine is trying to kill her, and Rey immediately pulls out her lightsaber, bares her teeth, and threatens him. In fact, any time he is present around her, she attacks even though he never tries to attack back. Kylo, in every scene, is just trying to have a normal adult conversation and Rey—for some reason—keeps trying to fight him. It’s undoubtedly immature and goes against everything we’d seen between the two of them in TLJ.

This. Does. Not. Make. Sense.

In TLJ she’s already established a close, intimate connection with Kylo. She’s told him her deepest thoughts and feelings and he’s listened calmly. She already knows she can sit down and have a normal, easy, rational conversation with him even after what happens in Snoke’s throne room. It might have made sense for her to lash out at him if he too had his lightsaber out, or was threatening her, or doing something else sinister. But even when he’s trying to help her by letting her know Palpatine is after her, she still lashes out at him. This, in no way, fits the Rey we saw at the end of TLJ who was able to calmly close a door on Kylo without so much as creasing her forehead at him. Her attitude towards him for 95% of this movie feels like we’re stuck in the middle of the Starkiller Battle.

Rey’s Hero Journey/The Tatooine Ending: For Anakin and Luke, we see their hero’s journey come full circle within their trilogies. Anakin starts off as a child, learns the Jedi ways, becomes proficient at it, and by the end of ROTS is ready to lead the next generation (He just…takes a detour to the dark side instead). Luke as well, begins as child-like figure, learns the Jedi ways, moves beyond the point of needing a master, and by the end is ready to pass the baton to the next generation of Jedi. Rey begins as a child, learns the ways of the Jedi, becomes very skilled at it…then goes back to needed a teacher, is unworthy of her lightsaber, needs the help of other Jedi to fight off Palpatine, and ends the movie going back to the home of her masters who were also a sort of parental pair to her (which is weird, but for other reasons).

Now, Rey was put in this place of taking on the mantel of the Last Jedi. She inherits that from Luke after Luke passes. Presumably, that set her up to lead the next generation of Jedi as that was what Snoke was trying to prevent Luke from doing. She is supposed to pass on that knowledge so that the Jedi can survive. However, by the end of her story she’s simply…not ready. Comparatively, if we look at either Anakin or Luke, they were ready to pass the baton to the next generation. Luke had proven himself to the point where even Yoda says, “No more training do you require.” And Obi-Wan says to Anakin, “I’ve taught you everything I know, and you’ve become a far greater Jedi than I ever hope to be.” Both our protagonists in the OT and PT are clearly shown to be at the end of their training and ready to lead the next generation. Rey, on the other hand, begins TROS still acting like a padawan who’s trying to earn her lightsaber. This was such a bad writing choice as we now finish this story with Rey not in the place of being able to adequately pass that knowledge along to others, and even worse, not even ready to be considered a master at her own craft herself. This would be like Anakin ending the trilogy in a Pre-AOTC state of being. It’s unresolved, it’s unfinished. They backtracked her journey so much she’s not even close.

To further this blunder, we get this extremely bizarre scene on Tatooine. It’s weird from the second we see the ship land and it gets weirder every second we’re there. Rey, who should be a mature leader, stepping into the shoes of Luke and Leia, ready to lead the next generation of Jedi as a master is…sliding around in the sand like she did on Jakku. One might call this a cute callback to TFA, but in a lot of ways all this did was further drive home the blatant character regression we see in Rey. She is now ending her story in the exact same way she started it in Jakku. Comparatively, If we look at Luke in ANH we see him in white, dreamily standing and looking at the twin suns. At the end of ROTJ, we see him dignified and powerful as he watches the force-ghosts. Luke by the end also has a new outfit on that’s drastically different than the one he started with, he’s surrounded by his friends and family, and you can see the change in him. Anakin in TPM compared to ROTS is even more extreme, the little boy is now a full-grown man, a man who got married, who had kids, and is now second in command to the Galactic Empire as he’s clothed in metal. Rey, in TFA starts off alone on a dessert planet, clothed in white, dreamily looking up at the sky. And ends her journey in TROS alone on a dessert planet, clothed in white, dreamily looking up at the sky.

And as if that wasn’t strange enough, the scene gets even more bizarre. At the end of her story, Rey should be confident in who she is, she should be taking on the mantel of master she should be leading others, and she should be at the point in her life where she’s not looking for her parents so she can be a kid again, but instead is thinking about starting her own family (not saying right away, but that’s where her direction should be). This is the natural place for somebody who’s now fully an adult and has gone through all the growth she did. By the end of her story she should have fully replaced her master’s roles and would be taking in her own padawan. Instead of looking for a parental figure, she should be in the place of being a parental figure.

And yet, instead of that, what we’re left with is a moment where somebody asks Rey who she is and she inexplicably turns to her metaphorical parents, as if asking for permission, and then tells this lady she’s a Skywalker. And as much as I’d like to think she took this name because it was Ben’s name and she was claiming herself to be his wife, unfortunately I think the reason she took it was because she was still, still stuck on trying to replace this parent figure in her life.The issue here isn’t with her choosing a new family, which presumably was the point of her story in TROS even though it was botched and spliced together, the issue was that the writers decided to end her story with Luke and Leia, in the weirdest way, almost taking her in as their kid. It might have worked if there was the whole family of Skywalkers there and she was embracing everybody equally, but the fact we only see Luke and Leia (who she calls her masters and who act as the parental figures to her in this movie), and the fact she doesn’t choose Solo or some other new name, one could argue the point that this wasn’t a new name by marriage or a new name by embracing a new identity, but decidedly was Rey stepping into the roll of Luke and Leia’s adopted daughter. The complete opposite of where you’d expect her character growth to end up (e.g. moving forward and starting her own family and being the leader of that family), Rey finishes her story by stepping into the role that is almost always reserved to the role of a child. And it makes no sense for our main protagonist to end up here.

.

Not only did Rey’s character stay stagnant throughout this movie, in a lot of ways it made a complete 180 to the point where if felt like we were watching TFA Rey.

Overall, this left me feeling unbelievably frustrated at TROS and the disservice it did to all of it’s characters – but Rey in particular. She is such a great character and we could have seen so much more from her than this. She deserved so much more than this. She earned it. Rey was a strong character and a wonderful inspiration to many people and this movie completely sacrificed her story for the sake of fan service. I have never cried more during a movie than I did during this one and all of that can be traced to how bad I felt for all these characters and what the writers did to them. I hope one day we can see them again but in the hands of somebody who takes care of them.

[yelena-bellova]

Don’t Be Afraid: Poe Dameron x Solo!Reader - Chapter Nine

(gif not mine, credit to the original creator)

Chapter Nine: Not Even Death Could Break Us

Series Masterlist

Plot: Reader returns to the Resistance base and recieves a welcome surprise. 

Warnings: Fluff, fluff and more fluff. 

Word Count: 5.2k

A/N: Here’s your reward for sitting through weeks of angst because we’re jumping right back into it next chapter. ENJOY!!

--------------

“Commander Solo requesting clearance to land.”

I waited for a response as we flew above the familiar forests of D’Qar. I wished they’d have brought me the same level of comfort they typically did. Today, they just looked like trees rather than a reminder of home.

“Landing permitted. Welcome back, Commander.”

I tried to focus on adjusting controls as the base came into view but my father’s voice broke my concentration,

“Commander Solo.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing,” he said as his chest rumbled with a small laugh, “I’ve just never seen you as a Commander.”

“Well, I’d never seen you as a smuggler till today,” I replied with a faint sideways smile.

We were coming up on the base along with several X-Wings, I spotted Mom’s transport had just parked and was emptying. We landed easily amidst the other ships and as Dad powered down the ship, I stared off out the cockpit window. Everyone was rushing around yet I couldn’t find the strength in me to muster up similar energy. Not when I was about to face fighting a war without Poe.

“Alright, guess we’re doin’ this,” Dad remarked, turning to face me.

“You go ahead,” I replied monotonously, “I just...need a minute.”

“Sure,” Dad answered before standing up and placing a kiss on the top of my head.

After he’d exited, I buried my face in my hands and tried to keep my tears at bay. I needed to be Commander Solo now, the General’s daughter. Not Y/n Organa-Solo, the broken-hearted sob story. Poe would want me to walk into the command center, head held high, and ready to start giving orders. That seemed almost impossible at the moment, but I owed it to him to at least try. People were depending on me just on the other side of the ship and I couldn’t disappoint them.

I rubbed my eyes, smacked the armrest of my chair, and hoisted myself up. I took a quick look around the main area of the ship to see if Finn or Chewie were still there, everyone was already out. With no more ways to stall, I left the comfort of the Falcon and headed out into the uncertainty of war. I saw Mom from a distance heading inside with Chewie and Dad in tow. Around me, pilots were talking to their mechanics about what repairs needed to be done on their ships. And then I saw Finn a couple of hundred feet away from me, hugging someone with BB-8 at their feet. Finn didn’t know anybody here but us as far as I knew. He looked as if he was speaking urgently to the person and after a second, he turned and broke the embrace revealing his companion.

Poe.

I wanted to blame dehydration or lack of food, it could’ve easily been a hallucination. But it was undeniably him, I knew that as soon as our eyes met across the tarmac. Standing in his bright orange pilot’s uniform, jaw dropped at the sight of me, it was him. No matter how impossible, Poe was standing right in front of me.

Maz’s words had been right.

He kept his promise.

Poe took off at full speed towards me with no regard for the confusion he was causing. My feet began to carry me towards him in response like some magnetic force was pulling us together. We collided into one another with such force I should have cried out in pain, but instead, I whined in happiness. My arms wrapped around his neck and held on with a grip that death itself couldn’t break. His arms were wound tight around my waist and his face was blissfully buried in the crook of my neck.

“Sweetheart,” Poe whispered against my skin, reality setting in and causing my tears to fall in time with his.

“I thought I lost you,” I sobbed softly as one of my hands found itself in his hair, “I-I thought you were dead.”

Poe pulled back to look at my face but never did his hands let go of my waist. He wasn’t going to let me go any time soon and I didn’t take one issue with it,

“I thought so too for a while, so much happened that I have to tell you,” he said, his thumb softly rubbing the tears off my cheek, “But I’m here, I’m here.”

Despite my blurry vision, I could finally get a good look at him. He had a few scrapes that were already fading. It looked like his lip had been cut but was already healing. Nothing like how he’d looked in the dream I’d had. He looked just as I’d left him, tearful and shaken but for only good reasons this time.

“I told you I’d come back for you.”

I let out a sob of joy as I pressed my forehead against his, savoring the sensation of our breaths mingling together. In a surge of adrenaline, I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. It didn’t take him more than five seconds before reciprocating, making me smile and sink even deeper in. Our lips moved in sync with one another’s as if we’d shared a thousand kisses. Our bodies molded against each other as if they were meant to perfectly. For a few wonderful seconds, there was no war, just me and Poe.

We broke apart breathless, but I still pushed out the words that desperately needed to be said, “I love you.”

After catching his breath, Poe lifted my chin with a gentle finger, his chocolate brown eyes searching mine for any hint of falseness. Maybe to make sure it wasn’t a heat of the moment thing to say rather than a deep-seeded confession. All he’d find was affection and quite a few happy tears. I’d never seen him grin so widely,

“I love you too, so much...” he whispered before meeting my lips again, this time with more tenderness. We’d both experienced so many harsh things in the past day or so, one gentle moment was more than welcome. He pulled away after a few seconds, “What brought this on?”

I laughed as I brushed a finger at the tear stains down his face, “So many things that we don’t have time to talk about now. But I was stupid to not see it sooner.”

Poe chuckled, “You weren’t stupid, sweetheart,” he said softly, “Just a little bit behind me.”

I smiled and pecked his lips gently, they were gorgeously swollen by now. Judging by his smile, he didn’t mind...

“As much as I want to stay here kissing you, we’ve got work to do.” I stated.

“Yeah, we do,” Poe said determinedly, “And as soon as it’s done, we’re going to be doing a whole lot more of this.”

He gave me a final kiss, one that left me weak in the knees and gripping his biceps for stability. We broke apart and I’d never been so happy to see his smirk,

“Yeah,” I cleared my throat, “I think we will.”

Poe grabbed my hand and we jogged back to where he’d left Finn. He was standing there, definitely trying to look like he hadn’t seen our reunion,

“Finn buddy, come with us. We gotta introduce you to the General.”

“And we need to form a plan to go get Rey.” Finn said to me as the three of us marched toward the base.

We made our way through the halls swiftly, I ignored passerby’s wide-eyed stares at Poe’s and my intertwined hands and focused on Finn. Though his thoughts were solely about Rey, he couldn’t hide the childlike wonder in his eyes at the base. He’d never experienced goodness in his life and now it was everywhere he looked. Though its was all new to him, I could tell he was already one of us. The three of us stepped down into the command center and I spotted my mother conversing with officers,

“General Organa,” Poe called, “Sorry to interrupt, but this is Finn, he needs to talk to you.”

“And I need to talk to you,” Mom said warmly, addressing Finn, “That was incredibly brave what you did, renouncing the First Order, saving this man’s life, helping my daughter…”

Finn looked a little surprised that the information had reached her so quickly, “Thank you, ma’am, but a friend of ours,” he gestured between the two of us, “was taken prisoner.”

“Han told me about the girl, I’m sorry,” she replied.

“General,” I spoke up, “We need to make a plan to get Rey back however, Finn worked on the First Order’s base and is familiar with the weapon that toke out the Hosnian system.”

“We’re desperate for anything you can tell us.”

“That’s where she was taken, we need to get there fast.” Finn replied, urgency in his voice. He wanted to help us, but saving Rey was his first priority.

“And I will do everything I can to help,” Mom answered, “But first you must tell us all you know.”

“They go hand in hand,” I added, “We can’t get Rey unless we know about where we’re going.”

Finn looked to me and nodded determinedly, “Okay.”

Mom left us with a polite smile to go stand amongst beside Dad, 3PO and BB-8, she was going to examine the map. Squeezing Poe’s hand, I broke apart from him and Finn to go and join her,

“I didn’t get the opportunity to talk to you about the map. It’s not exactly what we thought it was.”

She furrowed her brow in confusion as 3PO took the drive from BB-8 and inserted it into one of the computers. As I drew a breath to explain, the map appeared holographically in front of us and I was too late.

“General,” C-3PO explained, “I regret to inform you, but this map recovered from BB-8 is only partially complete. And even worse, it matches no charted system on record. We simply do not have enough information to locate Master Luke.”

I sighed heavily, “That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

She looked wildly disappointed, we all were, but it ran deeper for her. This was family, this was years of hope washed down the drain. This had been her only shot at bringing her brother back,

“I can't believe I was so foolish to think that I could just find Luke and bring him home.”

I placed a hand on her back as my dad leaned forward, “Leia…”

“Don’t do that…” she replied, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Do what?”

“Anything,” she answered as she walked away from us. I turned to my father who looked defeated, he was truly trying with her. He followed her like it was reflex but I hung behind, they’d been reunited and that was enough for me. I didn’t need to listen to their conversation like a child trying to spy, no matter how tempting it was. I simply leaned against the computer and rubbed my face anxiously.

“Hey,” Poe’s voice made me look up, “What’s going on?”

“You know that map you and I went through hell to get?” I asked sarcastically, crossing my arms.

“I’m vaguely familiar with it, yes.”

“Well, turns out we only retrieved a piece of it.”

Poe exhaled and ducked his dead down, “Fantastic…”

“I thought we had a shot,” I mumbled as I shook my head, “But we’re no closer than we were a week ago.”

“That may be true,” he replied before grasping both my arms, “But the most important thing is that we made it out alive.”

I nodded, “There were a few too many close calls for my taste.”

Poe raised an eyebrow, “Such as?”

I chortled, “Getting chased by Stormtroopers, fighting off TIE’s, running from Rathtars, the scene at Maz’s castle…Is that enough for you?”

“A little too much,” he replied as he rubbed my arms softly, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you.”

“You’re here now,” I smiled, still getting used to him being here and whole, “That’s all that matters. You did miss me flying the Falcon though…”

I left him, smirking, as I heard him cry out “What?!”

—————

A short while later, Resistance leadership (plus Dad, Chewie and Finn) was gathered around a map table staring at a hologram. Snap had been on a recon mission and had brought back information on the weapon the First Order used to destroy the Hosnian system. I was stood next to my father, who seemed to have slid right back into his old militia role with ease. Poe stood across from me, the chatter in the room went silent as he cleared his throat to begin,

“The scan data from Snap’s reconnaissance flight confirms Finn’s report.”

“They’ve somehow created a hyper lightspeed weapon built within the planet itself.” Snap explained.

“A laser cannon?” Major Brance asked from next to me.

“We’re not sure how to describe a weapon of this scale.” Snap replied.

Major Ematt looked like he was having a war flashback, “It’s another Death Star…”

“I wish that were the case, Major,” Poe sympathized as he hit a button that displayed a wireframe of the aforementioned battle station, “This was the Death Star.”

He hit another control and we all watched the Death Star shrink in comparison to the gargantuan holo on display, “And this is Starkiller Base.”

Gasps and groans filled the air, there wasn’t even a comparison to make. This was nothing any of us, young recruit or veteran, had ever seen before.

“So it’s big.” Dad mused nonchalantly, leave it to him to act cool about something like this.

“How is it possible to power a weapon of that size?” Admiral Ackbar inquired.

Finn stepped up to the table, “It uses the power of the sun. As the weapon is charged, the sun is drained until it disappears.”

An officer approached my mother and handed her something, she looked over it before looking up at the group,

“The First Order, they’re charging the weapon again now,” her eyes found mine, “Our system is the next target.”

I drew a shaky breath as others reacted similarly. A few hours ago I was a few hundred feet away from my brother and now him and his followers were coming to kill us. I caught Poe’s eyes and we shared a concerned look.

“Okay,” Dad began, racking his brain for something helpful, “How do we blow it up? There’s always a way to do that.”

“Han’s right,” Mom replied, causing both me and Dad to look over to her in surprise. For just a second, the three of us felt like a united front again.

“In order for that amount of power to be contained,” Admiral Statura began, “That base has to have some sort of thermal oscillator.”

“There is one,” Finn stated, he walked over to join Poe at the controls, “Precinct 47,” he pointed towards an area in the structure, “Here.”

“If we can destroy that oscillator,” Statura continued as he paced around the table, “It might destabilize the core and cripple the weapon.”

“Maybe the planet,” Ematt added onto the idea, the plan was forming.

“We’ll go in there and we’ll hit that oscillator with everything we’ve got.” Poe assured confidently, I’d missed him and his determination so much.

“They have defensive shields that our ships cannot penetrate.” Ackbar protested, I shared a knowing look with Dad before turning back to the crowd.

“We can disable the shields, me and Han,” I volunteered, “Finn, you worked there. Surely you can help.”

After a beat, Finn nodded, “I can do it.”

Dad leaned down to me, “I like this guy.”

“I can disable the shields, but I have to be there on the planet.”

“We’ll get you there, kid.” Dad promised, Finn looked to me for confirmation and I smiled in assurance.

“Han, how?” my mother spoke up.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t like it.” he answered, causing me to smirk. The fewer details she knew, the smoother everything would go.

“So we disable the shields, take out the oscillator and we blow up their big gun.” Poe stated, earning a loud roar of agreement from Chewie, “All right. Let's go!”

Our group disbanded and the room became a sea of chatter and orders. Poe had taken off to assemble Black Squadron while me, my dad and Chewie were making our way out of the command center. Mom had ten different people flooding her with questions so I didn’t want to add to it when I could take care of things myself,

“You two go start running diagnostics on the Falcon. I can get techs and mechanics if you want but-“

"There’s only two people I trust with the Falcon other than me and neither of them are any of your guys.” Dad interrupted as we walked down the hallway.

“But I know you’d never trust them so I’ll leave it to you guys,” I finished, “I need to grab some things from my quarters and I’ll be out to help.”

I showed them out of the base before heading back in and taking the familiar walk to my room. It felt like I’d been gone weeks when really, it had only been less than two days. I punched in my code and entered, locking the door behind me. There was no time for sentimentality, or even a shower, as I began searching for the things I needed. I grabbed my communicator off of my desk and shoved it in the pocket of my pants. I slid my jacket off and stripped the sweaty shirt off my torso. I caught sight of myself in the refresher’s mirror and grimaced, my hair was frizzed, there were ugly bruises littering my arms and grains of sand stuck to my skin. Halfheartedly dusting the leftovers of Jakku off and running my fingers through my hair would have to do for now. I dug through my dresser, pulled on a tight black long sleeved shirt and found my dark green military jacket. Something felt off as I put it on, like something was missing.

I groaned as I dug through the pile of clothes, “Why do I need you so much?

Unhooking the lightsaber from my brown jacket, I clipped it into my new one and sighed. My father’s words from earlier rang in my ears, he wasn’t Force sensitive but he damn sure knew about it’s advantages. Could he be right? Was I being too dramatic about the whole subject? I’d spent so long afraid of what I could do, so worried that I’d turn into something dark and twisted. Could I let myself give into the pull towards the light side? As much as I hated to admit it, I loved using my saber, despite the traumatic memories attached to it. I enjoyed meditating and using the Force, I felt less like myself when I restricted my usage. I placed a hand on the cool silver handle and closed my eyes, hearing the words as if someone was in the room saying them to me,

Don’t be afraid.

“Okay.”

Opening my eyes, I took a deep breath and knew I couldn’t waste any more time. People were counting on me, the galaxy was counting on the Resistance to see them. Where I should have felt anxiety, I felt resolve and determination.

It was time to go do my job.

——————

The entire base was in a frenzy, the good kind though. The kind that united people, that caused everybody to pull together and do their part, even if it wasn’t their job. I saw people from the kitchen helping Commanders, mechanics and communication officers working together. This was one of those days where you felt extra proud to be a member of the Resistance.

If we succeeded, that was…

I made my way out of base and searched for the ships I needed to find. Along the way, I spotted Jess and Snap’s X-Wings parked next to each other, the both of them communicating with their techs.

“Pava, Wexley,” I called out, “You two come back alive, Commander’s orders.”

“The same goes for you, Solo. Black Squad’s order.” Jess shouted across the tarmac, I winked in response and continued towards one specific X-Wing. Bee was already loaded into his slot, yet his owner was nowhere to be found.

“You good to go, Bee?” I asked, climbing the ladder to get a good look at him.

All set. Just waiting on Poe.

“Me too. You take care of him for me, okay?”

“Why?” Poe asked from behind me, “You don’t think he can take care of himself?”

I climbed down the ladder and came face to face with him, “I don’t think it hurts to have someone watching your back. Especially when someone’s as reckless as you are.”

He put his hands on his hips and chuckled, “Same words could be said for you, sweetheart.”

I smiled and snaked my arms around his neck, “Well, then this is a perfect match.”

His lips curled into a grin before leaning down to capture my lips in a slow, passionate kiss. I carded my fingers through the curls at the back of his neck as his hands gripped my hips, pulling me close. A few days ago, kissing Poe was an intrusive daydream I tried not to focus on and now? It was a reality I never wanted to come to an end. We broke apart only when we needed air, he brushed his nose softly against mine and I hummed in contentment.

“I wish I were coming with you.” Poe admitted, “I hate the idea of you actually inside that base.”

“You wouldn’t be able to do anything that I can’t,” I assured him, “Besides, you’re most needed in the skies.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t be worrying about you,” he replied, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to mine, “Haven’t done much else since I watched you disappear into that desert.”

I scraped my fingernails lightly against his scalp, committing the little moan that escaped his throat to memory. There weren’t any words I could say in response to him, the past 24 hours had been a living nightmare for the both of us. All I wanted was to keep him in my arms and reassure him a thousand times that I would never leave him. But instead, we had to separate again and pray that the other returned safe and sound.

“Don’t worry, Dameron. You’re going to be stuck with me for a very long time.” I promised, staring as deep as I could into his eyes to drive my point home.

“Sounds like a plan, Solo.” Poe remarked before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling my body into his. He buried his face in my neck, a spot that was quickly becoming one of his favorites. We stood there drawing strength from one another that would carry us through the battle, me on the ground and him in the air.

A familiar throat clear interrupted the moment.

Poe and I turned around to the sight of my parents standing a few feet away from us, my mom smiling and my father scowling. I chuckled and grabbed a very nervous Poe’s hand and walked towards them,

“Dad, this is Poe Dameron.”

At the mention of Poe’s last name, Dad’s face softened and he made eye contact with Poe,

“Are you Kes and Shara’s kid?”

Poe’s lips curved up, “Yeah, I am. They used to tell me stories growing up about fighting alongside you and the General during the Rebellion.”

Mom and I beamed as Dad chuckled and stuck out his hand for Poe to shake, which Poe happily took,

“It’s good to meet you, kid,” Dad began, before giving Poe a knowing look, “I’d say take care of my daughter, but I’ve seen first hand that she can do that herself. If you hurt her though, I can have the worst scum in the galaxy on your ass so fast you won’t even have time to power up your X-Wing.”

Poe was trying so hard not to look scared, “Y-Yes sir, I-I mean no sir, I would never hurt her.”

“That’s the right answer,” Dad grinned lopsidedly, “Give Kes my best.”

“I will, sir.” Poe replied, finally taking a breath again. That breath was gone again when Mom stepped forward, striking fear in both of us,

“Hurt her and the only squadron you’ll be in charge of, Dameron, will be janitorial.”

“Yes, General.”

Mom gave a smile and wink before she went back to Dad, “Time to get moving, Commanders.”

“Yes, General.” I repeated after Poe, they began walking back to the Falcon. I snorted as soon as they were far enough away to not hear, I thought I heard Poe actually whimper.

“I think I blacked out for a minute, please tell me I didn’t say anything stupid.”

“I was too busy trying not to laugh,” I replied as I chortled, “I can totally see you in a janitor’s uniform with a mop.”

Poe shook his head and took me back in his arms, the air between us became serious once again fast. I placed a hand on his cheek and watched him lean into it, kissing my palm softly before looking back up at me,

“I love you, Y/n.”

“I love you too,” I whispered, “Come back to me, Poe.”

“I always will.” he replied.

He leaned in and gave me one final quick kiss before we hesitantly broke apart, but this time it felt different. Though we weren’t by each other’s sides, we were still going to be fighting together in a way. I was disabling the shields so he could come in and blow up the oscillator. We were still working together, but it didn’t make turning away from him any easier.

I walked back to the Falcon where my parents were waiting, “Well, at least you guys weren’t too over the top.”

Dad laughed, “Was he scared?”

“Wildly.”

“Then,” Dad looked to Mom with an amused expression, “We did our job.”

I couldn’t help but smile, we felt like a family again. Even if we were all about to split up again, we were together right now and my heart felt at home. Tears began to swell in my eyes as I looked between the two of them, they each reached out and took one of my hands. Unable to contain my emotions anymore, I surged forward to hug them both. I hadn’t been held by both my parents in so long but it still felt just as familiar as when I was a child. As much as I wanted to stay in their embrace for hours more, we had to go and do our respective jobs,

“I love you.” I whispered, they both kissed my head in response and squeezed us together a little tighter.

“We’re so proud of you, Y/n,” Mom gushed as we pulled apart, “We love you so much.”

I noticed that they each had an arm around each other, something I hadn’t expected but a sight that was welcomed. Maybe, just maybe, everything was finally going to work out. We could go and destroy the weapon, come home and I could have my family back, or at least most of it…

“Han, Y/n,” Mom’s face turned serious, “If you see him, bring him home.”

I knew there was a chance that Ben would be on the base, though the chances of us coming in contact were slim. The request my mother was making was big, I wasn’t even sure if it was possible. But if the opportunity presented itself, I had to try. I’d be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least try. Looking at my mother with tears in her eyes, I wanted nothing more than to bring my brother home for her.

“I will.” I assured her, taking her hand in mine as Dad pulled her into his side. We embraced once again and I got to witness the sweet sight of my father kissing my mother on her forehead. It gave me hope and reminded me that this is what I was fighting for. For my family, for Poe, for the people that were closest to my heart.

“We’ve gotta go…” Dad interrupted the moment, but he had to.

“Be safe,” Mom ordered, we broke apart and me and Dad watched her hesitantly leave us and head back into the base. I knew she would have rather watched us disappear into the ship but she was needed elsewhere.

“Chewie,” I called as I walked around the ship to find him, “We good to go?”

He roared in response that we were all set before picking up his tools and heading up the ramp. I looked around for Finn, I assumed he was already inside and ready to go. He was the most enthusiastic about going since we were going to retrieve Rey. Dad was right behind me as we entered and walked to the cockpit,

“To think you started your day out hauling Rathtars…” I retorted, elbowing him lightly.

He chuckled, “I was looking for a job when I met your uncle and by the end of the day, I’d met your mother and was heading to blow up the Death Star. I’m used to this sort of thing.”

“Thank you for sticking with me,” we stopped before we got to the cockpit, “I know it was hard for you to come back here.”

He shook his head, “When it comes down to it, I’d do anything for you and your mother.”

I patted his arm warmly and we went into the cockpit to see Finn and Chewie waiting for us. Except Chewie was sitting in the seat behind his usual, “Why aren’t you up there?”

He didn’t say anything, he just shook his head and nudged me towards the co-pilot’s chair. I smiled, who was I to argue with a Wookie? Dad took his seat next to me and I didn’t even have to ask if he was okay with it, his beaming face said it all. We began adjusting controls and Dad powered her up,

“Alright, here we go…”

I looked back to Finn before we took off, he looked a little nervous yet wholly determined. He’d slid into the Resistance so easily, he’d fit in so naturally in the briefing when he spoke up about the base. We shared a nod and I turned back around to watch us lift above the base. I took one final look at Poe’s X-Wing, I could distantly see him climbing up the ladder and take his seat. He wouldn’t be far behind us, his squadron would be waiting to drop in on the planet once we’d disabled the shields.

“Ready to jump to lightspeed?” Dad interrupted my thoughts.

“All set.” I answered looking to the sky ahead, silencing any anxious thoughts that dared to come to my mind. We would succeed at our goal and we’d all come out alive, I didn’t know what I’d do if we didn’t.

-------------

A/N: TA-DA, hope everybody enjoyed the reunion! Fun Fact: When writing this series, I’m watching parts of the movie + reading the script online so everything is as movie accurate as I can make it. Hope everybody is staying safe and wearing your 😷 Let me know what you thought or if you’d like to be added to the taglist.

Taglist: @m1rkw00dpr1ncess @springfox04 @constantdisgrace @holybatflapexpert @seninjakitey @tammythompson-singslikea-muppet @leilei-draws @eternal-fandoms @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @imaginecrushes @eternallyvenus @thescarletknight2014 @simplyhemmings @captain-america5 @breyasficletblog @caseymcflurry @stumbleonmywords @april-14-blog @i-ievu @ultrunning

[allgirlsareprincesses]

A Saga in Ruins: How the sets reflect the empty nostalgia of the Sequel Trilogy

To the great surprise of many fans, the Skywalker Saga ended in the ruins of the Lars moisture farm on Tatooine. Perhaps this was intended to be circular, to be a coming home of sorts, but it was an odd choice for many reasons. Why would the youthful heroine find herself in an old, empty home to which she had no real connection, instead of on a verdant green world that she had so clearly craved earlier in her journey? Wouldn’t a place full of life be more fitting for a young woman starting a hopeful new chapter?

Of course, the dirty little secret is that there is nothing hopeful about the end of the Skywalker Saga. In fact, if we look across the Sequel Trilogy, we can see the theme of destruction, aging, death, and decay in many of the settings. Notably, the only sets that look truly new are the interiors of the First Order ships, and the rich luxury world of Canto Bight, but these sleek structures actually contain a moral rot.

It was appropriate for the Prequel Trilogy to be filled with shiny new sets as the Republic and Jedi were at the height of their power. The beauty was intentional, both so that we would appreciate the civilization that would be lost with the ascension of the Dark Side, and so that we would see it as the deceptive shell hiding the moral destruction within. In the Original Trilogy, the sets have an older, worn appearance, but are rarely what could be termed “ruins.” Given that the Sequel Trilogy takes place 30 years later when the galaxy has presumably been rebuilding since the Galactic Civil War, why then are SO many of the events set in ruins, or in places that become ruins?

Ruins in The Force Awakens

The first movie of this final trilogy started on Jakku, a ruin of a world home to the destroyed imperial fleet that made a last stand at the end of the Galactic Civil War. In the first scene of the film, new ruins are created when First Order troops destroy a village. Not long after, Poe and Finn crash-land into the desert, the ruin of their TIE fighter swallowed up by the sand. Later, we meet Rey, a lonely scavenger who is picking at the guts of a downed Imperial Star Destroyer. The shots in this sequence emphasize the scale of these ruins, along with the utter emptiness of the desert. Next, we see Rey in a little trading outpost cobbled together from disparate parts. She gazes dolefully at an elderly woman working the same task that she is, clearly seeing in the aged woman her own barren and lonely future. Finally, she travels to her own home, which turns out to be a collapsed AT-AT Imperial Walker. In an endearing but somewhat macabre moment, Rey dons the helmet of a Rebel X-Wing pilot. In a parallel scene, Kylo Ren is seen talking to the charred helmet of Darth Vader, beseeching his grandfather to speak to him. It’s nostalgia, yes, but for a past that is ruined, destroyed, and dead.

She next escapes Jakku in the Millenium Falcon, which might not be considered a ruin since it still (barely) flies, but it has clearly seen better days. Rey heaves the decrepit freighter through yet more bones of downed starships, finally escaping Jakku only for the Falcon to malfunction again. Han and Chewie, elderly yet vigorous as ever, join Rey and Finn and they all travel to Takodana, where Maz Kanata lives in a castle. From there, they witness the destruction of the Hosnian system, and then the First Order arrives and completely destroys Maz’s castle, creating yet another pile of rubble. The group next travels to D’Qar, a Resistance base nested in an old Rebel Alliance base from the Galactic Civil War three decades prior. Again, everything is old, aging, and recycled; nothing is new.

Starkiller Base is shiny and new, but it is also a tool of destruction, and before long it too collapses into space debris like Alderaan and Hosnian Prime. Meanwhile, we learn that the Skywalker-Solo family itself is in ruins, with Han and Leia split up, their son Ben fallen to the Dark Side, Luke missing in exile, and Han soon killed by his own son. Rey then travels to Ahch-To, where stand the ruins of the first Jedi Temple, to find the aging and bitter Luke Skywalker.

Ruins in The Last Jedi

On Ahch-To, Rey comes to find that the Jedi religion itself is in ruins, with their ancient texts abandoned and their one avatar, Luke, having cut himself off from the Force itself. In the course of her stay, she shoots a hole through the wall of her hut, slices through a large rock on the island, and emerges from the ruin of a hut that Luke explodes when he finds her with Ben Solo. Though Ahch-To is teeming with life, death is equally present, with Luke chatting with Force Ghost Yoda and watching the Jedi tree burn.

Further, Luke is a ruin of his former self, his moral certainty destroyed by regret. In the series of flashbacks to his last encounter with Ben, we see the hut collapsing, Luke rising from the rubble later, and his training temple in flames. Luke’s legacy, his relationship with his nephew, and now the physical manifestation of both is in ruins, as well. Even his X-Wing, once a symbol of his daring, sits submerged in water, presumably unusable and possibly scavenged already for parts.

On the Supremacy, the shattering of the Skywalker legacy is made visible in the breaking of Anakin’s lightsaber in the destroyed throne room. The ship itself lies in ruins after the battles that have raged across the ship and Admiral Holdo’s brave sacrifice, and even Ben and Rey’s fledgling relationship has been shattered by the end of the sequence.

Meanwhile, after the destruction of their fleet, the Resistance escapes to Crait, to yet another old Rebel Alliance base in the hope of escaping the First Order. Their speeders are so decrepit that Poe manages to punch a hole through one with just his foot, and the remaining forces are decimated before he makes the decision to pull back. With their massive laser cannon, the First Order punches a hole through the blast door to the base, effectively destroying it and rendering it unusable as a defensive position. By the end of the Crait sequence, the Resistance, their fleet, their base, and the central relationship of the movie between Rey and Ben are all in ruins.

Though destruction and ruins abound in The Last Jedi, the framing is notably different from the other two films because the purpose of all this imagery is to show hope for the future springing from the rubble. Rey states this theme explicitly when she’s meditating for Luke on Ahch-To, saying she sees “death and decay that feeds new life.” The breaking of Kylo Ren’s mask and the legacy lightsaber are intended not as endings but as steps in the cycle of rebirth and renewal. Luke manages to shed his broken shell and become the young hero he once was, later achieving transcendence as he passes whole into the Force. Despite the massive wound dealt on Crait, the salt cleanses and covers the carnage, suggesting rebirth with womb-like imagery. Ruins in The Last Jedi tend to serve less as nostalgic settings and more as visual symbols of brokenness that must and will be healed.

Ruins in The Rise of Skywalker

As the final film of the sequel trilogy opens, we see Kylo Ren fighting a group of cultists, whom the TROS Visual Dictionary tells us are Vader loyalists. Leaked images from the art book and cut scenes suggest that this scene actually takes place in the shadow of Vader’s castle, also now a ruin in the absence of its dark master. Using the Sith wayfinder, Kylo flies to the Dark Side planet of Exogol, entering what appears to be an ancient temple of the ruined Sith culture. There he finds the resurrected but still deathlike Palpatine, who is clearly such a ruin of his former self that he must be kept alive by machinery and dark arts.

In returning to the forested, hidden Resistance base, Finn and Poe nearly destroy the Falcon yet again, with the old ship catching fire as she lands among a small collection of similarly ancient ships that appear to be in questionable flight condition. While running her Jedi training course, Rey uses the same pilot’s helmet and training remotes that Luke used over 30 years earlier to practice her skills, and cuts down a number of trees in the process, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Not only does the continued use of old, OT-era objects confound logic, but the wanton destruction of the natural world seems at odds with the Jedi philosophy’s reverence of the life which creates the Force.

Rey’s vision leads her to the barren desert world of Pasaana, where she meets the now-elderly Lando Calrissian, then finds the wreck of the ship that pursued her family when they were fleeing the resurrected Emperor. In the ruin of Ochi’s ship, Rey finds D-0, a broken and abandoned droid who yet again mirrors all the broken and abandoned characters (literally, ALL of them) in the Sequel Trilogy. When Kylo Ren appears, Rey first destroys his TIE Whisper, then when he crawls from the wreckage, the two have a Force tug-of-war over a transport ship which ends in Rey destroying it, as well. Of course, it later turns out that Chewbacca was not aboard that transport, thus continuing the pattern in this film of laying waste to the new planets, ships, and characters that were created for the sequels, while those from the original trilogy are miraculously preserved.

The gang next travels to Kijimi, where they apparently need to destroy C3-P0′s memories in order to unlock his ability to translate an ancient Sith language. As with Chewie, this is merely a temporary “death,” and Threepio’s memories are restored later. Kijimi, unfortunately, is not so lucky, and it is rather unceremoniously blown up, like Alderaan and Hosnian Prime. It seems that even with their allies, the Resistance heroes leave nothing but destruction in their wake.

Rey and friends next land on another moon of Endor, and the poor Falcon takes another beating. While her friends work yet again to repair the old ship, Rey escapes alone to the most imposing ruins of the entire film, collapsed shell of the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi. Calling back to not only Luke’s ordeal there, but also Rey’s own origins scavenging in the carcasses of Imperial Starships, the partially-submerged battle station serves as the backdrop for still more violence and destruction. When Ben Solo arrives, Rey engages him in another duel, which ends with Leia dead and Ben mortally wounded. Though Rey heals Ben, she next flees to Ahch-To, abandoning him and taking his TIE Whisper with her.

On Ahch-To, Rey burns the TIE, standing before the flaming ruins and attempting to throw her lightsaber into the fire. Luke stops her, then leads her to an abandoned hut to find Leia’s lightsaber, a remnant of her aborted Jedi training. Lastly, Luke raises his X-Wing from the water, offering it to Rey inexplicably space-worthy and no worse for the wear having been underwater for the better part of a decade and being at least 35 years old.

Finally, all the characters converge on Exogol, where they continue to engage in as much destruction as possible, including the apparent annihilation of an entire Sith civilization who lived on the planet as part of Palpatine’s Final Order. Ben Solo also arrives on the planet to help Rey (in another OT-era fighter that is miraculously space-worthy and moreover made it across the galaxy WITHOUT A HYPERDRIVE), but Palpatine sucks the power from him and then throws him painfully down a chasm, leaving his body broken. The climactic sequence ends with thousands dead, ships destroyed, and even Rey dead (or something) on the ground. Ben drags his broken body up and across the wreckage of the arena, and dies after resurrecting her, thus ending the Skywalker line.

After a celebratory hug with her friends, Rey flies the Falcon to Tatooine, to the literal ruins of the Lars Homestead. This is the place we last saw belching smoke as Owen and Beru’s charred remains splayed grotesquely across the scene of Luke’s destroyed childhood. Recalling again Rey’s beginning scraping a meager and lonely existence from battle wreckage, she slides down a sand dune on a loose piece of debris, and precociously explores the place. Finally, she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers (further cementing this place as a graveyard since Shmi is also buried here along with the Lars), and declares herself to be a Skywalker, the heir to these ruins.

Nostalgia as Love of a Dead or Imaginary Past

So, what does it all mean? If the Sequel Trilogy relies on ruins as a setting more than the other two trilogies, why does that matter? Isn’t it just paying homage to all the stories that led to the saga’s conclusion? Doesn’t it simply tie everything together?

Most critics and fans agree that the Sequel Trilogy relies heavily on nostalgia. In particular, JJ Abrams is often criticized for using nostalgia to such a degree that many of his films are direct copies of the stories they’re referencing: Super 8 is a mash-up of films like E.T. and Stand By Me, Star Trek: Into Darkness is a copy of The Wrath of Khan, The Force Awakens is nearly identical to Episode IV: A New Hope, and so on. Nostalgia is defined as:

“A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”

Most of Abrams’ movies succeed in creating this feeling because they rely on a shared cultural childhood memory. We fondly remember iconic moments from the films we loved as children, so seeing those moments again creates a feeling of remembered happiness. These movies encourage the viewer to recall how they felt the first time they saw certain images by repeating those images.

The first problem with this approach is that nostalgia is for the audience, not for the characters. The believability of the characters’ actions suffers when they are forced to act out scenes from a story that is not their own, from lives and perspectives that are not theirs. The audience might love seeing a lightsaber battle because that’s quintessential Star Wars, but if the two (or more) characters have no logical reason to fight other than as a spectacle for the audience, then the scene will lack any emotional depth. Likewise, a character revering someone whom they either barely knew or openly loathed makes no sense. In the case of settings or props, characters must respond to them in a way that is believable based on their actual history (or lack thereof) with the place or object. If the main characters of a story function only as a sort of modern Greek chorus, mirroring the nostalgic reactions of the omniscient audience, then they fail to be characters at all and become the most reductive versions of a self-insert.

This video explains the problem well, from 7:09 to 10:58 (the whole video is good but fair warning that not all of his takes align with what I believe about Star Wars, especially as regards Kylo Ren/Ben Solo): 

Another problem with this reliance on nostalgia is that in order to speak to a shared childhood experience, everyone in the audience must have had similar childhoods, or at least belong to the same generation so that they all fondly remember the same things. This is necessarily exclusive, as different generations have vastly different collective experiences and memories. The members of the audience who were children at the time of the Original Trilogy’s release or shortly after grew up in a very different world than those who were children during the release of the Prequel Trilogy, or from the generation living through childhood now. Some things that older generations remember fondly carry uncomfortable or even traumatic associations for younger generations, so something intended to be nostalgic will not impact all audiences in the same way.

The legacy saber is a great example of this: an older Original Trilogy fan might be delighted to see Luke’s inaugural lightsaber from the very first Star Wars film being passed on to the new generation, but a younger fan who grew up with the Prequels might see it as a tainted symbol of Anakin’s fall to the dark side and a weapon stained with the blood of innocent younglings. A family sword meant to press the nostalgia button in The Force Awakens instead invokes a feeling of dread and horror in fans with different associations. While Rian Johnson mentions deliberately referencing the Prequels in his creation of The Last Jedi, JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio make no secret of the fact that they don’t acknowledge those films, and it shows.

Lastly, Star Wars has always been a story of youth, of coming of age, growing up, and becoming one’s own person. Luke’s story in the Original Trilogy was about him learning who he was independently of his father and mentors. He is merely a boy, young and defiant, and through his own mistakes he learns how the elder generation was wrong, resolves to do better, and thereby redeems them. Anakin’s story was similar, except that he was unable in his youth to learn the right lessons from the failures of his mentors, his defiance taking a more destructive form. In contrast to both of them, Rey learns.... that all her mentors and parental figures were right all along. In the end, she defies no one, discovers no new and better way, and ultimately brings nothing new and different to the galaxy. She brings no peace or renewal, adopting a legacy of death and destruction to cap a life that has featured only the old, dead, and destroyed.

This is where Disney and Abrams tip their hand and the true philosophy underpinning the Sequel Trilogy is revealed: in an effort to appeal to the nostalgia of older Star Wars fans, they fail to tell a story of youth and instead offer an orgy of death-worship and aesthetic decay. Rather than having the Star Wars conclude with Star Peace, the final trilogy seems to say “Weren’t those wars great? Don’t you miss them? Don’t you want to be reminded of all those wars?”

In her book The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym defines the term a little differently than the dictionary:

"Nostalgia (from nostos - return home, and algia - longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but is also a romance with one's fantasy."

Boym points out that memory is often faulty, and that fond recollection is often a reaction to current despair. If things are bad now, it is natural for us to imagine a more comforting past, as with popular references to “the good old days.” In fact, another translation of the root algos is “pain,” thereby associating the return home with pain. Is it pain that prompts our longing to return home? Pain that creates the fond memory of home in the first place? Perhaps home itself is a source of pain, and so our minds construct an imaginary home that is better than the reality. In any case, it is typical that our rose-colored glasses distort the truth of what we long for, so the danger of nostalgia is a disassociation from truth.

One of those truths that we might deny in our fantasies is the ephemeral nature of human life and experience. All things age, decay, and ultimately cease to be. They may be evergreen in memory, but in a contiguous timeline like the Skywalker Saga, every location, object, or person must inevitably show the passage of time. Thus it is that the youthful heroes of the Original Trilogy become wizened and less vital when they reappear in the Sequels, that old ships break, and symbols of better times shatter and burn. As Boym states, however, the nostalgic lives in denial:

“The nostalgic desires to obliterate history and turn it into a private or collective mythology, to revisit time like space, refusing to surrender to the irreversibility of time that plagues the human condition.”

Nostalgia cannot hide the steady march of time, which is why most stories look to the future and the creation of the new. Not so the Sequel Trilogy. At no point in the story does there appear to be a goal outside of “defeating the latest bad guys, who are identical to the old bad guys.” There’s no vision of the future toward which the characters are striving, neither on a galactic level (achieving peace) nor a personal level (starting a new family on a vibrant living planet). As such, with nothing to look forward to, the story can only look backward, trapped in nostalgia for a past that appears worse the closer you look at it.

This is why the Sequels are filled with characters, objects, and places from the Original Trilogy that are revered in spite of their violent and even traumatic pasts, not to mention visible signs of age. Ultimately a story that has nothing new to say or offer, only weak attempts to recreate a half-remembered childhood feeling of an aging generation, can ONLY logically end in a graveyard. Viewed in this light, it makes sense that the young protagonist builds her life around fond memories that for her are only imaginary, surrounded by the visible evidence of death and decay to which nostalgia blinds her.

If this is all the fan in the audience is looking for, a faded echo of their favorite memory, then perhaps that is enough. But for those who do not share the reassuring memory, or those who look forward to the future and how things might change for the better, the ending of the Skywalker Saga offers only knowledge that all things fade and die. Without the lens of nostalgia, the Sequel Trilogy is merely an empty tale of death.

[hitbythunder]

Chandrilan Moons -3

A Kylo Ren x Reader story with much angst, possessiveness and dark themes (warnings will be updated as the story progresses) –> Read also on AO3

Summary: Growing up under the loving care of your foster-mother, Leia Organa, there had been nothing for you and Rey to want for. Though not of kin, you loved Rey as your sister and spent a happy childhood with her on Chandrila. But when the boiling galactic politics demanded for Leia to take action, for the Resistance to rise and fight, the girls could no longer evade the cruelty of the world. Kylo Ren sought a map as a key to revenge, to freedom, and had no use for a force-unsensitive young girl like you. You were simply a means to an end. Until his darkness latched onto you, drawn in by your light as you were by the demon that is Kylo Ren - inevitably gravitating towards each other, bound to be one. Like the Chandrilan moons.

**** WARNING: description of violence, mentions of rape

____________________________xXx____________________________

3- A disturbance in the Force

+Takodana - neutral territory+

 Flying through space was amazing and although two experienced and trusted Resistance pilots had accompanied us girls on our mission, the glistening stars as far as one could see was worth it all. While Rey remained slightly pouting for most of the flight, I was glued to one of the side-windows of the ship. It was a small but bulky transport ship, for a star-fighter couldn't hold that many people and would have attracted too much attention once we landed on Takodana. Albeit its neutrality in the war, one should never act foolishly, especially since neutrality itself depended heavily on the benefits of a foregone alliance. But with Maz Kanata, the owner of the famous castle that granted sanctuary to everyone for one night, and proved friend of the Resistance, nothing could go wrong today and the whole mission seemed as good as done.

Leia had sent us there to retrieve the Jedi texts Maz had bought from a smuggler who had passed through weeks ago, hoping that they might help Rey's training in the Force. Or so I assumed as I curiously scanned the texts before Rey put the few scrolls and loose pages in a safety-box inside her back-pack.

 "There's one more thing." Maz rummaged in a small chest among the sheer endless heaps of stuff in the castle's vault, leaving me to wonder how she could possibly remain an overview of what was down here. But perhaps that was why it was such a good hiding-place for forbidden artifacts such as Jedi-texts - as well as the light-sabre Maz now held solemnly in her wrinkled hands.

"Oh my stars, Luke Skywalker's light-sabre!" Rey was beyond herself with joy, her hands trembling slightly as she took the legendary weapon and gingerly inspected it from all sides. Ever the technician, Rey simply had to understand how that thing worked exactly and probably would disassemble the sabre if it hadn't been Luke's.

While I shared my sister's excitement, I couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy as I watched Rey posing with the sabre. As so often, I found myself lacking as compared to my sister and Maz's talk about destiny and great deeds to be done with that sabre didn't make it any better. So I zoned out, sulking quietly in the background, until the three of us left the stuffy vault via seemingly endless stairs. We reemerged back into the dining hall of the castle's ground-floor where the canteen was, without drawing attention of the guests there. In one corner of the hall, a band played jolly tunes, which echoed off the thick castle walls and arched ceiling in a cacophony with the chatter of people. Because of many nooks and columns, the canteen could house many guests without seeming stuffed and a social-introvert like me could feel quite overwhelmed by all the noises, smells and visuals. I had never seen such variety of alien races, humans and droids gathered peacefully in one place.

 With our mission virtually accomplished, the Jedi texts secured, it was time for us to return to the base and thus I scanned the canteen for our two escorts. But fate had other plans, for suddenly three very familiar faces appeared at the entrance of the dingy dining hall.

"Han Solo!" Maz cried out, shifting everyone's attention to the smuggler and his companions Chewie, a startled guy in Poe's jacket and Poe himself, his loyal droid BB-8 at his heels.

 What in the galaxy are they doing here? I wondered while they approached us, an uneasy tingling overcoming my nerves. In hindsight, to give in and investigate this strange feeling more closely would have spared me so much trouble. But instead I pushed it down and greeted the guys as friendly as ever and soon later we found ourselves seated at the last available table. After getting us some food and beverages, Maz joined us at the round table, listening intently to the quiet conversation. We informed Han about our mission before he could get any wrong ideas (e.g. that we stole a ship and went against Leia's orders) and it felt nice that he cared about our well-being.

 "Kriff, that is amazing!" Rey nearly burst with excitement as Poe, with interruptions of Han and Fin (the new guy), told us about what had happened on his mission. To sum it up, Poe had been on Jakku to get a map leading to Luke Skywalker but had been caught by the First Order and tortured by Kylo Ren himself. I shuddered at that part, because everybody knew not to cross paths with this merciless demon. Ren's cruelty and thirst for blood-shed seemed endless, his hatred for the Resistance only fueling his powers, and I could not fathom to imagine what Ren had done to squeeze every ounce of information out of Poe.

Luckily, Poe had entrusted the map to BB-8, who had remained hidden on Jakku the whole time, until Poe had managed to escape by the help of Fin, a renegade stormtrooper. Well, and as if fate had decided to stir things up even more, they had bumped into Han and Chewie on the way - something concerning smugglers and gross aliens, I didn't listen too carefully then - and due to low fuel and necessary repairs they had to make a stop here on Takodana.

"Wow, what a ride..." I said with awe and respect for their courage and luck, which had at least Fin and Poe smile proudly.

"Yeah, didn't exactly go to plan-" Poe replied between sips of his beer, Han scoffing beside him and mumbling something to Chewie about the recklessness of youth. "-but here we are, map in hand."

 "And as soon as the Falcon's refueled we're leavin'!" Han declared as soon as Poe finished, his tone harsh but one could tell he only meant well for all of us. "Gonna make sure y'all get back in one piece." Obviously, Leia would have Han's head should anything happen to her girls, her best pilot and the map under his watch. And although I sensed his reluctance to face Leia, I was looking forward to the resemblance of a family. Hopefully they wouldn't quarrel from the start on.

 Somewhat lost in my fantasies of a happy family life, I hadn't registered the growing debate between Finn, Rey and Poe.

"... you don't know them as I do! There's no fighting the First Order because they'll slaughter us for even trying. I've seen enough of their horrors and I want nothing to do with them!" Finn declared heatedly and barely kept his voice low as Poe repeatedly urged him to, also keeping the renegade in his chair.

"But that's the point! You have so much detailed insider-information which we could use to fight them! Why would you waste that and cling to the illusion of outrunning them?" Rey retorted with unabashedly directness and not less heatedly, the spirit of the Resistance burning fiercely in her hazel eyes. "Fleeing like a coward."

Finn rose then, anger and shame written across his face, though he didn't come up with a response and after a few seconds gave in to Poe tucking at his sleeve, sat back down and glared into his cup. A tensed silence hung over the table, until Maz subtly changed the subject by engaging Han in a conversation about a mutual smuggler-friend of theirs. With a fuming Rey beside me, I shot Poe a questioning glance, but he looked as helpless beside Finn as I felt and began to talk some sense into Finn in a calm manner. That he should come with us to the base, at least for a little while.

 Next to Han, Chewie was eager to get out of here, groaning impatiently beside his friend and rubbing his bandaged arm.

"All right, Chewie, go on and check on our baby." Han said between Maz's babbling and quickly grabbed his beer before Chewie would knock it over as the giant jumped to his feet.

"I'm coming with you." on impulse I rose too, dismissing everyone's questioning looks as I added: "I need some air anyways."

 Let them cool their heads while I'm gone, I thought and jogged after Chewie.

   Since Maz's castle was built on a cliff surrounded by the ocean on one side and dense forest on the other, the landing-places were spread to a few clearings nearby. So we had to walk a little and although Chewie wasn't particularly chatty, I didn't mind either and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. At the bottom of the weathered castle's stairs, we turned right and followed a lovely path between lush grassy hills at the border of the forest, the rush of the nearby sea accompanying our steps. Suddenly Chewie halted, his hairy arm on my shoulder stopping me too, and pointed towards the thicket. There, half-hidden by the greenery, two humans were carrying a seemingly shut-down BB-8 further away from the castle.

 Hasn't BB-8 been with Poe and us the whole time? I wondered briefly. But then, BB-8 was a small droid and many people had squeezed themselves past our table in the brimming canteen. Perhaps we had all been too distracted by the heated conversation between Rey and Finn to notice BB-8's absence.

"I'll follow them and stop them from leaving. You go use that long legs of yours and get the others, Chewie! Rey'll find me through the Force!" I declared in a split-second-decision, already dashing away into the dense forest and leaving a groaning wookiee behind.

  Deeper and deeper I ventured in my pursuit, steadily closing the distance between myself and the thieves without alerting them of my presence. As children, Rey and I had often played hide and seek in the forests of Chandrila and I had to develop some pretty decent sneaking-skills to diminish her advantage with the Force. Rey had only once admitted that she wouldn't have won all those times if she hadn't used the Force to sense my approach. Thus, even if my sneaking skills should fail me I trusted that Rey would be able to find me. I just had to stall some time, delay those thugs from leaving, until Rey and the others would arrive. At one point, the two thieves halted to catch their breaths and looked around. I quickly ducked behind a tree, easing my nerves. Suddenly I noticed a bright red stroke on the otherwise blue sky above, far away yet ominous to watch. Though I had no clue what it was, I instantly had a bad feeling about it. But more pressing matters were at hand, and after another deep breath I dared to peek around the trunk. There was only one thief beside BB-8 then.

 Kriff, where did the other go?!

  Maybe Chewie should have chased them, not me, I admitted to myself as I was hauled by a pair of large hands and thrown very harshly on the forest floor next to the motionless droid.

"Look what followed us, mate!" said the gruff guy to his companion, who looked terribly scrawny in comparison. Both reeked of ale and whatnot, their ugly visages distorted by sinister smiles.

"A pretty thing like that will make a good price, I wager. Not as high as for the droid though." the scrawny one snickered as he mustered me, while the bear-like guy's eyes roamed over my body with a different kind of greed.

"How 'bout a taste..."

 "No!" I screamed as he grabbed me, trashing against his hold, and somehow I managed to draw my small combat-knife from its holster at my hips. I thrust without much consideration, nor proper aim, stabbing bear-guy right above the knee. The blade sunk hilt-deep into his thigh-muscle. He howled in pain and repaid me with a hearty slap across my face, sending me flying back against BB-8 and onto the mossy ground. The impact caused the droid to reawaken and a small safety compartment at its front jumped open, the object within landing a few feet ahead of me.

 The map! my dizzy mind concluded with horror.

 Ignoring the rising pain in my body, I crept on all fours and frantically scanned the forest floor with my hands in a panicked search for the map. Scrawny guy was still laughing at his companion. Knowing that the guys and Poe in particular, had risked their lives for this map and that finding Luke was vital for the future of the Resistance, I simply couldn't loose it nor let it be taken by those thugs. It was my chance to prove my value as part of the Resistance and failing wasn't an option.

 What would Leia think if I screw this up? Or Poe?

 Then, finally, my right palm touched a metallic longish object and instantly I closed my fingers tightly around it. The very moment I did so, a flash of energy shot through me, momentarily blinding all my senses in its immense light and suddenly the outline of a star-constellation appeared before my inner eye. Planets and stars twinkled in a blueish hue, in between a red dotted line that led to a particular oceanic planet. Though somehow familiar, I could not place this constellation and this strange vision lasted only a few seconds, before a sudden sharp pain in my hand brought me back to my present predicament.

  +++

  In front of Takodana castle, the fight between stormtroopers and Resistance had just begun by the time Kylo arrived there. His ship landed like a looming black bird among the First Order transports and agitation spread in his muscles upon the pending blood-shed, especially since he had sensed another force-user inside the castle. By far not as strong as him, but hopefully they would do for some entertainment compared to the other scum-bags that died like flies at his hand. Kylo was marching determinedly towards the building, when he felt it.

A disturbance in the Force within the forest to his right, faintly but clear as a lightning-bolt at distance and vanished just as quickly. Kylo paused, scanned the area with his powers and concluded that the other Force-user was up ahead at the bottom of the castle - not in the direction of the disturbance. Weighing his options, Kylo dismissed the distraction for being just that and walked on to find his opponent. The Force, however, tickled his senses again, rippling with distinct restlessly as if to tempt him and now it seemed foolish not to inquire further.

 "Find that droid at all costs! And take no prisoners!" Kylo barked towards a nearby officer, before he stormed off into the forest.

 The lightning-bolt had pinned down the exact location and the closer he got, the stronger the Force seemed to pull him there, becoming more insistent with each step. Faster, it seemed to whisper and spurned his steps beyond the capacity of men, neither rocks nor tree-stumps posing a real obstacle in his path. Kylo felt some human presence long before they came into view, two men beating and kicking a woman cowering at their feet. Judging by their appearance, they were either smugglers or Resistance-fighters and either was good enough reason to kill them.

Silent in his approach, Kylo descended upon them like a dark shadow from behind, the hiss of igniting his light-sabre the only foretelling sound of their demise. Effortlessly, the red crackling blade cut through cloth, flesh and bone, drenching the nearby greenery and earth with blood.

[star-wars-ao3-fandom-stats]

AO3 stats for smaller Star Wars Sequel Trilogy pairings - April the 6th, 2020

Here’s the current list of the Sequel Trilogy ships with 20-99 fanworks on AO3, excluding platonic relationships (tagged as ‘Character & Character’, not Character/Character’) and Official-Character/OC ships.

The differences between the ranking posted one month ago and the one posted today are in the brackets.

Since last ranking Poenix (Poe/Connix) reached 100 works and therefore got to the +100 ranking. Congratulations to the shippers!

New ships on the list:

-Hux x Pryde;

-Hux x Thrawn.

1. Dopheld Mitaka/Kylo Ren - 98 (0)

2. Finn/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 93 (-2)

3-4. Armitage Hux/Dopheld Mitaka/Kylo Ren (0), Armitage Hux/Phasma/Kylo Ren (-1) - 91

5. Poe Dameron/Jessika Pava - 89 (+1)

6. Rey (Star Wars)/You - 88 (+2)

7. Poe Dameron/Leia Organa - 86 (+1)

8. Matt the Radar Technician/Rey (Star Wars) - 79 (+1)

9. Leia Organa/Rey - 72 (+3)

10. Poe Dameron/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 66 (+1)

11-13. Clyde Logan/Rey (Star Wars) (+5), Snoke/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (0), Armitage Hux/Matt the Radar Technician (0) - 64

14. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey/Rose Tico - 62 (0)

15. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rose Tico - 61 (+4)

16. Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 60 (+2)

17. Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Reader - 59 (+3)

18. Poe Dameron/Luke Skywalker - 56 (0)

19. Dopheld Mitaka/Phasma - 55 (+3)

20. Finn/Armitage Hux - 50 (0)

21. Poe Dameron/Amilyn Holdo - 49 (+2)

22. Phasma (Star Wars)/You - 47 (0)

23. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - 45 (+1)

24. Chewbacca/Maz Kanata - 44 (+3)

25. Kylo Ren/Anakin Skywalker 26 and 12 works tagged only as Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Darth Vader and 2 works tagged only as Kylo Ren/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader and 2 works tagged only as Anakin Skywalker/Ben Solo - 42 (+2)

26-27. Poe Dameron/Paige Tico (0), Finn (Star Wars)/You (+2) - 41

28. Zorii Bliss/Poe Dameron - 39 (+4)

29. Karé Kun/Temmin "Snap" Wexley - 38 (+2)

30. Armitage Hux/Knights of Ren - 37 (+1)

31. Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rose Tico - 36 (+2)

32. Kaydel Ko Connix/Rose Tico - 35 (+3)

33. Jannah/Rose Tico - 33 (+7)

34-35. Kaydel Ko Connix/Rey (+1), Knights of Ren/Kylo Ren 30 (+1) and 1 work tagged only as Knights of Ren/Ben Solo - 31

36. Clan Techie (Dredd)/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 30 (0)

37-38. Dopheld Mitaka/Thanisson, Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Han Solo - 28 (+1)

39-41. Armitage Hux/Leia Organa (+1), Armitage Hux/Armitage Hux (0), Poe Dameron/Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Rey (+1) - 27

 42. Armitage Hux/Luke Skywalker - 26 (+1)

43. Phasma/Nastia Unamo - 25 (0)

44-48. Poe Dameron/Terex (0), Dopheld Mitaka/Reader (+1), Poe Dameron/Muran (+1), Poe Dameron/Han Solo (+1), Finn/FN-2003 | Slip (0) - 24

49. Armitage Hux/Snoke - 23 (+1)

50-52. Armitage Hux/Pryde 21 and 1 work tagged only as Armitage Hux/Enric Pryde (new on the list!), Bazine Netal/Kylo Ren 14 and 8 works tagged only as Bazine Netal/Ben Solo (+1), Finn/Phasma (0) - 22

53-55. Armitage Hux/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo (new on the list!), Poe Dameron/Jaina Solo (0), Rey/Han Solo (0) - 21

56. Leia Organa/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 19 and 1 work tagged only as Leia Organa/Ben Solo - 20 (0)

[rebel-ezra]

back with another star wars review!

here’s the last jedi:

I’m so excited lets gooo

this is a long one im sorry 

“obliterate their fleet” LETS NOT

show me poe pls *poe appears on screen* thank you

“happy beeps”

“hi I’m holding for general hux”

I LOVEEEE POE

“I have a feeling this is not going to end well for the republic. NEVERMIND NEVERMIND”

“excellent” *dies inside*

why is finn in that weird thing is he okay

did something happen to him that I can’t remember

“show me luke show me luke”

“YEAAAAAAA LUUUUUKEE!!”

WHY’D HE TOSS THAT LIGHTSABER 

why is luke acting like an angry toddler lol

“go away” *blasts the door*

CHEWIEEE!!

“where’s han?” TOO SOON BUDDY WAY TOO SOOOON

lmao luke walking away and rey just following him like “nope can’t get rid of me that easily”

“oh wow mysterious tree with mysterious voices what’s up with that”

THE ORIGINAL JEDI TEXTS??

“alright that is pretty much nowhere” JSLDKFJSDLJ

“I came to this island to die. it’s time for the jedi to end” SIR WHAT

is ANYONE going to give leia a HUG??? baby deserves it

“permission to jump in an x wing and blow something up” I am literally SO in love with this man

POEEEEEEEE honey are you alright

LEIA NO 

WAIT WAIT WAIT NO 

DID SHE JUST DIE

OOOHHHHH AKSDJFLAFJ LEIA

HER FINGERS MOVE??? HOW???? HER EYES OPENED?????? OOOHHH SHITT

“LUKE MF SKYWALKER YOU LET REY SLEEP OUTSIDE IN THE COLD??? THATS RUDE SIR!!”

is that luke sneaking around 

istg if you’re leaving and not taking rey and chewie with you

“ARTOOOOOO”

me, upon hearing obi-was name: YEA MY MAN

hi rose I adore you

no one: poe: I want to blow stuff up

maz <3

I wanna know who the master codebreaker is

rey’s first jedi lesson lets go

HAHAH OMG I LOVE REY AND LUKE

“it’s a terrible place filled with the most terrible people in the galaxy” so eat the rich huh

omg I want to meet the master codebreaker

“space vegas??”

DONT THROW BB8 U BITCHES

rey with lightsaber rey with lightsaber

who is this prisoner and why does he remind me of captain hook

FATHIERS ARE SO PRETTY I WANT TO PET THEM

luke you better RECONNECT WITH THE FORCE

oh my god he’s doing it he’s doing it 

omg Luke was going to fucking kill kylo??????

still dont know why the force connects kylo and rey tho

DONT GO DOWN THERE REY THATS STUPID

now we’re in some sort of mirror universe??

REY JUST HIT LUKE ON HIS HEAD HAHA

“YODA????”

YODA WHAT DID YOU DOOOOOO

“missed you, have I” excuse me while I CRY MY EYES OUT

god I love yoda just walking around hitting luke on the head

yoda and luke… so nice… so wholesome…

“let’s not have a scene” “no let’s” I would die for one (1) man and it is mr poe dameron

REY’S HAIR ALKSDJFLSJ PRETTY 

TELL HER WHO HER PARENTS ARE

“yeah we spoke” I am obsessed

NO NO NO THEY WERE ALMOST THERE

“I bet you that’s leia- OHHHH SHE SHOT POEEEE SHE SHOT MR POE DAMERON THE LOML”

I dont like purple haired lady

OOOHHH SNOKE CONNECTED KYLO AND REY

SPACE CAPTAIN HOOK IS A TRAITOR

NOOOO GOD NOOOOOO

hoe don’t do it istg if you kill rey I will RIOOOOTT

YEA TELL THE TRUTH

SAY IT REY

I thought…. her name was rey skywalker

THE LIGHTSABER BROKE

PURPLE HAIRED LADY DESTROYED THEIR FLEET

finn where’s bb8 finn where. is. bb8.

do NOT leave without bb8

BB8!!! LETS GET IT BUDDY

HE SAID LETS GO CHROME DOME LKJLKDSJFLSJF

OHHH BITCH REY DIDNT MURDER SNOKE YOU DID HOE!!!

POE AND BB8 AJSLDKFJ

fucking imperial walkers?? am I seeing this correctly

“THE ONLY WAY IN OR OUT? oh mf we are DOOMED”

those ships are barely holding together babes

YEAAAA THE FALCON

I HEARD THE BLOW THAT PIECE OF JUNK OUT OF THE SKY

finn why didn’t you retreat you’re gonna get yourself killed

ROSE!! ROSE ARE YOU OKAY

AJDLSF ROSE KISSED FINN NOOOO ROSE DIED NOO NONONO

“the spark is out” :(

LUUUUUUKE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE SPARK IS HERE

LUKE AND LEIA LUKE AND LEIAAAAAA HE KISSED HER FOREHEAD WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS TO ME SHUT UUUUP

he got the fresh outfit n all

“OH ??!!!! MF LUKE BABEYYYY NO”

OHHHHH HE FUCKING LIIIIIIIVED JALKDJFLSFJ

“what are you looking at me for? follow him” YES I WILL MA’AM THANK YOU

REY AND FINN HUG REY AND FINN HUG

MF LUKE DIDNT DIE WHAT THE FUUUUCK THAT SABER WENT THROUGH HIM

IS HE A FORCE GHOST

IS HE A HOLO

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD YES LUKE

WAIT LUKE ARE YOU OKAY WHY’D YOU FALL DOWN LIKE THAT oh he’s alive its okay he’s alive

JALDJFLASDJF NEVERMIIIIND NEVER FUCKING MIIIIIIIIND

well that was an emotional rollercoaster wow wow wow

IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR PRINCESS CARRIE FISHER!!!

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Hear It Again | Poe Dameron

Pairing — Poe Dameron x Plus Size Reader (she/her)

Word Count — 5.2k

Request — could I request a Poe Dameron x ps reader? The reader and Poe were raised together, they have always been inseparable. When both join the resistance the reader becomes a spy, whilst Poe becomes a pilot. Reader becomes missing in action. Years later on Jakku Rey/Finn/BB8 find the reader, she helps them escape (she has been stranded on Jakku and has been fixing the Falcon) She gets reunited with Poe, who confesses his love. Maybe she has apart of the map that leads to Luke. Thanks!

Warnings — angst, mentions of loss, war, and violence, Rey and Finn being their cute selves, BB-8 being a baby, reader cuts herself on purpose (not with the intention of self-harming), arguing, fluff, I feel like Poe being Poe should be a warning.

A/N — I enjoyed writing this soooooo much! I fell in love with Poe all over again, harder than ever.

Gif credit

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

A spy stranded on the planet they were supposed to infiltrate had to be the definition of ironic. Or moronic, if they asked you.

You had been sloppy, the plan failed too early on and instead of asking for help, you decided to keep going. Compromising the mission wasn’t worth it, you had been trained to do anything but.

The village had been too dangerous, staying there would mean falling into a trap — no one ever knew where people’s alliance rested, so you opted for staying as far away from it as you could. The junkyard wasn’t ideal, but nothing was in a sandy and hot planet.

As if things couldn’t be trickier, your only way out of there was in a ship that needed a lot of repairs. Not just a ship, The Ship. You were sure Han Solo would be close to a heart attack if he knew his beloved ship was abandoned in a junkyard planet.

The Falcon was famous for many reasons, your favorite was the fact that it had always looked like shit. It was silly, Poe would always say so. He liked it because the ship had made the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs — twelve according to Poe who took the difference very seriously.

Poe was your best friend. The two of you grew up together in Yavin 4 — the years you had spent apart while being trained hadn’t been easy so when you found your way back to him by joining The Resistance, you were more than thrilled.

He had laughed when you were done with your first meeting in General Organa’s presence. ”You know she knows the Millenium Falcon, right?”

You had giggled, shaking your head. When you were kids, you often came up with complicated plans to steal it, according to you it would be easy if you did it while everyone was sleeping. ”The hardest part will be finding it,” he would always say, swatting a hand to gesture for you not to worry.

It was easy for Poe to act in such nonchalance, he had always been graceful at many things. Back when things were easier and your only worry was not being caught sneaking out of your house to explore the depths of the forest with your friends, you believed him to be invincible.

You wished for that to be true, for him to be okay. You trusted in his abilities, you had re-trained him personally in case he was captured —not that he needed it, you just wanted to be sure— but you didn’t know what he was up to now.

Oh, how you wanted to be a child again, being teased by your best friend for your obsession with a ship you would never pilot because you didn’t care for piloting at all.

And you still didn’t, you knew the basics because it was part of your training but you didn’t care about becoming the best pilot of the galaxy. How could you when Poe carried that badge with so much pride?

Or at least you imagined he still did. It had been so long since you last saw him… you wondered how he was handling it, if he was still alive — he had to be.

When you weren’t groaning out of frustration or complaining out loud because of the heat, you wondered many things about him; mostly regarding his safety.

Distant sounds made you jump. “Kriff,” you whined, rubbing the top of your head as you ducked to not hit yourself again.

With your free hand, you withdrew your blaster off your belt. A screech filled your ears which prompted you to stand still. Someone was inside the ship, their approaching steps let you know two pairs of shoes were the source of the noise.

A whirring sound, soothing and somewhat familiar joined the steps. You carefully stepped closer to the cockpit with your blaster held up and ready to pull the trigger.

Something bumped your ankle. Your favorite beep greeted you. The young man and woman gushing about the ship a couple of meters ahead of you turned around.

Recognizing the jacket the guy had on, you gruffly asked, “Where did you get that jacket?”

“W—What?”

The girl stepped in front of him. She was protecting him with no hesitation. “Who are you?” she demanded to know.

“You first.” You nodded upward.

She studied you, lifting a hand when her companion started to speak. He clamped his mouth shut. “I’m Rey.”

“Pamaf,” you gave them the name you had been using throughout your latest mission.

“Where are you from?”

BB-8 beeped, demanding attention. You tensed, torn between acknowledging the droid and getting more answers.

“I’m Finn,” the guy said. “The jacket is mine.”

You stared at him, tenser now. He opened his eyes wide, drawing a thin line with his mouth. Oh, stars, this idiot was pretending to be part of The Resistance.

“Do you trust them, buddy?”

BB-8 happily beeped in an affirmative gesture.

“Where’s Poe?” If you knew something about Poe, and you knew everything about Poe, it was that he only left BB-8 behind when he didn’t have another option — no matter how reckless his last resort was. The droid was part of him, just like the jacket Finn was wearing.

Finn couldn’t help himself and explained, “we crashlanded. He didn’t make it.”

You took a deep breath in, barely nodding. Your only hope now was that it had been quick, that he hadn’t suffered.

“We need to get out of here,” Rey sighed exasperatedly, “you can question us throughout the journey. I suppose.”

“The ship isn’t in optimal conditions,” you croaked.

“None of us will be in optimal conditions if we don’t leave now,” she quipped.

Seeing you frown, Finn added, “They want the droid. And to kill us.”

You wished they would for a fleeting moment. What was life with no loved ones but a painstakingly slow crave for the relief of being lucky to see them again, surrounded by the force where bliss was the only thing that existed?

You merely nodded. Rey hurried to the pilot seat, beaming as she got comfortable. She looked adorable, you would’ve expressed it if you weren’t about to crumble.

Had he missed you like you missed him? You supposed he had. The two of you had been close for so long that it was safe to assume he would care about his friend.

Friend. Did friends laugh the way the two of you did? How could anyone be sure? Lines blurred all the time between childhood friends, and with the life you had in The Resistance it was common to grow closer to its members.

Even then, he probably had replaced you after all that time apart. And now it didn’t matter because he was…

Poe was dead.

You had been trained to endure many torture tactics and fight any creature or thing imaginable to human beings. You had been under a lot of pain, in the brink of death — nothing had hurt like the news Finn gave you, nothing had hurt like knowing you wouldn’t ever hear Poe’s laugh again.

You felt numb. Too many things were going through your head and your heart, so many you couldn’t feel anything at all. You knew the ship was rocking, you could hear Finn’s and Rey’s shouts, but you weren’t processing them.

Loss had never numbed you before. It had angered you, wrecked you, made you a tougher woman — a better spy.

Everything went by in blurs. You weren’t sure if you had imagined it or if someone else had entered the ship. It wasn’t like you cared either.

Even BB-8 was avoiding you now. You preferred it that way, you weren’t ready to be around something Poe had loved so deeply.

You were pushed by Rey into a hiding place. Finn handed you a mask and you robotically put it on, feeling the weight of BB-8 against your calf.

The rafter above you opened. Han Solo greeted you, “Hey, kid. What are you doing here? Who’s the pilot?”

Snatching the mask off, you motioned to Rey. “She is.”

You had met Han and Chewie by mistake in one of their smuggling adventures. Han hadn’t been happy when he found out you were part of The Resistance but you promised you wouldn’t say anything and miraculously, he believed you.

True to your word, you had never mentioned him in front of General Organa. It had been somewhat hard not to tell Poe about it, but a promise was a promise. Now you wished you had told him — you could only imagine how shiny his eyes would get as he giddily asked for more details and about The Falcon.

Finn, Rey, Han, and Chewie were speaking. You knew the topic was important but for the love of the stars, the majority of the words escaped you.

Map. Skywalker. Resistance base.

You glanced down at BB-8. The poor droid made a frail noise. Taking it as a sign that you should stay quiet, you announced you would make sure you had done the reparations correctly.

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

Visiting Maz Kanata didn’t excite you. Although Takodana looked the same it had the last time you visited, it felt more dangerous than ever.

You were sure Han, Chewie, and Rey could take care of themselves, but Finn worried you. He was jumpy, looking at everywhere as though he was waiting for someone to attack.

Elbowing him on the side, you handed him your blaster. He stared down at it, frowning. You just shook the weapon, gesturing for him to take it already.

His shakiness didn’t go unnoticed by you, and honestly as worried as you were, you couldn’t blame him.

Stars, you really needed to tell them the truth. Clearing your throat, you took in a deep breath. You should trust them, yes. “I know where to find a part of the map.”

“Where?” Finn asked in a hushed tone.

“What if I said my pocket? Kind of.”

“I would kiss you if I didn’t—“ he stopped himself.

You almost chuckled. “Piece of advice?” He nodded so you continued, “she won’t reciprocate if you continue lying to her.”

His face fell. “That obvious?”

You patted his upper back. “Yeah. Fix it before it’s too late.”

Han interrupted your conversation to hand Finn a weapon. “She’s right. Women always find the truth.”

Finn handed your blaster back, nodding downward in a thankful gesture to both you and Han. You put the weapon back in place.

After a few seconds of pondering, he asked you, “how do I tell her I want no part in this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like war. I’m running away from it.”

“Only mercenaries like war, Finn.” You placed your hand on his shoulder. “Some people don’t like it because of the destruction, others because of politics, and a few because it only takes and takes but never seems to give.”

His kind eyes told you he wanted to ask something. You hoped he wouldn’t because you were sure you would break down sobbing if you had to speak about Poe.

“Why are you still fighting?”

“There’s always something worth fighting for. Freedom, love, family…”

Finn and you shared a look as you entered Maz’s Castle, exchanging a nod to assure the other you had each other’s back.

A mess, that was what the situation you had found yourselves in was. Rey and Finn had each ran away at different times, leaving you and Han to deal with Maz, BB-8, Luke’s lightsaber, and the fact that neither of you had an interest in going back to The Resistance base.

You didn’t feel ready to see your old friends, to find out how many of them had died. You didn’t want to hear their condolences because whoever was still around must’ve known you and Poe were close. Facing Leia would be devastating when she saw Poe as another son, the son who had stayed.

Commotion surrounded you, screams and confused questions overwhelmed you as people ran out of the castle. Han and you followed them, making your way through the sea of people congregated at the front gates. Chewie was there too, with his bowcaster ready.

An incandescent red light shone brightly in the sky, no clouds nearby whatsoever. The ground trembled. Finn’s voice filled your ears, “it was The Republic. The first order, they’ve done it.” He then asked for Rey.

Looking down, you loudly blurted, “Where’s BB-8?”

It was too late. TIE-fighters invaded the planet, destroying everything they could aim at. Han, Chewie, and Finn followed Maz, you stayed outside, helping as many people as you were able to. If you were going to die that day, you would do it fighting like you were taught by the New Republic.

Your companions came out of the ruins, shooting at any stormtrooper that crossed their path. You hid behind a pillar, holding your blaster tightly. Thinking about Rey, how excited she had been to see so much green, you took a deep breath. Poe came to your mind, the fact that he had given Finn his name because he refused to call him by a demeaning code… Finn, his craving for a better life.

Suddenly it felt personal. It stopped being about the cause, it was about the people in and around it — the innocent who didn’t have any other choice. You finally understood, perhaps too late, that you could make a difference because you were on the side that didn’t like war when the other in fact did.

Finn ignited a blue lightsaber, you imagined it was Luke’s, and started fighting too. He was sloppy, but you knew his heart was in the place it should be. Seeing Han and Chewie approach him, you did so too, looking behind you from time to time.

Heavy steps started following you out of nowhere. Shaking them off was impossible, you tried it all with no success — there was only one you, a hungry, tired, dehydrated, and broken-hearted you and dozens of them.

The troopers disarmed you, pointing at the four of you with their own weapons. With your hands on the back of your head, a familiar whooshing brought your hopes up.

Han smirked, sharing a look with you. The troopers around you started dropping to the ground, along with pieces of TIE-fighters that had been hit by X-Wings. You hoped Jess was up there, it would be nice to see her if you made it out alive.

Running behind Chewie, you pried your blaster off the dead hands of the trooper that had taken it from you and followed Han, shooting at any white helmet you spotted.

In the air, the leader piloted like they owned the sky. Finn’s adrenaline was running high and he screamed in excitement.

“That’s one hell of a pilot!”

They were. But they weren’t Poe. Their maneuvers were similar enough for you to cling to the hope that it was him, but Finn had been clear when he said your beloved friend hadn’t made it.

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

D’Qar hadn’t changed much, it looked busier but with everything going around the galaxy you hadn’t expected anything different.

BB-8 beeped to gain your attention, rolling excitedly. You followed the droid with Finn close by. He was worried, panting as he ran behind the little droid. You saw a few new faces as you walked through the crowd of pilots.

The droid rolled fast toward an X-Wing and your heart skipped a beat. You stood frozen in place, only able to watch as Poe, yes, Poe, greeted the droid with the same joy he used to greet your mom whenever he saw her.

Finn ran towards him, and Poe ran to Finn. You saw them embrace, their words didn’t register as you could only stare. Warm eyes caught yours, and Finn moved out of the way.

You tried really hard to move forward but your legs weren’t capable of doing it. You felt arms around you, your face collided against a semi-hard surface.

“You’re alive,” he rasped.

His voice was everything you needed to feel like you could breathe again. Hugging him back, tightly, you mumbled a tired yes. Poe’s embrace tightened.

“Finn needs help,” you remembered, “and I, well, he. Both of us… Finn and I need to talk to The General—“

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he said calmly. Parting from you, lingering his eyes on your face — the one he thought he would never be able to see again, he took your hand and with his free one motioned for Finn to go with you.

Finn repeated what you had said. “I need your help.”

“We’re getting it, buddy,” Poe assured his new friend.

You were pried off Poe in order to be pulled into a tight hug. When the shock wore off, you hugged Jess back. Recognizing your body language, she reluctantly let go of you, staring at you with dampened eyes. Gripping her shoulder in the assurance that you were okay, you followed the path Poe and Finn had taken.

Finn looked at you, interrupting whatever he was telling the General. Nodding you lifted a hand for him to give you a moment.

Pulling your dagger out, you discarded your dirty plain jacket. Everyone’s eyes were on you. Stars, you hoped that dagger wasn’t too dirty.

Taking a deep breath, you held your forearm at a comfortable angle.

“Wait,” Poe yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Trust me.”

He fell silent. Even after all those years of thinking you were dead, he trusted you blindly. Fear didn’t spare him, he held his breath as he watched.

Hissing at the sting when you pierced your skin, you bit down your bottom lip. Dropping the dagger, you pulled the tiny card out of your arm. Unwrapping it from its plastic protection, you handed it to C3PO.

“Mission accomplished, General,” you breathed out. Three years later, but accomplished nonetheless.

General Organa nodded. “Go and get that cleaned.”

Ripping a piece of your sleeve, you shook your head and tied it around the wound. “I’m fine. Ready for duty.”

Leia opposed, Poe did too. You couldn’t understand where his attitude was coming from, but it didn’t matter — you couldn’t disobey your general.

The medical exam took a long time, you needed to be tested for everything as part of the protocol. The base had turned silent by the time you were told you were free to go back to your quarters and take a shower, everyone must’ve been attacking Starkiller Base under Poe’s command.

“My clothes are still there?” you incredulously asked.

Latia, the nurse, smiled warmly at you. “Of course, those are your personal quarters.”

“They are? After all this time?!”

Your incredulity broke her heart. Nodding, she placed a hand on your back and guided you toward the hallway.

“Has the code changed?”

“Commander Dameron made sure it didn’t.”

Your stomach flipped — Poe had counted on you coming back. The code, indeed, was the same. Your quarters were in the same state you remembered leaving them, too.

Showers were underrated, you decided under the water as you washed the grim off your hair. Sure, sonic showers were more efficient and quicker but nothing would ever beat hot showers after a long day — or excruciating years.

☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎・・・・・☆︎

Poe could only imagine you were frustrated by not being granted permission to go with them. The fact that your part of the map hadn’t completed it was upsetting even to him.

He was informed you were healthy enough to be allowed to stay in your room when he followed the medical team to the infirmary as they carried Finn. Latia said you needed rest to which he agreed, but she also winked at him. He knew what he needed to do.

You hadn’t received any notification of the squadrons being back nor one for the need for evacuation. The knocking on the door startled you — aiming at it with your blaster, you opened it with your other hand.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Lowering the blaster upon finding it was only a very unfazed Poe, you shrugged. “How did you know I wasn’t asleep?”

Poe chuckled, nodding upward instead of answering the question. “Can I come in?”

You placed the blaster on your bedside table, waiting for him to get comfortable. To your surprise, instead of sitting down on the couch, he did so on the edge of the bed.

His eyes were startlingly heavy on you. He looked like he wasn’t even blinking. You rotated your body to examine him. Poe’s arms wrapped around you tightly, pulling you flush to him.

You hugged him by the neck, trying to hide how shocked you were by the sudden show of affection. His shoulders started to shake. A sob escaped him and you could only tighten your arms around him.

His weeping wetted your top, but none of you cared. Poe was in so much distress and you couldn’t fathom why — he had always performed admirably under pressure.

You whispered his name, “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I lost you.” His comment was muffled by the material of your shirt and his clogged nose, but you understood his words perfectly.

You swallowed loudly. “I thought I had lost you, too. Finn said—“

Lifting his head off your stomach, he exploded at you. “Yes, but you didn’t spend an eternity thinking you would never see me again, that you would have to live the rest of your life incomplete… I did, it fucking sucked.”

“You don’t know what I went through! Or what I felt when I saw someone else wearing your jacket!”

His chiseled face turned red. “You made me watch you cut your flesh open earlier!”

It now sounded like he was just finding things to make you feel bad about. If that was what he wanted, he accomplished it. “It’s healed already, if it worries you that much.”

Poe couldn’t believe your words. Pushing you off him, he stood up. “If I worry that much? Have you not listened to what I’ve been telling you?”

“You’ve been yelling at me for something I didn’t have control of,” you said, hoping he would finally understand your perspective.

“You could be dead right now! I could be planning a funeral if I was lucky enough to…” Poe’s voice shattered. “I can’t lose you,” he rasped.

“And I can’t lose you either, but I can’t stop doing my job because you might worry.”

He nodded, letting more tears fall. It broke your heart seeing him like that, you wanted nothing more than to take every bad feeling out of his system — you needed him to be okay, to be the cocky Poe you had fallen in love with.

Offering him a tissue, you reminded him, “I’ll always try my best to come back home.”

He cleaned his face in silence, with a thought whirling inside his eyes.

“You don’t believe me?” You tried to guess.

“I believe you.” Poe gave you his back to discard the tissues. He gripped the edge of your desk, inhaling deeply.

You worriedly gazed at him, at his white knuckles and the heaving of his shoulders due to harsh breath. Approaching him, you placed a hand on his back.

“Breathe, Poe,” you reminded him, rubbing his upper back, “it’s okay.”

“I saw them kill everyone in that village… you could’ve been there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t,” he affirmed, reminding himself that you hadn’t been in that village, that you were there behind him. You were there, rubbing soothing circles on his back and speaking softly to him.

You were there, actually in the room he had kept intact and immaculate awaiting for your comeback. In the room he had slept more times he was willing to accept because it still smelled like you, like home.

Poe wanted to turn around and face you, to tell you all those things filling his heart to the brim, but he decided to be selfish for a few lingering moments and enjoy the warmth of your hand on his tense back.

His breathing finally evened out, thankfully. You were on the verge of crying again, if it wasn’t because your head was about to explode you would’ve been a sobbing mess in front of him.

“Did you miss me?”

The question caught you off guard. You still answered, “I did. How could I not?”

He shrugged. Poe could think of a few reasons, of a handful of fears — things he had never told you, ashamed and scared you would think any less of him. He had insecurities like any other human being that very early he learned to mask and channel, not always successfully but well enough to not worry you.

It sounded silly, hiding things from someone whom he craved the attention of so they wouldn’t worry, but Poe was sure you would drop anything you could to aid him. He couldn’t allow it, no matter how desperately he wanted — you loved your job, and he feared you wouldn’t focus properly because of him like he sometimes couldn’t focus properly because of you. Ever since you became missing in action, it all took a giant toll on him.

A big part of piloting was from muscle memory, at least for him. The adrenaline helped him to focus, to enjoy the thrill running up his body. Poe never became distracted to the point of not being able to do his job thanks to the training you had reinforced him, he would sometimes catch himself slipping but he didn’t allow it to go that far — the moment the mission was done, though? He dreaded those.

He just said it. Hiding it now —in the current political climate, in the middle of a war that would end in so much loss and suffering whether the two of you made it out alive or not— would be a big mistake and a waste of time. “I’m in love with you.”

“Excuse me?”

He glared at you. “You heard me just fine.”

“Maybe I want to hear it again.”

“Well, just say so.” Before you could snappily say it, he repeated his confession, taking your hands in his. “I’m in love with you.”

Intertwining your fingers with his own, you gave him a tired smile, “I’m in love with you too.”

Poe tugged on your hands to bring you closer, letting them go once you were chest to chest. He wrapped both arms around your hips, resting his head on your shoulder. There was nothing more to it, just a tender embrace.

Your fingers tangled in his curls, the pads of your fingers massaged his scalp as he comfortably sighed. “I really missed you,” you told him, wrapping your free arm around his shoulders. “I thought you would have another best friend by the time I could come back, and then Finn appeared with your jacket and said you hadn’t made it and I just... stars, I could be planning a funeral right now.”

“Now you know what it feels like,” he mumbled, nuzzling his nose against your neck to then inhale your scent. “I missed your perfume.”

“I’ll buy you one.”

“It’s not the same.” Poe lifted his head, just enough to kiss your cheek. “It smells better on you.”

You turned to the side to be able to look at him. “Yeah?”

He smiled, gazing down at your lips. Humming, he planted his hands on your lower back. “May I?”

You kissed him first, pressing your chapped lips to his just as the question slid past them. Never had you shared a kiss so tender and full of emotion, one that said what words fell short at.

Losing that would mean losing the only real thing you had left — losing Poe, like you had thought you had, would mean losing yourself. And he felt the same.

Fingers still buried and tangled in his curls, you poured all your gratitude and love into the kiss. Poe did the same, not able to hide how giddy he felt and smiling against your mouth.

“Promise me you will be more careful next mission,” he told you between short kisses.

Humming, you dragged your lips to the side to pepper kisses on his stubbled jaw. “Only if you promise the same.”

“I’m always careful.”

He received a glare from you. You hoped he didn’t need a list of the reckless things he had done ever since you two joined The Resistance because not only were you extremely tired, you would rather have him cuddle you.

As if reading your mind, Poe slowly untangled from you. He started undoing the bed, folding the duvet onto itself. “Get in, sweetheart, you need some rest.”

Sitting down on the bed, you stared at him with your head tilted. “Will you cuddle me, Dameron?”

He was offended by the question, of course he would cuddle you. Your eyes followed his movements as he rounded the bed — Poe bent over, pulling a bag from under the base. Unzipping the bag, he took a pair of sweatpants out.

Feeling your stare, he said in nonchalance, “unless you want me to sleep in my underwear?”

You would never oppose to that, but you had a more important question. “Why was that bag under my bed?”

Scratching the back of his head, he smiled sheepishly. Poe told you the truth, though, you were a couple now. He supposed you were, at least. “I sleep better when I can smell your scent.”

With your heart beating faster, you nodded while telling him he could sleep however he wanted. Two minutes later, you were being spooned by your best friend —and boyfriend—, with his warm breath fanning on your neck and fingers trailing your plump belly.

“Can’t sleep yet?”

“It’s been like five minutes, Poe.” Placing your hand on top of his, you started playing with his fingers. “Where do you think we should look for the map next time?”

He couldn’t believe you were still worried about that. It was mostly his fault for not telling you. “We found it, you don’t have to think about that anymore.”

You rolled on the bed to face him, lightly slapping his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

It was his time to glare at you which brought him great satisfaction. Seeing you roll your eyes, he brought you closer. Poe laid on his back, making you rest your head on his sternum.

You changed the subject, then, “are you going to go get Luke Skywalker?”

“Rey’s on her way with Chewbacca.”

“Han let Chewbacca go without him?”

“General Solo is dead,” he sighed, a hint of sadness coating his tone. “Did you just call him Han? Since when do you call General Solo simply Han?”

Oh, boy. You hoped he wouldn’t break up with you for hiding your little adventure with Han Solo and Chewbacca for years.

Poe didn’t, he feigned offense and pouted but you kissed it better. You kissed it all better as he held you, close and tightly like he had fantasized for so long.

[thinkingotherwise]

I'mma back ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧ hopefully for longer, I mean the semester is finishing and I'm doing the lasts of projects for uni. Also my friends are making me watch a Star Wars marathon so...

Poe Dameron x f!reader

Reader is a mechanic who meets commander Dameron and his droid. Not in this order (~‾▿‾)~

Might come as kinda platonic thing but I don't mind as long as there's a friendship blooming between character and BB-8

Word count: ~1000

The sun of Takodana was as always pleasant and the greenery around added to its relaxing and calming nature. But as soon as (y/n) went through the doors of the lakeside castle and into the main hall she was greeted with endless chats of many smugglers and others. She corrected the hold she had on the big sack carried on her back. The girl made her way through the crowds smiling at the visitors who were regulars in this place. As she came closer to the back doors she heard a loud and enthusiastic voice of her guardian.

"(Y/n) you're back. How were the repairs?" Maz smiled at her and took off her goggles.

"Good, everything's working fine. It was just a minor mistake with cabling." She answered and pointed at her back.

"They let me take some parts that they didn't use in thanks."

"Then I take it was worth it." The owner grinned and the younger woman nodded gratefully.

"Totally."

Maz patted her arm and let her carry the metal parts to the girl's room. As soon as she left the two new and one very familiar faces came in the pirate's queen's view.

As soon as (y/n) came back and saw Han Solo standing next to her guardian she run up to him and jumped on his back. The older man laughed at her and put her down embracing her with one arm. He then turned towards the two who looked to be in similar age as her.

"Rey, Finn, this is (y/n), she's the mechanic of this castle as well as Maz's charge (under her care). (Y/n), these two are looking for a ship to get to the Resistance with their friend." He stated and looked around searching for the droid.

"Where's the dam- here! This is BB-8, he's very important."

The girl firstly turned to the two new visitors and greeted them cheerfully, then she squatted down and tilted her head looking at the droid.

"He looks amazing with the colors. I love this design." She gushed and the round astromech came closer beeping happily at her.

"Come on buddy, I speak the truth. It suits you." She added patting his head and he spun merrily.

"She's got a weird connection with everything that's technological: starships, droids, even weapons. It's quite useful."

Han explained to his new comrades and looked at the girl now casually talking with the droid.

~~~

As the fight started Maz reluctantly let the girl leave the safety of her castle but (y/n) couldn't be held back for long and soon she found herself near Finn, Chewie and Han firing with the blasters she had. She had amazing aim and even the ex-stormtrooper was in amazement of her skills.

Unfortunately, the First Order had many more people and they enclosed on the four leaving them weaponless. They were directed to a small open space where several new troopers stepped to them.

Suddenly a blast was heard and the dark army was blown away. (Y/n) looked up and recognized the X-fighters as the ones belonging to the Resistance. She was in awe of their skills and as one of the pilots with black ship shoot down several TIE fighters and then more stormtroopers she couldn't believe her eyes. She could only hear Finn yell happily.

(Y/n) took hold of her blasters which she thankfully found and started shooting at the left enemies.

~~~

When the battle finished and Maz asked for the girl to come with the Resistance to help them with repairs and whatever technological problems they may have. (Y/n) tried to argue with her guardian but it was pointless when she was shoved inside one of the ships with her bag full of her equipment and after some time she found herself in the middle of the landing field. From the embarrassment and confusedness (didn't know this kind of word existed to be honest xD) of not knowing what to do saved her the spherical droid, which rolled to her beeping happily and saying she did well.

A smile appeared on her face and she hugged the astromech, him beeping excitedly.

"Hey BB, I thought hugs were kinda our thing." A voice called from her right and she pulled away from the droid to look at the man, who stood with Finn.

BB-8 beeped accusingly, turned away from his owner and came back to the girl's side making her chuckle.

"Hey, that was mean!" The brunet commented and combed fingers through his hair.

"I'm Poe Dameron." He said looking at the young woman and she took a good look at him noticing the smile present on his face and the orange uniform which made him even brighter.

"You're a pilot." She deducted and he grinned at her charmingly.

"Good one?" She tilted her head looking for an answer in his eyes.

"I like to believe so. I'm pretty good at what I'm doing."

"Which is flying."

"And irritating the First Order."

He added winking at her and she laughed joyfully already warming up to his confident and playful nature.

His astromech interjected and rolled in the direction of the black ship she saw on the sky of Takodana. She gasped awestruck and run up to it, the men following behind her.

"You know the owner of this ship BB, he was amazing during the battle, he shot down dozens of TIE fighters. He was pretty awesome. A true hero, really." (Y/n) commented enthusiastically her hands moving to the X-fighter and touching it lightly.

Before BB could answer the question a laugh from the orange clothed man echoed in her ears. He leaned on the black ship and patted the metal.

"Thanks, I'm not known as the best god-damn pilot, the Resistance has, for nothing." He replied and dusted the invisible dirt from his shoulders.

The girl looked at him shocked her cheeks dusting with a bit of red. He was incredible. So talented and handsome, and he had a beautiful ship and a unique droid. She was star-struck by the man.

"Whoa." It was the only sound that left her and Finn who chuckled till now looked at Dameron with serious expression and asked him for the opportunity to talk with the General.

The pilot nodded agreeing for it and as they directed to the base he waved the girl over to come with them. She smiled walking behind them and thinking that it may not be so bad to stay here with the resistance as she thought before.